Gino Sassani

“I’m not giving up. We will face this together. We will fight it together… as a family.”

In November of 1961 I wasn’t quite five months old when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the first team of superheroes. Long before a Justice League or Avengers team was created, The Fantastic Four delivered a family of superheroes, and while it would be a few years before I would read my first issue, they created an impression along with Spider-Man, that has given me the love of comics and this kind of entertainment for the remainder of my life. The team first found themselves on film via a cheap Roger Corman film that was never released but found itself on the sci-fi convention circuit for decades.
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“I can guarantee your safety… more or less.” 

Some things can not be beat, and they sure as heck can’t be repeated. An old vintage cola commercial used to tell us, “Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby”. And Jurassic World Rebirth is going to do anything it can for 134 minutes to try and tell you that isn’t true, but we know better, don’t we? Anyone who has seen the original Jurassic Park has their favorite moments, but one scene has always stood out for me and so many other film fans I’ve spoken to. When the camera pans to that peaceful swamp pasture and you see tons of dinosaurs walking about without a care in the world. If you didn’t know how to react there, Sam Neill as Dr. Grant showed you how.
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“Needing to know. That’s what got us kicked out of the Garden Of  Eden… Eve.”

Ballerina takes place in the rather colorful world of John Wick, and it almost appears to me that it’s being sold as a kind of John Wick 4/2 or perhaps more accurately John Wick 3 ½. With Keanu Reeves seeming to be going back and forth on a potential John Wick 5, there has been a lot of mining in that world while they decide. Of course, there will be a John Wick 5. There’s just too much money to be made, and the streaming series The Continental didn’t really work out as well as everybody hoped it would. The answer is obvious. No one wants to see the John Wick Universe. They want to see John Wick. So this second foray into spin-off territory was padded by making sure Keanu Reeves would show up. Understand: he’s not the main character, and this film takes place during John Wick 3 Parabellum and between that film and John Wick 4.
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“Good evening, Ethan. This is your President. Since you won’t reply to anyone else, I thought I’d reach out directly. First, I want to thank you for a lifetime of devoted and unrelenting service; were it not for the tireless dedication of you and your team, the earth would be a very different place. It might not even be here at all. Every risk you’ve taken, every comrade you’ve lost in the field, every personal sacrifice you made, has brought this world another sunrise. It’s been 35 years since circumstances brought you to us and you were given the choice — since the IMF saved you from a life in prison. And though you never followed orders, you never let us down. You were always the best of men in the worst of times. I need you to be that man now.”

I imagine this is how it happened. It’s January of 2019, and Tom Cruise has just popped into the bathroom to shave.
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“We can find you some good guy material.”

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been in a transition. Transitions are OK, but for Marvel this one appears to have lasted several years. There have been more misses than hits. Last I checked we were in the fifth phase of the MCU, and so far the results have been underwhelming. I mean, when even a Captain America movie with Harrison Ford turning into a Red Hulk doesn’t capture the box office numbers that were once considered automatic, something is wrong. The fifth phase is now coming to an end with the release of Thunderbolts*. Honestly, my expectations were low, and it appeared that even Marvel was already training us to ignore the last five years and get ready for big things with the launch this summer of The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Robert Downey Jr.’s return as Doom in the next series of Avengers films.
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“You lost the moment you walked into this restaurant”

Do you know why they serve peanuts on airplanes? Even with all of the allergies out there, it remains an airline staple, and for one very specific reason. Chewing gum is a big deal for the airlines. The little time given to clean a plane between flights makes those of you inclined to put your chewing gum under your seat a bit of a problem. So they serve you peanuts, because peanut oil causes the “sticky” element of gum to completely break down. Try it. Your gum falls apart if you add peanut oil to the equation, and that’s exactly what director Christopher Landon has done with his latest Blumhouse thriller, Drop. Someone added a bit of peanut oil to the production, and it kind of never really sticks together. And that’s too bad. Because there’s a kind of clever and original element here that could have been a lot more interesting. Let’s try to separate the gum from the peanut, shall we?
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“We share the same world, don’t we? This world you would die to save. It’s coming. I’ve seen it in the probability. Seen it plain as day. All you heroes protecting this world. Do you think you’re the only ones? Do you think this the only world? We’ll see what happens when you have to protect this place from the others.”

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is truly at a crossroads. Since the last Avengers film the studio has released one disappointing film after another. The big tentpole stars and characters have been lost along the way, and that star power has seriously damaged the franchise since that time. Certainly there have been some bright spots. Spider-Man No Way Home was the lone exceptional outing, and the recent Deadpool & Wolverine film was just plain fun.  With Robert Downy, Jr.’s Iron Man. Gone. Chris Evans Captain America. Gone. Scarlet Johanson’s Black Widow. Gone.
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“What F&#k is a shark doing on a plane?” 

You remember Samuel Jackson back a few years was fighting off Snakes On A Plane, yeah? Well, now we’ve got sharks on a plane. So how in the heck did they do that? Well, it requires going back to the 1970’s when Irwin Allen was the master of the disaster film, and he had a legion of followers. Writer Andy Mason and Director Claudio Fah found themselves a TARDIS and took their behinds to those golden days of movie mayhem. If you are willing to totally throw logic out the window and just hang with these guys for about 90 minutes, you’ll have a bit of fun, and likely you’ll forget it by the next day. I happened to catch the film yesterday, and … let me see … Someone was doing something, and there were sharks on an aircraft of some kind. Let me go and watch it again. Hold on …
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” Well, you can forget what you’ve learned at training college. Because at the end of the day, there’s just one thing that matters in this job – a copper’s gut.” 

Wallace and Gromit is the brainchild of animator Nick Park. The British filmmaker tried for years to bring his clay creations alive, but on his own finished a mere 10 minutes in a little over 2 years. When he met up with Aardman Animations, he was teamed up with the creative talents he needed to make his dream come alive, and come alive these two characters did indeed. They’ve become an overnight sensation in the UK and now all over the world. I was introduced to the characters with the full length feature Wallace And Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. I have to admit that I was completely won over by the magic of this creation. It’s so simple looking that it almost appears to be child’s play. The truth could not be further from the perception. Stop motion animation goes back to the beginning of the cinema itself.
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“The staff of wisdom given to me by Master Oogway himself. It is said that whoever possesses this staff has the power to travel between the realms. The power to unlock the door to the spirit realm. And now the power to open the all new Dragon Warrior Noodles and Tofu, where the broth has kick and the bean curd’s a knock-out.”

It’s hard to maintain the attention of the 21^st-century child. Animated movies have to combine enough elements of charm and action to keep their attention for a little under two hours. If you want to keep a franchise going, you have to rip out your sequels on reasonably tight schedules. It was over four years between Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3, and we waited nearly that long between the first and second entry. That’s a long time in a culture where we move from fad to fad almost by the hour. But if the films are good enough and leave enough of an impact, you might be able to bridge those years successfully.
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“Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.”

As awards season has come around this year, I found myself watching several films involving the Catholic Church, from Russell Crowe’s The Exorcism to Sydney Sweeney’s Immaculate, and finally Cabrini. And now Conclave. I was surprised to find that all four films were relatively respectful, even as they might be pointing out the flaws of the ancient church. All four films were replete with wonderful performances that carried the emotional beats of the stories. At the top of my list from those films is Cabrini, with Conclave coming in a close second.
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