Posted in News and Opinions, Site News by Gino Sassani on April 20th, 2010
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 1st, 2010
In the late 1960’s three musicians came together with an idea. It was a somewhat unconventional idea. Roy Wood and Bev Bevan were part of the band The Move when they met up with Jeff Lynne from The Idle Race. The three hit it off almost instantly. So much so that before long Lynne would also become a member of The Move so that he could work with Wood and Bevan. But that wasn’t going to be the ultimate goal. That unconventional idea that the three had involved combining rock and roll with classical music. Of course, other bands had done orchestral arrangements, most notably, The Beatles.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 1st, 2010
The longest running show in prime time doesn’t feature cops, doctors, or lawyers. It’s hard to believe that The Simpsons have existed as long as the Fox network. While the series didn’t really begin until Fox’s second year, the characters were part of The Tracey Ullman Show, which did start the first year of Fox. Who could have guessed that an animated short from an otherwise horrible and doomed variety show would explode into such a phenomenon?
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 1st, 2010
“On October 6, the planet blacked out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. The whole world saw the future…”
For all intents and purposes, it appears just like any routine fall day throughout the world. People are busying themselves about their normal concerns. Suddenly everyone on the planet blacks out for exactly 2 minutes and 17 seconds. Just think about that part for a moment. Every human being collapses at the same moment.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2010
Vampires are hot right now, at least that’s what everyone keeps telling me. The truth is that everyone is absolutely wrong. Vampires are not hot right now. They’ve always been hot. Since at least since 1897 when Bram Stoker took the world by storm in one of the earliest examples of a horror novel. Of course, I’m talking about Dracula. Dracula, as a character, might have been based on the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler, but the vampire legend that Stoker perfected in Dracula is pure fiction. Still, it wasn’t quite Stoker’s novel that created the vampire craze, it merely lit the fuse.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2010
Back in 2001 Larry Blamire and his troupe released The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra. Blamire was obviously a fan of the science fiction films of the 1950’s and decided to take many of those standard elements and pretty much have a blast with the material. The end result was an over-the-top spoof that left you laughing, not because the material was all that funny. You laughed because they sometimes hit those ludicrous devices so perfectly that you have flashbacks to your favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode.
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Posted in Podcasts by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2010
Had a great chat today with Ed Douglas. Most of you know him as one of the masterminds behind the Midnight Syndicate Halloween music. You’ve heard their stuff on television and at haunted houses all across the country. He’s just released his second film as a director and writer. He’s collaborated with our friend, producer and f/x genius Robert Kurtzman for The Dead Matter. Check out what he had to say. Bang it here for the interview: Edward Douglas Interview
Check out some really cool web sites: The Dead Matter Movie Site: Dead Matter Check out some music at the official Midnight Syndicate Site
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2010
It’s been said that all good things must come to an end. In television that could not be more true. In the world of entertainment good things end, often quickly without a chance to leave any kind of an impact. Maybe six years wasn’t exactly quick for Lost, but at least it can’t claim not to have left an impact. The show changed how we watch television, and it will be a long time before anyone forgets about it.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2010
Ken Olin is truly a great talent that I’ve followed since back when he played the snotty detective Garibaldi on Hill Street Blues. Since then he’s done some wonderful work behind the camera, and Brothers & Sisters certainly shows his influence; however, this is not some of his best work. The show often leans on clichés and gets awfully lazy in moving forward at times. I do see the great family of characters they created here, but fail to find them interesting beyond the life breathed into them by their performers. This is a case of ego getting in the way of great potential.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 30th, 2010
Despite lasting over a hundred episodes, The Patty Duke Show only lasted about three years from the fall of 1963 until the late spring of 1966. However, it was often penned as one of the best shows of the 1960’s and still finds a way into syndication when networks such as TV Land need a wholesome show to fill a time slot. So, it is little surprise that Shout Factory have decided to release all three seasons of the show to DVD. But how does the final season of this show hold up after all of these years?
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Posted in Contests, Random Fun by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2010
We had some great things to give away in June.
Here are all of the winners in one place, so you can check for your name.
Remember: Winners are notified by E-mail. If you did not get a confirmation E-mail from us, check your Spam filter and contact us. Any prize not claimed in 2 weeks will be forfeit and be placed in the end of year contests next Holiday Season.
Continue to read for a full list of winners:
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 29th, 2010
The original Batman: The Animated Series is one of my favorite cartoon shows of all time. Depending on which day you ask me, I might go ahead and say it is my favorite (the other times, I’ll probably mention X-Men or Johnny Bravo). It was the perfect blend of cartoon super-hero drama, with a dose of dark and foreboding circumstances. Enter 2008, Batman: the Brave and the Bold, another Batman cartoon but on the lighter side of the equation. Would this show hold up as much as the historic original?
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Sarah Durr on August 29th, 2010
Most of the male reviewers in this industry loathe romantic comedies. It is the only thing in the industry that we conceive to be as easy to make as a poorly written horror movie. Insert female who is looking for love in all of the wrong places and give her an unique situation to find that special love. Insert hunky guy who is a bit quirky to sweep her off her feet. Love, love, love and they go off to get married and make babies. So I did what any man would do in this situation, I begged my better half to write the review.
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Posted in Podcasts by Gino Sassani on August 27th, 2010
Tonight I had the great pleasure of spending about a half hour with Robert Angelo Masciantonio. He’s the director/writer/ and producer for Neighbor, which we recently reviewed. He was great fun to talk to. You can listen in on our chat. Simply bang it here for our Neighbor Interview.
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 26th, 2010
It’s almost impossible not to compare The Square with No Country For Old Men. The themes are very much the same. The talent behind this Australian movie even includes a couple of brothers, but their name doesn’t happen to be Cohen; however, one of these brothers is also named Joel. One of the original writers on the film is Joel Edgerton. The idea passed through a couple of other folks along the way to director Nash Edgerton who saw more potential in the film. So, a modest budget and a collection of relatively unknown actors combined to create a movie that does not easily fall into any one category
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 26th, 2010
“Relationships don’t come cheap.”
I guess I’m pretty much like most film watchers in certain areas. When I saw that $5 A Day was rated PG-13 for sexual content and brief nudity, I did what most red-blooded American guys would do. I took a look at who was in the cast. This might work. I suspected we’d be treated to a little quick peek at Amanda Peet or Sharon Stone in a little birthday suit flash. OK, now I’ve got a little something to look forward to. Little did I know that the brief nudity part referred to
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 26th, 2010
Mention the name Jackson Browne and one thinks less of the performances and more of the music itself. While he never achieved quite the fame of many of his peers, his style and songwriting has had a lasting impact on some of the biggest names in the music industry. He was part of the whole Troubadour scene in the early 1970’s where he hung out with the likes of James Taylor, The Eagles, and other notable artists who were about to find their golden tickets to larger stages and the crowds, money, and fame that went along with them. The likes of Crosby, Stills, & Nash have been inspired both by his ability to write and his passion for the causes he believes in.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 25th, 2010
Pauly Shore seems to be trying to steer his career from being a washed up b-lister to being a self-aware washed up b-lister. Pauly Shore is Dead was his first dabbling into mockumentaries about himself, and now he has followed it up with Adopted. This yarn is about Shore, following the trend set by Angelina Jolie and Madonna, of flying to Africa (and later Cambodia) to adopt a child, with the hopes that being a father would fill a void in his shallow Hollywood hills life.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 25th, 2010
“The truth is, I’ve done dreadful things. My life has been a monstrous corruption. And there will be a price to pay.”
The Picture Of Dorian Gray was actually Oscar Wilde’s only full-length novel. It was quite a controversial subject when it first arrived on the scene in 1890, but not because of the horror element. The book is often sexually explicit and contains more than a flirtation with homosexuality. The main themes have survived, but much of the work itself has been forgotten. We know the work almost exclusively from the classic film from 1945 where Hurd Hatfield played the title character
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 25th, 2010
It was hard for me to find any real solid information about The Diplomat. At first I decided that it was because the film was obviously not a movie at all, but a British mini-series. The piece is broken up into two parts that you must play separately, much like a mini-series is often presented when released on home video. That was still not enough to research the title, because it hadn’t really been a mini-series at all either. Finally, a stroke of luck led me to the fact that The Diplomat hadn’t been its original name either.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 24th, 2010
“I’m Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. Everything in here has a story … and a price. One thing I’ve learned after 21 years? You never know what is going to come through that door.”
Remember that PBS show where some old-stuff expert would come to your town and sift through a lot of junk that folks found in their basements or attics? Remember that he would give you a story about the items these people brought in? The idea was that once in a while someone discovered valuable treasure in those dusty rooms. Remember that show? This isn’t that show.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 24th, 2010
In the 1930’s and 40’s MGM was trying to get in on the lucrative animation game. The field was dominated at the time by Warner Brothers with their Loony Tunes shorts, and of course, the iconic cast of animated characters coming out of the Walt Disney Studio. For years they had failed to find the right property to take advantage of the market. It wasn’t until the team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera approached the studio with their first project that the times did change, at least a little, for the fledgling animation department at MGM. The project was far from an original one even for the time.
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Posted in Podcasts by Gino Sassani on August 24th, 2010
On Monday Morning, it was my pleasure to chat with Carlos Brooks, director of Quid Pro Quo and Burning Bright which we recently reviewed here at Upcomingdiscs. Bang it here to listen in on our chat:
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2010
“In the beginning there was darkness. And then bang, giving birth to an endless expanding existence of time, space, and matter. Now, see further than we’ve ever imagined. Beyond the limits of our existence. In a place we call The Universe.”
Up until now these History releases have been season sets of the documentary series. This release is the first which appears to be a planned series of specific subject titles. It does create a bit of confusion when you see a series called The Universe and all of the episodes on the set deal with our own back yard
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2010
“They rob, kill, and terrorize, and they’ve left their mark on our nation’s history.”
It’s hard for me to believe that Gangland has been on History for five years now and I’ve only recently heard about it. Certainly, there are a ton of shows on every year, what with so many new networks trying to come up with original material. History has found a way to consistently bring out relatively solid programming without having to spend a lot of cash on the production budget. Everybody wants their 15 minutes, and it’s exactly shows like Gangland that manage to take full advantage of that fact.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 23rd, 2010
A robber tosses his loot onto a freeway and it lands on the hood of a random passerby. Said passerby decides to keep the $600,000+ and use it to buy brand new…everything, for him and his wife. While the robber gets incarcerated, he offers half the money to his twin brother if he can track it down. If the young couple flashes their money around and started paying cash for big ticket items, they will be hunted down…they do, and they are.
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