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Futurama: Bender's Game, a review by Dragonfire

Futurama: Bender's Game

With fuel prices skyrocketing, the Planet Express crew sets off on a dangerous mission: to infiltrate the world's only dark-matter mine, source of all spaceship fuel.  But deep beneath the surface lies a far stranger place...a medieval land of dragons and sorcery and intoxicated knights who look suspiciously like Bender.  So park your hover-car and saddle up your unicorn for Futurama's grandest adventure yet... Bender's Game.

My Thoughts

I loved Futurama and am still annoyed that Fox canceled it - along with some other very good shows.  Anyway, I was very happy when I learned that some direct to DVD Futurama movies were being made and I got the first two, Futurama: Bender's Big Score and Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs when they came out.  This movie didn't reference anything that happened in the first two, so it is more self contained than they were.  There were no story threads left unresolved from the second one.

The plot was a bit different, but I think that is typical of Futurama in general.  It was very entertaining and I think fans will be happy with it.  The story featured a combination of things connected to Dungeons and Dragons and The Lord of the Rings that I think worked very well and was very entertaining.  It was hilarious to watch Bender get sucked into the game and end up in a robot asylum.  The characters ended up in a fantasy world that was very interesting.  I thought the movie was funny as well.  The characters still acted like they had throughout the series without anyone having a major personality change.  Leela, Fry, and Bender really ended up with the most to do overall.  The other regular characters like the Professor, Amy, Hermes and Dr. Zoidberg were also around. 

I also enjoyed the extras.  There is a short featurette featuring a few men involved in the making of the movie talking about Dungeons and Dragons and how they incorporated it into Futurama.  They pointed out some references to the game that popped up during the episodes.  There was one deleted scene shown and some outtakes from recording sessions with the voice cast that were funny.  It would have been nice if there had been more extras. 

I don't like the case for the DVD..that is a minor thing, but I just don't like it.  Like the first two Futurama movies, it is just cardboard.  It says on the case that it is carbon neutral and how the makers are being more environmentally friendly.  I don't have a problem with that, but this type of case does not keep the disc secure.  I have to be very careful with these cases because I've had the first two movies go flying out when I was just picking up the case.  It wasn't like I was waving it all around or anything.  Anyway, the movie is still great and fans of Futurama will probably enjoy it.

 

(From My November Alphabet Marathon on November 6th, 2008)

The Blood of Fu Manchu , a review by samuelrichardscott

The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) R0 USA DVD

Overview
From his secret lair deep within the South American jungle, international super-villain Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) and his sadistic daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin of THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) reveal their latest diabolical plot for world domination: ten beautiful women are infected with an ancient poison so deadly that one kiss from their lips will bring instant death and lead to a global plague. Now the Asian madman's nemesis, Nayland Smith (Richard Greene of TALES FROM THE CRYPT), must desperately hunt an antidote in a savage land where rape and torture reign and the ultimate evil lies in THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU.

Maria Rohm (THE BLOODY JUDGE) and Shirley Eaton (GOLDFINGER) co-star in this wild Fu Manchu feature written and produced by Harry Alan Towers (VENUS IN FURS) and directed by the one and only Jess Franco (VAMPYROS LESBOS, EUGENIE). Released in America as KISS AND KILL, Blue Underground has fully restored THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU from its original European negative complete with additional scenes of nudity and violence!

Thoughts
I bought this for several reasons: I'm generally very happy with Blue Underground's output, I'm a fan of Christopher Lee and I'm a fan of Jess Franco. Unfortunately, this film, based on the character of Fu Manchu (whom until this film I was not familiar with) disappoints slightly. Lee overacts (not a problem), and Franco's direction is his standard nudity/violence affair (again, not a problem) but I felt that whilst the idea of Fu Manchu giving ten woman poison so that when they kiss the world's most powerful men, the men die, was a good one it was put together in a rather unconventional way without enough thought to structure. Fans of Franco and Lee might enjoy, but I would recommended a rental first. 2.5/5

(From Never Ending Movie Marathon (short reviews) on July 6th, 2011)

Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Second Season, a review by addicted2dvd

Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Second Season: Uncut (2005/United States)

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Stars:
Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey
Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang
Katherine Heigl as Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens
Justin Chambers as Dr. Alex Karev
T. R. Knight as Dr. George O'Malley
Chandra Wilson as Dr. Miranda Bailey
James Pickens, Jr. as Dr. Richard Webber

Extras:

• Audio Commentary
• Bonus Trailers
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Closed Captioned

I just finished watching season 2 of this series. As I said before... this is definitely one of my favorite medical dramas. This is the first full season of the series. As season 1 only had 9 episodes. And it pulled off a great season with ease. I especially enjoyed the couple of 2 part episodes that is in this season. Especially the one where they have to deal with an unexploded bomb inside of a patient. That is about as a suspenseful of an episode as you can get.




(From Addicted2dvd's Random TV Series Watched on November 26th, 2011)