Posts by Gino Sassani

Shonda Rhimes had a big hit on her hands with Grey’s Anatomy, so after five years she did what comes naturally in her situation. You spin the success off in the hope that the fans just can’t get enough in just one night. At first it appeared to me she had chosen the wrong character to put out on her own. I mean, I never considered Kate Walsh as Addison to be one of the show’s more compelling characters. The show was presented as what the business calls an imbedded episode on Grey’s.

If you come to this DVD set in the hopes of discovering something to do with Jason or even his machete wielding momma, you will be very disappointed. There is no Camp Crystal Lake, and no one’s wearing a hockey mask. The fact is that this series, syndicated from Canada, had absolutely nothing to do with the film franchise. They have no characters in common. They have no connection to the stories in the film franchise. Basically the name is the only thing they share.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. No, I’m not having a Charles Dickens flashback or reliving Star Trek II. I’m pondering the release of this new Fan Collective featuring alternate realities. This new 5 disc collection brings together episodes from all 5 live action television Star Trek shows. They all deal with some adventure into a twisted or fabricated reality outside of the Trek universe we already know. Of course, that covers a lot of ground when you’re talking about Star Trek

To the point, Criminal Minds is very compelling television. Ever since The Silence Of The Lambs and perhaps long before, we have been fascinated by serial killers and the profilers who try to get inside their heads. To see evidence of the continuing trend, one needs only look toward the success of films like Zodiac and shows like Dexter. Of course, serial killers are not the only prey this FBI team pursues, but they are certainly the marquee item on the agenda.

The Alvin Collection is another group of episodes of The Chipmunks from their popular Saturday Morning series, Alvin And The Chipmunks. The shorts are not theme related as some of the other recent sets have been. The stories range from the film inspired Romancing Miss Stone to the globe trotting episodes like Maids In Japan or The Curse Of The Lontiki. They aired originally between 1983 and 1987, but many of them have sprung up in syndication up to the present day. There are 14 episodes in all, lasting a little over 20 minutes each.

Duckman began life as an underground comic created by Everett Peck. It gathered to itself quite a cult following, and like all such things caught the attention of Hollywood. The USA Network took a chance on the quirky property and cast Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander to voice the crude character. And so Duckman’s wife was killed, and he was forced to rent his own house from his sister-in-law who was left the estate by Duckman’s wife.

It’s unfortunate that the writers’ strike interrupted the second season of Brothers & Sisters. I was looking forward to finding out if the writers were going to live up to the amazing on camera talent they had speaking their words. What I found was pretty much more of the same, and a quickly eroding patience with the series. I guess the writers had a little more on their mind this year. More’s the pity.

The Godfather films changed storytelling forever. Films before that time, mobster or otherwise, had some very simple but unshakable rules. There was always a fairly clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys always win in the end, and the bad guys always succumb to justice before the final credits. For perhaps the very first time, we were given characters that we knew in our souls were evil men. They killed. They broke laws. They manipulated everyone around them through fear and terrorism to bend to their wills. Somehow, now they are the film’s core heroes, if you will. When Vito is shot, we cheer for Michael, who discards his contempt for his family’s criminal image and comes to his father’s aid.

The 70’s and 80’s were fertile ground for horror films. It was a new era of iconic monsters. Starting with Michael Myers and Jason, the trend that gave us Freddy seemed to be at the end of its run by the late 1980’s. Certainly sequels were still being churned out, but it seemed like we’d seen the last of these maniacal monsters, at least for a while. But before it petered out, the cycle would supply our nightmares with one more notable denizen…Chucky. Today Chucky paces the sidelines here in Tampa as the head coach of the local NFL franchise

The character of Charlie Chan was created by writer Earl Derr Biggers in 1925 in the book A House Without A Key. He based the character on real life Honolulu detective Chang Apana. Like the fictional Chan, Apana was a detective of Chinese descent on the island. In the first three films, all based on Biggers novels, the character was played by three different actors. It wasn’t until 1933 that Warner Oland took the part in a long series of films that the character gained his worldwide fame. When Oland died in 1938 the series continued with actor Sidney Toler in the title role.