Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 17th, 2023
"Oh, what are people afraid of? That AI is gonna replace real writers? That Hollywood is gonna become just a bland recycling of old ideas? It already is!"
I suspect that when we are all dead and gone there will be two things we can count on continuing beyond the end of human civilization. The cockroaches will inherit the world, and they will all be watching South Park, the only television show still running. It's already been 22 years, and doesn't it feel like 50? I don't mean that in a mean way. I love South Park, but I'm starting to find it hard to remember what life was like without it. I'm convinced it will survive us all, and AI versions of Parker and Stone will be producing it until the planet is finally vaporized ... and I'm not sure even that will stop this show.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 15th, 2023
"This is 3 Rock Con Camp. We fight fires all over the state of California. As you can see, there are no fences. You want to run, I can't stop you. But I need you to know this. You won't get far. And when we catch you, not if, when, you go back to that concrete jungle, and time will be added to your sentence. Ready to check out your new home?"
For Max Thieriot, it's quite a new home. For over six years he was a Navy Seal on the David Boreanaz series SEAL Team. He was pretty much the eyes and ears of the audience, as he was the new guy on the team when the show started. The character certainly evolved, and before long he was one of the more solid members of the team. His character's name was Clay, and in the sixth season he ended up suffering some devastating injuries. It looked touch-and-go for the character, and indeed it was. But it wasn't the fictional doctors on the show that would determine Clay's fate. It was the powers that be over at CBS. You see, Max had a dream, and that dream was Fire Country. He co-created the series and was number one on the call sheet. It was just a question of whether the show would get picked up. If it did not, then Clay would recover from his injuries and carry on with his brothers on SEAL Team. If the show did get picked up, it meant bad news for Clay, and he would be killed on the show. If you're reading this, you know which way it ended up going. That meant a funeral on one show and a newborn series for another. It's the television circle of life, and you won't need Elton John to explain it to you. And now the first season of Fire Country is in the can and released on DVD from CBS Home Entertainment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 14th, 2023
"Streaming services make everything suck."
South Park still hasn't completely recovered from the COVID-era issues. There still has not been a complete 10-episode season, and the slack is still being taken up by specials. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but at least it's kept us in Cartman and the gang even as other shows have closed down. The longer form also gives Parker and Stone a chance to really let an idea play out. I think they have tended to run out of gas somewhere in the back half of the second part. When you think about it, you're really looking at four episodes in length, and Parker and Stone have a pretty spotty record when they've tried to run an idea for that long. The Streaming Wars Specials suffer from just that affliction, but that doesn't mean there's not a ton of clever South Park to be had here.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 7th, 2023
"It's called the Impossible Mission Force for a reason."
I imagine this is how it happened. It's January of 2019, and Tom Cruise has just popped into the bathroom to shave. He opens up that can of Barbasol just to make sure there isn't any dinosaur DNA left in the can, but as he takes off the cap, an authoritative voice begins to speak: “Good morning, Mr. Cruise. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to make a two part film of the Mission Impossible franchise. It won't be easy. That's why only the IMF team can be counted on to complete this task. There are agents out to stop you before you even get started. In China there is a virus code-name COVID, and this virus will spread to pandemic levels just as you're starting to get your production crew together. Elements within our own government will take measures to shut you down. Delays will cost an extra $100 million and necessitate crucial cast changes. They'll be serious injuries, and your release date will be July of 2021 ... I mean November of 2021 ... Would you believe May of 2022? ... Let's shoot for July 14, 2023. You will have to deal with nefarious crew members who will attempt to sabotage the project by standing closer than two meters apart. You may use over-the-top rants to attempt to intimidate these factions into compliance. Beware that said rants don't end up released by the press to the world. Somehow through all of these challenges you must create a Mission Impossible film that will be bigger and better than anything that came before. And remember, Tom, if your film fails to bring in a billion or more, the studio will disavow your team, and your movie will go straight to streaming ... or worse, get shelved as a tax write-off. Good luck, Tom. This message will self-destruct in 10 seconds.” There's a swoosh of fog, and Tom Cruise is sitting in his bathroom with no shaving cream to complete his original task. I figure that's how it must have gone.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 3rd, 2023
"Batman's a fascist!"
Let's address the elephant in the room, shall we? Hello there, big guy. How ya doing? There now, let's continue. I have to tell you, it was hard to get motivated to watch Blue Beetle. I didn't want to like it, and I wanted to try to watch it without letting myself get too involved in the whole thing. This had nothing to do with the character. I know little about him and have only read a few comics featuring the character, mostly the Ted Kord character along with his buddy Booster Gold. But none of this had anything to do with my reluctance on the part of the film. It's Warner Brothers/DC and James Gunn. All we've been hearing lately is how this new regime is going to change EVERYTHING. It all starts with the upcoming Superman film, and everything we see before then is merely filler, I guess. Yes, the Snyderverse had a ton of issues, and I'm frankly glad to see it go away. But the franchise had some solid moments and pretty strong characters and actors starting with Gal Gadot as a powerfully compelling Wonder Woman. Yeah, the second movie sucked, but that had nothing to do with the actress or the character. I should be looking forward to Jason Momoa in the next Aquaman film. I'm currently watching old Stargate: Atlantis episodes and just can't believe how far the actor has come. And I guess the final straw was the dismissal of Henry Cavill as Superman. He's the best Superman since Christopher Reeve, and Gunn is throwing the baby out with all of that bath water. So why should I care about anything Blue Beetle has to offer? Yes, he hinted the character will likely return and even with the same actor, but none of this story will likely make it to the other side. I ask again, why should I care about anything Blue Beetle has to offer? The short answer is because there's actually a lot of heart here, and I now kind of feel bad for all of these guys. So let's just pretend that Gunn isn't even here, and try to enjoy a pretty good film just for what it is.
Posted in: Holiday Gift Guides, Random Fun by Gino Sassani on October 31st, 2023
"Hi, I'm Chucky. You wanna play?"
When an unexpected package arrives at the home of Nica (Dourif) and her rather crazy mother Sarah (Quesnelle), they have no idea what it is or who might have sent it. We already know what's in the familiar-shaped package. That's right. After nearly a decade absence, Chucky's back.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 19th, 2023
"How much do you know about the family business?"
Well, for over 20 years, the family business over at CBS has been the NCIS franchise, and another decade longer if you consider it was a spin-off of JAG, which lasted 10 years on its own. It's been a busy 20 years, I can tell you that. About seven years into the original show's run, we got our first NCIS spin-off with NCIS: Los Angeles. That show focused more on action and a lot of explosions. The show just finished its final year after 14 seasons. Then there was NCIS: New Orleans that brought the focus to the unique culture and tastes of The Big Easy. It lasted seven years, and there's an upcoming NCIS: Sydney which is about to take us down under to grab that shrimp on the barbie. Things continue to expand, and now we have NCIS: Hawai'i, which expands the franchise and solves a situation at CBS. For decades they have kept a Hawaiian studio on the islands. First it was a remake of Hawaii Five-O, and then a remake of Magnum P.I. recreated history just as it happened in the 1970's. Now Magnum is gone once again, and so CBS slid a new NCIS show right into those production facilities. What we have is another unique location and another NCIS crew out there solving Navy crimes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 11th, 2023
"Jack, we have done our jobs and done them well. This fight was passed down to us and will continue with or without us. But we will always be better than the institutions we serve, and that is what matters when it matters most. There are no heroes in our profession. But occasionally there are good men. Men who act on what is right, not simply doing what they are told to do. I have not always lived my life with honor. But perhaps I have done enough to die with it. I hope the same for you."
Witness the birth of -- actually make that rebirth of --one of the most popular action heroes in literature. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has been a character of many jobs and many faces over the years. Baldwin, Ford, Pine, and Affleck have all stepped into the role of the man who has been a soldier, an analyst, an operative, and a president. What might appear as a clear advantage for this Amazon Prime streaming television show can be just as much a liability. When you throw in the Tom Clancy novels, comic books, and fan fiction, there is a ton of Jack Ryan history that pretty much gives us a story arc from his humble beginnings to extraordinary exploits, and wearing the faces of a few good performers. It's a tall order for the series and perhaps an even taller order for actor John Krasinski, who has created a nice little horror franchise with wife Emily Blunt on the side. I don't really have the time or energy to watch streaming shows and films. There's always a backlog here of discs that need to be watched and reviewed, and I've created a rather comfortable viewing experience with my home theatre I call The Reel World. Our motto: Here there be monsters. So a couple of years ago I had my first experience with this series when Paramount sent the first season on Blu-ray. It was far more of a captivating and compelling series than I expected. Then the second season reached the Blu-ray home platform format, and while I certainly detected a sophomore slump there, there's still enough interesting drama to keep a fan engaged for another year. And what a year it has been. You can find out for yourself with Paramount's release of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Season Three on Blu-ray.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 11th, 2023
"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding, even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes ... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply ... evil."
Blumhouse and David Gordon Green recently finished a sequel/reboot of John Carpenter's Halloween with mixed results. He got Jamie Lee Curtis to return for all three films in the trilogy. Most of the various sequels and reboots did not include the original film's star, but Green was not the first one to get her to return to the role of Laurie Strode. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first film, Curtis returned to the role in the somewhat neglected. It was the seventh overall film in the franchise, and like the recent trilogy, it erased all of the various sequels and claimed to be a continuation of the original film. It produced a respectable $55 million on a $17 million budget and was the next final film in the series before Rob Zombie did his own reboot of the franchise that lasted for two films and finally led up to the David Gordon Green attempt to revisit and pretty much conclude the franchise with three more films. Curtis returned for Halloween Resurrections, which was a kind of meta/reality show take on the material, but Rob Zombie took it back to the beginning. Is that really the end of Michael Myers and company? I doubt it. There's still bank to be made from the franchise, and after a respectable few years, someone else will tackle the tale. Where they will start from is anyone's guess, but they could do worse than look at Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later as a jumping-off point. I doubt anything like that is going to happen, but the franchise could certainly do worse,... and it has.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on October 9th, 2023
When it comes to watching films at the theater, often I will want to see a movie sometimes three, four weeks into their release. The crowds have quieted down, and I can often focus on the movie rather than the person next to me who might be munching on their popcorn a little too loudly or on their cell phone. However, with many films not sticking around as they should, it can often be difficult to make that work. This past Sunday, I was fortunate enough to see A Haunting In Venice, a film that opened in mid-September to honestly rather tepid box office earnings. I had seen Murder on the Orient Express on 4K disc and Death on the Nile with my wife in theaters, so I certainly wanted to see the third film in the Kenneth Branagh's version of Hercule Poirot. So quality time aside, was this film actually worth our matinee dollar, or was it better spent at the local sandwich shop? Let's take a look.
The birds are all aflutter this morning. We happen to be in Venice, Italy, 1947, shortly after the Second World War. The date: October 31st, Halloween. The date is however unbeknown to Hercule Poirot (played by Kenneth Branagh), who has recently retired from his detective work. He wakes up to the sound of death, a fairly common occurrence from his former line of work. Instead of investigating dead bodies, he analyzes his plants as well as the mail. At some point, Hercule decides to venture outside where a mass crowd follows him asking for his advice or how to solve their own murder cases. He declines them all, and the people who decide to be a little more aggressive are dealt with by Hercule's bodyguard (and retired cop) Vitale Portfoglio (played by Riccardo Scamarcio), who is nearby and watching.
