Posts by Gino Sassani

12 Angry Men is one of those rare films that appears to defy all the Hollywood constants and yet become one of the best films of its kind ever made. The setting is entirely too claustrophobic. With the exception of two bookend scenes the entire film takes place in the tight quarters of a jury deliberation room. The story had only a couple of years earlier been the subject of a live television drama, so the story was far from a fresh idea. The director was a complete unknown who had not at that point directed a major picture.

Jim Phelps (Graves) led his team in a fourth season of Mission Impossible starting in 1969. The show continued its trademark traditions. Jim would receive a mission from the “self destructing” tape and would gather his IMF (Impossible Mission Force) team. The team was necessarily eclectic in nature, and it changed significantly in the fourth season. Gone were Martin Landau in his signature role of Rollin Hand and Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter, model and the team’s chief seductress 

In the first season of The 4400 we are introduced to 4400 people who, we are led to believe, have recently returned from being abducted by aliens. Before you can look for Samantha Mulder among the group, we eventually discover that it was in reality the future that abducted these hundreds for nefarious reasons of their own. Some abductees have returned with mysterious powers and abilities. No, this is not Heroes or X-Men; in fact it’s a lot more like The X-Files than anything else, particularly in this the final season.

Who says no one likes a guy who’s negative all he time? Becker has got to be one of the most cynical, grumpy, and negative characters to grace our sit-com screens. He’s a guy you probably love to hate, and he’s also hilarious. Ted Danson spent over a decade behind the bar at Cheers and could have easily called it a career. You know, stop while you’re ahead. Instead he climbed right back into the television saddle and reemerged as Dr. Becker.

In the 1940’s Walt Disney was asked by President Roosevelt to take a good will tour across Latin America as an ambassador of sorts. He declined the invitation, protesting that he wasn’t the handshaking kind and that the cause would be better served using someone else. Not to be deterred, Roosevelt made a counter offer. What if Walt would go to Latin America with a film contingent and then create some kind of a production out of the tour. A government subsidy was even offered. Walt accepted the invite but turned down the subsidy.

So here we are again with a third collection of episodes from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series. This final series is called Years Of Change. Most of the episodes and features deal with the span of years between the World Wars. The 20’s were indeed an inventive time when people like Thomas Edison were at their peak. Peace was at hand, and no one really knew for how little time it would last. Most people had extra money and life was one big party. From our 21st Century hindsight, we know it was all doomed to come crashing down before the decade ended

If you’re a fan of Perry Mason you need to approach this 50th Anniversary collection with mixed feelings. With no new announcements of future season or half season releases, this set does have the look of finality to it. The last set was the second half of season 2 released November of 2007. With this commorative release you get 12 episodes spread out from the remaining seasons starting with the third. While Paramount has made no such announcement, I get the feeling the powers that be are at least pondering the idea of stopping the run.

Cheers was that kind of place that songs have been written about. Billy Joel’s Piano Man describes such a place where the patrons are, for the most part, regulars and pretty much family. In the days before huge screen televisions and satellite networks, Cheers would likely have been considered a sports bar. In those days the sports was more the talk of the place and not merely gathering to watch 127 games at a time. The bar’s owner was Sam Malone (Danson). Sam was a washed up baseball player for the local Boston Red Sox.

I was just a kid when Laverne and Shirley became a successful spinoff from Happy Days in the 1970’s, and while I remember that it was on often in our home I could not have recited any episodes from memory. Like most of my generation, I remembered the enigmatic opening rhyme from the show’s opening segment, and like most kids then I couldn’t pronounce it and still can’t; don’t even ask me to spell it here.

Does ultra realism make for a better movie? There have certainly been examples of startling realistic moments in cinema that have been quite effective, but mostly because they create an experience for us that actually reaches us in a way that we’ll never be able to forget. The storming of Normandy in Saving Private Ryan was one such incidence. Those of us who have never been to war walked away from that scene feeling like we’ve now experienced the closest thing possible without actually being there.