Posts by Gino Sassani

I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years.

"September 19th. Dear Diary, as I sit here thinking about picking up the pieces of what used to be my life, I realized something. Every room in this house holds a painful memory for me. Even though he's suffering, something somewhere in me wants him to suffer more. A few months and a divorce can take you through just as many emotions as 18 years in a marriage. And I'm starting to feel all of them at once. But the one that is clear is rage. Signed, a Mad Black Woman."

Lately I've had an opportunity to watch a ton of Madea on Blu-ray.

Upcomingdiscs continues with our handy Holiday Guide. Once again we've come up with those special Blu-ray releases out there that will showcase your friend’s new Blu-ray player or high-definition television.

With FOX/MGM we get into a couple of titles that are collections of classic films. These are the kind of releases that might be a little heavier on the budget. That makes them the kind of thing less people are likely to buy for themselves. It also gives you the chance to swoop in and be there hero on Christmas morning.

"Compulsive hoarding is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary. More than three million people are compulsive hoarders. These are two of their stories."

The reality television craze has entered its second generation. In the beginning, shows merely found folks who were willing to put themselves in odd circumstances for the chance to earn some big payday.

This single DVD contains 9 Christmas episodes of CBS’s most endearing comedies. All were influential to those that came after. These weekly shows offered that much-needed relief from the pressures of whatever decade they appeared in. The stars are names that everybody knows, even those that appeared 50 years or more ago. Celebrate Christmas with these classic moments in television history.

As Christmas gets closer, some of you are wondering what to get that home video nut on your Christmas list. Upcomingdiscs has decided to help you figure out what get the person who loves home video.

A lot of folks will be entering the Blu-ray market this year. The format is on solid footing these days. You can bet that someone on your list is going to get a Blu-ray player for the first time this holiday season. What better way to help them out then to give them a hand building up that high definition library?

Erle Stanley Gardner wrote crime fiction, and while many of his 100 or so works are unknown to most of us, he created a character that has become as identified with criminal lawyers as any other in fiction. It was in these crime novels that Perry Mason first faced a courtroom. He developed a style where he would investigate these terrible crimes his clients were on trial for. He would find the real killer, and in what has become a Hollywood cliché, reveal his findings in a crucial moment during the trial.

“The man is Richard Kimble and, not surprisingly, the man is tired. Tired of looking over his shoulder, the ready lie of the buses and freight trains. Richard Kimble is tired of running…”

The elusive “one-armed man” is one of the best known television icons of all time. The plight of Dr. Richard Kimball has been the subject of numerous imitations and even a feature film staring Harrison Ford as Kimball and Tommy Lee Jones as his pursuer. Tim Daly left the ranks of comedy to fill the shoes of Kimball in a very short-lived revival series.

"How do you do? My name is Deems Taylor, and it's my very pleasant duty to welcome you here on behalf of Walt Disney, Leopold Stokowski, and all the other artists and musicians whose combined talents went into the creation of this new form of entertainment, Fantasia. What you're going to see are the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the interpretations of trained musicians, which I think is all to the good."

Just three years after Walt Disney introduced the world to the animated feature in 1937, Uncle Walt was already experimenting with the idea.

"Cal Lightman sees the truth. It's written all over your face. It's also in your voice, your posture, the words you choose. Give him five minutes and 20 questions and he'll know whether you went off to Argentina to cheat on your wife, lied about a well-timed stock sale, or murdered a one-night stand."

I spent quite a few years as a detective. My specialty turned out to be in the interview room. When some of my fellow detectives had a suspect they couldn't break, they often called me in.