DVD Collectors Online

Guns of Navarone, a review by Rich

One of my favourite destinations - Greece...



Two powerful German guns control the seas past the Greek island of Navarone making the evacuation of endangered British troops on a neighboring island impossible. Air attack is useless so a team of six Allied and Greek soldiers is put ashore to meet up with partisans to try and dynamite the guns. The mission is perilous enough anyway but are the Germans on the island getting further help too?

A very enjoyable adventure story (set around WW2) with one of my favourite actors David Niven. Perfect old-fashioned Nazi ass-kicking movie, with great effects (for the time) and a solid cast of heroic leads. Boys film    6/10


(From Around the World in 80 DVD's on January 23rd, 2008)

Santa Who?, a review by addicted2dvd

Santa Who? What would happen if Santa Claus forgot who he was? After a tumble from his sleigh one wintry night, Old Saint Nick (Leslie Nielsen) bumps his head and develops a case of amnesia. Now, it's up to the innocence of a young child and the know-how of a skeptical news reporter to help him find his identity and save Christmas Day. During their adventures, Santa isn't the only one who recalls the magical spirit of the holidays.

My Thoughts:
Another one I recorded off cable just this morning. This one I enjoyed quite a bit. I think Leslie Neilsen was a great choice for an amnesiac Santa. Another one I would like to add to my collection before next year.



(From Addicted2DVD's 25 Days of Christmas Marathon: 2010 on December 13th, 2010)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon, a review by goodguy

2x09 Complications
Synopsis: Fever dreams convince Sarah that a "three-dot" symbol will lead her to Skynet.  Derek wonders if they've changed the future.
My Rating:

At this point of the series, TSCC is certainly on a roll, one excellent episode after another. Once again I cannot agree with Achim that the parts involving Sarah were boring - their introspective and metaphoric quality nicely balanced the intense stuff going on with Derek. I wonder how Achim will think about the Sarah plot in the next episode, because that is the first time *I* will find it to be pretty weak.

With her breakdown at the end of 2x08, Sarah and John have actually become closer again and that continues here as they talk more openly with each other. Sarah turning over the turtle on the roadside is a Blade Runner reference (the empathy test to distinguish between adroids and humans), nicely used here to characterize her and to provide more food for thought for the always-curious Cameron, who will mimic her later on with great effect.

Sarah's dreams did make sense to me on first viewing, they do so even more when considering the whole series, but I will leave that part out. Sarah's first dream is the least transparent, but the liquid metal cactuses seem to point towards Weaver, who is yet an unknown to Sarah. It is safe to assume that the Weaver and Connor story lines will converge at one point in the series, however that may play out. Sarah's second dream is the most obvious, her humanity prompted her to safe the turtle and the kid in the bowling alley, which played right into Cromartie's hands. She knows what to do, but just can't do it, she sees herself as her own worst enemy, pointing a gun at her reflection in the window. John, however, doesn't think so. The third dream brings her back to reality, there isn't really anything she can get from talking to Dr. Sherman, considering the secrets she has to keep from him.

I didn't talk about Cameron and John in the previous episode (who had a great scene together that only at the surface seemed slightly creepy). Here they are great together again as they drive back to Mexico and then go after Ellison.

Ellison didn't surprise me. Based on the ending of 2x08 and given what he knows, his progression here seemed pretty straightforward to me.

The main story however is of Derek and Jesse and Charles Fisher, who collaborated with the machines (the bits were the "grays" are expositioned are the only slightly clunky parts in the episode). Robert Shiff (Toby from West Wing) as Charles Fisher was amazing and bringing in Adam Bush (robot expert Warren from Buffy) as the younger Fisher was an inspired casting choice. I agree with Achim that we can see that Jesse really cares for Derek, but there also was a strange vibe coming from her. One can attribute it to being completely rattled by discovering Fisher, but her caressing Derek while saying "You need to beat the hell out of him." was a bit too NBK (or whatever) for me.

While talking about 2x07, I said that Jesse was as ruthless as Cameron when killing Moishe, but here it is Derek again who has no moral scruples at all and would have killed the younger Fisher preemptively just as he did with Andy Goode. Jesse has no qualms killing people, but seems not be willing to go that far.

Time travel makes my head hurt, so I usually go with whatever spin is given to it. The "different futures" are an interesting turn, especially as it also means that Derek having changed the future means that he may have created the events that Jesse remembers, but he doesn't. The counterpoint to that is young Fisher. As Ellison's VO drones on to justify his choice (we can't allow history to repeat itself), we see young Fisher thrown in a cell, ensuring he is available to the machines on Judgment Day.


(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon on February 8th, 2010)