Posts by Gino Sassani

I’ve never really thought of Josh Duhamel as an action star. I know that he’s done a few action movies, with the most notable being the Transformers franchise, and one could consider his 2003 NBC television series as an action drama. However, for whatever reason, the idea of John Duhamel and action star has just never been synonymous with me. That has officially changed, and interestingly enough, it’s because of a film that I suspected was going to be cheesy and full of tropes. And yet, it surprisingly turned out to be a movie that managed to be a balance of fast-paced action and emotional depth. Color me shocked. London Calling represents a first-time foray into the comedic side of filmmaking for director Allan Ungar, who typically creates biographical and psychological thrillers.

"If you live long enough, you can see your dreams die a slow death. Young people don't know how good they have it. Not 'cause they can, uh, touch their toes and screw all night. They haven't learned that most things just don't work out. Most times, you just mess it up, so it's easier not to try. We're all just looking for some hope. But at my age, hope is hard. Hope's not enough."

Song Sung Blue is a remake, of sorts. The film was first made as a documentary on a couple who called themselves Lightning & Thunder, and they made a pretty big splash in the music business as a Neil Diamond tribute band. It was written and directed by Greg Kohs. What's ironic here is that he didn't want to do a documentary. He wanted to do a feature film, but no studio would take it because they thought the idea was a bit too crazy for fiction. He even had trouble getting Neil Diamond to allow him to use the music. He ended up going through Eddie Vedder, because Lightning & Thunder  once opened for Pearl Jam.

"This is a true story. Whenever possible the dialog has been based on official documents."

The very idea of a serial killer is very much an American one. Around the globe it's considered somewhat of an American affectation. While that may be the reputation, of course that's not true at all. One of the earliest and most documented cases of the serial killer is Jack the Ripper from London's 19th century. John Christie was also a British serial killer. He never received the kind of notoriety and lasting fame as Jack, but that's likely because Christie was caught and Jack never was. With Jack we can speculate and contrive all kinds of "truths" because there's no way to prove or more importantly disprove any of it. In 1971 director Richard Fleischer took on Christie's story in the thriller 10 Rillington Place.

I was kind of excited about this one. Starring Gene Wilder and directed by Sydney Poitier, plus it had a funny title. I thought this was going to be just the thing to kick off my weekend. However, after viewing, I have to say that I don’t think this film aged well. It didn’t hold my attention, and I found several of the character interactions to be subpar. The story took a while to fully form, as several events played out before Wilder’s character is even introduced. And it’s even longer before Gilda Radner’s character comes into play. I give the story credit for trying to establish an intricate plot, but in my opinion too much time in the beginning was dedicated to characters that aren’t are primary protagonists. To it’s credit, the plot did get slightly more interesting when  Wilder’s and Radner’s characters eventually meet, and we start to get some answers about the fine mess they find themselves in. It would have been nice to get that point quicker, as it seems we wasted valuable time investing in characters that were not crucial to the story.

"Take your voltage, coming in the main power station in Canoga Park. Now, the electric company will tell you that it's running smooth and steady. That's a lie. I mean, you put that thing under a magnifying scope, that smooth, steady line starts to look like King Kong's EKG. Ninety-volt drop-offs, 130 volt spikes. Pulses, they're called."

I'm old enough to have known relatives who were born before Thomas Edison started to wire America with his great new electric generators. In less than three generations we are completely dependent on that sweet 120-volt juice coming through our lines. When it's not there, we panic and complain about having to deal with things like darkness and uncomfortable temperatures, not to mention how the heck are we going to cook dinner? We need it. We want more of it, because we keep buying more things that require it. We not only let it into our homes, but we demand it stays on.