DVD Collectors Online

I Am Sam, a review by Rich

I Am Sam



Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer give career-defining performances in this humorous and heartwarming story about a mentally challenged father who enlists the aid of a high-powered attorney to help him regain the custody of his daughter. An all-star supporting cast and a spectacular soundtrack complete this unforgettable story of life, love and laughter!

Touching movie, totally dominated by the 2 wonderful performances of Penn and Pfeiffer. Add in Dakota Fanning as the daughter, and the mix of cast worked tremendously well together in a project clearly all were enthused about.
A whole range of emotions are pulled from you during this movie, many happy, laugh out loud moments, especially with Sam Dawsons troop of friends in court. Then of course there are the lump in the throat, something in my eye moments which litter the film.
Sure it's a manipulative tear-jerker, exploited to the full by Hollywood, 'well it worked for Hoffman' negative comments that could be thrown at the film.
But personally I enjoyed it, I thought the performances were admirable, and it just stayed below the 'too sickly' borderline.
 


**Laura Dern mini-marathon


(From Riches Random Reviews on August 26th, 2009)

Bay of Blood, a review by Achim

Title: Reazione a catena
Year: 1971
Director: Mario Bava
Rating: NR
Length: 84 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Mono, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles:

Stars:Plot:
What begins as a simple giallo about greed and murder at a secluded bayside estate soon explodes into an odyssey of carnage that would single-handedly trigger the entire 'body count' genre. Claudine Auger (THUNDERBALL), Luigi Pistilli (THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY) and Laura Betti (HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON) star -- along with nearly a dozen landmark gore effects -- in Bava's epic of cruelty that remains as reviled as it is acclaimed. But to brand this legendary shocker -- best known under its alternate title TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE -- as merely 'The Granddaddy Of Slasher Films' is to dismiss its impact as a nihilist tour-de-force that stands as one of the greatest movies in horror history.

Extras:
Scene Access
Audio Commentary
Trailers
Gallery
Radio Spots

I had been looking forward to watch this film as it was one of the reasons I bought the mario Bava Collection box sets in the first place. As such it was a bit of a letdown

The giallo elements worked quite satisfactory, the murders were interesting, gory and varied, the body count high, the music matching. It was unfortunately the story that was overly confusing to me; some of the cast looking somewhat similar to each other certainly didn't help (you know how foreigners practically look the same ). I got repeatedly lost in thinking how certain people related to each other and what their motives were. The ending is strange and almost laughable, although that might possible be intentional.

But as I said, on the bright side we have a sufficiently well made giallo with high body count, good gore, good music, decent acting, good camera work (by Bava himself) and several twists on the way to the end.

.5

(From Mario Bava marathon on July 11th, 2009)

Monk: Season Eight, a review by addicted2dvd

Monk: Season Eight (2009/United States) Wikipedia |Wikipedia |IMDb |Trailer |

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Stars:
Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk
Traylor Howard as Natalie Teeger
Jason Gray-Stanford as Randy Disher
Ted Levine as Leland Stottlemeyer


Extras:

• Scene Access
• Audio Commentary
• Featurettes
• Interviews

I finally got to see the end of this series. I must say... I enjoyed this set very much. My favorite episode has to be the two part series finale. Not only did I enjoy every second of the storyline... I like how they closed the series out. Letting Monk finally solve the case of his wife's murder. It makes me so glad that they knew ahead of time that this was going to be their last season.  Many shows don't get the opportunity to close a series the way they would want to because they don't know in time. I also like that they brought Sharona back for an episode before the series ended. Another favorite episode from this season is the one where Natalie throws Monk a surprise birthday party. If you never seen this series... I definitely recommend it. It is a lot of fun!




(From Addicted2dvd's Random TV Series Watched on July 17th, 2012)