Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2022
"I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse."
Everybody loves an origin story. The comic book films are loaded with them. Fans have this unquenchable curiosity. We want to know how our heroes became what they are. The same can be said for our favorite movies. I recently read It's Alive. It was a look at the making of Frankenstein through the eyes of the various principals. But it was also a story of the studio system at the time of the early 1930's. I spoke to the author, Julian David Stone, and we talked about how much that story is an integral part of the story of that one particular film. You can listen to that chat here. Now Paramount + has given us a limited series event that takes us back to the late 1960's and early 1970's and takes a dramatic look at the making of The Godfather. Appropriately enough, it's called The Offer, and it just might be the best season of television I've seen in at least a decade.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2022
"There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water."
We've had Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Gene Simmons with his Family Jewels, and even Snoop Dog's Father Hood. It's become a bit of a trend to follow these celebrity families around and watch the drama of their privileged lives unfold on our television screens. You might think it's a relatively recent phenomenon, but would you believe they were doing it back in the infant days of television when we followed around a musician named Ozzie and his wife way back in 1952? No, we're not talking about Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I'm talking about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. They were television's darling family before we ever heard about Lucy and Desi. The show actually started on radio like many of the fledgling industry’s early hits including the likes of Gunsmoke. Four years after the radio brought us The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, they moved to television. While their two sons were played by actors on the radio, both David and Ricky Nelson joined the television show, and it went on to make television history, breaking records, some still held today. It was the first television series to ever hit 10 seasons. It lasted from 1952 to 1966 with 436 episodes. Until The Simpsons, it was the longest running scripted television comedy and remains still the longest live-action scripted comedy ever on television. And while the stories were, of course, fictional, most aspects of the show were quite real. Their television home was modeled after their real home. Many of the family's life stories found their way to the series. The four family members were quite real, and you just couldn't fake these relationships.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 29th, 2022
Some movies are simply timeless. The Apartment (1960) is one of those films that I feel still holds up today and is still rightfully considered a classic. Then there are films like Peking Express (1951) that may have been good for their time, but my experience with the film just felt like a chore I couldn’t wait to finish. It’s not that the film did anything wrong. It was shot well, had decent acting, and the story was simple, but it just didn’t grab me. I like older films. I never had a problem with B&W films, but I guess to simply put it, this one just didn’t do it for me. That’s not to say that this film is bad. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, I guess you could say. The focus is mostly on Dr. Michael Bachlin (Joseph Cotton), a doctor who works with the World Health Organization who is traveling from Shanghai to Peking. No this isn’t a coronavirus-related trip, but instead it’s about a group of people trying to flee the Communist-ruled areas out of fear of being taken prisoner and killed. On board the train, Michael runs into his former lover, Danielle (Corinne Calvet). The romance and tension that builds between Michael and Danielle definitely gave me vibes of a poor imitation of Casablanca, but on a train. This could have worked if only the characters were better developed.
There’s a little bit of mystery when a woman is nearly killed on the train, and Michael suspects that it is her husband that is responsible. Granted, I’m not sure if this film taking an Agatha Christie route would have helped, but when the film shifts gears out of nowhere to the train being held captive by a militia group, things sort of improve.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
I think I see your problem. You have this list. It’s a list of people you need/want to buy a Christmas gift for. The trouble is that they’re into home theatre, and you don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars. You couldn’t tell a Wolf Man from a Wolverine. And you always thought that Paranormal Activity was something too kinky to talk about. Fortunately, Upcomingdiscs has come to the rescue every Christmas with our Gift Guide Spotlights. Keep checking back to see more recommendations for your holiday shopping. These gift guides ARE NOT paid advertisements. We take no money to publish them.
"Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning; ladies bathed before noon, after their 3 o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go and nothing to buy ... and no money to buy it with. Although Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself ... That summer, I was six years old."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
"It's opening up all kinds of doors."
Alcatraz Prison was one of the country's most secure facilities for over 60 years. It was built on a rocky island off San Francisco. You couldn't dig through the rock, and the surrounding ocean was cold and heavily populated by sharks big enough to feed off the plentiful seal population. For 60 years no one had successfully escaped the prison. That record was broken in June of 1962 when three inmates, brothers Clarence and John Anglin, escaped with Frank Morris, who was believed to have masterminded the plot. Sixty years later the case remains officially open, and no one knows what happened to the three men. In 1963 J. Campbell Bruce wrote a non-fiction book called Escape From Alcatraz. The book attempted to document all of the serious attempts to escape the prison, which of course included the 1962 escape. The book also called attention to some of the conditions of the prison and was a part of the reason it shut down completely just a year after publication of the book.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid."
Clint Eastwood might have gotten his film career started with bit roles in the sci-fi classics Tarantula and Return Of The Creature, but he made his mark in Europe with Sergio Leone and his famous spaghetti westerns. He became The Man With No Name in a trilogy of films, and it would create the character of Clint as much as it would any film character. Eastwood was smart, and he used the time on those films to learn. He was observant and took in all of the technical aspects of the business of making movies, and it continues to serve him 60 years later, as Eastwood has become as much of an icon behind the camera as he ever did in front of it. His first directing job was Play Misty For Me, but he returned to those still fresh spaghetti-western roots for his second time in the director's chair and his first time directing a western. High Plains Drifter would fit nicely into the trilogy of Leone films. The character called The Stranger could very much be the same Man With No Name, and it's clear enough that he took away more than a paycheck from his time spent in Italy and Spain with Leone. High Plains Drifter would be Clint Eastwood's exclamation point on his earlier career and would take him to places I'm sure even The Stranger could have imagined. Let's just say he's earned more than a fistful of dollars. Now thanks to Kino-Lorber it's out in UHD/4K, and it's never looked better.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 28th, 2022
The 1972 film The Valachi Papers is the mostly true story of Joe Valachi, who was made famous/infamous for his testimony to the US Senate about the activities of the Cosa Nostra, or what we more commonly call the mafia. I have to be honest; I don’t’ know how this film has escaped me for so long, I hadn’t even heard of it till Kino pulled this one from the vaults to release on Blu-ray. For film lovers, and especially those who love a good old fashioned gangster film, I’d say this is a must-watch, mostly because the first thing that came to mind while watching this film is how much this film must have influenced Martin Scorsese and his approach to making Goodfellas, If that’s not enough to get you to want to check out the film, well, let me tell you a little more about it.
Charles Bronson plays the role of Joe Valachi, and this film does span his entire criminal career from the early 1920’s to his testimony in the 1960’s. What’s a little surprising is that Bronson plays the role throughout. Of course back then the filmmakers couldn’t pull the CGI tricks we see in The Irishman, and instead all they use for the aging effects in this film are simple makeup and hair styling products. Is it believable seeing Bronson playing a character in their 20s when at the time the actor was well into their 50s? No, but I still appreciate it more than the de-aging technology we’re seeing nowadays.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 28th, 2022
I was surprised to read that actor Henry Silva passed away back in September; he’s one of the great tough-guy actors who thrived in the 60’s and 70’s that we just don’t have any more. Personally I was a fan of his Euro Crime films, The Boss and The Italian Connection. Silva just had a way of exuding cool and badass that in my eyes made him a rock star on the screen. He was like a rougher Charles Bronson. He was in two movies that made a big impression on me as a kid. Granted they are both glorified B movies, but Allan Quaterman and the Lost City of Gold and Alligator (1980) were movies that were in a high rotation for me as a kid, and it’s Henry Silva’s mean-guy mug that has stuck with me for so long. My point is, I look at Henry Silva as a cinematic treasure, and when I had the chance to check out the new Kino release of Assassination, a Henry Silva film I had never seen or even heard of, well, I was excited. Sadly, this one is a bit of a mess.
Assassination is a film that fits into the sub-genre of the Euro-Spy wave that came along after the success of the James Bond films. There were a lot of knockoffs; some were even pretty good, The Cold War supplied so much material for the spy genre that we are still getting a plentiful amount of films about the topic. This film opens up with John Chandler (Henry Silva) awaiting execution for crimes we only find out later that he is responsible for. We see the whole song and dance of them prepping for his execution and his farewell to his wife, only to discover that this is all an elaborate hoax the CIA is pulling off to fake Chandler’s death, then to give him plastic surgery just so they can use him to play his long-lost brother Philip so he can help the government take down a crime boss. It’s an elaborate plot that gets so overly complicated with double crosses that the film just seems silly.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 23rd, 2022
"Like a river flows, Surely to the sea, Darling, so it goes, Some things are meant to be ..."
Elvis Presley is often referred to as the King Of Rock and Roll, at least to his fans. There's no denying the impact that he had on the music scene. He was the first rock and roll star, to be sure. Colonel Tom Parker, his long-time manager and partner, created many of the marketing traditions that are commonplace in the industry today. He knew the value of his star, not only as a performer, but as a brand. For the first time, a musician's image and name started to appear on everything from bath towels to women's underwear. Fans are often split on their feelings for the self-styled Colonel, but Elvis would not have become the name brand he still is today without him.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 23rd, 2022
Many times when we watch films for the first time, we get distracted. Maybe it's a pretty girl, money issues, or perhaps you had something else on your mind that's hurting your focus. Whatever it is, it can really change your interpretation of a movie in a positive or negative way. One such movie for me is Mystery Men when I saw it in early 2000. Back when rentals were a thing, I remember renting this film and being distracted completely by someone who shall remain nameless. I barely liked the movie and didn't really watch it again until many years later only to realize I liked the film far more than originally thought. Four or five times later, I revisit the film again, this time in glorious 4K. Let's see how it does.
Thunder is rumbling, and we have arrived in the futuristic Champion City. A place of superheroes and supervillains. The scene is a private party with some rich senior citizens. All of a sudden, Big Red (played by Artie Lange) runs in with his gang of bad guys to rob the place. They steal everything in sight; nothing is safe, not even a prosthetic arm. But just when you think nothing can save these wealthy elderly members of society, we have a few heroes who might save the day.
