Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 20th, 2008
The box art on this film promises: “This campy splatterfest is 100% pure brainless fun”. Finally, truth in advertising. If you’re looking for anything else except what’s promised here, you really need to look elsewhere for some entertainment. But there is a place for this kind of thing, and if you’re willing to ask no questions, this movie will tell you no lies. I’m impressed that the makers of this movie never pretend to be anything else. All too often with these kinds of affairs you watch a feature or listen to a commentary and realize that these guys are taking themselves way too seriously. They act like they’re making high art, or some important classic milestone. Not so with these guys. They’re just having wicked fun, and they invite you to do the same.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 20th, 2008
Since the dawn of The Animal Planet we’ve seen an entire genre created around using real animal footage and providing a human story to go with it. In Meerkat Manor we are provided with a dramatic narration substituting human motivations for the actual activities captured by the film crew. In other instances voice over techniques are used to make the animals appear to talk. Movies like the Buddies series utilize this technique. With the help of a little CG, the animals appear to be speaking. In the case of Elephant Tales, however, there isn’t any effort to match the dialog to lip movement; in fact, there isn’t any effort to even remotely match the dialog to the animal’s activity at all. So, my first real complaint here is how random the footage appears and how totally unrelated to the dialog it is. The result is something like a Mystery Theater 3000 animal documentary edition. You might as well have provided the words yourself for all the difference it will make. Add to that a script that appears to be adlibbed the entire film, and what remains isn’t very interesting, even to the kids.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 18th, 2008
The Longshots is one of those sports films that in many ways you see coming from miles away. It certainly feeds upon that against all odds sports cliché that you’ve likely seen a hundred times if you’ve seen it once. But in so many other ways, this is a story with more than a champion’s heart and courage. In many ways it’s about family and redemption. While the film is based loosely on the story of Jasmine Plummer, it is just as much the story of her uncle Curtis, who was saving himself as he was trying to help his niece. I’m not a huge Ice Cube fan. Honestly, I find most of his characters to be an extension of the punk attitude he garnered as a rapper. But this role is significantly better than anything I’ve seen him do before. The part doesn’t necessarily call for a lot of chops to play, but Ice Cube does add a certain amount of sincerity to the role, without having to extend himself all that far. It almost looks effortless, like he’s sleepwalking through the part, but it leads to rather inspirational results when taken as a whole.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 18th, 2008
<>An-a-mor-pho-sis n. pl. An image distorted so that it can only be viewed without distortion from a certain angle or using specific instrumentation.
In the case of this direct to video thriller, our serial killer is using the aforementioned technique in his murders. He dismembers bodies and reassembles them so that they appear differently depending on how you view them. Obviously the killer considers himself a kind or artist. He justifies killing by remarking that the sacrifice of a single human life to bring such a work of art to humanity is a reasonable trade-off In this case, however, our killer is targeting an audience of one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 18th, 2008
This is the second half of the third season of Rawhide. Among the better episodes found in this collection are: Incident On The Road Back. Favor is accused of horse rustling. That means hangin’ in those days. In Incident Of The Boomerang, some cattle are off to the Land Down Under, but one of the men may not be who he says he is. Rowdy is arrested for murder… again. This time he’s accused of killing a deputy who was on his way to warn of an attack in Incident Of The Running
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 18th, 2008
The setting for Gunsmoke was the by now famous
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 15th, 2008
When I was young I used to love to eat oranges, but it wasn’t only the taste or the benefits of some good old fashioned vitamin C I was necessarily after. I would cut the fruit in half and then carefully peel the rind, attempting to keep the halves in one piece. I’d cut one of those pieces in half again. I would then place them around my mouth and there you’d have it… instant Apes makeup. Then I would twitch my face muscles to imitate Roddy McDowall’s clever facial movements intended to make the foam prosthetic pieces come alive.Talking through those orange rinds, I’d imagine I was one of those intrepid apes from the films or television series and have all sorts of ape adventures. My playtime had the extra unintended benefit of protecting me from colds. Of course, as an adult I have long since abandoned such childish ways and no longer fill my face with orange peels, at least while anyone else is looking. But the Apes films and shows have never lost their -- I guess you could call it appeal, for the 10 year old I still carry around inside. When Tim Burton went to work on his remake of the franchise, a little bit of that kid emerged, and I might have picked up an extra orange or two at the grocery, just in case. Unfortunately, while I am a fan of almost everything
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 15th, 2008
For 4 years now, Lost has taken us through mystery after mystery. I’m beginning to think that the show’s title is more a mission statement for where they want to take the viewers. Each time Abrams appears to answer a question and move on, closer examination proves that nothing has actually been revealed. The series has become the poster child for misdirection and script sleight of hand. When I examine the 13 episodes from season 4 I’m left with the inescapable, pun intended, feeling that nothing significant has really happened here at all. But at the same time it’s the most significant event of the series. All the while I find myself compelled to watch episode after episode. Abrams would have been a great drug dealer if that producing gig hadn’t worked out for him. The show started out with enough directions and plot devices to put our brains into overload. From that point on he’s been cutting each dose a little bit so that we find ourselves drawn to each hour fix chasing the high we got in the beginning. Of course, we already know we’re never going to feel that way again, but we’ll keep coming back for more as long as he continues to make us believe that we will. I’m not saying the show has declined at all. I’m saying that it doesn’t really ever go anywhere. Abrams continues to introduce major plot lines such as the hatch, the others, and now the freighter with promises of linking it all together into some kind of epiphany, and for a short time he actually does. But hindsight leaves us scratching our heads, because once we come down we can’t really explain what the high was all about. And so, we’ll continue to tune in or buy the DVD’s to see where it’s all headed, even if we already know that we’re doomed to remain lost no matter how it all ends.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by Gino Sassani on December 12th, 2008
Samuel Goldwyn’s endlessly quoted “If you want to send a message, call Western Union” is a dictum that films beyond counting have challenged, some more successfully than others. It’s a tricky balancing act – audiences tend to resent being preached at, but if the message is coupled with a strong story, the result can be powerful.
A certain degree of dispensation, it could be argued, hovers around the science fiction film. Science fiction has been called the literature of ideas. This is not as true about its cinematic cousin, as SF authors have frequently pointed out, but nonetheless, there are plenty of ideas, some better than others, popping out of the SF film. This is perhaps by virtue of it being part of the broader cinema of the fantastic, where the spectacle of the impossible invites audiences to interpret what they are seeing in a metaphorical or allegorical light. Some films, however, don’t leave things to chance, and are forthright in challenging the audience to engage with them at the level of ideas moreso than at the level of characterization, plot or spectacle. This isn’t to say that those last three elements are unimportant, but they can be put to the surface of the – dare I say it – philosophical project of the film. 2001: A Space Odyssey is epitome of this phenomenon. A more modest, but no less explicit, example would be 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 12th, 2008
Up to now we have not cared how you solved your petty squabbles. But if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned out cinder. Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace. Or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We will await your decision.
![Planet of the Apes [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/planet-of-the-apes-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Lost: The Complete Fourth Season [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/lost-the-complete-fourth-season-b-large.jpg)
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