When I think back to the early 90s, when times were simpler, Fried Green Tomatoes was the ultimate chick flick. It was everywhere. Gone with the Wind for new a generation of female audiences. While preoccupied with Batman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I knew this as a universal truth and appropriately steered clear because …
Stemming from its meagre beginning as a penal colony for the British Empire, Australia has developed a colourful criminal history over the two centuries that followed. This unlawful element of the past I think has been glamorized far too often in recent years through numerous overly embellished television series. However, before this tacky trend began, …
Amazingly, Pay-TV still operates in Australia, even though they’re all but redundant, but during its glory days in the late 90s, the previously absorbed, Austar, was my gateway to classic television. Alfred Hitchcock Presents was one of many shows that piqued the interest of my young curious mind, but I quickly found myself in The …
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Law and Order set the standard of police procedural shows while creating an entire generation of armchair experts, but it was the Baltimore-based cop drama, Homicide Life on the Street, that pushed the envelope and boundaries of network television. Now the landmark series has returned to DVD in one impressively sized box set from Via …
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Stop-motion animation has become an all-but-lost art form in today’s digital landscape. While some filmmakers insert small sequences of the tangible special effect into their movies, it’s no longer the dominant technique it once was. Ray Harryhausen mastered this painstaking process by creating some of the most detailed and vibrant creatures in fantasy cinema. Via …
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I first saw Carroll Baker in Kindergarten Cop when I was far too young to be watching it. She played criminal matriarch, Eleanor Crisp, mother to the film’s main villain, Cullen Crisp, played by Richard Tyson. Now on DVD from Via Vision Entertainment is Carroll Baker: The Paramount Collection, four classic titles from the blond-bombshell’s …
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Making its Blu-ray debut through Via Vision Entertainment, is The Sum of Us, an Australian comedy starring Russell Crowe and Jack Thompson, about a widowed father, Harry, and his son Jeff, who are both in search of a significant other. Jeff is openly gay and has the full support of his open-minded old man, and …
American television during the 1970s treated audiences to a number of absorbing and landmark mini-series’, often exploring the life experiences of everyday people. Rich Man, Poor Man is one such classic, based on Irwin Shaw’s 1969 novel of the same name and follows the diverging paths of two German-American brothers from an improvised migrant home …
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With three subsequent sequels, each presumably worse than the other, I feel those who haven’t seen Meatballs have been lead to believe that it’s nothing more than a smutty teen comedy. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it’s not the case at all, having just watched the first Bill Murray vehicle on DVD, out …
Via Vision Entertainment continues to fill the void in Australia’s physical media market with classic television. Titles that would otherwise likely be relegated to streaming service. One that’s lesser-known to audiences, especially nowadays, is Ghost Story aka Circle of Fear, a short-lived anthology series that explores various supernatural themes. Now the horror show is on …
Blu-ray Review: Ghost Story aka Circle of Fear (1972-73) Read More »