Moriarty's DVD Shelf! New Release Tuesday for June 27th!!

I wasn’t one of them. I think it’s a solid film, and I think it provokes, but I also think it smirks at you as it provokes, and there’s a sense that the last thing he wants to do is actually connect any dots for you at all. It’s a fine line when you’re playing games with the viewer, and sometimes, Heneke rubs me the wrong way as a result. Having said that, CACHE does manage to generate a sort of nightmare intensity for certain passages as Daniel Auteil and Juliette Binoche try to deal with the invasion of their privacy by someone who begins taping their lives. When you watch it, make sure you pay close, close attention to the final shot. Feel free to back it up and examine it a second time. On DVD, I have a feeling people will be able to appreciate the ending in a way they couldn’t in a theater, and it may help the film in the long run.

CHUCK BERRY – HAIL! HAIL! ROCK’N’ROLL! (4-disc box set)

Can someone tell me what this is? I can’t find any good description of the extras or the reason for this to be four discs long. It’s a good documentary by Taylor Hackford, and if you’re a fan of this music, there are some awesome performances during this concert. But four discs? Man, that makes me curious. Is there that much extra footage? Are those audio discs? I’d love to know.

COLT 38 SPECIAL SQUAD

CONVOY BUSTERS

Once again, NoShame offers up a pair of new releases that proves them to be one of the coolest distributors in DVD right now.

Massimo Dallamano was a major figure in Italian cult cinema. In addition to directing several major exploitation titles, he also was the cinematographer on A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE.

This film, available here for the first time on US home video, was the last movie that Dallamano made as a director, and it united two of the biggest stars of the day, Ivan Rassimov and Marcel Bozzuffi, in a story about how violence creates more violence in the constant struggle between cops and criminals in Italy’s underworld. There are several extras on the first disc, including an interview with the composer for the film and a separate interview with the editor.

On disc two, there’s a movie called LA BIDONATA, aka THE BIG RIP-OFF. This is an ultra-rare film that was never officially released because the producer was kidnapped before it was finished. Made in 1977, the film’s of particular interest to fans of director Luciano Ercoli, who have wanted to see this ever since it was shelved. Both films are presented in their full 2.35:1 ratio, and there are liner notes about both films. Pretty nice package overall.

Stelvio Massi makes badass movies. No two ways about it. And CONVOY BUSTERS is actually one of his better cop thrillers. NoShame’s been putting out a lot of his films, which I’ve had a great time watching, and this one’s no different. Once again, the disc is packed with extras, and it’s well worth it for fans of the genre.

COLUMBO: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON

Have I mentioned yet how much I love COLUMBO, and how much fun these full-season box sets have been? Here’s another fistful of the 90-minute Columbo movies. It’s a strangely satisfying length for a detective story. Not quite real feature length, but longer than TV. There’s room for real behavior, for character work, and the guest stars make the most of it practically every time out. Peter Falk was really running at the peak of his craft during this stretch of the show’s time on television, and he just seemed to be able to find endless quirks to play, little things that made each performance as Columbo feel fresh and interesting. I point at him as one of the perfect examples of what a lead in a TV series can do when they are given the exact right kind of support.

COPS VERSUS THUGS

YAKUZA GRAVEYARD

Here’s a double-feature from director Kinji Fukasaku, best known here for BATTLE ROYALE. This guy’s a lunatic, a great and inventive visual storyteller, and it’s always nice to see more of his work released.

Fukasaku made a ton of crime films over the years, including his great epic THE YAKUZA PAPERS series, and COPS VERUS THUGS is very much a prototypical movie about cops and yakuza.

If you want to see the director at his absolute craziest, this is the one this week. Fukasaku really played with the language of his storytelling, and there’s a giddy quality to his best work that’s just infectious. You have fun watching because it looks like he was making them while running on pure id. Both of these are available on Kino Video.

EVIL

If things were fair, Magnolia would be as big as Miramax used to be, because they seem to have picked up a steady stream of quietly great films in the last year or so. They end up releasing some really solid films, but because they’re such a small distributor, a lot of people just haven’t seen the films. This is one of those titles that should have made a bigger impression than it did in theaters, especially since it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004 at the Oscars. A boy is expelled from school for fighting, and he ends up being sent to a boarding school where he is brutally hazed and systematically broken down. It’s a harrowing ride, and the less you know before you watch it, the better. Director Mikael Hafstrom made his English-language debut after this with DERAILED, but if you want to size him up as a filmmaker, here’s the one to watch.

FAILURE TO LAUNCH

This is not a recommendation. This is a warning. On a film like this one, I’ll give it to my wife to have her watch it first. She loves these movies. If she likes one of them, I’ll give it a look. But when she hates a movie as much as she did this one, that also demands that I look to see what it is that she responded to. Here, it’s pretty obvious... this is just a comic miscalculation from frame one. It’s tired before it begins, and it never manages to figure out what to do with its large and undeniably appealing cast. Everyone’s wasted. Everyone looks miserable. I can’t say this strongly enough... this one will please no one. It’s just the absolute definition of studio product.

GWENDOLINE: UNRATED DIRECTOR’S CUT

Ahhhh, yes. I remember when this film came out. I was 15, but I knew ushers who would look the other way for me since I was in the theater every weekend. They would kid me about what they let me in to see, and they were especially vocal in busting me for going to see THE PERILS OF GWENDOLINE IN THE LAND OF YIK-YAK, as it was called. To me, a movie like this combined two of my biggest interests at the time: ‘80s adventure movies and masturbation. Needless to say, it was a video classic soon after that brief theatrical run, where people could “appreciate” the film better at home. Tawny Kitaen was smoking hot and very naked in this film, and I remember laughing like Beavis & Butt-head at the idea that this movie was directed by a guy named “Just Jaeckin.” This disc from Severin Films is more than just the European cut of the movie (ten minutes longer than what was originally released here, and most of it is indeed adult material that got cut for the R-rating), it’s also a nice package that celebrates Jaeckin as a filmmaker overall.

LEROY AND STITCH

The last LILO & STITCH sequel wasn’t bad, and families really seem to love these characters, so I’m going to at least give this one a look.

LOOK AT ALL THE LOVE WE FOUND: A TRIBUTE TO SUBLIME

This is a record of a 2005 benefit concert at the Fonda Theater, where Los Lobos, Unwritten Law, Ozomatli, Fishbone and others got together to play Sublime tracks. Evidently, this package is one CD, one DVD, and not the exact same material on both.

WE JAM ECONO: THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN

I haven’t seen this documentary about the Minutemen, but I love the band, and it sounds like this is a pretty dense and interesting look at them. More importantly, there’s a second disc here with three full Minutemen live shows, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

MASTERS OF HORROR: DEER WOMAN

MASTERS OF HORROR: SICK GIRL

Obviously I’m not going to try to make any sort of critical comment about this series, but I will point out that the next two titles in the DVD release of the series are issued today, and it’s a pretty polarizing pair of titles this week.

John Landis fans know what they’re getting with this supernatural story featuring DREAM ON’s Brian Benben as a cop investigating what sounds like an urban legend or a local superstition, and there are nods to some of Landis’s earlier work here that will make you smile.

Lucky McKee took Sean Hood’s script about a killer bug and turned it into a screwball comedy lesbian love story, and how much you enjoy his episode may be based on how willing you are to make that sort of tonal shift with him. Softcore cable star Misty Mundae plays a major role here opposite Angela Bettis, McKee’s May.

STRANGERS WITH CANDY: THE COMPLETE SERIES

Whoever said comedy is not pretty was probably talking about Amy Sedaris. Not Amy Sedaris the way she looks every day, mind you. I’m talking about what she does to herself in order to play Jerri Blank, a “user, a loser, and a boozer,’ as she puts it. She makes me queasy when she’s in character, which I think is the point. The show is like an ultra-arch afterschool special, and Steve Colbert does some really good work here. She returns to high school while 42 years old, ready for a fresh start. Only... she’s not really ready. She’s a mess, and she pretty much poisons everything she touches. If you like comedy of the uncomfortable, this one’s for you.

ULTRAVIOLENT: EXTENDED UNRATED EDITION

As I understand it, Kurt Wimmer had this film taken away from him almost completely, and what was released has little similarity to what he wrote and what he wanted to accomplish. Wimmer’s noticeably absent from all the behind-the-scenes stuff. You see him, but there’s no commentary and no interview footage. I’d love to know what he meant for this to be. As it is, the film is visually striking and severely compromised, damn near incoherent at times. Still, watching this, it makes me think that Wimmer and Milla might have been able to create something that looked almost exactly like the animated AEON FLUX if they’d been teamed on that film. Some of this action is completely impossible, but staged with real verve, and it makes me hope (just as EQULIBRIUM did) that someone gives Wimmer something big and really good to do, and soon.

WHY WE FIGHT

Here’s my review of this one from a week or so ago.

YELLOWBEARD

This movie should be funnier than it is, but having just seen it again for the first time in years, I’ll say that it’s funnier than I remember it being. Graham Chapman plays the ferocious and slightly insane pirate Yellowbeard, and he spends his entire stretch in prison planning to pick up his long-hidden treasure when he gets out. Unfortunately, everyone else wants his treasure, too, and you end up with a costume-drama version of IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD as a result, with a pretty dense cast of well known comic performers. Cheech and Chong, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Peter Cook, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Madeline Kahn, James Mason, Kenneth Mars, Spike Milligan... it’s a pretty outrageous line-up. The film’s not bad, but it never quite become the laugh-a-minute ride it wants to be.

This, by the way, may be the single cheapest, crappiest transfer I’ve ever seen. The film looks okay, but there’s not even a menu on this disc. This is so indifferent as to be insulting, and it’s not the way any studio should treat any title they’re putting out. It just seems disrespectful to the consumer.

THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES COLLECTION

14 films. 5 DVDs. The complete run of Basil Rathbone films about Sherlock Holmes. Pretty swanky for $90 or so. I hear these have been restored, but I haven’t seen the set for myself. These are great movies, pretty much the definitive screen treatment of the characters, and well worth picking up.

That’s it for this morning. I’ll be back later with that SUPERMAN review and more of this week’s DVD reviews. I’ll also have some set visits to report on as I finish up this overwhelming backlog of transcription. For now, though...