Hey folks, Harry here with this week’s DVD column. There’s some very great titles on this week’s list – take a look, I’m sure you’ll agree. As usual the pics and titles are linkable to Amazon where there’s more to learn, as well as the convenient opportunity to purchase said title, thus contributing to the continuing exploration that this column gives us all. Mainly, the insanity of my DVD watching. I must be setting some kind of record. Anyway, here ya go…
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Fritz Lang’s M (Criterion Blu)
Just a brilliant film. This film contains one of the finest character monologues ever in the history of cinema. Peter Lorre… there’s just no words for. If you ever just want to see the portrait of the most frightening loathsome and pitiable character… look not at LORD OF THE RINGS, but here in M. There’s a part of me that believe Tolkien saw M and the seed took root. Few films have ever been this good.
And because it is Criterion, you get these special features:
Restored high-definition digital transfer
Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Audio commentary by German film scholars Anton Kaes and Eric Rentschler
The long-lost English-language version of M
Documentary on the physical history of M
Conversation with Fritz Lang, a fifty-minute film by William Friedkin
Claude Chabrol's short film M le maudit and interview with Chabrol
Classroom audiotapes of editor Paul Falkenberg
Video interview with Harold Nebenzal, son of M producer
Stills gallery, with behind-the-scenes photos and production sketches
Plus : A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Stanley Kauffmann
1963 interview with director Fritz Lang
The script for a missing scene, and contemporaneous newspaper articles
No serious film geek will be without this film.
HANG EM HIGH (Blu Ray)
I love the casting for this film. This was Eastwood’s first big US Western after the Leone Trilogy – and Hollywood did it up. From Alan Hale Jr & Dennis Hopper to Bruce Dern and Ed Begley to L. Q. Jones and Ben Johnson to Commissioner Gordon himself… Pat Hingle! It is pretty much a straight up revenge story about a guy that gets pissed off for being hung. Imagine that. I’m sorry – the one thing I’ve learned from Westerns is that you can’t kill EASTWOOD enough. He’s the Western JASON VORHEES – a quasi-supernatural killing machine… that doesn’t seem to mind horny teenagers.
DARIA: The Complete Animated Series
I have had a very forceful introduction to Daria this past week. I completely was ignorant of DARIA. That happened in a period of time when I didn’t watch anything on MTV for years. This time still continues. But apparently I really missed out. So I’m told. You see. YOKO, was the exact right age for DARIA to be insanely influential – and I have to admit – it is damn funny… just a tad too fiercely cynical for me. Just a tad. This is the first time it has been made available – and the crowd goes wild.
LEGION
This isn’t a particularly great movie. In fact, there’s a whole lot of rot that this film puts on your brain, but brain rotting as it is. There’s a trash that makes me giggle and this is kinda it. This basic set up has been done so much better in so many other films… but I’m still a sucker for the basic ALAMO set up. And this is pretty badly done, but I still can’t entirely hate it. I think it is mainly due to Bettany’s abs gracing my elevator doors at San Diego Comic Con.
THE KARATE KID / THE KARATE KID, PART II Box Set (Blu Ray)
I really love this movie. The first KARATE KID – and I love it so much, that I have so much love that it spills over on top of KARATE KID II – which technically doesn’t deserve a whole lot of love, but yet, I kinda love it. Maybe it’s just that silly drum gag. Or the training montages. Or just friggin the sheer joy of watching Pat Morita work with Ralph Macchio, it just feels perfect. It feels… right. It feels like a perfect movie to hit a 12 year old me.
EDGE OF DARKNESS
I dig the hell out of this movie. There’s nothing I love more than a severely traumatized Mel Gibson, who has lost something that made his whole world sane – and with that gone… He’s gonna unhinge and Zombie his way to killing every body he can kill that was tied to any of this. I love those single-minded furious tough as a knife to the gut kinda film. It isn’t genius, it just does exactly what it needs to.
DAYBREAKERS
For all those people out there griping and bitching about the TWILIGHT series, where the fuck were y’all when DAYBREAKERS hit theaters? A film, in tone to match NEAR DARK – and it just seemed to pass most by. Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill are all in top form – and it is a joy to see them working with directors as awesomely creative as the Spierig Brothers. I’m dying to see what it is they come up with on their new chapter of the DARK CRYSTAL story. I’m quite eager.
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK (Blu Ray)
A wonderful cast, in a film that just never works for me. I find the art direction dismaying. The physical look of the film is boring. The script by the great Randall Wallace just feels flat for some reason. I just really don’t like this film. I might be old fashioned, but I grew up with James Whale’s 1939 telling – and DiCaprio ain’t no Louis Hayward. And nobody plays an older overweight Porthos like the Skipper’s dad, Alan Hale! Rewatching on Blu did nothing for me.
MAGNIFICENT SEVEN Collection (Blu Ray)
Here you get… THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, GUNS OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN RIDE!!! In Blu Ray? I would have been completely happy to just get THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, let’s face it – that’s the title that will sell. But I love that we’re getting the other 3 films in the series – also in High Def. I mean, they’re the titles that I’ve never seen a film print of. That having a pristine copy makes all the difference. I’m just real enthusiastic about this release. But then, I love older films coming out in the format.
THE EDGE (Blu Ray)
I hate this. Don’t get me wrong. I love THE EDGE. But watching this movie makes me sad. Sad, because Bart the Bear is no longer with us – and he was amazing in this film. He was sorely missed in Joe Johnston’s WOLFMAN earlier this year, also with Hopkins. That CG bear drove me nuts – and it made me wonder… Was BART the last acting bear in the world? What is the state of the Bear Acting Guild aka B.A.G.? Why didn’t they picket WOLFMAN? All kidding aside, THE EDGE is a wonderful film – and the Blu Ray really shines when BART is on screen, he’s a stunning effect all on his furry own!
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (Blu Ray)
When titles like this get a deluxe treatment, it shows me that everything can be right in the world. ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL is a cult classic – that if nothing else – it gives us the Ramones on 35mm Roger Corman Exploitive awesomeness! Beyond the RAMONES – you have Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, Clint Howard, Mary Woronov and P.J. Soles! The film is absurd fun . Here’s the extras you get:
New Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer (1.85:1)
* Special Introduction From Director Allan Arkush
* Audio Commentary With Director Allan Arkush, Producer Mike Finnell And Screenwriter Richard Whitley
* Audio Commentary With Roger Corman And Dey Young
* New Audio Commentary With Director Allan Arkush, P.J. Soles And Clint Howard
* Back To School: A Retrospective Including All-New Interviews With Allan Arkush, Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Dey Young And Marky Ramone
* Staying After Class: A New Interview With P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten And Dey Young
* Interview With Roger Corman Conducted By Leonard Maltin
* New Interview With Director Allan Arkush Including A Look At Rare, Behind-The-Scenes Stills From His Personal Collection
* Audio Outtakes From The Roxy
* Original Radio Ads And TV Spots
* Original Theatrical Trailer With Commentary By Eli Roth Courtesy Of Trailersfromhell.com
MARKED FOR DEATH (Blu Ray)
I am, by no means, the Seagal expert at AICN. Shit, Vern literally wrote the book on him. But in my personal opinion – for my money, this is the best Steven Seagal film ever. At the time this came out – I was a devout follower of Seagal. Seagal is no joke in this film. He’s no nonsense. Oh, he has his fair share of cuteness… but it is with a believable threshold. How does this stack up for you? I’m curious if we can get a consensus on this.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1 (Blu Ray)
I believe this is the same release that was in that big Mel Brooks Blu Ray set that came out last year, only now it comes in a practical Blu Ray case that doesn’t instantly fall apart like the expensive set. Sigh. That said, I love HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1 – and a great deal of that credit goes to my love of Albert Whitlock’s matte paintings, which as a boy growing up reading Starlog – I would read advance articles about Albert working on this – then in the HBO Behind the Scenes – they showed us Albert painting and having to hand animate the flag in the distance… so it would flutter to give a touch of life. It was magic. Glass and paint. Amazing.
HIGH ANXIETY (Blu Ray)
Brooks’ loving send up of the work of Alfred Hitchcock was my Rosetta Stone for first appreciating Hitchcock as a very young child. I found after I saw this film, I wanted to see everything that contributed to it. So, HIGH ANXIETY is the Marijuana to VERTIGO’s Opium. It was my gateway drug to Hitchcock and as a result I will always be appreciative. That said – these stand alone Hitchcock Blu Rays are running about a quarter of the cost of the entire set of Mel Brooks Blu Rays - which has 9 of his best works! Which basically means if you buy this this way, you’ll basically be paying twice as much as you would in the larger set. So you decide.
MALICE IN WONDERLAND
I haven’t seen this. I wanted to. I had the opportunity. But I accidentally left it at a friend’s place and have just not asked for it back. We were gonna watch it that night, but people got to playing Mario Party on Wii. But I’m quite curious about this title… any of you seen it?
TIDAL WAVE (Blu Ray)
I need to rewatch this. The first time I watched it – I put it in and just started it up on the default settings. Which was as a dubbed in English film. The English dub is just about the worst thing ever. No effort at all to get good voices or to synch anything. It was basically turning the film into a parody of itself. But about halfway through, the phone rang and while talking to my friend, I decided to see if there was an original language track and instantly the second half of the film became… GREAT. There’s an action sequence on a bridge that is very nearly brilliant. It is just a really scary situation – and I loved it! But I can’t say I entirely love the film, till I rewatch from the beginning. There’s a lot of character stuff given in the first half that just didn’t work at all watching it dubbed, but I’m sure it’ll work with the original language. The FX work alone is why to pick this up. Those Koreans are doing some damn fine work. You should seriously check this out!
That’s it for this week, next we’ll be diving in with INVICTUS, VALENTINE’S DAY, EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES, THE MESSENGER, THE SPY NEXT DOOR, THE NEW DAUGHTER, OUTLANDER (Blu), CARLITO’S WAY (Blu), AND THEN CAME LOLA, GREATEST AMERICAN HERO: THE COMPLETE SERIES, WALKABOUT (Criterion Blu), GAMERA: THE GIANT MONSTER, THE NAVY VS THE NIGHT MONSTERS, COMING TO AMERICA & TRADING PLACES (Blu), THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, The Complete DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH series, BLACK SHEEP / TOMMY BOY (Blu), Film Noir Collector’s Edition, TROPIC THUNDER / WE WERE SOLDIERS (Blu Set, I’m not kidding), THE MONSTER AND THE APE, WACKY TAXI/ SUPERAGRO, HARD RIDE TO HELL, LONELY WIVES / SORRY WRONG BEDROOM and more!!!
