DVD Collectors Online

Design for Living, a review by Antares

Design for Living (1933) 84/100 - A cute little Pre-Code film from Ernst Lubitsch that probably was an inspiration for Truffaut's Jules et Jim. But as opposed to the female character being psychotic and mentally deranged in that film, the female prey here is witty, charming and alluring. And you can understand why both men would do anything to be with her. At times, it's a bit stagey, suffering from slightly over the top acting, but all three leads give pleasurable performances, especially Gary Cooper. Of the three, I figured that he would be overshadowed by the masterful March and the radiant Hopkins, but he more than holds his own here. I've definitely come to the conclusion that Miriam Hopkins is one of my favorite actresses from the 30's. I don't know what it is, but she fascinates me, even though there are a few times when Lubitsch's camera caught her in awkward angles. Being a Pre-Code, there's a bit of racy dialog, but it's never anything gratuitous and there a few good laughs and some wonderfully written passages between the trio which makes for a fun and pretty quick viewing experience.

What the color coding means...

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on June 8th, 2013)

Pixels, a review by addicted2dvd

Pixels (2015/United States) Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (United States) Director: Chris Columbus Writing: Patrick Jean (Original Material By), Tim Herlihy (Story By), Tim Herlihy (Screenwriter), Timothy Dowling (Screenwriter) Length: 106 min. Video: Widescreen 2.40:1 Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio: 7.1, Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround, French: Dolby Digital: 5.1, Portuguese: DTS-HD Master Audio: 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital: 5.1, Thai: Dolby Digital: 5.1 Subtitles: Bahasa, Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Other

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Stars:
Adam Sandler as Brenner
Kevin James (1965) as Cooper
Michelle Monaghan as Violet
Peter Dinklage as Eddie
Josh Gad as Ludlow

Plot:
When aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war against them, they attack the Earth, using the games like PAC-MAN, Donky Kong, Galaga, Centipede and Space Invaders as models for their various assaults. President Will Cooper (Kevin James) has to call on his childhood best friend, '80s video game champion Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), to lead a team of old-school arcaders (Peter Dinklage and Josh Gad) to defeat the aliens and save the planet.

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Bonus Trailers
• Featurettes
• Gallery
• Music Videos
• Digital Copy

I went into this one not expecting much at all. Matter of fact I expected to hate it. When I first saw the trailer for this film the only thing that piqued my intreset was nostalgia for the old video games I used to play. And to be honest after seeing it that is my favorite thing about the film. Though to be fair it does have a few laughs here and there to go along with all the idiocy. While I can not say this is a good film....I found I enjoyed it for what it is. Just idiotic fun. While I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone... I have seen worse.



(From What Movies I Been Watching on April 3rd, 2018)

Runaway: The Complete Series, a review by addicted2dvd

Runaway: The Complete Series (2006/United States)

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Stars:
Donnie Wahlberg as Paul Rader
Leslie Hope as Lily Rader
Dustin Milligan as Henry Rader
Sarah Ramos as Hannah Rader
Nathan Gamble as Tommy Rader
Susan Floyd as Gina Bennett
Karen LeBlanc as Angela Huntley

Extras:

• Bonus Trailers
• Closed Captioned

This is a (very) short lived series that originally aired on The CW... the year that The CW was formed. Unfortunately for some reason they felt the need to cancel this series after airing only 3 episodes! I mean come on... how do you not give a series more of a chance then 3 episodes? The DVD set has the entire 9 episodes that was produced before the cancellation. It is a real shame that they didn't give it more of a chance... because IMHO... this is a very good series. I think it had an excellent chance of going on for at least a couple full seasons. I found myself so drawn into this series while watching it. At the end of each episode I couldn't wait to watch the next. My favorite episode in the series is There's No Place Like Home... in this episode the small town the family is hiding out in is hit by a tornado. Obviously with such a small amount of episodes this series does end with some unanswered questions. But it does answer the question of who it was that killed the woman Paul is accused of murdering. And I must say... wow! Great twist! Definitely didn't see it coming! Makes me even madder that the series didn't get the chance to continue!




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