Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2009
There’s something I hate about election season. No, it’s not all of those negative ads. No, it’s not the wall to wall coverage on the news networks, It isn’t even the campaigning that closes streets and makes you late for work. It’s the fact that every studio decides to dust off any title they think is even remotely political in nature and put it out, hoping to cash in on the perceived political craze. Of course, there is no craze out there, and all they are really doing is making sure the discount bins are going to be overflowing at your local Wal Mart.
Election has to be the product of that kind of thinking. Why else would a film this bad and with no spectacular visuals to show off beat quality films like Jaws and Lord Of The Rings to the high definition format? Paramount, I love you guys, I really do, but do you honestly think that anyone was holding their breath for this title on Blu-ray? With a $25 million budget in 1999 the film brought in just under $15 million total box office. It was the 97th ranked film in 1999 in total gross (giving new meaning to the word).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2009
Here’s the deal. I don’t remember anything about the 2004 release of Without A Paddle. I guess it did some business; however, because someone working at Paramount, or should I say, who used to work at Paramount, came up with the harebrained scheme to deliver a direct to video sequel. This out of work crackpot also seems to have figured that returning any of the original’s cast was not a good idea; in fact, the brainstorm, here was that this film will have nothing at all to do with the first film. If that sounds like quality entertainment to you, you should drive around the streets of L.A. and offer this idiot a sandwich, because I guarantee you he’s out there somewhere with a “will work for food” sign under a highway on ramp. If he’s not, he oughta be.
Again, I never saw the original. I do know it at least had some known names in the cast, including Seth Green. Apparently it was about three guys who get lost out in the woods. Guess what this film’s about? Wrong!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 15th, 2009
“Tonight’s the night, and it’s going to happen again and again. It has to happen…”
What is going to happen is that Dexter has finally come to Blu-ray. I can’t think of a better cable show to make the leap onto high definition. More than any current show, I think I’ve been looking forward to this release. Imagine what it would be like to visualize Dexter’s world in such wonderful detail. Imagine no longer. Dexter’s here, and he’s got something to show you.Man, has television come a long way in just over 50 years. There was once a pretty strict code that applied to television programs. Men and women, even when married, couldn’t be seen to have shared the same bed. Anything stronger than a “golly gee” was strictly forbidden. You couldn’t even show a woman’s belly button. And the good guys always had to win, while the bad guys got their comeuppance in the end. Alfred Hitchcock was one of the first to push those boundaries by telling mystery stories where the bad guys often appeared to get away with their evil deeds. Even Hitchcock wasn’t brazen enough to completely skirt these rules, and at the end of such immoral plays he would always add, in his spoken postscript, some terrible twist of fate that got the bad guys in the end. Those days seem long behind us now. We have mob bosses, crooked cops, and now a serial killer, not only getting away with their crimes but acting the hero, of sorts, for the show. Vic Mackey and Tony Soprano only helped pave the way. In Showtime’s groundbreaking series, Dexter, Morgan Dexter is a serial killer who happens to kill other killers. The series is based on two novels by Jeff Lindsay. Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter gave birth to the character and world of Dexter Morgan.