Posts by Gino Sassani

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.

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.

“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’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.

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.

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?

“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.

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,

“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.

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