No comments about Globe Trekker:France & Paris.

3 comments about Girls Gone Wild: America Uncovered.

1. I have not bought this particular video, but I did buy another set of GGW videos a few months ago, and I COMPLETELY regret it. This is the worst purchasing experience I've ever had. Many people have complained about the horrible customer service at GGW. In my case, I paid extra on my order for speedy delivery. The charge went against my credit card, so they got immediate payment from me. My videos were supposed to have been delivered within a couple days, but it wound up taking a couple MONTHS instead! And only after I complained did they finally deliver them. But they still didn't reimburse me for the extra expense I had paid for the speedy delivery that never happened. And if that isn't bad enough, for the last month these jerks have been calling me every day, several times a day. I get calls at home, I get calls at work. They called me three times just today. This is harrassment! I'm right now researching what my legal options are because their incessant phone calls are making me crazy. Can you imagine having to explain unsolicited calls you're receiving at work from GGW? Unless you want to go through the hell I'm being put through, do yourself a favor and please avoid these sorry jerks!



2. OK, I own 7 of the GGW, but just made a great discovery! If you want the real spring break in thailand, these guys know how to shoot HOT ASIAN BABES in bikinis on the beach! Check out the "Wild Girls Thailand" DVD!



3. Someone got the bright idea of letting Doug Stanhope, one of the replacement hosts of "The Man Show" host this GGW adventure.
   
   Girls HATE this guy! And he really doesn't seem very interested in changing that fact. He repeatedly offends the girls he is trying to talk to.
   
   The result is the most skin-free GGW ever.
   
   But it is funny to watch the host crash and burn with these really dumb southern girls (a staple of these productions) and then just keep on crashing.
   
   If you can watch this for free or almost free, do it. It's worth a few laughs.

1 comments about Globe Trekker: Ultimate England.

1. I teach British and American literature and show these episodes to my students as a previewer to the course. They love them. I love them. Highly recommended to teachers.

1 comments about Globe Trekker: Ireland.

1. I've long been a fan of the Globe Trekker travel series. Each one has its own trekker, apparently chosen for just that journey, with a great sense of adventure and humor, a willingness to go off the beaten path and take adventure (and misadventure) as it comes.
   
   As I begin to make my own plans for my personal trek to Ireland, it was a no brainer to turn first to Globe Trekker. I plan to view many other similar videos, read various books (and down a few pints in contemplation), because my approach to travel is to do my research first, then leave the guides behind and throw myself into the adventure. This Trek's travel guide, Ian Wright, is a terrific intro to an Irish journey. He has the brogue, the humor, the silly grin, the willingness to bumble, wince, earn blisters, down pints, down more pints, get lost, grumble at endless rain, and make friends with locals to show us not how tourists get by, but how the Irish live.
   
   Beginning his journey on the Antrim coast in Northern Ireland, he then explores Belfast. The Irish pubs are all you would wish them to be. He sports his first creamy Guinness moustache in a 150-year old pub (and I make note to find this idyllic place for my first truly Irish Guinness), slurping down oysters on the shell with lemon alongside. Next, he hitchhikes and rides trains along the coast south, to Dublin, then Cobh and Kerry. The eye glories in the Irish landscape of bogs and endless green, mountains wrapped in mist, stony cliffs dropping straight into the sea. Ian visits the Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone for the gift of gab... and comes up speechless. He visits Celtic ruins and makes pilgrimages and enjoys boat rides to more islands, fishes with an Irish fisherman for mackerel, and dances a jig with Irish maidens.
   
   And drinks more Guinness. If this travelogue is at all accurate, this beautiful island has nothing else to drink from coast to coast but Guinness.
   
   I'm packing my bags.

1 comments about Globe Trekker: Great Historic Sites.

1. I've enjoyed many Globe Trekker episodes in the past, but this one outdid them all. Not only from an entertainment perspective, but from a - Oh My Gosh! - perspective. This 2 hour DVD visits sites in 25 countries - all of them UN World Heritage sites (Read: spectacular) most likely.
   
   This DVD shows us 1st hand, the remains of our previously failed experiments in trying to build a sustainable society. I have traveled extensively to 35+ countries all over the world for many months at a time - as a backpacker and businessperson - and was still impressed with this DVD. There were quite a few places I had never even heard of (Despite having the 2005 official UN World Heritage Map on a wall!). Leptis Magna in Libya was particularly interesting to view.
   
   Seeing the collage of all these places at once, helps to connect the dots of what they all mean. If you enjoy this video you may enjoy reading A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright (Only 132 pages!), and Why We Lie by David Livingstone Smith.
   
   As for DVDs - other titles to enjoy are Globe Trekker Great Festivals, Frontline Persuaders, Charcoal People, Commanding Heights, National Geographic's Strange Days on Planet Earth, and NG's Beyond the Movie series for Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring, and Return of the King. As for fiction - Rapa Nui - which is another name for Easter Island, the last destination on this DVD.

3 comments about Europe to the Max With Rudy Maxa - Enchanted Italy.

1. While a bit dated, these segments on travel in Italy with Rudy Maxa are enjoyable. The selection of sites is a bit limited, although Mr. Maxa does tend to cover a lot of territory in a short time. His visit to the Chique Terre was brief and focused on the villages, so those interested in the beautiful walking trail between the villages will be disappointed. The "extras" included are very brief and provide little additional information, so if you are a regular viewer of Rudy Maxa's public television series, you will find nothing new here. His discussion of air travel consolidators is good and, if you are interested in this topic, may be worth the purchase of the DVD.



2. This is one of the best quality travel DVD's on Italy. We own most of the other similar DVD's offered on Amazon. The production and narration quality sets this DVD apart from the pack. Regardless of the travel DVD that you select I must recommend purchasing a high quality travel guide to drill down to the specific details required for planning a visit to Italy.



3. I can't figure out how Rudy has gotten the mileage he's gotten. I've watched many of his videos (heck, at some point, you've seen everything else), and I have found him to be consistently, extraordinarily, shallow in his research and understanding of his subject countries and locales. Please understand, I say that in the context of knowing many of his destinations, in some cases quite well.
   
   If you want a light, fluffy, skim of the region, Rudy is your man -- he never covers anything that you wouldn't know about if you gave nine minutes to absent-mindledly flipping through a competent guidebook... and in the same depth. Think of Rudy as a tour bus, passing through at twenty miles an hour, giving you a glimpse, but never quite stopping to let you smell the roses. Or the horse manure. Lite, cheerful, sanitized, smooth, and lo-cal.
   
   For a basic introduction to a country or region, Rick Steves is a better resource, whether or not you are seeking bargain travel -- look especially to Rick for help with building and prioritizing a trip around available time, and for help finding nice little spots the big books may overlook. If you want more than Rick offers, you'll have to start working your way through more serious volumes. Rudy ain't it.
   
   On a positive note, the pictures aren't ugly. If your library has nothing else, and if you've seen everything else on Netflix, you probably won't regret the money invested, unless you've already been to the destination, in which case you may well be asking, "Why, Rudy, why? It would have been so easy to do a much better job."

5 comments about Sacred Planet.

1. Originally an IMAX film, a lot of the impressive cinematography is lost on the small screen, but that doesn't mean the impact is affected. Robert Redford narrates this amazing beautifully filmed documentary on some of the world's most fantastic places and creatures. Scenes of thermal waterfalls from Thailand edit to massive glacial mouths, air-spouting whales in Alaska, flying monkeys in Asia, exotic undersea life, razor tipped snow capped peaks and more. The sound is spectacular especially in 5.1 DTS with nature sounds mixed with subtle native percussion. Although it only lasts forty minutes and the screen is smaller, the special effects of accelerated photography matched against normal paced scenes makes for an experience far too short for its greatness. One could watch this repeatedly.



2. Excellent presentation for all ages. Educational product as well as entertainment. There should be more of these for the kids so learning can be enjoyable and fun while watching some of the marvels of the world.



3. This movie is nice if you want some really beautiful pictures and music. But it honestly doesn't teach you anything. I am the type that usually finds Something in a movie that is beneficial and I'm sorry but this movie doesn't have that. It's nice for background if you feel like playing a DVD in your living room and not really watching it except when you pass by.



4. The film was beautiful, and I wish I had seen it on IMAX. I found myself gasping at certain scenes and my mouth hanging open. I just wish it was longer. The narratives were kind of useless... just a few words here and there, but overall, movie worth watching!



5. i bought it for my 3 yr old son to learn from. not too educational for him,but the pictures are beautiful.

5 comments about Crystal Gayle - A Crystal Christmas in Sweden.

1. I've had this video for a number of years. Sadly, each time I watch again at Christmas I notice one more example of bad filming and writing. No doubt, Crystal is a favorite of mine, and this being from her younger days, she shines in vocal abilities and beauty. But throughout the special, the writing is just plain bad, the lines corny, and the interactions awkward. It is mentioned that Crystal's guests are friends- David Hasselhoff, John Davidson, and Michael Damian. I don't mean to sound overly critical, but she didn't exactly choose gifted singers here. There is one scene with Crystal, David, and John singing together in a church, and at the end of the number, John goes totally off-key in his harmony attempts- and they didn't even cut it!

   We get an education of sorts of some different aspects of Sweden. Good attempts, but there are times when Crystal is what you could call the interviewer of sorts. She seems a bit unsure of what to say, and the scene just seems awkward. I couldn't help wonder how some of these scenes slipped through.

   The scenery does have its beauty. And without a doubt, Crystal Gayle's richness, power and vocal ability lend themselves beautifully to "White Christmas," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and a host of others. If it were an hour-long video of Crystal singing those holiday gems, I would give it six stars if I could.




2. THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO SAY...AWFUL! THERE'S NOT ENOUGH ROOM TO SAY HOW AWFUL.



3. I am a big Crystal fan, and am always looking for something new from her, but I was really disapointed with the DVD. It was recorded several years ago, and many of the songs were dubbed from her Christmas CD, and were not even re-recorded for the DVD. In a word, stick to her Christmas CD.



4. I've been a Crystal Gayle fan since I saw her in concert in San Diego many years ago and feel some of the songs she sang in this DVD were good. The part where John Davidson sings to the kids outside the homes should have been cut. I would have liked to hear more songs sung by Crystal Gayle. It was hard to get into a flowing Christmas feeling.



5. I'm stumped by the bad reviews people have been posting on this DVD. It is what it is - Crystal's 1987 CBS Christmas special filmed in Sweden. She is beautiful as always of course and sings heavenly, what more could you want. Well, I agree she is saddled with some not particularly talented guest stars, although David Hasselhoff seems like a likable California version of a good ole boy and he certainly was a good-looking hunk of man in his thirties. He may not be the world's greatest singer, foreign record sales to the contrary, but he works well with Crystal. It's kind of nice to see an old Christmas show on DVD in a fine print, this was likely one of the last "old fashioned" Christmas variety programs before they got hip and trendy and as false as a fake Christmas tree.

4 comments about On the Waterways.

1. This is a excellent history documentary tool of the former view of the coastal waterways before several global warming and other man-made changes. The college students talk with coastal natives of the area that give the history of how life was before so many climatic and economic changes. A must have dvd for a historian.



2. "On the Waterways" is a beautifully photographed series. It is also a journey into the realm of small, human stories. The filmmakers were young and took the time to talk to the people who lived along the shores of the places they visited. The stories they tell and the way they are told are not flashy. All of the episodes move along at a brisk pace, but at the same time it feels as though time has slowed down long enough for the viewer to enjoy the ride. This series is almost twenty years old, so there are probably a lot of things that have changed. However, this does not change the charm and the beauty of the scenes. It's a bit like looking at old photographs of a favorite vacation.



3. This is a wonderful set to own and watch. When it originally aired on PBS, we enjoyed watching it so much. I had taped it back then but the video quality wasn't very good. When I found it on Amazon, I was thrilled. You'll learn a lot as well as be entertained. It's something that can be watched over & over again.



4. I watched this series when it first aired on PBS (in the late 1980's I believe) and loved it. It was a truly interesting documentary, telling the story of Americans (and a few Canadians!) who live and work on the rivers and the Atlantic coast.
   
   It is an unhurried, relaxing tour of the eastern seaboard, gulf coast and Missipssipi waterways. Watching it again in 2008 shows just how much documentaries have improved over the years. "Waterways" now is pretty slow in comparison. I think the major difference between watching the stories then and now is that many of the people they interview have quite predictable lives now...whereas in the 80's their lives were completely new to me. Now I have seen several seasons of documentaries on fishermen, and the people on "Waterways" don't have the hair-raising adventures we are used to in such a documentary.
   
   I still enjoy watching it, but I can only watch the 13 hour series 1 hour a week(I get a little anxious for the hour to end, as the story seems to move a little slowly).

No comments about Moscow and the Golden Ring.