Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2009
The names of the characters are hardly consequential, as they are used to further storylines more than develop character. But Pacino plays a cop who is tracking a group of robbers, among them Val Kilmer (Wonderland) and Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), a group headed by DeNiro. The group receives offers for work from Jon Voight (Runaway Train), and they rob anything from gold, to coins, to bearer bonds. They are all ex-cons, and know all the ropes. They are a highly professional crew, which you see in the opening moments of the movie, despite the addition of a new man to the crew. What also helps to differentiate this from a usual cops and robbers movie are the secondary plotlines of the families involved. Pacino’s is clearly distant and breaking (played by Diane Venora and Natalie Portman), while DeNiro doesn’t have one to speak of, despite an emerging romance with Edy (Amy Brenneman, Judging Amy). At 3 hours, there are some unnecessary scenes involving a banker (played by William Fichtner), but the underlying message is that almost all of the actions in the movie do not involve just the primary characters, but also friends and loved ones of those characters. Kilmer’s wife in the film, played by Ashley Judd, desperately wants to get him out of his line of work, as she wants to start a new life for her family. An ex-con (Dennis Haysbert, 24) is stumbled upon working in a greasy spoon, and offered a chance to work by DeNiro. Haysbert’s character wants to be right, but runs into so many obstacles from it that he takes the job, only to wind up perishing in what results in a massive gunfight in the heart of Los Angeles while a bank robbery is being pulled.
With other solid supporting performances by Ted Levine (Monk), Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump), and appearances by Bud Cort (Harold and Maude), Jeremy Piven (PCU), Hank Azaria (The Simpsons) and Henry Rollins (The Chase), the movie is certainly not without its star power. The director behind this work is Michael Mann, who also wrote a much better than expected story. The man responsible for such striking visuals in films such as Manhunter, Ali and The Insider contributes more outstanding work here, and while it’s been out for awhile now, Warner Brothers finally gives it a high definition Blu-ray release
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 5th, 2009
“For the Egyptians, life was eternal. They searched the globe for ingredients to preserve their bodies and their immortality. With knowledge gained from centuries of practice, their priests have created the finnest mummies the world has ever known.”
Ever since Howard Carter first entered the tomb of the legendary King Tut, most of the world has had an incredible fascination with the mummies of ancient Egypt. Hollywood has done its best over the ages to create fear by making monsters of these preserved corpses. Universal and Boris Karloff started the ball rolling, and the recent Brandon Frasier films have added a funny/scary bent using the very latest in computer generated magic. From bandages to living sandstorms, we have been exposed to some fantastical mummies. Now IMAX brings us a look at what these wrapped ancients were really all about. Looking beyond the creatures of our nightmares this release captures the mystery of a long lost civilization in Mummies: Secrets Of The Pharaohs. There’s no talk of curses and monsters here. The real curse of these tombs is the litany of looters that have raped these places in the thousands of years since they were buried. Their greed has not only robbed the dead, but future generations from appreciating and learning from what they left behind.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 14th, 2009
“Its cold outside, There's no kind of atmosphere, I'm all alone, More or less.
Let me fly, Far away from here, Fun, fun, fun, In the sun, sun, sun.
I want to lie, Shipwrecked and comatose, Drinking fresh, Mango juice, Goldfish shoals, Nibbling at my toes, Fun, fun, fun, In the sun, sun, sun…”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 7th, 2009
“For more than 150 million years dinosaurs roamed every corner of the planet. Only a very few left evidence of their existence, their fossilized bones. And, those bones have never ceased to fascinate us.”
The box art to the new IMAX Blu-ray release of Dinosaurs Alive is more than a little bit misleading. The package elicits an image of thundering prehistoric beasts engaged in all sorts of primeval activities. And why not? It’s the stuff of our youth’s imaginations. Has there ever been a more fascinating true story than dinosaurs? But, if you’re expecting, or worse hoping, to get a high definition experience somewhat akin to the Walking With Dinosaurs specials, you’re apt to be more than a little bit disappointed. And that’s actually a bit of a shame, because there are wonders to behold here, just not that kind. Instead the documentary takes you to the places where these stories once unfolded so many millions of years ago. There you’ll encounter these beasts, though not in the flesh, but in the bone. Paleontologists invite you along to some of the most fruitful dinosaur graveyards. There the past is uncovered one brushstroke at a time. And while incredibly fascinating in itself, it’s not exactly the high drama I was expecting.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 2nd, 2009
“In the future, a computer program called Skynet will declare war on the human race. Machines have traveled back in time taking human form to terminate John Connor, the future leader of the resistance; Sarah Connor, John’s mother, teacher, and protector; Cameron, a terminator reprogrammed to defend them at all costs; Derek Reese, John’s uncle and a commanding officer with the resistance. Together they fight to stop Skynet from ever being created. The battle for our tomorrow starts today.”
Well actually, to be perfectly honest, it started back in October of 1984 with the release of James Cameron’s blockbuster Terminator. It was the story of a future Armageddon and a machine sent back in time to make sure it happens by killing the mother of the unborn leader of a future resistance. No one saw the success coming, but come it did. With just over a $6 million budget the film brought in over $38 million in the domestic take. That’s not a lot by today’s mega tent pole release standards, but it was huge in 1984. Add another $40 million in overseas box office, and you get quite a return on that money. And so as inevitable as the film’s prophesized Doomsday, a sequel was unavoidable. The film also made a star of an Austrian born bodybuilder who had only television and one film to his credit by that time. A star and a huge franchise was born. The man behind the film, James Cameron, was just as unknown, having helmed a cheesy Piranha sequel as pretty much his only calling card. Who knew then that Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron, and the Terminator universe would all go on to become household names. Cameron would go on to bring us Aliens and Titanic. Arnie would become THE action star of the 90’s and end up, of all places, as the Governor of California. Only in America.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 17th, 2009
"Space...The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before !"
Paramount was bold indeed when they undertook the remaster project of the original series. Not only did they clean up the prints, but they took the decidedly risky option of redoing most of the f/x shots from the original prints. We all know just how cheesy the old work looked when compared to today’s computer abilities. You could see a box around spacecraft that allowed the obvious cutout to maneuver through a cardboard star field. There were often mixups where phaser shots would be used for photon torpedo commands and the opposite. The planets often utilized matte paintings that look somewhat ridiculous now. We forgave these flaws with a complete understanding of the limitations the crew had at the time. While Star Trek showed us computers that were remarkably similar to the PC’s we use today, down to the floppy drives of our own yesteryear, the use of computers to create f/x was still many years away. So Paramount decided to “fix” these “flaws” and make much of the show look like it might have had it been produced today. It was a serious risk because of the extreme possessiveness fans have for these kinds of shows. Just ask George Lucas how much fans like their sci-fi tinkered with. The project encompassed a few years, and the results are quite attractive. But how do they stand up for the fans?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 11th, 2009
“For those of you just joining us: What you are looking at is the work of ZFT, a terrorist organization responsible for at least a half a dozen biological attacks over the last several months. Everything we know thus far can be found in your packets (or Blu-rays), including a copy of their manifesto which elucidates their ideology and their methods. Which boils down to the following: Attempting to provoke or prepare for a war. With who? That’s the question, isn’t it? What we do know is that these bizarre acts seem to be increasing in frequency and that their targets are unpredictable and therefore unprotectable. Those of you assembled in this room now have a clear-cut goal…”
That goal is to rush out and pick up the high definition, Blu-ray release of the first season of JJ Abrams latest television enigma, Fringe.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 25th, 2009
Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s…. well, Clark Kent. When Smallville was first developed for television, the showrunners made a few conscious decisions that have, for the most part, been kept for the show’s first 8 seasons. There was a strict “no flights, no tights” rule that was in effect for anyone hoping to pen an adventure for the show. Everyone knows we’re talking about Superman here, but the term is avoided like a deadly disease. All of the familiar places and names are firmly in place, but make no mistake. This is the world before Superman began to make his presence known to the world.
For those of you who have been living under a rock since the 1930’s, Smallville was the Kansas farm town where young Kal-El’s space ship from the dying planet Krypton crash landed. He was discovered by Jonathan (Schneider) and Martha (O’Toole) Kent and raised as their adopted son. The series began with Clark’s high school years. Clark always had a crush on neighbor Lana Lang (Kreuk). In a nod to the 1978 film, Martha is played by Annette O’Toole, who played Lana in that second film. Clark’s high school friends include Chloe Sullivan (Mack) who is somewhat of a computer whiz and ace school paper reporter. Clark also befriends local billionaire son Lex Luthor (Rosenbaum) after saving his life. In these early seasons the characters would slowly build towards the eventual hero/villain relationship that Luthor and Superman would share. Lex Luthor’s father Lionel Luthor (Glover) would go from being a bad guy to a good guy and back again as the show progressed. Much of these early episodes dealt with Clark discovering his powers as he matured. Eventually all but the flight ability would surface. The show also took on a freak of the week aspect at times. It seems that while Kryptonite robs Clark of his power, it has created mutant powers in many humans who have encountered it over the years. Clark and Chloe would spend many a season tracking down and stopping these “meteor freaks”.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 12th, 2009
“Four turtles. Four brothers genetically reborn in the sewers of New York. Named after the great Renaissance masters and trained as ninjas. They battled many creatures and foes before defeating their arch enemy, The Shredder. But, now a greater evil is poised to destroy their brotherhood. An evil born 3000 years ago.”
What started as a low budget comic has grown into quite a sensation. The Turtles are everywhere. There are cartoons, books, comics, movies, and thousands of toys. They’ve been translated into just about every language in the world. The 1980’s and 1990’s were alive with Turtle power. With yet another film now in the works, the Turtles are about to make a comeback. While the characters might not have started with the 80’s cartoon series, that’s where it made its greatest leap in popularity. The show ran for over a decade, a rare record for cartoon shows of the era. Then came the inevitable movies. Three of them in all during the live action phase. The Turtles were part actor and part animatronics Jim Henson creation ala the Disney/ABC Dinosaurs television series. The fourth was a recent (2007) CGI film. All four are collected here for the first time in high definition Blu-ray in a rather righteous collection. The case is a pizza box, and each of the four discs resemble different kinds of pizza. There’s also a bit of swag to be found in the spacious box. You get character cards featuring shots from the live action films, a signed black and white sketch, a comic book detailing events from the first film, and a “radical” beanie for your head. It may be a bit corny and somewhat impractical, but it beats those crazy eco cases that are getting way too popular in the industry.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2009
“It’s like one of those fatal attraction things, like they show on the Donahue Show, you know?”
It might not have exactly been “fatal”, but the attraction that Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau had for each other, and we still have for them, is on perfect display in Grumpy Old Men. Then again… it might just as well have been fatal, if not fate. The two men died just months from each other. Matthau left us in July of 2000, and just under a year later in June of 2001 we lost Jack Lemmon. Chris Lemmon, Jack’s son, doesn’t think it’s entirely a coincidence. He told me in a recent interview that the men loved each other. He joked that “if Walter had played golf, he’d have married him.” Whether it was the chemistry these guys had off screen or just their natural abilities, might be hard to pin down. Whatever the reason, there have been few Hollywood duos that put out as impressive a body of work. With Lemmon, it was the fact that he was always rather a dramatic actor who found himself in hilarious roles. With Matthau, he was always the lovable buffoon whose characters almost always got in their own way. They appeared in about a dozen films together, from the enigmatic Oliver Stone JFK to The Odd Couple, perhaps their most renowned comedy. Like all of their films the main attraction, fatal or otherwise, is watching these two buddies work together. Grumpy Old Men might not be anything like their best work, but I’d take these guys on an average day over most duos on their very best.
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