DVD Collectors Online

The Day the Earth Stood Still, a review by dfmorgan

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Year: 1951
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe
Overview: A spaceship lands in Washington, D.C., capturing the attention of the world. But the peaceful alien emissary (Michael Rennie) it brings fails to earn the public's trust. When a young woman and her son befriend him, they soon realise they may be all that stands between the human race and total destruction.

Watched: 5th Mar 2010
My Thoughts: Time for a classic. Still wonderful to watch and to see the way that simple actions generated fear in the people and how hysteria spreads. This was mainly due to the way the film was made and due to the immediate post-war and beginnings of the cold-war era when the film was made. Klaatu, Barada, Nikto.

My Rating: Magnificent 5

Dave

(From Dave's DVD/Blu-ray Reviews on March 5th, 2010)

Colt Comrades, a review by Rogmeister

The Hoppy film I watched this time is from one of several volumes put out by Platinum, each containing 5 original Hopalong Cassidy films.  Besides the one I discuss below, this volume also includes Undercover Man, Three Men From Texas, Stick To Your Guns and The Dead Don't Dream.

Colt Comrades (1943) 
Director: Lesley Selander
Cast: William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Jay Kirby, George Reeves, Gayle Lord, Earl Hodgins, Victory Jory, Douglas Fowley, Herbert Rawlinson, Bob Mitchum

The earliest Hopalong Cassidy movies came out in 1935 and I had actually started to watch them in order that they came out but I decided to move ahead in the series so I could catch an episode with a few other familiar faces.  Of course, I also had to "take a hit" with that idea as well because by 1943, Gabby Hayes had left the series and Andy Clyde had taken over the part of the "funny old geezer" role, playing a character named California at this point.  The first familiar face in this short film was Robert Mitchum (billed as Bob Mitchum in the credits), playaing a bad guy as he did in most of his handful of appearances in the Hoppy films.  He actuallyl winds up dead about 10 minutes into the picture but he gets it off to a quick start, gunning down a railroad man, stealing his mailbag and then being caught and finally gunned down himself.  The plotline has Hoppy and his friends using their share of the reward money for capturing him and using it to become partners on a cattle ranch with a man and his sister who are already there...the man here is the other familiar face in this film, George Reeves, later to be tht title star of TV's "The Adventures of Superman".  Apart from a few interesting plot twists, this is pretty much a standard Hopalong Cassidy movie which means it's got lots of gunplay, people running to the rescue on horseback and a fair smidgen of comedy relief.  At the end of the tale, so we don't expect Hoppy to be stuck on his own ranch for the rest of his cinema career, we learn he's been called back to work by the law due to other outlaw concerns.  Maybe that's why George Reeves didn't become a permanent member of the Hoppy cast, too.

(From Roger's Ongoing Westerns Marathon on October 11th, 2009)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

Aoi & Mutsuki: A Pair of Queens! (1999/Japan) (United States) Length: 325 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: English

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Plot:
Aoi was raised as a normal boy on Earth. Little did he know he was the heir apparent to Mito, the Queen turned Space Pirate of an alien race that chooses their sex at puberty. Aoi fell in love with Mutsuki, the policewoman who was chasing Mito, and the three of them saved the Universe. The only side effect was that Aoi had blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Now a malevolent entity calling herself the true Queen of the Universe appears with enough power to destroy entire planets. Aoi must defend her new throne, but she needs Mutsuki's help. Mutsuki must come to terms with her own feelings for Aoi so they can defend Earth together and become the galaxy's first royal pair of queens.

Mito no Daiboken: Futari no Jou-sama
1.01 The Queen Has Risen!
Writer: Fumihiko Shimo (Screenwriter)
Director: Takashi Watanabe
Cast: Tomoko Kawakami (Mito (voice)), Soichiro Hoshi (Aoi Mitsukuni (voice)), Kyoko Tsuruno (Mutsuki Nenga (voice)), Yumiko Kobayashi (Masatsuki Nenga (voice)), Sakiko Tamagawa (Sobo (voice)), Motoko Kumai (Sabu (voice)), Yuu Asakawa (Shin (voice)), Omi Minami (Kafuko (voice)), Machiko Toyoshima (Miyako Okubo (voice)), Takayuki Okada (Tendo (voice)), Masashi Yabe (Sega (voice)), Chiemi Chiba (Konami (voice)), Sayaka Ohara (Hiroko (voice)), Mikako Takahashi (Azuki (voice)), Saori Higashi (Ota (voice)), Ayako Kurasaki (Shizumi (voice)), Takayasu Usui (Nandabu (voice)), Taro Masuoka (Nibaul (voice)), Hidenari Ugaki (Kishu (voice)), Takuma Suzuki (Owari (voice)), Hideyuki Hori (Lanvan (voice)), Kazuhiko Inoue (Kagero Mitsukuni (voice))

This series is a sequel to another series, which I haven't seen. At the end of that series, one of the characters is transformed into a girl. This series now is about that character and also his relationship with a girl, which I think was his love interest in the first series. So the premise sound interesting. But the series itself is boring, as it is mostly about some crazy and ridiculous stuff going on and not so much about the relationship.
The best thing about it is the opening theme.

Rating:

(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on March 26th, 2011)