Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 3rd, 2008
The CSI phenomenon has been going strong for many years now, and CBS has ridden that wave to become the top network these past couple of years. It all started with the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigator. This
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 3rd, 2008
Just to look at it you would think that My 3 Sons was a Disney production. Its star Fred MacMurray had appeared in many Disney films of the 50’s and 60’s and is most likely recognizable from those appearances. Two of the three boys were also known for work with Disney. The eldest boy, Mike, was played by Tim Considine, who starred with MacMurray in Disney’s The Shaggy Dog. Middle son Robbie was played by a former Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer,
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 3rd, 2008
The holiday season is coming fast. It should come as no surprise with all of the Chipmunk DVDs being released that a Holiday Collection was going to be included. Of all of the sets, this is the best. There 12 episodes in all, and each is among the best of the classic show. You get three discs, one for each of the upcoming special days: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. There’s plenty of Chipmunk antics and some great song selections included in each disc.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 30th, 2008
“Who? Or What is the newest, most breath-taking, most sensational super-hero of all?”
That was the question asked on the cover of Marvel’s Tales Of Suspense issue number 39. Pictured with that buildup was a character quite different from the Iron Man that we would come to know and love over the next 40 plus years. He was all silver and appeared to be wearing combat boots. He was not very slender, and you could almost hear the clunking as he moved.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 26th, 2008
Damon Runyon’s stories would most famously make it into musical form in 1955 with Guys and Dolls. But in the meantime, this 1952 effort featured many of the same sorts of characters – wise-cracking-but-harmless gangsters and their glamorous molls. Here, Numbers Foster (Scott Brady) hightails it out of town to avoid a Congressional hearing, and on the way back, he picks up country songbird Emily Ann Stackerlee (Mitzi Gaynor), much to the displeasure of New York girlfriend Yvonne (Marguerite Chapman). Heavier on plot and lighter on numbers than some other musicals of the period, this is a jovial effort, but understandably in the shadow of its more famous cousin.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 26th, 2008
Shonda Rhimes had a big hit on her hands with Grey’s Anatomy, so after five years she did what comes naturally in her situation. You spin the success off in the hope that the fans just can’t get enough in just one night. At first it appeared to me she had chosen the wrong character to put out on her own. I mean, I never considered Kate Walsh as
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 26th, 2008
If you come to this DVD set in the hopes of discovering something to do with Jason or even his machete wielding momma, you will be very disappointed. There is no
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 25th, 2008
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. No, I’m not having a Charles Dickens flashback or reliving Star Trek II. I’m pondering the release of this new Fan Collective featuring alternate realities. This new 5 disc collection brings together episodes from all 5 live action television Star Trek shows. They all deal with some adventure into a twisted or fabricated reality outside of the Trek universe we already know. Of course, that covers a lot of ground when you’re talking about Star Trek
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 25th, 2008
To the point, Criminal Minds is very compelling television. Ever since The Silence Of The Lambs and perhaps long before, we have been fascinated by serial killers and the profilers who try to get inside their heads. To see evidence of the continuing trend, one needs only look toward the success of films like Zodiac and shows like Dexter. Of course, serial killers are not the only prey this FBI team pursues, but they are certainly the marquee item on the agenda.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 25th, 2008
The Alvin Collection is another group of episodes of The Chipmunks from their popular Saturday Morning series,
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 25th, 2008
Duckman began life as an underground comic created by Everett Peck. It gathered to itself quite a cult following, and like all such things caught the attention of
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 25th, 2008
It’s unfortunate that the writers’ strike interrupted the second season of Brothers & Sisters. I was looking forward to finding out if the writers were going to live up to the amazing on camera talent they had speaking their words. What I found was pretty much more of the same, and a quickly eroding patience with the series. I guess the writers had a little more on their mind this year. More’s the pity.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 24th, 2008
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.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 22nd, 2008
I’ve got this great idea for a new show: it’s about a group of people stranded on a mysterious island after a plane crash. I’ll call it Where Are We? It’s gonna be the biggest ratings hit ever for whichever network is lucky enough to lavishly reward my creative genius.
On the other hand, it might seem like a complete ripoff of Lost, a rehash, old news that will never live up to the glory of the original. You know, like Cashmere Mafia, the Lucy Liu vehicle modeled gene-by-gene on HBO’s mega-hit Sex and the City. It might only last seven episodes before it’s axed. Now on DVD for the first time, Cashmere Mafia: The Complete Series is further proof that the entertainment industry is all out of fresh ideas.
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 19th, 2008
Star of song and stage Jeannie Laird (June Haver) returns from a triumphant tour to settle down in her new suburban home. Next door is widowed cartoonist Bill Carter (Dan Dailey), and sparks fly between the glamorous star and the low-key nice guy. The course of true love doesn’t run smoothly, however, due to Bill’s son Joe (Billy Gray, of The Day the Earth Stood Still), who doesn’t take kindly to the new woman in his father’s life.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2008
The 70’s and 80’s were fertile ground for horror films. It was a new era of iconic monsters. Starting with Michael Myers and Jason, the trend that gave us Freddy seemed to be at the end of its run by the late 1980’s. Certainly sequels were still being churned out, but it seemed like we’d seen the last of these maniacal monsters, at least for a while. But before it petered out, the cycle would supply our nightmares with one more notable denizen…Chucky. Today Chucky paces the sidelines here in
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2008
The character of Charlie Chan was created by writer Earl Derr Biggers in 1925 in the book A House Without A Key. He based the character on real life
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2008
The Chipmunks began life oddly enough as a singing group, of sorts. They were the brainchild of struggling songwriter Ross Bagdasarian and were named after the three chief executives at
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 17th, 2008
There are some significant changes in season 4. The interns now have interns of their own. It’s actually a little fresh to see them struggle with circumstances we only recently watched them deal with from the other perspective. All except George, who is forced to repeat after blowing off his final exam to help Izzie. There are also many cast changes. Gone are
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 17th, 2008
Medium was based on a real person with alleged psychic powers who apparently has helped out various law enforcement agencies in some actual cases. If you’ve seen the series, you might find that hard to believe, and the episodes are obviously fictional adventures and not based on the real Allison Dubois’s experiences. At first glance it might be easy to lump Medium in with Ghost Whisperer or The Dead Zone. Actually there are almost no similarities to any of those shows.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 17th, 2008
I love CSI and have been an avid fan from day one. I think it brought a fresh look to the procedural crime dramas that have long ago become just a little stale and predictable. The problem is that the series has gone the Dick Wolf route of branching out so that the final product might be a little diluted. Unlike the Law & Order franchise, each version of CSI has attempted to take on a unique look and style to reflect the location without giving up those elements which are the tradition of the series. CSI:
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 17th, 2008
Wings was one of those unusual sitcoms that depended more on the characters than the situations they were in. While the setting was a small
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 12th, 2008
I’m going to admit from the beginning that I had a lot of trepidation going into watching Desperate Housewives. I’ve never seen the show on broadcast television, and frankly don’t know anybody who’s a big fan. The closest I ever got to any of this was the famous T.O. Monday Night Football towel incident that featured the woman from the show lusting after Owens while he was with the Philadelphia Eagles. And like Owens’ tenure with the team, Desperate Housewives was just one of those things I figured we just didn’t talk about. Certainly I’ve seen the hype, and believe, me I’m well aware of the show’s popularity.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 12th, 2008
Eli Stone is a typical corporate lawyer. He admits to being totally self-involved and greedy, that is until he begins to see and hear things that aren’t really there… or are they. These visions appear to be connected with events unfolding in Stone’s life and seem to be leading him toward a mission of sorts. It could be helping a mother whose child was stricken by a harmful vaccine or helping a convict fight prison abuse. In the pilot, Stone discovers that he has a brain aneurism, which might account for the vivid visions he is experiencing.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 11th, 2008
A mixture of biopic and musical, this vehicle stars Susan Hayward as Jane Froman, an incredibly popular singing star in the 40s who had to battle back from terrible wounds suffered in a plane crash after her first performance for American troops overseas during WWII. The film begins with Froman’s triumphant comeback, and flashes back to the events leading up to this. The pic is efficiently put together, and Hayward’s lip-synching (Froman dubbed in her own singing) is unusually convincing. But the crash itself is disappointingly undramatic.
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