Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 25th, 2010
"Evil Is Among Us."
You've got to love a horror film directed and written by a guy named Kevorkian. Johnny Kevorkian is a young director still finding his chops with only a handful of credits to his name thus far. The young talent does have vision, and doesn't go for the obvious. While the film does tend to be a bit heavy on the British sensibilities, you can expect such a thing from an independent low-budget horror film from England. The Disappeared is absolutely derivative of at least 20 films I've seen recently and appears to be substantially influenced by the Asian ghost invasion. Still, there is a style here that might not be terribly original, but it is pretty dang effective, at least on this movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 24th, 2010
Mel Brooks has often been called the Master of Comedy. The moniker might be a bit too grandiose, but he was certainly the master of the parody. In recent years that has become more evident than ever. Too often I've been forced to sit through something called a comedy. Not only can I do so without ever actually laughing, but there are far too many titles of late that don't even give me the chance to crack a smile. It's not that I've seen so much that it's hard to find anything original. I can still laugh like crazy when I watch a Sanford and Son episode I've seen at least 50 times or an Abbott & Costello routine that was old before they even got their hands on the material. There is a famous quote that states, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." Then why does Mel Brooks make it look so dang easy?
While we're on the subject of masters, you really can't avoid the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Perhaps no one understood his audience more than Hitch did. He's influenced a great many of today's filmmaking geniuses. He's been admired by almost anyone who has ever really studied film. Mel Brooks can be counted among his students. On more than one occasion I have seen an interview where Brooks can't say enough flattering things about Alfred Hitchcock. It would have only been a matter of time before Brooks turned his creative mind to one of his own idols. The result is enough to give anyone High Anxiety.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 24th, 2010
I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest-running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years. A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are the most mentioned and certainly beloved by generations of children and adults. I thought I never missed an airing.
Now Warner Home Video has brought together a special collection of the cartoon specials that started it all. It includes a couple annual greats and a few that I don’t really remember so much. Now we get into the second volume of the 1970’s specials. The two discs include the following Peanuts specials:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 24th, 2010
"Pray for dawn."
Mark Young is a bit of a one-man band in the short list of films that he's done in his decade-long career. Southern Gothic is no exception. Mark Young is credited as: producer, director, writer, editor, chief cook and bottle-washer on the film. I have to say that I'm more often scared when I see that sort of thing than anything that ends up coming at me from the screen. Too many cooks may, indeed, spoil the broth, but only one cook tends to mean someone's going to end up eatin' out tonight. This was the first of these multi-tasking films I've seen from Young, and I have to say none of it was as bad as all that. I even caught myself enjoying the movie after a short while. The trick here is not to look at Southern Gothic so much as a horror film. It's pretty evident that Young absolutely did not. This is camp. It's the kind of dish you might expect served by Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi. That's how you'll need to approach the movie. If you're looking for something a little more serious or straight-out horror, move along, because there's nothing to see here. If you're a fan of camp horror, you just might be able to scrape a little entertainment out of this one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2010
"We're all put to the test. But, it never comes in the form, or at the point, we would prefer, does it?"
When The Edge made its debut in September of 1997, you would have thought it had a lot going for it. The idea of putting Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins together in a winter wilderness sounds like a pretty good idea. Audiences didn't seem to think so. The film was gone after just 5 weeks and less than $30 million box office receipts. It lost nearly half of its screens in just 2 weeks. So, what went wrong with this movie? The answer is nothing, and everything.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 19th, 2010
"It doesn't look like they have chicken tenders here."
How can you not like Jackie Chan? If there has been a more versatile action or martial arts star, I haven't heard from him. The man made a name for himself in China's film industry as a remarkable martial arts performer. For decades he's been the closest thing the film industry has seen to Bruce Lee. But, unlike Lee, Chan wasn't content with being the best in a single genre. When he finally came to Hollywood, he decided it was a good idea to work a bit more lightheartedness into his films, something he had already begun to do in his homeland, China. The result made him a unique personality on film. It didn't matter if it was straight-out comedy like the Rush Hour or Shanghai films or more serious action adventures like his Police Story outings. Chan is first and foremost ... Chan, not just an action hero. Not afraid to poke fun at himself, he's become a reliable property at the box office.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 19th, 2010
"Even in the most primitive man, the need to create was part of his nature. This need, this talent, clearly separated early man from animals who would never know this gift. And here, in a cave somewhere in the North American Continent, about two million years ago, the first artist was born. And, of course, with the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth ... the critic."
That's me. Afterbirth here. Brooks always did love to poke fun at the critics. And why not? Unfortunately, this was not one of his better films and likely received a lot of poking from the brethren. It was one of his worst films at the box office, pulling in only $31 million. Compared to many of his hits, it must have been a disappointing take for Mel at the time. Now out, along with some other of his films, on Blu-ray, this rather forgettable film looks even more dated and overindulgent than ever. Certainly, there are some classic moments. Mel, is, after all, Mel. But he never could string enough of them together to meet expectations. Too bad, really. It was a grand idea.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 19th, 2010
"In our findings on Gamera, we've ascertained that: Firstly, it is attracted to and consumes fire. Secondly, it also seems to possess an internal power plant, of sorts. This emits a signal frequency that can jam radio communications. In order to store up energy reserves, Gamera consumes inorganic resources. Not only does it consume petroleum as well as other mineral and fossil fuels, but Gamera may also seek out atomic bombs."
Ask anyone about Japanese monster movies and Gamera usually won't be the first name that comes into their minds. Godzilla would likely dominate the conversation, and for most of the last 60 years the folks at Toho have been synonymous with large monsters. But they didn't exactly hold a monopoly on the big beasts. Kadokawa Pictures had their own little monster franchise going on. It all started in 1954 with Gamera: The Giant Monster. From 1965 through the 1970's the studio would produce 8 Gamera films in all.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 18th, 2010
"You, sir, are guilty of disseminating disbelief. Killing dreams. Committing first-degree murder of fantasy, which by Fairy Law, in order to pay your debt to humanity, you are hereby ordered to serve time as a Tooth Fairy. The normal sentence is one week, but because you have the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to actually call yourself a Tooth Fairy, thus making a mockery of everything we stand for, I'm sentencing you to two weeks Tooth Fairy duty."
Dwayne (once The Rock) Johnson has made a bit of a new career move over the last few years. When he left the wrestling ring to "go Hollywood" the expectation was always that he would become an action hero. It's what his fans expected. It's what Johnson wanted, at the time. Movies like The Scorpion King were created completely as vehicles for Johnson to show off his physique and join the ranks of the big strong action heroes. It didn't exactly work out as well as everyone involved expected. He wasn't a flop, but he wasn't setting the movie industry on fire either. But with movies like The Game Plan and Race To Witch Mountain, Johnson appears to have a knack for working with kids in films targeted primarily at kids. He's become a big teddy bear, and it's paying off quite handsomely. While he still hasn't given up the wrestling gigs and an action role here and there, his biggest success so far in Hollywood has been with the kids.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 18th, 2010
"The Legend Had It Coming."
It seems that pretty much every decade has had its screen version of Robin Hood; sometimes it's on television. Robin Hood is one of the most popular characters in film, and there have been plenty of versions, each with their own particular take on the multiple legends that have made up the character over the centuries. Currently Ridley Scott has just released his own epic version of the tale with perfectly-cast Russell Crowe in the title role. In the early 1990's there were two films on the subject released. The first was the disaster that stared Kevin Costner, so abysmally cast as the titular hero. It was only inevitable that following one of the worst attempts to portray Robin Hood, Mel Brooks would see his chance to lampoon the legend. After Costner's film, the legend truly did have it coming.
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