Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2019
Dateline: September 13, 1999
Mankind has been storing all of our nuclear waste on the far side of the moon. On the other side of the lunar surface was Alpha Base. Here mankind had a research station which also served as a launching point for deep-space missions. An unfortunate chain of events led to the unthinkable. The nuclear waste pile was ignited, and the whole dump exploded with a force so powerful that it tore the moon out of Earth's orbit and sent it hurtling through space. The 311 inhabitants of Alpha were swept along for this uncontrolled flight into uncharted space. Of course, the year 1999 is no longer science fiction to us now. It's going on ancient history. There has never been a base on the moon. In fact, we haven't been back since the end of the Apollo program in the 1970's. If you check tonight, you'll find that our only natural satellite is still firmly planted in its familiar orbit around our planet. Space 1999 never happened.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 8th, 2019
As with probably most people in this business, I am indeed addicted to the concept of collecting movies. It should probably come as no surprise that I have well over 1,000 movies in all disc-based formats. Anybody with a rational mind should question why I have to own all the movies in a given series. Yes, I own Darkman 3, Hollow Man 2, and Bloodsport 4, among other strange and utterly awful movies. But somehow despite that completion-ist mindset, my addictions and OCDs pale in comparison to a deadly drug such as alcohol, a drug that can overtake your life and kill you in an instant. Our review today takes us to a TV movie from the 70's named Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.
We start with an upbeat commercial showing a bunch of teenagers having fun with a Courey's Beer. Then we get some cold hard facts from the time period. There are 500,000 pre-teen and teenage alcoholics. Three in four teenagers have had a drink, 1 in 20 have a serious problem with alcohol, 1 in 10 of those people will become an alcoholic. But it certainly makes you popular and easygoing with your friends, or at least that's what they say, anyway.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 20th, 2018
If you were a child in the 1960's or 1970's, you were around at the golden age of the Christmas television special. We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and there were a ton of holiday charms that came and went each year. But there were a handful that became classics and found their way to the airwaves every year in December. Of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas became one of these, and it is indeed among the best. It was not the only special to become beloved by generations of viewers. Now Dreamworks has brought together seven of the most memorable of these classics. This was a wonderful trip down memory lane for me, as it will be for millions of children of all ages who looked forward to these event broadcasts each and every year. Now you can watch them whenever you want. And they might not be just for Christmas anymore.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 12th, 2018
MacGyver (v) to act in an extremely resourceful manner. To utilize everyday items in unconventional ways to achieve a difficult task. I predict it will not be long before you can open your trusty copy of Webster’s and find this character has officially entered our lexicon. There is little doubt but that it is an unofficial part of it now. Crossing over from the realm of pop culture and into our language is a phenomenal achievement for a television show.
Richard Dean Anderson really is MacGyver. OK, maybe he’s not quite so handy with a paperclip and matchbook, but his own acting ability and charm make MacGyver more enjoyable than the formula that has become so renowned. They share the love of hockey. Anderson was slated to be a hockey star before injuring both legs. Both men hail from the wilds of Minnesota. The two also share an environmental crusade. These traits also coincidentally apply to Jack O’Neil.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 11th, 2018
When you have done movie reviews for a very long time such as I have, you acquire knowledge about certain films and movies that in a normal life span one would probably never come across. One of those for me has been the Power Rangers series. I have reviewed several of the American adaptations for the site, and while they are not my cup of tea, I am familiar with how they work and operate. Last week, I received one of the Japanese original Super Sentai series, Chojin Sentai Jetman, and I was eager to check it out. Let's see how this all unfolds.
The year is 199X, Sky Force's Earth Ship orbiting the Earth are the guardians of peace on the planet. Suddenly an emergency is detected. It appears a robot has gone rogue and is terrorizing the ship. Ryuu Tendoh (played by Kotaro Tanaka) and Rie Aoi (played by Maho Maruyama) jump into action. Rie saves a baby, and Ryuu is able to turn off the robot which restores order to the ship.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 13th, 2018
“It was the 'hate the performer' festival.”
With more than 600,000 people in attendance, the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 became the largest musical event of its time. In terms of sheer numbers, it was even bigger than Woodstock a year earlier. But instead of celebrating peace and love, the hippies who attended Isle of Wight were put off by performers who showed up in ostentatious vehicles. They were determined to aggressively protest the commercialization of music, which led to fences being torn down and artists subsequently dropping out of the festival lineup. Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now — Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 documents how one of the quietest, most unassuming artists in the lineup made some everlasting noise.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 27th, 2018
When it comes to Paul Schrader, I feel the argument can be made that he is the greatest American screenwriter. I know it’s a bold statement but when you look over his credits that include Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder, Hardcore, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and so many others I feel there just isn’t anyone out there that can compete. Lately though he’s seemed to have had a difficult time recapturing that greatness, there has even been a part of me that has felt that perhaps I should give up on hoping he’ll crank out one more great film and simply appreciate the filmography he’s delivered us cinema fans over the years. Paul Schrader, despite having some classic titles to his name he’s still a writer and a director that isn’t for everyone. His films typically are dark in tone and typically shine a light onto the underbelly of society that most would prefer to not know about. It’s because of his fearlessness in tackling these subjects that has made me a fan of his for years so when the opportunity to see First Reformed came along I didn’t hesitate, this was a screening I couldn’t miss.
As the film opens we get a long shot that pushes in to an old church, we quickly find out the church is named First Reformed. Inside we meet Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke) as he is delivering a sermon to a very sparse crowd of parishioners. It doesn’t take long to realize that Toller is a damaged man, both physically, emotionally and spiritually. We get insight into the reverends thoughts through his journal entries that he writes and are narrated for us. Things get moving when Mary (Amanda Seyfried) approaches Toller after a service and requests he speaks with her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger) who she fears wants her to have an abortion.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2018
"All this has happened before and will all happen again. But this time it happened in London. It happened on a quiet street in Bloomsbury. That corner house is the house of the Darling family, and Peter Pan chose this particular house because these were people who believed in him..."
In 1953, with a little help from some Walt Disney magic, generations of children, and adults, of course, would learn to believe in the boy who never grew up. Peter Pan began in the imagination of writer J. M. Barrie. He appeared in a number of works from the Scottish author beginning in 1902 with The Little White Bird. The character had always been a favorite of Walt Disney himself, and it was originally intended as his second animated feature following Snow White. It became quickly apparent that the technology wasn't quite where he needed it to be to tell the story he wanted to tell. It was put on a shelf, but never forgotten. The rights to the character were willed to the children of a children's hospital in London, and it was from there that Walt managed to obtain the film rights for the animated feature we have today. Peter Pan has enjoyed success in pretty much every medium possible. There have been hugely popular stage productions where Peter was usually played by a woman. The character has appeared in film, music, comics, television, radio plays and, of course, printed form. He's an endearing and certainly enduring character who has now added high-definition Blu-ray to the list.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 3rd, 2018
The classic American Westerns of the 1940s and '50s directed by the likes of John Ford and Howard Hawks famously inspired filmmakers like Sergio Leone to put their own stylish and revisionist spin on the genre. But while Spaghetti Westerns — genre films produced and written by Italians — are the most famous foreign example, plenty of other countries started making their own horse operas in the 1960s. That includes Mexico and filmmaker Arturo Ripstein, who made an outstanding feature film debut with 1966's Time to Die/Tiempo de Morir.
“It's no good getting out of jail only to enter a cemetery.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 13th, 2017
At first glance you would not expect 50 year old cartoon television specials to be this high on the UHD 4K list. Honestly, I was a bit surprised myself. But when you really think about the staying power of these cartoons you realize they've made an emotional connection to generations of children of all ages. 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. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years. A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are the most mentioned and certainly beloved by generations of children and adults. I thought I never missed an airing.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
