Disc Reviews

From the opening title card, Mafia does its best to fit in with the blaxploitation films of the 70’s, and even with Pam Grier in one of the key roles the film just doesn’t hold up.  It seems a lot of filmmakers and fans have on rose-colored glasses to the exploitation era (I’ll lump myself in with this group as well), but the filmmakers who attempt these films forget a lot of these films of the past had a strong political or sociological message they were trying to send.  Just making a film set in the 70s and throwing on some filters doesn’t mean you made an exploitation film; it simply means you captured the cheap low quality of the pictures they made back then.  Look at Jackie Brown (also starring Grier); that film captures the essence of exploitation cinema and looks beautiful, but Tarantino knew to focus on writing a strong ebony female to capture the heart of the genre.

Looking past the cosmetic style of Mafia, there is actually a lot to like here, and that somewhat makes its attempt to look like an exploitation film rather frustrating.  This is a film that could have taken place during any decade and still could work just fine.  The film opens with Renzo (Ving Rhames) locked away in his prison cell awaiting execution.  Haunted by the demons of his past, he recalls the events that brought him into custody.

Gossip Girl ran six years on the CW and is based on a series of books written by Cecily Von Ziegesar. It is about the very rich and young of the upper east side of New York City. The gossip girl of the title has remained secret throughout the series but is revealed in the final episode. I won't be revealing the secret. The series is best described as glossy fun. It is a soap opera in the extreme with a heavy emphasis on fashion and all of the expensive toys of the ridiculously rich. It also deals primarily with teenagers who are “maturing” while trying to deal with the difficulties of a life that has no boundaries.

When the show started, the idea of blogging was still relatively new, before Perez Hilton, TMZ, and a legion of internet dirt mongers became popular. It could be said it was ahead of its time, but we are not talking Nobel-prize-winning innovations. It became a sensation and highly rated on the network, but that is relative to ratings in general. In other words, the ratings weren't very high when compared with shows on other networks but still were always popular with teens. It won Teen Choice awards a few years running. It also ran in 196 countries.

“When lives are on the line, it’s hero time!”

What would you do if you had a gadget that allowed you to transform into different alien creatures? Think about it. If a good and virtuous person found it, they would use it to help others and protect the planet. If it fell into evil hands, they would use it to gain power and cause havoc. Everything comes down to the question of how that power is used. Unfortunately for Earth, Ben Tennyson found the alien gadget in question.

I remember watching Heavenly Creatures and believing Melanie Lynskey would break out and become a star.  I never would have guessed her co-star Kate Winslet would be the one to emerge from the film and be the A-list actress she has become.  After all, when you watch Heavenly Creatures, it’s hard to believe this was the first role Lynskey had in front of a camera; I would have imagined she was destined to play some great roles through her career.  Unfortunately that’s not the case, but I’m glad to see at the very least she has a career up on the screen.

In Lynskey’s new release, Hello I Must Be Going, we see her playing Amy who is recovering from a sudden divorce.  For her the divorce took away everything she believes she had made for herself, because she did everything she could to be the perfect wife.  This rejection has done more than crush her, and it has deflated her to the point of returning to live at home with her parents where she sleeps and mopes around most of the day.  Since we’ve all been through rejection at some point, it’s easy to relate to Amy on some level, and with Lynskey’s quirky portrayal of Amy, it’s hard to not be sucked in by her charm.

When this DVD found its way into my hands, I felt  this could go one of two ways; either this is going to be awful, or this is going to be fun as hell.  I have to admit I had a little more concern when I saw that the show aired on Cinemax and had never even heard of the show.  Despite my concern, the idea of an anthology series inspired by pulp novels and film noir revolving around badass chicks simply sounded too good to resist.  The result is a late-night trashy blend between The Twilight Zone and The Red Shoe Diaries.

Each 30-minute episode is introduced by the provocative host, Lilith (Tanit Phoenix) whose involvement in the show’s storyline may take some time to unfold but is worth the wait.  Lilith does what she does best, teasing the male audience with the promise of the sex and violence that will follow.  The lurid, violent scenes deliver throughout the series with one of the most beautiful ensemble of actresses thrown together.  Unfortunately beauty seems to win out over talent in the acting department. With this late-night erotica you can forgive the bad acting long enough to embrace the cool sleazy fun.

Three-time widower Ben Cartwright  (Greene) runs his famous Ponderosa Ranch with the aid of his three grown sons from three different mothers. There’s Little Joe (Landon), Adam (Roberts) and Hoss (Blocker). Set some time in the mid 1800’s, this long-running series followed the family’s many exploits. In the late 1950’s westerns accounted for six of the top ten programs on TV. Only Gunsmoke had a longer run than Bonanza. From 1959 to 1973, Ben Cartwright and his boys rode across the small screen. Years later in syndication the series re-emerged as Ponderosa, and a handful of TV movies continued the tale into the 90’s.We never have grown tired of the genre that gave us such heroes as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.

Unlike many of the 1960's Western television shows, Bonanza was all about the characters. You rarely saw a gunfight. There was often a bit of fisticuffs, but usually it ended with a lesson that violence never pays. The show prided itself on using the Western genre to deliver a family kind of show, and it's no surprise that series star Michael Landon would use many of the same kinds of stories and lessons on his own Little House On The Prairie. The Cartwrights are always helping widows, the wrongly accused, and the local Indian population. That help often lands them in hot water.

The setting for Gunsmoke was the by-now-famous Dodge City, circa 1870’s. Phrases like “get out of Dodge” would enter the popular lexicon as a result of this resilient series. Marshall Dillon (Arness) was charged with keeping the peace in Dodge City. The only other character to see the entire 20-year run was kindly Doc Adams (Stone). Star Trek’s own Doc, Leonard McCoy, took many of his traits from Doc Adams. He was the humanitarian of the city, always looking to help someone. Like McCoy, he had a taste for bourbon and a soft heart underneath a rather gruff exterior and was always ready with free advice. Dillon’s love interest throughout most of the series was Miss Kitty Russell (Blake). While there were certainly a few romantic undercurrents, the romance never came to fruition. Miss Kitty was a prostitute on the radio and was likely one here as well, but CBS chose to underplay that aspect of her character as a “saloon girl”. Finally Dillon’s faithful sidekick deputy was Chester (Weaver). Chester often found himself in trouble and was the naïve son figure to Dillon.

Gunsmoke is the longest-running scripted live-action television show in history. The series ran from 1955 to 1975. At first it was a half-hour black-and-white show that evolved into a color hour by 1967. It actually started before the days of television, premiering on radio in 1952. Then it was William Conrad as the tough-as-nails Marshall Matt Dillon. When television came into its own, Gunsmoke made the jump to the bright living room box and made history. Westerns would ride across our small square screens for the next three decades, making it the most successful genre of that time, and it was Gunsmoke that started it all. The television version of Gunsmoke was originally conceived as a vehicle for John Wayne, who opted to remain in movies. Yet it was Wayne himself who suggested James Arness, and it turned out to be a career for the one-time “carrot” monster from The Thing. Gunsmoke started before all of the big westerns and was around when most of them had departed.

Slugterra reminds me of the cartoons from my childhood — like G.I. Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — where the good guys are always extolling the virtues of friendship, hard work and fair play. The show also seems to be a cross between Pokemon and Transformers, featuring competitors dueling with little creatures called “slugs” that transform into powerful beasts once they hit 100 mph.

One hundred miles beneath the Earth’s surface lies the world of Slugterra. The story revolves around young Eli Shane, an enthusiastic young “slugslinger” who wants to follow in his father’s footsteps of upholding justice and fighting evil. That evil comes in the form of Dr. Blakk, a billionaire scientist obsessed with being the best at dueling and the power that comes from that. Helping Eli fight against Dr. Blakk are his friends: Pronto, a moleniod (think mole-people) tracker with an over-inflated ego; Trixie, the slug expert and amateur filmmaker; and Kord, a cave troll and the group’s mechanic. With each new slug and adventure Eli encounters, he learns more about what it means to be a Shane while coming closer to defeating Dr. Blakk and his mutated “ghoul” slugs.