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When Stand Up Stood Out

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2006

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Hosted by Boston comic Fran Solomita, When Stand Up Stood Out is a detailed retrospective of the historic comedy boom that took the city by storm from the late 70’s to the early 80’s. You get the impression it was a fun crowd to be with most of the time. From the famous Ding Ho to the Comedy Connection, some of the nation’s biggest names worked out their routines to the local audiences.

The documentary tells its story very simply. With the use of extensive narrative, vintage clips, and countless interviews, you get a rather complete history of the phenomenon.
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Legends in Pinstripes

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2006

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I’m a lucky guy. I was able to witness the game of baseball before we all became so jaded. While I wasn’t born early enough to have enjoyed Mantle, The Babe, or Joltin’ Joe, I was fortunate enough to watch the likes of Mike Schmidt. Mike stayed 18 years with one team. He never held out and was always responsible in his public persona. Oh, and he ended up being considered the best 3rd baseman of all time in nearly every millennium poll conducted. It is this experience growing up with Schmitty and his like that make these stories feel much closer to home than younger kids are likely to feel.
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Coach – The First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2006

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Coach is one of those shows that never seemed to make a lot of noise. I can’t remember any year it was on that it burned up the ratings or scored many awards. Still, it was the little show that could. It ran for nine seasons, always holding on to a loyal core audience. I’m sure most of the success belongs to the underrated talents of Craig T. Nelson. I’ll admit that this guy just never showed up on my talent radar until his unexpected turn at drama during The District. It was then I learned to appreciate his self-effacing subtle abilities.
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NYPD Blue – The Complete Fourth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2006

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So now we come to the fourth year of NYPD Blue. In the show’s ever-changing look this year was no exception. Most notable is the fact that a new camera operation crew toned down the jumpy camera moves a bit. Style was not sacrificed, but the series is now easier to watch. Smits and Franz are really starting to click now, and we begin to see the special relationship we know will evolve between their characters. This buildup is absolutely necessary for the coming payoff with Simone’s death in later years. Again, several characters came and went, most notably a couple of female detectives.
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Little Manhattan

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 26th, 2006

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Once in awhile, a film comes along that really catches you by surprise. Little Manhattan is one of those films. At first glance, it appears to be an updated take on a coming of age film that warms the cockles of your heart and leaves you smiling, but it’s actually a bit of a romantic comedy that is timeless and memorable.

Written by Jennifer Flackett and directed by Mark Levin, who are a married writing team whose most notable work was Wimbledon, the focus of Little Manhattan is Gabe (Josh Hutcherson, Kicking and Screaming), who also narrates the film.
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Married With Children – The Complete Fifth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 24th, 2006

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The irreverant, politically incorrect Married With Children returns to DVD, this time in its fifth season, and I first want to say, “It’s about time.” How long has it been? I’ve lost count. All I know is, I better not have to wait this long again. Al, Peg, Kelly, and Bud, return to torment the newly divorced Marcy Rhoades and any other poor sap, who gets in their way. In contrast, life dishes out enough misery to the Bundys to keep us all happy for a very long time. It’s a funny dynamic, which the show plays t…
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Decision Before Dawn

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 24th, 2006

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War movies, in my opinion, are one of the rarities in film, where the most recent pics are usually the best ones. I need only cite films such as Full Metal Jacket, We Were Soldiers, and Saving Private Ryan to argue my cause effectively. But that doesn’t mean all of the older ones were bad. Most were because they took more of a silly ra-ra viewpoint in relation to the reality of war. They didn’t show the nasty details because, in many ways, they were recruiting tools. But Decision Before Dawn> was one earlier work, which took chances with its dramatization.
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End of the Spear

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 23rd, 2006

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Synopsis

The Waodani tribe of the Amazon is, we are told, so violent that they have almost hunted each other to extinction. Oops. Anyway, in 1956 a group of missionaries and their families arrive to live with the Waodani and do the missionary thing. A misunderstanding leads to the missionaries being slaughtered, but their wives decide to stay. The film follows the journey of the son of one of the five men, and the whole thing is all about forgiveness.

See, the title is “End” not “Tip” of th…
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Monterey Pop Festival

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2006

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The 60’s have become something of a caricature of themselves. Take a girl with straight hair and flowers, throw in a “groovy” and a “man”, add some grainy photography, and you’re all ready to go. It is sometimes hard to remember that there was a time when this was not a kitchy formula, it was just the way that it was. This film is so authentically steeped in 60’s hippie culture that it almost doesn’t seem real when the footage starts rolling. Once the film begins to sink in, though, the viewer is completely drawn in …
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Sgt. Bilko – The Phil Silvers Show

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2006

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The Phil Silvers Show was groundbreaking for several reasons, but to look at the list of those who appeared on the show during its four season run is to look at a “Who’s Who” of television ancestry and history. Allen Melvin played Sam the Butcher on The Brady Bunch, Harvey Lembeck previously appeared in Stalag 17 and his son Michael became an accomplished television director. Joe Ross played one half of the cop team in Car 54, Where Are You? next to a guest star of the show, a guy named Fred Gwynne, who also appeared in a show called The Munsters.
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MacGyver – The Complete Sixth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 16th, 2006

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I’ve already had a lot to say about this show in my Season 5 review. All of it still applies. Richard Dean Anderson was fortunate enough, some would say talented enough, to have played two iconic characters in one life-time. I propose that he’s really played only one, but in two very different circumstances. I’ve already pointed out the similarities between the actor and his two roles, from their birthplaces to their hobbies and sports activities. This should in no way be interpreted as taking anything away from Anderson.
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The Rockford Files – Season Two

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 16th, 2006

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Growing up, that twangy Mike Post music provided a part of the soundtrack of my life. I remember walking around school and everywhere you turned you heard kids saying, “That’ll be $200 a day plus expenses.” We all printed up fake business cards. I can tell you firsthand that it takes more than the props. I didn’t have Jim’s natural charm and finesse. Somehow fifth grade’s Sister Margaret wasn’t buying that my NSA credentials meant my homework assignments were classified and above her clearance level. As I sat in detention wondering what could have possibly gone wrong, one theme kept going through my mind.
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That Girl – Season One

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 11th, 2006

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Synopsis

Long before she paired up with Phil Donahue and the two went on to do..who knows what, Marlo Thomas appeared in some smaller TV shows from in the early ’60s, until she got a break when she was given a TV show to utilize her talents. That Girl is the story of Ann Marie, who decided to move to New York City to try to find steady work as an actress, and over the course of the show’s five year run, Ann Marie’s exploits are documented in situation comedy fashion.
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The 39 Steps

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 11th, 2006

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OK, I hope I’m not diving into a review that may fall into the “film scholar” category, and thus rule me out of being taken seriously. When there’s a lull in buying new releases, sometimes my wallet gets cabin fever, and so I went out and picked up the Hitchcock set from Criterion, entitled Wrong Men and Notorious Women: Five Hitchcock Thrillers 1935-1946, and includes the previous Criterion releases from Hitchcock, namely Rebecca, Notorious, Spellbound and The Lady Vanishes.
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Thinking XXX

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 8th, 2006

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Synopsis

Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders decided to do a series of portraits of some 30 porn stars. Two pictures of each, one clothed, one not, the same pose in both pictures. This is his documentary of that shoot. Scenes of the studio process are intercut with interviews with the various stars and talking-head moments from the likes of Karen Finley, Gore Vidal, John Waters and Whitley Streiber (!). We are at the other end of the porn spectrum from Dag Yngvesson’s Rated X – these are t…
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Culpepper Cattle Company, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 7th, 2006

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The Culpepper Cattle Company was a surprise for me, and one that I looked forward to immensely. I love a good western, and I’m particularly fond of anything post-Leone. A western doesn’t have to be spaghetti, however, for me to like it. I just feel that, for all Sergio’s overblown proportions, he did instill an accurate degree of nastiness in his films, which I’m sure was prevalent in that time of American history. Once Sergio came, westerns grew up, even if they were playing closer to the American style of fi…
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Jim Brickman at the Magic Kingdom – The Disney Songbook

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006

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Synopsis

Everything I know about Jim Brickman could fit into a couple hundred word review about a concert performance he put on at the Walt Disney World resort. But upon further review, Brickman has been reaching out to the older generation for a few years now, producing collaborations and appearing at high profile events to bring recognition to his work.

He’s collaborated with quite a few people, and on his live performance at Disney’s Magic Kingdom, the mighty Michael Bolton makes an extended ap…
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Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006

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Before it became a somewhat famous regional barbecue house (I kid, I kid!) red, hot and blue was another name for the Red Hot Organization, a group designed to help fight the AIDS epidemic. Back in the early and mid ’90s kids, AIDS was raging on through the land, and Ronald Reagan did nothing to stop it. In fact, he was injecting homosexuals with AIDS while delivering crack into the ghetto.
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Return to Me/At First Sight (Double Feature)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006

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A long time ago, Sony owned the MGM video library (before Fox picked it up for impending HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Wars) and re-released some films as Special Editions, and combined others as part of convenient two-packs. This is an example of the latter, perhaps as some sort of romantic two-pack that’s easy on the wallet but heavy on the heart.

At First Sight is directed by Irwin Winkler (Night and the City) and tells the tale of Virgil Adamson (Val Kilmer, Real Genius) who has been blind all of his life.
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Immortal Sergeant

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006

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Synopsis

Henry Fonda plays Colin Spence, a diffident, self-effacing Canadian (but of course!) corporal in the British infantry based in Tunisia. Led by the crusty but supremely competent Sergeant Kelly (Irish of course), Spence’s squad is sent out on a recon mission that goes badly awry, and the men are forced to engage in a terrible trek across the burning desert. Spence is forced to assume a leadership role, and along the way has flashbacks to his relationship with Maureen O’Hara, and how his unwil…
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Alf: Season Three

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2006

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ALF is back, and just as funny as ever in this third season of mayhem. Unfortunately, we are again treated to syndicated cut versions of the show. Still, this appears to be all we’re going to get. Not sure if I mentioned it before, but having the episode titles has pointed out that each ALF episode uses a song title as the production name. This season songs like Stop In The Name Of Love, Funeral For A Friend, and Stairway To Heaven are represented. There are quite a few more “fantasy” episodes here. ALF is shown what life in the Tanner household would be without him.
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Doogal

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 1st, 2006

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Follow Doogal and friends as they try to save their lush green world from the clutches of the evil jack-in-the-box Zeebad (Jon Stewart) in this CGI family film that completely misses the mark. Though G-Rated – and obviously of inferior intellect – the film tries to be witty and smart with a ton of stale pop culture references its target audience will not come close to grasping. Sure, the adults will get them, but once they do, the question becomes, what do we do with them? Another “Can’t Touch This” MC Hammer referen…
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Yellow Sky

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 31st, 2006

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Yellow Sky is one of those near classic Westerns from 1949. For decades the film has flown under the mainstream radar, only to finally be rediscovered on DVD. Gregory Peck is an unlikely choice to play the lead role. Stretch heads a band of thieves that strike from town to town hitting usually banks. The film wastes very little time getting started. We see the gang set up, and soon pull off, one of these heists in the first five minutes. The gang is quickly chased out into the unforgiving desert sun of the Western badlands.
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Separate Lies

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 30th, 2006

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Written for the screen and directed by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), Separate Lies tells the story of James (Tom Wilkinson, Batman Begins), a high powered lawyer in London who lives in the countryside with his wife Anne (Emily Watson, Breaking the Waves). They have the perfect English house and a dog to match. One day, Anne meets William (Rupert Everett, Shrek 2) and has an affair with him, which turns the trio’s lives around in a way that they’d never expect.>
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Tommy Lee Goes to College

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 29th, 2006

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Tommy Lee Goes to College is a show that was really sort-of set-up to fail from the beginning. NBC used to be the #1 channel on television, but they slipped badly in the ratings once the big reality television boom hit. In a bid to catch up, they took a chance on this show, which would have been much more at home on MTV or even FOX. The end result was something that was surprisingly similar in tone and charm as another rock-and-roll reality show; The Osbourne’s. The thing is, the NBC audience is just no…
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