Over twenty five years later, “Aladdin” is still one of the best animated films of the Disney golden age of the late eighties and nineties. Whether it’s on the big screen or the small screen, Jon Musker and Ron Clements’ adaptation of the original series of fantasy tales is engaging, and fun, but also excels in its simplicity and accessibility. Aladdin is also one of the most underrated Disney heroes in their staple, it’s a shame he doesn’t get mentioned too often.
Category Archives: Collector’s Den
TV on DVD: Arrow: The Complete Seventh Season [Blu-Ray/Digital]/The Flash: The Complete Fifth Season [Blu-Ray/Digital]
The “Arrow” series finally comes to its natural peak as season seven loosely adapts Green Arrow’s iconic comic storyline “Super Max.” Once optioned for a movie and basically in development hell for years, “Arrow” realizes the narrative for a full season arc. After Oliver Queen is finally pushed in to a corner in season six he’s forced to out himself as the Arrow for all of Star city. In season seven he’s jailed in Maximum Security and forced to confront all of the criminals he’s put away since he arrived, prompting some tense unfolding of events.
The Jungle Book and Friends Collection (DVD/Digital)
With Disney remaking their remakes of classic fairy tales and adventure novels, stories like “The Jungle Book” are all the rage these days. For folks that want to branch out from the Disney umbrella and check out what other companies have adapted these classic stories, Mill Creek Entertainment releases a collection of animated adaptations of legendary adventures and fantasies. It’s especially good if you’re looking to save a few bucks while expanding your animated horizons beyond the House of Mouse.
The Inland Sea (1991): Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
The origins of “The Inland Sea” are about as noble as all get out, as it originally began life as a loving account of living and traveling in Japan. Writer Donald Richie grew so utterly in love with the environment and people of Japan in 1971, that his travelogue of the country read a lot more like a love sonnet and was published as “The Inland Sea.” So utterly compelled was she, that director Lucille Carra approached writer Richie and twenty years later proceeded to adapt his short account in to a short form documentary.
The Tough Ones (Rome Armed to the Teeth/Roma a Mano Armata): Deluxe Edition (1976) [2 Blu-Ray/CD]
“The Tough Ones” is one of the pair of films that Umberto Lenzi directed that spotlighted the character Tanzi, a man almost driven mad by his need to thwart crime at every corner. Tanzi is something of a great scale anti-hero who spends a lot of his time tracking down a petty thug who is very much a creep and noting very spectacular. Tanzi inspects this crime and chases the criminals like his life depends on it. He spends a majority of the film talking through gritted teeth and shouting at just about everyone and he almost always is on the verge of hurting someone. Tanzi is not meant to be a hero or even a heroic vigilante so much as he’s the corrupt law that’s hell bent on taking down the larger criminal element including Tony Parenzo (Ivan Rassimov) and his efforts to create an underground criminal network.
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) [Blu-Ray]
By 1997 the “Power Rangers” had reached the nadir of their popularity and with the appeal of the franchise dying down as fans grew older, “Turbo” was a last gasp cash grab. It didn’t just bring the old and new Rangers (for the most part, anyway) to the big screen, but it also rebooted the Power Rangers in to a auto-centric kind of Power Rangers team that would do nothing but go downhill from here.
Critters Attack! (2019) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]
It’s been slim pickings for fans of “Critters” and it’s a shame that even after this film, there’s still not a lot of options for us. We’re either stuck with “The New Binge” which was nigh unwatchable, or “Critters Attack!” which is quite boring and defeats the whole idea of a sequel by dodging everything that makes these movies so fun. It even wastes the idea of a friendly Crite named Bianca by making the monster some aimless prop. Let’s just say Gizmo is in no threat of being dethroned as cutest monster ever.