American
Pie: Girls' Rules
(2020/Universal DVD)/Brutal
Massacre: A Comedy
(2007/MVD/Mena Blu-ray w/DVD)/Dancing
Dogs Of Dombrova
(2018/Film Movement DVD)/Mom:
The Complete Seventh Season
(2019 - 2020/Warner Archive DVD Set)/Stargirl:
The Complete First Season
(2020/Warner Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
C+/B+ & B-/C/C+/B Sound: C/B & B-/C/C/B Extras:
D/B/D/D/C- Main Programs: D/B/C/C+/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Mom
DVD set is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Some
may say comedy is relative, but sometimes it is just unfunny and
fake, as we'll see in some of these new releases, while a few at
least try...
Mike
Elliott's American
Pie: Girls' Rules
(2020) is the extremely awful, lame, weak, dumb, stupid, unnecessary,
stale and pointless continuation of a franchise that should have
ended long ago, but this time, the idea is to feign strong females
and promise something funny. Instead, it is repetitive, goofy,
allows its actors to be boring with nothing to do, nothing is new
here and the multi-ethnic intents add nothing. The script plays like
it was written by a formula software program, the actors look tired
and this is even shot and edited in a very sloppy way.
I
hope these actors find a better project.
There
are unsurprisingly no extras.
Brutal
Massacre: A Comedy
(2007)
gets the HD treatment in this new collectible Blu-ray/DVD combo pack
from Mena Films. The hilarious indie horror spoof film is a must
watch for horror fans as it features many big names in the horror
industry including David Naughton (An
American Werewolf in London),
Brian O'Halloran (Clerks),
Gerry Bednob, the late Gunnar Hansen (Texas
Chainsaw Massacre),
Ellen Sandweiss, and Ken Foree (Dawn
of the Dead,
The
Devil's Rejects).
The
film is a mockumentary that follows a horror auteur Harry Penderecki
(Naughton). Once considered a horror legend, with a string of
B-Movie hits like Bowel
Movement,
People
Pesticide
and I'll
Take the Ring Back and the Finger Too,
he now finds himself on the outside looking in at Hollywood.
Determined to make a comeback, Penderecki returns to direct what he
believes will be his ultimate masterpiece, Brutal
Massacre.
Follow along with the documentary crew to discover whether Harry
will reassert his genius, or remain a relic of the '80s.
Special
Features include:
a
Photo Gallery
Behind
the Scenes
LMB
Poster Gallery
Deleted
Scenes
On
The Set
Trailers
Weekend
of Horrors Panel
What
Happened Was True
and
an Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Stevan Mena.
Zack
Bernbaum's The
Dancing Dogs Of Dombrova
(2018) is a Canadian comedy about a brother and sister who go to a
Polish town, only to find all kinds of obstacles in bringing the
remains of their grandmother's beloved dog back home. Not a dark
comedy, but also not much of a comedy at all, it is forgettable, is
awful as a 'fish out of water' comedy and is a little too
self-impressed to start up anything that works.
For
that matter, it has no sense of the kind of comedy that comes
uniquely from Canada, so it is just as empty as the train station the
duo arrives at. It is a bad sign of things to come.
There
are no extras.
As
we were working on this new Mom:
The Complete Seventh Season
(2019 - 2020) DVD set, the shocking news arrived that co-star Anna
Faris was leaving the show just as the next season was going to start
shooting. Still a hit series, we really liked how it started, as
this review of the debut season shows:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13037/Big+Bang+Theory:+The+Complete+Seventh+Seas
Sadly
by this time, the show has become a shell of itself, has nothing new
to say, show or do and has become just plain bad. I just wonder why
Faris did not drop out sooner, or did she see the next set of
teleplays and said 'enough is enough' or the like. All 20 half-hour
shows are here on only 2 DVDs and at this point, this is for fans
only. Wonder what they think.
There
are no extras, but the show is winding down, so we cannot expect much
at this point.
Last
and sometimes least, we have Stargirl:
The Complete First Season
(2020) which shows that the Greg Berlanti DC Comics shows are going
to auto pilot and Supergirl was just announced as being in its final
season. So can the team behind all these shows finally launch a new
female superhero and make it work? No.
The
show has many problems that used to help this cycle of DC TV,
including a consistent idea of comedy, some good use of color and
taking the characters seriously enough. Well, no more. Instead,
this is a condescending tween-fest that actually says the older DC
Superheroes are weak, useless, obsolete and cannot cut it against
more dangerous villains. That's a slap in the face of the DC
history, then we get two gals taking over for Starman and Wildcat,
the latter of which is not that old a character versus the original
line-up DC established in the 1930s and 1940s.
So
in effect, the makers are on auto-pilot and have given up on the
universe in the worst kind of throwback which makes this show a
package deal, wastes all this talent and time (Luke Wilson is one of
the few familiar faces) and we might as well be back in the jokey
days of bad superhero movies and TV where all the actors are lame,
out of shape and look like they are wearing pajamas and adult
diapers. Only the outfits seem modern here, but even the new style
is played out.
See
at your own risk.
Extras
only include a slip of paper with an episode guide.
Now
for playback performance. Brutal
Massacre
is presented in a new 1080p high definition transfer with a
widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and a MPEG-4 AVC Codec. The audio
mixes are in lossy English Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo
respectively. Also included is an anamorphically enhanced, standard
definition DVD version of the film with similar (yet compressed)
audio and video.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on the HD-shot
Stargirl
episodes have some good color, but also their issues with a little
motion blur, sometimes detail limits and sometimes darker than they
need to be. Such shots can backfire.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Pie,
Mom
and especially 2.35 X 1 anamorphic image on Dogs
are soft, have motion blur and just don't look too great. Mom would
at least benefit from a Blu-ray, but the others are a little bit of a
mixed bag and the texting images on Pie are lame and obnoxious.
As
for sound, Stargirl
has DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on each episode and
that is the default highlight of a very disappointing set. As good
as anything here (by default) makes this the sonic champ by an
extremely thin margin.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on Pie,
Mom
and Dogs
are all surprisingly weak, plus the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
also included on Dogs
is even worse and weaker. Just be careful of high playback volumes
and volume switching.
To
order
either the Warner Archive Mom
DVD set or the wide release Stargirl
Blu-ray set, go to this link for them and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Massacre)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
