Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 6th, 2010
I've seen some dysfunctional families on television over the years. Haven't we all. It's fun to laugh at someone else's flaws. Along comes Showtime, and it's rather hard to classify the series The United States Of Tara. This one takes dysfunction to a whole new level. Tara (Collette) suffers from multiple personality disorder. Laughing yet? She has managed to control the problem by using medications and attending frequent therapy sessions. But the medication is sapping her creative ability. You see, Tara was once a gifted artist. She painted murals and was somewhat critically acclaimed. The meds put an end to all of that. With the blessings of her family, Tara goes off the meds, and the family grows by 4. Yes, there are 4 "alters" as she calls them inside of Tara's body. Now they are all coming out to play.
The first thing you have to understand about this show is who the alters happen to be. We learn over time that they were constructed by Tara's mind to protect her from a traumatic moment in her life. Tara can't remember the event, but from time to time, the alters offer up little clues to what might have taken place. She is totally aware of the alters and their personalities. The family has developed some protection techniques of their own. Husband Max (Corbett) is not allowed to have sex with the alters. They've decided that would be cheating. How about just f**ked up? The kids are to treat the alters as they are, not as Mom. I'll introduce you to the "real" people later. Here are Tara's alters:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 6th, 2010
It would appear that Michael Landon, Jr. is attempting to cash in on his late father's Little House On The Prairie appeal. He is one of the driving forces behind this series of made for television films. He has directed several of them and serves as an executive producer on them all. He has also been involved with some of the writing on the series. They are based on a series of books written by Janette Oke. They follow three generations of women in the days of the Western frontier. When I say that Landon is spending on his father's legacy, you need look no further than the common elements of the films themselves to understand how I come to that conclusion. All of the films feature frontier living and the interactions of these small town peoples in surviving the hardships of the West. There's more than one little house on a prairie to be found in this collection.
The films are more than Western affairs. They are intended to be "Faith" films. In ach case someone's faith in God is put to the test and they must find their way back to grace. The films are often interrupted with spontaneous Bible verses and more than a few sermons on faith. There's plenty to go around when it comes to testing that faith. In just about every film some poor girl loses a husband and must rebound with another. Of course, each of these prospective husbands are encountered with a level of hostility at first. I guess I can understand that part, because my own wife and I had less than positive feelings for each other at first. Now we've been married for over 20 years. She hasn't had to find a new one ... yet. The films all do a good job of throwing other adversity at these women. They are often in a situation where they find little support about them and often encounter hostility towards their dreams and ambitions. As the box art tells us, they must use love and faith to overcome these obstacles.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010
For five years now, Lost has taken us through mystery after mystery. I’m beginning to think that the show’s title is more a mission statement for where they want to take the viewers. Each time Abrams appears to answer a question and move on, closer examination proves that nothing has actually been revealed. The series has become the poster child for misdirection and script sleight of hand. When I examine the 13 episodes from season 4, I’m left with the inescapable, pun intended, feeling that nothing significant has really happened here at all. But at the same time it’s the most significant event of the series. All the while I find myself compelled to watch episode after episode. Abrams would have been a great drug dealer if that producing gig hadn’t worked out for him. The show started out with enough directions and plot devices to put our brains into overload. From that point on, he’s been cutting each dose a little bit so that we find ourselves drawn to each hour fix chasing the high we got in the beginning. Of course, we already know we’re never going to feel that way again, but we’ll keep coming back for more as long as he continues to make us believe that we will. I’m not saying the show has declined at all. I’m saying that it doesn’t really ever go anywhere. Abrams continues to introduce major plot lines such as the hatch, the others, and now the freighter, with promises of linking it all together into some kind of epiphany, and for a short time he actually does. But hindsight leaves us scratching our heads, because once we come down we can’t really explain what the high was all about. And so, we’ll continue to tune in or buy the DVD’s to see where it’s all headed, even if we already know that we’re doomed to remain lost no matter how it all ends.
I will attempt to relate to you some of the important elements from this season without revealing much in the way of spoilers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010
“Every story has a beginning. Every life has meaning and potential…”
Kyle doesn’t really know his story, and he’s beginning to understand his potential. But that was before. This year things are about to come to a conclusion for our adolescent boy without a belly button. For Kyle's fans, this is your classic good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that by picking up this third season release you can complete your collection of the entire series. The bad news is that by picking up this release you can complete your collection of the entire series.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010
"To everyone's surprise, the ship didn't come to a stop over Manhattan or Washington or Chicago, but instead coasted to a halt directly over the city of Johannesburg. The doors didn't open for months. Nobody could get in. They eventually decided, after much deliberation, that the best thing to do would be to physically cut their way in. We were on the verge of first contact. The whole world was watching, expecting, I don't know, music from Heaven and bright shining lights..."
It all started when Peter Jackson's long anticipated Halo project went belly up. You might recall it was that project which had Jackson deferring directorial duties on the upcoming Hobbit films, electing to act as producer instead. But Halo didn't happen. Jackson was in search of an ambitious project to fill the void. Enter Neil Blomkamp, a native of South Africa, who had come up with the basic imagery for District 9. A short film was the end result, but it would be far from the end for the idea. Blomkamp incorporated his own firsthand experiences as a boy living in the infamous days of South Africa's apartheid. It's completely impossible to see this film in any other light than an allegory to that era. Teaming together, Jackson and Blomkamp have taken these very basic ideas that were at best loosely held together by the concept and worked them into the most provocative science fiction film of the last decade.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010
Few television situational comedies have produced the stable of A-list stars that this one did. Every one of these cast members were relatively unknown at the time that Taxi was taking fares on our television sets each week. Not so today. The cast was so remarkable that it is here that I decided to spend much of my review. The episodes were often funny, even more often hilarious. But after all of these years, it is the characters that are most remembered by the fans. Yeah, we all have our favorite moments. Many of them in this release. And I’ll get to those moments, but first:
Playing the hard-nosed and lecherous dispatcher for The Sunshine Cab Company was Danny DeVito. He spent most of his Taxi days sitting in a cage barking orders and insults with equal frequency to the crew of drivers in the garage. Each of them had dreams beyond the yellow sedans, and Louie took great pleasure in watching them try and ultimately fail to achieve their dreams. Of course, DeVito went on to star in a boatload of feature films and never looked back.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 4th, 2010
The film begins in the middle of the story, at the end of one journey and the beginning of another. Marlon (Aldemar Correa) and Reina (Angelica Blandon) are illegal Columbian immigrants, and have just arrived in New York City. They are staying in a beyond-seedy hostel in Queens, and Reina has just spent their last coins on a fruitless phone call. Frustrated, Marlon hits the street, and after a panicky encounter with the police, winds up lost in NYC. So begins his second journey one that is both a search for belonging as well as his beloved Reina, that is intercut with flasbacks to the trip that brought Marlon and Reina to the city in the first place, beginning with their leaving the relative comfort of their lives in Medillin and tracking their increasingly nightmarish trek to the States.
The film opens with a bird's eye tracking shot of the various cells (I can hardly call them “rooms”) of the hostel. It's a striking bit of filmmaking, though we have seen this done before (see, for instance, Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes). This is not a bad encapsulation of what is to come – it is both striking (especially the harrowing trip to the States) and familiar, in that it covers ground familiar from other hard-luck immigrant narratives. Marlon is a likable character, but Reina is such a manipulative sexpot that one feels that Marlon would be better off not finding her again. Generally, the male characters are better written and a little less stereotypical than the female ones. There is a lot of power here, then, but the familiar melodrama and iffy characterizations undermine that power.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 4th, 2010
On February 11th, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from the Victor Verster Prison is often seen as the symbolic end of apartheid in the country of South Africa. However, the apartheid was not fully removed until the elections of 1994. Furthermore, the story was way more complex than the African National Congress leader’s freedom. The story that was more focused on Willie Esterhuyse, Thabo Mbeki and Michael Young. These names might seem foreign to most of us, but they are perhaps three of the most important names to the recent history of South Africa.
Michael Young (played by Jonny Lee Miller) is a British businessman who is secretly working for Consolidated Goldfields, a firm who has particular interest in the affairs of South Africa. The film starts with him visiting a poverty stricken part of South Africa where he is trying to help with funding for the education of their youths. Unfortunately for Michael, talking with the locals puts him in danger of his life. After one particular incident, he decides to aim in a less direct but more ambitious approach.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 4th, 2010
Parker Lewis Can’t Lose as anyone could guess was heavily influenced by the cult classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It lasted for three seasons and seventy three episodes. It actually did a fair amount of decent ratings (as far as Fox was concerned) during the run. The living cartoon as many have described it has kept its fans through the years. As a result, Shout Factory has decided to go ahead with the release of the 2nd season. Hopefully it still keeps its charm after all of these years.
For those who are not familiar with the show, let me spend a few moments setting up the show. The three main characters of the show are Jerry Steiner (played by Troy Slaten), Mikey Randall (played by Billy Jayne) and of course Parker Lewis (played by Corin Nemec). Parker is the quintessential slacker and cool attendee at the Santo Domingo High School.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 1st, 2010
The title, “Somebody`s Gonna Miss Us” is cute but also rings true. This is not a Documentary that details why this band rocked the entire music world, because they did not. This film shows how a Pop Punk outfit from Pennsyvania arrived at the right time with a lot of energy, the willingness to tour endlessly and made some tunes that people genuinely loved.The film bounces back and forth between the boys in the band giving their history in their own words, as well as chunk by chunk (several days at a time) coverage of their final tour. Having this story told entirely by the band is refreshing as it makes for better fanfare. This CD/DVD combo is indeed entirely for the fans, the ones who will “miss them” as it were.
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