Category Archives: DVD

Interview: “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ and Cinematic Titanic

Mystery Science Theater 3000Some of my fondest memories of my childhood involve staying up late with my father and playing Space Invaders on our Atari 2600. For some reason, Dad loved that game. We figured out the cheat where if you held down the reset button while you powered up the console, the game would give you double missiles. But when we weren’t playing Space Invaders, we were usually watching really bad movies on late-night television. As we sat there, we’d mock the shows we were watching and die laughing. To us, alone, late at night, it was hilarious. Years later, when I first saw “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” I knew immediately what was going on. The show captured the mood of our experience exactly, along with a goofy sci-fi premise. The show was both legitimately hilarious, no matter what time of day you watched it, and about ten times more clever than expected. Random, often obscure, pop-culture references were peppered throughout. It was immediately familiar and yet unlike anything I had seen before. I loved it.

So when I recently had the chance to interview the creators of MST3000, who have revived their shtick for a project called Cinematic Titanic, which will be released in individual episodes on DVD and direct downloads, I jumped at the chance.

Read the rest of this entry

HD-DVD: Free DVDs

HD-DVD PlayerOK, so today my 5 free HD-DVDs that were promised when I bought my (now obsolete) HD-DVD player arrived.
Read the rest of this entry

Kurt Cobain: About A Son (DVD)

I got this purely on a whim the other day. I was browsing the documentary aisle at Best Buy and the pickings were slim. I ended up buying this for two reasons. One, I grew up as a teen in Seattle and used to see Nirvana play at small all ages shows. Two, there was a list of bands on the back whose music are featured in it, including Bad Brains, the Melvins, Butthole Surfers…my kind of stuff. When my husband saw it, he said, “I wonder if there’s any footage of us in it?” I figured chances were slim, but maybe there might be some footage from a show we were at.
Read the rest of this entry

“King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters” Movie Review

This brilliant documentary purports to be about the elusive high score on the classic arcade game, Donkey Kong, but is in fact a classic tale of Good vs. Evil, Weak vs. Powerful, and Trimmed vs. Mullet. Billy Mitchell is widely recognized as one of the greatest classic video game players of all time as he recorded the high scores on games such as Centipede, Donkey Kong Jr. and the notoriously difficult Donkey Kong, a record which stood for nearly twenty years. Steve Wiebe is a normal dude who got laid off from his job at Boeing and with his extra time decided he’d like to beat that record.

But beating it wasn’t the problem. Read the rest of this entry

Did I Choose Poorly…?

OK, like at least one other person here I got an HD-DVD player over the holidays. It was extremely cheap at the Thanksgiving sale at Costco ($170) so I said, “Dang. How can I miss that?” Especially since I now had an HD-TV and the Dish shows only play at 720p not 1080i. I’ve only watched a few HD-DVDs. (Oceans 13, Bourne Ultimatum) However I noticed that at Walmart, while the BluRay section was slightly larger it had fewer movies I wanted. Further the HD-DVDs were always sold out while the BluRays never were. Plus, since Microsoft was pushing HD-DVD I figured momentum was on that side. Dang. I should have paid attention to Microsoft’s failure with Vista.

HD-DVD Player
Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: Futurama: Bender's Big Score

futurama-benders-big-score.jpgGood news, everyone! Read the rest of this entry

First Rule of Movie Making: Do Not Make Movies

Sean Cassity is a movie producer and writer living in New York City. He agreed to write a piece about his experiences in the film industry.

In writing this I’m torn between advancing a project I’m actually quite proud of and admitting that it was probably a bad idea to do it. For some reason, I went off and produced a feature film. The film is called IN THE BLOOD and it premieres this Sunday night on LOGO. Read the rest of this entry

New Cinemasochist Theme

Wow, guys, how did we miss this topic before? MARTIAL ARTS. And I’ll say it right now, this movie, Undefeatable, is the front-runner, despite what you Gymkata and Surf Ninjas fans say.

So, what are the worst Martial Arts films available on Netflix?

Cinemasochist Review: From Justin to Kelly

You asked for it, jerks. You made me watch From Justin to Kelly: the Tale of Two American Idols. And I watched it. And my wife watched it too, and my dog.

It was not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Read the rest of this entry

Magic Overload!

Due to the miracle that is NetFlix my wife and I have recently seen three movies featuring magicians. I’ll present them in the order we saw them:

  1. Scoop
  2. The Illusionist
  3. The Prestige Read the rest of this entry
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.