Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 22nd, 2022
"There are some aspects of the life of an Earth savage that are exciting and rewarding; things that are missed by the brains on my planet Arous."
When I was a kid going to the drive-in movies was a pretty big deal. In those days your parents would hide you under a blanket on the back seat floor or even in the trunk just to shave off a buck from the admission price. I don't think the guys running those things really minded. It was kind of an open secret, and after saving a dollar or two, my pop would blow ten times that at the concession stands. He thought he was pulling one over on the management, but I think he was the one getting snookered. Still, it was a good time, and my mom and sisters usually fell asleep before the first of what was always a double feature even started. They were getting a little sleep, but I was getting an education. It was there along with the Friday night Shock Theatre shows on television that I was first introduced to Hammer's horror films, AIP's Poe classics, and countless schlock features from the likes of Roger Corman and William Castle. Someone at Corinth Films must have shared that kind of experience as a kid, because they've done the old double-feature nights one better with the release of Drive-In Retro Classics: Science Fiction Triple Feature. It's three low-budget science fiction gems that predate my years at the drive-in. These films go back to the decade of the birth of low-budget sci-fi: the 1950's. They're all found on a single DVD, so don't expect great picture or audio quality here. But if you're like me, you've been watching these things on fourth-generation bootleg VHS copies for the last 20 years. Corinth goes one better there, too. Each of them only runs 10 minutes or so over an hour, so it's not as cramped on this disc as you might expect. These are films that were curated by Wade Williams back in 2000 and found together for this entertaining release.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 22nd, 2022
"You know, things change. Sometimes not so much ..."
Someone at CBS must have eaten a lot of alphabet soup as a kid. Today the longest running show is NCIS, about to enter it's 20th season along with a couple of sibling shows, one of which is also in double-digit seasons. It also happens to be their highest rated show over many of those 20 years. Before NCIS was crowned champ it, was another assortment of letters that reigned supreme at the eye network. That was CSI. It was the show that never looked like it had a chance. The series substituted lab work montages for car chases and explosions and featured a lot of talking heads that delivered some of televisions deepest techno-babble. Didn't stand a chance. The flagship series lasted 15 years, while three sibling shows tacked on another 15 years before the franchise left the airwaves in 2015 after a television film appeared to wrap up the original series. Now it's seven years later, and television has been swept by a new trend. It's called the revival series. A ton of once popular shows have come back for "limited" runs. It all started with 24, and Fox was the king of the revival series at the start, bringing back The X-Files and Prison Break for the same treatment. And while CBS has made their own trend of remaking older shows like Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver and Magnum P.I. they have only recently entered the revival market. Criminal Minds will be back for at least a limited run of episodes and CSI is returning as a full-fledged series by going back to where it all started in Vegas. The result is the release of CSI:Vegas Season 1 on DVD from CBS Home Entertainment.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 20th, 2022
"If you expect disappointment, you will never be disappointed."
That's the trouble with sequels. The filmmakers feel this great responsibility to give us more than they've given us before with no thought to the idea that more is often less. There has never been a truly great comic book hero film that had extra villains. It just doesn't work. You can't give enough time and back story to everybody, so you have to cheat somewhere and cut a few corners. Those corners are things like characterization and heart. But what if you could? I mean, seriously. What if it were possible to do a multi-villain comic book movie that was really good? Until just now, I would have thought it was impossible. But isn't that what the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been doing for over 20 years now? Isn't that what comic books have been delivering since the 1930's when an alien baby stole the hearts of millions? Aren't they in the business of doing the impossible? Spider-Man: No Way Home has done the impossible. There are five ... count them ... five villains, and this is the best Spider-Man film of them all. The pandemic might not be over, but the box-office drought will be. Spider-Man is set to break all post-COVID records, and there's just one reason why. This movie reminds us why we used to go there in the first place. A movie that feeds the 10-year old Spider-Man comics fan inside of me and the adult looking for some real entertainment from my center seat in an IMAX theater. Run. Don't walk. Run. Take your precautions, of course. But run. Run to the box office, and remember:
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on April 8th, 2022
When I was a young boy I loved playing with my toys. We had some cool toys back then. Major Matt Mason, plastic dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, and Creepy Crawlers Thingmaker sets. Yeah, in those days a toy could cause third-degree burns and no one really worried about getting sued. Kind of takes the fun out of being a kid today. You know who else, I bet, loved to play with his toys? Michael Bay. I bet he had the coolest toys in his neighborhood. He probably wasn't the best guy to be friends with, however. He didn't invite the kids over to play with his toys. He likely charged you a nickel to watch him play with them. It's many decades later, and Michael still has the coolest toys on the block. Only now you have to cough up twenty bucks if you want to watch him playing with them. I'll bet he wasn't the best guy to lend your toys too, either. He probably loved breaking stuff. There were likely plenty of toy casualties in the Bay home in those days. So you didn't want him playing with your toys. Michael is still breaking a lot of toys. For a while he used giant robots to do his dirty work. Now he kinda feels like he's played that game enough. Now he's back to breaking cars ... lots of cars. Ambulance is Bay's latest adrenaline fix, and the damage is considerable. But is it worth the 20 bucks this time around?
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Will Sharp. He's a desperate man. He's returned from a tour of duty serving his country, and his wife needs surgery that is considered experimental so not covered by insurance. He needs a couple hundred grand or he's going to lose his wife. He tells her he's going on a job interview, but he's really going to see his brother Danny, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Their father was a renowned criminal who wouldn't hesitate to kill while robbing banks. Danny ropes his brother into a robbery that will pull in many millions for each member of the crew. Of course, things go sideways, and the next thing you know a cop's been shot, and the two brothers hijack the ambulance taking him to the hospital along with a young EMT named Cam Thompson, played by Eiza Gonzalez. It might sound thin, but that's pretty much the plot behind Michael Bay's Ambulance.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 31st, 2022
"Hello, Dexter Morgan."
It's been almost 10 years since everyone's favorite serial killer disappeared into a hurricane and left the airwaves with a somewhat unsatisfying series finale. It wasn't quite as bad as David Chase's ill-conceived hard cut that ended The Sopranos, but unlike David Chase, Team Dexter gets a second chance to get the ending right. With the death of actor James Gandolfini, Chase won't ever get the opportunity to give Tony Soprano a better exit. But Dexter gets the sendoff he should have had back in 2013 with the limited revival series Dexter: New Blood. The 10-episode run returns Michael C. Hall to the role of Dexter Morgan. You don't want to break into these episodes without taking time to watch the original series. That's going to set you back about 96 hours, but the investment is necessary if you're going to truly appreciate this return. You can check out our reviews of those previous seasons by banging it right here: Dexter Reviews. I'll wait....
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 31st, 2022
"Where there's life ... there's hope. Bob Hope, that is."
Few American entertainers have had a career to match that of Bob Hope. He lived 100 years and spent over 80 of those years in the entertainment industry. He appeared in over 70 films, wrote various books, and has over 300 appearance credits to his name on television and radio. He cut out a niche for himself during World War II that carried him through the Korean War and the war in Vietnam. He conducted literally hundreds of appearances for GI's out in the field, performing sometimes for audiences at the front. He brought a ton of his celebrity friends and was Mr. USO for decades. An honest look at his career is impossible here. Thanks to the folks over at Kino, we have the opportunity to explore a couple of his films from the 1940's. You can pick up each of them on Blu-ray now, and we'll give you an idea of what you're going to get for your money.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 24th, 2022
"You look terrible. I want you to eat, I want you to rest well. And a month from now this Hollywood big shot's gonna give you what you want."
The Hollywood big shot has just given me what I want. Paramount releases The Godfather Trilogy on UHD Blu-ray in wonderful 4K. It's an offer none of us can refuse. 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. Suddenly this wasn’t just about a gang of mobsters. This was a story about a family. Most of us can’t relate to the mafia ins and outs, but we all have fathers, and even when we dislike what our fathers represent, we will more often than not come to their aid if they’re being threatened. This unique morality paved the way for an entire genre of such characters today. There just couldn’t have been a Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey without The Godfather. While there were certainly protests from aspects of the Italian-American community decrying the violent way our ethnicity was portrayed, most of us from that community saw more than violence and Mafioso. If you’re from an Italian family, you simply can’t help recognizing aspects of your own family in the Corleones. I could see my own grandfather in Vito, sans the mob boss occupation. Many of us took away the strict codes of honor and respect that drive Italian-Americans to this day in very normal lives. We’re a very passionate people, even if most of us are not part of an organized criminal element.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 10th, 2022
"It's called life."
Kevin Costner plays John Dutton. The name itself recalls those years as a kid watching the myriad western shows that crossed our television screens throughout the 50's and 60's. He's the owner of Yellowstone Ranch, which takes up hundreds of square miles and borders on the national park of the same name, which we never do get to see. What we do see are the other borders of the Yellowstone. It borders a large and mostly impoverished Native American reservation. All of this takes place in the open ranges of Montana, where the Yellowstone Ranch looks very much like the fabled Shiloh of The Virginian. There's the big mansion where Dutton and some of his family live and the bunkhouse where the cowboys who work the cattle sleep, play cards, eat, and fight. Looking over the scenery, one can almost imagine you were back in the days of the untamed frontier. John Dutton might have some old-fashioned ideas of how to make a living, but he's a rich man who uses modern technology when it serves him.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 9th, 2022
"My name is Kara Zor-El. When I was younger, my home planet was dying. Saving it was hopeless. My father sent me to Earth to take care of my baby cousin who went before me, and I thought we were the only two survivors, and that everyone else from our planet was dead, including my father. I can't lose him again."
They say all good things must come to an end, and for the fans of CW's Supergirl, that end has finally arrived. Arrow started it all so many years ago and has been off the air a couple of years even though the CW DC universe has been coined The Arrowverse. The Flash will remain as the likely flagship for the joined universe with Legends Of Tomorrow, Superman and Lois, and unfortunately Batwoman keeping the last embers alive. I suspect that it will all close shop within the next two years. It's been a good run with some exceptional superhero television and some memorable characters, but we're in the home stretch, to be sure. But you can't just step in after a decade of Arrowverse unseen. If you have not seen the show before, you must at least go back and check out the previous five seasons. It'll be worth the time. You can also take a look at all of our reviews of Supergirl here: Supergirl Reviews.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on March 3rd, 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 huge 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.
