Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 11th, 2008
The show’s most basic premise remains intact. Melinda Gordon is a newlywed and owns the antique shop in a quaint
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 5th, 2008
Denys Arcand’s conclusion to the loose trilogy whose first two parts were The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions takes place in a near-future Quebec of soulless bureaucracy and nonexistent human relations. Our hero (Marck Labrèche) is a civil servant with a wife whose job leaves no time for him, two iPod-dependent teenage daughters, and a giant suburban house that is not a home. He retreats from his dead-end life into a series of fantasies which see him as hero, shiek, rock star, celebrated novelist, and so on, always with women rushing to have sex with him.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 8th, 2008
"Space...The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 1st, 2008
If you’ve followed my reviews, you know that I love Stargate. SG-1 or Atlantis; I can’t get enough of them. When the collection of Stargate Infinity discs arrived at my doorstep, I tore into them like a Wraith into a red shirt. Now the Stargate might be an incredible mystery that delights a legion of fans. What is not much of a mystery is why this children’s cartoon version of the franchise only lasted one year.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 1st, 2008
I wonder if Johnny Smith could have seen it coming. After 6 short seasons the USA Network series based on Stephen King’s The Dead Zone has finally closed up shop. The series is based very loosely on the early Stephen King novel or the film with Martin Sheen. Johnny still goes into a coma and comes out with psychic abilities. He even meets the infamous Senate candidate destined to destroy the world. The similarities between the original tale and this surprising series end there.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 13th, 2008
Come on, admit it, you want to say that Hayden Christensen was the worst part if the latest trilogy of Star Wars films, and yeah, the guy did bring the suck, to be sure, but he wasn’t really that bad, right? Well yeah, he was, but he’s not the only thing wrong when it comes to Jumper, the latest film from writers David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight) and Jim Uhls (Fight Club), who adapted the Steven C. Gould novel. Directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), Jumper features Christensen as David Rice, a man who grows up with a genetic gift, the ability to ”jump” from place to place, Christensen’s performance was his first major role since transforming Darth Vader from an ominous, silently rueful and dominating presence, to a dude who thought his girl was cheating on him, so he started hanging out with a creepy old guy as a result.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 31st, 2008
The Minutemen was not a theatrical release. I get the impression it did run on the Disney Network at one point, but I never saw the broadcast. So, for most of us, this release is pretty much a direct to video affair. The film is strictly for the kids, which is a little bit of a missed opportunity here. The subject matter lends itself to the inclusion of some wonderful references that might have been enough to keep the adult in me interested more. Instead Disney decided on the strictly youth oriented course.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 29th, 2008
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not really out to get you. That old axiom has never been more true than for David Vincent in the Martin Quinn series The Invaders. Quinn was best known for his police procedural shows like The FBI. At the time of the The Invaders Quinn was going into the final season of one of his most popular shows, The Fugitive. While most people over the years have compared The Invaders to that Quinn production, they were really not as similar as all that.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 19th, 2008
There really was nothing like the Italian film industry in full exploitative steam. The Beast in Space is a perfect example of what I mean. From where else but Italy in 1980 could there emerge a low-rent rip-off of both Walerian Borowczyk’s high-end erotic epic The Beast and Star Wars? Even the poster somehow manages to conjure thoughts of both films. And the title shamelessly implies that it is some sort of sequel to the former. So what kind of alchemy do these elements produce?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 7th, 2008
In the first season of The 4400 we are introduced to 4400 people who, we are led to believe, have recently returned from being abducted by aliens. Before you can look for Samantha Mulder among the group, we eventually discover that it was in reality the future that abducted these hundreds for nefarious reasons of their own. Some abductees have returned with mysterious powers and abilities. No, this is not Heroes or X-Men; in fact it’s a lot more like The X-Files than anything else, particularly in this the final season.
