Written and directed by Richard Brooks, 1971’s Dollars is a weird, freewheeling genre mash-up — part heist flick drama, part screwball character comedy. Parts work, parts don’t, but it’s still an instructive watch, if mainly to suss out how genre filmmaking has changed over the past 35 years.

A Nebraska-born con man working abroad in Hamburg as a security consultant, Joe Collins (Warren Beatty, sporting a Rod Blagojevich-esque helmet of hair) crafts a plan for a bank heist with ditsy hooker Dawn Divine (Goldie Hawn), whose line of work puts her in contact with a shady, money-skimming army sergeant (Scott Brady), a German drug dealer/assassin (Arthur Brauss) and a Vegas mobster (Robert Webber), among others. Operating under the assumption that criminals can’t squeal to the cops if their ill-gotten gains suddenly go missing from a safety deposit box, Joe concocts a scheme by which he and Dawn target only the secret stashes of the aforementioned crooks. After Dawn phones in a fake bomb/theft threat, Joe locks himself in the bank’s vault and deftly avoids the timed, oscillating security camera, emptying a trio of safety deposit boxes into one opened by Dawn, who arrives to empty it the next day, after news coverage of the phony foiled theft. But when these thugs realize they’ve been double-crossed, Dawn and Joe must run for their lives in order to keep the loot.

And when I say run, I mean that seriously. There’s a lot of set-up here… more than an hour’s worth of character stuff (we get to know all the marks, individually), and plenty of faux-scenic dawdling. But when the movie stretches its third act legs, it gets even more bizarre, culminating in an over-the-river-and-through-the-woods finale that finds Joe, hot suitcase in hand, fleeing through snow on foot, in car and in train. This sequence goes on forever, to absurdly comic lengths. Perhaps this is part of some subtextual point, running parallel to the movie’s character-based comedy, but given that overall Dollars treats the heist stuff rather seriously this seems somewhat doubtful.

Brooks, a 1961 Oscar winner for Best Screenplay for Elmer Gantry, crafts a nice character for Beatty, and has a deft touch with dialogue to boot. There’s some tart double entendres about “boxes,” and the film may be — I’m not totally sure — the original source of the infamous, frat-friendly quote, “One thing that doesn’t belong in her mouth is words.” But Dawn Divine is thinly sketched, and Hawn’s portrayal — distractably flitting to and fro — is overly broad and not rooted in any recognizable choice of character or background. Joe and Dawn’s motivations are parceled out in big, manic monologues, and the film feels flimsy when it tries to milk Dawn’s angsty doubt for comedy. (Terrible ADR in a couple scenes sure doesn’t help, either.) Things work a lot better, and feel more natural, when Brooks is trading in small, telling details, like a nervous bank employee slipping a cigarette into his mouth the wrong end first, or Joe concocting an at-moment’s-notice fib to get out of some unanticipated questioning. One thing’s for sure — Hollywood heist movies, like Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s series, have gone slick, and grown much more convoluted. But there’s a plenty rich screen history of cracked, cocksure slightly eccentric grifters and white-collar smooth operators, as Dollars proves.

Housed in a regular Amray plastic case, Dollars comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital English and French audio tracks, and optional subtitles in both languages as well. The billed supplemental extras here are pretty slight — they amount to the movie’s theatrical trailer and a minute-long “Martini Movies Collection” (the banner under which this title was released) promo clip that ends with a martini recipe. To purchase Dollars via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) C- (Disc)

Despite being directed by a guy with the first name Nimrod, 2007’s Vacancy, a thriller about the dangers of leaving the comfortable asphalt confines of the
interstate, managed to locate some primal,
gut-level reactions to darkness, jarring noise, faceless killers and
the like. Its straight-to-DVD sequel jumps back to the beginning of the bare-bones mythology laid out in that film, sketching out another stalking tale of very bad acts at a desolate hotel — this time in the form of some peeping Toms who catch a psychotic killer in the act, and then decide to enter into a black-market snuff film pact with him.

At the end of the first film, authorities shut down the remote Pinewood Motel after discovering over 200 videotaped murders on the premises. Vacancy 2: The First Cut charts how the grisly terror began, fleshing out a tale that’s three parts barbarism to one part unlikely opportunism. Suspecting only a night of hard beds and tacky decor, Caleb (Trevor
Wright), his sexy new fiancée Jessica (Agnes Bruckner) and his
sarcastic best friend Tanner (Arjay Smith, very much the token black
guy), the ultimate strange third wheel, check into a rundown rural inn. They have no idea that it’s not
just another lonely motel, but in fact a horrific trap where guests are
brutally tortured and murdered while the sadistic Smith (Scott G. Anderson, reprising his homicidal character from the original movie) and his greedy accomplices, Gordon and Reece (David Moscow and Brian Klugman), film the grisly slayings for profit. Caught in
a deadly game of cat and mouse, the three young friends now must fight
to survive. Can they outwit the deranged killers and escape the roadside trap by morning, or will their fate be forever sealed on video cassette?

Vacancy 2 works in a couple good, or at least good-ish, head feints, including an elongated set-up that introduces a just-wed couple who don’t get axed. Gordon and Reece, you see, are at first just into taping sex acts of randy travelers passing through; it’s Smith who whets their appetite for artery-severing mayhem, after they catch him in the fact of murdering a prostitute. While narratively improbable, I give the movie some credit for piecing things together in a way that interestingly fits with the original film. There’s also some decent performances here, considering the laid track of the script. Still, it remains undeniable that certain character combinations and actions make no sense, be it a honeymooning couple who lay over on a whim or the fact that Tanner is even around in the first place. Also, director Eric Bross (Restaurant, Ten Benny), while slipping in a few moments of downbeat menace, can’t fully resist the impulse to cram in a couple thunderously stupid scene cappers — one early sequence ends with a character menacingly stabbed a dart onto a nearby countertop, and intoning, in chilly fashion, “Let’s get to work.” I mean… really? Do killers, or even those who have yet to kill, say stuff like that?

Housed in a regular Amray plastic case, Vacancy 2: The First Cut is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Owing to its whopping slate of Dolby digital 5.1 audio tracks — six different languages, plus a group commentary track — the DVD is fairly slow to navigate, unfortunately. And that grates. Subtitles in seven languages are also available, so if you speak only Thai but still really like stalking American horror pictures of contained space, then by all means this is right up your alley.

In addition to a collection of deleted scenes, two making-of featurettes are included, including a 13-minute general-interest/behind-the-scenes piece and a stand-alone seven-minute bit that examines the construction of the movie’s exterior inn location. The most engaging supplemental inclusion, however, might be a feature-length group audio commentary track consisting of actors Moscow and Bruckner, director Bross, executive producer Brian Paschal and producer Hal Lieberman. Sharing anecdotes of rampant poison oak outbreaks amongst cast and crew, this lively chat-fest covers a lot of ground. It’s perhaps a bit eyeroll-inducing when Bross starts talking about the “continually shifting balance of power between the antagonists,” the contrast in visual levels, and how certain framing (in the door jamb of a car, for instance) is designed to evoke a “V,” for the movie’s title. Still, there’s some fun, engaging stuff here; it’s not all just empty back-patting. For the movie’s trailer, click here; to purchase the DVD via Amazon, meanwhile, click here. C (Movie) B- (Disc)

A screwball-style, Hollywood-tweaking romantic comedy starring William H. Macy and Meg Ryan, version 2.0, The Deal is a movie that overcomes one of the most terribly obvious PhotoShopped covers of recent memory, as well as a back cover that misspells the name of one of its main characters. In addition to affording screen capture enthusiasts more opportunities to gawk at Macy’s bare ass, the film gives its talented multi-hyphenate a fun chance to play roguish and oblivious. Put it on the front end of a double bill with a Chinese takeout buffet and David Mamet’s State and Main, also starring Macy, and you have yourself a pleasant little evening.

Adapted by Macy and director Steven Schachter from Peter Lefcourt’s book of the same name, The Deal opens with despondent, washed-up Hollywood producer Charlie Berns (Macy) trying to off himself, only to be interrupted by his nephew Lionel (Jason Ritter), an idealistic screenwriter who’s penned a script about former British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. Seizing on the touted desires of Bobby Mason (LL Cool J, standing in for, oh, Vin Diesel, let’s say), a meatheaded action star and recent convert to Judiasm, to delve into more Jewish-centric material, Berns gets it in his head to take Lionel’s earnest, wholly uncommercial script and turn it into a wildly reimagined, thunderously stupid “freedom fighter” biopic. Wheeling and dealing, planting bogus stories of a bidding war in the trades, Charlie gets a hit-hungry studio desperate to get onboard a Mason picture to snap up the screenplay, and he then shrewdly taps Mason’s manager for rewrite duties. Along the way, Charlie becomes enamored with Deidre Hearn (Ryan), the slightly stuffy, self-serious development executive assigned to fast track the project.

Beginning with the second act, The Deal pivots to South Africa (where it was actually entirely filmed), chronicling the making of Berns and Hearn’s movie, where all sorts of various emergencies flare up, from a temperamental director to a nervous star. With cost-conscious studio execs already circling, Mason gets kidnapped by Muslim extremists. Things look bleak, but an emboldened Deidre finally comes around to Charlie’s damn-the-consequences style, and convinces him to take part in an on-the-fly refashioning of the movie as a legitimate arthouse endeavor.

The Deal‘s dialogue has a nice, ’30s-style patter to it, whether in incidental, passing fancy (“Good job, Hun,” says Charlie, walking past a costumed marauder on the studio lot) or the many scenes in which Charlie tries (and eventually succeeds in) getting into Deidre’s power-suit pants. Not everything works. In fact, the whole kidnapped-movie-star bit was much more effectively played out in last summer’s Tropic Thunder; here it’s just a throwaway gag — albeit a big, plot-shifting one — and then we’re off and running in another direction, never to actually see Mason’s character again. If that sort of abrupt, tacks-underneath-the-tires narrative switcheroo — where you think you’re headed one way, narratively speaking, only to be suddenly thrust in another direction — seems a bit like the storytelling equivalent of sand in the eyes during a playground fight, in the end it doesn’t much matter. Wry and dirty-minded, Macy absolutely steamrolls scenes, and if there’s a big tonal misstep midway through that unnecessarily tries to bring shading to his character — a maudlin sequence where Charlie finds out about the marriage of his adult daughter — most of the movie is content to just let Macy hoodwink folks, like a shrugging, devil-may-care loafer. That’s a plenty good deal, it turns out.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case with a deep-set, single circular nesting notch, The Deal comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks. Apart from the theatrical trailer for the movie, the only other bonus feature is a 17-minute making-of featurette. It’s chock full of interviews from all the major players, both on screen and off, but Macy holds forth with many of the best ruminations, positing that Hollywood is for the most part a microcosm of society, and also that a writer watching a movie get made from his book is a bit like watching someone make love to one’s wife. “What are they supposed to say,” Macy jokes. “‘Good job?'” There’s also a digital download copy of the film included on the disc, for rip-and-play portability. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Written by Tom Malloy (who also co-stars in the film), The Alphabet Killer is a decently gripping psychological thriller loosely based on the still-unsolved “double initial” murders that shocked the citizens of Rochester, New York in the early 1970s. The details of the true story? From 1970 to 1973, three girls in and around Rochester were brutally raped and strangled, their bodies dumped in neighboring villages that bore the same first initial as their names. All three victims’ — young girls, aged 10 to 12 — first and last names also had matching initials. Despite the questioning of more than 800 suspects and the combined police resources of several communities, the case remains unsolved to this day.



In the film, Eliza Dushku stars Megan Paige, a police investigator whose commitment to the job borders on obsession. Megan and her partner, Lt. Ken Shine (Cary Elwes), are assigned to investigate the murder of a young girl named Carla Castillo, whose body is found in the nearby town of Churchville. Despite Megan’s considerable efforts, her inability to catch the killer leads to a nervous breakdown, eventually causing her to lose her fiancée, her career in law enforcement career, and her grip on reality.

Two years later, Megan is back at the police department, albeit in a demoted position. With the help of a mental illness support group headed by Richard Ledge (Timothy Hutton), Megan is slowly getting her life back on track. But when two more young girls are murdered with the same “alphabet” modus operandi, Megan becomes convinced the same serial killer has resurfaced. Battling hallucinations of the dead girls — as well as distrust from her colleagues — Megan dives back into the case, determined to bring the culprit to justice. With few leads and fewer concrete suspects, can she catch the “Alphabet Killer” before another victim is found?

There are hints of Flesh and Bone to this thriller, believe it or not, as well as some unreliable narrator/Insomnia-type shiftiness that Malloy craftily works in. (In this regard, the movie earns its stripes as part of a perfectly nutty Dushku double-dip, alongside the recent Nobel Son.) Director Rob Schmidt, who previously worked with Dushku on the thriller Wrong Turn, shoots the affair in a fairly straightforward fashion, but also has a nice sense of when to slow-play things to string along the tension. Dushku, who’s set to return to the small screen next month in the upcoming Fox series Dollhouse, does a fairly decent job overall, but also leans on a few mannered, TV acting tics that help keep her performance from being more of a naturalistic, rooted thing. If there’s a codifying strength here, other than the creepy fact that this is a speculative thriller, rooted in fact, it’s the movie’s superb supporting cast — the aforementioned bit players, plus Tom Noonan, recent Oscar nominee Melissa Leo, Larry Hankin, Bill Moseley, Jack McGee and Michael Ironside. They help give the film a sense of depth, and genuineness, that eludes a lot of straight-to-video crime dramas.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover with matching art, The Alphabet Killer is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track. Two audio commentaries highlight the DVD’s special features. The first is with producer Isen Robbins and director Schmidt (Crime + Punishment in Suburbia, the “Masters of Horror” series hour-long flick Right to Die), the latter of whom talks some about his cameo in the film as a cop who discovers a body in a rock quarry. Also, somewhat uncomfortably and hilariously, Schmidt picks the exact moment of Dushku’s brief topless scene to say “It felt like the right time for her to play a woman.” The audio commentary track with writer-producer-actor Malloy is thankfully much more interesting and engaging. In breathless fashion, Malloy drops mad anecdotes and mundane details alike (Elwes wearing his BlueTooth in a scene), as well as pointing out his mother’s filing secretary cameo. In more substantive monologues, he expounds upon the themes of “man versus self” (or woman, really) in the movie; he also drops an amusing sideways crack on Ralph Fiennes when he touts co-star Noonan’s work in Manhunter.

Finally, wrapping up the slate of bonus material is a three-minute, time-coded, alternate version of the movie’s opening scene — an investigatory traipse through the woods by Dushku and Elwes — and a completely pointless six-minute featurette that strings together a bunch of behind-the-scenes footage under music. Some of the latter material looks interesting on the surface, but without some context or linking interviews, however, this tells us nothing of substance about the movie. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

His life in shambles, despondent Henry Poole (Luke Wilson)
buys an abode in the same suburban, tract-house Los Angeles neighborhood where he
somewhat unhappily grew up, amidst the constant din of his parents’ arguments. Quietly withdrawn, Henry just wants to stew in his own juices, and be left alone, but one of his new neighbors, the slightly nosy
but well-meaning Esperanza (Babel‘s Adriana Barraza), happens upon a stain on his newly painted, outdoor stucco wall that she believes is the face of Christ, and thus imbued with special powers. Henry regards this as a bunch of silliness, but more interactions with those around him — including divorcée Dawn (Radha Mitchell), whose eight-year-old daughter, Millie (Morgan Lily) has stopped speaking ever since her parents’ break-up — slowly draw him out of his insular shell.

Henry Poole Is Here is directed by Mark Pellington, a filmmaker with a deep music video catalogue (including Pearl Jam’s groundbreaking “Jeremy” clip) who’s always been a master of atmosphere and mood, most notably with The Mothman Prophecies. Here, though, he rolls the dice on a much more personal story, and succeeds in crafting what is overall a fairly affecting movie about emotional waywardness and the heavy psychological lifting of substantive interpersonal reflection. The target is smaller, but Pellington’s extraordinary skill at marrying artful image and emotional content help Henry Poole
avoid a lot of treacly downward drag, and elevate the emotional punch
of debut screenwriter Albert Torres’ script, which is enough of a blank
canvas to allow one to project onto it their own feelings of
forlornness. The only nagging demerit? There’s a plummy, surface quality to Wilson’s moroseness and sullenness; watching the movie, one thinks about the deeper reservoirs of swallowed sadness that someone like Ryan Gosling could have conveyed with this role, and how those extra pangs of despair would have provided an even greater catharsis.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case in turn stored in a flat-faced (i.e., no raised text) cardboard slipcover, Henry Poole Is Here allows viewers the option of a full-frame or 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, the latter of which obviously preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. A Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound track anchors the audio options, and optional Spanish and English SDH subtitles are also included. A feature-length audio commentary track with Pellington and Torres underscores the deeply felt personal pull of the material for each man; they talk about the slight changes and tweaks from inception to actualization, and their feelings both about the collaboration in general and the themes the movie explores. Pellington is an especially intelligent and persuasive advocate for the work — smart and passionate, but not given to pointy-headed intellectual diatribes. He opens up a bit about his heartrending offscreen loss (his wife died suddenly, leaving him a widower and the single father of a three-year-old girl), and how therapeutic the movie was for him.

Further personal testimonials come in a solidly produced, 16-minute making-of featurette, which includes interviews with all of the primary cast and crew. Other special features include theatrical trailers for Henry Poole and three other Anchor Bay DVD releases, as well as two short music videos — one for James Grundler’s “All Roads Lead Home,” and another, directed by Pellington, for MySpace.com theme song contest winner Ron Irizarry. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B (Disc)