“To see them is to disbelieve them!” reads the strategically placed cover sticker on Something Weird’s home video release of Chesty Morgan’s Bosom Buddies, a triple feature from cult director Doris Wishman in which two of the films star the ridiculously endowed burlesque queen and fleeting grindhouse legend. And it’s no joke, that’s for sure.



Morgan, whose 73-inch breasts measure still measure as the largest (non-augmented) on record for a film star, according to Guinness Movie Facts & Feats, was born in Poland but emigrated to the United States in the 1960s. After some time on the burlesque circuit, she teamed up with filmmaker Wishman, who was busy following in the vein of Russ Meyer, cranking out sexploitation flicks.

Their first collaboration was 1974’s cheap and kind of mean-spirited Deadly Weapons, co-starring Harry Reems, of Deep Throat fame. Morgan stars as an advertising executive who tracks down the mobsters who murdered her boyfriend and extracts revenge by smothering them to death with her breasts. But wait — there’s even a twist ending! Double Agent 73, also from ’74, stars Morgan as a secret agent who busts a heroin ring and takes proof-of-death pictures for her bosses with a tiny camera implanted in her left breast. But wait — they’ve also rigged her boob with an explosive device as a back-up insurance plan!

The best of the three flicks — if such quantitative praise can be applied here with a straight face — is 1980’s The Immoral Three, which doesn’t feature Morgan, but instead stars Cindy Boudreau, Sandra Kay and Michele Marie as the three daughters (“occupational side effects”) of a slutty spy mom who team up to avenge her death in order collect a multi-million dollar inheritance. If the acting is still amateurish, the fashions atrocious and the dubbing frequently terrible, the production value here is at least higher. Bonus points to Wishman, too, for her artful intercutting of seduction footage with a character eating a banana.

Housed in a regular blue slimline case, Chesty Morgan’s Bosom Buddies comes to Blu-ray presented in 1080p high-definition 1.78:1 widescreen, with a DTS-HD master audio mono track. Its supplemental features, presented in standard definition, consist of a five-minute gallery of Doris Wishman exploitation art — posters, magazine and newspaper ads, layered under promotional radio chatter — for movies like Keyholes Are for Peeping and many more. There’s also a massive trailer gallery, running 36 minutes in total, spotlighting all three of the films included here, plus titles like My Brother’s Wife, Another Day Another Man, Indecent Desires and Bad Girls Go To Hell. For more information, visit Something Weird’s website; or click here to purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon. C- (Movies) C+ (Disc)

For my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, over at ShockYa, I examine the special wreckage of John Carter; sit in judgment on Nicolas Cage’s Seeking Justice as a turd pie; float down ABC’s dammed The River; assess that Michael Vartan and Sean Astin were justly Demoted; get angry at documentary Windfall; stare at Kelly Preston’s rack and Anthony Crivello’s hair in 1988’s Spellbinder; and wonder why today’s movie titles all bend toward play-it-safe timidity. Again, it’s all over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

Humans are inherently social creatures, and the manner in which we each form a perception of our place in the world around us — and how our ego takes shape and form from our id — certainly relates as much to our interactions as any ingrained or telegraphed sense of social acceptance and duty. Capturing the fickle progress of that individual transformation, however, is a difficult task.



A tender and perspicacious look at the toddling steps of adolescent character and personality, writer-director Celine’s Sciamma’s French import Tomboy assays the gender confusion and willful but not malicious deceit of a 10-year-old girl. Against a backdrop of overly programmed “issue dramas,” this movie is notable for its strong foundation in character and wholesale investment in psychology, rather than salacious plotting.

Tomboy centers on a family with two daughters who moves to a new suburban neighborhood during the summer break. At home with her parents (Mathieu Demy and Sophie Cattani) and bouncy, six-year-old sister Jeanne (Malonn Levana, quite good), 10-year-old Laure (Zoe Heran, above) is content, if reserved. With her Jean Seberg haircut and gangly physicality, however, Laure is mistaken for a boy by the local kids, and decides to pass herself off as Mikael. Standing out from the other rambunctious guys, Mikael catches the attention of Lisa (Jeanne Disson), and a tentative, stilted courtship ensues. As the end of summer and the start of a school year looms, however, it seems that the expiration date on Laure’s fib is finally approaching.

For a film about the complex representations of childhood identity and burgeoning adolescent desire — pre-sexual, but still hormonally oriented — Sciamma’s sensitive and engaging movie remains largely apolitical and nonjudgmental, in ways that it’s certainly hard to imagine any mainstream American studio effort matching. Tomboy doesn’t shortchange its gender identity issues, but neither does it whip them up into a cheap, frothy tizzy, wherein opposing camps are merely given platforms to argue “pro” and “con” positions for Laure’s benign deceit.

In canny fashion, the film also retains a certain layered ambiguity about the honest degrees of Laure’s impulsivity in assuming Mikael’s identity. When she gazes at herself in the mirror, and starts mimicking the manner in which boys spit on the playground while playing soccer, is it born of pre-existing gender confusion or a sense of displacement from within, or rather a curiosity about the way that boys strut and pose? Saying much more risks spoiling the film’s delicate beauty, but when Laure’s secret unravels, the manner in which her family also reacts is interesting and thought-provoking — on an intellectual plane rather than some axis of perfunctory conflict. Tomboy is heartily invested in its title character, but Laure’s deception also impacts Lisa, young Jeanne and the rest of her family as well, and Sciamma (Water Lillies) hearteningly pays careful attention to those characters as well, coaxing wonderful, naturalistic performances out of her mostly young cast. Tomboy is definitely a highlight of last year’s foreign film crop.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Tomboy comes to DVD with Dolby digital 5.1 or 2.0 stereo audio tracks, a trailer for the movie and a couple other releases, and a brief but engaging behind-the-scenes featurette that includes subtitled comments from Sciamma about her inspiration for the material and the production process. For more information, visit Wolfe Video’s website. Or to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

NOTE: SharedDarkness is proud to be sponsoring a DVD giveaway for Tomboy. For a chance to win a copy, simply email your name to editor@shareddarkness.com. After a winner is chosen, we will be in touch to collect your mailing address, and ship out the DVD. One entry per email address. Best of luck!

The latest installment in Impulse Pictures’ ongoing presentation of the softcore German series of 1970s erotica, Schoolgirl Report 8: What Parents Must Never Know is a goofy collection of bare-bosomed wriggling and lusty acting-out ladled over the wan narrative template of a high school field trip.

When the series got its start, it was produced ostensibly to serve as cautionary warning against the surging teenage libidinal impulses that might, I don’t know, destabilize society or something — so it had man-on-the-streets interview segments that (in winking fashion) provided clucking disapproval to all the carnal goings-on. Seven entries in, that framing device is gone, but it may be why the series retains its signature title card: “starring many uncredited adolescents and parents.”

For Schoolgirl Report: Volume 8, from 1974, director Ernst Hofbauer keeps the pace lean and streamlined, even if he shoots in a jumbled and distracting style that undercuts even the most rudimentary emotional connection to the material. The story — with copious flashbacks that afford more canoodling — centers on a group of girls who set their amorous sights on a hunky new instructor, and also aim to unlock the sex drive of their prudish (female) biology teacher.

The movie’s set-ups oscillate from laborious to obvious, and the acting (including from the fantastically named Astrid Boner) isn’t going to win any awards, that’s for certain. There is, however, an unusual cameo from erotica grand dame Christina Lindberg, and Gert Wilden’s dizzy, pleasantly insane synth music abets the proceedings. Just know that this pre-pubic-trimming curio isn’t high or even middlebrow art, and adjust your expectations accordingly. Caveat emptor, and all that.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Schoolgirl Report: Volume 8 comes to home video presented in 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby digital mono audio track. Divided into ten chapters under a static menu screen, the DVD comes to market with unfortunately no supplemental features, but its English subtitles are removable, if one wishes to test their high school German. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C- (Disc)

For my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at Daniel Radcliffe’s The Woman in Black, a pair of new-to-Blu-ray, 1970s-era “video nasties” from Great Britain, a two-fer from Chantal Akerman, a movie that answers the question of what an Italian mash-up of retreaded homage to Tod Browning and David Lynch would look like, and more. Again, it’s all over at ShockYa, inclusive of pretty pictures, so click here for the full read.

Both individually and collectively, Americans may profess a desire for honesty, but the intrigue of serial deception — as a practiced tradecraft, and almost an art — makes compelling subject matter of state espionage, spies and double agents. So a movie like The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby, a documentary about the same-named former Central Intelligence Agency head, directed by his son, Carl Colby, would seem to offer a fantastic chance to explore the topic from a unique perspective, to richly plumb that different psychological and ethical space that trickery and lying on such a grand scale requires. Unfortunately, The Man Nobody Knew is neither fish nor fowl, and can’t get off the ground as either a unique familial memoir or a uniquely accessed view of recent world history.

Colby, wiry and discreet, began his career as an OSS officer, parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, working behind enemy lines to foster dissent and effect sabotage. Later, rising through the CIA, he helped sway elections against the Communist Party in Italy, and eventually ran the controversial Phoenix Program in Vietnam (tabbed as a “kill squad” by its detractors), which sparked today’s legacy of counter-insurgency. Colby is most well known, however, for defying the wishes of President Ford after rising to the rank of head of the CIA, and opening up to Congress about some of the international spy agency’s most tightly held “extra-legal” operations, including attempted assassinations and coup support in various countries around the world.

Despite the possessiveness of its title, and the way it clutches its now-deceased subject to its bosom, there’s a puzzling lack of commitment on the part of Colby to the personal quality of the narrative. Family photos are aplenty, and William’s long-time wife (the director’s mother) sits for several interviews, which are parceled out amidst much historical footage, and chats with other interviewees. But there are huge gaps in family history, and the filmmaker never never solicits the opinions of his siblings, which would have given the movie crucial, added dimension. Most problematically, though, Colby includes a mess of awkward first-person narration; it pops up at weird times, uncomfortably juxtaposed, and lacks the depth and honesty for which one yearns, since Colby never really wades into the breach and significantly discusses what he knew about his father and thought him to be doing at the time versus what he knows now.

This gives The Man Nobody Knew a quality of fitful engagement. At its core, Colby’s film is seemingly about the blinkered awakening of a conscience, and how his father, after Vietnam and President Nixon’s Watergate disgrace, felt the need to increase transparency, by degrees, while also safeguarding national secrets. This third act revelation, though, gets the bum’s rush at the expense of much historical set-up. Some of these passages — about Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.’s apparently singular role in the overthrow of Vietnam’s President Diem, for instance, three weeks before the eventual assassination of President Kennedy — are shocking, newsworthy, and probably vital to a greater understanding of American history. But other stretches come off as staid, lackluster middle school filmstrips. And Colby, too, brooks no discussion about his father’s mysterious death. These shortcomings make for a movie that dances around intrigue, but never consistently engages it. In death, as in life, William Colby remains something of an enigma.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Man Nobody Knew comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. Its bonus packaging is pretty nice, consisting of an interview of Colby by James Reston, Jr., a photo gallery and a CIA timeline, as well as previews for additional First Run Features titles. There are also a half dozen excised scenes, shining further llight on the difficulties of keeping secrets in an open society — something that Colby apparently believed was still possible, but also in need of oversight and reform. For more information on the movie, click here; to purchase its DVD via Amazon, meanwhile, click here. C (Movie) B (Disc)

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at War Horse, Bob’s Burgers, Kate Beckinsale in black leather, and more, while also expressing disappointment that She’s Not Our Sister isn’t a Duff sisters movie in which mistaken identities and/or social embarrassment fuel wacky hijinks that involve shoe shopping, a costume party, a really important internship at a fashion magazine and some male eye candy from a series on the CW. Again, it’s all over at Shockya, so click here for the full read.

Haiti’s most celebrated big band, the 20-member Septentrional has been making music — a fusion of brassy Cuban big band and funkier Haitian voodoo beats — for more than six decades. Directed by Whitney Dow, this graceful and touching documentary charts the history of the country through its relationship with song, from its independence from French colonialism all the way up to and including 2010’s devastating earthquake, which took almost 300,000 lives.

The artistic is always a reflection of the external political realities of its surrounding times, of course, even in the best and most mindlessly carefree eras. In the case of Haiti, however, crushing foreign debt and a 15-year American occupation that ushered in the brutal dictatorship of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier has meant plenty of poverty and hard times. That fact is reflected in the music herein, which is hopeful but still almost always laced with ribbons of despair. Interweaving performance footage with interviews and extant material, When the Drum Is Beating is historical non-fiction for those who like their liveliness mixed in, and not on the side.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, When the Drum Is Beating comes to DVD presented in a solid 1.78:1 widescreen transfer, with a Creole language option with English subtitles. The disc’s sole bonus feature of note is an interview with director Dow; it’s nice, but some extra musical content would surely have been a welcome inclusion as well, and not too difficult to round up from the editing room floor. Previews for other First Run Features titles are also included. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)

There’s something simply unnerving about the very title Camel Spiders, and the movie’s creepy DVD cover box only drives home that point.

A Roger Corman production, Camel Spiders unfolds in the Middle East, where an American military patrol headed up by Captain Sturges (Brian Krause) is ambushed by insurgents. Outgunned and seemingly doomed, the unit is given an unexpected reprieve when their attackers are suddenly hauled off by what a native liaison calls “the devils of the sand.” When Sturges returns Stateside with the body of one of his fallen comrades, he’s unaware that a few of the paralyzing-sting-happy creatures have stowed away with his cargo, and are now loose in a suburban Southwest environment totally unprepared for the type of threat they represent.

Directed by genre veteran Jim Wynorski, Camel Spiders is an ultra-modestly budgeted serving of gooey, pure-genre bread pudding. Nothing about the movie is particularly subtle or even interestingly shaded, from the characterizations and dialogue to the action and gore. Ergo, while the movie doesn’t really live up to the squirm-inducing prospects of its premise (think something along the line of Tremors), neither does it totally embarrass itself. Fans of schlocky low-budget fare will find momentary diversion here, which is Camel Spiders‘ only real aim.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, Camel Spiders comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Are there a plethora of engaging bonus features? No, no there are not. Are there any bonus features? Same answer, kid. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; if Half is your thing, meanwhile, click here. C (Movie) D (Disc)

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo, the documentary Women Art Revolution, 1975 giallo import Strip Nude For Your Killer, a trio of manufactured-on-demand titles, and what Kevin Sorbo has been up to, among other things. Again, the full read is over at ShockYa, so click here for the fun.

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at the “Totally Irresponsible” version of Jonah Hill‘s bawdy The Sitter, the controversial first season of AMC’s The Killing, the documentary In the Garden of Sounds, a bunch of concert DVDs, a South African zombie flick, and more. Again, for the fun full read, click here. 

The idea of sexual swinging, or committed couples swapping partners, opens up all sorts of rich avenues for exploration of feeling, but the London-set comedy Swinging With the Finkels does so little of substance or sincerity with the subject that one starts to yearn for the comparative honesty of a lonely hearts drama with a forlorn guy swigging a beer and staring at a computer screen. In fact, the movie evinces no particular reason for existing other than to seemingly provide its pleasant but half-heartedly invested cast with paychecks, and perhaps serve as the answer for the trivia question of in which film Mandy Moore mock-masturbates with a cucumber.

Ellie (Moore) and Alvin (Martin Freeman) are a young, married white-collar couple seemingly suffering from a bit of the seven-year itch. Friends Peter (Jonathan Silverman) and Janet (Melissa George) are little help, the journey into parenthood having thrown something of a speed bump into their relationship. Seemingly because one attempt at “spicing it up” in the bedroom went awry (she wore sexy lingerie and lit mood candles, and he donned a fireman’s costume… ha!), Ellie and Alvin make the (entirely il)logical jump to swinging, eventually settling on a seemingly normal couple (Angus Deayton and Daisy Beaumont). After the Saturday night deed is done, things proceed but, magically, don’t get immediately better for Ellie and Alvin. What’s a committed but sexually frustrated couple to do?

Swinging With the Finkels is supposedly rated R, but it’s quite possibly the tamest R in recent memory, especially for a film dealing with matters sexual. Director Jonathan Newman’s movie is definitely the “fem” version of a swingers’ tale, with relationship mechanics valued much more over any possible prurient interests. Problematically, though, it also exists chiefly as a collection of nipped sitcom contrivances, from Ellie’s theatrically gay coworker (who gives her the initial idea of partner-swapping) and a montage of “zany” bad fits who respond to Ellie and Alvin’s sex ad to a forced-uncomfortable sequence in which an old person (in this case Ellie’s grandfather, played by Jerry Stiller) dispenses sex advice. Wow, how novel.

The script digs into none of these scenes with great aplomb, and it additionally requires Ellie and Alvin’s friends to nonsensically implode their marriage by having Peter tell Janet about a one-off affair, merely so there is some minor element of introduced contrast to Ellie and Alvin’s plight. Two grossly overwritten office pals of Alvin also serve this function, and an extremely flat shooting style and hammy music cues additionally do the material no favors. Somewhat unexpectedly, The Finkels manages to make both stanch, devoted monogamy and quiet singlehood look attractive — no small (or purposeful) accomplishment for a movie about swinging and its churned-up feelings.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Swinging With the Finkels comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English subtitles. Under motion menus, divided into 10 chapters, the DVD’s supplemental features consist only of its trailer and a 10-minute short film, Sex With the Finkels, which apparently served as the movie’s inspiration. So no, Moore fans… there’s no behind-the-scenes interview material about that cucumber scene. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I confess how unsettling I find Channing Tatum’s moustache in The Son of No One, plus take a gander at Dirty Girl, a tribute to Bernie Mac, 50 Cent’s latest stab at screenwriting, the memorably titled Nude Nuns with Big Guns, and more. Again, for the fun full read, click here.

An inoffensive but hardly essential piece of occupational boosterism, American Teacher provides a look at the public education crisis in the United States through the eyes of those often lambasted or pilloried as somehow being a bigger part of the problem than of the solution. Directed by Academy Award-winning director Vanessa Roth, the documentary spotlights the extraordinary personal sacrifices that a lot of instructors make by choosing to teach — as well as how qualified and otherwise passionate people are sometimes driven from the field by the rocky shoals of hard-knock financial reality. Many of the subjects here are inspiring, but, sadly, American Teacher comes off as more of a staid, herky-jerky stump speech than a fiery and clarifying call to action.

Supposedly narrated by Matt Damon (I say supposedly only because it sounds very little like the Oscar-winning actor, as if he’s trying to drain the personality and tone out of his voice), the film purports to chronicle the stories of a quartet of teachers — Harvard graduate and New Jersey elementary school teacher Rhena Jasey; seventh grade Texas gym coach and history teacher Erik Benner; pregnant Brooklyn first grade instructor Jamie Fidler, herself the daughter of a teacher; and Jonathan Dearman, a role model at a predominantly African-American San Francisco high school. American Teacher gives each of these individuals an actual arc; they’re speaking on their personal experiences, and what teaching has both meant to them and, in different ways, cost them. This is an interesting tack, one not often associated with nonfiction films of a certain persuasive mien. Interspersed with their recollections and insights, though, is a wide variety of other talking-head footage, which comes across as scattershot in its inclusion and placement.

American Teacher is at its best when underlining what those who lamely trot out the tired old cliche that “those who can do, while those who can’t teach” fail to acknowledge or even entertain — namely, that teaching, for those who are truly invested in the work, is among the most intellectually rigorous occupations. After all, teachers are constant, active decision makers — not only working to circumvent certain social constructs, but developing, sometimes even on the fly, relatable ways to not only impart information but also a complementary, contextual reasoning of why these facts and skill sets are important.

Too frequently, though, the movie loses sight on this theme, slipping off into statistical homilies (that 46 percent of teachers are out of the field within five years, for instance, which creates additional structural costs and places even more enormous strains on dwindling resources) that are related, yes, but hijack the movie’s emotional momentum. Good teachers — the ones that inspire and open your eyes to a world of both possibilities and responsibilities larger than you’d heretofore considered — are an invaluable commodity. By showing how we’re failing those charged with actually developing our kids, American Teacher has the chance to locate an unexpectedly emotional connection to the sedate issue of education. Too bad, then, that it loses focus and takes its eyes off the prize, unnecessarily substituting macro lessons when its localized examples pack more of a punch.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, American Teacher comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, with optional English SDH captions and a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo track that more than adequately handles the title’s straightforward aural demands. Under a motion menu, the movie is divided into nine chapters, and contains a limited slate of bonus material in the form of excised interviews. Additional expert outtakes, running about five-and-a-half minutes, allow Linda Darling-Hammond, Mark Bounds, Carina Wong, Brad Jupp and Sabrina Laine more time to opine on adolescent education (Darling-Hammond ruminates on teaching being regarded as a feminized profession, and why that may have something to do with a historical lack of respect accorded it), and again sometimes compares American schooling to education aboard. Four minutes of extra interview material with the teacher subjects further expands their respective backstories, while an additional 12 minutes of interview material highlights what great teaching looks like, as characterized by Darling Hammond, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and others. For more information, or to purchase the DVD via First Run’s website, click here. If Amazon is totally your thing, however, click here. You can also learn more and get active via AmericanTeacherMovie.org. C (Movie) B (Disc)

Not only for helping launch the careers of erstwhile Mouseketeers Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera has the Disney Channel proven enormously successful at peddling impeccably groomed, smoothly packaged, sexually non-threatening pre-teens. Miley Cyrus (pre-salvia and stripper pole) and any number of other entertainers have cut their teeth on peppy and demonstrative sitcoms that peddle cuddly pat-drama fantasies and occupy the exact opposite end of the spectrum that shows like Beverly Hills, 90210 and Gossip Girl did and now do. Those series have the effect of pulling along pre-pubescent adolescents into teenage drama prematurely, while a lot of Disney series and made-for-TV movies aim to have a dampening or delaying impact. Diff’rent strokes, you know?

Geek Charming‘s story charts Dylan (Modern Family‘s Sarah Hyland), a well-off girl who meets cute with A/V wallflower Josh (Matt Prokop) when he rescues her expensive handbag from a mall fountain, and subsequently agrees to be the subject of his new documentary. Ahh, though, therein lies the rub. While Sarah views this as just another cool and important piece of publicity and brand extension that will benefit her campaign for the local title of “Blossom Queen,” Josh is out to craft a hard-hitting look at popularity. As he gets to know her more and Sarah drops her guard a bit, Josh sees a girl he believes to be more interesting than the facade she’s crafted. Will he be able to convince her to let him show that girl to the world, however?

Scripted by Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy, and directed by Jeffrey Hornaday, Geek Charming is a light and fluffy piece of entertainment, an inoffensive showcase for its onscreen talent and below-the-line artisans as well, with its colorful costuming and set design. Think of one of the conflicts in Reality Bites — when Winona Ryder’s character finds her video work compromised by Ben Stiller’s corporate jockey — and put a slight spin on that, cross-pollinate it with High School Musical, subtract songs, add feel-good moralizing, romantic myopia and artificial sweetener of your choice, then serve chilled. It’s a snore for anyone over 18, really, but Hyland and Prokop are attractive and engaging enough to keep things moving along and interesting for the movie’s intended audience.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a sleeve printed on recycled paper and in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Geek Charming comes to DVD in two different packagings, the best being a two-disc combo set which also includes 10 bonus episodes selected from over three seasons’ worth of the Disney Channel show Shake It Up, as well as a pair of matching little charms, which seem like an innocuous throw-in aimed at the tween girl demographic. The movie itself is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with consistent colors and no edge enhancement or grain issues, and a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo mix. If you’re expecting a hard-hitting behind-the-scenes expose on Hollywood entertainment production or cast interviews about the nuances of their characters, however, you’re looking in the wrong spot, mates. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)

A murder mystery, forensic investigation and political drama rolled into one, the new-to-DVD Incendiary: The Willingham Case shines a spotlight on the circumstances surrounding Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man convicted in the arson deaths of his three young children. Somewhat flatly told but engaging throughout, this documentary will appeal to both newsmagazine junkies and those impassioned by the death penalty debate.



In 1991, an early morning house fire in Corsicana, Texas felled a two-year-old girl and twin infants. Their father, the only other person home at the time, escaped. Charged and convicted largely on shaky arson evidence, Willingham was sentenced to death for the murder of his kids. Despite expert criticism of the prosecutor’s “junk science,” he was executed in 2004. Incendiary focuses largely on the aftermath of that verdict and event, and attempts to win a posthumous reversal of Willingham’s conviction based on fire investigation evidence and a look at the alleged manipulation of a post-mortem state forensics commission stacked by former Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry.

The film, which enjoyed its world premiere last year at the SXSW Festival, where it picked up a special jury prize, certainly makes a persuasive case for the political cronyism of Perry — though the Texas governor is hardly the first politician to dismiss state board appointees in favor of old pals and/or more ideologically like-minded. Whether that amounts to a more sinister cover-up is doubtful, and something of a stretch (and not part of the movie’s agenda, really). Incendiary is most convincing in its evidence concerning the faulty diagnosis of arson, upon which the murder case was obviously based. Dr. Gerald Hurst (above) and John Lentini are intelligent and articulate experts in the field, and they debunk the initial fire investigation report in crisp, relatable fashion.

Still, a weird (and white-hot) amount of outright hostility comes off of Willingham’s own defense attorney, David Martin, who sounds like Hank Hill from King of the Hill and makes no bones about his own beliefs of Willingham’s guilt, even as roosters crow wildly in the background. One could reasonably entertain the argument that such feelings could only be influenced by personal certitude and outrage over the sort of detailed confession that would be protected by attorney-client privilege. Co-directors Steve Mims and Joe Bailey give White a fair shake — he’s the skeptic in their midst — but don’t go out of their way to contextualize, frame and either bolster or refute other evidence against Willingham — like conflicting statements to police and, most particularly, an alleged confession to his wife, the mother of the children. In its failure to address these issues, Incendiary feels a bit incomplete as a true crime tale.

In fact, Paradise Lost this isn’t. The filmmakers have the benefit of tremendously convincing experts (in particular Hurst, a physicist, speaks eloquently of the fact that so many fire investigators have no educational anchor points for elementary science), but they seem afraid of subjecting their feelings on the case to a more rigorous and thorough examination. The transition, halfway through, to a more gear-grinding procedural does not seem to suit the movie. It’s not that Incendiary feels like a politically opportunistic hit piece; it isn’t. It’s just that the criminal investigation and “CYA” political maneuvering that ensues feel less like two sides of the same coin and a bit more like adjacent screw-ups. One thing can be certain, however — guilty or not, you don’t want to be charged with a homicide in Texas.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Incendiary: The Willingham Case comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track that more than adequately handles the movie’s straightforward aural demands. Split into 35 chapters under a motion-menu main screen, Incendiary also includes a copy of its trailer, plus 15 minutes of interview footage with the co-directors in which they discuss the intersection of law, science and politics that first intrigued them about the case, and then talk about how the scope of the film changed with the unanticipated political theater of the January 2010 firings of members of the state forensics commission. They also address the purported confession mentioned by Willingham’s ex-wife, and make smart, salient points about how it differs from earlier statements to the press, and came at a hastily arranged courthouse-steps press conference — absent any follow-up questions — just prior to voting in Perry’s re-election bid. To purchase a copy of the DVD, click here. For more information on the movie, including its trailer, click here. B (Movie) B (Disc)

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified Willingham’s defense attorney as David White instead of David Martin. It has since been corrected.

Director Andrew Rossi’s Page One: Inside the New York Times was tremendously well received, lauded for providing a snapshot of both “the Grey Lady” specifically and a newspaper industry teetering on the edge of (ir)relevance in a digital age. Eat This New York, from First Run Features, is another geographically specific subcultural nonfiction curio from Rossi that will receive wider embrace amongst so-called foodies.

The rise in profile of the Food Network, along with all sorts of cooking and baking cable shows on other channels, has created a burgeoning interest in high-class cuisine, and food trends and even chefs in cities we may not inhabit. (Though it’s merely anecdotal, for evidentiary purposes I offer up my sisters, who lives in Washington, D.C., but knows the restaurants in at least five other cities of her favorite Spanish chef.) Featuring culinary luminaries like Daniel Boulud, Sirio Maccioni, Keith McNally, Drew Nieporent, Danny Meyer and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Eat This New York tells the story of two friends, Billy Phelps and John McCormick, struggling to try to open a new restaurant in the food capital of the world — where there are over 18,000 eateries, and four-fifths of the 1,000 new ones that open each 12 months go out of business in the first five years.

Rossi’s tack is relaxed and inviting, and it certainly helps that he’s chosen two sympathetic figures for his chief subjects. But one of the more heartening things about the movie, despite the appetites it raises, is that it’s not merely a tunnel-vision portrait of dreamy aspirations. Rossi lends voice to these kitchen artisans, heretofore so frequently banished to back rooms, and their insights are interesting, as they often reflect eloquently and offer up not just ideas about what tastes good but also the many other elements that go into creating a dining atmosphere that can capture the imagination and survive beyond the hype associated with an opening rush. Rossi’s film is slim (about 85 minutes), and doesn’t overstay its welcome, but is more filling than a simple appetizer.

Eat This New York comes to DVD housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, and is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen. Its bonus roster is meaty, too — over two hours of extended interviews with some of the country’s top restaurateurs. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

The angry, dirty and unforgiving streets of New York City have over the course of several generations taken on an almost mythical role in American independent cinema, fueling some artists, creatively bankrupting many more, and driving others into the arms of more lucrative, mainstream projects. An exhaustively comprehensive oral history of outsider cinema from the late 1970s and into the mid ’80s, Celine Danhier’s Blank City unfolds in all the hazy, erudite specificity of some breezy, memories-laden conversation between your parents and a bunch of their friends at some holiday party from your youth. Meaning, you ask? Meaning it’s kind of interesting in retrospect, or on a theoretical level, but also somewhat impenetrable, given everyone’s penchant for inside jokes and thorough (and thoroughly unedited) recollection.

Against the backdrop of scuzzy, economically bombed-out Lower East Side landscapes, powered by cheap dope and speed, and inspired by the cinematic rules-breaking of the French New Wave, a certain DIY ethos took root in the latter days of the Ford Administration. A renegade collection of aspirant filmmakers, musicians, amateur actors and other artistically-minded misfits would, over the next dozen years or so, crank out all sorts of stark and provocative outsider films, in what would come to be known as the No Wave. Some filmmakers and performers (including Jim Jarmusch and Steve Buscemi, the latter pictured above) would go on to greater fame with more accessible work, while others (Deborah Harry) would almost reluctantly find success in other arenas. Most, however, found their potential careers (to the extend they regarded them as such, and anything more than a way to fill their time) eventually derailed by jealousies and recklessness. The quirky work they left behind, though — long on alienation, often short on production value, rich in deadpan humor, and blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction — holds some interesting lessons for would-be independent filmmakers of future generations.

Neophyte French director Danhier has an obvious passion for the material, but lacks the ability the form a cogent narrative spine from all of her interviews. As such, the movie unfolds in largely lurching fashion. Some of the anecdotes are amusing, and fascinating for the simplistic yet radical notions they hold at their core. Director James Naren talks about craftily arranging to see a property he had no intention of renting (or of course even the means to afford), then surreptitiously leaving the windows unlocked, coming back later that evening, climbing up the fire escape with his friends and cohorts, sneaking in, and shooting part of his avant-garde Rome 78. Later, Naren also talks about a lack of overt manipulation being of paramount importance to he and most of the rest of his filmmaking peers, and if bad acting or filmmaking was resultant from that, so be it, that was fine.

The widescale (at least within this group) embrace of this sort of seat-of-your-pants filmmaking makes for some interesting sidebar speculation amongst cineastes, especially if there had been more formalistically and narratively adventurous parties pushing back against some of their peers. But Danhier has trouble taking this microclimate (one interview participant describes the area between 14th Street and Houston, and Avenue B and Bowery as his entire world) and making it matter to the layperson, or connecting it in meaningful and convincing fashion to the cinema of today. Bolstered by film clips from literally dozens of No Wave offerings, Blank City proves itself several times over a vital document of this outsider movement, even if mainstream interest in such a trip down memory road is likely to remain at a significant remove.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Blank City comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Director Danhier submits to a 10-minute interview chat, in which she credits a compilation album from Brian Eno as first tipping her off to the existence of the No Wave scene. She also offers her own perspective, somewhat academic and removed, as to some of the figurehead personalities of the movement. The perspective and presence of an additional film historian would have been a nice touch here, but Danhier is obviously well versed enough of the subject to give it a fairly good framing. The big bonus feature, though, is a nice 40-minute collection of deleted and extended interviews, which allows even further indulgence for those really into this era and sub-genre. Outtakes and the movie’s theatrical trailer, meanwhile, round out the supplemental slate. For more information, visit Kino’s web site; to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B (Disc)

For my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at the third film in the Paranormal Activity franchise, Texas Killing Fields, the delicious depravity of Archer: Season 2, Rooney Mara’s big star turn before The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and more. Again, it’s over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

French actress Isabelle Huppert, nominated for a record 13 Cesar Awards, has made a career out of playing nervy characters with all manner of sexual foibles or secrets. In Special Treatment, she’s a high-class prostitute with dormant issues fueling a desire for a career change. The eighth feature offering from cult filmmaker Jeanne Labrune, this generally well sketched and set-up drama cashes in too soon on its early intrigue, though, abandoning darker overtones for rather wan interpersonal revelations. Those seeking kinky erotic drama of the sort found in early David Cronenberg will be sorely disappointed.

The story centers on Alice Bergerac (Huppert, above right), a well-to-do fortysomething who serves up high-end sexual fantasies for her clientele, from schoolgirl submissiveness to S&M dominance. Neurotic psychologist Xavier Demestre (Bouli Lanners), meanwhile, is stuck in a marriage in which he and wife Helene (Valerie Dreville) can no longer conceal their distaste for one another, lobbing open attacks in front of mixed company at a party. When a friend recommends Alice to Xavier, he gives her a call, just on the heels of Alice suffering a nasty incident with another client. They meet, and she explains that she only offers bundled packages of a minimum of 10 sessions, and so they embark on a professional relationship in which Alice gamely tries to coax out of Xavier his preferences, and get to the root of his unhappiness. In doing so, each party learns a little something.

Special Treatment is at its best when it’s mapping out and concentrating on the parallels between psychoanalysis and prostitution — the discreet locations, the exchange of money, the promise of anonymity, the establishment of rules, and specific time limits. Never mind that its inciting incident for Alice’s occupational second-guessing feels relatively tame, and for a moment seems a part of her extended role play. Once it settles into a more standardized groove of interpersonal blossoming, maturation and desired occupational flight — no matter how elliptically sketched, in achingly European fashion — the movie is considerably less interesting, because its big-picture plot movements and character decisions all feel staked out and predetermined. Alice will feel increasing frustration with Xavier’s inability to articulate his sexual wants, and Xavier will recognize her latent unhappiness and eventually start taking steps to try to help Alice ease out of prostitution.

Director Jeanne Labrune, working from a script co-written with Richard Debuisne, also does a fairly risible job of explaining the holes or conflict in Xavier and Helene’s marriage. If it were merely or only a matter of sexual incompatibility or stasis, the film could still exist fine as is, but the sheer glee with which Helene attacks Xavier in certain scenes raises all sorts of questions that go largely unanswered. As it moves toward its painfully French finale (it gives away nothing to say that the movie ends with a character staring off into the distance in reflection), awkward symbolism — in the form of an antique angel sculpture — is also visited upon the story, a sighing reality which seems remote in the quite solid opening act.

Through it all, Huppert has a sly technique, and an endlessly fascinating face. Ergo, Special Treatment never slips in holding one’s attention when she is on the screen. Unfortunately, the film’s intrigue unravels with each passing minute. There’s great promise in this premise — of a dissection of the value of arguably substitutive experiences, and how long they can or even should last — but this Treatment falls short, and delivers no special and lastingly memorable catharsis or insights.

Labrune’s film comes to DVD housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo audio track. The transfer is a polished and clear one, if somewhat muted in color, absent any hiccups with edge enhancement. A shame, though, that there are no EPK interviews with Huppert or Labrune, or any other on-set or behind-the-scenes material. For more information, click here. C- (Movie) D+ (Disc)

The light and whimsical blueprints and inventions of husband and wife Charles and Ray Eames — American designers whose influence stretched into modern architecture, graphic design, furniture and fine art, as well as film — left a mark in both the United States and abroad, spawning a famous namesake chair and much more. Directed by Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey, this documentary provides a solid look-see at both the couple’s creative instincts and collaborations as well as their sometimes tortured love for one another.

Narrated by James Franco, Eames: The Architect and the Painter is — like Vidal Sassoon: The Movie, L’Amour Fou and a good handful of other nonfiction titles that have, as of late, lifted up figureheads of fashion, perfume, architecture and culinary design — a movie with a somewhat thinly prescribed demographic of inherent heightened interest. And yet Cohn and Jersey make enough concessions to a general audience to keep things fairly lively for viewers of all levels of familiarity with any of the Eames’ story. Clips from their many educational, experimental and promotional filmstrips are interspersed throughout here, with enough of a mooring to the world around them that even those interested in post-war boomer and ’60s culture will find it pretty interesting.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Eames comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo track. Supplemental extras consist of a clutch of bonus scenes and tidbits, which add further color to the Eames’ unusual and varied lives. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; for more information or to purchase the title directly via First Run, click here. B (Movie) B- (Disc)

Unabashed shlock-fest Piranha 3D raked in a bunch of money in 2010, and even though most of its $83 million worldwide gross came from overseas, Hollywood took notice and immediately tried to wring extra dollars out of the watery, imperiled teenagers subgenre, passing off basically the same general concept to stuntman turned director David Ellis in the hopes that some of his magic touch with teen-friendly material (The Final Destination, Snakes on a Plane) might somehow elevate Shark Night, which was dutifully released in theaters last autumn in the 3-D format, to something passably entertaining. Oops, that didn’t work.

When Tulane University student Sara (Sara Paxton) and her friends arrive at her family’s remote Louisiana lake house for a weekend of fun in the sun, they’re expecting that the maximum craziness will be imported with them, in the form of some booze. Soon, however, they discover that the lake is infested with hundreds of flesh-eating sharks (and a few equally dangerous human predators) that turn their killer vacation into a bone-crunching battle to stay alive.

From almost start to finish, Shark Night fails to elicit much in the way of audience engagement, either honestly or in a campy fashion, a la something like Lake Placid or even Deep Blue. Its characters are cardboard thin, its dialogue largely inane, and its scares and violence all so completely telegraphed as to remove any jolts of tension. Damningly, too, despite the picture above, the PG-13 Shark Night is fairly tame for the waters in which it’s trying to swim, which means that hardcore gorehounds will find this movie a yawn, as will those with more prurient interests.

Shark Night comes to DVD on a dual layer disc, presented in 1.85:1 widescreen with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Special features consist of a shark-footage reel that clocks in at under six minutes, and a thunderously inessential four-minute featurette that touts the directorial prowess of Ellis. Lacking even a look at the movie’s blend of animatronic rigs and digital special effects work, this disc matches the boring nature of its feature presentation with equally uninteresting bonus material. In that respect, if not many others, it’s a good fit. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) D+ (Disc)

The absurd title of writer-directors Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck’s movie — with its blend of the lewd and sweet — could be an indicator of watered-down comedic cop-out, but this romp about a group of longtime pals who decide to get horizontal with one another is the real deal, delivering amply on every level in which it chooses to engage. Powered by palpable chemistry amongst its many co-leads, an affable sense of purpose, and plenty of smart timing and whip-smart humor, this sex farce amusingly showcases both the titillation and wild discomfort of its perhaps farfetched concept.

The story centers around Eric (Saturday Night Live‘s Jason Sudeikis), an amiable thirtysomething New Yorker who doesn’t much care for his job, and instead lives for the summer, when he can repair to his father’s house in the Hamptons and throw elaborate weekend theme parties with a group of longtime friends that includes Mike (Tyler Labine, above left), Adam (Nick Kroll), Laura (Lindsay Sloane), Alison (Lake Bell), Sue (Michelle Borth), would-be musician Doug (Martin Starr) and his girlfriend Willow (Angela Sarafyan). When Eric finds out his dad (Don Johnson) is selling the house, he’s bummed out, but decides that the gang should go out with a bang — literally, in the form of a Labor Day weekend orgy.

Slowly, one by one, the friends come around to the idea, each for their own reasons — because of a recent break-up, an unresolved intra-group crush, general horniness, or the belief that lingering body issues could perhaps be set straight in a group setting. This decision comes after the summer nuptials of a pair of purposefully excluded, long-engaged friends, Glenn and Kate (Will Forte and Lucy Punch), who also have a baby together, and is eventually additionally complicated by Eric’s growing feelings for real estate agent Kelly (Leslie Bibb).

A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy, though, doesn’t morph into some weak-kneed romantic comedy wherein Eric experiences an epiphany and calls the whole act off. If it’s a goofy, ambling and loose-limbed beast throughout, the movie is also fairly honest (albeit in an exaggerated fashion) about the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty that it summons up in its characters. This makes the film — the directorial debut of former The Larry Sanders Show and King of the Hill scribes Huyck and Gregory — true-hearted and sincere, while also quite strong in the jokes department.

The cast, too, is a good match. There are faces that are more recognizable than others, certainly, but everyone seems to fit well together, and there is no sense of gamesmanship or grandstanding to any of the scenes — a too common problem in a lot of shock-oriented comedies, where whether because of star cameos or scene-chewing instincts many set pieces tilt over into the improbable, and spoil any sense of rootedness to the story. This Orgy remains true to itself — immature and embellished, but never wildly unrealistic.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy comes to DVD in a 98-minute unrated version, presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with English and French language Dolby digital 5.1 audio tracks that more than adequately handle the title’s straightforward sound design. Optional English, French and English SDH subtitles are also available. Bonus features are anchored by a chatty and amusing feature-length audio commentary track from Gregory, Huyck and Sudeikis, in which the latter points out that “the Steven Soderbergh version of this same story starts at the morning-after breakfast.” Ten deleted or trimmed scenes run a total of just over 16 minutes, and finds Borth’s character advising Punch’s character to give her husband anal sex in order to make their wedding night special. There is also a scene with another character breaking news of the orgy to her Bible study group, a subplot completely removed from the theatrical version of the movie.

A behind-the-scenes featurette runs a tad over eight minutes, but features loads of on-set production footage from the movie’s Wilmington, North Carolina, shoot, and manages to work in nice and genuinely thoughtful interview clips with the filmmakers and a broad cross-section of the cast (including some bit players, like Lin Shaye and David Koechner). The phrase “gag reel” could mean something quite different for a title like this, but it does feature flubs and improvisations run amok after all; in butt-less chaps, Forte crashes one of the orgy scenes, Labine opines about “crocodile blowjobs,” and Sudeikis threatens nut flicks, only to have his bluff called. Previews for Drive, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Bucky Larson: Born To Be a Star and the grim-looking third installment of the Hostel franchise round things out. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at the Fright Night remake, a couple documentaries, Stephen Dorff and Maria Bello’s Carjacker, Nick Di Paolo’s new stand-up comedy special, and a movie in which Bruce Willis gets to hold forth with a monologue about how much he loves pecans. Oh, and the new Blu-ray release of 1988’s cult flick Maniac Cop, starring Bruce Campbell. Again, it’s all over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

A kind of goofy, over-the-top, gross-out valentine to the drive-in era and the sort of cheap splatterfests that such edge-of-town establishments often featured, Chillerama is a horror anthology that offers up enough bad-taste depravity to put a curled smile of pleased enjoyment on John Waters’ face.

Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivian, Joe Lynch and Adam Green are the four directors presiding over the mayhem here — a two-hour festival of gore, goo, guts and blithely unserious chills and thrills. The wraparound story centers on the closing of the very last drive-in theater in the United States, where owner Cecil B. Kaufman (Office Space‘s Richard Riehle) has planned the ultimate marathon of lost film prints to unleash upon his faithful patrons — four films so rare that they’ve never been exhibited publicly, until now. Sex and dismemberment stand alongside gross-out gags and puns galore, but the entire affair plays sort of like Monty Python and Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask crossed with your average, very derivative ’80s VHS horror romp, and a pinch of exploitation DNA. Production design and cinematography, nicely, reflect the scummy grindhouse roots of the material. Younger audiences may not find much enjoyment here, but genre enthusiasts will likely be clutching their stomachs for more than one reason.

Housed in a standard Amaray plastic case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, the unrated Chillerama comes to DVD presented in a 1.78 aspect ratio, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Bonus features are anchored by a directors’ audio commentary track, interviews with the same quartet, and a nice spread of behind-the-scenes material, inclusive of deleted scenes and two making-of featurettes, that throw a bit of a different spotlight on each of the segments. The obligatory collection of preview trailers round things out. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B- (Disc)