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A Fistful of Dollars, a review by dfmorgan

A Fistful of Dollars

Part of

The Spaghetti Western Trilogy

Year: 1964
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Johnny Wels
OverviewWatched: 12th Jun 2010
My Thoughts: An iconic film which helped to establish Clint Eastwood as a major film star. As to this copy is it a worthy upgrade? In my view yes and no. Yes to the image, although grain is very evident the overall change to picture quality makes a yes. No to the audio though as to my ears the DTS HD-MA 5.1 came over as very tinny with what appeared to be zero use of the 5.1 unlike the DTS 5.1 on the 2005 DVD. Now this may be a limitation of my audio set-up as my amp does not support the modern HD sound sources therefore my PS3 is connected via optical cable to the amp and the PS3 downmixes the DTS HD-MA sound to DTS 5.1 which the amp handles but I haven't had this problem with other DTS HD or Dolby TrueHD sound source films.

I enjoyed watching this again and even looked at some of the bonus features where I learnt that in Japan this film was called Return of Yojimbo because this film is a remake of of the Japanese film Yojimbo.

My Rating: A 4

Dave

(From Dave's DVD/Blu-ray Reviews on June 14th, 2010)

House of Frankenstein, a review by Hal

House of Frankenstein (1944/United States) Universal Home Video (United States) Director: Roy William Neill, Erle C. Kenton Writing: Edward T. Lowe Length: 71 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital: Mono Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

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Stars:
Boris Karloff as Doctor Niemann
Lon Chaney as Larry Talbot
John Carradine as Dracula
Anne Gwynn as Rita
Peter Coe as Carl Hussman

Plot:
House of Frankenstein
Deranged scientist, Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff), escapes from prison and overtakes the director of a traveling chamber of horrors. Pulling the stake out of a skeleton, he revives the infamous Count Dracula (John Carradine) and commands him to kill the man responsible for his imprisonment. He then finds the frozen Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) buried under the ruins of the infamous Frankenstein laboratory. When he brings them back to life, the Monster is uncontrollable and drags him to a watery grave.

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Feature Trailers
• Production Notes

Well, another sequel, this one featuring Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and Dracula, with only Lon Chaney playing his original role.  Although we don't see much of The Monster (at least alive) in this film, Glenn Strange does a credible job (better than Legosi in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man).  I think John Carradine does an excellent job portraying Dracula, even if it was a rather short sequence in the film.  Boris Karloff, as usual, is excellent as Niemann and I enjoyed the sequences with the young Gypsy girl.  All-in-all, an entertaining short (71 min.) movie.

Rating:

(From Hal's 2010 Horror Marathon Reviews on October 24th, 2010)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: A Trill host candidate comes to the station. Jadzia has to evaluate whether he is suited to be blended with a symbiont. The candidate isn't very thrilled since it is widely known that Dax has declared 57 candidates as "unsuited" over the last 200 years and the worst of them all was Curzon Dax. But Jadzia is not Curzon.

My Opinion: The candidate had no real plans for the future and I have already forgotten most things about the character. The only interesting thing were some insights into Jadzia's training who ironically also was evaluated by Curzon - and failed.

Synopsis: A cardassian professor and two of her 'students' come to the station. They are well aware that they aren't overly welcome on a bajoran space station but it gets worse when they learn that there's still a Cardassian aboard: Garak. They are fugitives, the cardassian Central Command has declared them as 'terrorists'. But the Cardassian Union hasn't anticipated the involvement of a certain bartender.

My Opinion: This episode on the other hand was very interesting. Quark has broken out of his usual deceiving scheme plotting and has shown real affection towards a person/a woman. Strangely though, Quark always seems to be most interested in non-Ferengi and clothed(!) women, most of them being stronger than him, too. I wonder what he would think about Buffy - ah, yes, I remember, he expelled her from Sunnydale High.

Synopsis: Kang, Koloth and Kor have come to the station. They are all klingon Dahar Masters and they look for Curzon Dax. Eight decades ago the four of them have sworn a Blood Oath to kill the murderer of the first borns of the Klingons. Kang wants to release Jadzia from that oath but she has no intentions of bailing out.

My Opinion: This is one episode I've been waiting for. I always thought that it was a great idea to bring the three klingon commanders Kirk faced in the original series once again on screen. While I didn't care much for the Klingons - or any other alien race except the Vulcans - in the original series, the Klingons have grown on me during TNG and especially DS9. Ironically Jadzia now had the very same problem Worf always had when he took off to do something very klingon-y and very un-Starfleet-y. But at least Kor survived and we will see him again.

Synopsis: Soon after a cardassian freighter has left DS9, it explodes. Shortly after that cardassian fighters try attack a merchant ship, but get shot down by another ship. And all that in the demilitarized zone between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. The peace treaty had moved the border an now some formerly Federation colonies are within cardassian space and vice versa. And especially the former Federation colonies feel abandoned and try to arm themselves.

My Opinion: As always when borders are moved some people are waking up on the wrong side of the fence. But to start a shooting war against a vastly superior enemy is stupid at best. And they aren't risking just their lives and those of their families. If they manage to start another full blown war, then billions of other lives get endangered, too. Do I sound like someone who hasn't much sympathy for the Maquis? Then you heard right.

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on October 11th, 2008)