DVD Collectors Online

THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: The Massie Affair, a review by Antares

THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: The Massie Affair (2005) 86/100 - The year 1931 will never go down in the annuls of American history as a hallmark of harmony amongst the races of this country. Instead, it will be remembered as a benchmark for bigotry and injustice. Earlier in the year, the infamous Scottsboro Boys incident took place in Alabama, as nine innocent black men were accused of raping two white women. In a state known for being the one of the most intolerant of equal rights for blacks in the deep south, this was and could be expected. Jim Crow laws had been on the books for decades and most of the population was still fighting the Civil War. The Massie Affair would take place thousands of miles away, in an island paradise, where racial tensions were every bit as high as in the "Old South". In September of that year, Thalia Massie, a transplanted member of an east coast socialite family, was in Hawaii with her husband, who happened to be an officer in the U.S. Navy. They were on the brink of divorce, but were trying to work things out. Thalia, being the socialite spawn that she was, always looked down upon the Navy and felt herself above its members. She and her husband attended a party on the 12th, a party in which Thalia was not happy to be attending. Some time during the night, she left her husband at the party and decided to take a walk. According to her statement to police, she was accosted by a group of men who took her to a deserted section of road and beaten and raped. She could not identify her attackers or tell the police if they had been white or Hawaiian. What transpired after this preliminary investigation would set forth in motion, a series of events that would make Scottsboro look like a minor traffic violation. In the months that followed, there would an acquittal, revenge murder and finally, a once admired lawyer would sully his reputation by defending those who perpetrated the murder of one of the original defendants. This is a story that should never be allowed to be forgotten.

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on December 4th, 2014)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a review by GSyren

Title	Who Framed Roger Rabbit (8-717418-389642)
Director	Robert Zemeckis
Actors	Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Charles Fleischer, Stubby Kaye
Produced	1988 in United States
Runtime	104 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS-HD High Resolution 5.1, Italian Dolby Digital 5.1, German Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Danish, English, French, German, Finnish, Italian, Commentary, Norwegian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish
Overview
My thoughts	You've all seen this film, right? If you haven't, shame on you! It's a brilliant film. Not only is it funny, but the interaction between the cartoons and the real world objects is done in a most amazing way. Looking at it on Blu, the minor technical flaws that has always been there shows up more a bit clearly than on the old DVD. This is especially noticeable in some of the darker scenes. That has led some reviewers to feel that the picture quality on the BD is actually inferior to the DVD. That's unfair. For the most part the pq is better. Not drastically better, but better. But perhaps not so much better that a double dip is really warranted. The extras seem to be pretty much the same as the old 2-disc Vista Series DVD from '03, so if you've got that one the BD doesn't have that much to offer. Looking at Roger Rabbit today one has to remember that it was made in the eighties. 1986 thru 1988 to be precise. Yes, they spent a long time making this film. Would it have looked different if it had been made today? Perhaps. But you can't compare WFRR to CGI efforts like Toy Story. You couldn't make WFRR with CGI. The whole point would be lost. The film as such I rate as 4.5 / 5, but I'm deducting half a point for the pq flaws. It's still a really cool film, so if you don't have it in your collection already, now is the time to buy it, on BD or DVD. The extras reveal a lot of how hard the film was to make, so if you've only seen this in the cinema, you have missed quite a bit. Highly recommended.
My rating	4 out of 5

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on June 29th, 2013)

Tom's Random Star Trek Reviews, a review by Tom

Star Trek
3.11 Wink of an Eye
Writer: Arthur Heinemann (Screenwriter), Lee Cronin (Original Material By), Gene Roddenberry (Original Characters By)
Director: Jud Taylor
Cast: William Shatner (Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), Kathie Browne (Deela), Jason Evers (Rael), James Doohan (Scott), George Takei (Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel), Erik Holland (Ekor), Geoffrey Binney (Compton)

An episode about some time-accelerated aliens who try to take over the Enterprise. A nice episode, but nothing really special.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Star Trek Reviews on October 28th, 2011)