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Sarah Silverman – Jesus is Magic

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 16th, 2006

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I really enjoy stand-up DVDs, but they’re pretty formulaic. The show starts, there is usually a short un-funny skit, and then the stand-up portion starts. The comic does his show, the credits roll, and that’s it.

This is really something unique and innovative, however. This film is something of a musical comedy, skit, music video stand-up film. It’s a lot to squeeze into a 72-minute film, but is is done surprisingly well. The transitions work out well, and it really shakes up the standard notions of what a co…
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Rough Riders

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 13th, 2006

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Teddy Roosevelt once delivered a speech with a bullet lodged in his chest from an assassination attempt. It was that kind of bravado that made him one of America’s most colorful Presidents. I’m into Presidential history, having taught it for many years. I also live in Tampa, so have an increasingly avid interest in this particular American figure. Tampa was the staging and training grounds for the Rough Riders before they embarked for Cuba. It was also from a cigar warehouse in Tampa that Roosevelt’s orders were sent hidden in a cigar.
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The Keys of the Kingdom

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 11th, 2006

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Gregory Peck plays Francis Chisholm. After losing his parents as a young boy, and then his sweetheart (to moral turpitude, it seems), Francis enters the priesthood. His unorthodox ways make him a failure initially, but kindly bishop and mentor Edmund Gwenn sees potential in the man, and sends him off to China to be a missionary. There too, things get off to a rocky start, but a turnaround happens when he saves the son of a local mandarin. His struggles are far from over, but through it all, he remains a triumphantly decent man.
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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2006

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A lot has been said about Roger Ebert and Russ Meyer. Ebert has been called the most famous film critic this side of Pauline Kael (he certainly is the most informative one since I’ve started becoming a wee critic myself), and Meyer certainly found a niche audience directing and producing films with large-breasted women. So when Fox got the two of them together and had them come up with a script that would be a pseudo-followup to The Valley of the Dolls, one would be interested to see what became of it.
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The River’s Edge

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 10th, 2006

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Career criminal Ray Milland shows up at the ranch of Korean vet Anthony Quinn, looking for his old flame, Debra Paget. She is now married to Quinn, but she hasn’t adapted well to country life, still carries a torch for Milland, and is in the very process of leaving Quinn. She and Milland rekindle their romance, and are planning to leave town with the million dollars Milland has just scored. When Milland runs over a state trooper, he forces Quinn to guide them through the wilderness to the Mexican border. A struggle for both survival and Paget’s love ensues.
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Boys of Baraka, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2006

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Something really extraordinary seems to be happening as a side effect of the recent rise in popularity of documentary films. While many films still illuminate problems in our society, some of these films have begin to become agents for change themselves. There is no denying the important role that films like The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till play in our society, but I am really moved by films like The Boys of Baraka. Show me injustice, and I am outraged. Show me programs that are righting injustices…
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I Dream of Jeannie – The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 7th, 2006

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Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden return for more hokiness in the complete second season of I Dream of Jeannie, which features 31 not-so-fantastic episodes with the most juvenile humor and situations. I suppose the possibilities for fun are there, but none are fully realized, perhaps because censors just wouldn’t let the series be all it could be. For goodness sake, they wouldn’t even allow the display of the lovely Eden’s belly button in her mid-riff outfit. Leave it to censors to find sex in the most ludicrous o…
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The Black Swan

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 7th, 2006

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Tyrone Power has been plying his trade as a pirate in the waters near Jamaica. When his former captain becomes the governor of Jamaica, Power goes straight. He has his eye on Maureen O’Hara, who is engaged to a duplicitous aristocrat who is feeding information to unreformed pirate George Sanders (utterly unrecognizable in shaggy red hair and beard). There will be many complications before Power can claim the resisting O’Hara as his own.Compared to the Errol Flynn pirate movies Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk, this one is a bit light on the action, really only getting down to the buckling of swashes in the final act.
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Brilliant But Cancelled – Crime Dramas

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2006

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Bravo had an idea. On the surface it was actually a pretty good idea. They realized that of all the well known and critically acclaimed show runners out there with their hugely successful shows, there must have been some flops along the way. After all, no one hits a home run all the time. They also correctly assumed that some of these shows might have been pretty fair efforts that for some reason or another just didn’t last long enough to catch on. Furthermore, it was a rather clever marketing decision that there were folks out there who would like to see some of this stuff again.
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House of Strangers

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2006

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Not having much appreciation for (or just being an aficionado of) the film noir genre, I could probably do one better and say that even if noir was induced on me subliminally, there may be a good chance that I wouldn’t even recognize it. So I don’t know how cool things like The Blackboard Jungle or some other films are and I can’t really rule them out of hand. So when I got House of Strangers to review, I had to give it a try.
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Slings & Arrows – Season 1

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 5th, 2006

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Synopsis

Paul Gross plays Geoffrey Tennant, a once celebrated actor who had a meltdown during a performance of Hamlet. Now he’s trying to mount The Tempest at the head of a broke company about to be evicted from its premises. Meanwhile, his former mentor, Oliver Welles, has just mounted a dispiriting version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the New Burbage Theatre, and very shortly thereafter dies. Tennant is brought in as the new artistic director, and his attempts to stage Ha…
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Protocols of Zion

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2006

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I admit, when I received this film in the mail for review, I was extremely suspicious of it. I am not a conspiracy theorist, and though I am interested in the facts surrounding the 9-11 tragedy, I am not one that buys into all the theories surrounding the day. The cover of this disc, and the fact that it came to me by itself in a plain brown envelope, made me believe that I was in for another crackpot theory.

When I started to watch the film, however, I realized that this was going to be a film that was much …
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I Wake Up Screaming

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2006

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Fox has done a really great thing with their Fox Film Noir line. There are tons of great film noirs from the 40’s and 50’s, and Fox has done an excellent job of grabbing those classic films and presenting them in great new affordable editions for modern viewers to experience for the first time. I Wake Up Screaming is one of 18 films currently in the series, and I am sure that number will only continue to grow over time.

Betty Grable shows up here in a starring role that is a departure from her u…
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Brilliant But Cancelled – EZ Streets

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2006

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The Brilliant But Cancelled DVD series is the brainchild of the web site of the same name, run by the Bravo network. As of now, there are just two titles in the series, a set of four different crime dramas, and this show. EZ Streets was a show from the 1996/1997 television season that was something of a precursor to The Sopranos. Hardly the same quality, but a similar idea. This time, Joe Pantoliano plays the boss of a crime family simply called the EZ. Ken Olin plays an undercover police detect…
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Angel – Season One

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2006

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David Boreanaz is better known as the guy who played Sarah Michelle Gellarï¿½s love interest in Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first three seasons of its existence. Being used sparingly in some parts and shining in his occasional showcase episodes, helped convince Buffy creator Joss Whedon and producer David Greenwalt to give the guy his own spin-off series. And by having the Buffy writers and directors pull some double duty in the beginning before gently phasing in some new creative influences, it’s grown into a spin-off show that, in its fourth season now, arguably gives Buffy a run for its dramatic money.
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The Poseidon Adventure

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2006

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God bless producer Irwin Allen for aiming high in just about everything he did. He would make large scale productions, some focused on disasters (like his next film after this, The Towering Inferno), but he also produced Lost in Space for TV and made other contributions like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and an incarnation of The Lost World. He may not have had a DeMille-like grip on his project because the studios had so much control still in the early ’70s, but he sure dreamt big, which is always a good thing.
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Rebus – Set 1

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 30th, 2006

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Synopsis

Ken Stott plays Inspector John Rebus. Working in Edinburgh, Rebus is dogged in his pursuit of the truth, no matter how many years it might be buried. He’s not one to stand on ceremony, doesn’t suffer fools at all, never mind gladly, and is curiously successful in romancing younger women. The two mysteries here, The Falls and Fleshmarket Close take place in very different settings: the former delves into the secrets of the very wealthy, the latter takes place in a high-rise proj…
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The Ellen Show – The Complete Series

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 29th, 2006

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It’s awfully hard for me to imagine why this abysmally failed sitcom is getting a DVD release when there are so many more deserving shows still waiting. The Ellen Show was populated with some of the most cardboard cutout characters I’ve ever seen. What you talkin’ about Willis? Here’s what I’m talking about. The dialogue is simply rattled off one-liners. Jokes so forced they could get past the famous 1985 Bears defensive line like it was merely a speed bump. Not even the usually ingenious work of Martin Mull could save this show.
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Legends in Pinstripes

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2006

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I’m a lucky guy. I was able to witness the game of baseball before we all became so jaded. While I wasn’t born early enough to have enjoyed Mantle, The Babe, or Joltin’ Joe, I was fortunate enough to watch the likes of Mike Schmidt. Mike stayed 18 years with one team. He never held out and was always responsible in his public persona. Oh, and he ended up being considered the best 3rd baseman of all time in nearly every millennium poll conducted. It is this experience growing up with Schmitty and his like that make these stories feel much closer to home than younger kids are likely to feel.
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Charlie’s Angels – The Complete Third Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 28th, 2006

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I never saw the appeal of Charlie’s Angels, but in all truthfulness, I never gave it a shot. While I still can’t include myself in the loyal throng of followers, I now respect the kind of show it actually was. The series centers on the unseen Charlie, and his three beautiful lady detectives, who can hold their own both physically and mentally. There is a serious danger with a series such as this to cross over into exploitation, or extreme campiness. From what can be seen in this complete third season DVD relea…
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Jimi Plays Monterey/Shake! Otis at Monterey

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 28th, 2006

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There was a time when no major groundbreaking events were captured on film. The thing is, it’s sometimes hard to know when something of historical significance is going to occur. Major events such as World War II and the fall of the Berlin wall were planned in advance (so to speak), so it was easy to set-up a camera and capture the event. Spontaneous events, however, were mostly passed over. As technology has progressed, however, it has become easier to capture important and notable moments on the fly. September 11, …
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When Stand Up Stood Out

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2006

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Hosted by Boston comic Fran Solomita, When Stand Up Stood Out is a detailed retrospective of the historic comedy boom that took the city by storm from the late 70’s to the early 80’s. You get the impression it was a fun crowd to be with most of the time. From the famous Ding Ho to the Comedy Connection, some of the nation’s biggest names worked out their routines to the local audiences.

The documentary tells its story very simply. With the use of extensive narrative, vintage clips, and countless interviews, you get a rather complete history of the phenomenon.
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Coach – The First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2006

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Coach is one of those shows that never seemed to make a lot of noise. I can’t remember any year it was on that it burned up the ratings or scored many awards. Still, it was the little show that could. It ran for nine seasons, always holding on to a loyal core audience. I’m sure most of the success belongs to the underrated talents of Craig T. Nelson. I’ll admit that this guy just never showed up on my talent radar until his unexpected turn at drama during The District. It was then I learned to appreciate his self-effacing subtle abilities.
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NYPD Blue – The Complete Fourth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2006

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So now we come to the fourth year of NYPD Blue. In the show’s ever-changing look this year was no exception. Most notable is the fact that a new camera operation crew toned down the jumpy camera moves a bit. Style was not sacrificed, but the series is now easier to watch. Smits and Franz are really starting to click now, and we begin to see the special relationship we know will evolve between their characters. This buildup is absolutely necessary for the coming payoff with Simone’s death in later years. Again, several characters came and went, most notably a couple of female detectives.
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NCIS – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 27th, 2006

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The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is, it seems, the poor cousin to the likes of the FBI and the Secret Service. It doesn’t have all the toys of these other organizations, and appears to have a staff of four (five by the end of the first episode). Mark Harmon heads up the investigative team that delves into mysteries that invariably have a military tone (and thus the stories frequently deal with terrorism and the like).
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