Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 1st, 2019
Every generation has had its Christmas classics, films that have become as much a part of the holiday family traditions as Christmas trees and candy canes. For me it has been the more modern A Christmas Story with ol’ Carl Kolchak himself, Darren McGavin. Kids today have taken more of a shine to even more recent films, but for more than one generation, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. Since 1947 the film became a seasonal fixture in neighborhood movie houses across the fruited plain. In the 1970’s the film temporarily fell into the public domain and was played relentlessly on local television stations as each holiday came and went. Unfortunately, these were usually prints in horrible condition, so that scratches and splice marks became a part of the experience, not to mention ads for department stores touting their early bird specials. It is with that experience that I, as did most from my generation, become acquainted with Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey. When the home video market began to bloom with VHS in the mid 1980’s, a better print resurfaced, so that the experience improved dramatically, along with the loss of those commercials. Of course, this new resource of home entertainment created a fight for the rights to the film to once again be restored to a single owner. It ended up being the film’s score that would allow the rights to be enforced once again. The crappy television prints disappeared, and by the early 1990’s, efforts to restore the film began.
These restoration efforts invariably turned to the controversial subject of colorization. If anyone remembers Ted Turner’s push to colorize RKO films, including King Kong, you will also remember how bad those films looked. The color was an added texture of hue covering the picture so that the subject’s textures and subtleties were obliterated. It was almost as if some child decided to finger paint all over the negative. There was nothing magical or at all realistic about the process. It’s A Wonderful Life has been colorized no less than three times. In both 1986 and 1989 the film got the colorized treatment, both failures. In 2007, It’s A Wonderful Life had been colorized by a new process developed by Legend Films. This new process allows films to be colorized naturally, retaining all of the detail and texture of the original print. These are the guys who are working with legendary Ray Harryhausen to colorize and restore many of his classics. The new process uses a 16-bit grayscale, which offers over 64,000 shades of just gray. The process, called “Photo-Real”, can reproduce HD quality pictures with stunning, lifelike color. I was a very cynical skeptic of the process and was prepared to rip this color print to shreds in my review. I was blown away by how natural the color looks. You will be hard pressed to believe this wasn’t an original color print. Not only are the colors realistic, but the print retains the particular color palette of the 1940’s, so that the film still looks like one from the correct era. I know you’ve seen incredibly bad colorization before, and it likely has made you unwilling to even give this one a chance, but you owe it to yourself to check it out. And this is the version you get on the Blu-ray copy of the film.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 1st, 2019
The folks over at Shout have done it again, finding a forgotten title and polishing it up for a nice Blu-ray under their Scream Factory release. This time they have pulled out the 1998 western/horror mash-up that is John Carpenter’s Vampires. It only seems fitting that a John Carpenter film gets covered for the 31 Nights of Terror, though this is definitely a title not many would expect to hear about. When I say this film wouldn’t even crack my top five Carpenter films, it may at first seem like a jab, but you’ve got to remember John Carpenter has one of the most impressive bodies of work, not just for a horror director, but for a director, period. Big Trouble in Little China, The Fog, The Thing, They Live, The Assault on Precinct 13, In The Mouth of Madness, oh, and then there was that little film everyone forgets about, Halloween…and seriously, there are numerous other films I didn’t even mention. I love the filmography Carpenter has given us, but I’m still hoping he’ll release at least one more classic before he hangs up his directing duties for good.
When John Carpenter’s Vampires first came out, I think it would be fair to say that for many he was past his prime, and some may have uttered the phrase “hack”. Personally I never felt that way, especially when only a few years before he had released In the Mouth of Madness, which is one of my favorite horror films from the 90’s “Do you read Sutter Kane?” is a phrase that haunted me for a while. So going into his attempt at a vampire film with James Woods starring -- this was something I was excited about. I got to admit, 18 year old me wasn’t impressed. This seemed like something I’d love considering I was a huge fan of Near Dark and From Dusk Till Dawn was still fresh on VHS.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 1st, 2019
Ultraman is a huge part of Japanese culture and pretty much has been since the original live-action show in 1966. Perhaps Godzilla started the ball rolling, but Ultraman brought us these monsters on a regular basis. In Japan, Ultraman is like our Superman. He’s an iconic hero and a huge part of the pop culture. Since the 60’s he has appeared in many forms, most of them animated. But it is this 1966 series that made a ton of us kids fall in love with him and an entire genre. Yes, there were many from the era: Space Giants featured a giant fighting robot who fought monsters and sometimes converted into a spaceship (yes, before transformers were ever thought of); Johnny Socko had his giant robot; and the list goes on. But it was Ultraman who started it. Eiji Tsuburaya, who created the original Godzilla, formed a new company outside of Toho Pictures. Ultraman was pretty much the first thing out of the new shop.
It started with a series called Ultra Q. It was a popular series in Japan. There was no Ultraman here, but some of the elements of what would be the Science Patrol started there. When it was finished, the staff was approached to create a new show, and fast. But this one needed more action and also something that could be sold to the American markets. That was Ultraman.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 30th, 2019
“Thrill Me!”
When it comes to catch phrases, at least in this household “Thrill Me!” is easily the most used, and it’s all because of Night of the Creeps. I’m not quite sure how many times I’ve seen this film, but for me, when you name off classic horror films, this makes my top 10. I was only six when this film first came out, and I actually discovered it in the mid-90’s upon realizing it was directed by Fred Dekker who was responsible for The Monster Squad (the movie I blame and love for my introduction to horror). What I’m trying to get at is, I’m not sure if it is possible for me to be “objective” with this film. Night of the Creeps is simply a film that is fueled with nostalgia, but I feel has aged better than most horror films from the 80’s. For those who are fans of the film, at least the ones I’ve met, can agree on the film’s awesomeness and its fun B-movie campy-ness that manages to toe the line perfectly between remaining fun while playing a homage to the old 50’s monster films while being a legit horror film. Also there is Tom Atkins, who is a legend in my eyes because of this film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 29th, 2019
"From the day we arrive on the planet, and blinking, step into the sun, there's more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than can ever be done. There's far too much to take in here. More to find than can ever be found..."
There's a period in the 1990's that has often been referred to as the second golden age of Disney animation. The studio had fallen from its once mighty perch, and most film historians tend to agree there was a creative dark ages through the 1980's. But the renaissance of the studio began with Aladdin in 1992 would go on to include such tremendous classics as Beauty And The Beast and The Little Mermaid. None of these films speak to the resurgence of the animated feature like The Lion King. The film set every animated record there was and holds some of those box office records today. It can be safely stated that the great flood of animated projects that followed can be traced to the impact of The Lion King. In 1996 Simba was the most popular name chosen for new housecats. Elton John saw his appeal extend to children, and there could be no mistake that the animated feature was back. That's the legacy of The Lion King.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on October 29th, 2019
When it comes to Rob Zombie, his films are a bit hit-or-miss. Halloween and The Devils Rejects are his biggest commercial successes, but when he delivers films like Halloween 2, fans tend to be unforgiving. Now we have 3 From Hell, the final chapter in his Firefly family saga that began way back with House of 1000 Corpses and followed up by The Devils Rejects. While many fans have been excited about this third film, I’ve been on the fence wondering if this is really something I want to see. The Devils Rejects is a dark and mean little film that delivers one of the most satisfying endings for a horror film. It’s so good I have my doubts that it could ever be topped. But in Hollywood, if there is potential to make more money off a “franchise”, then there is going to be a sequel whether you want it or not. It’s been 16 years since the franchise began. How does he wrap it up? Well, buckle up, it’s a bit of a bumpy ride; that’s for sure.
The film opens up with the fallout from the massive showdown from The Devils Rejects as we saw Otis (Bill Moseley), Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), and Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) get taken down in a flurry of gunfire. We see them taken in to the hospital where by some miracle the three survive, and then the three are put on trial for their crimes. There is definitely a Natural Born Killers vibe to the first third of the film as Zombie does a good job at showing how this trio of psychopaths would be treated like celebrities in the media and how they develop fans. Some people are willing to even believe the three are all innocent and are being framed by the government. Sadly, though, a lot of this is rushed to build up for a big prison break to set up another murder spree led by Otis. Sure, it’s nice seeing Otis, and we get some bittersweet moments with Captain Spaulding (a shame this will be the last time we’ll see Sid Haig but his moments on screen are memorable none the less). But what doesn’t work is Baby. I’ve always been a fan of Sheri Moon Zombie and felt fans were kind of hard on her performances in the past, but this time around there are some groan-worthy moments. What’s worse is when you have her performing alongside Moseley, it’s impossible not to notice the talent gap. Joining Otis and Baby on their escape and new spree of mayhem is Richard Brake, playing Winslow Foxworth Coltrane, who is Otis’s brother. Brake is a welcomed addition to the cinematic family, but he’s obviously not in the same league of crazy that is Baby and Otis.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on October 28th, 2019
We take it for granted. Every day our lives depend on the flow of electricity to our homes, workplaces, entertainment venues, and hospitals. Living in Florida where you might brush the occasional hurricane, it's the thing I dread the most when a storm approaches. I don't worry so much about damage to my home as I do the inevitable five days without power. No AC. No television. No refrigeration for the food. We are so dependent that it's hard for me to comprehend that I grew up knowing people in my own family who lived before there was any electricity service at all. In another 70 years people will be saying the same thing about the internet. We all know Al Gore invented the internet. But who got us connected with this whole electric power grid? Like most things in a capitalistic society, there was fierce competition. Companies fought for the ability to bring electricity to your home. City by city, the contest endured until eventually the entire country could bask in the glaring glow of the world's first light bulbs. The Current War: The Director's Cut takes us inside that struggle to win that race. It's a compelling story, and even if it doesn't all ring quite true, it's an entertaining journey to the moment in time when everything changed.
As the film begins we find a weary Thomas Edison (Cumberbatch) with his family on a train after a visit to the president of the United States and J.P. Morgan (Macfadyen), where Edison was forced to plead for more financing for his dream to electrify the nation. Fresh off of his creation of a stable light bulb, it was important to get power to houses, or there was really no need to buy the bulbs. He has an idea of using direct current (DC) to distribute that power from a turbine electrical generation process of his invention. On the way home he had been invited to dinner at the home of industrialist George Westinghouse (Shannon). The family made elaborate preparations for the visit, which had been accepted. But Edison was tired and decided to skip the dinner and ordered the train to just blow by the welcoming committee at the station. In the film it would be the greatest mistake of his life. Slighted, Westinghouse decides to back a plane to use alternating current (AC) and directly compete with Edison for the contract in cities across the country. Edison is also somewhat undone by his arrogant dismissal of an employee who was trying to get him on the right track. That was Nikola Tesla (Hoult). Tesla would eventually join the Westinghouse group, and together they would form what would later be called General Electric.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on October 28th, 2019
“Murder is Murder. Don’t matter who you are.”
Naomie Harris lives by these words as she finds herself hunted by her own in Black and Blue. Fortunately, she is not alone, as Tyrese Gibson is also there to lend a hand in this real-life commentary that pulls no punches. We all know that there is a brotherhood within the police force. They are a family, and family looks out for family. This film examines what happens when family crosses a line that they cannot come back from. Harris portrays a rookie police officer who stumbles across an execution by her fellow cops. In that moment she goes from being blue to black. Joining her on the cast is Gibson, Frank Grillo, Mike Colter, and Black Lightning’s Nafessa Williams in a role that will make you hate her.
Posted in: Random Fun by Gino Sassani on October 28th, 2019
If you are planning a trip to Tampa, Florida you may already have a list of places you'd like to visit while you are here. I'm sure most of those lists are pretty much the same. Unfortunately, few of those lists likely contain the Tampa Theatre. Who wants to visit a movie theater on their vacation, anyway? You do. Yes, it's a beautiful historic building dating back to 1926. Of course, you can grab some popcorn and soda and enjoy both recent releases and classic films there. The pipe organ performances alone are worth the price of admission. It was the first commercial building in Tampa to have air conditioning (man-made air, it was advertised at the time), so it's never a bad idea to get out of the heat. And if you're into those haunts and ghosts that have populated our 31 Nights of Terror, then you absolutely can't afford to miss Tampa Theatre. You see it's also been described by more than one international paranormal expert as the most haunted site in town. Do I have your attention now?
I was invited to take the traditional balcony backstage tour of the building some time ago. These are open to the public often, and I can't recommend it enough if you get the chance. But this one was different. The October tours include a lowdown on the permanent residents at Tampa Theatre. I'm talking about the ghosts. Now I know I have your attention.
Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on October 27th, 2019
One of the joys of my life has been some of the people I have met and developed a relationship with over the years in the film industry. I regret that I never had the opportunity to meet some of the actors who are no longer with us. At the top of that list is Boris Karloff. To me, there is absolutely no equal in horror filmdom. Over the years I've had quite a few chances to hang out with Sara Karloff, his daughter. I'm happy to count her a friend. She was very instrumental in getting me some attention for my tribute song Man Created A Man. She has inherited that kind generosity that Boris was so known for. I had the chance to talk with Sara again. Thanks to the Universal release of the great Universal Monsters Collection on Blu-ray, we got together once again to chat about Boris Karloff. This time you get to eavesdrop, and you won't even have to swear out a warrant. Bang it here to listen to my chat with Sara Karloff: Sara Karloff Interview
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