Category: Home Entertainment

Halloween is a Perfect Day to Play Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon

Luigi has a bright career as a door to door Hoover salesman on Halloween night. He can leave the family plumbing business, ditch Mario and go out on his own. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon for the Nintendo 3DS is an entertaining action and puzzle game even though there are a few interface problems. And for fans of classic haunted house scenarios and paranormal pop culture, the little nuances placed into the level design can be appreciated. Gamers are getting a dose of a Ghostbusters style video game done right, a tour into Disney’s Haunted Mansion with a flashlight and a walkthrough of a Hammer Films retrospective of everything that goes bump in the night.

The game has four estates that Luigi has to deal with. Each of them are further divided into sub-levels (floors) and somewhere in the mansions are pieces of a crystal that he has to recover in order to save EverShade Valley from a Kirby-like evil spirit. Professor E. Gadd recruited Luigi to do the job because that was who he met in the original game. Dark Moon is a continuation from the game released twelve years ago on the Gamecube. And the professor has been spending the intervening years studying the nomenclature of a ghost.

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PIXAR’s Toy Story of Terror. Is It Scary Enough?

The new ABC Special, Toy Story of Terror is a fun filled homage to the horror classics by keeping the ideas PG-13.

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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The new ABC Special, Toy Story of Terror is a fun filled homage to the horror classics by keeping the ideas PG-13. There are a few moments that the well-versed fan of horror will pick out, but for the young ones, there’s nothing absolutely scary about it to make one go hiding under the sheets. Well, maybe the screams, but they are well earned. The humour is right on par with PIXAR’s feature film products,

Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Rex (Wallace Shawn) and Mr. Potato-head (Don Rickles) all return for a nightmare filled romp. The tale seems to continue from where the third Toy Story left off. But when the build ups are wonderfully marginalized by Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), to see his observations come true is just wonderfully hilarious. His understanding of what the horror genre of yesteryear is about is spot on. Writers John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton did a great job at penning this screenplay.

These days, horror does not have to be about visceral terror or in-your-face shocks. Everything done here in Toy Story of Terror is old school—the frights are implied. The question of what true horror is from a toy’s perspective is nicely done. Jessie shows that even she has fears too. Most of it centers deals with how neglected she was back when she was abandoned in Toy Story 2. Her character development defines much of this story’s plot, and if more episodes spotlighting each character are made, the potential for more Toy Story related tales may well be in store in the years to come.

To say too much more about this new product would just spoil the fun that ensues. Hopefully ABC will see to repeating this funhouse filled romp every year. Despite the fact that PIXAR shut down their Vancouver, British Columbia office, which was set to produce more Toy Story shorts, the fate of the franchise seems uncertain. At least the Emeryville headquarters will continue on strong.

North America To Get Their Own Yamato Movie

starblazersSkydance Productions has hired Jack Reacher screenwriter/director Christopher McQuarrie to direct and write the live-action adaptation of Star Blazers, the North American name to a Japanese Animated TV series known as Space Battleship Yamato

The series follows a crew of survivors from Earth whose planet’s atmosphere was radiated in an attack by an alien race from the distant planet of Gamilon. Using alien technology that was transmitted to the survivors of Earth, The Argo, an old sunken Japanese battleship, was resurrected. With scientists estimating the human race has just a year before the radiation from the surface will seep underground to kill the last vestiges of humanity, a bold crew of volunteers makes a desperate attempt to make a final voyage to outer space in the hope of saving planet Earth.

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Happy Birthday Henry Winkler!

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Henry Winkler (2013)

Wow, The Fonz is still as hip today as he was in his heyday. Well, today may not be this character’s official birthday but it certainly is for the actor who played him. Henry Winkler turns 68 today and he could not look any better. Happy Birthday Henry! You have paved my way to defining what I thought was “cool” ever since Happy Days.

I have throughly enjoyed the television shows you produced over the years, namely MacGyver and Sightings. And you did not even stop with your exploration into the unknown when you became a co-producing partner of the television show Unexplained Mysteries.

But thankfully your time away from the small screen did not mean you wanted to cease acting. I was glad to discover that you would return to television once in a while. But nowadays, I can enjoy new regular shows with you on. Viewers can find Mr. Winkler on Children’s Hospital, playing the role of Sy Mittleman.

Halloween Treats: Getting Nostalgic with the Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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On the eve of Halloween night, young children should not be denied some early treats. Disney’s DVD release of The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (Disney Gold Classic Collection)Adventures of Ichabod is a must own for any paranormal enthusiast or classic Disney fan. This collection contain three wonderful shorts — The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Wind in the Willows and Lonesome Ghosts. The latter is worth noting because it was an influential classic which shaped this author’s life path to investigating ghosts for real. There were The Three Investigators and Scooby-Doo too, but the combination of these products certainly was a game changer.

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Don’t Get Shrek’ed with the Musical, A Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

shrekmusicalShrek the Musical debuted to audiences in Seattle in 2008, and after it moved to Broadway, it played there for three years. In 2009, a show was recorded for video release, but it was delayed until now. Released on Amazon.com Sept 17 as a digital download and on Oct 15 to disk, this show showcases the talent known as Brian d’Arcy James (Shrek), Sutton Foster (Fiona), Christopher Sieber (Farquaad) and Daniel Breaker (Donkey). Amazingly, this musical production improves upon the source and the video release is a must-see for how it adds to DreamWork’s now retired product.

The Blu-ray release offers a behind the scenes construction of the musical, and both releases include a songbook for fans to sing along to. If this release can help Shrek return for some direct-to-video piece, fans can rejoice!

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