DVD Collectors Online

36 Hours, a review by Antares

36 Hours (1965) 76/100 - I had never heard of this film and caught it on TCM about a week ago. At first I thought it was going to play out a little like The Americanization of Emily, another war film starring James Garner. But then I was quite surprised when it turned out to be a rather exciting tale of espionage and intrigue which used the D-Day invasion as a backdrop. James Garner plays an OAS operative who is kidnapped in Lisbon by the Nazis, just days before the invasion. He is taken to a special encampment near the Swiss border which is fabricated to look like an American military hospital. Here, he is made to look a few years older by some temporary kind of plastic surgery, in order to create the ruse that he has suffered from amnesia for the last 6 years and that the war is over and the Allies have won. By convincing him of this scenario, they hope by treating him for the amnesia, that he will communicate the actual invasion plans to his physicians. All in all, this film kept me engaged throughout, and the ending of the film is quite satisfactory.

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 October 12th, 2013)

Carnival of Souls: The Criterion Collection, a review by addicted2dvd

Carnival of Souls: The Criterion Collection
Herk Harvey's macabre masterpiece gained a cult following through late night television and has been bootlegged for years. Made by industrial filmmakers on a modest budget, 'Carnival of Souls' was intended to have the "look of a Bergman" and "feel of a Cocteau," and succeeds with its strikingly used locations and spooky organ score. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) survives a drag race in a rural Kansas town, then takes a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she becomes haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her to an abandoned lakeside pavilion. Criterion is proud to present the ultimate special edition of this eerily effective B-movie classic that continues to inspire filmmakers today.

My thoughts:
I have watched this one a couple times before.... is one of my favorite classic horror movies. Before getting this movie recently all I had was a cheap freebie version. So I was looking forward to checking out what Criterion did with it. One thing I liked is that Criterion has both the Theatrical Release as well as the Director's Cut here in this 2-disc set. Since all I ever seen was the Theatrical Release... I thought that this time I would check out the Director's Cut which seems to be about 5 minutes longer. Of course as long as it has been since I seen this movie I unable to point out what was added back in. There definitely was a big improvement to both the audio and video over the freebie version I have. And both discs have a nice collection of extras as well. This is a great release!

(From Weekend Movie Marathon: 4/11 - 4/13 on April 11th, 2008)

"Due South" marathon, a review by Tom

3.13 Mountie on the Bounty - Part 2 (1998-03-22)
Writer: Paul Haggis (Created By), John Krizanc (Story By), Paul Gross (Screenwriter), R.B. Carney (Screenwriter)
Director: George Bloomfield
Cast

(From "Due South" marathon on January 5th, 2010)