Wednesday, June 20, 2007

DVD: DEPRESSING VIDEO DESCRIPTIONS

We learned in "Blink" (the best episode of 'Doctor Who' so far this season*, perhaps the best episode of TV I saw all year!) that Sally Sparrow owned only 17 DVDs. If I'm not mistaken, the only one named during the episode was "Angel Smile", which was the DVD pre-programmed by the Doctor to trigger the TARDIS to dematerialize in order to catch the Weeping Angels off-guard.

A nice way to defeat the enemy - with a pun....

But what of the other 16 DVDs? What were they?

The cover art for "Angel Smile" and eight others are shown on the BBC's website:

"Breakfast In The Rain"
"Dance Of Days"
"Civilization Zero"
"Falling Star"
"One Oak County"
"Mean Teens"
"Shooting The Sun"
"My Best Friend's Boyfriend"

The tagline for that last disk ("A ghastly tale of love and friendship") proves that it's the perfect movie for Sally, who only truly feels happy by sad things.

That still leaves eight more movies or TV series boxed sets to be discovered in Sally's collection.

They have to be fictional films, since Billy Shipton had the rights to publish them and to add the hidden Easter Eggs from the Doctor to them. And they should also be depressing, to be in keeping with the types of movies Sally Sparrow might enjoy.

So let's look around Toobworld and see what we can come up with.....

"Queens Boulevard" - A Billy Walsh movie starring Vincent Chase which contained the iconic phrase "I am Queens Boulevard". From the little we saw of it when Vince screened it, "Queens Boulevard" was deep and sorrowful and in black and white - just the kind of movie that Sally would go for.
('Entourage')

"The Monster That Devoured Cleveland" - Not all bad movies can be considered camp classics. Some of them are just plain bad. And not even the recommendation of a beatnik wunderkind like Maynard G. Krebs can rescue its reputation. I mean, this is a guy who claims his middle initial of "G" stands for Walter! How can you trust what he thinks?

As such, perhaps "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland" still called out to something in Sally's soul which wanted to rescue it from obscurity.
('The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis')

"The Collected Shorts of Chick Morton and Eddie Hayes" - Morton and Hayes were third-rate variants of the Laurel & Hardy/Abbott & Costello equation of a comedy team making short films together in the 30s and 40s. Among their movies are:

"The Vase Shop" (their first)
"The Bride Of Mummula"
"Mr. And Mrs. Murderer"
"Pardon My Puss"
"Morton And Hayes Meet Sherlock Holmes At Charlie Chan's"

Rob Reiner may have thought their comedy routines in these dreary little films to be classic, but when you consider how Chick Morton ended up in life, they seem a little sad today.....
('Morton & Hayes')

"San Quentin Blues" - This is probably a grim prison flick with only one bright spot: the sparkling presence of sexy starlet Ginger Grant in the cast. Perhaps the movie was re-released to cash in on the mysterious disappearance of Miss Grant during a three-hour tour on a pleasure boat. That type of marketing might have appealed to Sally.
('Gilligan's Island')

"The Last Milkman In New York City" - Just because Paul Buchman was the main character in a sitcom and seemed like a really nice guy, that doesn't mean everything he directed would be filmic gold. "The Last Milkman" sounds like it would be a really depressing and ultimately boring documentary - the perfect movie for Sally to pop into the player while she folds her laundry.
('Mad About You')

"Please Don't Eat The Daileys" - Kyle X. (Not to be confused with 'Kyle XY') Applegate, star of the 'Cowboy Kyle' TV series, starred in this bloody, violent tale about the cannibals next door.
('Out Of This World')

"The Pain And The Yearning" - A title like that just cries out to join Sally's DVD collection. It was probably a foreign flick with lots of black and white cinematography, long pauses, weird imagery, and maybe a head in a rusty box.

I could see her also getting hold of a copy of "Cupid's Rifle" someday as well. Not sure what it was about, but it sounds like a weird Ray Harryhausen Western to me.
('Seinfeld')

"Godzilla And The Bobbysoxer" - Perhaps one of the cheapest knock-off titles that were ever produced. Maybe it even starred a reunited Morton & Hayes for one last shot at glory. Cashing in on the "Godzilla" craze of the 1950s and combining it with the teen hi-jinks genre (perhaps with a very young Ginger Grant in the role of the Bobby-Soxer?), this movie might at least be entertaining for any other extras to be found on the disk, besides those concerning the Doctor.
('M*A*S*H')

So Toobworld Central is not declaring these as the definitive additions to Sally's collection, just eight titles that perhaps made up the rest of her paltry seventeen DVD collection.....

BCnU!
Toby OB


*I haven't seen "Utopia" yet, but it sounds like everybody's raving about the last fifteen minutes only, while the first half an hour was bunk. "Blink", however, was a joy throughout.

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