Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on August 13th, 2021
"I know this world is just a game, but this place, these people, that's all I have. So I'm not gonna be the good guy. I'm gonna be a great guy."
Free Guy is the love letter to video gamers of all ages that Ready Player One should have been. While Ready Player One spent most of its resources on spectacle and a rather convoluted mythology, Free Guy allows the heart to come from the characters and plays out as something much closer to the passion and attachment players have long felt for their favorite games and game characters. The film manages to do this without giving up on the spectacle. There's plenty of that computer-generated magic here, enough to immerse us in the AI world of the game. But the film manages to reach out and connect to the humanity behind the games far better than Ready Player One could do at its best moments. That isn't to say this is a perfect film. There are tons of flaws, and it's not exactly the most original concept out there. In fact you'll find extreme elements of both Groundhog Day and The Truman Show, and Ryan Reynolds has almost become a cliche in this kind of wisecracking, irreverent-but-charming character. Think Deadpool without ... you know ... the F-bombs and the bloody violence. But take all of that "been there/seen that" aspect of the film, and you walk away smiling a little and totally entertained. Sounds like a fun summer movie to me.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 28th, 2021
"Finn Wallace. He believed in people. He believed in giving opportunities to the disadvantaged. He gave. He supported. He did so much for all of us. All of you. My father was taken from us on the streets of London. And now London will deliver to us those who took him. Finn Wallace. He's still here. He's in me."
Except that Finn Wallace was a crime lord, and he ruled the other criminal gangs in London with an iron hand. He may indeed be dead, but with Gangs Of London created by Gareth Evans, that's really just the beginning of the story. It's a complex story with only 10 episodes to deliver for a first season. Just how well are those stories told? That's also a complicated question.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 28th, 2021
"In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime, we could reach out and really communicate with just two people. We are all indeed very fortunate."
- Gene Roddenberry
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 23rd, 2021
"Some people have a hard time explaining rock 'n' roll. I don't think anyone can really explain rock 'n' roll. Maybe Pete Townshend, but that's okay. Rock 'n' roll is a lifestyle and a way of thinking... and it's not about money and popularity. Although, some money would be nice ... And one of these people is gonna save the world. And that means that rock 'n' roll can save the world... all of us together. And the chicks are great. But what it all comes down to is that thing. The indefinable thing when people catch something in your music."
It doesn't take much more than that little piece of dialog to understand that Cameron Crowe really gets what rock 'n' roll was once all about. If you need more proof than that, then you're in luck, because Paramount is giving you 163 minutes of proof, and for the first time in UHD Blu-ray in all the glory of 4K. Almost Famous is one of the best rock movies ever made. It's right up there with This Is Spinal Tap, but for very different reasons. The film captures that sweet spot in rock when the pioneers were still around and right before things became far more corporate. The early 1970's was the perfect moment of "the tour" and the rock star and The Cover Of The Rolling Stone. Cameron Crowe knows what all of that means, because he covered it for decades as a rock journalist. It's obvious he lived some of this stuff, if not all of it. And the hardest part was, he managed to put together just the right team of people to faithfully get it on film.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 21st, 2021
"Friends, The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office Department are pleased to cooperate in the production of Code 3 in the interest of crime prevention and rehabilitation. During the production of the Code 3 films a deputy sheriff is present at all times to assure you of the authenticity in our stories."
That was the postscript offered by L.A. County Sheriff Eugene W. Biscailuz at the end of each of the 39 half-our episodes of Hal Roach, Jr.'s Code 3. The series only lasted a season and has become somewhat of an obscure production that wasn't even mentioned in several early publications of books dedicated to prime time history. I have to say I had never heard of it before it was offered for review. One of the joys of this job is the ability to discover vintage shows that have escaped my, and pretty much everyone alive today's notice. A little series vintage television buffs and fans of police dramas will find interesting. It was almost like COPS, but 40 years earlier.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 14th, 2021
I have often found foreign comedy films a bit dry. Comedy can be so specific to culture that it rarely translates the way it might be understood or perceived in its native language and culture. The same is often true of poetry. Something gets lost in either the translation or the lack of a common experience. There are exceptions to these films. I've found that the most successful way to make sure your comedy jumps language and cultural boundaries is to avoid the jokes. Let the comedy come through in the situations, actions, and body language of the performers. Because the one thing that crosses all human experiences is the human experience itself. Don't try so much to be funny. It doesn't even have to be foreign. Don't you hate it when you watch a movie that the cast and crew obviously thought was rolling on the floor funny and you just didn't get it? It's all inside jokes, and that's what most foreign comedies have felt like for me. There has recently been a very notable exception. Beate is an Italian film that you won't have to struggle to get. Oh, you might pretend you're not getting it. I guess I did. But is that a smile starting to find its way out of that stoic expression? You must have gotten a head start and begun viewing Beate, out from Corinth Films. Good for you.
Armida (Finocchiaro) works as a kind of foreman for a fashion lingerie designer in their small sewing shop. There have been rumors that the owner intends to lay them off and move the company to another country where she can use cheaper labor. Of course, this gets the ladies in a bit of an uproar. They don't want to lose their jobs, but that doesn't stop them from complaining to Armida about all of the shortcomings of their situation. The boss doesn't want them upset yet, because she has a big showing soon and wants them all to remain dedicated and on the job until after the show. But word gets out, and now the ladies don't know how they are going to make a living.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on July 9th, 2021
"Before I was an Avenger, I made mistakes ... and a lot of enemies."
To say that Scarlett Johansson's solo Black Widow film is overdue is one of the understatements of the decade. Fans of the MCU have been calling for the character to have a film of her own; all the while characters like Captain America, Iron Man and Thor ended up well into their third films with the character playing key roles in the threads that pulled all of these films and characters together. Marvel often assured us it would eventually happen, but it sure appears to have taken too long. It didn't help that the character dies in the final Avengers film, and it seemed less likely she would or even could get her own film by then. But Marvel kept assuring us that it was going to come. So we waited again for the character's life-after-death coming-out party. Of course, being dead isn't quite the damper it used to be, particularly in these superhero films. And with the MCU about to enter into the long-running comic staple of the multiverse (which is also true of the DCU) there is a good chance that, as they say in the comics, she might "get better". But when this film finally did appear to come together, the world was forced to wait through several date changes and another year of anticipation because of the unexpected arrival of COVID-19 on the real world scene. So we waited for another year, all the while praying the film would not fall to the ever-increasing trend of finally just releasing long-delayed theatrical films on streaming services and skipping the lines at the box office. The only real letdown is that after seeing the film,v it will feel like it was delayed far too long.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 1st, 2021
"We're 10 years in now. I was a little kid. I can barely remember the Night The Sky Fell, let alone what the world was like before. We still live behind walls, and the dead still have this world. And I think that with everything that went away, with everything we lost, with everyone we lost, some people think it can happen again. Some people think that what we have can't last. Some people can't believe. But I'm certain of our home city and our alliance with Portland, with the Civic Republic, and I'm certain what's ahead. We are monuments to the past, but everyone here, all of you, you are the future. We are the future. I'm sure of it."
There is life after death. For The Walking Dead that life has a pretty solid run. What started with a graphic novel turned into one of the most unique television shows in years. The series has now become a franchise. The original show has 10 seasons behind it. The first spin-off was Fear The Living Dead, which took us across the country to the West Coast and has now run six seasons of its own. The franchise has just recently branched out again. This time it's The Walking Dead: World Beyond, and it covers a different aspect of this post-zombie-apocalypse world. This time it's not so much a change in location, which it is, but a change in perspective. This time it's, in the words of my old late friend Conrad Brooks, for the kids.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 30th, 2021
"Welcome to the unlimited possibilities of the Quantum."
It's a somewhat near future, and airport baggage handler Ray (Imperial) is in need of more money. He doesn't have the new Quantum computer, and he discovers that he isn't able to access accurate data on the net because everyone is now using the new format. He also has a brother Jamie (Howard) who is suffering from Omnia, which is a disease that makes you tired all of the time. It's considered by many to be fake, and "clinics" have popped up to treat the disease with odd ... and very expensive treatments. It's a scam, and Ray has bought into it. So he's going to need money.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on June 25th, 2021
The year 2020 and nearly half of 2021 make up a time in our lives we'd all like to try to forget. And while the remnants of a pandemic that is not quite over still intrude on our realities, many aspects of our lives are starting to return. We're spending time with our family and friends again. Those simple parts of our lives we once took for granted are starting to return, and I suspect we're all apt to savor them just a little bit more from now on. The movies have been back for a little while now. We've finally started getting access to press screenings for the first time in over a year. Needless to say, so many of us are happy to be back in the theaters. So far we've had some films start to breathe life back into the box office, but today expectations remain lower, and they will for a while. We've had some successful films, and you can feel it in the air. Somewhere, somehow, there's got to be a film just itching to break open the floodgates and give us our first real break-out blockbuster in 18 months. Fasten your seatbelts, because I think the day has finally arrived, and while it isn't going to be anything like it might have been two years ago, I think that F9: The Fast Saga is going to be the first hit film since the arrival of the pandemic.
Dominic (Diesel) is learning to live the quiet life with Letty (Rodriguez) and her newfound memories and Dom's little girl. The gang has been through a lot, and it seems like it's time to kick back. Of course, that would be one boring film, and for a franchise built on 100% adrenaline, that's not really going to work out for us. Dom gets a visit from an old friend from the feds to tell him that Mr. Nobody (Russell) is in trouble. He was on a plan transporting old villainess Cipher (Theron) and a dangerous weapon when his plane ran into trouble and crashed. He needs help. With this new weapon in the wrong hands, the world needs help, and Dom and Letty need to get the old band back together for another crazy globetrotting mission. Returning is Roman (Gibson), Mia (Brewster), Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Emmanuel). They find the plane and almost recover the goods when they discover who is leading the bad guys. It's a cat named Jacob, played by John Cena, who it turns out is Dom's brother. Yeah, the one he never ever mentioned through seven movies while talking so much about family. This one might be hard to swallow, so we get treated to a rather rich back story about Dom's family. We get to see him in his younger days helping his father who was a professional racer, and we see the event that caused the brothers to go their separate ways, and it’s strong enough that we get why Dom hasn't ever told anyone. It's one of the more interesting story elements of the franchise and is told through flashbacks throughout the film.
