Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 24th, 2022
"You look terrible. I want you to eat, I want you to rest well. And a month from now this Hollywood big shot's gonna give you what you want."
The Hollywood big shot has just given me what I want. Paramount releases The Godfather Trilogy on UHD Blu-ray in wonderful 4K. It's an offer none of us can refuse. The Godfather films changed storytelling forever. Films before that time, mobster or otherwise, had some very simple but unshakable rules. There was always a fairly clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys always win in the end, and the bad guys always succumb to justice before the final credits. For perhaps the very first time, we were given characters that we knew in our souls were evil men. They killed. They broke laws. They manipulated everyone around them through fear and terrorism to bend to their wills. Somehow, now they are the film’s core heroes, if you will. When Vito is shot, we cheer for Michael, who discards his contempt for his family’s criminal image and comes to his father’s aid. Suddenly this wasn’t just about a gang of mobsters. This was a story about a family. Most of us can’t relate to the mafia ins and outs, but we all have fathers, and even when we dislike what our fathers represent, we will more often than not come to their aid if they’re being threatened. This unique morality paved the way for an entire genre of such characters today. There just couldn’t have been a Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey without The Godfather. While there were certainly protests from aspects of the Italian-American community decrying the violent way our ethnicity was portrayed, most of us from that community saw more than violence and Mafioso. If you’re from an Italian family, you simply can’t help recognizing aspects of your own family in the Corleones. I could see my own grandfather in Vito, sans the mob boss occupation. Many of us took away the strict codes of honor and respect that drive Italian-Americans to this day in very normal lives. We’re a very passionate people, even if most of us are not part of an organized criminal element.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 4th, 2022
If I’m being honest, it’s been decades since I saw the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and I’m not even sure I saw the whole thing, but I do remember the ending. It’s not that I feel it’s a bad film; I just have had no need to revisit it because I enjoy the 1978 version so much. The startling ending of this film is quite infamous. For those who haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil it for you, but it is a moment that has stuck with me since I first watched back in the old VHS days. Since the 1956 film has been out, there have been several takes on the material, and numerous bad knock-offs as well, but for me, the 1978 film with Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum will always be the true classic in my eyes. Getting this title to review, it’s been ages since I’ve seen the film, so I was excited about revising this classic. I wasn’t sure it would hold up, but what surprised me most was simply how relevant the film remains with its themes of not conforming to the populace to even the paranoia about becoming a pod person in current terms infected with COVID.
The film opens up in space, spores traveling a great distance till finally falling to Earth and eventually spawning into small flowers and thus spreading from there. One of the highlights off the film’s opening few minutes is the cameo appearance of Robert Duvall as a priest who may be one of the first infected by the spores. The film then introduces us to Elizabeth (Brooke Adams). When she finds a strange plant she’s having trouble identifying, we as the audience knows that she shouldn’t be sniffing the flower and can already accept that she is doomed. To deflect our attention, Elizabeth starts to grow suspicious of her boyfriend Geoffrey (Art Hindle) when he starts acting strangely and she sees him meeting with other strangers from around the neighborhood.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 1st, 2022
On May 5th 1980 film producer Euan Lloyd was on-hand for 17 minutes while the Iranian Embassy in London was raided by Britain's elite Special Air Service (SAS) to free hostages taken by a terrorist cell. He immediately ran back to his house and called his agent to register several film titles, including Who Dares Wins, which was the original shooting title and British release title of what in America came to be The Final Option. It's important to understand that it was never his intent to do a film about the exact event but use that inspiration to do a film that often mirrors that of the actual raid. Instead of using the actual terrorists and their motives, he felt it was important to make the story not about the bad guys so much as it would be a celebration of the bravery and actions of the SAS. He invited the actual SAS to participate. They declined but eventually offered him some under-the-table assistance when they saw what it was he was trying to do. Those motives have created a bit of a controversy over the film throughout the years, and Lloyd has been accused of making a right-wing propaganda film, which if you actually see the film, you'll quickly realize it is not. Now you have a chance thanks to KL Studio Classics and the Kino release of The Final Option.
The 1980 setting remains. This time the terrorists are domestic and have infiltrated a peace movement that has grown because of a new treaty Britain signs to allow American nukes on the islands. They use the framework of the legitimate movement to recruit and create the civil disorder they need to do something huge. That chance comes when they learn that several American Senate members and US cabinet members will be attending a dinner in their honor hosted by the Iranian embassy. But British Intelligence knows they are there, and they know something is up, so they start to prepare for the worst.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 25th, 2022
"They usually call death row the Last Mile, but we called ours the Green Mile, because the floor was the color of faded limes. We had the electric chair then. Old Sparky, we called it. I've lived a lot of years, Ellie, but 1935 takes the prize. That was the year I had the worst urinary infection of my life. That was also the year of John Coffey and the two dead girls."
For me that place would be the movies. From the time I was a little kid, movies have always had an incredible fascination with me, and it's where some of my fondest memories come from. It's what has led me here, writing about the things I see, and it's never lost its charm even when it became a job. Films like The Green Mile are a huge reason why that is so.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 25th, 2022
Kino Lorber has put together a fun double feature pairing the films FX and FX 2 for their Studio Classics line. These films are a bit of a relic of the past considering how much Hollywood has strayed away from the days of using practical effects to the more modern approach of CGI. Sure, when using CGI you can create just about anything the brain can imagine with the aid of a computer, but there is something about latex, props, and actual sets that have always made movies come alive and feel more grounded in reality. These effects wizards are capable of pulling off almost as much as anything a computer can, but it’s the supplies and setup on set that has made CGI a more acceptable approach in the industry. Over the years special effects and makeup artists in the industry have been contacted by the government to enlist their help in special operations. The film Argo (2012) explored this nearly a decade ago, but going a little further back to 1986 with the first FX film we got to see a fictionalized account of a “what if?” scenario, and the result was a fun film that spawned a sequel and even a TV series.
In this film, Hollywood special effects genius Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is contacted by the Justice Department to help them stage the assassination of a crime boss, played by Jerry Orbach. As you would expect, things don’t go as planned, and Rollie finds himself being fingered as the trigger man, and if he has any chance of staying alive and out of prison, he has to use his unique set of skills to uncover the culprits.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 23rd, 2022
If you ever wondered just why Marilyn Monroe is the icon that she is today, all you have to do is watch Some Like It Hot, and you’ll see how she captured the attention of audiences from 1959 and well beyond to this day. She was already a star by the time she made the Billy Wilder classic after being in films like Gentleman Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch, but it’s her role as Sugar that really showcases all of her talent, though unfortunately it was the film where her troubles off screen were taking a toll on her physically and emotionally. This would also be the film that would launch Jack Lemmon’s career and be the first of many collaborations with the acclaimed writer and director Billy Wilder. Some Like It Hot isn’t simply a classic film, it is literally a piece of film history that made a profound impact on the motion picture industry, and the American Film Institute proclaimed it to be the greatest comedy of all time.
Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are a pair of down-on-their-luck musicians in Chicago 1929 who are playing jazz clubs during Prohibition. After narrowly escaping a raid at a club they are playing, their luck takes a turn for the worse when they become the only witnesses to the St. Valentines Massacre, and the mob is after them to keep them quiet. Looking for a quick escape, Jack and Jerry find a way out and a gig that will have them performing in Florida all expenses paid. Unfortunately it’s for The Sweet Sues, an all-girls band. Knowing their lives are on the line, they decide they have no other choice but to disguise themselves as Josephine (Curtis) and Daphne (Lemmon), and of course hilarity ensues.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 23rd, 2022
For me the promo art for Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins is without a doubt one of the most memorable VHS covers I can remember from my childhood. The hero dangling by one hand from the tip of the Statue of Liberty has always stuck with me. As a kid, when finally getting to see this over-the-top action sequence, it left an impression on me to the point that when I made my first trip out to Liberty Island as a kid, all I could do was stare in wonder at how they could have pulled off such a crazy scene. As I’ve gotten older, my impression of the film has changed, but this sequence is still up there when it comes to favorite action sequences of all time. Now Kino Lorber has put out a remastered copy of a film that has fallen through the cracks, though I know it does have a cult following. What are my thoughts on this action spectacle, and is it worth revisiting?
When Remo Williams was birthed as a film, it was intended to be the blue-collar American version of James Bond. It was adapted from a series of pulp novels called “The Destroyer” by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. It was an adventure series just like Doc Savage, The Shadow, and The Spider, and producer Dick Clark felt that it would be a great franchise to launch in the States. Wanting to capture the James Bond tone, they hired a screenwriter experienced with the Bond franchise, Christopher Wood (Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me) and then director Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger and Live and Let Die) to helm the film. With this collaboration, it is no wonder that the producers and studio thought they had a guaranteed hit on their hands, but unfortunately it seems the movie gods had other plans for the film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 16th, 2022
Kino Lorber has plundered the vaults of MGM and released one of the better known Charles Bronson films, Murphy’s Law. To me this is one of the Cannon classics where it was simply a fun tough guy film filled with everything that would make today’s woke audiences cringe. There is no way a film like this would get made now, and it’s a shame, because, well, this is pure escapism and is a good time from start to finish. I’m not saying that this film is perfect, but it captures the energy of what made Cannon films fun during the 80’s and early 90’s. Charles Bronson is playing Jack Murphy, a detective who has hit hard times with his wife wanting a divorce, though he’s not ready to give up on that relationship. Things are about to get much worse when Jack is framed for the murder of his ex-wife and her new boyfriend who runs an exotic dance club.Murphy gets locked up, and in the holding cell, as luck would have it, he’s locked up with Arabella McGee (Kathleen Wilhoite) who in the opening scene of the film we see stealing Jack’s car. Jack has to escape as a means to clearing his name, though he’s cuffed to Arabella, which of course makes things all the more difficult. This is definitely an odd-couple mash-up that we see a lot of during the 80’s where these characters are forced to be partners and bicker a majority of the film but in the end become partners. There isn’t even a mystery to who the killer is as we watch the psycho woman played by Carries Snodgress execute people without mercy. The only real mystery going on with her is why she is on her murderous rampage.
Part of what elevates this film from the others with the similar plot is the direction of J. Lee Thompson. While he isn’t exactly a household name, he’s got quite a few classics on his resume: The Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear (1962), Battle For the Planet of the Apes and another Charles Bronson classic 10 To Midnight. Pretty much he’s one of the go-to directors for tough guy films, and he simply knows how to make a good popcorn flick. While watching this film and looking at Bronson’s resume, there are a lot of similarities to Liam Neeson’s career in the past decade, and I wonder how much better some of his films could have been if they were put in the hands of J. Lee Thompson.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 23rd, 2021
"80 billion light years of hive knowledge across universes would explode your tiny little brain."
Sony released two films from their corner of the Marvel universe in 2021. On October 1st we got Venom: Let There Be Carnage. October was a good spot for the film that taps into the horror film vein as much as it does the comic book superhero world. The first film did pretty well, and Sony really wants to expand their little corner of Marvel. The film did quite well in this post-COVID reality and pulled in $500 million in 11 weeks. That was impressive, to be sure. Spider-Man No Way Home was the other Sony/Marvel film. It had the unfortunate timing of releasing just as the Omicron variant of the virus hit, and as some states are going back to various restrictions there was some question if audiences would venture out into the cinemas in enough numbers to give the film any kind of return at all. After all, we've seen big-budget films fall to the wayside enough to understand this is risky business. That question has been answered. Yes, Let There Be Carnage pulled in a great haul in these uncertain times, but Spider-Man just pulled in more in three days than Carnage pulled in over 11 weeks. People are coming back to the cinemas, and is it any wonder at all that Sony is trying to position themselves to cash in on that trend with more than their cooperative films featuring everyone's Friendly Neighborhood webslinger? As far as live-action films go, the Venom series appears their best chance to do just that.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on December 16th, 2021
Be honest; who hears the theme music when anyone even mentions The Addams Family? I know I do, and then I have to resist the urge to do the finger snaps. Just in time for the release of the animated version comes the double release of The Addams Family and its sequel, The Addams Family: Family Values, featuring Raul Julia and Angelica Huston as Gomez and Morticia Gomez, and let’s not forget Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci as Fester and Wednesday Gomez respectively. Based on the wildly popular cartoons that appeared in the New Yorker that went on to find success as television series, the The Addamses are a satirical inversion of the ideal 20th-century American family.
The first film finds the family thriving, but without an essential member, Fester, who after a falling out with his brother Gomez, leaves for the Bermuda Triangle, not to be heard from for 25 years. Looking to capitalize on Gomez’s guilt over the situation is the family lawyer Tully, who is in deep to loan shark and con woman Abigail Craven. When Craven and her son Gordon, who is the splitting image of Fester, come to collect, Tully hatches a scheme to have Gordon pose as Fester to find the hidden vault where the Addams family fortune is kept.
