Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 12th, 2012
"I'm Brad Meltzer. I've spent my life collecting stories. The best include signs, symbols, and coded messages that are hidden in plain sight. Some have become the basis for my novels. But I've only scratched the surface of what's out there, and now History has given me the resources to investigate the rest. This is Decoded."
What if I told you there was an author out there who was known for writing novels that include historical conspiracies, secret societies and buried treasures, and that this author has found a way to parlay his moderate writing success into a television series for History?
Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on June 11th, 2012
If you happen to be a fan of wrestling and horror films of the 1980's Jesse Thomas Cook has a two-for-one deal with Monster Brawl. I had the opportunity to chat with him for a few minutes about the new project.
The film features Lance Henriksen, Art Hindle, David Foley, Jimmy Hart and Kevin Nash. 8 classic monsters battle in a PPV style competition in an isolated graveyard. Our review will be along soon. Until then, bang it here to hear my chat with Jesse: Jesse Cook Interview
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on June 9th, 2012
"Do you want me to give it to you straight?"
When last we left our main characters from the first two Madagascar films they were stranded in Africa after being shipped from their home in the New York Zoo. We knew the sequel was coming. They couldn't have left it any more wide open than they did. Of course, the reasonable questions were already being asked by the time the second film began. Do we really need another Madagascar film? Is there any new territory to explore? What could they possibly add to make us want to come back for more?
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2012
"In space no one can hear you scream."
It was the tagline that brought us by the droves into our neighborhood cinemas in 1979 to see one of Ridley Scott's two classic science fiction adventures. Alien was one of the scariest science fiction films we've ever seen. It wasn't just the wonderfully organic H.R. Giger designs that had us on the edge of our seats. Scott delivered a claustrophobic nightmare that caged us with this remarkable killing machine. Much the same feeling I had recently trapped in a mini-van with a large spider on the prowl. It was an instant classic and holds up just as well today. It was, of course, followed by one worthy sequel and another two that I choose to pretend never happened. More recently, the franchise was paired with the Predator universe for another two films, the second of which was actually a pretty good film. Still it has been with bated breath that many of us were waiting for Ridley Scott to return to these classic roots and scare us all over again. The result of that 30 + year wait is Prometheus.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 6th, 2012
"Make no mistake. Blood will be spilled. Lives will be lost. Fortunes will be made. Men will be ruined. There will be betrayal and scandal and perfidy of epic proportions."
With a statement like that, how can you not want to check out AMC's newest drama series Hell On Wheels? I've been told the title sounds like it's about motorcycle gangs, and I couldn't agree more. The term refers to the mobile tent city that housed the workers on the Union Pacific Railroad and the support entourage the camp attracted. It was a virtual tent city that had all of the essentials: a church, bar, and whorehouse. It was just after the Civil War, and the American government believed that a railroad connecting the East and West coasts was just the kind of project the country needed to pull back together and heal still-festering wounds. As one of the filmmakers accurately points out, this was the Apollo moon project of the day. Long believed impossible by the brightest engineers of the day, the railroad would cut the time it took to go from coast to coast from six months to just under seven days. It was a truly remarkable feat, and it carried with it more than a fair dosage of corruption and blood. Now AMC has brought those days from 1865 back to our television screen with an ambitious and smartly produced series. It's a must see.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 5th, 2012
"Blacks are mentally inferior, by nature subservient, and cowards in the face of danger. They are therefore unfit for combat." - U.S. Army War College Study 1925
Obviously, there's another story to be told here. George Lucas says that he's been wanting to tell this story for over 20 years. It's a story that has often been told in both film and documentary form. In none of those cases has the movie been made into the kind of spectacle film that we find in Red Tails. Lucas gives the legendary air group the Saving Private Ryan treatment, and we get to see these World War II heroes in flight like we've never seen before.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 1st, 2012
For most of the last decade or more CBS has dominated the primetime drama market on network television. One of the reasons, of course, has been the prevalence of top-flight crime dramas like the NCIS and CSI franchises. From 2003 until 2009 the Thursday line-up on the eye network included the blockbuster pairing of the original CSI and Without A Trace. Both were products of filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer's television stable. While CSI focused on the science behind a criminal investigation, Without A Trace took the more traditional route of the human element to the FBI's Missing Persons Unit.
Jack Malone (LaPaglia) was the tough-as-nails head of the unit. He had a degree in psychology and acted very much like a profiler at times. It was his job to direct the investigation unit. The team consisted of Vivian Johnson (Jean-Baptiste). She was a veteran officer and Jack's right hand. Danny Taylor (Muciano) had changed his last name to escape his family roots which included a habitual criminal brother and an abusive father. The unit was his way of starting a new life. Martin Fitzgerald (Close) was the son of a powerful senator and was always fighting to prove himself on his own merits. Samantha Spade (Montgomery) was the young attractive young woman on the team who had already had an affair with the married Jack but also had romantic ties to Martin. Unfortunately, she didn't do much to break the vulnerable female role.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 31st, 2012
At first glance it would be very easy to say that Beyond doesn't really offer us anything terribly new in the crime drama genre. For the most part I would tend to agree with that criticism. I would counter with the argument that a very good film doesn't need to be very original to be good. Sometimes the value in a movie lies in the fact that it does what it does do extremely well. That's how I would describe the sleeper direct-to-video release Beyond.
Jon Voight stars as Detective John Koski. He's a detective in Anchorage, Alaska who specializes in missing children. He's not exactly by the book, and more of his perps end up dead than in the courtroom, but the children usually end up found and alive. Sounds like a win/win to me. Still, he's haunted by that first case where he wasn't able to save a little girl. It turns out he's more haunted by that incident than even he suspects. When 7-year-old Amy (Lesslie) disappears from her bedroom one cold wintry night, Koski, just months from retirement, gets the case. The girl's mother Sarah (Polo) is the sister of the Chief off Police (Mulroney).
Posted in: Contests by Gino Sassani on May 28th, 2012
Let A&E Take You Out To The Ball Game. Our wonderful friends at A&E and History have given us a copy of Houston Astros 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition on DVD to give away. This 5 disc collection follows the highlights of the Astros through the essential games and Astros Memories. You get 4 complete games including both television and radio play-by-play options.
To win this DVD collection just follow these instructions.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on May 25th, 2012
"I promise you the secrets of the universe, nothing more..."
It's been an astonishing 15 years since Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones first teamed up as Agents J and K respectively for the intergalactic police force Men In Black. The film was like a breath of fresh air. It combined top flight science fiction fantasy with whimsical humor. It was a hit at the box office, and like most wonderfully original hits it was quickly followed by a sequel that had almost none of the cleverness and freshness of the original film. The film was so unmemorable that I sat with other critics getting ready to see Men In Black 3 and none of us could actually remember what the second film was even about. Years went by and most of us put the franchise in our rearview mirror.
