DVD Collectors Online

The Old Dark House, a review by Danae Cassandra

The Old Dark House
Year of Release: 1932
Directed By: James Whale
Starring: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Lillian Bond, Ernest Thesiger, Eva Moore
Genre: Horror

Overview:
Weary travelers find shelter in a mysterious Welsh manor in this definitive "Old Dark House" thriller and cult movie favorite by horror pioneer James Whale (the director of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and The Bride of Frankenstein, and subject of the recent film Gods and Monsters).

Greeted with an animal-like grunt by the mansion's hideously scarred butler (Boris Karloff), three disoriented voyagers (Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey and Lillian Bond) find themselves in the unwelcoming company of the psychotic Femm family, whose members include a religious fanatic obsessed with mortality and other matter of the sinful flesh (Eva Moore), her browbeaten brother (Ernest Thesiger), and a scripture-quoting homicidal pyromaniac (Brember Wills)... all watched over by their androgynous, 102-year-old father (Elspeth "John" Dudgeon). Relieving the story's overwhelming weirdness are Charles Laughton and a young Gloria Stuart (Titanic) as two confused visitors to the strange estate.

As witty and surprising as it is darkly unsettling, The Old Dark House is a ghoulishly delightful treat, a one-of-a-kind macabre comedy blanketed with rain-soaked, gothic eeriness orchestrated by one of the foremost directors of the American horror film.

My Thoughts:
I find, for whatever reason, that I'm not as fond of this film today as I was when I first watched it four years ago. I still like Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff's performances. I still think that the cast do a good job creating unique, eccentric characters - and that not only Karloff, but also Eva Moore. That level of religious zealotry is both extremely off-putting and genuinely frightening. Gloria Stuart's character, however, seems even more silly, stupid, and just plain annoying today. The cinematography still creates a really spooky, old, dark house, but the print is in need of a good restoration/HD remaster. That shouldn't matter, but I think it actually does. Still, the script is good and the cast is top notch, so I'd still recommend it to fans of old films and classic horror.

Watched For: Hoop-tober 3.0, Horror/Halloween Challenge 2016

Bechdel Test: Pass
Mako Mori Test: Fail

Overall: 3.5/5

Horror/Halloween Challenge Films: 4/52

(From Horror/Halloween 2016 Challenge on October 5th, 2016)

Avatar, a review by KinkyCyborg

Title:Avatar
Year: 2009
Director:
Rating: PG-13
Length: 162 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.78:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: 5.1, English: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo, French: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo, Spanish: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles: English, Spanish

Stars:


Plot:
RETURN TO PANDORA
A reluctant hero. An epic journey. A choice between the life he left behind and the incredible new world he's learned to call home. Return to James Cameron's AVATAR -- the greatest adventure of all time.

Extras:
Scene Access
Closed Captioned
THX


I finally decided to throw this in and see what all the hoopla was about.

What can I say?? I went into this movie determined to very critical of it so that I wouldn't be one of the masses throwing gobs of praise onto this movie..... when it was over... I loved it! So much for determination. 

This movie is going to be phenomenal on Bluray in High Def and it makes me want to expedite the purchase of my first Bluray player. Even in standard dvd format the effects, the colors, the visuals... all stunning.

Very good cast across the board, humans and blue people alike. Sigourney Weaver was a standout but for me the most intense, stellar performance went to Stephen Lang as Col. Quaritch. Hooyah! He was the embodiment of heartless evil and yet I was oddly sad to see him check out.

There was no shortage of statements and morals for Cameron to preach from his $2.8 billion dollar worldwide pulpit.... among them corporate greed, environmental exploitation, prejudice, unprovoked military sanctioning, and tainted foreign policy. It was really no surprise that despite it's enormous success, the film did in fact piss off a lot of people. The Earth Day release of the DVD/Bluray was a further poke in the eye of the pundits of the film and cemented the reverence of James Cameron that much more. Marketing genius!

As I have not yet watched The Hurt Locker, I am not yet equipped to weigh into the debate as to which film deserved Best Picture Oscar. I will say this, with a high level of confidence... if you think Avatar made a boatload of money, just wait until the sequel. It will be more highly anticipated than the second coming of Christ!  .... yes, I said it...

KC


Rating:

(From KinkyCyborg's Random Reviews 2010 on October 16th, 2010)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season marathon, a review by Tom

08. Vick's Chip (2008-03-03)
Writer: Josh Friedman (Created By), Daniel T. Thomsen (Writer), James Cameron (Original Characters By), Gale Anne Hurd (Original Characters By)
Director: J. Miller Tobin
Cast: Lena Headey (Sarah Connor), Thomas Dekker (John Connor), Summer Glau (Cameron), Richard T. Jones (Agent James Ellison), Garret Dillahunt (Cromartie), Kristina Apgar (Cheri Westin), Edoardo Ballerini (Timms), Karina Logue (Barbara Chamberlain), Andre Royo (Sumner), Jonathan Sadowski (Sayles), Matt McColm (Vick Chamberlain), Luis Chavez (Morris), Brian Austin Green (Derek Reese), Bruno Amato (Gym Coach), Joshua Wolf Coleman (Clerk), Allen Evangelista (Doug), Aki Kotabe (Kendo), Tony Raymond Wilde (Eric Carlson)

I think we can make a drinking game with Derek's line "That's what they do" (while looking at Cameron).
"She lied" - "That's what they do"
"He killed her" - "That's what they do"


One of the things I didn't like about T2 is John's incredible hacking capabilites. And here they are doing it again. He was thrown eight years into the future, so he is new to current computers. And yet he can interface with a chip from the future and hack into the memory storage of the T-888 in a few minutes/hours, what even Cameron couldn't do.

Rating:

(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season marathon on January 27th, 2009)