Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 9th, 2023
"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 one has gone before!"
Since the relaunch of Star Trek on television via the Paramount+ streaming service, I must admit to being a little underwhelmed. It's truly bad when Alex Kurtzman makes me pine for the days of Rick Berman. There have been some pretty good moments in the various new Trek shows. Picard has shown promise and has improved with a third season that looks very exciting. Lower Decks is just too campy for my taste, and Discovery has so many ups and downs I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster. So along comes Strange New Worlds, and this is the Star Trek I've been waiting for these last decades.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on December 8th, 2023
“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
It is hard to ignore the hype around the film Oppenheimer. Any time a Christopher Nolan film has come out, it has become a pretty big deal for cinema fans, whether it was for his The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar, Inception, or Tenet, his films carry the same kind of respect alongside the names of Stanley Kubrick and James Cameron, and his films can be just as divisive. But the anticipation for the release of Oppenheimer feels like a different beast entirely. The release coming out the same day as Barbie has created such a stir on the internet that the term Barbenheimer has become a part of the zeitgeist of modern day. Then another aspect is how the film was literally shot on 70mm film, which is unheard of in today’s digital-hungry climate, and the film is being released in certain theaters on 70mm prints that reportedly weigh around 600lbs. And now with critics finally getting to see the film, I can’t scroll through my news feed without seeing headlines that tout the film as not just being the most important film of the century, but the best film of the century as well. So what’s my take on all this hype, and is it worth it? Is Oppenheimer the film that will save cinema?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 5th, 2023
Most people, when asked to provide the best Korean film in modern times, would probably answer Oldboy or Parasite. Others might respond Memories of Murder or Train to Busan. Maybe A Tale of Two Sisters or The Wailing. I, on the other hand, always respond with the same title, The Man from Nowhere, which to this point in the US has only been released on Blu-ray from Well Go. That Blu-ray was also the victim of a bunch of discs from Well Go that came away with a quick dose of rot, infecting my copy as well as many others. For the last couple of years, I've been working with a bootleg, which I'm not exactly proud of, but felt necessary because I loved this film so much. However, that changed, as Well Go has released a 4Kcopy of this sensational film (and also of The Wailing, which I will get to later in the week). I thankfully received it a little bit earlier than expected and took it for a spin. Let's see how it does.
Kim Chi-Gon (played by Kim Tae-hoon) lights a cigarette and calls his squad into position. The crew of police detectives and squad members wake up and talk about their plan. They have been at this stakeout for two months and can't afford to mess this up.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 5th, 2023
"Is that the biggest one you got?"
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. Those were the days when a guy like Bruce Willis could fall thirty floors, get a spike impaled in his ribcage, have a ton of concrete wall fall on his head, and get run over by a truck, but still manage to take out the bad guy while muttering some witty little catchphrase that we would all be repeating, because if we could deliver the line just right, that meant we were tough guys too, and we didn't even have to fall out of an airplane to prove it. Well, you won't have to remember. You just have to watch Sly Stallone's love letters to the action movie fans. The franchise is called The Expendables and along the way we got to relive some glorious moments with our favorite action stars from the 70's to the 90's.
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. There aren't any big firefights, and you won't see or hear any of those big guns raining Armageddon down on some poor hapless pinned-down soldiers. Instead we're inside of a German POW camp, which they called Stalags. This one is run by a self-important commandant who takes pride in the fact that there has never been an escape from his Stalag. The prisoners themselves are always trying to find a way to outwit the camp Sergeant, a rather rotund officer named Shultz. Of course, I'm talking about Hogan's Heroes. But I'm not. 12 years before the CBS comedy would hit the airwaves, iconic film director Billy Wilder gave us a quasi-serious version of that particular scenario in the film Stalag 17. The film was based on a contemporary Broadway production written by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski based on their own actual experiences at the real Stalag 17. The film was originally planned as a vehicle for Charlton Heston, but when Wilder came on to direct, he immediately dismissed the idea, believing that it would become a Charlton Heston film more than a film about its own actual elements, and he was likely correct. Heston was big at the time, coming off larger-than-life parts like Moses and Ben Hur. The role went to William Holden, and the casting would become one of those lightning-in-a-bottle kind of things that can elevate a film from good to classic. And by the way, Wilder and gang sued Hogan's Heroes when it did arrive on the scene but were not successful.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on December 1st, 2023
“He was raised in the swamp. In the back of a slough. He grew up eatin’ rattlesnake meat and drinkin’ homemade brew. Now, folks here about call him Gator. And everybody knows him well. Meanest man ever to hit the swamp. Folks swear he come straight outta hell.”
Quite the catchy little ditty. One-word-title movies intrigue, especially those named after a specific character. It suggests that the titular character has or should have significant presence. And when you have a whole song dedicated to you, you certainly need to walk the walk. And who better to walk that walk than Burt Reynolds, as he reprises his role of Bobby “Gator” McKlusky in this sequel to White Lightning. Reynolds even decided to up the ante this time by making this film his directorial debut.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on December 1st, 2023
All I needed to hear was that James Spader was involved, and I was all in. And as expected, he makes his presence known from his first moments on screen. He brings a quiet reserve and intensity as the more than slightly unhinged hitman Lee. However, Spader isn’t the only familiar face involved with 2 Days in the Valley, as the film also features the likes of Terri Hatcher, Danny Aiello, Charlize Theron, Eric Stoltz, Jeff Daniels. Even Michael Jai White makes a brief cameo in the beginning as a car thief with a heart of gold. The film is marketed as a neo noir crime story depicting the butterfly effect of a single event and the mayhem that ensues as a result. In concept and partially in execution, I would categorize the story as a success. However, as I said, only partially in execution. In a sense, there are too many moving parts, and some avenues were not properly concluded to my satisfaction. The main storyline line is excellent, but the events interwoven into the events of the main story diminish the overall quality of the film.
In the main story, we are introduced to Lee, a singularly focused individual who is also quite calculating. He is a hitman who brings along a desperate mafioso, played Danny Aiello, on his latest job for reasons that are later discovered. It is clear very early on that Lee is merely tolerating Aiello’s character as a means to an end. That end is discovered to be to make him the patsy in his latest contract, the killing of a former Olympic athlete’s ex-husband. Things appeared to be going according to plan until it becomes clear that the mafioso is not as dimwitted as he appears and survives Lee’s attempts to kill him.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2023
"All right, listen up, ladies and gentlemen; our fugitive has been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground, barring injuries, is four miles per hour. That gives us a radius of six miles. What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, hen house, outhouse, and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive's name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him."
The Fugitive, since its’ original release in 1993, has always been seen by a majority of people as the defining thriller of the 1990’s. The film stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble. Kimble, a very well known Chicago doctor, has just been framed for killing his wife. He claims a one-armed man killed her, which prompts nearly everyone to laugh at him. Kimble is immediately arrested and sentenced to death in a cold courtroom scene that doesn’t even give Kimble time to defend himself.
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: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 15th, 2023
"This is 3 Rock Con Camp. We fight fires all over the state of California. As you can see, there are no fences. You want to run, I can't stop you. But I need you to know this. You won't get far. And when we catch you, not if, when, you go back to that concrete jungle, and time will be added to your sentence. Ready to check out your new home?"
For Max Thieriot, it's quite a new home. For over six years he was a Navy Seal on the David Boreanaz series SEAL Team. He was pretty much the eyes and ears of the audience, as he was the new guy on the team when the show started. The character certainly evolved, and before long he was one of the more solid members of the team. His character's name was Clay, and in the sixth season he ended up suffering some devastating injuries. It looked touch-and-go for the character, and indeed it was. But it wasn't the fictional doctors on the show that would determine Clay's fate. It was the powers that be over at CBS. You see, Max had a dream, and that dream was Fire Country. He co-created the series and was number one on the call sheet. It was just a question of whether the show would get picked up. If it did not, then Clay would recover from his injuries and carry on with his brothers on SEAL Team. If the show did get picked up, it meant bad news for Clay, and he would be killed on the show. If you're reading this, you know which way it ended up going. That meant a funeral on one show and a newborn series for another. It's the television circle of life, and you won't need Elton John to explain it to you. And now the first season of Fire Country is in the can and released on DVD from CBS Home Entertainment.
