DVD Collectors Online

Karigurashi no Arietti, a review by dfmorgan

Title: Karigurashi no Arietti
Year: 2010
Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Rating:
Length: 94 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: Japanese: PCM: 2-Channel Stereo, Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio: 5.1, French: DTS: 5.1, Cantonese: DTS: 5.1, Mandarin: DTS: 5.1, Korean: DTS: 5.1
Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Korean

Stars:
Mirai Shida
Ryunosuke Kamiki
Shinobu Ohtake
Keiko Takeshita
Tatsuya Fujiwara

Plot:
14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.

Extras:
Scene Access
Feature Trailers
Bonus Trailers
Featurettes
Interviews
Storyboard Comparisons



(From Ghibli Blu's on July 29th, 2011)

Horrors of Spider Island, a review by Jimmy

Title : Horrors of Spider Island (1960)

Overview
Eight sexy showgirls (including Euro bombshell Barbera Valentin) and their macho manager, Gary (Alex D'Arcy), survive a plane crash by taking refuge on a remote tropical island. As the gals adjust to the heat and humidity by removing most of their clothes, they also meet one of their new neigbours: a dead scientist found hanging in a giant web. Ignoring the obvious, testosterone-fueled Gary blithley takes a midnight stroll until he's bitten by an overgrown, crab-like spider and immediately transforms into a clawed, fanged, hairy-faced bogeyman who does exactly what monsters in horror films are supposed to do: chase women.

My Impression
This one is only good for its historical value as an early european sexploitation movie. It was made in 1960 so it is really low on the nudie content, in fact there is only one skinny diping scene and to be honest we don't really see anything. But there are a lot of beautifull German girls in short dress and bikini, Barbara Valentin is particullary beautifull and this is not really surprising that she had a 41 years career. The film itself is silly as an horror film (the monster is not there often and his not really important), but since the title of the print used for the DVD is It's Hot in Paradise I don't see it as an horror picture at all. Last thing, the english dubbing is really bad.

At least the german title "Ein Toter hing im Netz" make sense since they found a dead man (the professor) stuck in a spider web on the island when they arrive there.

Rating :

(From My Alphabet Marathon Review on November 10th, 2008)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: Kor believes to have learned where the sword of the first klingon emperor Kahless has disappeared to. It was stolen by the Hur'q over a thousand years ago and now it seems to be in the GQ. He wants Dax to join him and he also invites Worf to come with them. And destiny wanted them to find it. But they have an argument about what they should do with it because the sword is a symbol of power and can be used as such.

My Opinion:Synopsis: Garak has broken into the Holosuite where Bashir was just playing a spy of the british government during the cold war. But then a transporter accident happens and the neurological patterns can be stored into the station's computers the only place to save their body patterns is the running Holosuite program. And suddenly it's important not only to win the game but also not to kill any of the characters.

My Opinion: Having watched Casino Royale this tuesday and going to watch Quantum Of Solace coming tuesday I enjoyed this episode very much. Sisko/Dr. Noah was a much better adversary to Bashir than Le Chiffre was to Bond. And O'Brien was great as Falcon The fun episodes of DS9 are always worth watching.

Synopsis: Sisko and Odo are called back to Earth after an explosion has killed 27 conference members including some Romulans. And the wormhole is opening at random intervals, too. On Earth Sisko gets promoted to acting Chief of Starfleet Security and he implements some security measures to ensure the safety of Federation President Jaresh-Inyo and all Starfleet facilities. But it doesn't help. The Founders attack Earth's power grid and disable it. An attack by a cloaked fleet seems imminent.

My Opinion: And now to rather serious business. Benjamin Franklin once said "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Yet, since 9/11 we've seem to have forgotten those words and basically every western country is taking away civil rights and enforces a harder security policy. In the EU every phone call ever made, every connection to the internet is to be logged and stored. In the UK the Interception Modernisation Programme even wants to store every e-Mail ever sent (including spam). In Germany our Minister of the Interior wants the right to secretly go into our houses and install trojan horses on our computers and he wants to use the Bundeswehr within our country (which is strictly forbidden by our constitution). Al-Qaeda despises our way of living and what do we do? We destroy our way of living. It's like committing suicide because we fear death.

Synopsis: The President has declared martial law and the streets are guarded by armed Starfleet troops. But things don't add up. Earth's security has tightened yet no Dominion fleet is attacking. The attack on the power grid wasn't the doing of any Founder - Admiral Leyton did it "for the greater good".

My Opinion: That episode proves the point I made above. Only four changelings on Earth caused all the havocs and they didn't even had to do it themselves. I am just glad that Sisko has seen the error in his way. But would he have seen it if it hadn't been the coup of a Starfleet admiral?

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on November 8th, 2008)