By Smed
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Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
The Lost Boys: The Tribe Soundtrack Various Artists
Adrenaline Records
Release date: July 22, 2008
In my job, I’m frequently in rental cars, hotels, and airplanes, which gives me some down time to listen to tunes (though because I usually have a metric ton of work to do, I can’t contribute to GoD like I used to). So, when I received the CD of the soundtrack to Lost Boys: The Tribe, I felt I could get a few listens as I drove hither, thither, and through yon cornfields.
So on my way to a small Midwestern college through the Illinois farmland, I switched off of Fred 44 on XM and popped in the CD. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much, since the movie was a rather unauthorized sequel of a movie that I always felt was OK, but not all that and a silver crucifix. Plus, it starred one of the Coreys, a dude that looked like a younger Corey, a generic hot chick, and the half-brother of Kiefer Sutherland. (What? Were Joe Estevez and Robert Z’Dar not available?)
Mystery Science Theater 3000:
The Movie Directed by Jim Mallon
Starring John Brady, Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, Jim Mallon, Michael J. Nelson
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release Date: May 6, 2008
Every year Hollywood makes hundreds of movies. This is one of them.
So says the tagline to the movie version of a television show that skewered countless sub-B movies (are they C-movies? Z-movies?), Mystery Science Theater 3000.
For those of you that don’t know, MST3K was a show where a human and two robots were forced to sit in a theater up in space and watch bad movies in some sort of weird scientific experiment by a comical mad scientist. Instead, they made the most of it and lambasted each movie with hilarious commentary that ranged from the sublime, to the ridiculous, to insider lingo on production techniques.
Toward the end of their run on Comedy Central, and before the show was picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel, the powers that be at Best Brains Productions decided to make an actual movie out of poking fun at bad movies. They chose a classic moment in bad sci-fi cinema, This Island Earth, and let the jokes fly.
SNL: The Best of 06/07 Cast: Amy Poehler, Darrell Hammond, Andy Samberg
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release date: March 4, 2008
SNL in the ’80s: Lost And Found Documentary (2005)
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release date: March 4, 2008
Directors sometimes follow good films with poor films. Sitcoms have great episodes, and episodes that should have been left in the can. Musicians follow up great albums with mediocre tracks. It happens in any creative environment.
Saturday Night Live is no exception.
It seems that in the long history of SNL, each season is either “˜good’ or “˜bad’. After the classic first “Not Ready For Prime Time Players” all left the SNL stage, each season that follows is remembered in whole, not for individual parts.
So when I received two DVDs regarding Saturday Night Live, one The Best of 06/07 and the other SNL in the ’80s: Lost And Found, it reinforced those notions.
SNL in the ’80s is a DVD of the documentary film shown on NBC regarding the most intriguing era of the groundbreaking late-night show. During that era, Lorne Michaels and NBC tried anything and everything to revive the SNL brand after the original cast left and one horrific season that was amongst the worst in the history of the show.
PBS has recently released Caillou’s Family Favorites on DVD, which features four episodes of the TV series. That series, originally produced in Canada, has been on PBS since 2000 and is a mainstay on PBS channels and on Sprout, the PBS Kids cable and satellite network.
By Smed
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Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The Jewish Americans Documentary
Director David Grubin
Narrated by Liev Schreiber
PBS Home Video
Available Feb. 5, 2008
PBS has always shown thought-provoking documentaries. It used to be that the network was the only place to learn about history in depth and detail, but now, of course, there are several networks on cable dedicated to that programming. But that has not daunted PBS at all — in fact, they’ve pressed ahead like nothing has changed and continued to produce excellent long-form documentaries.
One of the latest ones was a recent series on the history of the Jewish people in the United States, and now it’s available on DVD. The Jewish Americans is a 6-hour film about the Jewish experience in the new world, from the beginning of the settlement of the continent, to the present day.
Filmmaker David Grubin focuses on the accomplishments of Jews throughout the history of this country. That is exactly the right approach to take. It is widely known that the Jewish people have dealt with a lot of struggles and hardships along the way, and continue to be the focus of hatred and misunderstanding among those without the most open of minds.
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Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press