DVD Collectors Online

Boys on the Side, a review by Tom

Title: Boys on the Side
Year: 1995
Director: Herbert Ross
Rating: R
Length: 117 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35, Pan & Scan 1.33:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Surround, French: Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles: English, French

Stars:
Whoopi Goldberg
Mary Louise Parker
Drew Barrymore
Matthew McConaughey
James Remar

Plot:
The past is miles back. The future stretches ahead. And laughs, tears and togetherness unfold along the way. Three women sharing a car going west also share a friendship that becomes family in Boys on the Side, the acclaimed box-office hit that had audiences everywhere on its side.

Whoopi Goldberg, Mary-Louise Parker and Drew Barrymore team in this winning celebration of camaraderie and caring directed by Herbert Ross (The Turning Point, Steel Magnolias). One (Goldberg) is a wisecracking club singer, one (Parker) a finicky real-estate agent and one (Barrymore) a free spirit. Each has secrets to reveal, strengths to impart, vital moments of self-discovery awaiting. Now's their time.

Extras:
Closed Captioned
Scene Access

This was one of my first RC1 DVDs. At the time I bought most of the movies with Drew Barrymore in it, which I could get my hands on. This movie is a great dramatic movie. Though it isn't one I will watch often. As a matter of fact this was the first time in almost 9 years that I have watched it again.


Rating:

(From Lesbian Movie Marathon on June 8th, 2009)

Tadpole, a review by Rich

Tadpole



Fifteen-year-old Prep student Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) feels that girls his own age haven't lived enough, which is why he's coming home to Manhattan's Upper East Side for Thanksgiving to profess his love to his stepmother, Eve (Sigourney Weaver)--whose marriage to his professor father (John Ritter) has become routine and uninspiring. Unable to find the right moment to express himself, Oscar slips out to a bar after dinner and finds himself drunk and missing his wallet. Walking home, he bumps into Eve's best friend, Diane (Bebe Neuwirth), a sexy chiropractor who offers to take him home to detox. A backrub leads to a kiss, which results in Oscar and Diane spending the night together. Oscar, feeling he has betrayed his true love, must now prevent Diane--who laughs at the whole situation--from telling Eve what has happened between them.

Disjointed tale with low-budget digital production values, it is too far a stretch of the imagination to assume so many beautiful middle aged women would fall for a nerdy pretentious academic 15 year old. There are some elements of quite good wry humour, but it is lost in what can best be described as a boring immature Graduate clone.
 

(From Riches Random Reviews on April 5th, 2009)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

Title: Veronica Mars: Season One
Year: 2004
Director:
Rating: FSK-12
Length: 883 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Surround, French: Dolby Digital Surround, German: Dolby Digital Surround, Hungarian: Dolby Digital Surround, Italian: Dolby Digital Surround, Spanish: Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish

Plot:
A little bit Buffy. A little bit Bogart. A dash of Nancy Drew. Veronica Mars takes the best and brainiest of the American culture of crimesolving and adds a unique vision of its own - brooding, edgy, darkly funny and just plain dark - to become one of the hottest, sleekest series of the new century.

Veronica (Kristen Bell) is an outcast in a trendy SoCal beach town. Once she ran with Neptune High's in crowd. But she's on the outside after her best friend is murdered and her sheriff father accuses the wrong man as the perp: the dead girl's billionaire father. Dad loses his job, Veronica loses her popularity and both struggle to build a detective agency and new lives. E-mail scams, cults, car thefts - you name it, Veronica investigates it. But her obsession is the murder of her friend. And she'll take any risk to solve it.


Awards:

American Film Institute Awards	2005	Won	TV Programs of the Year
Saturn	2004	Nominated	Best Actress - Television Series	Kristin Bell
Saturn	2005	Won	Best Actress in a Television Series	Kristen Bell
Saturn	2006	Nominated	Best Actress in a Television Series	Kristen Bell
Saturn	2005	Nominated	Best Network Television Series
Saturn	2006	Nominated	Best Network Television Series
Teen Choice Awards	2005	Nominated	Choice TV Breakout Performance - Female	Kristen Bell
Teen Choice Awards	2005	Nominated	Choice TV Breakout Show
Teen Choice Awards	2006	Nominated	TV - Choice Actress: Drama/Action Adventure	Kristen Bell
Teen Choice Awards	2006	Nominated	TV - Choice Parental Unit	Enrico Colantoni
Teen Choice Awards	2006	Nominated	TV - Choice Sidekick	Percy Daggs

Extras:
Deleted Scenes

When this first season was on sale, I finally took the chance to check this series out. For me it was very much like taking Chloe (my favorite character from Smallville) and giving her her own series. Veronica is very similar to her in my opinion.
I liked this season. Though I liked it from the start, I am not sure if I would have stayed with it if I would have started watching it while it originally aired. But watching all episodes in a row it constantly kept my interest.
But it was only towards the end it really sucked me in. But what a damn cliffhanger the last scene is! I wanted to wait with buying the second season until a later point, but now I am not sure if I can wait. But I will probably be disappointed with the resolution to this scene.

This series has also interesting choices of guest-stars. Although I was put off when Paris Hilton guest-starred in the second episode, there were other appearences which were more fun. Like Alyson Hannigan, of course. Also funny, that we got two Jimmy Olsens in one episode (Smallville's Jimmy and Superman Returns' Jimmy).
Sadly they missed themselves by one episode, but we almost had a reunion with Home Improvement's Brad and Randy.
From the regulars I have only known Kristen Bell (from "Heroes" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall") and Enrico Colantoni (from "Just Shoot Me!" and "Galaxy Quest").

A storyline which I hope they will follow up on in the second season is Mac and her real family.

#	Episode	Rating
01	Pilot
02	Credit Where Credit's Due
03	Meet John Smith
04	The Wrath of Con
05	You Think You Know Somebody
06	Return of the Kane
07	The Girl Next Door
08	Like a Virgin
09	Drinking the Kool-Aid
10	An Echolls Family Christmas
11	Silence of the Lamb
12	Clash of the Tritons
13	Lord of the Bling
14	Mars vs. Mars
15	Ruskie Business
16	Betty and Veronica
17	Kanes and Abel's
18	Weapons of Class Destruction
19	Hot Dogs
20	M.A.D.
21	A Trip to the Dentist
22	Leave It to Beaver

(From Tom's Random Reviews on October 30th, 2009)