Category Archives: Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

In Living Color: Season Five

May 17, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The
idea of a sketch comedy show with Jim Carrey, Chris Rock and Jamie Foxx
is enough to send shivers of anticipation running through most folks,
but it’s already happened, about a dozen years ago on the fifth season
of In Living Color. That reunion would cost you, what, around
$35 million right off the top these days? And that’s not even counting
David Alan Grier and his Ambien prescription.

An unruly, irreverent half-hour show, In Living Color
was the brainchild of Keenan Ivory Wayans, and it was the perfect match
for the upstart Fox Network. By the fall of 1993 and into ’94, Keenan,
his brother Damon and his sister Kim had all departed — the result of
various contract and creative squabbles — but the series still employed
a few original cast members, including Carrey, Grier and Tommy
Davidson, to go along with a new roster that included Alexandra
Wentworth, Anne-Marie Johnson, Marc Wilmore, Reggie McFadden and
others. Rock, meanwhile, migrated over from Saturday Night Live to do a bit of part-time night-player work.

This season honestly isn’t the show’s best, as it showcases the
difficulty of sketch comedy in the half-hour format unless comedic
capriciousness is fully embraced, a la David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s Mr. Show. There’s a funny if too brief African-Americanized send-up of The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
and the idea of a talk show built around the illegitimate black
children of white celebrities — wherein Carrey delivers a perfectly
unctuous turn as Geraldo Rivera — similarly runs out of steam after
just scratching the surface potential of its conceit. These partially
birthed bits are most emblematic of the show’s struggles, but the
series also has a tendency to infuse overt “wackiness” into basically
funny ideas, as it does in Grier’s “Loomis Simmons: Custom Built
Condoms,” about a small businessman/sexual pinch hitter.

Foxx and Tommy Davidson’s recurrent “Ace and the Main Man” sketches,
in which they hold forth as chattering security guards at a variety of
locations, don’t particularly hold up as anything more than unfunny
placeholders for a clutch of celebrity cameos (Tupac’s is refreshing,
though for all the wrong reasons — Johnny Gill’s, not so much). Among
the bits that do sustain an edge are an “Ike Turner &
Hooch” bit, interrupted by fake news coverage of white looting after
the Reginald Denny case verdict, and “Jerry Seinfeld in the Ghetto,” in
which Carrey pontificates: “Projects? Looking at the state of it, I
hope they’re grading on a curve” and, “Why do they call it ‘the hood’?
Is it like the entire city’s a big sweatshirt and that’s the part you
pull over your head? What… is the deal?” Likewise, some of the musical
segments (Us3, Souls of Mischief, Me’Shell NdegeOcello, Leaders of the
New School) are bracing because so there’s so little performance
footage on some of these acts.

Housed on three double-sided discs in slimline cases stored in turn in a cardboard slipcase, all 26 episodes of In Living Color: Season Five
are presented in 1.33:1 full frame, with English 2.0 stereo mix and
optional English and Spanish subtitles. There was some uproar,
previously, over the fact that the DVD releases of the series featured
abridged episodes, trimmed for syndication. The packaging on In Living Color: Season Four
more clearly advertised that fact, but we’re back here to a policy of
don’t ask, don’t tell, and I honestly can’t discern whether or not
these are the condensed versions, though I suspect they are.
Furthermore, there are still no supplemental extras to add additional
value to the set. While it’s obvious that the major headliners (and
even probably Grier) have busy schedules and better things to do with
their time, it’s a shame that some of the series’ writer-producers
weren’t corralled for commentary tracks or retrospective interviews. In Living Color was a trailblazing series in its own right, and while it’s quite nice to get full-season releases (paging Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live!), they deserve to go out on a higher, slightly better-packaged note than here. B- (Show) C- (Disc)

Delicatessen

May 16, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet stepped boldly into the arthouse spotlight with Amelié, starring Audrey Tatou, but it was 1991’s Delicatessen,
co-directed with Marc Caro, that authoritatively established his
elaborate visual style and its delicate counterbalancing with gross-out
gags and broader slapstick elements. (Hey, it’s no coincidence that
ex-Monty Python member Terry Gilliam presented the movie’s American
release). Already a deserved cult classic that will find welcome
reception among those who similarly favor Gilliam’s cinematic trinkets,
Delicatessen, with its unusual mix of tones, is worth a look for
those who enjoy their comedy dark and deadpan, but with nonetheless a
pinch of fanciful optimism.

Set in a post-apocalyptic, 21st century Paris where food is scarce (sorry, though, no Kevin Costner), Delicatessen
unfolds chiefly within the confines of a single apartment complex owned
by a man named Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus), who also operates the
downstairs butcher shop. Bartering with locals for other goods and
services, Clapet keeps everyone fed by cycling through and chopping up
a steady stream of drifters who take work in his dilapidated deli. The
latest to answer his newspaper ad is a pliant young former circus
clown, Louison (Dominique Pinon), who is, of course, completely unaware
that Clapet plans to serve him up to the building’s bizarre coterie.
Things change when the butcher’s nearsighted daughter Julie
(Marie-Laurie Dougnac), who buys two of everything to stave off all the
inevitable accidents that befall her, falls for Louison and goes to
abundant lengths to systematically foil her father’s plans.

Jeunet and Caro devised the story with comic book writer Gilles
Adrien, and the latter’s exaggerated sense of action definitely helps
inform the movie’s unique sensibility. The performances are all top
notch, impressing an air of theatricality upon the filmmakers’ definite
humanist leanings. Delicatessen teases up the absurdity of its
cannibalistic premise to dizzying heights, and yet also succeeds in
locating the unlikely whimsicality therein.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Delicatessen is presented in
1.85:1 widescreen enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with a Dolby digital
surround sound original language track and optional English and Spanish
subtitles. The transfer captures the darker chocolates, golds, greens
and other murky hues of Jeunet’s frame, and the audio presentation is
leaps and bounds better than the movie’s previous VHS tape
incarnations, allowing for a fuller appreciation of Jeunet’s sterling
sound design, wherein there’s a sound or three for every gag.

Supplemental extras include a French-language audio commentary track
with Jeunet, meaning American audiences will have to double down on the
subtitles to hear his thoughts on Stateside filmmaking and his own
directorial shortcomings. There’s also a 13-minute making-of
featurette, “Fine Cooked Meats,” and around eight minutes of screen
tests, rehearsal footage and the like. The original theatrical trailer
and a collection of other teaser advertising materials rounds out the
disc. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

If Only

May 16, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

If Only Jennifer Love Hewitt would return my calls. If Only Jennifer Love Hewitt would revoke the restraining order against me. Ahh
yes, then we could make beautiful music together… or at least films
with a bit more personality than this anonymous 2004 confection, in
which she stars, co-produces and even performs two songs featured in
the movie.

If I seem to have an unnatural or unbecoming
affinity for “Love,” it’s only because I appreciate her utterly
refreshing self-awareness in an industry where all too often young
actors and actresses fall victim to all sorts of delusion and inflated
grandeur. Pleasant and unaffected, Hewitt exudes both a professional
sense of responsibility and a down-to-Earth charm — she gets
the nature of her appeal (yes, boobs and all) and has fun with it.
She’s a real girl with real curves, real personality and no diva-esque
drama. If only more starlets were like her.

Efficaciously shot on location in London, If Only is a sort of slightly more wishy-washy version of Sliding Doors.
It provides a decently rangy vehicle for Hewitt — who’s quite good,
actually — but there’s little else of dramatic heft here. Hewitt plays
Samantha Andrews, an impetuous American music teacher and aspiring
singer-songwriter living in a tidy English flat with her workaholic
boyfriend Ian Wyndham (Paul Nicholls, out-blanding oatmeal). When he
won’t reward her surprise morning gift of a leather jacket with a
proper boinking, and accompany her on a forthcoming back to the States
to meet her mother, she feels neglected. This and other stressors
eventually lead to a fight and the couple’s near break-up. Shortly
after, that same evening, Samantha is in a horrible car accident (In the Bedroom’s
Tom Wilkinson costars as the fated cabbie) and dies. In the second half
of the movie, a grief-stricken Ian gets a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to relive the tragic day all over again in the hopes of
changing the events that led up to Samantha’s death. There are kisses
in the rain, of course, but can there be a happy ending for all
involved?

If Only is directed by Gil Junger, a television veteran who made the swing into features with 2001’s Black Knight,
starring Martin Lawrence. It’s decent in terms of general production
value, but definitely shows its ABC Family television movie roots in
the conventional staging and an overly maudlin score from Adrian
Johnston. Hewitt is certainly a welcome sight in her Hanes, and again,
she gets an expansive character arc to enjoy — from love-strung but
ebullient to full-blown teary breakdown, which she conveys surprisingly
movingly. The film’s dramatic track, however, feels wan and
predetermined.

Housed in a regular Amray case, If Only is presented only in
1.33:1 full screen, with an English 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound
track; subtitles in only English and French further blunt the movie’s
international appeal amongst hopeless romantics. If Only there were some supplemental features, even a few EPK-style interview tidbits. C (Movie) D (Disc)

American Dad! Volume One

May 10, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

After his Fox sitcom Family Guy
underwent the fitful throes of its initial cancellation, creator Seth
MacFarlane and several writers moved on to a new animated series titled
American Dad!, a show whose kinship was on display for all to
see in the similarly sarcastically doting title. While the former
series has returned to the air stronger than ever, American Dad!
has in turn held on tightly to the coattails of the Griffin family,
while also trying to put an anarchic, post-Sept. 11 comedic spin on the
American family. It’s not cynical posturing, either — MacFarlane was
initially scheduled to be on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston,
one of the airplanes that hit the World Trade Center.

American Dad!
centers around Stan Smith (voiced by MacFarlane), a super-conservative
CIA operative whose headstrong dedication to his country leads him to
read everything through Threat Level Red glasses — everyone’s a
terrorist and everything is a potential threat to national security.
His family consists of his wife Francine (voiced by Wendy Schaal); his
brainiac, lockstep son Steve (voiced by Scott Grimes); his daughter
Hayley (voiced by Rachel MacFarlane); and Roger (Seth MacFarlane
again), an alcoholic extraterrestrial living with the family. Yes, you
read that right. Oh, there’s also Klaus (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker),
a snippy goldfish with a German Olympian’s brain.

While its overall penchant for whimsical indulgence is definitely
cut from the cloth of MacFarlane’s other show, some other points of
character comparison are easy. Klaus is obviously to American Dad! what Stewie is to Family Guy,
namely a self-involved voicebox for ankle-nipping asides and
non-sequiturs; Roger, meanwhile, recalls Brian, both in his tipsiness
and status as sardonic family outsider. Tonally, there’s a good bit of
groping in the dark here, as the series oscillates early on between
overtly topical humor and the sort of serial mayhem and silliness (sans
extended chicken fights, however) that is both Family Guy’s
strongest selling point and Achilles heel at times. To me, the
characters aren’t as strongly sketched, but some of its newsworthy
jokes score. Thankfully, as things progress, Francine’s relationship to
Stan and Hayley’s disagreement with her father’s obstinate politics
become more pronounced and better sketched. Still, the show is pretty
out there (in Saudi Arabia, the family is sentenced to death by the
Office of Vice and Virtue), so it’s mostly fans of absurdist tangential
humor who will find something here to enjoy.

MacFarlane’s Family Guy was, of course, legendarily
resuscitated by DVD, and subsequent releases have similarly gone the
extra mile to provide fans with a value-added experience, so it’s no
surprise that this release of American Dad! likewise takes full
advantage of the format. Housed in three slimline cases in a cardboard
slipcase, the series’ 13 episodes are presented in 1.33:1 full screen
with an English 5.1 Dolby surround mix and subtitles in English,
Spanish and French — the latter no doubt particularly disappointing to
Stan.

Genial audio-commentary tracks from MacFarlane and the writers
and voice cast stud all but one episode, and table reads and animatics
are also included.
The real boon, though, comes in the form of a whopping 42 deleted
scenes, totaling around 15 minutes. A making-of featurette, extended
promo spot and more only further extend the set’s exploration and
replay value. Many commercial releases of the DVD will apparently
include a bonus disc, “Family Guy: Off the Cutting Room Floor,”
which includes more than two dozen deleted scenes from the fourth
season of that show. Check your local paper’s fliers and advertisements
for store-to-store availability. C+ (Show) A (Disc)

Walking the Bible

May 9, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

I just got back from Walking the Bible, and boy are my legs
tired. Hey-O! Is this thing on? Seriously, you should never walk the
Bible without proper footwear. Oh yeah! When Walking the Bible, be sure to hydrate, lest you get stuck in the desert for 40 years, or turned into a pillar of salt. Zing!

The Chumscrubber

May 8, 2006Blu-ray/DVD Reviews, Film ReviewsBrent

Is it a DVD review? A film review? It’s really kind of both, don’tcha know, originally published on IGN upon its release on DVD a few months back, and reproduced here in slightly truncated form since they are having trouble processing payments. To wit:

If Quentin Tarantino spawned a legion of talky Pulp Fiction knockoffs with neither the pop vitality nor storytelling savvy of his creations, it looks like the cult hit Donnie Darko might, a dozen years later, do the same thing on the indie scene — where plenty of hack “auteurs” have their eyes trained more on commercial break-out potentiality than narrative inventiveness. A sort of very poor man’s mash-up of that cult Richard Kelly hit, the American dystopias on display in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, and Ang Lee’s ’70s-set The Ice Storm, in which self-involved and just as screwed-up adults are told the truth at long last about adolescent goings-on, The Chumscrubber is a precocious, smarmy film that tries to spin surliness, dissonance and spurious coincidence into high art.

Written by Zac Stanford and directed by Arie Posin, the story is set in a sun-drenched, dusty Southwestern suburbia that may look like the American Dream on the surface but is actually rotting and corroded under the hood. When a high school student hangs himself, his death throws the community’s carefully maintained psychotropic balance into a state of panicked disarray. Said student’s putative best friend, Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell), finds the body, but can barely manage a manifested reaction. Meanwhile, Crystal (The Ballad of Jack and Rose‘s Camilla Belle, above left), the punkish Billy (a glowering Justin Chatwin, above right, from War of the Worlds) and his sycophantic toadie Lee (Thumbsucker‘s Lou Taylor Pucci) together concoct a kidnapping scheme by which they’ll snatch Dean’s younger brother, Charlie (Rory Culkin), and hold him for ransom in exchange for Dean retrieving some needed pills from the room of his dead friend. Problem is, they grab the wrong Charlie, leading to further complications.

The adult characters in the film (including Glenn Close, John Heard, Rita Wilson and a dithering Ralph Fiennes, in bizarre grinning-idiot mode… perhaps recalling his own work in Maid in Manhattan?) are a collection of forgetful, self-obsessed neuroses, and the characterizations of its youthful ensemble are hardly better, pieced together from comfortable — if colorfully extrapolated — archetypes. The Chumscrubber attempts to ride a razor’s edge between sly, dark comedy and shadowy menace, but Posin accomplishes this chiefly through tossing together random bits of affectation, including computer-animated segments, distorted sound mix elements, weird interstitials and some admittedly nice Super-35 cinematography, from Lawrence Sher, which spotlights the film’s desert town setting. It all just seems to read “Bag of Tricks,” though — almost nothing in The Chumscrubber feels rooted or realistic, even within its own hyper-stylized world.

The only true light in this clumsy and dim affair, honestly, is Bell (Billy Elliot), who as the intelligent but obviously conflicted Dean — the rare high schooler who’s emotionally and psychologically moved on from the place before the constrictions of the temporal world have allowed his body to follow — casts a long, impressive shadow over the entire movie. His piercingly captivating performance may merit a rental for those who are big fans of the young actor, but honestly, otherwise you won’t be missing much.

Presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and enhanced for widescreen televisions, this single-disc release of The Chumscrubber, housed in a regular Amaray case, enjoys the benefits of a nice transfer. There are no signs of artifact or grain, and slight edge enhancement mars only one scene, a late act outdoor confrontation. Again, cinematographer Sher’s work is superb, and the clarity of his outdoor compositions is nicely preserved here. Two English language audio tracks anchor the movie — a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound mix and a Dolby digital 2.0 surround sound mix. Dialogue is clean and consistent in both, but the aforementioned affectation of this well-mounted production is best serviced in the former. Subtitles in English, Spanish and French are also available.

A 12-minute making-of documentary kicks off The Chumscrubber‘s supplemental features, comprised solely of EPK-type, on-set interviews with cast and crew. (The exceptions are Posin and producers Lawrence Bender and Bonnie Curtis, who are interviewed post-filming.) While the range of these collected ruminations are impressive, their profundity is a half-inch deep. Perhaps the most perplexing and disturbing line is when Posin praises Bell’s performance and then mutters, “I hope he does the next one,” sending confused fears of a sequel running through one’s mind. There’s also an audio commentary track from Posin, and he here reveals himself to be a generally thoughtful fellow, if blind to the script’s flaws. More interesting than production anecdotes are the flash-forward and backwards comparisons he makes to scenes in the movie and their status during auditions or earlier iterations of the screenplay or movie.

Unfortunately, a collection of 10 deleted and/or extended scenes comes with no appended commentary, leaving one to suss out on their own the reasons for their clipping or exclusion. Most of this material extends the relationship between Billy and Crystal, but in a fairly non-revelatory fashion. Rounding things out are brief previews for Red Eye and Just Like Heaven. Overall in regards to the bonus features, this is a case of lack of quality trumping perceived quantity.

The bottom line: The Chumscrubber is illustrative of one of the film business’ longest and grandest traditions — its susceptibility to showmanship. Stanford and Posin have crafted a product that is in many respects bold and different, but still emotionally hollow. Bell’s performance is really the only compelling reason to see the film, and even that is debatable depending on your own personal threshold for precocity. D+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

VIP: The Complete First Season

May 4, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

They
were at one point the Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman of erstwhile chesty
blonde Playmates — two separate and distinct individuals still bound
together by public confusion over exactly who was whom. A decade
removed, the fog of mistaken identity has lifted (hey, marrying a
crusty nonagenarian and throwing on a hundred-plus pounds will do that
for you), but the difference between Anna Nicole Smith and Pamela
Anderson (below, for the record) can still be measured most acutely in one hyphenated word:
self-awareness. The latter has it in spades, as the DVD release of VIP: The Complete First Season amply demonstrates; the former, well, she might be able to spell it.

Natalie Raitano),
perpetually nonplussed Kay (Leah Lail) and the muscle, Quick (Shaun
Baker) — to guard high-strung actresses, centerfold models, talk-radio
stars, basketball prospects and more.

Tone is everything for a syndicated romp like this, and VIP
has the smarts not to take itself at all seriously. It’s also rather
ingenious in its construction, the manner in which the parties truly
need each other in order to succeed. Tasha may register continued
exasperation with Vallery — especially for her serial fashion
indulgence — but the latter’s lack of prescribed experience always
lends itself to some outside-of-the-box thinking that proves helpful.
Likewise, Quick and the others provide the practical know-how to
implement Vallery’s schemes and plans. Anderson’s off-screen
likeability is further evidenced by a wide-ranging roster of guest
stars that includes Jay Leno, Morgan Fairchild, Jerry Springer, Sherman
Hemsley, Pauly Shore, Robin Leach, Marie Osmond and magicians Penn and
Teller. While it’s definitely not re-inventing the wheel, there’s
enough campy and lightweight fun here to qualify the show for a look
for those looking to shake some of the sand from Baywatch out of their trunks.
All 22 episodes of VIP’s 1998 inaugural sashay are included
here, in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen format with an English stereo
audio mix. Spread out over five discs housed in three slimline cases in
turn stored in a single cardboard slipcase, supplemental extras include
a trivia track on the series pilot and audio commentary on the season
finale, “Val the Hard Way,” with executive producers Jonathan Lawton
and Morgan Gendel, actress Raitano and writer Steve Kirozere. There’s
also a brief behind-the-scenes featurette and a selection of cheeky,
newly filmed cast introductions to three episodes. More with Anderson
would certainly be welcome, but VIP has the smarts to leave you wanting more. B- (Show) C+ (Disc)

Dreamer

May 3, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Horseracing has the reputation of being a sport ruled by and mainly for the wealthy — those unencumbered by the pesky constraints of regular, office-bred employment. As the relatively recent critical and crossover screen success of Seabiscuit proved, though, the same general rules of other underdog movies apply to tales of uplift set in the world of horseracing. The new family drama Dreamer is a bit less of an overt sports movie (it’s equally if not foremost about reconciliation and settlement), but it’s no less of a film than director Gary Ross’ 2003 Best Picture Oscar nominee, and in many ways much more of one. At once familiar and fresh, Dreamer is a stirring and heartfelt film that scores courtesy of a simple and sincere emotional investment in the material.

When a Stranger Calls

May 3, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

When a Stranger Calls isn’t an emotionally vacuous siege,
but more of an exercise in anxiety provocation, a psychological
thriller. This doesn’t mean it lacks huge lapses in logic, though.
On a playing field of its own devising, the movie somewhat fails because it introduces kids as bait but can’t — due to the
constraints of its PG-13 rating — fully integrate them into the story.
Jill doesn’t “check the children” until roughly two-thirds of the way
into the film, and even later, in the mad scramble to stay alive, they
have to be tucked away while Jill bears the direct force of attack. For the full review, from IGN, click here.

Thank God It’s Friday

May 3, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

That
the staid, torch-bearing woman who serves as the erstwhile Columbia
TriStar’s logo — you know, the one that looks like a cross between
Annie Potts and Annette Bening — busts out some disc moves at the
beginning of Thank God It’s Friday should tell you everything
you need to know about this slice-of-nightlife musical dramedy from
1978. Featuring early performances by Jeff Goldblum and Debra Winger,
and written by Armyan Bernstein — who would go on to produce a wide
range of chiefly guys’ flicks, including The Hurricane, Air Force One, End of Days, Spy Game and For Love of the Game — the movie is a weird sort of time capsule; think of it as informal prequel to 200 Cigarettes, made very obviously for the boogie-down crowd to capitalize on a waning trend.

Set over the course of a single evening at the hottest nightspot in town, all leading up to a scheduled set by the Commodores, Thank God It’s Friday
tells a clutch of intersecting stories, including that of a mismatched
couple on a blind date; a disco diva trying to get the deejay to play
her demo; another uptight couple, Dave (Mark Lonow) and Susan (Andrea
Howard), celebrating their anniversary; two underage disco queens
(Terri Nunn and Valerie Landsburg) out to crash Club Zoo and strut
their stuff; and a sleazy, glad-handing owner, Tony Demarco (Goldblum),
who’ll do anything to bag a lady. The big news, per the DVD cover, is
Donna Summer — who sings the Oscar-winning “Last Dance,” and sets the
dance floor a-burnin’ as Nicole Sims — but she and the Commodores are
in all honesty late entries to this party, and blow in and out like a
cool but inconsequential breeze.

Full of polyester threads, banana daiquiris and laughably bad helmet-hairdos, Thank God It’s Friday
is a yawning trifle through and through. The music is decent, but the
film’s intense stroboscopic dance scenes are enough to induce seizure
on the small screen, even without the presence of Mary Hart. The acting
is, for the most part, declamatory and amateurish (on occasion you even
see a couple actors look down to hit their marks), but it’s amusing to
see Goldblum’s Cheshire cat grin in its nascent stages, and Winger
shows flashes of why she would go on to establish herself as a breakout
star. Given bad dialogue and rote set-ups, she still manages to put a
fresh spin on things, as in a scene where she spills a drink on a
fellow patron and knocks over items from the bar.

Housed in a single-disc Amray case and presented in anamorphic
widescreen that preserves the aspect ratio of its original exhibition, Thank God It’s Friday
features a 5.1 Dolby digital surround soundtrack in English and a
poorly-mixed track in Portuguese, as well as alternate subtitles in
English, Japanese Spanish and Portuguese — though the latter two are
unbilled on the disc’s packaging sleeve. There are unfortunately no
supplemental bonus features contained herein, vacuuming this title free
of any possible kitsch replay value. D (Movie) D (Disc)

House of Wax

May 3, 2006Blu-ray/DVD Reviews, Film ReviewsBrent

I’m filing this piece, originally tapped out for IGN last fall, as both a full-fledged film and DVD review, since it trips into substantive analysis (as much as the movie will allow) on both fronts. To wit:

In theory, teen and early twentysomething couples actually have to do something between dinner and making out; ergo Hollywood product like House of Wax,
a remake of the old Vincent Price flick adapted by Chad Hayes and Carey
Hayes and captured in moving form by Spanish music video and commercial
director Jaume Collet-Serra, who makes his feature debut. It’s not the
familiar template narrative (car troubles lead a group of bickering
college students into a small, abandoned, backwater town and its
eponymous wax museum overseen by a sadistic, psychopathic curator) that
grates. No, it’s the fact that House of Wax is studded with
such a choking number of incongruities and irritations, small and
large, that it eventually — or rather quickly, actually — deflates even
the possibility of vicarious shock fun.

Paris Hilton, above right, and every bit as bad
as you might assume). They’re all heading to a football game, but end
up waylaid in the bayou outback after a no-good shortcut, woodland
camp-out and car trouble conspire to foul up their plans. Split up, one
pair hitches a ride to the nearest “town,” Ambrose (which looks like
part of a backlot studio tour, even though it was constructed
especially for the movie), and comes across the House of Wax. They also
finally stumble across a peculiar mechanic (Basic‘s Brian Van Holt) who invites them back to his place for the fan belt they need to repair their car.

House of Wax takes an awfully long time before it starts
dispensing bodies, and while I wish I could say that was because of
some sense of either care or cleverness, that’s hardly the case. Wade
is pretty much the worst boyfriend ever, whether letting Carly ride
next to creepy, knife-wielding dudes in pickups, goading her into
stupid situations or leaving her alone in cars. Hilton, meanwhile, is
given such a number of fawning close-ups — including, I hesitate to
mention, a striptease with no payoff — that you could be forgiven for
thinking her billionaire father bankrolled the production. When she’s
finally offed (her death involves perhaps the worst movie hide-and-seek
intuition I’ve ever seen), the audience will likely let loose with a
collective sigh of appreciation.

It’s true that House of Wax plays much, much better on the
small screen, where many of the film’s practical effects (though
certainly augmented, particularly in the third act) are different
enough to hold your attention. Still, narratively, so much of the movie
defies plausibility that you just don’t at all get caught up in the
proceedings. (I’m no genius, but it would seem that the requirements of
climate control would necessitate that elaborately posed wax funeral
chambers not be lit solely with, oh, open flames.) Too preposterous to be truly scary, House of Wax in the
end is just what it its ridiculous theatrical tagline — “Prey, Slay,
Display” — first expressed: less a movie than a creaky claptrap poke in
the ribs, a piece of posed entertainment.

House of Wax is the fifth big screen venture of Joel Silver and
Robert Zemeckis’ Warner Bros.-based Dark Castle production shingle,
following in the footsteps of Thirteen Ghosts, House on Haunted Hill, Ghost Ship and Gothika. Owing at least in part to the accumulated clout of that pair, you know House of Wax is going to get a fair shake in terms of its DVD release, which it certainly does here. I take some umbrage with the way that Collet-Serra and cinematographer
Stephen Windon have shot the picture — many action scenes are much too
dark, most notably Hilton’s robed, pre-death dash through the woods and
an abandoned factory and some ill-advised campfire shenanigans that
incorporate handheld video footage from the characters’ points-of-view
— but House of Wax, presented on DVD in 1.85:1 widescreen, is
additionally difficult to handicap since it’s so color-corrected —
everything is given a slight blue-green tint, even in the daytime
scenes. There are no massive irreconcilabilities, but a little bit of grain is
present here and there (again, in Hilton’s death scene and some
nighttime driving sequences early in the film), but these few specks
come mostly in scenes that are darkly lit, so the inattention is both
mostly masked and not that offensive or distracting.

Dolby 5.1 surround mixes in English, French and Spanish stand alongside
subtitles in each language. Part of any almost horror film lies in the
aural presentation, and while House of Wax
isn’t particularly sophisticated in this area, its surround mix does
allow a wide variety of elements to come into play in the more charged
scenes. Of particular note is the final battle in the titular
structure; as it burns around them, viewers are given a good sense of
the gloopy running of the wax, hand-to-hand combat and the sound of the
structure crumbling in on itself.

Kicking off the slate of supplemental extras is the “B-roll and Bloopers Video Cast Commentary,”
with Cuthbert, Hilton, Murray and Padalecki. In this 27-minute,
split-screen featurette, the quartet basically sit in a room together
and watch the aforementioned footage; it’s an awkward idea rendered
much worse by the fact that the audio mix all but guarantees we can’t
hear most of the actual bloopers and B-roll footage. Highlights include
how-to footage in regards to the whizzinators used in the film, as well
as Cuthbert’s massive, comically duct-taped boots (wood blocks on top
of flats, actually), used to trim the one-foot height difference
between she and Padalecki. Remarkably, Hilton herein manages to make even more of a fool of herself, revealing that she was somehow duped by a director whose first language isn’t
English into a scene that mocks her sex tape fellatio (“Yeah, it wasn’t
supposed to be like that. My boyfriend was so upset”). This bit also
reveals that she had the entire crew scream along with her during her
first several death scene takes (because she was “embarrassed”), and
that Hilton is apparently a method actress, as she runs up and down a
flight of stairs to prepare to simulate breathlessness during
aforementioned chase sequence. Wow… priceless stuff.

Other extras include an amusing, tongue-in-cheek introduction by Silver from the set of the just-released Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,
a seven-minute featurette on the design work in the movie, a
three-minute gag reel, a 10-minute look at the visual effects work of
the movie and a 90-second alternate “cold open” in which an anonymous
character gets tossed by the neck from a moving car through a
windshield. The bottom line? House of Wax isn’t necessarily a very good movie; the acting is
of such varying quality that it really becomes a problem in sustaining
credible mood. Likewise, the relative novelty of seeing a lot of
practical effects work is somewhat stunted by a narrative that
repeatedly presses the Staples “Easy” button. That said, its DVD
presentation offers up a decent enough mix of supplemental material that
those so inclined to delve into obvious genre fare will more likely
than not find House of Wax a relatively diverting if not completely fulfilling rental. If you really want to see the original layout of the review, from IGN, click here. D+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Chuck Norris’ The Cutter

May 1, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Do you like roundhouse kicks? I mean, do you really like roundhouse kicks? Do you like watching them, talking about them, performing them in awkward fashion in your living room, reminiscing about how you once deployed one that one time in middle school against Nelson Bandercourt, who’d never again have the temerity to ask if your older sister was dating anyone? If there were a Roundhouse Kick of the Month Club, would you not only be a founding member, but also campaign for its presidency by shaking hands and roundhouse kicking babies? Do you also really hate Nazis, and spend considerable time daydreaming about roundhouse kicking them? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Chuck Norris’ The Cutter is for you, my friends… The Cutter is for you.

The Net 2.0, The Russian Specialist and The Escapist. This film apparently was long in gestation, a pet project of producer Avi Lerner, but there’s no discussion of that here, alas. That means we’re left to judge solely on implementation rather than hope and omission. C- (Movie) D+ (Disc)

Beethoven’s 4th

May 1, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The archive-stuffing party train simply does not stop. To wit, this review of Beethoven’s 4th, originally published upon its 2004 DVD release:

Judge Reinhold and former Saturday Night Live star Julia Sweeney headline this family comedy,
scripted by John Loy and directed by David Evans — the latest installment in the
series about a slobbery St. Bernard and the havoc he inevitably wreaks wherever
he goes. Here the story is one of mistaken canine identity after Beethoven
attends an obedience school, only to be mistakenly switched with Michelangelo,
a perfectly trained hound from a rich and snooty family. Plenty of staged
antics (in which, say, Beethoven launches someone through the air on a see-saw,
or causes them to backflip wildly and lose their hold on a pot roast) and
slow-mo, canted angle and point-of-view shots pepper the production, which is
cookie-cutter, franchised entertainment, a long way from the madcap originality
of the first film.

Still, kids will no doubt like it, since there is after all
the humiliation of various grown-ups. Adults, meanwhile, may find passing
amusement in the film’s flagrant obviousness (it’s kind of like witnessing the
donuts being made at Krispy Kreme), though I have to admit it is a bit
disconcerting to witness Reinhold launch into a celebratory “cabbage patch,”
then slap his own ass and say,
“What’s my name? What’s my name?” That
I didn’t see coming. One can only anxiously await series reinvention with Beethoven’s 9th, in which Beethoven and
a reincarnated Air Bud team up to solve canine mysteries and foil the evil
designs of one Spuds McKenzie. To purchase the film via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C- (Disc)

The Dirty Harry Collection

May 1, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

The archives continue to swell here at Shared Darkness, this time in the form of a DVD review of The Dirty Harry Collection, originally published upon its release in 2001. Still relevant in these troubled times, though, I’d argue… especially for when I begin my own campaign of justice against those who’ve crossed me. What… did I just type that? Nevermind, read on:

Queasy times usually spawn cinema of social justice with
heroes who kick ass first and take names later. Perhaps the most famous example
of this was Clint Eastwood’s steel-tough cop “Dirty” Harry Callahan, a
character who burst onto the scene in 1971 and eventually made ’80s cineplexes
safe for the jingoistic exploits and catchphrase quips of Sylvester Stallone’s
Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s various monosyllabic head-bashers. Taken
collectively, Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The
Dead Pool represent one of the more enduring anti-heroes of the past two
decades; as stand-alone films, of course, they are of various quality.

The best
of the bunch, the original finds Callahan on the heels of a man known only as
the “Scorpio Killer,” while The Enforcer, co-starring Tyne Daly, wrings a few
drops of contemporary intrigue with its focus on murderous political
extortionists. Available individually or as a complete boxed set, Warner Bros.’ The Dirty Harry Collection features Callahan the way fans want him — in crisp new digital
transfers. Appropriately, the DVD extras are strongest with the original film
and trail off somewhat thereafter. Period behind-the-scenes documentaries for
the first three films are desperately unhip, but still kind of interesting,
particularly to frame the films within the context of the times. The easily
navigable Dirty Harry disc has a slick new half-hour retrospective on the
series analyzing the character and his place in the action genre, and there are
also interesting interviews with Hal Holbrook, Ted Post, the aforementioned
Schwarzenegger and Robert Ulrich, as well as a “memorable lines” section. Of
course no Dirty Harry retrospective would be complete without some thoughts
from the man who made everyone’s day by first uttering, “Make my day…,” and Eastwood
delivers, with comments about Harry’s long-barrelled vision of justice both fun
and well-reasoned. B (Movies) B+ (Discs)

Melinda and Melinda

May 1, 2006Blu-ray/DVD Reviews, Film ReviewsBrent

So there will be plenty of shelf-stocking with past material as Shared Darkness finds its legs. To wit, this fairly in-depth DVD review of Melinda and Melinda, originally penned and published for another outlet upon its release last fall:

Upon re-watching Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allen’s latest film,
I was struck by the thought of a largely undiagnosed paradox as it
relates to his movies, certainly of the last six to eight years. Having
moved into the canon of American filmmakers so respected that virtually
any established actor and every up-and-comer will drastically slash
their fee just to work with him, Allen has become like a great cover
band plowing through a litany of radio hits with automaton
craftsmanship — entertaining enough to remind you why you really liked
all the original material but a step or three behind something special,
seemingly serially incapable of not just recapturing some idealized
notion of past glory (who wants only that?) but also of staking out any
substantive new ground.

The Net 2.0

April 29, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

I’m not quite sure what the point, per se, of a movie called The Net 2.0 is when none of the stars of the first film are back, it doesn’t continue the story through the same characters, and your two above-title leads are… Nikki DeLoach (television’s North Shore) and Demet Akbag (gesundheit!). And while the 1995 original grossed more abroad than it did Stateside ($59 million to $50 million), it’s not even like The Net was that big of a hit.

Still, more than any other studio, Sony has been aggressive in cranking out straight-to-video sequels of even relatively high-end flicks of every type of genre (Wild Things, Hollow Man, The Cutting Edge, The Sandlot), and now The Net 2.0 is up to bat, serving as a European film school for director Charles Winkler (son of Irwin, director of the first film) and others.

The plot centers on Hope Cassidy (DeLoach), a beautiful computer expert who travels to Istanbul (not Constantinople) for what appears to be a perfect gig. She instead ends up caught in a high-tech frame job, her bank account emptied, her name changed on official documentation and someone else having slid up her awaiting position. After having unsuccessfully attempted to convince boyfriend James (Neil Hopkins) to accompany her, she finds herself alone and in Turkish prison, something anyone even casually familiar with Midnight Run will tell you is bad news. Hope must then use brains and beauty — along with the assistance of a mysterious cab driver and a flight attendant — to unravel the mystery, uncover the truth about what’s happening to her and get her good name back.

The film opens with a fleet-footed chase sequence and then liberally indulges in a flashback structure that sets up everything I’ve just mentioned and shows Hope arguing her case with Dr. Kavak (Akbag). Filmed entirely on location in Istanbul (the first American movie to do so, its producers note), The Net 2.0 achieves a certain mad-dash production value, lensing at and around the Blue Mosque, Souzer Plaza and many other beautiful buildings. Unfortunately, its visual palette is still relatively cramped owing to its obviously breathless production schedule, and the story itself is of only moderate intrigue. The lack, too, of more even passably recognizable faces in supporting roles makes this a tough sell on this side of the Atlantic. DeLoach is attractive, but doesn’t radiate the same sort of sympathetic girl-next-door imperilment as Sandra Bullock in the original film, making The Net 2.0 a relatively senseless update.

Housed in a single-disc Amaray case, The Net 2.0 comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen that preserves its original aspect ratio, and the transfer is actually pretty solid, with nice differentiation in colors and an attendant lack in grain. While the film is at times a bit over-edited for my liking and duly over-reliant on close-ups and two-shots, cinematographer Steven Douglas Smith does a good job of capturing Istanbul exteriors with minimal or no lighting set-up. Only the movie’s dank interrogation scenes are awash in the murky inconsistencies of multiple-hued grey.

An English language 5.1 Dolby mix anchors The Net 2.0, and cleans up many of the audio problems you might expect from a budgeted film of this level with a good amount of outdoor shooting. Dialogue is clear and consistent, and the action incorporates just enough rear channel effects to give these scenes a significant depth. Dolby surround tracks in French and Spanish are also available, alongside a Portuguese 5.1 track. Subtitles are available in a wide variety of languages, including English, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Korean and Spanish.

With a buffet of bonus previews for other Sony releases, The Net 2.0‘s one supplemental extra is a lively, breathlessly paced feature-length audio commentary track with director Winkler and writer-producer Rob Cowan. Between the two they cover all manner of production minutiae on the 24-day shoot, and if the film were better it would possibly rate as worthy of a repeat listen.

If there’s a through-line here, it’s about the difficulty of the production and dealing with a variety of Turkish actors (only three American actors were brought over) and Russian stuntmen, many of whom speak no English. Winkler even lets slip that the line producer, production manager and rest of production team quit several days before the start of principal photography in a fit of pique over “lack of organization, or accusations of a lack of organization or whatever.” With a paucity of extras, too, Winkler and Cowan both pop up on screen, and virtually every other member of the production team seems to grab some background time as well. At one point, Winkler shares one story of a mental patient at a location shoot that grabbed him and licked his face, and another anecdote includes the art department botching a scene set-up that leads to an expensive post-production fix. This falls in with an overall frank discussion of cultural differences and loss of nuances in which dirty laundry is aired, but never in a particularly nasty manner.

Overall, The Net 2.0 is a mediocre film enlivened by a commentary track that is no-holds-barred but also not overly spiteful. Winkler and Cowan are both aware of the type of film they made, and cop to shortcomings when noticeable but also talk about several ingenious, on-the-fly fixes. That said, there’s little of note in the actual product itself to get excited about other than the locale. Techno-thriller fans or those looking for a Turkish travelogue may spark to The Net 2.0, but others will want to sidestep its latticework. C (Movie) C (Disc)

The Louis Malle Collection

April 27, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

Film for the late French director Louis Malle — perhaps best known for his conversational arthouse bauble My Dinner With Andre
— was a way to explore the full breadth of what interested him in life;
he consequently helmed a diverse slate of work over the course of his
career, from documentaries and seriocomic romps to shambling character
studies and chic tales of adultery and recrimination. Still, it’s the
unique skill with which he honestly and adroitly located the wrenching
emotional realities of adolescence that mark his coming-of-age movies
as, collectively, his best and most timeless works. Gathering Murmur of the Heart, the virtually forgotten Lacombe, Lucien and Au Revoir Les Enfants in a superb boxed set, Criterion celebrates Malle’s unique insight and talent in fine fashion.

Set in France in the mid-1950s, 1971’s Murmur of the Heart
charts the maturation of a boy, Laurent Chevalier (Benoit Ferreux),
who’s driven by surging testosterone and a burgeoning curiosity in both
sex and music. After his older brothers take him to visit a prostitute
and he contracts the titular weakness, a symptom of scarlet fever,
Laurent visits a spa with his smothering mother Clara (Lea Massari),
where he starts to see her in quite a new light. The roots of queasy
taboo on display in writer-director David O. Russell’s debut, Spanking the Monkey, can be found here, though Malle manages to for the most part keep things light-hearted and accessible.

Two World War II-set films complete Criterion’s set. Starring non-professional Pierre Blaise, 1974’s Lacombe, Lucien
shines a light on the slow pull of personal corruption in telling the
story of an 18-year-old French peasant, sent away from his family’s
farm, who joins up with the occupying German police force. The film’s
emotional opacity dovetails nicely with Tonino Delli Colli’s foreboding
cinematography to create a memorable portrait of the banality of evil.

Au Revoir Les Enfants is Malle’s deeply personal 1987
masterwork, in which two parochial school students in 1944 France,
Julien (Gaspard Manesse) and Jean (Raphael Fejto), form a friendship
that’s torn asunder by the Gestapo. Though existing in a harsh setting
that bears surface similarities to Lacombe, Lucien, the movie
is unperturbed and matter-of-fact in tone, perfectly balanced between a
sweeping World War II melancholia and more personal connection. While
Malle rarely double-dipped explicitly into the same idea bin, the
inclusion of these two films and their pairing with Murmur of the Heart
feels right in its thematic arc for this set, offering up convincing
evidence that few directors have portrayed the to-scale epiphanies of
growing up as poetically as Malle.

Presented in brushed-up transfers in their original 1.66:1 aspect
ratio, all three of the aforementioned films are available separately
or in a boxed set that includes a hearty fourth disc with over four
hours of supplemental material. In addition to more than 40 minutes of
new interviews with Candice Bergen (Malle’s wife) and Malle biographer
Pierre Billard, there are also excerpts from a French television
program featuring the director on set on each of the films. Three audio
interviews spanning three different decades — two from the National
Film Theater in London and the other from the American Film Institute —
run an average of just over 45 minutes apiece, and give a nice overview
of Malle’s work in his own words.

The most tangentially inspired extra here — or, indeed, anywhere
that I’ve seen in a while — is the inclusion of Charlie Chaplin’s 1917
silent short The Immigrant, featured prominently in Au Revoir Les Enfants.
The original theatrical trailers and essays by historian Francis J.
Murphy and film critics Michael Sragow, Pauline Kael and Philip Kemp
round out the collection, along with a fold-out insert of Malle’s
filmography. To purchase the set via Amazon, click here. A- (Movies) A (Discs)

Lost: The Complete First Season

April 24, 2006Blu-ray/DVD ReviewsBrent

I first reviewed this set back upon its original release in September of last year, for a magazine who shall remain nameless until legal proceedings against them are settled. But I have thoughts about Lost, the hit ABC show about airplane crash survivor
castaways stranded on a mysterious island. Oh, do I have thoughts. And they are
not necessarily kind ones, I’m afraid.

Mad props first go out to ABC for carefully cultivating
a hit that’s in substantive ways a more difficult sell than the glossy Desperate Housewives,
with its sugary twists and bitchy rejoinders. Though the pilot for the show
(great looking, by the way) was one of the most expensive in recent small
screen history, it was the subsequent sales job that really helped build
word-of-mouth. Lost
next must be praised for the considerable amount that it does quite well,
including the juggling of a vast stable of characters, many of whom are certainly
not network wishlist material. (Seriously, that co-creators Damon Lindelhoff
and J.J. Abrams were somehow able to limit the number of hot chicks to a measly
two out of 16 primary cast members is its own special feat in casting
achievement.)

Still, Lost
nags. I watched the series’ complete first season regularly if not religiously
(TiVo allows one to pace oneself and step back from the water cooler-ledge a
bit, where mechanical praise seems to grow like a fungus), and became
increasingly frustrated with what I felt was a certain masturbatory coyness
that slowly took over the show. Sixteen is an admittedly big ensemble, but
within the context of the number of purported survivors it’s a relative drop in
the bucket. As the series wore on, the number of deep focus master shots with
dronelike, fuzzy extras in the background completing menial labor while our
leads bicker about briefcases, toy airplanes and the like drove me to batty
distraction.

More and more — certainly as the show wore on in
the first season, and extending all the way now to the end of its sophomore run — Lost feels like a really deft
parlor trick, its glossy inscrutabilities serving as their own indulgent
narrative combines. I don’t have a problem with this elongation of mood per se,
but the show is being sold and positioned as something else — a colossal
mystery. What happens when viewers decide the revelations stop adding up? It
reminds me a bit of Twin Peaks
— admittedly a far more avant garde show — which tried to play hard to get more
than 15 years ago in some of the same ways that Lost is now. We’ll see how it ends, especially now that
ABC has a cross-promotional cash cow that they’ll want to keep around for six
seasons at a minimum in order to bleed its ancillary value.

If it seems I’m being hard on Lost it’s because the show
comes across to me as a smug honor student coasting on its laurels. (And if I
have to ever listen to Claire bleat about the “baaay-be” anymore, I may go
Vincent Van Gogh on myself.) While the broad strokes of the writing often
grate, the strong points of Lost
come certainly courtesy of a few of its characterizations, most notably Terry
O’Quinn’s Locke, but also to a lesser extent Naveen Andrews’ Sayid. O’Quinn has
mesmerized me ever since The
Stepfather, and his less-is-more approach elevates every scene,
if only because he seems to succumb to the ridiculousness of the survivors’
predicament in a fashion I find fresh and appealing.

Despite what one thinks of the show, one really has to admire the work put into, and quick turnaround on, this seven-disc set, attractively housed in gatefold packaging with a cool slipcover. The episodes
themselves are spread out over the first six discs, along with five audio
commentary tracks from cast and crew. (And speaking of five, Abrams tips off listeners
that Jack’s tattoo of the number 5 will become a defining character point this
year, something that I understand has only sort of come to pass.) A series of small-ish behind-the-scenes featurettes give a comprehensive
look at the production, design and location shooting of the show, and tally
about an hour in total. If you need to know how to chop up an airliner, this is
the supplemental material for you. Deleted scenes and a couple Easter eggs also
offer up their own fun; viewers can no doubt parse these looking for extra
clues about the castaway’s backstories. C (Series) A (Disc)

Shared Darkness

A Communal Life in Film, Examined

Category Archives: Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

In Living Color: Season Five

Delicatessen

If Only

American Dad! Volume One

Walking the Bible

The Chumscrubber

VIP: The Complete First Season

Dreamer

When a Stranger Calls

Thank God It’s Friday

House of Wax

Chuck Norris’ The Cutter

Beethoven’s 4th

The Dirty Harry Collection

Melinda and Melinda

The Smashing Pumpkins Greatest Hits Video Collection

America: A Tribute to Heroes

The Best of Friends, Volumes 3 & 4

The Golden Bowl

The Net 2.0

The Louis Malle Collection

Unscripted

Lost: The Complete First Season

The Ape

Breasts/Private Dicks