Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on July 28th, 2018
"Your mission should you decide to accept it. Isn't that the thing?"
And that has been the thing. Since 1966 Mission Impossible has plotted out nine seasons of television and six movies, thrusting Tom Cruise into an action hero icon. Cruise and company have taken their time with these films. It's been over 20 years, and we're only on the sixth entry. For the first five films, each of the Missions have been directed by a different director, from John Woo, who directed the second and worst of the films, through J.J. Abrams, who turned the ship around with the third, which was also his first feature film, to Christopher McQuarrie, who becomes the first director to repeat in the series of films.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on July 27th, 2018
As the summer winds down from the season's requisite anchor film blockbusters, there will be increasing room for a few independent films that will make their way from the festival circuit to fill the newly vacated screens at your local multiplex. For some it will be to attain eligibility for the year-end award season. For others it will be a short window to turn a profit from what was conceived more as a work of art. For others it's a chance to become a sleeper hit. And for others yet, it's an opportunity to deliver a social message on the larger soapbox of the big screens. Blindspotting appears to be on the cusp of all of these things.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 27th, 2018
"Wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must, and we will" - Teddy Roosevelt.
Actually they do speak for themselves, and Shout Factory's UHD/4K release of National Parks Adventure gives that wildlife plenty of grand opportunities to speak to us through the grandeur of the American National Park system. Last year Shout Factory showed us what the UHD/4K format could really deliver by releasing a series of IMAX films in the new format. It was a bold move that has really paid off. IMAX cameras utilize 65 and 70mm film, which offers source material that is actually much higher resolution than 4K.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on July 14th, 2018
Dwayne Johnson appears to be a pretty busy guy. In addition to the HBO series Ballers about to enter its fourth season, Johnson puts out a couple or more films a year. We're not talking about small independent films, but rather huge high-budget and big f/x films. Next year will see Jungle Cruise and Jumanji 2, following with San Andreas 2, Suicide Squad 2, Black Adam and a remake of Big Trouble In Little China, all arriving in the next couple of years. This year saw Rampage, which comes to home video next week. It's a busy life for Dwayne Johnson, who appears to have dropped "The Rock" from his name. I sure hope it didn't hit anyone on the head. Now he's starring in Skyscraper, which shamelessly combines elements of Die Hard and The Towering Inferno. In Skyscraper, Johnson shows us that he's intent on hanging around for a while... this time from 220 stories high.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 12th, 2018
You might call me jaded, but I am pretty disappointed by the state of horror movies. It's not just the last few years. The truth is I haven't seen 10 really good horror movies in over a decade. Now that I've had a chance to see A Quiet Place, that number isn't going up. A Quiet Place is not a really good horror movie. It ends up making a lot of the same mistakes that filmmakers think define a horror film in the modern age. It relies too heavily on jump scares and characters who do some of the most idiotic things, thus placing them in a somewhat self-created dangerous situation. But I will make the argument that A Quiet Place is still a pretty good horror film because
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 8th, 2018
"You can tell a lot about a person's character by how they treat people they don't have to treat well."
It had been a decade since Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible hit theatres to box office success, established a new blockbuster franchise, and added ‘action hero’ to Tom Cruise’s resume, and six years since John Woo’s highly stylized follow-up raised the franchise to new box office heights. In 2006 the long-awaited third installment arrived amidst controversy about Tom Cruise’s crazy off-screen antics. It was feared that the happenings of Cruise’s personal life would somehow bring down this movie
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 5th, 2018
"This is not Mission: Difficult, Mr. Hunt. It's Mission: Impossible. Difficult should be a walk in the park for you."
After four years and nearly $200 million at the box office, it was only a matter of time before Paramount and Tom Cruise would partner again for a new Mission Impossible film. This time the move would be completely toward the action and stunts and farther away from the television series. The hiring of John Woo to direct the second film put quite a punctuation mark on that move.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2018
"Well, you think about it, Ethan, it was inevitable. No more cold war. No more secrets you keep from yourself. Answer to no one but yourself. Then, you wake up one morning and find out the President is running the country without your permission. The son of a bitch, how dare he. Then you realize, it's over. You are an obsolete piece of hardware, not worth upgrading, you got a lousy marriage, and 62 grand a year."
The more things change, the more they tend to remain the same. In 1996 Paramount was nearing the end of a run of feature films that started with a 1960's Desilu Studios television series called Star Trek. That same year the studio was beginning a run of feature films based on a 1960's Desilu Studios television series that at one time shared an actor with Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2018
Remember when Steven Soderbergh told us he was retiring from filmmaking? Since that time he has been behind two of Hollywood's most unique films in a long time. Lucky Logan was a refreshing kind of heist film that made it more of a comedy with wonderful character studies. Now comes Unsane, which employs a completely unique form of filmmaking itself. The entire film was shot basically on an iPhone. That's not entirely true, because he did use various lens configurations that aren't exactly standard on the typical cell phone. Still, he used the phone as the actual digital recording device.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 26th, 2018
"Who is Jack Reacher? Born Jack, not John. No middle name. He's a ghost. Served in the military police. A brilliant investigator, troublemaker, too. And two years ago he disappears. You don't find this guy unless he wants to be found."
We've found him. The character of Jack Reacher comes from a series of thriller novels written by Lee Child. From the very start you know that this is going to be a different kind of Jack Reacher than fans have come to know and love from the books.
