Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2009
Just in time for the holidays, the Buddies are back for more cute puppy action. All of the retriever Buddies are back for this one. You are introduced to the “Buddies” right at the start, so it doesn’t really matter if you saw any of their other films. There’s Bud-Ha (Cate), a wise meditational pup. Next up is Mud-Bud (Panitz), an always dirty pup with a fondness for rolling in the dirt. The female Buddy is Rose-Bud (Mumy), who is the girly part of the team all decked out in a bow. Bud-Derball (Flitter) is the normal one of the bunch, followed by the rappin’ pup, B-Dawg (Gisondo).
The North Pole is having a crisis. It’s getting close to Christmas and Santa’s workshop is having a shortage of magic power. Deep in a cave at the North Pole hangs the Christmas Icicle. It is the source of all Christmas magic that allows Santa and his gang to do their thing. It is powered by people having the Christmas Spirit. Lately, not enough people are believing in Christmas, so the icicle is shrinking. Finally, global warming that really is caused by humans. Another problem in the North Pole deals with Puppy Paws (Gordon) son of Santa’s right hand, eh … dog Santa Paws (Bosley). Puppy Paws wants to be like a normal dog and doesn’t want the responsibility that Christmas means to his family. He finds Bud-Derball in Santa’s naughty files and decides that’s the kind of pup he wants to hang with. So he stows away on one of Santa’s express trucks and heads to Washington to meet the Buddies. At first they find Puppy Paws to be a bit of a pain to hang with. But when Puppy Paws is captured by the mean old dogcatcher Stan Cruge (Lloyd) the Buddies go into action to save him. What they didn’t know was that Christmas depends on them freeing Puppy Paws. There’s a side story that has Stan Cruge turning from a mean old Scrooge character to finding his own Christmas Spirit, and helping to bring back the Christmas Icicle.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 3rd, 2009
Spongebob Squarepants is such the cultural phenomenon that anytime an anniversary or a full length motion picture comes into production, the show can usually get a slew of good actors and sports stars to do a cameo. For Spongebob’s tenth anniversary and third tv movie of the series: he decided to bring out a slew of guest stars. The only question that remained was the hour long episode any good or was it the show’s version of week old bread with those really crusty parts?
Today is the day of the eleventy seventh (that’s 117 for you land dwellers) of the Krusty Krab. It was just yesterday when Spongebob had tasted his first Krabby Patty and knew his life’s goal would be to work at the establishment. Spongebob showers, puts on his clothes including his eager face and goes to the Krusty Krab to clock into work. When he gets there, he realizes that the place is surrounded by customers all eager to get in.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2009
Who would have believed that you could do a situation comedy based on Nazi Germany and a group of POW’s in World War II? It wasn’t an easy sell. When Albert S. Ruddy first came up with the idea, it was a contemporary story about a group of guys in a normal U.S. prison. There were a lot of problems, mostly with the idea of making your main characters criminals. Of course, that’s not so much the problem today. But this was the 1960’s, and those kinds of “heroes” were not quite as accepted. Eventually the concept developed to put the characters in a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany during the World War II. Remember that we were only 20 years removed from the end of the war and the discovery of the concentration camps and all of the horrid images these things evoked in people. Any smart betting man would have given the chance of getting such a series to air at somewhere between zero and Hell freezing over. And when the show was pitched to CBS, that’s exactly what the execs had to say.
Somehow they were convinced enough to do a pilot episode. It was too funny to pass up, even with the more sober circumstances. By the end of that first season Hogan’s Heroes was one of the top rated shows on television. Larry Gelbart often credits the success of Hogan’s Heroes as the precedent that allowed shows like MASH to be sold. Suddenly it was okay to find laughter in such places. The show ran for 6 seasons from 1965 to 1971. The cast would remain completely intact throughout the show’s run. The show would also have to hold off a plagiarism suite from the writers of Stalag 17.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2009
I went to my player, the one that’s on top. I turned on the TV I bought at the shop. Then I opened my Blu-ray, took it right from its case, and then there on the tray I put it in place. I pushed one or two buttons to bring it up fast. Soon an FBI warning, then my feature at last. I sat the whole time crouched alone in my chair, watching fanciful images that came to me there. I was certain at once that I’d seen this before, but something was different; it was brighter, I’m sure. The Grinch was the same, he hadn’t changed, not a bit. But the image was clearer now, I had to admit. So, I puzzled and puzzled alone in my seat. Why these colors much finer for such a repeat? Then at last I was certain, yes it had to be so. This must be high definition, what a wonderful show. I know when it ended I felt somewhat sad, but these discs last forever, and so I was glad. So, if you’re a fan of the Grinch and his kin, you must hurry now quickly and watch it again. I promise it will be like nothing you’ve known. It’s for kids of all ages, both little and grown.
Boris Karloff was famous for monsters and ghouls, who’d have thought he’d be perfect for books read in schools? He tells quite a story, a marvelous voice. To play the Grinch and reader he was the most perfect choice. The songs are all there, you know them by heart. Nothing is missing, not one little part. Everyone’s back, Cindy Lou Who and Max. But the Grinch is the star. The facts are the facts. You can sing along joyfully. You know every word. You know every scene even before it occurred. Chuck Jones was the talent behind all the art, as he carefully directed each wonderful part. It was made in 1966. It’s been shown every year, from Tampa to London, Paris, Rome, and Tangier. Kids laugh and they snicker. Some kids even wince; for 44 years now we’ve been watching The Grinch.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2009
I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years. A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are the most mentioned and certainly beloved by generations of children and adults. I thought I never missed an airing.
This is one of the most endearing and enduring of the franchise. It’s loaded with memories too many to mention them all here. Charlie Brown tries to direct the school nativity play. He finds it hard to get the gang’s cooperation. In his own despair he discovers the true meaning of Christmas. Some of those memorable moments that I will never forget include: The scrawny little tree that Charlie Brown picks out, held up by Linus’s blanket. Snoopy wins first prize in a house light decoration competition. Of course the best of the best comes in the end when Linus recites the story of the birth of Christ. Today most people would be shocked to see a public school putting on a nativity play. Watching this one is a sad reminder of how much these basic principles have been swept away by intolerance and misrepresentation of “Jefferson’s Wall”, that First Amendment separation of church and state. This short, more than the others, is truly a product of its time. It depicts an America that no longer exists.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2009
The House Of Mouse first appeared on television in January of 2001. It took advantage of pretty much every Disney character from nearly every Disney property. Mickey was the host of a nightclub called The House Of Mouse, I guess a riff on The House Of Blues. The standard bearing characters ran the club. In the audience was where you’ll find all of those lovable characters from films like The Lion King, Aladdin, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Winnie The Pooh, and so many more. The shows were both performances by the characters and the showing of Disney shorts. The series was very much like the Warner 70’s show The Bugs Bunny And Road Runner Show. There too you had an audience and staff of Warner’s entire Loony Tunes library. There was also a rivalry there between Bugs and Daffy Duck. The same kind of relationship exists here between Mickey and Donald. The series only lasted a couple of years and was soon gone from the airwaves.
Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed In At The House Of Mouse aired November of 2001. The characters are all snowed in on Christmas Eve and can’t get home to celebrate the holiday. Mickey decides they should all throw a Christmas bash at the club. For the most part they’re all trying to cheer up Donald, who has a case of the humbugs. In between these antics a few shorts are shown. The most notable are a Disney version of The Nutcracker with ultra modern music and a telling of Dickens’ famous A Christmas Carol. Many of the vast cast get at least a couple of lines.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 30th, 2009
It’s really hard to explain but I feel like I have shared a small lifetime with a director named Bradford May. At first, it was a couple of Darkman sequels that were simply good doses of cult sequel fare. I didn’t expect much and I received back exactly that, so I was satisfied. But then as I continued to review more and more movies, as his films started to pop up in my queue. First there was Ring of Death & then Mask of the Ninja. Both could be described as typical action beat-em up movies. Then Bradford decided to take on direction for The Storm, a mini-series that was shown on NBC and somehow it ended up in my review pile. I’m starting to think that this is no mere coincidence anymore.
Dr. Jonathon Kirk (played by James Van Der Beek) is a renowned scientist working at the Atmospheric Research Institute. He is aided by his fellow scientist, Dr. Jack Hoffman (played by Rich Sommer) and newcomer Carly Meyers (played by Erin Chambers). They are being funded by the U.S. government to manipulate technology that will allow them to control the weather.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2009
Believe it or not, Robert Langdon did not make his debut in the Da Vinci Code novel. He was actually introduced in an earlier, but far less known novel, Angels & Demons. When Hollywood came a knockin’ they weren’t interested in that earlier work. The Da Vinci Code was tearing up the literary world, and Hollywood wanted a piece of that overstuffed pie. That meant a strange series of circumstances for Dan Brown and Robert Langdon. In print, The Da Vinci Code is the sequel to Angels & Demons, but in the cinema Angels & Demons is now the sequel to The Da Vinci Code. You might consider it a trivial point, but it’s not. If you’ve read The Da Vinci Code, you know that this isn’t Langdon’s first dance with a murder mystery. He’s much more comfortable around the cops and corpses than the film version appears, by necessity. This first film requires him to be quite the novice and led around the ins and outs by the other characters. That creates an almost new character for fans of the novel. Add that to the incredibly complicated world the novel explores, and you are bound to disappoint fans of the original work. And disappoint fans, the film did. But, the film was still a financial success, breaking the necessary $200 million mark. So, even amid some harsh criticism, Howard and the gang now tackle the actual first novel in Brown’s Langdon series.
Robert Langdon (Hanks) has been called in by the Vatican to help solve a crisis. The Pope has died, and the Cardinal College is about to enter Conclave to select the next Holy Father. A radical group using the name of the ancient Illuminati has kidnapped the top four cardinals in line for the job. They have also stolen a canister of antimatter from the CERN collider labs. They plan to use the antimatter to fulfill an ancient threat against the Vatican to destroy it in light. With little time before the kidnapped cardinals are scheduled to be killed one every hour, Langdon must locate the churches where they are to be executed using clues from the Vatican Archives and the taped threat by the radical group. All the while the Vatican is trying to select a leader. If Langdon can’t solve the clues in time, the entire Vatican City will be destroyed in the largest blast the world has yet seen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2009
“On the 15th of May, in the jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool. He was splashing enjoying the jungle’s great joys, when Horton, the Elephant, heard a small noise. Then he heard it again, just a very faint yelp, as if some tiny person were calling for help…”
If you’re like me, you remember the Dr. Seuss specials from the 1960’s. At this time of the year, The Grinch comes first to mind. In that wonderful span of cartoon specials was the story of the elephant Horton, who hears voices coming from a speck he carries around on a flower. The story revolves around Horton’s attempts to protect the very tiny town of Whoville which exists on that speck. None of his friends believe him, just as none of the Whoville scientist’s friends believe that he has spoken to a giant elephant in the sky. Before long the story plays out, and we all remember the moral that a person’s a person, no matter how small. That Chuck Jones effort is a dear memory for most of us from that generation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2009
My One And Only is based on a George Hamilton autobiographical story. It’s probably a tale that his fans know well. It wasn’t one I was at all aware of. The screenplay was written by Charlie Peters. Hamilton himself is a producer on the film, so we can assume that the story unfolds in much the same way he intended. Like most autobiographical pieces, it has a limited audience. Fans of the subject are certainly going to be quite interested. Others who consider the subject of some note might also have an interest in the material. Unfortunately, it’s like watching vacation or baby slides. After some time you can get lost and bored watching the high or low points in someone else’s life. This is just that kind of experience.
Anne (Zellweger) comes back early from a trip to find her husband, big band leader Dan (Bacon) in bed with another woman. She immediately decides to leave him and take their sons George (Lerman) and Robbie (Rendall) on the road to find herself a new husband. Anne is the typical southern aristocrat and believes she needs to find someone to give her the good life she has become accustomed to. Their first stop is Boston where she runs into old flame Wallace (Weber) who just wants to borrow money because his business is failing. Next she gets engaged to military man Harlan (Noth) who just wants a family so that he can be a “top dog”. Next it’s on to Pittsburg, and it’s Oliver and Charlie. Next stop St. Louis and a paint store magnate who’s crazy as a loon. Finally, it’s California to give Robbie a chance to be an actor. Along the way the family learns about themselves and the man they left behind. They finally settle in California where it’s George who ends up with the acting career.
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