Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 31st, 2011
“Hello. I want to play a game.”
Like the Beatles used to sing, when Jigsaw says hello, most folks are about to say goodbye. Jigsaw might very well be dead, but his legacy is alive and thriving. If you don’t know who Jigsaw is by now, this might not be the best place to start. He’s the Rube Goldberg of horror movies.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2011
“Dear Screenwriter,
“Here’s your writing prompt: You are to write a feature-length screenplay with only one on-screen character. This character is to remain in only one location for the entire duration of the film, and that one location must be a 2′ x 7′ wooden box. You cannot use flashbacks, cut-aways, or any other narrative device that would take the action outside that box. Sound impossible? It’s not. In fact, all this exactly describes the film BURIED.”
Or how about this one.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 19th, 2011
There’s no doubt that Kevin Costner’s name has been attached to some pretty crappy projects during his career – Waterworld, The Postman, and 3000 Miles to Graceland to name a few – and it’s unfortunate, because the aforementioned dirt loafs have tarnished the fine film that we’re here to discuss, Dances With Wolves. Heck, even I had horrid recollections of the film from viewing it years ago in theaters. However, this review forced me to check the film out again and I actually found myself…enjoying it – and enjoying it immensely.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 2nd, 2010
“How do you do? My name is Deems Taylor, and it’s my very pleasant duty to welcome you here on behalf of Walt Disney, Leopold Stokowski, and all the other artists and musicians whose combined talents went into the creation of this new form of entertainment, Fantasia. What you’re going to see are the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the interpretations of trained musicians, which I think is all to the good.”
Just three years after Walt Disney introduced the world to the animated feature in 1937, Uncle Walt was already experimenting with the idea.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 24th, 2010
“Man, we’ll die with you. Just don’t ask us to do it twice.”
Remember the old days of the action movie? Those films where someone like Stallone or Schwarzenegger would run around and take out armies of bad guys while barely breaking a sweat. You know the kind of movie I’m talking about. The ones where the hero goes up against a hail of bullets and explosions and manages to pick off the bad guys without catching a single slug himself.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 9th, 2010
“The hills are alive with the sound of music…”
Maria von Trapp wrote down the story of her singing von Trapp family in a 1948 autobiography. She continued to write about the family right up to the time of her death in 1987. The subject became the basis for a film called The Trapp Family in 1956. While the film received some modest attention for the events of the real family, it disappeared into obscurity until the musical writing team of Rodgers and Hammerstein created the songs for the Broadway production
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 9th, 2010
His name was Fleming, Ian Fleming, and he would go on to create the most famous spy in literary history. James Bond would actually be based on Fleming’s own experience in Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But Fleming had another side. It’s hard to believe that the man who gave us such ubervillians as Dr. No and Goldfinger brought us one of the most enchanting children’s stories of our time. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang‘s bond association doesn’t end with its celebrated author. Albert “Cubby” Broccoli might have been just as instrumental for the success of Bond as Fleming himself.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 4th, 2010
“The Toys Are Back In Town”
That’s right. All of your favorite toys are back in Pixar’s latest great film Toy Story 3. This time the toys are dealing with the inevitable. Andy (Morris) is about to go off to college. It’s been a long time since he’s played with his friends, and they are getting desperate and worried they will get tossed away. Although Andy bags them to be stored in the attic, a misunderstanding sends them to the curb and a date with the garbage truck.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 4th, 2010
In 2024, the Earth’s ozone layer has been depleted (or so most assume), and life is protected by an electromagnetic shield designed by Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert). Eco-crusader Virginia Madsen, however, believes that the ozone layer has restored itself, and the corporation that runs the shield is maintaining it for its own purposes. Meanwhile, back in the past, villain Michael Ironside sends assassins to the future to kill Lambert, who is an aging man as the film begins
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 28th, 2010
“So come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab.”
It was 1975. Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa goes missing. South Vietnam falls. The Superdome opens in New Orleans. Elizabeth Seton becomes the first American saint. Patty Hearst ends her fugitive run. George Carlin hosts the first episode of Saturday Night Live. Phil Collins replaces Peter Gabriel as the lead in Genesis. And The Rocky Horror Picture Show opens to absolutely terrible box office numbers.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 15th, 2010
Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a young woman utterly lacking in self-confidence and given to deliberately cutting herself. She gets her first job as secretary to E. Edward Grey (James Spader), as tightly wound and ferociously self-isolated an individual as you could imagine. What happens when the sadist meets the masochist? Sparks fly
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 6th, 2010
The legacy of Walt Disney and the studio he created requires little explanation. The studio invented the idea of a feature-length cartoon and has been on the cutting edge of animation since the 1930’s. No other studio can claim ownership of as many animated classics as Disney. From Mickey Mouse to Pixar, the studio has churned out one masterpiece after another for over 60 years. What tends to get lost in this great body of feature-length classics is that the studio was also producing some very high-quality shorts over these years.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 3rd, 2010
“I always wondered why nobody did it before me. I mean, all those comic books, movies, and TV shows. You’d think that one eccentric loner would have made himself a costume. I mean, is everyday life really so exciting? Are schools and offices so thrilling that I’m the only one who ever fantasized about this? Come on. Be honest with yourself. At some point in our lives, we all wanted to be a superhero. Who am I? I’m Kick Ass.”
You have to give the folks at Lionsgate some serious credit for the way they promoted Kick Ass. The film was generating a lot of buzz almost a year before it actually came out.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 15th, 2010
Nearly 10 years before Ben Stiller spent his first Night At The Museum with that eclectic cast of characters, The Relic brought us a much different kind of night at a museum. What comes to life here is anything but playful. There’s nothing amusing about this nightmare in a museum. Peter Hyams might be more famous for several other action science fiction films, but none of his works before or since The Relic could claim to be quite so atmospheric. Together with the truly genius invention of creature creator extraordinaire Stan Winston
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 14th, 2010
“One … two… Freddy’s coming for you, three… four… better lock the door, five… six… grab your crucifix…”
Freddy might have been born in the mind of Wes Craven, but he grew and developed in the knife-wielding hands of Robert Englund. Granted, not all of these films are equal in quality, but the first was everything you could ask for in a horror/slasher film of the era. Freddy himself is by far the most colorful and animated of the slashers. His burned face, fedora, striped sweater, and knife-blade glove were all integral parts of the wise-cracking maniac.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 15th, 2010
“The Man Who Cannot Die”, better known as the Phantom was created by Lee Falk in 1936. The comic strip runs until this day, despite the creator dieing more than ten years ago. The Phantom was a costumed crimefighter that lived in the country of Bengalla. Bengalla was fictional but located in Africa. In 1996, they finally decided to create a movie based on the comic strip to find out what the “Ghost Who Walks” would do on the big screen.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 3rd, 2010
Planet Hulk started out as a storyline from Incredible Hulk #88-#95 (2006). The Hulk was too strong for the planet Earth and so the Illuminati under the direction of Iron Man and Doctor Strange sent him to a planet where he can cause harm to nobody except himself. Of course, things don’t go exactly as the Illuminati probably hoped for. The direct to video movie deals with Hulk’s stay on planet known as Sakaar.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 15th, 2009
“Space…The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!”
Paramount was bold indeed when they undertook the remaster project of the original series. Not only did they clean up the prints, but they took the decidedly risky option of redoing most of the f/x shots from the original prints. We all know just how cheesy the old work looked when compared to today’s computer abilities. You could see a box around spacecraft that allowed the obvious cutout to maneuver through a cardboard star field.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 3rd, 2009
I’ve often spent a lot of time talking about how Pixar has dominated the computer animation, at least as far as full length features go. With few exceptions there isn’t anything out there that even comes close. Most films rely on toilet humor and crude innuendo to get a few laughs. A lot of the kids and adults might suck that stuff up, but they can’t hold a candle to Pixar. There are, as I’ve mentioned, some quite notable exceptions. The Fox Blue Sky Studios has had enormous success with their Ice Age films. And when you take a look at the third and latest entry in that franchise, you’ll understand why.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 2nd, 2009
There have been a couple of releases of Stargate. Mostly it’s been reissues of the same transfer. This time it really is an improvement. The Blu-ray contains a director’s cut which is about 16 minutes longer than the original. If you like the original better, you get that one as well. This was Devlin and Emmerich’s first real blockbuster. I found Independence Day and The Patriot to be better films, but Stargate has its moments. It’s a little hard for me to accept Kurt Russell as Jack O’Neal after 7 years of Richard Dean Anderson. I did gain a new appreciation for how closely James Spader and Michael Shanks portray the pivotal character of Daniel Jackson.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 7th, 2009
“Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”
Years ago a news magazine, I don’t remember which, conducted a survey. They discovered that more adults knew the names of the 7 Dwarfs than could name 7 figures in the federal government, including President, Vice-President, Senate, House of Representatives, and The Supreme Court. They say our educations begin very young. Well, since 1937 our youths have been entertained
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 17th, 2009
“Space…The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before !”
Paramount was bold indeed when they undertook the remaster project of the original series. Not only did they clean up the prints, but they took the decidedly risky option of redoing most of the f/x shots from the original prints. We all know just how cheesy the old work looked when compared to today’s computer abilities. You could see a box around spacecraft that allowed the obvious cutout to maneuver through a cardboard star field.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 11th, 2009
“Happy 200th, everybody. Only 75 shows in the history of television have reached 200 episodes. Only 4 other shows currently on the air have produced 200 episodes, and of those only 2 feature live actors. And, it’s worth noting that both of those shows were in the top of the Nielsen ratings before CSI came along and knocked them off of that perch.”
And, after 9 years and over 200 episodes, CSI has enjoyed an almost unprecedented near decade as the number one show in the country. It’s a rare thing to go so long and keep the core of your team intact. Up until now CSI has added characters, but has not lost a major character. But things are about to change.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 28th, 2009
“Space…The Final Frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before!”
There sure has been a lot for Star Trek fans to cheer about of late. The new film has proven to be a commercial and critical success. The dawn of high definition has caught up with the original series, and there is the promise of much more before this year is out. Next up from Paramount we get the first 6 Trek theatrical films.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 19th, 2009
“Space…The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!”
Star Trek: The Original Series finally makes it to high definition. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been waiting for this day for what seems like centuries. They’re here. One of the best features about this set is the multi-angle option. Remember how we were promised all of this control way back when DVD’s first hit the market? We got the same promises when Blu-ray arrived, and we weren’t going to hold our breath.
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