DVD Collectors Online

Seven Per Cent Solution, a review by Dragonfire

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution



I decided to watch this one after I found it on one of the HBO channels I get.  It is different from other Sherlock Holmes movies I've seen.  There is more focus on personal things tied to Sherlock and the mystery takes a back seat.  This is one of the few movies I've seen that doesn't just skim or gloss over Sherlock using cocaine.  His addiction is a huge plot point since much of the movie is devoted to his attempts to fight and overcome it.  There isn't as much going on, and several scenes do move kind of slow.  Later in the movie, a mystery does turn up and while it isn't that strong, it helps to make the movie more interesting.  There is a cool train chase scene at one point.  There really isn't any violence in the movie.  When Sherlock is fighting his addiction, he does start hallucinating ... and of course he has to hallucinate that he sees snakes everywhere.  I could have done without that part.

The cast is fine, though nothing really special.  Robert Duvall as Watson is kind of weird.  There is something about his voice that is odd..the tone is off and the accent isn't that great.  He does seem miscast.

Overall, the movie is enjoyable and entertaining.  People who like the character of Sherlock may find something to like about this one.



I did get a review posted on Epinions.

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

(From Marie's Random Movie Viewing on October 3rd, 2011)

Forty Guns, a review by Antares

Forty Guns (1957) 59/100 - What a mess of a movie! Pretty much a glorified and extended episode of television's Virginia City, Bat Masterson or Have Gun, Will Travel. I didn't know whether to be enthralled by the looseness of the film, or snicker at the sexual innuendo that was rife in this screenplay. Unfortunately, I found myself snickering more than I was interested in this disjointed mess. It's called Forty Guns, yet the forty hired men are nothing more than a phallic symbol in the beginning of the movie and they disappear about 30 minutes in. The story is then riddled with a lot of really bad acting (The exception being Barbara Stanwyck & Barry Sullivan), bad dialog and ridiculous set pieces, like the tornado scene. For a second there, I thought I was watching the precursor to that awful film Twister, you know, at the end when Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton are caught in the middle of the tornado and they both come out without a scratch. Well, that's what happens here to. I think the only thing I found worthwhile about this story, was the ending. When Sullivan finds a shocking way to shoot Stanwyck's brother. I didn't see that coming and it was kind of ballsy.

What the color coding means...

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on January 5th, 2013)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino (2008/Japan) IMDb | Wikipedia FUNimation Entertainment (United States) Length: 315 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: English

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Plot:
The girls of the Social Welfare Agency are no ordinary children. They are the grizzly remains of human wreckage pieced back together with cybernetic implants and trained to kill by the government. The oldest, Triela, pursues her targets with a ferocious enthusiasm - unwilling to settle for less than total annihilation. Her mirror in this bloody stalemate is Pinocchio, a shell of a boy raised as an assassin by the FRF - a terrorist faction at war with the SWA. Cold and cruelly efficient, he wields sharpened steel as though it were his own hand. Once human, these shattered souls have become murderous machines with only vague recollections of what it meant to be real - and a brutal compulsion to be the last killer standing.


Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino
1.01 Distance Between Two: Brother and Sister
Writer: Yu Aida (Original Material By), Yu Aida (Screenwriter), Tatsuhiko Urano (Screenwriter)
Director: Akira Mano
Cast: Laura Bailey (Henrietta (voice)), Caitlin Glass (Triela (voice)), Luci Christian (Rico (voice)), Alese Johnson (Claes (voice)), Eric Vale (Jean (voice)), John Burgmeier (Jose (voice)), J. Michael Tatum (Hilshire (voice)), Brittney Karbowski (Enrica (voice)), Troy Baker (Alfonso (voice)), Colleen Clinkenbeard (Priscilla (voice)), Cynthia Cranz (Ferro (voice)), Mark Stoddard (Lorenzo (voice)), Scott Freeman ( (voice)), Nick Trautner ( (voice)), Ian Sinclair ( (voice)), Justin Cook ( (voice)), Joel McDonald ( (voice)), John Swasey ( (voice)), Phil Parsons ( (voice)), Cris George ( (voice)), Charlie Campbell ( (voice)), Barry Yandell ( (voice)), Japanese Cast), Kana Akutsu (Henrietta (voice)), Anri Shiono (Rico (voice)), Atsuko Enomoto (Triela (voice)), Risa Mizuno (Claes (voice)), Kozo Mito (Giuse (voice)), Takehito Koyasu (Jean (voice)), Masaya Matsukaze (Hirscher (voice)), Masaki Terasoma (Lorenzo (voice)), Mayuko Takahashi (Priscilla (voice)), Rie Nakagawa (Ferro (voice)), Hideo Watanabe (Alfonso (voice)), Yoji Ueda (Master of Antique Shop (voice)), Shinobu Matsumoto (Leader of Terrorists (voice)), Hiroshi Shimozaki (Terrorist (voice)), Takahiro Hirano (Terrorist (voice))

When a second Gunslinger Girl series was announced I was excited. BUt when I first saw it I was very disappointed. Another studio produced this one. They changed the character design, the voice acting and animation style. Everything I thought was great in the first series. The author of the manga was heavily involved in the second series and is responsible for the character design change. I have read that he wanted to bring it closer to the character design of later volumes of the manga. But I always preferred the early chapters.
The "handlers" of the Gunslinger Girls look much too young now in my opinion.
The only thing which I liked from the beginning is the new opening theme:


Rating:

(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on July 4th, 2011)