DVD Collectors Online

High Fidelity, a review by Antares

High Fidelity (2000) 62/100 - Back in the glory days of Blockbuster I must have had this film in my hands at least a dozen times, but wound up putting it back on the shelf after finding something else, but vowing to get it "next time". Well, I stopped going to Blockbuster and this film just kind of slipped from my memory. But now after watching it, I'm kind of glad I always found something else to watch. I'm not saying it's a bad film, but it really is just trying to be a little too hip and cute. What really struck me was how it wanted to be a hip amalgamation of Say Anything and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but sadly, never really gels. The continuous use of Cusack's character breaking the fourth wall becomes annoying after a while and keeps the film from concentrating on what really works in the film, namely, the scenes in the record store. I remember record stores like this and I definitely knew guys just like the three who worked there. There's a scene early in the film when Jack Black's character toys with a geek over a bootleg album, and another customer expounds how all three are elitists. I loved this scene, because it was so true. Every person I ever met back in the day who worked at a record store believed that they, and they alone, were God's given messenger of Rock & Roll. It's too bad that they didn't just focus more on the comedic potential of the store and jettison the tired attempt at philosophizing out personal relationships. It's been done to death, and Cusack had already done it much better in the Cameron Crowe film. But I will give kudos to the screenwriter for one of the best lines I've ever heard in a movie. When Dick and Barry are discussing the Top 5 songs about death, Barry mentions the Rolling Stones seminal, You Can't Always Get What You Want, to which Dick rebuts... No. Immediate disqualification because of its involvement with The Big Chill. That's a fucking priceless line and had me ROTFL.

What the color coding means...

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 March 7th, 2013)

The Squid and the Whale, a review by Silence_of_Lambs

Summary:
Based on true childhood experiences The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys (Owen Kline and Jesse Eisenberg) dealing with their parents' (Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels) divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.

My Thoughts:
Got this film as part of a boxset that was less expensive than the other movie would have been if bought seperately.

It is, as I learned a highly praised movie and the winner of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
It too is a film that tries to capture life as it is and it turns out that "life" is mostly dull, boring and banal.
The acting of all participants is great, sadly the plot cannot compete with the capabilities of the cast. It took all my mental powers to get through this movie and I was extremely annoyed in the end.
But Jeff Daniels is giving us a pseudo-intellectual college teacher that would rescue the whole film if this role wouldn't be so dislikeable that you'd wish for brass-knuckles should you ever meet this guy in real life.
Two very annoying plausibility-leaks (out of many more):
1) The younger brother (about 10 years old!) gets caught twice with a beer can in his hands (once by his older brother, once by his father) and this results in ... nothing.
2) In 1986 the attempt to say that the Pink Floyd song "Hey You" (from the quite unknown album "The Wall") was written by yourself, is so obviously doomed to fail that no one with a working brain would have tried this. Walt (the older brother) does this, and even wins a poetry contest (until he gets caught some time later)

So my rating is 5 stars for the acting 0 stars for the plot. In total this is

My Rating: (out of possible 5)

(From Michael's random reviews on January 10th, 2011)

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

Synopsis: SG-1 comes to a planet where the inhabitants declare that they have visted before. Back then they helped to defeat Heru-ur's troops. But now Cronus has come with a Ha'tak and claims the planet for himself. SG-1 gets caught and Daniel gets "killed". Now the Team needs help from themselves.

My Opinion: The funny thing about this episode is that one can guess very early where this is going. The android doppelganger are still wearing the HK MP5 as weapons instead of the FN P90 that is been handed out in recent episodes. Additionally Carter is wondering why she's refered to as "Major" and Jack mentions that there are "two" of them. When I first saw this episode I guessed that this is the real team and when Jack mentioned this I thought the androids had been the team that went there first.
I liked the episode even though it was sad that all the androids were destroyed. With the death of Cronus another Goa'uld got what he deserved.

Synopsis: With the Ha'tak SG-1 "aquired" from Cronus they fly to the planet of the Tok'ra. The latter want to relocate their Stargate to a planet unknown to the System Lords. But there Tanith - the Goa'uld who deceived Shan'auc - must not go. But then Apophis closes in with a fleet and the Tok'ra develop a very risky plan.

My Opinion: The idea to turn a sun into a supernova with the help of a Stargate is an "interesting" plan that is hard to top.
But what attrackted my attention in this episode, was something different: It's usual with series that at the beginning of the season some innovations are introduced that were invented by the writers during the break. In Stargate SG-1 this often happens within the last episodes although it wasn't really necessary. For example, the Zats have been introduced in the last episode of the first season, not at the begin of the second. But they didn't really need them back then. The Al'kesh - a Goa'uld bomber - was introduced in this episode although there could have been other ways to continue the plot.
The Ha'tak and the memory retrieval device have been introduced in a season finale but they were necessary for the plot, i.e. the plot was based upon them.

The Season - My Opinion: Surprisingly there were few direct confrontations with the Goa'uld in this season. Many episodes were playing on Earth or were related to it and the others were Planet-of-the-Week episodes. If one considers that Apophis has the control over Sokar's fleet and is supposedly very powerful, he kept quite still. On the other hand the writer can't find endless ways to let them both clash and SG-1 win. But I liked the Earth episodes and the PotW were mostly ok.

(From "Stargate SG-1" Marathon on March 29th, 2008)