Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 28th, 2009
It’s a disc loaded with pilots. No, you won’t find any daring men and their flying machines here. These pilots owe more to Philo T. Farnsworth than The Wright Brothers. Farnsworth transmitted the first televised image in 1927. In case you’re wondering, that image was a dollar bill. These pilots follow in those footsteps; that’s because these pilots are television shows. They’re the first episodes of some of the best action series to appear on CBS over the last few decades. Going back as far as the 1960’s, these shows represent a nice cross section of television action entertainment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 28th, 2009
This single DVD contains the premiere episodes of 7 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. If you ever wondered how some of these shows began their historic runs, here’s your opportunity to go back in time with Forever Funny.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2009
“I swear by God this sacred oath: That I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolph Hitler, Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the armed forces. And that I shall at all times be ready, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath.”
Taking a page from Roman history, Adolph Hitler required all of his armed troops to swear this oath, not to their country as most armed forces require, but to him personally. It was a necessary step in his brutal campaign to remake Europe, and eventually the world, in his own image. Loyalty to Hitler did not come in degrees; it was absolute, or it was nothing. Only then could the man commit the acts he eventually did with any support at all. But that support was not absolute.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2009
“It’s time to wake up and get a life. We live in a three-dimensional world. Until now, the world of computing has been a flat world consisting of two-dimensional imagery. Now through the use of exclusive breakthrough technology, ARC has made it possible for you to get a life. A-Life, where we can work and play in a lifelike world of three-dimensional reality. A-Life… the living monitor. Impressed?”
You should be. From the mind, or more accurately the pen or typewriter, of science fiction legend Philip K. Dick comes another big budget Hollywood film, Paycheck. The works of Dick have become impressive films in the past. From Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep we get Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Blade Runner. Dick also penned the Steven Spielberg budget buster, Minority Report. But Paycheck is actually much more like the Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster Total Recall. Once again, Dick deals with his popular subject of downloading, or in this case removing memories. Combine that element with the seeing into the future concept of Minority Report and you have what should be a Philip K. Dick greatest hits film, with the added adrenaline rush of John Woo in the director’s chair.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2009
Another release, and it’s another half season of that iconic western, Gunsmoke. Among the 20 episodes found on 3 discs you’ll find Claustraphobia. Dillon has to arrest his old friend Ollie who kills a man because he killed Ollie’s hogs. In Ma Tennis, you’ll meet the ultimate Mama’s boy. When a man ends up in Dillon’s jail, his mother breaks him out. In Sunday Supplement, a couple of newspaper writers come to Dillon looking for a juicy story, even if they have to instigate one themselves. In Texas Cowboys, Dillon closes up all of the shops in town until they are willing to tell him who committed a murder. A woman comes to Dodge wanting Matt to kill her in Amy’s Good Deed. In Hanging Man, there’s a vigilante out there killing folks and making it look like suicide. Dillon’s got a serial killer on his hands now. Chester is nearly killed in a break out attempt in Chester’s Hanging. Finally, in The Gentlemen, Dillon gets caught up trying to keep the peace with a torrid love triangle brewing in Dodge.
The setting for Gunsmoke was the by now famous Dodge City, circa 1870’s. Phrases like “get out of Dodge” would enter the popular lexicon as a result of this resilient series. Marshall Dillon (Arness) was charged with keeping the peace in Dodge City. The only other character to see the entire 20 year run was kindly Doc Adams (Stone). Star Trek’s own Doc, Leonard McCoy, took many of his traits from Doc Adams. He was the humanitarian of the city, always looking to help someone. Like McCoy, he had a taste for bourbon and a soft heart underneath a rather gruff exterior and was always ready with free advice. Dillon’s love interest throughout most of the series was Miss Kitty Russell (Blake). While there were certainly a few romantic undercurrents, the romance never came to fruition. Miss Kitty was a prostitute on the radio and was likely one here as well, but CBS chose to underplay that aspect of her character as a “saloon girl”. Finally Dillon’s faithful sidekick deputy was Chester (Weaver). Chester often found himself in trouble and was the naïve son figure to Dillon.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2009
Infected is one of those many made for television films that appear on the Sci-Fi, I mean Sy-Fy Channel almost weekly, I mean weakly. Most of them are relatively low budget affairs that utilize very low grade CG f/x and often actors that haven’t been getting a lot of steady work in the legitimate world. It amazes me, actually. How can a network dedicated to science fiction consistently produce some of the worst movies in the genre? You would think that after a hundred of these things that they would have to get it right once in a while. The law of averages almost demands it. Instead, week to week, month to month, and year to year, the worst the genre has to offer finds its way as “original” movies on the network.
Infected is a sort of V meets The Arrival. A band of evil aliens have arrived on Earth to help them to repopulate their species. The somehow arrive at the idea they can best do this by setting up a bottled water company and selling humans plague tainted water. Of course, no one catches on, and the company grows to conglomerate size in no time. Enter a pair of reporters. Ben (Bellows) and Lisa (Roy). Of course, they used to be an item and now have trust issues working together on a tabloid. When the mayor is killed, a sample of his blood is retrieved and finds its way to the couple. Tests prove it is some wacked out hemoglobin. The clues eventually lead to the bottling company and its boss, Peter Whitefield (Dinsmore) who is actually a big insect under his fake human skin. The plot unravels and Ben discovers he has a natural immunity which he can use to fight off those pesky grasshopper things. And we all live happily ever after. Naturally, there’s a government cover up. Invasion? What invasion? We know nothing about no stinkin’ invasion?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2009
“Life is a tightrope. You’ve got to learn to dance.”
We’ve all had bad days. Everyone can relate to that. We’ve all had moments when we weren’t at our best, when we’ve said or done something in the heat of the moment that wasn’t exactly our most shining moment. We can only hope that these momentary lapses of reason don’t cause permanent harm to ourselves or to others. We can only plead our case that we aren’t ultimately defined by these brief acts of frustration brought about by mitigating circumstances. Most of the time we get lucky. Sometimes that fleeting moment isn’t so fleeting. Some times you have a bad day, all of it. That’s the premise behind this Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Affleck vehicle.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2009
Director Brad Anderson and writer Scott Kosar were unable to find backing or support from any of the American studios when they were shopping this movie. Apparently there were worries that it wasn’t very commercially viable. It turns out they were correct. The film made just over $1 million in domestic box office. That’s not a mistake. I meant $1 million. Even the foreign market came up short, coughing up only an additional $7 million total. Because of the lack of interest here in the States, the duo went to the Spanish government and received a grant. The grant required the film to be made in Spain and include Spanish cast members. But the movie kept its California setting and shot Barcelona for California, and not very effectively either. The truth is, there’s a lot more wrong with this film than just the lack of studio interest and its forced European locations. The team missed a grand opportunity here. They got to shoot in a rather exotic location but never took advantage of the wonderful surroundings. Instead they insisted on keeping the film urban, and in the end rather generic. The only solid set piece is the machine shop, which was filmed in a working plant.
Trevor Reznik (Bale) is a very odd man. We find him a year into a rather dramatic and steady decline. He hasn’t slept in over a year. He is losing weight to the point of emaciation. He works as a machinist for National Machine, where his bosses think he’s taking drugs and his coworkers don’t like him either. None of that is helped when his inability to focus causes another man, Miller (Ironside) to lose his arm in a machine. The only companionship he has is a hooker, Stevie (Leigh) who he pays a hundred bucks a pop and his café waitress, Marie (Sanchez-Gijon) who serves him coffee and pie. His decline appears to accelerate when he meets an apparent new employee at National. Ivan (Sharian) is a monster of a man with whom Trevor becomes obsessed. He leaves little post-it notes to remind him to do everyday things, but these notes usually disappear, replaced instead with cryptic messages and a hangman game. As his mind and body deteriorate, he becomes increasingly paranoid. His mind is pushing him to accept a reality that is not going to be pleasant.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2009
“3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was still a child. As before, the resistance was able to send a lone warrior, a protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first.”
When Arnie told us that he’d be back, he wasn’t kidding. Not only has this film been through three cuts of the film itself, but this is at least the 9th home video release of the movie and the second on the young Blu-ray high definition format. Lionsgate is doing everything it can to squeeze as much out of us as possible. I don’t blame them, really. But, is it too soon to release a second Blu-ray of the same movie? Yes, I think that it is. I might not feel quite so bad about the whole thing if I didn’t suspect that there will be another one within the year. With the theatrical release of Terminator: Salvation and the inevitable home video versions of that film, likely by Christmas, my crystal ball predicts a third T2 Blu-ray by the end of this year or the first quarter of the next.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 21st, 2009
It’s hard to imagine that this was only Pixar’s second ever feature length CG animated release. While Toy Story was the first, this was actually Pixar’s first film as an independent company. So, for many of us it feels like their first film. There must have been a tremendous amount of pressure on the young team. Toy Story was a break out smash hit that captured the hearts of audiences of all ages. Now on their own the team led by John Lasseter was determined to prove that Toy Story was no fluke and that they could stand on their own feet and continue the tradition of excellence they established from the first frame of their first picture. The film never approached the status of Toy Story, but it would prove that these guys were for real. The film broke new ground with its realistic environments, expressive characters, and solid writing. No one was going to be surprised as the company cranked out exceptional movie after exceptional movie. A Bugs Life fit the Pixar mold perfectly.
Flik (Foley) is a rather inventive ant. He’s always coming up with new and improved ways of doing things. Unfortunately, many of these ideas just miss the mark and end up causing more harm than good. His efforts aren’t helped by the fact that he has the hots for the Princess Atta (Louis-Dreyfus). Mr. Soil (McDowall) has the ants very busy gathering food to offer up to the grasshoppers, who depend on the ants for food to keep them through the winter. Failure to deliver is not an option, at least if the ants don’t want some serious beat downs from the grasshopper gang, led by Hopper (Spacey). The last bit of food is finally gathered just as the gang is about to arrive. But at the last minute Flik inadvertently dumps the cache into the water. When Hopper’s gang arrives, there’s no food. Hopper gives the ants until the last leaf falls from the trees to deliver their winter food or he will kill the Queen (Diller). Of course, everybody blames Flik, so when he comes up with an idea that he should go out into the world in search of warrior bugs to help them defeat the Hopper gang, Princess Atta goes for the idea. She doesn’t expect him to succeed, but at least he’ll be out of the way while the ants try and gather enough food for Hopper and themselves. But Flik does succeed …almost. He encounters a troupe of circus performer bugs, and through a series of misunderstandings sets off back home with his new friends in tow. He believes they are great warriors. They think he’s taking them home to play a circus gig. The warrior/circus bugs include: Slim (Hyde Pierce) a walking stick, Heimlich (Ranft) a German caterpillar, Francis (Leary) a sexually confused “lady”bug, Manny (Harris) a preying mantis with a flair for Shakespeare, Gypsy (Kahn) a moth, Rosie (Hunt) a black widow spider, and the two identical pill bugs Tuck and Roll. When they arrive home, the ants are overjoyed with Flik’s unexpected success. That is, until they discover that the “warriors” are merely performers when their boss Mr. Flea (Ratzenberger) rolls into town looking for them. When the Hopper gang arrives, they have no choice but to put up a fight, led by baby Dot (Panettiere) and her scouts.
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