Here’s a couple of Direct to DVD Reviews that are hitting stores today.

The Planet
Year: 2008
Director: Mark Stirton
Stars: Mike Mitchell, Patrick Wight, Scott Ironside
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: MTI Home Entertainment
Running Time: 69 Mins
Review Rating: 3.5 Stars
Official Website: http://www.stirtonproductions.com/ThePlanet_front.htm


The Planet is about a group of mercenaries who crashed landed on a distant planet and are forced to abandon their spaceship. Things don’t get better for the soldiers, as they soon discover that something is stalking them. What they discover is a mysterious force that turns the souls of their soldiers against them. Soon they’re not a fight for their own lives but the lives of every one in the entire universe.

The Planet is an action-packed science fiction film. Director Mark Stirton does a very good keeping the action and the suspense up. His direction of the actors was very good. Stirton made sure that his actors have had chemistry with each other. That was needed to build chemistry, since the actors are with each other for most of the film. The film also has some very good special effects, especially with the beginning of the film, which set the tone for it.

The screenplay also written by Stirton was good for the most part. The story was developed very well, as the action didn’t feel rushed. He doesn’t rush the action, as Stirton instead, focuses on the story and the strange happenings on the planet, which makes for a better movie. Another thing, he does with the screenplay is focus on the struggles of the soldiers instead of blowing things up all the time. The only problem that I had with the screenplay was the fact that it was too short, as the film’s running time was only 69 minutes. He could have used more time to develop these characters, as they were interesting, but I can understand since this is a low-budget film.

The Planet is an action packed science fiction film that packs a lot of power.


DVD Extras:

Crisis Management - The Making of the Planet
Trailers


CarBabes
Year: 2008
Director: Nick Fumia, Chris Wolf
Stars: Ben Savage, John Gries, Carolina Garcia
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Studio: Vivendi Visual Entertainment / Radio London Films
Running Time: 90 Mins
Review Rating: 3 Stars
Official Website: http://www.carbabesthemovie.com/


Carbabes is about recent college graduate Ford Davis (Ben Savage) who ends up working for father as a used car salesman after not trying hard to find a real job. Soon, he realizes that being a car salesman is not that easy as the job can be very chaotic. Now, along with a couple of fellow car salesmen and his beautiful hot girlfriend, Davis must take on a scheming boss (John Gris) and a mobile-home tycoon who’s out take his fathers business and leave him jobless again.

This is one of those types of films that I thought I was going to put on my worst films of 2008 list from the first five minutes alone. But surprisingly Carbabes is a decent and good film. Directors Nick Fumia and Chris Wolf did a solid job with directing, as the film for the most part didn’t feel like an MTV music video. They also did a good job directing the actors. The actor’s performances were good enough to keep my interest. There’s also a very good supporting performance from

John Gries (Napoleon Dynamite) as he made character one of those odd character villians that you see in comedy films. He’s a very underrated actor, in my opinion.

The screenplay that was written by Fumiam, Wolf, and Blake Dirickson was solid at best. The screenplay has some problems including some of the humor. The humor was okay. There were some parts that I found funny and others felt boring at times. Also, I thought that some of the characters were annoying and uninteresting. But the reason I liked it was with the fact that it developed its subplots. They were interesting and entertaining like the relationship between both Savage and Garcia’s characters. If that plot line didn’t work for me then this film would have gone downhill in a hurry to the point where I wouldn’t have been interested in anything else that happened. The reason I felt that way is, because if your screenplay doesn’t have an interesting main sub plot when the film is so-so then you’re not going to care about, so that why that plot line kept my interest and saved it for me.

Carbabes is definitely not a used film, as it was funny and entertaining at times.

DVD Extras:

Screen Tests
Original Theatrical Trailer
Trailers

Making of the Music for Carbabes.

Transformation: The Life and the Legacy of Werner Erhard
Year: 2008
Director: Robyn Symon
Stars: Werner Erhard
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Studio: Screen Media Films
Running Time: 77 Mins
Review Rating: 3.5 Stars
Official Website: http://www.transformationfilm.com/



Transformation: The Life and the Legacy of Werner Erhard have played in festivals such as the Atlanta Film festival and the Palm Beach Film Festival. The documentary focuses on the life of Werner Erhard, who was the pioneer of the multi-billion personal growth industry. Transformations: goes into his life that he lived when he became an icon in his field during the 1970’s and 1980. The film also will give an insight into his way of thinking and the controversial program that he developed known as the est that would make him a pioneer. The film also features interviews from his peers, experts, family members and his doubters.

Transformation: The Life and the Legacy of Werner Erhard is a very interesting look at one of the controversial figures of the personal growth industry. Warner Erhard was an interesting subject for a person who is not familiar with him, like myself. Director Robyn Symon does a good profiling this person, as I was interested in his story. He makes the focal point of the film about Erhard's EST training program, which is good for the person, like myself, who was not familiar with this person. Symon spends time interviewing various people who went thought his training, which provided some interesting insight into the positives and negatives on it. He also gets the critics perspective from it, so that both sides are represented. If there was one problem that I had with EST training part of the film was that it didn't focus on the training's origins. It would have been nice to have known, as it would have given a better understanding to what he was trying to accomplish.

What makes this very interesting was the fact the Symon spends time on the personal life of Warner Erhart. That's what made this film for me. He does a good job exploring the troubles in his life. The stories were very interesting which really went into the person from the personal problems in his marriage to the media painting him as a very bad and greedy person. It made the film very interesting, as you got to know the subject. You also see that he not that bad person that people paint him out to be. Symon also focuses on the people who were influenced by him. He does that so you know that his legacy and various works still lives on today.

Transformation: The Life and the Legacy of Werner Erhard is a very interesting look at the controversy and person that created one the most controversial training programs ever.

DVD Extras:

Behind the Scenes Featurette
Extended Footage of Erhard Delivering the est Training


Crime Fiction
Year: 2007
Director: Will Slocombe
Stars: Jonathan Eliot, Christian Stolte, Amy Sloane
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Studio: Anthem Pictures
Running Time: 81 Mins
Review Rating: 2 Stars
Official Website: http://www.crimefictionpictures.com/



Crime fiction played at the 2007 Slamdance Film festival. The film is about a copy editor who always dreams of becoming a big time author. He is upset that his girlfriend is getting a lot of publicity for her work and his agent dumped him after his first book got negative reviews. Things get worse for him when his girlfriend ended up dead under the bedroom window in his apartment. Soon this inspires him to write a pulp novel that he thinks will make him famous, but this lead him into a world of murder, betrayal, and unthinkable fortunes.

There are some festival films that are so enjoyable to watch and there are that are not, this film here was not enjoyable for the most part. Writer/ Director Will Slocombe didn’t have it for this film. First the negatives, the main reason why this film wasn’t good, was the fact that the main character in the film was uninteresting. The main character comes off more of a depressed geek than a credible author. It was one of those characters that you were waiting for something awful to happen to him. Also, the screenplay wasn’t that great even though the last twenty minutes was good, which I talk about in a bit. There were too many gaps in the film in which I felt nothing was happening with the development of the main character, as the film became boring.

There are also a few positives with the film. For instance, the film was shot very well, like a pulp film, but without an interesting main character. Also, what saved this from being totally bad was the last twenty minutes or so. I was expecting the movie to end predictably but I have to give Solcombe credit, he goes for the total opposite here. Even thought it didn’t save the film for me, still that turn was good to save it a little bit.

Crime Fiction is a dull film that won’t make anyone’s bestsellers list.

DVD Extras:

Trailers:
Crime Fiction
9/11: Pane to War
Ghost Encounters
Dead Moon Rising

Photos
Press Kit.

Military Intelligence And You!
Year: 2008
Director: Dale Kutzera
Stars: Patrick Muldoon, Elizabeth Bennett, John Rixey Moore
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Studio: Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Running Time: 78 Minutes
Review Rating: 3.5 Stars
Official Website: http://www.militaryintelligenceandyou.com/

Military Intelligence and You! is a spoof that the army is embarrassed to show you. This film is a spoof of training films that were made in World War II. It also contains footage The film is about military analyst Major Nick Reed (Patrick Muldoon (Melrose Place, Starship Troopers) who is a very dedicated solider who is called in during a crises during World War II to find a hidden Nazi base fighter base that is taking out all the American air supports. Things get little complicated for him, when he has a chance encounter with his former love (Elizabeth Bennet (Point Pleasant)) that also works for the military as lieutenant along with her current love interest. Does Major Reed find the hidden base, stop the Nazi’s and reconnect with his former love. Well you have to watch this movie to find out. John Rixey Moore, Mackenzie Astin (The Last Days of Disco, The Evening Star) and Eric Jungmann also costar.

Military Intelligence and You! is a very solid spoof of army intelligence. Writer/Director Dale Kutzera made this spoof entertaining by focusing on the spoof of old training films than trying to clutter every thing that has happened in other movies of this type that make fun of celebrities, who are in the news often for the stupid and annoying things they do, like the film that I will never see, Meet the Spartans or Epic Movie, for example. I liked, how he films this like a regular recruitment film from the World War II era with the grainy picture and the high-pitched narration. That helped the film achieve, what it was set out to do. Another thing that I liked about this was the inclusion of old vintage military film which sell the film’s time period and story. Kutzera’s direction of the actors was good, even though some of the scenes were overacted, but that gets a pass, as those scenes were purposely part of the spoof.

Kutzera’s screenplay was good for the most part, as this was one of the better spoofs that I’ve seen in a while even though that isn’t saying very much. He succeeds with this spoof by focusing on the different aspects of the military through the various characters in the film. Kutzera also spoofs at classic love stories of that time with one of the subplots in the film where the two main characters haven’t meet in a while which was also good. The humor in this film was good because Kutzera doesn’t go for the over the top gross out humor that has plagued many of these films instead focuses on good solid humor.

Military Intelligence and You! is a very funny at look at the army that we all love and know.

DVD Extras:

US Army Air Force’s first motion pictures unit documentary

I’m Anthony Thurber and welcome to my new column on Filmarcade.net. It’s the Direct to DVD column. This column will appear from time to time here or whenever I feel like it. It’s a column where I might have one, two, or three films reviewed at one time. I usually will not rant here, as I want spotlight the movies not me. What qualifies as a Direct to DVD release to me? Anything that’s distributed by a major company and has not played in my area. Enough with me, here’s my first review for this column.

Country Remedy
A.K.A: Simple Things
Year: 2008
Directors: Andrew C. Erin
Stars: Cameron Bancroft, Amber Benson, Bellamy Young
MPAA Rating: PG
Studio: Screen Media Films
Running Time: 102Mins
Review Rating: 2.5 Stars

Country Remedy follows the story of a big time workaholic doctor (Cameron Bancrofft) from Chicago who wants to get the job of a lifetime. In order for him to get this job, he must spend the summer in a little known town in North Carolina named Dunn’s Rock. He decides to move there with his ten-year old son, so he can advance his career. But he soon begins to realize that there is more important things in life than getting ahead in his profession as he is still hasn’t forgotten about the death of his wife and trying to reconnect with his son. Country Remedy has won the best picture at the 2007 Appalachian Film Festival and 2007 California Independent Film Festival.

Country Remedy is one of those hit or miss films where you enjoyed some parts and was bored at times too. Director Andrew C. Erin does for the most part a good job with the direction. Erin’s direction of the actors was mostly good. He got a good performance from his lead actor Cameron Bancroft, as he made his character interesting, even with the problems this screenplay has, which I’ll get too in a moment. Erin also does a good job capturing the scenery down in North Carolina. It was very scenic and beautifully filmed. Even thought, the screenplay wasn’t good there were a couple of things that I liked. Erin along with screenwriter Peter Ferland does a good job with the development of the main character and the problems that he’s going through. If they did everything else that’s required in a good screenplay then this would have been a good film.

There were problems with this screenplay. First I noticed was that the beginning felt like, it was rushed. It should have spend a little more time in Chicago getting to know the doctor's kid, as the character felt more like an secondary character instead of being one of the leads. Second, they really didn’t build up the dramatic moments, as it felt bland at times. It was like the moment was there unexpectedly. It was that for most of the film until the last fifteen minutes of the film. The film also at time felt like it was two different films, with the doctor in one film and his kid in the other film, as they didn’t spend enough time with the two together.

Country Remedy might be a passable film if you’re looking for a film that preaches values but if looking for an enjoyable family film then find something else for you and family would enjoy.

DVD Extras:

Deleted Scenes
Behind the Scenes