Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 6th, 2010
“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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 2nd, 2010
"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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 2nd, 2010
"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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 2nd, 2010
"Well when you gettin' "got" and somebody done "got" you and you go "get" them, when you get 'em everybody's gon' get got."
When Tyler Perry started writing his small plays, he probably never had a clue just how far it might all go from there. The plays had a solid audience, but there was always concern that the appeal would be too narrow. That didn't stop Perry from putting together a few relatively low-budget films located in his adopted film hometown of Atlanta. For the most part the studio got pretty much what it expected.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2010
Most of the huge names of Broadway are gone. Certainly there are young talents that have created some memorable shows. Perhaps one day they will build up the mountain of classics that we received from the likes of Rodgers, Hammerstein, Bernstein, and others. There are even a couple of writers out there that have amassed that kind of a career. Andrew Lloyd Weber absolutely comes to mind as a fine example. But Stephen Sondheim is the last of a dying breed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2010
The axiom in Hollywood these days is that more is better. Every year we get inundated with blockbuster films sporting $200 million budgets, groundbreaking f/x, epic journeys and casts of thousands. Enter first-time director J. Blakeson and his intimate and quite claustrophobic thriller, The Disappearance Of Alice Creed. Right from the start we know that we're in for something completely different. There are no opening credits of any kind. There isn't even a title screen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2010
Most people remember the Bee Gees from their disco days and Saturday Night Fever. They sold a lot of records and achieved more fame than at any time in their careers. But the Brothers Gibb had been performing since the 1950's as children. They would headline automobile races and appear on local radio and television shows. They would quickly gain attention for their harmonies and eventually for their own songs. By 1967 they had begun to gain international attention, appearing on the national rock-and-roll shows. The brothers would become known then for their power ballads and love songs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2010
As a kid who grew up in the 1960's I remember Cher mostly for her musical career and the music and variety show she shared with then-husband Sonny Bono. When they split, it was a big deal in the time. We didn't quite follow celebrities’, lives near as obsessively as is done today, but these guys were a power couple that had gained fame pretty much as a package deal. When they split Sonny wasn't very successful at maintaing the same level as Cher was able to do.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2010
"Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, we have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first Bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster."
I remember as a kid we used to imitate the Bionic Man when we would be playing in the playground. We would run in slow motion
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 24th, 2010
"Man, we'll die with you. Just don't ask us to do it twice."
Remember the old days of the action movie? Those films where someone like Stallone or Schwarzenegger would run around and take out armies of bad guys while barely breaking a sweat. You know the kind of movie I'm talking about. The ones where the hero goes up against a hail of bullets and explosions and manages to pick off the bad guys without catching a single slug himself.