Posted in: Contests by Gino Sassani on February 15th, 2016
Our good friends at Mill Creek have sent over a few goodies for our readers here at Upcomingdiscs. They've managed to stitch together a sweet prize with Frankenstein: The Mini Series on Blu-ray. This little television version of the Mary Shelly classic stars William Hurt, Donald Sutherland and Luke Goss and is sure to chill you for the upcoming Spring.
To win a copy of this prize, follow these instructions.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 15th, 2016
“No war was ever like this.”
McHale’s Navy actually started life as a dramatic episode of Alcoa Premiere, hosted by Fred Astaire. It was April of 1962 when Ernest Borgnine would introduce the audience to his most famous television role. The network loved the character but not the show’s format. By October of the same year the television series would debut not as a serious drama but a half-hour comedy. Who knows how a dramatic series would have performed?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 13th, 2016
"You have got a tricky day ahead of you."
It's safe to say that Daniel Craig peaked as James Bond with Skyfall. Sam Mendes was the man who figured out how to make Craig work in the part. The secret wasn't in the classic images of Bond's past, but in the future. Instead of trying to mold Craig into Bond, Mendes molded Bond into Craig. It was the right thing to do as long as Daniel Craig was going to continue in the role. With Mendes repeating as director and John Logan from Gladiator and Penny Dreadful fame handling the script, expectations were through the roof for this one.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 12th, 2016
"Most women like a man with a bad reputation. Mind you, I'm not really bad. It's just I'm not troubled by my wicked thoughts. In fact I rather enjoy them. It's all perfectly natural. Man may have evolved from the trees, but his eyes still swing from limb to limb."
Years before he became the iconic suave British secret agent with the license to kill, Roger Moore might just have put himself in the running through his six-year run on British television’s The Saint. The show was part of the British Invasion of spy shows that came close on the heels of the first James Bond film Dr. No. Moore played Simon Templar, known throughout the globe as The Saint.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 11th, 2016
"And then there's Maude."
In football there's always a lot of talk about coaching trees. You know the idea. Some great mastermind who saw his assistants go on to have success of their own and who passed that lucky charm down to others for, perhaps, generations. All In The Family would be the television equivalent to a coach with a long tree. There were an incredible number of spinoffs that lead to other spinoffs. Archie's neighbors The Jeffersons moved on up to the East Side and had their own several years of success.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 9th, 2016
Say Uncle. That’s U.N.C.L.E., otherwise known as the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Starting in 1964, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was one of a flurry of shows to take advantage of the new James Bond craze. It featured many of the same elements as the super-spy films. You had sophisticated spies in tuxedos. There were plenty of gadgets. And there were constant threats of world domination, mostly from the evil counter organization, THRUSH. The two top spies for the good guys were Napoleon Solo (Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (McCallum). The Bond references were never subtle and always intentional. Ian Fleming himself consulted on the show and named Napoleon Solo after a Bond character. Together Solo and Kuryakin would travel around the globe, saving the world from almost certain doom.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 8th, 2016
“My name is Henry Morgan. My story is a long one. It might sound a bit implausible. In fact, you probably won't believe it, but I'll tell you anyway, because beyond all else I have lots, lots of time.”
Unfortunately for the cast and crew of Forever and their fans, time was something this show wouldn’t have much of at all. Created by Matthew Miller, Forever combines the deductive crime solving of Sherlock Holmes with the genre twist of immortality.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 6th, 2016
"My father told me about these men, about their natures. All I knew were the stories I was told of monsters and the valiant men sworn to slay them. I fear the stories I've heard may have been clouded, the truth more than clouded. It would seem these monsters are men, sons, brothers, fathers. And it would seem these men face their own monsters..."
Move over, Captain Jack Sparrow. There are some new pirates on the block, and they sail into our living rooms on a regular basis in the Starz sophomore series Black Sails. The high seas adventure series combines historical people and places with the fictional characters of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Treasure Island.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 4th, 2016
"It all begins with seeing. So what do you see?"
The term “Renaissance man” is often used to describe a person who has a very wide range of interests in which they have become quite skilled. It's taken from the traits of the many artists, innovators, and writers of the 15th century. And while the term might well apply to any number of such historical figures, there is none for whom it is more apt than Leonardo DaVinci.
Posted in: Tribute by Gino Sassani on February 3rd, 2016
“Can you get me off the hook? For old times’ sake?”
But it was we who were on Abe Vigoda’s hook. He might have been a character named Fish, but he had us hook, line, and sinker. Godfather fans knew him as the dangerous Sal Tessio. To the Barney Miller faithful he was Detective Fish, who eventually moved to his own spinoff. Certainly, he had many more memorable characters over his nearly 70-year career, but these will likely remain his legacy. He was a reliable character actor on shows like The Rockford Files, Mannix, Hawaii Five-0, Cannon, Dark Shadows, Kojak, MacGyver, Law & Order, and even the voice of a mobster in a Batman animated feature. Last week we lost Abe. He was 94 years old. Fortunately, we’ll never lose Tessio and Fish.
