Posts by Gino Sassani

"Once the world was full of wonders, but it belongs to the humans now. We, creatures, have all but disappeared. Daemons ... vampires ... witches ... hiding in plain sight. Ill at ease even with each other. But, as my father used to say, in every ending, there is a new beginning. It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with A Discovery Of Witches."

And that's how it all starts. The ambitious series from Sky is based upon The All Souls Trilogy novels by Deborah Harkness. In the first season of eight episodes, we are introduced to Diana Bishop, played by Teresa Palmer. She a witch who is living in a world where there are three species of creatures: witches, vampires, and daemons (Demons). Diana 's parents were killed when she was young because of their witchcraft, at least that's what she's been brought up to believe by her Aunt Sarah (Kingston) and her lover "Auntie" Em (Pettiford). No, we're not in Kansas anymore. Notice no one is singing Carry On Wayward Son. This isn't Supernatural, after all. Never mind all of that. Diane isn't a very good witch, because her powers appear to be stunted. She doesn't understand why until she becomes a visiting professor at Oxford and requests a book from their antiquities library. The book is called Ashmore 782, otherwise known as The Book Of Life. No one has been able to find it for centuries. But when Diane summons the book, she gets it. What she didn't know was that she was setting in motion a series of events that will cut across each of the creature lines.

"I saw this movie."

When the film Stargate was released in 1994, I had very high hopes for the movie. The concept was rather brilliant, and I anticipated a kind of Star Trek without the ship. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin hit it out of the park with Independence Day two years later, but I was sadly very disappointed in Stargate. I loved the wonderful mythology that combined ancient history and aliens. The concept had so much promise but was bogged down in awkward pacing and some of the worst storytelling I've seen in a big-budget science fiction film. So when the television series debuted on Showtime in 1997, I didn't even bother to check it out. I didn't pay any attention. If I had, I might have given it a try because of the involvement of Richard Dean Anderson, because I loved him in MacGyver, but I intentionally avoided watching the show. Nearly two years later, we had just moved into a new house and I was assembling a metal shelf unit. It was tedious work, so I put on the television for background while I tightened about a thousand small nuts and bolts. The cable box just so happened to be tuned to Showtime, and they were running a string of Stargate SG-1 episodes. I have to admit I was captivated by what I saw. The promise I was so angry had been squandered in the film was very much alive in this television series. The characters/actors were all compelling. Missing out on the show from the beginning was one of the biggest entertainment mistakes I ever made. It's become one of my favorite shows of all time, right up there with Star Trek: The Original Series, Hill Street Blues, The Rockford Files, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is science fiction television at its absolute best. A rare case where the television series blows the film from which it was adapted away. That hadn't happened so dramatically since M*A*S*H.

"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.

"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 

"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.

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.