Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 25th, 2010
Oh how the rich can get into mischief. This DVD set is smack dab in the middle of Dynasty's successful nine season run. The mud slinging, both literal and figurative, was at its height in this fourth season, and no $200 haircut or $1000 outfit was left unruffled by the various scandals and plots set into the web of these wealthy Denver residents. In fact, this season was the one and only time this series won a Golden Globe for best TV Drama.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on February 24th, 2010
Upcoming Titles for Xbox Live Arcade, Final Fantasy XIII reviews, & Apple gets rough on IPhone Apps? - Welcome to the column that will only be kid friendly to those who just got out of juvenile detention known as Dare to Play the Game.
After about four months and probably more mentions on this column than you care about, I finally have all of the achievement points in WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010. The last achievement I had left was the training checklist. The training checklist is a nice way to learn all of the moves except you have to use the Create a Moveset to modify some of the wrestlers top open up everything.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2010
William Conrad was no stranger to audiences when Cannon joined the Quinn Martin stable of television dramas. In fact, most folks knew his voice before they got to know his trademark girth. Conrad was the original Matt Dillon when Gunsmoke was a radio drama. When the drama entered the visual medium of television, even Conrad admitted later that the audience, who thought of him as tall and handsome, would have been disappointed. His voice lent authority to any role he played, and on radio his size was never an issue. He was famous as the voice of the stern narrator in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons who often crossed the laws of the trade and interacted with the title characters. He was also the voice that narrated the struggles of Dr. Richard Kimble on The Fugitive, another Quinn Martin production. He continued to narrate series intros even after his own success. He gave us the informative opening dialog in Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. As a voice, Conrad was one of the best, but when CBS approached Quinn Martin asking for a television vehicle for Conrad, it was a huge gamble. The gamble, of course, paid off… well… huge, and Cannon became an iconic figure in television. Cannon was so popular he was showing up on other shows as well. He appeared on the pilot for Barnaby Jones. The show ran 5 seasons and returned with appropriately enough The Return Of Frank Cannon tele-film in 1980. It is also interesting to note that Conrad, while greatly overweight, lived to be 74.
Frank Cannon was unlike any detective we’d ever seen on television before, or since. He was known as a high priced PI with a taste for the finer things in life, particularly fine food. His appearance was counter to all of the rules about rock-jawed handsome detectives who ran around shooting it out and beating up the bad guys. Cannon was a big man and wasn’t about to do much running and fighting. He wasn’t totally different, however. Cannon had a lead foot and could run a car chase with the best of them. He was smart and often a bit flashy in his technique, if not in his appearance. It was also rare for a series to have a lone regular to carry the … um… weight. Conrad was up to the task and made the show and the character a permanent part of our pop culture.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2010
Just to look at it you would think that My 3 Sons was a Disney production. Its star Fred MacMurray had appeared in many Disney films of the 50’s and 60’s and is most likely recognizable from those appearances. Two of the three boys were also known for work with Disney. The eldest boy, Mike, was played by Tim Considine, who starred with MacMurray in Disney’s The Shaggy Dog. Middle son Robbie was played by a former Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer, Don Grady. The youngest son, Chip, was played by Stanley Livingston, the only non Disney alum in that group. Another reason for the confusion is the decidedly Disney-like material the series covered. Steve Douglas (MacMurray) was a widowed single parent who was trying to balance his job with that of raising his three sons. Most of the stories involved the warm and fuzzy heartwarming stuff that Disney had pretty much cornered the market on in the films. Whatever troubles arose, no problem was so bad that a heart to heart talk couldn’t fix it. The style would prosper and continue in the form of 70’s shows like The Brady Bunch. The four guys were also joined by Steve’s father-in-law, Bud, played by I Love Lucy favorite William Frawley. That was no surprise, since the show was actually produced, not by Disney, but the Desilu studios.
My 3 Sons was for some time the second longest running sit-com on television. It lasted from 1960 until 1972. The series would undergo major changes as the boys each grew older and eventually married and led their own lives. Frawley would also become very ill after 5 years and leave the show. His replacement, William Demarest as Uncle Charley, is likely better known in the show. The syndicated version of the show often ignored these early black and white versions of the series, opting for the later color ones that featured the Uncle Charley character. It’s very likely you’ve never seen these early episodes as they appeared infrequently in the syndicated markets. The theme from Frank DeVol became pretty popular in the mid 60’s and even entered the pop charts at one time. The show also originally ran on ABC, but moved to CBS in 1965, also accounting for the different syndication packages. It was during that move that many of these big changes occurred.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2010
Night Court appeared on the docket at NBC in 1984 and was to last 8 seasons. If you thought it looked and sounded a lot like Barney Miller, you won’t be surprised to learn that a number of key people, including creator Reinhold Weege, came from that classic cop comedy. Several key elements of Miller can be found in Night Court. The themes are almost identical, with both beginning with an easily identifiable bass run. The most important imported element from Miller was the constant parade of the kookiest and craziest criminals this side of the Cuckoo’s Nest. From a hick farmer played by then beginner Brent Spiner to hookers with hearts, Night Court relied heavily on the eccentric character to provide most of its laughs.
Harry Stone (Anderson) is a young hip judge who almost blunders into a judgeship of a Manhattan evening session courtroom. The role appears tailor-fit for Anderson’s style of humor. The character even retained Anderson’s flair for amateur magic. He was always trying to bring levity to even the most dire of circumstances. Joining him in his courtroom was prosecutor Dan Fielding, played by the extremely funny John Larroquette. He was a material man with an overactive lust for the ladies. He was self centered and always looking to gain from someone else’s misfortune. He would often find himself having to suck up to the young judge, who he found too footloose with the law. His groveling always brought the judge a perverse pleasure. The court was presided over by two bailiffs. Bull was played by Richard Moll. He was a mountain of a man with a bald head. While he might look and act like a monster who would eat little babies, he was in fact, a gentle and often childish character with an IQ lower than his shoe size. His partner and mentor was Selma, played by the raspy-voiced Selma Diamond. Selma was a no-nonsense, say what she wanted to, chain smoking authority in the courtroom. Unfortunately, Diamond passed away after the second season. Replacing the gruff character and actress was Florence Halop playing Florence Kleiner, but she would only last this season. Charles Robinson joined the cast in the second year as the court’s new clerk. He was likely the most “normal” member of the cast. Throughout its run there were a rather large number of actresses to play the public defender role in the series. Eventually that role went to Markie Post, who kept it for the longest time. In season two it was Billy Young playing a very awkward Ellen Foley. The character never clicks with any of the others, and she would also be gone at the season’s conclusion.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2010
So what's the Scooby Gang up to this time, you might ask. We meet Velma's younger sister for the first time here. Young Madelyn has been off studying magic at the Whirlin Merlin Magic Academy. It seems a giant mythological griffin has been stalking the halls of the old school. So who ya gonna call? Scooby and the gang conduct the usual investigation, uncovering the usual suspects.
Scooby Doo has spanned generations and over 40 years. Since the 1960’s the name and conventions have become a part of the pop culture. The original cartoon series had a series of conventions. The Scooby Gang would drive around in their green Mystery Machine van and solve ghostly mysteries. Fans of the show quickly grew to learn that these spirits and goblins were usually just normal people using scare tactics to get revenge or make a profit. The cartoon classic spawned music albums, live action movies, and several new shows and animated features.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 23rd, 2010
They say that history is written by the winners. The winners are the ones who fought and the ones who conquered this great land of ours. In reality, history comes from all walks of life, it is unfortunate some are not able to write about it. But once in a while, you find people out there who are able to collect the ideas and tales and weave them into a book. That book will then sell many copies and influence a generation.
Howard Zinn was born in 1922 during the roaring twenties. His youth saw the Depression, the New Deal, and he even participated in World War II as a bombardier. In 1964, he accepted a position at Boston University to teach civil liberties and political science. For many years, he was asked to give advice on finding a history book that was fair and spoke the truth. He didn’t really have an answer until 1980 when he decided to write one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 23rd, 2010
Nia Vardalos casts herself across from her My Big Fat Greek Wedding love interest James Corbett, in an attempt to rekindle the magic that was the unlikely Big Fat phenomenon. As star, writer, and director, the weight of the film falls onto her shoulders and thankfully she has enough carry to drag a rather sparse plot from beginning to end with a some genuine laughs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 22nd, 2010
Remember the blaxploitation films of the 1970's? These films generally played on the ghetto stereotypes that would likely not be as well tolerated today. The films were populated with fur-adorned pimps driving in purple Caddys. The street language was almost indiscernible. The black population sat around drinking from large malt liquor bottles in brown paper bags. In a day where almost every potential racist remark is pounced upon, it's hard to imagine that this kind of thing could have existed at all. But the point was that these films weren't feeding into the stereotypes for the most part. They were making fun of them. They were showing us how ridiculous they looked when taken to such extreme. What's more, the films offered the first real star vehicles for so many talented black actors. Certainly, the genre has always had its detractors, but they never seemed to cause a stir among the members of black leadership. The truth is that these films no more depicted black culture than mafia movies depict Italian culture. It's just a lot of fun to poke fun. You gotta let your hair down, or frizz out, sometimes.
The genre was important during the time and its influence began to be felt in mainstream pictures of the era. Characters like these began to show up everywhere. Starsky And Hutch was a white cop , but their streets were often populated with these characters, most notably the Huggy Bear snitch. Even James Bond suspended his international fight with global domination crooks to tackle a gang of blaxploitation drug dealers in Live And Let Die. In the 1970's you couldn't get away from it. Some of these films became huge. Shaft and Super Fly became huge hits. The recently departed Rudy Ray Moore created Dolemite, a bad Kung Fu/kick butt and take names, F Bomb droppin' bad dude. There's no question that Moore's character was a huge influence on Black Dynamite.
![Black Dynamite [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/black-dynamite-blu-ray-large.jpg)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 22nd, 2010
When the original 1987 film The Stepfather came our way, the world was a very different place. Of course, that's true with any titles that are separated by nearly 25 years of time. When reboots or remakes are attempted, as they all too frequently are today, it is often true that some allowances must be made for those inevitable changes in our world. Filmmakers attempt to make whatever adjustments they deem fit and bring the old favorite, or not so favorite, into our current collective consciousness. Like all things, sometimes it works. More often it does not work. And then there are those occasions where it simply could never work. The Stepfather was released just at the dawn of this new instant information age. In 1987 most public records weren't available at the click of a mouse. There weren't social networks and Google options that allowed any normal person to become a private investigator. Put simply, it was a time when a person could still step into a new persona and leave his past acts behind him. Certainly, the ambitious could still research someone, but that required dusty basements in newspaper offices or library microfiche. The idea so essential to the suspense and thrill of The Stepfather simply no longer exists. The only way a remake could have really been effective was to make it a period piece and set it in the 70's or 80's, if not earlier. A ten year old kid can get the goods on you now. Here David doesn't appear to be concerned at all about fingerprints and DNA.
The original film had more than a slower information age going for it. Terry O'Quinn delivered one of the creepiest performances of his career. Yeah, that's the same Lost John Locke Terry O'Quinn, so it shouldn't be that hard for you to imagine an enigmatic performance. Even in 1987 the idea wasn't terribly original. There were enough stalker films by then that the concepts were already tired and worn. What made that film work more than anything was that performance. I remember particularly a moment, badly reproduced here, when O'Quinn's character stops and looks blankly at the camera and says, "Who am I here?" O'Quinn gives us a look that totally defines the hideous pathos of his character, and in that instant we realize how dangerously deluded he really is. It wasn't the back story. It wasn't the body count leading up to that moment. It was all in that look. It sent a shiver through the stoutest spine. And it is that element that is completely absent here. Dylan Walsh is a fine enough actor, and his performance is solid, but he never truly frightened me. Without that glue, the pieces of this remake simply cannot hold together.
![The Stepfather [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-stepfather-blu-ray-large.jpg)
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