Tag Archives: dvd

Nov 05

Where is ‘The Boys’?

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This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I watched last night’s “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” on the DVR. I got right up to the point where Craig introduced his first guest, Dick Van Dyke; I’ll have to watch the interview itself this evening.
Anyway, Craig’s introduction mentioned that “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” is coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray. That made me think about the fact that I still haven’t had a chance to see “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story,” about which I’ve blogged here several times before.
If you missed those earlier posts, Richard and Robert Sherman were staff songwriters for Disney during the era of “Mary Poppins,” “Jungle Book,” and so on. They wrote dozens of songs that you know by heart, including “It’s A Small World After All,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Chim-Chim Cheree,” “Winnie The Pooh,” “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers,” and on and on and on. After leaving Disney, they wrote songs for “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” and “Charlotte’s Web” and “Snoopy Come Home,” among many others. At some point, they wrote the pop song “You’re Sixteen” (You’re Beautiful, and You’re Mine).
Very early in their songwriting careers, the brothers had a falling-out, and they’ve worked for decades as professional collaborators — and nothing else, having no other contact and raising their families separate from each other. A few years ago, at the premiere of a stage version of “Mary Poppins,” one of Richard’s adult sons and one of Robert’s adult sons, first cousins who at the time were virtual strangers, began to talk about doing a documentary to explore their fathers’ unique achievements and their somewhat-mysterious feud. They got Ben Stiller to sign on as executive producer.
The documentary came out in very limited release last year, but I’m waiting for it to show up on TV, or somewhere where I can see it. I checked Amazon just now and discovered that the movie is, at long last, going to be released on DVD later this month; that’s something.

Nov 14

To boldly go

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In case you’ve missed the news reports, Walmart has been in an online price war of sorts with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It started with books: Walmart began offering deep, deep discounts on pre-orders for several highly-anticipated books, and Amazon and B&N had little choice but to try to match them. Earlier this month, that extended to DVDs as well.
I need to be worried about holiday gifts, but I allowed myself one indulgence, assuming that it’s something I would end up buying anyway and that it was silly not to do so at bargain-basement prices. My purchase was “Star Trek,” the combination prequel and reboot which hit theaters on my birthday this year. I loved “Star Trek” in the theater, and got to watch parts of it again on one of my Kenya trip flights.
Walmart is offering the movie on pre-order for $9.98, a price that will presumably disappear on Tuesday when the movie is actually released. Amazingly, the $9.98 price includes shipping (but not sales tax, which Walmart has to add because it also has brick-and-mortar locations in my state).
I’ve already gotten the shipping notice e-mail from Walmart, with the movie projected to arrive at the end of next week.
I was extremely pleased with “Star Trek.” As so many others have stated, it paid due reverence to the originals but had a plot device which allows the new movie and its sequels to diverge from the old continuity going forward. The cast was great, the special effects tremendous and the action sequences thrilling.
Karl Urban as McCoy probably came closest to doing an actual impersonation of the original series cast member, to hilarious effect. Simon Pegg wasn’t much like James Doohan’s Scotty, but that was OK because Simon Pegg is so darn funny.
Zoe Saldana’s Uhura has been reimagined somewhat and has a much more forceful and pivotal role; she’s no longer a glorified secretary, relaying messages.
The rest of the cast, led by Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock, manage to capture the spirit of their original characters without doing out-and-out impersonations of the actors.
Pegg, as Scotty, and Anton Yelchin, as Chekov, have the advantage of actually having been born in Scotland and Russia, respectively, and their accents sound more authentic than James Doohan or Walter Koenig.
Bruce Greenwood, by the way, is wonderful as Christopher Pike, the captain of the Enterprise at the time the movie’s main action begins. His speech challenging the juvenile delinquent Kirk to enlist in Starfleet could have come off as hokey, but he delivers it so sincerely that it works pretty well.
If you’re not a Star Trek fan, I feel compelled to impart a little history. Gene Roddenberry’s original pilot for “Star Trek” starred Jeffrey Hunter as Capt. Christopher Pike. NBC did not like that first pilot for several reasons, but took the somewhat unusual step of commissioning a second pilot episode. Hunter was unavailable by that point and so William Shatner starred in the second pilot, which used a new name for the central character: James Kirk.
As the first season of “Star Trek” progressed, the show was behind schedule and over budget. So Roddenberry found a way to save time and money by recycling much of the footage from that never-aired first pilot as flashback sequences in a two-part episode. That episode set up the timeline that Chris Pike was the captain of the Enterprise before James Kirk. The newly-shot footage for that episode sets up the idea of Pike being confined to a wheelchair, which is referenced at the very end of the new movie.
I’ll probably also buy the DVD of “Up” at some point, but since that’s already out I’ve missed my chance to get the deep, deep discount.

Oct 04

Gotham Knight

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I missed the first 15 minutes of “Batman: Gotham Knight” while watching Vandy beat Auburn (!). I will have to look for a rebroadcast, or maybe even buy a DVD.

This was a feature-length anthology of six short animated Batman tales, each the work of a different Japanese director and involving various combinations of American writers, including David Goyer, who co-wrote the story for “The Dark Knight.” Each one is done in a different style. Bruce Wayne, for example, does not look quite the same from one segment to another — even though Kevin Conroy provides his voice in every segment. (Conroy was the voice of “Batman: The Animated Series” in the mid-1990s.) It was apparently released on DVD over the summer to tie in with “The Dark Knight.” It is excellent. It is also TV-14-V and not for young children, so I’m not sure how I feel about it being on the Cartoon Network.

The segments stand alone but also have interwoven plot threads. All of them take place in the same early period of Batman’s career documented by the Christian Bale movies; James Gordon is a lieutenant, not the police commissioner.

A unique and surprisingly-complex project, worthy of its source material.

[imdb]1117563[/imdb]

May 11

You are Number Six

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As I posted the other day, I bought a Monty Python’s Flying Circus complete boxed set during a big sale at Amazon.com. I think I made a good purchase — but soon after seeing the Monty Python set, I saw another boxed set for the same price, and I had a little twinge. Should I have bought that one instead?

Well, my youngest brother and his family gave me an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday, and I decided I would apply it towards that second box set purchase. When I got home this afternoon, I discovered the big sale had ended and the box set had returned to its normal price — but I found it on one of Amazon’s “Marketplace” partner merchants for a price that was pretty much as good as the sale, and that allowed me to apply my gift certificate.

The Prisoner Complete Series Megaset

Yes, it’s “The Prisoner,” one of the most imaginative and thought-provoking TV shows of its era, and one I haven’t seen in years.

For those of you too young to remember this show (and I was much too young to appreciate it on its original run), it’s sort of a cross between James Bond and “Lost.” Patrick McGoohan’s character is a British spy who suddenly resigns his position, much to the consternation of his superiors. He is gassed and whisked away to a surreal facility called “The Village.” Everyone in The Village is referred to by a number. The top man on-site is “Number Two,” who reports to a mysterious and unseen “Number One.” (“Number Two” is not a very secure job, apparently, and the person in that role changes constantly throughout the 17-episode series.)

McGoohan’s character, Number Six, can’t be sure who the ultimate power is — his own government? The enemy? Some third party? — and so, even as Number Two uses various schemes, ruses and strategies to try to get McGoohan to reveal the reason for his resignation, McGoohan looks to escape and/or to unravel the mysteries behind The Village.

The one thing about the series that did fascinate me as a young child was The Village’s means of capturing escapees — a big, bouncy white ball which chased the fugitive. (You may have seen it lampooned on an episode of “The Simpsons.”)

I haven’t seen this show in many years and can’t wait to see it again, complete and in proper order.

[imdb]0061287[/imdb]

Mar 18

To the moon!

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Today, in the course of editing a story, I had to explain to an under-30 co-worker that I grew up as a NASA geek. I was just at the right age to be transfixed by the space program. I remember my parents telling the babysitter to let me stay up past my bedtime (I was all of 7, although advanced for my age) so that I could watch Neil and Buzz make their famous moon walk.

So I’m fortunate that Tom Hanks’ brilliant “From The Earth To The Moon” aired during one of the brief interludes in my life when I actually subscribed to HBO. I was transfixed. I taped every episode, but since that time one of the tapes — the one which happened to include my two favorite episodes, “Spider” and “That’s All There Is.”

A really nice boxed DVD set was released a few weeks ago, but I never had the money and the inclination at the right time.

To take a little detour, you may have noticed that I have a lot of Amazon Associates links on this site. I signed up for the program years ago. I’ve made very, very little on it; I’ll go two years or more before accumulating enough of a commission for Amazon to credit it to my account. I’ve thought about just dropping it, and I may.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you that in this instance, I’m not including an Amazon link because I found a much better deal on this particular item. Half what you would pay at Amazon. I do not benefit in any way from telling you that; I just want you to watch this incredible miniseries.

My boxed set arrived today, and it’s loverly, as Eliza Doolittle would say. I have seen some complaints that this particular collection — which was re-mastered for widescreen — crops the image awkwardly in one or two places. But I don’t care. It looks a million times better than my off-air video tape, and it has special features and I just love it.

[imdb]0120570[/imdb]

Jan 08

Paging Guy Caballero

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I decided to scrimp by buying a few groceries at the Dollar General Market (a Dollar General Store which has groceries, over and above the few canned goods you find in the regular DGS).

I had paid for my fine comestibles and was headed out the door when the DVD bargain bin blocked my way. Sitting there on top … just waiting for me … for the ridiculous price of $10 … was “SCTV Volume 3.” This is the second half of the first NBC season of the show. Nine 90-minute episodes with the formidable lineup of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O’Hara and Dave Thomas. Martin Short joined midway through this batch of episodes.

I haven’t seen the original SCTV in ages. At $10, how could I go wrong? There’s even a bonus disk of live performances over the years from the Second City stage troupe which spawned SCTV, ranging from John Belushi to Tina Fey.