Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 12th, 2008
Eli Stone is a typical corporate lawyer. He admits to being totally self-involved and greedy, that is until he begins to see and hear things that aren’t really there… or are they. These visions appear to be connected with events unfolding in Stone’s life and seem to be leading him toward a mission of sorts. It could be helping a mother whose child was stricken by a harmful vaccine or helping a convict fight prison abuse. In the pilot, Stone discovers that he has a brain aneurism, which might account for the vivid visions he is experiencing. His mentor, Dr. Chen, has another idea. He believes that Stone is being recruited by God as a prophet to help with the world’s injustices. As viewers we’re never quite certain exactly what to believe. What we know is that, like most prophets, the situation isn’t exactly working out great for Stone’s life. He loses his hot fiancée and most of his coworkers see him as some kind of a kook. Of course, it wouldn’t make good television if these visions didn’t often come at the most inopportune moments. He could be in a meeting with an important firm client or involved in the more intimate activities when he’ll hear strange music or see fire breathing dragons. Because the visions are so realistic, Stone can’t help but react to them, even when he knows they’re not real. This leads to many of the show’s awkward moments, as that gag gets old very quickly. There’s entirely too much office romance here as well.
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 Gino Sassani on September 11th, 2008
“You wanna be where everybody knows your name”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 11th, 2008
“Hey Hey Hey, It’s Fat Albert!”
That’s right, it’s Fat Albert. Bill Cosby invented the portly young Albert for his stand-up and album releases in the 1960’s. The character, like many of Cosby’s stories, is based on elements of his own youth. My parents were huge Cosby fans, so I had heard all about these Cosby Kids long before they hit television in 1972. Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids was an almost instant hit on the Saturday Morning cartoon menu. Unlike most of those early morning toons, this one mixed in some live action elements with Cosby himself. He acts as a host for the stories. The show was also known for its attempt to teach some kind of moral lesson with each episode. Standard lessons like it’s not cool to call someone names, or drugs are bad business, were often the week’s taglines. Cosby would accentuate the lesson himself, and usually the show ended with a song played by the Kids with their junkyard instruments that again played on the moral of the week. Cosby used a staff of educational psychologists for the show and made no apologies for the often heavy-handed lessons. Off and on the series ran for about 12 years, finally ending original programming in 1984.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 5th, 2008
NCIS is a spin-off, of sorts, from the popular military lawyer show JAG. You could say that NCIS is the Order to JAG’s Law. The NCIS is a real government agency that deals with criminal activity inside or involving the US Navy or Marine Corps. The series has an incredibly global feel and honestly looks damn good for television. Production values are high, and the location stuff is out of this world, or at least all over it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 5th, 2008
Chris Rock has been one of those comedians that either hits a home run or strikes completely out. I’ve seen quite a bit of his stand-up and found I loved it or hated it. He’s not afraid to play the race card. Hell, Chris plays the whole dang deck at times, and Everybody Hates Chris is no different. The comedy is based, loosely I’m sure, on the young adolescent life of Chris Rock. It’s a black comedy that will bring back memories of those 1970’s shows we all watched as kids. Like Good Times and even Sanford And Son, the show is loaded with stereotypes. All of the white characters are bumbling fools who are often played as racists themselves. Chris’s school teacher, Mrs. Morello (Mazarella), is the most obvious example. She’s constantly trying to talk “hood” with the boys and making politically incorrect observations loaded with outrageous clichés. Of course, it’s all in fun and if you’re willing to overlook the often sensitive language and plots, you’re in for some laughs along the way. I like that the show never really takes itself seriously and challenges the viewer to simply lighten up. Basically, this ain’t no Cosby Show.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 5th, 2008
<>“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
To Date 42 men have taken that oath to become President Of The United States. While our current president is #43, Grover Cleveland’s terms did not run consecutively and so he often is counted twice. From George Washington to George W. Bush our country has seen feast and famine, good times and bad, and extraordinary leaders and some, let’s just say, leave much to be desired. This American Experience PBS collection covers 10 of the most important from the 20th Century: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson,
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 26th, 2008
Man, has television come a long way in just over 50 years. There was once a pretty strict code that applied to television programs. Men and women, even when married, couldn’t be seen to have shared the same bed. Anything stronger than a “golly gee” was strictly forbidden. You couldn’t even show a woman’s belly button. And the good guys always had to win, while the bad guys got their comeuppance in the end. Alfred Hitchcock was one of the first to push those boundaries by telling mystery stories where the bad guys often appeared to get away with their evil deeds. Even Hitchcock wasn’t brazen enough to completely skirt these rules, and at the end of such immoral plays he would always add, in his spoken postscript, some terrible twist of fate that got the bad guys in the end. Those days seem long behind us now. We have mob bosses, crooked cops, and now a serial killer, not only getting away with their crimes but acting the hero, of sorts, for the show. Vic Mackey and Tony Soprano only helped pave the way. In Showtime’s groundbreaking series, Dexter, Morgan Dexter is a serial killer who happens to kill other killers. The series is based on two novels by Jeff Lindsay. Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter gave birth to the character and world of Dexter Morgan.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 26th, 2008
Animal Planet has created their own new genre of television show over the last few years. Nature shows have been around forever. I remember spending time with my family as a kid watching Animal Kingdom. Since then very little about that type of program has changed. With Discovery Channel the nature show certainly became more sophisticated. Everything changed with Shark Week. Now we have an entire cable network dedicated to animals, so it stands to reason the nature show, like the animals themselves, had to evolve. That’s a lot of program time to fill. Animal Planet has taken a new step toward the next generation of nature shows.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 21st, 2008
My mother was a big fan of The Untouchables. I think she really just had a crush on Robert Stack. Years later when Stack was hosting Unsolved Mysteries, I could swear that I heard her murmur a few
