Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 19th, 2008
Romantic comedies make most men put their body in the fetal position and pray that the bad people will make it stop until they are shown the newest incantation of a Vin Diesel action flic. This just in, Vin Diesel doesn't really make action films anymore. Crap, how about Mel Gibson, no? Hey, Sly Stallone still does action movies. Yeah, but we are also pretending he's still relevant. Anyhow, most people have negative connotations about romantic comedies. That way too much syrupy dialog mixed in with corny humor about two people on the opposite side of the tracks establishing that common ground and coming together. Dedication, at the core is a story of a children's writer finding love with his new illustrator. However, getting there is one strange animal indeed.
Henry Roth (played by Billy Crudup) is a budding children's storybook author. His newest idea involves Marty the Beaver and receives great press and promise of future books in publication. His illustrator is Rudy Holt (played by Tom Wilkinson). Rudy is the "father" of the group as he often pitches the ideas and serves as a mentor over Henry. However, one day Rudy dies (we guess as a result of too much good deli lunch meat), and the publishing house is left with trying to find a suitable replacement. The problem is that Henry is very much the definition of an obsessive compulsive and any other mental disorder you can think of. He can't keep a relationship, he refuses to travel in a car, and he sleeps with a pile of heavy books on his chest.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 18th, 2008
There’s probably a reason why there’s a surprising and varied cast of characters in the independent film The Good Night, and that’s because a familiar last name is involved with the project. Jake Paltrow, son of Bruce and Blythe Danner, and sister of Gwyneth wrote and directed the piece which at first glance might be a pretentious and audacious film, but is a little more interesting than it seems.
Dora (Gwyneth) and her boyfriend Gary (Martin Freeman, The Office) are living in New York, and Gary is working as a musician who does work on commercials, even after he was a one-hit wonder in a band with his friend Paul (Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead). Gary’s relationship with Dora appears to be flailing, and he starts to dream of a mysterious woman (played by Penelope Cruz of Volver lore) that he develops an intense kinship with. He then starts to sleep longer in order to spend as much time with her as possible and seeks out a specialist (Danny DeVito, Hoffa) in order to find out how to sleep longer.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2008
For a third straight year, Jim Henson’s lovable Muppets attracted some of the biggest names in show business. Who would have thought that such big stars would so eagerly agree to co-star opposite a clump of felt and fur? The show was also coming off a monster second year with acts like Elton John, Bob Hope and John Cleese. How do you follow up a year like that? Easy. You get more big names like: Roy Clark, Jean Stapleton, Liberace, Alice Cooper, Cheryl Ladd, Raquel Welch, Danny Kaye, Harry Belafonte, Sylvester Stallone, and even Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Add to the tremendous star power more adventures of Pigs In Space, Veterinarian’s Hospital, and The Swedish Chef, and you have a decade of entertainment in one season set of The Muppets.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2008
We’re in the US Marines, boys and who could have guessed that it would be so much fun? I often wondered how the real life members of The Corp think about Gomer Pyle. It would have made a great extra. I remember one of the F Troop sets offered a look at members of the real unit. With only another season to go I hope
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 30th, 2008
Who says no one likes a guy who’s negative all he time? Becker has got to be one of the most cynical, grumpy, and negative characters to grace our sit-com screens. He’s a guy you probably love to hate, and he’s also hilarious. Ted Danson spent over a decade behind the bar at Cheers and could have easily called it a career. You know, stop while you’re ahead. Instead he climbed right back into the television saddle and reemerged as Dr. Becker. This time he’s a medical doctor who hates everything and everyone around him. Refusing to display that little bit of a heart we all know he has, Becker spends most of his life complaining about everything. Never before has it been so much fun to watch a guy moan and groan for twenty minutes at a time. Fortunately for him, Becker is truly a dedicated doctor, and while he’s likely to complain about it the whole time, he’ll go to any extreme to help a patient.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 25th, 2008
Cheers was that kind of place that songs have been written about. Billy Joel’s Piano Man describes such a place where the patrons are, for the most part, regulars and pretty much family. In the days before huge screen televisions and satellite networks, Cheers would likely have been considered a sports bar. In those days the sports was more the talk of the place and not merely gathering to watch 127 games at a time. The bar’s owner was Sam Malone (Danson). Sam was a washed up baseball player for the local Boston Red Sox. He was a pitcher who liked to drink a bit too much. So, what does he do? He buys a bar. Actually the character has kicked the drinking and is always seen sporting a bottle of water. At first his bartender was his old baseball coach, until Nicholas Colasanto passed away after 3 years. Coach was replaced by Woody, played by Woody Harrelson. Woody was a farm boy with naiveté and small town charm reminiscent of Radar from MASH. His innocence was often the butt of the jokes. In a strange coincidence, the show’s popular theme song, performed by Gary Portnoy, sounded a lot like Harrelson’s voice, and for years it was believed by anyone too lazy to read the credits that Harrelson sang the tune. The barmaid was Carla, played by Danny DiVito’s wife Rhea Perlman. She reminded us a lot of her husband’s Louie character from Taxi. She was abrasive, sarcastic, and more than willing to kick a guy when he was down. She had a soft spot for Sam, however, and was often protective of him. Kirstie Alley played Rebecca Howe, an on again off again romantic interest for Sam and also on again off again owner of Cheers in later years. She replaced Shelly Long who played Sam’s romantic interest and barmaid Diane for the first half of the show’s run. The steady customers offered most of the stories for Cheers. Cliff, played by John Ratzenberger, was a postman who spent more time nursing a beer than actually delivering the mail. He often joked about how hard it was to fire a civil service employee. He was a knowitall and too often bored his comrades with longwinded explanations for even the simplest concepts. His best friend was Norm (George Wendt). Norm was one of the more popular patrons, greeted with shouts of “NORM” whenever he entered the bar. He sat in the same stool, usually griping about his life but unwilling to move off his seat and actually do anything about it. He was married to an unseen wife who worked while he loafed at Cheers. Finally Kelsey Grammer played psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane. You might recognize that character the most because he got his own show after 9 years on Cheers which lasted another decade. Frasier was the elitist who acted superior to the others but deep down just wanted to be one of the guys.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 25th, 2008
I was just a kid when Laverne and Shirley became a successful spinoff from Happy Days in the 1970’s, and while I remember that it was on often in our home I could not have recited any episodes from memory. Like most of my generation, I remembered the enigmatic opening rhyme from the show’s opening segment, and like most kids then I couldn’t pronounce it and still can’t; don’t even ask me to spell it here. The Cyndi Grecco saccharine ballad was a hit for a while, playing far too often during the summer pool months.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 23rd, 2008
Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage, this I tell your brother; you can't have without the other... Chances are if you know this song by heart, you have watched a lot of episodes of Married with Children (or you adore Frank Sinatra ). The Bundys are back for their eighth season of marital hijinx. Once it was just a random trivia question about one of the shows that was first on the little known Fox tv channel (Tracey Ullman and Garry Shandling are two others by the way). Later, it went on to be one of the network's greatest early hits and out lasted almost everything except the Simpsons. So would another twenty six episodes of crass sarcasm and dysfunctionality dilute the product or just keep the laughs coming?
The seventh season of Married with Children had introduced us to an unpopular character known as Seven. This character was written as a way to give the Bundys a third child. However, by the eighth season the character had been written off mostly as a failed experiment. The character would later be referenced in later shows as classic wink-wink jokes to those who closely followed the series but nothing more. The eighth season was more of a return to form for Al (played by Ed O'Neil), Peggy (played by Katey Sagal), Kelly (played by Christina Applegate), and Bud (played by David Faustino) Bundy. Peggy tries to make a free-throw for cash and keeps trying to find ways to make marriage bliss with Al. Bud discovers his cool factor in an episode and suddenly becomes a love machine, at least in his own mind. Kelly is still trying to land a sports celebrity or fill up her brain with useless trivia to win a game show. Then there is Al, who spends episodes starting up clubs against women (No Ma'am) or getting his old Dodge up to the one million mile mark.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 21st, 2008
Wings was one of those unusual sitcoms that depended more on the characters than the situations they were in. While the setting was a small
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2008
Sean Patrick Flanery is Harry Balbo, an introverted nobody at a nothing job where he constantly mocked by the unfunny office clown. One night, on his way home from the convenience store, he sees a female vampire rip off a homeless man's head. No one believes him, and his feelings move from frustration to terror when, a couple of nights later, he sees her at work again, and she scratches his face, marking him. He turns to crippled vampire investigator Michael Biehn for help, and eventually captures the vampire. Unable to bring himself to kill her, he is torn between sacrificing himself or others to her bloodlust.
This is a film that finds its strengths in its incidentals. Harry's depressing work environment, the tossed away dialogue from minor characters, the little humiliations of his life and his eccentric little obsessions all work well, and are very funny. The actual vampire storyline isn't quite as fresh and witty, though nestled in such an enjoyable context, it works well enough.
