Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 13th, 2022
"There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie."
No one knew those rules better than Wes Craven. He helped to create them, after all. Starting in 1972 with the cult favorite The Last House On The Left, he followed that just two years later with The Hills Have Eyes, which led to a sequel. But it wasn't until a decade later that he would deliver his masterpiece and most successful franchise, Nightmare On Elm Street. Wes Craven introduced the world to Freddy Krueger, and our dreams have never been quite the same since. While others attempted to reproduce the same results with many sequels, it was Craven himself who put Freddy to bed with New Nightmare exactly 10 years after his birth. A remake never got much traction, and Wes Craven's place in horror history was assured. In 1996 he decided to take one more stab at the slasher genre and delivered one of the best films to look directly back at the audience and celebrate the genre. Scream was another hit and another franchise staple. He took a then relatively unknown cast and made them household names with future amazing careers and decided that it was time to also poke a little fun at himself and his colleagues. The result was four films and an upcoming kind of reboot/sequel after a three-year television series examined the material. More importantly, it led to an entire sub-genre of films that include the Scary Movie franchise and others. Now, just in time for the holidays and the new film, you can see Scream in 4K with this UHD Blu-ray release.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2022
"There's a bizarre version of Superman on the loose."
They are the most famous couple in comic book history. Together they are Superman & Lois, and they've joined the ever-expanding Arrowverse for their second season now out on Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment. While this is still a young series, the characters and these actors portraying them are not new to the Arrowverse. Tyler Hoechlin as Superman and Elizabeth Tulloch as Lois Lane have been here for a few years. Both have shown up on Supergirl, and both appeared in a couple of the crossover events that have pulled together the various Arrowverse shows in the past. Now the focus is on them. They have their own show, and it's quite a different approach to the characters and their story. There has also been a departure that puts the show no longer in the official Arrowverse. I suspect that move comes on the heels of The Flash now entering its final season and I suspect closing the Arrowverse going forward.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2022
"I think this is just the beginning."
Walker is out on DVD. No, this is not the next spin-off of the zombie Walking Dead franchise. There's a new ranger in town, and his name is Cordell Walker. I know what you're thinking: "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." That's where you'd be wrong. They might share the same name and job, but this Walker is nothing like the Chuck Norris version that lasted for over a decade when you include made-for-television movies. This Walker is much younger. He was a Marine who had joined after 9/11. He has a family. His wife was killed a year ago, and now he's trying to raise his son and daughter with the help of his parents, who were no longer living in the Norris series. The episodes are more of an ongoing story arc, which conforms to pretty much most dramas on television today. While there were certainly elements that ran through the original show, it was pretty much a bad-guy-of-the-week setup. If you haven't caught any of the new show, now is your chance. CBS Home Entertainment has released the entire second season on DVD.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2022
"If you've got the money you can do what you like. Buy another man's life? Why not?"
There are few writers in the 20th century who have had the kind of career Graham Greene had. He was recruited by England's secret service MI6 where his sister was also an agent and spent time around the world. These experiences likely helped him write the kinds of international thrillers that made him one o the most successful writers in the 20th century. His final novel went a little against the grain of his reputation. The Tenth Man doesn't take us too far afield, and it's far more of an intimate tale than he was known for. It would also be his final novel before his death in 1991. But he lived to see it filmed, albeit as a Hallmark Television made for TV film in 1988. But The Tenth Man was a little step above most of the films made for TV in that decade. It actually did play in theatres in Europe, mostly England. Now Kino Lorber has dusted off this 1988 gem and given it a chance at a new life, and it's one of the better of the studio’s latest batch of titles.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2022
"There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water."
We've had Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Gene Simmons with his Family Jewels, and even Snoop Dog's Father Hood. It's become a bit of a trend to follow these celebrity families around and watch the drama of their privileged lives unfold on our television screens. You might think it's a relatively recent phenomenon, but would you believe they were doing it back in the infant days of television when we followed around a musician named Ozzie and his wife way back in 1952? No, we're not talking about Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I'm talking about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. They were television's darling family before we ever heard about Lucy and Desi. The show actually started on radio like many of the fledgling industry’s early hits including the likes of Gunsmoke. Four years after the radio brought us The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, they moved to television. While their two sons were played by actors on the radio, both David and Ricky Nelson joined the television show, and it went on to make television history, breaking records, some still held today. It was the first television series to ever hit 10 seasons. It lasted from 1952 to 1966 with 436 episodes. Until The Simpsons, it was the longest running scripted television comedy and remains still the longest live-action scripted comedy ever on television. And while the stories were, of course, fictional, most aspects of the show were quite real. Their television home was modeled after their real home. Many of the family's life stories found their way to the series. The four family members were quite real, and you just couldn't fake these relationships.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 7th, 2022
"No one would have believed in the middle of the 20th century that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely joined their plans against us. Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries has been in the last status of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. Inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences that which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate."
War Of The Worlds is perhaps one of the most iconic and often infamous science fiction works in literature history. The book by H.G. Wells was published in 1889 but would not see a feature film version for quite some time. Cecil B. DeMille worked with Paramount to obtain the rights from Wells in the mid 1920's. He appeared to appeal to Wells himself, who was a fan of DeMille's work, and the rights were purchased. But the film fell on hard times. On Halloween in 1938 Orson Welles, no relation, produced his famous radio drama of the story. While there were stories of people killing themselves because they believed it was a real radio broadcast of a Martian invasion, most of those stories are myth. It did cause panic, but only because folks ignored the many times the show announced that it was a radio drama. But interest spiked to do the long-dormant film. DeMille approached Welles to do the film, believing that the hysterics from the radio broadcast would make him a natural for the film. When Welles refused, he turned to Alfred Hitchcock, who also turned down the property. Finally George Pal agreed to do the film in the 1950's but soon ran into trouble. You see, the rights were obtained so long ago that they were exclusively for a silent film. The estate of the author was so pleased with Pal as the choice to produce that they fixed the details, and the film was finally released in 1953. It has become a classic in the decades that followed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 28th, 2022
"For those of you who are wondering who this fella here is, I am the legendary Colonel Tom Parker. I am the man who gave the world Elvis Presley. Without me, there would be no Elvis Presley. And yet, there are some who'd make me out to be the villain of this here story. No, no, I didn't kill him. I made Elvis Presley. Nothing all those muckrakers said in their books was true. Me and Elvis, we was partners. It was Elvis the Showman and the Colonel the Snowman. I always knew I was destined for greatness. As an orphan, I ran away to the carnival, where I learned the art of the "snow job," of emptying a rube's wallet while leaving them with nothing but a smile on their face. But a carnival act that would get you the most money, the most snow, had great costumes and a unique trick, that gave the audience feelings they weren't sure they should enjoy. But they do. And I knew if I could find such an act, I could create the greatest ... show ... on ... Earth."
Rock bio-pictures have been pretty hot as of late. It really started with the exceptionally done Bohemian Rapsody that chronicled the rise of the band Queen, and more its flamboyant front man, Freddie Mercury. In its wake have come lesser films that have still performed well at the box office, like Elton John's Rocketman, which turned out to be more fantasy than bio-film. With a subject like Elvis, it's really hard to go wrong. He's one of the most successful brands in rock history, and make no mistake. He was a brand. He was also more than just a flash of style. Elvis Presley is often referred to as The King Of Rock And Roll, at least to his fans. There's no denying the impact that he had on the music scene. He was the first rock and roll star, to be sure. Colonel Tom Parker, his long-time manager and partner, created many of the marketing traditions that are commonplace in the industry today. He knew the value of his star, not only as a performer, but as a brand. For the first time, a musician's image and name started to appear on everything from bath towels to women's underwear. Fans are often split on their feelings for the self-styled Colonel, but Elvis would not have become the name brand he still is today without him. That doesn't take away the selfish way that Parker turned Elvis into his private meal ticket, paying attention to his own needs more than those of his star. But no one marketed a brand like Parker did in the days before Elvis. One of those brand expansions tapped into Elvis's own boyhood fantasy. Elvis had worked as an usher at a local movie theater as a teen. He's often related that he would linger in the auditoriums, watching those movies and fantasizing that he was James Dean or Marlon Brando, two of his idols. With the help if Colonel Parker, Elvis would get to see that dream become a reality. The King was to expand his realm to include the movie business and Hollywood. No experience? No problem. After all, if Elvis could go from failing music in high school to becoming the highest paid musician on the planet, he could certainly tackle the world of acting. And he did just that. And that's really the first "issue" with the film. It might be called ELVIS all in caps, but this is really Colonel Tom Parker's story, and in case you have any confusion on that score, it will become clear soon enough. You see, the entire film is narrated by Parker and told from his unique point of view.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 21st, 2022
"So much for easing back into things."
This season sports a huge change as the fifth season of SEAL Team hits DVD from CBS Home Entertainment. For the first four seasons the show has enjoyed a pretty well-rated run on CBS's prime time schedule. Season 5 starts out exactly the same way until after the first four episodes. The series was switched suddenly from the television network to the Paramount + streaming service, and with the switch there are several huge changes. The first is in the number of episodes shot for each season. On CBS most shows run from 20-24 episodes a season. This year because of it being a hybrid year, you get 14 episodes. Starting next season you will get only 10 going forward. Another change is that the production values are going up, with a wider span of locations for the team's missions. Finally, you will notice they can now do and say things they could not on network television. They make a pretty big deal of the first time they drop an F-bomb, and there are several as the season progresses. Mostly it's good news, with the exception of the episode count. You can judge for yourself here in this hybrid season.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 15th, 2022
Revamping old shows and movies is the latest trend in television. CBS has made several attempts at this with varying success. Such was their attempt when they tried to convert Rush Hour into a TV series. It failed badly. But then there was Hawaii Five-O, which got 10 seasons and was pretty solid. The MacGyver reboot gaining a fourth season puts this attempt somewhere in the middle. The show has been on the bubble for the last two seasons and this year it was finally cancelled. But that wasn't quite the end of the story. Part of the reason was an inability to renew the rights from Universal at the kind of money CBS thought the show was worth. Now NBC, which is owned by Universal, has given the show a second chance with a 2-year renewal. The cast and crew appear to be intact, but with some contract negotiations it's possible that someone may drop out, leaving room for something new. So Magnum is back, for now starring Jay Hernandez in the titular role. The character that Tom Selleck made famous is breathing new life with new action. Minus the mustache, of course.
Staying true to its source material, Hernandez’s Magnum is a former Navy Seal, and his best friends T.C, played by Stephen Hill, and Rick, played by Zachery Knighton, are Marines. While staying true to its source, the series also digs deeper into the characters’ connection by illustrating the three as former POWs. The show also explores many of the plights of vets that include Shammy, played by Christopher Thornton, as the wheelchair-bound comrade they rescued from down and out who is now a big part of the team.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 9th, 2022
"Space ... the final frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before!"
From the moment of the first UHD releases, I have had a wish list of films I wanted to see in 4K. Most of them have finally reached my home theater video shelf, but there remain a few elusive titles that I am still waiting for. Paramount is doing a great job. The Star Trek wait is somewhat over. I say somewhat because this new release from Paramount contains the films not included in the first release: Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. But it does not include The Next Generation films.
