DVD Collectors Online

Dog Soldiers, a review by addicted2dvd

Title: Dog Soldiers
Movie Count: 46
TV Ep Count: 16
Time Started: 8am
Plot:
A band of soldiers is dispatched to war games deep in the woods . When they stumble across a rival team slaughtered in camp, they realize they're not alone. Something deadly is waiting in the darkness: something not animal and not human. Holed up in an abandoned farmhouse, the soldiers start a bloody battle against the beasts. Dawn is only a few hours away but they may not live to see it.

My Thoughts:
I bought this one several years ago while at Walmart one day... not only was it a Blind Buy at that time... but it was also an Impulse Buy... I spotted it up on the shelf... felt the front cover looked interesting and just tossed it into my cart... I remember I never even read the back of the box. Yes... back then I liked to gamble with the DVDs I bought a little bit. In this case the gamble really paid off... I enjoyed this movie from start to finish! I think I really liked this one because it is different then most werewolf movies what  with it happening to a group of soldiers. For those concerned about gore... be warned this one has it's share. I definitely feel safe recommending this movie!

(From Month-Long Horror/Halloween Marathon on October 16th, 2007)

A Scanner Darkly, a review by RossRoy

Original Title: A Scanner Darkly Year: 2006 Country: United States Director: Richard Linklater Rating: R Length: 100 Min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

What they say
'What does a scanner see? Into the head? Into the heart?' From the novel by Philip K. Dick - the sci-fi legend whose works-to-film include 'Blade Runner', 'Total Recall' and 'Minority Report' - comes 'A Scanner Darkly', brought to the screen by filmmaker Richard Linklater with an edgy graphic-novel look.

The time: just beyond now. The place: suburbia. The story: a twisted, funny tale of people hooked on Substance D. And of a government that cheerfully destroys its citizens - their rights, their relationships - in order to save them. Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and Rory Cochrane play strung-out friends terrified of each other and of spies, Keanu Reeves plays a spy who's also one of the friends...until his two personalities begin to split. Enjoy the paranoia. Nobody's watching you. Really.

My Thoughts
That was ... odd. It may be because I dozed off at the end, in the last 20 minutes or so, but I'm completely lost about this. The whole movie feels like a drug trip ... which is probably exactly what they were trying to achieve though! But the ending.. Well I can't comment on it, as I have no idea what happened! One minute, thing were one way ... I doze off for a minute or two ... and then everything is changed! So I guess I'll have to watch it again, eventually, to actually make some sense of it all.

One thing though the animation style is really odd, but interesting. It's actually quite weird to see it all as animated, yet still be able to recognize each actor. But the result is a mixed bag, but might be completely intentional. Sometimes, it'll look almost real, and sometimes, the animated effect will be too strong and you lose details. There's also something really weird going on with the perspective and relative position of objects during pans and zooms. But still, it was nice! Here's an example of what it looks like:



Robert Downey Jr. in this is marvelous. I loved his performance. He is great in the insanity that is Substance D. Rory Cochrane is great too in his portrayal of a close to break down addict.



(From RossRoy's Random Viewings on April 28th, 2008)

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

Star Trek: Voyager
7.10 Shattered
Writer: Michael Taylor (Screenwriter), Mike Sussman (Original Material By), Michael Taylor (Original Material By)
Director: Terry Windell
Cast: Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Roxann Dawson (B'Elanna Torres), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), Martin Rayner (Dr. Chaotica), Manu Intiraymi (Icheb), Scarlett Pomers (Naomi Wildman), Nicholas Worth (Lonzak), Martha Hackett (Seska), Mark Bennington (Adult Icheb), Vanessa Branch (Adult Naomi), Anthony Holiday (Rulat), Terrell Clayton (Andrews), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice (voice))

Voyager gets split into different time areas and only Chakotay can travel between those areas. It's fun to revisit instances of Voyager's past this way and get some climpses of a possible future.
Though it's stupid how Chakotay refuses to tell Janeway at the end about his experience, citing the Temporal Prime Directive. But he had no problems telling Janeway of the past a lot of stuff about the future (even though as they later find out she will forget it anyway). Telling Janeway about his experience wouldn't pollute the time line as she already knows everything which there is to know about. So he could just as easily have explained to her his actions.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Star Trek Reviews on November 29th, 2011)