DVD Collectors Online

The Incredibles, a review by Dragonfire

The Incredibles My Thoughts I love this movie...though that probably isn't a surprise since I love all Pixar movies.  I first saw this one in the theater when it came out and I've watched it several times on DVD.  I love the plot of having superheroes having to live like normal people.  With how quick so many people are to sue over everything now, I thought it was believable that superheroes were sued for helping people...or like Mr. Incredible...messing up that guy's death.  I like the dynamic with the family and how they all have their own abilities and issues.  The plot does end up being a bit more complicated than it seemed at first.  It is very entertaining and I was surprised by more than one thing that happened.  The humor works really well without getting overly silly or resorting to gross humor.  The animation is wonderful.  Everything has a unique look.  It is sort of retro and futuristic at the same time.  The characters look good, though they aren't realistic looking humans.  The proportions on the bodies - like Mirage's teeny tiny waist - are a bit exaggerated, but that manages to work for the characters.  The hair, especially on Violet, looks amazing and moves so realistically.  The various settings in the movie all have interesting looks.  The characters are all interesting and entertaining.  I think it is very believable that Bob is struggling to deal with his normal life.  Helen seems to have adjusted a bit more, though she has her own issues.  The children seem believable and they aren't annoying.  Syndrome makes a wonderful villain and his motivation works for the movie.  For me, the character of Edna stole every scene she was in.  I loved her and wish she would have been around a bit more.  And her no cape thing makes sense too.  Unfortunately, this one isn't out on Blu-ray yet.  I have the 2 disc DVD.  There are a lot of interesting extras focused on the making of the movie.  I really enjoyed them.  There is a cute animated short that shows what goes on at home with Jack Jack too that is really funny and entertaining. This movie has held up very well and I still love it.  It is definitely worth watching. I posted a review on Epinions after seeing the movie in the theater in 2004. The Incredibles

(From The Incredibles on June 27th, 2010)

The King's Speech, a review by Antares

The King's Speech (2010) 4/5 - A very good film with two very outstanding performances by Colin Firth & Geoffrey Rush. The more I see of Rush's work the more appreciation I have for his skills. He's starting to remind me of Claude Rains, one of the greatest character actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and who would always be the scene stealer when he was onscreen. Putting the great performances aside, when the film was finished, I felt that maybe while it was a good film, I didn't feel it was worthy of the Oscar for Best Picture.

(From Antares' Short Summations on March 11th, 2014)

Friends: The One With All Ten Seasons, a review by DJ Doena

In opposition to the early adopters I've always been more of a late adoper. Especially when it comes to trends and hypes. Every time a hype is rolling I am against it per se. And to be honest in most cases the hype doesn't last long and it was a good thing I wasn't being involved in that crap.

Something like that happend with Friends. It was running on TV all the time but I haver felt any connection to that flat sharing community from New York. Over the years I watched a few episodes but I had never the urge to zap in the next week. Since a few months, Friends is running again on the german TV station Kabel 1 and I watched a few episoded again.

When we talked about this show at work, a friend of mine recommended this show wholeheartedly. He watched it during its original run and additionally with the original soundtrack (usually movies and shows are dubbed in germany).

Thus I made the decision to buy this show three years after it ended. And I decided to buy the entire show at once. Unfortunately the german box
And what can I say: I was fascinated from the first episodes on. The facial expressions and the gestures of the actors and the jokes are awesome.

But the most important element of the show is a continuing story telling. As I have stated before, TV shows must have a continuing storyline to be interesting. I grew up in the 80s and (being born in east germany) I watched a lot of "Westfernsehen" (TV stations from west germany). I watched everything the TV stations deemed worthy of broadcasting: Star Trek, The Fall Guy, Riptide, MacGyver and so on. But somewhere in the history of making TV shows they switched to continuing stories. Examples for this are Babylon 5 and later on also Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Both shows, as well as Emergency Room and Friends started in the years 1993/1994. In my opinion these shows had a lasting impact on TV shows.

Some say that Friends was corny and contained many soap elements (especially the Ross/Rachel story and the season cliffhangers) but they always spiced it up with a great pinch of humour.

But let's look on other comedy shows in comparison: Married With Children, Home Improvement and King of Queens. All sitcoms in the classical fashion with a certain set of places (first and foremost the living room) that remain constant throughout the years. The difference is that the characters only change slightly or not at all. Granted, the children get older but other than that very few things change. If you watch an episode of the first or seventh season becomes only clear through the age of the actors. That's my personal reason why I stopped collection these shows. There is no need to watch the next episode. You've had a few good laughs but when the next episode begins everything has been resetted.

On Friends there is the additional element of the relations between the characters. This is through the chosen setting (6 friends). Almost all characters are "combinable", while the classic sitcoms is based upon a family and thus the characters have defined relations among each other.  Just the combinations of who is roomie with whom and situations based on that are simply not doable in other sitcoms.

The next thing is the ensemble. No one of the six is perfectly normal but that is not unusual among sitcoms (Al Bundy, Steve Urquel, Dharma Freedom Finkelstein-Montgomery) but in this show everyone is a bit of a weirdo. And they are well-balanced. Nowadays Jennifer Aniston may be the well-knownst actress but I had never the feeling  one of the characters  was missed out. No character outshone all others nor was anyone over-shadowed. Granted, Joey had the least character developement of all (although he made a great leap forward over the last two seasons) but that doesn't mean the others outshone him.

So I watched The One Where It All Began for the first time on October, 18th and in the night from November 1st to 2nd The Last One

(From Friends: The One With All Ten Seasons on November 2nd, 2007)