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Supernatural: The Complete Fourth Season (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2009

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If you are a fan of the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker, you were more than likely disappointed in the remake a couple of years ago on ABC. Your hope is now once again restored. Supernatural is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to The Night Stalker. Like Kolchak, the Winchester brothers are faced with weekly incarnations of evil. They’re forced to research these legends and figure out a way to stop them. As Kolchak discovered, it’s a thankless job. Sure, Supernatural is populated with all sorts of beasties and nasties, but it also manages to hold on to a sense of humor that rounds out these adventures to make this one of the most entertaining shows around.
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Two and a Half Men: The Complete Sixth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 27th, 2009

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Charlie Sheen is an unlikely actor to star in a television sit-com. Even after watching the show, I’m not sure how anyone came up with the idea in the first place. He has little to no comedic timing, and he’s about as funny as a funeral. The thing that works here, however, is that he really doesn’t need to be all that funny to make this show work. Sheen pretty much deadpans his entire performance, which generously enough works rather well teamed with the more manic comedy of Jon Cryer. Throw into the mix a rather extraordinary young child actor in Angus T. Jones
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Smallville: The Complete Eighth Season (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 25th, 2009

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Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s…. well, Clark Kent. When Smallville was first developed for television, the showrunners made a few conscious decisions that have, for the most part, been kept for the show’s first 8 seasons. There was a strict “no flights, no tights” rule that was in effect for anyone hoping to pen an adventure for the show. Everyone knows we’re talking about Superman here, but the term is avoided like a deadly disease. All of the familiar places and names are firmly in place, but make no mistake. This is the world before Superman began to make his presence known to the world.
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Gossip Girl: The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 20th, 2009

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“Unlike the rest of us, sex, lies, and scandal never take a vacation. Instead they take the Long Island Expressway and head East to the Hamptons. Some would say summer is their busiest season. Think Park Avenue, but with tennis whites and Bain de Soleil. The players change, but the game remains the same.”

And for fans of the series Gossip Girl, the place may have changed at least for the season two premiere, but it’s still the show that’s become somewhat of a guilty pleasure to so many viewers.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Film Collection (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 12th, 2009

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“Four turtles. Four brothers genetically reborn in the sewers of New York. Named after the great Renaissance masters and trained as ninjas. They battled many creatures and foes before defeating their arch enemy, The Shredder. But, now a greater evil is poised to destroy their brotherhood. An evil born 3000 years ago.”

What started as a low budget comic has grown into quite a sensation. The Turtles are everywhere. There are cartoons, books, comics, movies, and thousands of toys. They’ve been translated into just about every language in the world. The 1980’s and 1990’s were alive with Turtle power. With yet another film now in the works, the Turtles are about to make a comeback.
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Super Friends – The Lost Episodes

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 10th, 2009

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The Super Friends as a cartoon show had a long and sketchy past. It started out in the 1970’s and ran in nearly a dozen different incantations and over a hundred episodes until 1986 when it was put down for the last time. In the 1983-84 season, the series had been cancelled officially for a second time. This was due to the fact that they did not wish to compete with the syndication run of the original episodes that was already on air. Hence, the new episodes were dropped and didn’t appear until many years later. Here, the people at WB have compiled these 8 episodes (24 shorts) into a 2-disc set and dubbed them the “Lost Episodes.”

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Green Lantern: First Flight (Blu-Ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 28th, 2009

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The Green Lantern character has always been one of my favorite DC comic book heroes, right after the likes of Batman and the Flash. As far as Earth-born GL’s, Hal Jordan has always been first in my heart and even though the John Stewart was shown predominantly in the cartoon series: Justice League Unlimited, it was hard wrapping my head around him as the Green Lantern. I was excited to see that due to recent success with other characters, the people at DC decided to release a direct to disc release for the Green Lantern sub-titled: First Flight.

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Third Watch: The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009

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Since the events of 911 there has been a lot more appreciation, at least publicly, for the real life heroes who populate fire and police stations all over the country. Few jobs offer so little reward for such high risk all in the name of protecting our society from harm. It’s likely no coincidence that while Third Watch began a couple of years before those events, it reached its peak in popularity in the months and years that followed. A better than average procedural drama, Third Watch offered a look at both police officers and firefighters along with their paramedics.
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Peanuts: 1960’s Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009

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I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life.
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Grumpy Old Men (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2009

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“It’s like one of those fatal attraction things, like they show on the Donahue Show, you know?”

It might not have exactly been “fatal”, but the attraction that Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau had for each other, and we still have for them, is on perfect display in Grumpy Old Men. Then again… it might just as well have been fatal, if not fate. The two men died just months from each other. Matthau left us in July of 2000, and just under a year later in June of 2001 we lost Jack Lemmon. Chris Lemmon, Jack’s son, doesn’t think it’s entirely a coincidence. He told me in a recent interview that the men loved each other. He joked that “if Walter had played golf, he’d have married him.” Whether it was the chemistry these guys had off screen or just their natural abilities, might be hard to pin down.
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Everwood (The Complete Second Season)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 4th, 2009

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Everwood was a fairly long running show that started in 2002 and continued until 2006 for a total of eighty-nine episodes. It ran on the WB and was a casualty of the WB/UPN merger into the CW Television Network. Years later it has shown up on ABC Family and around the globe gaining fans here and there. It’s a serious drama that involves the medical practice of Dr. Andy Brown (played by Treat Williams). Set in the fictional town of Everwood, Colorado (in reality it was a few towns located in Utah), we find ourselves figuring out how a death can alter the lives of everybody in the town and how they struggle to cope.

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Mistresses, Vol. 1

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 15th, 2009

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We’ve seen many instances of American television shows that have been inspired by or directly copied from British shows. This has been particularly true of comedy series and is not a new phenomenon. All In The Family and Sanford And Son from the 1970’s are great examples of American sit-coms based on British hits, Till Death Do Us Part and Steptoe And Son respectfully. Recently The Office has been a successful British import. In the inspired by category you have to include Mistresses. There’s no question that the show comes from a combination
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Nature’s Most Amazing Events

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 15th, 2009

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“The power of the Sun drives the seasons, transforming our planet. Vast movements of ocean and air currents bring dramatic changes, create some of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth.”

The Planet Earth series from the BBC brought with it critical acclaim and 11 hours of some of the most spectacular video footage from around the globe that we’ve seen on television. It was a particular treat to anyone who was fortunate enough to catch it on an HD broadcast.
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Falling Down (Deluxe Edition)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2009

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William “D-Fens” Foster (Douglas) is caught in a typical L.A. traffic jam. The annoyances about him are beginning to mount up: a buzzing insect, tremendous heat, a child screaming. All of these things are becoming a perfect storm that is about to ignite a powder keg that’s been gathering here for some time. He abandons his car in the middle of the street and begins an apparently aimless walk across L.A. He first encounters a Korean convience store clerk, who he critizes for his accent and exorbitant prices.
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The Closer: The Complete Fourth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 29th, 2009

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This 4^th season release of The Closer would become my first exposure to the rather good series from TNT. I don’t have time for network television these days, so the cable shows often fall by the wayside in my schedule. Of course, I’ve made time for some of the better ones over the years, but The Closer never seemed to find its way onto my radar. It should have. Of all of the cop or detective shows I’ve seen over the years, I can relate to this one better than any of them.
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Catlow

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 23rd, 2009

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Yul Brynner is the titular Catlow, a jovial outlaw rounding up maverick cattle, much to the consternation of cattle barons who feel the strays belong to them. Richard Crenna is Ben Cowan, Catlow’s best friend but also a federal Marshal, who is tasked with arresting Catlow. Leonard Nimoy is the hired gun whose task is rather more lethal. Catlow and Cowan spar good-naturedly as the former plans to steal a great deal of gold in Mexico, which will have many other people annoyed with him.
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The Waltons: The Complete Ninth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 7th, 2009

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Talk about your hit show running out of steam. The Waltons is the perfect example of a show that outstayed its welcome. When it first took television audiences by storm in 1971, it became a cultural phenomenon. But by the show’s ninth and final year as a regular series it was 1980 and the country, the world, for that matter, had changed. It didn’t help matters that Richard Thomas had left the show, and his popular John Boy character, behind. The show’s core fans remained, but America’s love affair with The Waltons was clearly over.
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Two and a Half Men: The Complete Fifth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 6th, 2009

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Two And A Half Men reached their 100^th episode in the 5^th year. That’s the milestone when a series becomes viable in syndication to local market stations. That’s the kind of show you see once, twice, a hundred times a day on those local stations either just before primetime or late at night. This is also the year that the writers of CSI and Two And A Half Men switched shows for an episode. It’s one of those cross-over ideas that I don’t think had been done before.
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The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 5th, 2009

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Warner nearly single-handedly invented the cartoon medium as we know it today with the advent of their various Bugs Bunny and associates cartoons. Ever since the early 1930’s these characters have become an indelible part of the American pop culture. Their images became an important part of the World War II effort and even helped to put a face on the issues of the Great Depression. They represent one of the richest histories in animation, second only to Walt Disney.
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Knots Landing -The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 2nd, 2009

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This is the second season of this prime time soap opera’s fourteen season run. This show is the stories of three couples who all live in the same cul-de-sac, along the second season addition of single temptress Abby Cunnigham (played by Donna Mills), whose role inspires the packaging’s amusing tag-line “Abby Cunnigham moves to Knots Landing. Do you know where your husband is?”

Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2009

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“The legend began hundreds of years ago when the fierce warriors known as the Samurai served the warlords of Japan with absolute loyalty. The most fearsome of all were the ronin, the samurai who had lost his master, set adrift like a wave on the open sea. One ronin sought out the master swordmaker, Masermune. The legendary master agreed to forge the samurai a sword of great mystical power. But, it would take an entire year to complete the work. The master’s evil-minded apprentice, Masamas, offered to forge another sword, but in only half the time.”

Scooby Doo has spanned generations and over 40 years.
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Freakazoid!: Season 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 30th, 2009

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“Super-toon extraordinaire Freakazoid! Freakazoid! Runs around in underwear Freakazoid! Freakazoid! Rescues Washington D.C .Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
Unless something better’s on TV Freakazoid! Freakazoid! His brain’s overloading. It has a chocolate coating. Textbook case for Sigmund Freud Freakazoid! Freakazoid!”

Only from the mind of Steven Spielberg and the gang that brought us Animaniacs could such a cartoon series and superhero be found. From 1995 to 1997 it could all be found as near as your television set,
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State of Play (BBC Miniseries)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2009

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There are many examples of excellent BBC series and miniseries. Some eventually get remade into American shows. State Of Play is one of those fantastic BBC drama thrillers that is now making its way to American audiences, not as a copycat series, but as a major box office film staring Russell Crowe. While I have not seen this theatrical release as of yet, I am intrigued with the story and will eventually find myself watching this movie version. Unfortunately for the likes of Crowe and director Kevin Macdonald, I have a hard time believing that a 2 hour film can pack in as much detail
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Tiny Toon Adventures: Season 1, Vol. 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2009

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“We’re tiny. We’re toony. We’re a little bit loony. And in this cartoony we’re invading your TV. We’re comic dispensers. We crack up all the censors. On Tiny Toon Adventures, get a dose of comedy. So, here’s Acme Acres, it’s a whole wide world apart. Our home sweet home, it stands alone, a cartoon work of art. The scripts were rejected, expect the unexpected on Tiny Toon Adventures it’s about to start.”

What do you get when you cross Steven Spielberg with the tradition of Loony Tunes?
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Snoopy’s Reunion

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 23rd, 2009

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“You are invited to a reunion.”

I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable.
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