DVD review: ‘The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection’

Add comment April 6th, 2009

This week, The Movie Man steps back into the past to review a great DVD collection of Our Gang shorts. Like I say nin the column, these things are timeless — my daughter is as old as Spanky was 75 years ago, and she still thinks the Gang’s antics are hilarious.

Here’s the written version of the review, and here’s the video version – complete with classic clips of Spanky and Stymie.

You know, before BIG BROTHER was a lame TV show, it was a chilling symbol of totalitarianism

1 comment April 6th, 2009

Over at THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, Matt Maul presents a long but interesting look at George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, and, at the end, a shorter (but still interesting) look at the various screen adaptations (TV and film). He says (and I’d agree) that the Michael Radford version – released, by no coincidence, in 1984 — is the best because it avoids the ill-fitting science fiction aspects that producers usually add and instead delivers a grimy, chilling version of Orwell’s story.

Keeping with the movie theme of this blog, here’s a clip from Radford’s film showing the citizens of Airstrip One spending a relaxing night out at the movies…

Critic fired for reviewing pirated WOLVERINE

3 comments April 6th, 2009

Last week, someone snagged a copy of the upcoming X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE movie (due in theaters next month) and posted it on the Web. To say that 2oth Century Fox, the studio behind WOLVERINE, was upset is a bit of an understatement.

How upset were they? This upset: When Roger Friedman, who works for Fox 411, reviewed a copy of the movie he’d seen (and believe me, it was a very positive review), they canned him. Rave or not, the studio apparently (and, if you ask me, rightly) thought Friedman was promoting piracy just by reviewing the movie, and gave him the boot.

 I can certainly see why the studio is upset, and figure they were probably right in giving Friedman the boot, but I also think they couldn’t have bought better publicity for X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE if they’d tried. A week or so ago, only the die-hard fans were aware of this movie. Now any medium-level movie fan is. Pirated or not, it’s going to have a huge opening weekend.