Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 8th, 2009
"Hello, there. I bet you're already saying to yourself, 'Oh, I've already seen this one. Another holiday special narrated by some new teen star between takes on their oh-so-popular new sitcom series. Well, I'm here to tell you, not this time, because I'm not a star. Well, not yet at least. And, this ain't about how so and so saved Christmas for all the good boys and girls..."
I would have loved to have been in this meeting. Someone walks into a studio executive's office to pitch his idea. After describing his new Christmas special concept, he pauses, just for a second, just for the right amount of anticipation. "Here's the clincher", he says manically. "William Shatner will be the voice of Santa Claus."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 8th, 2009
Things are tough all over. It seems that even the television networks aren't immune to the growing trend of cutting back. Fox decided that the answer was Bogota, Colombia. No, they didn't turn to the cocaine market. They all tried that in the 70's and we ended up with Joannie Loves Chachi. This time Bogota is an option for producing new television shows. The idea is that you can take an American cast, with a token Brit in this case, and ship them off to Columbia to do the show on the cheap. The good news is that you can hire crew for six bucks a day. The bad news is that the show ends up looking like it cost about six bucks to shoot. I suspect that the hombre who came up with this wonderful idea for Mental had a better understanding of mental illness than the average bear.
Dr. Jack Gallagher (Vance) has been hired by his ex-lover Nora Skoff (Sciorra) to run the mental health department at Wharton Memorial Hospital, where she is the hospital administrator. Gallagher might be bright, but he has some rather unorthodox methodology. He tends to put himself in the place of the patient. To see what they see. Attempt to feel what they feel. It's the kind of practice that ends up having him introduce himself to his new staff by stripping buck naked when an intake patient is seeing alien reptiles and has stripped down himself to prove he is human. The tactic might have calmed the patient and defused a volatile situation, but it didn't endear himself to his new colleagues.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2009
We all know what a classic A Charlie Brown Christmas still is. It's a fact of life that when you have a hit there is a tendency to continue to reach for that lightning in a bottle over and over again. That is certainly the case with the Peanuts specials. The results have been mixed, and while I won't say that these recent specials aren't quality stuff, I doubt there is anyone out there who believes that the same quality of heart and charm has existed in the series since the 1970's. When Charles Schulz died, it was agreed that no new material was to be allowed with these characters. Every special since that time has had to use dialog and stories already published in the cartoon strips. Now, that's not as limiting as you might think when you consider the strip ran for bout 50 years. That leaves a lot of untapped material out there to keep the specials running, and run on they do.
I Want A Dog For Christmas is a unique episode in that it does not really center much on the main Peanuts gang. Charlie Brown himself is reduced to a background character here. The star of this show is Rerun. The character was added as a baby brother to Linus and Lucy back on Mother's Day in 1972. His exposure in the shorts has been limited, to say the least. So, it is actually refreshing to have the character carry the load for this 2003 effort.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2009
"Have you ever been told of that fateful year when Christmas almost didn't happen? It was everyone's worst fear. There was no one to take Santa's big sack of toys and deliver the presents to the world's good girls and boys. But this Christmas season didn't begin with any trouble or fuss. It began with some singing, as all Christmases must."
The 1960's and 1970's saw an entire genre of holiday specials produced by the prolific studio of Rankin and Bass. The most popular of these specials is probably Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. But there were many others that were released in a 10-15 year period. They all had a few things in common. They used stop motion puppets and sets to achieve their animation. Yes, the same magic that sent King Kong up the Empire State Building drove Rudolph on that foggy night to lead Santa's sleigh. There was a decidedly plastic appearance to the characters, and they were certainly distinctive. Within seconds of watching one of these specials you were able to identify it as a Rankin and Bass production. In the years since, stop motion has almost gone the way of the dinosaurs with very few practitioners working in the art form today. Tim Burton has been the most successful of late. And we can't help but owe a huge debt of thanks to Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen for perfecting the craft. And so our childhood was amused by these annual favorites only surviving in chopped up syndicated reruns today.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2009
This series from Comedy Central began as a low budget film hosting show in a small television station in Minnesota. It was the brainchild of Joel Hodgson. It ended up running for 11 years and a feature film version.
Mystery Science Theatre is an acquired taste. For me, I’ve really got to be in that certain mood to watch it. That’s the beauty of these DVD’s. You pop them in when you’re ready. The idea is pretty whacked. Depending on the season you’ve got, Joel or Mike is trapped in space on the “Satellite of Love”. Doomed to spend his life watching very bad films, our hero makes the best of a bad situation. He uses his resources to construct a couple of robot pals. There's Crow T. Robot (Beaulieu), Tom Servo (Murphy), and Gypsy (Mallon). As part of an experiment together, they watch the films from the front row, constantly ranting throughout. If you’re like me, you’ve invited a few friends over to watch a schlock festival. The movies weren’t as important as the banter you created while watching. That’s exactly what you see here. The silhouettes of our host and his robots dominate the lower portion of the screen, where they provide alternative dialog and sometimes witty commentary on the action. The two evil station owners/mad scientists send them a new bad film each week to observe their reactions to the bombs. The films are broken up by off the wall skits and fake commercials to alleviate the tedium. This DVD collection is better than some because it includes films from four different seasons to give you a good sample of the overall series.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2009
Hey Hey Hey, it’s Yogi Bear. It’s Christmas time at old Jellystone Park. Of course, Yogi, being a bear, is usually fast asleep. So, he’s never celebrated Christmas before. Now group of the Hanna/Barbera gang have gathered at the Jellystone Lodge for the annual Christmas Carnival. Last year there were some mysterious happenings that scared away a lot of the regulars. Now Mrs. Throckmorton, the owner of the lodge, is thinking about selling it so that a road can be paved there. Ranger Smith and the gang want to make this as uneventful as possible for her so that she’ll decide to keep the lodge, and the Christmas Carnival.
In attendance are Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, Daddy and Auggie Dog, and Ranger Smith. Unfortunately, Auggie Dog plays his drum so loud that it wakes up Yogi and Boo Boo. Things don’t go smoothly when Yogi’s around. The only consolation is there aren’t any picnic baskets around for Yogi to steal. It’s going to be hard to make this a smooth event. Not only is Yogi awake, but the local hermit has been the one trying to ruin the party so that he can have peace and quiet in his cave. Sound like another famous anti-Christmas noise character you know? The kind you wouldn’t touch with an eleven and a half foot pole? Mrs. Throckmorton has also brought her nephew Snively, who is a spoiled brat. If he can’t have fun, he’ll do whatever he can to make sure that no one else does, either.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2009
Who would have believed that you could do a situation comedy based on Nazi Germany and a group of POW’s in World War II? It wasn’t an easy sell. When Albert S. Ruddy first came up with the idea, it was a contemporary story about a group of guys in a normal U.S. prison. There were a lot of problems, mostly with the idea of making your main characters criminals. Of course, that’s not so much the problem today. But this was the 1960’s, and those kinds of “heroes” were not quite as accepted. Eventually the concept developed to put the characters in a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany during the World War II. Remember that we were only 20 years removed from the end of the war and the discovery of the concentration camps and all of the horrid images these things evoked in people. Any smart betting man would have given the chance of getting such a series to air at somewhere between zero and Hell freezing over. And when the show was pitched to CBS, that’s exactly what the execs had to say.
Somehow they were convinced enough to do a pilot episode. It was too funny to pass up, even with the more sober circumstances. By the end of that first season Hogan’s Heroes was one of the top rated shows on television. Larry Gelbart often credits the success of Hogan’s Heroes as the precedent that allowed shows like MASH to be sold. Suddenly it was okay to find laughter in such places. The show ran for 6 seasons from 1965 to 1971. The cast would remain completely intact throughout the show’s run. The show would also have to hold off a plagiarism suite from the writers of Stalag 17.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2009
The House Of Mouse first appeared on television in January of 2001. It took advantage of pretty much every Disney character from nearly every Disney property. Mickey was the host of a nightclub called The House Of Mouse, I guess a riff on The House Of Blues. The standard bearing characters ran the club. In the audience was where you’ll find all of those lovable characters from films like The Lion King, Aladdin, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Winnie The Pooh, and so many more. The shows were both performances by the characters and the showing of Disney shorts. The series was very much like the Warner 70’s show The Bugs Bunny And Road Runner Show. There too you had an audience and staff of Warner’s entire Loony Tunes library. There was also a rivalry there between Bugs and Daffy Duck. The same kind of relationship exists here between Mickey and Donald. The series only lasted a couple of years and was soon gone from the airwaves.
Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed In At The House Of Mouse aired November of 2001. The characters are all snowed in on Christmas Eve and can’t get home to celebrate the holiday. Mickey decides they should all throw a Christmas bash at the club. For the most part they’re all trying to cheer up Donald, who has a case of the humbugs. In between these antics a few shorts are shown. The most notable are a Disney version of The Nutcracker with ultra modern music and a telling of Dickens’ famous A Christmas Carol. Many of the vast cast get at least a couple of lines.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 30th, 2009
It’s really hard to explain but I feel like I have shared a small lifetime with a director named Bradford May. At first, it was a couple of Darkman sequels that were simply good doses of cult sequel fare. I didn’t expect much and I received back exactly that, so I was satisfied. But then as I continued to review more and more movies, as his films started to pop up in my queue. First there was Ring of Death & then Mask of the Ninja. Both could be described as typical action beat-em up movies. Then Bradford decided to take on direction for The Storm, a mini-series that was shown on NBC and somehow it ended up in my review pile. I’m starting to think that this is no mere coincidence anymore.
Dr. Jonathon Kirk (played by James Van Der Beek) is a renowned scientist working at the Atmospheric Research Institute. He is aided by his fellow scientist, Dr. Jack Hoffman (played by Rich Sommer) and newcomer Carly Meyers (played by Erin Chambers). They are being funded by the U.S. government to manipulate technology that will allow them to control the weather.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2009
My One And Only is based on a George Hamilton autobiographical story. It’s probably a tale that his fans know well. It wasn’t one I was at all aware of. The screenplay was written by Charlie Peters. Hamilton himself is a producer on the film, so we can assume that the story unfolds in much the same way he intended. Like most autobiographical pieces, it has a limited audience. Fans of the subject are certainly going to be quite interested. Others who consider the subject of some note might also have an interest in the material. Unfortunately, it’s like watching vacation or baby slides. After some time you can get lost and bored watching the high or low points in someone else’s life. This is just that kind of experience.
Anne (Zellweger) comes back early from a trip to find her husband, big band leader Dan (Bacon) in bed with another woman. She immediately decides to leave him and take their sons George (Lerman) and Robbie (Rendall) on the road to find herself a new husband. Anne is the typical southern aristocrat and believes she needs to find someone to give her the good life she has become accustomed to. Their first stop is Boston where she runs into old flame Wallace (Weber) who just wants to borrow money because his business is failing. Next she gets engaged to military man Harlan (Noth) who just wants a family so that he can be a “top dog”. Next it’s on to Pittsburg, and it’s Oliver and Charlie. Next stop St. Louis and a paint store magnate who’s crazy as a loon. Finally, it’s California to give Robbie a chance to be an actor. Along the way the family learns about themselves and the man they left behind. They finally settle in California where it’s George who ends up with the acting career.
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