Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 21st, 2009
“Donnie Darko was killed when a jet engine fell from the sky and crushed him while he was sleeping. The government never located the plane from which the engine fell, nor did they even admit the incident ever occurred. But that was just the beginning of the tragedy… and the mystery”
No truer words were ever spoken. First of all, this prologue is about as close to the original Donnie Darko film that this movie ever gets. S. Darko is indeed the beginning of a tragedy. It’s more a disaster than a tragedy, really. It involves a loss of life -- your life. 103 minutes of your life to be exact, unless of course you’re stupid enough to watch the extras as well. That’s not a tragedy. I’d call that a self inflicted wound. The mystery? That’s an easy one. It’s a mystery to me that this film ever got off the ground, let alone released, albeit as a direct to video affair. Donnie Darko wasn’t a great film, but it was an intriguing one that left the audience with some thought provoking images. But there appears to be a fine line between thought provoking and mind numbing. S. Darko is mired in its own abstractness, a serious movie not to be taken seriously at all. In the end, I’m not even sure what the filmmakers were trying to do. I heard them try to explain it, justify it is likely the more accurate term. Still, I can’t help but suspect that whatever it was they were trying to do they failed miserably. And if you end up watching this film it will be you who pays for their shortcomings. Good cinema deserves to be rewarded. Bad cinema deserves simply to be ignored.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2009
“I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”
That pretty much sums things up quite nicely for you. The filmmakers must agree, because the scene figured prominently in their marketing campaign for the film. In the end it’s not really anything that we haven’t seen before with Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, or a handful of other actors in the role. What might make the whole experience somewhat unique is that Liam Neeson isn’t usually associated with this kind of a character. You usually find him more on the cerebral side of things. He plays the part well in spite of the handicap that he never really looks quite right for the part. Give the thespian credit for making the whole idea at least somewhat believable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2009
“They're the world's most fearsome fighting team. They're heroes in a half-shell and they're green. When the evil Shredder attacks these Turtle boys don't cut him no slack! … Splinter taught them to be ninja teens. Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but crude, Michelangelo is a party dude… Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, heroes in a half shell. Turtle power!”
What started as a low budget comic has grown into quite a sensation. The Turtles are everywhere. There are cartoons, books, comics, movies, and thousands of toys. They’ve been translated into just about every language in the world. The 1980’s and 1990’s were alive with Turtle power. With yet another film now in the works, the Turtles are about to make a comeback. While the characters might not have started with the 80’s cartoon series, that’s where it made its greatest leap in popularity. The show ran for over a decade, a rare record for cartoon shows of the era. Here Lionsgate has accumulated all 27 half hour episodes from the 7th season in this 25th anniversary set of 4 discs. Each disc represents a different Ninja Turtle. And like so many of those Playmate television commercials used to warn, they’re each sold separetly.The discs come in a larger box which contains a small action figure of that featured Turtle. Collect all 4 to get the complete season and all 4 turtle characters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 19th, 2009
My history with Westerns isn’t exactly a vast one. I watched a bunch of Westerns with my dad growing up and I continued to watch the bigger ones of the modern era like Tombstone and Unforgiven as I progressed through my teenage years and young adulthood. John Wayne is kinda a mystery to me. He’s a huge gritty guy with a lot of patriotism and a funny way of talking. For lack of a better analogy, Sylvester Stallone is my generation’s John Wayne. Or Chuck Norris I guess. El Dorado is an interesting western flic because it was shot later in John Wayne’s career but he had still had the swagger of earlier pictures. A true classic revisited by the minds at Paramount.
Cole Thornton (played by John Wayne) is a gunslinger for hire. He’s been hired by Bart Jason (played by Ed Asner) for some help in a ranch dispute with the McDonald family. Cole rides into El Dorado and is approached by his friend: Sheriff J.P. Harrah (played by Robert Mitchum) who tells him the real tale of the ranch dispute. Cole also finds out that Jason eventually would have put him in a gunfight with the Sheriff. This is something that he didn’t want to do.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2009
John Ritter never really had much of a chance in his early career to show just how good his acting chops could be. Let’s face it. While Three’s Company had quite a loyal following, it was never mistaken for anything more than a parody. Ritter was never asked to stretch himself here, and the role likely cost him better opportunities over the years. Fortunately, while 8 Simple Rules wasn’t a great show either, it did offer quality enough work to allow Ritter to thrive. Unfortunately he would not live long enough to reap the rewards he was earning for himself. Who knew Katey Segal wasn’t a one trick pony riding on the coattails of Peg Bundy? Who also knew you could find teenage girls who could act and satisfy the “other” attributes often necessary from female actors on television these days. The casting on this show is well above average. The supporting cast also includes James Garner, in a very refreshing role for the aged icon. David Spade joined the show halfway through this season as Cate’s nephew C.J. He’s the kind of guy who can’t stop getting in trouble.
There is nothing worse than forced comedy. You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? You can see a character reaching so far for a joke, it’s a wonder their lips don’t have stretch marks. Good comedy flows naturally. You don’t have to work the jokes into the tapestry; the tapestry is the joke. Family sit-coms have been done to death. There isn’t an angle that hasn’t been explored from the Father Knows Best all American family to the dysfunctional Bundy family from Married With Children. We’ve had the musical Partridges and the 2 dads nontraditional families popular in the 1980’s. So how do you make a tired old concept work? You don’t try so hard, that’s how. Let the dynamic between the characters sell the story. There aren’t any gimmicks here, and sometimes plain vanilla tastes like heaven on a hot summer afternoon.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2009
“So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye. So you think you can love me and leave me to die. Oh Baby, just can’t do this to me baby. Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here… Nothing really matters. Anyone cane see. Nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me.”
I don’t think I can ever listen to Bohemian Rhapsody without conjuring up the image of the gang in the Mirth Mobile bobbing their heads up and down and singing to the Queen classic song. It’s one of those iconic moments in cinematic history that will be with us long after Wayne’s World is forgotten. Too bad the rest of the film hasn’t aged as well.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2009
“White supremist world was cancelled.”
When you talk about Wayne’s World 2 you can’t help but talk about disappointment. I mentioned in my review for the first film that over the span of nearly 20 years the skit had lost some of its luster. I certainly wasn’t nearly as entertained now as I had been when I first saw the film in the early 1990’s. That same principle appears to have been true just a year later when Wayne’s World 2 was released. It gathered in a disappointing $48 million off a $40 million budget. While there was talk of a continuing franchise at the beginning, there wasn’t any interest in a third film by the time the second film had crashed and burned. The fact is, I know many fans out there that didn’t even know a second film existed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2009
Have you seen the Chris Farley/David Spade film Tommy Boy? If you have, then you’ve also seen Black Sheep. The circumstances might have changed, but the general idea is still there. Farley plays the mentally challenged family member, yet again. This time he’s Mike Donnelly, and his brother Al (Matheson) is running for Governor of Washington state. Spade once again plays the faithful employee who is charged with babysitting Farley’s character and trying to keep him out of trouble. Here he’s Steve Dodds, an overlooked campaign assistant who hopes to parley the assignment into a full time job on Donnelly’s staff if he’s elected. Just like in Tommy Boy, there is the rival who is using Farley to hurt the cause. This time it’s sitting Governor Tracy (Eborsole) and her slimy campaign manager Neauschwander (McGill). They set Mike up as an arsonist, among other things. Of course, the Farley and Spade team discover some voting irregularities and take a road trip to the state capital to save the day. They’re aided in their attempt by a Vietnam vet who isn’t dealing with a full deck and is played quite hilariously by Gary Busy.
There are a ton of parallels between the Chris Farley/David Spade comedy team and that of John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd. Both teams began in the Saturday Night Live arena. It was that physical big/little guy combination that has its roots with Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello. Both teams were at the height of their careers when a drug overdose would claim the wilder member of the team. Both of the deceased comedians left behind at least one successful brother to carry on the name in show business. Tommy Boy was by far the best of the films this duo made before Farley’s tragic overdose in 1997. Black Sheep is a pale imitation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2009
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. No, I’m not having a Charles Dickens flashback or reliving Star Trek II. I’m talking about the new Trek release The Best Of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It does feature one of the best Trek episodes of any of the shows, the Borg extravaganza The Best Of Both Worlds. In fact this really does contain 4 of the show’s best episodes. The problem is that there are only 4. With the fan collectives already taking up Yesterday’s Enterprise, it’s not that great a bargain for the real Trek fan.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2009
With the original series I see no reason at all to buy into a 4 episode release. This stuff has already appeared countless times in the last 5 years or so. The episodes appeared in double episode discs originally. Then there were the complete seasons. There was the remastered DVD season sets. Finally, the best news yet, the release of these episodes in high definition on Blu-ray. So, why is Paramount releasing these single disc DVD’s now? There’s no question that they picked 4 of the best episodes, and they are the remastered versions.
![S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/s-darko-a-donnie-darko-tale-blu--large.jpg)
![Taken [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/taken-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Wayne's World [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/waynes-world-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Wayne's World 2 [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/waynes-world-2-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Black Sheep [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/black-sheep-blu-ray-large.jpg)
