I AM AN ANIMAL: THE STORY OF INGRID NEWKIRK AND PETA, AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT THE ENIGMATIC WOMAN BEHIND THE CONTROVERSIAL ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP, DEBUTS NOV. 19 ON HBO

When it comes to feelings like hunger, pain, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. - Ingrid Newkirk

Ingrid Newkirk may be the most influential person most people have never heard of. President and co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Newkirk has sparked controversies around the world for more than 25 years, engineering radical campaigns for animal rights that have encompassed everything from undercover investigations to anti-fur protests to naked demonstrations.

Directed by Matthew Galkin, I AM AN ANIMAL: THE STORY OF INGRID NEWKIRK AND PETA provides an unprecedented portrait of a very private person committed to a very public crusade, and offers a glimpse into the inner workings of the animal rights group, when it debuts MONDAY, NOV. 19 (8:00-9:15 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO. The film recently won the Golden Starfish Best Documentary Award at the 2007 Hamptons International Film Festival.

Other HBO playdates: Nov. 19 (4:35 a.m.), 21 (2:00 p.m.), 25 (4:45 p.m.), 27 (5:00 p.m., 11:30 p.m.) and 30 (3:15 p.m.), and Dec. 3 (12:45 a.m.) and 8 (1:30 p.m.).
HBO2 playdate: Nov. 29 (midnight) and Dec. 14 (4:40 a.m.), 20 (11:45 a.m.) and 30 (3:30 p.m.).

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I like most of the shows on Adult Swim. That is why I was looking forward to reviewing Metalocalypse. Though I’d never seen the show before, I had heard good things about it. A show that had the likes of Mark Hamill voicing a character should be okay in my book. Boy was I wrong. I couldn’t get into this show at all! While the show has pretty high review numbers on IMDB and other reviewers seemed to love it, Metalocalypse just didn’t do it for me. I’d rather pass on this cartoon and if it was on television, I disliked it so much, I’d turn something else on just to escape from having to watch this television show.

Release Information:
The first episode of Metalocalypse aired on August 6, 2006. The show is now in its second season. On October 2, 2007, Warner Bros. released a two-disc edition of the first season of Metalocalypse. Season 1 contains 20 episodes. Current audiences are in the middle of watching Season 2 on Adult Swim.

This is the uncensored version merely because the bonus features are uncut and uncensored. The actual episodes were not edited or changed from how they were when they aired originally on Adult Swim. The discs in this two disc set are split up with ten episodes per disc for a total of 20 episodes.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Release Information:
On September 25, 2007, Warner Bros. released The Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland Collection. This is the definitive Rooney/Garland Collection with four of their best musicals. These movies were filmed in black and white, which is how I like my classic movies. The reason for this is because a Rooney/Garland film was a sure sell. While color pictures were innovative at the time, if an audience would go to the movies anyway, the studio was more apt to shoot the film in black and white.

Rooney and Garland had box office appeal and the film was able to be made with a lower budget then it would have had they made the picture in color. I prefer black and white anyway because it gives the film something more, perhaps unexplainable, that seems to be lost in most of the colorized films of today.

The movies that are included in The Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland Collection are:
Babes in Arms, originally released October 31, 1939, Strike Up the Band originally released September 27, 1940, Babes on Broadway, originally released in January of 1942, and Girl Crazy, originally released November 26, 1943. These films were all remastered and the entire collection of MGM movies was packaged in a 5 disc set. There is one movie for the first four discs, plus special features, and a bonus disc packed with extras.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Contemporary high school history teachers might just want to prescribe The Dead Guy Interviews to hook their more reluctant students. Sardonic wit and irreverent quips characterize the tone of Michael Stusser’s historical treatise in which he “conducts interviews” marwith deceased historical figures. In addition to the basic dates, significant accomplishments, downfalls, etc., Stusser provides salacious peeks into the personal lives of the humor-invigorated, rigomortized celebrities.

Laid out in alpha order, Stusser covers Alexander the Great through Mao Zedong, from pharaohs to presidents, philosophers to plain ol’ pop culture figures. He moves through 45 historical notables with whom even 21^st century adolescents would be acquainted, and if they weren’t, the introductions to each larger-than-life figure would surely spark further interest…in at least most of the characters.

The bottom line of The Dead Guy Interviews is that it is the most entertaining historical text I have ever read, with most of the three-to-five-page interviews striking chords of interest in learning more about the characters. In most historical texts or biographies of Albert Einstein, there is surely something included in the text that explains how Einstein struggled in school. However, few would put it the way Stusser does in his interview:

Stusser: Some people say you may have actually had a learning disability.

Einstein: Yah, I haff a disability to learn vat zey vant to teach me. My problem vas zat I clashed at times with my professors – unt vas usually correct in my argument, I might add. Zen I began to skip classes to study vat I vanted. School vas a bit of, how you say, bust.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Starring – Jane Horrocks, Janet McTeer, Jodhi May, Geraldine James, Steven McKintosh
Written by Sally Wainwright
Directors – Simon Curtis, Declan Lowney, Catherine Morshead

Spread over five weeks on PBS and, from October 30th, available on a 2-disc Acorn Media DVD set, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard weaves an intriguing spell and is, at times, a wildly entertaining mix of laugh-out-loud comedy, superb drama and a little soap thrown in for good measure.

Starring the irrepressible and daring Jane Horrocks (Little Voice, Absolutely Fabulous) as Ros Pritchard, this six episode mini-series is a new take on the old little guy does good story (made especially famous by the wonderful 1939 Capra-classic, Mr Smith Goes To Washington), updated for a modern UK viewing audience, and is now garnering good figures for the superb PBS “Masterpiece Theatre” series, from an increasingly appreciative American audience.

After breaking up a scuffle between two local candidates outside her grocery store, Ros shouts that “I could do better than you lot” to the applause, cheers and general egging-on of reporters and on-lookers.

Seemingly within hours, and with no small amount of hoopla from a delirious media greedy for a new angle for a dull election, she is the head of a new political party called The Purple Democratic Alliance.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Writer: Jason Bourque
Director: Jason Bourque
Cast: Stephen Baldwin, Rob LaBelle, Gardiner Millar, Camille Sullivan, William B. Davis, Keegan Conner Tracy, Carrie Genzel
Rating: PG-13
Studio: Lionsgate
Release Date: October 23, 2007

Dark Storm was released by Lionsgates after airing on the Sci Fi Channel as a Saturday Night feature. Typically, the Saturday Sci Fi movies aren’t quite as good as you’d imagine. Well, you might imagine it sucks since it is a made for TV movie, but this one seemed to be thrown together and made just for the purpose of airing on television.

As you might imagine, the movie was boring, uninteresting, and it is one movie you have to bet Stephen Baldwin is wishing he never made in the first place. Find out what The Reviewer Duo think of Dark Storm in this movie review podcast.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

My dad always says, “If it looks like a chick flick and sounds like a chick flick…”, actually maybe it was that analogy with a duck. Either way you cut it, when I was offered the <em>October Road: The Complete First Season</em> box set I looked to the cover and I felt a chick flick that was drawn out into a series coming on. Now before anyone starts complaining I will state that was not completely what I received, though there were some issues I had with this show that may prevent me from running to the television when season two begins.

October Road is the classically standard case of the successful guy who makes it back to his small town to deal with all of the things he left behind. Something I found cliché, which is also a basic storyline of the show is that the lead character, who left and returns to the small town, is a successful author that (you may have already guessed it) suffers from writer’s block.

This is a storyline we have seen a million times over, so it really needs to be done in a way it hasn’t previously or it needs to at least stimulate from a new angle, which it does not. As with most shows, October Road has good and bad qualities. It will suit the needs for some, but never all, and it’s likely that the path to the Emmys will be one that is not traveled too often for this show because it’s watchable and decent, but it’s never truly great.

Release Info:
October Road: The Complete First Season is available through Touchstone Pictures and Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Released on October 30, 2007 this set includes the entire first season and a few bonus features in a two disc set. The October Road box set retails at Amazon for $19.99 and should be going for around the same at any local retailer.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

One of the most controversial films to be released this year was A Mighty Heart. It wasn’t that the material presented in the film was necessarily controversial. However, the fact that the lead actress in the movie was Angelina Jolie made more than a few heads turn. Jolie, who is actually a superb actress when given the right role, didn’t fit the “ethnic” and “racial” profile of the character she was playing so many people boycotted this movie without even attempting to see it.

I don’t understand how people can judge an entire movie by something they believe is racist, when the movie is about a woman who did not see people by race, religion or any other label. It just seems rather selfish of those who wish to complain without giving the film a chance. Mariane Pearl herself, whose memoir A Mighty Heart was based on, gave her blessing for Jolie to play the role. The two are now very close friends and Pearl has praised Jolie’s performance. Jolie played a woman with relatively light skin so the transformation wasn’t that drastic nor did it involve excessive amounts of makeup. Jolie’s skin tone looks natural, as though she might have been out in the sun for a while, and was non-offensive. There were many comments about Jolie playing the Afro-Cuban and Dutch Pearl in black face. Not only are those comments disgusting, they are lies and do not speak of the quality performances that make A Mighty Heart such a good film.

Release Information:
A Mighty Heart originally debuted in theaters on June 22, 2007. The HD and standard DVD editions were both released by Paramount Home Entertainment in October. This specific version of the movie, which was compressed in an HD format, was released on October 16, 2007. You can purchase both versions of A Mighty Heart at most local and online retailers. The Amazon retail price for this movie in HD is $27.95 USD.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Roots is one of those mini-series that will change your life. It was one of the most owerful instances of television where America literally changed their perception of a group of people because of a show that was so powerful and moving. Through Roots, the perception of African Americans as well as slavery was able to be changed. As a child, I do not recall seeing Roots, but it’s one of those things that you just know about whether you have seen it or not. Surprisingly, I think I am one of the few people on the planet that has never seen this mini-series.

This being said, I do plan to buy the first set so that I can watch it soon. When we received Roots: The Next Generations for review, Dominick scoffed when I said I had never seen Roots. He was shocked that I, the person who has seen a million movies and also has a history fetish, had not seen this historically wonderful mini-series. However, regardless of what I have and have not seen, we popped in the first disc of Roots: The Next Generations and settled in for a night of potentially life changing entertainment.

Release Info:
Roots: The Next Generations was based on the award-winning book written by Alex Haley. The book was a true story about his family and what he had learned about their history. The television mini-series includes Haley in the writing credits along with Sydney A. Glass. Haley was an on set consultant for the film to ensure that things were as realistic as possible to what happened in his book.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’d been waiting for that blue and white box to come in the mail, with a sense of anticipation. I knew that I would be getting Sonik Synth 2 to review, so when it finally came, I was absolutely ecstatic. You see, for the greater part of the past 20 years, music has been my life. Due to limitations (mainly being in a wheelchair) I had to find other activities to partake in as a child, while all my friends were out playing sports. What I discovered was a love for the arts, and in particular…a love for music.

For years, I filled my days with music in any way I could. I took vocal lessons for over 14 years with professional voice teachers. I taught myself how to play the piano. I played in my school’s band. I was involved in Opera Camp and musical stage productions. Anything I could do to get involved in music, whether it was singing, playing, or composing on the piano, I was doing it.

When everything became computer oriented, it only seemed natural for music to do so as well. I am what I would call, computer competent. So, when I found this entire community of individuals who were as creatively driven as I was, it seemed natural to want to know what they were using.

I compiled a list of all the innovative programs that were allowing people a whole new level of music composition and creation from their home. Names like Cubase, Reason, and SampleTank became a normal part of my vocabulary, and then I heard those two magical words…Sonik Synth. I knew I had found one program I wanted to use no matter what software I was using with it to compose my music. I just had to wait until that medium-sized blue and white box arrived at my door before I was off into my own little world…a world where music creation and composition reign supreme.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!