My HD DVD Collection And A Tip For Movie Watchers On A Budget
Hello folks. Apologies for the lack of activity here lately but life got crappy and I wasn’t up to being outgoing for a while.
Well, I was sitting around and decided to take shots of my HD DVD titles and post them here. I think I must have been one of the very few folks that invested in the HD DVD add on for the XBOX 360. I picked up a few titles when the format was current, purchased a big ol’ box of HD DVDs on ebay, as well as a few titles at garage sales and thrift shops. Despite being a dead format, if you have a way to play them, they are all 1080P resolution and can be picked up for a song. Great way to get some half decent HD titles! You can also either purchase the HD DVD drive add on for the 360 used for cheap (look and you will find one), and if you are lucky (or just try), you can find a crap load of the movies for super cheap.
Hope you enjoy the pictures of my collection, and I promise there will be more movie reviews coming soon!
Just Arrived: A Box of 40 HD-DVD Movies (Player to Arrive Next Week)
So I bought a box of 40 HD-DVD movies on Ebay last week and they jusy arrives. What is HD-DVD? It was the format that lost out to Blu-Ray. Same resolution, different incompatible format (remember the Bets vs. VHS video casstte war? This is the Beta of high definition formats). This is a dead format. Why would I buy them if it’s a dead format? They were super cheap, like the HD-DVD add on for the XBOX 360. A crap load of HD movies for cheap is a no brainer to me. I paid $40 for 40 movies and I am super happy about it.
Here’s the list of movies:
Adventures of Robin Hood, The
Ant Bully, The
Arctic Tale
Aviator, The
Batman Begins
Beowulf
Blades of Glory
Caddyshack
Constantine
Corpse Bride
Dead Silence
Disturbia
Dreamgirls
Failure to Launch
Four Brothers
Fugitive, The
Goodfellas
Happy Feet
Heartbreak Kid
Hot Rod
Jerk, The
Kiss Kiss bang Bang
Lethal Weapon
Last Samurai, The
Mighty Heart, A
Million Dollar Baby
Nacho Libre
Next
Norbit
Ocean’s Thirteen
Perfect Storm, The
Polar Express, the
Searchers, the
Superman Returns
Swordfish
TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
Training Day
Transformers
Unforgiven
The Doomsday Machine (1972) – Ah, More End of the World Sci-Fi Crap
1972’s The Doomsday Machine… What can I say?
Well, the Chinese have developed a nuclear device that threatens to destroy the world. At the same time, the U.S is poised to launch the first manned probe to Venus. Receiving the news of China’s death machine, the U.S. pushes up the launch date, and at the last moment substitute three attractive women (scientists) for three of the originally planned crew.
Once launched, it is revealed to them all that the reason for the substitution in due to the fact that they just might be the last members of the human race, and therefore would be responsible to keep the species going.
The movie attempts to touch upon the psychological aspects of such a crew in such a situation. One of the male member loses it and in an attempt to rape one of the women, causes them both to be accidentally jettisoned into space.
Soon they are forced, due to fuel concerns, to face the reality that they may not all survive. Two of the astronauts (male and female), take on a mission to fix something on the outside of the ship, that would mean they would not return. Once the repair is complete, and they are most likely set for doom, they notice a near by Russian ship, to which they head to. Arriving at the Russian ship, they find a long deceased Cosmonaut in a functioning capsule. The commandeer the ship and head towards Venus. Of course, the Venusians don’t like this idea and stop them…
There you go: That’s 1972’s The Doomsday Machine. I’ve seen much worse, but that doesn’t mean this is good. You can watch the whole, damned thing for free online, mind you – Since I can’t find trailer anywhere, here’s the whole movie:
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) – A Fun, Silly Space Adventure
A silly movie from 1983, Spacehunter: Adventure in the Forbidden Zone plays homage to the pulp Sci-Fi movies and stories of yesteryear. A simple story: a commercial transport ship (like an ocean liner in space) gets hit by debris while travelling near a nova and people have to abandon ship – Salvage operator Wolff (played by Peter Strauss) heads out to rescue a group of three women that escaped in one pod and landed on the bleak, forsaken plague planet Terra XI.
Upon landing on the planet Wolff with his Engineer,engineer Chalmers (the attractive Andrea Marcovicci), they find themselves in the middle of a pitched battle between two factions of natives for the control of the stranded Earth women. 
Before Wolf is able to rescue them, the women are captured and taken to the “Chemist” to be prepared for the pleasure of the Overdog (played by Michael Ironsides), the leader of the most powerful faction on the planet. During the battle Chalmer is “killed” (watch it and you’ll know why there’s quotes around killed), and Wolff meets a teenage “Scav” (short for scavenger” named Niki (played by Molly Ringwald) who agrees to be his guide… well, more accurately forces herself in as guide. Soon they come under attack of a large bulldozer type vehicle, which they find is being codriven by an old acquaintance of Wolff’s from the Military, Washington (played by the venerable Ernie Hudson), who reveals that he too is there to rescue the women and collect the reward (300 Mega credits). Despite refusing Washington’s suggestion that they work together to rescue the woman, eventually circumstances for the trio to work together to stay alive and battle the Overlord and his minions.
This truly is a simple, silly film that is just plain fun. It’s fitting that this was originally released in 3D, during the brief 3D resurgence that happened in the first half of the 1980s, as many of the cheezy 1950’s Sci-Fi films that it pays homage to were originally released in 3D. There’s not a whole lot of scenes where things are thrust into the views… err.. view, so it doesn’t lose anything being watched in 2D. I recommend this movie if you want a break froim movies where you need to use your brain, and If you like silly films (and if you don’t, why are you on this blog anyway?), then I think you might like this light adventure.
Check out the trailer here:
Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962) – More Boring but Mildy Interesting Sci-Fi Fare
Another weird, cheezy Science Fiction movie – that’s two in one day! This one is a little older than the last (Cosmos – War of the Planets – 1977), but don’t let that fool you: Iit packs a full arsenal of cheeziness.
It’s the story of an ill-fated Space mission sent by the United Nations to explore the seventh planet, Uranus. Expecting to find a frozen wasteland, they discover themselves on what seems to be a lushly forested Earth. They soon find that what they imagine soon seems to become real (almost). They have come under the influence of and evil psychic alien that distracts and tempts them by creating illusions of their deepest desires. The evil entity plans to come back to Earth via the bodies and minds of the crew, and when it gets to Earth, it plans global domination – like most Evil Aliens. The crew therefore must find a way to defeat the Alien…
Do they defeat the Alien? Come on – do you really need to ask that? Watch it your self if you need to know. It’s a little boring and dry, but it’s a movie. It’s a little reminiscent of 1972 Polish Sci-Fi classic, Solaris (a little, I said). I know you can find a low quality copy on Google Video (of all places), and I watched it on Netflix, so if you want to see it, you shouldn’t have much trouble finding it.
See the Trailer below:
Alien Apocalypse (2005) – Only Watch If You Like Bruce Campbell
Ok… This movie really sucks. I liked it because Bruce Campbell is in it, but that is about it. Made in 2005 simultaneously with The Man With the Screaming Brain (also 2005, and also with Bruce Campbell), and both were presented to the Sci-Fi Channel. Sci-Fi purchased one of the two (I don’t know for sure which one – I believe this one), and the other went right to DVD. This movie was filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria and most of the secondary actors did not speak English, and dialogue dubbed over later. This feels so much like a made for TV production (which it is), that I felt cheaper for watching it…kinda’.
The premise is that Humans have been enslaved by an Ant-like alien race. A group of astronauts, in space for 40 or so years, return and attempt to destroy the alien’s grasp on humanity. The Aliens are here to take Earth’s trees – they like wood I guess), and humanity has been enslaved to work in Concentration camp Lumberyards.
Yeah… These aliens are wimps and easily enough foiled. That’s enough – This film doesn’t deserve any more of a description.
Watch it if you like…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvIa4o38dJ0
Here’s the trailer:
Father’s Day (2011)… Holy Cow – What Did I watch?
Just finished watching the Troma film, Father’s Day and my head is still spinning.This Canadian production is what I like to call Nouveau Grindhouse: new movies with an intentional gritty,dirty and cheap made for the 1970’s Drive-In feel.
This film is brutal, gory, gruesome and socially unnerving… and funny. A supernatural gore-fest sexual comedy? I don’t really know how else to describe it. The basics? fathers are being killed, a young punk that is being harassed by a jerk cop, , a young, confused and wimpy priest, an ex cop, just out of jail for a revenge killing that went wrong and his stripper/hooker sister have to defeat the Satanic killer of those fathers. Fill in the middle parts with gore, horror, incest, murder, rape and some laughs. Yeah… that’s the ticket.
Watch it if you like the movies I have suggested on this blog in the past. If you don’t like the movies I have blogged about, then don’t watch this: you’ll hate it (are you reading this, Tim?). I liked it.
Check out the trailer here:
I Like Bad Movies 