DVD Collectors Online

Simple Men, a review by goodguy

Simple Men (1992)

Cover Blurb: What do you do if your father, a former all-star shortstop and mad bomber anarchist, breaks out of jail? You go after him, of course. Even if his trail leads straight into being caught. Two brothers trek through deepest, darkest Long Island, only to discover that sometimes even the oddest things really are just what they seem.

I love US indie movies. I especially love Hal Hartley's movies. And I absolutely love, love, love Simple Men. It is a suburban melodrama, but not quite. It is an outlaw movie in the tradition of Godard by the way it uses genre cliches to create something else. At the movie's turning point, there is a hommage to the dance scene in Bande a part, which is even more hilarious and "cool" than the original one.

Apropos cool. The characters in Simple Men are cool. But not the larger-than-life (and in the end rather conformistic) Tarantino-cool. They don't try to be cool, they are cool, because they try to be true to themselves. They speak in seemingly artificial rapid-fire dialogue, but if you listen a little closer, they use very short and simple sentences. It is all in the rhythm (think Mamet) and in the juxtaposition of scene and spoken word. And in the choreography, of course. There movements are highly gestural, stage-like, carefully framed. But they are still very real, just not pictured in a naturalistic way.

Simple Men is the last one of Hartley's Lindenhurst trilogy, the other two being The Unbelievable Truth (1989, R1-US 2001) and Trust (1990, only as R4-AU 2005). Trilogy in a themed way, you don't have to watch them all (although you should), or in a particular order.


(From May 2008 Man/Men Marathon - Discussion Thread on May 4th, 2008)

The Vampire Conspiracy, a review by addicted2dvd

Title: The Vampire Conspiracy
Year: 2003
Director: Marc Morgenstern
Rating: NR
Length: 90 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles:

Stars:
Sarah Boes
Adrian M. Pryce
Ron Mazor
Christiane Garcia
John Lopes

Plot:
Five strangers are abducted by a megalomaniacal vampire and put into a deadly maze of wits and endurance. Should they make it through alive, they receive this vampire entire fortune. Should they fail, they become his victims and are placed back into the game, this time as a succubus to hunt the next round of victims.

Extras:
Scene Access

My Thoughts:
This is another movie out of the 50 movie boxset Mortuary of Madness. And for me... this is another winner. It kinda reminds me of one of my favorites... Cube. Sure this movie is very low budget... but it don't hurt it much at all. I would say the acting is pretty good... though not great. If a lot of bad language bothers you for whatever reason this one may bug you a bit. As it seems like they throw in some bad language after every other word. The ending is a bit on the confusing side... but overall I enjoyed this one quite a bit. There is now a few movies in this set that I enjoyed... so I can definitely say I didn't waste $15 on this set!



(From Addicted2DVD's November Alphabet Marathon on November 6th, 2009)

Tom's TV Finales marathon, a review by Tom

[tom]031398201212f.jpg[/tom]

ALF: Season Four (1989/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Lions Gate Home Entertainment (United States) Length: 514 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles:

---

Plot:
"Just think of me as a Melmacian babe magnet!" ALF is back for an encore! That smart-mouthed, always loveable alien keeps us laughing in this fourth and final season. With a special appearance by David Spade, ALF dreams he becomes the world's best comic and, in addition to his already unusual diet, he's addicted to cotton and triest to munch on Willie's pants! Finally, ALF can't resist the chance to settle a new planet with a couple of long-lost extra-terrestrial friends. Will we ever be the same without him? Well, of all the planets in the universe, we're glad he picked this one!


ALF
Season 4.24 Consider Me Gone
Writer: Tom Patchett (Created By), Paul Fusco (Created By), Steve Pepoon (Screenwriter), David Silverman (Screenwriter), Stephen Sustarsic (Screenwriter), Victor Fresco (Screenwriter), Ian Praiser (Story By)
Director: Nick Havinga
Cast: Max Wright (Willie Tanner), Anne Schedeen (Kate Tanner), Andrea Elson (Lynn Tanner), Benji Gregory (Brian Tanner), Richard Fancy (Colonel Halsey), Doug Ballard (Lieutenant Alden), Larry Poindexter (Sergeant Armstrong), Sherman Howard (Officer), Paul Fusco (Gordon "ALF" Shumway), Charles Nickerson (Eric Tanner)

This has a WTF ending. I always thought it was a ballsy move to do, and I am a little disappointed, that it was not planned as the series finale, but only a season cliffhanger. As a series finale you wouldn't have expected to end it this way. There was a TV movie resolving the ending years later, but in my opinion it didn't do it justice.

Rating:

(From Tom's TV Finales marathon on January 26th, 2013)