26 April 2010

Wacky Races

Wacky Races was an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series featured 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September 14, 1968 to January 4, 1969. Seventeen episodes were produced, with each episode featuring two different races, for a total of 34 races in all.


Now I don't mean to imply that all our readers are the same age as Sebastian, and can remember these things when they first ran ( he can note seeing Halleys comet on at least 3 separate occasions, and the last time he was stopped by a traffic cop and asked for ID, he pulled out a rock )... but surely you've caught it in re-run, or on Cartoon Network. Certainly it has always been a favourite here at DVD Purgatory.


The love of motorsports can start at a young age for many racing fans, and countless enthusiasts owe their obsession to this wondeful cartoon. The 60's-era animated series featured all manner of characters competing wheel to cartoon wheel in the most hilarious automotive concoctions ever rendered on celluloid. But what has remained for decades as the objects of childhood fantasy, now actually exist in real life, and have taken to the streets of Chichester in West Sussex, England, ahead of their annual, real-life racing at the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed. All I can say, is "amazing".



Why it's almost enough to make me go all Corey Haim and get my own license to drive... almost.

25 April 2010

Criswell

I don't care what anyone says... any cartoon that can reference Criswell, Space 1999, Back to the Future, and Archie 3000 , is a good cartoon.

15 April 2010

Power Rangers

It's true... I haven't tried to hide it exactly, but the truth is out there now. My name is mister J, and I am a Power Rangers fan... sob...

07 April 2010

Year One (2009)

Jack Black (Nacho Libre, Tropic Thunder) and Michael Cera (Juno, Arrested Development) are cavemen who leave their tribe and experience various adventures from the Old Testament (Cain and Abel, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc).

As Jack Black comedies go, it’s okay. As genuinely funny movies go, it’s not.

06 April 2010

The Final (2010)

There are a few basic story lines for movies that are recycled again, and again, and again. One is about students who are victimised but eventually retaliate and exact their revenge. Massacre At Central High, Carrie, Revenge Of The Nerds, and Heathers are just a few films to follow this formula.

In The Final, a bunch of outcasts drug the punch at a costume party and then torture and disfigure the beautiful people who have harassed them. “Why are you doing this to me”, asks a jock. That just happens to be the question the nerds, geeks, and abused have asked many times.

The Final is a nice entry in to the series, complete with a well paced script, solid acting, and creative costuming. So many of the teen horror movies that come out now rely on jokes, one liners, and excessive gore. I'm not opposed to that, I just tire of the lack of imagination that goes in to many of them. The Final takes a more serious approach and treats the subject with respect, and that is refreshing.

05 April 2010

The Land That Time Forgot (aka Dinosaur Island) (2009)

C Thomas Howell (The Outsiders, Red Dawn, The Day The Earth Stopped, Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood!) heads out on a three hour cruise and finds himself shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle on an island with dinosaurs (left over from 100 Million BC) and the survivors of a WW2 U-Boat.

The Asylum did an okay job adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Princess Of Mars and I wish they had done a little better here. The film doesn’t so much insult your intelligence as ignore it.

This was previously made in 1975 and starred the effervescent Doug McClure. Strangely, the effects were better then.