DVD Collectors Online

Cold Mountain, a review by Rich

Along Romania for third film of the day...





I had read the book, and IMO this is one of the rare occasions when the film actually matches or surpasses the original authors efforts. Atmospheric, beautifully filmed & combining a war film with a love story, with other elements thrown in. All the actors do a very convincing job, (ignoring the accents), and a solid film if overly long. Recommend watching if not seen before 8/10

(From Around the World in 80 DVD's on January 21st, 2008)

The Beast of Hollow Mountain, a review by GSyren

Title	The Beast of Hollow Mountain (8-427328-750219)
Director	Edward Nassour, Ismael Rodriguez
Actors	Guy Madison, Patricia Medina, Carlos Rivas, Edward Noriega, Julio Villarreal
Produced	1956 in United States
Runtime	79 minutes
Audio	English Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles	French, Spanish
Overview	An American cowboy living in Mexico discovers his cattle is being eaten by a giant prehistoric dinosaur.
My thoughts	Willis O'Brien, the man behind the animation and effects in King Kong, had an idea for a film with cowboys and dinosaurs. He never got to make that film, but his idea spawned two films; The Beast of Hollow Mountain and The Valley of Gwangi. Beast was first out, and is definitely the lesser of the two. And it's the one with the least dinosaur footage. Aside from a very short sequence, we're almost at the one hour mark of the 1:19 runtime before any real dinosaur action takes place. Before that it's a pretty routine cowboy movie. The animation isn't very good. It would be a compliment to even call it second rate. The only exception is a few walking and running sequences that - according to Neil Pettigrew in his book "The Stop Motion Fimography" - is made with replacement animation. That entails making a set of fixed models that represent a walking/running cycle and using them one at a time over and over. This makes for a smooth animation, but looks a bit fake since there is no variation at all, every steep looks the same. The Beast of Hollow Mountain was supposedly the first stop motion film to be shot in CinemaScope and color. Using back projection in color adds a level of problems, and several scenes show problems with color matching and fuzzy backgrounds. When Ray Harryhausen was asked to do 7th Voyage of Sinbad in color two years later, he hesitated and only gave in after much experimentation. Possibly he had seen the trouble they had in Beast. If you have the chance, you should watch The Beast of Hollow Mountain followed directly by watching The Valley of Gwangi, and you will appreciate the greatness of Ray Harryhausen's animation. While Gwangi is certainly not a perfect movie, it's definitely better than Beast. The Beast of Hollow Mountain is not easy to find on DVD, and if you're not a stop motion fan, it's hardly worth the trouble. The DVD I found is a Spanish region free PAL release. It's not anamorphic. The picture quality is just acceptable, and with one exception the print used is free from damage. It's certainly better than watching it online, though.
My rating	2.5 out of 5

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on July 31st, 2013)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

The Simpsons: Season One (1989/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (Germany) Length: 287 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, German: Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: Commentary, English, German

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The Simpsons
1.01 Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire (1989-12-17)
Writer: Mimi Pond (Writer)
Director: David Silverman
Cast: Dan Castellaneta (Homer/Grampa/Barney), Julie Kavner (Marge/Patty/Selma/Various (voice)), Nancy Cartwright (Bart/Nelson/Todd/Various (voice)), Yeardley Smith (Lisa/Various (voice)), Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns/Smithers/Flanders/Skinner/Otto), Hank Azaria (Apu/Moe/Wiggum/Carl/Dr. Nick), Jo Ann Harris (Various (voice)), Pamela Hayden (Milhouse/Various (voice))

I have followed the first few years of the Simpsons, but stopped at some point. Not because I thought it was getting bad, but somehow I lost interest. Probably it just got too many episodes and now it is hard to catch up again.
I enjoyed this first episode. The animation is not quite as bad as I expected it. It changed a lot though in later seasons.

Rating:

(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on July 4th, 2012)