Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 19th, 2023
"How much do you know about the family business?"
Well, for over 20 years, the family business over at CBS has been the NCIS franchise, and another decade longer if you consider it was a spin-off of JAG, which lasted 10 years on its own. It's been a busy 20 years, I can tell you that. About seven years into the original show's run, we got our first NCIS spin-off with NCIS: Los Angeles. That show focused more on action and a lot of explosions. The show just finished its final year after 14 seasons. Then there was NCIS: New Orleans that brought the focus to the unique culture and tastes of The Big Easy. It lasted seven years, and there's an upcoming NCIS: Sydney which is about to take us down under to grab that shrimp on the barbie. Things continue to expand, and now we have NCIS: Hawai'i, which expands the franchise and solves a situation at CBS. For decades they have kept a Hawaiian studio on the islands. First it was a remake of Hawaii Five-O, and then a remake of Magnum P.I. recreated history just as it happened in the 1970's. Now Magnum is gone once again, and so CBS slid a new NCIS show right into those production facilities. What we have is another unique location and another NCIS crew out there solving Navy crimes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 16th, 2023
In 1995, I remember very vividly going to see Mortal Kombat on the big screen during my summer off from college (when very often I had nothing else to do). I was instantly wowed by all of the characters that I had played with in the first two video games and seeing them brought to screen. The music was absolutely fantastic (and still one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard). However, what I have carried with me most from that experience is my utter love of one character. Johnny Cage. Fast forward nearly thirty years, and we finally have a film where he is the main character and no longer some sort of side gag by all those involved. Let's go to the Cage Match! Join me, won't you?
We start off with a jazz tune in the subway played by Santa Claus. A thief decides to steal from Santa Claus. How dare that guy! The criminal then runs to the closest subway car with nobody willing to stand in his way since he has a gun. Nervous, he gets to the top of subway car to get away from everyone else. But someone is following this cutpurse, and that looks to be a mime?! The mime attacks the thief, who soon demands that the performer say something, anything. But all the mime says is "Mime the Gap." Shortly after that, we hear "CUT!" It would appear that was the wrong line in the script.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 16th, 2023
It's a genuinely rewarding experience when you find a new director that you find intriguing. Mostly because as the consumer, it's then a research project to find everything that person has ever done and then dissect which films you can go find to watch immediately. When I watched Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, I had that experience instantly. I wanted to see more of Rysuke Hamaguchi's films. So I bought a Criterion Blu-ray copy of Drive My Car back in July. Shortly after that, I saw that his student film, Passion, was going to be released by Film Movement on Blu-ray, and I was eager to get a copy. Luckily, I didn't have to wait too long, because the opportunity to review presented itself even before the release date. Let's dive into this film and see the early workings of a true master of the conversation.
Note: I apologize in advance that I'm unable to identify several of the actresses (the roles of Sanae, Marie, and Hana) in this film. Usually I'm spot-on about these things (but there is no information on the internet as to who these women are real-name-wise). If someone knows, please contact me or leave a comment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 11th, 2023
"Jack, we have done our jobs and done them well. This fight was passed down to us and will continue with or without us. But we will always be better than the institutions we serve, and that is what matters when it matters most. There are no heroes in our profession. But occasionally there are good men. Men who act on what is right, not simply doing what they are told to do. I have not always lived my life with honor. But perhaps I have done enough to die with it. I hope the same for you."
Witness the birth of -- actually make that rebirth of --one of the most popular action heroes in literature. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has been a character of many jobs and many faces over the years. Baldwin, Ford, Pine, and Affleck have all stepped into the role of the man who has been a soldier, an analyst, an operative, and a president. What might appear as a clear advantage for this Amazon Prime streaming television show can be just as much a liability. When you throw in the Tom Clancy novels, comic books, and fan fiction, there is a ton of Jack Ryan history that pretty much gives us a story arc from his humble beginnings to extraordinary exploits, and wearing the faces of a few good performers. It's a tall order for the series and perhaps an even taller order for actor John Krasinski, who has created a nice little horror franchise with wife Emily Blunt on the side. I don't really have the time or energy to watch streaming shows and films. There's always a backlog here of discs that need to be watched and reviewed, and I've created a rather comfortable viewing experience with my home theatre I call The Reel World. Our motto: Here there be monsters. So a couple of years ago I had my first experience with this series when Paramount sent the first season on Blu-ray. It was far more of a captivating and compelling series than I expected. Then the second season reached the Blu-ray home platform format, and while I certainly detected a sophomore slump there, there's still enough interesting drama to keep a fan engaged for another year. And what a year it has been. You can find out for yourself with Paramount's release of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Season Three on Blu-ray.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 11th, 2023
"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding, even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes ... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply ... evil."
Blumhouse and David Gordon Green recently finished a sequel/reboot of John Carpenter's Halloween with mixed results. He got Jamie Lee Curtis to return for all three films in the trilogy. Most of the various sequels and reboots did not include the original film's star, but Green was not the first one to get her to return to the role of Laurie Strode. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first film, Curtis returned to the role in the somewhat neglected. It was the seventh overall film in the franchise, and like the recent trilogy, it erased all of the various sequels and claimed to be a continuation of the original film. It produced a respectable $55 million on a $17 million budget and was the next final film in the series before Rob Zombie did his own reboot of the franchise that lasted for two films and finally led up to the David Gordon Green attempt to revisit and pretty much conclude the franchise with three more films. Curtis returned for Halloween Resurrections, which was a kind of meta/reality show take on the material, but Rob Zombie took it back to the beginning. Is that really the end of Michael Myers and company? I doubt it. There's still bank to be made from the franchise, and after a respectable few years, someone else will tackle the tale. Where they will start from is anyone's guess, but they could do worse than look at Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later as a jumping-off point. I doubt anything like that is going to happen, but the franchise could certainly do worse,... and it has.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on October 9th, 2023
When it comes to watching films at the theater, often I will want to see a movie sometimes three, four weeks into their release. The crowds have quieted down, and I can often focus on the movie rather than the person next to me who might be munching on their popcorn a little too loudly or on their cell phone. However, with many films not sticking around as they should, it can often be difficult to make that work. This past Sunday, I was fortunate enough to see A Haunting In Venice, a film that opened in mid-September to honestly rather tepid box office earnings. I had seen Murder on the Orient Express on 4K disc and Death on the Nile with my wife in theaters, so I certainly wanted to see the third film in the Kenneth Branagh's version of Hercule Poirot. So quality time aside, was this film actually worth our matinee dollar, or was it better spent at the local sandwich shop? Let's take a look.
The birds are all aflutter this morning. We happen to be in Venice, Italy, 1947, shortly after the Second World War. The date: October 31st, Halloween. The date is however unbeknown to Hercule Poirot (played by Kenneth Branagh), who has recently retired from his detective work. He wakes up to the sound of death, a fairly common occurrence from his former line of work. Instead of investigating dead bodies, he analyzes his plants as well as the mail. At some point, Hercule decides to venture outside where a mass crowd follows him asking for his advice or how to solve their own murder cases. He declines them all, and the people who decide to be a little more aggressive are dealt with by Hercule's bodyguard (and retired cop) Vitale Portfoglio (played by Riccardo Scamarcio), who is nearby and watching.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 8th, 2023
"What do you think evil is? I'll tell you what I think evil is..."
It's sequels/reboots made by filmmakers who haven't got one single clue what made the original such a classic. The Exorcist was a masterpiece of filmmaking and is truly one of the most compelling horror films even 50 years later. There are a lot of reasons for that. Unfortunately, David Gordon Green couldn't name a single one if you gave him a cheat sheet in one hand and William Friedkin's complete notes in the other. Blum House took a huge risk after they finished their Halloween trilogy. The films were hit and miss with some good moments. But most fans of the original never could completely bond with the films. So Blum House decided they liked this 3 film reboot/sequel idea and took a chance on committing $400 million for a trilogy of The Exorcist. Like the Halloween trilogy it would ignore all but the original film and take it's story directly from that moment onward. On paper it's a pretty solid plan. Both Halloween and The Exorcist have been followed by some pretty bad follow-up films and there's no reason to overcomplicate the mythology by bogging yourself down with all the bad that might have followed. The problem is that you must also avoid BEING the bad that follows. With The Exorcist: Believer David Gordon Green now rules the bad that follows The Exorcist. Believe it or not (pun intended), that's the good news. The bad news is no matter how bad this film is received we're going to get two more. It's part of the commitment and both Blum House and audiences everywhere are stuck with it. And while they have to make the films we don't have to pay our 20 bucks to see films. All I can say is Green should be grateful for streaming because it's the only thing he has left after a film that could use a good exorcism of its own.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on October 7th, 2023
It’s October, so that means all the studios and streaming services are going to be unleashing some spooky new releases to please their viewers who are attempting to get into the Halloween spirit. This weekend Amazon Prime is releasing Totally Killer, a Blumhouse production that continues to ride the wave of 80s nostalgia with a time travel slasher film. The trailers looked fun and with Kiernan Shipka (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) in the lead, and I’m always in the mood for a new slasher with franchise potential. Does the film deliver the goods, or is this one dead on arrival? It’s time to strap in and travel back to 1987 and see what this is all about. In 1987 the town of North Vernon was terrorized by the “the Sweet 16 Killer” after he killed three high school girls, stabbing them sixteen times each. 35 years later, Pam (Julie Bowen) still hasn’t gotten over the murder of her three friends and has become very protective of her teenage daughter, Jamie (Kiernan Shipka). Now it is Halloween night, and Jamie is eager to go to a concert with her best friend, Amelia (Kelcey Mawema). Jamie is only allowed to go if her dad, Blake (Lochlyn Munro) drives them. As it turns out, this was a disastrous decision for Pam, because it’s this night that “the Sweet 16 Killer” has returned to finish what he’s started. In the aftermath of her mom’s death, Jamie goes to the science fair with Amelia. Her big project is to finish what her mother started back in the 80s to create a time machine. Things go awry with another appearance by “the Sweet 16 Killer”, and in an attempt to escape, Jamie is sent back to 1987 just before the murders take place.
OK, the first act of this film has a lot of narrative to set things up. I enjoyed the world that was being created here, and there are some fun characters, but when it comes to the horror elements of this film, well, to be fair, they are basically Goosebumps-level scares, but it’s only the first thirty minutes of the film, so I haven’t given up hope yet …
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 6th, 2023
"My Mamma told me to pick the right one."
In 1982, Cheers first broke on the network sitcom circuit. It was a small Boston bar owned by a has-been baseball player living on the glory years he didn't really have. It was the bar where everyone knows your name. Behind the bar there was Woody. Woody was pretty much a kid who looked up to the owner in an almost hero-like way. He was naive and was easily and often taken for a rube. But he was kind, and no matter how out of it he might be, there wasn't an evil bone in that character's body. It was all an act. Of course, it was a television show where Woody was played by Woody Harrelson. For crying out loud, even their first names were the same. It wasn't hard for us to believe the two Woodys were one and the same. I know I did. It was an act, sure, but I didn't know it was that good an act. We all found out just how good of an actor Woody Harrelson was when he stripped away kind, innocent Woody the bartender and took on the vicious role of Mickey Knox in in Oliver Stone's brutal film Natural Born Killers. Later we found out that the actor's father was a convicted hitman for the mob and was busted trying to take out a judge. Today Harrelson has proven his awesome range over and over again in dozens of impressive performances. But in 1994, I wasn't prepared for Natural Born Killers or Mickey Knox, and so it's a film that has remained seared in my brain since that day.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 6th, 2023
Paul Schrader is one of my cinematic heroes and despite his numerous accolades I feel he’s one of the most underappreciated artists to work in film. He has a way of capturing the underbelly of society through his writing and visuals that very few can equal. When he and Martin Scorsese worked together on Taxi Driver that was such a perfect pairing, it’s Schrader’s best screenplay he’s ever produced, and I know this is a controversial take but I feel it’s also Scorsese’s best film. Hardcore would be the second film that Schrader would go on to direct, eventually he’d end up with 27 directing credits, but Hardcore for me is his standout film where he worked as both writer and director. This film isn’t for everyone and despite it being released in 1979 the subject matter remains provocative but for those willing to take a walk into some seedy areas this is film that will take you for a ride you won’t soon forget.
The film opens up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Schrader immerses us into the day to day life in this middle of America town and we meet Jake VanDorn (George C. Scott). Jake is a successful business man, he runs his own furniture company and is a devout Calvinist. Seeing the conservative values on display at the start of the film is important, and though we don’t see a lot of interaction between Jake and his daughter, Kristen (Ilah Davis), these moments that we see Kristen with her family and with the church group show us that she at least seemed happy and well “innocent”. The decent for the VanDorn family comes when Kristen goes on trip with her church group to California and she goes missing. Was she kidnapped? Did she runaway? No one has an answer and this leads Jake to travel to California and he hires a private investigator, Andy Mast (Peter Boyle) to find out what he can about Kristen.
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