DVD Collectors Online

North, a review by Antares

North (1994) 1/5 - I always wondered what it must have been like for Rob Reiner in the 70's to be walking down a street or eating in a restaurant and having some stranger waltz up and yell Hey Meathead. It had to be excruciatingly annoying. After finishing North, I now realize that he must have really hated the general public so much, that he delivered a two hour shit burger just to get even. I finally got the chance to watch this today, courtesy of HDNet movies, and I'm glad that I didn't grab this at Blockbuster oh so many years ago. For a gifted director, who gave us The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, Misery, When Harry Met Sally and the seminal Stand By Me, to unleash this stinking pile of excrement on the public, should be grounds for banishment from Hollywood. The other part of the equation that baffles me is that Alan Zweibel, long one of the better comedy writers at Saturday Night Live in the 70's and 80's, would pen such an unfunny, cliche ridden mess of a screenplay. To say that it is painful to watch is being kind. I'd rather watch Madonna do Shakespeare than have to ever sit through this film again. There isn't one joke in this film that even raises a mere chuckle, and Elijah Wood, with those evil blue eyes of his, is absolutely loathsome in the title role.

(From Antares' Short Summations on January 15th, 2012)

Scream, a review by Dragonfire

Scream



The smash hit that transformed the horror genre into a phenomenon, Scream also launched the careers of some of today's brightest stars!

After a series of mysterious deaths, an offbeat group of friends get caught up in a lively mix of thrills and chills! With hot stars Drew Barrymore (Ever After), Courteney Cox (TV's Friends), Neve Campbell (54), Skeet Ulrich (As Good As It Gets) and David Arquette (Beautiful Girls).

Now you can experience this edge-of-your-seat thriller like never before with the Dimension Collector's Series on DVD.

My Thoughts

I did get a review posted on Epinions last year.

Scream

(From Dragonfire's Halloween/Horror Marathon 2009 on October 14th, 2009)

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

2. Gnothi Seauton (2008-01-14)
Writer: Josh Friedman (Created By), Josh Friedman (Writer), James Cameron (Original Characters By), Gale Anne Hurd (Original Characters By)
Director: David Nutter
Cast: Lena Headey (Sarah Connor), Thomas Dekker (John Connor), Summer Glau (Cameron), Richard T. Jones (Agent James Ellison), Sonya Walger (Michelle Dixon), Tony Amendola (Enrique Salceda), Jesse Garcia (Carlos), Omid Abtahi (Sumner), Sasha Roiz (Police Officer), Jonathan Sadowski (Sayles), Dean Winters (Charley Dixon), Brian Allen (Highway Guy), Ambrit Millhouse (Receptionist), Sabrina Perez (Chola), John Henry Whitaker (Chet), Lisa Wilhoit (Sales Assistant)

After the pilot episode, I had feared that they couldn't hold, what the pilot episode promised. Because it is hard to have as much action as in the pilot on a television budget and time constraints. Unlike in a pilot, where usually the budget is higher.
So I knew going in, that the action will be probably be toned down for the rest of the series, but I am glad to see, that they could still provide some action while keeping the story interesting.
But one peeve I have about this episode:
They made it perfectly clear in the movies, and even made a big point about it in the pilot episode, that only living tissue could travel through time. This is why they sent back guys from the future, to build weapons and a time machine to hide it in the bank vault, and why they arrive naked in the future. But why was the Terminator metalic skeleton sent through time?
And I also didn't like it, that the skeleton walked around without a head. For one thing, as far as remember, the CPU of the Terminators is in the head. And for another thing, I had always had the impression, that they had visual perception only through the eyes.
I found it ridiculous and unnecessary. They could have just kept his head and the body together. The reason for these obvious errors was, that they wanted to send the Terminator back in time for the series, but at the time of shooting the second episode, they had replaced the actor. So they couldn't send the Terminator back in one piece (living tissue intact) because they didn't have the original actor available and they had to find a way to have the Terminator looking for another human "suit".

Rating:

(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season marathon on January 13th, 2009)