Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 15th, 2010
I have absolutely no doubt that Hilary Swank meant well, but we all know what wise men say about good intentions. It is likely that Amelia Earhart has been a hero and inspiration to the young actress as I know she's been to women of all professions throughout the years. There's no question that she is an influential historical figure and deserving of attention. Of course, she's had plenty over the years. There have actually been quite a few films and television shows dedicated to the heroine since her disappearance so many years ago. Like any subject, there have been some great efforts and some forgettable ones. Recently the character showed up in a much more frivolous and fictional way in the latest Night At The Museum film. From Star Trek to A&E documentaries, there is little danger that she will be forgotten in the world of entertainment. I suspect, from what I've seen from news reels, that she was a passionate and spirited woman full of life and heart. Unfortunately Amelia, the film, has none of that.
From the film's promotional campaign one is left with the definite idea that this is less about the aviatrix and more about the love story between Earhart and George Putnam, played by Richard Gere. At least that's the film I was most prepared to see. I suppose one piece of good news, at least for me, was that this love affair is played quite flatly. Who could have expected that from a Gere romantic film? If that really was the focus, someone forgot to tell the leads that they were in love. The portrayals are so matter-of-fact and dispassionate that you could debate whether there was indeed any love there at all. Perhaps that was the way the relationship was in reality. If that's true, it's a poor choice for a romantic film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 15th, 2010
“The Man Who Cannot Die”, better known as the Phantom was created by Lee Falk in 1936. The comic strip runs until this day, despite the creator dieing more than ten years ago. The Phantom was a costumed crimefighter that lived in the country of Bengalla. Bengalla was fictional but located in Africa. In 1996, they finally decided to create a movie based on the comic strip to find out what the “Ghost Who Walks” would do on the big screen.
The story starts when a young boy washes up on the shore of the African island known as Bengalla. He got there as the last survivor from a vicious pirate attack. In a ceremony with an ancient tribe known as the “Poison People”, he is dubbed the Phantom. The Phantom will devote his life to destroying piracy, cruelty and injustice. When the boy grows, he assumes the identity of a purple masked superhero with a brilliant horse to ride and a faithful wolf at his side.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 3rd, 2010
Planet Hulk started out as a storyline from Incredible Hulk #88-#95 (2006). The Hulk was too strong for the planet Earth and so the Illuminati under the direction of Iron Man and Doctor Strange sent him to a planet where he can cause harm to nobody except himself. Of course, things don’t go exactly as the Illuminati probably hoped for. The direct to video movie deals with Hulk’s stay on planet known as Sakaar.
Hulk is simply too strong. He is a danger to the earth and in such the New Avengers has sent him away to an abandoned planet. The Hulk wakes up and finds himself in the rocket. He listens to the words of Iron Man with Doctor Strange and what appears to be Reed Richards and the Black Bolt close by. The team thinks that they are sending him to an isolated planet devoid of life. However, the rocket actually passes through a portal and somehow Hulk ends up on the planet known as Sakaar.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 29th, 2010
Madea's been everywhere. She's even been to jail. But I Can Do Bad All By Myself is not actually a Madea film, per se. She has a cameo, of sorts, but this film is based on a series of stage acts that Perry has collected under the single title of the film. So much of this movie has been out there on stage. I'm not really a fan of Perry's Madea character and the collection of films she/he's been involved in. I had a friend once who used to get them for another friend of his, and he used to joke about making me a copy. Now you know why we're not friends any more. But this film is very different from anything you've seen from the Madea character, or honestly out of any of Tyler Perry's previous film projects.
When the film begins, it looks like it's going to be another haphazard Madea adventure. She's asleep in her bed when she hears a crashing sound downstairs. Someone done broke into Madea's house. You're already starting to feel sorry for the crooks. That is, until we find out they are three young children. Apparently their parents are dead, and they've been living with their grandma, but she's been AWOL for over four days. Madea does the only thing she can. She feeds the kids, much to the discontent of Perry's other alter ego, her husband Joe. "You feed them and they keep comin' back," he warns. Once she's heard their heartwarming tale, she takes them to their Aunt April (Henson). April is working as a singer at a local nightclub but is ruining her own life on booze and an abusive relationship. Madea comes knockin' while she's trying to sleep and lays the bad news on the wannabe star. April's got no room in her life for three kids, and on top of that, her church has sent over a homeless Mexican named Sandino (Rodriguez) who needs a place to stay and can pay by doing jobs around the house. We all know from the beginning that grandma’s not coming back, so I'm not really spoiling anything for you there. April will be faced with making some changes in her life, both for the kids and for herself. It's through music and faith, and a little help from Sandino, that she manages to open her heart to her new family.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 29th, 2010
Metaphors are often effective tools in filmmaking. They can be used in a variety of unique and clever ways to either highlight a particular aspect of story and/or character. They can be used to add an artistic flourish to a movie. They can even be used to drive a plot, if you're careful enough to avoid becoming too abstract. Then there are films like The Burning Plain which attempt to create a film that is metaphor itself. What you often end up with, and certainly here, is something difficult to follow and more acceptable at the festival circuit than at the box office. The movie performed abysmally at the box, and that is in spite of some rather glowing reviews. The general public is never going to “get” a film like this. Honestly, I'm not sure that I even understood it. What I do know is that whatever level of understanding or entertainment I might have gotten here, I had to work too hard to get it. There's a simple equation of investment of resources and return that this film just simply fails to deliver. And if they think I'm harsh, wait until they try to sell it to the average viewer. Most people have less patience than I when it comes to movies, but director and writer Guillermo Arriaga demands far more than I was willing to give. And evidenced by the mere 200 grand at the limited run box office, it was more than most of you were willing to give as well.
The story is told from a perspective of several places and times. We learn that Gina (Basinger) and Nick (deAlmeida) were having an affair. Both had families. They used to rendezvous at a trailer out in the middle of an isolated plain. They are killed in a horrible fire and explosion that burned so hot, we are told, that their bodies melted together and had to be cut apart with a knife. In the aftermath, their families develop a severe hatred for each other, each blaming the other for taking away their parent. But in traditional Romeo and Juliet fashion, two of the children, one from each side, fall in love. The identity of these two and the things that they did would be spoilers here. Suffice it to say that you should spend some time attempting to pick up on the details and nuances here. Another story involves Santiago (Pino) who now lives in Mexico with his young daughter. He owns a crop dusting business. Of course, flying small planes can be a dangerous business. Actually flying is very safe. Crashing, on the other hand can be dangerous. When he is injured, a friend helps his daughter track down the girl's mother, Sylvia (Theron), now living in Oregon running a restaurant. Of course, we know that these stories all have common threads and even common characters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 27th, 2010
The original movie production of Fame came out in 1980 and followed a group of students as they progressed four years through the New York High School of Performing Arts. It was gritty, it was harsh, but it was a very deep portrayal of budding students trying to get into the world of singing, dancing and acting. Nearly 30 years later, somebody gets the bright idea of doing a remake. Let’s find out if it is anywhere close to the original.
It is another year at PA or the New York High School of Performing Arts, there is a brand new crop of students trying their best to get into this elite school. The teachers are professionals at figuring out who has talent and who doesn’t. Teachers like Mrs. Fran Rowan (played by Megan Mullally) who works on vocals, Ms. Lynn Kraft (played by Bebe Neuwrith) on dance, Mr. Alvin Dowd (played by Charles S. Dutton) as drama coach and Mr. Joel Cranston (played by Kelsey Grammer) who takes on music.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 26th, 2010
"Look at yourselves. Unplug from your chairs, get up and look in a mirror. What you see is how God made you. We're not meant to experience the world through a machine."
Since the time we were kids, we were warned that you can't tell a book by its cover. That has never been more true in our modern world of the internet. We play in chat rooms where almost no one is who they pretend to be. We lie about our age, looks, and even our gender, and rationalize it as harmless escapism or merely exaggeration. Everyone does it, or so we believe, so it's actually expected. Police officers often pose as innocent young children to lure pedophiles out of their dark lairs and into a new dark lair, this one with bars and armed guards. So, I guess it's not that large of a leap into the world of Surrogates. Now you can order an entire working body to look like anything you want. You sit in a comfortable pod and live through this artificial skin. You can't feel pain. You can't catch a disease. You can't die ... or, again, so you would very much like to believe. If we can't change the book, we can now at least change the cover.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2010
"Let me know when the Governor gets here."
Well, he's in the house, and I'm going to get a lot of razzing for this review of Last Action Hero. The person who thought I should see a shrink for looking forward to the next Saw film is going to be calling for my outright commitment to an institution dedicated to covering walls with nice padding so we won't hurt ourselves. I know this film is generally considered "bad" by critics and moviegoers alike. It swept the Razzies in 1993 and has since been only the kind of film 10 year olds would really like to see. Me, I've always simply loved this film. From the first time I saw it at the box office, I was hooked. It was one of the first new laserdiscs I bought back in the day, and I watched the heck out of that disc. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I love this movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2010
Sylvester Stallone returned to his roots with 1993's Cliffhanger. No, I'm not talking about his iconic Rocky role here. I'm talking about his ancestral roots. The movie was filmed high in the Italian Alps to achieve many of these incredible vistas and the snow capped mountains. Believe it or not, this was June at the location, and several of the crew were stranded for a time because of a sudden and powerful blizzard.
However, it wasn't really the location along with its harsh weather conditions that caused this film the most trouble. The script was plagued from the beginning with several drafts and many writers. There were so many hands in the stew that lawsuits went on for some time afterwards, leading to several writers getting a paycheck they otherwise weren't getting. I've heard that as many as 12 people had a pass at the script in some form or another. Actor Christopher Walken was set to play the bad guy in the film but left the production just before shooting began. You will also notice that the film is dedicated to Wolfgang Gullich. Gullich was one of the best stunt climbers in the business. He did a lot of those climbs where you see a character without a harness or safety line. He managed to achieve all of this quite safely, only to be killed in an automobile accident in August of 1992, almost a year before the film actually opened. Finally, the film was forced to acknowledge that the harness which is seen to malfunction in the film’s opening scene was rigged to fail and that the actual harness was quite safe. All in all it was a troubled film from start to finish. It did get a lot of hype from Sony and went on to bring in a respectable $85 million at the domestic box office, but it was a much larger hit overseas pulling in almost $200 million. It's still considered much more of a hit in Europe than it has ever been in America.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 19th, 2010
It's about time that The Simpsons has made it to Blu-ray and high definition. There's plenty of room on the couch as we welcome Homer, Bart, Marge, Maggie, and the whole town of Springfield to the brighter, more detailed world of high definition. You might be asking yourself: Why should we spend extra bucks to watch a simple cartoon on Blu-ray? That's a good question. The simple answer is that you just should. The longer answer follows.
The longest running show in prime time doesn’t feature cops, doctors, or lawyers. It’s hard to believe that The Simpsons have existed as long as the Fox network. While the series didn’t really begin until Fox’s second year, the characters were part of The Tracey Ullman Show, which did start the first year of Fox. Who could have guessed that an animated short from an otherwise horrible and doomed variety show would explode into such a phenomenon? The Simpsons have not only dominated the pop culture; they have placed everything else into context with their show. Like Doonesbury, it could be said that the only thing worse than being made fun of on The Simpsons is not being made fun of on The Simpsons. With that said, you’ll understand my warm feelings and appreciation for this show.
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