Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2009
William Conrad was no stranger to audiences when Cannon joined the Quinn Martin stable of television dramas. In fact, most folks knew his voice before they got to know his trademark girth. Conrad was the original Matt Dillon when Gunsmoke was a radio drama. When the drama entered the visual medium of television, even Conrad admitted later that the audience, who thought of him as tall and handsome, would have been disappointed. His voice lent authority to any role he played, and on radio his size was never an issue.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 28th, 2009
"Space...The Final Frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before!"
There sure has been a lot for Star Trek fans to cheer about of late. The new film has proven to be a commercial and critical success. The dawn of high definition has caught up with the original series, and there is the promise of much more before this year is out. Next up from Paramount we get the first 6 Trek theatrical films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 28th, 2009
It’s a disc loaded with pilots. No, you won’t find any daring men and their flying machines here. These pilots owe more to Philo T. Farnsworth than The Wright Brothers. Farnsworth transmitted the first televised image in 1927. In case you’re wondering, that image was a dollar bill. These pilots follow in those footsteps; that’s because these pilots are television shows. They’re the first episodes of some of the best action series to appear on CBS over the last few decades. Going back as far as the 1960’s, these shows represent a nice cross section of television action entertainment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 28th, 2009
This single DVD contains the premiere episodes of 7 of CBS’s most endearing comedies. All were influential to those that came after. These weekly shows offered that much needed relief from the pressures of whatever decade they appeared in. The stars are names that everybody knows, even those that appeared 50 years or more ago. If you ever wondered how some of these shows began their historic runs, here’s your opportunity to go back in time with Forever Funny.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2009
“It’s time to wake up and get a life. We live in a three-dimensional world. Until now, the world of computing has been a flat world consisting of two-dimensional imagery. Now through the use of exclusive breakthrough technology, ARC has made it possible for you to get a life. A-Life, where we can work and play in a lifelike world of three-dimensional reality. A-Life… the living monitor. Impressed?”
You should be.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 26th, 2009
The danger in revisiting a show you used to love as a kid is that it will almost always disappoint, especially, it seems to me, if the show was made in the 70s. I have had this experience several times in my life, sitting there with a dull expression in my eyes, gazing at the screen and wondering why I ever thought Welcome Back Kotter was funny. And did I really thrill to the exploits of Starbuck and Apollo without noticing how awful Battlestar Galactica was?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 26th, 2009
Aging senator James Stewart and wife Vera Miles arrive in the prosperous town of Shinbone to attend the funeral of an anonymous farmer. The local newsmen want to know why. Stewart tells the story. Cue the flashback, where he arrives in a much more anarchic Shinbone as a naïve lawyer. Held up and beaten by the brutal outlaw Liberty Valance (a psychotic Lee Marvin), he is determined by bring law and justice to the town, but must come to terms with the fact that he cannot do so without the gun of John Wayne (the aforementioned farmer).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 25th, 2009
Galaxy Quest is an odd movie. It opened on Christmas Day of 1999 and did alright in the box office gathering roughly 71 million and some change. It was one of those movies that you went to go see and would laugh a lot but wouldn’t tell anybody in fear of people making fun of you. So it did respectable sales, but nobody knew the full potential of the movie until it hit the video format. The movie found a considerable audience and after many years, the movie holds up. Possibly better than it ever did nine years ago in a tiny theater. Now, with the release of a deluxe edition many years later, the movie can reach new audiences. Hopefully, they will be able to appreciate it as much as I did.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2009
“Life is a tightrope. You’ve got to learn to dance.”
We’ve all had bad days. Everyone can relate to that. We’ve all had moments when we weren’t at our best, when we’ve said or done something in the heat of the moment that wasn’t exactly our most shining moment. We can only hope that these momentary lapses of reason don’t cause permanent harm to ourselves or to others. We can only plead our case that we aren’t ultimately defined by these brief acts of frustration brought about by mitigating circumstances.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2009
Director Brad Anderson and writer Scott Kosar were unable to find backing or support from any of the American studios when they were shopping this movie. Apparently there were worries that it wasn’t very commercially viable. It turns out they were correct. The film made just over $1 million in domestic box office. That’s not a mistake. I meant $1 million. Even the foreign market came up short, coughing up only an additional $7 million total. Because of the lack of interest here in the States,