A
Belle For Christmas
(2014/Anchor Bay DVD)/Cartoon
Network Holiday Collection
(2014/Warner DVD)/Frozen
In Time (2014/Arc
DVD)/Garfield Holiday
Collection: Collector's Edition
(1983 - 1994/Anderson DVD)/Little
House On The Prairie: A Merry Ingalls Christmas
(1974, 1981/NBC/Lionsgate DVD)/Lost
Christmas (2011/Inception
DVD)/Pawn Stars: A Very
Vegas Christmas Special
(2014/History Channel/Lionsgate DVD)/Tickety
Toc: Christmas Present Time
(2014/Anchor Bay DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/C+/C+/C+/C+/C+/C+ Sound: C+/C+/C+/C/C/C+/C/C+ Extras:
D/C/D/C/D/C-/D/C Main Programs: D/C+/C/B/C/C+/C+/C+
Is
it Ho! Ho! Ho! or No! No! Nooooooooo! for these first batch of
holiday releases? Read on..
Jason
Dallas' A
Belle For Christmas
(2014) is the big, boring lump of coal on this list, with everyone
looking bored in a noring story with a boring script where even the
animals wish they could could go to an Animal Friends shelter for the
holiday instead of being nearly bored to death here. Dean Cain plays
a father (very badly and boringly in a bad performance, even for him)
who is a widower with two children. The holiday blues are making
things worse, but the kids have something else in mind and then
Kristy Swanson shows up.
Unfortunately,
this is not a Buffy Christmas and Hayley Duff also shows up to weight
down this dud. Note that only a dog is on the cover, thus this is
such a yawner. Don't ringa this belle!
There
are gratefully no extras.
The
Cartoon
Network Holiday Collection
(2014) has four similarly themed episodes of three of the network's
hot shows: Holly
Jolly Secrets
(Adventure
Time
in two parts), Regular
Show:
Christmas
Special
and The
Amazing World Of Gumball:
Christmas.
These are amusing and this set also promotes the shows while showing
their common denominators in humor and approach. You could do worse
and it is not bad overall.
The
only extras are bonus episodes of the Clarence
(Money
Broom Wizard)
and Steven
Universe
(Together
Breakfast)
series.
Alec
Leung's Frozen
In Time
(2014) is another CGI animated feature with children on a journey
that lands up with themmeeting Santa Claus. Patty And Eric are stuck
on the same day, Christmas Day, but need to figure out how to allow
it to finish and have time move on. But how? This is at least
amusing in its very short 46 minutes and the CGI is not bad, but
there is only so much to this one and voices by Mira Sorvino, Ed
Asner and perrennital new animted voice Drake Bell help. Just don't
expect much and you'll likely get somehting out of it if interested.
There
are no extras.
The
Garfield
Holiday Collection: Collector's Edition
(1983 – 1994) is a new collection of five specials including three
to cover Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, which mighht be the
first time they have been brought together. Phil Roman directed
these handdrawn animated classics that hold up surprisingly well that
also includes Garfield
On The Town
(1983) and Garfield
In Paradise
(1986). Creator Jim Davis was very hands-on here, Lorenzo Music
(Rhoda)
did the title cat's voice to perfection and Peanuts veterans Bill
Melendez and Lee Mendelson did the Town
special and Mendelson also Executive Produced the later TV series.
That did not hurt.
I
like the use of color in these shows and other voice actors include
Thom Huge, Gregg Berger, Pat Harrington Jr., Lindsay Workman, Allyce
Beasley, Hal Smith, Wolfman Jack, Pat Carroll, David Lander and
George Wendt are in great form throughout the shows they worked on.
Though the CGI animated shows and two feature films are not bad,
these are still the best Garfield shwos of all.
Extras
include a set of stills, a trailer for Garfield
Living Large
and a vintage tour of Jim Davis' home for Garfield productions, et
al, that lasts about 22 minutes.
Little
House On The Prairie: A Merry Ingalls Christmas
(1974, 1981) simply collects two similar shows, Christmas
At Plum Creek
and A
Christmas They'll Never Forget,
with nothing else. It is adequate at best and now that the first few
seasons have been issued on Blu-ray, an odd afterthought. This only
a sampler for fans and not much else. Otherwise, skip it.
There
are no extras, unless you count digital copy, which we will not.
John
Hay's Lost
Christmas
(2011) is our one feature film, made in England with an interesting,
simple storyline that is a bit dark. A yong man hides his father's
keys so he cannot go to work as a fireman, but the mother dirves him
there with fatal results. A disaster, a stranger (Eddie Izzard) who
seems ot know some secrets comes into the young man's life and tries
to help him, but can he be trusted?
Jason
Flemying and Geoffrey Palmer also show up in this quietly ambitious
work that has some mixed results, but at least is serious about
entertaining its audience and getting them to think and feel. It may
not be a total success, but it is an honroable release when we get so
many phony ones on the subject. See it for yourself to decide.
A
trailer is the only extra.
Pawn
Stars: A Very Vegas Christmas Special
(2014) strings together two hour-long specials that don't always get
shown, plus feature cast memebrs from the American
Restoration
and Counting
Cars
series. Though not as good as the season sets we have covered of any
of those shows, it is a fair sampler of what we get in all of them
and an American
Restoration
episodes rounds out the single.
There
are no extras.
Tickety
Toc: Christmas Present Time
(2014) also involves clocks like Frozen
In Time,
but simply offers five similarly-themed episodes that fit nicely
together (Christmas
Present Time,
Winter
Time,
Snow
Time,
Igloo
Time
& Leaf
Sweeping Time)
that children can enjoy. One of the better entries on the list, it
is a good holiday release that will hold its own against most this
season and mny from years past.
DVD-ROM
accessible PDF Coloring & Activity Sheets, plus a surprise,
iunlisted Welcome to Tickety Town full color booklet inside the DVD
case are the extras.
Considering
half-decent Blu-ray sets of Little
House On The Prairie
keep getting released by Lionsgate, you might think that the low-def
1.33 X 1 image on the two episodes on their holiday DVD would be the
poorest performer or softest here, but color is more consistent than
expected thoughh definition is a little weak, so it is a little
surprising that the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Belle
is the weakest of all 8 releases here. Soft and flat throughout, it
looks weak and that is not form any holiday soft-styling, it is just
a weak shoot.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Lost
and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the rest of the DVDs
more than tie Prairie,
though Garfield
is interesting in being a little inconsistent and windowboxing its
1.33 X 1 color specials in the 16 X 9 frame (though the Thanksgiving
presenation is more like 1.66 X 1) and we may get aliasing errors,
but color is very consistent. Hope these come out on Blu-ray with
older episodes at some point.
As
for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Belle,
Time
and Lost
may not be stunning, but have relatively the best sound of the
releases on this list, joined by the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
on Network
and Tickety.
The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Pawn
is weaker than it should be, as well as the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Mono in Prairie,
which we expected to not perform well. They are joined by the lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo & Mono on the various Garfield
specials, a few of which are a little off and the On
The Town
special has music that is drowning out the dialogue a bit. Hope that
gets fixed for Blu-ray.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
