DVD Collectors Online

Where the Sidewalk Ends, a review by Antares

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) 84/100 - Top notch noir that could have been considered a bona fide classic if the production code hadn't forced Fox to tack on a wimpy ending. I would have rather seen it end with the cop staying a bit dirty, with the truth of detective Dixon's lone transgression remaining a secret. Would the truth and his conscience be his undoing? Could he fall in love with the wife of the man he has killed accidentally, knowing that if she knew the truth, she may discard him? Keeping it dark would have fit the character of this film better, instead we get the rosy picture of a cop doing what's right. Andrews plays the tormented cop excellently as he skates the fine line between peace officer and hoodlum himself. Gene Tierney isn't really given much to do and this is another thing which slightly lessens its impact on noir film history. But those two things aside, I was completely engulfed in the storyline of a cop who mistakenly kills a suspect and must hide his involvement, in hopes of pinning another murder on the gangster he's been longingly trying to send to jail.

What the color coding means...

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on July 29th, 2012)

Underworld: Endless War, a review by addicted2dvd

Underworld: Endless War (2011/United States) Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (United States) Director: Writing: Length: 17 min. Video: Widescreen 1.78:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround Subtitles:

---

Stars:
None Credited

Plot:
Follows Selene across 3 separate periods in history as she hunts a group of Lycan brothers.

Extras:

• Play All
• Featurettes

I enjoyed this three part anime short very much.. The entire 3 parts only being 17minutes makes it an extremely easy watch. And the story keeps your intrest with ease. Definitely worth watching!



(From That Time of Year Again: Halloween/Horror Reviews 2018! on October 4th, 2018)

Farscape Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: D'Argo has brought an alien onboard who claimed that he could cloak the electromagnetic field of Moya's. They would become invisible to sensors which has become necessary since Scorpius deployed wanted beacons all over the place. Thy make a test run on Farscape-1 and it actually works and then they agree to follow T'raltixx to his home planet, but they have to pass a cluster of five pulsar stars and their light has side-effects on less-developed life-forms. Soon the crew starts to get aggressive and suspicious towards one another but it doesn't stop even after they passed the pulsars. Something else is going on.

My Opinion: The funny thing is that John didn't wear the "armour" shown in the picture above when he was nuts, but when he started to get a clear head again. I love it when fictional characters go crazy and paranoid, it's a lot of fun to watch them: "Why don't you want to show me the record, what are you hiding? ... So now you suddenly want to show it to me? Why? What's on it?" and so on. And why was John the hero of the day? Because Humans have less precise senses and aren't affected as much by the light. Inferiority can help survive.

Synopsis: Chiana finds a Peacekeeper recording device which documents that Aeryn has been on Moya before and that her squadron has killed the former pilot. Aeryn didn't know that it was Moya because she had been on many Leviathans. Slowly she begins to remember what happened back then and how Pilot became Moya's pilot. But she's not the only one remembering, Pilot does it as well and he's not amused.

My Opinion: Everyone has a past and naturally Aeryn's isn't one painted in pink. I really liked the flashbacks because it gave both Aeryn and Pilot more background and once again it wasn't all black/white. OK, Aeryn's past was black, but Pilot's past wasn't exactly white. And again there are some parallels to Stargate SG-1: Both Teal'c and Aeryn had to leave everything behind even though Teal'c's leaving was more a choice than Aeryn's. Both were necessary to get the show moving but both seemed sudden. And both series showed in later episodes such as this one that it wasn't such a sudden move after all. It just seemed that way because we the viewers didn't know their past.


Synopsis: Rygel and Chiana trade for some items and Chiana discovers a picture that seems to depict her. But the picture is changing, it seems to predict the future: First her legs get broken and then she dies in a fire. The crew is still shocked about this when the picture suddenly shows D'Argo and his death. Every attempt at destroying the picture fails and they fear to get picked one-by-one. Back at the trading ship they find out that the picture is a creation by Maldis - the sorcerer who captured John and was defeated by Zhaan.

My Opinion: I'd would have liked to see Maldis longer, he's such a good diabolic character. But to introduce him earlier would have meant to reveal the answer to soon. This way the episode turned from "weird in the beginning" to "really weird in the end". I love it. The special effects may not be so special but you have to have the idea and the ultimately go through with it and tell the story.

Synopsis: The crew is seriously starving and Zhaan begins to blossom (literally). She needs meat or she will die. So Moya lands in the corpse of a Budong*, the greatest space-living creature known. There is a mine and a colony in which Chiana and her brother have lived a while ago. The minerals in the Budong's bones are valuable, but it's dangerous because there live other creatures, too, who feed from the rotting corpse or a miner.

My Opinion: I loved the way John killed the Keedva. It simply had to be a homage to Luke's killing of the Rancor in Return of the Jedi. But I also liked how Chiana was willing to do anything to get meat for Zhaan and how D'Argo couldn't bear it because he cares for Chiana. We've seen traces of this development in previous episodes but after the kiss in the end it's very obvious.

*The classification of the Budong on the Farscape Wiki is also fun to read:
Height of average adult: Big
Average length: Really big
Average wingspan: Really REALLY big

(From Farscape Marathon on April 18th, 2009)