DVD Collectors Online

The Prince of Egypt, a review by Blair

The Prince of Egypt

Tagline: Two brothers united by friendship divided by destiny.




Film Details
    Rating: PG
    Runtime: 99 minutes
    Year: 1998

    Directors:
          Brenda Chapman
          Steve Hickner
          Simon Wells

Main Cast
    Val Kilmer as Moses
    Ralph Fiennes as Rameses
    Michelle Pfeiffer as Tzipporah
    Sandra Bullock as Miriam
    Jeff Goldblum as Aaron
    Danny Glover as Jethro
    Patrick Stewart as Seti I
    Helen Mirren as The Queen
    Steve Martin as Hotep
    Martin Short as Huy


Synopsis
Following the Biblical story, the life of Moses is laid out from his birth as a Hebrew and fated adoption by the Egyptian Pharoh, to his abandonment of that life of luxury in order to come full circle and save his people of birth from slavery.


My Thoughts
Often when you say that a movie is a "story from The Bible" you have non-religious people running away cringing. So, to make said events not only approval-worthy in the eyes of many religious followers but captivating enough for those who doubt said events to watch is quite a feat. This film does just that. [bonus points]

While not fully accurate to the written accounts of the events in the Hebrew Bible, as a man of religious faith I believe that the creative licensing taken was enough to help the story flow better while not trampling on the core beliefs. [more bonus points] A preface in the film even mentions this for early clarification. As an example within the film, Aaron, the blood brother of Moses, was a slave without hope alongside their hopeful sister (also a slave) throughout the movie. In the writings of The Bible, however, he aided Moses in their quest, often as the more communicative of the two. By putting all events on a single man's shoulders in the film, I feel it made the journey feel that much more difficult and focused the storytelling more.

With an all-star cast of voices driving the story, the animation is top-notch, in my opinion trumping many Disney films despite their decades of reputation against DreamWorks' newness to the field. (The Prince of Egypt, produced simultaneously with Antz, were jointly the company's first full-length feature films.) Though the film uses GC animation for some of the most complicated shots such as a moving crowd of thousands, the majority of the film was created with traditional cell animation. The beauty of parting of the Red Sea has also become an iconic piece of artistry. [even more bonus points]

The orchestration of the film (which I was surprised to hear so much of) was also very pleasing. I note my amazement in learning that Ofra Haza, who marvelously sung the opening number for the film, did so in 17 of the film's released languages! On a sad note, she died barely a year after the film's release.


In the end, I feel that it was a brave project choice for DreamWorks to take on, and it paid off in spades.


My Rating:
    

(From Blair's topic for reviewing . . . . wait for it . . . . . MOVIES! (duh) on July 22nd, 2011)

Axe, a review by Jimmy

Title: Axe (1974)

Genre: Horror
Director: Frederick R. Friedel
Rating: NR
Length: 1h08
Video: Full Frame
Audio: English
Subtitles: None

Stars:
Leslie Lee
Jack Canon
Ray Green
Frederick R. Friedel
Douglas Powers

Plot:
After terrorizing a convenience store salesgirl with tomatoes, three lowlifes on a crime spree hide out at an isolated farmhouse occupied only by teenage Lisa and her pathetically paralyzed grandpa. Bad move, guys, for while Lisa looks innocent enough, she's actually a ticking-time-bomb-of-psychotic-aggression who spends her days killing chickens, feeding raw eggs to her granddad, staring blankly into space, and hallucinating blood on a mirror. So when the three numbskulls add Lisa to their list of people to abuse, she promptly puts an end to their antisocial activities with the help of her two best friends, a straight-edge razor and her handy AXE...

Personally I wouldn't call that one an horror film, but the difference between an horror film and a crime one isn't that big. So because it countains some horror theme, I'll give it a pass.

First don't expect a lot of production value since it's really low budget wich isn't a problem for me as long as I feel the persons involved in a production care about the project. The film is short and it runs fast, so fast that sometimes you have no clue of what happen and why (the openning scene is sure part of that, since you have no clue why they beat the hell of a guy and you'll never know). The acting is convenable considering it's their first movie for most of them (the only exception being Frank Jones and Scott Smith, wich doesn't mean they were film old timer since it was their second or third experiences) and no one really do something after (excepted for Jack Canon who is in Maximum Overdrive and Weekend at Bernie's too). Even with the lack of experience Leslie Lee do a really good job with a hard character to play. The film end like it started with no real explanations, but I'm ok with that as we don't need to have everything explain to understand.

Sadly like all the Harry Novak properties released by Something Weird Video this is OOP, but you can always get it for a reasonable price at Amazon (at least it is less costly than Angels / Getting into Heaven) 

Rating :

(From Jimmy's - 2013 Ooctober Horror Marathon on October 11th, 2013)

The One Where It All Began: The Pilot Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

What's the show about?
Colt Seavers is a Hollywood stunt man and he does all kinds of (dangerous) stunts. But since the movie business doesn't constantly pay, he has another way of getting an income: He's also a bounty hunter who hunts down bail jumpers which is sometimes even more dangerous than his stunt jobs. On both jobs he has help: His cousin Howie Munson and his assistant Jody Banks.

"The Fall Guy"
After he's done a stunt involving crashing an Indy race car into a wall and walking like a human torch, Colt's cousin Howie approaches him. Howie is supposed to be in college but has decided to become a famous stunt man just like Colt. Howie has no clue about real life and certainly even less clues about the stunt business. But Colt takes him under his wings. And their first job as a team is to bring a man back from a town he practically owns.

My Opinion
The Fall Guy was a great show and the best things were - naturally - all the stunts they did. There was only one topic of discussion on the school yard the day after an episode of "Colt" was aired - and I'm talking about East Germany where we weren't allowed to watch western television, let alone talk about it. But we did it and we imagined it was us doing all these stunts - and Jody was so hot!
Like with most of the 80s shows there's a lot of nostalgia involved and while it's still fun to watch I'd never watch more of a couple of episodes again. But I still cherish the memories and I always wanted to have a "Colt Siwas" (I had no clue how to spell that back then) truck. That thing still looks cool.

(From The One Where It All Began: The Pilot Marathon on September 24th, 2009)