DVD Collectors Online

A Chairy Tale, a review by Antares

A Chairy Tale (1957) 3.5/5 - One part of my film watching regimen that I sorely am lacking in is live action short films. Maybe it's the fact that so many are not available on DVD, or the fact the only outlet for these creative snippets of celluloid are to be found on TCM. This is an interesting conceptual film about a chair that refuses to allow a man to sit upon it, until the man meets the chair on its own terms. The man is played by Claude Jutra, who comes across as part Charlie Chaplin, part Roberto Benigni and is certainly up to the task of performing the quite physical pantomime with the chair. The music is provided by the then unknown Ravi Shankar, and fits the films frenetic pace quite well. This was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short film, but could have also been nominated for Best Editing. Some of the transitions in this are quite remarkable to look at, and make the subject very entertaining. If I have one complaint with this film is its length, something you would think wouldn't be much of a problem with a short film. But the director probably could have shorn away about 2 - 3 minutes and the film would have not suffered for it. Even so, at ten minutes, you should give this a look see, it's available on YouTube.

(From Antares' Short Summations on March 27th, 2012)

Blackboard Jungle (1955) , a review by Antares

Blackboard Jungle (1955) 3/5 - I can understand why this film caused such a furor back in 1955, with most of America being spoon fed their daily allowance of syrupy, sentimental family sit-coms like Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet. In these white bread comedies, the young folks greatest dilemmas were whether to have a coke or a chocolate shake with their burger at the local malt shop. Blackboard Jungle grabs the viewer by the throat and transports them into the day to day life of troubled teenagers in an inner city public school. The neighborhood is a mixture of delinquent street thugs and the downtrodden poor eeking out their meager existences. Into this hornet's nest arrives a naive ex-soldier who has received a college degree through the GI bill and focuses his efforts on becoming a teacher. Glenn Ford, who at times to me, felt out of place in this urban drama, plays the rookie teacher with just a little too much naive optimism. This isn't a knock on Ford's talents, but I've always felt he was a fish out of water when taken away from a western setting, the kind of film he predominantly made in his career. The rest of the cast though, play their roles to perfection, with Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow, stealing the show. If you can get by the dated message and presentation, it will make for an interesting time capsule when the "message" film first started to take hold.

(From Antares' Short Summations on September 4th, 2011)

"Due South" marathon, a review by Rick

You Must Remember This
Go Ray... Gettin it on with Dr. Leah Brahms. 

Overall a boring episode I thought. Give it a

(From "Due South" marathon on July 12th, 2009)