Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 20th, 2018
"Some say that in life, there are no second chances. Experience tells me that this is true. But we can only look forward. We have to be torchbearers, casting the light so we may see our path to lasting peace. We will continue exploring, discovering new worlds, new civilizations. Yes - that is the United Federation of Planets. Yes, that is Starfleet. Yes, that is who we are. And who we will always be."
I should confess from the beginning that I am a very dedicated Star Trek fan. I'm not a Trekkie or a Trekker, I'm a fan. I have often allowed my fan status to cause me to embrace the franchise even when it wasn't necessarily so good. As a young 15-year-old kid I attended the first 10:00 AM showing of Star Trek: The Motion Picture with a handful of friends on the opening day. We stayed through six showings and left sometime after midnight the following day, occupying the front row center and subsisting off of the day's more limited concession offerings. Basically candy, popcorn and soda. Little has changed except for the lack of responsibilities that would allow me to spend 14 hours watching a single film over and over again. I'm still reluctant to dismiss anything Star Trek, but that's nearly what happened as I sat through the first five or six episodes of Star Trek: Discovery.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 20th, 2018
If you were a child in the 1960's or 1970's, you were around at the golden age of the Christmas television special. We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and there were a ton of holiday charms that came and went each year. But there were a handful that became classics and found their way to the airwaves every year in December. Of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas became one of these, and it is indeed among the best. It was not the only special to become beloved by generations of viewers. Now Dreamworks has brought together seven of the most memorable of these classics. This was a wonderful trip down memory lane for me, as it will be for millions of children of all ages who looked forward to these event broadcasts each and every year. Now you can watch them whenever you want. And they might not be just for Christmas anymore.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on November 19th, 2018
"The wizarding and non-wizarding worlds have been at peace for over a century. Grindelwald wants to see that peace destroyed."
Back in the early days of the internet before videos went "viral", there was a Thanksgiving cartoon about a chef who needed to serve too many people with a small turkey. So to compensate, he kept stuffing that sucker until it eventually exploded. Watching the latest entry in the J.K. Rowling Wizarding World, I was very much reminded of that early video. There's an attempt to make the running time a bit leaner than we've typically seen with these films. It's just barely over two hours, making it one of the shortest running times in the series when you include the Harry Potter films. But it doesn't appear as if there was an accompanying cut of "stuff" going on. Rowling and director David Yates have crammed so much into the film that it gets very difficult to really keep up with it all. I left with a feeling that I had been overwhelmed. It's a semester college course in three days. Of course it's loaded down with exciting visuals and larger-than-life characters that have become a staple in the franchise and have incidentally made Rowling the richest woman on the entire planet. She'll add a few shekels to the bank account, to be sure. The film will score huge with the box office take. But it serves little else but set up a game board. Its purpose is to identify the players and which side of the good vs. evil battle they will be playing for. It might just be the most expensive trailer ever filmed. But it's one people will pay hundreds of millions to have a chance to see. Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of the Gindelwald is a Thanksgiving feast of truly monstrous proportions.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on November 18th, 2018
Steve McQueen has established himself as a rather talented director. 12 Years A Slave was one of the better films of 2013 and one of the few times I happened to agree with the Oscars’ choice for Best Picture. When he tackled the heist format I expected something unique, and I wasn't at all disappointed. McQueen managed to put a clever spin on a tired genre and provide us with a superior and inspired cast. It wasn't all completely his idea, of course. The film is based on a Canadian miniseries that goes back to the 1980's. That doesn't mean he hasn't found a way to imprint the material with his own style and bold choices. There's a lot to love about Widows, but I have pretty low expectations for this film at the box office. More on that later. Let's get down to it, shall we?
Harry Rawlings (Neeson) is a career criminal. His wife Veronica (Davis) knows where the money comes from, but she's willing to feign a great deal of ignorance to the fact because she has become used to the comfortable style in which they live. But it all comes crumbling down when Harry's latest heist appears to go horribly wrong and Harry perishes in an explosive encounter with the police along with his entire crew. Now Veronica is feeling the grief that comes with the death of a spouse, but there's more to deal with than that. The man Harry and his crew took down was a gangster by the name of Jamal Manning (Henry), who has taken a dip into politics. He's going up against the corrupt Jack Mulligan (Farrell), who is running to take his father's alderman seat. Manning's $2 million war chest was Harry's target, and the money appears to have been destroyed in the explosion that took down the crew. Now Manning has gone to Veronica and has given her one month to refund his money.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 14th, 2018
"This could get worse before it gets better."
That's the perfect story line for the sixth and almost final season of CBS's modern Sherlock Holmes take, Elementary. After the fifth season ended, CBS was one of the first networks to renew a great number of their dramas. They kept more returning shows than any other network last year. And for good reason. The NCIS franchise ranks among the most watched shows in the world. That's not quite the case for Elementary. The fifth season showed declining viewership even though the series contains a very loyal core audience. It was most certainly on the bubble. Finally, the show was brought back for a limited 13-episode run but not at its traditional spot in the fall with all of the other returning major shows. It was held back until April and planned for a quick slot going into the summer. But the show proved to have a little more life than initially thought, and an additional eight episodes were added to bring the total to a pretty routine network show run of 21 episodes. Elementary fans got a lot to get excited about. Not only did they score eight episodes, but the show also earned its way to a seventh season, which will not begin until some time in 2019. For now you get the complete sixth and NOT final season. That's 21 episodes on six discs.
Posted in: Tribute by Gino Sassani on November 13th, 2018
We stopped doing these memorials a couple of years ago. It's hard to take the time away from our lives and other work here at Upcomingdiscs. But sometimes we'll lose one of the great ones. This isn't a tribute to Stan Lee. He'll get plenty of those. These are just my own private thoughts. I want to say things many of you would like to say. I have a forum, so I'm going to use it. If immortality can be measured by the impact you leave behind or how many people continue to remember you and for how long after your gone. Then there's only one thing we can say about Stan Lee: "Face it, Tiger. You just hit the jackpot."
It's safe to say that if it hadn't been for Stan Lee, you would not be reading Upcomingdiscs today. There would be no review. No contests. That's because I would be a very different person, who likely would not have this deep passion for the fantastic miracles once projected on silver screens from dancing/flickering light. There are three men that I credit with my first exploration and appreciation for such nonsense. The first was my father who allowed me to stay up late with him to watch the Universal Monster films on late-night shows and Friday Night Shock Theatres.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 12th, 2018
MacGyver (v) to act in an extremely resourceful manner. To utilize everyday items in unconventional ways to achieve a difficult task. I predict it will not be long before you can open your trusty copy of Webster’s and find this character has officially entered our lexicon. There is little doubt but that it is an unofficial part of it now. Crossing over from the realm of pop culture and into our language is a phenomenal achievement for a television show.
Richard Dean Anderson really is MacGyver. OK, maybe he’s not quite so handy with a paperclip and matchbook, but his own acting ability and charm make MacGyver more enjoyable than the formula that has become so renowned. They share the love of hockey. Anderson was slated to be a hockey star before injuring both legs. Both men hail from the wilds of Minnesota. The two also share an environmental crusade. These traits also coincidentally apply to Jack O’Neil.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 12th, 2018
"We are the protectors of the innocent. We are The Charmed Ones."
It's no coincidence that both the original shows of Charmed and MacGyver are starting to be released on the Blu-ray format. Both shows have been rebooted for television, and that means they're counting on fans of the original to become the foundation for a new base of fans. The best way to do that is to remind you why it is that you loved the shows in the first place. The best way to remind you is to dangle a little bait. That bait is the release of both shows on Blu-ray starting with their first seasons. Will it last? I don't know. It will depend on a combination of sales of the releases and how long the new shows manage to stick around themselves. Neither of these reboots are setting the ratings on fire, but there appear to be enough viewers to keep them on the air for second seasons. Sure, it's a bit of a marketing stunt, but that doesn't make it a bad deal at all. Fans of the original Charmed have been asking me about Blu-ray releases for years. So it's a win-win here.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 11th, 2018
Bigger is not always better, and more is not always better. If the holiday season release of Dr. Seuss's The Grinch is a testament to anything, it is that those two ideas are absolutely true. The Grinch has everything that the 1966 How The Grinch Stole Christmas could never hoped to have had. The film delivers on some of the best computer-generated animation that Hollywood studio money can buy. It had a $75 million budget. It will get a wide release with millions of more dollars put into a global marketing campaign. And it will make a ton of money. After all, the Grinch is the modern age Scrooge from Dickens' classic story. These are the kind of stories that are timeless and popular. Still, the one thing this film doesn't have over the 1966 television short is that it's heart is two sizes too small.
We all know the story. The Grinch (Cumberbatch) lives high atop Mount Crumpet. He's a rather grouchy old soul, and he lives in isolation from the Whos, who live, appropriately enough, down in Whoville. He lives alone with his dog Max, who is the model of man's... Grinch's best friend. He manages to tolerate the bright and happy Whos from a distance except when Christmas rolls around every year. It is then that the singing and celebration get entirely out of control. So imagine his surprise when he discovers that the mayor has issued a decree to make Christmas three times bigger. For the Grinch, that can only mean three times louder. So he devises a plan to steal Christmas from the happy citizens and assure himself a nice and peaceful December 25th.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 8th, 2018
"If anyone wants to clap, now is the time to do it."
If he were alive today, A.A. Milne would likely find a reason to smile these days. Perhaps he is. Winnie the Pooh has made quite a bit of a comeback in recent years. Last year we saw the impact the creation had on his son, the real Christopher Robin, in the sentimental Goodbye, Christopher Robin. This year Disney continues its recent trend of bringing many of its classical animated features back for live-action remakes using the wonderful world of computer-generated f/x and motion capture performances. The recent Jungle Book release was a wonder to behold and one of the best films of that year. This year it's the world of Winnie the Pooh, and to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Disney releases Christopher Robin, and you're not going to want to miss it. All of your favorite characters from both the classic books and the Disney cartoons are back, and it couldn't have been a moment too soon.
