Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 5th, 2018
"All I know for certain is if the four Mickaelsons come together, it will signal darkness like we've never known. So many possible tipping points, but without the benefit of hindsight, how can we know if we're at the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?"
We do have hindsight as Warner Brothers releases the final season of The Originals on DVD. This is the beginning of the end. It's a bit of a shame. This show always had better stories and a more compelling cast than The Vampire Diaries had on their best season.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 4th, 2018
“This is the greatest s— show on Earth!”
The First Purge arrives in theaters a little more than five years after the (lowercase) first Purge rampaged into moviegoers’ consciousness as a nasty bit of R-rated, summer blockbuster counterprogramming. The movies are obviously quite popular, but I’ve never felt that any of them fully lived up to the killer concept at the center of this franchise. Unfortunately, that still holds true for The First Purge, which had a chance to deviate from the established formula in a variety of interesting ways, but ends up playing a lot like The First Three Purges.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 4th, 2018
"911. What is your emergency?"
In the 1970's my family watched a lot of television together. One of the shows that we rarely missed was Emergency starring Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe, a Jack Webb show that lived in his Dragnet world. The series followed the adventures of fire station 51 and would bring us an hour of fighting fires and daring rescues. The show ran for seven seasons from 1972-1979 and was followed by a few television movies in the 1980's. While there have been many shows in that mold, there really hasn't been anything that came close to that series.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 3rd, 2018
“The world doesn't want any more saints.”
Maybe the world didn't want any more Exorcist movies...at least not any that looked like Exorcist II: The Heretic. This follow-up to William Friedkin's 1973 genre-defining horror classic is not only regarded as one of the weakest sequels of all-time, but some consider it to be one of the worst films ever made. I hate to throw out a ***SPOILER ALERT*** so early in my review, but...I don't think this is the worst film ever made. ***END OF SPOILER ALERT*** Instead, I find Exorcist II to be a nonsensical, somewhat intriguing disaster whose fatal flaw is that it took everything that everyone loved about The Exorcist...and decided to do almost the exact opposite.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 2nd, 2018
"Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward."
Fox is taking full advantage of their version of the X-Men Universe these days. By this time next year, the group of mutants will once again be back with Marvel at Disney, and I suspect they will quickly join that studio's MCU. I can't blame Fox for getting as much out of it now as they can. With the pending release of Dark Phoenix and two television shows running, this was the perfect time to release the original film trilogy on UHD in ultra-high-definition.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 2nd, 2018
There's a lot going on with Fox's X-Men property these days. Legion became the first live-action television series based on that universe. It's an odd show that takes the franchise in more of a mental direction. There is a new film that features the First Class cast that deals with Jean Grey and her Dark Phoenix nature. While that film is being delayed...again, you can get your mutant fix with the release of the first season of The Gifted on DVD as well as the upcoming second season soon to air. This show is more in line with the kind of action and mutant powers display that fans of the franchise are likely looking for. It appears to exist in the X-Men universe created by Fox, as there are multiple mentions of the X-Men in the show. The first three films are now out in 4K, and there's a lot of X-Men stuff coming to your home theatre. Add to that list The Gifted: Season 1 on DVD.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 2nd, 2018
Mention the name J.K. Rowling, and the first thing that pops into your head is Harry Potter. She was a struggling writer just getting out of a bad marriage when her first Potter book took the world by storm. Now she's the wealthiest woman on the planet. The problem has been her life has since been Harry Potter all the time. I can well understand why she might want to find a way to distance future novels from all of that hype and expectation. So she invented Robert Galbraith and wrote a series of detective novels based on a character named C. B. Strike. The novels didn't come close to the sales of a Potter novel, but they did fairly well, particularly in England. So BBC One and HBO got together for a joint production of the show for both England and the United States. The result is a kind of mini-series that tackles three of the novels in seven hour-long episodes starring Tom Burke as the title character.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 28th, 2018
"How will we be remembered? Will it be for saving the world...Twice? Nope. We're the team who broke time. That's right. History has been torn to shreds, which means it's up to us to put it back together again, piece by piece, finding these so-called anachronisms before we get torn to shreds. So please, don't call us heroes. We're legends."
At the end of the second season the team broke one of the cardinal rules of time travel. You can't revisit a time and place that you already visited. The result is that you break time, and that's exactly what the Legends of Tomorrow have done. The result is that they have been recalled and dismissed from service by the newly-formed Bureau of Time. Now our legends are back in the mundane world, where Sara (Lotz) is working as a clerk at a bed and shower store, having fantasies of killing her boss.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 28th, 2018
“Told you it was aliens.”
What if Michael Bay was Australian and he was only given $6 million to make an alien invasion movie? The result might look a lot like Occupation, a rollicking, gleefully dumb sci-fi/action flick that works best as a throwback to simpler (i.e. dumber) times at the multiplex. But while Occupaton has its charms, the movie's shoddy special effects and production values consistently undermine the kickass story it's trying to tell.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 27th, 2018
“So here we are...in the belly of the beast. A lot of power and money in this room.”
That cheeky line came from Iggy Pop during The Stooges' induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. It's also featured in Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: In Concert — Encore, a wonderfully comprehensive collection of the four induction ceremonies between 2010 and 2013. The 2-disc Blu-ray set features over 8 hours of content, including full induction speeches and 44 musical performances from rock and roll icons and rising stars. Iggy was right about the power and money in the room; this set features some of the biggest names in the history of music...plus A-listers like Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey!
