Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 27th, 2003
Jerry Bruckheimer becomes yet another A-List film producer to take a shot at the television drama. I have to admit that I never gave this show a prayer of success when I first saw it three years ago. It’s not that I thought it wasn’t good. I loved it. I thought it would be too cerebral for the normal Joe six-pack audience. Boy was I wrong. CSI has become the hottest drama in prime time, and like Law and Order before it has begun to spin off into another incarnation with CSI: Miami. The characters are engaging and it seems we’re all obsessed with some morbid fascination of murder.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 25th, 2003
How do you spoof something that is already a spoof itself? That’s easy. You mix a reality show concept with a contrived Hollywood script. You hire the worst actors you can find and you call it The Real World Movie: The Lost Season. Even if you’re a fan of the MTV reality series, you won’t find anything remotely entertaining here. If you don’t even like the TV show, then my advice is to run. Now we have bad actors pretending to be people who are pretending to be spontaneous.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 22nd, 2003
Synopsis
Harry Feversham (Heath Ledger) appears quite comfortable with his life as a soldier, andhe is about to be engaged to Kate Hudson, so life is good. But then his garrison is assigned toquell an uprising in the Sudan, and Harry is frightened. He resigns his commission. His friends,feeling betrayed, send him the white feathers of cowardice. Shamed, Harry follows themincognito to the Sudan, and his presence turns out to be crucial to their fates. In many ways athrowback to such ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 10th, 2003
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is considered a failure not because it was a bad film, but because it just didn’t feel at all like Star Trek. Star Trek IV is perhaps the most Star Trek of all the films. A mixture of saving planet Earth with a social message, humor, and a strong character chemistry has always been Roddenberry’s dream at its very best. There’s no question that of all the Trek films this is the most enjoyable even if you’re not really a fan.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 8th, 2003
I’ve got a confession. I just don’t get it. The Real World lays claim to being one of the first “reality” shows, dating back almost ten years. If you get off on watching a group of 7 twenty-somethings pretending to be spontaneous while basically either making out or grossing out, then this DVD is for you. This particular version is a season that was deemed too “hot” for broadcast TV so never appeared on MTV.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 28th, 2003
posted by Marc Atonna
Film
Mitchum and Wayne are joined by a very young James Caan in this western tale of a few very talented fighters fighting a group of evil businessmen and cattle barons. Mitchum is the drunken sheriff who trades one crutch for another. Wayne plays an old friend with a fast gun and a bum right arm. Caan is a young expert with the knife, but needs a shotgun to hit the side of a barn.
The first hour introduces the bad guys and establishes the relationships and weaknesses of the good guys. ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2003
Like most folks, I grew up on the Charlie Brown TV specials. What kid hasn’t looked forward to seeing “The Great Pumpkin”? Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown was made more recently then the more notable Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween episodes. The whole Peanuts gang is there and so is most of the charm. The idea just isn’t as compelling; it comes off rather forced. Still, it’s always fun to visit the world of Charles Schultz.
Synopsis
Poor Charlie Brown is dreading another Valentine’s Day.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 9th, 2003
Synopsis
Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel are soldiers in Napoleon’s army. The film opens the yearNapoleon has become ruler of France. Keitel is a man of irrational and explosive temper. For noreal reason, he develops a hatred for Carradine, and challenges him to a duel. Over and overagain, during the course of the tumultuous years that follow, the two duel, but never manage tocomplete their battle and both always live to fight another day. Though not without darkness,this film, ba...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 6th, 2003
Synopsis
By this time, you either like this guy or you don’t. There is a lot of fun goofiness here, butthere are also some ill-advised live-action additions (such as in “House Party” and “I Had anAccident”), which are just plain painful.
Audio
The 2.0 sound is crisp, clear, distortion-free and fun. The surround effect is pretty muchlimited to the music, but it’s pretty constant.
Video
As with the other SpongeBob DVDs, the picture is ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 5th, 2003
Synopsis
Covering the years of the Napoleonic Wars in Russia, War and Peace follows the lives ofNatasha (Audrey Hepburn), Pierre (Henry Fonda) and his best friend Andrei (Mel Ferrer). Thiscombination of stars, not to mention Anita Ekberg as a gold-digger and Herbert Lom asNapoleon, takes a bit of getting used to, but you do find yourself caught up in their lives andloves. The battle scenes, particularly at the end, are quite impressive, and if the cheese factor ispretty high, so is ...
