Winner of the Best First Feature prize at the Independent Spirit Awards, Rocket Science isn’t jet-propelled, that’s for sure. The very loosely autobiographical narrative feature debut of writer-director Jeffrey Blitz, the helmer of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Spellbound, this criminally under-appreciated little gem from last year is a slow-burning comedy of coming-of-age frustration. Like its predecessor, it’s also a work interested in the weight of words, and the power attached to them — especially by adolescents.
The quick wit of lanky high school introvert Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson, above left) is masked by his stuttering problem, which dooms him to outcast status. Ambitious, hyper-articulate Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick, above right) senses something in him, though, and recruits Hal to the school’s high-powered debate team. A warped romantic awakening ensues, though Ginny eventually manipulates Hal to her own ends, leading him to team up with an older, brilliant dropout — Ginny’s ex-partner, Ben (Nicholas D’Agosto) — in an effort to wow the judges at the New Jersey state championship.
The supporting characters around Hal — from his snarling, obsessive-compulsive kleptomaniac brother Earl (Vincent Piazza), to his fractured mom’s new boyfriend (Stephen Park), the judge father of a classmate — are all terrifically sketched, and the underplayed exchanges with them give the movie the feel of a slowly developing Polaroid; it grows more substantial and rewarding as it goes along. Blitz has a deft touch with dialogue, and realizes that in life, but especially adolescence, everyone is the star of their own story, and motivated by self-interest.
Housed in a regular Amray case, Rocket Science comes presented in letter-boxed 16×9 widescreen, with English 5.1 and Spanish 2.0 Dolby audio tracks, and optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. Apart from a paper insert touting other Picturehouse/HBO Films DVD releases, and a three-minute music video for Clem Snide and Eef Barzelay’s “I Love the Unknown,” the only supplemental bonus feature on the DVD is a 13-minute making-of featurette. While this behind-the-scenes production sketch — including interviews with Thompson, Kendrick, Piazza, D’Agosto and Aaron Yoo, as well as Blitz — is nicely done, and packed with solid information from a cast who, collectively and individually, really get the material, even more from Blitz would have been warmly welcome. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) C (Disc)
Category Archives: Blu-ray/DVD Reviews
The Independent
Every once in a while, a heretofore unknown little indie flick punches through and does its job so well that it simply puts a big smile on your face. Such is the case with co-writers Mike Wilkins and Stephen Kessler’s The Independent, a smart, savvy, funny and colorful send-up of indie-world angst and elbow grease as filtered through the story of an aging producer-director.
Produced in 2000 but just finally released on DVD by Allumination Filmworks, The Independent stars Jerry Stiller as Morty Fineman, a wildly prolific and equally headstrong director known for cranking out “social message” flicks (Twelve Angry Men and A Baby, Bald Justice, The Man With Two Things) that blend exploitative and/or commercial elements with from-the-heart if on-the-nose sentiment. From his debut movie, The Simplex Complex (“the first film about herpes the Army ever made”), on through 427 productions, Morty has lived, breathed and eaten movies, even using a promotional gimmick contest attached to one of his productions, Diaper Service, to name his then-newborn son. (The unfortunate result: “Rat Fuck” Fineman.)
When his latest production, the euthanasia-touting Mrs. Kevorkian (starring B-movie queen Julie Strain, lampooning her own reputation), is shut down, though, Morty finds himself broke, so he and his longtime assistant (Max Perlich) turn to Morty’s semi-estranged daughter Paloma (Janeane Garofalo) to try to help find a way to save the company. The bank through which he finances his movies offers Morty a deal on the rights for his library (“$8 a pound…”), reasoning that television is a meat grinder, and Fineman makes decent enough sausage. Morty, though, balks. He’s an auteur, and his movies are his babies. Convinced that he’s just one begged-favor festival slot away from redemption, Morty plugs ahead, the prime example of underdog persistence.
The Independent bills itself, not unjustly, as being in the tradition of Bowfinger and Waiting for Guffman, but what’s perhaps most pleasing is the manner in which its makers’ obvious affection for the indie filmmaking world shines through. Yes, the movie is filled with interviews from Morty’s celebrity friends and clips from his 30 years of films, and told in a cinema verité style which follows Morty and Paloma as they try to find the money to help him complete his latest work. For lesser creative minds, this could mean cut corners galore — merely a phony “cure-all” for a lack of money. But The Independent makes smart use of different film stocks when dipping back in time, and generally features great on-the-fly production value; the clips of Morty’s old movies, meanwhile — films like the biker-chick flick Eco Angels, or the anti-war Brothers Divided, about conjoined twins drafted to serve in Vietnam — are both overwhelmingly hilarious and dead-on in their referential aping of cinematic vocabulary and tropes, better than a few of Grindhouse‘s skeevy mock trailers. Even the movie’s throwaway dialogue (“How could the check bounce, I
signed it?!”) is clever and of a piece, feeding the grand-scheme
assessment of Morty and the rest of the movie’s characters. Powered by great performances and filled with plenty of recognizable faces (everyone from Karen Black, Peter Bogdanovich, Nick Cassavetes and Ron Howard to Billy Burke, Bob Odenkirk, Fred Dryer, Andy Dick, the younger Stiller and the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten), it’s hard to figure out why The Independent got hung up so long in home distribution hell, let alone why it labors in anonymity. Regardless, it’s a great little find now, though.
Housed in a regular Amray case, The Independent comes presented in anamorphic widescreen, with optional Spanish subtitles. Stiller sits for an engaging audio commentary track with co-writers Wilkins and Kessler, the latter of whom also directs, and Kessler also submits to a more technical-minded commentary track with editor Chris Franklin. There are also seven deleted scenes with introductory title cards, including a different version of the movie’s opening, featuring Monte Ash and Maria Ford, that had to be re-shot due to what’s deemed first-day tensions from union bickering. The other half dozen scenes feature the late Ted Demme, Laura Kightlinger (who invites a Stiller boob grope, then berates him), and a spot-on send-up of ’70s-era imprisoned-women flicks, with legendary Russ Meyer starlet Kitten Natividad cameoing as a warden. The final supplemental extra is a five-minute segment that takes a look at the recording of Nancy Sinatra’s breathy, 007-ish theme song for Morty. Kudos to all the behind-the-scenes material; it gives The Independent an extra sheen of class, something of which Morty himself would surely be proud. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)
I Could Never Be Your Woman
The behind-the-scenes, off-screen story of writer-director Amy Heckerling’s I Could Never Be Your Woman is a long and winding one. How a film from the director of Clueless, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd, sat on the shelf for years and couldn’t win theatrical distribution — even after last year’s warmly received Hairspray, Stardust and Knocked Up helped put the two actors back on the public radar — is hard to believe. And yet it’s all true — a convoluted tale of botched financial assessments, scotched release dates and swapped capital involving the movie’s original backer and domestic distributor, indie upstart Bauer Martinez.
The movie itself, thankfully, is far less messy and angst-inducing. Probably as of yet the only film in which Pfeiffer can be glimpsed sporting an Iron Maiden T-shirt, I Could Never Be Your Woman‘s narrative is obviously to at least a small degree autobiographical, centering as it does around a successful, respected entertainment industry pro facing struggles both creative and personal. Pfeiffer plays Rosie, the head writer/show runner on You Go Girl, a teen-flavored, Saved By the Bell-type sitcom starring the decidedly non-teenage Brianna Minx (Clueless alum Stacey Dash). In her 40s, Rosie’s a loving mother to a smart, middle school-aged daughter, Izzie (Saoirse Ronan, of Atonement), and has a good if sometimes exasperated relationship with her ex-husband Nathan (Jon Lovitz). When Rosie becomes smitten with Adam Pearl (Rudd), a newly cast actor much younger than herself, though, she finds her world turned upside down.
As Rosie and Adam fall into a relationship and a reticent Rosie then pulls back, Heckerling sets up some of the traditional air-quote rom-com complications (a meddling secretary, Jeannie, saves a saucy picture of Adam’s costar as the wallpaper on his cell phone) and then seemingly breezes past them, only to arrive back at the same sort of core, nagging doubts regarding the age disparity between the pair. The plotting itself here is nothing new, and Heckerling doesn’t till much new psychological ground. That hardly matters, though, given her gift with dialogue and the quality of actors appearing here. (In addition to the aforementioned main players, Fred Willard costars as Rosie’s perpetually distracted boss, while Tracey Ullman is Mother Nature, who shares a few pointed conversations with Rosie.)
Owing to its industry backdrop, the movie has plenty of Los Angeles in-jokes, some of which are hilarious (Izzie and her friend crank call celebrities from Rosie’s Blackberry, which leads to a scene involving Henry Winkler reading Jean-Paul Sartre), and some of which fall flat (rescuing Izzie from being bullied, Rosie spits to the offending kid, “Hey Noah, I heard Brad Pitt‘s firing your dad’s law firm”). Rosie’s constant battles with network censors are also amusing. There’s some connective tissue missing, yes, but I really fell for this Woman; it’s wry and spirited, and Pfeiffer and Rudd are a truly great match.
Presented in a matted widescreen format with an English Dolby digital 5.1 audio track and optional Spanish and English subtitles, the PG-13 rated I Could Never Be Your Woman comes housed in a regular Amray case with snap-shut hinges, which are always a nice touch. In addition to a trailer for the movie, there are also three deleted scenes, two of which — centering around a conversation between Rosie and her daughter about blowjobs — obviously confirm an R-rated cut of the movie, if an early, poorly dubbed sequence with Jeannie didn’t already properly arouse suspicions. Heckerling also confirms some of the autobiographical inspiration in a droll, slowly paced joint audio commentary track with producer Cerise Hallam Larkin, citing specifically as ripped from real life a scene in which Willard’s TV exec is busy playing computer solitaire while taking an in-person meeting. Other tidbits and tossed-off asides — concerning everything from Lovitz’s late replacement of another actor to bon mots like, “When you do a spit take, you have to make sure the liquid is backlit, otherwise you miss how well the person is able to project” — are endearing and amusing. Most interesting, though, may be the fact that due to its British financing, the film had to shoot for six weeks in London at Pinewood Studios and only three weeks in Los Angeles, as well as cast a significant number of English, Australian and Canadian actors. Maybe that fact gave Beyonce Knowles pause in approving a song Heckerling wistfully mentions as perfect for Pfeiffer’s first post-coital work arrival. Thankfully, Will Smith had no such qualms; he approved use of his skip-to-the-loo “Switch” at a discounted rate, which makes for plenty of fun when Rudd drops some mad dance moves. B+ (Movie) C (Disc)
The Apartment
Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, 1960’s The Apartment is one of legendary writer-director Billy Wilder’s crowning triumphs, a scathing and satirical humanistic masterpiece that expertly commingles comedy and drama without shortchanging either.
Jack Lemmon stars as C.C. “Bud” Baxter, an ordinary if a bit lonely life insurance salesman who provides the perfect cover and black-market “service” for his philandering bosses, by loaning out his New York apartment for their extramarital trysts. Currying favor in such fashion, Bud wins a series of promotions not entirely deserved. When he meets head boss Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray, smartly cast against grain), Bud thinks the gig is finally up. It turns out, though, that Jeff is very much like all the other men in the company, carrying on an affair with elevator operator Fran Kubilek (Shirley MacLaine, above right). Things get wildly mixed up, however, when Bud — without knowing she’s Jeff’s latest gal — falls for Fran, who’s disconsolate over Jeff’s unwillingness to leave his wife.
The general encroach of more social realism and the Hollywood relaxation of narrative restrictions in stories dabbling in matters of infidelity greatly benefits The Apartment, which — obviously without anything ever approaching graphic content — balances light comedy and much darker drama (without giving anything away for those who haven’t seen the movie, there’s a twist that one can’t fathom making it past a second-tier studio reader in the modern-day development process) in a deft, breathtaking fashion. A perfect team, Wilder and frequent co-writer I.A.L. “Izzy” Diamond are skilled with dialogue, character and surrounding physical detail, and the result is a cinematic classic, through and through — a movie that captures all the wild swings and ebbs and flows of emotion in real life.
Housed in a regular Amray case, this special collector’s edition of The Apartment is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen, and comes with English 5.1 Dolby surround sound and mono audio tracks, as well as Spanish and French mono audio tracks. Film historian and producer Bruce Block sits for an engaging feature-length audio commentary track, and he seemingly has an anecdote for just about every bit character actor in the movie. The chief supplemental feature, though, is a fantastic half-hour making-of featurette, which is powered by all sorts of astute interview contributions — from On Sunset Boulevard author Ed Sikov, executive producer Walter Mirisch, co-writer Diamond’s son Paul, and others — and delves into everything from the inspiration for the movie (David Lean’s Brief Encounter) to its casting, production and release. This material wonderfully helps frame and contextualize the film, which came on the heels of Some Like It Hot, also starring Lemmon. When USC film professor Drew Casper recalls Wilder’s description of his movie’s bustling office set (“This is our chariot race”), it makes total, if amusing, sense that Wilder would see comparison with the Oscar-winning Ben Hur, from two years prior. There’s also a separate 12-minute celebration of Lemmon, with interviews from the late actor’s son, Chris, as well as biographer Joe Baltake and Wilder Times author Kevin Lally. These bits are all great, especially from Chris Lemmon, because they give a real sense of the in many ways unlikely Hollywood rise (he was wasted during a brief contract stint at Columbia) of the simple son of a baker, and how that informed Lemmon’s lifelong humbleness. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. A (Movie) A- (Disc)
Feast of Love
When it first came out, I noted that Feast of Love was engaging enough in piecemeal fashion — a Midsummer Night’s Dream-type,
dramatic-leaning ensemble piece about relationships. The truth is, though, this is a movie made without concession to modern convention, and as such it’s out of step — in ways both good and awkward — with what we’ve come to expect from big-screen entertainment. It plays a bit better on the small screen, in other words, even if the redone cover art for the DVD release somewhat ridiculously oversells/misrepresents the film as a feel-good adult romancer.
Transplanted from
the Michigan setting of Charles Baxter’s novel to Portland, Oregon, the film, scripted by Allison Burnett and directed by Robert Benton, centers around a retired college professor, Harry (Morgan Freeman), and his friendship with coffeeshop owner Bradley (Greg Kinnear), a hopeful (read: perhaps too naive) spirit who sees his first wife, Kathryn (Selma Blair), leave him for another woman, and his rebound relationship with emotionally walled-off real estate agent Diana (Radha Mitchell) become complicated by her preceding affair with the married David (Billy Burke). Rounding out the romantic roundelay are young lovebirds Oscar (Toby Hemingway) and Chloe (Alexa Davalos), who work at Bradley’s beanery.
Freeman is Feast of Love‘s central hub, a quasi-omniscient narrator for whom the other stories in the movie serve as thematically interrelated spokes. This is in and of itself OK, but at the same time movies with Freeman as an earnest, world-weathered voice of free-floating reason seem to be rapidly comprising their own subgenre, and there are times here when one wishes the artifice (which is a big part of the novel, and admittedly downplayed here) were stripped down even further, to just straight drama. What most recommends Feast of Love is that it’s a frank movie, and about adult problems, but it still has a sheen of positivity to it, which will baffle those looking for American Beauty-style conclusions about suburban malaise. Benton and Burnett aren’t afraid to present all the ridiculous highs and lows of love and loss, which is what life is all about. Those who dig more starkly defined contrast and conflict won’t take to this Feast, definitely, but I personally liked submitting to Benton’s masterfully wound-down rhythms.
Presented in anamorphic widescreen and housed in a regular Amray plastic case, Feast of Love comes with only a nominal supplemental inclusion — a 12-minute making-of featurette that includes interviews with Benton, producers Gary Lucchesi and Tom Rosenberg — who talk about the casting of Freeman, and how that drew the attention of other actors — and cast members. Legendary filmmaker Benton talks about his movies as a “platform” for actors (“I’d like to think they don’t work to please me so much as to please themselves”), and confesses that when he auditioned Alexa Davalos he initially thought she was “a very pretty girl, but not right for this movie.” A few trailers for other 20th Century Fox releases are also included. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C (Disc)
2 Days in Paris
Written and directed by Julie Delpy, 2 Days in Paris is a valentine to some of the more freewheeling, open-hearted work of French New Wave directors like Eric Rohmer and Jean-Luc Godard. At its core is churned-up moral inquiry and self-reflection about all matters sexual, romantic, social and artistic. All the packaging, though, is hand-crafted and loosely bound.
Though she’s made her mark in the States as an actress (most recently in The Hoax), Delpy has a varied filmography and skill set. She’s perhaps best known here for the charming, alluring Before Sunrise/Sunset pictures, costarring Ethan Hawke and directed by Richard Linklater. It’s less well known, though, that Delpy’s off-screen contributions to the movies — particularly the second film, which she co-wrote with Linklater and Hawke — were absolutely integral to their success.
Another tale of romantic turmoil, albeit more comedically inflected, 2 Days in
Goldberg, above right) and French-born, alpha-female
photographer Marion (Delpy) — as they attempt to re-infuse their relationship with romance on the
end leg of a European vacation. The combination of
offbeat parents (played by Delpy’s real-life folks, Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet) and a seemingly endless supply of her flirtatious ex-boyfriends, along with the
natural language barrier (Jack doesn’t speak French), all make for choppy waters.
The movie is rooted in fancifully re-imagined biography, given the fact that Delpy and Goldberg used to be an item, and it’s driven by the same sort of philosophically introspective patter found on display in many of Linklater’s films, including the aforementioned series, an obvious antecedent. The angst here, though, is lot more cheery and soft-edged. Delpy keeps things moving briskly, and her offhand style is a nice match with the material. Part of the point, and a rather radical one, that Delpy seems to be making is that love can be a fickle thing, not for every season. It can last for years, then dissipate into a fog in the span of a few weeks or a month. Does that make it less important or valuable… or more?
Housed, one presumes, in a regular Amray case, this watermarked screener disc was presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track and optional English and Spanish subtitles. DVD extras consist of a 16-minute chat with Delpy about the origin of the idea and production of the film (for which she also did some of the music), as well as five extended scenes running just over a dozen minutes in total. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B- (Disc)
Inside the Smiths
Johnny Marr and Morrissey got most of the ink for The Smiths, and perhaps rightly so. But Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce, the rhythm section for the legendary band, were no slouches either, and the musical documentary Inside the Smiths builds its captivating trip down memory lane from almost entirely their recollections.
Spanning two continents and over three years, the movie opens by setting the scene of Manchester during the era of the band’s inception, and amply points out how a lot of The Smiths’ music was in marked contrast to “tunes about clothes and status,” as drummer Joyce puts it. Though only together for five years, The Smiths had a big impact on fellow musicians, and Buzzcocks member Peter Shelley, Suede’s Matt Osman, Kaiser Chiefs frontman Nick Hodgson and more, including New York City critic Casey Wilder, all provide nice contextual analysis of the group’s work. (Peter Hook, meanwhile, talks about a bit of the group’s rivalry with New Order.) Mostly, though, Inside the Smiths is an openly reflective document that charts the life of the band, from formation to flame-out. Bassist Rourke talks candidly about the heroin addiction that cost him a spot in the band, and almost his life as well (“I had more money than I had sense…”), and Joyce fondly recalls how he convinced his parents to get him his first drum kit, pointing out that it would cost less than replacing the couch he’d taken to practicing upon.
Mixing color and black-and-white footage, Inside the Smiths is a great time capsule, but at under an hour in length, it’s a bit slim. It’s hamstrung, too, by music clearance rights, which means when they’re talking about the creation or reception of tracks like “Hand in Glove,” “Meat is Murder” or “I Want the One I Can’t Have,” you don’t get the benefit of hearing their efforts borne out. Sometimes the movie veers off into meandering, heavily accented
recollections of youthful indiscretion (in particular I’m thinking of
Rourke, with his talk of “scallies”) that isn’t directly related to The
Smiths, but for the most part this is a lean, fascinating slice of rock
‘n’ roll non-fiction. It gives viewers a telling snapshot of Morrissey’s passive-aggressive nature, and it builds to a break-up, over fish and chips, that still seems to confuse both men today.
Presented in full screen, Inside the Smiths is graced with seven supplemental extra featurettes, which help counterbalance the short running time. In addition to deleted scenes and three minutes of outtakes (chiefly Rourke flubbing a bunch lines), there’s also an interview with “fifth Smith” Craig Cannon, which is pretty interesting. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)
Jimmy and Judy
The young-lovers-in-crime sub-genre gets another rowdy little entry in the form of Jimmy and Judy, a very familiar and strained conceit that skates by thinly on the strength of its committed performances.
On its packaging, the film bills itself as a modern-day Bonnie & Clyde, and touts blurbs calling it the movie that Natural Born Killers wanted to be, or should have been, and, yes, the whole lusty us-against-the-world theme is there, and ripely explored. Yet a better point of reference might well be Ben Coccio’s 2003 independent flick Zero Day. In that film — an only loosely serialized mock-up of the Columbine tragedy — as here, the real issue under the microscope is teeth-gnashing teen alienation, no matter the gender trap or romanticized obfuscations.
Co-written and directed by Randall Rubin and Jon Schroder, the movie centers on social misfit/amateur video enthusiast Jimmy (Edward Furlong) and the impressionable Judy (The Ring‘s Rachel Bella, above), a young pair of spirited, new teen lovers who leave behind their comfortably numb suburban community in search of a better life in… rural Kentucky? (Bad choice, kids.) Sort of wildly naked in its willful provocation (Judy tonguing a shotgun barrel, for instance, and James Eckhouse cavorting about in S&M gear), Jimmy and Judy doesn’t exert a whole lot of effort in coming up with new triggers and circumstances for our teen antiheroes’ acting out in increasingly criminal fashion, nor does it work psychologically plumb these situations in many new or interesting ways.
So yes, that means on-the-run hair dying and head-shaving ensues, along with diatribes about “conformist crimeless virginity,” and how no one can understand Jimmy and Judy like one another. (William Sadler also costars, in loony cameo fashion.) What sells this well-worn plot to a small degree is Furlong, who gives an unhinged turn. I’d love to say it was darkly mesmerizing or revelatory, but that’s not really the truth about this performance; it works because Furlong, bloated and bleary-eyed, is obviously a young man given to certain excesses in his personal life, and this fact helps blur the line between fact and fiction for Jimmy and Judy. Oh, and though she’s not a great actress, for the prurient, the movie does feature Bella, from behind, running naked in a field, as well as other assorted bits of topless nudity.
Housed in a regular Amray case, Jimmy and Judy comes presented in anamorphic widescreen, with two different versions (rated and unrated) of its trailer, and a feature-length audio commentary track in which co-directors Schroder and Rubin are joined by cinematographer Ben Kufrin. Together, they recount the movie’s hometown location shoot (Schroder and Rubin are Kentucky natives), and shrug off any embarrassment over a scene in which someone in the background is seen taking a picture of Furlong on their camera cell phone. The undeniable high point of the commentary, though, comes when the filmmakers talk about Furlong’s drunken attempt to free lobsters from a local restaurant, and the fact that the police officers who arrested him in real life play cops in the movie, and do the same as extras in an early scene in the film. Thirteen minutes of deleted scenes are also included, the longest of which features the uninterrupted single take of Bella shaving Furlong’s head, replete with all sorts of asides and ad-libs. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B- (Disc)
The Girls Next Door: The Third Season
There’s seemingly a new reality show every week, often exploring in competitive fashion some bizarre, mash-up niche we didn’t even know actually existed (did VH-1 really consent to something called Celebra-cadabra?). The simple genius of The Girls Next Door, then, is the manner in which it taps into the aspirational admiration for Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. Just as the famous “Dick in a Box” sketch from Saturday Night Live was brilliant in large part because it shined a light on the secret desire of men to actually put that little thought into gift shopping, the breezy, lighthearted The Girls Next Door, which centers around Hefner’s three live-in girlfriends, succeeds because it just opens a window into the life of a guy who most men would consider to have led one of the more charmed lives of the past half-century. No bullshit competitions or vote-offs, very little back-stabbing drama or anything of that sort, just flirty lounging, dinner parties and hot chicks padding around in their pajamas.
The three women in question are the now-22-year-old Kendra Wilkinson, Holly Madison, 28, and Bridget Marquardt, a 34-year-old who’s technically still married, but lives apart from her separated husband. Hefner is of course famous for his many parties, so a lot of the episodes are loosely grouped around some of those themed gatherings. Of course, there’s still time for lots of pillow-fighting.
Now three seasons into the show, it’s worth noting that Holly (above right, sporting the black trunks) is really the sympathetic star of the series, however unnervingly shrewd her motivations sometimes seem. Kendra (above center) totally lives up (or is that down?) to all the stereotypes of the bubble-headed beach blonde, and her stuttering, toker’s laugh is probably telling about such matters. She’s so vapid that it’s frequently painful, kind of like staring directly at the sun. Bridget (above left), on the other hand, is quite nice, but seems kind of shruggingly along for the ride, maybe just a bit addicted to the pampering she receives. The episodes in this third season find the girls building holiday snowmen in 70-degree heat, horseback riding in the Hollywood Hills and taking part in the Toyota Celebrity Grand Prix, where tomboy Kendra plants her car into the railing. Since there’s also another photo shoot involving them, Holly starts to exercise her opinion more, and get involved in some editorial planning for the magazine. Of the three women, she seems the most intelligent and proactive, so it’s easiest to see her striking out on her own when her time with Hefner invariably comes to a conclusion, whenever that is.
Housed in three slimline cases in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover with an aerial shot of the girls (and their pets), The Girls Next Door features 14 episodes presented in the full screen format, with optional English and Spanish subtitles. Accompanied by the normal clutch of deleted scenes, the set does feature some unblurred nudity, so it’s certainly good for that. Mainly, though, it’s just a giggly look behind the scenes at the Playboy Mansion; there isn’t much insight or exploration into the specifics of the relationships between Hefner and the woman, so it all boils down to whether you like them and/or are fascinated by their semi-communal, libidinous lifestyle. Also included is a one-hour special entitled “Bedtime Stories,” a sort of best-of clip show spectacular, in which Hef and the girls relive some of their favorite moments of the past three years. Finally, there are also audio commentary tracks on all the episodes with the ladies, but as you might gather, these offerings become rather tedious rather quickly. To purchase the set via Amazon, click here. C+ (Show) B+ (Disc)
Twitches Too
Twin witches Alex Fielding and Camryn Barnes (Sister, Sister pair Tia and Tamera Mowry) are back for double the fun, double the magic and double the suspense (sans Doublemint gum, strangely) in Twitches Too, which streets on DVD today from Disney.
The follow-up to the popular Disney Channel original movie based in turn on H.B. Gilmour and Randi Reisfeld’s supernatural book series, Twitches Too finds young witches Alex (Tia) and Camryn (Tamera), having been raised by adoptive families and kept unaware of both each other and their magical gifts until their first meeting on their 21st birthday, deciding what to make of their magical powers. Alex at first wants to focus on college and just having a semi-normal life, while Camryn is all about the “princessing” that such powers afford — glamor, gowns and tiaras. But their dreams must be set aside when destiny again calls (the story of my life, really), and the survival of their birthplace — the magical land of Coventry — is in peril. After having vanquished the evil warlock who threatened them in Twitches, the girls now focus on reuniting with their birth mother, a powerful witch named Miranda (Kristen Wilson). Using telepathy, pyrokinesis, clairvoyance and other powers, Alex and Camryn then work to spurn a shadowy underworld presence that seeks to destroy them, their family and their world.
The set-up, dialogue and stagings here are all pitched benevolently downward, in softball fashion, as one might readily expect. But the Mowry sisters are an appealing tandem, and their easygoing nature goes a long way toward making this bearable not only for the “tween” girl set for which it’s designed, but also their parents as well. Presented in 1.33:1 full screen, Twitches Too comes with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and a couple supplemental bonus features — an alternate scene that has some looking-glass fun with Miranda and her evil twin sister, as well as a brief making-of featurette. Cutely positing that the Mowrys have discovered “real” magical powers, this behind-the-scenes clip-fest includes a few interviews but also then plays around with time and space, jumping back and forth through various scenes and set-ups with the two bubbly gals as our guides. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)
Liberty in Restraint
If, as the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s art, then surely the same thing is true of sexual proclivities, where the Internet has dragged out into the 21st century light of day sub-fetishes previously only whispered about, if discussed at all. Director Michael Ney’s Liberty in Restraint is a feature-length documentary that examines just this titillating intersection of the deviant and so-called normal sexual worlds. It’s not for all tastes, certainly, but if a more exhaustive and fair cataloguing of its subject matter exists, I’m certainly not aware of it.
As an aspiring photographer, the clandestine worlds of bondage, discipline, dominance-submission, sadomasochism and fetish fashion held a powerful attraction for Noel Graydon. For five years, he trained and worked as a BDSM “master” in the alt-sex trade, establishing friendships which enabled him to genuinely document this world as an insider looking out. Filmmaker Ney uses Graydon as a guide, peeking behind the scenes of his fetish portraiture to shine a spotlight on a curious roster of rope artists, lapsed Catholics, so-called “pain sluts,” adult babies and blood-play enthusiasts who approach absolution and sexuality like an advanced-level driving course.
Sitting for interviews are a litany of prima facie sources, from Graydon’s photographic mentor, John Elliott, to Sydney Hellfire Club’s Jackie McMillan, BDSM performance artist Zoo and a dominatrix named Mistress Synna. The title Liberty in Restraint works two ways, as ironic commentary on the very nature of fringe-dwelling excess, but also how these acts of extreme constraint give palpable release to folks who are into them. The electro-torture and blood-play stuff is a bit extreme for me — just flat out something I don’t want to see or experience, like chewing on aluminum foil — but it is interesting to hear from its purveyors and enthusiasts, if not always see it in practice. Much like David Schisgall’s suburban swinger documentary The Lifestyle, this movie gives voice to the psychology behind its practitioners, and not all of them are quite as outwardly damaged as you might expect.
Housed in a regular Amray case and presented in 16×9 widescreen with 5.1 Dolby surround audio on a region-free disc, Liberty in Restraint comes with a small but potent slate of supplemental extras. Director Ney, film guide Puck, rope artist Mistress Felina and Barton Staggs sit for a rowdy audio commentary track, while five extra interviews and a half dozen deleted scenes point up the fact that there was plenty of material with which to work. Perhaps most interestingly, there’s also a brief featurette on the making of the DVD’s cover image — a first for any home video release that I can recall. For more information, visit the movie’s eponymous web site. B (Movie) B (Disc)
Forget About It
He used to be the biggest star in Hollywood, but now Burt Reynolds — bitter and in many ways derisible — is reduced to wan, old-guy variations on the already-less-than-interesting, gum-smacking, smart-guy roles of his commercial heyday. That’s the bottom line regarding Forget About It, an uninspired geriatric comedy which bills itself as being from one of the producers of Ali, Jerry Maguire and As Good as it Gets. As if to underscore the awkward point, Raquel Welch, Charles Durning, Robert Loggia and Phyllis Diller all show up, sleepwalking through tepid set-ups that do little except trade on their aging, autumnal appeal.
The story unfolds in Sunrise Park, a so-called slice of trailer-park heaven just outside Phoenix. For quite a while, the most exciting thing about the golden years for retired war vet buddies Sam LeFleur (Reynolds), Carl Campobosso (Loggia) and Eddie O’Brien (Durning) were their attempts to vie for the affections of their sexy neighbor Christine DeLee (Welch), a legendary former Las Vegas showgirl still famous for her trademark “double dip.” Then new transplant John Brandin (Michael Paloma) pops into their lives. John, né Angelo Nitti, is in the federal witness protection program. In exchange for ratting out his former Mob partners, he’s been given a new name and a new lease on life, but what he didn’t tell the feds is that he stashed $4 million he stole from the Mafia before he left. When the aforementioned hapless trio of Sam, Carl and Eddie stumble across the loot, they think their ship has finally come in, and start living the high life, accordingly. This leads to all sorts of shenanigans, with the feds, the Mob and their ticked-off neighbor on their trail.
Written by Ukrainian-born former model Julia Davis and directed by husband B.J. Davis, 20-plus years her senior, Forget About It plays partly like a spin-off of 2000’s The Crew, crossed with… I don’t know what, The Whole Nine Yards? The wiseguy face-off angles within the movie are stuff that’s all been seen before, from True Romance to every rip-off down the line, and the comedy herein just doesn’t fire. Forget About It plays like a vanity project devoid of purpose; there’s no pulse here, no point to make, except perhaps a paycheck for all those involved — a list that includes Richard Grieco (yup… that guy), Joanna Pacula, Wayne Crawford and Tim Thomerson. Housed in a regular Amray case, Forget About It comes with optional Spanish subtitles and a brief trailer as its only supplemental features. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) D (Disc)
Blonde Ambition
Starring Jessica Simpson and Luke Wilson (and costarring Andy Dick), virtual straight-to-video romantic comedy Blonde Ambition has all the ingredients of a classic, slack-jawed trainwreck, and at the 50-minute mark of the movie, when a group of visiting Norwegian priests burst into a karaoke version of “Baby Got Back,” it sure seems every bit as bad as feared when first firing up the DVD player. Yet the modest, to-scale surprise of Blonde Ambition is that, all things considered, it doesn’t suck nearly as much as it should. In fact, it goes down mostly with just a shrug.
Simpson stars as Katie Gregorstitch, a naive, gum-smacking, small-town Oklahoma beauty who goes to New York City to visit her long-time boyfriend. When (big shock) he turns out to be a philanderer, Katie finds (or lucks her way into, really) a job at a top-notch construction firm, where scheming vice president Debra (Penelope Ann Miller) and her underling Freddy (Dick) have their eyes set on unseating Ronald Connelly (Larry Miller), the firm’s head honcho. Rachael Leigh Cook and Willie Nelson also pop up in small roles as Katie’s family, seemingly paying off favors.
Blonde Ambition is rather wanly plotted, and its allusions to The Seven Year Itch are obvious, even without the visual signpost “homage” of the latter movie’s title on a nearby marquee. Directed by Scott Marshall (son of Garry, nephew of Penny), the movie clearly aims to be a Mary Tyler Moore-type, little-girl-in-the-big-city revamping of Simpson’s image. I previously touched on the theatrical misfortunes of Blonde Ambition, as well as its risible surplus of producers, and the truth is that Simpson just isn’t at all a very good actress, even when the stakes are drastically lowered. In short, she’s a Betty Grable pin-up queen, tantalizing only as an unknowable commodity. The second she opens her mouth, the illusion is shattered. Both on screen — with her forcedly, faux-sexy twang — and off, Simpson is play-acting what she’s been told is sexy, and the dimness and swallowed panic come through in equal measure. Here, though, it certainly doesn’t help that she’s appearing opposite Wilson, who may be the most drab studio-vetted leading man of the last quarter-century.* Watching these two feign a burgeoning attraction is like staring at the sun — it leaves a painful, lingering memory, no matter what you move on to do next.
And yet Blonde Ambition is a lot less awful than it could (maybe even should) be. Miller in particular gives the movie some unexpected lift, not the least of which because his performance — at once bemused and distracted — seems to serve as a subtle mimicking and commentary on Simpson’s outsized, real-world fame. “That horsey grin insults us both,” he says at one point. “And what’s with those teeth? They’re too white, like an artist’s rendering of teeth.” Marshall, too, stages scenes in a smart, forgiving manner (for the most part avoiding long takes), and his aunt Penny drops in for a nice, unforced, yet still amusing cameo. If there’s certainly little to actively recommend the movie, it goes down smoother than anticipated.
Housed in a regular Amray case, Blonde Ambition comes with a nine-plus-minute making-of featurette, during which Simpson and her producer dad (whose shingle, yes, is “Papa Joe Film Productions”) own up in rather candid fashion to the movie being an attempt to break free from the typical tabloid coverage of Jessica. While I’d argue that there isn’t much there absent the media constuction, it’s at least refreshing to hear an acknowledgement that such considerations were at least a factor in tackling and shaping this flick. The only other bonus feature consists of three deleted scenes that run a total of four minutes, with one — a rooftop-set piece involving green-screen work — explaining the origin of Katie’s bizarre toothbrush fixation. I checked scrupulously for an Easter egg, and thankfully there isn’t one. C- (Movie) C (Disc)
* – the irony of course being that if there were one greater, you certainly couldn’t remember their name to cite
Schmelvis
What happens when you throw together in a Winnebago a ragtag film crew, a born-again orthodox Jewish Elvis impersonator and an eccentric rabbi? Well, you get something called Schmelvis, a tangled road-trip documentary that purports to offer up insightful commentary on pop culture, personal identity and societal tolerance via an investigation into the King’s improbable Jewish lineage.
I was silently hoping for, if not necessarily expecting, some kitschy, Bubba Ho-Tep-style hijinks herein, but instead there is nothing but indulgent, self-aggrandizing navel-gazing, by the truckload. Written and directed by Max Wallace and co-directed by Lewis Cohen, Schmelvis uses as its putative launching point a 1998 Wall Street Journal article that identifies the late Elvis Aron Presley’s maternal great-great-grandmother as Jewish — a fact that would therefore make him Jewish too. After hiring a no-nonsense New York private eye, Steve Rambam, to suss out a few tantalizing morsels of air-quote fact, the creative team behind the film then balks at his asking price for a “full field investigation” (that would be $25,000), instead deciding to hit the road and get to the bottom of matters themselves.
Even with a running time of only 76 minutes, Schmelvis wears out its welcome rather quickly. It does this chiefly by featuring its set-up to an untoward degree; in addition to the bit with Rambam, we see producer Evan Beloff meet with and hire Wallace, hit up family as investors and talk about how they don’t know where to start in their quest. We get it, fellas — you’re occupational water-treaders who think it would be cool to be “filmmakers.” The fact that Schmelvis, which premiered at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in 2002, has allegedly been shown at over 75 festivals around the world speaks chiefly to the proliferation of local and regional niche cinematic showcases rather than any universally embraceable qualities on the part of the movie itself. This is a yawner, through and through.
Housed in a regular Amray case, and presented in widescreen with a 5.1 surround sound audio track, Schmelvis comes with a feature-length audio commentary track from producer Beloff — the creative father of the film — and Rabbi Rueben Poupko. In true delusional fashion, the pair point up frequent comparisons to Seinfeld and “the Larry David show,” while also waxing philosophical about how they set out to find prejudice and preconceptions in middle America, only to discover that they were the most prejudicial. The only other supplemental extra consists of two scrollable pages of excerpts from the Schmelvis book. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. D- (Movie) C (Disc)
Helvetica
Whether or not most of us think about them, typefaces express a certain mood and atmosphere, and give the content of the words that comprise their text a subtle corresponding emotion — a private spell, if you will. Gary Hustwit’s engaging documentary Helvetica, about the ubiquitous same-named font, digs into this unspoken reality, telling the story of the modern world’s most popular script.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Helvetica is everywhere, it’s inescapable. Invented in 1957 by Max Miedinger and his corporate boss (and so named as a tweak on the Latin word for Switzerland, Helvetia, after its original moniker, Haas Neue Grotesk, was deemed a bit too unwieldy to peddle for sale in America), it’s the default font for corporate authority. (Target, American Airlines, MetLife, Staples, BMW and American Apparel headline the list of literally thousands of companies who use it in their logos and advertising.) Its clear lines and readability also make it widely used in traffic signs and public directive postings, including all of New York City’s transit signage.
Unsurprisingly, this ubiquity rubs some folks the wrong way, and Hustwit is wise enough to give Helvetica’s detractors ample screen time here as well. (One quotes from an old Village Voice piece, calling it “the typography of authority of enslavement.”) Given that this very academic-leaning pissing match is the only thing amounting to a dramatic through-line, the film lacks a strong, inherent pull. It basically just kind of bobs along. There’s lots of designers sharing their thoughts about the push and pull of the letters, and space in between them (design writer Rick Poynor is also an excellent interviewee, providing nice context, history and opinion), but Hustwit would have been wise to perhaps delve a bit deeper into specific work examples of why Company A went with such a choice, or Company B avoided the Helvetica font in a redesign. As is, the movie is predominantly a curio for fans of design and esoterica in general — no great sin, that, but something that could be fast-forwarded through and quick-watched without missing much of its punch.
Helvetica comes to DVD presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen, which preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical presentation. It is housed in a clear plastic Amaray case, and comes, somewhat unsurprisingly, with a cleanly designed menu screen which spotlights its ample bonus materials, which consist of 17 extra interviews, running a total of 95 minutes. There’s also an eight-page color booklet with photographs and a two-page essay from director Hustwit about why he chose to make the movie. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)
Good Luck Chuck
What would occur if There’s Something About Mary, Wedding Crashers and the recent surge in all cinema penguin-related (i.e., March of the Penguins, Surf’s Up, Happy Feet) were somehow all combined via a strange, Hollywood in vitro fertilization process? Well, something a lot like Good Luck Chuck, new to DVD this week. A reverse-engineered, willfully loud and wacky slice of tried-and-true juvenile formula that is only intermittently, distractingly entertaining in the same way that a foghorn placed just behind your ear is frightening, it’s the filmic screen equivalent of a jukebox cover band plowing through the CD collection of your most impressionable (and regrettable) days of youth.
One of a number of recent offerings from the very busy (pre-pregnancy) Jessica Alba, Chuck rolled to a semi-respectable $35 million domestically last fall — not bad really when you consider that the film’s current RottenTomatoes.com rating stands at a rock bottom 3 percent. DVD special features include a couple mini-featurettes — one exploring the special effects work that went into creating a visual gag involving a woman with three breasts, another stacking up all of Dane Cook’s sex scenes — as well as a back-slapping audio commentary track with Cook, director Mark Helfrich, writer Josh Stolberg and producer Mike Karz. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.
King of the Ants
King of the Ants‘ story is a fairly familiar one: hapless boy (Chris McKenna) is hired for contract killing (of Ron Livingston, alas); does job; falls in love with mark’s wife; doesn’t the money for his services; gets instead repeatedly battered in the head with a golf club until he vaguely resembles Eric Stoltz from Mask; has grotesque, hallucinatory dreams in which the object of his fascination, Kari Wuhrer, has a dick and/or resembles the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock; escapes desert torture shack; beds said girl in nice daytime sex scene after she nurses him back to health; accidentally kills girl in confrontation regarding how he offed her husband; roasts George Wendt’s severed head on an open flame; and then wreaks revenge on Daniel Baldwin. Seen it once, seen it a thousand times, right?
As directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), the movie scores a certain number of points for its sheer audacity and originality — adapted by Charles Higson from his own novel, King of the Ants is one of those all-too-rare films that, since it revels in its pure, careening joy, you never quite know for sure where it’s headed. Yet as its implausibilities mount, you can’t help but feel as though you’re simply being put on. As Sean Crawley, though, McKenna — who evokes comparisons to a younger brother of Mark Ruffalo — displays considerable squinty-eyed Everyman appeal. Housed in a regular Amray case and presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, King of the Ants‘ DVD extras include a brief behind-the-scenes featurette and an audio commentary track. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B- (Disc)
Between the Lions: Season 1
Between the Lions is
part of a multimedia educational initiative created to help instill children ages four
through seven with both beginning-level reading skills as well as a love of
reading. Recognizing the importance and ubiquity of television, the centerpiece
of the effort is the PBS show of the same name, a winner of seven Emmy awards.
Built around a curriculum that incorporates the most recent
scientific research in literacy instruction, each episode of Between the Lions uses an engaging
variety of entertaining animation, puppetry, music videos, graphics and live
action segments. The series’ loveable cast of characters — a family of lions
who live in a library like no other — engages adolescent audiences with
interactive activities, songs and stories, all tailored to help build a child’s
vocabulary and language development. Words then take on a life of their own,
with these colorful sketches serving essentially as the “spoonful of sugar”
around which key reading skills are slyly imparted.
The first season of the show is comprised of a whopping 30 episodes,
each running roughly half an hour. Featuring opera star Denyce Graves, Chicken
Jane, Martha Reader and the Vowelles, Gawain’s World, Arty Smartypants, Cliff
Hanger, the Information Hen, Monkey Pop-Up Theater and more, the show soars courtesy
of its variety and imagination. Some episodic titles and settings aside, this isn’t
referential comedy, and there’s no sort of gassy, Shrek-type humor. Sesame Street
would of course be a good comparison, but the wide, expressive eyes of B.B.,
the king of the beasts, and all the other puppets is what will make this most
inviting for inquisitive pre-schoolers. Kindergarteners and those slightly older,
meanwhile, will be able to get into the diversity of the show’s costumed stories,
and once the B.B. and the characters take firmer root in their imagination,
they’ll want to follow them into this terrain, even as they learn in parallel
fashion about unlocking the doors of their own imaginations via reading.
Presented in 4×3 full screen on five all-region discs, Between the Lions comes housed in
plastic slimline cases in turn stored in a sturdy, attractive, yellow cardboard
case. Special features include a bonus video entitled “Leading the Way to Literacy,”
as well as a slew of downloadable materials for both parents and kindergarten educators.
These family activity guides, available in both English and Spanish, offer up
tips on how to make reading fun and integrate it into the family’s activities
together, and include practice sheets and more. To order the title online, click here. B+ (Show) B (Disc)
Roast of Denis Leary: Uncensored
The concept of vulgarly lacing into those you love is deliciously highlighted in this Comedy Central-broadcast special DVD release, spotlighting Denis Leary. When the tradition began I’m not completely sure, but the Friars’ Club guys turned it into high art back several decades ago. Here actor and comedian Leary, who got his start as that maniac from the MTV promos who “you hear knocking and is comin’ in,” gets explicitly touched up by a laugh-inducing laundry list of friends and former co-workers, including Gina Gershon, Colin Quinn, Jeff Garlin, Jim Breuer and Ed Lover and Dr. Dre (extra props to those who can spot the Who’s the Man? in-jokes).
Flanked by guests Kiefer Sutherland, Elizabeth Hurley, Bill Nunn and others, Leary gets flamed as having released a filmography that includes “more bombs than Hamas.” Quinn’s offerings are probably the funniest from the on-site guests; also weighing in via remote are Jon Stewart, Christopher Walken, Michael J. Fox, Conan O’Brien and Rene Russo, the latter of whom provides a profane sketch that jokingly reveals herself as a transsexual. Supplemental extras on the DVD include Leary’s full-length, uncensored, expletive-laden response (20-odd minutes of somewhat scripted fare, not among his best blasts), red carpet intro footage and additional behind-the-scenes bits and excised material. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. B (Show) B+ (Disc)
Resident Evil: Extinction
If there’s a notable silver lining to be found for cineastes
in the third installment of the Resident
Evil franchise, it’s that a bravura, mid-film zombie crow sequence may have
squelched the need for Michael Bay’s long-rumored remake of The Birds.
Milla Jovovich returns as dispassionate butt-kicker
the former head of security for the shadowy, powerful Umbrella Corporation. In
a land where an experimental virus has spread from
population into a mass of shambling flesh-eaters, Alice herself is marked by
biogenic experimentation that has left her genetically altered. While a shady
Umbrella scientist (Iain Glen) still works to capture and/or kill Alice for his
own purposes, she hooks up with a roaming band of survivors (including
returnees Mike Epps and Oded Fehr, above center, and newcomer Ali Larter, above left). A planned escape to
is scotched by a pit stop gone awry in
where O.J. Simpson shows up and angrily demands the return of his sports
collectibles.
OK, not that last part, but something so deliciously
arbitrary might have helped, given the overly familiar track the rest of this
movie runs on. Intermittent action
catharsis and reliably deafening sound design punctuate Extinction, but with little to no reset explanation of the
particulars of Alice’s powers (sometimes she can summon a massive force field,
sometimes not) each set piece becomes more emotionally inconsequential than the
one prior, leading to a denouement that nicely echoes a slice ’em, dice ’em bit
from the quite fun and engaging original film in the series, but still leaves
one feeling a bit empty. Resident Evil
might have finally run out of gas, after all, at least as currently configured.
Its DVD presentation, though, suffers no such problems. Loaded with special features, the film comes presented in a
regular plastic Amray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcase. The video
transfer for the movie’s 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation is superb,
with strong blacks and consistent flesh tones, and only very mild edge
enhancement in a couple scenes. English, French and Spanish Dolby digital 5.1
surround sound tracks dictate a compelling aural experience, and subtitles are
additionally available in each language.
Sitting for a feature-length audio commentary track, director
Russell Mulcahy, producer Jeremy Bolt and producer-writer Paul Anderson talk
about the movie’s
location shoot. It’s an anecdote-laden chat, but of course filled with all
sorts of spoilers and arcing stories, so if you haven’t seen all three films,
you might be advised to skip this track and come back to it later. Eleven
deleted scenes, running about eight-and-a-half minutes in aggregate, add a bit
of welcome character detail and reset from prior films, even if some of the
dialogue is occasionally awkwardly worded and arranged. Four making-of
featurettes run, in total, just over half an hour. In the pre-production
segment, writer and originating director Anderson talks about his inspirations
for the series (Lucio Fulci and George Romero, naturally), and how he wanted to
tackle something with post-apocalyptic scale for this installment. The bit concentrating
on the actual physical production is the longest segment, logically, and offers
up some good tidbits from cast and crew about dealing with the winds and sand
of the desert location. The two most interesting and informative sections,
however, might be the last two featurettes, which look at the actors portraying the film’s
zombies, and the movie’s make-up, miniature models and CGI effects work. For a genre flick with so many working, interfacing parts, it’s nice to get a glimpse at all the components. C- (Movie) B+ (Disc)
Silent Night, Deadly Night
In November of 1984, a low budget horror thriller saw a limited commercial release that ignited a firestorm of controversy which would eventually result in the canceling of the movie’s entire West Coast run — a nearly unprecedented act of acquiescence on the part of a major Hollywood studio. The film was Silent Night, Deadly Night, a slasher film loosely in the mold of or at least owing a debt to 1974’s Black Christmas and 1978’s Halloween, and based on a book, Sleigh Ride, optioned by producer Ira Barmak, who saw an opportunity to crack the low budget genre market for distributor Tri-Star.
By today’s standards, of course, the movie is fairly tame in its quotient of gore. It’s also just not really that good; it’s unevenly acted and full of the sort of staging you see in a middle school dinner theater play. Those demerits cancel out the rather respectable early pacing and efforts at back story, which would be mightily pared down in any sort of modern day remake, in favor of more strangulation by strands of festive light bulbs.
The story opens in 1971, on Christmas Eve. After visiting his crazy grandpa (Will Hare, delivering a nervy, one-scene cameo), little Billy sees his parents murdered by an escaped convict sporting a Santa Claus costume. The experience left indelible scars on his psyche, made all the worse by his subsequent years spent languishing in an orphanage, with his life made a living hell by the cruel and domineering Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin). Cut to 1984, when teenage Billy (Robert Brian Wilson, delivering a performance equal parts awkward and just awful), with the help of the sympathetic Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick), gets a job as a stock boy at a local toy store. When the store’s regular Santa Claus is injured, however, Billy is forced by his unwitting boss into donning the red suit, which summons up all sorts of tangled, nasty, homicidal thoughts. He snaps, and your standard, boilerplate psychotic rage ensues, ending up back at the orphanage where Billy grew up.
Housed in a standard plastic Amray case, Silent Night, Deadly Night comes with its original, striking video box cover — of Santa’s arm holding an axe, and disappearing down a chimney — and the brilliant tagline of, “Slashing through the snow, looking for his prey…” Navigating the static menu screens (above) will yield the movie’s trailer and a TV spot, and there’s also an interesting collection of outraged reaction quotes from everyone from Mickey Rooney (who calls the movie “scum”) and former Norwalk, Connecticut mayor Thomas O’Connor to concerned parent Paige Hurley, whose comments actually portend the existence of Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving trailer/mini-film, from Grindhouse.
The disc’s most notable supplemental feature, though, is a 36-minute audio interview with director Charles Sellier, Jr., who has conflicted feelings about the film, which he insistently calls a “show,” in industry lingo. While he says he “regrets having done a slasher movie because [his] perspective has changed,” Sellier rightly praises second unit director Mike Spence, who contributed a lot to the project’s scope (enough to really have earned a co-directing credit, it sounds like). He also talks about the film’s famous antler hanging scene being unscripted, and offers up other details and anecdotes from the 32-day, $750,000 production, lensed in high-country Utah, on the other side of the mountain from Park City.
Unfortunately, this release doesn’t do an amazing job with the video transfer; different film stocks were apparently used during shooting, resulting in a wide range of discoloration that isn’t addressed here. It wouldn’t be quite as bad except for the problems occurring within the same sequence, key scenes in the movie to boot. There’s also a fair bit of grain. All in all, certainly better than VHS, I guess, but still disappointing. D+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)
National Treasure
Starring Nicolas Cage, the original National Treasure, from 2004, was a throwback treat — one of those rare PG-rated adventure flicks that still legitimately work for audiences above 14 years of age.
It was also something of a surprise smash hit, nearly perfectly halving
its $347 million box office haul between domestic and international
receipts, despite the fact that its plot centered around desperately
American items and contrivances, like stealing the Declaration of
Independence. To celebrate the theatrical release of its sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Disney trots out a new, two-disc special edition DVD this month.
Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and ably directed by Jon
Turteltaub (Phenomenon, The Kid), the movie
stars Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates, the latest in a family of history buffs
and crackpot treasure hunters descended from a secret society of Masons. An
arctic treasure expedition with unexpectedly nefarious financier Ian Howe (Sean
Bean) reveals that the next (and final) clue in Ben’s big search for a stash
that will absolve the Gates family name lies on the back of the Declaration of
Independence. That would seem to put a kibosh on things, but Ian has other
plans. Ergo, along with his amiably exasperated friend Riley (Justin Bartha),
Ben sets out to prevent Ian from desecrating American history by beating him to
stealing the Declaration of Independence. Along the way, fetching archivist Abigail
Chase (Diane Kruger, above right) gets unwittingly swept up in their case, along with Ben’s
father (Jon Voight). Naturally, fantastically encoded adventure shenanigans
ensue.
National Treasure
cast, including fellow Academy Award winner Voight, Christopher Plummer and
Harvey Keitel. Bartha, too, delivers a pitch-perfect supporting performance as
Ben’s bubbly, increasingly incredulous sidekick. What National
Treasure most has going for it is a sense of its own strengths and
limitations, and how clearly delineated action set pieces can set hearts racing in adolescents and older generations alike. It’s a nimble piece of fanciful action work, but if
ultimately lightweight then certainly also none the worse for its wear. National Treasure sells fun
Housed in a regular Amray case with a slipcase with matching
artwork, National Treasure comes
presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround
sound and 2.0 surround audio tracks. In addition to all the imported supplemental extras of the
original DVD release (an on-location featurette, a look at real-life treasure hunters, a puzzle challenge based around Riley’s character, et al), this collector’s edition DVD includes a wealth of new bonus
material, anchored by the requisite peek at the forthcoming sequel and four new
featurettes which take viewers inside the making of this family-friendly flick.
History” and “Ciphers, Codes and Codebreakers” take an indulgent look at the potentially factually rooted nature of such history and treasure hunting, while “To Steal a National Treasure” and “Exploding
Charlotte” delve more into the effects work and behind-the-scenes effort put into the film. A double-dip isn’t necessary, but it is a nice upgrade for those without benefit of the first release, even if more input from Bruckheimer and Cage would have been welcome. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)
The Girl Next Door
Author Stephen King’s cover blurb is displayed prominently
on the face of the DVD release of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, and why not? Just as King’s endorsement gave an
early boost to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead,
so too does it help prop up this grim little indie bauble, inspired by actual
events. “Authentically shocking… a long look into hell, suburban-style, [this
film] will not disappoint,” reads the text on front, with King going on to call
the movie “the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand By Me.”
He’s not too terribly off, actually; it’s not King merely
stumping for one of his own, with contemporary Ketchum being one of the premier
horror writers of his day. This well-plotted tale of betrayal, violence and
terror unfolds in a quiet, picket-fence kind of town in the lazy, hazy summer
of 1958, and is all the more shocking because it actually happened.
for their perfectly bruised and/or jolting imagery, is a sense of ominous,
accumulating dread. The Girl Next Door
nails that. The film’s performances anchor it in fine fashion, and it feels
real, in this case in all the worst senses of the word.
(Blythe Auffarth) and Susan Laughlin (Madeline Taylor), who are placed in the
care of their distant aunt Ruth (Emmy winner Blanche Baker). Susan is disabled,
and Ruth’s depraved sense of discipline — an illness that extends to her three
teenage sons as well as a group of their peers — manifests itself in
unreasonable demands and needling about Meg’s body and burgeoning sexuality. With
Ruth modeling sadism and supplying liquor to these impressionable kids, this behavior
soon gives way to even more unspeakable acts of abuse and torment — emotional manipulation, branding and even rape. In the end,
only 12-year-old neighbor David Moran (Daniel Manche) stands between the sisters and
what threatens to be their protracted and torturous deaths.
Housed in a regular plastic Amray case, The Girl Next Door is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen,
with Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and Dolby 2.0 surround audio tracks. The
digital transfer is a solid one, with only a few minor problems with edge
enhancement, fairly consistent and deep blacks, and minimal grain. Supplemental
extras consist of not one but two separate audio commentary tracks, the first
with director Gregory M. Wilson, producer Andrew van den Houten and
cinematographer-producer William Miller, and the latter with novelist Ketchum
and screenwriters Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman. These are nice, and certainly the dual high points of the extra offerings. EPK-style interviews with
cast and crew provide plenty of opportunity for congratulatory reminiscence, and a behind-the-scenes making-of featurette offers up a perfunctory glimpse at the movie’s production. Rounding out things are a DVD-ROM copy of the movie’s script
and an original full-length trailer. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)
Interview
Based on murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s original
movie of the same name, Interview
stars Steve Buscemi — jauntily sporting a multi-hyphenate’s hat as adapter-director — as a
hard-bitten journalist forced to go head-to-head with a pretty starlet played
by Sienna Miller.
Before Van Gogh’s death in 2004, he had planned to remake
three of his films in English, and re-set them in
City
extremist, his longtime producing partners, Gijs van de Westelaken and Bruce Weiss,
decided to honor Van Gogh’s memory by enlisting American directors to
collaborate on the films with members of Van Gogh’s original film crew. Buscemi
was the first to commit to the idea, and he chose to remake Interview, while also appearing on
camera.
The noted indie actor stars as pessimistic, world-weary journalist
Pierre Peders. Having made his name as a war reporter, traveling all over the
world and seeing some of the most horrifying sights imaginable, Pierre is understandably
irked at the occupational demotion that he feels he’s received with his
current assignment — a puff-piece profile on up-and-coming TV and movie actress
Katya (Miller, above). The odd-couple pair meet in a chic restaurant (she’s over
an hour late, naturally) and it’s an instant and decidedly spiteful collision
of worlds — Pierre’s serious political focus and Katya’s superficial world of
celebrity. But perhaps all is not as it appears. When
is slightly injured in a car accident inadvertently caused by Katya (she’s the
proverbial girl who stops traffic), they end up back at Katya’s spacious loft
for a long night of talking, drinking, sparring and strange, embattled intimacy.
Their contentious bickering and verbal chess game — spiked with wit, intrigue and
sexual tension — eventually evolves into a surprising confessional.
Notable films of reference here include Oleanna, for its battle-of-the-sexes sparks, and also the recent Sleuth, costarring Miller’s famous ex,
Jude Law. Interview has brevity on
its side (it clocks in at 83 minutes), and it’s true that sparks fly in
effective fashion, making the film quite watchable in an in-the-moment fashion, but the mix of drinks and philosophy wears a bit thin, and the ego-clash dance becomes a little too literal at one point. Still, Miller is mightily effective in something like this, playing off her off-screen tabloid reputation by toying with and twisting her hair in precious, entitled fashion when she’s late, and just generally vamping it up a bit. You find yourself mostly caught up in Katya‘s game, even if the movie’s final twist — without getting into specifics — doesn’t ring wholly true for the manner in which it assumes Katya wouldn’t take full credit for her ruse.
Interview comes
housed in a regular Amray plastic case, and presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic
widescreen, with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital soundtrack and optional
English and Spanish subtitles. Supplemental features on the DVD include six
minutes of behind-the-scenes material comprised chiefly of EPK-produced
interviews, as well as a 13-minute featurette that examines the work of
originating Dutch filmmaker Van Gogh; the latter reveals that the American
adaptation includes a plot twist born of a real-life taxi accident head bump
from one of the movie’s Dutch producers. There’s also a full-length director’s
commentary track from Buscemi, and it’s a pretty good chat, if also littered
with a few spoilers. He talks about the spontaneity of production (they blocked sections, but not specific marks) and his preference for a sparse score from Evan Lurie. Make sure you’ve already seen the film before you indulge
his remarks, though. B- (Movie) B (Disc)
Hot Rod
Live-at-home amateur stunt man Rod Kimble (Saturday Night Live’s
Andy Samberg, making his film debut) is desperate for the admiration of
his taciturn stepfather Frank (Ian McShane), who picks on Rod and
tosses him around like a rag doll in their weekly sparring sessions.
When Frank falls ill, Rod — still believing a physical beatdown is the
only way to gain Frank’s respect — concocts a plan: jump 15 buses,
raise $50,000 for Frank’s emergency heart operation… and then
kick his ass. Along the way, he awkwardly woos neighbor Denise (Isla Fisher, of Wedding Crashers), and trains with assistance from his “crew,” headed up by stepbrother Kevin (Jorma Taccone).
SNL writer and longtime Samberg collaborator Akiva
Schaffer, Hot Rod is a comedy powered by the twin turbines of
over-baked emotion and adolescent alienation. The two most essential
touchstones here are Napoleon Dynamite and Billy Madison, the latter of which
in particular indulged a similar fondness for hallucinatory asides. Hot Rod applies
the former film’s zonked-out petulance and clumsy inelegance to a
little-engine-that-could underdog story, while taking the serial
silliness of Billy Madison to occasionally dizzying new heights — courtesy of a tangential “cool beans” beat-box bit, an imagined fight between a grilled cheese sandwich and a taco, some lamp smashing and a lot of doofy stunts. To the
movie’s credit, it cannily overplays its hand in virtually every scene
requiring sincere emotion or plot advancement (including a fetishistic
recreation of the wooded training sequence in Footloose). Still, the
relationships are all a bit phony, since the comedy is so discrete and
scene-specific, with characters and motivations changing to suit
various moments. While often funny, it doesn’t have the consistent
throughline of a fellow ramshackle comedy like, say, Tommy Boy. I know, I
can’t believe I just typed that either.
Housed in a regular plastic Amray case with snap-shut hinges, Hot Rod comes presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical presentation. Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio tracks in English, Spanish and French are complemented with optional subtitles in the same three languages. A nice selection of bonus material anchors this DVD release, starting off with a feature-length audio commentary track from Samberg, Schaffer and Taccone, who together got their start as the three-man comedy collective The Lonely Island. As longtime pals, their comments definitely lean toward the in-joke variety sometimes, but they do a decent job of interjecting a few anecdotes here and there.
An eight-and-a-half-minute making-of featurette entitled “Ancestors Protect Me” includes deadpan interviews with the cast, and Samberg frequently exhorting cameraman Evan to “lose the shirt,” so you can guess how the segment ends; Schaffer also jokes that they had to dumb down writer Pam Brady’s screenplay (originally penned for Will Ferrell, who instead takes a producer’s credit), or, as they call it, “Samberg it.” Four-plus minutes of Kevin’s home-edited “training videos” of Rod are included in discrete fashion here, along with three-and-a-half minutes of outtakes. Fourteen minutes of deleted scenes provide some funny moments, including costar Danny McBride waxing philosophical about punching the sun in the face, Kevin asking Rod for help plunging the toilet, and Chris Parnell ad-libbing some radio coverage commentary of Rod’s jump. Wrapping things up is a two-minute segment on the aforementioned, Footloose-inspired “punch dance” routine, 90 seconds of material from an orchestral recording session for the film’s score, a 50-second teaser trailer for the movie, and previews for Stardust and next spring’s Drillbit Taylor, starring Owen Wilson. B- (Movie) B+ (Disc)