Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 20th, 2025
“Good evening, everybody! My name is Robbie Williams. This is my band, and for the next two hours, YOUR ASS IS MINE!”
I was really intrigued with the film’s concept. After all, every year musical biopics are released, and they can sometimes seem like they are all following the same blueprint, which, needless to say, makes it rather difficult for them to stand out. Better Man bucks that trend by instead of opting for an actor with a passing resemblance to the subject, rather depicting the subject as a chimpanzee, which was inspired by Robbie Williams’ own perception of himself as a "performing monkey". If that doesn’t make this film stand out, I don’t know what will. This also has the added benefit of allowing Williams to voice the character himself, which in my opinion adds a layer of authenticity to this biopic. After all, who better to tell their life story than the person themself?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 30th, 2025
"I'm not feeling motivated to be valuable to anyone but myself."
When Alex Kurtzman took over the television side of Star Trek, he started with Star Trek: Discovery. Michelle Yeoh played one of the better characters on the series. She started as a ship's captain and was soon killed off. But then the ship heads into the Mirror Universe, where Yeoh's character of Philippa Georgiou wasn't a Starfleet officer. She was the emperor of the Terran Empire. She ended up on our side of the looking glass and had some rather interesting stories. It turns out that almost from the beginning Yeoh had some ideas of a spin-off she hoped to do. That series was Section 31, which involved a black-ops agency within the Federation, and she thought our kind of evil emperor might be a perfect fit.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 8th, 2025
"The thing I love about Valentine's Day is the expectation of the unexpected. That something magical could happen, and maybe that special someone will come back into your life and change its course for the better."
Valentine's Day is one of those Hallmark holidays that leave us with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Unless, of course, you happen to be alone, or a member of the Bugs Moran gang in Chicago in 1929. So it really means a lot of things to a lot of people, but I really do question the use of that particular day for the setting for first-time director Jonathan Eusebio's action film Love Hurts. The Valentine's Day angle is pretty weak, and a think gimmick for what is basically a comic martial arts film that gives Vietnamese actor Ke Huy Quan his first starring role. The gimmick pretty much failed, and the film tanked after just a short time at the box office, bringing in a measly $15 million with a budget of over $18 million.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 27th, 2025
"What my associate is trying say is our new brake pads are really cool. You're not even gonna believe it. Like, let's say you're driving along the road with your family. You're drivin' along, la-de-da, woo. All of a sudden there's a truck tire in the middle of the road. And you hit the brakes. Eeee. Whoa, that was close. Ha-ha. Now let's see what happens when you're driving with the "other guy's" brake pads. You're drivin' along, the kids start shouting from the back seat, "I gotta go to the bathroom, Daddy!" "Not now, damn it!" Truck tire. I can't stop! There's a cliff. Aaahh! And your family's screaming, oh my God, we're burning alive!" "No! I can't feel my legs!" Here comes the meat wagon. And the medic gets out and says, "Oh my God." New guy's around the corner puking his guts out. All because you want to save a couple extra pennies."
There are a ton of parallels between the Chris Farley/David Spade comedy team and that of John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd. Both teams began in the Saturday Night Live arena. It was that physical big/little guy combination that has its roots with Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 20th, 2025
"Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball, From Soho down to Brighton, I must have played them all, But I ain't seen nothin' like him, In any amusement hall, That deaf, dumb and blind kid, Sure plays a mean pinball."
I was first introduced to The Who through the original Tommy album. It was one of my mother's favorites when I was young, and she had actually written out by hand her interpretation of the story the rock opera appeared to tell. I can't remember those scribblings, and I'm not even sure if they're still tucked away in that Decca album I have around here somewhere. But the music always stayed with me. Now, I didn't ever become a huge fan of the band. I always liked them and collected a couple of their albums over the years. I did play a lot of pinball, however. I fell more in with the likes of Elton John. So you can imagine how excited I was in the summer of 1975
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 4th, 2025
"We work 364 days a year because on that one day we deliver presents to several billion individual domiciles across 37 time zones without ever being detected by a single human being. We prep, we rehearse every moment, every stop down to the last chimney. So yeah, it's a lot of work."
At first glance, it would appear that the crew for Red One is made up of folks who have had long associations with Dwayne Johnson, from Director Jack Kasdan, who also directed two of the Jumanji films, to writer Chris Morgan, who wrote many of The Fast And Furious films including the Johnson-led spinoff Hobbs And Shaw. He also wrote the last Shazam film, which led to Johnson's spinoff black hole Black Adam. It's a working environment friendly to the actor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on December 17th, 2024
I saw this film as an opportunity to gauge whether a movie could hold my two-year-old son’s attention. This is something I am particularly interested in, because it would demonstrate that my baby boy is finally ready for a theatrical experience. Unfortunately, he is not quite there yet. He watched for a bit, but then he eventually wandered off. Ironically, I didn’t notice his absence at first, as I was too focused on the movie. Based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name, The Wild Robot stars Lupita Nyong’o as Roz, a ROZZUM unit 7134 robot that becomes shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling. Joining Nyong’o is Pedro Pascal in his animated movie debut
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2024
"Not everybody can become United States Marines. We want the best and we settled for nothing but the best, because there is nothing prouder, nothing finer, nothing standing as straight as a United States Marine. Now they got the Air Force, they got the Navy, they got the Army, they got the Coast Guard - and if you want to join them, go ahead. They got plenty of room. But if you want a challenge, if you want to try something difficult, try to achieve the impossible - try 13 weeks of hell at Parris Island, South Carolina, and find out if you got what it takes, find out if you really are a man, then the Marines might be what you are looking for. Tarawa ... Iwo Jima ... Belleau Wood ... the frozen Chosin Reservoir. First to fight, we have never lost a war. We have always come when our country has called."
Born On The Fourth Of July has been both a controversial film as well as one of Tom Cruise's first breakout roles.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2024
"You know the Butcher? That freakin' nutjob that goes around just chopping people up? Well, the feds or whatever heard that he's gonna be here today, so they set up a trap for him. This whole concert? It's a trap. They're watching all the exits, checking everyone that leaves. There's no way to get out of here. It's kinda dope, right?"
The idea is actually based on a true story, with a lot of differences. In 1985 the FBI managed to round up over 100 high-profile criminals with a ruse that involved tickets to an NFL game. There have been plenty of other scams where promises of prizes have attracted otherwise cautious wanted people. I was at a promo for some home improvement club store, and while there, a couple of folks were nervous that it was a sting because they had outstanding warrants. It wasn't, but these things can and do indeed happen. The way it's done here leaves one to stretch credibility a bit more than I'm usually willing to go.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2024
"The machines rose from the ashes of a nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here in our present ... tonight."
The idea for The Terminator came to James Cameron in a feverish dream as he was struggling and about to get fired from Piranha II: The Spawning. He was overworked and stressed and ended up in bed. He immediately wrote a treatment with then-wife Gale Ann Hurd, and they approached Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly to make sure they retained control over the property. Eventually he lost it anyway, and that's why so many franchise films that were out of his control.
Where were you on Judgment Day?
