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TheField of Blood: Set 1

Wayne Stillson — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 15:02:39 +0000

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2.90

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The Field of Blood

The Field of Blood is a show about a young woman, Paddy, trying to become a journalist in the 1980s. At work she has to deal with other journalists that don’t believe she can make it solely because she’s a woman and continuously make sexist comments while at home she has to deal with a very strict Catholic family.

Based on novels by Denise Mina, each episode runs an hour long but are in 2 parts. In all reality it plays as 2 2-hour movies. Had there not been credits and an intro in the middle for the end and start of the next episode I doubt I would of even noticed where one ended and the other began.

A couple problems that I had with the show were that if I walked into the kitchen to get a drink and came back I would be completely lost as to what’s going on because so much happens. While there is a lot happening there’s not a lot aside from talking so it can tend to drag on. Though the few parts there are action it does get pretty gruesome so this isn’t something you should watch with children in the room.

All in all the show was pretty good, would of given it an A had the episodes not been so long. They actually run a full 60min each. I would say that if you watch this show make sure that you have the time because if you don’t give the show your undivided attention theres a good chance you will get lost. I had to re-watch the first episode and almost the 3^rd because I got a little confused on what I missed.

The Field of Blood

Season:

Set 1

Regular Show: Rigby Pack

Wayne Stillson — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 14:57:11 +0000

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TV on DVD

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1.20

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Regular Show

Regular show is a cartoon that started back in 2010 and has become one of Cartoon Networks most popular shows. The show has gained fans of children, teenagers, and adults. Though I know a couple of adults that like the show I really don’t see why. While I can see it for children it seems a little immature for adults.

The show follows a raccoon named Rigby and his friend Mordecai who is a blue jay. Some of the stuff they get into is kind of funny like when Rigby tries to go skydiving while eating a burrito. When Rigby gets a hole in his parachute he tries to use the burrito to plug the hole while falling. While its funny it makes no since.

Rigby Pack is the 8^th DVD release for the show and features episodes from seasons 1-5 with about half coming from season 5. I think that this would be a good pack to get a feel of the show from all 5 seasons. The show in all was mildly amusing but not something I would watch very often.

Regular Show

About A Boy: Season One

Wayne Stillson — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 14:55:16 +0000

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4.00

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About a Boy

About a Boy is a show based on a novel by Nick Hornby. The show is about a songwriter, Will Freeman, who after writing a hit song is now free to live his life with out work. While he loves his free time his world starts to change when a boy named Marcus and his mother Fiona move in next door. At first Will is kind of annoyed by Marcus but slowly starts to grow attached to him in a father/son kind of way.

While I was expecting Will and Fiona to fall in love I'm really happy that it doesn’t happen, at least not in season 1. Will does face some challenges with his girlfriend though like when he leaves her at a gala for her work in order to save Marcus’ birthday party.

Each episode is only about 20 min long and I’m going to try and catch season 2 when it airs on NBC on October 14^th. The show is pretty funny and something that you can watch with the entire family.

About a Boy

The Vampire Diaries: The complete 5th Season

Paul Arca — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 17:00:52 +0000

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TV on DVD

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1.00

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“The Vampire Diaries” is a TV drama on CW that can be seen every Thursday at 8pm. The show just started their 6th season and released the entire 5th season on DVD on September 9, 2014. The show involves a love triangle, some vampires, and is mostly directed to young adult audiences. Does this sound familiar? This season, the plot is even more convoluted than ever with doppelgangers running around causing trouble and wreaking havoc on the cast with some of them starting college. What happens and who survives the end of the season? You’re going to have to watch the show to find out.
This was my first time watching the show and I went in with low expectations, which were not even met. Don’t get me wrong because I love vampires, just not the googly-eyed hopeless romantic types that have been plaguing the young adult section of the world. I found the writing, the dialogue, and the overall series to be juvenile and in need of more action. Besides the ghosts and some mythical creatures, “The Vampire Diaries” does little much else to distinguish itself from other similar series out there. The extras and bonus footage were a nice treat for fans of the show, but are nothing special for new viewers.
After watching the entire 5th season of “The Vampire Diaries” across 5 DVDs for 968 minutes, I am still not a fan of the show. I know I am not the target audience and did not expect to be impressed by the show. I love the glory days of vampires when they were heartless, relentless, and blood-thirsty killing machines. I had a hard time picturing Damon and Stefan as real threatening vampires. I suggest you watch “Underworld” or “Being Human” a lot more than “The Vampire Diaries” and for those reasons, I am giving the 5th season a “D.”

The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Fifth Season

The Originals: The Complete First Season

Lee Roberts — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 01:17:27 +0000

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TV on DVD

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Bonus Features

Grade:

1.99

Pilot Commentary, 5 Featurettes, Unaired Scenes

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The Originals

THE ORIGINALS:
New Orleans' French Quarter is known for its oddities but what people don't know is that it was built by the first vampires, the Mikaelson family. The siblings are The Originals, the first vampires, and they built the city of New Orleans but a century ago the siblings where exiled from the very city they built. Since that time the city has become the home for other vampires along with werewolves and witches. It's a melting pot for the strange and the mythical but when Elijah (played by Daniel Gillies) returns to New Orleans he finds out that there is more going on in his city then he knew about. Elijah discovers that Hayley (played by Phoebe Tonkin) is pregnant and the baby could either be the most important child to be born in the vampire/werewolf community or the most dangerous. But even with all their power, the Mikaelson family will have to be careful about who knows that they are back in the French Quarter because Marcel (played by Charles Michael Davis) is in charge of the city and he will not let go of his power without a fight.

SEASON ONE:
The Originals is a spin-off of the show The Vampire Diaries that's centered about vampires, werewolves, and witches. It's plot is about the first vampires who built New Orleans, was exiled long ago, are now back in the city but now they have to deal with all the complications that's going on with other vampires, werewolves, and witches. There's a ton of drama being had in this show, for example, there's a witch that's been killed where they body is out in the streets, there's a power struggle going on between the groups, the Mikaelson's have their problems with each other, and of course all the love stories going on. It's basically a drama show that has vampires, werewolves, and witches in it that are all good looking young people.

When I say that it's good looking young people, that's really all the show is about. In fact the first words to describe the series on the back of the DVD case are these, "The sexy and spellbinding..". I wouldn't call it "spellbinding", for me it is more like drama-bound. As for the "sexy" part, if they meant that it's sexy because of the cast of actors they use in the show, then yes it's sexy because they are all good looking people but if they mean the show itself is sexy, well I can see how some might think it is but I thought it was just a sex sales show. When did vampires and werewolves get to be models? I remember a time when the vampires would look like normal people while in their human side but when they changed into actual vampires, they would become ugly, demon like even, monsters at best, with pointy teeth. That's not happening in The Originals, all that you get is vampires that go from being models with normal human teeth to oh no they are now vampires that are still models but with two pointy teeth. Ok, let’s even say this is how it is, when you're a vampire all the change that happens between human look and vampire look is the pointy teeth, but where are the normal, average looking ones? The people that don't look like they belong in a magazine modeling clothing, the ones you see behind the counter of a fast food restaurant?

Now as for the show and all its drama laced story lines, it's one that I didn't really enjoy. Maybe it's because I don't go for stories that are about good looking male vampires that have a bad boy side but are really just soft good people inside that find themselves doing bad things for their own good reasons. Maybe it's because I don't care much for the stories that show the good looking girls that fall for the bad boy vampires where their relationship is almost forbidden. Then there's the fact that every episode is one huge drama fest where the characters are always having some big problem like should I keep this baby or not, oh I can't trust anyone anymore, oh look there's some cryptic message that's going to give some surprising information, and I can't forget the whole feuds. Maybe if this show was only a half hour long instead of an hour I might have liked it some, but the hour long drawn out dramas and plots and all the different characters just dragged on for me. By the time I got to the last episode, which this first season was 22 episodes long, I just didn't care anymore about the fight between Marcel and Klaus or Hayley and the baby. All I wanted was to see the season end but when I finally did reach the ending I disliked the sappy way everything is concluded so much that I have no desire to ever watch this show again. I really did try to find something in it that I liked, what I found was that is that I liked the way it's shot, the sets are nice, the costuming is good, I even liked the idea of the plot of taking the first vampires and putting them in the current time, but it just became a teen drama that I couldn't enjoy.

The Originals: The Complete First Season

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75 Years of WWII

Wayne Stillson — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 14:48:30 +0000

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1.40

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75 Years of WWII

As with 100 years of WWI I was able to learn some stuff about WWII that I didn’t know. Still not much of a history person and kind of faded in and out while watching it but all in all thought that the documentary was pretty good.

75 years of WWII is a 2 disk set from History channel. Disk 1 is in 2 parts and is D-Day in HD part 1 and 2. Most of it is account from veterans that took part in storming the beaches of Normandy. A couple of the stories get a little graphic as I kind of expected but not to much.

The 2nd disc is in three parts each one its own special from the history channel. I preferred the 2nd disk to the first the same as I did with the WWI documentary but I think I preferred the WWI. Most of the animations/CGI is about the same for most History channel specails. Not a very high budget but not completely horrible.

If you would like to learn a little bit about WWII I would recommend picking this up. Its only about $15 from History channels website and With over 5 hours of information you shouldn’t be disappointed.

75 Years of WWII

Lovejoy: Series 2

Wayne Stillson — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 14:31:16 +0000

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1.20

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Lovejoy is a British TV show that originally aired in 1986 and ran for a total of 6 seasons ending in the mid 90s. I really was not a fan of this show. It just seemed a little boring and the humor that was in it was a dry humor.

While I didn’t really enjoy the show it did have its moments. My favorit character in the show was Tinker or Tink for short. Played by Dudley Sutton he is a barker, drunk, and also one of Lovejoys good friends. Not sure why I liked him but he usualy was the one that made me laugh while watching the show.

I had to muscle through the show to watch the entire thing and the general plot for the season is that at the end of the 1st season Lovejoy was arrested. Now that he is out he wants to prove his innocence, as best he can. While he didn’t commit the crime that got him arrested he’s still not the most honest person out there. At times Lovejoy can be a little shady but never really hurting anyone.

If it’s a show you never watched before, or never heard of like me, I wouldn’t bother watching it. It took a lot to get into the show and finish it. If you were a fan of the first season or the show as a whole you can pick it up off of Amazon for about $20-$25 but I would recommend passing on it.

Lovejoy

Season:

Series 2

100 Years of WWI

Wayne Stillson — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:53:06 +0000

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Grade:

2.50

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100 Years of WWI

100 Years of WWI is a 4 part special that originally aired on History channel. The DVD includes all 4 parts and an additional 3 specials; Modern Marvels: World War I Tech, Dogfights: The First Dogfighters, and Man, Moment, Machine: The Red Baron & The Wigs of Death.

The 4 parts in the special run about 45 min a each so you can break up watching if you need to like I did. While the show was pretty interesting but the CGI in it when showing battle recreations was just bad. Even though the CGI was bad it was kind of cool seeing what some of the original tanks looked like and actually maneuvered.

Most of the narration is readings from memoirs and diary entries from the soldiers. A lot of the narrating in the specials is the same way. Some of the voice-overs for the readings though just made me laugh a little bit by how bad it sounded.

I never really paid much attention in history class so I actually did learn a lot about WWI that I probably should of known going in. Even though the whole thing ends up running 5 hours 15 min., after breaking it up over two or three days it was pretty interesting. I really don’t think that this would be something to watch all in one sitting unless you’re big into history. I would of really liked this more if they had a larger budget for voice acting and CGI.

100 Years of WWI

Low Winter Sun: Season 1

Justin LaGrande — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:38:49 +0000

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TV on DVD

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Grade:

4.00

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Low Winter Sun finds new life on DVD

Crime drama has been done to death on television and will continue to be because they tap into so many parts of the human psyche. As such, there are a lot of these shows floating around, and some really good ones become forgotten. This is the case of “Low Winter Sun” which ran for ten weeks in 2013. This remake of British two part miniseries is a smart, gritty take on the usual tales of corruption and revenge that have been told before many times before. As good as “Low Winter Sun” was during it’s initial run it was faced with an unenviable task of keeping viewers around after AMC closed the books on “Breaking Bad”.

The show’s pilot begins with a pair of Detroit cops, Frank Agnew (Mark Strong) and Joe Geddes (Lennie James), killing another and attempting to make it look like a suicide. It is later revealed that the murdered cop, Brendan McCann (Michael McGrady), was being investigated by Internal Affairs for his connection to a criminal organization. Along the way, more layers peel away, with more of this cast of characters revealing that they may be as corrupt as the not so dearly departed McCann.

Detroit plays as an excellent backdrop for such a hard-boiled tale. There’s something about the seemingly perpetually depressed visage that the city has displayed over recent years that definitely adds to the mystique of a show like this. There’s something to be said for location being an extra character in a show or film, and Detroit does not disappoint in regards to “Low Winter Sun”.

Since the show only ran for one season, there are only ten episodes. Special features are pretty sparse, but that shouldn’t deter one from hunting down a copy if they happen to be a fan of a good crime drama. “Low Winter Sun” is yet another example of a great show that got a raw deal from its network.

Low Winter Sun

Season:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Cowabunga Classics

Jason Pace — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 15:07:40 +0000

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Grade:

3.00

TMNT are big right now, again, due to the latest Michael Bay fueled relaunch of the franchise, but with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Cowabunga Classics you can look back to the mainstreaming of the turtles and catch 10 fan favorite episodes from the old 80s/90s cartoon.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are heroes in a half-shell. They have turtle power. They're the world's most fearsome fighting team. They're heroes in a half-shell and they're green. When the evil Shredder attacks these turtle boys don't cut him no slack. Splinter taught them to be ninja teens. Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines. Raphael is cool but crude. Michaelangelo is a party dude. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are heroes in a half-shell. They have turtle power.

Now, if you read that last paragraph and started immediately singing it to the old theme song: First, you will now have that in your head the rest of the day. You're welcome. Second, this collection is for you. These 10 episodes are 220 minutes of turtles spouting surfer/skater lingo, eating pizza and fighting the Foot Clan with their sick ninja moves. The included episodes are:

Season One: "Shredder & Splintered"
Season Two: "Curse of the Evil Eye"
Season Three: "Turtles at the Earth's Core"
Season Three: "Cowabunga Shredhead"
Season Three: "The Big Blow Out"
Season Four: "Super Hero for a Day"
Season Five: "The Turtles and the Hare"
Season Five: "My Brother, the Bad Guy"
Season Five: "Planet of the Turtleoids"
Season Seven: "Night of the Rogues"

I guess season six didn't have any episodes worth of making the top 10. Nor any from seasons 8, 9 or 10. But since there were 193 episodes of the run, that is understandable.

As an adult watching these shows, I see how stupid they can be. The solutions to their problems are often extremely silly and sometimes don't make any sense at all. But they are turtles who are ninjas, so kids don't mind. But I also see how smart the show is, or at least how many literature, sci-fi, fantasy and pop culture references they can weave into their stories. I know as a kid I got some of them, but as an adult I get so many more.

This set a few extras mainly consisting of interviews with the artists and voice actors who made the show.

If you loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid, and are looking for a way to introduce them to your kids that doesn't involve Michael Bay or Megan Fox, then the Cowabunga Classic is as good a place as any to start.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Cowabunga Classics