Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 7th, 2020
"At least attempt to hide the bias."
Witness the birth of -- actually make that rebirth of --one of the most popular action heroes in literature. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has been a character of many jobs and many faces over the years. Baldwin, Ford, Pine, and Affleck have all stepped into the role of the man who has been a soldier, an analyst, an operative, and a president. What might appear as a clear advantage for this Amazon Prime streaming television show can be just as much a liability. When you throw in the Tom Clancy novels, comic books, and fan fiction, there is a ton of Jack Ryan history that pretty much gives us a story arc from his humble beginnings to extraordinary exploits and wearing the faces of a few good performers. It's a tall order for the series and perhaps an even taller order for actor John Krasinski, who has created a nice little horror franchise with wife Emily Blunt on the side. I don't really have the time or energy to watch streaming shows and films. There's always a backlog here of discs that need to be watched and reviewed, and I've created a rather comfortable viewing experience with my home theatre I call The Reel World. Our motto: Here there be monsters. So last year I had my first experience with this series when Paramount sent the first season on Blu-ray. It was far more of a captivating and compelling series than I expected. Now the second season has reached the Blu-ray home platform format, and while I certainly detect a sophomore slump here, there's still enough interesting drama to keep a fan engaged for another year.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2020
"I shall tell you of William Wallace. Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes. The king of Scotland had died without a son, and the king of England, a cruel pagan known as Edward the Longshanks, claimed the throne of Scotland for himself. Scotland's nobles fought him, and fought each other, over the crown..."
Mel Gibson had a bit of a rollercoaster life for a while there. His DUI arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic rant caused many to look less favorably upon the man himself. He appears to be making his way back into the fold. Of course, it helps that Hollywood has bigger fish to fry now, and suddenly Gibson's flaws don't appear quite so damning with all the new revelations that really started with Bill Cosby but blossomed with Harvey Weinstein. Gibson's directed films hadn't been as accessible to the public, but last year he took the film world by storm when he released Hacksaw Ridge. It was perhaps the most meaningful World War II film since Saving Private Ryan 20 years earlier. Little by little, Gibson is coming back. He won't win everyone over, but he's making some headway. Still, no matter how you view Gibson or his work today, it can’t be denied that he has created one of the more compelling films of our day in Braveheart.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 20th, 2020
"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the TRUE emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."
After nearly 20 years, it's hard not to already consider Ridley Scott's Gladiator a classic. But not in the same way we think of Blade Runner, which has become more of a cult classic, or Alien, which has all the trappings of a genre film, blending horror and science fiction into a nice little package. Gladiator is a mainstream film that took the deserved Oscar for best picture along with four others in the 2001 awards ceremony. With this film, Scott was able to explore more powerful themes that, like the actions of Crowe's Maximus, echo through eternity. Maximus (Crowe) is Rome greatest general and surrogate son to Marcus Aurelius (Harris), Caesar of the Roman Empire. Marcus wants Maximus to be his successor and turn Rome over to its people. Commodus (Phoenix), son of Marcus, has other plans. He murders his father, and when Maximus won’t pledge his loyalty, orders that he be executed. Maximus escapes. Nearly dead from the journey, Maximus discovers his family slaughtered. He is found and sold into slavery. Former gladiator Proximo (Reed) trains him to be a gladiator. With the same skills and presence he once used to defend Rome, he now wins the hearts of the people of the arena. Maximus uses this to bring him to Rome and a chance to avenge his family with Commodus. With the help of Lucilla (Nielsen), sister to Commodus and a former lover, Maximus conspires for the fall of his enemy. Unable to compete with Maximus in the hearts of his people, Commodus agrees to fight Maximus in the Coliseum after striking him with a poison dagger. Of course, Maximus has his revenge before joining his family in the afterlife.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 27th, 2020
"Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what's gonna happen next: not on a freeway, not in an airplane, not inside our own bodies, and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs."
Back in 1986 a young Tom Cruise teamed with director Tony Scott for Top Gun. The film ended up pulling in over $170 million. A sequel appeared out of the question, but that wasn’t going to stop this box office dynamic duo from figuring something out. They decided to just refilm Top Gun. So, if jets go fast, what else goes fast? Before long someone realized that racing cars go fast. So, before you know it Tom Cruise was once again teaming with Tony Scott as a cocky young upstart, this time in the race game. If you watch the two films back to back, the code really isn’t that hard to break. All of the same plot points and beats are exactly the same, just in a new environment. The public wasn’t fooled then; the film took in less than half what Top Gun brought. You shouldn’t be fooled now. Days Of Thunder is Top Gun redux.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 23rd, 2020
"On March 3, 1969 the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to insure that the handful of men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world. They succeeded. Today, the Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. The flyers call it: TOP GUN."
Back around the time I was born, when Tom Cruise had an ounce of sanity, a little movie called Top Gun swept across the globe, raking in over $350,000,000 worldwide, as well as sparking an interest in the US Navy and everything Tomcat, Skyhawk, and MiG related. Ever since its original release, Top Gun has kept a hold on its audience, being played almost weekly, and now it makes its way into the world of ultra high definition with its release on UHD Blu-ray. The timing couldn't be any more obvious. The long-anticipated sequel has been in production, and while delayed by the global circumstances, the film will be arriving soon (at least in release terms). This is a pretty good way to get you up to speed, pun intended. The film isn't alone in cashing in on the Tom Cruise upcoming slate of both the Top Gun sequel and two Mission Impossible films being shot at the same time. This is one of three Cruise films getting the 4K release treatment along with Days Of Thunder and the Spielberg remake of the War Of The Worlds George Pal film. Once the box office returns you're going to be getting a lot of Tommy, so these films are intended to put you in the mood and get the party started a little early.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 20th, 2020
"No one would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that our world was being watched by intelligences greater than our own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns, *they* observed and studied, the way a man with a microscope might scrutinize the creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency, men went to and fro about the globe, confident of our empire over this world. Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eyes and slowly, and surely, drew their plans against us."
Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a middle-aged divorcee with a blue-collar job and a rundown home in the New Jersey suburbs. When his ex-wife unexpectedly drops his estranged kids—ten-year-old Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and sixteen-year-old Robbie (Justin Chatwin)—off for the weekend, Ray is less than pleased. He’s always struggled with his parental duties, but now finds it increasingly difficult to communicate with his children. However, events beyond his control are about to force Ray to come to terms with his responsibilities. Bizarre lighting storms herald the arrival of alien tripods, which explode from beneath the Earth’s surface and begin dispensing death and destruction on the surrounding countryside. Narrowly avoiding the first attack, Ray returns home, grabs his kids, and embarks on a frantic journey across country to find their mother in Boston.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 13th, 2020
"Who are we if we can't protect them? We have to protect them."
As I write this there's a truly "Zombie Apocalypse" attitude going on around the world. With the launch of A Quiet Place II delayed because of health panic this might just be the time to "quarantine" yourself in your home theatre and watch the film again on UHD Blu-ray in 4K. There's nothing different about this release except for the steelbook format and different cover art. The discs provided are exactly the same discs you already have if you own the previous 4K release. It makes a nice collector's item as you wait for the eventual follow-up, which I hope will be very soon. You might call me jaded, but I am pretty disappointed by the state of horror movies. It's not just the last few years. The truth is I haven't seen 10 really good horror movies in over a decade. Now that I've had a chance to see A Quiet Place, that number isn't going up. A Quiet Place is not a really good horror movie. It ends up making a lot of the same mistakes that filmmakers think define a horror film in the modern age. It relies too heavily on jump scares and characters who do some of the most idiotic things, thus placing them in a somewhat self-created dangerous situation. But I will make the argument that A Quiet Place is still a pretty good horror film because of a rather clever and unique concept and a filming process that allows us care for these characters more than the usual horror film red-shirt fodder that too often leaves me rooting for the monster in a Darwin-like weed-out-the-gene-pool kind of way.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 21st, 2020
"This is a mental institution, Marshal. For the criminally insane. Usual isn't a big part of our day."
When I first saw Shutter Island ten years ago, I thought it was a good movie. I didn't think it was a great movie. Like many Martin Scorsese fans out there, I have developed certain expectations from his films. It isn't at all fair, but as I've said here many times, expectations are killers. I bathed too often in Scorsese's modern mob mythology that I think it took seeing The Irishman and being royally disappointed and then getting to see Shutter Island again thanks to this wonderful new steelbook 10th anniversary release on UHD Blu-ray in 4K. I also never thought Shutter Island could ever improve with age. It's got a wicked twist that occupies the final 40 minutes of the film, and no matter how good the performances might be, how could it possibly get better when you know what's coming? But again, I recall it being a good movie, so I welcomed the opportunity to revisit it after 10 years in 4K. Why not, right? I'm glad I did, and no matter how good you thought it was the first time, it's better the second time through. And I was absolutely wrong in my first evaluation. Shutter Island is not a good movie at all. It actually is a great film, and it's a shame that it's been relatively overlooked among Scorsese's films. And spoiler alert!!!!!!! The twist is even better when you know it's coming. (You thought I was going to spill some beans?)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 18th, 2020
This is the film that literally started a trend. Within a decade, submarine films would make a huge comeback in the big-budget film industry. Titles like Crimson Tide, U-571, and K-19: The Widowmaker all took a little from Red October. Maybe the Cold War is over, but our fascination with that modern version of cowboys and Indians doesn’t seem to have waned much in the last nearly 20 years. While our relationship with Russia might be up and down over the last two decades, there is still a part of our culture that can’t seem to let go of that classic game of good guys and bad guys. It’s not unique to the former Soviet Union by any means. World War II has been over for more than 60 years, but the occasional Nazi bad guys still make their presence known from time to time. Maybe it’s those accents. Whatever the reason, the seemingly dated subject matter of Red October is never a liability to the film. When Red October came out, the Soviet Union had just fallen a mere two years earlier, and there were some who suggested the film was an inappropriate reminder of those recent bygone days and might even be considered a slap in the face to the new regime in Russia. Fortunately this was not one of those instances where Hollywood let its often hypocritical sense of political correctness get in the way of a great film.
Jack Ryan (Baldwin) is a CIA analyst. When he comes across a spy photograph of a new Russian submarine, the Red October, he becomes concerned about a new feature. It appears two very large doors, too big for torpedoes, have been added to the standard Typhoon class vessel. He travels to Langley and meets with his boss (Jones) to have the pictures studied. When it’s discovered that the pictures could be a “caterpillar drive”, a silent running technology, Ryan finds himself advising the President’s National Security Advisors. The ship is now out to sea, and the Russians appear to have gotten suddenly very nervous. Is the ship run by a rogue commander with glorious visions of nuking the US? Ryan thinks he wants to defect, and now he must convince an entire chain of command to give Ramius the chance to do just that. Ramius must avoid the entire Russian fleet and convince the Americans of his intentions.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 7th, 2019
"This is where change begins."
We're a visual people, so most of you will recognize Taylor Sheridan from his role as a deputy 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. As a writer, his first script did hit it out of the park. Sicario is an awesome film populated with compelling and interesting characters who thrived on a broken system. That theme appears to have stuck with him, because the first season of Yellowstone appears to take us back in time to the days of open frontiers and cattle barons who struggled to keep their land amid lawless communities and raiding parties of American Indians who were portrayed as savage beasts who kill women and children in the middle of the night to become shadows of nightmares and the stories told to keep children in line. These themes are all there, but it takes place in a modern 2018 setting that does indeed make for an interesting new twist on an old idea. This is the dawning of the modern western where lands still stretch for miles and are still owned by a single family. It's Bonanza in the 21st century, and Kevin Costner thought enough of the idea to star in this television drama series for The Paramount Network.
