Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2010
Vampires are hot right now, at least that's what everyone keeps telling me. The truth is that everyone is absolutely wrong. Vampires are not hot right now. They've always been hot. Since at least since 1897 when Bram Stoker took the world by storm in one of the earliest examples of a horror novel. Of course, I'm talking about Dracula. Dracula, as a character, might have been based on the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler, but the vampire legend that Stoker perfected in Dracula is pure fiction. Still, it wasn't quite Stoker's novel that created the vampire craze, it merely lit the fuse. The explosion came just a couple of decades later with the Broadway production and Universal film based on the story. It was first on stage and then in the very first talkie horror film where Bela Lugosi would change Bram Stoker's rules and become the iconic symbol for vampires for nearly a century and beyond. Stoker's Dracula was a hideous, wretched creature who was not going to be seducing any ladies without his supernatural powers. It was Lugosi who delivered the vampire in the evening coat and cape. Here we see the cultured, handsome man who doesn't even need all of that vampire mojo to get the ladies. Of course, it doesn't hurt, and between the novel, play, and film vampires got hot, and they still are.
We've all seen the young girls out there swooning over the Twilight films and books as if the whole vampire idea had just been invented. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the television networks and cable channels would be taking notice. No, it's not the swooning teenagers, it's the green being transferred from their pockets to their coffers. But vampires on television are not new either. Dracula itself was a series. In the 1960's and 70's there was Dark Shadows and the vampire Barnabas Collins. I rushed home from school every day to watch that show. Maybe that's why I missed so many homework assignments. I should have tried the "under a vampire's spell" excuse. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are about to bring that franchise back to life. I can't wait. In the 1970's Kolchak began his monster chasing career going after a vampire or two. Then there was Buffy, and the craze reached another crescendo. The spin-off Angel only made the genre even hotter. Before that there was Forever Knight and The Hunger. I could go on for pages talking about vampires in television and movies. The Underworld franchise gave us Selene, and the sexy female vampire was reborn. Yeah, there were scary ones as well, but I was a bit distracted. HBO is mining vampire gold with yet another series of vampire books in True Blood. If you think this is going to end any time soon, you just haven't lived long enough ... yet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2010
It's been said that all good things must come to an end. In television that could not be more true. In the world of entertainment good things end, often quickly without a chance to leave any kind of an impact. Maybe six years wasn't exactly quick for Lost, but at least it can't claim not to have left an impact. The show changed how we watch television, and it will be a long time before anyone forgets about it.
For six years now, Lost has taken us through mystery after mystery. I’m beginning to think that the show’s title is more a mission statement for where they want to take the viewers. Each time Abrams appears to answer a question and move on, closer examination proves that nothing has actually been revealed. The series has become the poster child for misdirection and script sleight of hand. When I examine the 13 episodes from season 4, I’m left with the inescapable, pun intended, feeling that nothing significant has really happened here at all. But at the same time, it’s the most significant event of the series. All the while I find myself compelled to watch episode after episode. Abrams would have been a great drug dealer if that producing gig hadn’t worked out for him. The show started out with enough directions and plot devices to put our brains into overload. From that point on, he’s been cutting each dose a little bit so that we find ourselves drawn to each hour fix, chasing the high we got in the beginning. Of course, we already know we’re never going to feel that way again, but we’ll keep coming back for more as long as he continues to make us believe that we will. I’m not saying the show has declined at all. I’m saying that it doesn’t really ever go anywhere. Abrams continues to introduce major plot lines such as the hatch, the others, and now the freighter, with promises of linking it all together into some kind of epiphany, and for a short time he actually does. But hindsight leaves us scratching our heads, because once we come down we can’t really explain what the high was all about. And so, we’ll continue to tune in or buy the DVD’s to see where it’s all headed, even if we already know that we’re doomed to remain lost no matter how it all ends.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2010
Ken Olin is truly a great talent that I’ve followed since back when he played the snotty detective Garibaldi on Hill Street Blues. Since then he’s done some wonderful work behind the camera, and Brothers & Sisters certainly shows his influence; however, this is not some of his best work. The show often leans on clichés and gets awfully lazy in moving forward at times. I do see the great family of characters they created here, but fail to find them interesting beyond the life breathed into them by their performers. This is a case of ego getting in the way of great potential. The writers and producers are trying way too hard to do something special. True greatness often requires the least effort. My advice to Olin and company is, play to the strengths of this great cast, and then get out of their way as often as possible.
Sally Field plays Nora Walker. Her husband has just died and left her with a lot of unanswered questions in her life. She soon discovers a twenty-year affair and some even more serious hanky-panky with the books of the company the family owns. Her emotional ups and downs can be about as compelling as television can get. Callista Flockhart plays the best opposite Field as the errant, and of course, conservative, black sheep of the family. The moments they share have given me a greater respect for Flockhart than her previous roles have. It is a little much watching her call someone else skinny. Ron Rifkin steals every scene he’s in as the old fashioned Uncle Saul, proving that Alias was no fluke for this accomplished actor. Rachel Griffiths again hides her English accent to show that if nothing else, she does a good job of crying. The remaining cast of Dave Annable, Balthazar Getty, and Matthew Rys are often just as nice as the three brother siblings on the show.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 29th, 2010
The original Batman: The Animated Series is one of my favorite cartoon shows of all time. Depending on which day you ask me, I might go ahead and say it is my favorite (the other times, I'll probably mention X-Men or Johnny Bravo). It was the perfect blend of cartoon super-hero drama, with a dose of dark and foreboding circumstances. Enter 2008, Batman: the Brave and the Bold, another Batman cartoon but on the lighter side of the equation. Would this show hold up as much as the historic original?
Before the Dark Knight, Batman Begins, heck even before Jack Nicholson wanted to dance with devil in the pale moonlight, there was a Silver age television show of Batman. It was light-hearted and we always knew that Batman was going to save the day and foil some of the most oddball villains along the way with intelligence and an awesome utility belt. Somewhere, in Heath Ledger's crooked smile and a really raspy squawk box for a Batman voice, we lost that wholesome value caped crusader.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 25th, 2010
Pauly Shore seems to be trying to steer his career from being a washed up b-lister to being a self-aware washed up b-lister. Pauly Shore is Dead was his first dabbling into mockumentaries about himself, and now he has followed it up with Adopted. This yarn is about Shore, following the trend set by Angelina Jolie and Madonna, of flying to Africa (and later Cambodia) to adopt a child, with the hopes that being a father would fill a void in his shallow Hollywood hills life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 25th, 2010
It was hard for me to find any real solid information about The Diplomat. At first I decided that it was because the film was obviously not a movie at all, but a British mini-series. The piece is broken up into two parts that you must play separately, much like a mini-series is often presented when released on home video. That was still not enough to research the title, because it hadn't really been a mini-series at all either. Finally, a stroke of luck led me to the fact that The Diplomat hadn't been its original name either. The release was broadcast on British television as False Witness. Apparently, it had begun as something more ambitious, perhaps a single-season limited-run series. Whatever grandiose plans might have been in store of this title, whichever title you use, it fell pretty flat almost from the start.
Ian Porter (Scott) is a diplomat returning to London from his eastern European post. He is immediately stopped at the airport by Scotland Yard and charged with drug smuggling among other things. A cop was badly burned and nearly killed in a bust related to his arrest, and Chief Inspector Julie Hales (Blake) wants Porter rather badly. Porter's not talking, but the investigation leads to a Russian mobster named Krousov (Hany). Porter's ex-wife Pippa (Forlani) is threatened by the Russian mobsters, and the pair end up in protective custody. They are taken to Australia, where they will supposedly be safe so that Porter can tell his story. But Porter can't really tell his story at all. The crimes he is accused of committing were actually part of a plan to get Porter close to Krousov for MI6. A rogue agent there has started a black ops mission to bring the Russian down. Porter carries a key around his neck, but it's not related to drugs at all. This key sets a suitcase nuclear bomb that the Russians plan to explode in Australia. Wasn't that a lucky break? Some tension exists with his ex-wife. They lost a son, who drowned in their pool. She wants very much to get closer to Ian, but he's focused only on finishing his mission, something he hopes will atone for the guilt he feels over his son.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 24th, 2010
"I'm Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. Everything in here has a story ... and a price. One thing I've learned after 21 years? You never know what is going to come through that door."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 24th, 2010
In the 1930’s and 40’s MGM was trying to get in on the lucrative animation game. The field was dominated at the time by Warner Brothers with their Loony Tunes shorts, and of course, the iconic cast of animated characters coming out of the Walt Disney Studio. For years they had failed to find the right property to take advantage of the market. It wasn’t until the team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera approached the studio with their first project that the times did change, at least a little, for the fledgling animation department at MGM. The project was far from an original one even for the time. It was a very basic cat and mouse adventure featuring a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. There would be almost no dialog on the shorts. It certainly didn’t look like much of a hit to the studio brass, but with no better ideas on the way, they went ahead with the new shorts of Tom And Jerry. There’s a reason why the cat and mouse pair is such a classic. It’s because it works. If you can make your characters entertaining and endearing enough, you can have a hit. MGM finally entered the major leagues, and the team of Hanna and Barbera would become one of the most successful animation teams in history. They would go on to create such cherished characters as The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, and, of course, Scooby Doo.
Tom and Jerry find themselves in Victorian England and at the famous flat on Baker Street where the most famous detective in the world resides. No, we're not talking about Jim Rockford. It's Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion and chronologer Doctor Watson. Moriarity is up to his old tricks, and he's planning to steal a precious gem. The gem has secret powers that can only be revealed during a lunar eclipse, which is just what is about to happen. Tom and Jerry along with damsel in distress Red, the lounge singer, and a church mouse team together to help the detective stop Moriarity and his gang of thugs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2010
"In the beginning there was darkness. And then bang, giving birth to an endless expanding existence of time, space, and matter. Now, see further than we've ever imagined. Beyond the limits of our existence. In a place we call The Universe."
Up until now these History releases have been season sets of the documentary series. This release is the first which appears to be a planned series of specific subject titles. It does create a bit of confusion when you see a series called The Universe and all of the episodes on the set deal with our own back yard, a place we call the Sol System, or Solar System, for those of you unfamiliar with the name of the star that happens to brighten your afternoons, particularly for us here in Florida on an August day. But while it's true that the series itself has explored most of the known, and quite a few of the unknown, corners of creation itself, this set focuses on those objects that orbit the star Sol.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2010
"They rob, kill, and terrorize, and they've left their mark on our nation's history."
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