Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 17th, 2023
"Oh, what are people afraid of? That AI is gonna replace real writers? That Hollywood is gonna become just a bland recycling of old ideas? It already is!"
I suspect that when we are all dead and gone there will be two things we can count on continuing beyond the end of human civilization. The cockroaches will inherit the world, and they will all be watching South Park, the only television show still running. It's already been 22 years, and doesn't it feel like 50? I don't mean that in a mean way. I love South Park, but I'm starting to find it hard to remember what life was like without it. I'm convinced it will survive us all, and AI versions of Parker and Stone will be producing it until the planet is finally vaporized ... and I'm not sure even that will stop this show.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 21st, 2012
There’s obviously nothing funny about the atrocities committed by some of history’s most notorious tyrants. So why have these men proven to be such a surprisingly fertile source of comedy? Whether it’s (Puppet) Kim Jong-il crooning forlornly about being lonely (actually “ronery”) in Team America: World Police or Adolf Hitler being saluted by a chorus line of high-stepping stormtroopers in The Producers, there’s certainly a precedent for mocking these reviled figures. With The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen appears to be taking his patented inappropriateness to a new level.
Cohen — the English actor, comedian and professional provocateur — stars as Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen, ruler of the oil-rich and fictitious Republic of Wadiya. (Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein are clearly major influences.) The trick to making this sort of (potentially-abhorrent) comedy seems to be focusing on the outrageous personalities of these tyrants, rather than all the horrible things they’ve done. As a result, Aladeen is racist, sexist and too many other negative “-ists” to list, but the movie portrays him as a bearded buffoon who isn’t even remotely dangerous. (Though try telling that to the dozens of people Aladeen orders to be executed over trivial offenses.) When he is summoned by the United Nations to address concerns about his country’s nuclear program, Aladeen travels to New York, where he embarks on a life-changing journey involving a boyish feminist (Anna Faris), a severed head and a few celebrity cameos.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 17th, 2010
Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) is the manager for the Leeds United soccer team, brought in to replace Don Revie (Colm Meaney), who is off to manage the England team. Clough is young, charismatic, brash, arrogant and opinionated, and has some pretty unflattering (and publicly aired) views about his predecessor and the thuggish style of play he fostered. So begin his 44 catastrophic days in 1974 as the unwelcome manager of United, and the film flashes back to the meteoric rise that brought him to this crucial pass.
This must surely be one of the best sports-related movies I have ever seen. Every conceivable sports movie cliché goes out the window. There are no extended sequences showing the games, just some quick, impressionistic shots that tell you all you need to know. This is not the inevitable story of the Underdog Making Good. It is the reverse: a rising star who takes over the most successful team in the country and becomes a legendary disaster. And yet the film is oddly triumphant. It is very much about Clough's relationships with two men: his obsessive rivalry with Revie, who isn't even aware of him, and his deep friendship with partner Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), a friendship that might save him from himself, did he but realize it. The performances are superb, with Meaney looking uncannily like Revie (seen in footage at the end of the film), and Sheen astounding yet again, in the wake of his performances as Tony Blair and David Frost, cementing his position as one of the great actors of this generation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 12th, 2009
“When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage, a curse is born. It never forgives. It never forgets. The curse gathers in that place of death. Those who encounter it will be consumed by its fury.”
Here we go again with the American remake of the Asian classic. To be fair, The Grudge was one of the first after the great success of The Ring. There are some significant differences between this effort and the countless remakes we’ve encountered over the last decade or so. This film retained its Japanese location, which does provide for a more exotic atmosphere. The location shoots are actually pretty well done. The film was also directed by the same man who directed the Asian original, Takashi Shimizu. He’s become quite prolific in the genre, having now directed both versions and the sequels to both versions. The Grudge also doesn’t figure into the technology aspect that many of these Asian ghost stories appear to populate. The most high tech haunt here is a stainless steel bathtub. I bet that gets cold in the winter. Sarah Michelle Gellar brings in the core American audience thirsting for more Buffy. But, if you’re turning on to this film to see Buffy kick some supernatural rear, you’re better off with the Scooby Doo films. And that’s bad.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 6th, 2009
“Symbols are a language that helps us to understand our past. As the saying goes, a picture says a thousand words, but which words? Understanding our past determines actively our ability to understand the present. So, how do we sift truth from belief? How do we write our own histories, personally and culturally, and thereby define ourselves? How do we penetrate years, centuries of historical distortion to find the original truth? Tonight, that will be our quest.”
Conspiracies can be fun. We all buy into them to one degree or another. I’m not talking about the paranoid nutjob who sees a conspiracy behind every closed door, and even a few open ones. Of course, there is something to the old axiom that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not really out to get you. Of course, we’re not talking about the persecution complex style conspiracy here. We’re talking about the old fashioned cover-up. It’s what made The X-Files so famous for so many years. It’s why JFK’s death is so much more interesting than anything he did in his remarkable life. There are still some crazy people out there that believe George W. Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, or at the very least was complacent in them. Everywhere from Super Bowl outcomes to manned missions to the moon, someone somewhere thinks it was all a big lie. So, you might as well cop to it now. We all love a good conspiracy theory. In his second Robert Langdon novel, The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown writes about what would be the mother of all cover-ups. As one character put it so well in both the novel and film, “What if the greatest story ever told was a lie?”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 4th, 2009
The highpoint of I’ve Loved You So Long is a rather brilliant performance by Kristen Scott Thomas. She is able to inhabit a character in ways I’ve rarely seen. You’ll be hard pressed to find any identifiable boundaries between the actor and the character. Now, usually, that’s the foundation for a solid film. The problem is that her character just isn’t that interesting of a person after a while. Of course, there are nuances to observe, and Thomas serves them up well, but after a short time we’ve really come to know this character pretty well. We just don’t find her all that interesting.
Juliette (Thomas) has spent the last 15 years in prison for the murder of her 6 year old son. She has been expectedly abandoned by her family while locked up. When it is finally time for her to be released, the only one willing to even talk to her is her estranged sister, Lea (Zylberstein) who takes her into her home. Lea has a family of her own now. She is married with two adopted Vietnamese children. The film pretty much follows no plot or story. It’s more or less Juliette’s journey to adapt to the outside world and deal with her own flood of emotions. If the movie is Juliette’s journey, then it is also a journey for Lea. Without revealing the ending, I can safely say the only destination here is understanding.
![The Damned United [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-damned-united-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Grudge [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-grudge-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Da Vinci Code (Two-Disc Extended Cut + BD Live) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-da-vinci-code-two-disc-extende-large.jpg)
![I've Loved You So Long [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/ive-loved-you-so-long-blu-ray-large.jpg)
