Frasier: And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon, Par

Pear ta ma 'on maf 

(Fiji)
A Te Maka Prods. and Pacific Islanders in Communications presentation in association with ORA Digital and Makai Offering Pictures. (International sales: Te Maka Prods., Honolulu; Makai Motion Pictures, San Francisco.) Produced by Jeannette Paulson Hereniko, Corey Tong, Vilsoni Hereniko. Gubernatorial producer, Merata Mita. Directed, written by Vilsoni Hereniko.

With:

Sapeta Taito, Emily Erasito, Moriki Tigarea, Ritie Titofaga, Voi Fesaitu, Rena Owen, Maniue Vilsoni, John Fasiu Fatiaki, Sarote Fonmanu, Elisapeti Kafonika Inia, James Davenport, John Fatiaki.


Fiji cinema makes its inauguration with "The Land Has Eyes," a composition about apophthegm and venereal issues faced by Pacific Island people that is told by an unmistakable storyteller, but is nonetheless apart from on effective theatre arts. Tyro Fiji writer-cicerone (and vet playwright) Vilsoni Hereniko aims to let someone in on how the arcane origins of the people of Rotuma Holm in the Fiji fasten are shaken by a precocious teenage girl who summons up vengeful objectiveness to put some rank men in their place. But hackneyed dramatization, acting and camerawork dull pic's repercussions, limiting exposure to position Pacific territories and TV outlets.

After local storyteller Hapati (Voi Fesaitu) tells his intelligent daughter Viki (Sapeta Taito) about the island's legendary Warrior Woman (Rena Owen, of "Once Were Warriors"), he becomes center of pic's story. Conflict between poorer Hapati and mean, money-hungry neighbor Koroa (Maniue Vilsoni) is elementary, with Viki's odd behavioral streaks adding the only real interest. Mediocre mini-DV lensing robs stunning settings of their visual power. Pic's aid from Rotterdam fest's Hubert Bals Fund shows the multicultural, globe-hopping nature of the institution's support.

Camera (Monaco Lab color, DV, DV projection), Paul Atkins; writer, Jonathan Woodford-Robinson; music, Clive Cockburn; production-clothing designer, Hupfeld Hoerder. Reviewed at Sundance Videotape Festival (Native Forum), Jan. 16, 2004. (Also in Rotterdam Film Gala day.) Rotuman, English dialogue. Running time: 88 MIN.

Not a sequel, not really a prequel, sort of a remake, more of a re-imagining, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights follows the blossoming love affair of young couple Katey (Romola Garai) and Javier (Diego Luna) against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution in 1958. Katey is an American girl living in Cuba with her parents who meets Javier, a local. Javier takes Katey to a nightclub where he teaches her how to dance dirty Cuban-style. The two grow closer and closer, but when Castro takes over, Katey?s parents decide to flee for the U.S., leaving Katey to make the ultimate decision. Tying the film together with the classic 1987 original is Patrick Swayze who reprises the role of Johnny Castle in a cameo.

Mitch Preston (Robert De Niro) is a respected and humourless detective but with a lifestyle puzzler and a shortish consolidate. Sentinel Officer Trey Sellars (Eddie Murphy) is a wanna be actor cop, whose approach to arrests begins with the self-pumping, ‘it’s showtime!’ They are thrown together when Mitch blasts away at a camera after Trey stumbles into his undercover drug bust, and the resultant newswomen gets the LA Police Dept unwanted blot – and Mitch trice repute. Exploitative tv producer Hunt Renzi (Rene Russo) grabs the chance for a fact tv cop grant get a bang no other, with grumpy Mitch as the lead and Trey as his unlikely offsider.

Farthest and Away

Directed by Ron Howard

Universal Studios Profoundly Video 05/92 DVD/VHS Feature Skin

PG-13

In 1892 Ireland, a tenant farmer dies in the arms of his youngest son Joseph (Tom Cruise) but not before he tells him, "Land is a man's very own soul!" The ardent youth hurries off to murder the landlord he holds responsible for his father's death and for forcing them off their farm. At the country estate, he meets Shannon (Nicole Kidman), the landlord's high-spirited daughter. She's an independent lass, who considers herself "smart and modern." She plans to go to America where she has heard there is free land for the taking. Yearning for land of his own, Joseph goes with her as her servant.

Ron Howard's

Far and Away

is an old-fashioned film carried into our hearts with breathtaking scenery, a swelling soundtrack, and large-scale dramatic happenings. But the real magic in the movie is the slow and meandering relationship that develops between Joseph, the stubborn Irish peasant, and Shannon, the sophisticated young woman. Robbed of their financial resources in Boston, they take a rented room in a whorehouse. They pass themselves off as brother and sister, which pretty well describes their stance toward each other. Joseph earns money for as a bare-knuckle boxer. Their goal is to join the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893.

In her bestselling book

A Return to Love,

Marianne Williamson notes: "Relationships are the Holy Spirit's laboratories in which He brings together people who have the maximal opportunity for mutual growth." The blooming of love between Joseph and Shannon is unhurried and cautious. First, they have to set aside the class barriers which separate them. Next, they must learn to shore up each other's self-image. And when they finally reach Oklahoma, they must choose what is most important to them. In the end, they realize that a life together in love ? not land ? is the soul's deepest yearning.

When Meg (Lange) steps off the Greyhound bus, trailing behind her a blown-out singing calling and a series of failed relationships, Babe (Spacek) has just emptied a gunful of lead into her noxious senator husband, and buttoned-up, abnormal Lenny (Keaton) is singing herself ‘Happy Birthday’ all alone in the cookhouse. The stage is harden recompense an escalating wrathful farce on the substance of broken dreams; but all we get, sadly, is a meandering display of half-hearted Mississippi drawl as these three hare-brained sisters lose concentration from extent to dwell trading reminiscence and counter-accusation. Symptomatically, it is only when Meg and her old flame (Shepard) suffer eccentric to the bayou that the movie starts to spill the beans. Elsewhere, Beresford fails to generate adequate chemistry to hold the performances. Spare bursts of choice dolorous humour notwithstanding make this a not unlikeable ‘feminist’ nature piece.

Ten years after the events of

The Phantom Menace

, not only has the galaxy undergone significant change, but so have our frequent heroes Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) as they are thrown together again for the first time since the Trade Federation storming of Naboo. Anakin has grown into the accomplished Jedi apprentice of Obi-Wan, who himself has transitioned from schoolchild to teacher. The two Jedi are assigned to take under one’s wing Padmé whose dash is threatened by a circle of political separatists. As relationships form and compelling forces smack into, these heroes superficially choices that commitment consequences not only their own fates, but the karma of the Republic.

Star Wars - Destroy of the Clones Review

Rethink:

When the inception prequel came out…I defended Lucas…when a moll of treasure trove first trashed it I mocked him by saying 'Lucas didn't make the movie I wanted to see'. Pain, it was merry at the beforehand, but my friend was right. The ahead film was a tamper with. I'd apologize to my friend Bill…but, well, no…I'm not the apologizing type.

Star Wars Event 2: Censure of the Clones

Three years have passed…a long time for Lucas to take directing and writing classes and return with a sequel/prequel to slap those of us who badmouthed his earlier effort.

Not long enough apparently.

But Lucas has supplied more hope for the third film than I would have thought possible. Sadly this film suffers more from bad acting, insanely bad video game moments, and godawful scriptwriting, all of which could easily be fixed. Add in the slight miscast of Christopher Lee as Count Dooku and you have a knot tied around the faults I feel. Before you email me with notes of hate…face facts, the love scenes are atrocious, they made you squirm and laugh, and there is simply zero chemistry between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman…both of whom are good actors as has been proven in films like Life As A House (Christensen) and The Professional (Portman). When Anakin sits and tells Amidala how he loves things soft and so on (who let him stare at her breasts for so long?) he went from a Jedi in love to a leech in lust.

As for Christopher Lee…hey, the guy is great in all those old B-flicks…and his Dracula is classic…I love the man…but when it comes to having him as one of the major villains and tossing around Jedi's for a big Light Sabre fight…wrong…you need a younger person trained and fit for the moves necessary to compete with the modern age of fight scenes.

However, there are positive moments. An early chase scene through the skies of Coruscant is fun and gets you thinking that things are going to change for the better in this series of films. Then 'events' happen and Ben Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are separated…Anakin is charged to look after Senator Amidala (apparently she was voted Queen…this is all very confusing…and a new Queen is in place who apparently doesn't do much more than provide herself as a figure head because all of the assassins are still after Senator Padme). Ben Kenobi must venture off and find out who is behind the plots to end Amidala's life.

Ewan McGregor as Ben Kenobi steals this entire movie. His style recalls Alec Guiness but lets his 'version' of Kenobi shine through as well…and I like this Jedi Knight. He is interesting, thoughtful, and seems to be the only person with a sense of humour at all within this new series of Star Wars flick. How I miss Han Solo! As Kenobi tracks down Jango Fett we are led into the second interesting scene of the movie (though about an hour into the film), a sadly all too brief battle between the Jedi Knight and Bounty Hunter which shows why both Jedi's and the Bounty Hunter Fett are so cool.

Much has been made of the finale, the last twenty minutes of battles…well, too much….they don't live up to the hype and by the time Yoda does pick up his light sabre, as interesting as his entrance is, it's over too fast, over too quickly and feels like the another kick in the groin from Lucas. Everytime we start enjoying the film he reverts away from Ben Kenobi back to the horrible love/hate scenes of Anakin Skywalker or back to a meeting in the senate….so many meetings…too many meetings. The final battle has about as much emotional impact as a tic-tac, as for a running gag in it involving C-3P0…well, I'll never know who thought that was a good idea with all the bad puns (except for one killer line but I won't blow it for you here).

It's funny, when Phantom Menace came out I thought Lucas had missed the boat…having Darth Maul on Tatooine sitting on the outskirts of the city. The film needs to establish how mean and tough this character is (aside from his just looking the part), and I thought having him attacked by Tusken Raiders at night and make short work of them would do this job well. Perhaps this was suggested to Lucas, or he stole my brain one night…either way, the scene is employed in this one…way too briefly, as part of Anakin's first steps towards the dark side. However, Lucas, despite lopping off a few heads with sabres here and there, backs away from the real dark side and presents us mainly with Anakin's confession.

If one is going to become the Hitler of the Universe in the third film…well, such sanitized versions of genocide are not going to convince us. Oh, and George, having Anakin confess and then letting Amidala comfort him comes across more like the Senator has a thing for serial killer's than compassion. Every girl likes a bad-ass, even in a galaxy long ago and far, far away.

Still…

still

…Attack of the Clones is better than the first film…in fact, as yet another friend of mine pointed out, had this film been released and The Phantom Menace only alluded to in dialogue…the fans and critics might not be so down on the series as they have been of late.

But Lucas…you better get a grip, and show some real nerve for the final one…final score…2 out of 5 on this one.

The Balance so far?

Star Wars: 4.5 entirely of 5
The Empire Strikes Furtively: 4.5 outdoors of 5
The Return of the Jedi: 3.5 out of 5
The Phantom Daunt: 1 unconscious of 5
Attack of the Clones 2 not at home of 5

Copyright© DVDwolf.com

Copyright© Written By:

Rob Paul



Feel the need to spout off? Voice your opinion on the DVDwolf Forum!

Special Features:

Audio Commentary by Journo-Director George Lucas, Producer Rick McCallum, Editor-in-chief-Report Designer Ben Burtt, Visual Effects Supervisors and Enthusiasm Controller Rob Coleman

"From Puppets To Pixels": A full-length documentary that tracks the revolution in digital kind spiritedness

"State Of The Taste: The Previsualization Of Part II": An all-unusual documentary featuring never-first-seen Animatics of Episode II

"Films Are Not Released, They Escape" Documentary

3 Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes

Theatrical Flier Galleries

Video:

Widescreen 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)

Audio:

ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Surround
ENGLISH: DD-EX 5.1

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves/The Idiots) is one
of the Danish founders of Dogme ‘95, that gimmicky method of filming only
with certain sparse cinematic rules. This film is shot in drab digital
video and with a hand-held camera. Trier has the flair for showbiz promoting,
and has created a film that pulls every string in the book Hollywood wrote
about making romantic musical tearjerkers; but, without a Jacques Demy
love for the Hollywood musical. Demy revitalized the Hollywood musical
with his brilliant “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” This film is a captivating
‘love it or hate it’ musical melodrama, one that should divide its audience
to either end of the pole, that unfairly pulls cards out of its sleeve
to make sure its case against the death penalty can’t lose. It tries to
show America as a country of harsh laws and questionable values, where
its capitalistic system forces people to make bad decisions about what
is important in life. If there’s any explanation for why the director used
this flat Eastern European looking musical to make his case against capitalism,
it could probably be explained that von Trier’s parents were communists
and he was raised to think that the Hollywood musical was a result of bourgeois
decadence. The ‘von’ part of his name was not given but added for snobbish
reasons.

The story’s heroine is played by Icelandic pop singer-composer Bjork,
who won the Best Actress prize at the recent Cannes Film Festival, playing
her part with childlike simplicity and unbelievable dumbness. The film
won the prestigious Palme d’Or for Best Picture. Praise from abroad has
been far greater than the less than warm reaction from the American public
and most film critics in the States.

It is a film about a single mother named Selma (Bjork) with a 12-year-old
son, Gene (Vladica Kostic), who emigrates to America from communist Czechoslovakia
and Selma ends up working at a tool-and-die factory, adding to her income
by placing hairpins to cards at home for less than a penny per card. Selma
saves every cent in a tin can she keeps in a bureau drawer, for an operation
to save her son’s sight. Selma came to America because only the doctors
here can perform such an operation and only here can she make enough money
to pay the hefty doctor bill. Both she and her son suffer from the same
heriditary eye ailment, whereby if they don’t receive the operation they
will go blind. Selma cannot save up enough for both operations and therefore
sacrifices herself for her son’s sake, but never tells her son or anyone
else about her going blind or how serious his condition is. Selma’s salvation
and only happiness is her love of Hollywood musicals — as she lives in
them in her mind. Selma also acts in an amateur theater group, where she
has the lead part of Maria in the musical The Sound of Music. Selma is
accompanied by her factory friend Kathy (Deneuve), who sees for herself
the trouble she has with her eyesight and tries to help her in the workplace.
They are together watching old-time Hollywood musicals at a local theater.
Because Selma can hardly see the screen Kathy must explain what is happening,
which causes a disturbance for a man who is seated in front of them the
both times they are in the movie house and he reacts each time to their
talking in an irritated way. That scene was contrived, throwing it in the
viewer’s face that everything is shamelessly rigged and there’s nothing
you can do about it. I got the feeling that if you don’t accept von Trier’s
world-socialist view of things, you are made to feel like you are on the
wrong side.

The film is set in 1964 in the state of Washington, in an outlying
area of the state, where Selma (Bjork) and her son rent a trailer on the
property of the local policeman Bill (Morse) and his wife Linda (Cara).
The couple seem outwardly friendly to their tenant, offering Selma candy
and giving a bike to Gene so that he can get to school.

One day the troubled landlord tells Selma a secret that he’s about
to lose his house because he can’t make the payments; this is something
his spendthrift wife is unaware of, thinking he has a lot of money from
an inheritance. Selma trades secrets with him and tells him about her impending
blindness and when Bill asks her for a loan soon after they traded secrets
and she said she couldn’t, Bill finds where she hid the money and steals
it. Her grief gets piled on as she gets fired from her factory job and
gives up her role in the play because of her poor eyesight — a condition
Selma stubbornly continues to deny to everyone so as to keep the truth
from her son. Selma even rejects the friendly romantic overtures from a
good-hearted local worker Jeff (Stomare), who is constantly offering her
a ride home.

When Selma goes to get her stolen money back she encounters a hostile
Linda, who says Bill told her about the sexual advances she made toward
him. When Selma faces Bill he pulls a gun and pretends that he couldn’t
commit suicide, and tells her if she wants the money she better kill him.
After he pulls a gun on her, there’s a struggle and he’s shot. When Bill
asks her to kill him, she is at first reluctant but then complies inflicting
34 wounds in all — first with the gun and then with the money box slammed
into his skull when she runs out of bullets.

Selma’s arrested for murder and after a speedy trial in which her
incompetent court-appointed lawyer does not mention what really went on,
she’s sentenced to death by hanging. She won’t agree to an appeal because
the new competent lawyer would have to be paid with the money saved for
Gene’s operation.

Then the most startling thing about this so far very manipulative
and dull story takes place, flighty song and dance numbers break out among
the characters as fantasy and reality get intermeshed and original songs
written and performed by Bjork and inventively choreographed by Vincent
Paterson are acted out; some numbers take place in the factory, the rehearsal
hall, a railroad bridge and in the courtroom. Even the already murdered
Bill comes back to life to be part of the song and dance routines. These
numbers were hardly memorable, but they were attention getting since they
didn’t fit the action and had a bizarre look. What they all had was a verve,
like something important was happening, rather than the songs and dances
being good music. Yet there was something about this break in the story
line that interrupted the boredom of the story and gave the film renewed
life. It was the only time the film wasn’t dried out by the manipulative
story and seemed like a true cinematic fantasy experience. It was the only
thing in the film that seemed to be innovative and chancy as for once the
director stopped exploiting the poor dumb woman for a brief respite, before
carrying on with making her into a martyr. Trier did that in the film’s
final scene where he exploits her suffering for one more time as he shows
her scared of dying, comforted only by a sympathetic prison guard who leads
her gently to the execution rope; we needlessly see the entire horrific
hanging.

I don’t think the director made his point that well against the death
sentence by making the trial and her death such a blatant mockery of justice.
All those scenes were obviously phony, a set-up for the director to force
his beliefs down the viewer’s throats. Everything about this film was unreal
and embedded with such an effete snobbishness to show only its view was
the right one. It seems as if von Trier is, as always, the ego-driven publicist
and never the artist first; and, he is always seeking to gain attention
for his views about society, without giving me the sense that he really
cares about what he is railing against. I never for one moment in this
film thought he cared about Selma’s suffering, her blindness, or that he
viewed any of the workers with a real understanding. Trier’s point of how
economic conditions makes one a murderer seemed too simple a generalization
to take seriously. It also seems to me that he used the hanging only because
without it he couldn’t finish the job he had of exploiting her suffering
to the extreme. Billy Wilder in his “Double Indemnity” didn’t have to use
the electric chair to get across his point about the inequality of the
justice system, neither was it used by Tay Garnett in his superior 1946
“The Postman Always Rings Twice.” Both films in their earnest telling of
their story make a better argument than von Trier does against capital
punishment, even though he uses every heart-tugging trick there is to make
his case. Trier does this because what he really believes, is that he must
shock an audience in order for his film to work–he doesn’t seem to be
able to operate in any other way. The best I can say for von Trier was
that as trying as it was to watch and as difficult as it was not to feel
exploited, his film had an interesting quality. That despite the dullness
and my resentment at his methods, I was still enthralled. 

They speak English, but the film doesn’t feel American. It has the
static energy of a film made in communist Czechoslovakia. Von Trier has
never been to America and most of the actors in this film are foreigners
and the story is not a very believable presentation of America and how
its judicial system works, unless you want to take extreme cases as the
rule. For von Trier an extreme case gives him just what he is looking for,
not a chance to search for the truth but a chance to make a splash. With
this film he is the one dancing in the darkness, but brazen enough to give
one the impression that he is re-inventing cinema. I take him for a charming
huckster. This is the most exploitative and least daring film he has made
to date. It is not daring to be against the death penalty with the evidence
he stacked up against it. The only risk he took is that he would torture
the viewer to death by all his contrivances and the brutally slow-pace
of the film, and by the song lyrics being so empty a gesture to Hollywood.
The only other risk he takes, is not making the ‘big bucks’ he envisioned
by bringing his act to America.

Eighteen-year old Jess (Parminder K Nagra) is an Indian Londoner whose parents expect her to study law, learn to cook chapattis and people down with a nice Indian youngster. Discompose is, Jess loves soccer. She runs rings encircling the lads at the local estate and dreams of playing ilk her superstar, David Beckham. When her skills are spotted by Juliet (Keira Knightley) - a fellow soccer-lover who plays for a district women’s together - Jess gets a chance at the big passe. If only she and Jules can bend their parents’ rules, and not both fall over the extent of their out-of-bounds coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).

Author’s Note: This review is based on a screener copy of Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, not on a final shelf product. I received none of the final packaging, but having previously reviewed Disney screener copies for their high-end releases, I’m assuming the video and audio quality of this screener disc will match the final product, as they have in the past.

Why do I want to keep calling this Cinderella II: Electric Boogaloo? Actually, 2002’s Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, as it’s properly titled, has been re-released on DVD in a “Special Edition,” but I can’t for the life of me discover what’s different about this release. All the extras appear to be the same as the ones featured on the 2002 release, with the exception of one new marginal DVD game, so…. And “special” Cinderella II: Dreams Come True most decidedly isn’t, with this paltry, poorly executed offering pretty much hitting rock bottom for the straight-to-DVD sequels that Disney has supposedly sworn off producing anymore.

Gus and Jaq, the mice who helped Cinderelly in the first film are back, with a plan to make a book for Cinderelly featuring some stories they made up to entertain her. Helped by the Fairy Godmother, the three small vignettes are presented to the viewer. The first short story deals with Cinderella’s first day in the castle, where she has to learn how to be a princess from the snotty Prudence. Being put in charge of an important royal banquet taxes Cinderelly’s resolve, but she comes through in the end. In the second story, Jaq, too small to be of use to anyone in the castle, decides he wants to be human, so the Fairy Godmother grants his wish. Of course, the results are disastrous, with Jaq almost ruining Cinderelly’s Spring Festival. And the final chapter deals with Cinderella’s evil step-sister, Anastasia, who falls in love with a butcher - much to the dismay of her mother who disapproves of the union. Can Cinderelly help these two ugly kids find love?

I’ve always been squarely on the side of Disney - or any company for that matter - having the right to revamp or sequel a beloved property, as long as the new film is entertaining and worthwhile in its own right . But Cinderella II: Dreams Come True is junk of the first order, and thus deserving of not my scorn or my wrath, but my utter apathy. Why in the world would you take such a beloved gem, a genuine masterpiece of post-WWII Disney animation as Cinderella (a film that a broken 1950 Europe embraced so whole-heartedly that it won the Golden Bear in Berlin and a special prize at the Venice Film Festival), and tarnish that beautiful memory with such a rank piece of marketing incompetence?

It’s bad enough that the animation looks like sub-par Saturday morning fare (comparing it to the full, classical animation style of the original is heartbreaking), but can’t we please get over the whole, “Be true to yourself!” dogma that runs rampant through children’s programming today? I’m not kidding; enough’s enough. It’s gone way overboard. Believe me; I’ve been to the mall on Saturday afternoons and there are millions of kids out there in America who need to be told don’t “be yourself” so much, and to shut their little yappers. You know who else were “true to themselves?” Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, that’s who - and that didn’t help anybody, now did it?

I’m exaggerating of course, but this blanket “Be yourself” mantra that is endlessly being drummed into kids’ heads is utterly meaningless when it’s packaged over and over again in the guises of boring, stilted cartoons such as Cinderella II: Dreams Come True. It’s such a safety crutch for timid writers that you tend to just go along because arguing against it makes you look like a Nazi. Who doesn’t want their child to “be themselves,” particularly if you’re discussing empowering little girls (who are the main viewers of junk like Cinderella II: Dreams Come True)? But can’t that message come with some real meat on those tired old story bones? Is “being true to yourself” really just picking out the right colors you want on the castle drapes and choosing chocolate pudding over prunes for dessert, as Cinderella II: Dreams Come True’s first story suggests? Couldn’t they come up with something just a little bit more substantial to show Cinderelly’s grit and determination?

Better yet: why not just skip the whole thing and leave her and the Prince to live “happily ever after,” just as the fairy tale intended the story to end? Of all the fairy tales that you could safely leave behind for a sequel, Cinderella would seem to be the most obvious one. The whole point is they lived “happily ever after.” It’s not rocket science. Those little words ended it; it’s up to us to imagine all the magic and mystery that simple phrase suggests. Instead, that gossamer filigree of imagination and wishing and hoping that we all as children imparted on the ending of that lovely fairy tale, comes crashing down with the reality that Cinderella apparently was a fairly common little scullery maid, after all (she likes to wear her old rags in Cinderella II: Dreams Come True), and that contrary to appearances in the first film, her nasty sisters, particularly Anastasia, are worthy of our pity, rather than our well-earned scorn. Thank you, new Disney, for making concrete what I only could have wished for. Dreams did indeed come true for viewers of the original Disney Cinderella, but children watching Cinderella II: Dreams Come True may very well learn a hard lesson in pandering for the sake of a buck.

The DVD:

The Video:
The anamorphically enhanced, 1.78:1 widescreen video image is fine, with no compression or transfer issues, but the animation itself is sub-par. Colors are quite bright and the image is sharp.

The Audio:
You can listen to the awful songs of Cinderella II: Dreams Come True in English Dolby Digital DTS 5.1 Surround (god, why), or 5.1 Surround in English, French and Spanish. Subtitles are available, as well as close-captioning.

The Extras:
There’s a game on this “special edition” that I don’t think was featured on the original 2002 release, Race to the Royal Banquet House, which is just as lame as the other extras on this DVD, including A Little Misunderstanding, a read-along storybook; the Cinderella’s Enchanted Castle game; a behind-the-scenes look at the score called Musical Magic, and a music video for the gawd awful Put it Together song.

Final Thoughts:
If, in their efforts to be “true to themselves,” your little tykes demand Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, tell them to can it, and watch the original masterpiece with them instead. They’ll thank you for it later. You can safely skip Cinderella II: Dreams Come True.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

The Sixties were a old hat of supergroups. In music, unfledged groups formed from beloved ones, with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young design from quondam members of The Byrds, The Hollies, and Buffalo Springfield, and Conceal Faith rising from the adept ashes of Cream, Traffic, and Family. As one strength trust, the public’s captivation with the concept spilled over into Hollywood, where films like “The Professionals” (1966) and “The Bedraggled Dozen” (1967) gave us teams of experts who didn’t know each other before they were brought together to do a certain magnanimous job.

The professionals in this rousing Western are erstwhile Pancho Villa weapons expert Rico Fardan (Lee Marvin), master wrangler Hans Ehrengard (Robert Ryan), demolitions pro Neb Dolworth (Burt Lancaster), and the most artistically tracker in the territory (Woody Strode, as Jake Sharp). The men are brought together by an brazen Texas Billionaire (Ralph Bellamy) who tells them his wife, Maria (Claudia Cardinale), went riding across the border into her autochthonous Mexico and was kidnapped by the apostate bandit Jesus Raza (Jack Palance). The millionaire would fairly volunteer each professional $10,000 and be enduring a shot at getting his wife back than to slacken off on d See the $100,000 ransom and then unquestionably go out with her killed anyway.

It was a casting supergroup as well, since headliners Marvin, Ryan, Lancaster, and Strode hadn’t worked together apart from Marvin and Strode appearing in a solitary film, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Gossip columnist-manager Richard Brooks (”Elmer Gantry,” “Bite the Bullet“) received an Oscar nomination for Best Direction an one for Outdo Screenplay as manifestly, but it was the nominated Conrad Hall who should have earned a statue into his cinematography to add to those he would win for his work on “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “American Beauty,” and “Road to Perdition.” The company filmed in Undoing Valley Nationwide Deposit, Valley of Fire State Preserve, and the areas in and around Las Vegas and Mecca, California, and Entry-way does for those parklands what John Ford’s cameramen did for Monument Valley. He makes the dock a character, and an grand one at that–as physically and symbolically deadly as the dare colonel and other Mexican bandits they have to sell with.

“The Professionals” was in the midst the first titles schedule as regards emancipating when Blu-ray was manufacturer-spanking new, but destined for unannounced reasons it was delayed from its October 17, 2006 street date, then shelved indefinitely. If the reason was technical–that Sony was trying to make this old catalog possession look and ring as A-OK as it possibly could–then you have to applaud. Hall’s camerawork and this acting supergroup deserve to be seen in sparkling clarity, because it’s the cinematography and performances that set up this enjoyable.

The cook up itself isn’t all that involved. The professionals assemble, learn their charge, and cross into Mexico, where they encounter splinter groups and learn about each other. Long run they gain Raza’s fortress, bring out up a delineate, and take on his army of more than a hundred guerillas–simply the four of them. Yep, you could say that “The Professionals” is, at heart, a cross between a Western and a modus operandi ways flick, and each of the stars has a infrequent of those zinger lines we’ve come to associate with action heroes who equivoque and deadpan as they lay waste. As Westerns go, it’s “The Searchers” without nearly the character maturity, and “The Awe-inspiring Seven” without the emotional core.

As for the writing, times change, because Brooks’ screenplay doesn’t feel almost as intelligent minute as it apparently was in the Sixties. While they’re not as curmudgeonly a Nehru jackets, some of the lines are unintentionally funny, they’re so dated. My favorite “Well, duh!?” prominence comes when Lee Marvin instructs the group in all seriousness while pointing to chalk drawings of Raza’s complex. It looks like a five-year old drew them, and, worse, labeled each thing: water bell-tower, not ring true, etc. You might as well have just said, “Aw, what the upbraiding. Let’s just destroy.” Besides, how can you go wrong with dynamite sticks strapped to arrows? Other unintentionally hilarious moments come with the ambient sounds of the Mexican camps, which lodge unprejudiced shy of Speedy Gonzales’ stereotypes. But those moments are thankfully offset by some interesting shots of every day life, including a goat farmer’s digs.