Magnum PI (DVD) Review

One of the top rated shows on the 1980s decade, Magnum, P.I. thrilled audiences with its exotic setting and fast-paced action. Winner of multiple Emmys and Golden Globes, the show was a mainstay in the Top 20 Nielsen Ratings. Its Vietnam flashbacks (exploring the combat experiences of the main characters) were widely lauded, and Magnum, P.I. is considered the first television series to give recognition to the obstacles faced by Vietnam Veterans reentering American society. The range of topics, combined with a clever wit and heightened suspense, make Magnum, P.I. one of the more widely appealing TV series of its era…

Magnum, P.I. covers the life of Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck), a former Naval Intelligence officer who resigns his position in order to set up his own private investigation business in Oahu, Hawaii. Through either luck or acquaintance, he lands a job as head of security for bestselling author Robin Masters’ luxurious beachfront estate. This enables Magnum to drive around in Masters’ sporty flame-red Ferrari, make use of various high-tech toys, and live a life of relative ease in the estate’s guest house. But Magnum constantly butts heads with estate manager Jonathan Higgins (John Hillerman), a former British military man in his own right, and one with a strict penchant for order and discipline. Despite their conflicts, Magnum and Higgins maintain a healthy friendship, while Magnum’s friends Rick Wright (Larry Manetti) and T.C. Calvin (Roger E. Mosley) are forever being drawn into Magnum’s dangerous investigations…

The Magnum, P.I. DVD features a number of exciting episodes including the season premiere “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii” in which Magnum learns of the death of his childhood friend and Navy buddy Dan Cook. Skeptical of the officially cited cause of death, Magnum launches an investigation of his own with the aid of Dan’s sister Alice. Eventually, the trail leads to an old military friend from Vietnam who might possibly be involved in a smuggling operation. Meanwhile, Magnum and Alice put their own lives on the line as they discover that someone is determined to put an end to their investigation… Other notable episodes from Season 1 include “No Need to Know” in which Magnum is hired to protect one of Higgins’ friends from IRA assassins, and “Lest We Forget” in which a veteran of Pearl Harbor turned (Supreme Court Nominee) hires Magnum to investigate when he receives blackmail threats relating to his past…

Below is a list of episodes included on the Magnum, P.I. (Season 1) DVD:

Episode 1 (Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii: Part 1) Air Date: 12-11-1980
Episode 2 (Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii: Part 2) Air Date: 12-11-1980
Episode 3 (China Doll) Air Date: 12-18-1980
Episode 4 (Thank Heaven for Little Girls, and Big Ones Too) Air Date: 12-25-1980
Episode 5 (No Need to Know) Air Date: 01-08-1981
Episode 6 (Skin Deep) Air Date: 01-15-1981
Episode 7 (Never Again, Never Again) Air Date: 01-22-1981
Episode 8 (The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii) Air Date: 01-29-1981
Episode 9 (Missing in Action) Air Date: 02-05-1981
Episode 10 (Lest We Forget) Air Date: 02-12-1981
Episode 11 (The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club) Air Date: 02-19-1981
Episode 12 (Thicker Than Blood) Air Date: 02-26-1981
Episode 13 (All Roads Lead to Floyd) Air Date: 03-12-1981
Episode 14 (Adelaide) Air Date: 03-19-1981
Episode 15 (Don’t Say Goodbye) Air Date: 03-26-1981
Episode 16 (The Black Orchid) Air Date: 04-02-1981
Episode 17 (J. “Digger” Doyle) Air Date: 04-09-1981
Episode 18 (Beauty Knows No Pain) Air Date: 04-16-1981

About the Author

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the Magnum PI (DVD).

The Da Vinci Code Movie - An Ad for Christianity

Warning: If you haven’t seen the movie and want to, then please do not read this article because in order to discuss the movie intelligently or otherwise, I have to disclose the ending.

The past week has seen the Bishops of Rome rally the 1 billion troops against the full frontal assault upon Christianity of the Da Vinci Code movie. India has banned the movie, presumably in return for the Christian United States having recently sold them nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs. Chris Matthews aired an episode of Hardball from the Boston headquarters of the Catholic Opus Dei, mentioning 11 times that he was a Catholic, and Opus Dei was akin to a Christian missionary group feeding the starving children in Africa, and that the Da Vinci Code Movie was baloney. The advertisements for the movie themselves shouted that because of the movie’s revelations, “Christianity will be thrown to the ground!”

In light of the recent worldwide riots and brou ha ha over a cartoon, it was hard to imagine that Sony Pictures, and Tom Hanks and Opie Taylor, the son of the revered Sheriff Taylor, friend to Goober and Barney Fife were going to risk their billions of gold coins and their reputations among the Christians who gave them the gold in an effort to knock Christianity to the ground. We should have seen it coming a mile away. The Da Vinci Code Movie turned out to be like Jerry Falwell addressing a convention of Christian apologetics at Billy Graham University rallying the faithful into a rapturous frenzy, or worse, a Benny Hinnfest, in which the crippled are healed miraculously by his Divine touch.

NBC is owned by General Electric, a major defense contractor. NBC’s pit bull hardballer reporter is David Gregory. This week will go down in history as the all time low point for the American media. David Gregory was interviewing President Bush one on one on bar chairs in the desert. David Gregory said to this outright lying imbecile, “Did you know that your approval ratings were lower than Richard Nixon’s?” Bush started laughing so hard that he nearly fell off of his bar stool. David Gregory said, “Why are you laughing Mr. President?” The clown leading the Earth into the Apocalypse replied, “I’m not laughing.”

Then Bush says, “We are making good progress cutting our deficit in half by the year 2008.” David Gregory sat there like Charlie McCarthy and didn’t say a thing. Bushwackie has run up a trillion dollar deficit in 6 years, and he began with the Clinton surplus. Bush created the entire deficit with his insane tax cut and his personal vendetta into Iraq. Last week the Congress came four votes short of putting the U.S. into bankruptcy and not paying Government salaries because of this lunatic. To put it into understandable terms, lets say that your home is worth $200,000 and you have a 5 million dollar mortgage and you cannot afford the interest payments and the bank is about to take your home, and you say to the bank manager, “I am making good progress reducing my debt, don’t worry, you’ll have your money.” And lets say that you fraudulently ran up 5 million dollars in debt by going to numerous shylocks and pledging your house to all of them. And lets say that you ran up the debt gambling and boozing at the track. Your children now have as much chance of collecting social security from the United States Government as Audrey Tautou has of walking on water.

Next in this week of the media proving that it is nothing more than a press secretary for the Alcoholic of the United States is a recent ad put out by Exxon Mobil that carbon dioxide is good for you, Greenland and Antarctica have more ice than ever, (they are both about to melt into the sea and raise the world wide sea level by 20 feet putting New York and every other coastal city at the bottom of the Ocean), and that global warming is a myth not supported by the scientists. Guess who sits on the Board of the Saudi Royal family and is the head of the world wide oil cartel? George Bush Sr., Dick Cheney, and Junior. It must be nice when the Saudi Royal family owns AOL and Time Warner and CNN and has Fox News in their back pocket. The Oil boys and the War Mongers have their puppets sitting on the board of every war contractor, oil company and media company. And you thought that Japan which sells Toyotas and speakers and televisions and movies through the Sony Corporation to Christian America was going to take a swipe at Christianity?

The Da Vinci Code Movie is a sheep in wolves’ clothing. The plot of the Da Vinci Code movie is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, they had a child, Mary Magdalene and the child went to France, and the subsequent children and grandchildren of Jesus and Mary Magdalene have been kept hidden by a group of people for two thousand years. Ian McKellan plays Sir Leigh Teabing who says a few nasty things about Christianity, that they burned some witches, and he ends up as the villain dragged away in handcuffs for his audacity. Tom Hanks plays Professor Robert Langdon. He helps to find the great grand daughter of Jesus, Sophie Neveu, played by Audrey Tautou. At the end of the movie Tom Hanks says to Sophie, “When I was a child I fell into a well and Jesus Christ came and saved me. Just because Jesus had children doesn’t mean that he wasn’t God and didn’t perform miracles.” Then as Tom Hanks says good bye to Sophie, instead of kissing her on the lips, he gives her a reverent light kiss on the forehead. When Sophie laughingly tries to walk on water and cannot, Tom Hanks says to her, “Don’t worry, you are still a wonderful faith healer, you cured a drug addict and my own phobia.”

The movie ends with a picture of Mary Magdalene laying in state underneath the Louvre. In actuality, the movie creates for Christianity two more saints, Mary Magdalene, who it is said was a wonderful woman, who had been smeared by the early Church, and Sophie, the new Christ Child. This certainly was not a movie about The Gospel of Seth, The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, which was burned forever by the Church Fathers at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, until discovered in 1945, a Christian Gospel, in which Jesus tells Simon that in fact he was not crucified, an impostor was, the same story that the Angel Gabriel told the Prophet Muhammad, which is enshrined in the Koran. The world media has been covering up the Gospel of Seth since 1945.

Karen Fish is a writer currently living in Los Angeles California. The Temple of Love http://www.thetempleoflove.com/

TLC’s OVERHAULIN’ Transforms Junk Cars Into Works of Art With a New Twist.

With the recent publicity of automotive reality shows like Orange County Choppers, Monster Garage, and MTV’s Pimp My Ride TLC (The Learning Channel) has launched their own version. Overhaulin’ is similar to Pimp My Ride, but they don’t have a huge music celebrity like Exzibit. They instead use a legendary automotive designer named Chip Foose and give it a twist - they keep the beneficiary of the newly remade car completely in the dark about what is happening to their car.

As quoted in the New York Times, “OVERHAULIN’ revs the makeover-
genre engine with an automotive twist.” In the show, Chip Foose leads a team of top mechanics and automotive professionals whom completely redesign and rebuild the automobile into a work of art. This qualifies as a frame off restoration in automotive circles - the highest level. The difficulty is that the project car has to be completed in less than 1 week and various tactics are used to keep the unsuspecting automobile owner in the dark. Most of the time they resort to impersonating the police, private detectives, repo men, etc…all the while, using the automobile owner’s closest friends to make the stories more believable.

Chip designs each project car before the team starts. Basically the car is recreated. Top of the line equipment is installed (Power windows, performance brakes, top-of-the-line engines, and of course unbelievable sound systems). According to industry professionals a rebuild like this would normally run $100,000 plus. So, it is no wonder the overhauled recipients cry tears of joy when their new autos are revealed. This completely rebuilt automobile is something they could never afford to do. Every redesign takes the owners likes, interests, and relatives input along with Chip Foose’s amazing ideas to make sure the owners are more than pleasantly surprised.

“In each episode, Chip Foose and his team watch the videotape of the car’s
owner as he or she talks about the car and his or her dreams for it.”

Some shows have used celebrities for the Overhaulin’ victim. Every show has been extremely exciting and this is a show worth watching for anyone that has automotive inclinations and one day dreams of having a fantasy overhaul. Some of the stories of loyalty and acts of kindness and benevolence by the selected owners can really humble you and bring tears to your eyes. Overhaulin’ is a great show and definitely worth your time - if nothing else, it will give you great ideas to dream about!