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Product: Pioneer AVHP3100DVD List Price: $450.00 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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The Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD is a touch-screen Double DIN aftermarket car stereo. It has a 5.8″ full color widescreen face, front auxiliary port for connecting an Ipod or other device, a front USB port for connecting a USB flash drive, and it can play DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW, DivX, MP3, WMA and AAC files. The Pioneer AVH-P4100DVD 7-Inch In-Dash Double-DIN DVD Multimedia AV Receiver with Widescreen Display is the same exact radio, except it adds a bigger screen (7″) by removing the physical buttons to the side, and it adds a subwoofer preamp output.

INSTALLATION AND DVD BYPASS: Double DIN means that it is roughly twice the size of a conventional car stereo, so before ordering, you need to make sure it will fit in your car. The best way to do this is to go to Crutchfield’s web site and determine if it will work on your vehicle. The unit itself comes with the receiver, mounting screws, manual, a stylus pen, front mounting cover, and a power cable. I found it fairly easy to install. The power cable it comes with just has bare wires coming out of it. In addition to the radio, you will want to buy a mounting harness and mounting bracket for your vehicle. The harness looks just like the one that comes with the stereo, but it is designed to clip into the factory harness that’s in your vehicle, to make it easy to remove the stereo. If you don’t have one, you’ll have to connect all of the wires by hand, and disconnect each one to remove. The mounting bracket is designed to make sure you radio fits correctly in your specific vehicle. I purchased both the harness and bracket from Crutchfield. My only problem with installation, is that it comes with a long green wire that is supposed to be connected to your emergency brake wire. This is necessary, because the unit has a safety feature that requires the emergency brake to be applied in order to play DVDs. My emergency brake wire was extremely hard to get to, and once I was able to finally remove the center console and find it, it was buried and almost impossible to access. I don’t suggest doing this, but if you have the same problem and want to get around this issue, or if you want to be able to watch DVDs without having to engage the brake, then you need to connect this wire to an auto relay switch. Go to Radio Shack and buy a momentary push button switch, part number 275-1548. Cut the green wire coming out of the radio harness from the receiver, close to the end of it, maybe 5 inches away from that red clip. Strip the wire, and run it through one of the holes on the relay switch. You can solder it or just wrap it with electrical tape. Buy a standard 16 gauge wire from Radio Shack and connect it to the other hole on the switch, then connect the other end of it to a grounded connection on your vehicle. I just wrapped mine around one of the mounting screws for the radio. I stuffed this wire out of site under the dash and pull it out when I need it. Alternatively, you can just cut the green wire directly in half, and use the half you cut instead of having to buy more wire at Radio Shack, but I wanted an extra long wire in case I ever want to move it. Now, when you play a DVD, the warning screen will come on. Just press the button on the switch and it will go away, since it tricks the receiver into thinking you have engaged the parking brake. Be sure to check with your local laws, as having the DVD player on while driving or bypassing this may be illegal in your area. It may also void insurance claims. I definitely do not recommend ever watching a DVD while driving.

FORM FACTOR: The radio itself is beautiful. It fit flush with my dash and looks gorgeous. There are only a few buttons on the left hand side, and I didn’t even realize they were buttons until I looked at them closely. They control volume, forward/backward, source, mute, and power. I like having these physical buttons, especially for volume and mute. If I get a phone call or need to hear something, I want to be able to instantly mute the radio without having to fool around with a touchscreen. It’s very nice to have a radio that doesn’t have 15 buttons all over it and looks cluttered. Customization is easy with the radio. You can select from several different colors, which will change the LED colors on these physical buttons and on the touchscreen menu buttons, so that it matches your car’s LED colors. You can also choose from seven factory background screens, three of which are animated videos. The animation on the videos is very subtle and doesn’t distract you. Plus, when you change the LED color, it actually changes the color of the background videos to match it, which is really cool. If you don’t like these, you can use your own image from a CDR or USB drive. The screen contains a dimmer option, so when you turn on your lights, it automatically dims. This is pretty nice, but can also be annoying. I like to use my lights during the day, and while the screen is still readable, it can be hard to see. Fortunately, you can completely adjust the dimmer options through the settings.

TOUCHSCREEN: The touchscreen is very easy to navigate and done very well. The menu system is very intuitive and set up a lot like a computer. There is a back button and an escape button to get you through the menus. Seeking through a song can be done in three ways. You can hold down the physical forward/backward buttons on the unit, you can do the same with the touchscreen forward/backward buttons, or you can use your finger to slide a progress bar back and forth, the same as you would do with a video file on your computer or with an Ipod. This is great because a 30 minute song can start, and I can just press the end of the progress bar with my finger and it will immediately skip to the end of the song (or whatever position I press on the bar). From what I can tell, it will scroll exactly like a computer and stop at the exact position you touch. A lot of touchscreens would have “segments” or 5-10 seconds, and stop on whichever segment you came close to. But with the AVH-P3100, it is segmented into 2 second increments, so you can have much more accurate scrolling. This is the only instance where I can see the stylus being of any use, but I have fairly large fingers and don’t have any problem with the scroll bar. My main gripe with the touchscreen navigation, is with the up/down scrolling. This is used when navigating radio/satellite stations, song racks on a CD, or file folders on a USB/Ipod. There is no page up/down feature, so if five folders are displayed and you press the down arrow on the scroll bar, or if you press anywhere below the current position on the scroll bar, it will move the list down by one, instead of down by five. This is a major oversight in my opinion, and will affect the way you setup your folders. I have one folder on my USB with 80 subfolders. That means if I want to scroll through every folder in the list, I have to press the down button 75 times. Now you can put your finger on it and simply drag the arrow down to move quickly, but it goes kind of fast, and paging through the list would be so much more convenient. Also, since it only displays five lines at a time, it means you have to scroll one time to view all six of your radio presets.

USB/Ipod: Ipod menus look the same as the front of your regular Ipod and navigation is easy. It will also display a picture of the album. USB is the main reason I purchased this radio, and works well, with a few faults. First, it takes about 10 seconds when I start the car or select the USB source, for it to “read format.” This is possibly because I am using a 8Gb drive with over 1000 songs on it, so it’s acceptable to me. My main problem with the USB feature, is the way it organizes the folders. They do not appear alphabetically. I am not sure what method it uses, but like a lot of MP3 audio devices, it just seems to throw them up in the folder list in whatever order it wants. It will use the same order every time, but you can’t trick it by copying a folder you want to appear at the top first, or adding “01, 02, 03, etc” in front of your folders/file names.” There is probably a workaround for this, but I have no idea what it is. I think it would make more sense if it just listed the folders alphabetically. It does read ID3 information very well, however it cuts off anything after a certain character limit. It would be nice if it scrolled sideways through long song titles/artists to show you the full ID3 information, but for about 95% of people’s music, this won’t be a problem, and for the other 5% you should have enough of the title to figure out what it is. However if you don’t have ID3 tags on your music, it can be a problem. For example, if you have a folder with 10 songs in it labeled “DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - Greatest Hits - Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble,” and there are no ID3 tags, it is only going to display the first part of the filename until it reaches the character limit. So your list on the screen will have 10 songs on it that all say something like “DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fr.” Additionally, the USB drive is going to stick out 3″ or so from the unit, so unless you remove it every time, you have to be aware of it and careful not to break it off. It doesn’t bother me at all though. The only other problem I’ve noticed with the USB playback, is that the progress bar is off. The bar shows time elapsed and time remaining at the same time. Time remaining is incorrect about 80% of the time. A song will start up and it will show that it has 6:22 remaining, when it is only a 4:00 song. Some songs are accurate, but the majority is off anywhere from :30 to 3:00.

DVD PLAYBACK: DVD playback is superb. The video quality is on par with any portable DVD player you would buy. You cannot tilt the screen, so application is limited, but if you’re parked somewhere you can easily enjoy a movie from any seat in the car. If it’s daylight and sunny, you won’t be able to see much however. The DVD onscreen menus are nice, and the scroll bar works well for skipping quickly through a movie, even better than a traditional DVD player. There’s a HIDE button for quickly removing all onscreen displays, so you don’t have to wait several seconds for the menus to time out.

SOUND: Sound quality is excellent. DVDs sound great. It has three loudness modes which really bring out the sound. I am using factory speakers with no amplifier, and the built-in Pioneer amplifier makes a huge difference. It has several pre-set equalizer settings for different types of music.

Overall, even if you don’t get it at Amazon’s current price (40% off SRP), I think this receiver is worth the money. It really is a beautiful and functional unit, and I always like showing it off to my passengers. It is too bad there doesn’t seem to be a way to update the firmware, because it would be a perfect unit if Pioneer just made a few small changes to the menus. The unit also does not come with built in Bluetooth, HD Radio, Satellite, or steering wheel controls, but you can add all of these from the products below. I realize Pioneer makes more money by adding these separately, and also keeps costs down on the unit from not including them unless someone wants them, but it would be nice to have built in HD Radio and Bluetooth at least. Stay away from the remote though, it’s worthless.

Pioneer CD-IU50V USB iPod Cable for Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD

Pioneer GEX-P10HD HD Radio Tuner for Pioneer HD Radio-Ready Head Units

Pioneer GEX-P920XM XM Satellite Tuner

Pioneer CD-SB10 - Sirius Bus Interface for use with Pioneer SAT Radio Ready Headunits and AV Receivers and SIRIUS SCC1 SIRIUS Connect Universal Tuner (you need BOTH of these to get Sirius radio)

Pioneer CD BTB200 - Cellular phone Bluetooth adapter

Pioneer ND-BC2 Universal Rear View Camera

This was ordered from Amazon, and as usual it arrived intact and quickly. I was replacing a Clarion Max385 and wanted a deck that didn’t have to take so long to change sources (the clarion practically had to reboot everytime…) and that had a nice picture. The 3100 met both of those requirements and installed easy with the Scosche adapter I ordered from Crutchfield. No remote is included with the receiver, but they are available cheap here on Amazon. This new deck now offers a FRONT USB jack, as well as a front mini-jack for plugging in a key drive or your MP3 player, IPOD takes a separate adapter sold separately. Same for Bluetooth and Serius Radio.

The touch screen works well, the sound is nice, as is the option to use your own photos as the screen background, There are lots of color combinations built in to help match your dash lights coloring if you wish, and the top slot means no opening and closing the unit to insert and remove disks, a major pain with the Clarion… Several stereo shops told me this would not/could not fit my 2005 Tucson, but the Scosche adapter lets it fit easily with no cutting, And it sits flush with the dash when done.

5 stars for the nice screen, DIVX ability, USB port, and sound.

Only negative: no built-in bluetooth/ipod/Serius, all are add-ons.

This head unit is by far the best I’ve encountered. I do installs for audio/video/lighting and other accessories on the side and out of all the head units I’ve come across this one is very versatile. I have a 98′ accord and the stock head unit went so I decided to treat myself to a nice double din touch screen unit. The Main thing i wanted was a nice stock look, and with the ability to change the illumination colors I was able to achieve that. This is a feature that is not common on aftermarket head units. The other thing I liked about this head unit is that it was flush with the rest of my dash. There arent any ugly knobs with a ring of light protruding or cheesy looking buttons, its slick and clean with very responsive controls. The only Negative aspect of this product is the fact that in order to get full potential you need the add ons such as the bluetooth adaptor. I was budgeting for a nice head unit so I went the direction, however I feel something like the bluetooth or HD radio should be integrated like other single din receivers. Overall however, I still have to say this is an awesome product. The iPod can be connected and charged using a standard fire-wire cable, the screen resolution is superb, the personalization features are great, and the sleek look is unbeatable. 4 out of 5 stars just due to the lack of bluetooth and/or HD radio.

When designing a defense in youth football you have to first figure out what plays you are going to defend. I’ve done coaches clinics all over the country and I’ve yet to near across a group yet that didn’t deem that the sweep was the play they HAD to discontinuance first in order to be successful in youth football. Most also agreed that the Dive, Reverse,Off-tackle Power and descend succor Pass were the #2,#3,#4 and #5 threats.Many youth coaches felt the sweep was so primary to halt that they often listed the Sweep as #1, #2, and #3 in order of importance. I may have to agree with that to an extent.

The second step in determining your defensive contrivance is to design clear you have a mission statement for your team. Your defensive method has to align with your mission. Our mission statement is: To invent a worship and appreciation of the game in our players so they can abet from the life lessons the game teaches. We want to play competitive football, where the average individual and the team can have success while playing everyone in all games regardless of circumstances.

Obviously if you are like us and are going to play everyone ( not all the same amount) or have minimum play rules, you have to ask yourself; “Where can my weakest players play where they can have personal success and add team value on each and every snap? “.You have to ask yourself, what schemes and techniques out there not only attend us close the plays we have to defend but also accommodate my goal of playing even weaker players on defense?

The 4-4

When we were designing the defense we spend now we started with the bad 4-4 that we got from Jay Smith who before coaching with us had coached at Canyon Springs California High School. They won two USA Today National Championships during Jay’s tenure there. While this defense worked very well for our “hold” teams, it didn’t work well at all for our non-select teams. We found this defense required 2 radiant honorable down linemen, 2 speed ends that had to be fairly athletic, 4 reasonably athletic and aggressive linebackers and 3 descent defensive backs . While our “catch” teams didn’t always have the perfect mix of players for this defense they were able to produce it work well. Our “rob” teams were the best players chosen from a group of 100-150 players, those not chosen were build on “B” teams and played other “B” teams of similar size and abilities. As you might imagine those “A” teams were made up of a grand different grouping of kids than our “B” squads.

Need for a Change

While this league had no minimum play rules, I mandated an 8 play minimum play rule for all of my teams in the league and a 16 play minimum play rule for my hold personal team, to explain my other coaches, that 8 plays were easy to catch in. With about 25 players per team we had to really hustle to accept everyone their plays. We found we did not have the athleticism on these non-select teams to speed the 4-4 effectively and accept everyone in the game like we wanted to. Our weaker players were objective whiffing while playing in all that location and we didn’t have 2 stud defensive linemen to anchor the middle, all the studs were on the “A” team. We were getting beat on sweeps because our 2 best linebackers had to play the middle and with the next 2 best players playing outside linebacker, they couldn’t cleave off the sweep from their positions.

Designing Something that Works

We had to create a defense that would allow these less talented kids the chance to play and compete by stopping the plays most of our opponents were trying to build, the sweep, dive, reverse/counter, off-tackle and fall support pass (lesser extent) . We also had to factor in the passing completion percentages for youth football teams in our location. For age 8-10 it was about 20%, for 11-12 it was about 25% and for 13-14 it was about 30%. So we came up with a defense that concentrated on stopping the accelerate with a heavy emphasis on stopping the sweep, stopping the home race play (reverse), clogging the inside and allowing even our weakest kids to earn on the field. While our modern homegrown defense didn’t peer like anything we had seen before, it dilapidated some of the concepts of our extinct 4-4 for stunts and blitzes but incorporated a whole novel group of techniques we found average kids could conclude.

Colleges Using This Defense

Over time I discovered that this defense (minus a number of youth techniques and adjustments we have in situation) was musty support in the 60’s when College teams had to difficulty about defending the accelerate more than they do today with all the spread passing that is so well-liked, imagine that. The quandary is that many youth teams rush the common college defenses like the 4-3, 4-4, 3-5-3 etc which are designed to close the college offenses of today, not the hurry based offenses of the 60’s or the youth offenses with their 20% pass completion rates. Our defense most closely resembles a youth version of the Wide Tackle 6 that Jerry Claiborne’s teams faded at Virginia Tech and Maryland in the 60’s and ’70’s . When the college game moved to more passing, this defense was abandoned as they did not feel they had the coverages in it to effectively conclude the better passing teams. It was very successful abet in those days and widely ragged after Claiborne made it favorite at Maryland and Virginia Tech.

objective 18-19 TD’s Given up in Last 8 Seasons Total

This defense has served us well, helping us to a 78-5 recount over the last 8 seasons. Our first team defense has had objective 18-19 total touchdowns scored against us in that time period. The first team has had honest 1 sweep play and 1 reverse play of over 10 yards bustle against it in that same time period. For those that have the 2006 or 2007 season DVDs, they can attest to that. More importantly this defense has allowed us to play and even begin some of our weakest players on defense. Many coaches I know play their best 11 on defense and then attach their weaker kids on offense. This not only hamstrings the offense, but deprives the kids of getting the experience of playing both sides of the ball.assume about the plays you need to conclude and how you are going to glean everyone in the game before you decide a defensive method for your youth football team. While many will speak you to “coach what you know”, if you know a defense that is designed to defend High School or College offenses, that defense may not be the best choices to defend what you will observe from youth offenses. And remember the College and High School teams aren’t required to play all their kids, it is an entirely different equation than those of us coaching youth football have to deal with.

How To Watch The Superbowl Online

I’ll use an example of a signed OJ Simpson throwback jersey.

Unless you’ve been living on an entirely different solar system for the past two decades, you’ve probably heard OJ Simpson’s name on the news a time or two.

Now, as a collector of sports autographs & memorabilia, I think most people view the value (whether it be intrinsic or sentimental) of a particular athlete’s signature based on how great a player he was, the kind of pop legacy he left behind, and/or how rare he signed autographs.

What makes getting an autographed OJ Simpson throwback jersey so interesting is the reason for it. If you stick strictly to the gridiron, it’s a no-brainer. The man was one of the greatest running backs of all time. He was the first to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season. He won the Heisman Trophy in college.

He was truly an iconic figure of the 70s as well, kind similar to Joe Namath. Simpson had the mainstream Madison Avenue crowd. Movies, commercials (who can think of Hertz without this man), endorsements, the man had it all.

If you based OJ Simpson’s autograph value prior to 1994, it was definitely in the higher echelon. It might not have been on par with Mickey Mantle for example, but it certainly wasn’t second tier. Chances are if you went to an OJ Simpson signing, prior to 1994, you were going to be waiting a while in line.

After all the events of 1994-1995 (I’m sure everyone reading this, knows what I’m talking about, so I won’t bother mentioning it) is when things get interesting.

Now, however you may stand on the subject, one thing is very fascinating: His memorabilia increased in value and attention. It was almost as if everything he did on the football field really didn’t matter. This national fixation had people lined up for any piece of memorabilia that belonged to OJ Simpson.

I suppose its no stranger to any collectible field. For example in art, Van Gogh died penniless and only ever sold one painting. Does the memorable story of Vincent Van Gogh cutting his ear off and his morbid death have more of an influence on the price of his paintings than the actual art, who knows? One thing is for certain, I’m sure the story behind these men adds to the fascination.

Watch The Superbowl Online

Pro-Launch companies helps individuals pursue their dreams to make it big in the sport of their choice, while giving them the necessary infrastructure support to stay in the game, and garner recognition. Of course, a pro-launch company helps deserving sports people get financial funding to achieve their goals. Needless to say some sports can get sponsorship easily, while others require slightly more hard work. But with a good pro-launch agency taking care of your affairs, you can be assured that you will be able to focus on becoming a better player, and chase your dream in a much more planned and peaceful manner knowing your interests are well taken care of by the experts.

Companies such as Coca Cola, PepsiCo allocate sponsorship budgets each year as part of the yearly budgeting process and sports sponsorship companies can help you get a piece of that sponsorship pie easily, as they know the market and its nitty-gritty’s.

Sport sponsors essentially require sports properties that can be valuable, effective, and make quantifiable contribution to their existing or planned advertising and marketing communication. However in order to achieve this objective, sponsors must be convinced that the sport or the sporting personality is a good fits with their brand’s personality and prefer a uniqueness that is specific to their brand in order to prevent any consumer confusion.

Every sponsor, typically, wants media mileage and sporting events give them just this. With several exciting opportunities for unique advertising from newspapers to television to radios to apparel and other merchandise, sponsors totally explore these mediums to create brand awareness and breed familiarity for their customers. A great way to penetrate the market, sponsors believe sport sponsorship is ideal for many other things as well including networking, creating their own image as a responsible business house, and of course, sometimes just for non-profit reasons.

Some of the things you need to ensure before opting for a pro-launch company include that the company:

- Provides you a plan to stay funded and stay in the sport
- Ensures that you have a support team
- Offers you advice and guidance to improve and become a complete and attractive package
- Helps you gain an edge and uniqueness
- Can help you gain sponsorship in your chosen sport, whichever it may be from golf, tennis, motor cross, boxing, to surfing, snow boarding, skiing, tri-athletics, track and field, baseball, basketball and others.

Finally, a pro-launch company must help you become a better player and should be able to give you the singular opportunity to chase and achieve your dream by simply concentrating on winning!

How To Watch The Superbowl Online

Download Les Miserables: The 10th Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall Online. Movie Title: Les Miserables: The 10th Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall Average customer review: Les Miserables: The 10th Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Les Miserables: The 10th Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall

This new edition of the Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert (taped in 1995 at the Royal Albert Hall in London) is a welcome new edition for any person who found the original concert enjoyable and thrilling. The 2-DVD set comes in a good quality hard case with new artwork. The performances continue to be mostly excellent and one really does not miss the staging too much. There are several new positive additions to this edition. First is the wide-screen presentation of the concert. It was painfully obvious at certain points during the original release (especially the bigger numbers) that you were missing some of the singers on the sides. The new wide-screen presentation opens up the experience so you can watch the concert as it was originally taped. The second positive aspect of this issue is that the whole concert is on one side of one disk, which makes it much more convenient to watch. The third is the inclusion of the “Stage By Stage” Documentary from the late 80s tracking the recording of the Complete Symphonic Recording as a supplement on the second disk. Finally, for those who want to, you can follow along with new (optional) on-screen lyrics.

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However, this edition is not without its disappointments. The first and by far the biggest disappointment is how it’s only presented in stereo and not Dolby Digital 5.1 or better. Not having a digital audio option in 2008 is ridiculous and I would have greatly put up with changing disks if it meant having a better quality performance. The second disappointment is the deletion of parts of the concert previously available, which include part of “Little People” and the speeches by the creative talent behind the show at the end of the concert before the encore. Even if space was limited on the first disk, these deletions could have easily been put on the second disk as supplementary material.

So, while the concert itself continues to be quite enjoyable and there are some new additions that makes it a must have for any Les Miserable fan, there are some basic disappointments that keep this edition from being perfect.

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Wow, I have waited forever for this concert to be released on DVD, I have worn out two VHS tapes, and I can’t express my disapointment. It arrived today and my wife and I disconected the phones and prepared to watch on our new 1080p with a Blu-Ray player. The DVD is very grainy a lot of the time, like looking through a screen, much of the time there are ghosts around the actors. It appears to be simply a copy of the VHS with no enhancement. It has been edited, for instance Gavroche’s song exposing Javert to the students has been shortened, the entire part between the end of the concert and the entrance of the international Jean Valjeans has been cut. (It may be on the second disc, but if it is then the “additional material” is misleading) In this day of digital enhancement there is no excuse for this poor quality, my old VHS is superior. The sound track is not enhanced at all. I will only hope someone will eventually offer a real quality DVD of this great, great event.

Stream Teletubbies: Again - Again! Online. Movie Title: Teletubbies: Again - Again! Average customer review: Teletubbies: Again - Again! is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Teletubbies: Again - Again!

As long as my baby enjoys it then that’s all that matters. Personally I don’t care for it.

Stream The Beast Online. Movie Title: The Beast Average customer review: The Beast is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download The Beast

It’s not surprising that this controversial movie isn’t that well-known, but after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, watching this movie is even more important. The movie begins with a devastating Soviet tank attack on a quiet village in Afghanistan, during which a rebel prisoner is shown being run over by one of the T-62 tanks (one of the most grusome scenes in the history of cinema!). After “mopping up” the pitiful resistance, one of the Soviet T-62 tanks becomes separated from the rest and in no time at all is lost in the brutal desert, where Afghani rebels led by Taj (Steven Bauer, in an incredible performance) stalk the tank with the goal of destroying “the beast”.

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The commander of the lost T-62 is Daskal (George Dzundza), a tyrant who’s so psychotic he has one of his own tank crewman machine gunned for being “a traitor” (which he wasn’t of course).

The tank driver, Koverchenko (Jason Patric) can’t stand Daskal’s madness any longer, and when his insubordination to Daskal goes too far he is tied up and left to die alone in the desert. The Afghani rebels find Koverchenko and prepare to kill him, but he begs for mercy and his life is spared by Taj. Taj gives him the option of joining the rebels in their determined hunt of “the beast”, and Koverchenko readily accepts. Taj and Koverchenko learn to trust one another as they close in on the tank (which is quickly running out of fuel) for the kill, leading to an explosive confrontation.

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Despite the fact that Americans play Soviet tank crewmen and speak English, I found this movie very thought-provoking and gripping from beginning to end. The casting couldn’t have been better and the performances are outstanding, as is the chilling atmospheric music by Mark Isham. The cinematography is simply stunning, and the battle scenes are very graphic and intense. It’s too bad that the dvd is full-screen only and contains hardly any special features, because a great film like this certainly deserves a special edition dvd. Still, it’s at least very inexpensive, and this is a movie that no war movie fan should be without!

“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,

and the women come out to cut up your remains,

just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,

and go to your God like a soldier.” -Rudyard Kipling

The political climate at the time of this film’s release in 1988 made it impossible for it to obtain the distribution it deserved; the movie itself, taking place during the first full year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, centers around a Soviet tank crew who are commanded by a miserable officer who is a veteran of the Old School…and the Old War (his details of his exploits as a child in Stalingrad against the Nazis are both chilling and exceptionally revealing). He has no regard for the lives of the people in whose country his armies are “guests” (the government in Kabul at the time was well- supported by Moscow), and he has neither regard for anything he perceives as weakness among his own troops, nor time to listen to anyone who would interfere with his command of them. This leads to the action that ultimately adds the twist of “Badal” (Islamic term for “revenge”) as the tankers become lost in a box canyon and attempt to elude Mujahideen (Islamic freedom fighters) as they return to their column.
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I know it’s an insignificant and meaningless consequence to the actions of September 11, 2001 here in the United States…but I believe this movie should be reassessed and far more appreciated. The decision to allow the Soviets to speak not in the traditional thickly-accented English that can be expected from most intrigue movies, but instead with American dialects (any of these guys could have been extras in “A Bronx Tale”) was inspired at the time, and it very effectively humanized an enemy that we in America had been indoctrinated to believe were “an Evil Empire”. And in truth, the first scene of the armored attack of an Afghan village pretty much supports this categorization…but as the movie runs its course, you start to wonder.
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The Afghans, in contract, speak their native tongue (with subtitles). This is an incredible feat, particularly pulled off by Steven Bauer (”Manolo”, from “Scarface”) as the young Khan who inherits his position after his elders are killed during Soviet interrogation. The Afghans religiously see their obligation to destroy the Soviets as divine will, and are thoroughly merciless in their attempts to do so. A group that begin the movie as oppressed but gallant freedom fighters slowly reveal themselves to be little short of brigands, literally (at least in the case of their women) thirsty for the blood of their invaders.
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Of course, today things are different. Today we as Americans are only beginning to understand the horror that the conflict in Afghanistan was (and continues to be). Today we as a country ask ourselves what we were thinking when we pledged our support to the Mujahideen that eventually begat the Taliban in an attempt to thwart an “Evil Empire” who, for some reason, wanted to control the most worthless patch of land on this planet.
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Therefore, I say with great conviction: Watch this movie…and when you find yourself wondering if it’s right to feel one way or the other for one side or the other, then you find yourself understanding a little more about what war really is.

Download Eagle vs. Shark Online. Movie Title: Eagle vs. Shark Average customer review: Eagle vs. Shark is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Eagle vs. Shark

This is a sweet little movie starring JEMAINE CLEMENT (of Flight of the Conchords fame) and LOREN HORSLEY (of…being Taika Waititi’s girlfriend fame?). Not sure why Amazon doesn’t have them listed anywhere as the stars…

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The film follows Jarrod (Clement) and Lily’s (Horsley) budding romance, from her crush on him as she works at a fast food restaurant he frequents, to their hook-up at a dress-as-your-favorite animal party, to visiting his hometown as he takes revenge on someone who bullied him in school. They are unlikely soul mates, bonded by similar facial moles.

The film includes beautiful shots of the New Zealand coast, a little stop-action animation, and Clement sporting a really choice mullet! Like a lot of stuff that has been coming out of New Zealand lately, it is heavy on the quirk but also has some funny and heartfelt moments. And fans of Clement will enjoy a scene in which he is wearing a Speedo.

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You WILL call all of your enemies “foolish, foolish sucka” after seeing this movie!

Lilly (Loren Horsley) works in a fast food restaurant and garners the respect of no one. But she takes it on the chin and remains curiously sweet. She’s got a crush on Jarrod, a narcissist geek with a horrible mullet played by Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame. Jarrod and Lilly hook up at a party one night. (Do you want to have sex? OK.) Jarrod has a mission-to crush a samoan lad who tortured him in school. He returns home to fight his nemesis. I won’t give it away, but the ending to this movie had me laughing hysterically. This is a completely original script absent banal comedy and full of emotional depth. You won’t see films like this coming out of Hollywood these days. Thank you Taika and the NZ Film Commission.

Many people have compared Eagle to Napoleon Dynamite, but I find the comparison lacking. Yes, Lily and Jarrod are geeks, but the similarities with Napoleon end there. This isn’t a geek revenge movie though the plot may seem like that on the face of it. The movie is titled Eagle vs. Shark but it could be titled man vs. woman. Neither Lily or Jarrod run to each other as solace from the outside world. Lily has a warm home life with her brother and Jarrod is pretty solidly convinced of his stature and his ability with women until the end of the movie. It’s interesting to see how Lily turns Jarod around. This film is about the balance of power between Lily and Jarod, not geeks vs the world.

There are a lot of good minor characters in this film including Jarrod’s sister and her husband and Lily’s brother. Jarrod’s daughter is played brilliantly by an eccentric little girl whose name I can’t find on the DVD. She’s cute to watch. I liked Lorena’s performance. She brings strength to her role as Lily but doesn’t come off aggressive. It must have been a difficult role to play right.

Good extras on the film including some nice deleted scenes. The commentary with Taika was a little off putting. He seems a bit over it. His girlfriend, Lorena Horsely who plays Lily calls from NZ and they talk a bit about the film, but neither one of them seem very into it. It seems like the commentary was added a long long time after the film was made and maybe thrown in because of the success of Conchords. The most interesting commentary comes from the guy that plays Jarrod’s brother in law. Taika says things like “that scene comes from the Sundance film workshop” but doesn’t explain what that is or why he was there. Flight of the Conchords fans don’t buy Eagle to hear any interviews or commentary with Jemaine. He is curiously absent from all the extras here as he was with Conchords. Jemaine seems more over it all these days than anyone. I doubt HBO will get a season 3 out of him unless they throw him mad mad money.

There are a lot of great views of NZ in this film. Loved the camera shot on the playground with Lily running in the mouse wheel with the bay out the back. Gorgeous. Good music from the Phoenix Foundation Horsepower, Pegasus that works well with the film. The soundtrack wasn’t chosen for marketing purposes, it actually works with what’s going on in the film.

When I see a good film like this, completed for under a million dollars, you wonder what is going on in Hollywood these days that more films like this aren’t made. Hollywood is good at throwing money into a lot of dumb scripts with hot actors, but it takes someone like Taika to come along and demonstrate how a good movie is really about a good script, not special effects and pretty people.

Stream Chisum Online. Movie Title: Chisum Average customer review: Chisum is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Chisum

Based upon historical fact, this film follows the famous range war in which Billy the Kid made his name, but chiefly from the viewpoint of aging cattle baron John Chisum (Wayne in the title role). It’s 1878 in New Mexico Territory, and Chisum rides into the local town of Lincoln to meet his niece Sallie (Pamela McMyler) off the stage. His foreman and long-time Good Right Hand, Pepper (Ben Johnson practically stealing the movie–he should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor), remarks upon the many acquisitions being made by would-be real-estate magnate Lawrence J. Murphy (Tucker in a cheerfully malevolent role), but Chisum isn’t looking for trouble. Still, he is inexorably drawn into the escalating situation when lawyer Alex McSween (Andrew Prine), whom Sallie befriended on the journey, finds it impossible to turn a blind eye to Murphy’s machinations, and helps stake the idealistic Easterner to a store to run in competition with the one Murphy bought out from under its original owner. Not until his friend and neighbor, Britisher Henry Tunstall (Patric Knowles), is murdered on the road by two deputies of Murphy’s hand-picked sheriff (Bruce Cabot), does Chisum’s temper finally come unglued, and the story continues through the siege (canonical) of the McSween store by Murphy’s forces, the shooting down of McSween in the street, and at last a classic brawl (in an ultimately burning building) between Chisum and Murphy that always reminds me of two old range bulls butting heads. As always, the supporting cast adds immeasureably to the movie: Geoffrey Deuel as Billy Bonney; Christopher George (who also played a villainous role in the Duke’s “El Dorado”) as his old enemy, gimpy, half-crazy bounty hunter Dan Nodeen; Richard Jaeckel as Jess Evans, with whom Billy once rode; Glenn Corbett as Billy’s friend (and future killer) Pat Garrett. The mild liberties that are taken with history (such as Sallie’s attraction to Billy) only serve to fill out the characters better. There’s plenty of classic Old West action and a good score (Merle Haggard’s vocal, “Turn Me Around,” should be released on a retrospective of his songs), and Chisum is portrayed as a decent man who loves the land and wants the best for the people who live on it (interestingly, he isn’t expected to carry a romantic relationship at all, though it’s strongly hinted that he came close to marrying Sallie’s mother). A solid entry to the Wayne oeuvre and one well worth your time.

I’ve always loved John Waynes westerns of the 60’s and 70’s. Even in older age he was a commanding presence on the screen. Chisum tells the story of the real-life Lincoln County war between John Chisum (wayne) and L.G. Murphy (Forrest Tucker). Chisum is a cattle baron who has settle this area of New Mexico long ago and a well-respected man of the Community. Murphy is the newcomer. A rich man bent on taking over Lincoln County by buying up everything he can and puttin any competitors out of business. This puts him into direct conflict with CHisum. Chisum soon uses his considerable funds to back a store and bank of his own to compete with Murphy.

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Chisum is friends with another rich cattleman, a Northeasterner Henry Tunstall. Tunstall just happens to employ a certain young man named Billy Bonney AKA Billy the Kid. Tunstall is a man of God who tries to get Billy to change his lawless ways. Billy finds himself at odds with Chisum due to a romantic interest that forms between he and his niece Sally. EVentually a couple of crooked deputies kill Tunstall claiming he pulled a gun on them. Billy in turn kills the town sheriff setting off an all out war between the various factions leading to a climactic fight between Chisum and Murphy.

The movie does play quite loose with the various facts of the real life Lincoln County war especially with Kid’s relation ship with Pat Garrett. The cast was very strong in this film and includes old Wayne co-hort Ben Johnson as “pepper”, Chisums friend who mutters his opinion just under his breath all the time. Glen Corbett is the blue steel-eyed Pat Garrett, and Geoffrey Duel is Billy the Kid. Another of the Duke’s old pals Bruce Cabot plays the Sheriff, and Chris George is along as the new sadistic Sheriff Nodeen.

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The movie has all the hallmarks of Waynes westerns. Gorgeous scenery, plenty of action, and a good dose of humor. Among the memorable scenes is when Murphy’s men have the town barricaded against Chisums arrival so the Duke sends a stampege of bulls plowing into the town. The DVD version I have comes with a commentary track by director Andrew McLagen.

Download Heavy Metal Online. Movie Title: Heavy Metal Average customer review: Heavy Metal is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Heavy Metal

I can’t believe the number of negative reviews this movie has gotten! I bet these people don’t like James Bond movies, either.

To fully appreciate Heavy Metal, one has to understand the era it came out in. At the time, most animation, at least what was seen in the US, was frequently of the “family entertainment” variety seen in Saturday morning cartoons and TV commercials. Apart from Ralph Bakshi, most animators were basically shackled by the need to present something that was “rated G”. Heavy Metal took the exact opposite route. It was a liberating experience for the animators working on the film to be allowed to draw things they usually weren’t allowed. And they got paid to do it, too!

After the opening Soft Landing sequence, we’re introduced to the Loc-Nar, a glowing green orb responsible for all the evil that has plagued the universe (or at least, that which has plagued the human race). The various stories contained in the film are told by the Loc-Nar to a young girl, as examples of it’s awesome power.

The stories include the film noir homage Harry Canyon, the male “wish fulfillment fantasy” of Den (which demonstrates the versatility of the late John Candy, who voices both Dan, the science nerd who gets transported into an alternate dimension by the Loc-Nar, as well as Den, the Conan/He-Man-esque beefcake that he is magically transformed into), the highly amusing Captain Sternn (trivia: the voice of the prosecutor is done by John Vernon, the actor who portrayed Dean Wormer in Animal House), the EC-esque B-17 (aka Gremlins, which went through so many script revisions, it’s a miracle it got finished at all), the bizarrely hilarious So Beautiful And So Dangerous (ok, maybe there’s some truth to the juvenilia charges during this segment, but only a corpse could keep from laughing at this piece), and revenge scenario of Taarna (imagine a tougher, sexier version of Xena, only about a decade and a half earlier).

While there IS some element of juvenilia here, it’s no worse than any other movie that’s been released by any major studio during the last 25 years. In fact, I bet it’s a little more cerebral than most of those other movies. Harry Canyon is a rather crafted film noir homage, while some elements of Taarna are clearly patterned on Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. And while there are a couple sex scenes and a certain amount of excessive violince in Heavy Metal, again, it’s nothing compared to some of the garbage that’s shown on cable TV these days. I’d certainly rather watch this than Basic Instinct or No Way Out.

This movie is a classic piece of animation. Yeah, some of it’s rough around the edges, but that has a lot to do with Columbia’s decision to move up the deadline so they could have the original movie out in time for the summer 81 season. One has to consider the scope of the undertaking, and the relatively short time that was at hand to create it.

Look at the “travelling sequence” during Taarna, where she’s shown riding her mount (a sort of large bird creature) over a rolling landscape, and consider that it was done WITHOUT the use of any kind of computer generated work. It’s explained in the audio commentary on the rough cut of the film, as well as during the documentary how it was done, and why it didn’t quite turn out as planned). No one had ever done anything like that, and it had to all be done by hand.

Really, you can’t take this movie too seriously. It’s a movie that exists soley to entertain. There’s no big message or point to the movie. Just put the DVD in the player, turn out the lights, turn up the volume LOUD, and just enjoy the trip.

It should be noted, that this disc also contains some of the best bonus features I’ve seen on any DVD. Besides the regular movie, you get a full length “rough cut” of the film, consisting of storyboards, pencil tests, and some completed animation. The only audio for this rough cut (besides the optional audio commentary, by Carl Macek, who also does a completely different commentary for the finished movie) is the dialog. There’s long stretches of silence, but it’s worth watching, as there’s lots of bits of dialog that were cut from the final movie (we learn, for instance, that Katharine, like Den, was also transformed when she was transported to this mysterious alternate universe). It’s also interesting to note that the stories weren’t always in the order that they were in the final movie.

There’s also a half hour documentary with interviews from many of the filmmakers involved in making the film. We finally find out why we see a model of a house blowing up at the end (because they didn’t have time to finish the animation for that one bit), and also why Cornelius Cole’s Neverwhere Land was cut from the movie (either for reasons of length/continuity, or because Cole didn’t finish it in time, depending on exactly which version of the story you wish to believe.

You also get a few minutes of deleted scenes, most notably the above mentioned Neverwhere Land, which was originally supposed to link Captain Sternn and B-17. There’s also a few minutes that surround an early version of the framing story (in whence the Loc-Nar was actually the power source of a magical merry-go-round, and the various objects on the merry-go-round related in one way to the stories…ie, there’s a taxicab, Taarna’s mount, etc…each time the girl takes a ride in a different vehicle on the merry-go-round, she experiences a different story).

And finally, you get all Heavy Metal covers up through 1999, plus various bits of production drawings, cels, etc.

In short, this is a classic film that should be viewed by all fans of animation and/or heavy flicks. Prudes and conservatives who get cranky at the very thought of a movie being ruined by a little too much flesh or blood (and really, there isn’t THAT much of either in this film) or a little warped humor (ok, there’s PLENTY of that here) are advised to keep away. I just wish they had restored Neverwhere Land to it’s original place between Captain Sternn and B-17.

Some critics and film historians have labeled 1981’s HEAVY METAL as the last film to genuinely reflect the mishmash sensibilities of the post-hippy 1970s counter-culture, and stylistically and thematically this appears to be true. Based on the adult counter-culture cult comic of the same name, HEAVY METAL definitely is a sort of spacey concatenation of disparate visual aesthetics and heterogeneous science-fiction/fantasy narratives. But despite being a hodgepodge as a whole, the film still manages to offer a very entertaining way to kill 90 minutes.

As with the magazine, the film is basically aimed at horny male adolescents, offering plenty of nude, amply bosomed women running around in the midst of stylized violence and gore; lots of rock music (though these ditties from popular metal bands of the late ’70s may not appeal to the current generation of horny male adolescents); and references to the drug-oriented sub-culture (definitely not a cartoon for the pre-teen crowd). Each individual segment of HEAVY METAL was scripted and directed independently of the others, which likely accounts for the varying aesthetic and narrative styles. But many of these contributors were (and are now) some of the most talented people in the film industry, including writers Dan O’Bannon, Len Blum, and Daniel Goldberg, and directors John Bruno, John Halas, and Jimmy T. Murikami. (Gerald Potterton, listed in the credits as the film’s director, was in reality the overseer for the project as a whole.)

Because the film does not contain a single cohesive plotline, it is best to evaluate each animated segment in its own right. Some of those individual stories are quite thought-provoking or humorous–or both–and even some of the more mediocre segments still offer some fantastic visuals. One of the most intellectually interesting is a story called DEN, in which a young bespectacled geek is transported into a parallel universe and transformed into a handsome, muscled barbarian hero. After falling in love with a curvaceous maiden, he helps her save her people from their draconian Caligula-like dictator. B-17 is probably the most earnest segment, though there seems to be no intrinsic logic to the sparse narrative. In it, the dead crewmembers of a WWII bomber plane are inexplicably resurrected as flesh-eating zombies, subsequently seeking to make a meal of the plane’s still-living pilot. Visually, however, this segment is quite stunning, evoking the deliciously gruesome artistic style of the old E.C. comics of the ’50s and early ’60s. And in the funniest segment–entitled SO BEAUTIFUL, SO DANGEROUS–a gorgeous Pentagon secretary is inadvertently sucked into an alien spaceship that resembles a huge smiley face. After confronting the spaced-out druggie crewmembers, she ultimately becomes the lover of the ship’s robot and decides to remain aboard.

After its initial release, HEAVY METAL attained a cult following of sorts and became a favorite of the midnight-movie crowd. Unfortunately, its release to the home-video market was delayed for years due to disputes over copyrights for some of the rock songs used in the soundtrack. Because of this, poorly produced bootlegged copies of the flick were illegally sold (usually at Sci-fi cons) and swapped among fans, and the inferior video quality contributed to the film’s unfair reputation for being a mediocre film. But the music disputes were eventually resolved somehow, and the film became commercially available to the home market in the mid 1990s and regained its popularity as a cool cartoon. (Some statistics indicate that it is the most popular film in the Columbia/Tristar home-video catalog.)

Columbia/Tristar’s Special-Edition DVD of HEAVY METAL offers a beautiful digital transfer of the film and soundtrack, along with some really cool bounus material. For animation fans, one of the best of the bonus features is a fascinating feature-length pencil-test version of the film (with optional commentary). Columbia/Tristar also offers a version of the HEAVY METAL in their SuperBit collection, but as with their other SuperBit films, the disc space required for the higher bit rate precludes the inclusion of any bonus material. Unless the buyer has a high-definition TV and can appreciate the increased picture quality of the SuperBit disc, the Special-Edition version is the way to go. Either way, HEAVY METAL offers enough entertainment value to make it a worthy addition to the DVD collection of any SF or animation fan.