TV DVD Reviews
Reviews Archive
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Greek: Chapter Two  |
Dragon Ball GT: Season One |
Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday |
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| Doctor Who: The War Machines |
Nip/Tuck: Season Five, Part One |
The Secret Life of the American Teenager: Season One |
10 Items or Less: The Complete First and Second Seasons
The Donna Reed Show: Season One
Petticoat Junction: The Official First Season
The Real Ghostbusters: The Complete Series
DVD QuickTakes
QuickTakes Archive / QuickTakes Archive (pre-May 2008)
Coyote Ragtime Show: The Complete Series
“Coyote Ragtime Show” is like a party sampler of some of the best animes ever made, but while it may ooze potential, it never attains the level of quality of the shows it imitates. Part of this has to do with its surprisingly short length (a mere 12 episodes), but it’s mostly because it makes the age-old mistake of choosing style over substance. Sure, “Coyote Ragtime Show” may be fun to look at, but once you get past the sharp animation, it’s pretty shallow stuff. The series, which follows a team of space pirates as they attempt to uncover a hidden treasure while being pursued by a police inspector and an android assassin, feels a lot like “Firefly” and “Cowboy Bebop” rolled into one, only you’re never given the chance to truly get to know the main characters. Showgate really missed out on the opportunity to make the best of such a great cast of characters, and had the series wrapped up the treasure hunt storyline quicker, “Coyote Ragtime Show” might have enjoyed bigger success. As it is, the show is more like an appetizer than a full meal, and though there’s nothing too negative to say that would prevent anyone from watching it, you might be better off investing your time in something a little more… substantial.
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Jason Zingale
1/5/2009
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Aqua Teen Hunger Force 6
I don’t know what it is about “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” that causes me to be forever surprised at how funny it is, but I think perhaps it’s because the concept is so downright surreal. Nonetheless, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force 6″ (which actually contains the whole of Season 5 of the series) contains just as many laughs as the previous collections. The first few episodes, however, feature little or no appearances from Frylock, Master Shake, and Meatwad, due to their being cocooned in the desert by their vampire-esque landlord Marcula; ever the caring neighbor, Carl immediately tries to rent out their place to a bunch of robots, but his greatest spotlight comes in the third episode, “Sirens,” when he meets another set of new neighbors, voiced by Kelly Hogan, Neko Case, and John Kruk. (Kruk plays himself; the other two do not.) Other guest voices during the season include David Cross, T-Pain, Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Scott Adsit (”30 Rock”), Jon Benjamin (a.k.a. Coach McGuirk on “Home Movies”), and Kristen Schaal (”Flight of the Conchords”).
There are four previously-unaired episodes, the best of which is “Shake Like Me,” where Master Shake is bitten by a radioactive black man and becomes black himself. Scientifically implausible, you say? Surely no more so than an anthropomorphic Happy Meal. Of the special features, sports fans will particularly enjoy the “Carl’s Pissed” shorts, where the hairy undershirt-wearing gentleman moans and groans about various events in the world of sports, but there are also other oddities that fans of the show’s bizarre comedic sensibilities will enjoy. Those who do not belong to the Adult Swim cult, however, will almost certainly not…and that goes not just for the bonus material but also for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” as a whole.
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Will Harris
12/24/2008
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Tales of Phantasia
Based on the popular RPG video game franchise of the same name, “Tales of Phantasia” is essentially a two-hour, animated re-telling of the first title in the series. Originally released a year ago by Geneon, the full-length feature tells the tale of six survivors who band together to fight against an evil warlord known as Dhaos the Demon King when he’s released from captivity by a power hungry conqueror. In order to stop him from unleashing darkness throughout the land of Midgard, a young warrior and a beautiful cleric must travel back in time to recruit the help of a witch, a summoner, and a ninja to bring back to present day, while their archer friend Chester holds Dhaos off on his own. When Dhaos runs off to wreak havoc in the future, however, the band of heroes must follow him through space and time and put an end to his destruction before it’s too late.
Though the animation is sharp and the characters themselves are cool, “Tales of Phantasia” is executed very poorly. Because it’s based on an RPG (which are typically loaded with more plot than the average video game), the story has a tendency to jump around a lot without any explanation. This is done, of course, so that the creators can cram the entire story into one movie, but it doesn’t work as well as they think. As soon as Cress and Mint travel back in time, only to be immediately thrust into a giant battle where everybody already knows why they’re there, the audience loses interest in what’s going on. The same can be said of the characters, who are nothing more than tools to progress the story. It’s too bad that the original producers of the movie didn’t expand the story into an entire season, because “Tales of Phantasia” definitely deserves more attention than it received. As it stands, this is for diehard fans only.
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Jason Zingale
12/19/2008
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