DVD Collectors Online

Yankee Doodle Dandy, a review by Antares

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) 80/100 - It must have been such a refreshing tonic to a beleaguered populace in the early days of World War II, to see such a rousing, patriotic piece of propaganda exalting the virtues of a nation founded upon personal liberty. In the time it took to make this film, we had suffered the disaster of Pearl Harbor, the loss of Wake Island, Guam and Douglas MacArthur was riding a PT boat to Australia as the Philippines was soon to fall. There would be many patriotic films made in the next few years, but none would strike the chords that this film would. George M. Cohan was no saint, and his story is somewhat whitewashed, but he did more for national fervor than any other entertainer, or politician for that matter. The values he extolled in his songs now seem dated and naive, but there was a time when this nation stood for something and looking back now on this film, it makes me sad how far we have fallen. As for the film itself, it is a bit long and I now see the advantage of watching this so many years ago with commercial breaks on UHF television. There are those who find it corny and overly sentimental, but as I've said before with films from the Golden Age of Hollywood, allow yourself to drift away to a much simpler time and you'll be rewarded tenfold. I'd still take a film like this over any of today's CGI laden explosion pulp which seems to be cranked out ad nauseum. If this film doesn't make you feel even the slightest bit patriotic, then you have no sense of history and how crucial our role was in it.

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 May 1st, 2015)

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, a review by Jon

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection
2 out of 5

What an unfortunate title. After the sheer, wonderful brilliance of Tremors, the sequel could only be a disappointment, but it was still good fun. This, though, is about as far from "Perfection" as you can get.

Tremors used it's budget to great effect with some brilliant use of gory effects and the next film continued that, but introduced CGi to handle the more ambitious second-stage creatures. Here, it's almost exclusively CGi and it's bloody awful. The film quality deteriorates every time CGi is about to be used! And frankly, the new "ass blaster" form is pathetic. Flying versions of the Shriekers powered by farts? Good grief.

The best parts of the film are those with the original style worm, called El Blanco, a sterile albino worm seemingly very fond of Burt (Michael Gross) and the sequence where he gets eaten was very Men In Black and hilarious! The Shriekers would have been acceptable too, but we never actually see them (apart from a prologue sequence which is just terrible).

It was nice to see several of the original actors returning, especially the kids (including Ariana Richards, who did Jurassic Park between these), but the Burt character was never ideal for lead, especially without Reba McEntire at his side.

(From Jon's Random Reviews on July 12th, 2009)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

Step by Step (1991/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Warner Home Video (United States) Length: 138 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: French, Spanish

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Plot:
When Frank met Carol, sparks flew. And when J.T., Al and Brendan (Frank's kids) met Dana, Karen and Mark (Carol's kids), more sparks flew - the kind that could send Frank and Carol's romance up in smoke. Can two parents who love each other and six kids who don't ever become one big, happy family?

Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers star in the sprightly, big-hearted comedy that proves there's only one way to make a blended family work: take it Step by Step. Enjoy six memorable episodes, including the pilot (nothin' says lovin' like a food fight), two holiday-perfect Christmas shows and lots of wacky mischief as the kids grow up...and family bonds grow strong.

Step by Step
1.01 Pilot

I never really followed this series, but I watched it from time to time when I happened to catch it on TV. I especially enjoyed the building romance between Dana and her step-brother's best friend (I don't remember his name now), which happened towards the end of the series.
I enjoyed the pilot. It is a good introduction to the series.

Rating:


(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on July 26th, 2012)