Time Bandits: The Criterion Blu-ray review

The movie portion of this review was previously published at Bullz-Eye. Stills are not screengrabs from the Criterion Blu-ray.

If you were a certain kind of boy or young teenager in the ‘80s, then there’s a good chance Time Bandits was a very important film for you. Sure, you loved Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Goonies, but Time Bandits was special in a different way because not everyone else was in on it; it was seemingly dismissed even by most adults (well, the ones I grew up around anyway). For many young people, it was our first introduction to the whacked out joys of Monty Python, even if we didn’t realize it at the time, as Time Bandits is not a proper Python film. But half of the six-man comedy troupe is involved in the picture, and so when we finally got around to discovering Python, we recognized John Cleese and Michael Palin from this film. Little did we know, though, that all of Python’s strange animations were the handiwork of the guy that directed this piece. Wasn’t it refreshing to not have every fact and figure at your immediate disposal way back then? You picked up information over the years while actively seeking it out. Perhaps, as Time Bandits hints, computers really are the playthings of Evil.

David Rappaport and Craig Warnock

However, it’s also possible you were not a certain kind of boy in the ‘80s, or that you’ve never even seen Time Bandits. If so, let’s lay it out there. One night, 11-year old Kevin (Craig Warnock) lies in his bed. Out of his wardrobe tumble six dwarfs on the run from God (who here is referred to as the Supreme Being). He’s their employer and they build trees for him. But they’ve stolen a powerful map from God, and now travel around through history, attempting to loot the past for riches. Kevin follows, and finds himself in all manner of incredulous situations, such as bantering with Robin Hood (John Cleese) or conning Napoleon (Ian Holm) out of his wealth. At the same time, Evil (David Warner, in one of his very best roles) watches over, secretly plotting his takeover of the world via the map, and eventually, an understanding of computers. Exactly what is “The Most Fabulous Object in the World,” and can the inept group of thieves procure it? 

Sean Connery as Agamemnon

As is probably to be expected, Time Bandits works on two different levels. There’s the fantasy/adventure angle for younger viewers, and a sharp, comical script loaded with observations and commentary for the adults. Much of the film’s satire revolves around consumerism and greed, and the lengths to which people will go in order to satiate such desires. Although John Cleese and Sean Connery get top billing (albeit alphabetical), the film’s stars are Warnock and the dwarf actors. David Rappaport plays the leader, Randall, and the emotional backbone of the film is really the relationship between him and Kevin, which is not even remotely a feel-good sort of thing. In fact, the dwarfs aren’t even particularly nice people, and in one segment, when Kevin is separated from them in Ancient Greece, he meets King Agamemnon (Connery), who is more of a father to him than his real father ever was. The dwarfs kidnap Kevin away from his new, perfect life, because they realize he’s actually smarter than they are, and they need him to further their schemes.

David Warner as Evil

Time Bandits didn’t seem a particularly dark movie to me as a kid, but in rewatching it today, I find myself somewhat aghast at how cynical it really is (although even when I was young I realized how fucked up and bleak the final moments of the film are). This really should come as no surprise when you consider that Terry Gilliam unveiled Brazil, the ultimate dark, fantastical social commentary of the 80s, a few years later. (Gilliam was even trying to get Brazil made before Bandits.) While this was Gilliam’s third film (he’d previously co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail and helmed Jabberwocky solo), it was the first in which he indulged himself seemingly every whim and idea. Each frame of the movie is crammed with detail, from the important to the trivial, and perhaps what’s most striking about it today is that all the effects are handmade (also the name of the production company – Handmade Films). This is a CGI-free picture, from back when there was no CGI, and it’s all the better for it. It’s a tangible universe; one that you can feel and believe in.

John Cleese as Robin Hood

None of this is to imply it’s a perfect film - just that it’s an ambitious and fun one. While the movie spares little time getting going, it takes forever to end, and much of the big finish, in which Kevin and the dwarfs battle Evil, goes on for far too long, and undercuts some of the intelligence the film is rooted in. When the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) shows up, the movie somewhat recovers, but even by then it feels as though the joke has perhaps gone on for a little too long. Yet these are nitpicks from someone who’s seen it countless times, and is possibly taking it all a bit too seriously. Time Bandits remains Fantasy 101, and a must see for people who enjoy this kind of fare. While you’re at it, why not share it with an impressionable 10-year old?

Blu-ray Review & Extras: The previous Image Entertainment Blu-ray release was a visual letdown, and barely deserving of the format, so thankfully Criterion has finally stepped up to the plate and delivered their shining goods via this new 2K digital restoration supervised by Gilliam. Time Bandits soars once again! Ported over from their own previous DVD release is a commentary track featuring contributions from Gilliam, Craig Warnock, Michael Palin, John Cleese, and David Warner (though not all together in one room). A new 23-minute piece traces the design aspects of the film through interviews with costume designer James Acheson and production designer Milly Burns.

Running at a whopping 81 minutes is a revealing conversation between Gilliam and film scholar Peter van Bagh. From the Midnight Sun Film Festival in 1998, the interview was recorded not long after Gilliam finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, though that particular film is only briefly discussed at the close. The rest of the conversation traces his growing up in Minnesota, his joining of Monty Python, and talk of each his classic films made until that point. If it’s not the definitive Gilliam interview, it’s certainly up there, and it is always a delight to listen to Gilliam talk life and shop, and here he’s given plenty of time to pontificate.

A short, vintage 8-minute piece from Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow is an interview with Shelley Duvall tied to the film’s release, which more than anything else is a great reminder of how obnoxious Tom Snyder was. There’s a short gallery of photos from the set, and a very funny three-minute trailer that wreaks havoc with the concept of trailer voiceovers - also ported over from the Criterion DVD. (The “Time Bandits Scrapbook,” which ran for 3:13 is absent.) Instead of a booklet, this disc’s essay, entitled “Guerrilla Fantasy” by critic David Sterritt, is printed on a large fold out piece of paper, which flips over to reveal a recreation of the iconic map. It’s not as large as the one in the film, yet would look very nice framed, though I suspect David Sterritt would rather me not recommend doing that. Finally, the disc features a snazzy lenticular slipcover, which may or may not be available on future pressings of the disc.

Photo of fold-out map included in the Criterion disc

WKRP in Cincinnati: The Complete Series DVD review

Cult classic sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, now making its complete series DVD debut, takes viewers to a much different time – before iPods and Sirius, when AM radio was still a very real thing that people listened to and relied on for news and entertainment. Yes, radio had character, and helped dictate and define our culture, pop and otherwise. Running for four seasons on CBS, from 1978 to ‘82 – a period of major transition in America – WKRP was a wacky workplace comedy that helped pave the way for shows like The Office, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation today. To discuss what makes the series tick, one must first understand its lunatic cast of characters, who are at the root of every episode, every laugh and every plot development. There are eight principles that can be broken down into three categories.

Management: Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump) is WKRP’s sometimes bumbling but always good-hearted station manager, also known affectionately as “The Big Guy.” Though from time to time he appears to possess a modicum of business acumen, for the most part, he’d rather not be bothered with the day-to-day operations of the station, instead focusing on his hobbies, which include fishing and model trains. The series kicks off with Carlson’s hiring of Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) as the station’s new program director. The level-headed center of the bunch, Travis has been living town to town, up and down the dial, and doesn’t see WKRP as anything more than another stop in his career of rebranding stations and making them profitable. Soon enough, he’ll discover there’s something special about this station that keeps him from moving on to the next one. Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson), Carlson’s bombshell-with-brains secretary, shouldn’t technically fit under management, and yet as the series progresses, it becomes all too clear that without the glue that is Jennifer, the entire enterprise would fall to pieces.

The Disc Jockeys: Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) is the station’s morning drive man. Like Travis, Johnny’s worked at more stations than he can remember, though that may have more to do with years of drug and alcohol use, which is more hinted at than ever explored. Fever is the show’s wild card, and WKRP never shies away from throwing bizarre, unpredictable plotlines in his path. Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid) is Andy’s first move upon changing the station’s format to rock and roll, hiring the jock “away from a station in New Orleans.” Shrouded in a mysterious past, Venus takes care of the evening shift, playing soothing, laid-back tunes for the greater Cincinnati area. WKRP peels away the Venus onion, giving him a little more backstory every season, and one of the show’s very last episodes (“The Creation of Venus”) brilliantly redefines his introduction way back in the two-part pilot.

Read the rest of the character breakdown, as well as the entire review, by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

The Zero Theorem

As someone who’s been a disciple of all things Terry Gilliam for the better part of 30 years, it seems pretty obvious that his most innovative filmmaking days are probably behind him. Those of us that continue to return to his well keep our expectations firmly in check. We don’t expect mind blowing Brazil-level satirical explorations, or profound science fiction trips such as 12 Monkeys, but we are happy to indulge our favorite mad uncle when he unveils something a little less groundbreaking, from somewhere in between, and that’s more or less what The Zero Theorem is.

Set in some nearby hazy nether-future – a grotesque exaggeration of our own reality – the film revolves around hypochondriacal misanthrope Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz, looking like Bob Geldof after he shaved all his hair off in The Wall), a number-crunching programmer working for a soul-sucking mega-corporation called Mancom. He appears to be more than adept at his job, but awful at the rest of life. With virtually no social skills to speak of, Qohen (pronounced “Cohen”), when he isn’t at work, keeps himself holed up in a dilapidated mansion in a sketchy part of town, waiting for a mysterious phone call that he hopes will bring change. His sole desire is to be allowed to work from home, so he can be close to the phone and away from people.

Read the rest of this movie review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Live and Let Die

Pimpmobiles. Alligators. A trip through Harlem. Voodoo. Cigars. Blaxploitation. George Martin. Bourbon and water. Tarot Cards. Snakes. The City of New Orleans. Paul McCartney and Wings.

“That’s just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs.” – 007 in Goldfinger

Somebody’s out to prove Roger Moore ain’t your daddy’s James Bond.

On the calendar, 007 entered the ‘70s with Sean Connery’s last official entry, Diamonds are Forever, but it wasn’t until two years later in 1973 that the shift of the decade really affected cinema’s most popular secret agent.

The Plot: Three MI6 agents are killed – one each in New York, New Orleans, and the fictitious Caribbean island of San Monique. M (Bernard Lee) assigns Bond (Moore) to the case. He follows the trail of bodies, only to discover an elaborate heroin producing, smuggling and selling operation, masterminded by the ruthless San Monique dictator Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), who operates under heavy makeup stateside as Mr. Big, where the goods are dispersed through a chain of soul food restaurant/bars called Fillet of Soul. But faux voodoo and mysticism surround Bond from the word go, as does the hypnotic spell cast over him by Kananga’s delicately beautiful reader of cards and seer of visions, Solitaire (Jane Seymour).

The Girls: Nabbing the role of lead Bond girl must seem exciting for an unknown actress, but as has been proven repeatedly, it rarely leads to a big time career. Seymour is one of a handful of actresses to buck that trend and with good reason: Solitaire ranks high on the list of Bond’s classiest ladies, and her story is arguably the heart of the picture. The character isn’t necessarily written with a huge amount of depth, yet that very simplicity makes her complex. In a movie full of charlatanistic voodoo, she stands out as the lone figure possessing the psychic ability to see into the future. Additionally, she differs from the Bond girl flock by sporting ornate, body-covering costumes that contrast with the oft-expected “Bond girl in a bikini” mold. And she’s a virgin, until James enters her, um, life.

Read the rest by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Cosmopolis: Blu-ray review

On paper, the marriage of cult film director David Cronenberg and cult novelist Don DeLillo is no doubt an ideal one, but movies require bringing dozens or even hundreds of other random factors into the mix, and it’s the director’s job to bring all of it together into one cohesive vision. Cosmopolis should have been a masterpiece, and bubbling away beneath its immensely flawed surface, one can see that masterpiece lurking. Unfortunately, the film is painted wall to wall with an uninspired, thoughtless and flat performance from Robert Pattinson that drags the entire affair down to nearly unwatchable. He is in every scene and the entire picture revolves around him. Understand, I’ve nothing against Pattinson. Being largely unfamiliar with his work, I went into Cosmopolis assuming that Cronenberg would work cinematic legerdemain with the actor, as he has done countless times before with dozens of players. He did not.

Read the rest of this review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Binder's Full of Women: The Evolving Art of the Classic James Bond Title Sequence

Over the years James Bonds came and went. Directors and writers shifted and changed. Vocalists were routinely swapped out. Though not the only constant in the Bond franchise, Maurice Binder, as the primary designer of the instantly recognizable title sequence, was certainly one of the most noticeable ones. For the bulk of Bond’s first 27 years, Binder brought us a cavalcade of swirling colors and curvaceous ladies, typically set to the tune of a current pop sensation. His job was to help set the tone for the film to come by presenting elements and themes from the movie in an abstract, artistic fashion. For many, these title sequences became an important, even necessary part of the Bond movie-going experience, and remain so today, over 20 years after Binder’s passing. Here we take an entirely subjective look at his ongoing contributions to cinema’s longest-running movie franchise.

The first thing ever seen in a Bond movie is the opening gun barrel sequence, and no amount of praise can be too effusive for Maurice Binder’s creation of it. James Bond emerges in profile from the right, caught in the movie viewer’s cross hairs. He then spins around, shoots, and the gun sight fills with, presumably, the viewer’s blood.

It’s become part and parcel of the Bond films ever since, though only in Dr. No is it part of the title sequence proper; afterwards, it would be separated from the titles by the now also iconic pre-credits sequence. Coupled with the infamous Monty Norman-composed Bond theme song, the gun barrel sequence is that instantaneous moment when everyone simultaneously acknowledges they’re watching a Bond film.

After the gun barrel sequence, flashing colored lights set to the Bond theme reveal the title “Dr. No” as well as the cast, followed by the silhouettes of people dancing a sort of Jamaican mambo, and, finally, a calypso version of “Three Blind Mice” dovetails nicely into the movie itself. The Dr. No titles are a lot fun and unique in the Bond film series; the only real element of them that would come to feature heavily in the future is Binder’s inventive, energetic use of silhouette.

Read and watch the rest of this piece by clicking here and visiting the Bullz-Eye Blog.

Louie: The Complete Second Season

Think of the structure of a typical “a guy walks into a bar” joke. The joke teller begins with that first line. Then he tells a short story, through which the audience, be it one person or a roomful, sits stone-faced. Eventually, the story leads to a punchline, and if the joke teller is skilled enough, the audience will erupt into laughter. Even though we didn’t laugh from the first moment he opened his mouth, it’s commonly acknowledged that everything that came out of his mouth was part of the joke. This all seems obvious I’m sure, but in trying to find a new way to talk about Louie, it hit me: These episodes are often structured like a joke – albeit a 20 minute one – with the punchline in the final moments. While those first 19 minutes might not be traditionally funny, they’re anything but tedious, and often run the gamut of emotions.

There’s never been a comedy show like Louie, and given how cannibalistic television is, it continues to boggle my mind that Louis C.K. gets away with such shocking displays of originality on a weekly basis. The show’s written and directed by and starring the same guy; has there ever been a scripted series that’s so clearly the all-around vision of just one person? Allegedly, even the suits and execs at FX leave him alone. Armed with a solid first season under his belt, and no doubt the confidence that comes with that, the comedian’s comedian sets out to dig even deeper into his psyche for the second block, and the results are painfully hilarious, with an emphasis on the pain.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Eighth Season DVD review

By their eighth season, most shows – if they even last that long – exhibit major signs of wear, and it’s usually past time to close up shop. By some miracle of TV magic, Curb Your Enthusiasm bucks that trend on this go round by delivering one of its most sharply observant and gut-bustingly hilarious seasons to date, and at least one episode in this block vaults instantly to “classic” status. I’m a freak for this show, yet one who’ll admit when it’s stumbling, which in recent years has been known to happen from time to time. Season Eight I swear by; it’s that good.

“I’m yelling for society – for everybody! Not just me!”

Each year of Curb revolves around some sort of event which the season culminates in for the finale. Season Four featured Larry starring in The Producers on Broadway. Last season was built around the Seinfeld reunion. For the show’s eighth season, David plays looser, and there is no big event, although these episodes do revolve somewhat around Larry on the dating scene (he has four or five different girlfriends over the ten episodes), as well as an extended trip to New York in the second half of the block. Neither of these ideas, however, dominates the proceedings, and the season finale, “Larry vs. Michael J. Fox,” is considerably more standalone than Curb finales of years gone by. Having said that, there are several jokes that dot the Season Eight landscape that do eventually come back around and into play in the finale, so this material is still best viewed in order, from beginning to end.

Read the rest of this DVD review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

True Blood: The Complete Season Four Blu-ray review

Watching a season of “True Blood” over the course of five or so days is exhausting, and there aren’t many TV shows I’d say that about. How can 12 episodes feel like 20, especially when a series moves at a breakneck pace like this one does? I’d watched the first season way back when it premiered, and viewed most of the second season with disinterest. I saw maybe five minutes of Season Three, but figured it might be a good idea to check in on Season Four to see how things are going for what remains HBO’s highest-rated program. Indeed, “True Blood” shows no signs of slowing down, as episode nine of Season Four, “Let’s Get Out of Here,” was allegedly the most watched episode of the show to date, with 5.53 million viewers.

It seems that Season Three ended with Sookie’s (Anna Paquin) fairy godmother taking her to Fairyland, which sounds ridiculous, and yet Season Four opens with a scenario rich in promise. Fairyland appears to be something of a paradise where everyone is happy and beautiful, and yet evil lurks beneath its surface, and the fairies are not what they appear to be. Soon enough, Sookie is transported back to Bon Temps, only to learn that time moves differently in Fairyland (Fairy world? Fairyworld? Whatever…), and a year has passed in the real world even though she’s only been gone for minutes. The whole fairy thing is so quickly dispensed with, I can only surmise the plan is to return to it in a later season, because it sure doesn’t get much play here.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season Blu-ray review

As long as you don’t go into Hell on Wheels expecting TV perfection like its fellow AMC series Mad Men or Breaking Bad, you’ll probably find much to appreciate about this lawless, violent spin on the final days of the Old West. Not every series can change the definition of television, and if anything, one of the big strengths of Hell on Wheels is that it has an almost old school type of approach. Sure, there’s some creative spilling of blood, and occasionally a pop tune fills the soundtrack, but these are minor flourishes at best, and hardly define Hell on Wheels. Really, it’s the sort of show I picture Clint Eastwood kicking back at home and enjoying with Scotch and a cigar.

The action begins in 1865, with the country rebuilding after the Civil War, and at the top of the rebuilding list is the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad. This was a massive turning point for the United States, as previous to the building of the railroad it would take six or more months to traverse the country; via the railroad, the same journey would take less than a week. In charge of building a portion is Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney), a less than ethical businessman who’s far more interested in money than philanthropy. On his watch, a mobile town of sorts crosses the country, building the tracks. This town is dubbed Hell on Wheels, and both it and Durant are factual parts of history. The rest of the show is, to my knowledge, fiction.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Treme: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray review

What’s so sensational about Treme is how unsensational the show is. This is storytelling that shies away from phoniness, yet it’s unveiled via a medium that’s all about pretense. Now, that isn’t to bag on the rest of television, but you just have to tip your hat to Treme, which seemingly goes out of its way to break the established rules so it can do its own thing.

Season Two, which kicks off 14 months after the storm, sees the show heading into darker territory, with sporadic acts of violence erupting throughout the city of New Orleans. Meanwhile, the myriad residents that we came to know through their struggles in the first season are trying to move forward and get their lives back to places of normalcy, as the city itself enters the post-Katrina recovery stage. There will be food, there will be dancing, there will be misfortune, and there will be bliss, but most of all, there will be music.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

A Dangerous Method Blu-ray review

There’s only one thing I can guarantee you’ll take away from A Dangerous Method, and that’s, for better or worse, a whole new opinion of Keira Knightley. Years from now, when people dissect her career, I believe this movie will be recognized as the one where it all changed and she proved she was more than just a pretty face. Mind you, the “years from now” part is key, because she’s received virtually zero critical recognition for this work, which should perhaps not be all that surprising. When an artist we think we know unexpectedly delivers this kind of fearless, ferocious work, it can be easy to dismiss as “ridiculous” or “overacting.” She rants and raves and stutters and does something with her jaw that could only be found in a David Cronenberg film. It’s polarizing, like great performances can be, and unfortunately many viewers won’t move past what she does here to see the bigger picture.

Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, who in 1904 is admitted by her mother to the Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich for bouts of hysteria. She finds herself in the care of Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), who, unusually for the time, uses the “talking method” of treatment. These days we call it psychoanalysis. Slowly, Jung helps Sabina to realize the roots of her problems and the pair forms a friendship. Enter Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), a free-thinking, cocaine-sniffing psychoanalyst who encourages Jung to explore a sexual relationship with Sabina, which Jung does, complicating his own psyche, as well as his marriage to Emma (Sarah Gadon). Perhaps the only person that can help him is his mentor and father figure, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), whose views only make the situation that much more complex, as does Sabina’s own interest in psychoanalysis, at which she herself is becoming more and more adept.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence]

Laurence R. Harvey & Ashlynn Yennie

Writer/director Tom Six is one hell of a salesman. Peddling his particular brand of wares is no small feat, and peddling them successfully, even more so. I was rather on the fence about his controversial debut, The Human Centipede [First Sequence], admiring parts of it more than the whole, but with this follow-up he’s accomplished what few before him have, and that’s creating a sequel that bests its predecessor. On the other hand, since the first movie wasn’t all that tits in the first place, maybe the achievement should be kept in check. Maybe.

With this new film, the concept goes completely meta, with the first film existing as a movie within the universe of the second film. A short, fat mentally challenged man named Martin (Laurence R. Harvey) is obsessed with The Human Centipede, watching it repeatedly, making a scrapbook of its imagery and medical procedures, and even keeping a centipede pet of his very own. He lives with his aged mother (Vivien Bridson), and as the narrative moves forward we discover he was sexually abused by his father, who has left both of them. The mother is a wretched piece of work, constantly berating and blaming her son for everything that’s wrong with her life, and there’s little left to the imagination as to why Martin is the way he is. Although he can clearly speak, Six chooses to not ever let us hear him do so. As about 99% of the film is spent with Martin, the result is a movie told mostly through imagery rather than dialogue.

Read the rest of the Blu-ray review for "The Empire Strikes Back of mouth to ass movies" by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret: Series One

Everyone’s told the occasional white lie in the interest of impressing someone, be it a love interest, a boss or a friend. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is a sitcom built around the premise, and one man’s inability to just, for once, tell the fucking truth. David Cross plays that man, whose name, as you may have guessed, is Todd Margaret, and the title of the show is as descriptively accurate as any I’ve seen in a while.

Todd’s story begins in America, where he works as a bumbling temp (are temps ever portrayed in a fair light?). A miscommunication on the part of foul-mouthed head honcho Brent Wilts (Will Arnett) leads him to believe that Todd would be the ideal man to spearhead a London office, out of which a new energy drink called Thunder Muscle will be peddled. And so Todd is off to Great Britain, a land he knows nothing about, except that once upon a time The Who recorded a live album in Leeds. Todd isn’t even smart enough to exchange dollars for pounds, and exchange rates turn out to be a baffling concept to him.

Read the rest of this DVD review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series

A few months back, I wasn’t terribly happy with Season Six based on its first half, but was content to wait for the second half before making a final decision. So here we are, and while the second half of the season turned out to not necessarily be any better than the first half, it wasn’t any worse, either. It’s both as dazzling and problematic as the first half. Half this, half that. Can we just get a season that runs for 13 straight weeks next time?

There was a near three-month break in between the halves, and it feels that way onscreen as well when “Let’s Kill Hitler” kicks off nowhere near the emotional cliffhanger of “A Good Man Goes to War.” The series, having played its hand – the reveal that River Song (Alex Kingston) is the daughter of Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) – moves onto other issues that curiously have little to do with killing Hitler. The show travels back in time not to eradicate the Führer, but instead to explore how Melody Pond became River Song. Or is it the other way around?

The only thing you can be sure of with this season of Doctor Who is that the minute you’re sure of something, something else will happen that changes the way you view the events.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Farscape: The Complete Series

Most of the sci-fi shows you enjoy today owe some kind of debt to Farscape. On the flip side, most of the sci-fi shows you grew up on, Farscape liberally stole bits and pieces from. It’s quite possibly the most unoriginally original series ever made. Here’s a show that came along at a time when space opera wasn’t doing a whole lot of experimentation, and yet that’s almost exclusively what Farscape did. It took heaping platefuls of well-worn sci-fi clichés and ideas and turned them on their ear, seemingly just to find out what would happen. Most of it worked, some of it did not, but that’s the price you pay for innovation. The show was primarily a drama, but that didn’t stop it from working in jokes and sight gags whenever possible. This was considerably different when compared to the various, dry Star Trek series that were around at the time. It also featured loads of monsters and aliens, most of which stand the test of time, which is unsurprising since The Jim Henson Company was behind the show, and they are, after all, the folks who built an empire on a frog and a pig.

But The Muppet Show, Farscape is not, and don’t let anyone try to tell you otherwise. It’s a serious show for people who take their sci-fi seriously but can still appreciate a good fart gag every now and then. Over the course of 88 hour-long episodes, it tells the story of Earth astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) who, within the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode, is flung halfway across the universe via a wormhole, only to end up smack in the middle of an epic space battle. He soon finds himself living onboard a living ship called Moya amongst a group of alien prisoners who are on the run from their captors, the Peacekeepers, a militant group of human-looking aliens. As the series progresses, Crichton goes from inchworm to King Cobra, and eventually ends up being the most important man in the Uncharted Territories because of one thing: the wormhole knowledge planted deep in his psyche by an alien race known as the Ancients. Whoever possesses this knowledge will be able to build a weapon of awesome might, although what Crichton really wants is to just get home; too bad every alien the other side of the Milky Way wants a piece of him along the way.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Doctor Who: Colony in Space & The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Special Edition)

"Colony in Space" is really only noteworthy for one thing: It marked the first time the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) took a trip to another planet in the TARDIS since his exile to Earth at the start of his third life. He’s allowed to do this only at the behest of the Time Lords, who realize the Master (Roger Delgado) has stolen information on something called a Doomsday Weapon, and they quite rightly fear what he plans to do with it. So the Doctor and Jo (Katy Manning) are whisked away to the year 2472 on the dirty, muddy world of Uxarieus, the planet of the weapon’s origin.

There they encounter two opposing factions of humans: a group of colonists trying to begin a new life (Earth has apparently all but gone to hell at this point) and a group of miners working for a corporation called IMC. IMC has discovered that the planet is rich in minerals and they’re using some very unscrupulous methods to get the colonists to leave. There are also the planet’s indigenous life forms, which appear to be little more than mute and tribal, yet deep in their underground city lies the secrets of the Doomsday Weapon.

Read the rest of this DVD review, as well as one for the Special Edition of "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

The Woman

At its most basic level, The Woman asks a straightforward question: Who’s the real monster, a cannibalistic mountain woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) or Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers), the sleazy small-town lawyer who captures and imprisons her? Even though the answer is choreographed early on, it’s how director Lucky McKee explores the idea as the picture moves forward that sells the concept.

Cleek first spots the Woman while on a hunting trip. He fixates, obsesses, and then returns home to plot the capture and set up a makeshift prison in an outdoor cellar. He returns, deftly executes his plan, and brings her back to the homestead. So far, so good. Cleek’s aim is to domesticate the savage beast, and he forces his family – made up of his wife, Belle (Angela Bettis), and their three kids – into complicity in the matter. The Cleeks are a family in peril, smothered by every move the patriarch makes. They’re a family operating in the absence of love, headed for a breaking point. Will the Woman be the final straw?

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Talking Tarantino...with Robert Forster and Rosanna Arquette

With the simultaneous Blu-ray releases of Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, arguably the two jewels in the Quentin Tarantino crown, you can now own all of the filmmaker’s features on the high-def platter. Have the best been saved for last? Quite possibly. And if you’re of a certain age, there’s also a good chance you haven’t seen one or even both of them, which means you are in for some seriously cinematic rides. Perhaps the best news, aside from how gorgeous they look, is that both discs are very reasonably priced, which makes them much easier to obtain than Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase.

This writer had something of a Tarantino-thon recently by viewing both discs back to back, and, unsurprisingly, they did not disappoint. But I was especially taken by Pulp Fiction, as I hadn’t seen it in years, and everything that’s great and revolutionary about it came flooding back. See, I was 23 when Pulp Fiction came out in 1994, and it was a time when film as an art form was feeling awfully stilted. And then this movie charged out of the gate and it was like nothing anybody else was even attempting to do. It was the most seductive piece of filmmaking I’d seen in years. It wasn’t just me, either. Everyone I knew who was into film felt the same way. Despite the fact that we were already bowing at the altar of Reservoir Dogs, nothing prepared us for the Fiction. We devoured it, repeatedly, and discussed its many intricacies and detours like it was some kind of biblical text. I saw it on the big screen at least a half a dozen times, and each viewing was like going to film church. A few months later came the crappy bootleg VHS tape, and it’s anyone’s guess how often I sat through that. By the time the laserdisc was released, I was beginning to suffer burnout. That, mixed with a few other factors, pretty much kept me away from Pulp Fiction for a decade or more (give or take a scene or two on cable from time to time).

Pulp Fiction today feels absolutely as fresh as it did all the way back in the autumn of ’94. The film has the power to come back in a big way, on the best home video format currently available. Forget about digital downloads and streaming, Blu-ray is hands down the best way to experience this movie. (As it turns out, aside from an old DVD, Blu-ray is the only way to legally obtain the movie presently.) We turned to one of the film’s stars, the versatile Rosanna Arquette, who plays piercing fetishist Jody, to see how she was feeling about the Fiction years after the fact. “What I’m excited about is that it’s going to be a whole new audience discovering the film. I have a teenager, and all of her friends are watching it,” she enthused.

Read the rest of this feature/interview by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

When John Hughes died suddenly of a heart attack two years ago at the age of 59, folks my age (I’ll be 40 soon) were understandably unnerved. Even though it had been some time since he’d created anything worthy of mass consumption, probably a dozen different projects bearing his name all but collectively define my generation. Hughes was the voice of angst-ridden ‘80s youth, and I dare say that no filmmaker since has come even close to replicating the feat for any subsequent generations on such a consistent basis.

People still wonder, “Why don’t they make movies like The Breakfast Club anymore?,” and it’s a valid question that leads to a possibly startling truth: Hughes’ vision was as unique as a Kubrick or a Tarantino. A big difference is that he made it look easy, even though making movies as perfect as Hughes frequently did is anything but. His movies are in fact so timeless in their way that a flick like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off remains as relevant today as it was back in ’86.

Now go back to 1994, if you can, and remember when John Candy died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 43. I was 23 at the time, and 43 didn’t seem all that young to me, but – surprise, surprise – it sure as hell does now. Of course, 43 is ridiculously young, and it’s not as if Candy was a druggie or a boozer or what have you. His biggest social “crime” was being a big guy, and eventually he paid for it, which is very, very sad.

I’ve been on a John Candy kick for a few months now, trying to catch up on some of his later films that I missed. Most of them haven’t been very good, even when he’s good in them. Probably his last great performance was in JFK in ’91, and even though he’s only got a scene or two in that movie, you can tell that there were sides of Candy that we never got to see. Candy is the kind of actor who would’ve eventually had a career renaissance, and we would’ve seen those sides that were only hinted at in his early work. I miss John Candy now more than ever, because I miss all the work he never got to do.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.