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
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
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?
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.
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.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 2nd, 2022
Remakes are nothing new. They've been around for as long as there have been films. Today we appear to be dominated by the remake, but they've been around forever. There are many reasons to do a remake. Often, like the case of Peter Jackson's King Kong and the recent Kong/Godzilla movies, it's because technology has taken us to a place where we can do things on the screen that the original filmmakers couldn't have dreamed of. Other times it's merely a classic story that stands the test of time, and every once in a while someone wants to attach themselves to that history. Yet other times there's more that can be added to the story, or there is a fresh perspective to what came before. While many of these types lead to sequels and reboots, they still lead to the remake. Then there are those remakes that are almost a shot-for-shot imitation of the original with no apparent reason to exist other than to capitalize on the name. I really don't want to put the 1997 made-for-television remake of 12 Angry Men in that category.
