Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 19th, 2011
More often than not, I don’t listen to too many female musicians. Most of them fall into the hard rock (Lita Ford, Donnas) or 80’s/90’s pop dance (Taylor Dayne, Sheena Easton). Occasionally, I will be wowed by good looks and a magical voice. I am a man after all. But when I received Sheryl Crow: Miles from Memphis – Live at the Pantages Theatre, on Blu-Ray, I was not sure what to think. Sure, she had looks but Crow’s music is ever-changing. However, I am certainly willing to give it a listen.
Most people know Sheryl Crow from her multi platinum albums, and selling well over fifteen million records domestically and probably a good thirty five million records worldwide. However, her start was kinda ominous. When she left college, she was teaching music to elementary school kids in Fenton, Missouri. Then came a couple of McDonald’s and Toyota commercial jingles. Before she knew it, she was a backup vocalist for Michael Jackson during his Bad tour.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 16th, 2011
"Some say I don't play well with others. I was a damn good detective in Chicago until a disagreement with my boss encouraged me to pack it up and make a change. So I put The Windy City in my rearview and headed to the Sunshine State. Kick back. Play some golf. Work on my tan. Maybe write the occasional speeding ticket. Yeah... Well... that didn't work out."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 14th, 2011
If you are a fan of the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker, you were more than likely disappointed in the remake a couple of years ago on ABC. Your hope is now once again restored. Supernatural is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to The Night Stalker. Like Kolchak, the Winchester brothers are faced with weekly incarnations of evil. They’re forced to research these legends and figure out a way to stop them. As Kolchak discovered, it’s a thankless job. Sure, Supernatural is populated with all sorts of beasties and nasties, but it also manages to hold on to a sense of humor that rounds out these adventures to make this one of the most entertaining shows around. When UPN and WB merged, I was a little worried about Supernatural. You do the math (that was another review). Two networks worth of shows, one network worth of programming time. Half of the shows needed to vanish, and I was concerned Supernatural would be one, if history of respect for genre shows was any indication. Fortunately for us, the show has not only survived, but it has thrived, looking to be around for quite a while yet.
In season 1 Sam Winchester (Padalecki) was in college. His fiancée was attacked by a creature that had once also taken his mother. Enter brother Dean (Ackles) who arrives to take the mourning Sam on a cross-country search for their missing father. It turns out that Daddy Winchester has been on a self-imposed crusade to find the monster that took his wife and any other demon or creature he might be able to hunt along the way. We also find out he’s trained the boys to be quite capable monster hunters themselves. Most of the first year dealt with the brothers fighting their way to their dad. It ended in a hell of a cliffhanger. Season 2 didn’t waste anytime picking up the action. The action picks up the moment we were left waiting last May. If the first year gave the boys their mission, the second is about consequences. All of the expected monsters are there for the hunt, and year two turned out twice as good as the first. If you didn’t think that was possible, check out this second-year DVD set.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 14th, 2011
For ten years we watched Jack O'Neil, Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and the Jaff'a Tealc' enter the Stargate. Others would join the team over the years. Each week we would follow their adventures, first on Showtime and finally on the Sci-Fi (now Sy Fy) Channel. We watched with awe as they stepped through a portal that was in reality a wormhole transporting them instantly to another world, brought online by dialing the device like an old-fashioned telephone. For another five years we traveled not only to another planet, but to the Pegasus Galaxy itself to the Atlantis Base, a bright floating city left behind by the ancients, the people who created the Stargate system millions of years before. On this show we met new friends, new bad guys, and had new adventures. The location might have changed. The faces might have, at first, been unfamiliar, but the missions and the entertainment value didn't let us down. For 15 seasons we enjoyed a spectacular tale to rival the myths of the Greeks and Romans themselves.
I'm told that all good things must come to an end. When Atlantis was finally cancelled, I was made almost immediately aware of the plans to continue the franchise. First reports started coming out that the show was going to be called Stargate Universe. Soon my inside contacts started giving me tidbits about the story. Details began to emerge about the Destiny, an ancient ship abandoned in another universe far away. The ship was on some kind of predetermined course and would sport an unsuspecting crew of humans that would be left stranded on the ship for an indeterminate amount of time. It was starting to sound a lot like Star Trek: Voyager to me. Of course, this is Stargate, so there has to be some gate travel, one would assume. The ship would come with a gate, and the vessel would come out of faster-than-light travel from time to time and dial up a local planet for exploration. The ship was ancient not only in its origin but in its duration in space. There were going to be a lot of system failures, as the equipment was long past its expiration date. The ship itself would know what resources it needed to continue to operate. Searching its vast planetary database, the ship would locate planets with the essential resources, allowing away teams to get such vital raw materials. Unfortunately, the ship didn't always give a good indication of what to find or where on the planet it might happen to be. Oh, and did I mention the countdown? The ship would decide how much time it would allot for each mission, instituting a countdown. When the clock reaches zero, the ship goes back to FTL, and whoever's not back in time gets left behind.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 14th, 2011
“Corporations… They have all the money. They have all the power, and they use it to make people like you go away. Right now you’re suffering under an enormous weight. We provide the Leverage.”
The series centers on Nathan Ford (Hutton), an ex-insurance investigator. His life was turned around when the very insurance company he recovered millions for turned down his child for treatment to keep her alive. He quits his lucrative job and forms a team to help people who are backed against the wall by large corporations. Cases include: a soldier looking to get medical care, a family ripped off by a mob boss, a company that has allowed dangerous chemicals to harm children, and a real estate mogul trying to take a church away from its congregation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 12th, 2011
As one could probably guess from my tender age of thirty five years, I listen to lots of 80's music. Not only did I grow up in it, the music was energetic and often thoughtful (without being too depressing). But the thing I remember most about the music on a whole is the brilliant videos behind them. David Byrne of Talking Heads was the head (literally) of one of my favorites, Burning Down the House. A great musician and pop legend, David Byrne is back to entertain us in Ride, Rise, Roar.
David Byrne was born in Scotland in the spring of 1952. He knew how to play the guitar, accordion, as well as the violin before he even entered high school. David went through a couple of minor bands before landing his first major gig with the Talking Heads in 1975. The band went on to do great things and several of their albums went gold with sales well over 500,000 copies. Unfortunately, the group broke up in 1991 after creative differences and David Byrne went on to a solo career.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2011
"Two can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 4th, 2011
The other day, I was taking a look at my past reviews and I realized that I have been reviewing on this site for over six years. If you have been reading my reviews for that long and you aren’t married to me, bless you for sticking it out that long. Heck, I’ve only known my wife for almost 4 of those years. Anyhow, I have reviewed a plethora of subjects. One of the hardest things to do is to review a dvd season in the middle of its run. It becomes even harder when that show is True Blood
Before we go anywhere with Season 3, we need to take a step back in time and analyze the last couple of episodes of Season 2.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2011
Did you ever see a movie that might have been pretty good, but it reminded you so much of other things that you just couldn't keep your concentration on the film at hand? That was my experience with the After Dark original film Seconds Apart. At almost every turn I couldn't help thinking of other films. Often times it was such a distraction that I'm afraid I never fully appreciated the one I was watching. And, there is a lot to like about Seconds Apart.
The story is pretty simple. Jonah and Seth, played by real-life twins Edmund and Gary Entin, are not your normal twins. They share more than an uncanny fraternal link. Together they can enter inside of a person's mind and cause them to do all sorts of nasty things that usually end in the victim's death. The hold hands to focus the power. It might just be me showing my age here, but I couldn't stop thinking about the 1970's Saturday morning cartoon, The Super Friends. The show featured the powerhouse members of the DC comics universe along with a boy and girl known as The Wonder Twins. One could take the shape of anything made out of water, while the other could become any animal. Every time these guys held hands to perform their evil deeds in someone's mind, I couldn't get that Wonder Twins image out of my head, and I kept expecting them to chant: "Wonder Twins power activate". Silly, I know and it's entirely possible that no one connected with the film was even aware of the image. So the fault is entirely mine, to a degree.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2011
"From cradle to grave."
Lionsgate is really starting to crank out some original horror films under the After Dark label, and if this is any indication of what's in store for us down the road, I'm eager to see a few more of these titles hit the shelves. The films are direct-to-video low-budget films that have a more independent feel. While I wouldn't call the film terribly original, it does offer a slightly fresh face on the haunted house theme. The movie carries a sub-theme of family secrets and histories. Talk about your skeletons in the closet.
![Sheryl Crow: Miles from Memphis Live at the Pantages Theatre [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/sheryl-crow-miles-from-memphis-liv-large.jpg)
![Supernatural: The Complete Second Season [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/supernatural-the-complete-second-s-large.jpg)
![David Byrne: Ride Rise Roar [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/david-byrne-ride-rise-roar-blu-ra-large.jpg)
