I have a friend who is terrified of Rowan Atkinson’s Mr.
Bean character (too spastic, he says), so the smash success of 1997’s big screen adaptation Bean ($45 million Stateside, but $205 million more worldwide) left him understandably
feeling frightened and vulnerable. After all, if there were that many Bean fans
out there, what kind of zany, mixed-up world were we living in? It’s hard to
believe it took a decade to follow up a $250 million hit, but it finally
arrives in the form of Mr. Bean’s Holiday,
a farcical, family-friendly road trip comedy (and $224 million worldwide hit) which returns Atkinson to the
iconic role that made him an international star and an in-demand bit comic
player in movies like Four Weddings and a Funeral
and Rat Race.

In his latest misadventure, English misfit Mr. Bean goes on
holiday to the French Riviera and becomes ensnared in a European adventure of
cinematic proportions. Tired of the dreary weather of his hometown London,
Bean packs up his suitcase, camcorder and sensible clothes, and heads to Cannes
for some sun and relaxation. His vacation doesn’t go as smoothly as planned,
however, and the bumbling Bean soon tumbles face first into a series of mishaps
and fortunate coincidences which culminate in him making his own avant-garde
film. Wrongly thought to be both a kidnapper and acclaimed filmmaker, Bean has
some serious explaining to do after wreaking havoc across the French
countryside and arriving at his vacation spot with both a Romanian filmmaker’s
precocious son and an aspiring actress in tow. So will Bean be arrested by the
gendarmes or end up following in the footsteps of David Lynch
and other famous filmmakers, and winning the Palme d’Or?

Mr. Bean’s Holiday
won’t necessarily win any awards, certainly for narrative structural trailblazing,
but it has the definite advantage of knowing its place and being comfortable in
its own skin. The movie’s slapstick comedy often unfolds in near-wordless
fashion, playing up the sort of Three Stooges-type universality that renders this disc’s French subtitles unnecessary, and
makes the title an affable rental that both family film lovers and old silent
film buffs shopping for a modern-day comparative experience can both enjoy. Atkinson
is the glue that holds the entire enterprise together, and even if his exaggerated,
rubbery faces seem nipped from the Jim Carrey
school of (over)acting, they’re actually all part of a smartly designed and tonally
singular plan.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case, Mr. Bean’s Holiday is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen,
with English and French Dolby digital 5.1 audio tracks. A heaping helping of
deleted scenes — over 23 minutes worth — kicks off the disc, and finds Bean
accidentally feeding his necktie into a vending machine and missing his train,
filming himself doing silly moves on the road, and testing out various cell
phone ring tones, among other bits. In the making-of featurette “French Beans,”
running 11-plus minutes, the movie’s makers — including director Steve Bendelack,
producer Tim Bevan and credited story writer Simon McBurney talk up the
production’s location shoot in some of the most beautiful parts of France, from
the Champs d’Elysee in Paris to the southern town of Provence. “Beans In Cannes,”
running five minutes, continues this theme, and details the Cannes Film
Festival’s cooperation with the movie. Bit part costar Willem Dafoe also has
some great things to say about Atkinson, both here and in another six-minute
featurette on the star; he, Bevan, McBurney and others point out all the work
that goes into making such highly considered action feel spontaneous. Atkinson
himself, meanwhile, talks about the challenges of keeping his skin as pasty
white as possible in the French summer sun; after 90 minutes of pratfalls and
silent film-type performance, it’s a bit of a shock to hear a voice spring
forth from him, but his erudite insights on the character and performance in
general are in the end certainly no less welcome. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Directed by Norio Tsuruta, and scripted by Brendan Willis from
an original story by Koji Suzuki, the author of the original Ring stories, Dream Cruise brings an international flavor to Showtime’s well
regarded Masters of Horror series. While a bit of the plotting is lost in
translation, and hardcore J-horror audiences might find this spare treatment
somewhat lacking, fans of the aforementioned anthology cycle will likely spark
to this tonal curveball, coming as it does with such an easy-to-swallow set-up.

As a kid, businessman Jack Miller (Daniel Gillies, of Captivity)
was unable to save his younger brother from drowning in a boating accident, and
since that time he’s understandably had some trepidation about water and
returning to the ocean. While working in Japan,
an important client, Eiji Saito (Audition’s
Ryo Ishibashi), invites Jack on a boat trip along with his wife Yuri (Yoshino
Kamura). Jack swallows his fear and accepts, but does so cautiously, as he happens
to be having an affair with Yuri. Jack doesn’t know if Eiji’s invitation is coincidence,
a passive-aggressive method of confrontation, or a harbinger of something more
sinister. It turns out to be a bit of both B) and C), actually, as Eiji has a
secret from his past that rises from the sea and wreaks havoc on the ship-stuck
trio.

Coolly shot in green-and-blue-tinted fashion by Tetsuro Sano, Dream Cruise
doesn’t stray too far from Suzuki’s more famous story, with the debts for bygone
misdeeds getting paid out in the form of creepy, ethereal retribution. Gillies is more effective here than in Captivity and Tsuruta conveys menacing mood in fairly compelling fashion,
which helps cover a few plot holes. Still, the movie is hamstrung somewhat by the fact
Ishibashi and Kamura aren’t allowed to work in their native tongues.

Housed in a regular Amray case in turn stored in a cardboard
slipcover, Dream Cruise is, like all
its brethren, presented in a solid, 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Flesh
tones are constant, the movie’s blacks are deep and consistent, and only a few
mild problems with compression artifacts exist. Well-produced Dolby digital 5.1
surround sound and Dolby digital 2.0 stereo tracks anchor the audio
presentations, with the former being the top choice. Animated menus give way to
probably the most interesting bonus feature — an audio commentary track from Gillies
and series producer Mick Garris, who talk up the production as a sort of
cultural exchange experiment. There’s also a 30-minute featurette that further
elucidates this challenge, by way of cast and crew interviews that essay tonal
dissection, on-set rehearsal material and other behind-the-scenes tidbits.
Nicely rounding things out are a still gallery of behind-the-scenes photos,
trailers for other episodes in the series and a DVD-ROM version of the movie’s
script. To purchase the film via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B (Disc)

What’s a guy to do when he catches an early flight home and discovers his girlfriend in a bed with a roomful of naked strangers? Why, return to college and sow his own wild oats by starting a fraternity, of course! That’s the premise behind 2003’s Old School, which helped both launch Saturday Night Live’s Will Ferrell into big screen stardom and set Vince Vaughn’s career back on its proper course.

Luke Wilson) throws a wild party at the new home he’s rented, only to discover that it belongs to the nearby college campus, and the outraged Dean Gordon Pritchard (Jeremy Piven) is none too pleased. Mitch’s friend Beanie Campbell (Vaughn) then figures out that the only way he can stay put is to put the home to use for some kind of college purposes, and he organizes the creation of a fraternity on Mitch’s behalf, open to anybody who wants to join.

What ensues is the sort of old-fashioned, frat house comedy that came about after Animal House first made its mark on the national collective psyche, with unapologetically formulaic antics piled on top of nudity and willful coarseness. As Mitch and Beanie’s friend, reformed party guy Frank “the Tank” Ricard, Ferrell gets naked and streaks through the streets, much to the surprise of onlookers and the embarrassment of his wife. Meanwhile, Mark (Craig Kilborn), a smarmy figure who’s less then enthused about Mitch’s advance toward his girlfriend Nicole (Ellen Pompeo), emerges as an antagonist of the guys, alongside Dean Pritchard.

Co-scripted by Scot Armstrong and director Todd Phillips, Old School isn’t an exercise in originality, that’s for sure. The characterizations in the movie are pretty cardboard-thin (women as empowered sex-pots, bimbos, shrews or some combination thereof), though it could be argued — certainly with Dean Pritchard, though rather wanly elsewhere — that this is part of the subversive point. Still, what Old School lacks in structured laughs it certainly makes up for in sheer manic fervor and eagerness to please. This is a young guys’ movie, through and through, and in the right mood and proper company, it’s a measured blast of enjoyable silliness.

The new HD-DVD release of the film, packaged in standard fashion and billed as “unrated and out of control,” imports a lot of the special features from the movie’s 2003 unrated DVD mainstream release, but the good news is that one can now watch Blue’s wrestling scene in crystal clear, 1080p resolution. Audio, meanwhile, comes in English, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby digital plus tracks, which quite nicely showcase the movie’s raucous party scenes; subtitles are also available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

A feature-length audio commentary track from Ferrell, Wilson, Vaughn and Phillips finds the guys cutting up just about as much as one would expect. Eight deleted scenes run 13 minutes in total, offering up a look Mitch paying Dean Pritchard a visit, an alternate version of his early arrival home, an inspection of the residence, and a look at Frank’s new inflatable companion. A five-minute blooper reel gives viewers a nice look at set crack-ups (including some amusingly flubbed work from Piven), while a 13-minute making-of featurette includes interviews with cast and crew. The best featurette, though, has to be a spoof of Bravo’s Inside the Actors’ Studio, in which Ferrell, as unctuous host James Lipton, interviews the three leads of the movie, himself included. A trio of TV spots and the film’s original theatrical trailer rounds out the disc. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

While its complete season sets are the stuff of manna, there have
also been a number of smart niche DVD releases of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s riotous,
delightfully lewd animated series, like its packaging of “The Passion of the Jew,” the
episode devoted to assaying Mel Gibson’s controversial film. Christmas Time in South Park continues
this winning tradition, offering up seven collected episodes of Kyle, Stan,
Cartman and Kenny’s seasonal misadventures.

South Park
what the Halloween “Treehouse of Horrors” episodes have been for The Simpsons. Of the slightly more
recent entries, “Red Sleigh Down” picks apart action tropes, and sees the boys
bring Christmas to Iraq;
it’s quite funny.

Still, the most inspired episode might still be the eighth
season’s “Woodland Critter Christmas”
(above), an earnestly narrated tale in which Stan, “the little boy in the red poof-ball
hat,” stumbles upon a group of chipper forest animals, led by Squirrelly, and
helps them build a manger when told that the virginal Porcupine-y is pregnant with
their savior child. It’s only after he lures a mountain lion that threatens the
brood to her death that Stan learns the critters are actually Satanists, and he
just paved the way for 10,000 years of darkness and the return of the
(woodland) Antichrist. Working with three orphaned mountain lion cubs and Santa
Claus, Stan tries to set things right. In typical but still hilarious fashion,
the entire thing turns out to be a school story penned by Cartman, just to rip
on Kyle for being Jewish. Also included in the set are “It’s Christmas in Canada”
and “Merry Christmas Charlie Manson!”

Presented in the same 1.33:1 full frame as the show every
week on Comedy Central, Christmas Time in
South Park is anchored by a Dolby digital soundtrack that more than
adequately captures the meager aural demands of the material. While there aren’t
any bonus extras, the release is nicely packaged in a hard plastic tray in a sturdy
cardboard flipbook case, with a gold spine that gives it the appearance of a mock
storybook. It also comes with a special insert advertising South Park and other Comedy Central releases.
To purchase the title via Amazon, click here.
A (Show) B (Disc)

In the 1980s, Orlando’s
Church Street Station provided a welcome stopover for many country crooners and
autumn-of-their-years pop and R&B acts. It was a perfect alignment of venue
and audience. After all, with the theme park rides and attractions of Disney
World and Epcot Center nearby, this provided a chance for future boomers to
kick back, relax and, if they so desired, prove they could still cut a rug. It’s
against this backdrop that George Jones’ 1984 performance, now available on
DVD, unfolds.

The erstwhile husband of Tammy Wynette, and probably at
least partial inspiration for her hit “Stand by Your Man,” Jones is arguably
one of the greatest country singers of all time — a quiet, captivating
personality with plenty of dramatic power in his voice. Though probably best
known for his somber song canon, Jones has also shown a fondness for
lightheartedness through novelty tunes like “White Lightning.” Those two
different sides of his personality get trotted out in equal measure here on George Jones: Live in Concert, an
hour-long DVD that also features special guests Johnny Rodriguez and Mark Gray.

Most of the popular chart-toppers from Jones’ days of
dueting with Wynette — tunes like “We’re Gonna Hold On,” “Golden Ring” and
“Near You” — aren’t included here, which may be a bummer for fans of that era.
But plenty of other staples are, including “When I’m Gone,” “The Race Is On”
and 1980 Grammy winner “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Other tracks include “The
One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song),” “Who’s Gonna Chop My Baby’s
Kindlin’,” “Bartender Blues,” “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” “Chicken Reel,”
“She’s My Rock” and “No Show Jones,” the song coined after the nickname Jones
earned for ducking out on announced concerts. Rodriguez sits in on “I Always
Get Lucky with You,” “North of the Border” and “Love Me with All Your Heart,” meanwhile,
while Gray guests on “Diamond in the Dust” and “Back When Love Was Enough.”

Presented in full-screen with 5.1 surround sound, George Jones: Live in Concert comes
housed in a regular Amray case, with a bonus quiz section on Jones’ life and
career serving as the only supplemental extra. Though it’s somewhat yawningly produced, hardcore fans will still find worth in this release. To purchase the disc via Amazon, click here. C+ (Concert) C- (Disc)

I came to The Santa
Clause franchise already in progress, the result of a yuletide review
assignment last year, but I’d certainly seen enough of the trailers and TV ads
for the first two films to grasp what was going on. The series began, in 1994,
as the ultimate collision of
workaholic-Dad-snapped-into-line-by-fantastical-intervention cinema (see The
Family Man, Liar Liar, Click, et al) and high concept piffle
(ordinary guy becomes… Santa Claus). The movies have since served as one of the
two twin pillars, alongside the Toy Story films, in star Tim Allen’s
otherwise negligible big screen career. Eight years passed between the original
and its sequel, but the $172 million worldwide gross of The Santa Clause 2
(almost on par with its forebear) cemented plans for a trilogy.

an engagingly colorful villainous performance by Martin Short
as the jealous Jack Frost.

After having become Santa in the first movie, Scott Calvin
(Allen) has tried to juggle the demands of the job with his personal life. The
Escape Clause finds Santa taking on new challenges as his extended family
continues to grow. At the risk of giving away its secret location, Scott
invites his in-laws, Sylvia and Bud Newman (Ann-Margret and Alan Arkin, a rich
pair) to the North Pole to share in the holiday festivities and be near their
daughter, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell), as she prepares for the eagerly
anticipated birth of Baby Claus. The problem, of course, is that Carol’s
parents don’t know about Scott’s secret identity (they just think he’s a north-of-the-border
toymaker), so he disguises the North Pole as Canada, instructing all his elves
to cover up their pointy ears and go about appending, “ehh?” to the end of
every other sentence. Further complicating matters are Scott’s own blended
brood — ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), her new husband Neil (Judge Reinhold),
their daughter Lucy (a very effective Liliana Mumy) and Scott’s son Charlie
(Eric Lloyd) — who beg on for a trip of their own, and have to be entertained
as well as keep the secret from the Newmans.

The main complication, though, is Jack Frost (Short), an
icy-browed outcast on the Council of Legendary Figures, a group which includes
the Easter Bunny, Father Time, Mother Nature, Cupid, et al. Jack wants his own
holiday, and when rebuffed by the council he hatches a mischievous scheme to
wreck Scott’s holiday and make him unwittingly invoke the titular “escape
clause,” thus freeing the path for Jack to become the new Santa Claus. Jack’s
ploy works — for a bit, at least — and we get to see him commercialize the
North Pole, turning it into a theme park where the richest parents can bump
their kids to the top of the “nice list” for a price. Naturally, Scott
reconnects with just how much being Santa Claus really means to him, and how
important separate time for family is, and makes a play to save the day and
reverse Jack’s plot.

Nuance surely isn’t Santa Clause 3’s name, but its
performances are far the most part pleasing — Martin in particular brings a smirky, self-centered
glee to his role — and its story isn’t condescending, which is something these
days. It’s brisk and colorful, right on spot for its chief target demographic,
and to that end certainly worthy of inclusion on the “nice list.”

Santa Clause 3
comes presented in two versions — 1.33:1 full-screen or the Disney-dubbed
“family-friendly” 1.78:1 widescreen, each free of edge enhancement or grain.
Housed in a regular Amray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcase with
slightly raised, foil-embossed lettering, its audio is presented in an English
language Dolby digital 5.1 track, with slapstick effects work mixed to the
front. French and Spanish language tracks are also included, making for a
release of even broader appeal.

As with almost all Disney DVD releases, the bonus material
is a mix of behind-the-scenes featurettes and tidbits geared specifically toward younger viewers,
like a music video from Aly and AJ, “Greatest Time of Year,” here. A blooper
reel cops a bit of material from the end credit sequence, but still provides
some genuine laughs via Short’s mock-piqued improvisations. Director Lembeck sits for an audio commentary track, in which he naturally dishes out praise
left and right for his cast and crew. There’s an alternate opening sequence,
and also a featurette which looks at alternate character mock-ups and costumes
and design for both Carol Claus and Jack Frost — work that was re-tooled on the
fly once production commenced. Wrapping things up are a look at some of the
movie’s special effects work, and an interactive “Carol-oke” feature that
younger tykes will surely enjoy. B- (Movie) A- (Disc)

I didn’t happen to grow up in a “Three Stooges household,”
which is to say an environment where the work of the classic comedy trio was
lionized and celebrated by my parents or older family members. (That’s right,
Mel Gibson isn’t my uncle.) Still, there’s something so downright basic —
primitive isn’t the right word, but it’s leaning in that direction, minus the
negative connotation — about all the nose-tweaking, eye-gouging, head-slapping
antics at the core of the Stooges that one can’t help but be a little bowled
over when you first see them.

Witnessing a silly Stooges sketch as a kid is like
having a window opened in your mind; it’s goofy, physical, anarchic,
mock-violent and chaotic, but somehow very particularly ordered at the same
time. The very contradictions of the world reveal themselves in these skits, if
on a wholly subliminal level. Now, with the DVD release of the superb The Three Stooges Collection: Volume One,
covering 1934 through ’36, classic film fans and those who first discovered the
troupe on television reruns can rediscover them all over again, and enjoy that
cathartic rush of wide-eyed amusement, indulgence and bewilderment.

Slapstick needn’t necessarily be brilliant in order to catch
the passing fancy of an audience — after all, how many of us have ever laughed
at someone tripping on a sidewalk or a flight of stairs, in spite of ourselves
and the general awareness of public niceties? While naysayers or nincompoops
may decry their work as down-market, key to the Stooges’ genius, however, was
their timing, which is still a sight to behold. The choreography of all the
tossed pies, half-punches, sprayed seltzer water and feigned eye gougings is like
some adolescent fantasy dance, with the air-quote violence serving as perfectly
balanced, brutish counterpoint to the equal absurdity of the mock-adult pickles
they find themselves in.

Featuring 19 digitally re-mastered two-reel shorts presented
in their original order of release, this set covers the beginning of the
group’s two-decade-plus tenure at Columbia Pictures, their original studio home.
The breadth of important Larry, Curly and Moe material here is breathtaking, and includes Punch Drunks, the only short actually
written by the Stooges, in which Curly takes quite the beating; Pop Goes the Easel, their first pairing
with frequent director Del Lord; the Oscar-nominated Men in Black; Movie Maniacs,
featuring Charlie Chaplin’s first wife, Mildred Harris; and Three Little Pigskins, featuring a young
Lucille Ball. Even casual film fans, meanwhile, will likely recognize bits from
Disorder in the Court, featuring the
famous “swearing in” scene with Curly in the courtroom, and Slippery Silks, which features the
group’s (first) infamous dessert cream fight. Three Little Pigskins ranks highly, and other favorites, in my
book, include Half-Shoot Shooters,
which finds the Stooges reenlisting in the Army after the end of World War I,
and Three Little Beers. The latter finds
the guys taking up golf, with their eyes on a cash prize; characteristic disaster
ensues, as do some good form pointers on alternate usage of one’s clubs.
Overall, this is both a great sampler set and an offering that allows one to glimpse the development of the Stooges’ personality types, seen here occasionally in their infancy, and how these would feed more and more into their routines.

Spread out over two discs and housed in a pair of slimline
plastic cases in turn stored in a sturdy, cardboard slipcover, the shorts are
presented in 1.33:1 full screen black-and-white, naturally, and look pretty fantastic. I can’t quibble too much with the lack of supplemental extras since the set’s running time totals almost six hours and, when finished, the compendium will span decades, with a completist’s attention to chronology and detail. Still, a brief academic overview of the Stooges, or at least this time period in their careers, would have been nice; as is, there are just previews for the ninth season DVD release of
Seinfeld, Bill Murray’s Meatballs,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
and forthcoming Ray Harryhausen titles. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. A (Movies) B (Disc)

There’s a pinch of the voyeuristic,
slack-jawed amazement that made John Heyn and Jeff Krulik’s landmark 1986 short
Heavy Metal Parking Lot such a wild sub-cultural
curio in Jim Heneghan’s Kiss Loves You,
a fascinating look behind the curtain of probably the best-marketed band of the
past quarter century. There’s also a slight reminiscence to 1997’s Trekkies, a documentary which explored a
similarly fervent fan group. Put it all together, and you have a briskly paced
nonfiction flick treat that plays well to audiences both wide and narrow.

Kiss
Loves You starts out as a bit of a piece of agitprop. Heneghan (the Hellacopters
documentary Goodnight, Cleveland), though, smartly makes sure the film isn’t just some rah-rah
document. A decade in the making, Kiss
Loves You captures the reality of fanatical fandom, but also the cold actualities
of the fact that sometimes getting what one wishes for has unintended
consequences. The film begins in 1994, when Kiss was at a career low point, and
fans around the world were starting their own tribute bands, uniting at
unofficial Kiss conventions and growing increasingly more nostalgic for the
1970s era class Kiss line-up. Cannily in tune with and poised to exploit this
shift in zeitgeist, frontman Gene Simmons and the band responded in 1996,
rising up like a grease-painted phoenix and ushering in a new era of success…
particularly on the marketing front. On the surface, this was a Kiss fan’s
dream come true, but for some folks the return of their idols brought
unexpected losses and harsh new problems.

Kiss
Loves You delves into unofficial Kiss conventions and tribute band gigs for
a wealth of information, conducting interviews with average folks to get to the
core of a typical Kiss fan’s devotion, which obviously extends far beyond any mere
affinity for the music. Other interviewees range from Bill Baker and the entire
small town Ventrice family to musicians like Dee Snider, Todd Youth and Dictators
frontman Dick Manitoba. The music rocks, but Simmons and cohorts Paul Stanley and
Ace Frehley come across as crassly tunnel-visioned businessmen on a certain
level. The real point: Kiss loves the fact that you love them.

Housed in a nice slimline case with a plastic
tray, Kiss Loves You
is presented on
a region-free disc in a letterboxed 4×3 aspect ratio, its picture
elements
drawn from a hodge-podge of sources, including 16mm, analog video and
Super-8
footage. The feature itself runs just over 70 minutes, but Heneghan
complements
the film with a hearty array of bonus material, including
never-before-seen
(though soundless) footage of Kiss in Stockholm in 1976; material from
the Beyond
Vaudeville Kiss Spectacular, a New York City public access cable
program;
extended footage from the band’s comeback press conference aboard the
USS
Intrepid (?!); and more than an hour and a half of candid outtakes and
excised movie
material. To purchase the film via Amazon, click here.
B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Jackie Chan spans time in The Myth, a more or less family-friendly, 2005 Hong Kong
adventure flick that gets a lot of mileage out of its hodge-podge concept and
Chan’s accrued goodwill and likeability before ultimately collapsing under the
weight of less-than-stellar execution.

In the modern portion of the film, Chan stars as
archeologist Jack, who finds himself beset with strange and powerful period
piece dreams in which is recast as General Meng-Yi, a duty-bound warrior
struggling with newfound feelings of love and infatuation. Along with ambitious
scientist William (Tony Leung Ka Fai), Jack discovers a precious ancient sword
and a magical gemstone, leading them to the entrance of a mythical mausoleum
built in 221 BC by Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China.
A vast royal tomb that took more than 35 years to construct, and required the
work of more than 700,000 forced laborers, this tomb holds the key to mysteries
linked between past and present.

The closer Jack moves to revealing the hidden treasure of
the Qin Dynasty, the more these two worlds collide violently, with Meng-Yi, a
loyal army leader who’s fallen in love with a Korean princess, Ok-soo (Hee-seon Kim), meant to
be married to Emperor Qin, holding the key to the safety of both the tomb and future
generations. Working with his Supercop
(aka Police Story) collaborator,
director Stanley Tong, Chan dreams up some nice stunts, which are choreographed
between the two of them and Richard Hung. The execution of the archeological action-adventure
elements are reminiscent of Chan’s Armour
of God movies, but the chief problem is that the CGI work in The Myth is clearly not up to snuff, and
it jerks one out of the movie at key moments, badly.

The Myth is housed
in a regular Amray case, and is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen
transfer. Its audio is presented in an English language Dolby digital 5.1
track, with alternate subtitles in English and Spanish. A nice slate of bonus
material anchors this DVD release, most notably Chan’s first full-length audio
commentary track. In inimitable Chan style, he talks comparative budget figures
(saying The Myth would have cost $150
million with American union rules and crew size), good-naturedly calls out a
costar’s fear of a helicopter ride, and talks about the transportation
difficulties on this movie versus an American film. He also discusses the
movie’s reliance on practical effects work and his preference for one-on-one
fight scenes, in the process anecdotally illuminating key differences between
Asian and American genre cinema.

A 21-minute making-of featurette, laden with interview
clips, finds Chan only half-jokingly revealing that the movie is a historical
rip-off/homage to Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon. Slightly less interesting is a throwaway four-minute clip, entitled
“Will the Real Swami Please Stand Up?,” in which Swami Nithyananda talks about
his meditation techniques and healing centers, which he touts as unlocking
one’s deep-seated inner consciousness. Finally, a three-and-a-half-minute
segment entitled “Jackie’s Kids” opens likes a joke, with Chan talking about “a
family sharing one pant” [sic], but is actually a moving snapshot of his vast
charity work through his Dragon’s Heart School Foundation.

Six deleted scenes from the movie run about 11 minutes in
total. One concerns a booby-trapped entrance to the emperor’s tomb, and another
sequence showcases a secret entrance to an Indian temple; the most interesting,
however, might be an ice cave scene where the princess uses a little body
warmth to help keep General Meng-Yi alive. Rounding out matters are a
collection of previews and two “Endless Love” music videos, one a Mandarin pop
version of the song. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B+ (Disc)

The Company
apparently debuted on TNT in early August, and aired over the course of three
consecutive weeks. That’s about how long it took me to get through the film’s
DVD presentation… not because it wasn’t interesting, but because the miniseries
was so long that I had to break it up into chunks and catch pieces of it when I
could. Even at that considerable disadvantage to flow, though, the film works,
courtesy of its rich characters, exacting detail and exciting backdrops.

The Good Shepherd,
as both projects span decades and essentially tell the same expansive story — the
birth of the CIA as viewed chiefly through the life of a man who believed in
America and would sacrifice everything he loved to protect it, including chunks
of his own happiness and wellbeing. Adapted from Robert Littell’s sprawling,
900-page history of the organization, The
Company focuses on Jack McCauliffe (Chris O’Donnell), an idealistic Yale
kid recruited into the CIA by his coach, along with other peers like Leo Kritzky
(Alessandro Nivola). He’s sent to Berlin
to work with OSS (a precursor to
the CIA) foreign agent Harvey Torriti (Alfred Molina), an eccentric man known
as “The Sorcerer.”

Soon Jack and Harvey find themselves entangled in double
lives, fighting an elusive but formidable enemy in an unrelenting and deadly
battle within the CIA itself. Together with counterintelligence chief James
Angleton (Michael Keaton), the men become hell-bent on finding the moles within
their own ranks before every operation they undertake is completely undermined.
As these agents and double agents delve deeper into the game of espionage, some
can remain detached. Jack, however, is forever changed and emotionally hollowed
by bearing witness to the cost in human lives. His struggle to remain coolly
professional and above the fray clashes with his love for Rainbow (Alexandra
Maria Lara, above left, of Control and the forthcoming Youth Without Youth),
a beautiful woman who turns out to be, not very surprisingly, an enemy
informant.

Assaying an organization where duplicity is required and
nothing is taken at face value, the themes hashed out in The Company are naturally many of the same things examined in The Good Shepherd:
how idealism is steadily eroded by suspicion and paranoia, and how personal
lives are sacrificed in dedication to this job. O’Donnell is in my book a
downgrade from Matt Damon, but not as steep as one might first think. The film’s
script, penned by Ken Nolan, is such a well-ordered affair, and presents such a
tapestry of details, that Jack is essentially a caretaker guide for this
story — a role for which O’Donnell is well suited. Keaton and Molina,
meanwhile, deliver fine work, and director Mikael Salomon (The Grid) deftly juggles action requirements, bureaucratic exposition
and stalking intrigue; particularly effective are the mole-rooting sequences of
the film’s middle third.

Housed in a regular Amray case with hinged tray, The Company is presented in a widescreen
transfer with deep, consistent blacks and no problems with edge enhancement, and
with matching French and English language Dolby digital 5.1 audio tracks, as
well as subtitles for each language. Its supplemental extras consist of a
DVD-ROM element and two featurettes. First up is a 15-minute-plus look at the
origins of the project, which includes great interviews with producer Ridley
Scott (at one time slated behind the camera, when the film was conceived of as
a feature) and executive producer John Calley, transitioning at the time from
studio head to independent producer, as well as other behind-the-scenes
players. Sony would ultimately bail on the project as a feature, and writer
Nolan (Black Hawk Down), who deems
Littell’s source material “an embarrassment of riches,” would flesh out the
vision even further, adding the entire segment about the Hungarian revolution.
The 23-minute-plus making-of featurette gives more time to executive producers
David Zucker and David Rosemont, as well as director Salomon; it talks about
how Salomon heartily pitched himself for the entire miniseries, when the
original plan was to use different directors for all three segments. O’Donnell
and Molina also appear in snippets, but there’s unfortunately no Keaton. Frankly,
an exclusive, longer sit-down with Nolan would likely have produced a lot more
fascinating anecdotal bang for one’s buck.

There is, however, also a nice Easter egg bonus if you
toggle to the left on the extras screen and highlight a lingering serial number
in the corner of the frame — a five-minute look at UPP’s visual effects work on
the movie, which includes everything from CGI debris and blood splatters to
matte paintings to increase historical detail. A one-minute sneak peek at TNT’s
The Closer and DVD previews for the
ninth season of Seinfeld, Premonition and forthcoming Sony Blu-ray titles are also included. B (Movie) B (Disc)

In the spring of 1931, nine black men were arrested for
allegedly raping two white women stowed away aboard an Alabama
freight train. With alarming immediacy, all nine men were tried and sentenced
to death in the electric chair. What followed was a firestorm of conjecture and
controversy that reached far beyond the Alabama state lines, as the entire
nation began to examine the facts of the case — and its own collective
conscience. That infamous story, of the “Scottsboro Boys,” gets a solid,
involving, dramatic retelling in writer-director Terry Green’s well-acted Heavens Fall, which examines the events
chiefly through the prism of the contested retrial of defendant Haywood
Patterson (B.J. Britt).

A lot of movies about racism, hate crimes and/or the civil
rights struggle — Rob Reiner’s Mississippi
Burning chief amongst them — get rapped for telling their stories through
the eyes of a white protagonist, and Heavens
Fall certainly opens itself up to this criticism a bit through the
inclusion of noted New York defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz (Timothy Hutton,
also serving as a producer) as a character. Yet the inclusion of reporter
William Lee (Anthony Mackie), a composite figure but strong character in his
own right, as well as the fact that as a Jew Leibowitz had experienced some
racial profiling and discrimination firsthand, helps strengthen the movie’s
dramatic grasp, and besides, Leibowitz is an elemental figure in this tale.

Green does a very good job of sketching out all of his
characters, and if Azura Skye and Leelee Sobieski,
as accusers Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, have difficult and somewhat thankless
roles, it’s somewhat understandable given the narrative. Bill Sage brings a
nice, full-bodied complexity to his role as lead prosecutor Thomas Knight, Jr.,
a dutiful but ambitious family man whose father none-too-subtly convinces him
of the political benefits of winning the case. As presiding Judge James Horton,
meanwhile, David Strathairn
brings an engaging humanity and gravitas to his role. The performances make this a compelling look back at an ugly, and under-discussed, period of American history.

On DVD Heavens Fall,
which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, is presented in anamorphic
widescreen, and comes with a 16-minute making-of featurette that, while awfully
over-edited and featuring a soundtrack mixed too low, does go out of its way to
include tidbits from as many cast and crew members as possible, including
cinematographer Paul Sanchez. There’s also a separate, 15-minute featurette
entitled “Surviving the Fall,” which is fascinating in its own right, detailing
as it does the September 2004 production’s on-location battle with the
category-five Hurricane Ivan, which cut a path of destruction through Alabama.
Finally, there’s a moving tidbit in which the now elderly son of the real-life
Horton accepts a community honor, the JFK Courage Award, for his deceased
father; after rendering the verdict that he did, and overturning a jury
sentence, Horton was bounced from the bench in the next election, ostracized,
and never again elected for public service. This is a great inclusion, and
highlights the humanity on display in the film. To purchase Heavens Fall via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Christopher Columbus remains a fascinating yet habitually underexplored figure of history, famously celebrated for his “discovery,” but also frequently whispered about as only the figurehead explorer of a larger group. He wanted to reach the Far East by sailing west, an innovative idea for its time. But instead of reaching the Indies, as he expected, he bumped into another continent, and changed the course of civilization. In the process, Columbus became a mythic figure and a powerful symbol of both exploration and exploitation — his voyage a metaphor for the process of discovery, but also inevitably linked to the widespread massacre of Native Americans that would follow.

An interesting documentary undertaking, The Magnificent Voyage of Christopher Columbus focuses on the explorer’s historic first voyage, re-created with replicas of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. It tells the timeless story of Columbus’ Atlantic crossing, his fateful initial encounter with native people, his eventual passage through the Bahamas to Cuba and Hispaniola, and his dramatic return to Europe, bringing with him news of a beautiful land and gentle people.

As detailed and intriguing as some of the nautical plottings get (sailing into modern-day Cuba without benefit of radio, for instance), the most interesting aspects of this endeavor often have to do with recreated ship duties and routines, like the morning call to prayer. Also given a lot of narrative run is the role of Martin Alonso Pinzon, the captain of the Pinta who is sometimes noted as the “co-discoverer of America.” Pinzon, whose brothers also accompanied him on the trip (one was the commander of the Nina), is an interesting figure, and this movie shows the weight and value of his legacy today, with townsfolk engaging in a celebratory fandango in his honor.

Some of these digressions are a bit of a yawn, to be honest. But the manner in which the past is interwoven with the present is, for the most part, an exhilarating way to capture the tenseness and uncertainty of the trip, and how its effects reverberate still today. Though his journey changed the world, setting in motion a transformation of Europe and the Americas that dramatically impacted the rest of the globe, Columbus went to his grave without realizing that he had in fact discovered two new continents. The Magnificent Voyage of Christopher Columbus, though, shines a new light on a tale too often given only a small, cursory chapter in history school books.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case, The Magnificent Voyage of Christopher Columbus is presented in anamorphic widescreen, and runs around one hour and 50 minutes. There are no supplemental features, save a separate, selectable screen touting other WGBH releases like Walking the Bible and Vikings: Journey to the New World. The audio-visual particulars of its presentation are fine, but more accompanying detail would certainly have been welcome. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) D (Disc)

Dori Bernstein’s Show
Business: The Road to Broadway officially comes with no space between the
first two names of its appellation, but quite frankly I just can’t bring myself
to commit to that typo, which no doubt has something to do with Warner Bros. or
Universal having snapped up the properly partitioned title rights for some
comfortably shingled producer. To which I say whatever.

Colorful and engrossing, Bernstein’s documentary chronicles
the 2003-04 Broadway season, and the backstage drama leading up to the Tony
awards, by way of focusing on four very different high-profile debut
productions — Wicked, the box
office-bursting musical adaptation of the literary prequel to The Wizard of Oz; Taboo, the controversial collaboration between Rosie O’Donnell and
ambisexual, erstwhile pop icon Boy George; the quasi-operatic musical Caroline, or Change, a partnership
between Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori, who’s currently pulling duty on the
in-development Shrek stage musical; and
Avenue Q, an irreverent puppet
musical that would go on to become the sleeper commercial hit of the season.

The director — who cites William Goldman’s The Season, from 1968, as her
inspiration for the project — deftly cuts between the productions, and doesn’t
shy away from tension and acrimony, as when Avenue
Q composer/lyricist Jeff Marx (above center) confesses to clashing violently with writer
Jeff Whitty (above left). Bernstein additionally inserts a critics’ roundtable into the
proceedings, with wonkish theater writers from coasts both east and west serving
up ample-sized portions of opinion on the productions as they make their way
through rehearsals, into previews and actually opening. She also chose her focus
wisely: Wicked racked up a leading 10
Tony nominations, Avenue Q scored six
and Taboo picked up four. A thrilling
document for theater aficionados as well as those just seeking out another piece
of vicarious, behind-the-scenes entertainment, Show Business locates the commonality of its subjects’ human
experience (frustration, perseverance) while also proving that there really is
no business quite like show business, something I knew even from my middle
school’s production of Annie Get Your Gun.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Show Business is presented in anamorphic widescreen, and comes with
both a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 Dolby stereo audio tracks.
Co-producer Alan Cumming — who also appears sparingly in the film — sits with
Bernstein and Avenue Q co-creator
Marx for an audio commentary track, and their rapport is warm and
inviting, if also a bit of a tip-off as to how things “end” (for those who may
not already know). A smattering of trailers, Tony Awards promotional spots and
around eight minutes of awards clips are also included, but far and away the
best supplemental feature is the hour’s-plus worth of deleted scenes, which include
Henry IV swordfight rehearsals with
Ethan Hawke and Michael
Hayden, a fascinating look at Wicked’s
set construction and much, much more. Another fun but surprising factoid: Marx can’t
actually read music, believe it or not. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)

I wasn’t particularly hot on the trailer and television ads
for this animated film (the hip-hoppin’ frogs seemed much more of an
embarrassment to me, divorced from their context), but after first seeing Meet the Robinsons a friend and
colleague of mine described the movie as Back
to the Future meets The Incredibles,
which is an admittedly awesome and alluring hybrid pitch. And I can see the
comparison, honestly, even if the movie isn’t fully an out-of-the-park smash in
my opinion. Spinning a sweetly moralizing story around serial wackiness, Meet the Robinsons scores mondo points
courtesy of its bright and inviting character design and smart, fanciful
writing, which combine to render a movie straight down the middle in terms of
kid-appeal plot something that, truly, the entire family can enjoy.

A Day with Wilbur Robinson, the movie is set in the fantastical
world of 2037, where dogs that wear glasses are as common as talking dinosaurs
(which is to say quite common). Twelve-year-old orphan Lewis (voiced by Daniel
Hansen) is brilliant and positive-minded, and always coming up with new
inventions, even if some of them don’t quite work out exactly as he first
intended. After yet another adoption falls through, Lewis — working with a
“memory scanner” that conjures up fleeting thoughts of his pre-adolescence — sets
off on a journey to find the family he never knew, a journey that becomes a
trip through time.

Lewis is given a friendly push-and-pull in that direction by
Wilbur Robinson (voiced by Wesley Singerman), a teenager who bills himself as a
time cop from the future, (don’t worry, there’s no Jean-Claude Van Damme in
sight…), and says that Lewis is needed to help fix the space-time continuum. As
quirky as he is, Wilbur’s extended family is populated by even more oddballs,
hence the movie’s name. The film’s requisite villain? That would chiefly be
Bowler Hat Guy, a sort of combination of Snidely Whiplash’s moustache-twirling fatuousness
and Gargamel’s dimness. Along the way, Lewis discovers that the fate of the
future rests in his hands, but he can’t save it alone — he’ll need every bit of
help he can get from the wonderfully wacky Robinson family, who help him learn
to keep moving forward and, naturally, never stop believing in himself.

Longtime Disney fans will appreciate not only Meet the Robinsons’ richly detailed,
animated futuristic setting, but also get a hoot out of its many quirky
supporting characters, which are an ample platform for fun, inviting voice work from Laurie Metcalf, Angela
Bassett, Adam West and Tom Selleck, among others. Wilbur’s bubbly mother Franny,
for instance, has developed a method for teaching frogs, such as Mafia don Frankie
the Frog, to sing. And then there’s Tiny the Dinosaur, a T-Rex whose huge head
and big heart are offset by cartoonishly small arms, giving him a bit of a
complex.

Meet the Robinsons
is directed by Stephen J. Anderson, who also voices the villainous Bowler Hat
Guy. Anderson’s experience as an animator
and storyboard artist (he also worked on Disney’s Brother Bear, Emperor’s New
Groove and Tarzan) is readily
apparent, as he helps give the movie a real sense of visual coherence. The
writing is equally graceful; stream-of-consciousness asides that are a hallmark
of animated productions are a part of Meet
the Robinsons, yes, but here they don’t feel overly work-shopped or tacked
on. They feed the story a bit, and certainly bring the characterizations into
sharper focus. The writers also retain a few arrows of surprise in their quiver,
having fun with the narrative bends that time travel affords, but also tying
things together in the end an interesting, albeit still characteristically heartwarming
fashion.

Housed in a regular Amray case in turn stored in an
attractive cardboard slipcover, Meet the
Robinsons comes presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, enhanced for 16×9
televisions. Its picture is crisp and clear, with solid colors and no artifacts
or edge enhancement. Sound is presented in a superb Dolby digital 5.1 surround
sound mix, with English, Spanish and French audio tracks. DVD bonus features include
a solid array of material, kicking off with an audio commentary track from Anderson
in which he talks about his own love of animation and his attachment to the
material. A small collection of a half dozen deleted scenes is also included,
with on-camera introductions from Anderson
as to why the material was cut (time/story flow constraints, mostly).

The 18-minute making-of featurette Inventing the Robinsons follows the arc of the movie’s development,
from pre-production through animation rendering and beyond; it’s interesting to
note that the movie was at one point tabbed for live-action production, but
concerns over the cost of futuristic sets and effects work helped put the
kibosh on those plans. There’s also a six-minute talking-head piece on inventions
that shaped the real world and a pair of music videos — “Little Wonders” from
ex-Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas, and “Kids of the Future” from Jonas
Brothers — to keep toes tapping. Finally, as with many Disney titles, there’s a
set-top game, this one an amiable trivia-based distraction entitled Family Function 5000: Family Tree Game.
In it, Lewis’ newest invention organizes his enormous family tree so he can
keep track of his family-to-be. Unfortunately, as with most prototypes, there
are a few bugs to be worked out, requiring assistance in the form of testing viewers’
memories.
Overall, this is a solid and fun title, certainly a movie that parents can watch, shame-free, with their kids. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)

Al Di Meola looks like a middle school science teacher, but has
talent to burn. After 30 years of a splendid career and exploring a variety of
styles, Di Meola still ranks among the most popular guitar-masters of jazz and
jazz-rock. Here, on his first “electric” DVD, Di Meola takes his Speak A Volcano tour to Leverkusen,
North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

Shot in November of 2006, the set runs about an hour and a
half, and finds Di Meola rediscovering his love of the electric guitar without
denying newer influences, surrounded by a band that includes his old companion
and superb percussionist Gumbo Ortiz. The result presents Di Meola totally at
the top of his game; it’s a balancing act between volcanic electronic ecstasy
and emotionally moving sound excursions, between fervent improvisations and
intimate conversations.

Well directed, seamlessly blending in fretboard close-ups
and aerial drum kit shots, the show is anchored by five Piazzolla tunes, as
well as a handful of compositions from Di Meola himself. While subtly working
his instrument in shamanistic fashion for much of the show (he doesn’t exactly give
Buckethead a run for his money in the showmanship department) a clad-in-black Di
Meola sits down for the affecting “Azzura,” which might be the highlight of the
DVD.

Released concurrently with the syncopated rhythm-heavy CD Diabolic Inventions and Seduction for Solo
Guitar, Volume 1, Di Meola’s first solo acoustic guitar album, Speak a Volcano comes housed in a
regular Amray case, and presented in widescreen enhanced for 16×9 televisions.
The disc’s transfer is super-crisp and free from grain, even if the contrast of
its picture is just a bit off, with the black borders showing up more as grey
on occasion. Viewers can select from three different audio options, meanwhile —
stereo PCM, Dolby digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 tracks.

By way of supplemental extras, in addition to offering up 11
minutes of guitar tips and showcasing different picking styles, Di Meola also
sits for an 18-minute, seven-part chat, covering his early years (including
time with Return to Forever), development and thoughts on music theory, scales
and harmony. Props go out from Di Meola to both his first teacher, for
instructing him in jazz as well as pop standards, and legendary pianist Chick
Corea, whom he cites as a big influence, particularly on his first solo work, Land of the Midnight Sun. Di Meola’s
thoughts on the differences in phrasing and expression between acoustic and
electric guitars are also quite fascinating, making this a solid pick-up for
music fans and aspirant guitarists as well. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. B (Concert) B+ (Disc)

The horror genre is always looking for new animals to exploit.
After all, spiders, killer dogs, rage-infested monkeys and killer microbes can
only go so far. Reaching back to the rich legacy of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, director Sheldon Wilson’s Kaw offers up an elemental slice of
man versus nature, in the form of a gruesome battle for survival against a
flock of vicious ravens.

The Company’s Kristin Booth, above), to
begin their new life. What begins as a quiet day in Wayne’s
isolated rural hometown quickly turns into a dark day of terror and death, however.
Phone calls roll in about marauding ravens, first from town drunk and military
veteran Clyde (Stephen McHattie, of A
History of Violence, and the small screen’s Guiding Light). Wayne
is understandably skeptical, but do you know what changes his mind? Reasoned
reflection and/or the impassioned pleas of his wife-to-be? No — attacks by
thousands of blood-thirsty ravens who also possess a high level of
intelligence.

When the local girls’ soccer team comes under siege by the
killer birds, who dive bomb their bus with large rocks, everyone desperately
fights their way towards the town diner. There Wayne, town doctor Doc (Rod Taylor)
and a few other remaining townspeople make a stand, fighting the birds off
before they kill off the entire community. Along the way, a schism between the most
of the town and a Mennonite sect nominally headed up by farmers Jacob (Vladimir
Bondarenko) and Oskar (John Ralston) sheds some light (or does it?) on the explanation
for the attacks, if not the disturbing lack of poop runs.

His involvement in the execrable The Boondock Saints
notwithstanding, Flanery is a serviceable enough actor, albeit a sort of budget
Christian Slater. He has a believable world-weary quality that serves him well,
especially in genre fare like this. Director Wilson (Shallow Ground), meanwhile, keeps things moving at a decent pace, and
Kaw’s CGI effects are decent, at
least until the requirements of bigger-better-more start to weigh down the movie’s
plausibility (I know, I know…) even further than the story inherently might. From the second act on, things
trend predictably gory and goosing more so than menacing, but genre fans
looking for a movie about killer birds will be more or less sated with this
entry, even it doesn’t quite match the dusty avian siege sequence in Resident Evil: Extinction.

Kaw comes housed in
a regular plastic Amray case, and is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen,
to preserve the aspect ratio of the movie’s theatrical exhibition… if there had
been one. Its audio, with English and French language tracks, comes in a
decently mixed Dolby digital 5.1, getting some value out of its high-end
register. French and English subtitles are also available. Since he appeared opposite
Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock’s The Birds,
Taylor makes for a nice bit of referential casting, if one cares about the matter;
it’s for this reason that he sits for a special 22-minute interview here,
discussing his memories of both movies, and comparing and contrasting them. It’s
a nice chat, also covering other elements of his career. There’s also a 24-minute
making-of featurette, with lots of time appropriately devoted to the bird
wrangling and effects work. While there is referential (and reverential) mention
made of Hitchcock and The Birds, it’s
also clear that some of the attacks were very similarly storyboarded; more
transparency about this would have been appreciated, without greatly
distracting from Kaw’s nominal
merits. C (Movie) B- (Disc)

A roguish, spry and darkly comedic caper, director Lasse Hallström’s
The Hoax is a smartly sketched, enjoyable movie that milks high
drama out of low-key stakes before then folding the secrets and lies at the
core of its story into an even grander conspiracy than its blithely egotistical
protagonist could have initially imagined. It unfortunately flailed at the box
office earlier this spring, pulling in just over $7 million domestically, but
gets reincarnated here in DVD form with a cover whose bright shades of red and
yellow play up its sparkle and energy.

one of
the most audacious and outrageous deceptions of all time jointly perpetrated on
the media and American public. Bummed by the last-minute cancellation of his
latest novel, writer Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) dreams up a work of
non-fiction that he knows would be sure to be an instant bestseller. He claims
to have obtained — via a mysterious, handwritten communiqué — the memoirs of
reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. At first, Irving’s
idea is just a savvy artistic prank, designed as much to salvage his own
wounded self-esteem as anything else. Irving,
though, believes he can take it even further. Pitching his agent (Hope Davis)
and publisher McGraw-Hill on an exclusive, tell-all autobiography, Irving
finds fresh ears. His stature instantly enhanced, Irving teases up the lie even
more, works out arrangements for an lucrative advance, and recruits friend and
fellow writer Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina, in a superlative supporting
performance) to help carry out the particulars of his scheme. When a few
associates of Hughes assail the veracity of Irving’s work, it hardly seems to
matter; using the business leader’s legendarily hermetic nature to his
advantage, Irving fends off these frontal attacks with spin, head feints and,
of course, good, old-fashioned fraud.

In real life, Irving
pulled the wool over the entire publishing industry’s eyes for more than a year
until his clever yarn unraveled into a haze of serious crimes and corporate
embarrassment. (In a delicious irony alert that would surely be derided as bad
fiction in its own novelistic form, Irving
had, in fact, previously written a book about art forger Elmyr de Hory,
entitled Fake, which could have tipped off dubious minds much earlier.) The
Hoax, meanwhile, uses the facts surrounding Irving’s
ruse as a springboard to even more fanciful and controversial reverie. It
mischievously and imaginatively explores the alleged connection between
Irving’s meticulously researched but frequently conjectural tome, Hughes’
eventual quasi-complicity in the project — in a plan of grudge-settling and
payback that would still allow for plausible deniability — and the burgeoning
paranoia in the Nixon White House that would eventually lead to Watergate and
the downfall of a President.

What William Wheeler’s superb script smartly taps into is
not just the outlandish and colorful surface intrigue of its story — the nuts
and bolts of the faking of the biography — but the secret, unexplainable thrill
that all of this gives Irving. Even
if it’s heretofore been dormant, it’s hardwired to his soul, this need for
attention and respect. This is conveyed through the listless, almost reflexive
manner in which Irving commits
adultery on his wife (Marcia Gay Harden) with an old flame (Julie Delpy) he knows to be untrustworthy and capricious. What we’re actually watching is
the implosion of an addictive personality, and the adrenaline rush that piling
lie on top of lie gives Irving.
Knowing that only the most bizarre and outlandish ones will work, to match
Hughes’ eccentric and impulsive personality, the author’s spiraling deception
is the fuel on which The Hoax runs.

So potent is its force, too, that by the end of the movie,
one is improbably siding alongside Irving,
waiting on a rooftop for a helicopter visit from Hughes that one knows can’t possibly
be coming. The Hoax toes the line of the “unreliable narrator” subgenre
of pictures, but never tips over into malarkey or complete self-obsession.
Magnificently constructed and manipulated by Hallström, the film presents a
Gere that we haven’t seen in a long time, if at all. Along with his turn in this
fall’s similarly smart and engaging The
Hunting Party, from writer-director Richard Shepard,
Gere finally, blissfully, seems to be loosening back up on screen, and not a
moment too soon.

Presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, preserving the aspect ratio
of its original theatrical exhibition, The
Hoax comes with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track, and is housed
in a regular Amray case. A nine-minute making-of featurette provides an
overview of the production, courtesy of EPK-style cast and crew interviews; Hallström
and writer Wheeler, meanwhile, provide optional commentary over 13 minutes of
deleted scenes, while an additional six-minute extended scene showcases the framework
of lively interplay that smart actors and character rootedness affords. Veteran
newsman Mike Wallace sits for a five-minute chat about his interview with the
real-life Irving for the television news magazine show 60 Minutes, though the full inclusion of this report, rather than
just clips, would’ve been nice too. Still, on top of these bonus features there
are also two feature-length audio commentary tracks — one from Wheeler and Hallström
and the other from producers Leslie Holleran and Joshua Maurer, who are equally
knowledgeable about the real-life Irving case, offering up anecdotes aplenty.
Overall, it’s a superlative packaging of a film that unfortunately fell through
the cracks in theaters.
To purchase the film via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Patty Fitzgerald surely wasn’t the first black-haired girl I
encountered, but my memories of her are strong, probably because we started a
new school together in the sixth grade. It wasn’t that she was drop-dead
gorgeous or anything like that, just that her height, grace, fair skin and
raven locks made for a striking combination — something that just held one’s
attention in a way that Mrs. Cooke’s science class couldn’t. I say this because
Hallowed Ground hangs its fortunes totally on up-and-comer Jaimie Alexander (Kyle
XY), who is able to spellbind to a now lesser degree for me certainly, but perhaps still quite a bit for 12- to 17-year-old guys out there.

Alexander,
who cut her genre teeth on the thriller Rest Stop,
featuring the obligatory moment of lingerie-clad imperilment, is otherwise, from
the right angle, a decent look-alike for Sophia Bush, but it’s her ability to conjure both repulsion and fear in equal measure that definitely bumps this otherwise somewhat rigidly plotted tale up a half notch or two. The film’s story? Built on sacred ground in the late 1890s, the
town of Hope was founded by fanatical
preacher Jonas Hathaway (Nick Chinlund). To protect the harvest and livelihood
of his new burgh from Satan’s evil reach, the preacher sacrificed the town’s
sinners — a plot device somewhat similar to The Reaping, albeit
done more imaginatively than any stone altar (Jonas dresses them up as
scarecrows, crucifies them on crosses, and lets the birds do the rest of the
work). When the town ultimately turns against Jonas, it leads to his ultimate
demise.

A century later, Liz Chambers (Alexander) finds herself
stranded in Hope when her car breaks down. She meets up with tabloid reporter Sarah
(Xena: Warrior Princess’ Hudson
Leick), who’s in town to do a profile on the community’s history (or maybe just
search down a lead on Bat Boy). Jonas’ vengeful spirit returns, however, and Liz
soon discovers that her arrival was foretold by the town’s founding preacher a
century ago, and is eagerly awaited by a bloodthirsty townspeople who view her
sacrifice as the first, necessary step in a planned rebirth and sanctification
of their community.

Helmed by debut director David Benullo, the writer of Frank
Coraci’s Around the World in 80 Days remake,
Hallowed Ground is a movie very much
in the vein of rural-set stories of limited scope like Children of the Corn, The Hitcher as and Jeepers
Creepers. While its production means are at times evident and its CGI
effects work only fair by most horror buffs’ standards, Benullo for the most
part keeps things moving forward in a solid fashion, and doesn’t over-rely on
the desultory smash-cut jump scare, as with many first-time genre directors. He’s
aided by his cast, certainly: square-jawed Chinlund (Tears of the Sun) is effectively loathsome, and Alexander, as
mentioned, holds your attention, even if it’s not always in character.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Hallowed Ground comes presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen,
free from grain or problems with edge enhancement; a Dolby digital 5.1 sound
track anchors the aural presentation. Apart from a collection of trailers for like-minded
genre flicks, there are no supplemental features. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

The creation of Grindhouse, from directors Robert
Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, gave home video distributors a nice way to
repackage and exploit the value of some of their library titles, but that film’s
less than stellar commercial reception no doubt somewhat put a dent in those
plans. Released this month under a “Welcome to the Grindhouse” banner that doesn’t
totally jibe with its actual product are two old flicks from Crown International
Pictures’ library, The Beach Girls
and Coach.

Released in 1982, The
Beach Girls is much more of a grabby, classic T&A comedy, told from a more
decidedly female perspective. The film’s opening montage of sunny non sequiturs,
set to the strains of “I Wanna Go to Paradise,” establishes the currency of naughtiness
and double entendres, and sets the bar quite high; in the first three minutes
alone, there’s a dog stealing a bikini top, a nun (in full habit) waxing her
surfboard, chesty women playing volleyball in slow-motion and a guy squeezing
mustard and a hotdog out of its bun when he sees a topless gal.

Then the air-quote story kicks in. Free from school, fun-loving
brunette Ducky (Jeana Tomasina) and blonde Ginger (Val Kline) head to the coast
to hook up with their virginal, bookworm friend Sarah (Debra Blee), who’s
house-sitting for her uncle, Carl (Adam Roarke). Along the way, they pick up handsome
hitchhiker Scott (James Daughton), but instead of turning out to be a serial
killer, he’s actually a decent guy, and strikes up a flirtation with Sarah, in
an arc that will span the entire movie. Partying and hook-ups ensue, much to
the chagrin of various neighbors and Carl’s fiancée Julie (Fern Fitzgerald). There’s
some peek-a-boo, and also a plot strand involving a crooked Coast Guard cabal,
which leads to the hilarious display of a giant bag of weed,
the worst fake marijuana ever depicted on screen. (It looks like moss, fake
moss from an art shop.) While the acting is uneven (Kline’s sing-song line
delivery is more than a bit grating), director Bud Townsend keeps things light
and airy, and the over-under on entendres is surpassed sometime after the
salami in a delivery boy’s pocket, exploding fireworks, uncorked champagne and squirting
garden hose.

Also directed by Townsend (who went legit after 1976’s X-rated
musical comedy adaptation of Alice in
Wonderland), 1978’s Coach,
meanwhile, is a loose-knit romantic comedy that presages the Title IX
revolution in sports. A losing high school basketball team hires a new coach chosen
by computer, then blanches when it finds out their number-crunching efforts and
selection of “Randy Rawlings” have actually produced a woman (erstwhile That’s Incredible co-host Cathy Lee
Crosby). As Randy goes about quelling the adolescent instincts of her hornball
charges and instilling in them discipline and the basics of rebounding, she
also falls for one of her players, Jack Ripley (a young Michael Biehn), and
shows some fleeting side-boob. Well, that’s inappropriate. The relationship, that
is, not the side-boob. Still, Coach —
with Craig T. Nelson nowhere in sight — plays it straight and sincere, and
Biehn and Crosby have a nice, easy-going chemistry. While this flick has more of a schematic
axe to grind than The Beach Girls, each
movie is well constructed and ably directed, proving that even filmmaking
talent of that era lies even in the margins.

Housed in a single Amray case, both The Beach Girls and Coach
are presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, and their superb transfers belie
the widely held assumption that older films of this era inherently have to look
like crap. While the colors don’t necessarily pop with modern lushness, each of
these movies looks great, and is almost totally free from any grain whatsoever.
There are also no problems with edge enhancement or other artifacts. Apart from
a single-play gallery of collected trailers for titles like The Van and other low-budget genre
flicks of the era, though, there are no supplemental features herein. That’s a bummer, somewhat, but it can’t be stressed enough — these movies look fantastic. A
separate two-fer October release from distributor BCI, meanwhile, groups 1974’s
The Hellcats and 1971’s Chain Gang Women, starring Barbara Mills,
Linda York and Michael Stearns. To purchase the film(s) via Amazon, click here. B- (Movies) B- (Disc)

A teenager must try to unravel his own death in David Goyer’s The Invisible, an enervated but for the most part artful tone piece of teen estrangement. Decently sketched and acted, the film’s chief problem is that the race-against-time elements aren’t always quite galvanizing enough to elicit and hold the attention and appreciation of younger audiences wanting or expecting a goosing supernatural thriller. This is much more a character-rooted, sustained mood piece than a commercially geared film, but since it’s about and chiefly marketed toward teenagers, well… it faces an uphill climb in wooing its target demographic, on DVD as much as it did in theaters.

Margarita Levieva). Sullen and troubled by her own unhappy home life, Annie lives out of control, committing smash-and-grab robberies with her older boyfriend, ex-con Marcus (Alex O’Loughlin). Believing Nick to have already left town for a writer’s program abroad, Pete feeds Annie Nick’s name in an attempt to extricate himself from a sticky situation. In a fit of rage, Annie then beats Nick, apparently to death, and hides his body in the woods.

Caught in a state of bodily limbo, Nick reappears in ethereal form, able to see all those around him but powerless to affect their actions. While Detective Brian Larson (Callum Keith Rennie) searches for answers, Nick — instead of consulting The Ghost Whisperer — tries in parallel fashion to lead authorities to his body, and finds himself learning more about Annie in the process.

An evocatively gloomy, elliptical drama of redemption that pretty nicely captures the palpable disconnection of youth, The Invisible has a nice anchor in Chatwin, who has now showcased varying degrees of hot and cold in War of the Worlds and The Chumscrubber. With his icy glare, Chatwin conveys a quiet intensity that is in smart lockstep with Goyer’s tone, which convincingly digs into the loneliness and despair of adolescence. The Invisible also refreshingly uses uninterrupted takes and in-camera editing tricks to convey Nick’s frustrated attempts to unsuccessfully communicate with those around him. Emo soundtrack tunes by Snow Patrol, Death Cab For Cutie and Mellowdrone, meanwhile, further feed the movie’s tone of wistful plaintiveness.

Housed in a regular Amray case, the movie’s DVD presentation features a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, and a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound track, in English, French and Spanish. Two feature-length audio commentary tracks — one from Goyer and co-writer Christine Roum, the other from originating co-writer Mick Davis — offer up a mix of anecdote and thematic analysis, complementing music videos from 30 Seconds to Mars (“The Kill”) and Sparta (“Taking Back Control”). The real highlight, though, comes via 13 minutes of deleted scenes, which offer further parallel tidbits of Nick’s home life and Annie’s fractured domestic situation. B (Movie) B (Disc)