:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

A Manchester pub-crawler vanishes one night, only to be found later on a back road, claiming to be the son of God. Naturally, the authorities dismiss his claim, attributing it to a hangover, but he’s determined to prove himself. With his friends wondering if he’s gone mad, he steps into a football match and proceeds to pull off a miracle, literally turning day into night, and instantly attracting worldwide media coverage, speculation, and skepticism. He announces to a global audience that judgement day is fast approaching - in five days, no less - unless humanity can write its own Third Testament. The media spotlight turns to hysteria, and the skepticism escalates into assassination attempts, apparently fueled by the devil himself in human form. And perhaps worst of all, this self-proclaimed son of God can offer no clues as to what the Third Testament should say… (more…)

Inspired by his experiences making Apollo 13, actor Tom Hanks took on the duties of writing, producing and even directing the epic 12-part HBO miniseries From The Earth To The Moon. The result? In most cases, every bit the sheer poetry that Apollo 13 was, only spread out over enough episodes for a half-day viewing marathon. (more…)

Before Monk was conquering the cable ratings (and then going back for leftovers on ABC), first-time director Jake Kasdan (Lawrence’s son) gave us an even more defective detective in Bill Pullman’s mercurial Darryl Zero. The DVD version of Zero Effect - a movie I’ve already waxed rhapsodic about in our Movie Reviews section - isn’t exactly loaded with freatures; indeed, a lot of its material about the making of the movie is in text form. (more…)

Not exactly feature-heavy, the DVD release of Mark Pellington’s dark, post-McVeigh psychodrama provides a lot of insights with its audio commentary. Pellington and star Jeff Bridges comment throughout the movie on its strengths, its weaknesses, and what they wanted to do here and there. They both heap - justly - much praise upon Tim Robbins, whose stone cold conspirator-next-door portrayal anchors the movie while Bridges goes, ever so slowly, off the deep end.

And in the course of listening to the commentary, I gradually come to think to myself, “Here are two guys who are probably never going to make a movie together again.” (more…)

Reigning champion Dawn Lagarto is nine months pregnant, and has survived two “tours” of The Contenders, a government reality TV show where the contestants complete for the ultimate prize: their lives. Now, if Dawn can survive her third “tour”, she can retire as champion. For this round, they have returned to her hometown of Newbury, Connecticut, where she must face five new contestants - all willing to kill to survive. (more…)

An 80s favorite that convinced many a kid with an Apple II that hacking was not only cool, but the chicks dug it, WarGames may also have the distinction of being Matthew Broderick’s finest hour (well, it sure as hell wasn’t Godzilla). Broderick fits the role of a proto-Wesley Crusher-esque, well-intentioned geek perfectly, and Ally Sheedy also gets a good outing with this one.

The DVD isn’t thick with features, but what features it has are good ones. (more…)

The Prisoner is one of those TV shows whose fans tend to take it very seriously, and so if you’re talking about releasing The Prisoner on DVD, with bonus features, you’d better get it right. Fortunately, this early example of A&E’s increasing prowess with releasing the entirety of a television series on DVD gets it right.

The episodes themselves have been digitally remastered, resulting in a sharp digital version of the original episodes, preserving the show’s ironically colorful look. (more…)

While this is far from the most feature-packed of DVDs, the excellence of the movie itself and the quality of those features that are included make it well worth owning. The DVD includes two commentaries - one by director Ron Howard, one by Jim and Marilyn Lovell - plus a documentary (”Lost Moon: The Triumph Of Apollo 13″) and the entire film score as the background music to the Menu screen. The commentaries are enlightening, especially to those who want to know more about where things in the movie don’t quite match up with historical fact; both Howard and the Lovells are open and detailed about those changes and provide some nice background information. Marilyn Lovell doesn’t talk much, but what she does say gives a little insight into what it’s like to have actors come into your life and prepare to portray you to an audience of millions, which is something just as valuable as Jim’s historical factchecking. (I love the movie, but this is an invaluable resource to have on the DVD - as good a job as the filmmakers did in bringing the Apollo era to life, they did play fast and loose with some facts. That’s regrettable, but at least they take the opportunity to clear up the record somewhat.) (more…)