Posts by Gino Sassani

Bob Newhart is one of the last in a dying breed of comedians, at least on television. He had a reserved, almost deadpan delivery that drew your attention not because of raunchy material or manic display of hijinx. He was obviously comfortable with being the brunt of all of the jokes. His half embarrassed and half sly-dog grin become a staple in our living rooms for four decades. Newhart was his second situation comedy following a respectable run as a stuttering stammering psychologist with a wacky set of patients and friends. The Bob Newhart Show ran from 1972 to 1978. Just four years later Bob was back on our television screens with Newhart, and it was as if he hadn't missed a beat

“’Have gun, will travel’ reads the card of a man. A knight without armor in a savage land…”

Those words ended every episode of Have Gun Will Travel, sung by Johnny Western in a time that such words could be sung without irony. Outside of Richard Boone’s black-clad, craggy, Rhett-Butler-gone-to-seed gunfighter, that song was all I could really recall about this venerable Western from television’s golden age. Would it, like so many revisited shows from my youth, ultimately disappoint? Or would it hold up fifty years after it was originally broadcast, viewed as it would be by the far more jaded, cynical man I’ve grown into?

I was entirely too young to remember even the syndicated run that my mother was watching in the late 1960’s. Under more normal circumstances that would not matter as I could introduce myself to this world with the DVD release. That was before 1987 and the release of Brian De Palma’s classic film. Honestly, I simply can’t watch these episodes without thinking of that movie. For an entire generation that film has defined these characters and that time. It’s unfortunate, really, because this 1960 series had a lot going for it, particularly when you look at what else was on television at that time. Never before had such brutal violence in such a starkly real world graced the black and white sets of America.

"I'm gonna let 'em know that Dolemite is back on the scene!" 

Rudy Ray Moore can't act to save his eternal soul. In fact, everything about Dolemite makes an Ed Wood film look like a Cecil DeMille epic masterpiece. So what is it about this cheap blaxsploitation film that gives it legs over 40 years after it was first released? If I could truly answer that, I would have the answer to Life, The Universe And Everything. What I can tell you is that when I found out that Dolemite was coming here to be reviewed, I couldn't hide that big wide grin on my face for hours.

Dr. Temperance Brennan, or Bones, (Deschanel) is the world's leading bone specialist. She works in Washington, D.C. for the famous Jeffersonian (I assume it's intended to be the Smithsonian). Her talents have proven themselves very helpful in solving crimes where skeletal remains are all that there is to go on from the victim. Her FBI agent/liaison is Seeley Booth (Boreanaz). Together they have an uneasy relationship that grows into a kind of friendship and eventually a marriage with a young daughter. The problem is that Bones doesn't have a ton of social skills. She relies on Booth to guide their social interactions. More on that later. The lab is run by Dr. Camille Saroyan (Taylor), who has become a bit of a guiding mother to the team.