Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
Since the events of 911 there has been a lot more appreciation, at least publicly, for the real life heroes who populate fire and police stations all over the country. Few jobs offer so little reward for such high risk all in the name of protecting our society from harm. It’s likely no coincidence that while Third Watch began a couple of years before those events, it reached its peak in popularity in the months and years that followed. A better than average procedural drama, Third Watch offered a look at both police officers and firefighters along with their paramedics. You could call it a cross between Hill Street Blues and Emergency.
The police officers and the fire fighters are all members of New York’s 55th Precinct. The Precinct carries the nickname of Camelot. While they work from separate facilities, they are across the street from each other and their duties often find them working together. The two houses share a bond, but there are also moments of stress and rivalry. But when there’s a crisis, these men and women are the best and get the job done.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years. A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are the most mentioned and certainly beloved by generations of children and adults. I thought I never missed an airing.
Now Warner Home Video has brought together a special collection of the cartoon specials that started it all. It includes those annual greats and a few that I don’t really remember so much. The two discs include the following Peanuts specials:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
The third season of Matlock brought more of the same. If you’re a fan, that’s very good news indeed. What is that, you ask? Imagine Sheriff Andy Taylor older and now an attorney, and you pretty much have the setup for Matlock. Forget for a second that both characters were played by Andy Griffith. That’s not all they have in common. Matlock is every bit the “southern gentleman” that Taylor was. He might be a little smarter, but he walks and talks like Andy Taylor.
Matlock began life as a television movie from Dean Hargrove, who brought us Columbo. Hargrove would later work the same magic with Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder. In fact the two shows could easily have been companion pieces. Both featured sit-com stars from the 1950’s and 60’s that had become somewhat iconic characters. Both would don the role of professionals. Both shows would subscribe to the “formula” mode of storytelling. Diary Of A Perfect Murder would set up the Matlock formula. It’s simple, really. Matlock was a lawyer in Atlanta. Some wronged defendant, usually charged with murder, would show up asking for Matlock’s help. Matlock and his team would investigate the crime with an eye toward, as OJ Simpson is fond of saying, finding the real killer. His team consisted of his daughter Charlene, herself a competent lawyer, and Tyler Hudson (Holliday), his private investigator. In the pilot the Matlock character was less Andy Taylor and a little more slick at first. I’m sure that while it was intended to show Matlock’s prowess as a high priced attorney, somewhere along the line it became obvious that the show’s finest asset was Griffith himself and that southern charm he was already famous for. Whatever the reason, you can see the character soften significantly during the early episodes of the season. And that decision was a smart one, as Matlock would continue for nearly a decade.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 22nd, 2009
This, the final season of the series, opens with Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Darrin (Dick Sargent) on a European tour. This means stock shots of various European landmarks before we return to rather unconvincingly dressed-up studio backlots. There are a few two-parters in the mix, including the opening episodes, where Samantha is zapped back to the court of Henry VIII, and a late-season adventure where the time travel goes the other way, and George Washington is brought forward to the present. Special note should be made of Episode 3, where the Loch Ness Monster shows up, in all his googly-eyed, man-in-a-costume glory.
There's a certain brazenness, it seems to me, for any show, even a budget-conscious one in 1972, to limit itself to the special effects technology of 1896. Indeed, there is nary a moment that couldn't have been accomplished by Georges Méliès. As for the humour, well, it's very much of its period – in other words, it creaks very badly, with the laugh track kicking in at every single line. I remember watching this show as a kid, and getting some fun out of it, though preferring the identically themed I Dream of Jeannie (for reasons now that I cannot recall). Basically, this is mildly entertaining for the nostalgic, but not much more.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 22nd, 2009
As a Henry Mancini score swells with unapologetic cheese, we are swept into the world of the luxurious St. Gregory Hotel in San Francisco. Owned by aging matriarch Bette Davis (replaced, when she had to pull out due to illness, by Anne Baxter, as her sister-in-law), the Hotel's General Manager is James Brolin, who has lots of time to wander around the lobby greeting the various guest stars. In other words, he's Mr. Roarke to the St. Gregory's Fantasy Island. What follows is pure fromage of the Aaron Spelling variety, with every other guest star a fading Familiar Face, no end of improbable crises, painful comic relief, unintentional comedy gold in the dramatic moments, and much of the feel of a 1970s disaster movie minus, sadly, the disaster itself (but you can always re-watch The Towering Inferno to make yourself feel better).
The colours are strong, and the picture quality is generally what one would expect for a mid-80s television program. The grain is minimal, but the image is a bit soft – features and details tend to bleach out and disappear when in the middle distance. That said, the transfer gets the job done, and looks true to original broadcast quality.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 20th, 2009
In 1954, Coco Chanel (Shirley MacLaine) unveils her first collection in 15 years. The reception is disastrous. As she struggles to bounce back from the fiasco, she flashes back over her life. The bulk of the film then follows the young Chanel (Barbora Bobulova) and her love affairs, first with a callow playboy (Sagamore Stévenin), then with the Englishman (Olivier Sitruk) who will be the great love of her life. Along the way, we see a little bit of her development as a fashion designer.
If you're sitting down for a soap opera in period dress, then you could certainly do worse. As silly as it often is, Coco Chanel is consistently entertaining. Its desire to worship its subject does mean for some unfortunate choices, however. Setting aside the fact that there is too little time spent on what made her one of the world's most famous designers, the film decides to pretend that nothing much happened to her between 1925 and 1954, when the most cursory Wikipeida search reveals all kinds of juicy incident (shacking up with a Nazi officer during occupation, espionage games, post-WWII arrest) that would have made for wonderful storytelling. Oh well. Malcolm McDowell is rather oddly cast as the older Chanel's confidant, and perhaps the fact that he has nothing much to do is the reason why he can't seem to get rid of that sneer of contempt, even when he supposed to be genuinely moved. Still, suds and all, its 139 minutes clips by quite efficiently.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 20th, 2009
Unless you were around for Iron Butterfly's big boom in 1968, you might remember this band best as the composers of that song the organ player plays for 17 minutes in that episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sells his soul. Yes, this is how I knew them for much of my youth, and I thought of them best then too.
This DVD documents a 1997 concert of Iron Butterfly, and it did little to sway my fond memories of what was a very good Simpsons episode that was. My apologies...I shall leave that Fox program (not to be mentioned again) and focus on the band that is most famous for the 17 minute plus psychedelic adventure that is In A Gadda Da Vida.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 17th, 2009
The List is adapted from a novel of the same name written by Robert Whitlow. After returning home from his father’s funeral, Renny Jacobsen (Chuck Carrington) discovers he is the inheritor of his family’s seat in a secret society founded during the civil war. However, Renny suspects the society’s activities are more troubling than they lead on and decides to examine them more closely. When his inquiries are uncovered by the group’s leader (Malcolm McDowell) Renny becomes targeted by a mysterious force that has the power to destroy him and the people he holds close.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2009
Jamie (George) has just been in a violent car accident that was really not an accident at all. She awakes to find herself prisoner in a dirty warehouse room. She discovers that she and her young son have been kidnapped, but her captors are not looking for ransom. Her husband has been secretly working for some pretty bad dudes, and he has squirreled away 44 million dollars of the bad guys’ money. Now they want it back. Jamie is given boxes of audio recordings that were made at her home and asked to break a code her hubby was using that might help identify where the money is. The promise is that she and her son will go free if the money is recovered. Unfortunately there is a deadline. Someone named Falco (Krige) is coming soon and will kill all of them if the money is not recovered.
The film is quite claustrophobic. It pretty much all takes place in the same small room. The entire film depends too much on the performances of the two leads. Melissa George does about as much as she can with the role. Her movements and range of emotions is pretty limited. Oded Fehr plays the kidnapper who interacts the most with Jamie. For some reason he does not list the credit on his official resume. It is also not included on his IMDB profile. I’m not sure if he was unhappy with the finished result or if it is merely an oversight. He does a pretty good job here, but half the time his face is covered, giving him even less to work with than George has. There are some good tension moments, to be sure. Still, I found the film didn’t move fast enough or supply enough stimulation to keep it from getting very tedious. It was a brave choice, to be sure, but never carried off as effectively as was needed to keep the film engaging.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2009
In a mythical world, a series of apocalyptic prophecies are coming true. These events presage the awakening of a world-devouring dragon. Dragon hunters are needed more than ever, but all of the knights of yore are dead or insane. The only game in town is a couple of misfits: Lian-Chu, who still bears the trauma of the night his village was destroyed by the dragon, and his friend Gwizdo, a two-bit con artist. They are accompanied by Hector, a strange little scene-stealer who might be a rabbit or a dog. Zoe, the excitable niece of the decrepit and blind king, recruits the motley crew to defeat the evil, and off they go, journeying to the end of the world to face terrible danger.
This computer-animated effort is French, but only the English language track has been provided, and I can't help but wonder if something was lost in the translation. Forest Whitaker is top-billed as Lian-Chu, but the character has very few lines, and even less expression. Zoe and Gwizdo have the lion's share of the dialogue, and these two are overly familiar figures. The dialogue moves the story along, but doesn't particularly sparkle. What does shine, however, is the look of the film. The world is a stunningly beautiful universe of floating platforms, and the detail work is tremendous. If the story isn't anything to write home about, the eye candy most certainly is.
