DVD Collectors Online

Citizen Kane, a review by snowcat

(From Emma's Film Reviews (snowcat) on November 14th, 2009)

The Changeling, a review by Dragonfire

I don't have an image for this one.  I went to see Changeling on Tuesday the 11th.

Changeling

Based on a true story.

This movie tells the story of Christine Collins, a single mother living in Los Angeles in 1928 with her son Walter.  Christine, who worked for the phone company as an operator, was called in to work on a Saturday.  When she got home, her son Walter was missing.  She looked in the area for him and then called the police, only to be told that they wouldn't do anything until Walter had been gone 24 hours.  After five months, the police told Christine that her son had been found.  When she was reunited with him, she knew the child wasn't Walter.  The police wouldn't listen and then set out to discredit her and even went so far as to have her thrown into a mental hospital when all she wanted was to find her son.

My Thoughts

This is a very good movie.  The subject isn't a fun one, but the movie was still very good.  The fact that Walter vanished without a trace was upsetting enough, but what Christine was put through just because she was determined to find her son was awful.  The police was so corrupt at the time that they could get away with anything and they certainly didn't want to admit to a mistake when Christine said that the boy they turned over to her wasn't Walter.  The fact that all this happened at a time when women were still treated fairly badly in general probably didn't help matters either.  The pace was a bit slow, but I was never bored by what was going on.  Angelina Jolie was amazing as Christine. 

This movie deserves to be seen even though it deals with a very sad, upsetting story.

  - almost forgot this lol

(From My November Alphabet Marathon on November 14th, 2008)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: When a bajoran man and his adopted - cardassian - son come to the station, Garak becomes interested in the two of them. The boy was raised to hate all Cardassians and to hate all that is cardassian. But he is also not really a war orphan, he's the son an important cardassian politician and enemy of Gul Dukat's, the former prefect on Terok Nor/Deep Space Nine.

My Opinion: The end was a bit unsatisfying. While the main scheme was revealed and Dukat was exposed the writers didn't really manage to explain why Sisko chose to return the son to his biological father. Sure, he mentions it in his log entry but as I said - a bit unsatisfying. But I really liked the way Bashir and Garak have been working together and Garak's "explanation" of why he knows the things he knows.

Synopsis: DS9 gets a new crew member, Ensign Melora Pazlar. She comes from a low-gravity world and needs to use a wheelchair unless she's alone and can lower the artificial gravity. She calls it "the Melora problem" that everybody but she creates and she reacts very hostile to any attempt to help her.

My Opinion: This was an interesting mix of two different problems. The first would be the interaction with disabled persons, especially when they don't want any help. I really liked Paul Hogan's character's solution to that problem in Almost an Angel. But I found the second problem more interesting: Am I willing to make a change that will prevent me from ever going home again? It's a hard choice and I couldn't say now what I would have done.

Synopsis: The Grand Nagus Zek assigns a task to Quark: He is to purchase 10,000 vats of tulaberry wine from the GQ-based Dosi. The negotiations are already hard but suddenly Zek wants not only 10,000 vats but 100,000. Luckily for Quark, one of his new waiters has an ear for business. But Pel isn't what he appears to be.

My Opinion: I like Ferengi episodes (have I said that already?) and I think it's funny that things like unknowingly working with a Ferengi female always happen to the more conservative Quark who only tries do earn an (dis-)honest living. This was also the first time that there was a new force in the GQ mentioned: The Dominion.

Synopsis: After Quark has been attacked and nearly killed, Odo has to re-open a five-year old murder case. Back then he was an arbitrator for minor differences between the bajoran workers aboard Terok Nor. But Gul Dukat gave him the task of solving this murder and he encounters a certain Ferengi barkeep and a young bajoran woman by the name of Kira Nerys during that investigation.

My Opinion: This was a very noir episode with a lot of flashbacks to the time of the occupation. It was also the first time that we learn that Quark's brother Rom might not be as dumb as he seems to be. I really liked it, especially when Quark learned that his brother had access to his money vault. 

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on September 29th, 2008)