Mad Monster Party - Buy from Amazon
Mad Monster Party is a stop-motion animated movie done by Rankin/Bass Productions. Some might be asking, 'Who?' right about now, but you would instantly recognize their work, as they made Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, which are two of the most beloved Christmas special of all time. This movie was made in-between the production of those two specials and fits in with a different holiday.

Baron von Frankenstein is the head of Worldwide Organization of Monsters, an organization that includes such monsters as Dracula, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, Mummy, and others. After he completes his lasted creation, a vial of liquid capable of destroying matter in an explosive fashion (Think of it as antimatter of sorts.) he invites the rest of the monsters to the Island of Evil where he will announce his retirement and name his successor. One of his creations, a Fembot named Francesca learns it is going to be Felix, his nerdy nephew, she conspires with Dracula to gain control herself. Her plans are complicated when Frankenstein's Monster and his mate overhear their plans and want in on the action. But will they be able to get control of the monster empire, or will Felix prove to be a more capable foe than they assumed?

This film is more than 40 years old, but it has held up rather well. The script can be clever at times, although parts of it feel padded. Some of the character animations is excellent, especially the Invisible Man. That's not a joke; while the character is invisible, but he wears clothes, and doing a floating outfit with stop-motion animation is tough to do. Other times, the animation seems a little stiff, and the lip-syncing is rarely precise. Fans of monster movies and Rankin/Bass films should be entertained by this cute spoof.

Extras on the Special Edition start with a 15-minute making of featurette that is quite in-depth and has high replay value. It's Sheer Animagic goes into the basics of making stop-motion animation, but fans won't learn much new here. Groovy Ghouls spends four minutes talking about the music in the movie, while there are two songs you are play with a play-along mode.

Mad Monster Party isn't exactly a forgotten classic; it's probably more the former than the latter, but it is fun to watch and worth checking out. The extras on the DVD are better than expected for a smaller film from the 1960s, and for fans of Rankin/Bass, monster movies, or stop-motion animation, it is worth picking up.

Extras on the five disc set start with 8-minute featurette on the creation of one episode, Apocalypse...Now?. Over on disc four you will find Curious Maria, which is a 10-minute featurette with Maria Lark, who plays Bridgette DuBois, interviewing the cast and crew. Finally on disc five there is a 27-minute making of featurette dealing with season five overall, as well as an interview with Patricia Arquette and Jake Weber, who actually interview each other for 23 minutes. That's not a lot of extras and it is a step down from previous seasons.

With the show moving from NBC to CBS, you would think CBS would really want to promote the show by putting out a top-notch DVD. This is not the case. Medium - Season Five has a lot of good episodes, but the five-disc set has only four featurettes with a total running time of just over an hour. That's not much compared to most concurrent TV on DVD releases. If you bought the previous seasons, then there is no reason to stop now, but I can't be too enthusiastic about my recommendation.

I feel kind of silly talking about the quality of My Fair Lady, after all, it is widely considered one of the best musicals of all time. It was one of the biggest hits of the day, it was nominated for 12 Oscars and won 8 of them, and it still has near perfect reviews. It is a spectacle and for fans of the genre, it is a must have. I do have a few minor complaints. Firstly, Audrey Hepburn's Cockney accent is a little suspect and her lip-syncing it too obvious at times. Also, at nearly three hours, it can be a bit of a marathon, even for fans of the genre.

As for this DVD release, there are quite a number of extras, starting with an audio commentary with Gene Allen, Marni Nixon and Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz. (That's the art director, the lady who supplied Eliza's singing voice, and two of the men who helped restore the movie.) There are several Vintage Featurette, Footage, & Audio clips, which is fascinating for historical purposes, even if the quality is dodgy at times. Also of historical value are a couple of musical numbers sung by Audrey Hepburn. There's a short audio interview with Rex Harrison shown with posters and lobby cards. Finally, there are a couple of short clips of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Martin Scorsese talking about the movie. This isn't a bad selection of extras, but a few years back a 2-disc DVD was releases that had all of this, plus a documentary. Sadly, it is out of print, but if you have it, there's no reason to upgrade.

If you don't own My Fair Lady on DVD, then this version is worth picking up. If you already own the 2-Disc edition, then this is not worth the upgrade. It is really as simple as that.

Kai-Lan's Carnival
There are four episodes on this DVD including

• Kai-Lan's Carnival - There's a carnival in town and Kai-Lan and her friends want to go and play games and go on the rides.
• Lulu Day - Kai-Lan invites Lulu over for a play date. But when Kai-lan wants to play pirates and Lulu wants to have a tea party, they need to figure out what they can do so they both can have fun.
• Roller Rintoo - Ye Ye takes Kai-Lan to the roller rink where she meets all of her friends. This includes Rintoo, who has never roller-skated before and when he isn't the best right away, he becomes discouraged.
• Wait, Hoho, Wait! - Hoho is having trouble waiting. First he wants to eat the dumplings before Ye Ye has made them. Then he wants to ride in the toy car before it is built. How will he learn patience?

Celebrate with Kai-Lan
Another four episodes starting with...

• Happy Chinese New Year - Kai-Lan show us how the Chinese celebrate the new year, which involves wearing a lot of red, eating dumplings, and playing the drums.
• Safari Pals - Kai-Lan meets a new friend, Stampy the Elephant. Everyone likes him, except Rintoo who is jealous because Stampy is bigger, louder, and stronger than he is.
• Kai-Lan's Camp Out - Kai-Lan, Rintoo, and Tolee are having a camp out in the back yard and they get to play games, eat s'mores, and have fun. We also learn the Mandarin word for slippers sounds a lot like Tool Shed.
• Tolee's Rhyme Time - Kai-Lan decides to put on a music show, so she gets all her friends to help play music. Tolee gets to be the lead singer, but he doesn't know how to rhyme. Will he learn in time? (See what I did there?)

Ni Hao, Kai-Lan - Kai-Lan's Carnival is the latest DVD release from the pre-school show to come out. These episodes teach the importance of patience, practice, and more and if your kids are fans of the show, they are worth picking up.

Based on the classic fairytale, the movie tells the story of Snow White, a princess living with her jealous stepmother, The Queen. When The Queen is informed by her slave in the mirror that she is no longer the fairest one of all, she instructs the royal hunter to kill Snow White and bring her her heart in a box. But he just can't do it, so he sends her away and tells her to live in the woods instead giving a pig's heart to The Queen. Snow White then stumbles upon the home of the Seven Dwarfs, who at first think she's a monster that has invaded their house, but when they see her, they instantly fall for her charms. Well, all of them except Grumpy. But when The Queen discovers she's still alive, she decides to finish her off herself.

This is the first feature-length animated movie made in America, and that's reason enough that it should be owned by every fan of the medium. However, this movie is a must have not just for historical reasons, but also based on the quality. Looking back more than 70 years from when the film was made, it is still incredibly impressive in a technical sense. Not all of the animation is perfect, and some of the more realistic animation looks a little out of place. (I believe it wasn't till Cinderella in 1950 that they made a feature-length movie that focused on realistic human animation as much as they did in this movie. It really is that tricky.) On the other hand, the storytelling, the music, and the emotional depth of the film are near perfection. If you don't have this movie in your collection, it should be, even if you are not a major fan of animation. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that.

The only real question is which version to grab.

I only have the Snow White packaging, which is a three-disc set. Disc one is the DVD version of the movie, which has an audio commentary track of the film that is pieced together with archival audio clips of Walt Disney, as well as new material by film historian John Canemaker. The only other new extras are a music video by Tiffany Thornton from Sonny With a Chance and a preview for The Princess and the Frog, which has the first six minutes of the movie, not all of which is in its final animated form.

Disc one of the two-disc Blu-ray edition has these extras plus several Blu-ray exclusive extras. This starts with a nine-minute featurette on Snow White Returns that might have been a sequel to this movie, perhaps as a short film, that used two scenes that were cut from the original movie, a bed building scene and a soup eating scene. You can also see these two deleted scenes in the form they were when they were cut. There are four games starting with Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, which tells you which Princess you are most like. (Apparently I'm Tiana.) What Do You See? shows you a blurry image and you have to pick which of the six characters are shown. Jewel Jumble is a lot like Tetris and is much better than most DVD games. Scene Stealer needs BD-Live and is only available in the United States.

Over on disc two there's an interactive tour of Hyperion Studios, which is where this movie was made more than 70 years ago. There are countless video clips, audio clips, short films, and image galleries to be found within this feature. There is nearly three hours of video and audio to check out, as well as hundreds of images. Because it is setup as a tour of the animation studio, you get to see various parts of the animation studio from the Music Room to the Art Department to the Live Action Reference to Walt's Office, etc. There's so much information that it will likely take even the most ardent fans will need more than one sitting to get through it all.

As for the film's technical presentation, it is as good as one could expect, especially given the age of the movie. I've seen plenty of Blu-rays for film made in the past few years that don't look and sound as good as this film. They only way it could look better, would be if you got a chance to visit the studio as they were restoring it. The 7.1 surround sound is likewise near perfection. The original mono sound, which has been included on the set, has been remastered into an exceptionally clear and immersive track.

(On a side note, I believe the only differences between the versions is the packaging. Snow White Packaging is the DVD case, the Witch Packaging uses the Blu-ray case. The Collector's Book, Plush Gift Set, and Limited Edition Collector's Set come with physical extras.)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a must have. Simply put, if you don't have it in your collection, it should be. If you do have it in your collection, you should buy it on Blu-ray. The only question is whether or not you want to spend the extra money to get a book, plush toys, or the limited edition collector's box.