Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 6th, 2017
“In our conversation, he seemed relaxed, unfailingly candid, earnest, and trustworthy. That is his talent and his curse.”
You probably know the name Bernie Madoff, the notorious fraudster who used a Ponzi scheme to steal almost $65 billion dollars from his victims. (Yes, that's “billion” with a B!) But if you were hoping to gain some insight into the man and his methods, this HBO film isn't really the place to look. The Wizard of Lies features a fantastic cast, some effective directorial touches, but is too often guilty of telling rather than showing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 27th, 2017
“Ma'am, you need to understand that the president doesn't actually want you to do anything other than continue to be a woman — which you're doing a pretty okay job at.”
While Selina Meyer has done a passable job as a woman throughout the first five seasons of Veep, the vice president-turned-(temporary)president and her staggeringly incompetent staff have failed at pretty much everything else. The good news is Veep itself still does far more than an okay job of poking profane fun at the absurdity of Washington, D.C. and its swollen egos, even though season 6 finds Selina's squad more scattered than ever.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 27th, 2017
"My name is Oliver Queen. After five years in hell, I returned home with only one goal: to save my city. Today I fight that war on two fronts. By day, I lead Star City as its mayor. But by night, I am someone else. I am something else. I am the Green Arrow..."
Who the heck is this Green Arrow of whom you speak? If that's your first question, you need to go back a couple of grades and catch up with the rest of us.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 23rd, 2017
Mixing science with comedy appears to not only be funny; it also has some serious staying power. It's been 10 years since Big Bang Theory first exploded on our television screens. The show continues to be one of the highest-rated comedy shows on television and seems to be going strong. The show takes the time and money to employ actual science consultants, so you might even learn something along the way. The secret to the show's success is that it's a situation comedy that really manages to be about the characters. All of that geek and science talk is background music to the main theme, which continues to be the characters and their relationships.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 22nd, 2017
“I don't want to be just guys in a house.”
Since its debut, Silicon Valley has brilliantly lampooned the tech industry by showing us both the proverbial “guys in a garage” and the self-important, aggressively eccentric billionaires obsessed with staying ahead of the curve. The show's central tension (and cruel joke) is that the ultimate endgame for the scrappy underdogs is to become...self-important, aggressively eccentric billionaires obsessed with staying ahead of the curve. Season 4 pushes the limit of the immoral behavior our alleged heroes will justify while continuing to deliver the best mix of brainy and bawdy laughs on television.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 22nd, 2017
When I first heard that the Lethal Weapon franchise was moving to television, I had very mixed reactions. Like most fans of the films, I remained hungry for more. My hopes of future films were dashed around the time Mel Gibson began his career as a Hollywood pariah and was abandoned by many in the industry. I guessed almost immediately that the films were over, at least for a very long time. You go through the usual stages of grief, and about the time I reached the acceptance stage, Matthew Miller comes along and decides to revive the franchise for the small screen. At first I was thinking, yes, this is great.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 21st, 2017
"Don't you get it? This is all meaningless. Heaven, hell, this world if it ever meant anything, that moment is passed. Nothing down here but a bunch of hopeless, distraction addicts, so filled with emptiness, so desperate to fill up the void. They don't mind being served another stale rerun of a rerun of a rerun."
No stale reruns here. Season 12 of Supernatural picks up exactly where the previous year left off. The brothers are not together at the moment. Dean has just helped out God's sister and gets a pretty sweet gift in return, while Sam's at the bunker and is surprised by a British lass with a gun.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 15th, 2017
“What can you tell me about African Americans and science?”
Anyone who even halfway paid attention in their high school science class knows that a polio vaccine was developed in the 1950s. And if you were especially attentive, you even know the vaccine was developed by American researcher Jonas Salk. Unfortunately, the story that is far less commonly told in classrooms is that of Henrietta Lacks, the poor black woman whose “immortalized” HeLa cell line gave birth to the biomedical industry. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks takes a curious approach: instead of merely shining a light on its worthy subject, this powerful (and overstuffed) HBO film is about *the quest* to bring Henrietta back to life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 7th, 2017
“Rebels have friends always rushing to the rescue.”
The Star Wars universe is famously vast, and that’s before even going down the Expanded Universe rabbit hole. Though it's been precisely 40 years since the fourth first Star Wars film premiered, the army of artists who have taken on George Lucas’ iconic creations haven’t even come close to running out of material to explore. Disney XD’s Star Wars Rebels debuted three years ago as an engaging, thoroughly zippy, kid-friendly contribution that has blossomed into a thoughtful, vibrant, and vital part of Star Wars lore.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 1st, 2017
Everybody has their own group of favorite comics. I got plenty of classics that I always love to watch like Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and so forth. But we all have that one comic that we do not readily talk about in open groups or even with family. However late at night, maybe a drink in, and when nobody is looking (at least your wife anyway) we turn on and laugh our posterior off with. For me, that’s Bobcat Goldthwait. The movie is of course, Shakes the Clown.
