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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > War > WWII > Spy > Action > Comedy > TV > Western > Superhero > Angel Of The Skies (2013/E1 DVD)/Burn Notice: Season Seven/Final Notice (2013/Fox DVDs)/Lone Ranger Double-Barreled Feature (1938, 1940, 1958/Legend DVD)/Sweetwater (2012/Arc DVD)/The Virginian (2013

Angel Of The Skies (2013/E1 DVD)/Burn Notice: Season Seven/Final Notice (2013/Fox DVDs)/Lone Ranger Double-Barreled Feature (1938, 1940, 1958/Legend DVD)/Sweetwater (2012/Arc DVD)/The Virginian (2013/Nasser DVD)


Picture: C/C/C/C/C+ Sound: C/B-/C/C+/B- Extras: C-/C-/C/C-/C- Main Programs: C-/C-/C+/C/D



What we have are a group of programs aimed at the typical guy audience and they are not even as good as that moniker usually would imply at its least.



We start with a South African production, Christopher-Lee Dos Santos' Angel Of The Skies (2013) which takes place during WWI as a pilot from the country joins the Royal Air Force to help England and the Aliies battle the Nazis in the air, on the ground and otherwise. That script is cliched, the cast of unknowns somewhat convincing that they are the characters in their period and period itself portrayed with some convincing authenticity. However, almost ebverythign we see here worth noting we have seen before and more on South Africa and their WWII ties would have helped.


Worst of all is a tendency to take the color image and fade it just a little too much by whitening that is too faint, makes this even harder to watch and is only so memorable. At 102 minutes, it plays long and there is a better motion picture in here somewhere, but it sadly never happens despite some of its ambitions.


A trailer is the only extra.



Finally quitting while it is ahead (it could have really ended badly) is Burn Notice: Season Seven/Final Notice (2013) which could only hve reached this far for a fan base that managed to stick with the show all these seasons. We get the long, no-end-left-untied 12 (lucky or unlucky) last 13 episodes and I cannot imagine any fan of the show or stars Gabrielle Anwar, Jeffrey Donovan and Brcue Campbell (et al) being disappointed. I liked the show early on, but as noted in previous reviews elsewhere ont his site, the show started to sag early, starting with the third season for me.


Still, the makers got Fox to stick with them and this is the end. Sharon Gless helps make this more bearable, but unless you really love the show from the debut season (where you should start), you will not find much to like here.


Extras include an audio commentary track on the Forget Me Not episode, Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel and the Final Mission: Ending The Series featurette.



As the disastrous 2013 Johnny Depp revival that rightly bombed hits Blu-ray (with a positive review by one of our writers elsewehre on this site), Legend DVD has issued a Lone Ranger Double-Barreled Feature with the character in the original hero mode moviegoers expected and did not get from the Disney production a 1958 TV special on the character with Clayton Moore and Hi Ho Silver!, a 1940 film, bersion of the 1938 serial of the character whose chapters have been lost as of this posting. This version is really decent for its age and has Lee Powell more than holkding his own as the silver bullet-toting masked man.


If you were disappointed by the new film, this is a great remedy for suffering through that one and at a nice price. The best release on the list amazingly, extras include a Clayton Moore interview plus clips of Moore on the series Annie Oakley, Kit Carson and Range Rider.



Finaly we have two attempts at Westerns, both oddly angrier works for no reason than expected, starting with Logan Miller's Sweetwater (2012) offering a mixed revenge western plot involving a corrupt holy man (Jason Issacs), no-good sheriff (Ed Harris looking more than a little like Terence Stamp) and eventiually vengeful woman (January Jones of Mad Men) who gets oput of control beyond what is called for. The sex can be more graphic than usual and religion at leats not handled in a preachy way, but this is far more bloody than expected and the weak script only makes that more apparent.


Eduardo Noriega, singer Jason Aldean and a scene-stealing Stephen Root (who still cannot save this one) as a corrupt bank owner also star, but this fell flat and bever really felt like the late 1800s.


A Behind The Scenes featurette, trailer and odd Music Video are the only extras.



Finally we have the scond revival of the old hit TV show The Virginian (2013, directed by Thomas Makowski), the NBC Western that ran for 9 season from 1962 - 1971 with James Drury and Doug McClure, the first to have what we would now call TV movie-length episodes. Like T.H.E. Cat, it is yet another popular classic NBC-TV series we never see rerun or released much anymore. Bill Pullman landed up in a 2000 TV Movie revival, but no series resulted, so now we have singer Trace Adkins in the title role helping a bookwise city guy deal with the Widl West.


He gets some one-liners that spout his knowledge, but half of them do not hold water, pluys they get pretty silly, especially the more serious he acts. He looks the part somewhat, but I never bought him in the role or this tale of preverted justice and revenge that we have again seen hundreds of times. We get nothing new here, the look of the production barely looks period and I was suprrised how forgettable it was. Needless to say this willnto lead to a series revival of any sort. For fans only, if that.


A Behind The Scenes featurette is the only extra.



The image on all the DVDs are on the soft side, but the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Virginian has a slight edge despite being styled down and not without flaws. Angel and Sweetwater have the same framings and presentations, but Angel has stylized softness that is overdone and too faded for its own good while Sweetwater is not as overboard in this sense, yet it is just to soft too often. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Burn is also stylized way too dnw for its own good, so all four would likely look to improve at least a bit on Blu-ray editions. The 1.33 X 1 on the 35mm Ranger film footage is rough as expected, but more watchable than you might think.


As for sound the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on Burn and Virginian are more active and well thought out than the rest and made me wish for lossless versions. The same type of mixes on Angel and Sweetwater tend to be more towards the front channels than I would have liked, especially Angels which really lacks dynamic range. That leaves the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the Rangers films rough, but being able to compete with Angel sonically when it should not.



- Nicholas Sheffo


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