DVD Collectors Online

Dracula (1931), a review by RossRoy

Original Title: Dracula Year: 1931 Country: United States Director: Tod Browning Rating: NR Length: 398 Min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital Mono, English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

What they say
For the first time ever, the original ‘Dracula’ film comes to DVD in this extraordinary Legacy Collection. Included in the collection is the original classic, starring the renowned Béla Lugosi, and three timeless sequels, featuring such legendary actors as Lon Chaney Jr, John Carradine and others. These are the landmark films that inspired an entire genre of movies and continue to be major influences on motion pictures to this day.

My Thoughts
Well, after Monster Squad, I felt the urge to revisit the classic monster movies. So I started with Dracula. Bela Lugosi in his classic performance. What more can be said? The set pieces, the lighting, the creepy atmosphere, even the silences without dialog or music all work together to form a great movie going experience. Oh sure, by today's standards it might be considered rather crude, but, personally, I marvel in its simplicity, suggesting instead of showing.

I made one mistake though: I watched it with the new Philip Glass score. It's not that the score by Glass is bad, it's actually good music (if a little repetitive), but, it's painfully obvious that it has been done years after the movie. For one thing, the music is nice and clean, I'd even say rich, which makes the sound effects and voice sound that much more thin and makes it show their age. Also, while Glass is obviously careful with his score to not overpower key dialog and sound effects, it actually makes it that much more obvious that the score isn't an integral part of the movie. The best example of that is when Renfield first arrives at Castle Dracula. When the door opens, there's a very distinct creaking sound. Well, at the very point, the Glass score becomes completely silent to emphasize the sound. Now that shows Glass wanted to preserve the sound and not affect its power in the context of the film, yet he only achieves making his score separate from the movie, because this would actually be a key moment for the music to change to convey an emotion. Same thing when Renfield cuts his finger with the letter opener. He cuts his finger and the music goes into a crescendo moments after, and it felt odd and out of place. I actually found the score to be detrimental to the movie, instead of supporting it.

I'll give this a , because of Glass' score, otherwise, it would've been a heartfelt

Rating:


(From RossRoy's Random Viewings on October 12th, 2008)

Never Say Never Again, a review by Dragonfire

Sean Connery is back for his final performance as agent James Bond in this high-velocity action thriller...and now you can experience it as never before with this explosively entertaining Collector's Edition with all-new audio commentary and three nerver-before-seen featurettes! Angent 007 is hurled into a pulse-pounding race to save the world from armageddon when two atomic warheards are hijacked by the evil SPECTRE organization!

My Thoughts

I was only mildly entertained by this one.  The theme song sucks and the opening credits aren't that good.  M is acting like a new age idiot babbling on about free radicals and sending James off to that spa where the all the doctor seemed to want to do was order up colonics and enemas.  The plot was handled better in Thunderball.  The settings looked nice, but things just seem off.  The underwater scenes are nowhere near as good as the ones in Thunderball.  That computer game thing that Max and James played was just bizarre.  The cast is mostly ok.  Connery is still good, but he didn't seem like James anymore.  Blofeld wasn't as effective.  The action is ok, but nothing special.  I don't hate the movie, but I don't love it either.  I think I've actually seen this version more than Thunderball, but that version is so much better.

 

(From James Bond Marathon on May 4th, 2009)

Angel Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

8. Destiny
Original Air Date: 11/19/2003
Spike opens up a package that makes him corporeal again, turns the firm's employees into bloody-eyed monsters, and pits him against Angel in a race to drink out of the Cup of Perpetual Torment.

Guest Stars:
Sarah Thompson
Juliet Landau
Michael Halsey
Justin Connor
Mark Kelly

My Thoughts:
This one was right good.... Spike is solid once again. And I loved the fight between Spike. I love it when I go back to the show after year... and forget some of the finer points. This episode actually caught me by surprise who was behind it all! And some flash backs as well!

My Rating:

(From Angel Marathon on March 22nd, 2010)