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: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 7th, 2022
"No one would have believed in the middle of the 20th century that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely joined their plans against us. Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries has been in the last status of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. Inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences that which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate."
War Of The Worlds is perhaps one of the most iconic and often infamous science fiction works in literature history.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 9th, 2022
"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!"
From the moment of the first UHD releases, I have had a wish list of films I wanted to see in 4K. Most of them have finally reached my home theater video shelf, but there remain a few elusive titles that I am still waiting for. Paramount is doing a great job. The Star Trek wait is somewhat over. I say somewhat because this new release from Paramount contains the films not included in the first release: Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. But it does not include The Next Generation films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 9th, 2022
"Nothing had prepared me, no books, no teachers, not even my parents. I heard a thousand stories, but none could describe this place, it must be witnessed, to be understood, and yet I've seen it and understand it even less than before I first cast eyes on this place. Some call it the American dessert, others The Great Plains, but those phrases were invented by professors at universities surrounded by the illusion of order and the fantasy of right and wrong. To know it you must walk it, Bleed into its dirt, drown in its rivers, then its name becomes clear, it is hell, and there are demons everywhere. But if this is hell and I'm in it, then I must be a Demon too and I'm already dead.."
We're a visual people, and so most of you will recognize Taylor Sheridan from his role as a chief of police in Sons of Anarchy when the controlled puppet regime had finally left the scene. It's not a remarkable role, and it's not a complete surprise that Sheridan found his calling more recently behind the camera.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 26th, 2022
"I've been acting like this because I can't take these shutdowns anymore and I'm scared what it's doing to me. I'm looking for who to blame, saying I'm trying to help people to make myself feel better, because the truth is I just want to have fun again. I wanted to see that I could go out into the world and do the things I used to do... I want my life back. I just want my life back."
This has been a tough year for everyone. Productions all around the world have been uprooted because of the pandemic. I guess I thought there might have been one place on this planet that was safe. OK, I made that last part up. We always knew that South Park was going to have a field day with COVID. Let's be honest; the amount of material for the irreverent show is simply off the scales. There's nothing like a global catastrophe to bring out the sharp wit of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The pandemic meant we saw the long-running animated series limited just like everyone else. So instead of a 10-episode run, the 24th season of South Park is made up of two double-length "Pandemic Specials", but just for whats and giggles, let's call it South Park The Complete 24th Season and get a look at it in Blu-ray.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 29th, 2022
From the moment I saw the trailer for The Lost City, it immediately gave me vibes of Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, the adventure-romance films that starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner back in the mid-eighties. The basic story for those films was simple: a romance writer who finds herself in an adventure to find a rare jewel alongside a handsome rogue with bad guys coming after them around every corner. I loved these films as a kid, and getting to see a modern twist on these stories is something I found welcome. What is even more welcome is getting to see Sandra Bullock back in a comedic role. I’ve been a fan of just about everything Bullock has done since she graced the screen in Demolition Man and then the following year in Speed. My only concern was seeing Channing Tatum as her co-star;
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 14th, 2022
"For nearly three thousand years, man has been searching for the lost ark. It's not something to be taken lightly. No one knows its secrets. It's like nothing you've ever gone after before."
Just in time for the wrap of principal photography on the next and final Indiana Jones film, Paramount cashes in on the renewed interest with the long-awaited, at least from this reviewer, release of the first four films in the Indiana Jones franchise on UHD Blu-ray in full ultra-high-definition complete with HDR and Dolby Vision. OK, I lied about the long-awaited four films. Now you can own the first on its own in this special Steelbook release of Raiders Of The Lost Ark on UHD/4K. No, I'm not going to call it Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and yes, Han shot first and those feds in ET were not carrying walkie talkies in those hands. So sue me.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2022
"There are among us a people, gifted with a perfect memory of all their past lives. They call themselves Infinites. Among the Infinites, two groups have vied for power. On one side the Believers, dedicated to using their knowledge for the protection and growth of all humanity. Against them stood the Nihilists, who see this power as a curse. New technologies have given the Nihilists an opportunity to end all life on Earth, and the race is on for its control."
Infinite is an adapted story from D. Eric Maikranz's novel The Reincarnation Papers. On the surface this is one of those great concepts that could support a film franchise, and might have accomplished just that if the film itself hadn't taken the route of spectacle over substance. It doesn't help that this film was hurt by the COVID shutdown of productions and never ended up with the wide release it was originally intended to have.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2022
"Let me speak to you directly and from the heart."
My first exposure to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance wasn't the film at all. It was the song (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was a 1962 hit song by Gene Pitney and was written to be included in the film. I wouldn't really be taken with the song until James Taylor would cover it and have his own hit with the song in 1985 with his album That's Why I'm Here. By then I'd seen the film but only on late-night television broadcasts which offered bad transfers and plenty of commercials that caused the film to be chopped by over 26 minutes. The funny thing about the song is that while it was written to be included in the film, it actually never appears. Director John Ford thought it sounded too modern and suggested it would only weaken the film and insisted it not be used
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2022
From the bouncing opening music by Glenn Fry to the final frame of Eddie Murphy's smile, Beverly Hills Cop had established itself as a classic. The movie had a complicated history, and it's a kind of miracle that the version we know ever happened at all. The movie was originally conceived as a straight action film with the plan to have either Al Pacino or Clint Eastwood in the title role. At that point the script was called Beverly Drive. When they couldn't get Al or Clint, they turned to Sylvester Stallone, and Sly took the role. He took the script and rewrote it to fit his own particular style. The main character's name went from Axel Foley to Cabretti so that he could be called The Cobra. The problem with Sly's version is that the cost was rising higher than the execs at Paramount were willing to put out. Sly was offered another film to drop Beverly Hills Cop. He took his rewrites with him, and they eventually formed the nucleus of his movie Cobra. The rest of the film had already been cast, so imagine their surprise when the action movie they thought they were making with Rocky turned into a comedy/drama starring the Saturday Night Live but unproven box office comedian Eddie Murphy.
