DVD Collectors Online

The Last of Sheila, a review by Antares

The Last of Sheila (1973) 4/5 - Has anyone been watching TCM the last two weeks? Instead of having some actor, director or film scholar pick films for the evening, they've been having TCM employees in the guest host spot, picking three of their favorite films. This has been so refreshing because they don't pick the atypical films that the more film associated person normally does. The Last of Sheila is one of those forgotten films from a time when murder mysteries were extremely popular. I saw this in its original run back in 1973, but hadn't seen it since probably the early 80's on Cinemax. It takes place on a yacht in the south of France and features seven film industry acquaintances who gather together on the one year anniversary of the yacht owner's wife's death at the hands of a hit and run driver. He has decided to play what he calls a gossip game, but in reality is really a murder mystery, which in the end, will reveal the murderer of his wife, who is among the six guests. What makes it really unique is the way the game is played out. Each of the six guests has a secret in their past, that will be revealed as the game progresses. Before the game can be finished, one of the seven is murdered and through this murder, the original murderer will be revealed. What I loved about this film then and still love about it now, is the many layers of intricacy in the plot concerning not only the murders, but the game itself. This is a very well written screenplay. The only downside to the film, is the horrible acting at times by Dyan Cannon and every thing Raquel Welch does onscreen. She should thank God every day for her natural beauty, because she has to be one of the worst actresses in the history of film. If you haven't seen this, seek it out, I think you'd be surprised at how good a film it is.

(From Antares' Short Summations on April 2nd, 2011)

Rituals, a review by Jimmy

Title: Rituals (1977)

Genre: Survival drama
Director: Peter Carter
Rating: R
Length: 1h40
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio: English
Subtitles: None

Stars:
Hal Holbrook
Lawrence Dane
Robin Gammell
Ken James
Gary Reineke

Plot:
Adventure-seeker Mitzi (Lawrence Dane, SCANNERS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME) invites fellow Doctor Harry (Award winning Hal Halbrook, INTO THE WILD, CAPRICORN ONE) and three other physician friends to go on their annual camping trip in middle of the unexplored Canadian mountains. The five of them thought that they were alone in the muddle of nowhere on their ritual camping trip, but this time someone was watching them. A crazed psychopath wants to play a psychological game of survival with the five campers and it soon becomes a horrifying game of kill or be killed.

This film like many canadian's films made in the seventies is not known at all, since they were made as tax write-of no effort were made to did a profit with them. So except in our country most people never saw them in their real form and most of them were only local success. To be honest this is almost criminal since the movie in our country at this time were as good as those made in the USA. But enough ranting....

This one is often compare to Deliverance, but to be honest I don't understand why since the only common thing between those two is that it happen in the wood (great location by the way, I don't know if Batchawana Bay always look like that 35 years later but what an awesome looking natural place) and the protagonists are target by an enemy. This is not Deliverance... We don't see the follower untill the end and they don't fight him because he never made his precence known. In fact what we have here is a survival story of how five friends deal with the difficulties with no one to help them, stranded in an hostile location (seriously by experience I can tell you that mountain, forest and river aren't friendly places if you don't know them), no idea of what will happen and when, how it will affect their friendship and the heartbreaking decision they must choose.

Hal Holbrook in this film give the performance of his career, we aren't used to see him in leading role and he is sure able to carry a strong film like that on his shoulder. The four other principal actors are well known if you watch frequently canadian cinema (they were all big stars in the seventies in our country) and they do a good job too with their character. Lawrence Dane being the best, since he almost outshine Hal Holbrook on the screen.

The film is shot in order, so none of the usual continuity errors is present. Also the actors did all their stunt themselves and some of them are really dangerous like when they are in the river.

A film that I recommand strongly. I know most of the films I review here aren't that great for anyone except me, but I'm sure this one would please Jon, Achim, Pete, KC, Kathy and certainly more people. To be honest this is certainly the more crowd pleasing film I've ever reviewed on our website.

It is a little hard to find because Amazon doesn't carry it. I've seen it on Axel Music, Diabolik DVD, Deep Discount DVD and some other webstore.  

Rating :

(From The little known movie review depot on April 23rd, 2011)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

Ai Yori Aoshi: Volume 1 "Faithfully Yours" (2001/Japan) IMDb | Wikipedia Pioneer Entertainment (United States) Length: 120 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: English

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Plot:


Ai Yori Aoshi
1.01 Enishi
Writer: Kou Fumizuki (Original Material By), Kenichi Kanemaki (Writer)
Director: Daisuke Takashima
Cast: Japanese Cast), Soichiro Hoshi (Kaoru Hanabishi (voice)), Ayako Kawasumi (Aoi Sakuraba (voice)), Narumi Hikada (Young Kaoru (voice)), Makoto Higo (Nishimoto (voice)), Kouichi Sakaguchi (Tanaka (voice)), English Voice Cast), Anthony Mozdy ( (voice)), Barbara Goodson ( (voice)), Dave Lelyveld ( (voice)), Lex Lang ( (voice)), Lia Sargent ( (voice)), Michelle Ruff ( (voice)), Ron Allen ( (voice)), Sue Beth Arden ( (voice)), Wendee Lee ( (voice))

The first few episodes are very romantic. It tells how the both main characters got together. After that the series introduces a whole bunch of lively characters, which make it a fun comedy.

Rating:

(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on March 25th, 2011)