Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on October 26th, 2025
“The things you do for the ones you love.” In this case, this saying has a bit of double meaning, one for the movie and one for me personally. For the movie, it is about how far a parent will go to protect their child from an ugly truth. And for me, it’s about how far I will go to ensure that my wife is happy and entertained. Regretting You, the second film adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel after It Ends with Us (2024) and the third adaptation overall, after the television series Confess (2017). In the case of this film, the audience gets two love stories for the price of one. One is centered around young love between a very talented pair in McKenna Grace and Mason Thames, and the other about second chances, between Dave Franco and Allison Williams. In my opinion, the young-love story is the more vibrant and uplifting story arc, hence why it received far more focus than the second-chance one. Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald also help round out the cast, but their roles are limited to the opening portions of the film, particularly because it is their actions rather than their presence that help drive the story as a whole.
So, I should mention upfront that I am not a reader of Colleen Hoover, but I am aware of her books. In recent years, they’ve been impossible to miss. She has become quite prolific in the literary space, with 24 novels under her belt, 11 of which have been featured on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Her popularity apparently surged in 2022, when she held six of the top ten spots on the paperback fiction bestseller list. Also as of 2022, she has sold more than 20 million books. It makes sense that her novels would find their way to the silver screen. I won’t spend any time on the events that surrounded the previous adaptation, but focus on this one, which I expect will also have a fairly decent outing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the film was this weekend’s box office winner, but it does face stiff competition in a horror film that also stars Mason Thames that was released last week.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 24th, 2025
“This is not going to end well.”
I can’t tell you how telling that quote was for me. At least the movie has a catchy opening song in “Everything Goes With Blue,” courtesy of Smurfette, a.k.a. Rihanna, who voices the character. Interesting detail: all Smurfs movies from the 21st century have had Smurfette voiced by a famous singer. In The Smurfs (2011) and its sequel The Smurfs 2 (2013), Katy Perry voiced the character. In Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017), Demi Lovato provided the voice, and in this 2025 reboot, she is voiced by Rihanna. Another interesting detail: this marks Rihanna’s second animated movie she has lent her voice to, with the first being Home (2015), which was released 10 years earlier. However, where Home had was a success, I’m afraid I can’t really say the same for this reboot, even with a star-studded cast that includes James Corden, John Goodman, Nick Offerman, Jimmy Kimmel, Sandra Oh, Octavia Spencer, Hannah Waddingham, Nick Kroll, and Kurt Russell.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 22nd, 2025
"Again, history repeats itself. And, uh, I mean, let's talk about 1956. Let's talk about the number 56 for just one minute. In California, Jesuit-educated Gavin Newsom. And he said to California, as he became the first governor to lock down his state, he said, "56% of you will get Corona in eight weeks". Which is exactly 56 days. Of course, they keep looking at that lab in Wuhan, China. And if you look at that lab in Wuhan when it was established, it was 1956. Of course, that's the year Tom Hanks was born, the first celebrity with the virus. Mr. Sleepless In Seattle. By the way, Jenny Durkan was the mayor of Seattle when it became the first city in the world outside of China to have someone get the virus. And she was the 56th mayor."
Remember COVID 19? remember all the crazy theories that went around? Remember the circular logic? In so many ways the months of the pandemic and lockdowns, social distance, mask mandates, and debating if going to religious services is considered essential activities -- all of that feels like it was a million years ago in some dark prehistory. But then it feels so raw and tender even now. Hell, I still encounter people wearing masks out there, and I think the National Teacher's Association still isn't sure we should be letting our kids go to school. I live in Florida where the national news treated us like we were some black plague ground zero. I had to go to New York City for surgery in October of 2020, and one nurse turned white as a ghost when she heard we were from FLORIDA!!!. Turned out ol' Andy in New York was cooking the books, and they were having far worse nightmares than we were. What I just said there, that's divisive, yeah? So why did writer/director Ari aster decide it was time to bring it all out in a movie? I will tell you that Eddington isn't as divisive as many others say it is. Aster is actually pretty fair to both sides, and even though we know exactly what side he's on, he faithfully points out the wackos on both sides, and yes, there were wackos on both sides. Maybe that's the message I should have walked away with when it was all over. But I didn't. Swing and a miss.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 21st, 2025
"This is a true story. It happened right here in my home town two years ago. A lot of people die in a lot of weird ways in this story. But you're not going to find it in the news or anywhere like that, because the police and the top people in this town were, like so embarrassed that they weren't able to solve it that they covered everything up. But if you come here and ask anyone, they'll tell you the same thing I'm gonna tell you now. It started in my school ... At 2:17 in the morning, every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs, and into the dark ... and they never came back."
Some people may think I’m crazy, but as a lifelong horror fan, I feel right now we are in the Golden Age of horror cinema. When you look at the box office this year and last, horror has simply been a dominant force, and I’m loving it. What’s even better is that it is new material that is raking in the money rather than seeing tired retreads of IPs that have been exhausted over and over again. Sinners, though it wasn’t my cup of tea, dominated the box office, and even though I’m not the film’s biggest fan, I still like seeing horror rake in the money. I’m loving that we’re getting all kinds of horror lately, where an indie slasher like Terrifier is going to be featured at Halloween Horror Nights, and we’re getting all sorts of experimental horror. For instance, later this year we’ll get Goodboy, a paranormal story told through the perspective of a dog. (Sure, it sounds silly, but I’m all for it.) This brings me to Barbarian. For me this has been my favorite horror film in the past five years, and that’s saying a lot, because there has been A LOT of good horror lately. From the moment I heard about Zach Cregger’s next film, Weapons, it immediately shot to the top of my list of most anticipated films. Now that the film has finally come out, is it worth the wait and the hype that surrounds it?
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on October 18th, 2025
It’s been a long time since a movie gave me goosebumps. The last real time I can remember it happened is when I first watched Nightmare on Elm Street, which is pretty ironic, as there are some pretty clear parallels between that film and Black Phone 2. Taking place at a summer camp, the film clearly also draws inspiration from the Jason Voorhies franchise as well. However, despite these parallels. Black Phone 2 is still a very entertaining and engaging horror sequel. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, and Jeremy Davies reprising their roles, while Demián Bichir joined the cast. Interestingly, Miguel Mora also returns. However, while he played Robin Arellano in the first movie, in the second movie he plays Ernesto, his brother. I was initially skeptical about this sequel because of the demise of Hawke’s character in the first film. I found myself asking, “How are you going to have a sequel when the villain was killed in the first film?” However, it appears that Joe Hill, the author of the short story that the first film was based on, had the answer:
“A phone rings, Finney answers, and it's the Grabber calling from hell.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 17th, 2025
You often hear it said that Tom Cruise is the hardest working actor in Hollywood. I don't want to take anything away from Cruise, but I'd like to nominate Bob Odenkirk for the title. Yes, that Bob Odenkirk from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fame. He's been wanting to do an action film through most of his career, and it would appear to have been a rather farfetched idea at best. But he buddied up to the guys at 87North and 87Eleven Productions. Those are the stunt folks who brought us films like the John Wick series. They didn't laugh at the idea. So Odenkirk trained for four years starting in 2017 to build up his body and learn to do all of those action stunts. The reward came in 2021 with the release of Nobody. It was an action/comedy that gave us the kind of stuff you might expect from a John Wick group. The film didn't make money because it was released while most folks were staying away from places like the local movie theater because of the COVID pandemic. Later the film caught fire on streaming and home video release, and so a sequel was a no-brainer. Except that Bob Odenkirk, while filming the final season of Better Call Saul, suffered a major heart attack that stalled that production and would appear to negate any chance of the actor going through that much physical punishment ... except it didn't. The actor went full speed ahead, and the result is Nobody 2, now out on UHD Blu-ray in 4K from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, and you should check both films out if you're new to this franchise.
In the first film we're introduced to Odenkirk's Hutch Mansell. He's stuck in a dreary cookie-cutter daily existence. He works for his father-in-law as an accountant, and his family pretty much ignores him. To make it worse, he is embarrassed when his house is invaded one night and his son is tougher than he is. Now the world looks at him as if he were a wimp. But that's exactly what he wants the world to think ... or does he? In the military he was an auditor, hence the current bookkeeping job. But when he goes to face the crooks who terrorized his family he ends up walking into a busload of Russian mobsters terrorizing a city bus. We soon discover that he has mad fighting skills and that auditor job in the military didn't have anything to do with bookkeeping or numbers. He was an assassin for the government and now they've forced him to show his hand. He ended up burning the mob's $30 million stash and that ends up being another problem.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 17th, 2025
"I like it when people underestimate me. It gives me an edge."
Much like the current thinking about our universe, it all started with The Big Bang Theory. The breakout character there was Sheldon Cooper, played by Jim Parsons. For 279 episodes, television fans just couldn't get enough. That was until Parsons asked for a huge boatload of cash and the show ended. The character was not finished. A spin-off called Young Sheldon debuted with Ian Armitage starring as a very young Sheldon, as the name implies. It's pretty much an origin story. Parsons returned, but only to provide the show's narration in a The Wonder Years kind of presentation. But it would add another 140 episodes to the story. In Young Sheldon we also were introduced to his family growing up. One of those family members was his older brother Georgie, played by Montana Jordan. He was very much the polar opposite of Sheldon. He wasn't very bright, but had a bit more of what you might call street smarts, and his character's charm would win over the show's audience. So now the Sheldon story continues, without Sheldon, in the first season of Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage, now out on DVD from Warner Brothers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 16th, 2025
"Good evening, Ethan. This is your president. Since you won't reply to anyone else, I thought I'd reach out directly. First, I want to thank you for a lifetime of devoted and unrelenting service; were it not for the tireless dedication of you and your team, the Earth would be a very different place. It might not even be here at all. Every risk you've taken, every comrade you've lost in the field, every personal sacrifice you made, has brought this world another sunrise. It's been 35 years since circumstances brought you to us and you were given the choice -- since the IMF saved you from a life in prison. And though you never followed orders, you never let us down. You were always the best of men in the worst of times. I need you to be that man now."
I imagine this is how it happened. It's January of 2019, and Tom Cruise has just popped into the bathroom to shave. He opens up that can of Barbasol just to make sure there isn't any dinosaur DNA left in the can, but as he takes off the cap, an authoritative voice begins to speak: “Good morning, Mr. Cruise. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to make a two-part film of the Mission Impossible franchise. It won't be easy. That's why only the IMF team can be counted on to complete this task. There are agents out to stop you before you even get started. In China there is a virus code-name COVID, and this virus will spread to pandemic levels just as you're starting to get your production crew together. Elements within our own government will take measures to shut you down. Delays will cost an extra $100 million and necessitate crucial cast changes. They'll be serious injuries, and your release date will be July of 2021 ... I mean November of 2021 ... Would you believe May of 2022? ... Let's shoot for July 14, 2023. You will have to deal with nefarious crew members who will attempt to sabotage the project by standing closer than two meters apart. You may use over-the-top rants to attempt to intimidate these factions into compliance. Beware that said rants don't end up released by the press to the world. Somehow through all of these challenges you must create a pair of Mission Impossible films that will be bigger and better than anything that came before. And remember, Tom, if your film fails to bring in a billion or more, the studio will disavow your team, and your movie will go straight to streaming ... or worse, get shelved as a tax write-off. Good luck, Tom. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.” There's a swoosh of fog, and Tom Cruise is sitting in his bathroom with no shaving cream to complete his original task. I figure that's how it must have gone. And that was just for the first movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 15th, 2025
"One … two … Freddy’s coming for you, three … four … better lock the door, five … six … grab your crucifix ..."
Freddy might have been born in the mind of Wes Craven, but he grew and developed in the knife-wielding hands of Robert Englund. Granted, not all of these films are equal in quality, but the first was everything you could ask for in a horror/slasher film of the era. Freddy himself is by far the most colorful and animated of the slashers. His burned face, fedora, striped sweater, and knife-blade glove were all integral parts of the wise-cracking maniac. Now Warner Brothers has released the original seven films on UHD Blu-ray in Ultra High Definition. It's a dream come true ... well ... at least a nightmare come true.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 15th, 2025
"It wasn't a dream; at least that's what I believe. The thing is I felt hurt and plenty sad, and there were times when I thought I couldn't go on. But I know I'm not the only one suffering. I want to protect everyone's future. I need to keep pushing forward. I feel that more every day."
Ultraman is a huge part of Japanese culture and pretty much has been since the original live-action show in 1966. Perhaps Godzilla started the ball rolling, but Ultraman brought us these monsters on a regular basis. In Japan, Ultraman is like our Superman. He’s an iconic hero and a huge part of the pop culture. Since the 60’s he has appeared in many forms, most of them animated. But it is this 1966 series that made a ton of us kids fall in love with him and an entire genre. Yes, there were many from the era: Space Giants featured a giant fighting robot who fought monsters and sometimes converted into a spaceship (yes, before transformers were ever thought of); Johnny Socko had his giant robot; and the list goes on. But it was Ultraman who started it. Eiji Tsuburaya, who created the original Godzilla, formed a new company outside of Toho Pictures. Ultraman was pretty much the first thing out of the new shop.
