Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 11th, 2019
"What happens in Palm Springs stays in Palm Springs."
That's not exactly true. Since the 1950's, the small town of Palm Springs has been home to many celebrities looking to escape the bustle of Hollywood, yet remain close enough to work there. It was 1947 when Jimmy Van Heusen introduced Frank to the desert community, and he fell in love with the town. His own home was built in time for his wedding to Ava Gardner, and while that relationship lasted only seven years, Sinatra's relationship with Palm Springs lasted 50 years. He was the best advertisement a town could have. In 1954 he built the massive Rancho Mirage and invited all of his close friends to join him.
Posted in: Release Announcements by Gino Sassani on June 9th, 2019
"...One day when the lady met this fellow, and they knew that it was much more than a hunch
That's this group must somehow form a family. That's the way we all became the Brady Bunch."
Has it really been 50 years? Nothing make me feel as old as when a film or television show I watched as a kid celebrates some grand anniversary milestone. It's like birthdays without the ice cream cake. On September 26th, The Brady Bunch will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and the folks at Paramount/CBS have given yours truly a little homework to do before that date hits. We're talking about The Brady Bunch 50th Anniversary TV & Movie Collection. They call it the Bradiest collection ever, and that's no exaggeration. The 31-disc collection features just about anything that was ever associated with the name Brady. I'm surprised there isn't a complete collection of New England Patriot games for the last decade or so. What you will get is pretty impressive:
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2019
"All you have to do is learn to connect the dots and get ready."
Noble Lincoln Jones hasn't had any real feature experience in the director's chair. He's notable for some rather well-known country music videos, and now he's made the jump to the feature film world. It shouldn't come as any complete surprise that his first effort would be a rather small-budget independent film like The Tomorrow Man. The movie offers a pretty simple premise with a limited cast, so there aren't a lot of moving parts here. It's the kind of playground where a young filmmaker gets to show us what kind of a storyteller he is without the grand distractions of a seasonal anchor film and all of the trimmings that entails.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 7th, 2019
I'm constantly told that streaming services like Netflix are the way of the future. But it appears that to build that future it is necessary to look to the past with a television series from the 1960's that looked to the future, but itself was based on material from the past. If you're becoming a little dizzy, I get it. Of course, I'm talking about Netflix's reboot of the Irwin Allen television milestone Lost In Space. Allen originally pitched a serialized version of the famous Swiss Family Robinson story and was rejected. So he took that story and set it into the future and marooned the Robinson family not on a contested pirate's treasure island, but on a flying saucer marooned far from Earth. It lasted three seasons and introduced several phrases into the pop culture like "danger, Will Robinson" and "the pain, oh, the pain". Even if you've never seen an episode of the original show, you've heard these little references. And that's exactly what Netflix is counting on by delivering a modern take on Lost In Space now out on Blu-ray from Fox Home Entertainment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 5th, 2019
Witness the birth of -- actually make that rebirth of --one of the most popular action heroes in literature. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has been a character of many jobs and many faces over the years. Baldwin, Ford, Pine, and Affleck have all stepped into the role of the man who has been a soldier, an analyst, an operative, and a president. What might appear as a clear advantage for this Amazon Prime streaming television show can be just as much a liability. When you throw in the Tom Clancy novels, comic books, and fan fiction, there is a ton of Jack Ryan history that pretty much gives us a story arc from his humble beginnings to extraordinary exploits and wearing the face of a few good performers. It's a tall order for the series and perhaps an even taller order for actor John Krasinski, who has created a nice little horror franchise with wife Emily Blunt on the side. I don't really have the time or energy to watch streaming shows and films. There's always a backlog here of discs that need to be , and I've created a rather comfortable viewing experience with my home theatre I call The Reel World.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 4th, 2019
"Welcome to Benghazi."
It shouldn't matter what your politics might be. The events in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012 bring up some very important questions. Contrary to one 2016 presidential hopeful's declaration, it does make a difference. It did to the people who were there. It does for the families of the four who lost their lives. And it should make a difference to you. With such a political hotbed issue, you'll find that 13 Hours goes out of its way to avoid the political questions. Some might view this as an oversight, but I think it gives the film a greater sense of credibility and makes its impact on the audience to fill in their own political blanks.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2019
"My name is Elton Hercules John."
When I was a kid he was Captain Fantastic, and I spent a lot of time and money on Elton John records since the early 1970's. I was a 12-year old kid when Goodbye Yellow Brick Road came out, and I've been a pretty huge fan ever since. I'm a veteran of about 50 concerts over the years, and I was looking forward to this movie in the same way I used to anticipate a new Elton record for decades. Most of the time I was rewarded with brand new songs that would quickly become part of my own story growing up. Once in a while I was disappointed. I hated Victim Of Love so badly that I threw the record across the room, and there is still a stain of peach paint on my copy. I wish that I could say that the film Rocketman was more like those wonderful vinyl treasure chests, but it was more like the latter, and no one is more frustrated than I am. I wanted terribly to love this film. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a middle finger to Elton's fans, and I think it's going to be a long, long time before I get over it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 31st, 2019
"So much has happened. I don't know where to start. First it was all the school shootings. Then these WiFi scooters showed up. And now we know that Manbearpig is real and we could all be dead in a matter of years."
That's true, but I suspect that when we are all dead and gone there will be two things we can count on continuing beyond the end of human civilization. The cockroaches will inherit the world, and they will all be watching South Park, the only television show still running. It's already been 22 years, and doesn't it feel like 50? I don't mean that in a mean way. I love South Park, but I'm starting to find it hard to remember what life was like without it. I'm convinced it will survive us all, and AI versions of Parker and Stone will be producing it until the planet is finally vaporized... and I'm not sure even that will stop this show.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on May 24th, 2019
"I think it's time I told you about Aladdin, the princess, and the lamp."
There is very little new coming out of the Walt Disney Studios in recent years. For the last few years and into the near conceivable future, there has been a concerted effort by The Mouse House to remake as live-action films the vast library of animation classics. It pretty much started with the huge success of The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau in 2016. The film did a wonderful job of bringing these jungle creatures to life through the modern-age miracle that is CGI. Somehow the film captured the very heart of the original animated feature and immersed us more fully into that world. No, it wasn't the first time Disney recreated an animated feature with live-action releases. But it was so dominant at the box office that it appeared to set the mold for these conversions going forward. This summer Disney set an ambitious schedule, delivering no less than three of these remade films to the summer schedule.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 21st, 2019
"It's been five months since Hannah Baker killed herself. We never thought this trial would happen. We thought we could move on. But when I got called to testify, all of a sudden it made me realize we can't move on. Life is different now."
And that's pretty much the best way to sum up the second season of Netflix/CBS teenage drama 13 Reasons Why. The series started out as a novel in 2007. It didn't catch the world on fire and went largely unread until something appeared to cause the novel to pick up steam in 2011. It hit the New York Times Best Seller list and started to become a teen phenomenon around middle and high school campuses throughout the nation. If Harry Potter didn't provide enough proof that kids were still reading and doing it for their own enjoyment, this novel should do the job. There are no wizards or superheroes or distant alien worlds to explore here.
