Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 1st, 2017
Even though I was born in 1975, I don't remember a thing until I was about 5 years old, therefore I missed most of the "Disco" era. My dad would play music from the 70's, but that consisted of Led Zeppelin, Queen and Black Sabbath among other bands; no disco in sight. But one faithful day in my middle school years, I did find my mother's record and 8-track collection. There was some Barry Manilow, Julio Iglesias, and something called the Bee-Gees. I wouldn't say anything crazy like it turned my life around, but after listening, I clearly understood. I clearly understood that my mother was crazy and I was much better off listening to Whole Lotta Love. Anyway, we have a movie to review, let's continue with Saturday Night Fever.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 14th, 2016
"What we do has consequences, intended and unintended. The decisions we make, the actions we bring have weight."
When upcoming heavyweight contenders like Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and Andrew Ross Sorkin get together, you have reason to expect big things. And Billions is very much about heavyweights. The entire show is one big metaphor for a heavyweight prizefight. In one corner you have U.S Attorney Chuck "The Scholar" Rhodes, played by Paul Giamatti. He's the reigning world champion with a record of 80+ to 0. In the other corner is Bobby "Axe" Axelrod, played by Damian Lewis; he could also be considered undefeated.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 15th, 2016
"Going on down to South Park and meet some friends of mine."
After 20 years or more, they really do feel like friends. I've known Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny longer than most real people in my life. Only the Simpsons have been around longer these days. Over those years South Park has always been a series of stories that rarely connect with each other in any significant way. There have been multi-part episodes, and certain experiences have come back up over the years. Still, we're talking about a universe where killing Kenny had become a running joke and happened pretty much in every episode.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2016
"That's me, Mike Hanover, and I just killed a man in a taco shop bathroom. Hey, he started it. I been hiding near the border looking for The Vigilante..."
You've found him. Anchor Bay's The Vigilante actually started life as a web series. The web episodes followed the exploits of The Vigilante, played by Paul Sloan and his sidekick The Kid, played by Kevin L. Walker. It was pretty much a hyper-superhero kind of series with ramped-up action on a limited budget. Now we have a feature film version that is quite the mixture of genre films. You get a little grindhouse mixed with some Leone Spaghetti Western with extra sauce
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 22nd, 2016
Disaster films are something that for me screams American cinema of the 90’s. I know there were films before that had come out, but a good portion of my teen years of the 90’s were of the mega-blockbuster variety like Twister, Dante’s Peak, The Perfect Storm, and so forth. Now we have The Wave, the first disaster film to come out of Norway, and from the looks of the trailers they were going for something BIG. This is a film that comes out with so much potential and is a film that could even possibly find an American audience that could look past the fact that subtitles may be involved. With the way technology has come along over the years, smaller countries have been able to produce films as big as anything released in our cinemas here in the states. Now here’s the question: is it any good, though?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 15th, 2016
Bad Robot, in my eyes, is simply the best at keeping things a secret. In this day and age, to be able to surprise audiences is just about an impossible task. When the first Cloverfield trailer was released in 2007 in front of Transformers, it was a trailer that had us all guessing up until its release. In my opinion Cloverfield was one of the best found-footage films to come out and was a grand achievement, considering it was a monster film that had been pretty much been kept under wraps until its actual release. Bad Robot managed to surprise us again, releasing a trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane that set the internet on fire with theories and hopes for this to be a long-awaited sequel. But is that what this really is?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 7th, 2016
"A good family business is not the same as a good family."
You can say that again. The television landscape is changing, at least on cable. Ray Donovan is the latest in the string of new shows that are attracting talent once thought out of reach for television. A show starring Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight: this Showtime series looked to be something very special... and it has gotten better... perhaps a lot better.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 7th, 2016
“Ballet is the ultimate optical illusion. We make effort appear effortless.”
If ballet dancers make the seemingly impossible look graceful and elegant, then Flesh and Bone similarly soars when it doesn’t try quite so hard to conjure drama. The best version of this provocative Starz miniseries explores the psychological toll that ambition, competition, and the (impossible?) quest for creative perfection can take. Unfortunately, the series also introduces way too many subplots and distractions during its 8-episode run.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 15th, 2015
It wasn’t until I settled in to watch Spike TV’s three-part/six-hour miniseries based on the (relatively short) life of King Tut that I realized we hadn’t really seen his story depicted on screen before. I mean, it’s probably a bad sign that the most famous on-screen portrayal of the ancient Egyptian monarch comes courtesy of…Steve Martin. Given the liberties this miniseries takes with casting and storytelling, I reckon some historians would’ve preferred Martin as the famous pharaoh here. However, I still found this to be a suitably entertaining and attractive (if somewhat overstuffed) melodrama.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2015
I grew up on the horror comics of the 1970's. Eerie and Creepy were two of my favorites. My father would buy them and pass them down to me when he finished reading them. They were black and white so that they could take advantage of a loophole in the Comics Code and often featured lurid and gory stories of horror and depravity. Probably not the most appropriate reading for a young boy, but I ate them up. Before those comics there were the EC horror comics from Bill Gaines in the 1950's. Titles like Tales From The Crypt and The Vault Of Horror called out to readers with gory and hideous covers. But it didn't really start there.
