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Family Guy: It’s A Trap!(Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 3rd, 2011

“Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in order… But, you know this story…”

Know this story, you do. It’s the opening of the third, or actually the 6th in sequence, but it is the 3rd one made, unless you count… Never mind. This is the prologue to Return Of The Jedi. Not so long ago in this Galaxy, Family Guy took a shot across the bow of those Imperial Cruisers with its extremely funny and on the spot spoof of the first Star Wars film, or actually the 4th chapter…. Star Wars: A New Hope. It was only a matter of time
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Salt (Deluxe Unrated Edition) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 23rd, 2010

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“I have come to tell you a story…”

Director Phillip Noyce is no stranger to the spy-and-espionage genre. His father was an intelligence officer with the Australian government, and he spent many years of his childhood listening to tales of derring-do. He often recounts in interviews how he would play spy as a young man. He would pick out some stranger he’d see while out and about.
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Vampire Circus (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 23rd, 2010

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“And now I wish to present an entertainment which has given pleasure to many of the crowned heads of Europe. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight for your eyes alone…”

In the 1950’s and 1960’s Hammer picked up where Universal had left off. They became the studio for the very best in horror films. With names like Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney finally reaching the end of their reign, Hammer offered up the likes of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. They resurrected all of the famous Universal monsters in their own image. Now we had a new cycle of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and The Mummy.
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Michael McDonald- This Christmas Live In Chicago (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 23rd, 2010

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Michael McDonald has been around for a very long time. In fact, with his white hair and beard McDonald makes a perfect little musical Santa. The man began his career as a backup singer for Steely Dan but made his real fame when he became part of The Doobie Brothers in the 1970’s. But by 1982 it was already all over for the super-group. After about 5 years of wall-to-wall hits the group disbanded, and McDonald went out on his own.
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Dear Mr. Gacy (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 16th, 2010

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John Wayne Gacy was one of Chicago’s most infamous killers. He most remembered for the images of him as a clown. He used to entertain at parties in the costume. While it was never really part of his killing life, he was forever known as the Clown Killer. Gacy would entice young men, often gay hookers, into his home where he would drug them and have sex with them. He would also trick them into putting on handcuffs, and he would strangle them to death.
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Knight and Day (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 10th, 2010

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A suave Tom Cruise and a flustered Cameron Diaz (wow, what a stretch for both actors) bump into each other at Wichita airport, and a few minutes later do so again. Diaz thinks she might be on to something with the charming hunk, but she is more accurately into something, and in far out of her depth, as the plain flight turns into a gun battle and forced landing. Before she knows it, she doesn’t know where to turn and whom to trust: the various menacing government officials (headed up by a sinister Peter Sarsgaard), or the cheery but possibly psychotic rogue Cruise. There will be many a narrow escape and an international location visited before she knows the answer.
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The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 9th, 2010

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“The war between sorcerers was fought in the shadows of history, and the fate of mankind rested with the just and powerful Merlin. He taught his secrets to three trusted apprentices, Balthazar, Veronica and Horvath. He should have trusted only two.”

It was one of the most memorable Walt Disney moments in the long history of animation. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment in Fantasia would become the most recognizable piece of the film.
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Harpoon: Whale Watching Massacre (Unrated Edition) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 9th, 2010

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“Nobody thinks of it from the whale’s point of you.”

I think this is the very first film I’ve ever seen that was made in Iceland. Of course, Iceland isn’t one of those movie-making meccas known throughout the world for their movie magic. The truth is, there haven’t been too many films set in Iceland and even fewer shot on location there. Now that Harpoon has come along, I don’t expect that is going to change any time soon.
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Avatar (Three-Disc Extended Collector’s Edition) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 8th, 2010

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And the George Lucas Award for the filmmaker who has mined the most out of his movie this year….the envelope please. It’s James Cameron for releasing not one, not two, not three, but four different versions of Avatar in less than a year. But I’ll have to give him a pass, just this once. This 3-disc collection offers enough goodies that it will tempt you to trade in your still-new version for this complete collection. Better yet … put it at the top of your Christmas list. The film comes in three versions. One with 8 minutes added. Another with 16. What’s the point of having the new version if not to see the most extensive edit?
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Diary of a Mad Black Woman: The Movie (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 8th, 2010

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“September 19th. Dear Diary, as I sit here thinking about picking up the pieces of what used to be my life, I realized something. Every room in this house holds a painful memory for me. Even though he’s suffering, something somewhere in me wants him to suffer more. A few months and a divorce can take you through just as many emotions as 18 years in a marriage. And I’m starting to feel all of them at once. But the one that is clear is rage. Signed, a Mad Black Woman.”

Lately I’ve had an opportunity to watch a ton of Madea on Blu-ray.
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Fantasia / Fantasia 2000 (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 2nd, 2010

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“How do you do? My name is Deems Taylor, and it’s my very pleasant duty to welcome you here on behalf of Walt Disney, Leopold Stokowski, and all the other artists and musicians whose combined talents went into the creation of this new form of entertainment, Fantasia. What you’re going to see are the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the interpretations of trained musicians, which I think is all to the good.”

Just three years after Walt Disney introduced the world to the animated feature in 1937, Uncle Walt was already experimenting with the idea.
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Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 2nd, 2010

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“Well when you gettin’ “got” and somebody done “got” you and you go “get” them, when you get ’em everybody’s gon’ get got.”

When Tyler Perry started writing his small plays, he probably never had a clue just how far it might all go from there. The plays had a solid audience, but there was always concern that the appeal would be too narrow. That didn’t stop Perry from putting together a few relatively low-budget films located in his adopted film hometown of Atlanta. For the most part the studio got pretty much what it expected.
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Sondheim! The Birthday Concert (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2010

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Most of the huge names of Broadway are gone. Certainly there are young talents that have created some memorable shows. Perhaps one day they will build up the mountain of classics that we received from the likes of Rodgers, Hammerstein, Bernstein, and others. There are even a couple of writers out there that have amassed that kind of a career. Andrew Lloyd Weber absolutely comes to mind as a fine example. But Stephen Sondheim is the last of a dying breed.
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The Disappearance of Alice Creed (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2010

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The axiom in Hollywood these days is that more is better. Every year we get inundated with blockbuster films sporting $200 million budgets, groundbreaking f/x, epic journeys and casts of thousands. Enter first-time director J. Blakeson and his intimate and quite claustrophobic thriller, The Disappearance Of Alice Creed. Right from the start we know that we’re in for something completely different. There are no opening credits of any kind. There isn’t even a title screen.
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Bee Gees: In Our Own Time (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2010

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Most people remember the Bee Gees from their disco days and Saturday Night Fever. They sold a lot of records and achieved more fame than at any time in their careers. But the Brothers Gibb had been performing since the 1950’s as children. They would headline automobile races and appear on local radio and television shows. They would quickly gain attention for their harmonies and eventually for their own songs. By 1967 they had begun to gain international attention, appearing on the national rock-and-roll shows. The brothers would become known then for their power ballads and love songs.
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Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 30th, 2010

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Tyler Perry burst on the scene in 2005 with Diary of a Mad Black Woman. It was one of the worst-reviewed movies of the year, but when it raked in over $50 million dollars at the box office, Tyler Perry silenced critics and became a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. Before his movie-making career, Perry was already a huge success in the African-American community, having written several Christian and family-oriented plays upon which many of his movies are based.
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Madea’s Family Reunion (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 30th, 2010

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Tyler Perry once again dons multiple costumes to incarnate several characters, most prominently Madea, the no-nonsense but mischievous matriarch of a very fractious family. She is ordered by the court to take in a runaway as a foster child, and that project of reclamation joins that of helping out her nieces. They have a mother from hell. One sister is struggling to learn how to love again, while the other is being forced into marriage with the hideously abusive Blair Underwood.
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The Expendables (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 24th, 2010

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“Man, we’ll die with you. Just don’t ask us to do it twice.”

Remember the old days of the action movie? Those films where someone like Stallone or Schwarzenegger would run around and take out armies of bad guys while barely breaking a sweat. You know the kind of movie I’m talking about. The ones where the hero goes up against a hail of bullets and explosions and manages to pick off the bad guys without catching a single slug himself.
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Phil Collins: Going Back – Live at the Roseland Ballroom NYC (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 24th, 2010

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When Peter Gabriel left the band Genesis to pursue his own solo career, it was the break of a lifetime for the band’s drummer, Phil Collins. He took over the front-man duties with style, and before long Genesis was enjoying the most commercial success of their lives. Collins provided the smooth, easy-to-listen-to voice that Gabriel really never had. The tunes were instantly more recognizable and stuck with you for a long time. Of course, that meant that Collins would go out and work on that solo career as well
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The Twilight Zone: Season 2 (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 23rd, 2010

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“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead — your next stop, the Twilight Zone.”

Image follows up its great Blu-ray release of season 1 with a second season that continues to impress. You are getting the best image possible with some of the most comprehensive bonus features you’re apt to find with any classic television series.
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The Search For Santa Paws (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by BABY on November 23rd, 2010

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“Sometimes you just gotta let a dog do his thing.”

Hey everybody. Baby back again to bring you yet another dog movie from a dog’s point of view, which is the floor, in case anybody out there really wants to know. You see, Gino won’t let me on the furniture in the theater. He says that just because the seats look like chew toys, and smell like chew toys, doesn’t mean they actually are chew toys. I mean, really, people. You wanna talk about your special effects,
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Ancient Aliens: Season One (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 23rd, 2010

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“Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings. What if it were true? Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? And if so, what if there were clues left behind, something hiding in plain sight? What if we could find that evidence?”

Ever since Eric von Daniken released his speculative book and its subsequent 1970 film Chariots of the Gods, there has been an entire field of study created around something commonly called Ancient Astronaut Theory.
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Doctor Who: The Complete Fifth Series (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2010

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Imagine a world where Winston Churchill battles deadly machines from space intent on dominating the universe, a place where Santa is a deadly menace, and a rather eccentric fellow travels about in a police call box with a rather deceptively spacious interior. To Dr. Who fans of all ages, this is all very familiar territory. I fell in love with Dr. Who as played by Tom Baker from 1974 – 1981. He was the fourth actor to portray the Doctor and arguably the most popular. With a pocket full of jelly babies and a trusty sonic screwdriver, the Doctor rather muddled his way about with a massive wool scarf around his neck,
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Sherlock: Season One (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2010

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In 1887, readers of the popular periodical Beeton’s Christmas Annual were to receive quite a special treat. There wasn’t much fanfare or hype to the event. Inside the pages of the magazine was a story called A Study In Scarlet. It was a detective story, perhaps like many published before, except for the detective himself, a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Together with his faithful companion and chronicler Dr. Watson, Holmes would win the hearts of those holiday readers.
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The World at War (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 18th, 2010

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They’ve been called The Greatest Generation, and who are we to argue the point? Sitting here writing reviews from my comfortable seat in a state-of-the-art home theater, I’m in no position to lay claim to the title. They fought in the bloodiest conflict in modern human history. Over 20 million were killed. That’s a staggering number. If you’re like me, it’s not even real. I can honestly say that those facts have never really reached home as much as they did while watching this footage.
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