DVD Collectors Online

Shutter, a review by Jimmy

Title : Shutter (2004)

Overview
Late one night on a country road. Tun and Jane accidentally run down a mysterious pedestrian. Fleeing the scene, they return to their lives in Bangkok, but soon discover that life has returned to anything but normal. Nightmares haunt Jane's dreams while Tun, a photographer, notice odd spectral figures begin to appear in his work. Returning to investigate the site of the accident, they can find neither rumour nor report of the victim. But when one by one, Tun's closest friends begin to die, he and Jane know they must unravel this mystery before it unravels their very lives.

My Impression
Those Asians are certainly the master to create fear without a lot of blood or music trick. This one is another one who deal with the spirit world (sometimes it get annoying since 90% of their horror films are based on that), but this one deal with the remorse and sorrow emotions also. Of course if you have seen a lot of these Asian films you will get a good idea from the start where this film will go, but it countains a good part of surprise. Be sure that this film will make you jump by moment and that some moments are really scary (by exemple the ladder scene near the end or the moving spirit in the series of polaroid). By moment the films is confusing but all will become clearer while the story progress. This isn't an american production, so don't expect a feel good ending.

Rating :

(From Jimmy's 2009 Horror Marathon on October 9th, 2009)

The Sky Crawlers, a review by dfmorgan

The Sky Crawlers

Year: 2008
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Cast: Ryō Kase, Rinko Kikuchi, Shōsuke Tanihara

OverviewWatched: 31st. Jul 2010
My Thoughts: A strange anime. Mamoru Oshii appears to have used multiple film techniques with this film. There appears to be real film backgrounds, CGI animation and traditional cel animation in use at various times plus apparently all the aerial sequences were filmed in 3D-CGI. Much of the cel animation is used within the character interaction and ground based sequences and is very flat with very little depth.

The film itself is set in an alternate history where wars are now fought between corporations to avoid harm to the populace. The combatants in the wars are easily replaced clones called Kildren. This film is about a fighter pilot Yuichi Kannami. Yuichi is deployed to a front-line squadron and upon arrival he tries to find out about his predecessor.

My Rating: An overall 3

Dave

(From Dave's DVD/Blu-ray Reviews on August 1st, 2010)

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

Synopsis: After a member of an SG team has attacked a Tok'ra the latter reveal that the Goa'uld have found a way to temper with the human mind. Without the knowlegde of the victim he/she is programmed for an assassination and it is conceiled with false memories. The problem is, that a summit between the president of the Unites States and the Tok'ra high council is coming up. This is endangered by two sleepers within the SGC: Sam and Jack.

My Opinion: Althought it was sad that Martouf died, I really liked this episode, especially the solution of why Sam and Jack aren't Zatarcs. I also liked, when Freya hit on Jack especially with her very "curve-hugging" outfit.

Synopsis: After an ancient device has been activated on a remote planet, Jack and Teal'c are stuck in a time loop, that lasts 10 hours. Every time the loop starts again only they can remember previous iterations.

My Opinion: Also a ver good episode that I liked a lot, practically it's a Groundhog Day episode - a fact that is mentioned by Jack at the end. I enjoyed it very much.

Synopsis: After the Stargate can't be opened again the SGC finds out the the Russians have resurrected the original Stargate from the bottom of the sea (where it lay since the crash of Thor's ship). But now they've opened a wormhole that can't be closed again and they need the help of SG-1.

My Opinion: What I liked about this episode is that the Russians are not portrayed as backward hillbillies. Okay, the screwed the pooch and Jack doesn't like them per se, but Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation) played her role very well.

Synopsis: Daniel is on an excavation mission with another SG team. The planet is supposed to be the home planet of the Goa'ulds. They find skeletons and fossils of Goa'uld queens, but there are also the first hosts of the Goa'ulds: The Unas.

My Opinion: I liked this episode, too, because the Unas were portrayed as much more that the killing machines they've been before. Of course they are an extremly primitive race but it is possible to build a rapport to them and Daniel was the perfect person to do that. Funny was the reference to the Stargate movie where Daniel - just like this time - started an interaction with the help of army food.

(From "Stargate SG-1" Marathon on March 28th, 2008)