The Corner Penthouse

About 10 years ago, I typed up notes intended to be used to write reviews for a lot of different items. As I was cleaning up the digital clutter on my hard drive recently, I found all of these notes. Most of the products are out-of-print and no longer available for their original cheap prices, so there is no reason to use most of the notes. However, for a few items, the information contained in my notes doesn't seem to be available elsewhere online, so it still seems prudent to write the reviews as intended.

Read on as I tell you all about the Bikini Drive-In & Topper Returns Double Feature DVD released by Miracle Pictures in 2005...

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Although I grew up in the 1980s, and was a prime candidate to have seen the Cannon Movie Tales series at that time, I never knew it existed until a few months ago when I found the Rumpelstiltskin DVD in Dollar Tree as part of their line of re-authored movie-only no-menu MGM DVDs. All of these MGM DVDs bear a UPC number that starts with "8 28706 54" and are manufactured exclusively(?) for Dollar Tree by Deuce Entertainment LLC. Since they have no menus, subtitles (and extra audio tracks) have to be activated manually. Generally, these budget MGM DVDs contain the same or better film transfer as the previously-released "full featured" MGM DVD of the same title, only without the menu and special features. As an example, the previous DVDs of Breakin' (1984) and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984) are 4:3 fullscreen, but on these new DVDs, they are both 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. Unfortunately, for Rumpelstiltskin, the transfer is a downgrade. The old DVD presented the film in 4:3 open matte fullscreen. The budget DVD is still 4:3, only now it is letterboxed! The picture at the top and bottom has been covered with black mattes/bars, so you see less picture than on the fullscreen DVD - plus blackness on all sides when viewed on a modern HDTV.

Anyway, this article isn't a review of the Dollar Tree MGM DVDs. This DVD introduced me to the Cannon Movie Tales series, and prompted me to find out more about them. Read on as I share my research...

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I reviewed several of Neca's $9.99 themed blind bags in the past. After getting many duplicate items, I stopped buying them. Well, today I saw a new for 2022 Neca Blind Bag in my local Target, this one named "Best of Neca Blind Bags". It's a HUGE 12"x18" bag with all four logos on it: Sci-Fi and Horror, Pop Culture, Gamer, and Superhero. Proclaiming "over $100 worth of toys and collectibles", this new supersized blind bag carries a MSRP of $39.99. That's four times what the usual blind bags cost. Could it have four individual $9.99 bags inside, one for each theme? Out of curiosity, I bought one of the two that Target had (the other was mostly air). Was it worth it? Read on to find out...

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MVD Visual recently released the Canadian Bacon (1995) Blu-ray. Read on to find out more about it...

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Sony Pictures Home Entertainment recently released the Sniper: Rogue Mission (2022) Blu-ray. Read on to find out more about it...

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Universal Pictures Home Entertainment recently released the The Black Phone (2022) Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. Read on to find out more about it...

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Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment recently released the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) 4K UHD. Read on to find out more about it...

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All of my old reviews here on The Corner Penthouse were originally written on Amazon, back when real reviews and information was appreciated over there. Most of the "reviews" there now are either from people pissed off that their items arrived damaged (with photos!) or from people who think that it's where they should leave seller feedback. Whatever good reviews that are there, such as mine from the past, are buried under pages and pages of crap. The Amazon Customer Reviews area is now a wasteland that is best ignored.

I digress. Back on May 5, 2005 I used the Amazon review system to post some information about the Cartoon Network: Cartoon Crack-Ups DVD that Warner Brothers released in 2001. My original review was intended to let potential buyers know that "The Flagstones Pilot" on the disc did not contain the original voice track. I recently found that DVD while going through storage, and given the DVD and Blu-ray releases that have come since, I thought it would be worth revisiting this disc and writing a full and proper review of it.

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The fifth and final season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020-2022) was recently released on Netflix. Join me as I take a look at this series. (Very minor SPOILER ALERT if you go any further, as I will discuss a few connections between the movies and this animated series.)

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Join me as I do a quick review round-up for the best of this month's new home video releases...

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