Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2022
We mostly deal with movies and television shows here at Upcomingdiscs. As the name implies discs are what we're all about. But once in a while we find something we just have to tell you about. Many times we take a look at books written by or about the film industry folks. It's rare when I came upon a novel that I just have to tell you about. It's Alive is deserving of that rare post. Written by Julian David Stone the novel takes us back to the Hollywood of the 1930's. It's the very first days of the "talkies" when actors first spoke on film. It was the height of the "studio system" where stars were at the beck and call of the studios who paid their salaries. It was also the rise of Carl Laemmle, Jr. or Junior to those who knew him. His father, Carl Sr founded Universal Studios and now it was Junior's turn to shine. It's just days before the production start on Frankenstein and Junior still can't convince his father that these horror films are going to launch Universal into the future. Worse. He still hadn't decided who would play the pivotal role of The Monster. Bela Lugosi was intended for the role following his hit in Dracula but he was playing hard to get. There was this other guy discovered by the film's director, James Whale. He was an unknown small-bit actor by the name of Boris Karloff. We all know how it turned out. Now go deep inside and see how it almost didn't happen. I read the book and I loved it. I also got the chance to spend some of my Memorial Day Monday talking with the book's author. Now you get to eavesdrop on that conversation and let us take you back to 1931. Bang it here to listen to my interview with Julian David Stone.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2022
"There are among us a people, gifted with a perfect memory of all their past lives. They call themselves Infinites. Among the Infinites, two groups have vied for power. On one side the Believers, dedicated to using their knowledge for the protection and growth of all humanity. Against them stood the Nihilists, who see this power as a curse. New technologies have given the Nihilists an opportunity to end all life on Earth, and the race is on for its control."
Infinite is an adapted story from D. Eric Maikranz's novel The Reincarnation Papers. On the surface this is one of those great concepts that could support a film franchise, and might have accomplished just that if the film itself hadn't taken the route of spectacle over substance. It doesn't help that this film was hurt by the COVID shutdown of productions and never ended up with the wide release it was originally intended to have. Still, the wide-release budget appears to have remained intact, and for a direct streaming or home video release it looks awesome, and that's pretty much where my praise ends.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2022
"Let me speak to you directly and from the heart."
My first exposure to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance wasn't the film at all. It was the song (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was a 1962 hit song by Gene Pitney and was written to be included in the film. I wouldn't really be taken with the song until James Taylor would cover it and have his own hit with the song in 1985 with his album That's Why I'm Here. By then I'd seen the film but only on late-night television broadcasts which offered bad transfers and plenty of commercials that caused the film to be chopped by over 26 minutes. The funny thing about the song is that while it was written to be included in the film, it actually never appears. Director John Ford thought it sounded too modern and suggested it would only weaken the film and insisted it not be used. It's almost unfortunate that at the time the song actually received more commercial success than the film did. Now you have a much better opportunity to check out this often overlooked classic, because Paramount has remastered the film and released on UHD Blu-ray and in glorious 4K.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2022
“They think I’m hiding in the shadows, but I am the shadows.”
You have certain expectations when you go to a superhero/comic book movie. Sure, it changes a little depending on the character that you’re going to see. But there are certain things that all of these films tend to have in common. There’s an expectation of frantic action and some mind-bending special f/x. You’re looking for colorful villains who tend to act over-the-top and always provide that gentle wink back at the audience. When these expectations aren’t met, audiences tend to be disappointed, and big-budget films can end up costing the studios hugely in the end. Even as we appear to be reaching the last days of the limited pandemic crowds, that risk gets multiplied. It also doesn’t help if audiences are still riding the high off the first big global billion-dollar film in almost three years. That’s the kind of headwinds The Batman is facing when audiences line up to see the return of one of the oldest and most famous heroes in comic history. What if I were to tell you that you won’t get a lot of any of those things, but you’re going to love it anyway? That’s exactly what I am telling you about Warner Brothers’ newest Batman film, simply titled The Batman.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2022
"Who's the wolf now, Ray?"
For all intents and purposes, Season 7 was the final season of Ray Donovan. The end came rather suddenly, and after it was too late to create and film some kind of satisfying finale for the series. The cast and crew were taken by surprise, so you can imagine how the fans of the show were taking this. To make matters worse, the last episode, while not a complete cliffhanger, leaves too many strands of thread that weren't connected. There's nothing satisfying about the finale, and that created waves in the world of fandom. Star Trek is famous for being the first television show that a network cancelled and then brought back because of a huge letter-writing campaign that flooded network executives and pushed them into an unprecedented action for that time. The show was brought back. Imagine what those rabid fans could have done today with the internet and social media. The call went out, and while Showtime had made no move to offer any kind of reversal or concession, the show's star reached out with a somewhat cryptic message of hope. He assured fans that the Donovan family wasn't finished just yet. The result is a Showtime film like we saw recently for Deadwood. The film has aired and is now out on DVD so that fans can finally own as completed a collection as they are going to get.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2022
From the bouncing opening music by Glenn Fry to the final frame of Eddie Murphy's smile, Beverly Hills Cop had established itself as a classic. The movie had a complicated history, and it's a kind of miracle that the version we know ever happened at all. The movie was originally conceived as a straight action film with the plan to have either Al Pacino or Clint Eastwood in the title role. At that point the script was called Beverly Drive. When they couldn't get Al or Clint, they turned to Sylvester Stallone, and Sly took the role. He took the script and rewrote it to fit his own particular style. The main character's name went from Axel Foley to Cabretti so that he could be called The Cobra. The problem with Sly's version is that the cost was rising higher than the execs at Paramount were willing to put out. Sly was offered another film to drop Beverly Hills Cop. He took his rewrites with him, and they eventually formed the nucleus of his movie Cobra. The rest of the film had already been cast, so imagine their surprise when the action movie they thought they were making with Rocky turned into a comedy/drama starring the Saturday Night Live but unproven box office comedian Eddie Murphy.
The result changed the face of the cop movie forever. With Beverly Hills Cop, the comic buddy cop film was born, and imitations follow to this very day. This was when Eddie Murphy was still hungry. Axel Foley is filled with drive and energy and loaded with charm. Murphy ended up adlibbing a lot of the material, but in those days he was a generous actor and was known for being very good at setting up his co-stars with great material to go with. He didn't feel the need to steal every scene; the truth is he didn't have to. The camera loved him then, and he was a natural. It didn't hurt that the supporting cast here was also very good. Judge Reinhold and John Ashton had wonderful chemistry as the Beverly Hills detectives Rosewood and Taggert respectively. Neither performer has been in a better movie or had better roles before or since. Finally, there was Gilbert R. Hall as Axel's boss, Inspector Todd. While scouting police stations in Detroit, Brest found this particular actor working as a genuine detective in the Detroit police department. He's quite a catch and adds a great dose of authenticity in his few scenes with Murphy. The film didn't get him a switch to movies, however. He only did the three Beverly Hills Cop movies, but he did use his bit of fame to become a Detroit councilman and even ran for the office of mayor of Detroit.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 18th, 2022
"Susie, one of the longest borders on earth is right here between your country and mine. An open border. Fourteen hundred miles without a single machine gun in place. Yeah, I suppose that all sounds very corny to you."
Orson Welles was a huge personality in Hollywood both in his stature and his work. Taking a controversial poke at media giant Randolph Hearst, he struggled against fierce odds to direct a film that is often considered the best, or at least one of the best films ever made. Of course, I'm talking about Citizen Kane. I happen to believe the first two Godfather films are better, but there's little doubt that Citizen Kane was a masterpiece. Because it was so good and because Welles never functioned well in the Hollywood system of his age, his other films often get overlooked. Touch Of Evil is one of those films, and in many ways it's just as good or better than Citizen Kane. Like that film and pretty much everything Welles ever did, it came with plenty of controversy and behind-the-scenes drama. But Welles was used to that by 1958, so he should have known better. Still, this is the guy who scared the crap out of this country 20 years earlier with the Mercury Broadcasting presentation of H.G. Wells' (no relation) War Of The Worlds. His infamy would follow him the rest of his life with one project or another.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on May 6th, 2022
"You cannot control everything, Strange. You opened a doorway between universes, and we don't know who or what will walk through it."
The last time that director Sam Raimi played in the Marvel sandbox it was on the third of his own Spider-Man trilogy featuring Tobey Maguire in the webslinger's role. Since then he's kind of gone back to his horror roots and even returned to the Evil Dead franchise with a television series that continued the exploits of Bruce Williams as Ash. It's only fitting that he would see both of these worlds collide in a perfect storm that allows him to once again recreate that old 4-color universe on the big screen with both a connection to Spider-Man and his horror roots. The result is the latest MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) that picks up right where Spider-Man: No Way Home left off. Of course, I'm talking about Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. The story pretty much picks up where we left things in the recent Spidey adventure as well as picking up some threads dropped on the Disney + shows, most notably Wanda Vision. It's a twisted nightmarish corner of the MCU that we haven't truly explored to this extent before and the results might not come close to the wonderful ride we took recently with our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man but it's a nice detour from the typical that also sets the stage for quite a few other surprises that I really won't be able to tell you about... at least not yet.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 5th, 2022
Edgar G. Ulmer started his career working for the early German masters of Expressionism like Fritz Lang and F. W. Marnau. He set out on his own doing ethnic films in the Ukraine before coming to America and trying his hand here. His most notable film has to be the 1934 The Black Cat, which brought Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi together for the first time and remains a classic to this very day. Unfortunately for Ulmer, he fell in love with the wife of Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Pictures. He later married Shirley, but the result was he was barred from every major studio in Hollywood. He had a huge box office success in 1934 with Universal, but his affair in 1936 ended any chance he would get to ride that future. He was relegated to the independent studios where he had little money and a hard time getting good actors or distribution.
Now his films are pretty much cult classics and have inspired future big names like Joe Dante and Steven Spielberg. If you've seen any of his films, it’s from late night television edits or bad bootleg VHS copies you bought at horror conventions. Kino Classics has brought three of these films together in one collection of three discs that include many historical audio commentaries and a few nice features on the director. This is going to take you back to a different era in small-budget films. Edgar G. Ulmer knew how to use a small budget, and now you get to discover, or if you're like me, rediscover these classics in HD for the first time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 29th, 2022
"What's the word for when you're bad at expressing yourself... Speechless."
The story has been around for centuries. After Dickens' A Christmas Carol and Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet, it might well be one of the most imitated stories on film and television. There have been countless plays on the Cyrano themes, from The Brady Bunch to Friends. It's a timeless story first portrayed in a stage production by Edmund Rostand in 1897, but the story goes back to the life of an actual historic figure from the mid-17th century. Of course, his life has been highly made up and likely little to nothing remains of fact from the actual person. The play was a hit, and the general ideas presented there remain popular to this very day. Now there's yet another screen version based on a play written by Erica Schmidt, who happens to be the wife of Peter Dinklage's wife. I was honestly not looking forward to the new film adaptation of Schmidt's adaptation of Rostand's adaptation of literary works going back to the 17th century. It's frankly been done to death, and the last thing I wanted to see was Peter Dinklage, as good an actor as he is, with a huge nose walking around trying not to be laugh-your-butt-off funny. Unfortunately, it was awards season, and I needed to see anything I could get the chance to see before my own votes were due. Fortunately, the film wasn't anything like I expected, and if I had checked out the modern play in which Dinklage also played the character on stage, I would have known that and been much more open to seeing the film. It was duty that brought me to that press screening. It was the chance to see a truly great film again that led to me jumping at the opportunity to review this Universal Blu-ray release. And by the way, there aren't any large noses to be found anywhere in the film.
