DVD Collectors Online

What Price Hollywood?, a review by Antares

What Price Hollywood? (1932) 3.5/5 - A Pre-Code precursor to both A Star is Born and Sunset Blvd. about a waitress who is discovered by a famous director and catapulted to stardom, all the while the director's career is fading.  What makes this pre-code work is Lowell Sherman's performance as the washed up director, and the realism in the story about what Hollywood fame does to him. Just two years later a film like this could have never been made and stayed true to its story. Clocking in at a quick 88 minutes, we get a view of Hollywood that would be white washed just a few years later at the hands of the Breen Office. This is my second film starring Constance Bennett and its a shame that her career was so reminiscent of a shooting star. She definitely had a good screen presence and had enough moxie to make her roles interesting.

(From Antares' Short Summations on April 16th, 2012)

Wyatt Earp, a review by Rogmeister

Wyatt Earp
Directed by Lawrence Kasdan
Music by James Newton Howard

Interestingly, this movie and another movie about Wyatt Earp called Tombstone both hit the big screen within a year or so of each other...maybe they both came out the same year...I'm not real sure.  But becasue they were released so quickly together, many people compared them together which may be an unfortunate thing.  I've yet to see the other film so I won't do that.  Unlike Tombstone, which I assume concentrates on one part of Wyatt Earp's career, this film (which was originally planned to be a TV mini-series and later turned into a feature film when director Kasdan came aboard.  Perhaps the span was too great for one film...it certainly is a long one, beginning when WSyatt was a teenager and ending a bit after the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (with a tacked-on finale with Wyatt in his later years following the Alaskan Gold Rush.  This film stars Kevin Costner as Wyatt with a terrific performance by Dennis Quaid as Doc Holiday who lost a lot of weight t play the ill doctor who was suffering from tuberculosis.  There's a lot of familiar names in this film from Isabella Rosselini (as Big-Nose Kate) to Tom Skerritt.  It's got some great photography and a great score and I can't complain about the direction.  But I do think the film is a bit long and includes perhaps too much.  Among the extras, in fact, are even more scenes that didn't make the final cut...here they call them "lifted" rather than deleted scenes for some reason.  There are also some other extras including a documentary and TV special.  My one gripe about the DVD is they divide the movie over 2 discs...at one point you have to take Disc 1 out and put in Disc 2 to continue watching the film.  But while I do think the film includes too wide a sweep, I must say I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would since I had read a few not-so-great reviews of this film.  This isn't the best Wyatt Earp film around but I did enjoy it.

(From Roger's Ongoing Westerns Marathon on December 20th, 2009)

Miracles Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

4. Little Girl Lost
A little girl keeps appearing to Paul Callan just before several disasters occur, causing him to wonder if she is responsible for them and, if so, why?

Guest Stars:
Gloria Stuart
Allisyn Ashley Arm
James Greene
Melinda Page Hamilton

My Thoughts:
This is one of my favorite episodes. I was glued to the screen watching this episode. There is something extra eerie about a ghost story when it is about the ghost of a young child. And I must admit... they got a good effect with little effort. just a little bit of a couple different shades of gray makeup on the face of a good child actress. This kid must of been good at taking direction as you could just see the pain and sorrow in her face. I just loved this episode... everyone did an excellent job!

My Rating:

(From Miracles Marathon on December 23rd, 2009)