DVD Collectors Online

Black Sunday, a review by Achim

Title: La maschera del demonio
Year: 1960
Director: Mario Bava
Rating: NR
Length: 87 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.66:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Mono, Commentary: Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles:

Stars:
Barbara Steele [Barbara Steel]
John Richardson
Andrea Checchi
Ivo Garrani
Arturo Dominici

Plot:Extras:
Scene Access
Audio Commentary
Trailers
Gallery
Production Notes


The story is a revenge story we have seen in other films before and most certainly after. The witch Asa is burnt on the stake, well, they try only as it starts to rain, and then placed in a tomb with a seal. The seal is broken 200 years later, by events guided by evil and Asa's spirit is now out for revenge. Her target is to eliminate every last descendant of the family who killed her (her own, actually) and eventually take over the body of the young and beautiful daughter Katja. Will the young doctor who saw Katja and instantly felll in love with her be able to save her...?

With obviously a lot of inspiration coming from the Hammer films of the time most parts of this film still hold up very well today. Especially the first half contains lots of eerie cinematography, squeaky doors and shadows that could contain the unspeakable terror. Occasionally a set up goes to waste and could have been exploited more (the girl in the barn) but mostly the stuff works rather well. Unfortunately the films becomes a bit undone in the second half. The acting gets sloppy and is all over the place (good moments followed by terrible overacting); the dubbing might heighten the effect in places. The gore effects are reasonably well done and I am sure were shocking at the time (the film is almost 50 years old!!!).



(From Mario Bava marathon on June 15th, 2009)

Men in Black, a review by addicted2dvd

Men in Black (1997/United States) IMDb |Wikipedia |Trailer | Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (United States) Director: Barry Sonnenfeld Writing: Lowell Cunningham (Original Material By), Ed Solomon (Story By), Ed Solomon (Screenwriter) Length: 98 min. Video: Widescreen 1.85:1 Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD: 5.1, French: Dolby TrueHD: 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital: 5.1, Portuguese: Dolby TrueHD: 5.1, Thai: Dolby Digital: 5.1, Commentary: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround, Commentary: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround Subtitles: Arabic, Bahasa, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Commentary, Other

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Stars:
Tommy Lee Jones as Kay
Will Smith as Jay
Linda Fiorentino as Laurel
Vincent D'Onofrio as Edgar
Rip Torn as Zed

Plot:
Men in Black follows the exploits of Agents K (Jones) and J (Smith), members of a top-secret organization established to monitor alien activity on Earth. The two MiB find themselves in the middle of a deadly plot by an intergalactic terrorist (Vincent D'Onofrio) who has arrived on Earth to assassinate two ambassadors from opposing galaxies. K and J face a simple imperative: track down the interloper or the Earth will be destroyed. It's all in a day's work for the Men in Black.

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Audio Commentary
• Feature Trailers
• Bonus Trailers
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Gallery
• Interactive Games
• Multi-angle
• Music Videos
• Storyboard Comparisons
• BD-Live
• $5.00 VUDU Movie Credit

This movie is just plan fun for me. It is a really good "Turn your brain off... Popcorn Movie"... it has a nice amount of laughs. I enjoyed the performances of both Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in this movie. I especially enjoyed Will Smith firing off that little gun of his... the "Noisy Cricket". If you just want some mindless entertainment for about an hour and a half... this one I will recommend.

I jut recently upgraded to the blu-ray/dvd combo pack. I haven't had the chance to check out the extras yet... but looks like a great set. The movie looked and sound great.


(From Within My Lifetime Marathon on January 14th, 2015)

Angel Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

17. Forgiving
Original Air Date: 4/15/2002
As Fred, Gunn and Lorne try to figure out why Wesley would steal Connor, Angel tries to find a way to follow Holtz into the Quor-toth dimension and bring his son back home.

Guest Stars:
John Rubinstein
Laurel Holloman
Stephanie Romanov
Jack Conley

My Thoughts:
I enjoyed this one as well. Wesley has a long road ahead of him to get Angel to forgive him and trust him again. At this point the only thing Angel wants is to see Wesley dead. I can understand it too... why didn't Wesley go to the team... a team he considered family... with the information he had and try to figure things out that way? It would have saved a whole lot of grief.

My Rating:

(From Angel Marathon on March 14th, 2010)