Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 29th, 2024
Francis Ford Coppola is one of those directors that you don’t have to love, but you have to at least appreciate his contribution to cinema. Personally my favorite film of his is Apocalypse Now, and then The Godfather II. I know other film geeks out there will argue with what his ‘best” film is, but I think it’s fair to say he’s one of the greatest film directors out there no matter how you may rank his films. When the chance to review One From The Heart came along I jumped at the opportunity, because, well, it’s a film I had never actually seen or even knew that Coppola had done. In watching the bonus features on the disc, I found it amusing that this was supposed to be a simple film for him to do after the insane task of directing Apocalypse Now. This was supposed to be a simple rom-com with a budget of $2 million, but things got out of hand. Coppola bought a studio for his American Zoetrope company and used all the studios stages to build sets for the film,
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 26th, 2024
"Good to be back. We knew all along that everyone back home from the President on down was behind us 100%. It was God and faith in our families that kept us going. Speaking for myself, I'd like to say that the whole experience has made a better man, a better officer, and a better American out of me. Thank you very much."
It started in the 1970's just as the long and costly war in Vietnam was finally coming to a close. The conscience of the American people shifted from trying to stop the war to the soldiers who were now coming home and mourning the ones who didn't. There was also this group that fell somewhere in between. It took a long time to get the North Vietnamese to even acknowledge the number of POW's still held in captivity and the push was to bring them home. Suddenly Hollywood was on the bandwagon, and there appeared the war sub-genre that focused on these returnees, particularly those held prisoner. Films Like Missing In Action brought the subject to the front of moviegoers' attention, and other films like The Deer Hunter gave us a look at the psychological damage many returned to be haunted by.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 14th, 2024
"You know your weapons. It's a lever-action breech-loader. Usual barrel length's thirty inches. This one has an extra four. It's converted to use a special forty-five caliber, hundred-and-ten-grain metal cartridge, with a five-hundred-forty-grain paper patch bullet. It's fitted with double-set triggers, and a Vernier sight, marked up to twelve-hundred yards. This one shoots a mite further."
It almost happened again. Lightning almost hit Tom Selleck for a second time, and I don't mean in a good way. Tom Selleck was having fun and a tremendous amount of success playing Magnum P.I. on television. It was a character he got on the strength of a recurring character on The Rockford Files, and it was a huge hit. But in 1981 it didn't seem so much like a blessing. Casting calls went out, and he was approached to play an archaeologist trying to beat the Nazis to some kind of a McGuffin or another. The Magnum commitment kept him from taking the role, and it went to Harrison Ford, who turned it iconic.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 5th, 2023
"I don't know about you, but it always makes me sore when I see those war pictures ... all about flying leathernecks and submarine patrols and frogmen and guerillas in the Philippines. What gets me is that there never w-was a movie about POWs - about prisoners of war. Now, my name is Clarence Harvey Cook; they call me Cookie. I was shot down over Magdeburg, Germany, back in '43; that's why I stammer a little once in a while, 'specially when I get excited. I spent two and a half years in Stalag 17. "Stalag" is the German word for prison camp, and Number 17 was somewhere on the Danube. There were about 40,000 POWs there, if you bothered to count the Russians, and the Poles, and the Czechs. In our compound there were about 630 of us, all American airmen: radio operators, gunners, and engineers. All sergeants. Now, you put 630 sergeants together, and, oh mother, you've got yourself a situation. There was more fireworks shooting off around that joint ... take for instance the story about the spy we had in our barracks ..."
Stop me if you've heard this before. The premise is we're in World War II, but not where all of the action is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 2nd, 2023
I probably could be called a lot of things, some kind and some not so kind. But the one thing that probably most people would say about me is that I'm loyal. Loyal to my job, loyal to my wife, loyal to my son. However, in my life, I have certainly felt the pain of disloyalty, even to the point of infidelity. Despite what people might say or think, you never quite expect it, and furthermore one can't predict how you might feel or act given the situation. Today's movie Three into Two Won't Go explores the idea of what happens when a man cheats on his wife with another woman. However, this woman stays around long after the fact and continues to press into his everyday life until it becomes unbearable. Let's take a look.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 29th, 2023
Typically, I avoid World War II period films like the plague. I literally see the word Nazi or German occupation and usually find a reason not to see the movie. I have nothing against the pictures; the problem is that so many of these films are surrounded in clichés that it feels like an old hat with nothing new to offer. However, when I saw The Day and the Hour in my review pile, I was intrigued by the notion of it being in France with a female lead and something of a romance. Far different from the usual pow pow, war is heck, or a film that's going to have buckets and buckets of tears and worrying about the human condition. Though from the looks of things, this one might have some waterworks too. Let's take a look.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 23rd, 2023
I'm a sucker for clever movie titles. The best example I can think off the top of my head is I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Or perhaps you need something from yesteryear, like Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia or They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Along the lines of Sucka, we can't also forget about Don't Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood or The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. So imagine my surprise when I saw the title of today's movie and jumped at the chance to provide a review. Hopefully it is as good as the title suggests.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 18th, 2023
Some of my fondest memories growing up were those of my Polish grandmother and visiting her in New York for a week or two during the summer. It was so different than when I was with my parents in North Carolina. From the living arrangements to actually having a real basement to the subway itself, it was almost surreal in a very urban type way. Then everyone seemingly moved to Texas, including our family, and all of the innocence was lost. Today's movie is Gloria, a movie set in New York where a six-year-old Puerto Rican kid loses his innocence as his family is gunned down by the mob. The only thing he has to cling to is a friend of the family named Gloria who has a few special skills of her own. Let's check it out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 2nd, 2023
"Man gets shot that's got a gun, there's room for reasonable doubt. Man gets shot that hasn't got a gun, what would you call it? But, you knew that already; otherwise you wouldn't have set things up the way you did."
Rio Bravo (1959) stars John Wayne as John T. Chance, a small-town sheriff facing the fight of his life. His town is infected by a gang of 30-40 men, professional bad guys on the payroll of Nathan Burdette (John Russell), whose brother, Joe, Chance has locked up for murder. Burdette is dead-set on freeing Joe, and the only help Chance has got is his former deputy, Dude (Dean Martin), who’s been drunk for two years since he got involved with the wrong kind of woman, and Stumpy (Walter Brennan), an old, trigger-happy cripple. The trio has six days until the U.S. Marshall comes to collect Joe, but that’s a long time to wait when you’re surrounded by the enemy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 21st, 2023
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits."
Charles Laughton is known primarily as an actor. He starred in several classics such as Spartacus, Witness For The Prosecution, and the title role in I, Claudius. He was the titular character in a remake of Lon Chaney, Sr's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. He was the cruel Captain Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty and the evolutionary mad scientist in Island Of Lost Souls with Bela Lugosi which was based on the H.G. Wells novel The island Of Dr. Moreau and happens to be my favorite of his films. He married the Bride of Frankenstein herself, Elsa Lanchester, in one of those rare Hollywood pairings that lasted from 1929 until death did they part in 1962. They were a kind of royal couple for a while, giving some of the era's most iconic parties. He was quite an accomplished man when he died too soon at 63.
