Violent Night (2022)
Posted in The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on December 3rd, 2022
With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, that can mean only one thing; that Christmas is just around the corner. Normally this time of year the theaters are filled with movies that are either A) jockeying for awards consideration or B) are big-budget blockbusters, and then if you are lucky there are a few holiday films sprinkled in for good measure. It has been a while since there has been a holiday film that has appealed to me. Some of the best ones in recent memory are Better Watch Out (2016) and Krampus (2015), so I think it is fair to say we are long overdue for a great Christmas film. At first glimpse, Violent Night doesn’t look the part of what you’d traditionally call a Christmas film, but even the trailers for the film market this as a mash-up of Die Hard meets Home Alone, and that’s exactly what you get, and it is gloriously violent and heartwarming.
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French Noir Collection: Le rouge est mis / Le dos au mur / Un témoin dans la ville (Blu-ray)
Posted in No Huddle by Dan Holland on December 3rd, 2022
France is a country that is absolutely saturated by a rich cinematic history. Beginning in the late 1890’s with the Lumière Brothers and their Cinématographe, traveling to the middle of the century with Cahiers du Cinéma, the French New Wave, and Cinéma Vérité; all the way to more contemporary French cinema. The country still makes incredible waves that influence the film industry. Interestingly, the term “film noir” came directly from French film critics, commenting on the low-key lighting used in many of the gangster films of that time period, calling them “black films” or “dark films.” It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Auteurs began to intentionally make film noir, however, the characteristics of classic film noir were not lost on French filmmakers who consumed these “dark films” as means of inspiration
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Detective Story (Blu-ray)
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on December 3rd, 2022
Director William Wyler is a bit of an icon when you look back in Hollywood history. He’s a director with such classics under his belt as Roman Holiday, Funny Girl, and then of course Ben-Hur. But before he filmed those, he did a smaller and more intimate film called Detective Story. This isn’t a big spectacle, but instead it is a gritty drama that takes place over a single day in a New York police station. The film is so simplistic in scope that it’s no surprise that it was originally a stage play, but it’s Wyler’s direction that elevates this film to something bigger. Then there are the remarkable performances from Kirk Douglas and the rest of the cast that make this film better than the potential snore-fest this could have been. Jim McLeod (Douglas) is a hard-nosed cop who likes nothing more than to take the criminals down in his city, to the point that he doesn’t realize it’s been days since he’s been home and seen his wife. He’s about to head out when he has an encounter with a criminal that sets McLeod off, and he attacks then criminal in custody. The altercation is bad enough to send the criminal to the hospital and jeopardize McLeod’s career. This is just one of the stories going on in the police station.
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The Offer
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2022
“I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Everybody loves an origin story. The comic book films are loaded with them. Fans have this unquenchable curiosity. We want to know how our heroes became what they are. The same can be said for our favorite movies. I recently read It’s Alive. It was a look at the making of Frankenstein through the eyes of the various principals. But it was also a story of the studio system at the time of the early 1930’s. I spoke to the author, Julian David Stone, and we talked about how much that story is an integral part of the story of that one particular film. You can listen to that chat here. Now Paramount + has given us a limited series event that takes us back to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and takes a dramatic look at the making of The Godfather. Appropriately enough, it’s called The Offer, and it just might be the best season of television I’ve seen in at least a decade.
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Bones and All
Posted in The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on November 30th, 2022
I’ve seen Bones and All twice now, and I have to say this is certainly one of the standout films of 2022. A road film that plays out as a romance between two young cannibals trying to find their place in the Reagan era America, well, it’s just the strange mix that works. Horror isn’t supposed to be this sweet, and romance isn’t supposed to be so gruesome, but director Luca Guadagnino manages to put together a film that is so good that I believe it has a real shot at winning some prestigious awards, and it is so well deserved. I’m going to recommend going into this knowing as little as possible. Just simply allow the film to expose its dark and bloody underbelly to you, and just let yourself care for these monsters that are simply trying to find their place in the world and in the process even fall in love.
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Exclusive Interview With Bruce McAllister: Author Of Stealing God And Other Stories
Posted in Podcasts by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2022
If you have been coming to the site for any length of time you know we also pay tribute, from time to time, to the written word. I’ll often share the title of a good book when I find them. We also interview these writers when chance sends them our way. We scored 2 for 2 with Bruce McAllister. He’s compiled a wonderfully enjoyable collection of some of his best short stories called Stealing God And Other Stories. He’s the kind of writer you might find at your local university giving a master class on the craft. I had the opportunity to speak with him just after Thanksgiving, and the conversation was rewarding. His commentary on writing is insightful and compelling. You should give his collection a read. You won’t regret it. I think you’ll want to hear what he has to say on the subject of writing and Stealing God And Other Stories. Just bang it here to listen in on my chat with Bruce McAllister.
You can also explore the world of Bruce McAllister by going to his website Here
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet: Seasons 7 & 8
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2022
“There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water.”
We’ve had Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Gene Simmons with his Family Jewels, and even Snoop Dog’s Father Hood. It’s become a bit of a trend to follow these celebrity families around and watch the drama of their privileged lives unfold on our television screens. You might think it’s a relatively recent phenomenon, but would you believe they were doing it back in the infant days of television when we followed around a musician named Ozzie and his wife way back in 1952? No, we’re not talking about Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I’m talking about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. They were television’s darling family before we ever heard about Lucy and Desi. The show actually started on radio like many of the fledgling industry’s early hits including the likes of Gunsmoke. Four years after the radio brought us The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, they moved to television.
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Peking Express (Blu-ray)
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on November 29th, 2022
Some movies are simply timeless. The Apartment (1960) is one of those films that I feel still holds up today and is still rightfully considered a classic. Then there are films like Peking Express (1951) that may have been good for their time, but my experience with the film just felt like a chore I couldn’t wait to finish. It’s not that the film did anything wrong. It was shot well, had decent acting, and the story was simple, but it just didn’t grab me. I like older films. I never had a problem with B&W films, but I guess to simply put it, this one just didn’t do it for me. That’s not to say that this film is bad. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, I guess you could say. The focus is mostly on Dr. Michael Bachlin (Joseph Cotton), a doctor who works with the World Health Organization who is traveling from Shanghai to Peking.
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Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight: To Kill a Mockingbird 60th Anniversary Limited Edition (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
I think I see your problem. You have this list. It’s a list of people you need/want to buy a Christmas gift for. The trouble is that they’re into home theatre, and you don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars. You couldn’t tell a Wolf Man from a Wolverine. And you always thought that Paranormal Activity was something too kinky to talk about. Fortunately, Upcomingdiscs has come to the rescue every Christmas with our Gift Guide Spotlights. Keep checking back to see more recommendations for your holiday shopping. These gift guides ARE NOT paid advertisements. We take no money to publish them
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Escape from Alcatraz (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
“It’s opening up all kinds of doors.”
Alcatraz Prison was one of the country’s most secure facilities for over 60 years. It was built on a rocky island off San Francisco. You couldn’t dig through the rock, and the surrounding ocean was cold and heavily populated by sharks big enough to feed off the plentiful seal population. For 60 years no one had successfully escaped the prison. That record was broken in June of 1962 when three inmates, brothers Clarence and John Anglin, escaped with Frank Morris, who was believed to have masterminded the plot. Sixty years later the case remains officially open, and no one knows what happened to the three men. In 1963 J. Campbell Bruce wrote a non-fiction book called Escape From Alcatraz. The book attempted to document all of the serious attempts to escape the prison, which of course included the 1962 escape
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High Plains Drifter (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
“It’s what people know about themselves inside that makes ’em afraid.”
Clint Eastwood might have gotten his film career started with bit roles in the sci-fi classics Tarantula and Return Of The Creature, but he made his mark in Europe with Sergio Leone and his famous spaghetti westerns. He became The Man With No Name in a trilogy of films, and it would create the character of Clint as much as it would any film character. Eastwood was smart, and he used the time on those films to learn. He was observant and took in all of the technical aspects of the business of making movies, and it continues to serve him 60 years later, as Eastwood has become as much of an icon behind the camera as he ever did in front of it. His first directing job was Play Misty For Me, but he returned to those still fresh spaghetti-western roots for his second time in the director’s chair and his first time directing a western
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The Valachi Papers (Blu-ray)
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on November 28th, 2022
The 1972 film The Valachi Papers is the mostly true story of Joe Valachi, who was made famous/infamous for his testimony to the US Senate about the activities of the Cosa Nostra, or what we more commonly call the mafia. I have to be honest; I don’t’ know how this film has escaped me for so long, I hadn’t even heard of it till Kino pulled this one from the vaults to release on Blu-ray. For film lovers, and especially those who love a good old fashioned gangster film, I’d say this is a must-watch, mostly because the first thing that came to mind while watching this film is how much this film must have influenced Martin Scorsese and his approach to making Goodfellas, If that’s not enough to get you to want to check out the film, well, let me tell you a little more about it.
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Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight: A Discovery of Witches The Complete Trilogy
Posted in Holiday Gift Guides by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
I think I see your problem. You have this list. It’s a list of people you need/want to buy a Christmas gift for. The trouble is that they’re into home theatre, and you don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars. You couldn’t tell a Wolf Man from a Wolverine. And you always thought that Paranormal Activity was something too kinky to talk about. Fortunately, Upcomingdiscs has come to the rescue every Christmas with our Gift Guide Spotlights. Keep checking back to see more recommendations for your holiday shopping. These gift guides ARE NOT paid advertisements. We take no money to publish them. With conditions as they are, shopping won’t be easy this season. The nice thing about discs is that they’re so easy to get from places like Amazon that you can give a great gift and stay perfectly safe while you do it. AMC Networks brings us A Discovery Of Witches: The Complete Series on Blu-ray
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Assassination (Blu-ray)
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on November 28th, 2022
I was surprised to read that actor Henry Silva passed away back in September; he’s one of the great tough-guy actors who thrived in the 60’s and 70’s that we just don’t have any more. Personally I was a fan of his Euro Crime films, The Boss and The Italian Connection. Silva just had a way of exuding cool and badass that in my eyes made him a rock star on the screen. He was like a rougher Charles Bronson. He was in two movies that made a big impression on me as a kid. Granted they are both glorified B movies, but Allan Quaterman and the Lost City of Gold and Alligator (1980) were movies that were in a high rotation for me as a kid, and it’s Henry Silva’s mean-guy mug that has stuck with me for so long.
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Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight: CBS/Showtime Complete Series Collections
Posted in Holiday Gift Guides by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2022
I think I see your problem. You have this list. It’s a list of people you need/want to buy a Christmas gift for. The trouble is that they’re into home theatre, and you don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars. You couldn’t tell a Wolf Man from a Wolverine. And you always thought that Paranormal Activity was something too kinky to talk about. Fortunately, Upcomingdiscs has come to the rescue every Christmas with our Gift Guide Spotlights. Keep checking back to see more recommendations for your holiday shopping. These gift guides ARE NOT paid advertisements. We take no money to publish them. This time we turn our attention to CBS. We’ve got you covered some complete series sets from CBS/Paramount/Showtime
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Holiday Gift Guide Spotlight: Paranormal Activity: The Ultimate Chills Collection (Blu-ray)
Posted in Holiday Gift Guides by Gino Sassani on November 25th, 2022
I think I see your problem. You have this list. It’s a list of people you need/want to buy a Christmas gift for. The trouble is that they’re into home theatre, and you don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars. You couldn’t tell a Wolf Man from a Wolverine. And you always thought that Paranormal Activity was something too kinky to talk about. Fortunately, Upcomingdiscs has come to the rescue every Christmas with our Gift Guide Spotlights. Keep checking back to see more recommendations for your holiday shopping. These gift guides ARE NOT paid advertisements. We take no money to publish them. And for your Black Friday shopping frightmare, we present Paranormal Activity: The Ultimate Chills Collection. Your horror fan friends will just eat this up. Just don’t make any sudden loud noises around them for a while.
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The Fabelmans
Posted in The Reel World by Gino Sassani on November 24th, 2022
“Life is not like the movies.”
Maybe sometimes life is exactly like the movies. You know the old phrase of art imitating life and that kind of thing. That’s exactly the territory that’s covered in Steven Spielberg’s latest film The Fabelmans. It’s an autobiographical film where the names are changed to protect both the guilty and the innocent. It’s also the first time that Spielberg has directed his own writing in over 20 years. In those 20 years Spielberg has become something of a movie-making machine, and I think he felt it was time that the machine walked away from the spotlight for a minute and allowed the man behind the machine to show his face again. It used to be about heart; lately it’s been about box office, and more recently it’s been about surviving after the hit the industry took with COVID. I think that Spielberg had a lot of things to get off his chest, and it looks like he might have found the time and place to do just that. While the film is a love letter to people who still think movies are a kind of wizard’s magic, it was also a little bit of therapy for this particular wizard. Like all autobiographies, it’s not really finished, and that’s the most profound takeaway I had when the film ended.
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Paramount Presents: Blue Hawaii (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 23rd, 2022
“Like a river flows, Surely to the sea, Darling, so it goes, Some things are meant to be …”
Elvis Presley is often referred to as the King Of Rock and Roll, at least to his fans. There’s no denying the impact that he had on the music scene. He was the first rock and roll star, to be sure. Colonel Tom Parker, his long-time manager and partner, created many of the marketing traditions that are commonplace in the industry today. He knew the value of his star, not only as a performer, but as a brand. For the first time, a musician’s image and name started to appear on everything from bath towels to women’s underwear. Fans are often split on their feelings for the self-styled Colonel, but Elvis would not have become the name brand he still is today without him.
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Mystery Men (UHD Blu-Ray) (4k)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 23rd, 2022
Many times when we watch films for the first time, we get distracted. Maybe it’s a pretty girl, money issues, or perhaps you had something else on your mind that’s hurting your focus. Whatever it is, it can really change your interpretation of a movie in a positive or negative way. One such movie for me is Mystery Men when I saw it in early 2000. Back when rentals were a thing, I remember renting this film and being distracted completely by someone who shall remain nameless. I barely liked the movie and didn’t really watch it again until many years later only to realize I liked the film far more than originally thought. Four or five times later, I revisit the film again, this time in glorious 4K. Let’s see how it does.
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Night Gallery: Season 3 (Blu-ray)
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2022
“Good evening. Let me welcome you to this parlor of paintings. We offer them to you for your enjoyment and edification. Feel free to dwell on them at your leisure and in your own good fashion, but kindly don’t touch, because here they frequently touch back.”
When I mention the name Rod Serling, I’ll bet that The Twilight Zone is the first thing that pops into your head. And why not? It would be very hard, indeed, to argue against the impact that The Twilight Zone has had on television. To say that the series was a milestone in that medium would be an understatement of the worst kind. When Rod Serling brought his landmark series to CBS in October of 1959, television was still very new. No one was quite sure what the future held for that magical box. For five years Rod Serling would enter our living rooms with the most bizarre tales we’d ever seen.
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Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam All Stars
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2022
“It’s uncensored, so language and sexual material is off the charts. So if that’s not your style, you have been warned. No political correctness…”
It was the early 1990’s, and record producer Russell Simmons got an idea and brought it to the folks at HBO. In a very short period of time, the half-hour show he created would become the highest-rated show in cable television history. He brought both the big names in black comedy as well as so many newcomers who have gone on to become big stars themselves. This was the days before streaming, and it came on Friday nights just as the folks who usually watch these things were out getting their entertainment live and in person. It was quite an accomplishment to get those folks to stay home and watch a half-hour television show instead. But that’s exactly what happened, and while the series ended in 1997, in five short years it made both television and comedy history.
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Planes, Trains and Automobiles (UHD Blu-Ray) (4k)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 18th, 2022
Favorite movies are usually easy to come back to. It’s a familiar song, stars you feel at home with, and even if you recite all the lines by heart, you can find something new to come back to. In the case of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, even though I had seen the movie probably around a dozen times or more, I was lured by the promise of new deleted and extended scenes but also a 4K-quality picture. But as with life, you don’t always get everything you want. Let’s take a look.
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Abbott Elementary: The Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 17th, 2022
I usually don’t go in for mockumentary series. I missed the boat when it comes to series like The Office and Parks and Rec. However, there was something about Abbott Elementary that captured my interest. So much so that upon completing the first season, I immediately binged the available episodes for the second season. It would appear I’m not the only who has become captivated by the series, as it cleaned up on the award circuit, to include a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Sheryl Lee Ralph), and more impressively, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series (for show creator, writer, executive producer, lead actress Quinta Brunson). And after watching the show in its entirety, all I can say is those awards were well deserved. Abbott Elementary is a breath of fresh air that has become my new Wednesday night pleasure.
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Wakanda Forever
Posted in No Huddle by Jeremy Butler on November 13th, 2022
When the MCU announced their intention to move forward with this sequel despite the tragic demise of Chadwick Boseman, I voiced my displeasure loudly. As far as I was concern, there could be no Black Panther without Chadwick Boseman. Additionally, it just seemed unnecessary. The first film was masterful and complete. It didn’t require a sequel. We could have just preserved the integrity of the first film by letting it stay untouched. However, that is not how the business works. If there is a dollar to be made, there isn’t anything that won’t be diluted down for that sake. I realize that sounds harsh, but if I’m being honest, that is what Wakanda Forever felt like to me. This not to say that there weren’t some good, genuine moments that brought me back to my feelings that I had while watching the first one. It is also worth mentioning that I found the film to have paid Boseman the proper respect that I believe he deserved, both with a powerful moment of silence at the beginning of the film, as well as a funeral processional for his character that was fit for a king that he was in film and in real life. It just still wasn’t enough. The elements to make it great were there, but the story leaves a lot of things incomplete and unresolved despite having a runtime of nearly three hours.
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Into the Deep (Blu-ra)
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on November 13th, 2022
Into the Deep is one of those films that offers so much promise with its setup that it is a bit frustrating when you watch the final product and it has managed to fall short in every way imaginable. When I first read the synopsis, I couldn’t help but think about the 1989 film Dead Calm. It’s one of those underrated psychological thrillers that I always felt was fun. While Into the Deep does share some parallels, unfortunately this film just goes off the rails because of its absurd plot twists and, well, let’s face it; no one in this cast is on par with Sam Neill, Billy Zane, or Nicole Kidman. Into the Deep is a film that pretty much hopes that its audience isn’t thinking about logic, because the moment you apply any sort of critical thinking, this film just falls apart. Jess (Ella-Rae Smith) is still struggling with the loss of her mother as the anniversary of her death is approaching.
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