DVD Review: Murder Most English

This week, the classic British murder mystery series, Murder Most English, releases on DVD. Check out my review here at Blogcritics.

DVD Review: National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets

The intrepid treasure hunters from National Treasure are back for a second adventure. But this time it's not just treasure that is at stake. This time, the Gates family must clear their family name just as they were starting to receive respect in the academic community.

The film opens on April 14, 1865. The Civil War has just ended. Two men walk into a saloon to meet a man who can help them solve a puzzle: a playfair cipher that provides a clue that leads to Cibola, the lost city of gold. The man is Thomas Gates, the great, great grandfather of legendary treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage). Thomas Gates quickly discovers that the men who approached him were members of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society that wanted to continue the efforts of the South to secede from the Union. Gates quickly burns the pages that were given to him and ultimately is killed for it.

Fast forward to present day where Ben Gates and his father, Patrick (Jon Voight), are giving a lecture on the diary of John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assasain. At the end of the lecture, Mitch Wilkerson (Ed Harris), comes forward with what he claims is a portion of one of the missing pages of the diary. The page, Wilkerson contends, lists Thomas Gates as one of Booth's co-conspirator's in the assasaination.

In order to clear the Gates' family name, Ben and Patrick must solve the clues to prove that the story of the Knights of the Golden Circle seeking Cibola is true. The clues eventually lead them to the Book of Secrets which is a book written by Presidents for Presidents which contain all of the nation's most closely guarded secrets. To get to the book, Ben Gates must get to the President. His grand plan: kidnap the President and hope that he will be allowed to see the book.

Like the first installment in the series, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets intersperses history into the story. The writers go to great lengths to incorporate numerous facts into the narrative which adds to the credibility of the story.

The other remarkable thing about these movies that in an age where it's easy to generate locations through computer animation the producers insist on filming at actual locations as much as possible. This is a much bigger film than its predecessor in part because of the locations used in the film: Paris, London, Washington, D. C., the Librayr of Congress, and Mount Rushmore. One of the most exciting parts of the film is a car chase actually filmed on the streets of London.

In addition, all of the principal characters from the first movie, both in front of and behind the camera, are back in this movie. The on-screen chemistry is evident throughout the film.
There are also a couple of notable additions to the cast. Ed Harris makes a terrific villian in Mitch Wilkerson. Bruce Greenwood makes a terrific and thoroughly believable President of the United States. But the best addition is Helen Mirren as Emily Appleton, Patrick Gates' ex-wife and Ben Gates' mother. The chemistry between her and Jon Voight is wonderful and it's thoroughly believable that they were married.

Disney has, as with earlier titles, offered a 2-disc collectors' edition that offers additional bonus features not available on the single disc. It's absolutely worth the extra money to purchase the 2-disc edition as the wealth of bonus featurettes add to the enjoyment of the movie. In the featurettes we learn how different aspects of the film were completed including the extensive City of Gold sequences as well as the aforementioned London car chase.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets does a terrific job of picking up where National Treasure left off providing another exciting bit of cinematic escapism. In many respects, National Treasure 2 is a bigger adventure with more exciting locales than the first film. Watching the movie again made me hope that we haven't seen the last of the Gates family adventures. These movies may be the best movies ever made but they are certainly are a good way to spend a couple of hours. Let's hope that there are more of these films to be made.

This article originally appeared at Blogcritics.

New Review Posted At Blogcritics

Check out my latest review at Blogcritics on the new version of Sense and Sensibility now available on DVD.

DVD Review: The Complete Jeeves and Wooster

If you were to take a poll of the funniest British televsion comedies of all time, Jeeves and Wooster would likely receive a fair share of votes. In my mind, this is probably the funniest comedy I've ever seen. Not only that, but the series remains funny no matter how many times I watch it.

Based on the characters created by legendary British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, the series follows the adventures of Bertie Wooster (Hugh Laurie), a rich young playboy living in 1920's London who has too much time on his hands and an affinity for getting caught up in various sorts of relational predicaments involving friends and family.

In the opening episode, Bertie has had a wild night on the town and ends up hauled off to court to face charges of stealing a policeman's helmet. After paying the fine (and still rather hung over), he returns home only to be rudely awakened by Jeeves (Stephen Fry) who is the new valet sent by the agency to attend to Bertie's needs. Jeeves revives Bertie with a secret recipe hangover cure and is immediately hired. It turns out to be a fortunate decision as Bertie immediately manages to get himself tangled up in an engagement that he doesn't want any part of. Fortunately Jeeves manages to come up with a scheme to extricate Bertie just in the nick of time. Future episodes involve similar precarious circumstances and it will be Jeeves that will come to Bertie's rescue.

Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry are the perfect choice to play their respective roles. They are great friends and have a very natural chemistry which is absolutely necessary to make the stories work. The scripts are adapted mostly from Wodehouse's numerous short stories and are, for the most part, faithful to the original material. The only major deviation from the source material is to give Bertie Wooster the ability to sing and play the piano which allows Hugh Laurie to show off his musical talents through numerous performances of several comic tunes.
There is also a host of wonderful supporting characters to round out the cast. Unfortunately, the same actors were not always used for the same roles as the series develops causing a little confusion.

But it's all wonderful escapism, a portrait of an England (and America) that never really quite existed except in our imaginations. It's the kind of show you can never get tired of watching. You just wish by the time you reached the end of the series that there was more to come. Unfortunately, there's only 23 episodes. We can hold out hope, can't we?

The Complete Jeeves and Wooster is available from the A&E Store.

DVD Review: The History Channel's Pearl Harbor

It was one of the darkest days in American history: December 7, 1941, the Japanese surprise attack on the U. S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor woke the sleeping giant of the United States armed forces and brought America into World War II. It would bring the nation into a war it had long tried to avoid (and ignore).

In this documentary, The History Channel explores the events that led up to Japan's attack on the U. S. Veterans of both sides are interviewed and offer their perspective on the attack and the larger role that the battle would play in each nation's war effort.

Many theories have circulated for years that the U. S. government had advance knowledge of the attack and that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had allowed the attack to occur in order to allow the U. S. to be drawn into the war. These theories are dealt with in detail and quickly dismissed as the true facts surrounding the attacks are revealed.

The filmmakers also spend a great deal of time focusing on the stories of those who survived the attack. Both U. S. and Japanese veterans are interviewed. Perhaps surprising is the Japanese pilots that admit they didn't think it was a good idea for them to attack the U. S. One of the best quotes from the veterans was from John Finn who won a Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor demonstrated during the attack. When asked how he survived he simply said "It just wasn't my day to die". In this simple statement, Finn demonstrates the humility of many of the World War II veterans.

The second disc of the set includes a documentary of Admiral Chester Nimitz who was named Commander of the Pacific fleet shortly after the attack occurred. As the film shows, Nimitz almost single-handedly rebuilt the Pacific fleet into a lethal fighting force. Nimitz's tactics help secure a swift victory in the Pacific theater that was unthinkable in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

This documentary reminds us even in a post-9/11 world that there are dangers in ignoring events taking place around us that can put our security in peril. John F. DeVirgillo, the Hawaii Director of the Pearl Harbor Association summed it up this way: "You must remember Pearl Harbor. It is a lesson of being complacent. Don't let individualism blind you. We still need to think of the country as a whole. You must always be prepared. If you're not prepared, you'll pay in blood."


The History Channel's Pearl Harbor is available from the History Channel Store.

New DVD Reviews at Blogcritics

Here's a roundup of my recent DVD reviews over at Blogcritics:

The Aristocats
The classic animated feature about a family of felines living in 1900 Paris. This is the last movie that Walt Disney personally supervised. It's also the last movie to be scored by the Sherman Brothers during their initial run as part of the Disney family.

Becoming Jane
Anne Hathaway stars in this biopic about novelist Jane Austen. Although rated PG it really should have been a PG-13 given some of its mature content. It's also been criticized for playing a little loose with the truth. Still, Ms. Hathaway shines as Austen.

Persuasion
A brand new adaptation of Jane Austen's last completed novel which recently aired here in the United States on PBS. Sally Hawkins makes her mark as Anne Elliott and adds a classy performance to the long history of Austen heroines.

DVD Review: Biography - Jane Austen

Jane Austen is easily the most widely read and widely published author of all time. Her six novels (Emma, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility) have sold hundreds of millions of copies and have been adapted for film and television numerous times. But who was the woman behind what have been called the greatest novels of all time?

We recently picked up the A&E Biography episode on Jane Austen in the hopes that we could find out more about her and what inspired her to write such marvelous stories. While the program did offer a little more insight into her life story, it really focused more on her novels that Austen herself.

Part of the reason that biographical information is so sketchy is that it was not until after her death in 1817 that Austen was identified as the author of her books. During her lifetime, writing was not seen as a fit occupation for a woman and so she published all of her books anonymously.

What little is known about Austen's personality is best reflected in her letters. But as the program points out, most of her letters were destroyed by her sister Cassandra. Still enough of them survived (and a few are excerpted during the program) that we get a sense of her wit and keen observations of society around her.

The program also touches on her two romances. While we were familiar with her relationship with Tom Lefroy (which is dealt with at length in the wonderful movie Becoming Jane) we were less familiar her second relationship that resulted in a marriage proposal from Harris Bigwither. He proposed to her in 1802 when she was 27. Although she initially accepted the offer she broke the engagement the next day after having second thoughts. She would never become involved in another romantic relationship again.

The program goes on to show the wide impact that Austen's novels have had and continue to have on readers all around the world. Nearly 200 years after her death, readers of all ages and backgrounds continue to enjoy her works. This episode of Biography shows that Austen continues to have an impact far beyond what she could have ever imagined.

Biography: Jane Austen is available on DVD from A&E Networks.