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Forbidden Planet , a review by Tom

Forbidden Planet (1956/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Warner Home Video (United Kingdom) Director: Fred McLeod Wilcox Writing: Cyril Hume (Screenwriter), Irving Block (Original Material By), Allen Adler (Original Material By) Length: 98 min. Video: Widescreen 2.40 Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French: Dolby Digital 1, German: Dolby Digital 1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 1, Portuguese: Dolby Digital 1 Subtitles: English, French, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish

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Stars:
Walter Pidgeon as Dr. Morbius
Anne Francis as Altaira Morbius
Leslie Nielsen as Commander Adams
Warren Stevens as Lt. "Doc" Ostrow
Jack Kelly as Lt. Farman

Plot:
Forbidden Planet is the granddaddy of tomorrow, a pioneering work whose ideas and style would be reverse-engineered into many cinematic space voyages to come. Leslie Nielsen plays the commander who brings his spacecruiser crew to Planet Altair-4, home to Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), his daughter (Anne Francis), a dutiful robot named Robby...and to a mysterious terror. Featuring sets of extraordinary scale and the first all-electronic musical soundscape in film history, Forbidden Planet is in a movie orbit all its own.

Awards:
Nominated:

Academy Award (1956)		Best Special Effects (A. Arnold Gillespie, Irving Ries, Wesley C. Miller)
AFI (1956)		100 Years... 25 Scores (2005) ("Composers: Bebe Barron, Louis Barron)

Extras:

• Bonus Trailers
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Scene Access
• The Invisible Boy Film & The Thin Man Episode Robot Client
• Trailers

This is the first time that I saw this sci-fi classic. It is also the first time that I have seen a pre-"Airplane!" movie starring Leslie Nielsen. The only non-comedic role I knew him as was as a murderer on Columbo.
This movie holds up well. Story-wise and from a technical stand-point. The special effects probably were ground-breaking for its time.
It reminded me a little of the classic Star Trek series. Especially the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage". I wonder if the platforms they were standing on when going out of hyperspace was the inspiration of the transporter platforms in Star Trek. When they stood on those my first thought was, that they were going to beam and Star Trek didn't invent it after all.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on July 31st, 2011)

The Spy Who Loved Me, a review by GSyren

Title	The Spy Who Loved Me (Disc ID: 2CDC-8069-EC43-CFF7)
Director	Lewis Gilbert
Actors
Produced	1977 in United Kingdom
Runtime	126 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Dolby Digital Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, French DTS 5.1, German DTS 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Commentary, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish
Overview	Nobody does it better than Bond, and he proves it once more in this explosively entertaining adventure that takes him from the Egyptian pyramids to the ocean floor and to a gravity-defying mountaintop ski chase! Roger Moore brings inimitable style to Agent 007 as he teams with beautiful Russian Agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) to stop the megalomaniac Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) from unleashing a horrific scheme for world domination.
My thoughts	Bond marathon #10 The Spy Who Loved Me isn't the worst Bond film, but it is arguably the least original. It's just full of ideas pinched from earlier Bonds, most notably You Only Live Twice. At times it almost feels like a remake of YOLT. But there is also a fight on a train (done twice before in From Russia with Love and Live and Let Die) and a transforming car (into a plane in The Man with the Golden Gun, into a minisub here). We also get a glimpse of Willy Bogner's excellent ski photography which was so spectacular in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The best thing in Spy is the end of the pre-credit sequence; the skiing of a cliff with a parachute. As much as I disliked the character Jaws in this film, when I first saw Spy I just could not imagine that they'd bring him back in the next movie, and make him even sillier. Did the producers learn nothing from bringing back J.W. Pepper in The Man with the Golden Gun? Of course, not everything in Spy is bad. To begin with, Maurice Binder's credit sequences are always entertaining. The production values are always good in the Bond films. Barbara Bach and Caroline Munro are nice to look at. And I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Valerie Leon (the hotel receptionist). Remember her from Blood from the Mummy's Tomb? So, not only is the script derivative, it also stumbles a good bit over the fine line of silliness. And things are about to get worse (in Moonraker) before they get better...
My rating

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on August 26th, 2014)

Tom's Buffy and Angel Marathon, a review by Tom

6.01 Bargaining: Part 1
Writer: Joss Whedon (Created By), Marti Noxon (Writer), Joss Whedon (Writer)
Director: David Grossman
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), James Marsters (Spike), Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg), Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles), Franc Ross (Razor), Amber Benson (Tara Maclay), Paul Greenberg (Shempy Vampire), Mike Grief (Klyed), Harry Johnson (Parent #1), Hila Levy (Pretty Girl), Geoff Meed (Mag), Joy DeMichelle Moore (Ms. Lefcourt), Robert D. Vito (Cute Boy), Kelly Lynn Warren (Parent #2)

An okay beginning to the new series. Nothing really special.

Rating:



6.02 Bargaining: Part 2
Writer: Joss Whedon (Created By), David Fury (Writer), Joss Whedon (Writer)
Director: David Grossman
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), James Marsters (Spike), Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg), Franc Ross (Razor), Amber Benson (Tara Maclay), Mike Grief (Klyed), Geoff Meed (Mag), Richard Wharton (Homeowner)

Better than the first half. I like the reactions when they realise what they have done to Buffy. They really weren't thinking this through.

Rating:



6.03 After Life
Writer: Joss Whedon (Created By), Jane Espenson (Writer), Joss Whedon (Writer)
Director: David Solomon
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), James Marsters (Spike), Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg), Amber Benson (Tara Maclay), Lisa Hoyle (Demon)

A good episode. Buffy confides in Spike about where she really was. This was nicely handled.

Rating:



6.04 Flooded
Writer: Joss Whedon (Created By), Douglas Petrie (Writer), Jane Espenson (Writer), Joss Whedon (Writer)
Director: Douglas Petrie
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), James Marsters (Spike), Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg), Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles), Danny Strong (Jonathan Levinson), Adam Busch (Warren Meers), Tom Lenk (Andrew Wells), Todd Stashwick (M'Fashnik Demon), Amber Benson (Tara Maclay), John Jabaley (Tito), Brian Kolb (Bank Guard), Michael Merton (Mr. Savitsky)

An average episode. I like the three geeks, though they haven't much to do here.

Rating:

(From Tom's Buffy and Angel Marathon on September 19th, 2010)