Jericho – The Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2008
Because I was fairly certain I would be asked to review this second season of
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Drama
Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2008
So I find out I’m going to review a film called Meerkat Manor. My research tells me it’s actually a television show on Animal Planet, but I still didn’t know much. Was this some kind of animal version of The Tudors? And what exactly is a meerkat, anyway? The answer to all of these questions arrived one sunny morning via UPS on my front door. I yawned my way to the door and picked up the nondescript package that fell over with a flop as I opened my home to the bright
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Control (2007)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 17th, 2008
It’s nice when a movie lives up to its expectations and even surpasses them because it rarely seems to happen anymore. Such is the case with Anton Corbijn’s Ian Curtis bio-pic, Control.
I’ve been waiting to see Control for a long time. From the start, the film sounded interesting, since I am a huge fan of post-punk alternative rock music, the genre that Ian Curtis and Joy Division practically invented in the late 1970’s. But when I heard that long-time band collaborator and renowned music video director Anton Corbijn was directing the film, my anticipation rose to even higher levels.
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The Fugitive: Season Two, Vol. 1
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 11th, 2008
“The man is Richard Kimble and, not surprisingly, the man is tired. Tired of looking over his shoulder, the ready lie of the buses and freight trains. Richard Kimble is tired of running…”
The elusive “one armed man” is one of the best known television icons of all time. The plight of Dr. Richard Kimball has been the subject of numerous imitations and even a feature film staring Harrison Ford as Kimball and Tommy Lee Jones as his pursuer.
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Lust, Caution
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 10th, 2008
Tang Wei plays a student who is a member of a radical theatre troupe during the Sino-Japanese War. She and her cohorts determine to assassinate a prominent collaborator (Tony Leung). In order to get create the opportunity for the killing, our heroine must infiltrate Leung’s household. She is on the threshold of becoming his mistress when he leaves Hong Kong for Shanghai. Three years later, now backed by the Resistance, she makes a new attempt. But she hasn’t counted on the entanglements of passion in the affair she has embarked on.
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Hawaii Five-O – The Fourth Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2008
Working in
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Reservation Road
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2008
When the Learners are driving home from their son Josh’s recital, they stop off at a gas station where he is struck and killed by Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) who is heading home from a Boston Red Sox game with his son Lucas. Dwight flees the scene while Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and Grace (Jennifer Connelly) mourn the death of their son. In the following weeks, Ethan becomes obsessed with finding the hit and run driver while Dwight deals with his guilt and tries to bond with his son against the backdrop of the 2004 Boston Red Sox historic World Series run.
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Mannix – The First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 4th, 2008
It sounds like nothing new. Hard boiled detective uses computers and other forms of technology to solve cases. It isn’t anything new, except the detective in question is Joe Mannix and the series aired in 1967. The computer that Mannix used took up an entire room and was queried using cardboard punchcards. This wasn’t science fiction. We’re not talking some newly discovered Irwin Allen series. Mannix didn’t go after aliens or robots. This was a down to earth gritty detective show.
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National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 21st, 2008
The first National Treasure film took us on a historical journey through the locations that were the birthplaces of The United States. There might not have been a ton of historical accuracy, but there were enough things right that it was an entertaining adventure. For the sequel, the entire canvas was greatly expanded. While we’re once again deep in some arcane American history, the locations span the globe.
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JAG (Judge Advocate General) – The Sixth Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2008
When last I reviewed a season of JAG, a couple of the show’s fans had a few problems which I will attempt to address here. The first was about knocking a show I wasn’t extremely fluent in. Unfortunately, when I’m called upon to review a season of any series there is no time, or money for that matter, to go back and watch several years of the show to get acquainted. Secondly, I believe that a series season needs to be able to stand on its own
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The Good Night
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.
Indiana Jones – The Adventure Collection
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 13th, 2008
Just in time for the release of one of the most eagerly awaited films in years comes a new box set of the Indiana Jones Adventures. The problem is that these transfers are not upgrades so, aside from squeezing out a few extra bucks, what’s the point? I’m sure that The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull will add hundreds of millions to the
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12 Angry Men (50th Anniversary Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 13th, 2008
12 Angry Men is one of those rare films that appears to defy all the
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Mission Impossible – The Fourth TV Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 12th, 2008
Jim Phelps (
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The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 2008
A couple of years ago, I was out a trip to New Jersey on business with my boss. When we got there, he wasn’t feeling well, so I had him sit down while I went to the clinic down the hall to see if some medical attention could be given to him. As I turned the corner with an attendant, that’s when I saw him hit the floor. After a few moments of stabilization he was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that he had a stroke. A co-worker and I stayed with him for the duration of the next couple of days until his family could get there, and over that time, he suffered several smaller strokes in the process. One minute he could talk rather lucidly, and like flipping a switch his facial muscles would sag and be nonresponsive. Once his family came, we managed to get the chance to come home, and he spent several more days in the hospital, remarkably without any repercussions from this incident, and came back to work, where we still talk (I’ve moved to another company) and share the occasional gallow humor about what happened.
Things We Lost in the Fire
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 2008
It’s hard to peg a movie like Things We Lost in the Fire. While people want to slam it and say that it’s not an uplifting movie, I think that upon further review, they might want to examine those behind it, and see that it’s another solid effort from them.
Legend of the Black Scorpion (The Banquet)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 1st, 2008
Retelling of classic tales has been a fodder for movie scripts for years. Take something that has worked for ages, spin it just so and you got a movie that might be gold. They have been doing this with Romeo & Juliet for years. The results can be great or sometimes they are one step of having the creator roll around in his grave with pain and anguish. Take Hamlet for example, the classic Shakespearian tale about a prince who takes revenge on his uncle Claudius who has murdered his father the King and taken the throne and the king’s wife too. It has treachery, corruption and a little good ole fashioned incest to wet the palette. Now take that piece of journalistic tragedy and set it after the fall of the Tang Dynasty in China. Insert popular Asian actors like Ziyi Zhang & Daniel Wu and you might just have something.
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The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Volume Three – The Years of Change
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 29th, 2008
So here we are again with a third collection of episodes from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series. This final series is called Years Of Change. Most of the episodes and features deal with the span of years between the World Wars. The 20’s were indeed an inventive time when people like Thomas Edison were at their peak. Peace was at hand, and no one really knew for how little time it would last. Most people had extra money and life was one big party. From our 21st Century hindsight, we know it was all doomed to come crashing down before the decade ended
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Perry Mason (50th Anniversary Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 25th, 2008
If you’re a fan of Perry Mason you need to approach this 50th Anniversary collection with mixed feelings. With no new announcements of future season or half season releases, this set does have the look of finality to it. The last set was the second half of season 2 released November of 2007. With this commorative release you get 12 episodes spread out from the remaining seasons starting with the third. While
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Matlock – The First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 21st, 2008
Imagine Sheriff Andy Taylor older and now an attorney, and you pretty much have the set up for Matlock. Forget for a second that both characters were played by Andy Griffith. That’s not all they have in common. Matlock is every bit the “southern gentleman” that
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Feel the Noise
Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 18th, 2008
Dance movies can be interesting especially when it involves hot sweaty bodies and bodacious moves along a club floor. Did I just say bodacious? “Pauly Shore is on line one, please pick up the white courtesy phone”. I’ll ignore that for now. Dirty Dancing or Footloose are great examples. Some should be drag into the street and shot. I knew that Feel the Noise looked bad the minute I looked at the cover. What was that clue on the cover you might ask? Produced by Jennifer Lopez would be a very good start.
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Conspiracy
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 15th, 2008
I couldn’t find her name anywhere on the credits, but I simply cannot believe that Rosie O’Donnell didn’t have anything at all to do with the film Conspiracy. The film is a thinly veiled pot shot at the current administration, or at least Dick Cheney. Gary Cole plays a guy named
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There Will Be Blood (Special Collector’s Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 9th, 2008
He might not have been “shootin’ at some food” but for Daniel Plainville it’s all about that “bubblin’ crude. Oil that is. Black Gold.
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No Country For Old Men
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 3rd, 2008
So what did we all learn with the Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest opus, an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country For Old Men? Well, suffice to say, along with the creative resurgence of the brothers, we get a film that’s part modern-day Western, part action, part comedy and even perhaps part-horror, but in the adoration and adulation, to want to pin the film down as something is to forget that above all else, the film is a tale about changing times, told by someone who’s seen better days and is nostalgic for them. It’s that story that seems to be ignored to a certain degree by people, which oddly enough is ironic considering the title of the film.
Love Lies Bleeding
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 2nd, 2008
In 1973 Elton John had his best selling album to that time in the double release
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