Each week DVDs come out. Some of them are worth your time and money and some aren’t. Some of them are movies I’ve seen, and some of them aren’t. Regardless, I give you my opinion on the big releases of the week. Take it or leave it, here’s the DVD Blend.
Barbie - Fairytopia - This release represents just how slow this week is. When a Barbie movie makes it into Amazon’s top ten presells list, you know there’s nothing good coming out. Unlike previous Barbie releases, this isn’t just a Barbie remake of some fairy tale. So what is it? Well, Barbie goes out on a date with Ken, who takes her to “his kind of place” - aka - a gay bar - aka - Fairytopia! Voila! I have no idea what the hell this is about and I’m not dedicated enough to you readers out there to find out. If you really want to know, go rent this and drop me a line (primarily so I can mock you) otherwise, there are lots of other great movies out there to check out... just not this week.
Candy Land - The Great Lollipop Adventure - Jimminy Cricket! First Barbie, and now a movie based on Candyland? I couldn’t even make this one up - here’s the description: a young gingerbread boy named Jib sets off toward the Candy Castle with an offering of special gingerbread icing to present to the King for the "Sweet Celebration" ceremony. Jib hurries along the colorful path to the Kingdom, meeting new friends Mr. Mint and Jolly along the way, while the sneaky Licorice Bites steal Princess Lolly's scepter to further Lord Licorice's evil plan to turn Candy Land into Licorice Land. A chance meeting between Jib and Princess Lolly leads the two to join forces against Lord Licorice, but can they possibly recover the scepter and make it to the Candy Castle in time for the celebration? Licorice Bites? Mr. Mint? What the hell... see this week’s DVD Diggers to see my list of movies that should be in this piece of crap’s place.
Charly - Finally, something worthy of our time. Cliff Robertson has more recently garnered acclaim with his portrayal of Spider-Man’s influential Uncle Ben, but Charly is where he really got to prove his acting chops. Based on “Flowers for Algernon”, Charly tells the story of a mentally slow man who attempts to increase his intelligence and join the rest of society. As a story it’s an absolutely tear-jerking tale, written as Charley’s diary. I’ve never seen the movie, but I’ll be checking this one out this week to see how well it translates to the screen. It has to be decent though - Robertson won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Actor in 1969 for this one, as well as being nominated for several other significant awards. Remember, with Great Power comes Great Responsibility... an ironic message given this role.
Columbo - The Complete Second Season - Scott Gwin covered the first season of Columbo in great detail several months ago, and I’m sure he’d love the chance to cover Season Two. Unfortunately this is one of the first shows to suffer coverage at the hands of our “less television show coverage” policy, but I’m happy to mention it here, despite not being a Columbo fan myself. For people like Josh and Scott, Columbo’s lazy eye and casual attitude makes the character appealing. For myself, I’d rather have some actual mystery to my mystery. Columbo almost always presents the crime first, making the audience fully aware of who the culprit is, and targets the show at how Columbo comes to the conclusion. Meh, to each their own.
Earthsea - The Sci-Fi channel has been putting out some incredible work as of late. It’s hard to believe when I first got cable the network was primarily composed of older anthology shows. Now you can’t find classic sci-fi on the network, but the trade off is almost worth it. Miniseries like “Taken” or “Battlestar Galactica” take too much time to watch for someone like me though. I keep a full schedule and seldom can find the time to clear a couple of nights for a miniseries (although sci-fi tries to help by rerunning the heck out of any show. Instead I catch them on DVD, when I can watch a bit whenever I can, or push it into the weekly line up of reviews. You won’t see us review Earthsea, but I’ll still be checking it out and based on word from its run on television, you should too.
Ladder 49 - Finally this week’s “big release”, which isn’t saying much. It stars John Travolta, which should be saying enough - the man hasn’t had a hugely successful role since shortly after Pulp Fiction. This one tells the story of a fireman who reminisces about important moments in his life/career as he sits on death’s door in a burning building. Not to be confused with Backdraft, the fire fighting community stood strongly behind this film as a more realistic portrayal of their lifestyle. Sorry boys, if you really would rather be portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix’s hairlip then Kurt Russel’s hair, I can’t help you much. DeNiro vs. Travolta? No question! It may be a more realistic portrayal, but I’ll stick with that fantasy any day of the week.
