Gino Sassani

“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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“Between 1889 and 1910, over two million Italians immigrated to the United States. They were desperately poor, often illiterate, and almost never spoke English. Many Americans considered these Italians to be of inferior intelligence, fit only for menial labor and a threat to the very fabric of America.” 

I have to admit to a particular bias here. I am Italian. My grandparents immigrated here in the early 19th century. I am also Catholic, as most of these Italian immigrants were. In addition, I feel a bit of a connection to Mother Cabrini. The first school I attended back in first grade was that attached to my Italian Catholic parish, and it was called the Cabrini Academy. So there is a certain bias toward the subject here, but I might point out it also leads to very high expectations that these subjects are treated correctly. I still very much demanded a compelling story and an inspirational lead. In director Alejandro Monteverde’s Cabrini, I was fortunate enough to find both.
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“All right, kids. This is the part where you get to do the things the grownups don’t wanna do anymore. Door to door on foot. Knock-knock, ‘have you seen this man?’ Just like in the movies. Partners have already been assigned so no one will get hurt feelings. Suspect likes to visit a certain kind of neighborhood. He’s a middle-aged Caucasian male and not likely to go quietly, so let’s always assume he’s armed. We’ll go alert and careful. That’s all.”

But that’s really just the beginning. Writer/director Osgood Perkins has created one of those serial killer films that is bound to draw comparisons with some of the best of those films and most certainly Silence Of The Lambs. Let me just get that out of the way fast. This is a pretty solid film that deserves some attention, and is absolutely worth a look.
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“I just love children’s imaginations. What I don’t like is when they get so violent.”

Blumhouse is one of those horror factories that have changed the way horror films are created, seen, and marketed. There have been some powerful horror films to come out of those doors. When I think of Meg3n, the first couple of Paranormal Activity films, and even the Purge franchise, I see clever and innovative films. But the production house can be a bit feast-or-famine, and there have been a number of famine films on the bill.  Among the famine list of films you’ll find Truth Or Dare and the crazy horror/hybrid take on the old Fantasy Island series. What do both of those films have in common?
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“Let me tell you a story. A story of a great king.”

Let me begin by admitting that the original 1994 classic animation feature film The Lion King has remained my all-time favorite animated film. It wasn’t just the Elton John/Tim Rice songs, but that didn’t hurt. I’ve been an Elton John fan as far back as I can remember. There was just something special, something timeless, in that film. Since that time I regard it as the very last breath of the Walt Disney Studios classic animation. It started the studio’s last string of hits, and it was the end of an era. So that film has become somewhat bittersweet for me. The animated sequels were low-budget made-for-video quality, and the more recent “live action” version did not impress me with anything more than the technology it displayed. The heart has been gone for a long time. With the release of Mufasa, Walt Disney is attempting to pull on the heartstrings of people like me who love the original.
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“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

What Ridley Scott does often echoes quite nicely at the box office. In 2000 Ridley Scott released Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe as the Roman Legion turned gladiator that ended in a fight to return Rome to the Senate and its citizens. Maximus fought gallantly and fell just short of his goal. But the story that the film wove was truly a masterpiece and stands as one of my top 10 films of all time, up there with Unforgiven and the first two Godfather films. I’ve often said in these pages that expectations kill, and I was well prepared for that to be the result when I sat down to the press screening for Gladiator II. Scott himself calls this the best film he’s ever made. That’s a big boast coming from the guy who brought us Alien, Blade Runner, and, of course, the original Gladiator. I disagree. While I found Gladiator II to be an impressive film from every perspective, it didn’t quite make me feel the way I did when I left the theater for the first time after seeing Gladiator. But take heart. It’s a damn good movie, and it’s a can’t-miss for any true film fans out there in the arena. The question is pretty simple. Are we not entertained? The answer is, “oh yeah”.
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At first glance it would appear that the crew for Red One is made up of folks who have had long associations with Dwayne Johnson, from director Jack Kasdan, who also directed two of the Jumanji films, to writer Chris Morgan, who wrote many of The Fast And Furious films including the Johnson-led spin-off Hobbs And Shaw. He also wrote the last Shazam film, which led to Johnson’s spin-off black hole Black Adam. It’s a working environment friendly to the actor. But the rumors from this set are loaded with tales of Johnson blowing off work and/or showing up late and unprepared. It’s honestly not his usual vibe, and when you consider his divorce from Fast And The Furious’s Vin Diesel revolved around Johnson throwing the same kind of shade on that actor’s behavior, I was curious if the on-set issues and also word of a ballooning budget would show up on the finished product. I’m happy to report there doesn’t appear to be any disrupted chemistry on the film, and it became easy to dismiss all of that with just a few minutes on the Red One ride.
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