Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on January 31st, 2010
Hey Gang.
This week I had a chance to talk to a couple of folks connected with the new Planet Hulk Blu-ray and DVD release.
Posted in: Contests by Gino Sassani on January 29th, 2010
Our good friends at Lionsgate have been kind enough to give us a copy of the Planet Hulk on DVD to giveaway to our readers.
We are going to do something a little different for this contest.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 29th, 2010
Madea's been everywhere. She's even been to jail. But I Can Do Bad All By Myself is not actually a Madea film, per se. She has a cameo, of sorts, but this film is based on a series of stage acts that Perry has collected under the single title of the film. So much of this movie has been out there on stage. I'm not really a fan of Perry's Madea character and the collection of films she/he's been involved in. I had a friend once who used to get them for another friend of his, and he used to joke about making me a copy. Now you know why we're not friends any more. But this film is very different from anything you've seen from the Madea character, or honestly out of any of Tyler Perry's previous film projects.
When the film begins, it looks like it's going to be another haphazard Madea adventure. She's asleep in her bed when she hears a crashing sound downstairs. Someone done broke into Madea's house. You're already starting to feel sorry for the crooks. That is, until we find out they are three young children. Apparently their parents are dead, and they've been living with their grandma, but she's been AWOL for over four days. Madea does the only thing she can. She feeds the kids, much to the discontent of Perry's other alter ego, her husband Joe. "You feed them and they keep comin' back," he warns. Once she's heard their heartwarming tale, she takes them to their Aunt April (Henson). April is working as a singer at a local nightclub but is ruining her own life on booze and an abusive relationship. Madea comes knockin' while she's trying to sleep and lays the bad news on the wannabe star. April's got no room in her life for three kids, and on top of that, her church has sent over a homeless Mexican named Sandino (Rodriguez) who needs a place to stay and can pay by doing jobs around the house. We all know from the beginning that grandma’s not coming back, so I'm not really spoiling anything for you there. April will be faced with making some changes in her life, both for the kids and for herself. It's through music and faith, and a little help from Sandino, that she manages to open her heart to her new family.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 29th, 2010
Metaphors are often effective tools in filmmaking. They can be used in a variety of unique and clever ways to either highlight a particular aspect of story and/or character. They can be used to add an artistic flourish to a movie. They can even be used to drive a plot, if you're careful enough to avoid becoming too abstract. Then there are films like The Burning Plain which attempt to create a film that is metaphor itself. What you often end up with, and certainly here, is something difficult to follow and more acceptable at the festival circuit than at the box office. The movie performed abysmally at the box, and that is in spite of some rather glowing reviews. The general public is never going to “get” a film like this. Honestly, I'm not sure that I even understood it. What I do know is that whatever level of understanding or entertainment I might have gotten here, I had to work too hard to get it. There's a simple equation of investment of resources and return that this film just simply fails to deliver. And if they think I'm harsh, wait until they try to sell it to the average viewer. Most people have less patience than I when it comes to movies, but director and writer Guillermo Arriaga demands far more than I was willing to give. And evidenced by the mere 200 grand at the limited run box office, it was more than most of you were willing to give as well.
The story is told from a perspective of several places and times. We learn that Gina (Basinger) and Nick (deAlmeida) were having an affair. Both had families. They used to rendezvous at a trailer out in the middle of an isolated plain. They are killed in a horrible fire and explosion that burned so hot, we are told, that their bodies melted together and had to be cut apart with a knife. In the aftermath, their families develop a severe hatred for each other, each blaming the other for taking away their parent. But in traditional Romeo and Juliet fashion, two of the children, one from each side, fall in love. The identity of these two and the things that they did would be spoilers here. Suffice it to say that you should spend some time attempting to pick up on the details and nuances here. Another story involves Santiago (Pino) who now lives in Mexico with his young daughter. He owns a crop dusting business. Of course, flying small planes can be a dangerous business. Actually flying is very safe. Crashing, on the other hand can be dangerous. When he is injured, a friend helps his daughter track down the girl's mother, Sylvia (Theron), now living in Oregon running a restaurant. Of course, we know that these stories all have common threads and even common characters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 26th, 2010
"Look at yourselves. Unplug from your chairs, get up and look in a mirror. What you see is how God made you. We're not meant to experience the world through a machine."
Since the time we were kids, we were warned that you can't tell a book by its cover. That has never been more true in our modern world of the internet. We play in chat rooms where almost no one is who they pretend to be. We lie about our age, looks, and even our gender, and rationalize it as harmless escapism or merely exaggeration. Everyone does it, or so we believe, so it's actually expected. Police officers often pose as innocent young children to lure pedophiles out of their dark lairs and into a new dark lair, this one with bars and armed guards. So, I guess it's not that large of a leap into the world of Surrogates. Now you can order an entire working body to look like anything you want. You sit in a comfortable pod and live through this artificial skin. You can't feel pain. You can't catch a disease. You can't die ... or, again, so you would very much like to believe. If we can't change the book, we can now at least change the cover.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 26th, 2010
"Hello. I want to play a game."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 26th, 2010
I'm a huge fan of Roger Corman. Who isn't, right? But these films are not the typical Corman offerings. Some of them have no apparent connection to the man himself. The ones that do are mostly as producer and not director. Some of the films might be notable for being an early film for this actor or that. But I would hardly classify any of these films as classics of any genre or good representations of the mastery of the B film that was Roger Corman's signature. Most of the films feature merely montages of riding, fighting, drinking, drugging, or sex. Good times for some, maybe, but hardly worth the time it takes to watch even the shortest of these bombs. I feel like Corman's name is used primarily as a catch here and that the man had nothing to do with this release.
Here are the films you'll get in this collection:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 21st, 2010
Weeds started out as something very different from the 13 half hour episodes you will find in the 5th season release. In the beginning Weeds was an offbeat look at a suburban housewife who turns to selling pot to make ends meet. It was a very whimsical change of pace from what was commonly being offered on the networks in that half hour situation comedy dominated world most of us have grown tired of. The characters were certainly outside of the general mold, and their eccentric nature made the show entertaining, if not for the masses, for a tight cult following.
But a lot has changed here, and this series has become a bad parody of itself. Nancy Botwin (Parker) is no longer that suburban housewife. Her husband is now dead, and she's taken her pot selling operation to an international level. By the end of season four, Nancy was involved with big-time drug kingpins and was operating out of Mexico. The fifth season picks right up where those chaotic events left off. Nancy is about to be killed by Esteban (Bichir) when she drops the bomb that she is carrying his child. So for most of the season she lives day to day, under guard from Esteban's thugs waiting for him to decide if and when she finds her way to a landfill. Meanwhile her sons have gotten into the family business as well. Shane (Gould) is selling pot to his high school English teacher. Silas (Parrish) has gone into the medical marijuana business with cousin Doug (Nealon). They, in turn, are paying extortion to the local chubby cop. At the same time Celia (Perkins) has been kidnapped by her daughter and her new boyfriend who is running a rebel camp out in the wilderness. They are hoping for a ransom, but the situation ends up taking a page out of O Henry's Ransom Of Red Chief, and no one is willing to pay a dime to get her back. Andy (Kirk) comes into some money but blows it on video games and the General Lee car from The Dukes Of Hazzard. Still, he tries to take responsibility and is there for Nancy, even if she does tend to just use him. If all of this sounds like a bit of a jumble, it all leads to an off-again on-again romance with Esteban who is running for public office. And it's not his murders, drug trafficking, or police corruption that is holding him back. It's his relationship with a gringo woman. Go figure. I can't.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 21st, 2010
"In the early 1930's Adolph Hitler and his inner circle became obsessed with the occult, believing that the black arts were the key to their plan for world domination. Nazi agents traveled the globe in search of ancient Nordic relics known as rune stones. They believed if they harnessed the power of these stones, nothing could stop the march of the master race. The symbols inscribed in these stones were said to describe the path to immortality. Almost a century later, the nightmare has awakened."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2010
"Let me know when the Governor gets here."
Well, he's in the house, and I'm going to get a lot of razzing for this review of Last Action Hero. The person who thought I should see a shrink for looking forward to the next Saw film is going to be calling for my outright commitment to an institution dedicated to covering walls with nice padding so we won't hurt ourselves. I know this film is generally considered "bad" by critics and moviegoers alike. It swept the Razzies in 1993 and has since been only the kind of film 10 year olds would really like to see. Me, I've always simply loved this film. From the first time I saw it at the box office, I was hooked. It was one of the first new laserdiscs I bought back in the day, and I watched the heck out of that disc. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I love this movie.
![I Can Do Bad All By Myself [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/i-can-do-bad-all-by-myself-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Burning Plain [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-burning-plain-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Surrogates [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/surrogates-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Last Action Hero [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/last-action-hero-blu-ray-large.jpg)
