DVD Collectors Online

The Covenant, a review by Hal

Title: The Covenant
Year: 2006
Director: Renny Harlin
Rating: PG-13
Length: 97 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.35:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: 5.1, English: PCM: 5.1, French: Dolby Digital: 5.1, Commentary: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai

Stars:
Steven Strait
Laura Ramsey
Sebastian Stan
Taylor Kitsch
Chace Crawford

Plot:
To the students of the Spenser Academy, the Sons of Ipswich are the baddest boys on campus. But that's not all they share. The four friends also share a 300-year-old secret: they're warlocks, the teenage descendants of a 17th-century coven of witches. So when the long-banished fifth son suddenly appears and threatens to kill their loved ones, they realize they must face their enemy in order to prevent him from stealing their powers and shattering THE COVENANT forever.

Extras:
Scene Access
Audio Commentary
Feature Trailers
Featurettes

This was an enjoyable film with an interesting premise.  It's one of those really dark movies where it's rather difficult to actually see what is going on.  Seems to be a very popular filming technique for this genre.  I'm not sure why the four didn't band together to fight the bad guy, or why Caleb is more powerful than Chase after ascending and inheriting power.  After all Chase had ascended and inherited power also.  I guess an old-fashioned one-on-one, good against evil was required and four against one wouldn't seem quite fair.  Not that I give a damn about fair in these type of fights!

Worth a look see.

Rating:

(From Hal's 2010 Horror Marathon Reviews on October 6th, 2010)

Pitch Perfect, a review by addicted2dvd

Pitch Perfect (2012/United States) IMDb |Wikipedia |Trailer | Universal Studios Home Entertainment (United States) Director: Jason Moore Writing: Kay Cannon (Screenwriter), Mickey Rapkin (Original Material By) Length: 112 min. Video: Widescreen 1.85:1 Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio: 5.1, French: DTS: 5.1 Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

---

Stars:
Anna Kendrick as Beca
Skylar Astin as Jesse
Ben Platt as Benji
Brittany Snow as Chloe
Anna Camp as Aubrey

Plot:
Arriving at her new college, Beca (Anna Kendrick) finds herself not right for any clique but somehow is muscled into one that she never would have picked on her own: alongside mean girls, sweet girls and weird girls whose only thing in common is how good they sound when they sing together. When Beca leads this a cappella singing group out of their traditional arrangements and perfect harmonies into all-new mash-ups, they fight to climb their way to the top of college music competitions.

Pitch Perfect is an outrageously hilarious laugh-out-loud comedy that also stars Anna Camp (The Help), Brittany Snow (Hairspray) and Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids).

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Audio Commentary
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Music Videos
• Outtakes/Bloopers
• BD-Live
• Digital Copy

This one I enjoyed quite a bit. Though I have seen better...still above average. The main thing I didn't like here is there is a little gross-out humor. Which is a type of comedy I never liked. Without that I would have rated this one higher. But I liked the story line and liked the characters. Definitely worth the time put in to watch it.



(From July Movie Marathon: Musicals (Yes... You read right!) on July 17th, 2016)

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

What's the show about?
All over the world anomalies are suddenly opening and reveal itself as a door to the past. Sometimes predators come through and have to be brought back and the government tries to keep this a secret. A team of scientists and members of the British Home Office work on these cases and try to find a pattern and a way to close these anomalies again.

"Series 1 Episode 1"
Eight years ago the wife of Professor Cutter disappeared without a trace in the Forest of Dean. Now something weird is going on in there again, it's either a huge animal or a giant prank. The professor has to check it out for himself. In the mean time not far from there: A family calls the local zoo because their son has found a strange lizard that must have been set free by someone.

My Opinion
This was another blind buy and I watched the first season today for the first time. At first I was intrigued by the general idea. Basically Jurassic Park without fences or island. But I was constantly thrown off by how these animals behaved. I am certainly no expert on animals but I've seen animal documentaries since the days of Jacques Cousteau and I also watched the amazing BBC documentaries on prehistoric life (great stuff!). And now this series has all these amazing predators that could cause a lot of havoc just by behaving naturally. But that wasn't enough - they had to behave in an un-animal way just to create tension and suspense with the characters.
The characters were OK, but also not exceptional (more stereotypes than individuals). I don't know if I will watch the second season I already own...

(From The One Where It All Began: The Pilot Marathon on September 25th, 2009)