Moriarty’s DVD Shelf! New Release Tuesday for September 12th and September 19th!!

Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

Okay... I missed last week completely. There’s no way to dress it up or sugarcoat it. I was finishing a draft of a script, and last week just plain got away from me. By the time I realized it was new release day, it was already over, and I hadn’t even broken ground on my new release column. Sorry about that. As a result, this week’s overstuffed with last week’s titles and this week’s titles alike. In that last column I published, I talked about my experience checking out some recent Blu-Ray releases on a professionally installed giant screen at a friend’s house. Despite my previously-stated reasons for sitting out round one of the current format war, I went into the screening open-minded, and I was cautiously optimistic about what I saw. Of course, I’ve gotten about a thousand e-mails since then calling me “retarded” (not nice), “a fucking fucker” (really not nice) and my personal favorite, “Satan’s stupid peehole” (Hi, Mom!) All because I thought Blu-Ray looked very nice. Even my good friend Hercules took the opportunity to gently kick me in the balls a bit. I did make one glaring error in the column, and it’s because I am indeed a “retarded fucking fucker Satan’s stupid peephole” as rumored. I said that the second movie we watched, TERMINATOR 2, was on HD-DVD. This, as it turns out, is not true. We watched only Blu-Ray discs. I remain impressed by the step up from the picture quality of DVD, but I’m also interested in seeing just what the difference is once my friend’s equipment gets the firmware updates many of you mentioned in your e-mails or he upgrades, or someone else decides they want to show me what they consider a properly calibrated set-up, or I break down and do it myself because I am, in the end, hopelessly addicted to home video in all its formats, past and future. All of this speaks directly to my hesitancies about getting into either format at this point. The confusion that’s inherent to trying to buy either set-up right now is profound, even for professional installers. If you have to do firmware updates (more than one, in some cases) just to get a piece of high-end equipment to work, then it’s probably not the time to jump in and start spending money at this point. Not for the casual viewer, anyway. We’ve got a fair number of titles to cover this week, so let’s get right into it. I’ll get back to the HD/Blu-Ray thing in the weeks ahead, when I’m sure many of you will write me again to tell me to “fuck my own butt with a broken laserdisc”, as one charmer did this past week. You guys make me feel so loved. Until then, though, let’s kick things off with...

This Week’s Featured Title (9/12)

THE OFFICE: SEASON TWO

STELLA: SEASON ONE

There’s been a lot of ink spent recently about how television drama is having a big of a golden age as we speak, right this minute, and I think that’s all pretty accurate. But television comedy isn’t doing too badly right now, either, and these two collections spotlight some of last season’s best comedy on any channel.

Here’s a show that went from “Oh, I hope they don’t do that” to “Oh, wow, I wish they hadn’t done that” to “Hey, they did that pretty well” to “Oh, I hope they don’t stop doing that” over the course of its first two seasons, at least as far as I was concerned. I like Greg Daniels. I like Steve Carell. I love the original Gervais/Merchant version. It seemed incredibly unnecessary to me, remaking it just for the sake of some accents. But Carell has been very smart about making Michael Scott a character that exists apart from David Brent. Carell hits a whole different note of desperation, and he’s gifted at letting the smile slip just enough to get across what’s behind it, but always keeping things funny. The rest of the cast is equally good, with Rainn Wilson providing a great counterpoint to Carell’s energy. The fact that I’m just as invested in the fate of (John Krasinski) and (Jenna Fischer) as I ever was in the fate of (Martin Freeman) and (Lucy Davis) is a testament to how well both couples were cast, and how carefully they’re written. One of the secrets of both versions of the series is how well they utilize the large supporting cast. Everybody has moments where they kill over the course of this second season. I mourn the ending of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT as much as the next guy, but I’m not prepared to call the sitcom dead when there’s a show as good as THE OFFICE on the air.

The various members of The State have been working hard the last few years in any number of different configurations as writers, directors, and performers. Individually or in teams, they have been responsible for stuff as mainstream as HERBIE: FULLY LOADED and THE PACIFIER, and they have had cult success like RENO 911 and WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER. They’re hardly infallible, having been responsible for some truly bland material and evidently eager to work on mainstream crap if it gives them the freedom to do smaller stuff. STELLA is actually a three-man offshoot of The State, made up of David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black. Never underestimate the comic potential of three idiots turned loose to run roughshod over normal human behavior. Stella doesn’t make a lick of literal sense, but it’s frequently very funny. Basically, every week sees Michael, David, and Michael on some surreal comic adventure that allows them to roast the cliché of TV storytelling. Any plot you’ve seen a thousand times before will probably show up on STELLA, only to get completely subverted. It’s not complicated stuff, and there’s as much of it that falls flat as there is that works, but when it works, it can be fairly inspired, and those moments make this worth a look.

THE BATMAN: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON

TEEN TITANS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: SEASON FOUR

Sure, superheroes aren’t only for kids anymore, but I think fanboys forget that superheroes are also for kids. I like that there are shows that are aimed squarely at younger viewers, cartoon gateway drugs that will get the next generation of superhero fans hooked.

Yes, I know it’s nowhere near as great as BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES or any of its iterations, but THE BATMAN has a fun sense of itself, and I think it puts a clever spin on the character and his rogues gallery. One of the reasons I love Batman so much as a character is because of how flexible the concept is. Many people have reinterpreted Batman, and many more will do so in the future, and each time, new things are revealed simply by virtue of a new voice being added to the mix. In a way, this version reminds me of what Marvel’s been doing with their ULTIMATES line. We’re watching the earliest days of Batman being Batman, so all of the villains who show up are making their first appearance in Gotham. The show deals with the uneasy relationship between Gordon and Batman, and that’s the best stuff in it. Certain villains, like The Joker, pale by comparison just because other versions have been so potent, but that’s no reason to dismiss the entire series. Even if you didn’t like the first season, any fan of the character should check the second season out to see one more interesting interpretation come into its own.

For me, the era where I read TEEN TITANS was the mid-80s, back when it was still new. Now it’s been through several incarnations, and I hardly recognize it. The premise is pretty simple: it’s a younger version of the type of superhero team show we’ve seen before. The highlight of this season’s episodes involve the character Terra, a significant player in the comics, too, and the season builds to a suitably shocking conclusion.

This is the oldest of the shows in this group, and it’s not really a full season four collection. 4Kids Video has been releasing single discs of TURTLES episodes for a while, and they’ve put out ten or so of the episodes from season four previously. This collects 14 episodes that have not been released before, but still manages to exclude one episode of the season. And now I’d like to just say episode a few more times. Episode, episode, episode. Personally, I never really got the turtle love, but like TRANSFORMERS, I accept that there’s a whole shitload of people younger than me who have a huge amount of affection for the series, and for their sake, it’s worth pointing out that the collection was finally released.

BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA

JAN SVANKMAJER: THE OSSUARY & OTHER TALES

JIRI BARTA: LABYRINTH OF DARKNESS

One of the greatest frustrations of being an animation fan is that I love the potential of the form, something which is rarely exploited fully. Instead, we get yet another comedy with songs and talking animals. I give credit when people at least try to expand the range of what we do with animation, and you can’t get more different examples than these three discs.

Love the use of the Siskel & Ebert quote on the cover of the disc. Seriously. I remember the Christmas when this came out. I was home from Los Angeles to visit my parents, and for the first time in a while, I was able to see many of my high school buddies. When I graduated high school, there was no Beavis & Butt-head yet, but as soon as it went on the air, it made me nostalgic for the days when I sat around with my friends, none of our skulls fully hardened yet, watching MTV and waxing moronic on various subjects. Turns out all of my high school friends had also fallen for B&B for similar reasons, and we decided to all go see the film together on opening night. That was the last time I’ve been together with that whole group, and it’s a bittersweet memory. Thankfully, Mike Judge managed to make a feature film that fully captured the particular sensibility that made the show so popular, and the film actually holds up quite well looking at it now. The DVD is well-mastered considering the source materials, and there’s a good behind-the-scenes piece that was obviously produced by the same people who have been handling the recent box sets of the TV series. Definitely worth checking out for fans.

Jan Svankmejer is one of the most unique voices in world animation, and I find myself unsettled and amazed by his work. If you want a thorough and beautifully-written overview of his work, check out this website run by Michael Brooke out of the UK. Great stuff. This disc is a collection of many of his early short films. It’s not the first Svankmejer collection, but it almost completes the release of his work on DVD. I think we’re only missing a few things at this point, unfortunately including 1971’s wonderful “Jabberwocky”. This collection includes “The Last Trick,” “Don Juan,” “The Garden,” “Manly Games,” “Darkness/Light/Darkness,” and, of course, “The Ossuary.” Svankmejer works primarily in stop-motion, and he makes films that feel more like dreams than like narratives. He’s not all surrealistic gloom, though. There are times where there’s a biting wit to his work, and he occasionally even reaches for something poignant.

Like Svankmejer, Jiri Barta is a Czech animator whose work is considered fairly significant by international animation fans. I wish I was more familiar with his work, and thanks to this disc, I finally will be. The main reason I’m picking this one up is to see “The Pied Piper Of Hamlin,” a one-hour film that has been called by many a classic. This appears here with seven other films, his entire filmography, so I guess I’ll go from novice to expert in one viewing, eh?

BLACK. WHITE.

I AM A SEX ADDICT

The lines between documentary and fiction have blurred so far at this point that it’s hard to know if there’s any firm division between the two anymore.

As labored as the premise of this show was, I think it managed to create some moments of genuine relevance, almost accidentally. Two families, one white and one black, agree to allow themselves to be transformed via make-up into the opposite race. Of course, part of what grinds me about the premise is that idea of “opposite” races. I think the things that divide us are cultural, not racial, but we seem to think the two things are interchangeable. What disturbs me about the show is the fact that I can’t trust it to be a “real” documentary. RJ Cutler’s involved as a producer, which should be a sign of credibility, but there’s a question (in my mind, at least) about the reality of one of the families. Bruno Marcotulli, Carmen Wurgel, and Rose Bloomfield are the white family, but both Rose and Bruno are professional actors, and they really don’t strike me as a family in the show. There are many times where it seems like they just barely tolerate each other. Little wonder. Bruno seems like a dickhead, Carmen is a hypersensitive moron, and Rose is way too smart for either of them. The Sparks family isn’t much better. Brian, the father, is so constantly trying to spot racism in the actions of others that he practically dares people to notice that he’s black. His son, Nick, is one of those guys who is so in love with the stereotype of gangsta life that he is doing everything he can to be that stereotype. And Renee, Brian’s wife, is rabidly anti-white to an off-putting degree. You really couldn’t write them all to be any more perfect for their roles, and that concerns me. I know that half of the process in any reality show is just casting the damn thing, but how manipulated can reality be before it’s no longer real?

Caveh Zahedi’s a comedy filmmaker based in San Francisco, but he’s not trying to make mainstream comedy. He’s more interested in the offbeat and the alternative. It’s hard to make yourself hip by sheer force of will, though. Personally, I think anyone who claims to be a sex addict is hoping to impress you with the admission more than they’re hoping to do anything about it. In this film, he examines why all of his relationships have fallen apart, casting himself in Eric Schaeffer mode as a guy able to score trim waaaaaay out of his weight class. It’s autobiographical, and he mixes home movies with recreations where actresses play the women he’s been with. At this point, even when someone says something is a documentary, fictional technique is used so often to fill in details that I think audiences don’t know if they can believe anything they watch. A film like this, the movie equivalent of the memoir trend that clogs up the discount tables at bookstores now, only confuses things further. Some reviewers thought Zahedi was very funny in the film, so I may well give it a look at some point, but I wish documentary and fiction would have a church and state thing imposed at some point.

THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU

There’s a friend of mine who I haven’t seen in a while, an artist, and he’s one of those guys who has always sort of happily existed on the fringe of things. A former Deadhead, he’s always said how much he loved living off the grid. We just spoke for the first time in a year or so, and it sounds like something’s finally changed his mind. That’ll happen when you don’t have health insurance and you end up sick. Even though I’m no Michael Moore fan, I am glad that he’s taking on the health care system with his next film. It’s rotten here in America. I’ve got pretty great insurance, and I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I’d been without it when my son was born or when I had some of the health issues I’ve had in the last five years. America doesn’t have an exclusive on shitty health care, though, and THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU is a fairly jet-black comedy that makes that point abundantly clear. It reminds me of Paddy Cheyefsky’s withering THE HOSPITAL, but this is all about one patient in particular as he takes a Dante-like spin through the seven circles of Hell when he gets sick and calls for an ambulance to take him to a hospital. He gets swallowed by the system, and even though writer/director Cristi Puiu is quite adept at staging comic set pieces with precision, some viewers will have a hard time laughing as the 60-year-old protagonist struggles to maintain any dignity in the face of an increasingly undignified evening. The disc from Tartan Films featuers a commentary by the director as well as an overview of the American health care system.

THE DICK CAVETT SHOW: HOLLYWOOD GREATS

These are great. The earlier editions of this series were subtitled COMIC LEGENDS and ROCK ICONS and featured interviews from his long-running show. This new release features some really special and unusual appearances by Fred Astaire, Katherine Hepburn, Groucho Marx, Debbie Reynolds, Alfred Hitchcock, Kirk Douglas, Bette Davis, Mel Brooks, Frank Capra, Orson Welles, Robert Mitchum, Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, John Huston, and the great Marlon Brando. What a line-up. If you’re not familiar with Cavett, he was a great interviewer because he put his subjects at ease and got them to engage in real conversation deeper than just plugging some new project. Each of these is a full-length 90 minute episode, and the whole collection of 12 takes up four full discs. Lots here to enjoy.

FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD

At the rate I’ve been buying and watching them, I’ll probably have a film noir shelf soon that will rival my horror shelf. And I couldn’t be happier about the way various companies have been scrambling to feed this particular niche market. In this case, it’s Kino Video who put this collection together. I’m not familiar with these titles (SUDDEN FEAR, THE LONG NIGHT, HANGMEN ALSO DIE, RAILROADED!, and BEHIND LOCKED DOORS), but I love the genre dearly and I’m looking forward to see what gems are included here when I pick this one up.

GOAL! THE EPIC JOURNEY TO GLORY BEGINS PART I: THE ORIGIN STARTS!

I am shocked, frankly, at how much I enjoyed this film. I remember when it came out... I don’t watch much Ebert and Roeper, but for some reason, I caught that particular episode, and they got into a fairly heated back and forth about the film. Roeper dismissed it completely, saying it’s just another sports film and we’ve seen it all a thousand times and there’s nothing new here. And Ebert defended it, saying that it definitely played to convention, but that it was good anyway. And their argument really points up, to me, one of the main differences in the way people watch movies. Some people watch only for content. They don’t really care how a film is made or even if it’s made well, as long as it says something they like or is about something they like. And some people believe that it’s how a film is made that determines its quality, even if it deals with the familiar. GOAL! is indeed “just another sports film,” and there’s very little about it that is surprising. But it’s really, really good at what it does. RUDY good. Kuno Becker’s part of the reason, and that’s good news for Disney, who has already produced GOAL! 2 and GOAL! 3 with Becker starring. And I have to admit, based on the evidence of this film, I’m curious to see how they’re going to make three movies with this lead. I’m hooked. I’ll see the other two because I’m curious. Michael Apted directed the third one, with footage shot during the recent World Cup. Part of the thrill of this first film is the sense of reality of it. Danny Cannon directs this film with an eye for the epic. It’s scope, and he mixes footage he shoots with footage of real matches in a way that’s incredibly effective at conveying the excitement of a match. It’s led me to break out my copy of FIFA 2002 WORLD CUP for the first time in a while. Cannon appears to have had full use of some pretty impressive locations, and he’s helped by cinematographer Michael Barrett St. James Park is presented as a cathedral for the church of Newcastle United. Alessandro Nivola, Anna Friel, and Stephen Dillane all do spirited work as the friends who help support Santiago (Becker) as he makes his bid to become a professional player for one of England’s most high-profile football clubs. Dick Clement and Isan Le Frenais are busy boys right now, having written both Julie Taymor’s Beatles musical, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, and also this fall’s Aardman production FLUSHED AWAY. My favorite thing they wrote was Alan Parker’s adaptation of THE COMMITMENTS, and I think they’ve crafted a suitably effective tearjerker-for-guys by trotting out every cliché with confidence and style. I can see why Roger Ebert embraced this film just as clearly as I can see why Roeper rejected it, but I’m absolutely on the “enjoyed it” side of things.

THE GREAT NEW WONDERFUL

Life in NYC in the shadow of 9/11. How do you make a movie that sums up what 9/11 did to people? I suspect it’s more like this than it is like WORLD TRADE CENTER. You talk about how people survived. You talk about how people live after something terrible happens. This is a large ensemble dramedy directed by Danny Leiner (HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE). And with a cast like Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jim Gaffigan, Tony Shaloub, Judy Greer, and Edie Falco, I know I’ll see some good work of some sort. I figure I’ll check this one out, fingers crossed.

THE GREAT YOKAI WAR

Parents, do not be fooled. This is not a live-action Miyazaki film. This is not a Japanese Harry Potter. THE GREAT YOKAI WAR is one strange hybrid of sensibilities, and Takashi Miike does not have a reputation as a master craftsman of family entertainment for good reason. Even working on something that was sold as a kid’s film, Miike loves to indulge his visual imagination’s most bizarre and off-putting corners. I liked YOKAI WAR, but I didn’t love it. I think Miike was trying to please a lot of people here, and he only ends up really having any fun in the film in fits and starts as a result. But when it’s on, it’s got a vibe all its own.

LOWER CITY

Alice Braga has a small part in CITY OF GOD, and she’s vaguely famous as the neice of Latin movie icon Sonia Braga. She’s the star here in a story of a woman who falls in love with two friends, convinced she can somehow have them both. Things do not, of course, go easy, and that friction is what makes LOWER CITY go. It’s sexually frank, and it’s all handled with surprising sophistication by director Sergio Machado. This is a really nice catch by Palm Pictures.

LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN

Part of the reason I haven’t seen this film yet is because of that oh-so-clever title. Maybe it works in the context of the film, but as a title by itself, it’s sort of annoying and precious. Paul McGuigan’s one of those guys right now, the up-and-coming English filmmakers who have one or two or three good films under their belts who haven’t quite connected with their big mainstream moment yet. LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN sounds like yet another YOJIMBO riff with a guy who ends up playing two warring crime families off each other when he becomes entangled with them thanks to him being confused with someone else. McGuigan’s got a fairly big cast here with Josh Hartnett starring as Slevin, and Stanley Tucci, Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, and Bruce Willis also showing up in key roles. There are two commentary tracks, a short making-of featurette, and a few deleted scenes on the disc as well.

THE MAID

MASTERS OF HORROR: DANCE OF THE DEAD

A couple of horror titles fill out this week’s release schedule, both from companies that are constantly feeding this niche market’s hunger for new movies.

Whenever I get an envelope in the mail from Tartan Films, it pleases me enormously because of how varied their release schedule is. I had included this one on the new release list a few weeks back, but it got bumped to last Tuesday. This is a solid little ghost story from Singapore, and even though I’m sure many people are tired of Asian horror at this point, I think there’s always room for a creepy ghost story, especially one that plays off a mythology that I wasn’t familiar with from China. Fun stuff, if familiar.

This is one of the “love-it-or-hate-it” episodes of MASTERS OF HORROR from season one, a very strange post-apocalyptic story directed by Tobe Hooper. For me, the real appeal of this episode was the chance to see a Richard Matheson story adapted for the screen by his son, Richard Christian Matheson. This was a first for the father/son scribes, and it’s a moderately successful collaboration. For some reason, Tobe Hooper seems to have switched bodies with Tony Scott for parts of this episode, his visual style playing into that lame visually jumpy style that Scott’s so enamored of these days. The story has to do with a girl who wants to get out from under the thumb of her mother, and when she does finally sneak out to a club, what she sees pulls the rug out from under her. Robert Englund shows up at the MC at that club, and he gives a vile, scummy performance here. Billy Corgan’s score is surprisingly bland and forgettable, but the episode’s got a few flourishes that keep this one from being a total misfire. Definitely a mixed bag as a film, but once again, Anchor Bay’s piled on the extras, as they have for every one of the MOH releases so far.

MOONLIGHTING: SEASON FOUR

By the time MOONLIGHTING reached its fourth season, it was already starting to become a victim of its success. Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis were huge stars and were constantly reported to be fighting. Shepherd’s pregnancy forced her to sit out many of this season’s episodes, and if that weren’t bad enough, there was a writer’s strike which cut the season short, so only 14 episodes were produced for the year. Even so, there were some real highlights during the year, and when it worked, MOONLIGHTING remained one of the most innovative and entertaining series on the air. Both Bert Viola (Curtis Armstrong) and Miss DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) ended up with a lot of screen time thanks to the demands of Shepherd’s schedule, and although fans at the time were annoyed, I think the emphasis on other characters actually helped the show. Lionsgate has been including commentaries with each of the seasons so far, and this one’s no different. They may have waited to release it, but they’ve done right by the show now that they’re finally making the effort.

TAPS: 25th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION

Y’know, I remember liking this movie when it came out in 1981. I was a kid at the time, and the whole thing was just unbearably cool. Kids at a military school taking it over and standing up to the whole Army for a cause. Oh, how emo. However, this was a pretty high profile film for Fox, and the script by Robert Mark Kamen (THE KARATE KID) was a smart, character-driven adaptation of a novel by Devery Freeman. And Fox handed the material to a quality filmmaker on the rise. Harold Becker really hit the ground running as a director, working with novelist Harold Wambaugh on two critically lauded minor commercial hits, THE ONION FIELD and the very funny THE BLACK MARBLE. It was obvious Becker had chops, and TAPS was a big giant mainstream movie star movie. In fact, it had two movie stars. Timothy Hutton was, at that point, pretty much the hottest of all the hot shit young actors in LA. He had just won the Academy Award for ORDINARY PEOPLE. It was a major selling point that this film paired him with a Genuine Goddamn Legend ™ in the form of George C. Scott. The icing on the cake is the rest of the cast. Hutton’s great and so is Scott, but then you’ve got Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, Giancarlo Esposito, and even SEX & THE CITY’S Evan Handler as cadets. ‘80s mainstay John P. Navin Jr. (“D’ya ever bop your bologna?”) was thirteen when he played a cadet in this film, and he looks like a baby. Omnipresent character actors like Earl Hindman and Wayne Tippit show up. And it’s like every single person is energized by this being a big deal movie, because everyone’s sort of acting their asses off. Tom Cruise is great, a rabid little freak, amped up and ready to kill, and he nails every one of his moments. Penn’s fine, but he’s got the most undercooked role in terms of what’s on the page. He’s a wet blanket for the whole film, the nag to try to stop Hutton’s character from making certain choices. What’s amazing is how Penn had become the more charismatic of the two when he reteamed with Hutton in THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN a few years later. And of course, Cruise makes the most of his last moments in the movie, where he gets to go right over the top, savoring every little bit of crazy that he’s given to play. The whole film comes down to one quiet conversation between Hutton and the great Ronny Cox (DELIVERANCE, ROBOCOP) that takes place at a fence. The whole scene is great, but in the final moments, as Hutton tries to absorb a piece of news that Cox gives him, he earns whatever paycheck they gave him. It’s obvious that his win for ORDINARY PEOPLE wasn’t some fluke. Hutton was a movie star for a reason. Gotta say... I’m glad Fox put this one out so that I rewatched it and remembered just how much I enjoy it.

TOO HOT NOT TO HANDLE

Maryann DeLeo (an Academy Award-winner for her film CHERNOBYL HEART) and Ellen Goosenberg Kent (director of MIDDLE SCHOOL CONFESSIONS, among others) team up here for a decent HBO production that covers some of the same ground as AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. This is a global warming piece, and it manages to hold the hyperbole to a minimum as it makes its points. It’s fairly straightforward stuff, hardly breaking any new ground stylistically. Still, there’s some strong material here, and it’s worth watching even if you don’t buy the conclusions the film draws from the evidence it presents.

THE WILD

WILDBOYZ: THE COMPLETE SEASONS 3 & 4 UNCENSORED

I put these two together because it gave me a cheap laugh. Period.

This is a fairly mediocre animated feature by any standard, but considering it’s an actual Walt Disney Feature Animation release, it’s kind of a kick in the nuts. It kills me, because the director is Steve “Spaz” Williams, an FX guy who was a pretty major force in the ‘90s, and now here he is, showing up for the first time in a while, and he does some very interesting visual work, very kinetic and dynamic, but it’s for this rotten generic talking animal bullshit. How sad is that? The best work he does is in the stuff involving the water buffalo, particularly William Shatner’s relationship with the koala bear played by Eddie Izzard. Just the fact that they’re playing a water buffalo and a koala bear sort of irritates me, though. At some point, we’re going to have to get over our infantilization of this incredible storytelling tool we’ve got now in CGI, and we’re going to have to embrace other types of stories. Until then, expect to see talented people languishing as they struggle to find something in this type of lame material that keeps them from quitting the business entirely. When your movie runs second-best to a cookie-cutter mediocrity like MADAGASCAR, it’s time to question why you bother.

I am certain that the various side projects of the members of JACKASS are contributing something quantifiable to pop culture. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, only time will tell. WILDBOYZ is the closest thing MTV shows to hardcore gay porn, with Chris Pontius and Steve-O celebrating their love for animals and one another to lead them around the world. How Steve Irwin died and these two retards are still alive is beyond me, but it’s hard to deny that the show is frequently funny and occasionally spectacular precisely because of how willing they are to put themselves in harm’s way. The DVD release should be called the “moderately uncensored version,” since it’s still sort of censored. I’m not sure I’d want to see this without some voice of reason in the mix somewhere, though, so maybe it’s a good thing.

Double-Dip Tip Of The Week

STAR WARS: The Special “These Are Not The Discs You’re Looking For” Editions

Okay, did George Lucas just recently discover Photoshop or something? When did he fall out of love with paintings and in love with crappy group cut-and-pastes? Aside from that, though, I’m not buying this, and frankly, I think anyone who does officially loses all rights to complain about anything Lucas does ever again. You’re giving him money for an obviously sub-standard product, something that isn’t even mastered to the bare minimum industry standards for DVD, and you’re telling him by doing so that you will buy ANYTHING he releases, no matter how little he gives a fuck what you actually want. Anamorphic widescreen, George. Seriously. Until then, no more money from me. If you want to save it for the inevitable HD DVD box set, fine. Knock yourself out. But I’m not going to pay to see your 3D theatrical versions. And I’m not buying any more STAR WARS product on DVD, either. Not until you give me something that lives up to the supposed meaning of that THX logo on the front of your DVD covers. Shame on you for intentionally releasing something like this. And shame on me for continuing to support your product when you do this again and again. There are times I wish I didn’t like STAR WARS, that it wasn’t hardwired into my DNA, that I really regret the time and the energy I’ve given to fandom. I get letters of real fan heartbreak from people who have just reached their breaking point over one thing or another. I wonder if it really matters to Lucas at all. If it were one person or ten people or a hundred people, that’s still nothing. But there’s such sadness and anger associated with STAR WARS fandom at this point that it’s really not fun for me to be around other STAR WARS “fans” anymore. Inevitably, it either turns to griping or arguing, and neither seems to me to be akin to the spirit of what first made me seek out other STAR WARS fans. The upside of nostalgia is that I’m sure these releases made Lucasfilm a ton of money, and I’m sure Fox is happy with their cut, and I’m sure many many fans now have these safely put away on the shelf. The downside of nostalgia is that a release like this didn’t make people happy across the board because of how complicated Lucas has made fandom in general. If you pick these up, be warned... this is the definition of half-assed.

And now, we’re going to jump right into the titles for this week. It’s the only way I’m ever going to finish a column this size on time, and I desperately wanted to have this up for you guys on Monday this week, like I’m supposed to. You can see how huge the article is, though, so I’m already a full day late. As with last week, I’m going to start the releases with...

This Week’s Featured Title (9/19)

THE DEVIL & DANIEL JOHNSTON

Sensitive and delicate. Two words that could describe this film by director Jeff Feuerzeig, but which also could describe Daniel Johnston himself. Johnston’s a cult figure in the indie rock world for good reason. He wrote and recorded these insane amazing one-man albums full of strange sad ethereal little pop song gems, and for a while in the early ‘90s, it seemed like he was going to break through and become something bigger, a real commercial success. But mental illness sidelined him, and he vanished. This film picks up with Daniel Johnston now, and it also leads us through the ups and downs of his creative and personal lives. Even if I didn’t like anything that Johnston ever recorded, I’d still be fascinated by this film. There’s a Brian Wilson quality to his work, and it’s so sweet and unguarded that I find the technical limitations of his recordings sort of charming. The film’s structured beautifully, but if you want to see one of the best moments, you’ll have to watch the special features, where Daniel is finally reunited with the woman who is the central muse for most of his work, this unrequited crush who spurred so much of Daniel’s oddly touching inner life.

10TH AND WOLF

I dunno... I’m not sure I need another version of the DONNIE BRASCO story, as the cover makes it sound like this is. The synopsis doesn’t really sound like the same story at all, though. Personally, I’m always up for a good crime film. But I’m not much of a fan of Bobby Moresco’s CRASH, so I’m just a little hesitant about this one. Can’t say I’m encouraged by it going direct to video, either. James Marsden, Giovanni Ribisi, Brad Renfro, and Piper Perabo star in the picture, which tells the story of a guy who comes home from a stay in the military, picking right up where he left off with the rest of his family, all career criminals. He’s actually working for the FBI, though, to break up the gang that his cousin is running. Val Kilmer and Dennis Hopper play key cameo roles, too. Look, we’ve all seen this sort of material a zillion times if you’re a fan of this genre. It takes someone with the right touch to make it feel fresh. I just saw THE DEPARTED earlier tonight, and it was a reminder of just how hard it can be to get it right, but just how special it can be when someone nails it. I’ll check this out at some point, and I’ll cross my fingers that Moresco brings something new to it.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: SEASON 2.5

It’s almost become a cliché to heap praise on this show, which has only managed two seasons so far, but I’m definitely in the camp of people who love what Ron Moore and his amazing writing staff have created. I think the end of season two, collected here in this box set, was risky television, and what really distinguishes this is that the science-fiction is beside the point. Yes... this is a SF show, but what makes it matter is the way the drama seems immediately recognizable, about the way we live now, relevant without being a simple regurgitation of headlines. The promise of storytelling like this is what made me love science-fiction in the first place. This is smart, adult stuff, packed with characters who are worth investing in. I have to admit... the way they wrapped up the season finale threw me, and I’m still not sure what I think of it as we gear up for the third season in a few weeks, but at least they’re pushing themselves and not content to just keep things moving along in a stagnant sort of status quo. As long as they’re willing to push themselves in producing this one, I’ll keep tuning in.

BOB NEWHART: THE BUTTON-DOWN CONCERT

THE BOB NEWHART SHOW: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON

Bob Newhart’s been a comedy god for longer than I’ve been alive, and here are two crystal-clear examples why.

I’ve read several major pieces about the comedy of the ‘60s that puts Bob Newhart in a sort of opposite position from the “sick” comedy of the day like Lenny Bruce. And I don’t think Lenny Bruce and Bob Newhart existed as opposites of each other. I think both men were part of the revolution of comics who realized that the stage they were on was a genuine artistic venue. Guys who took it to the next stage of what stand-up comedy could be. Guys like Woody Allen. Guys like Richard Pryor. Guys like George Carlin. These were the pioneers working at that moment, spurring each other on by virtue of how much they bent and stretched the form of stand-up. They were sort of daring each other, like painters who all end up part of some movement like expressionism. Newhart and Bruce weren’t opposites at all. They were both freed by the new comedy, and they both took that freedom wherever it led them. I wish this were a vintage performance, that there was a live record of Newhart in his era that was as good as, say, RICHARD PRYOR LIVE IN CONCERT. Guys didn’t always film themselves then, though, and Newhart’s material here is a mix of his classic routines and some new stuff circa 1995. Still, watching this master work is a treat, no matter what era, and I’m going to pick this up.

Simply put, one of the best seasons ever of one of the best sitcoms ever. Bob Newhart’s a psychiatrist. Everyone he knows is crazy. And every episode is a gem.

THE BORIS KARLOFF COLLECTION

CHUCKY: THE KILLER DVD COLLECTION

ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE

ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE

ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE

INNER SANCTUM MYSTERIES: THE COMPLETE MOVIE COLLECTION

Here’s a whole fistful of horror cheese, and it’s just about time for me to start stocking up for next month’s Horror-Thon here at the Labs.

The thing about the guys who worked it the early days of movies is that they each seem to have starred in nine thousand movies. There are always Boris Karloff films that they can dig up and bundle together and release, and it’s great that they have to dig deeper and deeper into the Universal vaults for this stuff. Here, you’ll get TOWER OF LONDON, THE BLACK CASTLE, THE STRANGE DOOR, NIGHT KEY, and in a bold move by the studio, they’ve included Karloff’s only porno film, THE CLIMAX. Okay, maybe it’s not a porno. But it really is called THE CLIMAX.

If anyone’s the auteur behind the CHILD’S PLAY series, it’s Don Mancini. He went from a shared screenplay credit on the first film to writing and directing the fifth film in the series. He’s been the sole writer on every one of the films since then. Pretty impressive. I think this is, frankly, a ridiculous franchise. BRIDE OF CHUCKY has a certain freakshow charm, and SEED OF CHUCKY gets points for being out of its fucking mind. But these films aren’t remotely scary at this point, and I don’t think they’re as funny as they think they are. At least Mancini seems to be completely aware of how preposterous it is that he’s made five films about killer dolls, and he took advantage of it creatively in a way that Charles Band never did with all those rotten puppet films he made.

Some people will buy these for the films. You certainly can’t go wrong adding a copy of WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON starring Dean Stockwell to any collection. But I suspect that as with MST3K, the reason to buy these discs is for the show around the movies. And I can think of at least two reasons for that. Ahem.

Like I said about Karloff, back in the day, movie stars worked, and Lon Chaney Jr. left behind an assload of movies. He starred in every one of these films adapted from the popular radio show, INNER SANCTUM. You’ll get CALLING DR. DEATH, DEAD MAN’S EYES, WEIRD WOMAN, PILLOW OF DEATH, STRANGE CONFESSION, and THE FROZEN GHOST in this “Complete Movie Collection.”

EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND: THE COMPLETE SEVENTH SEASON

MY NAME IS EARL: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON

It took balls to walk away from EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND for all involved, because this show could have run another six or seven seasons easily. This is one of those casts that just plain knew what they were doing, that played even even weak material with absolute professionalism. I sort of can’t stand this show at this point, though, because my wife discovered it via TiVo, and since it is repeated at least thirty-seven times a day, every single day, my Tivo is constantly clogged with this thing. I’m thrilled that HBO is finally close to having every season out on disc, though, because that means she’ll have them all at her disposal soon.

I’ve heard many people talk about how original MY NAME IS EARL is, and how it’s a radically different type of sitcom, but it’s pretty much just as much a slave to formula as EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND is. Jason Lee makes a likeable lead, and that’s 90% of the battle with any sitcom. The supporting cast is all pretty good, although I’m not sure I really dig the extra-broad tone that they all seem to adopt.

HARD CANDY

This is a really smart example of what you can do with no money and good performers. Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson basically spend the entire film sparring with one another, physically and emotionally. David Slade, currently gearing up to direct 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, does a great job of keeping this very feeling more intimate than claustrophobic or set-bound. If you’re a fan of those creepy DATELINE NBC “Bust The Pervert” specials, then you’re going to get a kick out of this one. I’ve been part of some theater festivals, and I’ve had to read submissions, and HARD CANDY reminds me of many of the things I would read. Not in a bad way, per se. It’s just that the best sort of one-act is a fencing match between characters in an emotionally tense situation, a pressure cooker that brings out the truth about each of them. That’s what this is. I don’t want to tell you much if you haven’t seen it, but let’s just say that both Page and Wilson get to play many different versions of their characters as they end up bouncing off each other, reacting, revealing more and more about themselves no matter how hard they try not to.

JIGOKU (Criterion)

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (Criterion)

This is one of Criterion’s more obscure release weeks. I admit... I don’t know either one of these titles, but because it’s Criterion, I’m intrigued.

I should know the work of Nobuo Nakagawa, who is considered a pioneering name in Japanese horror. But I don’t. So I look forward to seeing this film from 1960 about two high school friends, one of whom is pure evil. When they accidentally kill someone with their car, the choices they make lead to their lives taking some surreal left turns. That’s all I know, and all I want to know before I see it.

I’m completely unfamiliar with Spanish cinema of the ‘70s and with director Victor Erice. But I love the description of this film, about a young girl in a small Castillian village in 1940 who sees a film print of FRANKENSTEIN, and who beomes haunted by it. That sounds so great and beautiful and strange, and like it might make a powerful companion piece to Guillermo Del Toro’s brilliant PAN’S LABYRINTH.

LOVERBOY

Kevin Bacon directs his wife Kyra Sedgwick in this sad and complicated portrait of how suffocating love can be when a parent pours too much of themselves into their child. Matt Dillon, Blair Brown, Oliver Platt, Campbell Scott, Marisa Tomei, Sandra Bullock, and Bacon himself all appear, but this is Sedgwick’s show all the way.

THE PROPOSITION

I’ve heard enough about this Australian import directed by John Hillcoat to know that it’s probably right up my alley. I love Westerns, especially when they play rough, and it sounds like Hillcoat got the best out of Noah Taylor, Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, and the rest of the cast. Loyalty and family and self-preservation all come into play when the Burns Brothers Gang clashes with Capt. Stanley and his men. Two of the brothers are captured and given a chance to earn a pardon for their whole family. All they have to do is track down and kill their oldest brother. I love a set-up like that, and I’m dying to see this one.

STICK IT

Jessica Bendinger is the writer/director of this film, best known for her script for BRING IT ON. This one’s certainly a very similar type of story with very similar characters, but she has a good eye, and she manages to make this cliché-ridden story work. Like GOAL!, this one tells its familiar story as well as one could ask. Set in the world of gymnastics, with Olympic-level competition a constant carrot on the end of a stick used to keep all these girls in line. If I had a daughter who was ten or eleven years old, I’d probably make sure she saw this because all the girls are played as strong and smart and interesting, and these are not shitty hypersexual cartoons. They’re written as quirky and cranky and at least sort of vaguely real. I also really like Jeff Bridges in the film. It’s the sort of role (the hard-nosed coach with the heart of gold) that Bridges can shred without even trying, and he does indeed bring a weight to his role that it doesn’t deserve.

ZOO TV LIVE FROM SYDNEY

Not the best U2 performance to ever be released on DVD, but certainly one of the most spectacular. The ZOO TV tour was one of the craziest spectacles in the history of rock’n’roll. If you’re not a fan, this won’t convert you, but I remember when this one came out on laserdisc. It got a hell of a lot of playtime in the apartment I was sharing with a few other people, and I think it captures the circus that was the Zoo TV tour pretty well.

DOUBLE-DIP TIP OF THE WEEK

GREASE: ROCKIN’ RYDELL EDITION

It’s a lovely new bit of packaging. They’ve coughed up a few new extra features. Otherwise, there’s really nothing substantively new to say about the film itself. Either you’re familiar with the goofy bliss of GREASE, or you’re not. It’s a total gooey love-letter to a ‘50s that never existed, and John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are undeniably gorgeous, both of them throwing themselves sinto their roles with remarkable abandon. The songs are compulsively hummable, the widescreen photography is lush and cartoony, and the entire thing shimmers. And now it comes wrapped in a little fake leather jacket. BUY NOW! BUY NOW! BUY NOW!

And now I’m going to run catch a few hours sleep before I get back to it with a ton of stuff for you guys tomorrow, including three set visits, reviews of THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, JACKASS NUMBER TWO, INFAMOUS, THE DEPARTED, and much more. Until then...

"Moriarty" out.