DVD Collectors Online

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , a review by addicted2dvd

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920/Germany) Mill Creek Entertainment Director: Robert Wiene Writing: Hans Janowitz (Writer), Carl Mayer (Writer) Length: 67 min. Rating: NR Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital: Mono Subtitles: None

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Stars:Plot:
The arrival of a traveling carnival coincides with a string of mysterious deaths in a small German town. When the friend and romantic rival of one man is found murdered, suspicion falls immediately upon him. The man looks to prove he is innocent and begins to investigate the strange hypnotist and his somnambulist at the carnival, discovering a horrifying secret.

Extras:

• Scene Access

This is another movie out of the 100 Classic Horror Movies boxset that I have. I was a little cautious about going into this one. I have heard some good things... as well as some things that were not so good. I personally found it entertaining, though a little strange. I also found it to be a bit on the slow side. Almost felt longer then it had to be to tell the story. But over all I found it to be worth watching. a nice addition to my silent movie collection.




(From Weekend Movie Marathon: Unseen Horrors on July 23rd, 2011)

Blood Tide, a review by addicted2dvd

Title: Blood Tide
Year: 1982
Director: Richard Jefferies
Rating: R
Length: 83 Min.
Video: Pan & Scan 1.33:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles: N/A

Stars:
James Earl Jones
Jose Ferrer
Lila Kedrova
Mary Louise Weller
Martin Kove
Lydia Cornell

Plot:
A legendary sea monster is awakened from centuries of sleep on a Greek island by an American archaeologist (James Earl Jones). An island elder (Jose Ferrer) is aware of the legend of the beast, including its appetite for virgin sacrifices.

Extras:
Scene Access

My Thoughts:
This is one of the many movies in the Horror Classics: 100 Movie Pack set that I haven't gotten to watch yet. I decided to watch this one today mainly because I noticed that Lydia Cornell is in it. I really enjoyed her as the younger sister on Too Close for Comfort. Unfortunately she has a rather small part in the movie. Also unfortunately I had a hard time getting into this movie. I found it to be rather slow paced... and just didn't keep my interest.

The quality of this one left a bit to be desired as well. Of course that is something I expected coming from one of those cheap Mill Creek Entertainment boxsets like this one.  But it is watchable... basically VHS quality.

Oh well... at least I got the set cheap... plus 99 other movies that I will hopefully like more then this one.



(From Weekend Movie Marathon: Unwatched DVDs on January 27th, 2011)

Friends: The One With All Ten Seasons, a review by DJ Doena

In opposition to the early adopters I've always been more of a late adoper. Especially when it comes to trends and hypes. Every time a hype is rolling I am against it per se. And to be honest in most cases the hype doesn't last long and it was a good thing I wasn't being involved in that crap.

Something like that happend with Friends. It was running on TV all the time but I haver felt any connection to that flat sharing community from New York. Over the years I watched a few episodes but I had never the urge to zap in the next week. Since a few months, Friends is running again on the german TV station Kabel 1 and I watched a few episoded again.

When we talked about this show at work, a friend of mine recommended this show wholeheartedly. He watched it during its original run and additionally with the original soundtrack (usually movies and shows are dubbed in germany).

Thus I made the decision to buy this show three years after it ended. And I decided to buy the entire show at once. Unfortunately the german box
And what can I say: I was fascinated from the first episodes on. The facial expressions and the gestures of the actors and the jokes are awesome.

But the most important element of the show is a continuing story telling. As I have stated before, TV shows must have a continuing storyline to be interesting. I grew up in the 80s and (being born in east germany) I watched a lot of "Westfernsehen" (TV stations from west germany). I watched everything the TV stations deemed worthy of broadcasting: Star Trek, The Fall Guy, Riptide, MacGyver and so on. But somewhere in the history of making TV shows they switched to continuing stories. Examples for this are Babylon 5 and later on also Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Both shows, as well as Emergency Room and Friends started in the years 1993/1994. In my opinion these shows had a lasting impact on TV shows.

Some say that Friends was corny and contained many soap elements (especially the Ross/Rachel story and the season cliffhangers) but they always spiced it up with a great pinch of humour.

But let's look on other comedy shows in comparison: Married With Children, Home Improvement and King of Queens. All sitcoms in the classical fashion with a certain set of places (first and foremost the living room) that remain constant throughout the years. The difference is that the characters only change slightly or not at all. Granted, the children get older but other than that very few things change. If you watch an episode of the first or seventh season becomes only clear through the age of the actors. That's my personal reason why I stopped collection these shows. There is no need to watch the next episode. You've had a few good laughs but when the next episode begins everything has been resetted.

On Friends there is the additional element of the relations between the characters. This is through the chosen setting (6 friends). Almost all characters are "combinable", while the classic sitcoms is based upon a family and thus the characters have defined relations among each other.  Just the combinations of who is roomie with whom and situations based on that are simply not doable in other sitcoms.

The next thing is the ensemble. No one of the six is perfectly normal but that is not unusual among sitcoms (Al Bundy, Steve Urquel, Dharma Freedom Finkelstein-Montgomery) but in this show everyone is a bit of a weirdo. And they are well-balanced. Nowadays Jennifer Aniston may be the well-knownst actress but I had never the feeling  one of the characters  was missed out. No character outshone all others nor was anyone over-shadowed. Granted, Joey had the least character developement of all (although he made a great leap forward over the last two seasons) but that doesn't mean the others outshone him.

So I watched The One Where It All Began for the first time on October, 18th and in the night from November 1st to 2nd The Last One

(From Friends: The One With All Ten Seasons on November 2nd, 2007)