Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 7th, 2007
The prologue to The Covenant tells us of people with supernatural powers. We're told of how these powerful warlocks and witches were hunted throughout Europe and escaped to the New England colonies in the New World. The information is provided with the contradictions of pseudogrunge music and pages of ancient texts. It doesn't take us long to meet young men, descendants from these immigrant families. We discover them flaunting their powers by jumping off a cliff on the way to a teen party.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 7th, 2007
The Force family is not your typical American Brady family. Then again, if they were, they wouldn’t be interesting enough to get their own reality television show. Still, just because you’re interesting doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will want to watch you. John Force is apparently the winningest drag racer in the sport’s history. His wife and three daughters live on his property but in a separate home. His daughters have decided to follow in Daddy Dearest’s track marks and are also circuit race car drivers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 13th, 2007
Bernardo Bertolucci is no stranger to controversy. His Last Tango In Paris caused quite a bit of noise when it was released. Novecento, as 1900 is known in its original Italian, has been a subject of controversy for decades. Since its 1976 original Italian release, American studios have been cautious about releasing the film in the states, at least as it was originally intended. First there is the running time. The film clocks in at over 5 hours. Theaters in the US face fierce competition for movie goers’ dollars.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 13th, 2007
Let me tell you something about myself. I am surrounded by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of snakes every day. As I write this review, there are about 500 snakes just a couple hundred feet away. I'm not on a plane, of course, but snakes are a big part of my life. I'm a snake breeder. I'm also a musician who has just released an entire CD of reptile tracks (see footnote). So it was with more than the little bit of curiosity that I just had to see this film. I knew everybody would be asking me what I thought. So what did I think?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 9th, 2007
When you consider the huge amount of acting inherent to the WWF, you might expect acting talents to dominate this WWE horror production. OK, of course you wouldn't. Still, acting is not where this film shines. The tired formula of teens in an isolated location who get picked off one by one is certainly nothing original, so the script doesn't offer any real shining moments either. So where exactly does this film take on a luster of its own? Truth be told? It doesn't. Of course, looking at the target audience, the film doesn't really need to.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 22nd, 2006
In case Rain Man didn’t give you your fill of films about autistic characters, Ron Bass, writer of Rain Man, has decided to give us an unnecessary sequel. OK, this isn’t really a sequel, but it might as well be. Honestly, this film has everything Rain Man had except for a good scripts, solid performances, and oh yeah, Dustin Hoffman. Still, this romantic nonsense utilizes the same theme. Unfortunately autism here is reduced at times to stereotyping that appears grossly unfair to the millions of people who suffer from the disability and their loved ones.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 20th, 2006
Dr. Katz is Frasier on LSD. This cartoon is based on stand-up Jonathan Katz and is psychobabble routine. Most of each episode centers on Dr. Katz and usually a couple of sessions with patients played by fellow stand-ups or other celebrities. While there is some humor here, none of it jumps out as rip-roaring funny. Then there’s the infamous “Squigglevision”. To me this makes the darn thing near impossible to watch. The gyrating animation gives me a headache. To review this set, I couldn’t watch more than one episode per sitting.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 20th, 2006
It started as “the show about nothing”, but we really know better. While some say it’s much ado about nothing, they’ve missed the point, haven’t they. Ask some folks, and they’ve got nothing to say. Well. If you can’t say something nice…
Jerry Seinfeld did what so many comics have failed to do well. It seems just about every stand-up out there thinks the stuff will work on television. Some of it does. Those that got the chance owe much to the success of Seinfeld. Like few sit-coms before it, the series was the hot topic at work water coolers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 20th, 2006
A twisted twist on the zombie genre. Dellamorte (Everett) is a watchman of sorts over a small village cemetery. The problem is not so much with folks breaking in as with the dead breaking out. In this neck of the woods the dead arise within 7 days of their death. A simple shot in the head solves the rather pesky problem; however, it requires a certain amount of vigilance. Now so far none of this is terribly original at all. Things begin to change when Dellamorte becomes infatuated with a mourning widow. Their escapades at her husband’s grave literally wake the dead.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 13th, 2006
The 1978 Superman film set the standard for what a quality comic hero film should be. The tagline promise: “You will believe a man can fly” was kept. All future comic films would be judged by this standard. Superman II had its faults. Certainly it was not the modern classic like the first film. The plot was bogged down with a rather silly love story that broke down the barriers of the Kent/Superman identity for Lois Lane. Luthor, while played again with style by Gene Hackman, is reduced to a comedic backseat to the real villains.
