Category Archives: Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Cars

November 7, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

After taking moviegoers underwater and down to ground level,
as well as into the realms of toys, monsters and superheroes, Pixar Animation
Studios hits the open road with Cars, long a passion project of
company CEO John Lasseter, who here jumps back behind the “camera” and
directs for the first time since 1999’s Toy Story 2. The tale of a
hotshot rookie race car who discovers the value of friendship and life in the
slow lane when he’s stranded in a small desert town en route to an important
race, the movie is colorful and for the most part enjoyable, but its
bloated running time and somewhat abstractly sentimental tenor might somewhat mitigate
youthful enjoyment, particularly of the repeat viewing variety.

An
accident along the way shakes Lightning free from his trailer, and — since race
cars don’t have headlights — he finds himself lost. His situation becomes a
more fixed detour when, after a high-speed chase that tears up the sleepy,
abandoned town of Radiator Springs, Lightning is sentenced by Doc Hudson
(voiced by Paul Newman), himself secretly an old race car, to fix up and
re-pave the streets he has damaged. Resentful at first, and panicked to get to
California as quickly as possible, Lightning slowly comes to appreciate the
town’s denizens, including local attorney Sally Carrera (voiced by Bonnie
Hunt), a curvaceous Porsche; sociable tow truck Mater (voiced by Larry the
Cable Guy); and emotional tire shop owner Luigi (voiced by Tony Shalhoub), a
1959 Italian Fiat.

As
is typical of Pixar’s efforts, the animation on display in Cars is
jaw-droppingly impressive, approaching photorealism at times. Even more
astutely, those who have traversed I-40 or the old Route 66 on cross-country
drives will likely recognize specific landmarks and geographical formations.
This attention to intricate detail elevates the material and helps rescue a few
passages that might otherwise be characterized as dramatically inert. The
characters, too, grow on you. While it takes some getting used to the
imposition of human eyes and lids on windshields — and the absence of humans
seems a bit too Christine, never fully explained — the various
collisions of personality that the movie draws out make for some fun scenes.

Where
Cars bogs down some is in its too-brawny opening (all dialed-up
sound mix) and pointedly nostalgic but somewhat malingering efforts to play
up the then-versus-now changes in lifestyle (can we please retire for a bit the
obligatory montage with a Randy Newman song?). Amidst a competitive animated
summer slate this season — including the underrated Over the
Hedge — Cars pulled in $244 million, just under the $260 million domestic take of The Incredibles. Its G rating,
compared to that film’s PG, certainly helped, but it came up short of the blockbuster haul of Finding
Nemo (which pulled in $340 million), in part because the
“life lessons” learned in Cars play more to adult sensibilities.

Disney’s DVD release — which is available in separate 2.39:1 anamorphic widescreen and full screen single-disc, foil-embossed editions — comes in an impressively high bit-rate transfer that showcases fantastic character rendering, eye-popping color and deep, consistent blacks. Two audio tracks, in Dolby digital 2.0 surround and Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound EX, anchor the aural front. The supplemental features kick off with One-Man Band, the four-minute Pixar effort that preceded Cars in theaters, followed by a seven-minute animated short, Mater and the Ghostlight, that gives extra run to Larry the Cable Guy’s chatty character.

Lasseter then sits for a 16-minute featurette on the inspiration for the film, which delves into his childhood memories on Route 66. Rounding things out are four deleted scenes in rough form, totaling about 10 minutes. While slight when compared to the stuffed slate of many Disney animated titles — maybe a result of Disney and Pixar’s contentious contract renewal negotiations, and thus perhaps auguring a double-disc, anniversary double-dip further down the line — this release is no slouch, certainly qualitatively in terms of its visual presentation. Ranking somewhat to the low end of Pixar’s body of work
is no great shame, too, given the quality of that canon. But that’s the reality of
comparison. The world of Cars feels a bit less lively, spry and inherently
interesting than the worlds of the Toy Story movies, even though it’s
just as lovingly sketched and populated. B (Movie) B- (Disc)

Battle of the Brave

November 5, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

ceaselessly replicating the past.
We were talking about films, but the argument can extend easily to historically-rooted,
narrative fiction, as well as sculpture and virtually all other art. He’s much
more of a futurist, and thus enamored with speculative works — films, books and
series that take past lessons of humanity and extrapolate forward. It’s an
essential component of the vicarious human experience, though, I think, slipping
back into another time to witness or experience past events both major and trivial.
It breeds empathy and perspective, I would argue. All of which brings us to something
like Battle of the Brave.

Set against the sweeping outdoor backdrop of mid-18th century
Quebec, the film is a tale of
wartime passion and sacrifice — elements that certainly resonate in today’s anxious
times. When Canada
is besieged by British forces, two lovers fearlessly risk everything in an
effort to protect both the freedom of their homeland as well as the bonds of their
own devotion. Poor single mother Marie-Loup Carignan (Noémie Godin-Vigneau) is
madly in love with French-Canadian trapper Francois (David La Haye). After
Francois discovers that local French authorities are in cahoots with the
British, however, he becomes a resistance leader, a course of action which
naturally endangers everything which he and Marie hold dear.

If the most basic and stripped bare elements of the plot
faintly recall the Mel Gibson-starring The
Patriot, more bloodthirsty viewers will surely be disappointed. Gorgeously
shot by Louis de Ernsted — who also lensed Luc Dionne’s under-regarded Aurore — Battle of the Brave is a far more ruminative and naturalistic work,
concentrating on the difficulties of everyday life that filter down from macro
decision-making rather than brutal battle. Large passages of the film work, certainly
aided by a talented international cast (Gerard Depardieu, Tim Roth, Jason
Isaacs, Colm Meaney and Irene Jacob) that holds your attention. But Pierre
Billon’s screenplay leans too often on stodgy speechifying and on-the-nose monologues
to advance plot rather than some form of definitive action. Céline Dion pops up
to contribute “Ma Nouvelle France”
to the soundtrack, which is admirably anchored by Sense and Sensibility composer Patrick Doyle’s stirring score.
Overall, though, this is a taxing affair (143 minutes) more evocative to the
eyes than the heart.

Battle of the Brave
is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language 5.1
Dolby digital surround sound audio track and optional English subtitles. There
are unfortunately no supplemental extras on the disc, making this title an
uphill Battle
for those hardcore arthouse set. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America

November 4, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

I know what you’re thinking: “What in holy hell — a movie about the avian flu?” You bet your sweet ass. And so is every bit as deliciously awful and willfully ripped-from-the-headlines as its title makes it sound, is it Atomic Train-level awful? Well… yes, and not quite, respectively.

In its review at the time of its original broadcast, The Hollywood Reporter noted that, “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America is so disturbingly timely it
adds to its impact, but even without any contextual backdrop, it’s an
exceptionally well-produced (by exec producers Diana Kerew and Judith Verno and
producer Dennis A. Brown), -written (by Ron McGee) and -directed (by Richard
Pearce) cautionary tale that’s more than worthy of its sweeps scheduling.” I’ll
be honest, that strikes me as a very awkwardly constructed sentence, and
slightly irritating given the pay rate for such a piece. The litany of factual credits notwithstanding, that sentence does briefly touch on something else that’s correct — the movie is well designed to hit all its sweeps-market beats, and in robust fashion.

Fatal Contact, which originally aired on ABC in May of
this year, tells the story of the rapid spread of the HN51 virus (aka bird flu)
after one man is infected during a trip to Hong Kong. As
the virus spreads, the stakes become more deadly when it mutates into a strain
than can be passed from human to human. Dr. Iris Varnack (Nip/Tuck‘s Joely Richardson)
begins the quest to keep the virus contained while the grim and dour Secretary of Health and
Human Services (Stacey Keach, of Prison Break) works the levers of national power, and a New York Health Department nurse (Six Feet Under‘s Justina Machado) dedicated to her job and her soldier husband who supports her wage the fight on the
front lines.

The aforementioned McGee’s script naturally embraces the
worse-case scenario if the bird flu were to be transmitted to humans in America (the governor of Virginia mistakenly call for urban quarantine, resulting in riots and looting), but any sort of devotion to realism gives way fairly quickly to demands for ridiculous action and suspense set-ups that are dubiously or tangentially related to the chief conceit. Director Pearce (No Mercy) stages a few nicely executed scenes of shoestring mayhem and hysteria, but otherwise the movie’s set-ups are almost always massively contrived in some way or another, and so the air-quote drama feels hopelessly compartmentalized. Richardson has a face I could stare at for a good two hours before getting bored, so that helps matters, but the rest of the cast — which includes Ann
Cusack (Grey’s Anatomy), David Ramsey (All of Us) and Scott Cohen — is mostly B-grade, and the simple fact of the matter is that Fatal Contact isn’t as deliciously bad (and therefore ripe for fun) as its premise and title might suggest. It’s actually just kind of shrug-inducing.

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, Fatal Contact comes packaged in a regular, plastic Amray case, with no supplemental features save a couple trailers for The Da Vinci Code and other titles. C- (Movie) D- (Disc)

Cutting Crew: Live at Full House

November 4, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The Libertine

November 3, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

For all the laudatory acclaim justly being heaped on Johnny Depp for
his invention of the character of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films (or the first one at least — let’s not talk about the distended and soulless affair that was Dead Man’s Chest), one must not forget his canon of misbegotten, period piece twaddle, films like The Man Who Cried and Chocolat. It’s into this category, after all, which director Laurence Dunmore’s The Libertine falls. For the full review, from IGN, click here.

Macumba Sexual

October 31, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Macumba Sexual, from 1981, is your standard slice of Euro-arthouse
exploitation, which is to say it’s elliptical, graphic and shocking, in
generally equal parts, but at the same time not nearly as rich in
conversation-sparking subtext as some of its more literate advocates might have
you believe.

A fever dream sex saga of definite depravity, the movie
stars Lina Romay as Alice Brooks, a young, attractive real estate agent, and
Robert Foster as her writer boyfriend Antonio. While he slaves away on his
novel, Alice finds herself haunted
by the same dream, involving a tall African-American woman and two servile
beasts on leashes, which set upon her upon the woman’s orders. Antonio jokingly
advises Alice that this is indication that she’s sexually frustrated, but Alice
gets a jolt when she’s pulled out of her vacation and told to fly to nearby
island to close a deal with the mysterious Princess Obongo (the allegedly
transsexual Ajita Wilson, of Sadomania).
It turns out Princess Obongo is the woman of her dreams, and a dangerous game
of erotic hallucination, submissiveness and power transference ensues.

Franco ladles on the suggestive floral imagery (George
O’Keefe would be proud), and there’s plenty of directorial affectation (echo
aural touches, too-tight close-ups, sudden push-zooms) to go along with the
lesbian writhing and bisexual orgies, which are captured in actual and graphic,
if not quite pornographic, detail. The film looks
gorgeous (it was shot by Juan Soler), and there’s a bit of wry delight and
ominous menace in Franco’s own cameo as a shadowy hotel proprietor (“I read a
story about someone named Alice,”
he says. “Is that you?”), but the question remains: does Macumba Sexual really plumb any issues of psychological significance?
When Princess Obongo finally reveals herself as “an unspeakable dream,
everything forbidden and shameful,” it’s likely to produce as many eye rolls as
light bulbs of realization about the nature of animalistic sexuality.

Severin’s 2.35:1 widescreen release, enhanced for 16×9
televisions, looks great, and comes with English subtitles, naturally, to
complement the Spanish language Dolby digital 2.0 audio track. There’s also 22
minutes of interviews with Romay and Franco. The latter proves a quite
interesting figure, even in his accented English. He talks about the Canary
Islands being an inspiration for the movie, his early days as an
assistant to Luis Garcia Berlanga, and Wilson being “born to make horror
films.” He also gives a lot of insight into his production philosophy, and how
he almost always made pictures back-to-back, employing the same crew and many
of the same cast members, effectively “doubling down” with the invested
production money. C (Movie) B (Disc)

Follow That Man, Vols. 6 & 7

October 31, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The Baxter was that it was
built around the romantic misadventures of the big screen nice guy who was always
politely shown the door so that the leading man could in the end get the dame. For
noted character actor Ralph Bellamy, this was a familiar feeling and outcome,
playing second fiddle as he often did to the likes of Cary Grant in movies like
The Awful Truth. Bellamy’s career longevity
would owe itself to his stage roots (he won a Tony Award for playing President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt), and he would reinvent himself in fare like Rosemary’s Baby as a slightly more sinister
presence. Paving the way for that, at least partially, would be his work in the
successful television series Follow That
Man.

Created by Lawrence Klee and launched in 1949, Follow That Man was actually broadcast
live for several years before settling into a heavy, sponsored rotation. A gritty, short-form, above-the-law series (it was also originally known as Man Against Crime), the show
stars Bellamy as tough-talking private eye Mike Barnett, and the sixth and
seventh grouped volumes of this DVD release from Alpha Home Entertainment each group together four episodes
of the beloved series. These are scattered collections, put together in somewhat
willy-nilly fashion. In “The Cube Root of Evil,” a drunken conventioneer
looking for a good time is lured to a private party for a game of craps, but
beaten up and fleeced instead. In “A Family Affair,” Barnett keys on a bank
employee after a robbery smelling of an inside job leaves two employees dead. “Day
Man,” meanwhile, centers around a clever thief who cases houses while
pretending to collect funds for charity. “Get Out of Town,” finally, finds an
old nemesis extracting revenge on Barnett, forcing him aboard a plane to Mexico.

The seventh volume culls episodes from the 1953 and ’54
seasons — a term more loosely defined then than now — and includes “Free Ride,”
the amusingly dated, pinko-baiting “Ferry Boat” — in which Barnett comes into
possession of a list of communist spies — plus “The Silken Touch,” in which
Barnett teams up with an FBI agent (Jack Warden) to investigate a series of
truck robberies. The best of the bunch, though, is probably “Cocoanut’s Eye,”
in which a professor suffering amnesia needs protection from gangsters who
think he knows where a clutch of stolen gemstones are hidden.

Housed in regular Amray plastic cases and presented in 1.33:1
full screen, the black-and-white transfers of Follow That Man honestly aren’t the best, as there is significant
grain and some problems with pixilation. Additionally, there’s not the sort of complementary
retrospective or academic commentary that would mark these as instructive discs
for a younger generation. This isn’t found entertainment, rather, but instead a few nice stocking stuffers for your
grandparents, to go along with that DVD player you bought them last year. For more information, visit Alpha Home Entertainment’s web site by clicking here. C+ (Series) D+
(Discs)

Bad Religion: Riot!

October 31, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Bad Religion always sort of struck me as a quintessential Los Angeles band, even before I moved to the city of Angels. I’d heard of them, and heard their music, certainly, but never seen them live prior to moving west. Now that I’ve been out here almost a decade — and having caught them once or twice, and met up with some of their more rabid fans — I feel that way even more strongly.

With its own inimitable blend of spiky melody, in-your-face attitude, thrashing aptitude and thought-provoking lyrical content, the band has been stunning the music world for almost three decades (!) now, after being formed in the comfy suburbs of the San Fernando Valley in 1980. Growing up in Reagan’s America fed Bad Religion’s anti-establismentarianism and religious and sociopolitical questioning, fueling songs like “You Are the Government,” “Damned to be Free,” “Land of Competition,” “Politics,” “How Much is Enough” and “Voice of God is Government.” In an era where almost every major label refused to consider American punk rock groups, Brett Gurewitz formed Epitaph Records — which remains an independent spirit today — as a medium for the band’s broader message.

Those aforementioned songs and more get a workout on this hour-long special edition disc, which spotlights the group’s December 29, 1990 El Portal Theater performance — notable for the hulabaloo it spawned in North Hollywood when shut down for being overcrowded and not having adequate seating for its floor crowd. The video quality is so-so, but the music comes through loud and clear. Highlights include “Doin’ Time,” “Yesterday,” “Drastic Action,” “21st Century Digital Boy” and show opener “We’re Only Gonna Die.”

The extra footage is what makes this disc worthwhile, at least from an anthropological point-of-view, since it includes bonus material from a February 1991 make-up gig. The so-called “riot” footage, which clocks in at 12 minutes, is fairly tame stuff. There’s a lot of yelling and what not, but a Rodney King-type document this ain’t. Don’t tell director Zach Merck, though; he sits for a feature-length director’s commentary which dashes past solemn reverence and into hearty ass-licking. He recounts all the spurious coincidences that led to him being there on the evening in question, and talks nicely about the other bands — like Black Flag, The Descendents and The Adolescents — that he discovered during the dog days of his misspent youth at a Glendale skate park. It wouldn’t be quite so bad, actually, if the whole thing wasn’t read if an affected monotone.

There’s also 11 minutes of random backstage footage leading up to a photo shoot; most of this is a dead lay, with the cameraman’s roving eye flitting from guitar tuning to floor to the crafts table. Yawn… Finally, there’s 15 minutes of skateboarding footage, too, which may certainly appeal to the demographic at which this title is pitched, but seems a rather haphazard inclusion to the untrained eye. Taken piecemeal, this stuff can be boring. Strangely, though, in aggregate it seems to more firmly root the music in specific time and place. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, for fans or newcomers. B- (Concert) B- (Disc)

Sweetie

October 30, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

It’s always interesting to go back and watch or revisit debut
films and sophomore efforts of stalwart indie directors before they get plugged
into, if not absolutely studio-friendly fare, then at least bigger epics or more
clearly telegraphed tales. It’s this prism that makes the 1989 film Sweetie kind
of interesting.

Long before Peter
Jackson had made an entire generation of slack-jawed American teens care at
least a little bit about geography (if only to know where Orlando Bloom was
doing re-shoots at any given moment), New Zealand-born Jane Campion garnered international attention for her debut feature
film, Sweetie, the eccentric tale of
an Australian girl who stands by while her overweight, messy, delusional sister
moves into the apartment she shares with her boyfriend. A willfully quirky but intriguingly expressive tangle of characters and
wound-up situations ensues, with the two very different sisters — one by
nature solitary and withdrawn, the other dangerously extroverted, overweight and
unhinged — near constantly at odds.

Button-downed, superstitious Kay (Karen Colston) is a serial killjoy whose reliance on fate informs
her stony social demeanor. An outcast at her workplace, she begins to eye a
coworker’s fiancé, Louis (Tom Lycos), after visiting a fortune teller and
becoming preoccupied with her prophecy. Louis and Kay hook up and enjoy a good stretch
together, but things eventually sour. They one day return from an excursion to discover
that Kay’s titular, tubby sister (Geneviève Lemon) has broken into their house
and made herself at home.

Petulant and self-centered, Sweetie is apparently a little
mentally imbalanced — there are hints of her condition’s genetic quality, along
with possible incest — and has gone off her meds. Running roughshod over Kay, she
instantly takes over the place, destroying her sister’s room with her boyfriend
Bob (Michael Lake), who she says is a producer helping her with her music career. Childhood frustrations and recrimination come
rushing back to the fore, along with some of the same sort of symbology and
preoccupation with New Age spiritualism that would later inform Campion’s 1999
film Holy Smoke.

The lazy point of comparison would be the dystopian work of
director David Lynch, but Sweetie
seems much more of a piece with the films of surrealist master Luis Buñuel — Campion is smitten with interpretive imagery
over linear functionality, like Kay digging up a tree in the middle of the
night — and also in some ways a strange precursor to Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl, which similarly delved into sisterly
sibling rivalry, sexual awakening and familial discord. The essence of what’s
under the microscope is interesting, but the
framing and pitch of the movie, though, frequently seem to work against it.

Sweetie’s
restored, high-definition transfer — supervised directly by director of
photography Sally Bongers and approved by Campion — comes presented in a 1.85:1
aspect ratio, preserving the integrity of its theatrical exhibition. A new
Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack with optional English subtitles makes fine use of atmospherics
and composer Martin Armiger’s score. Supplemental
extras include a candid audio commentary track with Campion, Bongers and
screenwriter Gerard Lee, the self-admitted grump of the group.

Lemon and Colston sit for a nice tandem interview, which also makes use of old Super 8
footage from the set. Campion, too, sits
for a 20-minute conversation from the year of the film’s release with
critic Peter Thompson. The best
inclusion, though, comes in the form of three experimental shorts from Campion’s
film school days — 1982’s An Exercise
in Discipline: Peel, the following year’s Passionless Moments and 1984’s A
Girl’s Own Story. They show a
markedly different filmmaker than the one that still-birthed the inert In the Cut. A gallery of
behind-the-scenes photos and production stills rounds things out, alongside the
original theatrical trailer. C+ (Movie) A- (Disc)

Superstition/Baby Blood

October 30, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

If you’re still in the market for some good, old-fashioned gore for
Halloween and you’ve already cycled through all the usual genre
suspects, a pair of recent DVD releases from Anchor Bay might provide just
the blood-soaked mayhem for which you’re looking.

the daughter of Satan is returning for a rampage of revenge, and if so, if she can be stopped.

The success of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead helped Superstition secure a wider release several years after its completion, and it’s not — artistically, or execution-wise — on par with that film or many of its other genre forebears. The acting in particular is uneven, all over the map. That said, the sheer flamboyance and volume of its gory effects, particularly for its time, will likely sate most of the Fangoria set.

Available fully restored for the first time in the United States, 1989’s Baby Blood, written and directed by Alain Robak, finds bucktoothed circus performer Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou) infected by a voracious alien parasite that compells her to consume gallons of fresh blood. As the in-utero creature grows stronger and stronger, Yanka’s cross-country killing spree results in even more bloodshed and carnage. Again, this is an entry for more purebred gorehounds, not those looking for mannered, stalking thrills. Though similar in story to the ultra-cheap, mid-’80s, cult American indie The Devil’s Hour, this French flick wins points for some its unique staging, and the fact that it dares to try to delve into dialogue between Yanka and her intestinal hijacker, who asks questions of her in… an effort to understand humanity. Seriously!

Though, at least partially owing to the source material, the transfers aren’t the best (Robak’s film is beset with some grain), both Baby Blood and Superstition are at least presented uncut in 1.85:1 widescreen, enhanced for 16×9 televisions. Included as the only supplemental bonus material are their respective theatrical trailers. From a value standpoint, that’s a bummer, but then again, you’ll likely be providing your own audio commentary tracks. C (Movies) C+ (Discs)

The Wilkie Collins Set

October 27, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Four Weddings and a Funeral). More mystery ensues.

The Moonstone, meanwhile, tells the story of a sacret Hindu diamond. While lesser known, and additionally a bit less taut and steeped in moodiness than its companion piece here, it’s an equally well-sketched tale, and capably brought to screen in this version from director Robert Bierman. When jewel thief John Hearncastle (Terrance Hardiman) nabs the titular yellow stone from the head of a Moon God statue, and passes it along his niece Rachel (Keeley Hawes) on occasion of her 18th birthday, it sets off a wild chain of events. Rachel’s boyfriend, Franklin Blake (Greg Wise), immediately offers to have the stone mounted, but the next morning it’s missing again, and London detective Sergeant Cuff (Anthony Sher) is called in to investigate. As he uncovers a web of lies, no family member is above suspicion. Kevin Elyot’s adaptation tweaks a good bit of the dialogue, but retains Collins’ galloping sense of fated doom.

The Wilkie Collins Set is offered forth in a sturdy cardboard slipcase, with each title coming in its own respective plastic Amray case. The 1.33:1 full screen video transfers are fairly solid, with only a bit of color irregularity marring some of The Moonstone‘s outdoor passages. There are unfortunately no supplemental features offered on the titles, but if it’s straightforward, well acted presentations of literary classics you crave and live productions are far outside of your zipcode, you could do much, much worse than these earnest, well-mounted offerings. B (Movies) C (Discs)

U2: Zoo TV Live from Sydney

October 26, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

waging war on AIDS and stupid poverty, rock star Bono also finds time to “kick out some fresh jams,” as the kids today don’t say. U2: Zoo TV Live from Sydney finds the group in fine form on the outdoor leg of their famed early-’90s Zoo TV Tour. You missed it, you say? Too busy stitching New Kids on the Block patches onto your sister’s hand-me-down jean jacket? Jesus, I wouldn’t mention that to anyone else. For the full review, from IGN, click here.

Bewitched: The Complete Fourth Season

October 24, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The series, of course, centers around striking and
benevolent witch Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), and her mortal husband Darrin
(Dick York, above left), a talented but somewhat stodgy and conservative advertising
executive obsessed with all outward appearances of normalcy. That the couple
met and fell in love in the first place is a bit of a dubious stretch, but
within the clearly established parameters of the show their differences and
petty frictions do certainly make for some entertaining scenarios. Abetting all
this madcap turmoil is Samantha’s meddling, independent-minded mother, Endora
(Agnes Moorehead), who can’t believe her daughter would ever subjugate herself
to Darrin. Compulsive practical joker Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde, above right) also pops up
throughout to stir up trouble and have some fun.

While the series was already a ratings bonanza, the 33
episodes here comprise one of its two breakout seasons, critically-speaking; Montgomery
and Moorehead were both coming off of Emmy nominations for their work, and the series picked up another five Emmy nods, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series. The season kicks off with the famous “Long Live the Queen” episode, in which Samantha is appointed the successor of a departing witch matriarch. In “My, What Big Ears You Have,” featured on the cover, Endora accuses Darrin of seeing another woman when he tries to buy Samantha a surprise gift. Other fun episodic moments
of note include “Birdies, Bogies and Baxter,” in which Darrin becomes a great golfer but almost loses his job, and “The No-Harm Charm,” in which Uncle Arthur convinces Darrin that a lucky bauble will protect him. Certainly a number of episodes (“No Zip in My Zap,” “Snob in the Grass,” “To Twitch or Not to Twitch”) till the same well-trodden ground of Samantha’s romantic jealousy and Darrin’s oscillating unease with his wife’s powers, but the pleasant personalities and chemistry of Montgomery and York help pull the show along.

Like previous releases, Bewitched:
The Complete Fourth Season is presented in 1.33:1 full screen, over four
discs housed in two slimline plastic cases in turn housed in an attractive
cardboard slipcase. Also as with the first three compilations, the original
credit sequence touting the show’s sponsors has been replaced with the generic,
syndicated opening. Spanish and Portuguese audio tracks are included along with optional subtitles in those languages. There are unfortunately no DVD extras in the way of audio
commentaries, interviews of reminiscence or the like. Even some bit of
backslapping, quasi-critical contextual overview would have been welcome. Instead,
you unfortunately get only trailers for other Sony classic television releases. B (Show)
D+ (Disc)

Vikings: Journey to the New Worlds

October 24, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Viking legend has fascinated many for years, and yet there are myths that persist today (like the matter of horns on their helmets, for instance) that are patently false. The IMAX-born Vikings: Journey to the New Worlds attempts to clear up some of these misconceptions, blending together reenactments, digital recreations, aerial photography and footage of historical maps and artifacts. Continue reading Vikings: Journey to the New Worlds →

The Road to Guantanamo

October 22, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Part documentary, part dramatic recreation, The Road to Guantanamo offers forth a
prima facie account of three British citizens who were held for more than two
years without charges in the eponymous American military prison in Cuba,
an opaque facility whose continued operation represents an ongoing payoff in
propaganda for would-be international jihadists.

Its co-director, Michael Winterbottom, is a filmmaker known
— to the degree that he is, outside the hardcore arthouse set — largely for his
intersecting interests in war, class, sociopolitical activism and their
respective influences upon the human condition. His movies, too, often come
wrapped up in collagist, avant-garde storytelling. From both the similarly
minded Welcome to Sarajevo and In This World to last year’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
and 9 Songs, though, Winterbottom
remains a filmmaker in many ways more appealing in principle than in actuality
— an intellectual of wide and varied preoccupations who has a propensity for
getting lost in too much navel-gazing. Very interesting but in some ways also
frustrating, The Road to Guantanamo
continues that trend.

Intercutting dramatizations with neophyte actors and
interviews with the real-life figures they depict — Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed and
Shafiq Rasul, who range from 19 to 23 years of age at the time of the events —
the film chronicles the events that follow from the group setting out from the
British Midlands town of Tipon for
Asif’s arranged marriage in Pakistan.
After the wedding is postponed, the trio and another friend, Monir Ali, cross
over the Afghanistan
border just as the U.S.
bombing campaign of that country intensifies. From there their dark,
surrealistic misadventure only worsens, and they are eventually captured by
Northern Alliance forces, transferred to American custody and taken to Camp
X-Ray and, later, the more permanent Camp Delta, in Guantanamo.

Cast against the rhetoric of absolutes that President Bush
and, to a lesser if more articulate degree, British Prime Minister Tony Blair
have fed their respective publics about the enduring war on terror and the
identities of those radical, dangerous “dead-enders” held in Guantanamo, the
movie is undeniably illuminating. The so-called “Tipton Three” (Monir gets lost
and is never heard from again), while not angels (each was at some point on
probation for petty offenses back in England),
are hardly Al Qaeda terrorists or even flaming ideologues. They’re rendered in
full, three-dimensional form, and their caged humiliation and torture (at the
hands, variously, of Americans, Brits and, most brutally, Northern Alliance
Afghanis) delivers a calculable impact.

Still, The Road to
Guantanamo, from its too haphazardly quilted opening through the first 35
minutes or so, plays too coy with the group’s motivations, never adequately
assessing why these somewhat secularized loafers would go willfully into a war
zone on a good Samaritan’s lark. The admission of a more mercenary or at least
foolhardy call to arms wouldn’t necessarily completely dint the impact of the
subsequent moral questions under the microscope, but Winterbottom and
co-director Mat Whitecross seem to tacitly acknowledge the complications this
presents by skirting the issue entirely. The result, though, is a movie that
seems to be deficient in due diligence. Lacking both a sermon-to-the-choir
fervor or a libertarian persuasiveness, The
Road to Guantanamo instead lies flat.

Additionally, it’s problematic to cut back and forth between
characters and real-life figures who look little alike, and this tack robs the
movie of a sense of distinct rootedness. Instead, despite the fantastical and
inherently stirring true story on display, we’re left with only an
impressionist’s sense of swirling grey morality.

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, The Road to Guantanamo looks great, with excellent progressive image and no problems with grain. An English language 5.1 Dolby digital track solidly anchors the movie’s aural demands, with optional English subtitles. Unfortunately, there are no other subtitle options, nor — apart from a few trailers for other Sony releases — any supplemental extras. For a title of such ostensible sociopolitical heft, that’s unforgivable — though perhaps a sign of a more satisfying DVD double dip somewhere down the line. B- (Movie) C- (Disc)

The Facts of Life: The Complete Third Season

October 22, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The Facts of Life debuted
on NBC in August of 1979, a spin-off from the network’s popular Diff’rent Strokes. It would go on to
last nine seasons and log over 200 episodes, teaching invaluable lessons to in
particular burgeoning teen girls, and predating by a few years the rise in
popularity of the sort of young femme fiction first peddled by author Judy
Blume.

The show was set, of course, around de facto den mother Edna
Garrett (Charlotte Rae, who would score an Emmy nomination for her work this
year), who served as the mentor and steadying influence on a quartet of very
different young girls. The series’ third season finds Tootie (Kim Fields)
getting drunk for the first time, as well as developing a crush on her favorite
singer (a guesting Jermaine Jackson — apparently Michael was overbooked). After
getting mugged on the way home from a party, Natalie (Mindy Cohn) develops a
fear of going outside. Spunky Jo (Nancy McKeon) and Mrs. Garrett, meanwhile, are
graced with parallel romantic arcs; the latter falls out of love with her fiancé
Eddie (Clark Brandon) and in love with the guy who’s playing her husband in a
simulated marriage that serves as a class project, while “Mrs. G” rekindles an
old fling. Other highlights of this season include the reappearance of cousin Geri
(Geri Jewell). In perhaps the most awkward development, meanwhile, preppy Blair
(Lisa Whelchel) learns in the episode “Legacy” that her grandfather is a member
of the Klu Klux Klan.

While other series of the era — including, most notably,
Norman Lear’s All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place — successfully
integrated social commentary into their fabric in a heartening fashion (can
anyone fathom a half-hour sitcom of today
tackling a similar topic?), The Facts of
Life never quite pulled this off quite as capably. The show was at its best
filtering more realistic adolescent problems (gossip, scholastic endeavor, romantic
competition, even alcohol abuse) through a feminine lens, or indulging spats
between the tomboyish Jo and the snooty, boy-crazy Blair. The split herein
favors that focus, but there are a few clunkers, like “Read No Evil,” “The Runaway”
and the aforementioned “Legacy.”

Grouping all two dozen episodes of the third season across
three discs, this collection comes in two plastic, slimline cases, which are in
turn housed in a cardboard slipcase halfheartedly mocked up as a miniature composition
notebook. All episodes are presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with an English
language stereo track. While wholly lacking in the supplemental extras
department (that would mean none), the series still for the most part works as
an adolescent primer of sorts, albeit a somewhat dated and intrinsically optimistic
one. C+ (Show) C+ (Disc)

Creature Comforts: The Complete Second Season

October 22, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Creature Comforts — from Aardman Animation, the same folks who brought us the delightful Wallace and Gromit — is a like-minded, documentary-style collection of animated shorts about
the secret lives of both domesticated pets and wild animals. Ever
wondered what life is like for a jaguar who misses the wide open spaces
of the wild, or the gorilla who wishes her habitat had better heating?
Fret no more — those and other questions are answered in Nick Park’s
pleasantly off-center series, which brings together a dozen mini-episodes
along with some other enjoyable bonus material.

Creature Comforts
began life as a short subject film released in 1990 by the
England-based Aardman Animation. Park, working with Aardman founders
Peter Lord and David Sproxton, recorded a bunch of complaints and real-life conversations of various
British citizens and worked up animals representing each doughty
character. The result was the 1990 Academy Award winner for Best
Animated Short Film. From there, Park — who would go on to craft both Chicken Run and a popular, award-winning series of Wallace and Gromit
shorts — developed a
short series of 10-minute episodes that continued to mine the
same comedic veins, told in a mockumentary format and branded with dry
subtleties characteristic of “across the pond” humor.

Leaving no stone unturned, no sea uncrossed, no tree unclimbed, Creature Comforts
takes a cheeky, first-person look at the animal kingdom from its
denizens’ points-of-view. Circus animals lift the lid on life
underneath the big top, garden dwelling slugs discuss life in the urban
turf and ponder the existence of aliens, zebras and penguins chat about zoo life, and our feathered friends
reveal the ups and downs of life in the air. The animation is again of
course of the distinctive Aardman claymation variety — all expressive
eyes, big mouths and soft, rounded features. That kids spark to Park’s
tales is unsurprising given their warm, inviting look, but that adults
respond typically just as favorably is a result of the equal and
informed attention given to story.

DVD extras on this 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation include
three featurettes and a 35-minute-plus making-of special that features interview clips with Park and many of the animators.
This shows the painstaking work that goes into these kinds of shorts
(all those expressions are the result of different heads and faces,
naturally) and really gives you an extra appreciation for this type of
animation. There’s also a longer version of the “Merry Christmas Everybody!” episode available separately as well, bargain priced at $9.95. A- (Show) B+ (Disc)

Starsky & Hutch: The Complete Fourth Season

October 22, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The hairstyles
still jump out at you, sure. And this was, after all, the season that
David Soul (above right) busted off with the shaggy moustache. But Starsky & Hutch, as much as anything else, is still chiefly interesting as a relic of 1970s-era small screen pacing.

Lost, Desperate Housewives and The Nine hellbent on twiddling viewers off with long, masturbatory arcs, the art of self-contained story arc is waning. Starsky & Hutch, at least here in its fourth season, does a superlative job of spinning tight narrative nuggets that then paradoxically allow for longer, dawdling scenes within those concentrated parameters. Case in point: a three-and-a-half-minute, flirty peeping tom sequence in “Strange Justice,” which finds a veteran cop concocting a semi-elaborate plot to take revenge upon his daughter’s rapist. Modern television boils this down to one minute, tops, to give us more “gritty” procedural. The irony is that that generally takes away from the empathy one feels from the aggrieved character(s).

Amongst my other favorites from this five-disc set, which collects all 22 episodes, are “Photo Finish” and “Ninety Pounds of Trouble,” in which the pair go undercover as hitmen. Kitsch low, meanwhile, is reached in “The Golden Angel,” in which Starsky poses as a wrestler and Hutch a referee.

Starsky & Hutch: The Complete Fourth Season is presented in 1.33:1 full screen, and the transfers are surprisingly clear and free of grain. While there are certainly some issues with color consistency here and there, as a measure of comparison these episodes look better than many of the 1970s and ’80s sitcoms currently being peddled by Sony (Good Times, The Jeffersons, etcetera). The set comes packaged in bright red, gatefold fashion, with an outer cardboard slipcase to boot. There are, alas, no supplemental bonus features. If you can get over that disappointment, you’ll be otherwise happy with the clarity of this revisitation. B- (Show) B- (Disc)

The Omen

October 17, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Dutifully just in time for Halloween arrives this year’s
remake of The Omen, and it probably works
better as a rental, the type of thing you can pop into the old DVD player Halloween night and
pause to get up and pass out candy without feeling too disrupted upon return to
the couch. A marketer’s dream, The Omen
somewhat wanly taps into the rising tide of religious-themed, quasi-end-time
menace that’s fashionable in an anxiety-laden culture driven by the twin engines
of terror and war — all without really legitimately earning any of its feeling itself.

Liev Schreiber (who also did remake duty in The Manchurian Candidate) stars as
Robert Thorn, a young, well-heeled governmental attaché, and the godson of the
President of the United States.
After the stillborn death of their infant, Robert accepts another child without
telling his wife Kathryn (Julia Stiles), and they lovingly raise Damien (Seamus
Davey-Fitzpatrick) as their son, with Robert of course closely guarding this
aforementioned secret. It’s not long before Robert is elevated to the post of
Ambassador to Great Britain
when his boss dies in a freak accident.

Years later, Robert and Kathryn’s happy lives begin to take
a turn for the worse when Damien’s nanny hangs herself in front of a crowd at
his sixth birthday party. Father Brennan (Pete Postlethwaite), a mysterious but
traumatized priest, shows up and forecasts more horrible things for Kathryn,
Robert and others; Damien, he says, is the Antichrist, the human spawn of
Satan. Increasingly disconnected from and frightened by her son, Kathryn slips
into a depression. These events coincide with the Thorns’ hiring of a new
nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Mia Farrow), as well as the realization by photographer
Keith Jennings (David Thewlis) that distorted photos he’s taken may serve as
indicators of deaths both previous and impending.

As directed by John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, The Flight
of the Phoenix) and updated by David Seltzer, the writer of the original
film, The Omen delivers a few
effective blows of menace, but ultimately leans too heavily on the theoretical
injection of viewers’ own beliefs and end-time apprehension to supply its
dread. This is evident in everything from the absurdly baroque touches that
stud threatening montages which are completely emotionally unconnected to the
narrative to a third act steeplechase that only bothers to sketch out the
barest details of a conspiracy that birthed Damien and brought him to Robert
and Kathryn’s care. In recreating two of the original’s big five set pieces, retaining the
primeval nature of other deaths and fetishistically replicating its source
material’s meticulous production design, the movie most heartily evidences a
desire to be “all evil to all people.”

The original Omen
presented Damien as a sullen, neatly coiffed, little brunette kid — the
smallest member of the AC/DC dress-alike fan club — and this movie duplicates
that sedated character bit. Yet if, as the film suggests, all that we see here
is part of the Devil’s sly campaign of ascendancy — prologue to an apocalyptic
showdown on Earth — wouldn’t it be more chilling to contrast such murders and
death with a (somewhat more) charming countenance? The power of the Devil,
after all, lies in charismatic appeals to vanity, or at least an ability to lie
low and dormant (e.g., the phrase, “like a snake in the grass”) until proper
opportunity. Given the circumstances of mortal dispatch on display in The Omen, there’s no persuasive reason
to believe a sympathetic yet secretly malevolent figure could emerge. With a
remote stare, malevolent pout and about eight lines of dialogue in the entire
movie, Davey-Fitzpatrick’s Damien is a cipher for immoral wickedness — evil as
muted petulance.

Stylish yet mannered, The
Omen is a blank canvas that draws its anxiety from viewers’ own sense of
impending moral peril. A few good jolts are meted out, and if one allows their
mind to wander and indulge the narrative possibilities the story flirts with,
it’s certainly easy to muster some disconcertment. Mostly, though, the film’s
solemn creepiness is hermetically sealed off from its more direct, goosing
passages, proving that evil can be just as boring as saintliness.

Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, The Omen comes with a robust Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound track that will help give you a jolt or two when properly pumped up. Editor Dan Zimmerman and producer Glenn Williamson join director Moore for an audio commentary track, detailing production trivia and on-set hurdles they surmounted in on-the-fly fashion. Next up is a 37-minute documentary on the making of the movie, laden with cast and crew interviews. A look at Marco Beltrami’s score gets 10 minutes of love, and the prevalence of the devil in modern times gets its own 22-minute featurette, which stitches together interviews with theologians, professors and the like in what amounts to a half-assed version of any given History Channel-type documentary on the same subject. Two extended scenes, meanwhile, offer slightly gorier takes on two of the deaths herein, along with a slightly differentiated ending, theatrical teaser trailers and the like. C+ (Movie) B
(Disc)

American Dreamz

October 15, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Writer-director Paul Weitz and his younger brother Chris may
have gotten their big break behind the camera with American Pie, but much of the rest of their respective individual
and collective filmographies — dating back to their script for the animated
flick Antz, and including In Good Company — have had some pretty
interesting, radical and progressive things to say about culture, corporate
ethics and accountability. The elder Weitz’s American
Dreamz only further ups the ante, and is bound to produce uneasy feelings
in mainstream audiences not prepared for the churning, potentially incendiary
mix of elements at its core. A comedic casserole existing at the intersecting
planes of love and fame, politics and pop culture, the movie is enjoyably
idiosyncratic if a little sloppy — a rib-nudging exploration of manipulated
“reality” that asks viewers to think about the true meanings of words like hero
and martyr.

American Idol-type singing
competition that is far and away the most popular show on television. Hugh
Grant stars as Martin Tweed, the smarmy and secretly self-loathing host at the
center of it all. Desperate for fresh angles that will translate into even
higher ratings, Tweed sends out two of his producers
(Judy Greer and John Cho) to find a colorful roster of freaks, including an
Arab and a Hasidic Jew that can be plugged into the format and played off one
another.

Among the most promising new contestants is a shrewdly
calculating small town girl, Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), who promptly dumps her
loyal boyfriend William Williams (Chris Klein). A more unlikely crowd favorite
proves to be Omer (Sam Golzari, above, in his screen debut), a bumbling, would-be
suicide bomber who loves show tunes and is discovered — after having washed out
of a terror training camp — living with his well-off aunt and uncle in Beverly
Hills, where he’s been sent to await instructions from his handlers.

Dennis Quaid, meanwhile, costars as recently re-elected
President Joe Staton, a divisive but genial figure. When he starts reading
newspapers and magazines, currents of nuance drift into his previously
black-and-white view of the world, and he starts questioning his decisions on
the war in Iraq
and against terrorism. (We could only be so lucky in reality.) After weeks of holing up inside the White House, rumors
begin to spread regarding his mental fitness, so Staton is fit with an earpiece
that allows him to stay “on message,” funneled information by his sycophantic
consigliore chief of staff (Willem Dafoe), a blend of Dick Cheney and Karl
Rove. It’s then, too, that Staton is booked as a guest judge on the season finale
of American Dreamz, in a desperate
attempt to score some good publicity.

You can see where this is heading. Realizing their potential
to strike a devastating blow on live television, Omer’s terror handlers make
plans for him to kill himself and the president with a small bomb they smuggle
into the studio. Orphaned Omer, though — who has come to enjoy both the United
States’ munificence and its people — has
deep misgivings about his mission, and tries desperately to figure out a way to
thwart the plan. This all dovetails, meanwhile, with Sally’s increased manipulation
of Tweed, and vice versa — each of them on a certain
level being enthralled with the other’s coldhearted ambitiousness.

Owing to his American
Pie roots, Weitz still has somewhat broad comedic instincts, and definitely
a shaggy puppy’s desire to please. While it doesn’t indulge in gross-out gags
like the aforementioned movie, there is a certain glossiness to American Dreamz, which consequently
makes it lack some of the bleak-hearted glee of a film like Wag the Dog. Whereas everything in that
film was played seriously, if tongue-in-cheek, there are self-contained pockets
here that know they’re in a comedy,
and it interrupts some of the movie’s sense of consistency and flow.

Still, the film’s satire of pop songs (“Rockin’ Man,”
“Dreamz with a Z,” “Let’s Not Be Friends”) is spot-on, and Weitz truly has a
gift for smart, surgically incisive dialogue, be it in small comedic moments
(agents are at one point derided as “people who act greedy and mean so you can
pretend to be nice”), or when he’s trying to hammer home his points on fame
versus love or any of the other at-odds sensibilities under the movie’s
sociopolitical microscope. This is what drives American Dreamz and, in the end, makes it such a winner. The
political stuff, to me, was engaging and hearteningly robust, but the
underlying story is also colorful enough to drag you along on pure
entertainment value.

Packaged in a single-disc Amray case with snap-shut hinges, American Dreamz comes with full-motion
menus and a paper insert touting other Universal releases. The movie is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, which preserves the aspect ratio of
its original theatrical presentation. The colors are sharp and consistent, and
there are no problems whatsoever with edge bleeding or artifacting. The only
area of inconsistency in the title has to do with the set design choices for American Dreamz, which come off as a bit
too dark in comparison to what we’re used to from many other actual live
television shows. Still, this is a piddling detail.

Satire goes multilingual, as American Dreamz comes with parallel Dolby digital 5.1 sound mixes
in English, French and Spanish. The sound design is robust, with an obvious
emphasis placed on the movie’s performance scenes, which come through loud and
clear. Rear channels get a nice workout in these scenes, especially with crowd
support. Dialogue is for the most part consistent and discernible, though a few
outdoor sequences — as with Sally and Martin in his rented sports car — are
under-mixed with relation to surrounding atmospherics. Optional English SDH,
French and Spanish subtitles are also available.

The disc’s supplemental
extras are a mixed bag, and kick off with two featurettes. A four-minute bit billed
as Center Stage: Sally Kendoo finds Moore,
in character, showing us around the set of the titular show within the movie.
There’s absolutely no bite to the piece, though, so it’s hard to tell if this
was excised footage from the film or just some misguided EPK promotional
effort. Either way, it gets boring fast, and offers no replay value. A
seven-and-a-half-minute featurette on the film’s choreography, meanwhile,
includes fun, lighthearted chats with dance instructor Jennifer Li (erroneously
billed as Lee on the DVD’s back cover) and cast members Golzari and Tony Yalda. Twelve minutes of deleted scenes follow, and these are more
interesting, at least once you get past the two minutes of non-moderated
promotional bumpers (again, for the show within the movie) that open the
collection. These have such significant overlap as to leave one crying out for
an editor. A scene with Quaid’s president sobbing to screen wife Marcia Gay
Harden about his earpiece is interesting for its judicious exclusion. Greer and
Cho, meanwhile, enjoy a bit more character development, as does the
just-back-from-Iraq cameraman who accompanies them to film Sally’s hometown
segment.

Finally, wrapping things up is a superb feature-length
commentary track with Paul Weitz. Erudite, engaging and self-effacing, Weitz
doesn’t give himself enough credit for the depth and quality of his
observations. Sure, he talks “highbrow,” about his interest in relativistic
art, but he also gives up a variety of great anecdotes, and additionally has
good insight on his actors, like Hugh Grant (“He has an incredibly developed
technique, but still wants to get to a place where he’s surprised”) and Mandy
Moore (“She nailed the audition — she was arch without commenting on it”). The
track is peppered with a few enigmatic asides (“My brother and I have to have a
monkey in every film that we do”), and Weitz alternates in tone between the tongue-in-cheek
(“We went to Iraq
to film this sequence, so that’s where most of the budget went. In hindsight, I
should have actually shot outdoors when we were there”) and more
straightforward. Halfway through, though, Weitz gets bored chatting by himself, so
he calls Golzari to vet his memory on a detail in a scene, and Golzari promptly
drives over and joins him. This track is a real treat, and inarguably the
highlight of the bonus slate.

The bottom line: American Dreamz is stocked with familiar faces and cameos, and driven by
fun, pinprick-smart dialogue — enough so that the movie stands on its own as a
lighthearted romp of only slightly heightened absurdity. But American Dreamz is also a plea for
pluralism, a film at its core about the fallibility of a singularly and
fervently held worldview. American self-importance is the fuel that drives the
movie’s comedic engine, but dogmatic principles of all ideologies get tweaked
as Weitz asks whether one person or people’s suffering can in fact be eased by
making other people suffer. In other words, you’ll laugh… and whether you also
think is entirely up to you. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B- (Disc)

Forever Knight The Trilogy: Part Three

October 14, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Scrubs: The Complete Fourth Season

October 12, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Scrubs was a show
that I came to a little late, but when I did, I was hooked. The combination of
its surreal silliness, rapid-fire pacing (it wasn’t afraid to drop a joke about
a decade-old Snoop Dogg rap lyric and then move right on) and shrewd, internally
logical and consistent character-based comedy made it a real pleasure. Episodic
arcs were clean, though hardly self-contained; most bits played out over the
course of three or four shows, though if you missed one (pre-Tivo, mind you) it
wasn’t a huge, deal-breaking problem. Also, while other ensembles drew more
acclaim (Will & Grace, for
instance), few worked as well off of one another as the cast of Scrubs.

The irreverent flipside of all these serious, sudsy hospital-set
dramas like ER, the series unfolds in
a state of slightly heightened reality, at the Sacred Heart Emergency Care Facility.
There, young doctor J.D. (Zach Braff) works alongside his ex-girlfriend Elliot
(Sarah Chalke) and best friend and college roommate, surgeon Turk (Donald
Faison), as well as Turk’s nurse wife, Carla (Judy Reyes). There are all sorts
of passing squabbles and intra-relationship hurdles to be negotiated, including
newlywed strife, but they’re bound together as often as not against the genial
penny-pinching of Dr. Kelso (Ken Jenkins) and the outlandish pranks of the nameless
janitor (Neil Flynn).

Scrubs is best
when it centers around J.D.’s never-ending quest for the endorsement and
appreciation of his approval-withholding superior, Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley,
in a role that’s tailor-fit to his idiosyncratic comic timing and persona), or
when giving wide leeway for the regulars to read and react to the peculiar behavior
of the aforementioned janitor, Dr. Cox’s ball-busting wife, Jordan (Christa Miller ), or the pervy, uncomfortably
extroverted surgeon known as “The Todd” (Robert Maschio).

The fourth season of the series, though, is probably its
most uneven, though still comparatively top-notch when stacked up against the
bland inoffensiveness of most sitcoms. One problem is that things seem a bit
too maudlin at times. Earlier seasons kept things moving at a whipsmart pace,
cycling through guest star girlfriends and boyfriends like Amy Smart, Heather
Locklear, Heather Graham, Scott Foley, Chrystee Pharris, Elizabeth Banks and
(gulp) Tara Reid for unattached cast members. It worked. Here, though, there’s
less of that — and less narrative focus in general, too. (Guest stars include Matthew
Perry, a funny, early-season bit with Julianna Margulies, Molly Shannon and the
recurring Tom Cavanagh, as J.D.’s big brother.) The joke-writing still scores,
but too many episodes seem to be wan reiterations of previously exhausted
themes. “My Life in Four Cameras,” meanwhile, tries to futz around with the
show’s single-camera format and tweak sitcom convention, imagining a scenario through
different perspectives, but it does so unsuccessfully.

The show, creator Bill Lawrence and the rest of its writers
and performers can certainly be forgiven for a bit of this patchiness, as for a
long time the specter of cancellation hung in the air, and it wasn’t clear that
NBC wanted to bring the show back — at least partially a casualty of it not being
produced in-house, Braff once explained to me in an interview, but instead by Touchstone
Television. The possibility of a slightly shortened fifth season, though — and,
more specifically, the big syndication dollars that would follow — proved too lucrative,
and eventually a compromise was hammered out.

Presented in non-anamorphic full screen, the fourth season transfer
of Scrubs doesn’t quite live up to
the billing of its predecessors, even if the set is attractively packaged in a
yellow cardboard slipcase. There are a few issues with graininess and some
inconsistency throughout — seemingly left over from initial broadcast, as I
remember some of the issues from even back then — though nothing major enough
to completely mar one’s enjoyment. Two audio commentaries (one by Chalke, one
by Braff) are complemented by an array of deleted scenes and a healthy
smattering of genial bonus featurettes. Of the latter, one on ancillary
characters like “the Todd” points up the power of the joke and recurrent small
screen bit player. B+ (Show) B+ (Disc)

That ’70s Show: Season Five

October 11, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

There are many different rubrics through which to view Fox’s That ’70s Show,
be it the introduction of a talented and completely relaxed and natural
new leading-man-in-waiting (Topher Grace), the introduction of a
lead-as-PR-savvy-huckster (Ashton Kutcher) or the introduction
of a mewing kitten we’re soon likely to completely forget about (I’m
looking in your direction, Mila Kunis).

For now, though, the most
interesting point of entry may be the rubric of Wilmer Valderrama, who
as mumbly foreign exchange student Fez for years flew under the radar
of his higher-profile costars, and yet somehow parlayed that into some
fine starlet tail (Mandy Moore, Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, probably
a couple more that I’m forgetting) and now, in the zenith of MTV’s
creative genius, a brainchild-hosting gig for a show called Yo Momma,
where faded young SoCal natives “represent” their ’boroughs (West
Covina, Beverly Hills, Hollywood) by trotting out, yes, a litany of
mother-tweaking one-liners. I’m not sure, but I think I already either
saw this sketch on Saturday Night Live or daydreamed it while flipping through one of those little index card-sized book of “snaps” at American Eagle Outfitters.

The point of all this in relation to the fifth season DVD bow of That ’70s Show, you ask? Well, it actually helps it — this somewhat jarringly at-odds ascendancy of its players. That ’70s Show, created by 3rd Rock From the Sun
scribes Bonnie and Terry Turner and Mark Brazill, was always a very
loose-limbed show, built around a few large-handled character
archetypes and plenty of good-natured mockery and repartee. It wanted
to be funny, but just as importantly it wanted to be liked. It
was never conceived as — nor could it become, given its conceit and
adherence to a certain formula — a series powered by outrageously
clever story arcs — such as, let’s say, a gas shortage and the original sighting of a just-dead Elvis Presley. It’s the opposite of that, a show built around
banter and congeniality. Ergo, the more outsized its personalities get
off screen, the more attachment or identification it breeds for the
show, just through familiarity.

The fifth season finds Kutcher’s Kelso grappling with the hook-up and ongoing relationship between his ex, Jackie (Kunis), and Danny Masterson’s Hyde. He schemes, rants and, at one point, decides to get a job as a cop in order to “stay sexy forever.” Other highlights include “Hey Hey What Can I Do,” in which Eric (Grace) loses out on a job at a bank due to a bad reference from a very surprising source; “No Quarter,” in which Jackie moves in with Donna (Laura Prepon); and “You Shook Me,” in which Fez gets freaked out by a dream he has involving Kelso. Eric and Donna’s journey toward an apartment together and possible nuptials are also sprinkled liberally throughout.

Housed on four dual layer discs in four slimline cases in turn stored in a cardboard slipcase, That ’70s Show: Season Five includes all 25 episodes of the 2002-03 season, presented in full
screen and English Dolby surround sound. Along with the
requisite slew of introductory episode promos and a five-minute season overview, Masterson and Valderrama also sit for a
chat on the show. B- (Show) C+ (Disc)

The Pumpkin Karver

October 9, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Trapped), 2004’s The Pumpkin Karver certainly seems to hew to this definition.

After a horrible accident in which Jonathan (Michael Zara) kills
a masked, apparent intruder, he and his sister Amy (Amy Weber) move away to another
titular town (that would be Karver, not Pumpkin). One year later, Jonathan is beset
by visions and nightmares about that night, and acting unusual. At a wild
Halloween party on a deserted parcel of farmland, folks start dying in gruesome
fashion at the hands of a pumpkin-headed killer. As the body count mounts, fear
and recrimination soar

The Pumpkin Karver’s
plot is allegedly rooted in some true crime shenanigans, but the characters are
all creations of such stiffly cardboard motivations that one could be forgiven (encouraged,
even) for dismissing that claim as dubious. Also, Mann and Sheldon Silverstein’s
script doesn’t have the nuance to really explore these elements of its premise.
Ergo, it relies on cheap gore (one guy gets his guts drilled out, a girl gets
her face carved off, etc.) to goose you, but as any horror aficionado can tell
you, it’s the imagination of staging that will elevate/save low budget
offerings like this. The Pumpkin Karver
fails in this respect. Do look for Minka Kelly, however, heating up the small screen on Friday Night Lights.

The movie is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with
an English language 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound audio track and optional
Spanish subtitles. For such an marginal title, The Pumpkin Karver at least comes with a few extra features. First
up is a director’s commentary track in which Mann holds forth in detail about various
production elements. While everything’s relative — and Mann’s requisite
insistence about the movie’s psychological underpinnings more than a bit ridiculous
— the overcome hurdles recounted herein can in theory serve as inspirational nuggets
from on high for other would-be moviemakers. After all, if a movie like The Pumpkin Karver can secure financing,
there is hope after all, right? Rounding out the release, there is also a photo
gallery and collection of preview trailers for other First Look titles. D
(Movie) B- (Disc)

X-Men: The Last Stand

October 7, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

X-Men: The Last Stand cleaned up at the box office, but fanboy whipping post Brett Ratner still drew at least a bit of ire for the gun-for-hire manner in which he brought to a (momentary) conclusion initiating director Bryan Singer’s adaptation of the popular Marvel comic book series. For a full review of the film, click here. This 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, meanwhile, comes with crisp, robust 6.1 DTS ES and 5.1 Dolby EX soundtracks, as well as discrete Spanish and French tracks and optional subtitles in English and Spanish. Two separate audio commentary tracks are included, each of which are group offerings. The ever-sunny Ratner sits with writers Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn for a chat that dips into fanboy minutiae regarding the series, while the latter two also join producers Lauren Shuler-Donner, Avi Arad, Ralph Winter and David Gorder on another track, which gets into location and logistics a bit more. A nice collection of deleted and extended scenes runs just under 10 minutes, all with optional commentary from Ratner, Kinberg and Penn. Three of these are alternate endings of a sort to the movie, though none really fully point up the sort of grand emotional payoff that’s deserved for the series. An alternate meeting between Beast and Logan is nice, though.

There are alternately viewed menu screens (“Take a Stand” or “Join the Brotherhood”) depending on whether you feel like indulging your villainy on any given day, and two Easter eggs also dot the dual layer disc, along with some Marvel previews and a look at both Ben Stiller’s A Night at the Museum and an amusingly introduced, one-minute unfinished clip the forthcoming Simpsons movie. Still, the lack of comprehensive making-of docs is a bit of a bummer, particularly given the high-water marks of the X-Men 1.5 release and the like. It’s also worth mentioning, though, that the screener copy I previewed has some consistent problems with pixelization and grain throughout, bumping the grade down a bit further. A collector’s edition, though, is also available, though it includes only a Stan Lee comic book. B- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Shared Darkness

A Communal Life in Film, Examined

Category Archives: Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Cars

Battle of the Brave

Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America

Cutting Crew: Live at Full House

The Libertine

Macumba Sexual

Follow That Man, Vols. 6 & 7

Bad Religion: Riot!

Sweetie

Superstition/Baby Blood

The Wilkie Collins Set

U2: Zoo TV Live from Sydney

Bewitched: The Complete Fourth Season

Vikings: Journey to the New Worlds

The Road to Guantanamo

The Facts of Life: The Complete Third Season

Creature Comforts: The Complete Second Season

Starsky & Hutch: The Complete Fourth Season

The Omen

American Dreamz

Forever Knight The Trilogy: Part Three

Scrubs: The Complete Fourth Season

That ’70s Show: Season Five

The Pumpkin Karver

X-Men: The Last Stand