DVD Collectors Online

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe, a review by Antares

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe (1972) 62/100 - Edgar Allan Poe was the first author that I fell in love with when I was young. The brevity of his stories, along with their macabre nature and rich imagery, easily cemented Poe's genius in my mind. To that end, like almost anything one reads, you have a preconceived notion of how the characters look and sound in your mind. Unfortunately for me, these notions were at odds with the performances of Vincent Price in four of Poe's short stories. The film clocked in at a meager 53 minutes, but felt like two hours. I love Vincent Price, and I could understand AIP's reason for having him do these one man recitations. The man's a legend of the Gothic horror genre and one would think that this would be a marriage made in heaven. But it's only 25% successful.

The Tell-Tale Heart - This is where my preconceived imagery was most glaringly at odds with Price's performance. I always saw the narrator of the tale as being coldly aloof and calculating in his manner, kind of like Hannibal Lecter. But Price plays him as if he's raging mad and his performance in this segment is overly melodramatic and it ruins the suspense of the matter of the old man's murder.

The Sphinx - Considered a lesser work from Poe, this was probably included to add a bit of whimsy to the four segment structure of stories. It's pretty light fare, but Price plays this one quite well. But that's to be expected as Price always had the knack for devilish type humor in his many portrayals.

The Cask of Amontillado - This was a short story that I never truly cared for when I first read it. But it turned out to be my favorite of the four segments as Price plays this one without the histrionics of the first and last stories in the film. What I found most interesting was the way that the director used alternating, quick edits of both of Price's facial profiles to render the conversation of the two men in the catacombs, a nice touch.

The Pit and the Pendulum - Once again, to augment the mood of dread inherent in the protagonist's plight, Price ratchets his bombast to a delirious and overwrought dimension in this final segment. I probably could have dealt with it better if he hadn't done it in the first segment also, but by now, it just came across as noisy and disengaging.

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 13th, 2012)

My Little Bride, a review by Tom

My Little Bride (2004/South Korea) IMDb | Wikipedia EDKO Films (Hong Kong) Director: Ho-joon Kim Writing: Sun-il Yu (Writer) Length: 116 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78 Audio: Korean: DTS ES 6.1 (Discrete), Korean: Dolby Digital 5.1, Cantonese: DTS 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: Chinese, English

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Stars:
Rae-won Kim as Park Sang-min
Geun-Young Moon as Seo Bo-eun
Sun-yeong Ahn as Teacher Kim
Bo-kyeong Kim as Ji-su
In-mun Kim as Bo-eun's grandfather

Plot:
Boeun is an ordinary high school girl who worries about her study and gets a crush on baseball team ace at school. One day, her grandfather orders her and Samgmin to get married. Sangmin, who grew up with Boeun and now an university student, always makes fun of Boeun and treats her like a little sister. Although both of them object this marriage, their undercover marriage life begins and Boeun even starts dating the team ace. It seems everything goes smooth until Sangmin is assigned to Boeun's school as a pupil teacher...

Extras:

• Music Videos
• Photo Gallery
• Production Notes
• Scene Access
• Trailers

The cover doesn't help disclaim the notion that this is some sick movie. They chose to show her like she is supposed to be some little girl. But she is a 16 year old high school student and he is in his early 20s. Of course she is still too young to marry, but it is handled quite well here. They both are forced by their families into this marriage and they both are opposed to this idea. They never crossed the line in this movie of making it immoral.
The movie is worth a watch, even though it may not have any particular surprises

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on October 21st, 2010)

"Stargate SG-1" Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: For three months Jonas Quinn has been on Earth and in the SGC. Now he is allowed to leave for the first time, SG-1 takes him with them to Area 51, where the X-302 has been completed. After the X-301 disaster the X-302 is completely man-made and with the help of the Naqahdriah it even has an hyperlight drive - the Death Gliders don't have one.
But then Teal'c has to return to Chulak because his wife is dying and his son blames him for that. While he's there someone opens the Stargate to Earth but it doesn't close again.

My Opinion: As predicted, Anubis now turns his attention to Earth but obviously he doesn't dare to trike openly - yet. The X-302 has its charme because she really looks like a mixture of stealth bomber and Death Glider. I also like Jack's question if it has Phasers when Sam enumerated all the features.

Synopsis: A little more than 50 hours until the Stargate overloads and will blow up the state of Colorado and poison the atmosphere. The Stargate can't be disabled and ths SGC has no way to contact the Asgard. But then Jonas has an idea and Bra'tac, Teal'c and Rya'c do their best to save Earth.

My Opinion: A good conclusion to this two-parter, especially because they didn't find a technobabble solution to close the Gate but really had to dispose it. And the second Gate didn't come out of nowhere thus it was no miracle solution. Ironically the now installed Gate is the original one and the blown up one is the Antarctica Gate.
BTW: This was the fourth time a Battlestar Galactica cast member made an appearance: Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol in BSG) played of of Anubis's Jaffa.

Synopsis: A Ha'tak has entered orbit around Earth but it doesn't attack. SG-1 - whose most recent addition has been Jonas Quinn - and Jacob/Selmak fly to the ship in a Tel'tak. The ship has been abandoned and it is the same ship in which Thor was held prisoner.

My Opinion: I like Jonas. He has an innocent, curious nature. He hasn't yet seen what SG-1 has seen and one really believes that he wants to become a part of it.
A really good effect was when the ring transporter "beamed" Jonas and the water pillar.

Synopsis: Four years after the Antarctica Gate has been discovered a young woman is found - but she is not Jaffa but instead several million years old. She is one of the Ancients but she looks like a human. That means today's humans are only the second evolution of this form on this planet and that can't be a coincedence.

My Opinion: I don't know why but Ayiana always reminded me of Leeloo from The Fifth Element. We also see that Jonas has the same talent Daniel had when it comes to connecting with other beings. Apart from that the episode wasn't that interesting.

(From "Stargate SG-1" Marathon on April 7th, 2008)