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Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds: Live on Stage!, a review by GSyren

Looking at upcoming releases at Amazon UK, I noticed a blu-ray release of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds - The New Generation: Alive On Stage. Being a long time fan of the record album, I was intrigued. But I noticed that they had replaced Richard Burton's narration with Liam Neeson. I was truly disappointed. When they had gone to so much trouble to incorporate Burton's narration into the original stage production, why on earth would they replace it? Now, I have nothing against Neeson, but Burton is so iconic and an integral part of the experience of the record. So anyway, this lead me to dig out the original 2006 show from my archive and watch it once again. And...

Title	Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds: Live on Stage! (5-050582-456738)
Director	David Mallet
Performers	Lewis McCleod, Richard Burton, Justin Hayward, Alexis James, Anna-Marie Wayne
Conducted by	Jeff Wayne
Produced	2006 in United Kingdom
Runtime	110 minutes
Audio	English Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo, English Dolby Digital 5.1, English DTS 5.1
Subtitles	French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch
Overview	Filmed at Wembley Arena on 25th April, 2006, The War of the Worlds Live is a spectacular mix of live music, theatre, multi-media and visual arts on a grand scale. It combines the brilliance of the original performers including Jeff Wayne, Justin Hayward, Chris Thompson and even the late Richard Burton ('In Sight and Sound') along with a brand new cast, the 10-piece Black Smoke Band, the 48-piece ULLAdubULLA Strings and an unforgettable fully operating 30ft Martian Fighting Machine!
My thoughts	For some reason I never bought Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the WorldsEssential viewing!
My rating	4.5 out of 5

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on November 23rd, 2013)

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Mummy, a review by Hal

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Mummy: Comedy Legends (1955/United States) Universal Home Video (United States) Director: Charles Lamont Writing: John Grant (Screenwriter), Lee Loeb (Original Material By) Length: 80 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital: Mono, French: Dolby Digital: Mono, Spanish: Dolby Digital: Mono Subtitles: English

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Stars:
Bud Abbott as Pete Patterson
Lou Costello as Freddie Franklin
Marie Windsor as Madame Rontru
Michael Ansara as Charlie
Dan Seymour as Josef

Plot:Extras:

• Scene Access
• Feature Trailers
• Production Notes
• Closed Captioned

Not a "horror" movie at all, but a spoof of them, if you have an hour and a half to kill with some silly comedy with mummies thrown in for laughs, this might be your cup of tea.  Although not a big fan of Abbott and Costello, they are pretty good in this film, but Richard Deacon cast in the role of an evil Egyptian cult leader, somehow just doesn't ring true for me.  I guess all those appearances on The Dick Van Dyke Show all but make it impossible for me to take him seriously.  Marie Windsor was particularly good in her role, but the studio sets used were pretty bad!  The scene where they road the horses up to the tomb of the princess was really atrocious.  You can't expect much from a low-budget "b" movie I suppose.

Rating:

(From Hal's 2010 Horror Marathon Reviews on October 24th, 2010)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

Oh My Goddess!


My thoughts:
This is a 5-part OVA series from 1993. It successfully condensed the introduction of the main characters to the first three episodes (the new series took for this about half of the season; which is not to say, that that is a bad thing). The last two episodes tell a new story not found in the manga or the new series.
I think this series is a great way to get to know the franchise. I had started with this series. It is not as funny as the new series, but after seeing the new series I can now appreciate the accomplishment of what they archieved in only 5 episodes. You get the feeling of who and what the characters are even in such a limited time. Of course the new series had more time to play with the characters which resulted in all the fun stuff

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on December 30th, 2007)