DVD Collectors Online

Outbreak (Mammoth), a review by GSyren

Title	Outbreak (Mammoth) (7-319980-077883)
Director	Tim Cox
Actors	Vincent Ventresca, Summer Glau, Leila Arcieri, Cole Williams, Tom Skerritt
Produced	2006 in United States
Runtime	86 minutes
Audio	English Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
Overview	On a hot summer afternoon in the sleepy town of Blackwater, Louisiana locals exiting a retro-fitted theater excitedly watch as a meteor streaks across the sky and crashes through the roof of the local Natural History Museum. No one realizes that the meteor is actually a spaceship containing a shape-shifting life form. In order to adapt to Earth's atmosphere, the life form latches on to the first organism it comes in contact with - a partially frozen Woolly Mammoth found in the historic exhibit for which the town is famous. As a series of uncanny disasters unfold, the town quickly finds itself overrun by the alien-possessed mammoth. Local authorities and Government Investigators join forces with Frank Abernathy, the Museum Curator, and his father Simon, a B-Movie enthusiast to bring down the mighty mammoth, thus saving the town (and the world) in a wild adventure that blends the 50s alien-invasion flick, and the 70s revenge-of-nature opus into a marauding monster mash!
My thoughts	The Invisible Man (2000-2002), but he does nothing for me here. Summer Glau is cute, but she has developed quite a lot since this was made, both as an actress and as a woman. This was another of my $1.50 DVDs, and I'm glad I didn't pay more for it.
My rating

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on December 27th, 2013)

How Green was My Valley, a review by Rich

Over the valleys with my penulltimate film, on course to complete the marathon  



Title: How Green Was My Valley

Runtime:114
Certificate:PG
Year:1941
Genres:Drama, Romance

Plot:Winner of five Academy Awards, this inspiring, yet heart-breaking "Hollywood milestone" (Halliwell's Film Guide) from producer Darryl F. Zanuck and director John Ford is "a perfection of screen art" and "one of the finest" pictures ever made (Variety).
Sixty-year-old Huw Morgan looks back on his life as a boy (RODDY McDOWALL) in a small Welsh mining town. His reminiscences reveal the disintegration of the closely know Morgans, and his devoted parents (DONALD CRISP, SARA ALLGOOD), while capturing the sentiments and issues of their time.
MAUREEN O'HARA and WALTER PIDGEON co-star in this acclaimed screen classic, the story of one family's dreams, struggles and triumphs.
My Review:
The disappearance of childhood innocence, life in a small town, humour, sadness, despair, joy, Ford manages to give you everything in this film. The black and white filming was a masterstroke, cleverly portraying the typically drab Welsh mining villages of the time. Accents are appalling, and the film has dated somewhat now, but certainly worth a watch purely for cinematic historical reasons. Remember - this beat Citizen Kane for the Oscar!


(From Around the World in 80 DVD's on March 18th, 2008)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon, a review by Achim

14. The Good WoundMy comments:
Kyle Reese is back ... Sarah uses Kyle for an inner monologue to make herself trust the doctor she took hostage and to overcome the pain. I liked these scenes way more than I expected at first and kept thinking about that it's only her talking to herself and was delighted to see how well they wrote it. As Matthias pointed out before,.. Team Connor is ripped apart. The previous episodes already did the same and also her we see all main characters individually, rarely together; they all have their own story, failing to function properly as a team. While no plot advancements are achieved, this episode portrays nicely how Sarah realizes how alone she is (another reason why she summons Kyle). The subplot with the doctor seems a bit contrived but otherwise works quite alright in the context.

John and Cameron are in the hospital because of Riley . Cameron makes nice subtle points to John, that Riley is better left alone (pragmatism, not jealousy). After Riley is removed from the hospital from Jesse we get to see that she has way more attachment to Jesse than John, something Jesse rather dislikes. Are we still missing pieces in the puzzle about them?

Ellison begins to realize that teaching John Henry may not have been a good choice. On the other hand Weaver and John Henry get closer... I am still not able to guess if Weaver has other motives than the obvious ones



(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon on February 14th, 2010)