Hey folks, Harry here with today’s DVD Picks and Peeks! That’s right, on time for once in a very long time. I hope you enjoy this final week of February 2009’s releases… it has some greats on here! As always the titles and box art is clickable to Amazon where you can find out more on the title and/or purchase the title in question, which throws a bit of the price back to support this column’s continued efforts. I hope you enjoy…
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
FUTURAMA: INTO THE WILD GREEN YONDER
The funniest and best of the direct to DVD features yet! Really funny and lots of fun. As great as the feature is – actually my favorite thing is seeing Matt Groenig in Zero G. It’s not the most amazing thing in the world… but… man. Matt Groenig in zero G! How cool is that? It just makes me smile so so much! The disc is filled with extras including an audio/video commentary, behind the scenes and much much more. Great stuff!
AKIRA (Blu-Ray)
FUCKING A! As in AKIRA in BLU-RAY! This is amazing. This is THE ANIME of ANIMES. And now we get to take it home with beautiful resolution, treated as it should… with the utmost reverence. But you don’t need me to tell you about the greatness of AKIRA – or how terrified I am at the concept of a live-action remake that gets all Caucasianed.
SEX DRIVE
I really enjoy this movie. It makes me laugh, and Clark Duke is charismatic as hell in this film. Now – I know what you want to know… How raunchy is the Unrated version? Well. It is a complete joke version of the movie. They shot naked dudes “Full Frontal” and naked ladies “Full Frontal” and have them walking randomly by in scenes via a green screen insertion and sometimes in alternate takes. Sometimes, there’s scenes where they blow a take and the camera swings over to show the crew cracking up. It’s like a really raunchy Warner Brothers cartoon parody of an Unrated edition. HOWEVER, the theatrical version is the better film. The Unrated one is the one to watch drunk with friends though.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION (Blu Ray)
Damn I love THE FRENCH CONNECTION! Directed by William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider! This is one of the greatest cop flicks of all time and just a brilliant film outside of the genre. For film geeks, this is a must own. If you’ve never seen it, do so immediately!
THE FRENCH CONNECTION 2 (Blu Ray)
Generally, the idea of sequels to Billy Friedkin films scare the shit out of me. Mainly because of just how much I hate EXORCIST 2. But John Frankenheimer did a damn fine job with FRENCH CONNECTION II. This film is insanely out of control in all the best ways. It’s all about catching FROG ONE, the amazing Fernando Rey – and the film goes in places that you just would not imagine. But it’s really wonderful and has never looked better than here!
IRONWEED
A great film. Love it. It was great to watch it again. Jack and Meryl are amazing together. And it has taken way way way too long for this movie to finally make it to DVD. However, FULLSCREEN? Excuse me? FULLSCREEN? It is 2009, why the fuck did you bozos bother putting this out in FULLSCREEN? Seriously? Folks, I hate to say this – but you really should avoid this release like the plague, we should not reward bullshit releases like this one, no matter how great the film is or the performances.
FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET
One of Dario Argento’s greatest films being treated exactly right and finally released on DVD. IRONWEED dvd makers – pay attention to this release. This is how you do it. You take a beloved title that has never seen the format. You digitally remaster, you release it with the original aspect ratio. This is a GREAT release. I’ve had the fortune of seeing this film a couple of times in 35mm – but it’s been impossible to share that love with new friends, till now. Now, lets get this out on Blu Ray to join this week’s BIRD WITH A CRYSTAL PLUMAGE!
VANISHING POINT (Blu Ray)
There’s a good amount of folks that hate specifically the second half of Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF. However, for a lot of us that love VANISHING POINT, the second half of that film is amongst the most fetishistically geeky films I’ve ever seen. And you may wonder. Why fetish worship an obscure film that relatively nobody has seen? WELL – CORRECT THAT MISTAKE RIGHT NOW! VANISHING POINT is a fevered amphetamine rush to the senses. Barry Newman is a guy taking a car from Denver to San Francisco in a record time. It is kinda like SMOKEY & THE BANDIT, but it came out first and is dead serious. He’s supported by Cleavon Little, who plays a politically active DJ that calls Kowalski the last free man on Earth. This film… along with DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY and TWO LANE BLACKTOP and DUEL are among the greatest pure chase films ever made. Fantastic film. Absolutely fantastic and looking stunning!
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
A remake of this low budget brutal early Wes Craven film is coming up soon – the remake is rumored to be quite good, but I doubt seriously it will pack the punch this film did. This is generally considered one of the great no-budget horror films and deservedly so. This is a very good release.
SAMURAI 7 – Blu Ray
This futuristic anime adaptation of SEVEN SAMURAI made for a great fun series – and now… it hits Blu Ray looking better than ever! You get commentary and exquisite image. I really like this series!
ZULU (Blu-ray)
What a week for vintage Blu-Ray releases! This will play on all regions. And is one of the GREAT period war films. This is a horrifying military situation. Think ALAMO odds, but much worse. The action, drama, character work are all absolutely in top form. A beautifully shot film. With a brilliant transfer of one of the great movies, this is another great release. As great as Michael Caine is in this film… watch Nigel Green as the Sgt. He’s fucking amazing! Just great!
THE FTA
A legendary, unseen Anti-Vietnam film that played for a single week before disappearing during my first year of life in 1972. Officially, I’d like to deny any responsibility for it disappearing. Want to see part of why Jane Fonda is so hated by the “Right”? Here the film is. Also starring is Donald Sutherland and a host of folk singers. The film is an amazing historical document of that movement. It also features a new interview with Jane Fonda. Over at Amazon they have this note by the licensor, David Zeiger which tells a very interesting tale. Here it is:
"Why did FTA disappear 37 years ago? To put it another way, why did a film featuring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland at the height of their careers, less than a year after their hugely popular film Klute (for which Jane won the Academy Award for Best Actress), suddenly get yanked from theaters after only one week?
The answer lies in the film itself, and the turmoil it revealed. 1972 was no ordinary year. It was the year of Watergate. It was the year of Nixon's horrific, relentless bombing campaign against the people of North Vietnam. And it was the year that the rebellion of soldiers and marines against the Vietnam War spread to the navy and air force. FTA is the film that reveals and revels in that rebellion in a way that no other film did then or had for 35 years, until I made Sir! No Sir!
Francine Parker, who directed FTA, swore to me a couple of years ago that Sam Arkoff, the enigmatic head of American International Pictures, which was distributing the film, told her he had received a threatening phone call from the White House-and that is why he pulled the film. Is the story true? There's no proof, but I can't think of another reasonable explanation for Sam Arkoff, a man who knew how to wring every penny out of a film, yanking one starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland from theaters at a big loss (and, apparently, destroying all of the prints, since none were ever found). And what happened after that certainly gives credence to the story.
With the yanking of FTA, the story of the GI Movement against the Vietnam War was also yanked from public view, and has since been deeply buried under a swath of myths and lies that poured out of a newly "patriotic" Hollywood in the late seventies and early eighties. Rambo was just the tip of the iceberg, as the memory of an illegal, immoral, and hideously deadly war was replaced by Ronald Reagan's declaration that "The antiwar movement betrayed our troops."
I brought back FTA because I want you to see and feel the truth. Sadly, Francine Parker died a year ago, before she could see her film finally get its due. But the film is here. Watch it, and let yourself feel the electricity of that time. More importantly, ask yourself what it is about "then" that feels like "now," that speaks directly to us today. When you listen to Donald Sutherland give his mesmerizing rendition of the soliloquy from Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, look around you and ask yourself if anything has really changed. And while you're doing that, enjoy the film. It's a lot of fun." --David Zeiger
This is a part of history!
THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (Blu Ray)
This is my second favorite Argento film behind DEEP RED – and wow does it pop on Blu Ray! Blue Underground has been doing a great job with its early releases and I can’t wait to see what they have for us next! But this release is beautiful. It’s Argento’s brilliant debut, with the great Alan Jones and Kim Newman getting the envious joy of providing a very geeky cool commentary. There are interviews with Dario, Vittorio Storaro, Ennio Morricone and Eva Renzi. Great release!
THE FOG (1979) Blu Ray
This film has my SMP* level. It preys on some personal fears that just scare the bejeesus out of me. It is brilliantly cast. Exquisitely directed. A brilliant display of classical elegant horror direction. Shit. All you need is John Houseman on a fucking beach telling kids a legend ghost story about that beach and you’ve got the log halfway out my ass. Essentially, it’s the BLACK PEARL ghost story – but these ghosts ain’t joking around. They’re out to gut everyone that was a part of the history of killing them – even if it’s a hundred years late. There’s something about that knock that is just evil. Something about the name, ANTONIO BAY that sends a chill down my spine. Something about Adrienne Barbeau… ok, it’s her tits and that throaty voice… that makes me care about her. Then there’s Hal Holbrook as that priest that discovers the shame of Antonio Bay. There’s the notion of having Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis in the same film. That Jamie Lee fucks Tom Adkins for giving her a ride! And BLESS HER FOR THAT! I love this film. LOVE IT. And it should be owned in it’s highest quality. And thank your stars that it has never been remade, cuz if such a travesty were to have ever happened. It’d probably be an offensively stupid load of shit not even worthy of memory. But thankfully nobody could be that stupid, thank God!
(*Shit My Pants)
THE BUCCANEER (1938)
Not the Charlton Heston remake, but the great Thirties original! Action packed and a fantastic pirate tale so much a part of our proud American History and Andrew Jackson! Great frontier and piratey action! Directed by DeMille and a great film! Check it out!
SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS
Sergio Martino’s SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS, don’t you just love that title? Well, don’t let it fool you. I got excited when the disc came. Love the box art, I hadn’t seen it – and as a fan of Sergio Martino I eagerly put it on only to be bored pretty quickly. Check it out only if you’re a Martino geek – and even then, you’ll be disappointed. Not amongst his finer works.
THE SEXPLORER (1975) aka THE GIRL FROM STARSHIP VENUS
One of the most beloved sexploitation films from QT FEST history! It has a brilliantly funky Title theme song that is crying for someone to do a brilliant cover of. And it’s just awesomely silly. Not so much a turn on, as hilarious. I haven’t seen the DVD yet, it claims to be unrated, which the version I saw – well, it was sexually tame, with lots of nudity – some very funny situations. However, I know there was a hardcore cut of this film, which I have not seen, which this could be… but again, I don’t know if that’s the case here. Personally, I’m hoping for the cut that Quentin showed, as it’s hilarious! The titillation was always secondary for us when this played. And you’ll score great geek points with Quentin if you can sing from memory part of this movie’s theme song. It’s a classic!
JAPAN NOIR ( 9 SOULS, BULLET BALLET, THE GUARD FROM UNDERGROUND )
This features 3 wonderful Japanese crime films in their own distinct flavor of Noir. My favorite of which is Shinya Tsukamoto’s BULLET BALLET from 1998. This is a great great sense of style, atmosphere and a forebodingly hip vibe. If you end up liking this film, seek out A SNAKE OF JUNE, which I saw at Sitges one year and have never been able to shake! 9 SOULS is a wonderful Japanese prison escape flick that is really really gorey and intense. Definitely worth a look see. The last film, THE GUARD FROM UNDERGROUND, is a story about a homicidal ex-Sumo wrestler become Security Guard. It’s the least of the 3, but very much an interesting flick in its own right.
THE SPY COLLECTION MEGASET (THE PRISONER / THE PERSUADERS/ THE PROTECTORS / THE CHAMPIONS )
A really cool sampler plate of opening episodes of 4 great series. The one that really grabbed my interest was THE CHAMPIONS, which I’d never seen any episodes of, but that Guillermo Del Toro is developing into a possible film franchise that he might produce, but that I doubt he’ll ever direct. It’s really cool. You don’t need me to tell you about THE PRISONER, but THE PERSAUDERS and THE PROTECTORS were also great great shows. This has 14 dvds and provides you with an amazing amount of material. I’ve just begun to get into the set, but it is a bit pricey. You may want to just try to rent it if you can!
Next week I’ll be taking a look at Baz’s AUSTRALIA, BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA, WONDER WOMAN animated film, WATCHMEN: Complete Motion Comic, ASHES OF TIME Blu Ray, TREASURES IV: American Avant-Garde Film, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Blu Ray, THE CLIFFORD BALL, LA VIE EN ROSE Blu Ray, ONCE Blu Ray, Scarlett Johansson Collection, JOHNNY HANDSOME, GONE THE WAY OF FLESH and that’s about it. Next week is a pretty light week. Glad to be back doing the column, I hope you enjoyed it!
