Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 10th, 2007
For decades it was the doomsday scenario. Cold War Americans lived in almost constant fear that the Soviets might drop a nuke on us and begin Armageddon. It was unthinkable that a conventional invasion could reach our shores instead. Red Dawn stirred its own mushroom cloud of controversy when it reached theaters in August of 1984. While the Cold War was actually closer to its end than any of us might have suspected, Red Dawn entered our collective consciousness as a shock to a system that had for some time moved beyond the culture of fear those older than myself knew growing up. By the 1970’s the air raid sirens and classroom drills were no longer commonplace in American cities. Growing up in Eastern Pennsylvania, it was
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 10th, 2007
Medium was based on a real person with alleged psychic powers who apparently has helped out various law enforcement agencies in some actual cases. If you’ve seen the series, you might find that hard to believe, and the episodes are obviously fictional adventures and not based on the real Alison Dubois’s experiences. At first glance it might be easy to lump Medium in with Ghost Whisperer or The Dead Zone. Actually there are almost no similarities to any of those shows. Allison does not gain any understanding through touching and while she does see ghosts at times, that aspect of the show has been made to play in only a small percentage of the episodes. Allison accesses her powers through dreams. These nightmares are usually vague and often provide additional clues with each recurring dream. The formula for the show is that she must interpret these images and signs in time to do whatever it is she needs to do.She works as an assistant for the Phoenix District Attorney’s Office, but only the DA and one cop know how she comes across her tips.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 9th, 2007
Steve Carell is Evan Baxter in this “sort of” sequel to Bruce Almighty. He is a freshman member of the United States Congress about to start his first day. His campaign promise was to “change the world”. In the “be careful what you wish for” department, God (Morgan Freeman) gives him the chance to do just that. There’s just one catch, however. Evan has to build an ark…. You know the rest of that story. Suddenly animals begin arriving in pairs, and Evan makes a physical transformation into the traditional long bearded Noah. As you might imagine, this causes some troubles in his life as a Congressman. Try as he might, this modern-day Noah can’t escape his divine destiny. You’re probably thinking: “this sounds like funny stuff”. Wrong. This film meanders through a one-joke plot for most of its hour and a half. Steve Carell is no Jim Carrey and simply doesn’t have the chops to carry this off. The film resorts to mostly physical gags that are more gross-out than funny.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 9th, 2007
I'm not much of a soccer fan. I played a few years as a kid, for a local community club, but quit well before puberty. I almost never watch it on TV, even when the World Cup bandwagon rolls around. The only players I can name are Pelé, Beckham and Hamm. And Knightley, but I suppose the Bend it Like Beckham star doesn't count.
With my limited knowledge and appreciation of the game, I didn't expect much from this HBO documentary. Sure, I know sports stories can be dramatic and exciting, but the U.S. Women's Soccer Team? Not my first choice of subjects. Imagine my surprise when I became totally engrossed in the inspiring story of these women who gave their all when hardly anyone cared, who fought through all kinds of adversity, who dared to dream.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 9th, 2007
Surf's Up is Sony Pictures Animation's second and latest film, and is directed by Toy Story 2 co-director Ash Brannon and Chicken Little's Chris Buck. Although it was considered a box office failure, Surf's Up has since been applauded by critics and fans alike. I have to say, normally I'm a sucker for CGI films but lately there has been a flood of them on the market, and frankly they're starting to decline in quality. But Surf's Up does something different, it's actually a CGI mockumentary on surfing documentaries, and with quite a list of voice actors. The list includes Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, Shia LaBeouf, James Woods, Diedrich Bader, and more. So does this film break free from the recent rut the animated film genre seems to have found itself in?
A crew of cameras follows Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf, Transformers) around Shiverpool, Antarctica documenting him as he hopes to become the next renowned surfing penguin, after his idol "Big Z" (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski). Eventually a talent scout makes his way to Shiverpool where he recruits Cody to join his team. Here Cody befriends Chicken Joe (Jon Heder, School For Scoundrels) a mellow surfer, and becomes hostile with the buff and jerkish Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader, Napoleon Dynamite). Along the way he also meets a kind and caring lifeguard Lani (Zooey Deschanel, Live Free or Die) whom he instantly falls in love with. After a while Cody's arrogance gets himself injured while having a surf off with Tank, and he ends up being nursed back to health by a hermit named The Geek. Eventually Cody finds out that The Geek is actually "Big Z" and with his help Cody hopes to win the upcoming Big Z competition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 8th, 2007
Some portions of this review regarding general show information are shared with the Season 1 and Season 2 reviews.
After watching the first two seasons of CSI Miami I was pleased with the shows story arc, and although the latter season was starting to get a bit dull with regards to the character development, the case loads were just as engaging and bizarre. As I've said before, I hope that in Season 3 a few of the weaker aspects form the past two season can be rectified like the sometimes endless dialogue.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 8th, 2007
Some portions of this review regarding general show information are shared with the Season 1 and Season 3 reviews.
Before I saw Season 1 of CSI Miami I was quite skeptical about the shows ability to live up to the original. After watching the first season I was impressed with most aspects of the show, ranging from character development to entertaining and interesting cases. I don't want to over praise the show though, because it does have its flaws, and can drag on a bit at times, but I'm hoping that Season 2 might just improve on these aspects.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 7th, 2007
Some portions of this review regarding general show information are shared with the Season 2 and Season 3 reviews.
When the original CSI was put on the air, I was a huge fan. At the time it was totally unique, entertaining, and to a certain degree educational. Not to say that hasn't changed over the years, but it has certainly lost its uniqueness over the course of two spin-offs. However I won't judge the quality of these spin-offs because I've never actually watched them before, who knows maybe they still have the integrity of the original show. But when you have a show staring David Caruso, it's going to be hard to win me over, so I'm hoping for some developed storylines and engaging character arcs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 5th, 2007
The main quote on this disc's cover reads, "if you liked Bend it Like Beckham, you'll love Gracie." Baloney. OK! Magazine's Karen Berg got me all excited with this raving tidbit, because I did like Bend it. A lot. Unfortunately for me and anyone else who pays attention to such quotes, Bergie either never watched Gracie or just doesn't know movies and why people like them.
Here's my new quote for the DVD case: "If you still like after-school specials, you'll be delighted with Gracie, a half-baked TV movie in the guise of something more."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 5th, 2007
The CSI phenomenon has been going strong for 8 years now, and CBS has ridden that wave to become the top network these past couple of years. It all started with the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigator. This
