Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 19th, 2022
"I realize that much of your extravagant behavior is done purely for effect. You're an artist. The public expects you to be different. But you're no longer an ascetic young poet just down from Oxford. You're a highly successful playwright at the peak of your career. You dine with royalty. You mix in the highest social circles. You're walking along a precipice. Just as long as you continue to play court jester, society will accept it. But tax their tolerance too far and they'll send you crashing from the heights to the depths of obscurity. A halo doesn't have to fall very far to become a noose."
That's the kind of advice we might expect to go out to some of our more, shall we say, eccentric celebrities of the day. In modern society we still revel in the odd choices and actions of our actors, musicians, and athletes. But sometimes they cross a line, and there's a backlash. Just take a look at the careers of Ezra Miller or Armie Hammer. There are still sacred cows
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 19th, 2022
"We came up here to get lucky."
What do you get when you combine Predator with The Twilight Zone and throw in an 80's television star and do a movie of the week? You get High Desert Kill and a preview of the kind of thing that would start appearing on Sy-Fy in a few decades. Universal was actually the king of these kinds of films throughout the late 70's and 80's, and director Harry Falk was one of television’s steady directors of the time. There's real experience here that allows this film to at times rise above its limited budget and offer a few compelling moments. There was actually a time the film was considered for theatrical release and did find a few box office dates in Europe. That was the dilemma in the 80's. Made-for-television would eventually give way to direct-to-video, and today, of course, it is streaming that provides the same kind of outlet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 18th, 2022
“Space … the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.”
Nearly 20 years after the original Star Trek left the network airwaves, Gene Roddenberry set out to discover whether he could catch lightning in a bottle once again. Some say he did an even better job with Star Trek: The Next Generation. There are times I tend to agree. The Star Trek sequel series had a lot more advantages from the moment it was conceived. Star Trek, a series that barely registered on the ratings during its three-year primetime voyage, became a huge sensation in syndication. By the time The Next Generation came on the scene, the original show had been syndicated in over 20 different languages all over the world.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 17th, 2022
1982. I was seven years old, and my mother, who loved horror movies, wanted to take me to see Poltergeist. Unfortunately, around this time, my dad was usually on the road, and so there was no one really there to say maybe we shouldn't. Honestly, even if my father was there and did say no, I doubt my mom would have listened. It was PG; how bad could it be? In the next two hours, I was treated to something that resonates with me to this very day. From the moment I heard "They're Here", I knew I would never see static on televisions the same way.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 13th, 2022
"There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie."
No one knew those rules better than Wes Craven. He helped to create them, after all. Starting in 1972 with the cult favorite The Last House On The Left, he followed that just two years later with The Hills Have Eyes, which led to a sequel. But it wasn't until a decade later that he would deliver his masterpiece and most successful franchise, Nightmare On Elm Street. Wes Craven introduced the world to Freddy Krueger, and our dreams have never been quite the same since. While others attempted to reproduce the same results with many sequels, it was Craven himself who put Freddy to bed with New Nightmare exactly 10 years after his birth. A remake never got much traction, and Wes Craven's place in horror history was assured. In 1996 he decided to take one more stab at the slasher genre and delivered one of the best films to look directly back at the audience and celebrate the genre. Scream was another hit and another franchise staple.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on October 13th, 2022
So this is not a movie that I would say aged well with time. However, if you could put yourself in the mindset of the time period of its release (1987), I could see the appeal. Lori Singer of Footloose fame and Anthony Edwards of ER fame star as married couple Roxy and Aaron Walston, whose life and relationship becomes strained in rural North Carolina in the post-depression late 1930s, when a young drifter named Jack Ruffin (Bruce Abbott, Re-Animator) comes to their tobacco farm to be a farmhand. Roxy, a shelter girl who married young and had a child is unable to resist the temptation that is Jack Ruffin. As expected, things do not end well. Based on a 1984 novel, Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail, the film shows the tragic results of the affair, which in this modern setting may appear cliché, but during that time likely would be engaging.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 12th, 2022
I am a big sucker for police procedural and detective shows. Once upon a time, I religiously watched CSI (and CSI: Miami), and these days I am watching various episodes of true crime series like Real Detective and Homicide Hunter on a weekly basis (the only other thing I tend to watch weekly is wrestling). It translates over to movies, naturally, as well. Well, today's film takes me into the world of a motorcycle cop who wishes to be a detective and then falls upon a murder case. Sounds like a must-watch to me. Let's take a look at Electra Glide in Blue.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2022
"There's a bizarre version of Superman on the loose."
They are the most famous couple in comic book history. Together they are Superman & Lois, and they've joined the ever-expanding Arrowverse for their second season now out on Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment. While this is still a young series, the characters and these actors portraying them are not new to the Arrowverse. Tyler Hoechlin as Superman and Elizabeth Tulloch as Lois Lane have been here for a few years. Both have shown up on Supergirl, and both appeared in a couple of the crossover events that have pulled together the various Arrowverse shows in the past. Now the focus is on them. They have their own show, and it's quite a different approach to the characters and their story. There has also been a departure that puts the show no longer in the official Arrowverse. I suspect that move comes on the heels of The Flash now entering its final season and I suspect closing the Arrowverse going forward
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2022
"I think this is just the beginning."
Walker is out on DVD. No, this is not the next spin-off of the zombie Walking Dead franchise. There's a new ranger in town, and his name is Cordell Walker. I know what you're thinking: "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." That's where you'd be wrong. They might share the same name and job, but this Walker is nothing like the Chuck Norris version that lasted for over a decade when you include made-for-television movies. This Walker is much younger. He was a Marine who had joined after 9/11. He has a family. His wife was killed a year ago, and now he's trying to raise his son and daughter with the help of his parents, who were no longer living in the Norris series.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 12th, 2022
"If you've got the money you can do what you like. Buy another man's life? Why not?"
There are few writers in the 20th century who have had the kind of career Graham Greene had. He was recruited by England's secret service MI6 where his sister was also an agent and spent time around the world. These experiences likely helped him write the kinds of international thrillers that made him one o the most successful writers in the 20th century. His final novel went a little against the grain of his reputation. The Tenth Man doesn't take us too far afield, and it's far more of an intimate tale than he was known for. It would also be his final novel before his death in 1991. But he lived to see it filmed, albeit as a Hallmark Television made for TV film in 1988.
