Hi, everyone. Moriarty here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I may be in Austin, knee-deep in QT Fest, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to dump the DVD column for the week, especially on a week that features releases as great as this one. I apologize if today seems to be somewhat brusque, but I want to make sure I mention all the releases I’m looking forward to, and that means we need to hustle. As always, anything I’ve already got here in the house has an asterisk in front of it, and everything else, I’ll be picking up immediately:
ALONE IN THE DARK
No, this is not last year’s Uwe Boll film starring Christian Slater. Instead, this is an ‘80s horror film starring Martin Landau that I remember fondly. There are clips from this film in the compilation picture TERROR IN THE AISLES, which is where I’ve seen it most frequently, but it also pops up on cable occasionally. Landau gives a really creepy performance as a lunatic who leads an escape during a power outage from an asylum. A group of psychopaths are convinced that Dwight Schultz has forced their favorite doctor out of his job, so they take advantage of the blackout to wreak havoc on Schultz and his family. It looks like Image has done a great job on the disc, packing it with audio commentaries, interview, and more.
*BEN-HUR: 4-DISC COLLECTOR’S SET
The TITANIC of its day, the 1959 BEN HUR was a giant spectacle that won an assload of Academy Awards and grossed a ton of money, and it divides viewers even today. Charlton Heston chews scenery like a champion, and the chariot race scene is justifiably thought of as one of the great action scenes of all time. Now, finally, Warner Home Video has put out a special edition that also includes the 1925 silent version of the film as well. The 1959 film is spread over two discs, the silent film gets its own disc, and then the final disc is filled with documentaries and special features. I’ve just barely begun to dig into this incredible package, and I’ll have a full review of it soon. For now, just know that this is an amazing release that really does live up to its name as a “Collector’s Edition.”
COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER: 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
It really doesn’t matter if you like country music or not. This is all about the chemistry between Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek) and her husband Mooney (Tommy Lee Jones), a biopic with a beating heart. I saw this film when it came out, and I was very young at the time. The way it portrayed the marriage between these two scared the shit out of me, quite frankly, and seeing it again now, it’s a rough ride. This doesn’t sugarcoat the story at all, and that’s what makes it endure. Universal’s put together a nice special edition, including an audio commentary with director Michael Apted and Spacek about her Academy Award winning performance. And if you do like country music, the soundtrack is one of the best. Definitely worth checking out.
*DA ALI G SHOW: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON
If this turns out to be the last season of Sacha Baron Cohen’s HBO series, that would be a bloody shame, because it’s actually better than the first year. However, I’d hate for him to stay past the point where he felt like he could turn out shows as great as this. I’m a Borat fan first and foremost, but I’m endlessly impressed by how well Cohen manages to play off of people as each of the characters he has created. This collection has a lot of highlights, including the now-infamous “Throw The Jew Down The Well” song that Herc mentioned in his DVD preview today. There’s no commentary, but there are a number of deleted scenes included, and it seems like they were deleted for time, not because they were any less funny than what actually aired. I know I’ll return to this DVD many times.
*DIRECTOR’S FILE VOL 4: THE WORK OF MARK ROMANEK
*DIRECTOR’S FILE VOL 5: THE WORK OF JONATHAN GLAZER
*DIRECTOR’S FILE VOL 6: THE WORK OF ANTON CORBIJN
*DIRECTOR’S FILE VOL 7: THE WORK OF STEPHANE SEDNAOUI
Absolutely, positively, no questions asked, these are the titles I’m most excited about today. Heck, maybe even this month. Palm Pictures started this series about a year and a half ago with three DVDs that collected the work of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and Chris Cunningham. Those discs were sensational, but I think Palm has actually surpassed them with these new releases. Each of the discs comes with a huge 56 page booklet, and they each reflect the personalities of the directors they cover. There’s no uniform presentation here, and that’s good. Instead, each package is set up in a very personal, particular way. Glazer’s set, for example, includes a fair amount of material about his two films, SEXY BEAST and BIRTH, as well as a sampling of his TV commercials, while the Romanek set has a great documentary that covers his entire career. I’ll dig deeper into these in a review soon, but for now, if you’re even remotely interested, you have to pick these up. They’re the sort of DVDs that you’ll return to over and over.
DOCTOR DETROIT
This is one of several titles that Universal is releasing today in bare-bones editions, and it’s one of the strangest Dan Aykroyd vehicles of the ‘80s. Aykroyd may well be the weirdest of the original SNL performers to ever become a movie star, and this story of a mild-mannered college professor who is forced to invent the persona of a killer pimp to fight Mom and her goons for the honor of a bunch of working girls including his eventual wife, Donna Dixon. I’m not going to defend this as a great film, but it’s one I remember fondly and plan to revisit.
FEVER PITCH
I see a lot of romantic comedies. It’s one of the benefits/curses of being married. The curse is that so many of them suck. The benefit is that they almost always work to get your wife all riled up. In the case of this film by the Farrelly Brothers, it’s a better-than-average example of the genre, and that’s because they dig a little deeper than normal. This is really a film about how the passions in your life can overwhelm you. In this case, it’s baseball that drives Jimmy Fallon’s character, and his love for one particular team threatens to destroy his budding relationship with Drew Barrymore. I reviewed a test screening of this film, and I actually went back to see it again once it was finished. It’s a charming date film, and it almost convinced me that I don’t hate Fallon. I’ll definitely check this out with the audio commentary by the Farrelly Brothers in the weeks ahead.
HEARTBEEPS
Here’s another one of those bare-bones Universal titles for today, and this one is a real oddity. Andy Kaufman fans are haunted by how little material there is of his available now. He barely appeared on film, which can be very frustrating. This is his one studio starring role, and it’s sort of a mess. Now, admittedly, it’s been a while since I saw it, but I remember it not working as either a comedy or as a fairy tale, and I get the feeling that director Alan Arkush (ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL) was aiming for something between the two genres. I’ve always been fascinated by the makeup that Stan Winston created to transform Kaufman and Bernadette Peters into robots, and this might make a great double-feature with A.I. at some point. Even though I remember there being a lot of flaws with the film, I’ll be adding it to my shelf immediately so that I can enjoy the good things about it soon.
*THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
I spent a good chunk of this afternoon working my way through the extra features on this DVD. I’m disappointed there aren’t more, frankly. The two audio commentaries are probably the highlight, since they both offer very different information and really enhance your understanding of how involved Douglas Adams was in the making of the film, why certain choices were made in the adaptation process, and what director Garth Jennings brought to the film. There are a few deleted scenes (including a “Mostly Harmless” moment that absolutely should have made the final cut of the film), a few “Really Deleted” scenes that were obviously shot for the gag reel and not the actual film, and a sing-along for “So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.” The film itself looks and sounds like a million bucks, but I wish Disney had really gone all out for this one. I know it wasn’t a giant hit, so I can’t say I’m surprised. All I can hope at this point is that the DVD sells a whole lot of copies so that I might eventually sit in the theater and see THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE. Until then, this will do.
IT’S ALL ABOUT LOVE
Did this ever get any sort of American release at all? I love Thomas Vinterberg’s THE CELEBRATION, and I’ve heard that this Joaquin Phoenix/Claire Danes film isn’t for all tastes. Still, it sounds like a cool SF ride, and I’m all for any film that pushes the genre in a direction other than dressed-up action movies. I’ll give this a try no matter what, sight unseen.
NOBODY KNOWS
This is another film that I missed in the theater that I really wanted to see. I’ve read some amazing review of this story of four Japanese children abandoned to their own devices, and as soon as I get a look at Sony Home Entertainment’s release of it, I’ll have a review for you.
ONE MISSED CALL
This is one of the 10,000 movies that Takashi Miike made in the last three years, and it’s one of the most mainstream pieces of entertainment I think he’s ever put together. Yes, it’s a pretty standard Asian horror film that uses a lot of the same tricks that have become so familiar in so many other films recently, but Miike manages to inject a real sense of malicious fun into the proceedings. Pick this one up and hold onto it for Halloween, where you’ll be able to scare your friends with a title they’ve probably never heard of, much less seen.
PALINDROMES
I was surprised I didn’t make it to the theater to see this. I really like the work of Todd Solondz, and people who respect him seem to think this is one of his better efforts. It certainly sounds like a bold film, a real challenge, and I’m going to see it just as soon as I get back to Los Angeles. Told in an almost experimental style, with many different actresses all playing one character, Aviva, a 13-year-old girl whose one ambition is to have a child of her own.
PEEP SHOW: THE COMPLETE FIRST SERIES
I’ve only seen one episode of this English situation comedy, on my flight back from London earlier this year, but I was pretty blown away by how inventive it was. The series slips into the POV of both of the main characters, allowing us to experience things through their eyes and ears, and also to share their inner monologues. It’s stylized and smartly written, and I look forward to seeing the rest of the show as soon as I can.
PSYCHO II
PSYCHO III
Wow. What a coincidence. Just as QT shows us PSYCHO II as part of his all-night ‘80s Horror Marathon (which I’ll be writing up later today), Universal releases both of these sequels. There’s no question that II is better than III, and it’s odd how sleazy III was, since Anthony Perkins finally stepped up to direct himself in one of his most famous roles. Fans of Hitchcock’s original probably have little use for either of these films, but if you’re interested in the character of Norman Bates, they both have reasons to watch. Although there don’t appear to be any extras on the discs, I’ll bet the anamorphic widescreen transfers are better than any we’ve seen on video for these films before.
ROCK SCHOOL
Columbia/TriStar Home Video is releasing this documentary, which I have not yet had a chance to see. Basically, this is the real-life story that inspired SCHOOL OF ROCK, all about Paul Green, who runs a school that teaches young people to play rock music. It’s one of those concepts that sounds almost impossible to get wrong, and the reviews were solid. I’ll definitely be checking this out.
RUMBLEFISH
I guess S.E. Hinton fans are jumping for joy this month, between this and the release of THE OUTSIDERS: THE COMPLETE NOVEL next week. Universal’s putting out this special edition of the story of Rusty James (Matt Dillon) and Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke), brothers who have to learn to live with the painful legacy of their father, played by Dennis Hopper. This is one of Francis Coppola’s most visually arresting films, and I’m looking forward to the new transfer. If they got it right, this will be a disc to remember. There are lots of extra features on this one, and I’ll try to review this and THE OUTSIDERS together in the weeks ahead.
SCTV: VOLUME 4
God bless you, Shout! Factory. The continuing release of the brilliant SCTV on DVD is a source of joy in my house with each new box set. What I find most impressive is the way this show still feels fairly fresh even though so much of the series is a satire of things that were in the media at the time the show was made, over 20 years ago. It holds up well because of the writing and the incredible cast. If you aren’t already an SCTV fan, I can’t encourage you strongly enough. Start with this box set, and you’ll end up going to back to buy all the rest. Great stuff.
*TAXI: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON
This is, in my opinion, the best overall season of the entire series, and that’s because the writers finally figured out how to balance this incredible cast. Christopher Lloyd’s Reverend Jim came into his own as a character, Andy Kaufman’s Latka had plenty to do, and they wrote some of the best Louie episodes ever. If I’m not mistaken, a writer’s strike delayed the start of this season, but the time off appears to have done them all some good, because they came back strong. I’ve already gone on the record calling this one of the best sitcoms in history, but this year is the year that really earns the show that reputation.
And with that, I’ll sign off. I’ve got a lot more QT Fest to write up, and I’m going to try to also write up ELIZABETHTOWN for you this week. Lots to do, and I’m still battling this awful chest cold that almost knocked me out of the fest altogether, so it’s off to bed with a bottle of Nyquil now. That should give me the strength to continue in the morning. Until then...
Moriarty out.
