Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 6th, 2006
I admit it. I thought our heroes at Stargate Command had finally had it for sure. Were the replicators back? How about the dreaded G’Ould? Perhaps another serious malfunction of the Gate caused by Carter’s meddling was about to tear a hole in the time/space continuum. What was I so sure might spell doom for Earth’s last line of defense? We’ve already escaped fiendish bombs and other devious devices. Plagues and epidemics? No problem. Just business as usual at the SGC. No. These things are just minor worries compar...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 4th, 2006
Synopsis
Jason Lee plays Earl, about as thorough a definition of “poor white trash” going. He’s not about petty theft, but life has thrown him some curveballs as well – neither of the children he is raising are his, for instance. When he hits it big on a scratch lottery ticket, he is promptly hit by a car and loses his ticket. Doped up on morphine in the hospital a talk show comment about karma acts as an epiphany, and he determines to turn his life around, righting all the wrongs he has committed. N...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 3rd, 2006
Synopsis
Being as I’m rather baffled by what’s going on, as once again Mr. Late-to-the-Party, here’s how the box summarizes what’s up this season: “discover Bree’s new life without Rex, Lynette’s chaotic return to the working world, and what becomes of Susan’s on-again, off-again relationship with Mike.” And that’s just for starters, of course. Let’s not forget the descent of Rex’s OTT mother on Bree, and Eva Longoria’s fight with the nun in the church.
It’s comedy, it’s a drama, and it’s c...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 3rd, 2006
The second season of USA Network’s The 4400 picks up one year after the events of the four-part season one. This time around, we know the 4400 once-missing people were not returned from alien abduction, but rather from the future.
That revelation aside, this series is still chock full of mystery. What is the nature of the fate the 4400 are meant to save us from? How were they selected? What impact will their return continue to have on the collective future of humankind? Will the government’s role be one of interference, or protection?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 30th, 2006
Synopsis
The film opens with the Senate pornography hearings of the 1950s, which cracked down on bondage-movie purveyor Irving Klaw. As Bettie Page (Gretchen Mol) waits to be called to testify, she flashes back to the events that brought her to this point. After an abusive childhood in Tennessee, a failed marriage and a gang rape, she flees to New York, where she becomes first a glamour model, and eventually the most highly sought-after bondage queen.
Director Mary Harron returns to her bel...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 20th, 2006
Synopsis
1968. In a Northern California town, teenagers parking at night are being killed. The police do their best to sell the first attack as a botched robbery, but then another murder happens, and the killer, dubbing himself the Zodiac, turns out to be very media-savvy. Charged with tracking him down is Justin Chambers, and his frustration with the case spills into his home life, straining his relationship with his wife (Robin Tunney) and worshipful son (Rory Culkin).
The murders are for...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2006
The Sci-Fi Channel has certainly gotten its considerable amount of money’s worth from Ronald D. Moore’s reincarnation of Battlestar Galactica. The trouble, at least for me, is that it is still very hard for me to consider this Galactica at all. It might have been better if, as Jack Webb used to say, the names had been changed to protect the innocent. There isn’t much doubt that this version of Galactica is innovative science fiction in its own right. The cinematography is often mind-boggling, if a bit too dark. T...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2006
With the possible exception of the Vulcans no race has been given a richer history in Star Trek than the Klingons. We need to forget the drastic change in how these bad guys to allies look. In Enterprise this change is finally explained as a genetic experiment gone bad in an episode conspicuously missing from the set. I’m not sure I can criticize the episode selection, as they were voted on at Startrek.com. Still. I don’t like the over usage of repeats these collection sets are plagued with. It’s not like there are...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 16th, 2006
Synopsis
Marilyn Burns, Paul Partain, Allen Danziger, Teri McMinn, William Vail and Gunnar Hansen individually may not be that well known. Collectively, many people might confuse them with some group of lawyers or something. But film history has afforded them a higher place in memory past their initial endeavors. You see, back during the middle of a particularly oppressive heat wave in 1973 Texas, this group, directed by a then-fledging auteur in Tobe Hooper, combined to make what is widely regarded as one...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2006
Synopsis
The best I can gather from watching Love For Rent is that there’s only one recognizable face to speak of. The problem is that the face in question is Saturday Night Live cast member Nora Dunn, who was only moderately funny on the show, but sank her career when she boycotted the appearance of Andrew Dice Clay in the early 1990s. Now that the times have changed, have the sensibilities moved closer to Dunn’s?
Well to quote Whitney Houston, “hell to the no”. Dunn plays Helen, wi...
