Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler So what are you watching tonight?

Just watched “Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue” Blu-ray. Here’s what Blu-ray.com has to say about it.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Tinker-Bell-and-the-Great-Fairy-Rescue-Blu-ray/10547/

With this, like the first sequel “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,” neither the video or audio quality live up to the first one but they’re still a pleasure to watch and listen to. I have to say I like this the least of the three not because it’s a poor story or anything, but because it mostly takes place in the human world so there isn’t as much of the weird fun stuff to look at in the fairy world. This leads to less vibrant colours and generally less impressive look.

AFAIK the last two have been direct to video releases and I think it shows that not as much quality was put into the productions as the original. Although I find this the least interesting of the three I’d still give it 4/5 and imagine some kids might like it more than the first two because it’s a story about fairies interacting with a little girl.

I just finished watching “Blue Drop” a 13 episode drama, mystery, science fiction anime on Netflix.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/blue-drop/sub.dvd-complete-collection

Netflix lists this as only available in Japanese with English subtitles but I went ahead and gave it a try only to find out it’s actually an English dub. The screen format is 1.78:1 as listed

Boy am I glad I watched it because it’s one of the better stories I’ve seen in along time. This is mostly a drama with some mystery and yuri leanings with the science fiction only being a vehicle for carrying the story.

If you go into this expecting the story to be about aliens invading you’re going to come away disappointed. The real story is about the characters and the relationships that develop between them. I think that the most impressive thing about this was how tight the story was. There’s a lot going on and some of it is never fully explained but at the same time there isn’t a scene wasted on filler. In that respect it stands apart from most other series which usually have some filler if not entire episodes of it but not here.

If you want action and adventure look elsewhere but if you want a nicely told story with interesting characters that are easy to care about this is a must watch. Another put off for some people might be that not all the story arcs are fully explained or resolved but then the real point of this was to tell a character drama and since the rest of it is all just backdrop for that I have no problem calling this one a 5/5.

I watched U-571 for the first time since I've had a subwoofer and it's an amazing movie. I kept wanting to mistake Harvey Keitel for Robert De Niro. They looked and sounded much the same.

The effects in U-571 were good but I wish they had of told the REAL story behind the breaking of the Enigma code and the British capture of the first unit which I believe would have been more interesting and historically accurate. Hollywood needs to give it's audience more respect, imo.

I watched the Hurt Locker the other day and thought it was quite a good movie and to me it "seemed" quite realistic until I read a review by an Iraq veteran who pointed out the many flaws and miss-truths in the movie. The overall "feel" of the movie was ok(accoring to him) but he felt it was too far from the reality of the actual situation in Iraq. I know little about modern weapons and warfare so I wouldn't have noticed the flaws in the details(except the US military using flashlights at night....are you kidding?) Private Ryan, on the other hand(for me) lost much of it's appeal once I got past the special effects. I used to be a bit of a WW2 armour buff, so it was hard to look at the German "Tigers" and "Panzers" with any seriousness. I don't expect full size working Tigers, but in this day and age(and budget), can't the build a 1/6 scale model and cgi?

Adrian I don't know if you've seen 'Restrepo' or not but if you haven't, you may want to check it out ... Restrepo

The trailer looks interesting, thanks Rick.

I just finished watching “Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles” a made in U.S. animated series consisting of 40 (really 36) 22 minute episodes based on the movie of the same name which had the same name, though only loosely based on, the book “Star Ship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein.

Netflix carried this on 8 disks each one containing one “campaign,” or story arc, representing a group of related battles. If you were to buy it from Amazon now it’s condensed down to 4 disks but with the same material. I mentioned it’s really only 36 episodes and that’s how it plays out if you just pop the disks in and hit play. 4 of the episodes are on the “Trackers” disk and are all filler that reused previous animation due to production problems which caused them to not be able to complete the whole series. To access these episodes you have to go into the special features submenu, but since they don’t do anything to further the story and just rerun what’s already been seen you might as well just watch the one 22 minute “Trackers” episode and move on.

Also note that the final story arc “The Homefront Campaign” was never finished so the series concludes 3-4 episodes short without the originally intended ending. According to what I’ve read there is not intention of ever finishing it.

I’m usually not a big fan of constant “shoot-em-up” action type series but although the battles did rage on endlessly that is what you are lead to believe is supposed to actually be happening. And at least the way the fight the bugs and the bugs that they encounter vary enough to keep it fairly interesting.

Both the video and audio quality are a mixed bag. On one hand not bad for 1999 CGI but due to production problems different companies worked on different story arcs and it shows. For the most part the animation is ok however there are a few episodes where it’s just terrible. The sound quality is also inconsistent. 7 of the disks are in Dolby Digital 5.1 with widely varying degrees of quality. While one disk is only in Dolby Surround. At least when they do get the 5.1 right the surround portion sounds pretty good but there’s never much .1 to speak of.

There are also some glaring continuity errors, the worst of which is an officer who is variously referred to as a lieutenant or a major though he is always wearing the rank of major. In another part they are going to flood the bugs out to give them a choice of surfacing or drowning, However, in the very next episode the bugs are invading through the water. Just have to ignore these or you will keep spotting more of them.

On the plus side there are more parts of the book included here than in the movie(s) but it’s still not what I would have hoped for. Maybe some day?

Overall I like the series but can only give it a 3.5/5 for just getting so many things wrong.

P.S. If you order this from Netflix check Wikipedia to get the campaigns in the right order.

The A-Team

Fairly entertaining, and Jessica Biel is always drug rep hot. I think I want to watch some episodes of the original show, though.

If Jessica Biel is representative of drug reps, I'm either going to Medical School or simply start taking drugs.

Who says you can't do both, right JP?