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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a review by dfmorgan

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Year: 2009
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Tom Waits, Heath Ledger
Overview: Directed by visionary genius Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus features Heath Ledger in his last role, plus a stellar cast including Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is an immortal who leads a travelling theatre troupe. Their props include the 'Imaginarium' - a mirror doubling as a magic doorway into a world that makes your wildest dreams a reality.

Parnassus's immortality has come at a price however - he will lose his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) to the Devil himself (Tom Waits) unless he persuades five more souls to lose themselves in the Imaginarium. "A wild and wonderful fantasy" - Alan Frank, Daily Star

Watched: 27th Mar 2010
My Thoughts: Ok a strange film but then again not. Terry Gilliam in a weird phase, been there before and will be again, but making an excellent film which in places was very Pythonesque, not too sure if that is good or bad. There will be nuances and depths that I have missed in this first viewing, one thing you can't do with a Terry Gilliam film is to remove your brain and let it rest on the side, but hopefully they will appear and clear when I rewatch this in future. The basic premise is the usual fight between Good and Evil represented here by Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) as the Good and Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) as the Devil. Both these came over well and with good support from Verne Troyer, Andrew Garfield and Lily Cole as Doctor Parnassus's troupers.

One of the main talking points about this film, also heavily touched upon by Terry Gilliam in his introduction to the film, was the fact that Heath Ledger died before his role had been completed. Three other actors, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, stepped in to save the film by taking on the uncompleted parts which luckily were those that involved Heath Ledger stepping into the Imaginarium. Did that work? I have to say that to me it appeared that yes it did work, I presume though that Terry Gilliam and his co-writer had to amend their original scripts to cater for this but it came over well.

My Rating: Overall a 4

Dave

(From Dave's DVD/Blu-ray Reviews on March 28th, 2010)

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, a review by GSyren

Title	Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (043396-265738)
Director	Fred F. Sears
Actors	Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor, Donald Curtis, Morris Ankrum, John Zaremba
Produced	1956 in United States
Runtime	83 minutes
Audio	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, French Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Arabic, English, French, Japanese, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish
Overview	Aliens are everywhere, and they're attacking planet Earth in one of Ray Harryhausen's most amazing stop-motion sci-fi classics. Dr. Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) works for Operation Sky Hook, a governement task force sending rockets into space to probe for future space flights. But when the rockets begin mysteriously disappearing, Dr. Marvin investigates along with his wife Carol (Joan Taylor), only to find the rockets are being intercepted by an army of space aliens who give humanity an ultimatum: loyality or death! As the aliens begin attacking cities and landmarks across the Earth - including an unforgettable assult on Washington D.C. - it's up to Dr. Marvin and his wife to figure out how to stop these diabolical creatures before it's too late.
My thoughts	I hate to say it, but Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is possibly my least favorite Harryhausen movie. I might even have liked it more if Harryhausen hadn't been involved in it. The reason is that I think Harryhausen's efforts were pretty much wasted on the movie. There was nothing in the saucers themselves that needed or warranted animation. The spinning motion could easily have been accomplished by other mechanical means. The saucers crashing into various buildings and monuments was interesting, but such crashes usually means falling debris, which is extremely difficult to get to look realistic using stop motion. It almost always screams "fake", even when Harryhausen does it. In addition, the aliens don't seem to have any kind of plan. They just fly around Washington shooting randomly at various buildings, waiting for the humans to pick them off with their hastily constructed weapons. So, I'm sorry, but I have a real hard time getting excited about this film. I know many others love it, but i just don't.
My rating	A magnanimous 3 out of 5

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on July 2nd, 2013)

The One Where It All Began: The Pilot Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Firefly



What's the show about?
Captain Reynolds commands an old Firefly class starship called "Serenity", after the Serenity Valley, where a deciding battle in the Unification War has taken place. Reynolds and his crew smuggle stuff and loot abandoned ships as well as they do regular transports of people and cattle. And they try to avoid contact with The Alliance and the Reavers.

"Serenity"
While they're looting a ship an Alliance cruiser detects the Serenity and they can barely escape but now they've got a search warrant for them and their employer won't take the looted items. In a try to sell them elsewhere they take passengers to the planet Boros with a little detour...

My Opinion
To sad that the show only lasted for a dozen episodes. It was an interesting concept especially with all these different characters and the ambiguous captain.

(From The One Where It All Began: The Pilot Marathon on January 3rd, 2008)