Three more of those marvelous Doctor Who DVDs
Doctor Who: The Creature from the Pit (Tom Baker)
Doctor Who: The King’s Demons (Peter Davison)
Doctor Who: Planet of Fire (Davison)
Lots of other good TV out this week, due to the fall season being about to start:
Chuck S3; Criminal Minds S5; Dirty Jobs Collection 6; Less Than Perfect S1; The Norm Show Complete Series; The Office S6; Pie in the Sky S3/4; Prime Suspect The Complete Series; Smallville S9; Supernatural S5
Meanwhile, pop culture fans might want to check Four Complete Ed Sullivan Shows starring The Beatles. Not just great for Beatles fans, I really like the idea of showing the entire episodes, which I’m sure will help place the Beatles in context.
On to movies:
A Fistful of Trinity These are not the comic Trinity spaghetti westerns, but rather four other films starring the team of Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer; 2 Missionaries (1974) Bud and Terence as holy men; Watch Out, We’re Mad (1974) The Trinity boys go after Donald Pleasance; Aladdin (1986) Bud as the genie in the lamp; Soldier of Fortune (1976) Bud as a shining knight with steel fists. Not everyone’s bag, but I can easily recommend the Trinity Two-Pack and the Hill / Henry Fonda movie My Name is Nobody.
The Phantom This is the recent DTV ‘updating’ of the venerable comic strip character, not the rather fun theatrical film starring Billy Zane.
More TCM Greatest Classic Film Collections, offering four great films for an entirely reasonable price. Ideal for people who never got around to collecting some of these earlier:
Gangsters: White Heat, High Sierra, Little Caesar, The Public Enemy. Those are all classics, starring Cagney, Bogart and Robinson.
Hammer Horror Horror of Dracula; Dracula has Risen From the Grave; Curse of Frankenstein; Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. Hmm, I would have gone with Dracula Prince of Darkness or Brides of Dracula rather than Risen from the Grave, but not a bad set at all.
THX 1138 The Director’s Cut Given what the ‘director’s cuts’ of the Star Wars movies were like, I’m not sure this will be an improvement.
DTV Horror
Growth
Headhunter: The Assessment Weekend
Here’s some stuff from last week, since I didn’t do a list.’
Thriller: The Complete Series As noted, I’ve been waiting for this show for a long time. However, the $150 MRSP means it runs about $100 even with the normal discounts, so I’ll be waiting for a severe price drop. That said, the set does offer the complete two seasons of the Boris Karloff hosted suspense show (some crime stuff, more famously a lot of supernatural material), with a ton of extras including 27 episode-specific commentaries, isolated music tracks by composers like Jerry Goldsmith, etc. All together about 56 hours of material on 14 discs, so actually the price isn’t really that outrageous. Still, I’ll rent from Netflix and buy when it’s on sale.
Other TV stuff:
Flash Forward Complete Series; House S6; NCIS Los Angeles S1; Parenthood S1; Persons Unknown S1; Sons of Anarchy S2; Vampire Diaries S1;
Some examples of ‘classic’ era Eurosleaze are out this week: Forbidden Dreams, Lorna the Exorcist and Sexy Radio.
The reviews were good for Michael Caine’s more straightforwardly Dish (oops) Death Wishian version of Gran Torino, Harry Brown. I can’t wait to see it.
OSS 117: Lost in Rio is the second of the French spoofs of ’60s spies films (in which OSS 117 was an actual character).
Point of Terror is a Brit suspenser starring the chick who was Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.
Yay, more Shaw Brothers! This time it’s The Iron Bodyguard, which apparently ranks high enough that it’s getting a deluxe 2 Disc Set.
DTV Horror:
Dead Eyes Open
Flesheater
The Spell
