DVD Collectors Online

Blood Relations, a review by addicted2dvd

Blood Relations


My Thoughts:
I got this DVD a long time ago... it was shrink wrapped together with another movie (Expecting Mercy) and in the Walmart $5.00 Bargain Bin. So basically only paid $2.50 for this movie. Naturally I went into this movie with no expectations what so ever... as I never even heard of it before. I have to say... it wasn't a bad movie... wasn't great... but I did enjoy it. I do think it tried a little too hard to put twists into the movie... some worked.. others only confused things. The movie was made in 1988... and is Full Framed... so I imagine it was one of those direct to video releases. Even though I can't complain what with how little I paid... I was a little disappointed by the fact that there was no extras what so ever... not even a single trailer of any kind. When you pop in the disc you get a menu with 2 options on it... Play Movie and Scene Selection. Now I don't know that I would go as far as recommend buying this one... but if you can find it real cheap (like a deal I got)... it is worth it. If not I would recommend renting it first.

(From Weekend Movie Marathon: Unwatched DVD Collection on April 5th, 2008)

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan, a review by GSyren

Title	Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan
Year	2011
Director	Gilles Penso
Stars	Ray Harryhausen, Randy Cook, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Phil Tippett and many others
Overview
My thoughts	If you don't know who Ray Harryhausen is, you need to buy this title. If you do know who Ray Harryhausen is you need to buy this title. Ok, maybe that's a bit extreme, but the fact is that Ray Harryhausen is an extraordinary person who has had a HUGE impact on visual effects. If you are the least bit interested in visual effects you should learn about Ray Harryhausen. Today most effects are created with computer imagery, and there are often hundreds of people involved. Ray did it all himself. He was a one man visual effects studio. He was mainly a stop motion animator, and truly a great stop motion animator. His films inspired generations of stop motion animators. Without Ray we may never have seen Wallace and Gromit, Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline and ParaNorman. But he also inspired lots of other visual effects people. You can hear them tell how Ray's work was the thing that inspired them to go into the business. Ray Harryhausen is one of the very few technicians who has been elevated to a position above the directors of the films they worked on. If you ask people who made The 7th Voyage of Sinbad or Jason and the Argonauts, they'll most likely say Ray Harryhausen, not Nathan Juran or Don Chaffey. Me, I'm a long standing Harryhausen fan. I've got all his films on DVD (and some now on BD), almost all books published about him, and still I learned new stuff from this film. Unfortunately, this title seems to be region locked to region B. Sorry Achim! ;-) It's available from Amazon UK on DVD as well, but the DVD is actually more expensive than the BD.
Rating

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on March 28th, 2013)

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

Synopsis: It has been four years since Sisko's wife had been killed at the Wolf 359 massacre. But now Sisko meets a fascinating woman by the name of Fenna. But she keeps disappearing and Sisko has a hard time finding her again. Meanwhile the foremost expert on terra-forming has come to the station and he is about to complete his greatest project: the re-ignition of a dead sun.

My Opinion: This was an OK episode, not great though. The terraformer was a self-involved, arrogant man and thus I didn't care for his death at all. He may have done it for a noble reason and although the one conversation he had with Sisko before his death gave him a more human face, it didn't help in the end. But I liked the idea that might not end up alone 'til the end of days.

Synopsis: A ship full of refugees comes through "the great eye of the universe" and they are searching for their new home world, Kentanna. According to their legends, Bajor is Kentanna and they want to settle there - all three million Skrreeans. But Bajor has already enough problems of its own...

My Opinion: Another episode I didn't care for much, because I didn't care much for the Skrreeans. But I found the end interesting, because they didn't make it into a happy end, which (not a happy end) will happen more often in DS9 than it did in TNG.
BTW: Here we've learned that the Dominion is a conquering force or at least a waring force in the GQ.

Synopsis: An El-Aurian con man comes to the station but isn't that successful until he gets his hands on an unknown gambling device. From now on, luck is on his side and he establishes a second casino on the Promenade. But soon very unlikely events begin to occur on a regular basis and the odds for chance and probability have shifted.

My Opinion: This episode I enjoyed a lot. The only other El-Aurian we've ever met was Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) aboard the Enterprise. And while their main characteristic is maintained (they are good listeners), I liked it that they - as every other people - have dubious guys in their midst. I also liked the matches between Bashir and O'Brien.

Synopsis: Dr. Mora Pol is a scientist who worked with Odo from the beginning, long before anyone knew that Odo was sentient life form. Now he believes, that he may have discovered others of Odo's kind on a planet in the GQ, He, Odo and Dax fly there to discover something that could be a distant relative to Odo. But after their return the being escapes and threatens the station.

My Opinion: This was another good episode. It gave us an insight about Odo's early years and especially his relation to Mora. On the surface he doesn't like him that much but we can also see that he cares for even even though he wouldn't admit it. And Mora obviously cares for him. It was good to see that there's something beneath that cynical surface of Odo's.

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on October 11th, 2008)