Gary Dretzka « Movie City News
American Sophomore
Sundown
The release of American Sophomore into DVD has either been delayed for four years or seven, depending on who one asks about such things. When it was originally pitched to potential distributors, however, it was simply called “Sophomore.” By adding “American” to the title, we’re supposed to make the connection between it and American Pie. Both are about teenagers at their most uncouth, but the similarities pretty much end there. T. Lee Beideck’s film is split into several sections — First Day of School, Freshman Friday, Drink King, Last Day of School, among them — and each vignette focuses on different students, faculty and staff. (Once a year, a secret drinking contest is held after-hours among the faculty and staff members, including Patrick Warburton’s janitor and dad, with the winner being crowned the Drink King.) Then and now, the only prominent names among the cast members are Warburton (“The Rules of Engagement”) and Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction), who add whatever touches of class the comedy possesses. I’d like to think they conducted master classes with the young actor whenever time permitted during production. As you might imagine, American Sophomore focuses on the many indignities upperclassmen inflict on freshmen and teachers during the course of a year. You already know what most of them are … and may have experienced one or two. Just when you think Beideck’s film is going down in flames, he pulls out of the plunge by allowing the kids to learn from their mistakes and mature before our eyes. It’s a nice touch, especially because the freshmen and middle-school characters look their age, for once, and the teachers aren’t uniformly drawn as automatons or fascists. Apart from an inspirational quote, I’m not sure why the school is named after Helen Keller … there’s also a non-ironic quote from Abraham Lincoln. More surprising were the songs by Woody Guthrie, including his delightful “Riding in My Car.”
 
Adding “American” to the title of Sundown wouldn’t have made it a single iota more recommendable to fans of “spring break” or “coming of age” comedies. Neither does a thematic resemblance to Risky Business add much to the hapless story. What I did find interesting was the financial backing accorded the production by different entities in the Mexico tourism industry, specifically those promoting visits to Puerto Vallarta. They should demand their money back, as the Mexicans we meet in Sundown are, by and large, crooks, creeps, scam artists, pimps, prostitutes and cock fighters. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a cameo by drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Guadalajara-born writer/director/producer Fernando Lebrija (Amar a morir) contrives a scenario in which a pair of American high school seniors, Logan and Blake (Devon Werkheiser, Sean Marquette) embark on a spring trip to Puerto Vallarta, without the approval of their parents or much spending cash. Logan is carrying his grandfather’s Rolex watch, which he had picked up at the jeweler the morning of their departure and would lose within hours of their arrival … of course. Ostensibly, the reason they’ve chosen the scenic Pacific coast city is to hook up with their high school crushes. Instead, they’re swindled by everyone they meet, including a pint-sized travel guide and fixer, Chuy (Silverio Palacios), and a stripper, Gaby (Camilla Belle), in debt to a perverted pimp, Dorian (Jordi Molla). Naturally, after Gaby slips a “roofie” into Logan’s drink, she grabs the Rolex and turns it over to Dorian. He’ll return the watch to Logan, but for $5,000 he doesn’t have. This is how the cockfight – not graphic, but still unappetizing – figures into the story. With his parents (Teri Hatcher, John Michael Higgins) out of town on a vacation of their own, Logan is racing the clock to get back home with the watch. (Recalling the race against time in Risky Business.) The wet-and-wild spring break activities aren’t enough to balance the display of rampant criminality in Sundown, but PV still looks like a nice place to visit. The movie’s greatest asset is a soundtrack that includes the in-person electric-dance-music of Paul Oakenfold and Steve Aoki. For some reason, Lebrija also decided to add a cameo by “Girls Gone Wild” fugitive Joe Francis, who has a luxury resort nearby. The DVD adds making-of and other features.
 
Session 9: Blu-ray
When Session 9 was released in 2001, co-star David Caruso was still attempting to backpedal his way into the hearts of American TV and movie audiences, after famously predicting the demise of “NYPD Blue” when he pulled up his stakes and left the show 26 episodes into the show’s 12-year run. He refused to grasp the reality of his irrelevancy as a cast member in a true ensemble show or anticipate the ascendency of Dennis Franz’ Detective Andy Sipowicz. Brad Anderson’s haunted nuthouse thriller didn’t require of Caruso that he carry the weight of the movie on his shoulders, anyway. The real star was the recently shuttered Danvers State Mental Hospital, a monstrous facility custom-built to scare the crap out of anyone who passed through its gates. The other interesting thing Session 9 had going for it was Anderson’s decision to shoot the film on HD, one of the first high-profile features to do so. After 15 years of dormancy, a developer wants to convert the 126-year-old facility into condominiums … a scheme that could have served as the premise for another horror flick entirely. Pollution-control guidelines demanded the removal of hazardous materials before any construction could begin, forcing the developer to hire a Hazmat team to get rid of the asbestos. No sooner does the team arrive at the site than the workers begin swapping yarns about the former residents, medieval medical practices, reported hauntings and abuses attributed to the staff. Once inside the hospital, the leftover hardware and murky infrastructure provide all the necessary background for the paranoia being exhibited by the harried crew, which includes Peter Mullan, Paul Guilfoyle, Stephen Gevedon and Brendan Sexton III. The discovery of a lobotomy tool and tapes of therapy sessions provide more chills than almost anything else in Session 9. Special features include “Return to Danvers: The Secrets of Session 9,” featuring interviews with Anderson, actor/co-writer Stephen Gevedon, actors Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III, Larry Fessenden, composers Climax Golden Twins, and director of photography Uta Briesewitz; “Horror’s Hallowed Grounds,” revisiting the locations of the film; commentary with Anderson and Gevedon; deleted scenes and an alternate ending, with commentary by Anderson; and featurettes “Story to Screen” and “The Haunted Palace.”
 
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: Collector’s Edition: Blu-ray
A natural corollary of a work of art being ahead of its time – in this case, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension — is that it was too hip for the room. Released in 1984 to some critical acclaim, but almost no business, it still defies easy summarization. A rock-’n’-roll sci-fi comedy, “Buckaroo Banzi” tells the story of the space-age renaissance man, Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), who’s a physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, race driver, musician and potential savior of humanity from a band of inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids. Led by the deranged dictator Lord John Whorfin (John Lithgow), the Lectroids steal the Oscillation Overthruster — a device that allows Banzai to travel through solid matter — with the intent of using it to return to their home of Planet 10. Banzai’s Hong Kong Cavaliers, who bear some similarity to Doc Savage’s Fabulous Five, reside at the Banzai Institute, a think-tank located in Holland Township, New Jersey. They are also Buckaroo’s rock band. There are several more heroes and villains included in the narrative, but why add incomprehensibility to confusion? It must have made sense in the cocaine-fueled 1980s, but, without the benefit of a graphic novel or superhero series to support it, the story became an unholy mess. Or, to be more precise, a potential cult favorite. By the time, “Buckaroo Banzai” evolved from concept to reality, first-time director W.D. Richter had written Slither, Peeper, Nickelodeon, Dracula, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Brubaker and All Night Long. Writer Earl Mac Rauch wrote New York, New York and A Stranger Is Watching. With that much talent on board, it’s almost inconceivable that such a flimsy plot could be attached to such an intriguing looking production. The cast also includes an all-star lineup of character actors: Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd, Clancy Brown, Dan Hedaya, Yakov Smirnoff, Jonathan Banks, Carl Lumbly, Lewis Smith, Pepe Serna, Matt Clark, Vincent Schiavelli and Billy Vera (of the Beaters). Special features include “Into the 8th Dimension: A Two-Hour Retrospective Documentary,” including fresh interviews with cast and crew, many of whom still can’t say with any accuracy what it’s about; commentaries with Michael and Denise Okuda, and Richter and Rauch; a “declassified” featurette; alternate opening sequence (with Jamie Lee Curtis); deleted scenes; and “Jet Car” trailer.
 
Microwave Massacre: Blu-ray
In one of the truly incongruous castings of all time, the famously deadpan comedian Jackie Vernon was chosen – after Rodney Dangerfield passed on the opportunity – to play the protagonist in Microwave Massacre, widely acknowledged as one of the worst horror movies of all time. Vernon’s presence, as a cannibalistic widower, normally wouldn’t be sufficient reason for Arrow Video to bestow a full 2K restoration on what, in 1983, was one of the original straight-to-video miscues. But, in addition to the many fine blaxploitation, sexploitation, giallo, yakuza, German new wave and other classic exploitation films it’s released, Arrow’s also found room for such indigestible fare as Brian Yuzna’s Society, John Grissmer’s Blood Rage and Buddy Cooper’s The Mutilator. And, thanks to TLC and fresh featurettes, the Blu-ray packages aren’t cheap, either. Here, Vernon, the same guy who provided the voice for the animated holiday special, “Frosty the Snowman,” plays a construction worker so tired of his wife’s complaining and gourmet-food experiments that he bludgeons her with a pepper grinder. Still hungry, Donald dismembers the body and sets about microwaving the remains, which turn out to be rather delicious. For variety, Donald will bring home the occasional stripper and once again perform the gastronomical exercise. Microwave Massacre is so ineptly made that the do-it-yourself horror would hardly frighten a flea. If Vernon isn’t much of an actor, at least he’s come up with any number of witty asides that add a spark of originality and humor to the proceedings. The Blu-ray adds audio commentary with writer-producer Craig Muckler, moderated by Mike Tristano; a new making-of featurette, including interviews with Muckler, director Wayne Berwick and actor Loren Schein; a reversible sleeve, featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be; and fully-illustrated collector’s booklet, with new writing on the film by “Nightmare USA” author Stephen Thrower.
 
Spike: I Am JFK Jr.
Nickelodeon: Shimmer and Shine: Welcome to Zahramay Falls
PBS Kids: Wild Kratts: Wild Reptiles
When, on July 16, 1999, a small plane carrying John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her older sister, Lauren, crashed into the ocean off Martha’s Vineyard, it triggered a tsunami of mourning only slightly less devastating than the one that followed the recent death of Princess Diana. That one, of course, was sustained by conspiracy theories and the assumed complicity of paparazzi on motorbikes and a, perhaps, drunken chauffeur. While speculation that the 38-year-old Kennedy had pressed his beginner’s luck by attempting a nighttime landing seemed reasonable, the American media chose to treat this and every other family misstep as the extension of a curse or, worse, payback for his grandfather’s devil’s bargain with the Mafia. By all indications, young Kennedy was a decent fellow who avoided the spotlight, but wasn’t reluctant to back causes he considered righteous and stand up for friends. Moreover, he was undeniably handsome and sufficiently buff, even, to be considered a prize catch for Elaine Benes, on “Seinfeld.” (She blew it, of course.) Shown on Spike-TV as part of its “I Am …” series of bio-docs, “I Am JFK Jr.: A Tribute to a Good Man” is a celebrity-driven homage, filled with interviews with such friends, acquaintances and observers as Robert De Niro, Cindy Crawford, Mike Tyson, Christiane Amanpour, Chris Cuomo, Paul Begala, Grateful Dead songwriter John Perry Barlow, New York restaurateur Richie Notar, professional colleagues Rose Marie Terenzio, Gary Ginsberg and Matt Berman, fellow First Son Michael Reagan and media gadflies Ann Coulter and Larry Flynt. The 93-minute film is grounded with personal photos from John’s closest friends and vintage newsreel footage of young John in the White House, on vacation with his family and rare footage of him in the years after his famous father’s assassination. Entertaining, informative and occasionally insightful, without also being academic or comprehensive, it’s from the same director, Derik Murray, who’s already done “I Am Chris Farley,” “I Am Evel Knievel,” “I Am Bruce Lee” and “Johnny Cash: American Rebel.”
 
From Nickelodeon’s lineup for kids arrives “Shimmer and Shine: Welcome to Zahramay Falls,” a compilation of previously aired episodes. The show focuses on a young girl, Leah, and her friends — twin genies in training — Shimmer and Shine. They grant Leah three wishes every day, but they don’t often work out as planned. In the double-episode, “First Wish,” Leah wins a genie bottle pendant at a carnival and is surprised to find that her prize comes with a bonus, in the form of Shimmer and Shine. Leah wishes for a polka-dotted elephant and things get complicated when she uses her remaining wishes to keep her neighbor, Zac, from seeing the elephant. In the end, the girls create a new carnival attraction and learn that they can overcome any obstacle by working together. In the title segment, Shimmer and Shine receive a special Green Burst Gem from Princess Samira and bring it into the human world. The evil sorceress Zeta uses magic to steal the gem, but her spell goes awry and pulls Leah and Zac into Zahramay Falls. In “Happy Wishaversary,” it’s time for Shimmer, Shine and Leah to celebrate the anniversary of their first wish. The twins make Leah a bracelet with a magical touch. When Leah puts the bracelet on, she can float like a genie, but only until she loses control of the prize.
 
PBS Kids’ “Wild Kratts” is an American-Canadian educational animated series created by Chris and Martin Kratt. The show’s aim is to educate children about biology, zoology and ecology, while teaching small ways to make big impacts. The episodes collected here are “Wild Reptiles,” “The Gecko Effect,” “Crocogator Contest,” “Rattlesnake Crystal” and “Chameleon on Target.”
 
PBS: The Tunnel: The Complete First Season: Blu-ray
AMC: Halt and Catch Fire: The Complete Second Season
PBS: Frontline: The Secret History of ISIS
PBS: 9 Months That Made You
Originally a co-production of Sweden’s Sveriges Television and Denmark’s Danmarks Radio, the 10-part mini-series, “The Bridge,” has directly spawned original series set on the Bridge of the Americas, separating El Paso and Juarez, and the Chunnel connecting England/France. It has aired in more than 100 countries since its debut in 2011. In the first episodes of each series, the bisected body of a prominent politician is found straddling the border of the respective countries. The bodies have been surgically severed – the bottom halves of the first victims belong to prostitutes — as if to require police on both sides of the border to combine their resources to solve the crime. The Scandinavian “Bridge” and “The Tunnel” bear the closest resemblance to each other, in that a Truth Terrorist claims to be committing his crimes in order to draw attention to various social problems. Further crimes are telegraphed ahead of time by the TT, who touches all of the right buttons of his pursuers. In all three series, the female cops display such symptoms of Asperger syndrome as poor social skills, difficulty empathizing with others and an inability to channel her emotions. They’re forcibly partnered with male cops from across the border whose loosey-goosey approach to crime solving contrasts with the women’s strictly by-the-book principles. “The Tunnel,” which aired here on PBS affiliates, stars Stephen Dillane (“Game of Thrones”) and Clémence Poésy (“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”) as British and French police detectives Karl Roebuck and Elise Wassermann. Her laissez-faire attitude toward sex stands in direct counterpoint to his unnecessarily messy marriage and relationship with his 18-year-old son. The top half of the first victim belongs to the French minister with strong opinions on immigration, trade and European unity. The primary difference between “The Tunnel” and “The Bridge” is the screenwriters’ willingness to dig deeper into Karl and TT’s backgrounds in covert intelligence. It took me less than a day to binge on the whole series, which was accorded extraordinary access to the Chunnel and its infrastructure. The Blu-ray adds commentary and making-of material.
 
In the 1980s, when “Halt and Catch Fire” is set, the role of women in the personal-computer industry was said to be relegated to asking the male geeks if they wanted fries with their hamburgers at McDonald’s. The more strong-willed the woman, the more marginalized they were. And, the same can be said for the female protagonists in Season One. Where characters played by Lee Pace and Scoot McNairy dominated the storylines in the first go-round, their better halves, Mackenzie Davis and Kerry Bishé, found their footing in the second, with Aleksa Palladino coming on board to add a California element to the Silicon Prairie crew. Season Two, which takes place in early 1985, chronicles the rise of Mutiny, Cameron and Donna’s start-up company, which is built upon the most disruptive idea of the modern era the Internet, a customer’s willingness to pay for the privilege of chatting and playing games over land-line telephone connections. They’re also asked to pull the trigger on deals that could benefit one, all or none of the company’s employees. Joe Macmilian gets married, without dealing first with his feelings toward Cameron; Gordon tries to hide his illness from everyone; and newcomer John Bosworth almost gets caught in the crossfire. Special features include “Inside Episodes 201-210,” “History of Now,” “Joe’s Strategic Benchmarks,” “Tour of an ’80s Startup” and “Set Tour With Lee Pace And Scoot McNairy.” Season Three begins in two weeks.
For all of the money spent on gathering intelligence to win the war on terrorism, it’s fair for taxpayers to ask how it came to be that an entire army of terrorists could hide from view as it accumulated enough trucks, tanks, all-terrain vehicles and mobile missile launchers to capture half of Iraq, practically overnight. The “Frontline” episode, “The Secret History of ISIS” examines how the leaders of the Al Qaeda spinoff organization grew from practically nothing after the invasion of Iraq to a force that’s struck fear in the hearts of political leaders and civilians around the world. Not only does it once again trash the Bush administration’s half-baked strategy for the democratization of Iraq, but it also questions President Obama’s waffling on the civil war in Syria. It’s a tough hour to watch, especially knowing that our vaunted intelligence agencies missed all of the signs of a caliphate suddenly emerging in the middle of nowhere.
 
In 180 minutes, PBS’ absolutely fascinating “9 Months That Made You” chronicles the story of how we all were made, from conception to the moment of birth, 280 days later. This breakthrough series follows the gestation process, using state-of-the-art CGI to reveal the most exquisite biological choreography found in nature. Across three episodes, the show charts how 100 trillion (with a “t”) cells come together to make each of us a unique individual. The producers also travel outside the womb to show the consequences of minute abnormalities that are both predictable and completely unexpected. The miracle of birth isn’t made any less miraculous in “9 Months That Made You,” just easier to understand and appreciate.
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Guernica
Chosen
I think it’s safe to say that the destruction of the Basque village of Guernica, in 1937, by German and Italian bombers in support of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, is familiar to Americans, if it all, it’s via Pablo Picasso’s painting, “Guernica.” Before the mural-sized oil painting was returned to newly democratic Spain in 1981, it was held for safe keeping at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Ironically, it continued to be a symbol for peace, even as the U.S. relentlessly bombed North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. What made Guernica different than other towns and villages destroyed in 20th Century conflicts was the unnecessarily savage attack on the town by the Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria. Although control of Guernica would put Franco at distinct strategic advantage in the Basque region, the town itself had virtually no air defenses and the Republicans were known to be in retreat. Koldo Serra’s drama, Guernica, lays the blame for the magnitude of the death and destruction less at Franco’s feet than those of Oberstleutnant Wolfram von Richthofen and his boss in Berlin, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who saw the attack as a test of Adolph Hitler’s offensive strategy to become known as blitzkrieg. Included in the attacks were tests of newly designed incendiary bombs that would be almost impossible to extinguish. Hundreds of innocent lives were snuffed out in minutes, while three-quarters of the structures were levelled. Serra’s depiction of the short, but devastating attack is nothing less than unnerving, as intended, and no words could do justice to it. It became incumbent on writers José Alba, Carlos Clavijo Cobos and Barney Cohen to come up with something to fill the other 80-some minutes. They decided to hook their story on a jaded American newspaper man, Henry Howell (James D’Arcy) – standing in for the real-life Times’ reporter George Lowther Steer – an idealistic, Capa-inspired photographer (Ingrid García Jonsson), and a love interest provided by a local press-office censor, Teresa (María Valverde). She introduces us to the other key storyline, involving the Soviet functionaries and spies whose job it was to prevent the truth about the war and Republican losses from reaching readers in the U.S. and rest of Europe. The Soviets are made to look every bit as evil as the Germans, minus the extreme firepower, and probably were. (In fact, Stalin provided arms to the Republicans in return for the right to deplete Spain’s treasury of gold, some dating back to the colonization of Mexico.) The DVD release has a handful of deleted and extended scenes.
 
In his long-awaited sophomore feature, Bosnian/British filmmaker Jasmin Dizdar (Beautiful People) chose to take on one of those based-on-a-true-story tales that leave you wondering how much of the movie was “based” on the actual event and how much is “true.” In war stories especially, I think that I’d prefer the disclaimer, “40 percent of what you’re about to see is based on a true story,” or, even, “The vast majority of what you’re about to see is based on a true story, so don’t blame the screenwriter if you’re bored.” Because most movies inspired by war stories feature feats of superhuman strength or unconscious bravery, I’d like to know just how much of my disbelief I’ll be required to suspend. That’s just me, though. Chosen opens with Pappy (Harvey Keital) being asked by his grandson, Max (Julian Shatkin), to recall a true hero from his life, for a 1,000-word essay he’s been assigned. Pappy, like so many other veterans of World War II, is reluctant to turn his back pages to the only chapter in his life story where true heroism might have come to the fore. Finally, he comes up with Sonson (Luke Mably), a Hungarian Jewish lawyer, who, in 1943, was enlisted by the fascist state police to break boulders into stones. It’s mindless work, but it beats being forced into a boxcar headed for Auschwitz, which is what would happen to the country’s Jews a year later, when the Nazis decided the Hungarian government was being soft on non-Aryans. After the German occupation, Sonson’s wife (Diana Cavallioti) dies because Jews are not allowed medicine, while her sister, Judith (Ana Ularu), is targeted for relocation to a death camp. Finally pushed to the breaking point, Sonson pledges his resources to tracking down the train in Poland and rescuing Judith, who’s already broken free from captivity and working with the resistance movement. Nonetheless Sonson is determined to find the only connection to his dead wife. How he’s going to accomplish this miraculous feat is very much open to question, as is the fate of Max’s homework assignment. It takes a while for Chosen to get going, but, when it does, the action scenes are pretty good. And, while it’s always nice to see Keitel, he quickly relinquishes the spotlight to Mably.
 
Traded: Blu-ray
If I’m reading his resume right, Timothy Woodward Jr. has directed 11 movies in the last three-plus years; produced 20 features and TV shows since 2005; and acted in 18 projects during roughly the same period. I don’t know about the TV shows, but none of the movies appear to have gone anywhere other than straight-to-DVD/Blu-ray/VOD. That might sound like a knock, but it isn’t. Because Woodward’s been able to get such well-traveled talents as Tom Sizemore, Johnny Messner, Mickey Rourke, Mischa Barton, Estella Warren, Vinnie Jones, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Vivica A. Fox, Danny Glover and Verne Troyer to lend their names to his dust jackets, they sell. The names supporting Woodward’s latest project, Traded, include Kris Kristofferson Trace Adkins, Natalia Cigliuti and Michael Paré. Based on screenplay by Mark Esslinger (Delivery), the traditional Western is set in 1880s Kansas, way out on the plains. Gunslinger-turned-rancher Clay Travis (Pare) is about to get some bad news handed to him in the form of a rattlesnake lying in wait for his young son. The boy was retrieving some canned goods for his mom and wasn’t doing anything wrong. In the Old West, shit happens … all the time. No sooner does the mourning period pass than his teenage daughter, Lily (Brittany Williams), decides to run away from home, hoping to secure a job in Wichita as a Harvey Girl waitress. Travis wanted her to stand home, in the middle of nowhere, where he can protect her. He decides to track her down, but is always one or two train stops late. Lily’s plans to serve pancakes to train passengers are aborted when she’s kidnaped by tobacco-chewing pimps and turned out at one of two competing brothels in a one-horse town. As these things go, it’s never made absolutely clear whether or not Lily’s actually has lost her virginity to a cowhand before her dad rescues her – it’s inevitable, right – but it’s close. Western aficionados should admire the body count, even if the rest of the story is pretty slow and predictable. Kristofferson, who looks as if he’s been riding the range for the last 200 years, actually is given a bit more to do here than has been expected of him in recent outings.
 
Manhattan Night: Blu-ray
The American Side
When you’re looking for crazy, who ya gonna call? Nicolas Cage, who else? In The Trust, he plays a Las Vegas cop, Stone, in charge of collecting evidence from crime scenes. After a fairly routine drug bust, Stone notices that the perp was freed from jail on a cash payment of $800,000. Because something doesn’t seem kosher, he asks a much younger cop, Waters (Elijah Wood) – who, apparently, has nothing better to do – to tail the guy and see what’s up. If Cage and Wood don’t ring the same bells as Starsky and Hutch or Crockett and Tubbs, it’s close enough for DirecTV original (with a limited release a few weeks later). Turns out, the path leads to a two-story laundry that doesn’t waste much time, water or suds on linen products from the nearby casinos. There’s a small, but powerful armory hidden within the walls of apartment upstairs and a seemingly impenetrable safe downstairs that’s big enough to double as a garage. You know that Stone’s going to find a way to get inside that vault, even if he has to chew his way through the reinforce concrete, and Waters is going to sweat every detail. This being the first film by the directing team Alex and Ben Brewer, it comes as a surprise that the heist plays out as well as it does and their stars make such a good team. Neither are the Vegas locations from the usual playbook. As rainy-night entertainment, action fans could do a lot worse than The Trust. Oh, yeah, Las Vegas resident Jerry Lewis appears briefly in a couple of scenes as Stone’s ex-cop father. The Blu-ray package includes the featurettes “The Dynamics of a Duo: Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood” and “The Visuals of Vegas,” as well as commentary with the Brewers.
 
Manhattan Night (a.k.a., “Manhattan Nocturne”) is another crime thriller that didn’t go anywhere very fast in a brief and very limited release, despite the presence of Academy Award-winner Adrien Brody and a solid book tie-in. Based on a best-seller by Colin Harrison, the noir mystery suffers from a bit too much tinkering by first-time director Brian DeCubellis, whose love for New York gets in the way of decent story. Brody plays a crusading columnist for a tabloid newspaper, who’s blessed with a beautiful wife (Jennifer Beals), a nice family and a hideaway pad no mere investigative journalist could afford in a million years. The reporter, Porter Wren, must have a low tolerance for blonds, as he becomes an easy mark for an especially beautiful widow at a party in a posh apartment. When Caroline (Yvonne Strahovski) asks him to solve the bizarre death of her beyond-crazy filmmaker husband (Campbell Scott), they practically set a land-speed record to make it to her house for a quickie. No sooner than viewers can say, “What an asshole,” Wren is summoned to the offices of a filthy-rich business mogul, who blackmails him to agree to an investigation that parallels the one he’s already doing for Caroline. Just when things appear to be getting interesting, DeCubellis’ screenplay begins to go sideways. That’s primarily because the hush-hush material Wren discovers is laughably lame. That said, Manhattan Night is stylish enough to make a decent rainy-night double-feature with The Trust. Special features include commentary with DeCubellis, Scott and cinematographer David Tumblety; interviews; a making-of featurette; deleted/extended scenes; a director’s notebook; and storyboards.
 
And, while we’re on the subject of film noir conventions and rainy-day fare, there’s Jenna Ricker’s exceedingly retro The American Side, a movie so true to form it easily could have been turned into a parody in a pinch. Co-author Greg Stuhr stars as hard-boiled private detective Charlie Paczynski, a graduate of the Mickey Spillane school of criminal investigations. Talk about throwbacks, Paczynski is the only P.I. extant who conducts all of his business on a payphone. So far, so routine. What makes The American Side so appealing are its old-school Niagara Falls and Buffalo settings and a bizarre plot that involves inventor Nicola Tesla. The last time Tesla figured in a feature film, it was Christopher Nolan’s underappreciated The Prestige. It seems as if one of Tesla’s diagrams was stolen from his home after he died, but before government agents broke in to confiscate his “discredited” theories. To add a bit more authenticity, Ricker brought in veteran hard guys Joe Grifasi, Robert Forster, Robert Vaughn and Harris Yulin, to work alongside less-grizzled actors Alicja Bachleda (Ondine), Matthew Broderick, Camilla Belle, Janeane Garofalo and Grant Shaud. There’s even a barrel that goes over the falls.
 
Louder Than Bombs
Almost all 109 minutes of Danish filmmaker Joachim Trier’s English-language follow-up to Oslo, August 31st and Reprise can be summed up in the lyrics of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Motherless Children”: “And Father will do the best he can, when Mother is dead, Lord/Well, the best he can, when Mother is dead/Father will do the best he can/So many things a father can’t understand/Nobody treats you like Mother will …” In Louder Than Bombs, Mother is a prize-winning photojournalist, credibly played by the great French actress Isabelle Huppert. Gabrielle Byrne is the Father, Gene, Isabelle left in charge of two teenage boys, when her car rammed into the grill of a semi. The motherless children that Gene can’t understand are Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and Conrad (Devin Druid). That brief plot outline may not tell the whole story, but how many great blues songs – most not much longer than two minutes – have laid the foundation for exponentially more complex movies? Like Juliette Binoche’s Rebecca in Erik Poppe’s 1,000 Times Good Night, Isabelle is hooked on the rush that comes from documenting important stories through the lens of a camera. When they return home to their families between assignment, the women can’t help but wish they were somewhere else, dodging bullets in war zones and visiting refugee camps. Rebecca’s husband is having some of the same problems raising daughters as Gene is experiencing with his boys. Where Rebecca barely escapes death in a pair of terrorist attacks, however, Gene is left grieving his wife’s stateside death that may have been self-inflicted.
 
Two years later, Jonah is an accomplished educator and first-time father, suffering from post-partem depression. Gene’s far more concerned with Conrad, a dour young man who’s never been told the truth about Isabelle’s last days on Earth. If there was ever a teenager likely to voted “most likely to bring an automatic weapon to school,” it’s Conrad. Gene tries hard to keep things together at home and begin a meaningful relationship with a fellow teacher (Amy Ryan), but he comes from the generation of fathers who works harder to be friends with their sons than fathers. As a retrospective of Isabelle’s work approaches, Gene also must deal with the fact that her dirty laundry – and, by extension his family’s – will be aired in a Page One preview in the New York York Times, by a former colleague (David Strathairn). Blind Willie Johnson was spared such predicaments, but Trier is giving Gene, Jonah and Conrad a similarly upsetting lesson in the blues. It may be a bourgeois blues, but the Danish filmmaker has captured it pretty well, nonetheless.
 
Summer Camp
The Binding: Blu-ray
Long before cigarette manufacturers were required to add warning labels to their products, purveyors of horror movies cautioned audiences with all sorts of stunts and gimmicks designed to whet the appetites of horror fans. William Castle not only produced and directed some of the best genre flicks of 1950-60s, but he also created some of the most fondly recalled publicity stunts. For Macabre, he offered a $1,000 life insurance policy against “death by fright,” while “doctors,” “nurses” and ambulances were prominently stationed for the benefit of fainthearted viewers. I can’t remember if my screener copy of Bite came with a barf bag, as some do, but it might actually have come in handy. I’m not kidding. Genre-specialist Chad Archibald (The Drownsman) takes his time setting up the horror, which begins with a bride-to-be drifting off the beaten path at her Costa Rica bachelorette weekend and getting bitten by an unknown bug at a hidden swimming hole. Long story short, Casey (Elma Begovic) returns home with a skin condition all the Clearasil in the world couldn’t cure. Egg sacks and enflamed pustules begin to appear on Casey’s body and she begins to twitch like a spastic insect, possibly related to David Cronenberg’s fly. It gets worse, but the real fun comes in watching what happens to friends, her fiancé and future mother-in-law when they begin showing concern for her absence. The makeup effects and set design are of Oscar quality, not that they would get past the first round. The Blu-ray adds an essential making-of featurette and Archibald’s commentary.
 
Neither is Alberto Marini’s Summer Camp a romp in the park. Its generic title doesn’t really explain what viewers can expect in the ensuing 81 minutes of nearly non-stop action. In what I assume to be a Euro-American co-production, four American counselors are in the mountains outside Madrid preparing for the opening of a summer camp for Spanish kids who want to learn English. The hacienda is far from ready for habitation and the gypsy encampment outside its wall doesn’t auger well for the future. Things turn nasty as the counselors tour the barn where small animals are kept. Something resembling rabies is spreading through the pens and threatening to infect the counselors and staff. Its primary characteristic is a sudden display of rage, followed by mayhem and a just as sudden return to normalcy. By narrowing down the possible pathogens, a likely suspect emerges just hours before the first of the campers are about to arrive. What differentiates this Summer Camp from all the others is the lovely landscape and the roller-coaster action.
 
The bible has provided Hollywood with countless ideas for movies over the last hundred years, or so. Beyond the stories directly taken from the Old Testament, there are the many moral and ethical issues tackled by screenwriters desperate for an angle. Gus Krieger’s faith-based The Binding harkens to the biblical tale of Abraham, who was commanded by God to bind and kill his young son. A young minister’s wife, Sarah (Amy Gumenick), attempts to balance her maternal inclinations with her deeply held religious faith, especially when her minister husband, Bramwell (Josh Heisler), begins to have dreams about God’s intentions for their newborn daughter. Even if the dreams are accurate, who’s to tell whether it’s Satan or the deity who’s calling the shots? Bramwell now believes that the apocalypse can be avoided only by the baby’s sacrifice. The Binding stops short of giving a writer’s credit to biblical scholars, however. Krieger keeps a few things up his sleeve. The Blu-ray adds interviews with Gumenick, Josh Heisler and Leon Russom (Minister Uriel), and a commentary track with Krieger.
 
Careful What You Wish For
Most fans of the Jonas Brothers band were too young even to be gleams in their parents’ eyes when Body Heat was released in 1981, so Nick’s feature debut in Careful What You Wish For should be full of surprises for them. Everyone else will know what’s happening after Jonas’ Ivy League-bound Doug Martin first lays eyes on his new next-door neighbor, Lena Harper (Isabel Lucas), from the safety of his bedroom window. Lena, who looks like a teenager, herself, is married to a rich fool (Dermot Mulroney), 20-plus years her senior, who hires Doug to get his yacht ready for a summer of sailing on the North Carolina shore. When the old man is out of town on business, Lena makes it her business to seduce the 18-year-old virgin and string him along for a few weeks without her hubby or his parents noticing. No problem. The rest you can either guess or already have figured out. Based on looks, alone, director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum (Ramona and Beezus, Aquamarine) would have made a more likely MILF seductress than the blond Aussie bombshell, but there’s no question that Lucas delivers the goods, all the way to the switcheroo ending. Considering that Jonas is only asked to look alternately nervous and horny, he does just fine. Paul Sorvino pretty much steals the show as cornpone country cop who’s smarter than most people think he is.
 
High Strung
Instantly reminiscent of Fame, Step Up and a dozen other gotta-dance culture-clash stories, High Strung features a hip-hop violin player who hooks up with a classical dancer on scholarship at the Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts. They meet while he’s busking in a subway terminal, where his violin is stolen and illegal-alien status could get him deported if the theft was reported. Ruby (Keenan Kampa) gets Johnnie (Nicholas Galitzine) interested in a competition, wherein a dancer performs with a string musician and the winner gets a scholarship. A scholarship could lead to a student visa for Johnnie, but he has to win over a ballroom full of snobs first. If only they could find a crackerjack hip-hop dance crew to really differentiate their audition performance from the pack. If the story sounds a bit iffy, High Strung is saved by the kind of music and dance that teenagers tend to support.
 
Sniper: Ghost Shooter
If you’ve seen one Sniper, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you’ve seen all six of them. The lead actors tend to rotate from chapter to chapter, as do the theaters of operation. Otherwise, though, fans know not to expect many surprises. In Sniper: Ghost Shooter, Billy Zane returns after a brief hiatus as an elite marksman, Richard Miller. Chad Michael Collins is back as Brandon Beckett, son of Thomas Beckett (Tom Berenger), who isn’t. For the team’s next mission, Dennis Haysbert, a.k.a., The Colonel, wants his them to relocate from the Middle East to a mountainous region in the former USSR to protect a gas pipeline stretching from Georgia to Western Europe from extremists eager to disrupt its operation. This time around, a so-called ghost shooter is picking off the good guys with such remarkable precision that he must be getting help from somewhere. That it could be coming from someone with access to strictly guarded coordinates from a satellite GPS makes for some tenser moments than usual.
 
Puzzled Love
The same type of viewer who fell in love with Cédric Klapisch’s delightful ensemble rom/dram/com, L’auberge espagnole, when it was released here in 2003, will want to take a chance on Puzzled Love. There are differences between the Barcelona-set pictures, but none that particularly matter. Instead of adding to the luster of such rising European stars as Cécile De France, Audrey Tautou, Kelly Reilly, Cristina Brondo, Judith Godrèche and Romain Duris, Puzzled Love focuses on Marcel Borràs and Saras Gil, who, in 2011, were newcomers on the international scene. Because the movie didn’t cause much of a commotion outside the Spanish-language markets, the actors didn’t get quite the same bounce. Now that it’s out there, though, there’s no reason Borras and Gil shouldn’t benefit, as well. Sun is a lovely and reasonably studious brunette from Chicago, while Lucas, being from Mallorca, is a bit more hang-loose. They meet in a flat with rooms being sublet for the rest of the school year by students who’ve become extremely familiar with each other during their time together. So much so that the newcomers are told that they’ll have to be open to weekly theme parties and sometimes excessive behavior. To prevent complications, flatmates are discouraged from hooking up. After a distinctly rocky start, Sun and Lucas slowly warm to each other, even knowing they’ll be heading their separate ways in a few months. It’s a dilemma with which students from around the world can understand and empathize. The only real gimmick here involves the parceling of writing and directing duties to 13 different people. It took me a long time to catch on to the conceit, but, when I did, it didn’t change my favorable opinion of Puzzled Love.
 
The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur
Spend any amount of time in Los Angeles and one is likely to acquire neighbors and friends who’ve toiled in the entertainment industry and have scrapbooks full of photos and memorabilia to show for it. Even better places to meet industry veterans are parties and the kind of gin mills whose lighting softens the wrinkles around the eyes. Listen to them long enough and you might be tempted to pull out a tape recorder. Before embarking on his close-to-the-heart documentary, The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur, writer/director Joe Forte (Firewall, Callr) knew that his elderly second cousin, Johnny Alarimo, had associated himself with some of the biggest names in town and might want to share a few yarns with a kindred soul. What he couldn’t have expected was the treasure trove of museum-quality photographs, letters, gifts and other souvenirs the one-time song-and-dance man had collected in his career as an AD, translator, dialogue coach and trusted companion in more films for which he’s ever been given credits. A perusal of his IMDB.com file reveals far less than anything collected in the boxes in his moderately sized apartment. If Alarimo is described as a loner, it’s only because he’d outlived most of his contemporaries and his phone had stopped ringing years ago. The title, The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur, refers to a time when his ability to speak Italian gave director William Wyler a leg up in getting things done while shooting the epic historical drama in and around Rome. An ability to order off the menu in foreign ports and grease the palms of union bosses is a sure way to get a producer’s credit in Hollywood. More than that, however, he could be an extremely charming and discreet companion. If that’s shorthand for being gay, well, you didn’t hear it from Alarimo, who took those stories, if any, with him to the grave. Forte’s approach was far more accommodating than gossipy and his film speaks volumes about the differences between old and new Hollywood. The bonus package adds extended interviews.
 
Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Collector’s Edition: Blu-ray
Lazer Team
For most of the last 20 years, I’ve lived in the wee SoCal town in which the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers was filmed, 60 years ago. The Red Scare was in full bloom and viewers were free to make parallels to the witch hunts that had already occurred in Hollywood, the McCarthy hearings and Moscow. Mostly, though, audiences craved a good scare. Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was shot in San Francisco, where, by 1978, the hippies were being replaced by self-help enthusiasts, serial killers and increasingly aggressive panhandlers. Because pedestrians and office workers tended to avoid the eyes of other people, it would have been difficult to distinguish between the pod people and Frank Zappa’s plastic people. Adding color to the spread of the space-borne sickness helped make the menace that much more sickening. Here, viewers play a guessing game as to which of the big-name stars — Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum – will be turned into drones before our eyes. Critics pretty much loved Kaufman’s remake, while fully acknowledging the place in the canon held by Don Siegel’s original. (He appears in a cameo, as a cab driver, along with Robert Duvall and Kaufman.) The Shout Factory package features a new 2K scan of the interpositive; fresh interviews with actors Brooke Adams and Art Hindle, writer W.D. Richter, composer Denny Zeitlin and author/film historian Steve Haberman; as well as vintage commentary by Kaufman, interviews with Kaufman, Richter, director of photography Michael Chapman and actors Donald Sutherland and Veronica Cartwright; featurettes, “Practical Magic: The Special Effects Pod,” “The Man Behind the Scream: The Sound Effects Pod,” “The Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography Pod”; and an episode of “Science Fiction Theatre,” “Time Is Just a Place,” based on Jack Finney’s short story.”
 
Anyone who’s a fan of the work produced by Austin-based Rooster Teeth Productions – the Internet’s “Red vs. Blue” – will be anxious to see Lazer Team. A throwback to 1980s’ era sci-fi, including Ghostbusters, the lesser Star Wars entries and Fantastic Four superhero flicks, Lazer Team describes what happens when four small-town losers accidentally down an alien spacecraft with a with a Roman candle and soon find themselves responsible for the fate of the entire planet. In the crash site, they find a battle suit, whose appendages and weapons become genetically bound to them. Government agents were expecting the delivery from outer space and now are required to work with the quartet of doofuses against an omnipotent enemy. The greater challenge may be keeping Lazer Team from annihilating each other, before they can save mankind. If the $2.5-millon picture lacks polish and finesse, it shouldn’t prevent fanboys and cosplay freaks from enjoying it.
 
Gibby
There are two photographs on the cover of Gibby: on top, a Capuchin monkey gets his head in between a teenage girl and boy, attempting to share a kiss; below it, the same girl, wearing the suit of a competitive gymnast, extending her arms as if she’s just stuck a landing. The cover also features the Dove.org logo, guaranteeing that what’s contained therein is safe for audiences of all   ages. That’s all most potential viewers would need to know about director Phil Gorn’s inspirational comedy, which marks his return to the helm after 14 years and the decidedly non-Dove-approved Ultimate Reality. After the death of her mother, Katie (Shelby Lyon) has lost interest in her school, friends and gymnastics. Things begin to pick up for her when a science teacher asks her to take care of her monkey, Gibby (Crystal), for the summer. Gibby helps her with gymnastics, renewing friendships –including finding a potential boyfriend (Peyton Meyer) and overcoming her nemesis, a mean girl who is out to beat Katie at everything. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie … just in time for the Olympics. Gibby also stars Shannon Elizabeth (American Pie), Sean Patrick Flanery (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) and Vivica A. Fox (Independence Day).
 
IMAX: Humpback Whales: 4K UHD/3-D/Blu-ray
There can be no sweeter scientific calling than the one that allows marine biologists to monitor the communications of humpback whales and unlock their many secrets. Serious study of the 55-foot, 50-ton behemoths didn’t begin until the 1970s, when their songs were recorded and sold to young people, who would launch the international save-the-whale movement. IMAX specialist Greg MacGillivray’s fascinating Humpback Whales, now available in 4K UHD/Blu-ray 3-D/Blu-ray formats, chronicles the progress researchers have made in those 40-plus years of undersea exploration. Narrated by Ewan McGregor, it helps explain why humpbacks are the most acrobatic of all whales, why they sing their haunting songs and why they migrate up to 10,000 miles round-trip every year. Most of the footage was captured in Tonga, Hawaii and Alaska.
 
The Adventures of Panda Warrior
Nickelodeon: PAW Patrol: Sports Day
One needn’t be a detective when it comes to seeing through the marketing schemes of companies selling DVDs to unsuspecting consumers, especially parents looking for movies safe for baby-sitting duty. Sometimes it takes a keen eye to distinguish between the real McCoy and faux McCoy. At first glance, I’ll admit to wondering when DreamWorks Animation slipped its latest Kung Fu Panda title past me. On closer inspection and after some Internet trolling, it became apparent that the Lionsgate release, The Adventures of Panda Warrior, was made in China and distributed in different countries as “The Adventures of Jinbao.” In New Zealand, it went out under the Sony banner, while in parts of Asia it was Golden Network Asia Limited. None are affiliated, as far as I know, with DreamWorks, although the Panda Warrior and Kung Fu Panda could be cousins. Here, the Panda Warrior began life as a “peace-loving soldier from Ancient China, magically transported into a world ruled by an evil nine-headed snake. Transformed into a panda, he joins forces with a flying pig to free the once-peaceful Merryland from tyranny.” The English voices are provided by Rob Schneider, Lauren Elizabeth, Haylie Duff, Tom Kenny and Norm MacDonald. At a list price of nearly $20, consumers should know what they’re getting for their baby-sitting money.
 
“PAW Patrol” is an animated children’s program on Nickelodeon about six rescue dogs in training and their friend, a boy named Ryder. The series encourages creative problem solving, as each of the pups is inspired by a real-life job: firefighter, police officer, construction worker. Rocky the Recycling Pup who always has the right tool for the job. The DVD contains six episodes, all themed around sporting events.
 
TV-to-DVD
Starz: The Girlfriend Experience: Season One: Blu-ray
In the parlance of the sex trade, “the girlfriend experience” is an option available to customers of prostitutes and escorts who want to enjoy a typical date – maybe including dinner, a movie, some dancing – that’s guaranteed to end with some degree of coital satisfaction. It could last a few hours or a whole night and cost the trick more than the usual amount of money for a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’m encounter. The Starz series was adapted from Steven Soderbergh’s feature film, The Girlfriend Experience, which became notorious for starring the then-famous porn princess Sasha Grey and a storyline that also incorporated elements from the 2008 presidential campaign, not unlike Shampoo. It was widely viewed as being yet another attempt to bridge the worlds of porn and mainstream Hollywood. The Starz spinoff series, “The Girlfriend Experience,” is a bit of a misnomer in that the clients of second-year law student Christine Reade (Riley Keough) usually pay by the hour at rates affordable only by men in the One Percent Club. Christine is pretty enough, but it’s difficult to explain why some very powerful men would risk the marriages and fortunes for her company. A promising student, Christine accepts an internship at a prestigious Chicago firm, where, naturally, she’s bound to run into someone who either is a client or wouldn’t mind a freebie, in lieu of a raise or promotion. While there’s plenty of skin in the series’ first year, it’s nowhere near as graphic or gratuitous as what can be found every week on “Game of Thrones.” What it does have going for it, besides Keough and executive producer Soderbergh, are co-creators/co-directors/co-writers Lodge Kerrigan (Keane) and Amy Seimetz (Sun Don’t Shine), and they keep things interesting.
Doctor Butcher M.D./Zombie Holocaust: Blu-ray
The Candy Tangerine Man/Lady Cocoa: Blu-ray
Petey Wheatstraw: Blu-ray
How does a director make the leap from such family-friendly fare as Savannah Smiles and Christmas Mountain, to Hellhole, a nasty piece of work that could be a charter member of the grindhouse hall of fame? Newly available in Blu-ray, the rarely seen 1985 release has it all, including lots of kinky sex, shower scenes, creepy stalkers, vulnerable blonds and ball-busting nurses. Instead of taking place in a vermin-infested prison in the Philippines, it is set in a psychiatric facility in the good ol’ US of A., where sexy psycho-bitch Mary Woronov is testing a new lobotomy technique, using helpless inmates as her guinea pigs. Her prize patient is Susan (Judy Landers), a pretty amnesiac who is believed to have internalized secrets that caused a sicko named Silk (Ray Sharkey) to strangle her mother with a red sash. Somehow, Silk is able to land a job as an orderly in the same facility in which Susan now resides, alongside dozens of dangerously anti-social women. The title derives from the prison-within-a-sanitarium, where the women who misbehave the most are sent for punishment. Woronov denies the existence of the Hellhole to state administrators, almost in the same breath as she explains the presence of women pretending to swim in a large sandbox, “I find sand to be much more therapeutic than water.” It takes something in the neighborhood of 80 minutes for Silk to reawaken Susan’s dormant memories by attacking another woman with a red scarf. The end of Hellhole turns out to be as nutty as the beginning. If it never strays too far from genre conventions, it manages to stand out from the pack with an all-star cast of cult favorites, including Marjoe Gortner (The Food of the Gods), Richard Cox (Cruising), Terry Moore (Mighty Joe Young), Edy Williams (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), Robert Z’Dar (Maniac Cop), Dyanne Thorne (Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS) and, of course, Sharkey (“Wiseguy”) and Woronov (“Eating Raoul.”). Hellhole may be as close as these things get to perfection. The Blu-ray adds a fresh interview with Woronov.
The Severin double-feature Doctor Butcher M.D./Zombie Holocaust isn’t quite what it appears to be on the cover. In fact, both of these Italian-into-English gore fests, by Marino Girolami (as Frank Martin), are pretty much the same picture, with the latter adding about five minutes of previously excised material, a restored title sequence and some color correction. Doctor Butcher M.D. is the official U.S. release version, with extra footage and a unique soundtrack. Both open in New York, where a group of Dr. Dreylock’s med students discovers that body parts are missing from the cadavers they use for research. Not being valuable organs, the missing appendages aren’t much good to anyone who isn’t a cannibal. When one hospital worker is killed after taking the heart of a corpse, smokin’ hot anthropologist Lori Ridgeway (Alexandra Delli Colli) recognizes it as the handiwork of a tribe in the Moluccan Islands that worships the god Kito. Dr. Peter Chandler (Ian McCulloch) organizes an expedition to Moluccas, to which Lori and the journalist Susan Kelly (Sherry Buchanan) are invited. Once there, they meet the mad Doctor Obrero (Donald O’Brien), who directs them to an island populated with cannibals and zombies, one of whom is no match for the blade of a motorboat engine. Both movies are of a piece with Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie and should viewed in the same context and with the same caution. The extensive bonus features include featurettes on the making, marketing and impact of the films, especially as they pertain to the scene along New York’s 42nd Street before its Disneyfication. There are fresh interviews with editor Jim Markovic, Ian McCulloch, effects master Rosario Prestopino, filmmaker Enzo Castellari (Girolami’s son), Sherry Buchanan; FX artist Maurizio Trani, as well as vintage trailer.
One of the things that worked against blaxpoitation and chop-socky films, when it came to attracting crossover audiences, at least, was an obvious lack of polish in the production-values department. No matter how good a story, they looked cheap. Released in 1975, The Candy Tangerine Man and Lady Cocoa are perfect example of movies that would have benefitted from even slightly larger budgets and more behind-the-camera know-how. Matt Cimber’s The Candy Tangerine Man would have been just another movie about pimps, whores and revenge if it weren’t for an entirely unexpected twist in the middle that changes everything we think we know about John Daniels’ ghetto prince, Baron. And, no, it doesn’t involve him being an undercover cop or narc. It may not hold up under close scrutiny, but logic and realism aren’t necessarily considered to be virtues in exploitation pictures. Otherwise, “Candy Tangerine” repeats all the usual clichés about pimps reciprocating for the pressure put on them by white cops, gangsters and their lackeys, by demanding more productivity from their working girls. The violence is crude, but, like I said, the twisteroo compensates for the sins. Way better overall is Lady Cocoa, a movie about a female inmate (Lola Falana) at a Nevada penitentiary who agrees to trade testimony against her gangster boyfriend for a few days of R&R at a Lake Tahoe resort. As if in anticipation of being rescued by her lover, Cocoa proves to be a real handful for her strait-laced handler, Doug (Gene Washington), who resists her temptations. The movie benefits from being shot on location in a North Lake Tahoe resort, where a storm prevented visitors and employees from coming or going. It provided the film with a more natural feel than what could be expected if the production was restricted to a few hours a day in a handful of hotel and casino locations. Falana is never less than a blast to watch, even if she doesn’t look like the typical female lead in an exploitation flick. Also, look for Mean Joe Greene, the great Steelers’ defensive tackle, as one of the thugs hot on Cocoa’s trail, and Millie Perkins (The Diary of Anne Frank) as a party-hardy tourist. The excellent Vinegar Syndrome package adds Cimber’s introduction for The Candy Tangerine Man, commentary for Lady Cocoa with Cimber and DA/actor John Goff, and a reversible cover.
The ever-exploitable Rudy Ray Moore plays the title character in Petey Wheatstraw, a comedy that followed in the wake of the action-oriented Dolemite and The Human Tornado. Petey grew up knowing that he would have to be stronger, faster and more clever than his enemies. He learned kung-fu at an early age, but grew up with a desire to be a nightclub comedian. He books a date at a friend’s club for the same night as a mob-financed club is about to open in another corner of the ghetto. As a territorial battle erupts, Petey negotiates a deal with Lucifer to rectify a fatal mistake. The devil’s half of the arrangement requires Petey to marry his daughter, who looks as if she might have spent the last 1,000 years tanning in the raging fires of hell. The comedy here is as broad as it could possibly be, while the treatment of women is on a par with that in most Blaxploitation pics. The bonus pieces add the making-of documentary, “I, Dolemite Part III”; commentary with Rudy Ray Moore’s biographer, Mark Jason Murray, co-star Jimmy Lynch and director Cliff Roquemore; a “Shooting Locations Revisited” featurette; previews of other Rudy Ray Moore epics; and cover artwork, by Jay Shaw.
Opry Video Classics II
The performances compiled for posterity in Time Life/WEA’s eight-disc “Opry Video Classics II” represent a time in American cultural history before the borders that separated rock-’n’-roll and country/western were closely guarded by disc jockeys, record labels and arbiters of taste based largely in Nashville. Rockabilly wouldn’t come back into fashion for several years and the old guard controlled everything from hair styles to the authenticity of the acts allowed to perform on the stage of the venerable Ryman Auditorium. Elvis Presley wasn’t welcomed back after his first performance, in 1954, and, until 1973, Jerry Lee Lewis was deemed far too uncontrollable to book. When the Killer finally did appear, he broke the rules by playing his rock-’n’-roll hits and referring to himself in words unsuited to for public consumption in the shrine to country music. The Byrds were practically run off the stage after Gram Parsons convinced Columbia executives that country-rock was compatible with other Opry standbys and the label should lobby for an invitation. Nope, too soon. Today, of course, the lines separating the genres have been completely and forever blurred. As such, “Opry Video Classics II” exists as both a time capsule and juke box full of wonderful songs, performed with utmost respect for an audience full of people who had never dreamed of seeing that much talent on one stage in their lives. At the Opry, it was the men who dressed like peacocks and the women who were required to look as if they’d just left an ice-cream social. The clowning was reserved for the hillbilly comics, who, in a couple of years, would moonlight on “Hee Haw.” It’s all in good fun and the music is memorable. The material presented here was recorded between 1955, when WSM-TV added a one-hour show to its lineup, and 1974, when the Opry moved from the Ryman to points east of downtown Nashville. Over time, sponsorship would change from Purina, to Pet Milk and National Life, while host T. Tommy Carter would make way for Bobby Lord and Judd Collins. The final incarnation would be “That Good Ole Country Music,” which added more contemporary production values to reflect the changing times. The compilation is broken into the chapters “Songs That Topped the Charts,” “Legends,” “Love Songs,” “Pioneers,” “Queens of Country,” “Hall of Fame,” “Kings of Country” and “Jukebox Memories.” Marty Robbins, Roy Acuff, the Carter family, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells and Minnie Pearl, Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner (and his Nudie suits), Bill Anderson, Charlie Pride, Connie Smith, Carl Smith, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Tammy Wynette and Ray Stevens, who contributes the ever-timely “Ahab the Arab.” Despite the age of the video clips, they are unblemished and the sound is excellent.
My Big Night
If Pedro Almodóvar ever agreed to remake Blake Edwards’ madcap 1968 comedy, The Party, it might look a lot like Álex de la Iglesia’s over-the-top showbiz satire My Big Night. The absence of Peter Sellers would be a problem, but Almodovar’s never had much trouble finding comic actors with the versatility necessary to carry a work of unbridled slapstick. De La Iglesia is known primarily for such dark comedies as El día de la bestia, Accion mutante, Perdita Durango, Crimen ferpecto and Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi, as well as a documentary on the great Argentine soccer player, Lionel Messi, who plays for FC Barcelona. Co-written with frequent collaborator Jorge Guerricaechevarría, Mi Gran Noche describes what happens when a pre-recorded, studio-produced New Year’s Eve show descends into chaos and everything that could go wrong actually does. The TV special combines the worst elements of Euro-pop schlock with an audience of preening celebrities, rival hosts and entertainers, onetime lovers, has-beens, wannabes and extras, such as Jose (Pepón Nieto), sent by an employment agency after a camera crane takes out one of the stars. One rivalry could very well result in an unscheduled shooting before the close of the show, which never seems to end. Meanwhile, outside the studio, a strike by TV union workers is threatening to escalate into a full-blown riot and fire, requiring clouds of foam to quell. The gala setting may prove too foreign for many American viewers, but those with a sense of contemporary European pop culture shouldn’t find the translation difficult to make.
Sunrise
Most of Partho Sen-Gupta’s neo-noir procedural, Sunrise, feels as if it had been inspired by a rain-splashed cover of a Frank Miller comics collection. The back alleys and seedy nightclubs of Mumbai, during monsoon season, could very well double for the most desolate locations in Miller’s “Sin City.” In a country where tens of thousands of children are abducted each year, however, there would be no reason to simulate everyday horror in a comic. In Sen-Gupta’s second feature to his 2004 drama, Let the Wind Blow, Social Services officer Lakshman Joshi (Adil Hussain) is investigating the same trafficking ring that may have abducted his own 6-year-old daughter several years earlier. Joshi’s never stopped looking for Aruna, but a more recent kidnapping adds a greater sense of urgency to the investigation. Determined to crack both cases simultaneously, the dour detective rarely looks as if the never-ending rain is anything more than an irritant. As is usually the case in such neo-noir stories, the closer one gets to the object, the further away is the solution. One night, while chasing a lead, Joshi stumbles upon the Paradise nightclub, where the entertainment is supplied by underage girls dancing fully clothed to snake-charming music in a slightly provocative manner. A group of unpleasant looking men emerges from a doorway to shower the girls with currency as the detective grinds his teeth in disgust. While this seems real enough, it’s repeated the same way several different times. By this time, we’re never clear as to whether Sen-Gupta is leading us to a possible recovery – the girls on stage would be Aruna’s age – or a trip deeper into Joshi’s tortured mind. In an interview, the filmmaker reminds us that there’s no greater anguish than that experienced by a parent whose child has disappeared and that feeling is palpable throughout the film. In fact, his wife has already lost her mind. Sunrise could hardly be a more harrowing experience. Sen-Gupta’s direction, in combination with Hussain’s acting, the “noise music” of Eryck Abecassis, brilliant nighttime cinematography of Jean-Marc Ferriere and sound design of foley artist Nicolas Becker (Gravity) shouldn’t be missed by fans of the genre. The DVD adds an informative making-of featurette.
A Light Beneath Their Feet
If ever an actress was born to play the bipolar mother of teenage girl, it’s Taryn Manning, whose character on “Orange Is the New Black” is several different kinds of crazy. Then, too, if any rising star was the perfect choice to play that daughter, it’s Madison Davenport (Sisters). Valerie Weiss’ closely observed sophomore feature, A Light Beneath Their Feet, tackles a mental problem most Americans don’t spend a lot of time pondering. Even if one understands what it means to have bipolar disorder, understanding what it must feel like to be the child of single bipolar parent is another thing altogether. Davenport’s Beth Gerringson is an extremely bright young woman, who’s been accepted at UCLA and her hometown school, Northwestern. They’re both fine schools, but going to California would mean that Beth would be separated from her emotionally dependent mother, Gloria, for the first time in both of their lives. Staying in Evanston would ensure that the dependency continues for another four years, at least. Beth’s dad and second wife are on the verge of starting new family, so would be of no help. As played by Manning, Gloria is capable of working in the cafeteria of the school that Beth attends and keeping herself entertained with whatever television show is playing in her mind at any given time. Beth’s dilemma is compounded by the appearance in her life of school bad-boy, Jeremy (Carter Jenkins), who will be forever known for being the underage boy who had sex with a now-jailed junior-high teacher. He’s really not a bad kid, but, in an unlikely contrivance, their relationship is threatened in the cruelest of ways. I get the feeling that Weiss and screenwriter Moira McMahon Leeper did a lot of homework, when it came to shaping Gloria into a dramatically compelling and intellectually honest character. When she does go off her meds, as is inevitable in these sorts of things, what happens is entirely believable and deeply sad. How many teenagers share Beth’s dilemma is anyone’s guess.
Amateur Night at City Hall: The Story of Frank L. Rizzo
The re-release of Robert Mugge’s 1977 film Amateur Night at City Hall: The Story of Frank L. Rizzo would hardly raise a blip on the national political radar screen, if it weren’t for the fact that the rise of the former police commissioner and two-term mayor of Philadelphia wasn’t so reminiscent of Donald Trump’s ascendency in the Republican party. Indeed, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the GOP candidate studied Rizzo’s career and his divide-and-conquer approach to politics. The documentary leads with Rizzo’s performance as a beat cop, who protected the large Italian-American community from the things it feared most: blacks, hippies and liberals. To Rizzo’s credit, he was able to increase the number of African-American cops on the force, without diminishing its para-military approach to policing. Even so, beatings were routine and the racism even trickled down to the point where Rizzo would have interracial couples harassed and order raids on coffee shops. As mayor, he continued to protect his natural constituency, while dealing harshly with anyone who made waves. That’s not to say that all of his decisions were controversial or racially biased, however. His downfall would come when he spent money the city didn’t have on unnecessary patronage work and other self-aggrandizing projects. After being re-elected on a no-tax-increase platform, Rizzo was almost immediately forced to increase the payroll tax to cover the debt. “Amateur Night” was completed two years before Rizzo left office, so it lacks a distinct sense of closure and perspective. After seeing it, though, it will be impossible not see a little bit of Rizzo in the Trump campaign.
TV-to-DVD
PBS: NOVA: Operation Lighthouse Rescue
PBS: Nature: Nature’s Perfect Partners
PBS Kids: WordWorld: It’s Time for School
As the curse of extreme climate change begins to kick in for real, hundreds of stories like “NOVA: Operation Lighthouse Rescue” will be told. Lighthouses exist on pieces of land that are exposed directly to rising tides and storm-tossed waves. As easy as it would be to build a tower and add a revolving light to the top of it, such a strategy would mean giving up a part of our heritage that’s nearly impossible to replace. The historic Gay Head Lighthouse, which sits on a bluff at the tip of the island of Martha’s Vineyard, could have been an early casualty, if residents hadn’t taken steps to protect it. Built in 1856, the more than 400-ton structure soars 175 feet above the ocean. Because it still warns ships and sailors of impending danger, the cost of raising the landmark from its foundation and moving it 134 feet inland could easily be justified. The “NOVA” team goes into great detail on every aspect of the transfer, which is in danger of failure from Step One.
In the “Nature” episode, “Nature’s Perfect Partners,” we learn how partnerships between such unrelated species as lions and lizards can work for both entities. Although a lizard could provide a snack for a lion, they feed on the flies that constantly buzz around the lions, as they try to nap after a hearty meal. Other unlikely couples include tarantulas and toads; hippos and little fish called barbells; silver tip sharks and saltwater jacks; and the tiny goby and its housemate, the shrimp, which is almost completely blind. The film also documents how other animals build partnerships with their own kind in order to survive. Teamwork is a trait practiced by elephants that live in large social groups, often spanning generations. The program shows how members of a herd quickly react when an inexperienced mother unknowingly puts her newborn calf in jeopardy crossing a mud pan and river. Other examples feature the strategies of a wolf pack, a pod of killer whales, a group of silver ants and a large hyena clan.
This may come as bad news to youngsters who can’t get enough of the things summer has to offer, but the start of school is only a month away. In the PBS Kids’ cartoon compilation, “WordWorld: It’s Time for School,” it’s the first day of school for the critters. Shark, of all species, is afraid to go. With the help of his good friend, Duck, and some encouragement from Cat, their teacher, Shark’s fear turns into confidence, and by the end of the day, he’s head of the class. When it’s Duck’s turn for show-and-tell, he wants to bring the thing he loves best: his nest! When the nest breaks apart into letters, however, will Duck be able to retrieve them all in time? The set contains eight stories.
COMIX: Beyond the Comic Book Pages
OUTATIME: Saving the DeLorean Time Machine
I can’t think of any major Hollywood figure as generous with his time as pop-cultural pioneer Stan Lee, who, at 93, readily consents to interviews with reporters, while also mentoring aspiring comic-book writers, attending countless conventions and fan events, and making cameo appearances in live-action pictures. Given Hollywood’s current dependency on comic-book characters for box-office fodder, it’s safe to say that his presence will be felt in the entertainment industry long after he’s gone to that big Comic-Con in the sky. For the time being, however, Lee continues to pop up with regularity on the documentaries churned out with regularity on the art of creating, drawing, writing, selling comic books and exploiting superheroes for fun and profit. It wasn’t always such a walk in the park for Lee, as the industry has experienced more than its fair share of upheavals and legal battles, but, right now, he’s sitting on top of his worlds. The documentary Comix: Beyond the Comic Book Pages is Michael Valentine’s first film and, while the subject is overfamiliar, by now, it doesn’t feel derivative or terribly redundant. Besides rounding up the usual gang of artists and writers – easily available at conventions – Valentine consults collectors and other passionate fans, cosplayers and geeks. Bonus features include extended scenes and outtakes and a second disc devoted to hour-long interviews with Lee and Frank Miller.
 
Sometime during the run-up to Universal’s 30th-anniversary salute to its Back to the Future franchise, co-creator/co-writer/co-producer Bob Gale noticed, or was made aware of the fact, that the story’s entire reason for existing was literally gathering dust in the Universal backlot and slowly being stripped of its parts by souvenir scavengers. The original DeLorean Time Machine not only was showing its age, but it also was disappearing before the eyes of fans, executives and backlot security officials. Studios have made a science out of recycling costumes, props, wigs, vehicles and backdrops, but the idea of preserving this singular automobile probably wasn’t on the top of anyone’s mind back in the 1980s and early-1990s. It probably was a hundred times cheaper to fabricate a DeLorean than to invest in restoring one. Steve Concotelli’s OUTATIME: Saving the DeLorean Time Machine chronicles every step in the restoration process, from convincing Universal it would be a cool thing to do as part of the festivities, to hire a crew, sweat out a tight deadline and get Shaw’s thumbs’-up if they meet it. The team compiled by Joe Walser committed itself to restoring the Time Traveler with 100 percent accuracy and attention to detail. Replacing the stolen parts would be the hardest part of the job. As impressive as the yearlong process is, however, there are times when viewers will feel as if they’ve tapped into a cabal of “BTTF” nerds, who nearly pee in their pants with every new discovery and step forward. If that sounds cruel, you’ve probably never been to a Comic-Con, where you’re surrounded by geeks committed to making you to feel out of place for not wearing a costume or taking selfies in front of posters and memorabilia displays. The package adds material from the unveiling of the finished product at the Petersen Automotive Museum, where it currently sits.
 
Crimes of Passion: Special Edition: Blu-ray
In the 1970-80s, no director’s name was as synonymous with movies that challenged the status quo as Ken Russell. After specializing in documentaries about music and dance for the BBC, he joined the on-going sexual revolution with an erotically charged adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Woman in Love. For the next two decades, he made deliberately provocative films that combined artistic disciplines and could hardly be more visually arresting. He pulled out all the stops for an over-the-top adaptation of the Who’s “Tommy,” with some of the most popular actors and rock singers on the planet, and sandwiched it between eyebrow-raising biopics of Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Gustav Mahler, Franz Liszt and Rudolph Valentino, which merged lurid sexuality with music, art and splendid set and costume designs. I don’t think any of them, except Tommy, were profitable, but some of us enjoyed the spectacle, anyway. The 1980s began with Paddy Chayefsky (Network) being so unhappy with Russell’s treatment of his screenplay for Altered States that he demanded his name be taken off the finished project. The zeitgeist-capturing psycho-thriller played into the period’s obsession with finding keys to self-awareness through pseudo-scientific and quasi-religious treatments, including sensory-deprivation chambers and hallucinogens. Despite the bad vibes, it received some very positive reviews, probably made some money and went on to become something of a cult hit. Next would come Russell’s thinly disguised satire of American sexual mores, Crimes of Passion, in which Kathleen Turner played Joanna, a strait-laced sportswear designer by day and $50-a-trick streetwalker by night. China’s well-known on the stroll for her long blond wig and willingness to entertain the occasional freak, including a demented street preacher played with gusto by Anthony Perkins.
 
Private dick Bobby Grady (John Laughlin) is hired by Joanna’s employer to investigate whether she’s selling designs to a competitor, but all he turns up is a desire to sleep with China. After 12 years of marriage to a woman (Annie Potts) who’s lost her interest in sex, Bobby’s ready to try something new. It turns out that China/Joanna is, as well, but Perkins’ Rev. Peter Shayne wants to redeem her soul before she meets her maker. It’s absurd, made worse by the studio’s insistence that Crimes of Passion be edited to support a R-rating. (You can find some of the deleted material in Arrow Film’s bonus package.) Most interesting to me, however, is composer Rick Wakeman’s soundtrack, which is based entirely on Antonín Dvorák’s “From the New World” Symphony and takes repeated liberties with its familiar refrains. It would be a long time between plum assignments from there on in for the director, although his completely freaky The Lair of the White Worm, based on a Bram Stoker story, also became a bona-fide cult classic. In 1991, he revisited street-level prostitution in L.A. with Whore, starring Theresa Russell (Black Widow). Some believe that he made it in response to Pretty Woman, a modern fairytale about a struggling Beverly Hills working girl for which the studio demanded a happy ending. The crisp Crimes of Passion Blu-ray has been accorded a new 2K restoration, which benefits Russell’s sometimes garish color scheme, and commentary with the director and producer-screenwriter Barry Sandler; seven deleted/extended scenes with optional commentary by Sandler; a new interview with Sandler, recorded especially for this release; home-movie footage of Russell visiting Florida for a retrospective screening at the 2009 Orlando Film Festival; reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Twins of Evil; and an illustrated booklet containing new writing by Russell’s biographer, Paul Sutton, correspondence between Russell and Kathleen Turner, and an on-set interview with Russell. The package contains, as well, high-definition and standard-definition presentations of the director’s cut and unrated versions of the film.
 
Bad Moon: Blu-ray
While watching the Scream Factory re-release of Eric Red’s werewolf thriller, Bad Moon, I thought that it was a pretty good example of a mid-1980s monster-as-slasher picture. If it weren’t for a scene with partial nudity and some gory lupine attack footage, it seemed consistent with a lot of PG-13 pictures in the genre. It wasn’t until later, watching the bonus material, that I figured out that Bad Moon actually was released in 1996 – well after the start of the CGI revolution — and cuts were made to prevent it from being branded NC-17. A few more trims probably would have brought the R down to PG-13, but, what would be the point? The distributor wasn’t going to spend much money on promoting the release, anyway, and extended displays of boobies and blood played well in the cassette after-market. And, as sometimes happens, Bad Moon actually did find new life in VHS and DVD. The Blu-ray goes one better by restoring the cuts made for the original release, while offering even longer versions of the same scenes presented separately in footage that looks as if it might have been copied from material that’s sat on a shelf too long. Of course, a copy of the original theatrical edition also is included in hi-def, in addition to the director’s cut. The offending scene takes place early, when photojournalist Ted Harrison (Michael Pare) is shown taking a break from his work, making out with his girlfriend in a canvas tent. We’re made aware of the presence of an evil being when the horses begin to freak out and natives get restless. Soon enough, a werewolf slashes its way into the tent, assaulting the topless babe (Johanna Marlowe Lebovitz) with grievous intent. The monster is shot by one of the less fearful guides, but not before the woman is killed and the photographer is infected with the monster’s saliva. Flash forward a couple of years and Ted is back in the U.S.A., camped alongside a pristine lake in Oregon taking pictures. Someone had just been murdered in the vicinity, but he invites his sister (Mariel Hemmingway), her young son (Mason Gamble) and the family German shepherd to visit him, anyway. In anticipation of a full moon, Ted takes the precaution of chaining himself to a redwood. It doesn’t fool the family dog, upon whom the sight of a helpless monster leaves a lasting impression. Timing in at a brisk 80 minutes, Bad Moon adds one or two neat twists before leaving room for a sequel at the end, if it had done any business … which it didn’t. The 35-minute making-of featurette, “Nature of the Beast: Making of Bad Moon,” offers new interviews with Red, Pare, Gamble and special effects wiz, Steve Johnson; a couple of commentary tracks; the unrated opening scene from the Red’s first cut, sourced from VHS; and three storyboard sequences.
 
Lee Scratch Perry’s Vision of Paradise
Ruben Blades: The Return of Ruben Blades: Blu-ray
For those who think reggae became an irrelevant musical genre after the death Bob Marley, and weren’t willing to sample the work of his talented children and grandchildren, Volker Schaner’s head-bobbing documentary, Lee Scratch Perry’s Vision of Paradise, will come as a revelation. Loyal fans already aware of reggae and dub’s continued vitality should have a ball becoming reacquainted with Perry, one of the singular and influential forces in the history of popular music. Schaner has spent the last 13 years attempting to get a handle on the eccentric 80-year-old’s philosophies, theories, beliefs, art, politics and music. It took the filmmaker not only to Kingston, the fire-scarred Black Ark studio and his ancient mother’s country home, but also stopovers in England (a.k.a., Babylon), Switzerland and Ethiopia, where Perry traces the roots of the Rastafarian religion and explains his ongoing battle to rid the world of Satanic influences. Here and there, Schaner illustrates Perry’s testimony with cartoonish depictions of the devil, animated interstitials and short films possibly inspired by Yellow Submarine. Jamaica, from the mountains to coast, looks great and Perry’s religious art is fascinating. (It could be dismissed as wonderfully fanciful if the artist wasn’t there to explain its significance and meaning to those who believe that the world can be saved through music and the sacramental use of ganja.) Casual fans of reggae and Jamaican culture will almost certainly find much of “Vision of Paradise” to be several million miles too far out for their tastes. Others will think it makes perfect sense, especially when accompanied by the music. Also sprinkled throughout the film are interviews with musicians and fellow producers, black and white, who attest to Perry’s non-mystical talents. It would be interesting to discover what happens when Perry and Sun Ra meet in heaven … or some other celestial body. The DVD arrives inside a 24-page book, with a 30-minute making-of documentary, director’s comments and over two hours of additional unseen scenes.
 
Just as salsa and other Afro-Cuban music goes in and out of style with fickle non-Latin audiences here, interest in the whereabouts of singer/musician/actor/activist/politician Rubén Blades tends to rise or fade depending on how visible he is in the mainstream media. Until the nearly concurrent releases of the Grammy-winning “Buscando América” and Leon Ichaso’s indie hit, Crossover Dreams, Blades was known primarily for his work with the New York-based salsa ensemble, Fania All-Stars. Robert Mugge’s music-filled documentary, The Return of Ruben Blades, also shot in 1985, followed the baby-faced 36-year-old home, after earning a master’s degree in international law from Harvard Law School. His dance card would be filled with assignments from Hollywood, recording and touring for most of the next 30 years. In 2015, Blades’ album “Tangos” won a Grammy award for Best Latin Pop Album and he’s currently a cast member of “Fear the Walking Dead.” Like most of Mugge’s other films, “The Return” is equal parts history, biography and performance. An aspiring politician, Blades also used the film to discuss politics and Yankee cultural imperialism, without taking any direct shots at General Manuel Noriega’s corrupt regime. (He would also be profiled on “60 Minutes,” by Morley Safer.) The soundtrack is heavy on songs from “Buscando América” and includes a discussion of the origins of “Pedro Navaja,” inspired by “Mack the Knife,” his socially conscious song about the life and death of a murderous street hustler.
 
The Bible Stories: Jacob
The Bible Stories: Joseph
The latest installments in Shout! Factory’s reintroduction of executive producer Gerald Rafshoon’s “The Bible Stories” series are “Jacob” and “Joseph.” Once again, the productions benefit from attention to period details, decent budgets, big-name actors and Saharan locations. In the Book of Genesis story of family treachery and reconciliation, “Jacob,” directed by Peter Hall, the cast includes Matthew Modine, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sean Bean, Irene Papas, Christoph Waltz, Giancarlo Giannini and Joss Ackland. The musical score was composed by Ennio Morricone and Marco Frisina. Academy Award winners Ben Kingsley and Martin Landau top the cast of “Joseph,” with support from Paul Mercurio, Lesley Ann Warren, Dominique Sanda, Alice Krige and Monica Bellucci.
 
Daniel Boone: Collector’s Edition: Season One
Bitten: The Final Season
Secrets of the Dead: Teotihuacan’s Lost Kings
America’s Test Kitchen: Season 16
Caillou: Caillou Goes for the Gold
Collected episodes from the long-running NBC series, “Daniel Boone,” have appeared in DVD previously, but weren’t nearly as easy to find and enjoy as TMG/Shout’s upgraded release, “Daniel Boone: Collector’s Edition: Season One,” which includes all 29 episodes in glorious black-and-white. (The second and subsequent seasons were shot in color.) By this time, Fess Parker had earned the right to wear a coonskin cap wherever and whenever he wanted by playing Davy Crockett in the eponymous 1950s’ Disney mini-series. Parker would once again don the racoon-skin chapeau for the NBC series, which ran from September 24, 1964, to September 10, 1970, accumulating 165 total episodes. Shot in Kanab, Utah, and several different California locations, “Daniel Boone” portrayed the Kentucky frontiersman as a family man, first, and only then a surveyor, farmer, trapper, statesman and militia leader. Season One takes places in the years before the Revolutionary War, when British officers negotiated with Native American tribes to take sides against the colonials. Ed Ames famously played Mingo — Boone’s half-Cherokee Oxford-educated friend and ally – who could fling a tomahawk as well as he could sing opera (except on the “Tonight” show). Boone’s wife, Rebecca (Patricia Blair), son Israel (Darby Hinton) and daughter Jemima (Veronica Cartwright), often were asked to behave as if they were modern-day sitcom characters, helping dad welcome visitors to Boonesborough and fretting when he didn’t come home on time for dinner. Despite the absence of Indians in most roles, the storylines tried to do some justice to Native American history and customs, even if they couldn’t stand up to close scrutiny. Antiquated as it is, “Daniel Boone” remains reasonably entertaining and, for kids, an introduction to early American pseudo-history.
 
The third and final season of the Canadian-made werewolf drama, “Bitten,” took the storyline into very strange places, indeed. To keep the narrative moving forwardly, Elena, the world’s only female werewolf, was introduced to a father and half-siblings she never knew existed. While consumed with investigating the veracity of their claims, Elena and her pack were forced to deal with a merciless pack of Russian werewolves, anxious to do what their forebears couldn’t accomplish during the Cold War. As such, Season Three deviated from the direction taken in the first two stanzas, by adapting a duty-vs.-family, Alpha-vs.-Alpha theme. “Bitten” was based on the “Women of the Otherworld” series of books, by author Kelley Armstrong. It was produced as an original series for the Space network and picked up here by Syfy. The extras include the featurette, “A Look at the Final Season,” as well as deleted and extended scenes.
PBS’ “Secrets of the Dead” always takes viewers to places they didn’t know they wanted go, like catacombs, tombs and ancient burial grounds. In “Teotihuacan’s Lost Kings,” the producers address a mystery that’s bugged archeologists for a long time: the location of the final resting place for the greatest of Aztec kings. The show follows a team of international scientists documenting their exploration of royal tombs far beneath the surface of the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacán. When archeologists discover evidence of a sacrificial chamber beneath the famous Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, they find the clues that may finally reveal a secret society of executioners.
 
PBS’ “The Great Polar Bear Feast” provides an extraordinary example of neighborly cooperation, as well as more alarming evidence of the effects of global warming on two endangered populations. Every year, normally solitary polar bears gather in large numbers of 80 or more at Kaktovic, Alaska. The polar bears are waiting for the feast left for them by Inupiat residents who’ve just bagged one of the three bowhead whales they’re entitled to harvest each year. After they pick the carcass clean of edible meat, the residents haul the skeleton to a pile of weathered bones on the shore, where the bears and their cubs will feast on the leftovers. It’s quite a sight.
 
Caillou, the PBS Kids’ series by way of Canada’s Treehouse TV, is based on the books by Hélène Desputeaux. It centers on a 4-year-old boy who is fascinated by the world around him. In “Caillou: Caillou Goes for the Gold,” Caillou and his friends appear to be getting a head start on the Olympics, as they participate in such activities as soccer, running, karate, baseball and swimming. With patience and practice, Caillou becomes more confident as he gets better and stronger.
Discovery: Naked and Afraid XL: Season 1
PBS: NOVA: Wild Ways
PBS: Secrets of the Dead: Cleopatra’s Lost Tomb
PBS: Independent Lens: Adjust Your Color: The Truth About Petey Greenwald
PBS Kids: Dinosaur Train: Under the Volcano
Nickelodeon: Blaze and the Monster Machines: Fired Up!
At a time when some of our greatest living actors are best known for playing larger-than-life characters in comic-book pictures, it’s a comfort to know that someone, at least, understands how best to utilize their talents. In the second film adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s brilliant off-stage drama, The Dresser, Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen deliver performances that are the theatrical equivalent of a heavyweight championship fight. At 77 and 78, respectively, Sir Ian and Sir Anthony have stayed busy – and, one hopes, wealthy — playing such mythical figures as Gandalf, Magneto, an over-the-hill Sherlock Holmes, Methuselah, Odin and King Hrothgar. Their presence is always welcome, but one is always left wondering if they’d rather be doing “King Lear.” That’s exactly what Hopkins is doing in The Dresser, as the distinguished, if completely addled British actor, Sir. His every need and whim are administered to by Sir’s longtime, long-suffering and extremely loyal dresser and aide-de-camp, Norman (McKellen), himself well beyond retirement age. As the movie opens, Norman and everyone else in the travelling production company are nearly frantic with despair over Sir’s disappearance from a hospital, where’s he’s been treated for a breakdown of some sort. Because The Dresser unfolds in a small English regional theater, during the Blitz, audience members and company members are literally risking their lives waiting patiently in their seats for the legendary star to appear. Sir arrives in the nick of time, of course, wondering what all the fuss is about, while Norman springs into action. Anything else would be unprofessional. Also relieved are Her Ladyship (Emily Watson), who’s put up with his antics – on and off stage – for more years than anyone dare count; Madge (Sarah Lancashire), the stage manager who wonders if this show is really going to go on; and star-struck ingénue, Irene (Vanessa Kirby). The other players and technical-crew members shiver with each new report of a bomb landing somewhere in the mid-distance. Meanwhile, viewers at home, wonder exactly how long Sir will be able to make his way up the stairs to perform one of the most taxing roles in the repertoire. For his part, Norman is racing against the hands of an invisible clock as he fortifies himself with either cheap liquor or cough syrup. The interaction and verbal sparring between the two old pros – characters and actors, alike – is a true joy to behold. Watson, too, gives as well as Her Ladyship is forced to take in their incessant behind-the-scenes squabbling. The bittersweet ending succeeds, as well. The DVD adds entertaining interviews and background material.
In the contagiously funny British sitcom, “Vicious,” McKellen teams with another giant of the British stage, Derek Jacobi, also 77. They play an elderly pair of self-described queens, Freddie and Stuart, who’ve lived together for nearly 50 years, in a tidy Covent Garden flat with their comatose dog, Balthazar. Freddie was a struggling actor – his last bit role was on “Downton Abbey” — and Stuart worked in the bar in which they first met. Their barbed dialogue isn’t strictly reserved for each other, of course. In true sitcom fashion, the doorbell rings every few minutes as another member of their extended family arrives for his or her fair share of abuse. Frances de la Tour plays the constantly horny Violet Crosby, a close friend of Freddie and Stuart, who has designs on their young and handsome upstairs neighbor, Ash (Iwan Rheon). Marcia Warren is Penelope, another old friend, who often becomes confused over the simplest things, and Philip Voss plays Mason Thornhill, Freddie’s opinionated brother. The story occasionally leaves the confines of their sitting room, but not often. Knowing that Jacobi and McKellen were openly gay before being openly gay was cool provides the honey that allows some viewers to swallow some of the more stereotypical gags and asides, of which there are many. “The Finale,” which has yet to air in England, chronicles a year in the newly married couple’s life. Freddie and Stuart enjoy their inheritance and a birthday; Violet moves on from her divorce; and Ash must decide whether he should accept a scholarship to attend school in New York or remain in New York, collecting ex-girlfriends.
If I were a board member of the FCC, one of the first things I’d do is outlaw so-called reality shows that hire writers to put ideas and words into the heads of their seemingly real and unscripted participants – a.k.a., actors – and shows with the word, “Naked,” in their title that deliver blurred images as irritating as burlap diapers in a nursery. For all the audience knows, the 12 contestants on “Naked and Afraid XL,” who’ve previously appeared on “Naked and Afraid,” are wearing nipple patches, pasties and jock straps under those pixelated clouds. On the spinoff series, the survivalists are tasked with surviving in the Colombian wilderness for 40 days, with only one or two helpful items of his or her choosing. We’re told they aren’t given any other items, clothing, food or liquids – c’mon, how can the water possibly be safe to drink? – and the camera crews are not allowed to intervene, except for medical emergencies. The contestants hunt, trap and gather their food in the wild and build shelters with their own hands and material found in nature. At the end of the 40 days, the remaining survivalist(s) must arrive at the designated extraction point. Frankly, apart from unblurring the contestants, the only way I’d become a regular viewer is if Discovery Channel added a celebrity edition of the show, featuring the Kardashians and stars of the various housewife series.
As mankind has encroached on the natural habitats of our animal neighbors, we’ve inadvertently created dozens of new ways for them to die unnatural deaths. From PBS, “NOVA: Wild Ways” how engineers and environmentalists are working together to allow wildlife access to places where they can hunt, breed and migrate without fear of becoming roadkill or target practice for landowners. While national parks and preserves offer some protection to wildlife, even the Serengeti and Yellowstone parks are too small to sustain healthy populations over generations. “Connectivity conservation” allows some of the world’s most beloved endangered species — lions, bears, antelope, elephants – to move safely between refuges, via tunnels, overpasses and protected land corridors. The show visits Yellowstone, the Canadian Yukon and Southern Africa’s elephant highways, stretching across five nations.
In the “Secrets of the Dead” episode “Cleopatra’s Lost Tomb,” Dominican lawyer-turned-archeologist Kathleen Martinez may be on the verge of accomplishing a feat none of her professional peers have managed to do: discover the tomb of Egypt’s last queen. Working on the barest of clues, Martinez has identified the temple Taposiris Magna, located in Alexandria, Egypt, as the most likely spot. Her unorthodox methodology has already paid dividend, but there’s plenty of digging left to do.
The centerpiece event of Talk to Me, Kasi Lemmons’ excellent 2007 biopic of Washington, D.C., radio host Petey Greene, comes when he uses his electronic podium to calm listeners caught in the maelstrom of hatred, fear and violence that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Without Greene’s non-stop filibuster on the need for a non-violent response to the tragedy, the rioting could have been much worse, extending beyond a James Brown concert designed to bring people together in peace. It turned the strictly local on-air personality – an ex-con and man about town with a gift for ghetto gab – into an activist whose words carried weight in a troubled city with an overwhelmingly African-American population. Loren Mendell’s 2008 documentary, Adjust Your Color: The Truth About Petey Green, amplifies on the portrait drawn by Lemmons, while providing visual proof of what made Greene such an alluring draw for radio and TV audiences. Don Cheadle, who made Greene come to life in the movie, narrates the documentary, which was aired as part of PBS’ “Independent Lens” series. The newly released DVD misconstrues Greene’s outspoken approach to his job as being a precursor of the “shock jock” trend, without also acknowledging the role played by highly charismatic African-American media personalities in other urban centers. The difference, of course, was that Greene was a high-profile African-American radio host in a city whose predominantly black population was unrepresented in Congress and whose many deeply engrained problems were routinely ignored by the federal officials assigned to govern it. That he also could be extremely funny and outrageously attired gave him star quality. The most shocking segment of the film features Greene grilling a very young Howard Stern, in blackface, on being a “cracker” who exploits his black staff, including Robin Quivers, who’s in the TV-studio audience.
PBS Kids’ Emmy-nominated “Dinosaur Train,” from the Jim Henson Company, leads its latest collection of episodes with “Under the Volcano,” which shouldn’t be confused with Malcolm Lowry’s harrowing novel about a day in the life of an alcoholic Brit diplomat in Mexico. Instead, join Buddy and family as they watch Old Smoky erupt. It provides a non-lethal lesson in lava and geysers. Other episodes in the set teach ways to use a pile of leaves, petals, wood and shells from the family nest.
Nickelodeon’s four-episode collection, “Blaze and the Monster Machines: Fired Up!,” follows Blaze, AJ and their friends as they embark on slippery adventures to save a truck wash, race to deliver medicine to cure sick trucks and put out fires wherever they arise. Kids can learn how to use science, technology, engineering and math to solve problems.
I Saw the Light
Hank Williams: The Complete Mother’s Best Collection … Plus
Country-music singers have been trying to find the bottle in which Hank Williams captured his lightning for most of the last 65 years, with only a handful even coming close to locating the darkness in his soul or the poetic wellspring that inspired his most memorable songs. That’s why I don’t take much stock in the complaints of mainstream critics who voiced their disapproval of Tom Hiddleston’s interpretation of Williams’ vocalizing and stage presence in Marc Abraham’s biopic I Saw the Light. The actor moved into singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell’s Nashville home for five months for a crash course in singing, guitar playing and yodeling. If Crowell felt that the Brit entertainer was ready for prime time, that’s good enough for me. That’s not the part of the movie that bothered me, anyway. What I missed most were the early chapters in Hank’s life, during which Williams’ own roots were planted, thanks, in large part, to a black street performer, Rufus Payne, who gave him guitar lessons in exchange for meals or money. A similar debt to black musicians was owed by A.P. Carter, Jimmie Rogers, Woody Guthrie and Elvis Presley. While lying awake at night in northern Minnesota, Bob Dylan would listen to hardcore R&B and country radio stations from the Deep South. Abraham elected to focus on Williams’ tortured relationship with his first wife, Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen), who so desperately wanted to share the limelight with him, and overbearing manager/mother, Lillie (Cherry Jones). It also lacked the down-home Southern flavor that animated James Mangold’s Walk the Line and Jim McBride’s Great Balls of Fire!, as well as any indication of Williams’ expanding popularity outside the South and Canada. Even so, Hiddleston frequently is able to mine the emotional core of musician whose physical pain drove him to seek relief in booze and pills. The most telling moment comes when a reporter attempts to break through the artist’s cool exterior, between sips of whiskey, and finally is told, “Everybody has a little darkness in them. I’m talking about things like anger, misery, sorrow, shame. I show it to them, and they don’t have to take it home. They expect I can help their troubles.” In another scene, Williams reverts to his “Luke the Drifter” persona, which he employed in his religious-themed recordings and recitations, for some stage preaching. He didn’t feel like performing that day, but gave the crowd its money’s worth, anyway. Abraham’s source material was provided by Colin Escott’s 1994 book, “Hank Williams: The Biography.” It arrives with deleted scenes; the featurettes “A Night in Nashville,” from the premiere and musical performance by Hiddleston, “Illuminating A Legend: Inside ‘I Saw the Light’” and “Talking Hank,” with Crowell and Hiddleston; and audio commentary with Abraham.
 
Where If I Saw the Light focuses on Williams’ dark side and decline, “The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings … Plus!” reveals qualities in him that endeared him to radio listeners by bringing a little lightness into the days of men and women on their way to work or toiling in the kitchen. In 1951, it wasn’t unusual to hear the biggest stars in the country and blues arenas using their music to sell products in sponsored radio shows. “King Biscuit Hour,” which featured African-American blues artists Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) and Robert Lockwood Jr., could be heard throughout the Mississippi and Arkansas deltas. Nashville’s 50,000-watt WSM-AM lured Williams to do some pickin’, grinnin’ and singin’ in support of Mother’s Best Flour. As befit the early-morning timeslot, he kept things on the sunny side, often exchanging banter with the host. (At various times in his short career, he also promoted the Hadacol patent medicine, Naughton Farms plant nursery and the Health & Happiness Show.) If the Drifting Cowboys were going to be on the road, Williams would pre-record the 15-minute segments. Re-released by Time Life to coincide with the theatrical and DVD/Blu-ray release of I Saw the Light. “The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings … Plus!” is comprised of 15 CDs, containing 143 songs, interstitials and casual chat. A 16th DVD disc features daughter Jett Williams, who didn’t learn she was Hank’s kin until the early 1980s, interviewing surviving members of his band. The recordings provide listeners a deeper insight into Williams’ life and music, revealing a personality that might have influenced Garrison Keillor. The recordings, including previously unrecorded material, are in surprisingly pristine condition and his voice is in tip-top shape. The set adds a 32-page booklet, with vintage photos and full discography. You may want to skip ahead to the 15th CD, which includes an audition for Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix and a truly amazing story-song warning young lovers against the scourge of syphilis.
 
The Adderall Diaries: Blu-ray
Another week, another James France performance to check out. And, just in case you’re beginning to think that the hyper-productive actor, poet, teacher and seeker of post-graduate degrees has begun to make things up as he goes his merry way through life, it’s worth knowing that his character in The Adderall Diaries is based on someone other than him or one of his myriad personae. Franco plays Stephen Elliot, a delinquent-turned-novelist modelled after Stephen Elliot, who wrote the best-selling memoir from which the movie was adapted (and directed Franco in About Cherry). Although severely blocked, Franco’s Elliot maintains a relatively high profile in literary circles by reading from his memoirs, which deal directly with his extremely troubled past and abusive relationship with his father. (It squares with known facts about Elliot’s life as a street urchin, drug addict and ward of the state, while growing up on Chicago’s North Side.) He’s been contracted to write a true-crime book on the murder trial of Hans Reiser (Christian Slater), a sociopathic fellow who’s been accused of killing his wife and making her body disappear. While covering the trial, he befriends New York Times reporter Lana Edmond (Amber Heard), who enables all of Elliot’s bad habits and picks some up for herself. The turning point of the story comes when the author’s father (Ed Harris), presumed dead, shows up at one of his readings and basically disavows everything he’s been accused of doing. Neil Elliot turns the tables on his son by suggesting that he refused all attempts to reconcile their differences or control his worst impulses. Being accused of lying in front of an influential group of readers at a book-signing party is a career altering experience, of course, and it not only impacts the publisher’s marketing campaign, but also Elliot’s fragile hold on reality. It won’t be the last time Neil Elliot figures into the narrative, but what finally brings the pot to a boil is an encounter between the author and newly convicted Reiser. The Adderall Diaries represents the feature debut of Pamela Romanowsky, who previously participated in The Color of Time, an expressionistic appreciation of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet C.K. Williams, written and directed by a dozen different NYU students and produced by their instructor, you guessed it, Franco. The embellishments Romanowsky added to make Elliot’s story – including a BDSM subplot — more cinematic mostly serve to distract viewers from what is a promising essay on how we select, edit and repress our memories to conform to a more appealing version of ourselves. The Blu-ray adds Romanowsky’s commentary, the featurette, “The Adderall Diaries: A Director’s Perspective,” and deleted scenes.
 
600 Miles
The films that have emerged from the on-going drug war in Mexico, informed either by unspeakable brutality or deeply engrained corruption, would be difficult to believe if it weren’t for the cartels’ willingness to blow their own horns and the ease with which journalists are able identify the kingpins and trace the trail of Yankee dollars from Sinaloa and Mexico City to Switzerland. From what I can tell, the traffickers see themselves as protagonists in movies that exist mostly in their heads, as well as the heroes of narcocorridos whose lyrics refer to specific illegal activities and include real dates and places. It explains why Denis Villeneuve’s otherwise excellent cross-border thriller Sicario failed to fully emerge from the shadow cast by Gianfranco Rosi’s 2010 documentary, El Sicario, Room 164, in which a cartel assassin recalls his greatest hits. Matthew Heineman’s intricately designed Cartel Land practically exists as a sequel to Steven Soderbergh’s fictional thriller Traffic. Gregory Nava’s fictional Bordertown, about a journalist (Jennifer Lopez) investigating a series of murders near American-owned factories on the border of Juarez and El Paso, echoed material in the documentaries Maquilopolis and Señorita Extraviada. In Mexico, the truth almost always is stranger and more compelling than fiction. At first, Gabriel Ripstein’s deliberately paced 600 Miles feels very much like a documentary. Two teenagers, a gringo and Mexican-American, take advantage of lax gun laws in Arizona to purchase firearms to be smuggled across the border to Mexican criminals, for fun and profit. They drive expensive SUVs and only occasionally are quizzed by dealers about their intentions. Unless you’re a NRA supporter or Republican, the ease with which these knuckleheads legally acquire assault weapons and handguns, using cartel-supplied money, might come as a shock.
 
It takes a while to realize that they’re being loosely tailed by ATF agent Hank Harris (Tim Roth), who’s awaiting the go-ahead to pounce on them. In what turns out to be a major miscalculation, Harris decides to confront Arnulfo (Kristyan Ferrer) in a parking lot behind some stores in a Tucson shopping district. He doesn’t realize that the boy’s partner, Carson (Harrison Thomas), is within striking distance when Harris pulls out his gun. Carson knocks him out from behind and helps Arnulfo stuff him into a compartment normally reserved for contraband. Naturally panicked, Arnulfo volunteers to transport the agent’s handcuffed body 600 miles into the Mexican interior, where he’ll offer Harris up as tribute to his bosses. Once roused, Harris takes his time surveying the situation and attempting to guess how much danger he’s in. It doesn’t take long for him to ascertain that the kid only has the vaguest idea of what’s at stake for both of them. At a roadblock manned by cartel soldiers, Harris decides to impress Arnulfo by saving his life. He does this by telling him exactly what to say when confronted by the armed highwayman, including the name of a trafficker the guard should call to ascertain the agent’s identity. As he explains to the boy, sometimes the opposing forces in the drug war do favors for each other and this was one of them. 600 Miles will evolve from here into a taut thriller with sporadic bursts of intense action. Ripstein does a nice job keeping us guessing what will happen to Harris and Arnulfo and when. The ending should take most viewers by surprise. Roth is very good as the lone-wolf lawmen, as is Ferrer (Sin Nombre) as the wet-behind-the-ears cartel wannabe.
 
Electra Woman & Dyna Girl
Not having seen the original live-action version of “Electra Woman & Dyna Girl,” which aired only 16 episodes in a single season as part of the umbrella series, “The Krofft Supershow,” I would have no way of comparing it to the recent re-boot, which stars the slightly off-kilter YouTube sensations Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart, respectively. The original early-’70s sci-fi series, starring Deidre Hall and Judy Strangis, was targeted primarily at kids who were beginning to warm to the burgeoning superhero craze. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that the new Electra Woman & Dyna Girl is aimed at the gender-neutral world of cosplay nerds and fans of alternative content. Helbig, especially, is an aggressively comedic actress, who knows precisely how to twist the dials of computer geeks. That she gets to do it here in head-to-toe Spandex alone is worth the price of a rental. Hart comes off more as a naughty pixie. In a world overpopulated with superheroes and archenemies, no city is large enough to accommodate all of them. EW&DG are relegated to the Rust Belt crime capital of Akron, Ohio, until being asked to relocate to L.A. by a mega-agent who specializes in branding and promoting superheroes. The degree of competition for the attention of the local media is fierce and DG soon feels as if she’s been relegated to “sidekick” status. When push comes to shove and an even more fabulous superbabe arrives on the scene, it probably won’t be long before old wounds are healed. The film was released as a series of eight 11-minute webisodes on April 26, 2016, through Fullscreen’s digital streaming platform. It looks pretty seamless here. The bonus features interviews at fan gatherings and background material.
 
Imber’s Left Hand
Anyone with a handheld camera and lots of patience is capable of transforming historical footnotes and also-rans into subjects worthy of a documentary to call their own. If they’re fortunate, a grant or two will miraculously become available or fans will contribute to a crowd-sourcing campaign to cover incalculable amounts of time and effort. A friend or relative might even consider crafting a Wikipedia page for posterity. It’s cheaper than buying a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, anyway. Before watching Imber’s Left Hand, I wasn’t aware of painter Jon Imber or what it meant to be considered a leading representative of the Boston Figurative Expressionism movement, which, itself, was an integral part of American modernism bracketing the Second World War. According to art historian Judith Bookbinder, “(It) expressed the anxiety of the modern age with the particular accent of the city…Boston figurative expressionism was both a humanist philosophy – that is, a human-centered and rationalist or classically oriented philosophy – and a formal approach to the handling of paint and space.” I’ll take her word for it. What made Imber a perfect candidate for a documentary profile is, sadly, the very thing that makes some little-known artists more interesting than other. At some point in late-middle-age, Imber contracted ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and was told it ultimately was be a death sentence for his life and career. Director Richard Kane traveled to the artist’s summer home in Maine to chronicle his increasingly labored efforts to continue his work as a credible artist, despite his condition. Thanks in large part to the support of his wife, painter Jill Hoy, Imber learns to paint with his left hand and eventually with both hands held together at his waist. His remarkable resolve leads to the creation of more than 100 delightfully stylized portraits in a four-month span. As the disease begins to take its toll, Jon and Jill remain extremely personable and outgoing to longtime friends and neighbors. The summer is capped with gallery opening, where the portraits are displayed. Imber’s Left Hand is as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking. The praise for his work seems justified and the testimonies run far short of becoming maudlin. The package includes an uncut interview with the artist.
 
Francofonia: Blu-ray
The story of the looting of French art galleries, museums and estates by Nazi officers during the German Occupation is pretty familiar to Americans, thanks to such movies as John Frankenheimer and Arthur Penn’s The Train, René Clément’s Is Paris Burning? and George Clooney’s The Monuments Men. If the facts weren’t always strictly observed, they captured what was at stake when German troops exited Paris and some officers took a stand against the cultural genocide demanded from Berlin. A catastrophe of incalculable scope was barely averted in a real-life drama that had its roots in actions begun years earlier by prescient curators and far-flung art lovers. In Francofonia, the same Russian filmmaker whose Russian Ark famously captured the soul of the State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace, in a single 99-minute take, not only describes how the Louvre was saved from disaster years, but also what was at stake. Alexander Sokurov explains how the deputy head of the Louvre, Jacques Jaujard, anticipated the looting of the museum and ordered its treasures be shipped to chateaus and castles around the country, well before the invasion. Moreover, he credits a German officer with inventing ways to keep Hitler and Goering’s thugs from running roughshod through what was left of the collection. On August 16, 1940, Jaujard was introduced to Count Franz Wolff-Metternich, who had been appointed by his Führer to oversee France’s art collection, not just those works once housed in the Louvre. In effect, this forced marriage meant that Jaujard’s decisions could be second-guessed by Hitler and his Vichy puppet, Marshall Philippe Pétain. One of Wolff-Metternich’s greatest services to world culture was to honor his conscience by serving as a buffer between both monsters. The heroic role played by Rose Valland, one of Jaujard’s employees, is explored in greater depth in Illustre et inconnu (a.k.a., “The Man Who Saved the Louvre”), the superb feature-length documentary that accompanies Francofonia. While documenting their contributions, Sokurov also waxes philosophic on the Louvre’s hold on French culture, pride and identity. He does this by using actors to portray Napoleon Bonaparte and Marianne, national symbol of the French Republic, as they survey the empty hallways and galleries of the wartime Louvre. It was Napoleon, after all, who brought so many of the treasures displayed there to France as the cost of doing business in times of conflict and conquest. Marianne flits around the same spaces, reciting the national motto, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.” It takes a bit of time to become accustomed to the conceit, but what could be more French? At 57 minutes, Illustre et inconnu is able to expand on the tight focus afforded Jaujard and Wolff-Metternich in Francofonia, explaining what happened after the German was called back to Berlin for disobeying orders, and expanding on how Jaujard, Valland and French actress Jeanne Boitel, worked with Resistance fighters and American intelligence to avoid the bombing of chateaus sheltering art and preventing Hitler’s mandate to destroy Paris. The Blu-ray adds a making-of featurette and collector’s booklet.
 
Emma’s Chance
Endgame
I would hate to think that any teen-oriented dramedy in which Eleanor Roosevelt plays a key role – visible or otherwise – is doomed to failure. Add a character based on one of the three men who may or may not have escaped from Alcatraz in June, 1962, and you wonder how such a quaint notion was green-lit. The fact is, though, it didn’t take much effort for Dear Eleanor to make me to suspend my disbelief long enough to share an unlikely cross-country ride with two runaway girls. Set in 1962, as the Cuban Missile Crisis loomed, the coming-of-age story stars Isabelle Fuhrman (“Master of Sex”) and Liana Liberato (“If I Stay”) as a pair of friends who drive the length of the nation to realize one of their mothers’ dream of offering her opinions to the famously liberal Roosevelt. The woman wouldn’t live long enough to accomplish this personal goal, but her daughter Ellie feels obligated to go in her place. Naturally, her father (Luke Wilson) attempts to dissuade her from such folly and, just as naturally, her cocky friend talks her into hopping into the vintage family convertible for the trip east. Adventures await them, of course, in ways Thelma and Louise might themselves have envisioned several years later. Josh Lucas plays the escaped convict Frank Morris, a roguish fellow who imposes himself on their excellent adventure, while Jessica Alba plays a fairy-godmother stripper who hitches a ride to New York for an audition being conducted by the producers of “Gypsy.” The ending probably will seem sappy to some viewers, but it’s of a piece with what happens before it. Oh, yeah, an actor name Patrick Schwarzenegger also makes an appearance some teens in the audience will find appealing. Dear Eleanor was directed capably by Kevin Connolly (“Entourage”) and written by first-timers Amy Garcia and Cecilia Contreras. The DVD includes two commentary tracks.
Also flying under the radar this week is Emma’s Chance, an overly familiar story about a troubled teen, Emma (Greer Grammer), who finds redemption in the care and feeding – mucking the stall, too – of an abused animal. Chance is an ornery show horse quartered at an animal-rescue ranch to which Emma has been assigned by a juvenile court. Emma, who’s been bullied herself, forms an unlikely bond with the jumper, who won’t let just anyone ride him. After warming to each other, Emma hatches a plan to use Chance to save the financially strapped facility from an evil dude who wants to sell the horses to Mexican meat-packing interests. The story was inspired by the good work done at Chino Hill’s Red Bucket Equine Rescue and its president and founder Susan Pierce (Missi Pyle). Joey Lawrence plays a devoted wrangler.
 
Carmen Marron’s Endgame is another movie that succeeds, despite a fact-based plot that has been revisited a couple dozen times since Stand and Deliver re-wrote the rules on David-vs.-Goliath stories in 1988. Here, Efren Ramirez (Napoleon Dynamite) plays the chess coach at a school in Brownsville, Texas, where his brother was a star athlete before his untimely death. Jose’s always been required to live under the shadow of his brother and, now, their mother doesn’t seem to want anything to do with him. When he was 5 years old, Jose’s abuelita taught him to play chess like his grandfather, who was a champion in Mexico. It’s an unorthodox style, but Jose’s bigger problem has always been a lack of self-confidence. That changes, as well, when he begins defeating opponents in support of the school’s team on its way to the state championships. Lots of lessons are learned here, but they’re petty painless. It a perfect companion piece to Niki Caro and Kevin Costner’s McFarland, USA, in which a team comprised of the sons of poor farm laborers stuns California’s cross-country elite. It did well enough for Disney that, you’d think, someone would take a chance on giving Endgame a theatrical release, especially in markets with a large Mexican-American audience. Instead, it faces heavy competition in DVD and VOD.
 
The Levenger Tapes
The Pack: Blu-ray
When Gus Van Sant produced his shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, Psycho, nearly 40 years separated their release dates. The addition of color was the sole concession to the passage of cinematic time. The direct translation of Michael Haneke’s shocking Funny Games into English, 10 years later, could be justified as a concession to American audiences’ profound resistance to subtitles and unfamiliar stars with French accents. What possible excuse could Eli Roth have had for hiring Travis “Z” Zariwny to perform the same non-surgical procedure on his breakthrough hit, Cabin Fever, only 13 years removed from the original? Vanity? Not good enough … especially given the easy availability of the franchise entries on DVD/Blu-ray. In both, a band of college kids heads to the woods, where they plan on spending their spring break getting drunk and having sex. The first ominous note is struck when they pull into a gas station and are confronted by a garden-variety redneck and his possibly rabid son. The second comes when one of the young men uses a tricked-out assault rifle to shoot at something in the woods that takes him by surprise. Could the stranger’s odd behavior have anything to do with the sudden outbreak of a flesh-eating virus among the frisky spring-breakers? Of course, it could. The cast of largely unknown actors assembled here, led by Gage Golightly, Matthew Daddario, Samuel Davis and Nadine Crocker, isn’t required to stretch beyond their known limits or be any more naked than their predecessors. The real problem, I think, comes in the great number of nearly identical horror/slasher movies that have been released in the interim, mostly straight to DVD or VOD. So many clueless vacationers and horny teenagers have been slaughtered in the last 13 years – 30, really, for those keeping score – that a few more would hardly be noticed. Considering that the fleshing-eating virus isn’t the only terrifying disease afflicting innocent tourists and outdoors types, however, it can still provide a few chills. A movie about an attack of giant Zika-carrying mosquitos and/or their zombie victims, at the Summer Olympics, probably is already on the drawing boards. The Blu-ray adds some interviews and background material.
i
And, while we’re on the topic of familiar genre tropes, when was the last time you saw a found-footage thriller? Not long, I’ll bet. Once again, in Mark Edwin Robinson’s The Levenger Tapes, college students Amanda (Johanna Brady), Kim (Lili Mirojnick), and Chase (Morgan Krantz) are traveling to Chase’s family mountain retreat for a Spring Break getaway. They stop at a liquor store, where Chase decides to steal a bottle of rum. During the ill-advised getaway, their car is involved in a fender-bender with a truck. Upon their arrival, the students drink, converse and swim in their undies, before spotting a campfire in the distance. After ascertaining that it belongs to the man from the truck, they decide to walk over to deliver an in-person apology. Along the way, they develop a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. Meanwhile, one of them is capturing what passes for action on a video tape, which later is pored over by local police. On it, the students come upon the bloody dress of an 8-year-old girl, which may or may not be involved in the trio’s disappearance. There were times when I had trouble differentiating between the found footage and that captured during the normal course of the narrative. It all seemed to have been taken by the same camera used by cinematographer Magdalena Górka, without consistent allowance for the distressed images usually associated with home movies.
 
For a debut feature, director Nick Robertson and writer Evan Randall Green have fashioned a terrifically atmospheric and reasonably exciting siege thriller, involving a pack of wild dogs – thus, the title, The Pack — determined to kill every living thing on an Australian sheep ranch. Naturally, that includes the residents of the isolated farmhouse. Most of the action takes place over the course of a single night, with canine eyes sparkling in the brush and tree line, and the rancher running out of bullets for his rifle. Can the small family last the night, before the dark black dogs invade the house and have them for a late snack? Veteran Aussie actors Jack Campbell and Anna Lise Phillips take the threat with appropriate seriousness. The Blu-ray adds some interesting making-of material, focusing on the creation of the wild look-alike dogs … not to be mistaken for werewolves.
 
Mad Tiger
As previously noted here, the production of feature-length rockumentaries has reached the saturation point in the DVD marketplace, with no signs of slowing down any time soon. To break through the pack, the subject of any new film must have something going for it, besides the music and fans. Otherwise, all you have is a long rock video. Michael Haertlein and Jonathan Yi’s Mad Tiger easily qualifies as something different … at least, for those of us new to the wacky world of Japanese pop culture. It follows the relationship of two Japanese musicians, Yellow and Red, who have been best friends, band mates and business partners for more than 15 years, while touring the U.S. in the performance-art punk band, Peelander-Z. Based in New York, its on-stage persona merges elements of Mexican lucha libre wrestling, the live-action Power Rangers, Sun Ra and the American heavy-metal band GWAR. Or, as the group bills itself, “a Japanese Action Comic Punk band hailing from the Z area of Planet Peelander.” The costumes range from sentai style suits, to kimono, to rubber Playmobil style wigs. There is also a tiger costume and a squid/guitar costume, designed to coincide with the song “Mad Tiger.” The band employs such on-stage antics as human bowling, pretending to hit each other with chairs in imitation of pro-wrestlers and mid-performance piggyback rides. Apart from the performance footage, which borders on insanity, Mad Tiger chronicles the aftermath of Red’s departure from the band and Yellow’s attempts to replace him. (Other members include Peelanders Pink, Purple, Green, Black and formerly Blue.) It’s pretty wild stuff, so I recommend being in the right mood to absorb the act properly. The bonus package adds seven deleted scenes, two Peelander-Z music videos and a directors’ statement.
 
Search Party: Blu-ray
Scot Armstrong, co-writer/director of the anemic boys-will-be-boors comedy, Search Party, can boast of a resume that includes such not-bad/not-great entertainments as Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, School for Scoundrels, Hangover II and Showtime’s “Dice.” Somehow, he figured out a way to sweep up all of the jokes that fell on the cutting-room floor of those movies and make a nearly complete feature out of them. That’s not to say any of the gags were worth saving, only that they finally added up to about 90 minutes, with credits. Neither were they sufficiently funny to keep Search Party from sitting on a shelf for two years, despite a comically gifted cast that includes Adam Pally (“The Mindy Project”), T.J. Miller and Thomas Middleditch (“Silicon Valley”), Shannon Woodward (“Raising Hope”), Alison Brie (“Community”), J.B. Smoove (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Lance Reddick (“The Wire”), Krysten Ritter (“Jessica Jones”), Jason Mantzoukas (“The League”), Horatio Sanz (“SNL”), Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci (“Garfunkel and Oates”) and Rosa Salazar (“Man Seeking Woman”). When the love of his life (Woodward) jilts him at the altar, thanks to his hard partying pals Jason (Miller) and Evan (Pally), Nardo (Middleditch) follows her down to Mexico, where he’s carjacked and left naked in the middle of nowhere. At this point, viewers are assaulted with the kind of racist gross-out humor that would make Donald Trump blush. The rest of the out-of-control road-trip humor isn’t much better. Only fans of the actors will be able to digest Search Party, without a great deal of pot and beer for chasers.
 
Code of Honor: Blu-ray
For a while there, I actually thought I was watching an action epic from Steven Seagal’s vintage years. That’s because Code of Honor features wall-to-wall gunplay, pyrotechnics, knife duels and strippers … all of it gratuitous. It’s pretty much in the same vein as the dozens of other straight-to-video (or close to it) titles that Seagal’s been churning out for the last 25 years. (He knows his audience and what it wants.) The only concession to age displayed by Seagal is a weirdly geometric hairdo and facial makeup/camouflage borrowed from a mortuary. Code of Honor is as resistant to mainstream criticism as almost everything as he’s done in the same period. Here, he plays Colonel Robert Sikes, a special-forces lifer who lost his family to gangs while he was overseas. It’s prompted him to return home and go all Charles Bronson on any ’banger or pimp working the streets with the intent of committing felonies. The local constabulary doesn’t appreciate the help from Sikes or his former protégé (Craig Sheffer), who’s stalking him and itching for a showdown. In another familiar urban-action trope, writer/director Michael Winnick balances the black and Latino criminals with crooked white politicians and cops, as well as a bogus news team acting as a Greek chorus. Action junkies, at least, won’t be disappointed.
 
Suture: Special Edition: Blu-ray
To fully appreciate this experiment neo-noir, viewers are required to buy into a conceit most won’t recognize or completely understand until they check out the bonus material provided by Arrow Video in its fully restored special edition. It explains why Suture found so little traction after its festival release, in 1994, despite gathering some indie cred at Sundance and encouraging reviews. Those who come to Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s mystery within a mystery with an open mind and close attention to detail, even 22 years later, will be rewarded with a uniquely intriguing cinematic experience. Miss a clue along the way and you might come away from Suture shaking your head. Given that introduction, maybe you’ll forgive me for not ruining the fun with too many spoilers. The story opens immediately after the funeral of a wealthy Phoenix businessman, who fathered almost identical half-brothers, but afforded them very different lots in life. It’s where Needles construction worker Clay Arlington meets his half-brother, Vincent Towers, who grew up in the lap of luxury in Scottsdale. Vincent immediately recognizes in Clay an opportunity to wipe clean a slate that includes being the prime suspect in the old man’s suspicious death. No sooner does Clay arrive in Scottsdale to solidify his newfound bond with Vincent than his half-brother exchanges IDs and clothes with his guest. Vincent also asks Clay to drive him to the airport to catch a flight for an unexpected business trip, with instructions on how to answer the new-fangled car phone – it’s 1993, you’ll recall – in case something comes up. Few viewers will be surprised, then, when the phone rings in the luxury convertible and Vincent hits a button on a pay phone at the airport and the tone detonates a bomb planted underneath the vehicle. While Clay miraculously survives the blast, he’ll awaken with a serious case of amnesia and a face requires extensive plastic surgery. The rest of the 96-minute film chronicles Clay’s recovery from the surgery, including an amnesiac’s attempts to clear his name in a murder he didn’t commit, a therapeutic return to a desert hellhole he can’t remember leaving and another trap set by Vincent. That’s only the skeleton of the story, however. At the time of Suture’s debut, the cast was largely unknown. Dennis Haysbert had just broken through with a key role in Love Field; Mel Harris had just completed a four-season run on “thirtysomething”; Michael Harris was struggling to make a living as an actor; Dina Merrill, at 71, was still gorgeous and active; and Sab Shimono was scrambling for the few acting jobs available to Asian-Americans. To introduce their characters would ruin the gag. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ll want to check out the fresh interviews and background featurettes.
 
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan: Special Edition: Blu-ray
For most of the 20th Century, Ray Harryhausen’s name was synonymous with special visual effects and stop-motion animation. In biblical terms, the pioneering effects supervisor of King Kong, Willis H. O’Brien, begat Harryhausen, who begat Peter Jackson (The Hobbit), Nick Park (Wallace & Gromit), Terry Gilliam (Brazil), John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy), James Cameron (Avatar), Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park), Tim Burton (Mars Attacks!), Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas), Dennis Muren (Star Wars), Joe Dante (Gremlins), John Lasseter (Toy Story), Phil Tippet (Jurassic Park), Greg Broadmore (District 9) and Randy Cook (The Amazing Spider-Man), among the third- and fourth-generation filmmakers interviewed in this highly entertaining testimonial. Not only do these disciples praise the master, but they also explain exactly how Harryhausen’s contributions raised the state of the art, well into the digital era. Gilles Penso’s definitive documentary, Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan, was accorded remarkable access to clips from such wonderful fantasies as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Beneath the Sea, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Those titles may not mean much to viewers born during the era of computer animation, virtual reality and 3D modeling, but they spelled m-a-g-i-c to their parents and grandparents. Harryhausen lived long enough to be interviewed for the documentary and narrate parts of it. So did, his longtime friend and partner in sci-fi exploration, Ray Bradbury. Rounding out the celebrity parade are daughter Vanessa Harryhausen, historian Tony Dalton, actors John Cairney, Martine Beswick and Caroline Munro and composers Christopher Young and Robert Townson. At 90 minutes, there isn’t a wasted moment. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes and interviews; home movies on the set of Sinbad; Q&A sessions at the Paris Cinematheque and London Gate Theater; commentary with the filmmakers; and a Ray Harryhausen trailer reel.
 
Blood and Black Lace: Special Edition: Blu-ray
If a newcomer to giallo asked me to recommend a title to use as a starting point in any exploration of the genre, it would be Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace. By breaking from established conventions of whodunits and horror, Bava anticipated the golden era of giallo by six years. He did so by locating the nexus of terror, criminal pathology and sex, then lighting the scenes in garish primary colors and backing them with a creepy soundtrack. Even though nudity wasn’t a part of the recipe in the early to mid-1960s, what was left to the imagination carried viewers’ imaginations a long way. “B&BL” may not have made a lot of money, but it influenced a generation of Italian filmmakers and inspired the Americans who would launch the slasher sub-genre, a decade later. Set largely inside a couture fashion house, the still extremely watchable picture chronicles a series of murders involving beautiful models at the hands of what appears to be a masked mannequin. Police Inspector Sylvester (Thomas Reiner) is assigned to investigate the murder, beginning with salon managers Max Marian (Cameron Mitchell) and his lover, the recently widowed Countess Cristina Como (Eva Bartok). When it’s revealed that the first victim, Isabella (Francesca Ungaro), had kept a diary, almost everyone involved in the operation attempts to locate and burn it. With each subsequent murder, the litany of vices grows to include corruption, then-outlawed abortions, blackmail, backstabbing and drug addiction. The deaths also serve to reduce the long list of potential suspects, without diminishing the mystery or tension. It helps, as well, that the salon is housed, in typical Bava style, in a creaky old building that once probably served as a villa for Italian aristocrats. Hence, the high ceilings, hidden stairways and numerous bedrooms.
 
The Arrow Video package arrives with a new 2K restoration of the film, from the original camera negative, as well as well as optional Italian and English soundtracks, presented in original uncompressed mono PCM audio. The highlight of the bonus package is “Psycho Analysis,” a comprehensive new documentary on Blood and Black Lace and the origins of the giallo genre, featuring interviews with directors Dario Argento (Suspiria) and Lamberto Bava (Demons), screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (All the Colors of the Dark) critics Roberto Curti and Steve Della Casa, and crime novelists Sandrone Dazieri and Carlo Lucarelli. Add to it a new audio commentary by Mario Bava’s biographer, Tim Lucas; an appreciation by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, the creative duo behind Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears; “Yellow,” the acclaimed neo-giallo short by Ryan Haysom and Jon Britt; “Gender and Giallo,” a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring the genre’s relationship with the social upheavals of the 1960-70s; a panel discussion on Mario Bava, featuring Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava and Steve Della Casa, recorded at the 2014 Courmayeur Film Festival; “The Sinister Image: Cameron Mitchell,” an episode of David Del Valle’s television series, devoted to the star of “B&BL”; the alternative U.S. opening titles, sourced from Joe Dante’s private print and scanned in 2K especially for this release; the original theatrical trailer; a reversible sleeve, with original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys; and a collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Howard Hughes, author of “Cinema Italiano” and “Mario Bava: Destination Terror,” an interview with Dante and Del Valle on Mitchell, illustrated with archive stills and posters.
 
The Swinging Cheerleaders: Special Edition: Blu-ray
Return of the Killer Tomatoes: Special Edition: Blu-ray
Teenage Swinger: Grindhouse Double Feature
Arrow Video prides itself in having an eclectic catalogue of obscure or forgotten titles, a few restored well beyond what their place in cinema history would suggest. Such is the case with Jack Hill’s The Swinging Cheerleaders and John De Bello’s almost indescribably rancid, Return of the Killer Tomatoes! Arrow’s inventory of Hill’s work includes the far more defensible Spider Baby, Pit Stop, Blood Bath, Coffy and Friday Foster, all prime examples of mid-century exploitation flicks. Also released under the titles “Locker Room Girls” and “H.O.T.S. II,” The Swinging Cheerleaders was selected by Quentin Tarantino for the First Quentin Tarantino Film Fest, in Austin, Texas, 1996, and featured in the Satan’s Cheerleader Camp Film Fest, also in Austin in 2000. Jo Johnston plays Kate, a j-school student at Mesa University, who goes undercover as a cheerleader for her college newspaper to expose female exploitation on campus. Instead of feeling oppressed, Kate kind of digs the spotlight provided pretty girls with pompons. What she doesn’t like is a plot involving school administrators, the football coach, backers and a local bookie to fix the big game in favor of the heavy underdog rival. The Swinging Cheerleaders reveals a total ignorance of the feminist movement, investigative journalism, the rules of football and the general erosion of school spirit. Instead, it offers some topless interludes with Johnston, Rosanne Katon and an obviously pregnant Rainbeaux Smith, and an opportunity for the captain of the football team to beat up a “hippie.” (Apparently, the crowd at a Texas preview reacted very favorably to the scene.) The package’s best moments are reserved for the bonus package in a newly recorded commentary and fresh interview with Hill; archived interviews with cinematographer Alfred Taylor, Hill and rockabilly musician, wrestling manager, film producer and actor Johnny Legend (My Breakfast with Blassie); a Q&A with Hill, and actors Colleen Camp and Rosanne Katon, recorded at the New Beverly Cinema in 2012; and reversible sleeve, featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys.
 
Ten years after the horrors unleashed in the 1978 cult sensation, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, tomatoes have been outlawed, making criminals of anyone who loves pizza, pasta sauce and salad bars. Rather than attempting a spoof of a spoof, De Bello extended the conceit in Return of the Killer Tomatoes! in the hope of finding an even younger audience than the one that greeted the original. To accomplish this feat, he recruited fresh faces Anthony Starke and George Clooney … yes, that George Clooney. Not surprisingly, he plays the womanizing buddy of Chad Finlander, whose Uncle Wilbur was the hero of the Great Tomato War and inventor of the tomato-less pizza. The always-welcome John Astin plays the evil Professor Gangreen, who’s developed a way to transform tomatoes into human facsimiles trained to conquer the world. Clooney, who’s mostly there to attract teenage girls, is given far more to do in the sexploitation department than the overly chaste Karen Mistal and future Playboy Playmate and pre-porn Teri Weigel. As bad as it is, “ROTKT!” would spawn two more sequels, two TV series and a video game. The Blu-ray package adds an interview with Anthony Starke, a stills gallery, commentary with De Bello, hosted by Michael Felsher, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin and fully-illustrated collector’s booklet with new writing by critic James Oliver.
 
The latest “Grindhouse Double Feature” release from After Hours Cinema features a pair of unremarkable titles from 1975 that probably were exhibited in more sheltered drive-ins and hard-tops unashamed of their sticky floors and torn seats. There’s plenty of skin, but the money shots begin off-screen or have been so reduced by scratches and grime that they’ve disappeared entirely. I’d hate to see what the prints looked like before they received their digital polish. In “Teenage Swingers,” Pete and his live-in girlfriend are forced to end their arrangement when his puritanical dad moves in to their crowded apartment. This forces the couple to save their together time for visits to a friend’s apartment, where they discover the joys of swinging. Will Daddy Dearest get hip and join the party? Probably. In “My Daughter’s Babysitter,” the nubile girl-next-door, hired to watch a couple’s kid, becomes distracted by mom’s treasure trove of glossy mags and marital aids. Will the parents object when they come home and find their toy box disturbed? Probably not.
 
MHz Networks: The Young Montalbano
MHz Networks: Detective Montalbano
PBS Kids: Roald Dahl’s The BFG (Big Friendly Giant)
PBS Kids: Peg + Cat: Out of This World
American prime-time television once was the bastion of idiosyncratic police detectives and lone-wolf private eyes, whose charisma, cunning and cocksure approach to crime fighting attracted a loyal audience base. If their heyday on the broadcast networks is long past, the premium cable and streaming networks have begun to pick up the slack with such shows as “Bosch,” “Longmire,” “The Red Road” and “Justified.” Anyone looking for characters like Kojak, Columbo, Sam McCloud or Robert T. Ironside may want to check out such foreign-language streaming services as MHz and Acorn (the queen’s English being foreign to most Americans). It’s on the former streaming network that I found Italy’s “Detective Montalbano” and “The Young Montalbano” (also newly available on DVD), as well as “Don Matteo,” “Detective De Luca,” “Inspector Manara,” “Inspector Nardone” and “Inspector Vivaldi Mysteries.” Produced and broadcast by Italy’s RAI since 1999, “Detective Montalbano” and its 2012 prequel series, “The Young Montalbano”
are based on the internationally popular mysteries of Andrea Camilleri. Salvo Montalbano is chief inspector of the police department in Vigàta, a scenic seaside town in Sicily, where mafia-related crime competes for the cops’ attention with normal criminal activity. He is a gruff character, responsible and serious at work, but also open and friendly with people he knows he can trust. Montalbano uses his superior intelligence and patience to reconstruct the details and personalities behind violent crimes. Among his colleagues are his slightly buffoonish best friend and deputy, Mimi Augello; the dogged inspector Giuseppe Fazio; his sensitive, name-mangling subordinate Agatino Catarella; his current girlfriend, Ingrid Sjostrom; journalist and ally, Niccolò Zito; and Livia Burlando, with whom he has a sometimes tempestuous, long-distance relationship spanning both series. All of these characters appear, as well, in “The Young Montalbano,” with habits and personalities still in their developmental stage. While veteran stage, screen and television actor Luca Zingaretti plays the elder Montalbano, William Petersen look-alike Michele Riondino plays Salvo as the newly appointed police chief of Vigata. He’s surrounded by younger versions of the same characters in the earlier series. Salvo, an avid swimmer, lives in an apartment whose terrace overlooks the town’s beach. Both series take full advantage of the magnificent Sicilian countryside and holiday traditions in ancient mountaintop villages. The producers also find ways to introduce voluptuous Italian actresses into Salvo’s cases, as femme fatales or red herrings. The two new “Young Montalbano” DVDs cover the series’ six-episode second season. The “Detective Montalbano” release covers Episodes 27 and 28 and includes Teresa Mannino’s flirtatious feature-length profile of the author, “Montalbano and Me: Andrea Camilleri.” Each episode runs about two hours in length, which, however entertaining, is about 20 minutes too long.
 
Although Steven Spielberg’s tres, tres expensive adaptation of Roald Dahl’s source novel The BFG failed to set the box office on fire over the long holiday weekend, it’s yet to open in several key foreign markets and Finding Dory has to run out of steam eventually … right? It will be interesting to see how the 1989 animated version, created for television and video, will fare at a price less than the cost of an individual ticket at the multiplex. Younger viewers won’t be able to tell the difference. First published in 1982, “The BFG” takes places on a moonlit night, when little Sophie is snatched from her orphanage bed by a giant who whisks her away on a magical, thrilling and funny adventure. Unlike the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater and the Bonecruncher, the Big Friendly Giant is a good fellow who blows sweet dreams into the bedroom windows of children as they slumber. When Sophie learns that the monstrous crew of meanies is off to England to gobble up innocent boys and girls, she sets out to stop them once and for all, with the help of her new, rather large friend. Producer Kathleen Kennedy first acquired the rights to the literary property in 1991 and it’s taken all these many years for frequent partner, Spielberg, to make it a reality. The animated musical feature was produced by the award-winning Cosgrove Hall Studio, makers of “DangerMouse” and “The Wind in the Willows.” The DVD arrives with a new documentary on Dahl.
 
PBS Kids’ takes problem solving to an entirely new level in “Peg + Cat: Out of This World.” In the compilation DVD, Peg and Cat must put their heads together to fix their spaceship, outsmart Big Mouth (a crafty space alien who loves to dance), and win a cosmic T-ball competition. It helps immensely that they’re great at spotting patterns and working together as a team. The hourlong set is comprised of “The Doohickey Problem,” “The Long Line Problem,” “Richard the Third” and “The T-Ball Problem.”
 
George Crumb: Voice of the Whale
Weaving The Past: Journey of Discovery
Scary Man
Here’s another documentary that might have attracted a niche audience, if only members of the target demographic knew it actually existed. The title probably could have been a little less vague, but Star Wars buffs would have caught the reference and flocked to the film as if it were a memorabilia convention. Elstree 1976 refers to the British production facility where four episodes of George Lucas’ juggernaut were filmed, including the first one, whose huge success assured that the studio wouldn’t be repurposed as condominiums. Jon Spira’s film explores the lives of the largely unheralded actors and extras who helped create one of the most celebrated franchises in cinematic history, but weren’t named Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher or Mark Hamill. Instead, Spira found and interviewed such actors as Dave Prowse, who wore the Darth Vader suit and acted out a performance that James Earl Jones’ voice would make famous; Paul Blake, who played Greedo, the guy Han Solo shoots in the cantina bar; Pam Rose, given an addition to her noggin to play barmaid Leesub Sirln; and Jeremy Bulloch, whose character, Boba Fett, would achieve a degree of infamy unparalleled in sci-fi history. Almost everyone interviewed was a working actor before Star Wars and remained one afterwards, some reprising their characters in later episodes. Forty years later, they continue to attend fan conventions and collect money for autographs. Their stories are quite delightful.
 
Shuffle through any pile of 33rpm albums left behind by reformed hippies, after they left home in anticipation of careers in the straight world, and there’s a very good chance you’ll find a tattered copy of “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” a 1970 album produced by bio-acoustician Roger Payne. By the standards of the day, it was a huge hit. By demonstrating how whales communicated through a sonic vocabulary that resembles music, Payne gave environmentalists a weapon in the incipient battle to save whales from extinction. It was about this time, as well, that Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning composer George Crumb used man-made instruments to re-create the sounds of whales in “Vox Balaenae for Three Masked Players,” a decidedly avant-garde work for electric flute, cello and amplified piano. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include the seagull effect for the cello, metallic vibrato for the piano and using a mallet to play the strings of a contrabass. Crumb defines music as “a system of proportions in the service of spiritual impulse” … the “first cell from which language, science and religion originated.” In 1976, fledgling documentarian Robert Mugge created the first of what would become dozens of music-related films, “George Crumb: Voice of the Whale.” The 54-minute doc was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. A native of West Virginia, Crumb also was greatly influenced by the raw-sounding gospel music he heard in the churches of the poor, God-fearing mountain folk. In the segments recorded in his home, Crumb discusses his influences and techniques with fellow composer Richard Wernick, while his musician wife, Elizabeth, offers her own version of their eccentric lifestyle. As heady as the discussions sometimes get, musicologists should find them fascinating. I couldn’t find a link between George Crumb and artist R. Crumb, apart from an uncanny resemblance to each other.
 
What Donald Trump doesn’t know about the history of Mexico and the root causes of the poverty that continues to inspire illegal immigration could fill all of his skyscrapers and villas. The less his supporters understand about this and other key issues, the freer their candidate is to exploit such ignorance for his own personal and political gain. Conversely, the more Americans learn about the struggles of the working poor in Mexico and Central America, the more sympathy we’ll have when confronted with the faces of people driven to give up everything they know for a small piece of the pie. Walter Dominguez’ heart-wrenching documentary, Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery, was born from a desperate desire to fulfill his grandfather’s dying wish to locate his long lost family and re-connect ties severed when he escaped north for a new lease on life. Dominguez, who had drifted away from a filmmaking career in the mid-1970s, was driven to resume it after sinking into a deep depression in the wake of 9/11. By electing to fulfill the promise to his saintly Mexican-born grandfather, Reverend Emilio Hernandez, he was able to lift the fog of despair through hard work and intense research. He wasn’t given many clues as to where to begin his “journey of discovery,” but he eventually was led to led to people in Mexico who knew where to start. “Tata” Hernandez had been part of a social movement, one that strove to end oppression of Native Americans and impoverished Mexicans and exploded into a bloody revolution that touched both sides of the border. Like many people of Mexican background, Dominguez is part Native American, meaning that he has roots that extend further into the history of North America than most. While the Spanish and well-to-do Mexicans oppressed the Native Americans, on the other side of the border, white Americans exploited both the Mexicans and the Native Americans. Inspired, as well, by a promise made to his own dying father, Dominguez finally was able to locate elderly relatives and friends of his grandfather and learn about those uncles and aunts who decided not to make the trip north. His research also revealed a history of dictatorship and genocide neglected in American classrooms. How many American descendants of immigrants would benefit from tracing their roots to the Old Country and learning the conditions that led to their decision to leave home? The commonality of such experience is part of the fabric of America now being threatened by xenophobes, nationalists and outright bigots.
 
There was a time, not so long ago, when people who lived in close vicinity to the flyways of migratory birds could set their watches to the sight of the first V-shaped formations of Canada geese heading south for the winter. It was exciting to watch them pass overhead, knowing they’d escaped extinction for one more year and future generations might be able to enjoy the same sight. Little did we know, then, that these magnificent long-necked creatures would adjust so well to changing conditions on the ground that they would skip the arduous flight to their nesting grounds and find ways to survive the brutal winters of the Midwest. At first, it was believed that the geese were attracted solely to the cooling ponds outside nuclear plants. Before long, however, semi-flightless flocks of geese took control of golf course, public parks, corporate lawns, airports and sanctuaries, where food was easy to find and no one shot at them. It was novel, at first, but soon became a nuisance when the birds’ droppings made leisurely walks impossible and chemical imbalances polluted ponds. Dutch directors Eugenie Jansen and Albert Elings noticed how farmers and health officials there not only were dealing with over-populations of geese, but also a year-round surplus of starlings, sparrows and pigeons. Recognizing the regulations introduced to protect endangered species, Scary Man (a.k.a., “Vogelvrij” or “Outlawed”) attempts to take as objective a view of the problem as is possible. Winner of multiple international awards, including the Earth Watch Film Award from the National Geographic Society, Scary Man explores how the Dutch cope with the competition for space and resources between too many birds and too many people living in a small country. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it didn’t take long for the birds to become immune to the usual human measures – loud noises, sparkling ribbons, decoys of predators – and begin to ignore them.
 
Made in Cleveland
Until two weeks ago, Cleveland was a city known primarily as a city so polluted its river caught fire and as the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and losing sports teams … literally losing its longtime NFL franchise in 1995, when the owner decided to move his team lock, stock and barrel to Baltimore, where it became the Ravens. While the Indians occasionally show signs of life, it took the NBA’s Cavaliers to break the spell by bringing home the first major professional sports championship since the Browns won the 1964 NFL championship. (Someday, perhaps, the annual concert honoring new Hall of Fame inductees will be staged on the shores of Lake Erie, instead of Madison Square Garden.) The 2013 anthology film, Made in Cleveland, consists of nearly a dozen short films featuring the work of seven different directors, five screenwriters and a myriad collection of widely known and local actors (news anchors Robin Swoboda and Leon Bibb, among the latter). And, while the vignettes probably could have been staged in almost any big urban center, the backdrops, landmarks and locations will be immediately recognizable to anyone who’s spent time in Cleveland. The film didn’t receive any distribution outside northern Ohio, but few of these sorts of hit-and-miss things do. Among the more recognizable cast members are Busy Philipps, Gillian Jacobs, Patrick Antone, Jeffrey Grover and Robbie Barnes. The bonus package adds a deleted piece.
 
Disney Channel: Adventures in Babysitting
PBS: Prince Philip: The Plot to Make a King
PBS: NOVA: Can Alzheimer’s Be Stopped?
PBS Kids: Odd Squad: The O Games
PBS: Nature: Jungle Animal Hospital
Disney Channel no longer lets any grass grow under the feet of its original movies. Its updating of Adventures in Babysitting hits the streets almost simultaneously with its release on Disney’s various cable outlets. The special attention accorded the nearly 30th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ classic urban misadventure, which provided an early platform for Elizabeth Shue, Penelope Ann Miller, Vincent D’Onofrio and Bradley Whitford, among others, derives from it being the 100th Disney Channel Original Movies. That number includes “Descendants,” “Teen Beach Movie,” “High School Musical” and their various sequels. Here, Sofia Carson (“Descendants”) and Sabrina Carpenter (“Girl Meets World”) assume the roles once destined for Raven-Symoné and Miley Cyrus in an aborted 2009 remake. That might have been fun, especially considering how Miley has grown up in the interim, flashing her boobs to anyone with a camera. John Schultz’ adaptation follows the same basic blueprint from the original, which Disney originally allowed to go out with a PG-13 rating through Touchstone. A mismatched pair of babysitters find themselves in a bit of bother when their cellphones are mistakenly exchanged, causing them to be put in charge of two very different sets of children. Naturally, the kids have agendas of their own to pursue while the parents attend the same fancy party. Eventually, they attract a pair of comical lowlifes who are after a treasure the kids have in their possession. Mayhem, of course, ensues. Even lacking a PG-13 edge, this “Adventures in Babysitting” should please ’tweens and Disney Channel fans in their early teens who’ll buy into the whole kids-take-charge vibe. The DVD adds a short “Adventures in Outtakes” and a magnetic photo frame, whose removable center supplies some babysitting rules and ideas.
 
Viewed from this side of the pond, Prince Philip has always been something of an enigma. Condemned to forever walk two steps behind his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, the former heir to the abandoned Greek crown must enjoy the benefits of his regal station. Like his son, Prince Charles, however, he probably thought he’d be doing something else to earn his keep, by now. There was a time when Philip Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh, a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and the royal families of Greece and Denmark, was far more than the emotionally challenged cypher he would become. The excellent PBS bio-doc, “Prince Philip: The Plot to Make a King,” describes how the once-dashing naval officer stole/won the heart of the woman who would be queen and, in doing so, scared the crap of Winston Churchill and other British politicians who feared he might be a Nazi sympathizer or pawn of his ever-scheming uncle, Lord “Dickie” Mountbatten, a British statesman and naval officer killed in an IRA bombing in 1979. Nothing came of all the rumors, behind-the-scenes machinations and political paranoia, and little was ever revealed to the public. With a few minor plot twists and storyline that included Princess Diana, “The Plot to Make a King” would make a terrific novel.
 
Among the many ways our tax dollars could be better spent than financing two increasingly ludicrous wars in the Middle East would be a frontal attack on Alzheimers disease, which ravages the minds of more than 40 million victims worldwide and, as such, poses a greater threat than Al Qaeda and ISIS put together. While the cause of Alzheimers remains a mystery and a cure seems almost impossibly elusive, advanced medical technology has given researchers some reasons to feel cautiously optimistic. The “NOVA” presentation “Can Alzheimer’s Be Stopped?” allows viewers to join investigators as they gather clues and attempt to reconstruct the molecular chain of events that ultimately leads to dementia. Along the way, we meet individuals from all walks of life who reveal what it’s like to struggle with Alzheimer’s, as well as members of a unique Colombian family who have learned that their genetic predisposition all but guarantees an early-onset of the disease. These courageous patients are participating in clinical trials and drug tests that may or may not bear fruit in their lifetimes. Genentech Inc. is mentioned more often than other companies, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing.
 
PBS Kids’ “Odd Squad: The O Games” gets into the spirit of Olympics-year competition with a series of crazy math challenges. The winner gets to be Ms. O for a day and run Odd Squad. Agent Otto is chosen to compete against the villainous Odd Todd, who is Agent Olives’ former partner. If Odd Todd comes out on top, he could shut down Odd Squad forever. The series features young agents who use indirect reasoning and math to solve and investigate strange happenings in their town. Satire and comedic archetypes are used to teach the audience math and math-related topics.
 
PBS’s “Nature: Jungle Animal Hospital” takes viewers deep into the Guatemalan jungle to observe the work of an organization whose staff works around the clock to care for injured, orphaned and endangered animals brought to its facility from all over the country. The rescue center, known as ARCAS, is at full capacity with over 700 boarders of all shapes and sizes, chiefly victims of the illegal pet trade. Filmmakers spent a year documenting the work being done at the country’s busiest rescue center, including Anna Bryant’s efforts to make sure a troop of spider monkeys would finally be ready to go back to the wild after several years of rehabilitation. The vets also work with authorities at checkpoints on roads leading out of the jungle to locate newly-hatched baby parrots being smuggled out on buses by the hundreds. The program also documents the first time that captive-bred scarlet macaws are released into the wild in Guatemala. Jaguars, armadillos, crocs and gray foxes also make cameo appearances.
 
Fox: The X-Files: The Event Series: Blu-ray
Comedy Central: Workaholics: Season Six
Baa Baa Black Sheep: Black Sheep Squadron: The Final Season
Discovery Family: Transformers Rescue Bots: Heroes of Tech
ABC Kids: Power Rangers Ninja Storm: The Complete Series
PBS Kids: Super WHY!: Goldilocks and The Three Bears and Other Fairytale Adventures
Not having been a devoted follower of “The X-Files” in its original television incarnation, I’ve always faced the prospect of reviewing full-season packages – some originally in cassette form — and the hyphen-less stand-alone features, The X Files: Fight the Future and The X Files: I Want to Believe, with no small degree of trepidation. The complexity of the myriad storylines and menagerie of finely drawn characters required footnotes I didn’t possess. And, frankly, binging has never seemed to be a viable option. The 1998 movie felt forced and overly reliant on special effects to me. It underperformed at the domestic box office, while doing very well globally. The second edition underperformed everywhere. The 2001 spin-off series, “The Lone Gunmen,” opened big, before quickly losing steam and being canceled. The final season of “X-Files” in its original run may have been overshadowed by the very real events of 9/11, which couldn’t be blamed on aliens or the other usual suspects. It went out with a whimper. Even so, even mediocre “X-Files” episodes would prove to be infinitely more interesting than most of the other non-animated content on Fox, in the ensuing 13 years. “The X-Files: The Event Series,” newly packaged in a bonus-laden Blu-ray set, opened on January 24, 2016, to numbers that recalled ratings for the eighth-season episode “This Is Not Happening.” When DVR and streaming figures were taken into account, the Season 10 opener, “My Struggle” was seen by 21.4 million viewers, scoring a 7.1 Nielsen rating. The season ended six weeks later with “My Struggle II,” which was viewed by 7.60 million viewers. In total, the season was viewed by an average of 13.6 million viewers, making it the seventh most-watched television series of the 2015-16 year. As difficult as it would seem to top the cataclysmic events and frightening revelations in the mini-series, the desperation of broadcast executives suggests that nothing is impossible. Everything that happens in the “event series” qualifies as a spoiler, so let’s just say that David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are back, as agents Mulder and Scully, whose personal relationship dissolved in the interim, but retain fondness for each other. Once again, the X-Files detail has been disbanded, leaving Mulder with only one place to go with new evidence that alien abductions have been faked. Or, have they? Mitch Pileggi also returns as FBI assistant director Walter Skinner, while new blood is represented by agents Einstein (Lauren Ambrose) and Miller (Robbie Amell), who might as well be clones of the protagonists. What really recommends the new Blu-ray set is the bounty of bonus features, including three commentaries; deleted and extended scenes; the mandatory gag reel; lengthy making-of and background pieces; interviews; Karen Nielsen’s short film, “Grace”; a gag reel; and “Monsters of the Week,” a recap of the wildest and scariest antagonists from the original series. I’m sure that longtime fans will be pleased.
Imagine arriving at work on what promises to be another typically boring day at your telemarketing-company office, only to discover that your boss has filled three open positions with young men, who appear to be the useless offspring of the Three Stooges or the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. That, essentially is the concept behind Comedy Central’s “Workaholics,” a thoroughly goofy workplace sitcom whose sixth season is now available on DVD. Co-creators/co-writers/co-stars Adam Devine, Blake Anderson, Anders Holm and Kyle Newacheck emerged from a YouTube Channel entity, “Mail Order Comedy,” and mini-web-series “5th Year.” The protagonists, who share a cubicle at work and are roommates at home, met in college. They dropped out or were asked to leave, primarily over lack of interest and partying way too hardy. After scoring the jobs, their first test obviously was passing the drug test. It’s a cliché, by now, but some actors do it better than others. Also good are Maribeth Monroe’s no-nonsense boss and Jillian Bell’s obsessive cat lover and fellow office drone. They all have extensive backgrounds in improv comedy and it shows.
One of the first shows created and executive-produced by the hyper-prolific Stephen J. Cannell, “Black Sheep Squadron” was loosely based on a portion of the real-life military career of USMC aviator Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, commanding officer of a group of fighter pilots based in the Solomon Islands during World War II. The squadron was so named because its pilots formed “a collection of misfits and screwballs who became the terrors of the South Pacific.” Like almost every such unit in a wartime fighting unit, the crazy stuff ended when the first bullets began to fly. The NBC series ran from 1976-78, for a total of 36 episodes, only 13 of which comprised the second season. Arriving in the immediate wake of the Vietnam debacle, it’s likely that American audiences weren’t in the mood for an old-fashioned action dramedy. Competition from the more timely Korean War comedy, “M*A*S*H,” didn’t do the show any favors. Even so, Robert Conrad’s manly man presence assured NBC that audiences would tune in, if only to see what attracted him to the role. It also benefitted from the casting of such up-and-comers as John Larroquette, Dirk Blocker, Larry Manetti, Robert Ginty, Joey Aresco and James Whitmore Jr., as well as the occasional hot nurse. For the moment, at least, “Baa Baa Black Sheep: Black Sheep Squadron: The Final Season” is a Walmart exclusive.
“Transformers: Rescue Bots: Heroes of Tech” follows Chase, Heatwave, Blades, Boulder and a family of first responders as they do whatever it takes to protect both their home and the world. They learn that new technology can assist them in wondrous ways, but it can also have consequences if misused. Among other things, experimental technology turns Cody into an adult, a space elevator strands Doc and Graham in orbit and a new invention causes the entire town to sing, instead of talk.
Shout!’s “Power Rangers Ninja Storm: The Complete Series” is a compilation of 38 episodes from the mother ship’s 11th season. It was the first to air on ABC in its entirety and be filmed in New Zealand.  In it, Tori, Shane and Dustin lead typical teenage lives in Blue Bay Harbor, while also studying at a secret ninja school under the teachings of a wise sensei. Their world changes when Lothor, a ninja master banished to space for his evil deeds, returns to Earth bent on revenge. Sensei gives Wind Morphers to the three kids that will transform them into Power Rangers to compete in this ultimate battle.
The two-hour PBS Kids’ package, “Super WHY!: Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Other Fairytale Adventures” opens with a “Super WHY!” take on the classic fairy tale. Whyatt finds himself in big trouble when he accidentally messes up the room belonging to his older brother, Jack. When the Super Readers visit Goldilocks, they encounter a similarly messy situation, caused by the inconsiderate bears. Together they figure out how to solve Goldilocks’ problem and Whyatt learns how to make a clean sweep of his mess, too.
45 Years: Blu-ray
I, Anna
Once upon a time in Hollywood, movies that featured elderly characters played by venerable stars could be counted on to attract a decent-sized slice of the box-office pie and command the attention of awards voters. The Shootist, On Golden Pond, Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy and Grumpy Old Men come immediately to mind, of course, but they were made at a time when a John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau also could pop up unexpectedly on a late-night talk show whenever they felt like it and not merely as an excuse to pimp their new movie. When Johnny Carson left “The Tonight Show,” in 1992, the talent bookers for Jay Leno and David Letterman’s shows targeted a radically younger demographic with actors whose publicists insisted they stay on-message and didn’t stray too far into unknown territory. Ever since then, it seems, while a major studio might consider distributing a movie that targets “mature” viewers, it’s far less likely to finance one. If an Ian McKellen, Michael Caine, Clint Eastwood, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins or Jane Fonda finds high-profile work in a studio project, it’s a comic-book fantasy or action picture alongside actors who may never have performed a Shakespeare play on stage and may never will. RED, RED 2, The Expendables and The Expendables 2 would appear to be exceptions to the rule, but their appeal to star-crazy overseas audiences can’t be denied. Thank goodness for the tax- or lottery-supported European producers, indie studios and mini-majors that still take chances on age-neutral productions.
Charlotte Rampling, still radiant at 70, was a finalist in the Best Leading Actress category in this year’s Oscar race for her performance in 45 Years, opposite Tom Courtenay, 79. Financed in large part by public money, the independently made British drama features a cast dominated by actors who probably have never stayed up to watch Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel, let alone been asked to appear on their shows. (Not surprisingly, perhaps, Rampling was profiled earlier this year on the much-older-skewing “CBS News Sunday Morning.”) Written and directed by Andrew Haigh (“Looking”), 45 Years bears comparison to Away from Her (2006) and Amour (2012), but not in ways you might expect. Although the story hinges on memories, its focus isn’t on a partner with Alzheimer’s disease or a life-threatening medical condition. It’s in a different genre altogether from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Quartet and Calendar Girls, which were dominated by veteran actors and appealed to roughly the same audiences. (Made for around $10 million, they averaged about $30 million in worldwide receipts.) Based on David Constantine’s short story “In Another Country,” 45 Years is set Norfolk County, England, a lovely rural community whose infrastructure dates back to Roman times. Geoff and Kate Mercer are on the brink of their 45th  anniversary, which is to be celebrated with friends and neighbors in a historic hall in the village. In lieu of children, they’ve enjoyed the company of dogs for all these years. If Geoff is a bit fragile in his dotage, Kate has no trouble picking up the slack. That is, until a letter arrives alerting him to the shocking revelation that a slowly receding glacier in the Swiss Alps has revealed the long-frozen corpse of a lover who died decades earlier in a fall. In some ways, the revelation hits the couple as if it actually were a doctor’s diagnose of a disease that may or may not prove fatal. Although Kate was aware of the fate of her husband’s ex-lover, she isn’t ready to deal with Geoff’s reaction to the news. She deduces correctly that he’s been silently carrying at torch for her throughout their seemingly idyllic marriage. Even as they’re approaching a happy milestone, however contrived – Geoff was too ill to celebrate their 40th with a party – Kate struggles to make sense of what’s just happened to her. To his credit, Haigh doesn’t require of Courtenay and Rampling that they break down in tears or argue bitterly as the story evolves. Instead, every minute emotional tug and tear can be read in the actors’ faces and physicality. The gorgeous English countryside, which allows for agricultural, industrial and tourism components in the economy, is vividly captured by Lol Crawley’s camera.
It’s taken four years for I, Anna to makes its debut here on DVD, this despite another terrific performance by Rampling, whose face and body have never betrayed much, if any evidence of cosmetic manipulation. This time, she plays Anna/Allegra, a lonely divorcee living in a London high-rise with her daughter and young grandchild. Sixty-something Anna has begun to frequent singles mixers and speed-dating events, after which she might go home with the occasional bachelor. Here, one of them ends up dead. Another after-hours companion is insomniac police inspector Bernie Reed (Gabriel Byrne), who, at first, masquerades as just another lonely heart, but can’t help being attracted by her mysteriously vulnerable persona. Anna doesn’t recall the brief encounter she had with the detective, in an elevator, after she returned to the victim’s building to retrieve an umbrella she misplaced. This, combined with the testimony of the hostess at the mixer, make her the prime suspect in the murder. There are others, including a stepson and his drug dealer, but none so well-suited for the role of femme fatale than Anna. If she doesn’t exactly seduce Bernie, we’re aren’t surprised by their attraction to each other. I don’t know how it is in real life, but, in the movies, detectives are suckers for attractive suspects, often risking their investigation by corrupting evidence. As adapted from Elsa Lewin’s novel by Rampling’s son Barnaby Southcombe, who’s sitting in the driver’s seat of his first feature, the increasingly creepy story is told largely in flashbacks. Deeply disturbed, Anna is a perfect match for Rampling’s famously steely approach to her assignments. Whenever I, Anna runs the risk of being too contrived, the two veteran leads – at 66, Byrne is no spring chicken, either—make it easy for viewers to hang with it. Southcombe also does a nice job capturing high-altitude views of London we don’t always see.
10 Cloverfield Lane: Blu-ray
If the title of this claustrophobic thriller from producer J.J. Abrams—Hollywood’s reigning master of disaster—sounds familiar, it’s because it refers ever so obliquely to the surprise international hit, Cloverfield, which used found footage to document the destruction of New York City by aliens. Made for a paltry $15 million, 10 Cloverfield Lane was similarly profitable – if studio accountants would ever admit that such a thing exists – in its domestic release last March. This, despite the fact that it contains no found footage and was shot by a standard, decidedly non-“shaky” camera. The threat to humanity here is largely dubious and the setting can fairly be described as the middle of nowhere … or somewhere, like rural Louisiana, where the tax breaks are beneficial to cost-conscious producers. References to the slushie brand “Slusho,” from the original Cloverfield, can be found if fans look real hard. The inspiration for a memorable incident at the end of the movie can be traced to star Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character in The Thing, while a central conceit appears to have been borrowed from the second season of Abrams’ “Lost.” If that makes 10 Cloverfield Lane sound too much like just another cynically conceived sequel to an unexpected sensation, it’s worth noting that the movie more closely resembles Room, albeit with a sci-fi twist, than the original. That, folks, is the movie’s greatest asset. After gathering her suitcases and hurriedly leaving her apartment for no apparent reason, Winstead’s character, Michelle, is involved in a serious accident on a lonely country road. After waking up, she quickly realizes that she’s shackled to a wall in a bunker-like cell, with an IV attached to her arm. Haven’t we seen this before, it’s fair to ask. Well, yes and no.
After a few moments of confusion, brought upon the realization that she immobile, a survivalist named Howard (John Goodman) comes through the locked door, insisting that he rescued her with all the best of intentions in mind and the restraint is to prevent her from re-damaging her leg. Indeed, after he frees Michelle from her restraints, Howard brings her food and water. (“You must stay hydrated,” he demands.) He then explains how they may be the only survivors of a devastating attack of unknown origins and it’s unsafe to leave the bunker under any circumstances. At this point, the odds are about 50/50 that Howard’s either completely crazy or actually telling the truth. Michelle and a bunker mate, Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), have a difficult choice to make, in either case. I suppose there are viewers who are capable of guessing what happens in the last reel, but it would be of the wild variety. The movie’s unpredictability is what endeared 10 Cloverfield Lane to critics and audiences in its theatrical run. Hint: sci-fi fans shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand as an entertainment option. Goodman and Winstead work very well together, both as adversaries and potential allies. Commentary is provided by Abrams and freshman director Dan Trachtenberg. Also good is the behind-the-scenes footage, in which cast and crew revisit the legacy of 2008’s Cloverfield; discuss how 10 Cloverfield Lane went from script to production; tour Howard’s extremely elaborate mega-bunker; see how the costume designers were challenged to create a homemade Hazmat suit; and follow the production team and sound designers as they work on the movie’s epic finale.
London Has Fallen: Blu-ray
Of the two nearly identical POTUS-in-jeopardy movies released in 2013 – Roland Emmerich’s White House Down and Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen – it’s difficult to say which one deserved a sequel more … or less. Saving the world’s most prestigious residence from destruction would seem to be the kind of act that’s too tough to follow. If I were the president, I’d lock myself in the Situation Room and not come out until the end of my term and wait until Morgan Freeman was ready to relieve me of my duties. Besides playing God twice, Freeman has portrayed a sitting President in Deep Impact; the Speaker of the House, in Olympus Has Fallen; Chief Justice, in “Madam Secretary”; a senator, in Momentum; a general, in Outbreak; Nelson Mandela, in Invictus; Frederick Douglas, in “Freedom: A History of Us” and “The Civil War”; and Malcolm X, in Death of a Prophet. Here, in London Has Fallen, three years have passed since North Korea devised a plot to kidnap President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), and Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) has earned his way back into his confidence. Freeman returns, as well, this time as VP, along with Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo and Radha Mitchell, whose talents aren’t exactly tested in the sequel. In fact, no one’s talents are particularly challenged here. In the original, Fuqua reportedly balked at having Middle Eastern terrorists attack the White House, if for no other reason than it would have been just another cliché waiting to happen. By setting the action in London, this time, and hiring Iranian-born Babak Najafi to direct, the threat against President Asher and other world leaders by Arab revolutionaries is more legitimate. The difference between legitimate and credible, however, is huge.
Returning writers Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt have conjured a device by which heads of state from around the globe will descend on London at the same time. The British Prime Minister has died and a state funeral is planned. Audience members will smell a rat long before the Secret Service and a British Special Air Service team are forced into action to counter what amounts to an elaborate Trojan-horse infiltration of the city by a horde of Arab militants. In an operation that must have taken years to plan, but only a few minutes of screen time to execute, terrorists disguised as police and other security personnel attack the procession of arriving dignitaries. At same time, bombs are detonated on bridges across the Thames and in every landmark building in the city. It’s all being orchestrated by men we see narrowly escaping a drone strike in the first few minutes of the movie. They plan to blow up Asher’s limousine or, failing that, taking out the presidential helicopter on the escape route with strategically located Stinger missile slingers. Failing that, the insurgents will settle for kidnaping him and cutting off his head on the Internet for everyone to see. It’s preposterous, of course, but no more so than the Die Hard movies that London Has Fallen and Olympus Has Fallen resemble. Gerard Butler may not be as effortlessly funny as Bruce Willis, but he can stab a terrorist in the eye with a Ka-Bar knife as well as any handsome galoot making his living as an action star. The featurettes include “The Making of London Has Fallen,” which explains how a backlot in Bulgaria was transformed into central London, and “Guns, Knives & Explosives.”
Every Thing Will Be Fine: Blu-ray
Another week, another film starring James Franco. Wim Wenders is once again represented, as well, a mere two weeks after “The Road Trilogy” was released by Criterion Collection. For Wenders, at least, Every Thing Will Be Fine marks a return to narrative drama, after 10 years of focusing on such documentaries as The Salt of the Earth, Pina and Cathedrals of Culture. It was during this period that Wenders fully embraced 3D, vowing not to make any more films in the 2D format. While it’s one thing to make action and horror pictures that use the format to elicit screams or laughter from audiences between mouthfuls of popcorn, it’s quite another to employ 3D in a film doesn’t require jump-scares to entertain viewers. Not having seen Every Thing Will Be Fine in 3D, I can’t say whether he succeeded in creating a more satisfying visual environment for drama. In mainstream films and porn, even, it’s easy to see where a director inserted a scene or series of shots for the purpose of titillating or shocking viewers. Here, the consistency of the multidimensional look, not to mention the stereoscopic glasses, could work against a filmmaker’s intentions. If Wenders’ visually spectacular dance-performance film, Pina, was perfectly suited to 3D, it’s possible that it appeared superfluous in Every Thing Will Be Fine. It’s unlikely, though, that home viewers will get the opportunity to check it out as Wenders intended it to be seen. Financial and technical considerations aside, it took a critical drubbing and failed miserably at the box office. It’s possible that Wenders was too pre-occupied with the visual presentation to focus on the story, which suffers from a lack of narrative flow and fully developed characters. The opening scene, filmed on a frozen lake in Quebec, is indicative of what appears to be a desire on Wenders’ part to impress viewers with the format’s potential. It’s here we’re introduced to the protagonist, struggling novelist Tomas Eldan (Franco), as he awakens from a nap in an unheated fishy shanty, surrounded by folks who actually are there to catch fish or get drunk, one. If it isn’t the first place I’d expect to find a blocked writer, I’ll bet the brilliantly white icescape looked terrific in 3D.
As Eldan, Franco reminded me a lot of the shell-shocked drifter, Travis Henderson, portrayed so eloquently by Harry Dean Stanton, in Paris, Texas. Besides being hamstrung by a debilitating writer’s block, Eldan is troubled by his fractured relationship with his father and his longtime girlfriend’s increasing unwillingness to put up with his detached personality and ugly moods. One day, after a quarrel, he decides to take a drive in the country, which, being winter, is white with driven snow. Through no fault of his own, Eldan’s car collides with a sled recklessly ridden down a hill by a young boy and his brother. It takes a while for him to figure out that only one of the children survived the accident, but, when he does, the realization hits him like a sledgehammer. The boy’s mother, Kate (Charlotte Gainsbourg), is, of course, similarly devastated – and not completely blameless for permitting such dangerous play—but knows she must hold things together for the sake of the boy who survived the accident. In the days and weeks to come, Kate and Eldan develop a peculiar rapport, based, possibly, on survivor’s remorse. Ultimately, the aftershocks from the accident flatten out, allowing the writer to create something meaningful based on the experience. He will find commercial success from his writing and happiness in a loving relationship with a fan of his work and her precocious daughter. Kate isn’t nearly as fortunate. Years later, the accident comes back to haunt Eldan in the form of an out-of-the-blue letter from the surviving boy. Now approaching adulthood, his desire to connect with writer emotionally threatens to once again push everything out of balance. It isn’t easy to discern how much of the alienation and angst displayed by Eldan derives from Franco’s interpretation of the character or Wenders’ instructions. Rachel McAdams, Marie-Josee Croze, Julia Sarah Stone and Gainsbourg provide excellent counterpoints to Eldan, who, at times, can be insufferable. The Blu-ray adds several informative interviews and background on Wenders’ techniques and choices.
Those People
I don’t know if writer-director Joey Kuhn was inspired by Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan when he began work on his debut feature, Those People, but I’d be very surprised if he hadn’t checked it on Netflix, once or twice. As an American Graffiti for privileged Upper East Side youths, it’s aged pretty well in the 26 years since it was released on the arthouse circuit. Apparently, the sons and daughters of extremely wealthy New Yorkers still feel as comfortable in formal wear as the rest of us do in Levis and resent their parents in direct proportion to the amount of money they mooch off them for champagne, cocaine and dry cleaning. What makes Those People different than other films clearly influenced by Metropolitan and Cruel Intentions is a central storyline involving two gay men in a mixed group of art-school graduates and the handsome newcomer, who threatens to upset the established order of things within the clique. For years, Charlie (Jonathan Gordon) and his manipulative best friend, Sebastian (Jason Ralph), have maintained a relationship that’s fitfully romantic. Sebastian’s world has been rocked by the arrest and conviction of his father in a financial scheme similar to the one concocted by Bernie Madoff. The world outside their socially isolated group considers Sebastian to be as toxic as his dad and mom, who’s tried to distance herself from both of them. As cocky and promiscuous as he is, however, Sebastian relies on Charlie for unconditional emotional support. When Charlie falls for a handsome Lebanese pianist, Tim (Haaz Sleiman), Sebastian considers it to be a personal betrayal. While their other friends take the introduction of an outsider in stride, they’re afraid that Sebastian will attempt to steal the spotlight from Tim by harming himself. If that were the only angle being worked by Kuhn, Those People wouldn’t be nearly as impressive a freshman effort. He has two other cards, at least, up his sleeves. For a first feature in a niche genre, Those People, is a remarkably polished entertainment. The acting is completely natural and the technical work is well above par. Until recently, the film has been displayed predominantly in gay-and-lesbian film festivals. There’s no reason Those People can’t be enjoyed by straight audiences as well.
Rabid Dogs: Blu-ray
Apart from some lovely old buildings and signs written in French, Montreal could easily pass for any Canadian city trying to pass for American in the movies. True, the city’s young adults are exceptionally attractive and prefer French to English, but, outside Old Montreal and Old Port, it might as well be Cincinnati. And, while some genuinely fine movies have been produced in Quebec, economic necessity demands they look beyond the St. Lawrence River to fickle French audiences, arthouses in the United States and, only then, to English-speaking Canadians and the straight-to-video market here. I don’t know if the reverse is true, but Montreal’s filmmakers and distributors have their work cut out for them. Rabid Dogs is exactly the kind of hyperviolent and chase-heavy crime thriller you’d expect from film students who grew up on Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Guy Ritchie, Clint Eastwood and Robert Rodriguez, all of whom owe a debt of gratitude to such post-Code rabble-rousers as Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegel, John Boorman, Peter Yates and Walter Hill. It’s safe to say that freshman co-writer-director Éric Hannezo has studied the masters, as well. The remake of Mario and Lamberto Bava’s thriller of the same title – finished in 1974, but not released in the U.S. until 1998, as Kidnapped—opens with an explosion and bank heist in central Montreal. Three masked robbers rush through a cloud of blue smoke toward a getaway car, manned by a driver with an itchy trigger finger. They’ve come away with at least two big sacks full of cash, but are followed almost immediately by police. Before long, the brain of the operation is killed in a collision with a large chunk of concrete, leaving the others on foot and virtually clueless. The first vehicle they carjack belongs to a pretty newlywed (Virginie Ledoyen), who is forced to share the back seat with a horndog creep. They also will steal the station wagon of a guy (Lambert Wilson) who says he’s transporting his comatose daughter to a hospital for a transplant.
The gang’s driver promises the newcomer that he won’t let the girl die and assigns the female hostage to comfort her. Their presence allows the robbers to con the police at roadblock stops, but, otherwise, they’re burdens. By hanging on to them for so long, viewers are tipped to the likelihood of an ending that either going to be extremely messy or loaded with gimmicks. In fact, it’s a little bit of both. Without giving anything away, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the movie’s most entertaining set piece. After finally managing to get the police off their tail, the road leads directly into a tiny village, where heavily armed bear worshippers have gathered to sacrifice an ursine effigy that sits in the middle of their escape route. The celebration forces the equally well-armed bad guys to mingle with the quintessentially Canadian animists. At the same time, a local woman insists that the still-unconscious little girl be brought into her home to be comforted when she awakens. When photographs of the fugitives are shown on TV, the situation escalates from crazy to insane. To his credit, Hannezo has an ace up in his sleeve in the form of a narrative twists few viewers will see coming. I enjoyed Rabid Dogs, even though I was put off by the studly crooks, all of whom appear better suited to modelling jock straps than threatening innocents in hoser French. Usually, it’s the female actors whose beauty tests the boundaries of credibility. If one of the male characters, at least, resembled Jean-Paul Belmondo, Warren Oates or Steve Buscemi, it would have been easier to buy into Rabid Dogs. Even so, rabid fans of action pictures and shoot-’em-ups should find plenty to enjoy here. The Blu-ray adds one of the longest making-of featurettes I’ve ever seen and several decent interviews.
La chienne: Criterion Collection: Blu-ray
Le amiche: Criterion Collection: Blu-ray
This month’s selection of films from Criterion Collection includes two interesting, if largely unsung titles from a pair of European masters who had yet to hit their stride. Released in Paris in 1931, La chienne is Jean Renoir’s second picture using the new synchronized sound technique. Based on a novel by Georges de la Fouchardière, it describes the kind of love triangle that confounds kind-hearted, if sometimes tragically gullible older men when a pretty young thing promises to deliver kindnesses their wives no longer provide. Such is the case with the sad-sack cashier, Maurice Legrand, played by Michel Simon. (In the next three years, the great comic actor would star in Renoir’s Boudu Saved from Drowning and Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante.) After rescuing the pretty blond prostitute, Lulu (Janie Marèse), from a public beating by her pimp and lover, Dédé (Georges Flamant), Legrand returns home to his shrewish wife, Adele (Magdeleine Bérubet), who treats him as if he personally killed her late husband in the Great War. When Adele threatens to destroy the canvases he paints on his day off, Maurice finds a way to solve two problems at once. By leasing an apartment for the visibly bereft Lulu, he not only can dream of being admired by a gorgeous dame, but he’ll also have what amounts to a faux gallery for his paintings. What he fails to recognize, however, is Lulu’s unchecked passion for the deadbeat pimp, who she continues to support. Even though he wouldn’t recognize a valuable work of art from a black-velvet painting of Maurice Chevalier, Dédé is able to find a dealer as unscrupulous as he is. It isn’t until Maurice leaves Adele, in a hilarious scheme involving her not-so-late husband, that Maurice discovers the full extent of Lulu’s deceit. Such love triangles are doomed to collapse, of course, but Renoir has other points to make about the human comedy. Despite La chienne’s age, its message is as relevant today as it was both in 1931 and when it was re-introduced in 1945 in Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street. Likewise, Michel Simon is still able to bring tears and laughter to the eyes of contemporary viewers. La chienne has been newly restored in a 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. The Criterion package also adds an introduction to the film from 1961 by Renoir; a new interview with Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner; a fresh restoration of On purge bébé (1931), Renoir’s first sound film, also starring Simon; a 95-minute French television program, from 1967, featuring a lively conversation between Renoir and Simon, directed by Jacques Rivette; an updated English subtitle translation; and an essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau.
When Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le Amiche finally made its American debut in 1963, eight years after its initial release overseas, many critics made the mistake of comparing it to L’Avventura, an unqualified masterpiece that had shared the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival (with Kon Ichikawa’s Odd Obsession). By not viewing the earlier picture within the context of Antonioni’s creative evolution, they had expected things from Le Amiche it couldn’t possibly have delivered. What was relevant in 1963 and remains interesting today is how the many of the film’s themes and visuals techniques would be refined in such 1960s’ triumphs as L’Avventura, La Notte, L’Eclisse, Il Deserto Rosso and Blow-Up. Set in Turin and based on a short novel by Cesare Pavese, Le Amiche explores the complicated social milieu of women – and, not incidentally, a few of their men – finally released from the sacrifices required of them by the post-war economy and free to enjoy the finer things in life offered by Italian designers, craftsmen and chefs. Although the excesses of the country’s “la dolce vita” period wouldn’t emerge for another five years, the “modern women” we meet here have already gotten a head start. Among them is fashion designer Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago), who’s returned to her hometown of Turin, from Rome, to oversee the opening of a boutique. She is drawn into the tumultuous lives of a group of bourgeois women (potential customers, all) when one of them, Rosetta (Madeleine Fischer), risks internal damnation – a very real fear in 1950s Italy—by attempting suicide in the hotel Clelia is staying. They are exactly the kind of ridiculously frivolous women who, today, populate the various “Real Housewives” series on cable. (One woman interviewed in the bonus package also makes comparisons to the characters in HBO’s “Girls,” although I think that might be a stretch.) If nothing else, these self-indulgent women contribute to the common good by supporting artisans, cosmetic surgeons, psychiatrists and designers, who, one supposes, pay taxes on their earnings. I wouldn’t want that comparison to diminish anyone’s interest in watching Le Amiche, because, in every other way possible, it is an accomplished work of art. The Criterion Blu-ray offers a new 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; a conversation with scholars David Forgacs and Karen Pinkus on the film’s themes; a new interview with scholar Eugenia Paulicelli on the importance of fashion in Antonioni’s work; a new English subtitle translation; and an essay by film scholar Tony Pipolo.
The Best Intentions: Blu-ray
At just a shade over three hours, Bille August’s The Best Intentions easily qualifies as an epic romance. What makes it extraordinary is a screenplay written Ingmar Bergman based somewhat loosely on the difficult courtship and turbulent early years of the marriage of his parents, Erik Bergman and Karin Åkerbloom (a.k.a., here, Henrik and Anna). The maestro had retired from making feature films 10 years earlier, but still wrote screen- and teleplays and directed television and stage productions. Private Confessions and Sunday’s Children would form a trilogy of life in the Bergman family. Only in Sweden, perhaps, could so much be wrung from the marriage of a Lutheran minister and his aristocratic life partner, but, in a sense, most of Bergman’s films were informed by things he experienced in life, especially religious matters. The Best Intentions opens in 1909, with the poor, idealistic theology student Henrik meeting the strong-minded and educated daughter of a rich family in Uppsala. At the time, he was engaged to a slightly older woman (Lena Endre), who allowed the future servant of God to share her bed in an otherwise unheated room. That Anna’s parents (Max von Sydow, Ghita Nørby) so vehemently attempted to douse the sparks between Henrik and Anna (Samuel Fröler, Pernilla August) only served to bring them closer together. Henrik’s widowed mother disapproved, as well, but far less openly. Immediately after their wedding, Henrik and Anna travel to the north of Sweden, where he’s accepted a position in a community controlled by a brutal factory owner. While extremely beautiful throughout the year, the town’s closed-minded citizens and virulent gossip-mongering eventually would drive Anna up the wall. Henrik’s offered a lucrative position in Stockholm, but disappoints Anna by turning it down for curiously altruistic reasons. (Erik Bergman would serve as chaplain to the King of Sweden.) Their return to the northern town will bring even greater challenges. It’s an amazing film, splendidly shot by Jörgen Persson and wonderfully acted by Sweden’s finest actors. Jurors at Cannes set a precedent by awarding August the Palme d’Or for best film and his wife, Pernilla, the Best Actress prize. The Blu-ray adds Ingmar Bergman’s rarely seen short film “Karin’s Face,” which is comprised of artfully composed photographs of his mother taken at different stages of her life, and a collector’s booklet with an essay by Peter Cowie.
The Films of Maurice Pialat, Volume 2: Under the Sun of Satan: Blu-ray
The second installment in Cohen Media’s “The Films of Maurice Pialat” series is 1987 Palme d’Or winner Under the Sun of Satan. The choice was unanimous. In it, Gerard Depardieu plays Father Donissan, a mediocre seminarian who’s haunted by evil and the failure of his divine mission. He practices self-flagellation before going to bed and is constantly challenged by his superior (Pialet) to engage parishioners, even though he freaks them out. Donissan counters, “With you, everything looks easy. Alone, I’m useless. I’m like the zero, only useful next to other numbers. Priests are so miserable.” On a long walk through absolutely gorgeous farmlands to hear confessions at a different church, Donissan is joined by a stranger we soon recognize to be Satan. Like Christ in the desert, the priest is tempted by pleasures of the flesh and promises of untold powers. Shaken, Donissan will nonetheless pass the test. He then is confronted by a young woman, Mouchette (Sandrine Bonnaire), who appears to be on her way to setting a local record for committing mortal sins, and parishioners who challenge him to bring a dead boy to life. Under the Sun of Satan is based on Georges Bernanos’ novel “Diary of a Country Priest.” And, while Depardieu has become a large shadow of his former self, his performance here is nothing short of remarkable. Bonus features include interviews, conducted in 2012, with Depardieu, cinematographer Willy Kurant and production designer Katia Wyszkop; nearly an hour’s worth of deleted Scenes, introduced by members of Pialet’s crew; behind-the-scenes footage; and the original trailer. All spend considerable time describing how difficult it could be to work with man who clearly considered himself to be a genius.
 
Nikkatsu Diamond Guys: Vol. 2: Blu-ray
Because Arrow Video’s first “Nikkatsu Diamond Guys” collection delivered a trio of eccentric, if not completely off-the-wall crime flicks, I expected more of the same from Volume Two. But, boy, was I in for a surprise. In fact, Tokyo Mighty Guy, Danger Pays and Murder Unincorporated are parodies, spoofs and farces that could have been concocted by Jerry Lewis and Pee-wee Herman on an acid trip to Japan. They’re every bit that strange … in a delightfully childish sort of way. “Diamond Guys” refers to a star system employed by Nikkatsu studios in the late-1950s that promoted its marquee actors in various genre modes. In Buichi Saito’s Tokyo Mighty Guy, Akira Kobayashi stars as Jiro, a chef who defies the Yakuza by opening a French restaurant in the busy Ginza district. They had previously collaborated on The Rambling Guitarist – included in Volume One – a genre-bending action picture that may have inadvertently laid the foundation for every cheeseball movie musical Elvis Presley made after he was directed by Don Siegel in Flaming Star. Jiro not only is able to convert a leading gangland functionary into being a sushi chef, but he also is able to save the bathhouse owned by the parents of the perky girl-next-door (Ruriko Asaoka) and a brothel coveted by the mob. This might sound like a straight crime story, but the Crayola-colored opening, all-punches-pulled fights and silly musical interludes clearly are targeted at a much younger audience. Chipmunk-cheeked Jô Shishido stars in Kô Nakahira’s Danger Pays and Haruyasu Noguchi’s screwball Murder Unincorporated, one of which deals with a billion-dollar counterfeiting ring and the other a comically inventive hit squad. As silly as the movies are, the Arrow Video package treats them with utmost seriousness with beaucoup interviews, trailers and image galleries, as well as another sit-down with Nikkatsu expert Jasper Sharp and a booklet with new writing from Stuart Galbraith IV, Tom Mes and Mark Schilling.
 
Jeepers Creepers/Jeepers Creepers 2: Blu-ray
Judged solely on its own merits, the Jeepers Creepers franchise remains a legitimately scary and largely original entertainment to be enjoyed primarily by teen audiences. The Creeper (Jonathan Breck) kills people in ways that most other movie monsters and serial killers couldn’t possibly accomplish and, if he isn’t strictly original, name me one that is. Likely inspired by legends of the flying biped creatures Spring-Heeled Jack and the Jersey Devil, the Creeper hunts every twenty-third spring for twenty-three days, feasting on pre-selected body parts, before making like a cicada. If a limb or eyeball is damaged in an encounter with a human, the Creeper will compensate for it by expropriating the same body part in a later attack. It’s attracted, as well, by the smell of fear in its victims. When challenged, the Creeper is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, not unlike Superman. In the 2001original, executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola, homeward-bound teen siblings (Gina Philips, Justin Long) are terrorized on a Florida highway by a maniac in a beat-up truck. Sometime later, they spot the same vehicle in the yard of an abandoned church and recognize the driver dropping something vaguely human into a waste barrel. Naturally, their curiosity gets the best them. On closer inspection, Darry discovers that the bottomless barrel opens into a shaft that leads to a cavern strewn with mutilated bodies. Avoiding detection in the hellhole, Darry convinces Trish to alert local authorities. The only reason they buy into the outrageous story is because of the unusual number of unsolved murders in the county. The title derives from a warning issued to Darry by a local psychic, who draws a parallel to the attacks and 1938 novelty song, “Jeepers Creepers.” Mayhem ensues.
 
The sequel, Jeepers Creepers 2, picks up a few days after the original ends, when a scarecrow abducts a boy and whisks him away into the heavens. Still hungry with only a few hours left in his 23-day eating spree, the Creeper attacks a target-rich school bus carrying teens home from a track meet. Conveniently, the bus has stalled on a desolate stretch of highway outside the usual range of two-way radios. The missing boy’s father (Ray Wise) and brother, whose farm isn’t that far away from the bus, hightail it to the site with a harpoon-like device attached to the back of their pickup truck. Once again, mayhem ensues. This time, however, the teens have already deduced that the Creeper is selective in its pursuit of prey and susceptible to being punctured by javelins and other makeshift weapons. With the clock ticking, the monster is at a slight disadvantage to the kids and farmer. We know it survived, barely, because a Jeepers Creepers 3 is on the drawing board for 2017, with Victor Salva back at the helm, Breck returning as the Creeper and the hope that Philips and Ray Wise will return as their 23-years-older characters. The Scream Factory package contains more bonus features than would seem humanly possible for such genre fare. Now, caveat emptor, it should be noted the Salva still carries the brand burned into the hides of convicted child molesters, alerting those around him to what many would consider to be an unforgiveable crime. For sexually abusing the underage star of Clownhouse, then in production, Salva served 15 months of a 3-year-prison term, before being released on parole. The actor came forward again in 1995, before Salva’s film Powder was released. Not surprisingly, the controversy negatively impacted box-office results for the Disney fantasy drama.
 
Bad, Bad, Gang!
Released in the same year as Deep Throat, John Donne’s Bad, Bad, Gang! is far more a curiosity than a landmark in the history of the adult-film industry. Significant, if at all, as a “roughie” that blends the kidnapped-by-bikers subgenre with hard-core sex in an outdoors setting, it features uncredited performances by future stars Rene Bond, Nancy Martin and Suzanne Fields – reunited, two years later, in Flesh Gordon – in then-uncredited roles. Four civilians, given the tangentially biblical names of Kane, Able, Eve and Jane are harassed by members of the Vipers motorcycle gang on their way to the Garden of Eden campground. By this time, the hoodlums have added a pair of horny hitchhikers to the entourage and will soon kidnap Eve from the trailer. That’s the end of the biblical references, thank all that’s good. After some sexual hijinks of their own, Kane, Able and Jane will form a posse to rescue Eve, who, by this time, appears to enjoy being cuffed, in the spread-eagle position, to the side of a cliff and toyed with by her greaseball captors and, of course, hitchhikers Satin and Blackie. None of this amounts to good, clean fun, except, perhaps, for a skinny-dip in a nearby pond. But, you get the picture. The 480p Impulse Pictures presentation is as good as it ever was, maybe better. Collectors of edgy grindhouse fare will find Bad, Bad Gang to be of far greater interest than casual fans of vintage porn.
 
Shaun the Sheep: The Farmer’s Llamas
Fishtales
It appears as if Shout! Factory is doing OK with the animated features it picks up from all corners of the map and adds the talents of familiar American voice actors. Quackerz was written and directed by Kazakhstani special-effects specialist Viktor Lakisov and distributed first to countries in that region. If I’m not mistaken, the 3D effects were added later by Montreal’s Mokko Studio. It is set on an island, populated with peaceful Mandarin ducks, that is mistakenly invaded by militaristic mallards. As if their stars were aligned against them by Shakespeare, Longway, the son of the Mandarin emperor, and Erica, the daughter of the mallard commander, meet and fall for each other. Meanwhile, the wicked Ms. Knout is conspiring to blot out the sun. Can the opposing forces agree to settle their differences in time to save the planet from extinction? Probably. Quackerz probably won’t win any Annie Awards, but young viewers won’t notice the difference in quality from those that do contend for such prizes. The cast includes Mark DeCarlo, Michael Gross, Jessi Corti, Robbie Daymond, Andrea Becker and Bruce Nozick.
 
At a brisk 28 minutes, parents and older kids won’t have any problem sitting through and enjoying Aardman’s “Shaun the Sheep” spinoff “The Farmer’s Llamas.” It’s that funny and well done. When the farmer and Bitzer go to a country fair, Shaun steals away with them intent on causing mischief. He talks the unwitting farmer into purchasing a trio of llamas at the auction and bringing them back to Mossy Bottom Farm. The other sheep aren’t convinced that the zany foreigners will find farm life to be compatible with their overreaching ways. They’re right, of course, so Shaun is required to devise a way to bring tranquility back to the farm. The DVD package includes several making-of featurettes and bonus cartoons.
 
I don’t know if the folks at Ruthless Studios were anticipating the release of Pixar/Disney’s Finding Dory this week and intended Fishtales to feed off the marketing campaign, like a remora attaches itself to a shark, or if it’s strictly coincidental. After a shark attack causes Angie the anglerfish and Puffy the puffer’s octopus friend, Ollie, to get lost in the vast ocean, fun-loving Ray the manta ray helps them scour the depths for the eight-legged creature. The animated characters stand out from the live-action backgrounds containing actual sea life. If Fishtales isn’t the most sophisticated animation you’ll ever see, there’s something soothing about the aquarium-like environments. I kept waiting for something strange to happen, but it didn’t.
 
Discovery: Alaskan Bush People: The Compete Seasons 1 & 2
PBS/ITV: Grantchester: The Complete Second Season: Blu-ray
PBS: Nature: Animal Reunions
Discovery Family: Littlest Pet Shop: Making Friends
Lifetime: Toni Braxton: The Movie Event
Discovery’s “Alaskan Bush People” is one of the most disturbing reality-based series I’ve yet experienced. And, yes, that includes all of the Kardashian spinoffs, “Armed & Famous,” “The Swan” and “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” which it resembles. The living-off-the-beaten-track conceit isn’t all that weird, really – disenchanted ex-hippies from Texas attempt to survive in the Alaskan wilderness, with their large brood, by the sheer force of will – but it’s Billy Browns’ bald-faced arrogance and half-baked solutions that are so appalling. For one thing, because the show largely consists of re-creations of events culled from the father of seven’s 2009 book, “One Wave at a Time,” it’s impossible to discern what’s real and what’s been embellished. For another, the clumsy old man constantly puts his family in jeopardy by stumbling over inert objects and not avoiding serious illnesses. Worst, though, is the notion that anyone with a high school education is capable of home-schooling children, including two teenage girls, so isolated from humanity that they’ve developed accents unheard anywhere else in North America. Neither are there textbooks or teaching implements to be found. Brown’s idea of proper living quarters are, first, a makeshift hunter’s shelter and, then, a one-room cabin that wouldn’t have been completed if it weren’t for the help of neighbors concerned about the kids’ health. As it is, the only source of heat is the combined warmth produced by nine bodies in insufficient sleeping bags. The five boys, none of whom resemble each other, are fully grown adults who fetishize their guns – not uncommon in Alaska – but probably could have benefitted from remedial shop courses provided in a real high school. Mama Ami Brown seems overwhelmed by her husband’s grandiose plans and usually looks as if she’s just along for the ride. The other troubling thing about Brown is an attitude that allows him to believe he’s entitled to homestead in places where it’s long been forbidden and that his family has greater rights to the vast wilderness than the animals who’ve forever considered it to be their natural habitat. As far as I can recall, none of the challenges in the American “Survivor” series have been staged in locations nearly as potentially life-threatening – certainly nowhere near as cold—as Alaska’s Copper River Valley in the dead of winter. The production unions wouldn’t allow such a thing.
 
The lowlight of Season One comes when unidentified locals attack the uncompleted cabin at night, with guns blazing for no apparent reason. Things got so dangerous, production had to be curtailed. Viewers had to wait until the opening of Season Two to learn that some of the notoriously private Alaskans had tired of serving as colorful background elements for no compensation. There was also the very real possibility their faces would be exposed to skip tracers, debt collectors and ex-wives in the Lower 48. Undaunted, Brown buys a decrepit fishing boat and heads for an island with one of the largest populations of bears in the world. That experiment didn’t last long, either. “Alaskan Bush People” might be considered a comedy of errors, if it weren’t for the lack of anything funny, except, perhaps, the Brown boys’ ideas on dating etiquette. The third season just ended.
 
Pick a profession, proclivity or fetish and someone in England will build a perfectly agreeable murder-mystery series around it. “Grandchester,” which just completed its second season, is a perfect example of that theory. Although priests, nuns and vicars have contributed to the genre in many different iterations, it took crime novelist James Runcie to come up with Anglican priest and former Scots Guards officer Sidney Chambers (James Norton), who investigates crimes with the far more pragmatic Detective Inspector Geordie Keating (Robson Green). Keating is gruff and methodical, where Chambers is more intuitive and forgiving of mankind’s foibles. Among the vicar’s idiosyncrasies is a love for whiskey, jazz and the occasional buxom brunette. “Grandchester” may not the most unusual or sexy shows on the “Masterpiece Mystery” lineup, but it’s well produced and lots of fun. Guest stars for Season Two include Neil Morrissey, Claudie Blakley, Nigel Planer, Andrew Knott, Nicky Henson and Oliver Dinsdale.
 
In the “Nature” episode, “Animal Reunions,” we witness what happens when humans are reunited with the wild animals—gorillas, elephants, cheetahs, chimpanzees—with which they forged deep bonds, years earlier. Will they still recognize their human caregivers and how will they react? The broader question, perhaps, is whether wild creatures can experience such emotions as joy, devotion and love. Pet owners have never doubted the possibility, but scientists demand more proof than a bark, slobber or hug. Narrated by Richard Thomas, “Animal Reunions” contains interviews with scientists, authors and caregivers, in addition to scenes of their journeys to reconnect with their former charges.
 
No such questions concern the characters on Discovery Family’s “Littlest Pet Shop: Making Friends.” Blythe and the non-human residents of the Littlest Pet Shop love making new friends of all shapes, sizes and species. In the 110-minute compilation, they babysit a curious kitten, befriend a genial spider and meet another fashion-minded girl. The adventures wind up with a two-part special, during which Blythe’s dream of holding a Pet Fest finally comes true. Parents need to know that “Littlest Pet Shop” is produced by Hasbro Studios and DHX Media, which means children will be exposed to product placement for an extensive line of toys, a mobile game and comic-book adaptation.
 
In a career that’s spanned more than a quarter-century, R&B singer Toni Braxton has experienced more than any singer’s fair share of ups and downs. Throughout her career, the Maryland native has sold more than 67 million records, including 41 million albums, worldwide. She’s won seven Grammy Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards and seven American Music Awards. Braxton has become a television executive producer and personality, thanks to stints on “Dancing with the Stars” and the reality series, “Braxton Family Values,” with her mother and sisters Traci, Towanda, Trina and Tamar. On the downside, Braxton has spent far too much time in courtrooms, defending her career decisions and spoiled business relations. The made-for-Lifetime biopic, “Toni Braxton: The Movie Event,” based on her memoir “Unbreak My Heart,” follows her career from her discovery, in 1990, by L.A. Reid (Greg Davis, Jr.) and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds (Gavin Houston), to her public battle with lupus and divorce, her son’s autism and other family struggles. What’s glossed over could probably fill another 90-minute biopic, however. It’s directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall and stars       Lex Scott Davis as the singer.
 
IFC: The Spoils Before Dying, Season 2
PBS: The Secrets of Saint John Paul
PBS: Secrets of the Dead: The Alcatraz Escape
PBS: Ode to Joy: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9
PBS: David Holt’s State of Music
Hallmark: When Calls the Heart: Heart of a Hero
In 1992, Bruce Springsteen recorded “57 Channels (and Nothin’ On),” lamenting the dearth of quality programming on his newly purchased satellite dish. It was the closest he’s ever come to a novelty song and I doubt if he can remember the lyrics, let alone perform it in concerts. Today, consumers have more genuinely entertaining choices available to them then at any time in history, often more than 57 in the same timeslot. Independent programmers, podcasters and Internet-based artists have usurped the responsibility once reserved for the three broadcast networks and PBS. IFC’s “The Spoils Before Dying,” an extension of its “The Spoils of Babylon,” is a series that wouldn’t have seen the light of prime-time in 1992, except, perhaps, as a sketch on “Saturday Night Live.” Produced by Matt Piedmont and Andrew Steele for Funny or Die, the shows seemed to be little more than an after-school project for Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Kristen Wiig, Steve Tom, Haley Joel Osment, Michael Sheen and their funny friends. They attracted what even a cable network would consider to be a loyal niche audience of college-educated and comedy-savvy viewers. They are presented as comedy mini-series that parody classic entertainment tropes, introduced by the pompous “author, producer, actor, writer, director, raconteur, bon vivant, legend and fabulist” clone of late-career Orson Welles, Eric Jonrosh (Ferrell). “Babylon” spoofed such epic-scale “TV event” miniseries as “The Thorn Birds” and “Rich Man, Poor Man,” once-popular shows most viewers would be too young to have seen. The noir-soaked “Spoils Before Dying,” a “lost film” based on Jonrosh’s 1958 novel, follows 1950s jazz pianist-turned-private eye Rock Banyon (Michael Kenneth Williams) as he becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that hits too close to home. Banyon is given three days to clear his name in the murder of his colleague and lover, Fresno Foxglove (Maya Rudolph). It’s a lot of fun.
Catholics tend to revere the men who have been elected to shepherd their flock, while merely tolerating the cardinals who elected them and live in luxury at the expense of parishioners burdened by medieval dictates and criminal clergy. Like Pope John XXIII before him, Pope John Paul II was admired, as well, for advancing inclusive reforms that actually made Catholics feel good about their faith. The fascinating PBS/BBC documentary, “The Secrets of Saint John Paul,” made me wonder how Catholics would react to the very real possibility that the first non-Italian pontiff in more than 400 years had a romantic relationship with a married woman –Anna-Theresa Tymieniecka – who studied in Poland, before moving to the United States. Unlike the priests who prey on parishioners of both sexes, then-Archbishop of Kraków Karol Józef Wojtyla and Tymieniecka maintained a 30-year friendship, based, at the very least, on mutual intellectual curiosity and scholarship. Even when he was elevated to the papacy, Tymieniecka remained in contact with John Paul II as friend, adviser, translator and confidante. We know this only because their two-sided correspondence is part of a collection of documents sold by Tymieniecka’s estate in 2008 to the National Library of Poland. According to the BBC, the library had initially kept the letters from public view, partly to clear John Paul’s path to sainthood, but a library official announced in February the letters would be made public. BBC reporter Edward Stourton was the first to gain full, if guarded access. Veteran investigative journalist Carl Bernstein and Vatican expert Marco Politi were the first journalists to talk to Tymieniecka, in the 1990s, about her importance in John Paul’s life. They dedicated 20 pages to her in their 1996 book “His Holiness.” At the time, she denied having developed any romantic relationship with John Paul II/Wojtyla, “however one-sided it might have been.” If the recently disclosed letters and photographs suggest otherwise, I doubt that most rank-and-file Catholics would demand a retraction of his sainthood. Stourton’s research also reveals how the blatant misogyny of Vatican officials nearly forced an end to the friendship, causing the Pope to surreptitiously post letters from outside Rome. In retrospect, such revelations only make JPII more human.
In the PBS presentation, “Secrets of the Dead: The Alcatraz Escape,” three Dutch scientists use 3D modelling technology to speculate on the possibility that, in 1962, bank robbers Frank Morris and Clarence and John Anglin could have launched a patchwork raft into the waters surrounding Alcatraz Prison and survived. The men disappeared, leaving behind a cold case that has mystified law enforcement for over a half-century. The new technology is bolstered by elaborate data collected on the tidal patterns of San Francisco Bay at a to-scale model of the region, as the waters pass under the Golden Gate Bridge. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the mixed results of their investigation beg more questions than they answer.
The new 90-minute public-television special “Ode to Joy: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9” showcases the triumphant musical masterpiece in a rare full-length television recording by the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, with the Westminster Symphonic Choir, under the direction of conductor Mark Laycock. The orchestra and choir are joined by soprano Ah Young Hong, mezzo-soprano Leah Wool, tenor William Burden and bass-baritone Mark S. Doss. Technically exquisite, the symphony is performed in historic Alexander Hall on the campus of Princeton University, in honor of American scholar, philanthropist and human rights advocate William H. Scheide on the occasion of his 100th birthday celebration. The program also takes viewers to Vienna, where historical background is added.
Also from PBS, “David Holt’s State of Music” takes a reading on the health of American mountain music, as it’s been practiced for hundreds of years, from the most remote coves of southern Appalachia to the bright lights of Asheville’s public-TV studios and the Grand Old Opry stage. Grammy Award-winning performer David Holt has spent his life learning and performing traditional American music. Here, he introduces viewers to modern masters of traditional music.
 
In Hallmark’s “When Calls the Heart: Heart of a Hero,” Abigail and Frank pursue a romance before the town of Hope Valley is tested by the threat of a gang of outlaws and Elizabeth and Jack’s relationship is touched by jealousy, when a woman from his past unexpectedly arrives in town. While Bill grows overprotective of Abigail’s safety, Jack refuses to let the residents give in to their fears. It leads to a dramatic conclusion in which an unlikely ally joins the cause.
Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue
GG Allin: Carnival of Excess
For as long as I can remember, someone has been trying to make a biopic about Janis Joplin. The closest anyone has come is Mark Rydell’s 1979 The Rose, which was loosely based on the Texas songbird’s troubled life, career and premature death to a heroin overdose nine years earlier. Because Joplin’s family wasn’t yet ready to commit to a specific Hollywood suitor, The Rose could only tease audiences with allusions to known facts. Since then, Lili Taylor, Pink, Zooey Deschanel, Brittany Murphy, Renée Zellweger, Amy Adams and Nina Arianda have had their names attached to film and theatrical projects that hit roadblocks along the way for similar reasons. The wait, in large part is over. Amy Berg’s comprehensive and legitimately affecting documentary, Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue, succeeds because she was granted the access the other hopefuls were denied. Still, it took eight years to complete. In addition to the rights to Joplin’s music and image, Berg gained access to friends, family members and music-industry sources who previously were limited as to what they could reveal to journalists and filmmakers. (Berg benefitted from cooperation with producer Peter Newman, who, for nearly 20 years, has held the rights to a treasure trove of Joplin material and still plans to make his own “Janis.”) Berg’s greatest coup, perhaps, was identifying musician Cat Power (as Chan Marshall) as the perfect person to read from the sadly revealing letters Joplin wrote home to her parents. On-screen interview subjects include her sister Laura, brother Michael, high school girlfriend Karleen Bennett, Kris Kristofferson (author of “Me and Bobbie McGee”), surviving bandmates from Joplin’s three bands, manager Julius Karpen, music mogul Clive Davis, D.A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop), onetime boyfriend David Niehaus, hippie entrepreneur Chet Helms, talk-show host and friend Dick Cavett, and musicians “Country” Joe McDonald, Pink, Powell St. John (Mother Earth), Bob Weir, Melissa Etheridge and actress Juliette Lewis. That her singing style evolved through the years is evidenced in wonderful footage from shows in San Francisco, Monterey, Woodstock, Europe and Canada. And, of course, no bio-doc would be complete, or accurate, without a good deal of reflection on Joplin’s tortuous adolescence in Port Arthur, Texas, and lifetime obsession with pleasing her parents and convincing them of her success. Comparisons with Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-winning Amy, on the similarly tragic circumstances surrounding Amy Winehouse’s life and death, aren’t out of the question, either. The DVD adds featurettes “Big Brother Acapella,” “Avalon vs. the Fillmore,” “Influences” and “Walk of Fame Ceremony.”
Fans of the late punk provocateur GG Allin – and you know who you are – will relish the release of GG Allin: Carnival of Excess, a no-frills documentary filmed two years before his 1993 death to, guess what, heroin. If anyone was born behind the 8-ball, it was Allin. Named Jesus Christ Allin at birth by his screw-loose father, Merle, he was raised in rural New Hampshire, in a cabin with no electricity or running water. He lived under the constant threat of being killed by the joyless coot in a murder/suicide pact and buried underneath the floor boards. Finally realizing that she had married a dangerous lunatic, Arleta Allin took her two school-age boys to Vermont to recover some semblance of normality. To avert further damage, Arleta changed JCA’s legal name to Kevin Michael Allin. (GG became his nickname after older brother, Merle Jr., was unable to pronounce “Jesus” properly and called him “Jeje.”) Carrying that kind of baggage, it could hardly come as a surprise to his elders that their boy would turn to punk rock for refuge. His early influences included Aerosmith, KISS, the Stooges and New York Dolls, from whom he acquired an appreciation for cross-dressing. Later, GG’s stage act would become synonymous with violent self-abuse, transgressive music, scatological behavior and confrontation with spectators and police. In “Carnival of Excess,” GG performs proto-country songs on an acoustic guitar, sitting on the floor behind a coffeetable crowded with bottles of booze and beer, ashtrays and drug paraphernalia. The self-anointed Godfather of Scum Rock is surrounded by two women in stripper garb, gyrating to whatever it was that appealed to them about GG’s music. In between songs, some of which are pretty good, GG offers his opinions on a myriad of subjects, including life, death, touring and jail.
Triple 9: Blu-ray
Set in Atlanta, Triple 9 is a hyperviolent crime thriller cut from the same template as Michael Mann’s Heat. Where Mann’s L.A.-set drama combined narrative logic with explosive action, though, Triple 9 only offers superbly choreographed gunplay and chases. The lack of balance is likely the result of requiring proven Aussie director John Hillcoat – The Proposition, The Road, Lawless – to make do with a half-baked script by newcomer Matt Cook. In it, a gang of career criminals and corrupt cops is hired by Irina (Kate Winslet), the wife of an imprisoned Russian mobster, to break into a bank and steal a safe-deposit box that contains information that could overturn his conviction. Instead of paying the thieves, she gives their leader, Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor), another mission. This time, it involves breaking into an even less-accessible government office and stealing more data on her husband. An ill-conceived assassination of a crew member upends plans for the new job, providing a lead for boozy investigator Woody Harrelson to pursue. The title refers to the police code, 999, for an officer-down situation, requiring all available units to respond. The diversionary tactic doesn’t exactly work as planned, but only because the screenplay allows for such illogical developments to get in the way of the effective set pieces. If Triple 9 isn’t wholly successful, it’s not for any lack of star power supplied by supporting-cast members Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie, Aaron Paul, Clifton Collins Jr., Norman Reedus, Teresa Palmer, Michael K. Williams and Gal Gadot. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes and a pair of short making-of featurettes.
Princess
From Israel, Tali Shalom-Ezer’s unflinching debut feature chronicles a disaster waiting to happen. That Princess plays out in an environment associated with academic and professional achievement — not, say, in a trailer park on the outskirts of Little Rock – begs questions that only occasionally are addressed in films outside the festival circuit. Still sexy and flirtatious at fortysomething, Alma (Keren Moris) is a nurse who shares an apartment with her unemployed teacher boyfriend, Michael (Ori Pfeffer), and a 12-year-old daughter, Adar (Shira Haas), from a previous marriage to a seemingly more grounded man, possibly a kibbutz worker. Adar is enrolled in a school for gifted students, probably in Tel Aviv, but rarely attends or does her homework. When confronted by the school’s principal, Alma is able to avert Adar’s expulsion by openly flirting with the defenseless administrator. When chastised by her noticeably embarrassed daughter, Alma defends her MILF-y behavior as an essential tool in fixing problems faced by modern moms. Neither does she hide her sensual impulses off-duty, at home, with the only too agreeable Michael. On the cusp of womanhood, Adar can’t help but be affected by their canoodling. Clearly needy, though, she even climbs in bed next to them when she can’t sleep. With nothing but time on their hands when Alma is at work, Adar and Michael engage in activities that would be considered to be playful if she was 5 and he was her father. Instead, before our eyes, their relationship crosses the border from questionable and ill-advised to creepy and potentially criminal. One afternoon, in order to escape Michael’s attention, Adar uses the time away from school to set out on a walkabout through the city’s teenage wasteland. It’s here she befriends an aimless 17-year-old boy, Alan (Adar Zohar-Hanetz), who, while noticeably taller, could be her twin. They even dress alike. Adar not only convinces her mother to allow the homeless youth to spend a few nights in their already cramped apartment, but also to share her bed in a non-sexual way. Even so, curiosity leads to some mild petting and limit testing. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Alan and Adar’s resemblance to each other – could he be her doppelganger, instead of merely a look-alike? — trips a switch in Michael’s hair-trigger libido. Can this childhood be saved? Stay tuned. Shalom-Ezer does a nice job keeping this potentially messy drama from spinning out of control and keeping her own opinions of her characters in check. The acting is terrific, especially Haas in her debut performance. It arrives with a making-of featurette.
 
City of Women: Blu-ray
By 1980, radical feminism had been eclipsed by the desire of young women to carve their own paths through life, unburdened by the demands of unenlightened men and stale political imperatives imposed on them by the editors of Ms. Magazine and women who still refused to shave their body hair. The thought of Federico Fellini revisiting the subject at this late date through the still-lascivious eyes of his cinematic alter-ego, Marcello Mastroianni, probably was greeted with the degree of indifference usually reserved for over-the-hill artists, athletes and actors in other disciplines. Curiosity, nostalgia and fan loyalty would be the likely deciding factors in determining the commercial fate of Fellini’s City of Women, at least outside Italy. Critics were mixed on its artistic merit and audiences indifferent. Thirty-five years later, divorced of lowered expectations and the landmines of politically correct thought, it’s possible to see the wildly extravagant fantasy in a different light. I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed City of Women, which could be considered a delayed sequel to 8½. It opens in a crowded train, where Mastroianni’s Snaporaz will be lured into the tiny washroom by a woman (Bernice Stegers) whose physical attributes match those associated with the stereotypical Italian bombshells of the 1960s and giallo. Before Snaporaz can seal the deal, the train makes an abrupt stop, alerting the woman to its arrival at her appointed destination, which appears to be in the middle of nowhere. His enflamed libido demands that Snaporaz follow the unnamed woman through a meadow and into a forest, where a feminist convention is underway at a luxury hotel. Instead of minding his own business and returning to the train depot, Snaporaz decides to follow the scent of his seducer through a ballroom full of women of every known feminist variety, from lipstick lesbians and diesel dykes, to snuggle bunnies and commandoes in the battle of the sexes. Stumbling through the assemblage like Mr. Magoo at a strip club, Snaporaz finally comes to the conclusion that he’s been directed to the convention either for the amusement of the participants or to be devoured as the main course at a banquet. He accepts a ride from the hotel’s stout furnace tender, who takes him to a farm field with rape on her mind. After being interrupted, this time by the woman’s elderly mother, he connects with a car full of stoned teenage girls headed to a party at the estate of Dr. Xavier Katzone (Ettore Manni), a crazy libertine celebrating the occasion of his 10,000th sexual conquest. While wandering around the elaborately accessorized estate, Snaporaz meets his slightly inebriated ex-wife (Anna Prucnal) and a voluptuous woman (Donatella Damiani) he met roller-skating at the hotel. Things really get Fellini-esque, if you will, when Snaporaz discovers a portal into another fantasy world controlled by women, where his masculinity is judged. No need to reveal what happens next, but, be assured, it’s of a part with what’s preceded it. More than anything else, City of Women serves as a reminder of Fellini’s halcyon days, when a visit to his world was like a day at Disneyland on LSD. It arrives on Blu-ray with vintage French and Italian theatrical trailers; an interview with production designer Dante Ferretti; a new documentary film featuring producer Renzo Rossellini, film historian Aldo Tassone, producer and film historian Carlo Lizzani, and Federico Fellini’s assistant Dominique Delouche; and an entertaining interview with Italian director Tinto Brass, who compares his tastes in women with those of his friend, Fellini.
 
Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy: Criterion Collection: Blu-ray
Although the origin of the road movie genre generally is traced back no further than Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, Two-Lane Blacktop and Badlands, its roots can be said to extend to Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou, Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road, Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night and TV’s “Route 66.” Admirers of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s “Road” pictures may object, but, except for The Road to Hong Kong, production was largely limited to the Paramount Studios lot. In less location-specific road and buddy flicks, the potential for adventure, romance, tragedy and a few good laughs existed around every curve on the road. Every stopover presented existential challenges to individual freedom. When the journey was over, some kind of emotional or intellectual growth could be expected of the protagonists. Looking back at the films included in the constantly surprising, “Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy” – made back-to-back in the mid-1970s, Wenders says, “The genre doesn’t quite have the same appeal anymore, mainly because everybody travels now. Traveling was once a privilege, and being on the road was a state of grace, and not that many people dared to take that liberty. But today, anybody can book a flight to the U.S. and rent a car or bike and go down Route 66 or feel like in Easy Rider.” That sentiment became especially cogent with the completion, in 1992, of the original Interstate Highway System, as envisioned 35 years earlier by President Eisenhower’s dream team. In many ways, today’s federal expressways are rivers of conformity, dictated by expediency and cookie-cutter chains of hotels, gas stations and restaurants. That wasn’t yet the case when Wenders brought his no-frills production crew to the United States to make the perfectly delightful Alice in the Cities, in which a German photojournalist is saddled with the supervision of a precocious 9-year-old girl after encountering her mother at a New York airport. In the U.S. to capture the “real America” on film, Philip Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) has decided to return to Germany to clear the writer’s block in his head caused by the disappointment of seeing how ghastly a vision that turned out to be. While trying to book a flight, he encounters a German woman (Lisa Kreuzer) and her daughter Alice (Yella Rottländer) doing the same thing. During the wait for their flight, which has been delayed by a strike, the three foreigners pool their assets for a hotel room and tour of the rapidly changing Manhattan. The next morning, mom hops in a cab and disappears into thin air. After returning to Europe, via Amsterdam, the innocent friendship between Winter and Alice grows as they travel together through various European cities on a quest for Alice’s grandmother. As is the case with most good road movies, their journey becomes one of growth and discovery. For audiences here, it opened our eyes to America as others saw us and a Europe that was still coming to grips with its own post-war visions. If viewers are reminded of similarly black-and-white buddy film, Paper Moon, starring Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, then 9, you wouldn’t be alone. Wenders nearly killed his own fully funded project after seeing Peter Bogdanovich’s film, but was talked into continuing with strategic alternations by Nicholas Ray, who couldn’t see the point of letting an approved budget go to waste.
 
Vogler returned a year later as the director’s alter ego in Wrong Move, a road picture that largely takes place on German rails and waterways. It is as dour as Alice in the Cities was bright. It chronicles six days in the life of Wilhelm, an aspiring novelist encouraged to discover what’s happening in his country by his mother, who gives him a ticket to Bonn. On the way, he becomes enchanted with the fleeting visage of an actress (Hanna Schygulla) staring back at him from a train running parallel to his. He’s shares his compartment with a pair of stowaways — an athlete in the 1936 Olympics (Hans Christian Blech) and his mute teen companion, Mignon (14-year-old Natasha Kinski, in her first screen role) – and a plump poet (Peter Kern) who insinuates himself into their conversation. Once off the train, Mignon performs acrobatics for loose change, while the older man – like the train conductor, a former death-camp guard — plays harmonica. In a serendipitous encounter, Wilhelm reconnects with the actress after interrupting a film crew shooting a scene nearby. The poet encourages the whole group to join him at a house owned by his uncle, situated on a bluff high above the Rhine. As beautiful as the location is, it’s mostly populated with ghosts representing the last 50 years of German angst. Adapted from a late-18th Century novel by Goethe, Wrong Move eventually finds Wilhelm on the Zugspitze, the highest mountain peak in Germany, to ruminate on where he’s been and where he might go. The same could be said of Wenders’ Germany.
 
In the nearly three-hour Kings of the Road, Vogler plays a traveling projection-equipment mechanic, Bruno, whose work takes him to villages along the East German border. Early on, he connects with a depressed young man, Robert (Hanns Zischler), whose Volkswagen had just disproved the theory that bugs float. Bruno’s circuit appears to allow for a day or two in each small town, as well as the occasional romantic encounter, which is more than enough for his needs. It also allows him to gain insights on life from the masters of American cinema, which Wenders injects into the narrative at strategic points. The two men don’t spend a lot of time conversing, but, when they do, its largely spent on their inability to form and maintain relations with women. There are several wonderful set pieces here, including one in which the two travelers entertain a group of impatient kids with shadow acting, as well as one of the most famously disgusting displays of a bodily function ever committed to film. There were other points in all three of these movies when I was struck by visual images that reminded me of Jim Jarmusch’s work, 10 years down the road. The common denominator being Robby Müller’s brilliant black-and-white cinematography. In addition to presenting upgraded versions of all three films, the bonus package includes the short films “Same Player Shoots Again” (1967) and “Silver City Revisited” (1968); archival audio commentary with Wenders and actors Vogler and Rottlander; discussions about Muller, author Peter Handtke and other influences; outtakes; Super 8 Footage; and a 48-page illustrated book featuring Michael Almereyda’s essay, “Between Me and the World”; Allison Anders’ essay, “A Girl’s Story”; James Robinson’s essay, “Utter Detachment, Utter Truth”; Nick Roddick’s essay, “Keep on Truckin'”; and technical credits.
 
The Abandoned: Blu-ray
I hope director Eytan Rockaway and writer Ido Fluk don’t get discouraged by the negative reviews in mainstream outlets for their debut feature, The Abandoned (a.k.a., “The Confines”). The genre press was far more forgiving and helpful in their criticism. Desperate to get her life back on track, the unstable Streak (Louisa Kraus) takes a job as a security guard, working the graveyard shift at a once upscale, now abandoned apartment complex, the lobby of which resembles Grand Central Station in the wee small hours. On her first night on duty, however, she discovers a horrifying presence lurking deep within the bowels of the decaying building. The entire security staff is comprised of Streak, who walks through the hallways every two hours, and the surly, wheelchair-bound Cooper (Jason Patric), who monitors the same territory from a deck of security cameras. Streak hasn’t even made it to lunch break when the heebie-jeebies set in and she begins hearing mysterious noises. The picture’s greatest asset is the labyrinthine network of hallways and seemingly empty rooms. Cooper has warned Streak to stay within her appointed rounds and not stray into areas that might contain secrets pertaining to previous tenants. Not only does Streak ignore Cooper’s warnings, but she also disobeys his order not to open the lobby door to a homeless man (Mark Margolis) and his dog, in dire need of shelter in a storm. It probably wasn’t a good idea on her part. If the building’s infrastructure wasn’t sufficiently creepy, Rockaway adds a faulty electrical system into the mix and enough jump-scares for a decade’s worth of Halloween haunted houses. Once the building’s deepest secret is revealed, however, the cheap thrills no longer retain the same ability to jolt viewers. Streak’s mission then becomes one of saving souls, including her own. The Abandoned could have benefitted from a bit more patience in the introduction of things that go bump in the night and some background on the building. Most critics were unhappy with the ending, but that’s almost par for the course for first-timers. It demonstrates the kind of promise that looks good on a resume. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes and an alternate ending.
 
Blood Bath: Special Edition: Blu-ray
Psychic Killer: Blu-ray
There’s no better example of repurposing Hollywood film stock than Blood Bath, a movie that began its life as a highly stylized product of the mid-1960s Yugoslavian cinema – such as Tito allowed it to be – but ended it, several iterations later, as a cult classic with the indispensable Sid Haig playing a beatnik named Abdul the Arab. (Where’s Haig’s star on the Walk of Fame? Good question.) Naturally, Roger Corman, a filmmaker who actually could squeeze blood out of a turnip, is at the center of the story. Fifty years later, Arrow Video has released into Blu-ray all four versions of the movie in a single package, demonstrating what a determined producer can do when challenged by mediocrity. In 1963, while on vacation in Europe, Corman made a deal to distribute an unproduced Yugoslavian espionage thriller, “Operacija Ticijan.” For his $20,000 investment, he was able to insist that Operation Titian be custom-tailored for exhibition back home. Corman provided two cast members, William Campbell and Patrick Magee, who had appeared together for him in The Young Racers and protégé Francis Coppola’s Dementia 13. In addition, Coppola (not yet, Francis Ford Coppola) was installed as the production’s uncredited script supervisor. Corman deemed Operation Titian unreleasable, but not so bad that it couldn’t be redubbed, slightly re-edited and released to drive-ins as Portrait in Terror. (The names of the largely Yugo cast and crew were anglicized, as well.) Set entirely in then-exotic Dubrovnik, Operation Titian can be viewed as a strangely entertaining example of the German kriminalfilm subgenre of crime thrillers. Popular at the time, krimis were distinguished by almost accidentally arty production values, gothic settings and masked or obscured antagonists. Many of the films were based on the early-20th Century work of the prolific British journalist, novelist, playwright and screenwriter Edgar Wallace. In Operation Titian, Campbell plays a Dubrovnik-based artist who resembles Liberace and wields a spear-fishing gun. Patrick Magee plays a shadowy Italian art thief visiting the medieval seaport in pursuit of a Titian painting, also coveted by the artist. Also figuring into the plot are a blond American tourist (Anna Pavone), with earlier ties to the artist, and a Yugoslavian stripper (Linda Moreno). If the story makes almost no logical sense, it’s distinguished by Rados Novakovic’s (a.k.a., Michael Roy) decision to light the city’s ancient streets and buildings as if he were attempting to re-create Carol Reed’s The Third Man, substituting ageless Dubrovnik for post-war Vienna. No kidding … the city lends itself to just such an audacious conceit.
 
Audacious conceits aren’t what made Corman successful, however. To American-ize Operation Titian even further, he handed the picture over to Coppola classmate and rising exploitation specialist Jack Hill (Spider Baby) and fellow Corman protégé Stephanie Rothman (Terminal Island), who would turn it into the slasher picture with fangs, Blood Bath, and, later, the TV-ready Track of the Vampire. Hill filmed additional sequences in Venice, California, in order to match the original movie’s European look, and turned the former krimi into a horror movie about a crazed madman who kills his models and makes sculptures out of their dead bodies. Hill borrowed the bohemian milieu from the Corman-directed A Bucket of Blood (1959), which, itself, would lend sets to The Little Shop of Horrors, adding American actors Sid Haig, Jonathan Haze, Marissa Mathes, Lori Saunders, Sandra Knight and Biff Elliot. Blood Bath would strip much of the music and action from Operation Titian – including an international fishing competition – while maintaining many of the atmospheric, scenic and character-establishing elements. In doing so, it lost quite a bit of the original’s running time, which would then have to be replaced for the TV version in the form of exceedingly long chases and inexplicable dances. In doing so, Track of the Vampire imagines an undead artist (Campbell) who somehow is immune to bright sunshine and is capable of swimming underwater in a trench coat. It also adds a surrealistic beach scene, a chase with the vampire and beach bunny and an unintentionally hilarious confrontation between the beatniks and the vampire. Not surprisingly, then, the featurettes, essays and interviews that comprise Arrow Video’s extensive bonus package tell a story far more compelling than any in the four newly restored into 1080p versions of Blood Bath, Operation Titian, Portrait in Terror and Track of the Vampire. Among them are “The Trouble with Titian Revisited,” a new visual essay in which Tim Lucas returns to (and updates) his three-part Video Watchdog feature to examine the films’ convoluted production history; “Bathing in Blood with Sid Haig,” a new interview with the still-active actor; outtakes from Track of the Vampire, scanned from original film materials; double-sided fold-out poster, featuring original and newly commissioned artworks; reversible sleeve, featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Dan Mumford; limited-edition booklet containing new writing on the film and its cast by Peter Stanfield, Anthony Nield, Vic Pratt and Cullen Gallagher.
 
When Jim Hutton’s movie career began to sputter after co-starring in Walk Don’t Run, the 6-foot-5 actor turned to guest-starring roles in popular television series and MOTW’s. In 1975, Hutton returned to the big screen in Psychic Killer, a bargain-basement supernatural thriller destined for exhibition in drive-in theaters, where his name still meant something. In it, he plays the mentally unstable Arnold Masters, implicated in a murder he didn’t commit. While incarcerated in a mental facility, a fellow patient teaches him the tech niques of astral projection, which allows those who possess psychic powers to use their minds to control events far from where they are, seemingly unconscious. Before his fellow patient and mentor commits suicide, the older man clears the name of his protégé. Masters is bequeathed the amulet that triggers the effect and provides the perfect alibi he sets out to avenge his incarceration and death of his mother. Even when the police (Paul Burke, Aldo Ray), his shrink (Julie Adams) and a parapsychologist (Nehemiah Persoff) figure out how Masters’ enemies are winding up dead, they’re hard-pressed to make a case against a man under constant surveillance. Still, it’s inevitable. The most interesting thing about Psychic Killer, perhaps, is the PG rating it received, despite an amusing striptease, a nude shower scene (Mary Charlotte Wilcox) and the truly grisly death of a butcher (Neville Brand) after being attacked by a side of lamb hanging from a hook on an overhead conveyor … really. Today, it would be accorded an automatic R rating, but, back then, the board was far more lenient. Curiously, the geniuses at the MPAA never reconsider such clearly misguided ratings – one way or the other – when they’re attached to DVDs. Its concern for protecting family values and parental choice ends as soon as a movie opens and the tickets are counted. Psychic Killer was directed by character actor Ray Danton, whose sons and ex-wife appear in the featurette, “The Danton Force.” Other bonus material includes “The Psychic Killer Inside Me” featurette, with actor Greydon Clark; “The Aura of Horror,” with produce Mardi Rustam; marketing material; and reversible cover artwork. Look for a cameo by Della Reese.
 
The Human Tornado: Blu-ray
Hot on the heels of Vinegar Syndrome’s recent Blu-ray release of Dolemite comes Rudy Ray Moore’s follow-up, The Human Tornado. Of all the Blaxploitation titles, these might have been the most ghetto fabulous. The Dolemite character was an extension of Moore’s nightclub act, which rivaled Redd Foxx for its earthy qualities. The movies are set in the same sort of clubs, which feature a variety of acts designed to attracts pimps and their “bottom bitches” on their nights out on the town. In other words, the real show was in the audience. In The Human Tornado, a cartoonishly racist cop chases the entertainer out of his domain and back to L.A., where Queen Bee’s (Lady Reed) club has once again been taken over by the mafia. On top of that, the honkies have also kidnapped two of Queen Bee’s dancers. Dolemite rounds up the toughest kung-fu fighters in L.A. to take on Queen Bee’s enemies. As ludicrous and lopsided as the speeded-up confrontations are, they benefit from the loosey-goosey atmosphere that allows the background characters to maintain smiles and grins throughout the action. There’s plenty of skin and sloppy sex on display this time around, too. I don’t know how many more of Moore’s pictures VS intends to restore and release, but the character would re-appear in various iterations until just before his death, in 2008, at 81. Among the supporting-cast members are Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) and world karate champion Howard Jackson. The Blu-ray package adds “I, Dolemite II,” making-of documentary; “Der Bastard,” German dubbed version; a commentary track, with Moore’s biographer, Mark Jason Murray and co-star Jimmy Lynch; an audio interview with director Cliff Roquemore and martial arts champion Howard Johnson; original theatrical trailers for both Dolomite pictures; and original cover artwork by Jay Shaw.
 
TV-to-DVD
PBS: Frontline: Saudi Arabia Uncovered
Of all the things we associate with life in Saudi Arabia, poverty isn’t one of them. We know that foreign laborers don’t enjoy the same rights and privileges accorded citizens, but it isn’t a problem unique to one country in the region. For as long as western democracies have allowed themselves to be dependent on an uninterrupted flow of oil to fuel their factories, automobiles and economies, the royal family and its inner circle have treated the world outside Saudi Arabia as its own private shopping mall and playground. The same government turned a blind eye toward the human rights abuses committed by the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which patrols streets and malls to enforce a strict form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, now, along with oil, one of the country’s leading exports. Among other things, children are taught in Wahhabi schools that Christians, Jews and Shia Muslims are their enemies. Based on undercover video footage shot throughout the kingdom, the “Frontline” presentation “Saudi Arabia Uncovered” reveals truths about Saudi Arabia that should make viewers question the hidden costs of affordable oil and gasoline. When the royal family began to feel the pinch of reduced revenue from oil exports and the cost of battling insurgents in Yemen, they took it out on the people who were most likely to bring the Arab Spring to the Shia-dominated east of the country. On a single day at the start of 2016, the government executed 47 people, including a leading cleric, on all-encompassing terror charges. With clandestine footage, on-the-ground reporting and unique access to the cleric’s family (his 21-year-old nephew Ali is now on death row, sentenced to beheading and crucifixion), the documentary shows a side of Saudi Arabia rarely seen by the outside world. Along the way, the film follows key figures leading efforts to make change in Saudi Arabia: Raif Badawi, a blogger who was imprisoned and sentenced to 1,000 lashes for posts critical of the government and Islam; and Loujain Hathloul, a prominent women’s rights activist who filmed herself driving in defiance of the kingdom’s laws and was arrested for the effrontery. “Saudi Arabia Uncovered” raises disturbing questions, most of which lack satisfactory answers, especially considering how badly we’ve blown previous attempts at sorting out divisions in the region.
The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead : Blu-ray
If you’ve ever tried to come up with the name of the British punk band co-founded by Captain Sensible and drummer Rat Scabies, or the first UK punk ensemble to release a single and an album and tour the United States, where it may even have inspired the first wave of West Coast hardcore punk, The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead is the documentary for you. Despite all of these distinctions and having nine singles that charted on the UK Top 40, the Damned pretty much squandered its advantage over the Sex Pistols, Clash and other punk bands by pissing on the notion of commercial success. The individual Sex Pistols may have scorned capitalism, but their manager, Malcolm McLaren, handled that end of the business. Nevertheless, as we learn in Wes Orshoski’s exhaustively researched film, the Damned would continue to make music intermittently and in numerous generic and personnel variations for most of the last 40 years. The documentary charts the history of the band against a backdrop of interviews and tour footage from 2011 to 2014, and was edited together “rough” to make the film feel more like the Damned’s uncompromising first album. It includes appearances from Chrissie Hynde, Mick Jones, Lemmy and members of Pink Floyd, Black Flag, Depeche Mode, Sex Pistols, Blondie and Buzzcocks. In the bonus features, Captain Sensible takes viewers on a tour of Croydon, the south London town that gave rise to the Damned, and he busks on the streets of Hollywood with actor/musician/comedian Fred Armisen, who pops up in these docs with alarming regularity. Orchovski’s previous work includes the biopic Lemmy and Shuggie Otis: Live in Williamsburg.
Manhunter: Collector’s Edition: Blu-ray
Bad Influence: Blu-ray
Among the things heard after the 2002 release of Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon, which starred Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton and Ralph Fiennes, were comparisons between it and Michael Mann’s Manhunter, both based on the same novel by Thomas Harris. Released in 1986 to positive reviews, but lackluster public support, Mann’s typically stylish thriller has grown in popularity since Hopkins assumed the role of the playfully sadistic Dr. Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. In chronological fact, FBI profiler Will Graham had captured Lector beore Harris’ series began and would be forced to come out of retirement to confront the man who haunted his dreams in Manhunter, just as Clarise Starling would become hooked in “Silence.” “Red Dragon” would be revisited once again in the second season of the NBC series, “Hannibal,” with Hugh Dancy playing Graham. Relative newcomer William Petersen, a mainstay of Chicago’s off-Loop theater circuit, certainly wasn’t the obvious choice to play the emotionally fragile profiler, but he’d impressed Mann in William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. and might have landed a key role in Thief, if Jim Belushi hadn’t been available. His Graham is a throbbing bundle of nerves tortured by images of murdered innocents and afraid to lose his family to broken promises. Brian Cox, as a slicked-back “Lecktor,” was cooling his heels in a federal prison that was porous enough to allow the occasional coded letter from an admirer to slip past the guards and censors. In return for a peek at the case files pertaining to the “Tooth Fairy” murders, Lector gives Graham an idea of the kind of criminal with whom he’s dealt and, inadvertently, clues as to where the murderous Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan) might be lurking as the next full moon nears. At 6-foot-6, Noonan was a frightening presence on the big screen, yet gentle enough to allow a blind co-worker (Joan Allen) to share his love for animals, including a sedated tiger she’s invited to pet. The decision to lay Iron Butterfly’s dark hippie anthem “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” over the violent confrontation at the film’s climax continues to raise goosebumps. The Blu-ray “Collector’s Edition” comes with a director’s cut that adds four minutes to the film’s two-hour length, if not much revelatory material; the original cut in SD; lengthy interviews, both fresh and archival; vintage commentary with Mann; and a stills gallery.
On its glossy surface, Bad Influence remains a reasonably exciting, if slightly dated re-imagining of Patricia Highsmith’s “Strangers on a Train” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” novels that had already served Alfred Hitchcock and Rene Clement very well. What’s most interesting today, though, is the lasting effect it would have on co-stars James Spader, who was coming off a career-altering performance in Sex, Lies and Videotape, and former Brat Pack member Rob Lowe; writer David Koepp, whose future would include credits for Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man; and director Curtis Hanson, future Oscar winner, for L.A. Confidential. Bad Influence might have done significantly better at the box office if it weren’t for the lingering effects of a sex-tape involving Lowe and a 16-year-old girl at the 1988 Democratic Convention. The leaked tape also featured Lowe and a friend in a ménage-a-trois with an American model, this time in Paris. It would be another two decades before Kim Kardashian’s leaked sex tape would help enhance her career, such as it is, rather than destroy it. In any case, here, Lowe plays an enigmatic sociopath, Alex, who insinuates himself into the sweet yuppie life and burgeoning career of Spader’s mousy financial analyst, Michael. The timing couldn’t be better, when it comes to building Michael’s self-confidence and willingness to stand up to bullies at work, at least, or worse, considering the false sense of invulnerability that Alex instills in him. Like Michael, we sort of like Alex. It isn’t until we recognize the strands of the web he and his sexy companion, Claire (Lisa Zane), are weaving around the poor chump. Marcia Cross plays Michael’s fiancé, the wealthy daughter of a business tycoon. The question becomes one of deciding whether there’s a method to Alex and Claire’s madness or they’re sadists who enjoy torturing their prey before going for the jugular. The Blu-ray adds the featurette, “Under the Influence With David Koepp,” an interview with the writer.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume II
This is the Shout! Factory edition of a MST3K DVD package distributed by Rhino more than a decade ago. I’m not exactly sure why it’s being re-released in an edition that only varies somewhat from the original, but I’ll hazard a guess. Cherry editions of the original 2003 package are going for a small fortune and that’s without now-standard closed captioning and hour wraps for Cave Dwellers and Pod People, movies so bad they defy easy verbal assault by the crew. The set also includes the completely baffling Angels Revenge – a.k.a., “Angels’ Brigade” and “Seven from Heaven” – apparently made in 1979 to exploit the already-cooling “Charlie’s Angels” craze. Sadly, unless there’s a European-cut extant, there’s no more T&A on this version than there was on the hit TV show. Angels Revenge focuses on seven women who decide to fight the local drug cartel after the brother of a Las Vegas pop singer, is found severely beaten. When taken to the hospital, the young man is found to have been on illegal drugs. The Angels hatch a plan to destroy the local drug processing plant. If onetime Playboy POTM Susan Kiger (January, 1977) is the only semi-recognizable female cast member, the male team is so loaded with over-the-hill actors it could constitute an AA meeting. They include Peter Lawford and Jack Palance as leaders of a drug cartel, and Jim Backus, Alan Hale Jr., Pat Buttram and Arthur Godfrey in smaller roles. A fourth disc is comprised vintage shorts: “The Home Economics Story,” “Junior Rodeo Daredevils,” “Body Care & Grooming,” “Cheating a Date With Your Family,” “Why Study Industrial Arts?” and “Chicken of Tomorrow.” All of them appear to have been made with the intention of preserving the status quo and middle-class value in post-war America.
 
PBS: 1916: The Irish Rebellion
PBS: American Experience: Space Men
Nova: Creatures of Light
Nickelodeon: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Beyond the Known Universe
PBS: Kate and Mim-Mim: Balloon Buddies
On Easter Monday 1916, a smaller-than-anticipated group of 1,200 Irish rebels — poets, teachers, actors and workers, among them — mustered at several strategic locations in central Dublin, determined to disrupt business as usual in their wee corner of the British Empire. A unit was dispatched to the General Post Office, on Dublin’s main thoroughfare, with orders to occupy the building and hoist two republican flags outside it. That accomplished, Commander-in-Chief Patrick Pearse stood outside the building and read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic to pedestrians and office workers who barely took notice of him. The British were caught off-guard, at first, but it didn’t take long before an overwhelming force of troops from the mainland were put on ships and sent to Dublin to restore order. After some bitter street fighting the rebels were routed and their leaders jailed and shot. The Easter Rising may only have resulted in a moral victory, but it would inspire the creation of an independent Irish state and contribute to the eventual disintegration of the empire. The impressive three-hour PBS co-production, “1916: The Irish Rebellion,” examines the political history of Ireland that led to previous failed uprisings, while also examining the conditions of the day and signing of an Armistice that inevitably would lead to a bloody civil war and divided Ireland. The documentary doesn’t whitewash the mistakes made by rebel leadership, but there’s no way it could ignore the murderous intentions of a government that historically has refused to relinquish an inch of territory before first attempting to destroy anyone who dared demand freedom. Liam Neeson, who played the titular revolutionary leader in Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins, does his usual fine job as narrator.
We may never know how many primates and canines were sacrificed in the race to plant a flag on the moon. One would be too many, but science demands that we test the feasibility of space flight before sending a human being into orbit. I may be mistaken, but it’s possible that more screen time in The Right Stuff was devoted to our chimp astronauts than the heroic fliers we meet in the “American Experience” presentation, “Space Men,” which tells the little-known story of the men whose scientific experiments laid critical groundwork for NASA’s manned space program. A decade before President Kennedy committed the nation to sending a man to the moon, balloonists were the first to venture into the frozen near-vacuum on the edge of our world, exploring the very limits of human physiology and human ingenuity in this lethal realm. Among the people we meet are U.S. Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger, who set a world record for the highest parachute jump (102,200 feet) and longest parachute freefall (84,700 feet) while testing high-altitude parachute escape systems in Project Excelsior. The record stood until October 14, 2012. If his balloon had a patio chair attached to it, people would still be talking about Kittinger.
 
It’s said that we know more about what’s happening on Saturn than the fish and invertebrates that exist in the deepest parts of our oceans. The PBS series “Nova” routinely introduces viewers too things we couldn’t possibly have learned if it weren’t the constant evolution of technology. “Creatures of Light” may be the most colorful and enlightening such presentation yet. As familiar as most of us are with fireflies and electric eels, the light show that takes place constantly in the oceans’ depths is unmatched by anything outside Las Vegas. Until recently, for example, marine biologists were unaware of the staggering number of creatures capable of creating light, even in places where the sun’s presence is a rumor. In the dark depths of the oceans, nearly 90 percent of all species shine from within. Whether it’s to scare off predators, fish for prey or lure a mate, the language of light is everywhere in the ocean depths. “Nova” and National Geographic take a dazzling dive to this hidden undersea world where most creatures flash, sparkle, shimmer, or simply glow. Biologists are interested in learning if we might be able to harness nature’s light to track cancer cells, detect pollution, illuminate cities and the inner workings of our brains.
 
OK, I’ll admit it. I’ve completely lost track of the various “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” series, the networks on which they’re shown and what in God’s name would possess anyone to live in a sewer. The new collection, “Beyond the Known Universe,” contains the first 12 episodes of Season Four. It picks up where the third-season finale left off, with the Triceratons’ successful destruction of the Earth with a Black Hole Generator. Thanks to the help of Professor Zayton Honeycutt, April O’Neil and Casey Jones are teleported back in time six months prior to the Earth’s destruction and travel throughout the galaxy to retrieve the three fragments of the generator and destroy them. What they couldn’t have anticipated are new enemies, such as the sinister Lord Dregg, the wacky Wyrm, the Jaws of outer space, Armaggon, and the entire Triceraton Empire. They also encounter such new allies as Sal Commander & Mona Lisa, the ancient Aeons, the Daagon, the Utrom Council and even their 1980s counterparts.
 
Three stories from PBS’ popular kids’ series “Kate and Mim-Mim” are collected in “Balloon Buddies.” Kate is making a balloon buddy for Mim-Mim, the rabbit, and needs a big balloon. In Mimiloo, they find a balloon tree, but all its fruit is flat and droopy. They must find a way to re-inflate the balloons for the Big Balloon Parade, where Kate has a big surprise for Mim-Mim. And, that’s just for starters.
 
Cop Rock: The Complete Series
BBC: The Merchant of Venice
PBS: Mr. Selfridge: The Complete Fourth Season: Blu-ray
The Red Skelton Show: The Best of Early Years, 1955-1958
Carol + 2: The Original Queens of Comedy
The Facts of Life: The Final Season
Power Rangers: Ninja Sentai Kakuranger: The Complete Series
When an executive producer of hit television series is on a roll, he can propose almost anything and someone in Hollywood will take a nip at the bait, at least. Such was the case with Steven Bochco, who, by 1990, had successfully launched such landmark shows as “Hill Street Blues,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and “L.A. Law,” as well as near-misses “Hooperman” and “Rockford Files” spinoff “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye.” His record may not have been perfect, but Bochco and co-creator William M. Finkelstein (“L.A. Law,” “Murder One”) carried enough weight and promise to get ABC to buy into an idea so preposterous it would go down in history as one of the medium’s worst disasters. “Cop Rock” attempted to combine the gritty street-level police procedural with musical theater. The series centered on the LAPD and featured an ensemble cast that mixed musical numbers and choreography throughout individual storylines. Although some critics embraced the idea, it was trashed by most other opinion-makers and ignored by audiences. It lasted all of 11 episodes before being pulled off the network schedule. Today, like CBS’s ill-fated “Viva Laughlin,” it might not have made it to a third week. Even so, exposure on cable television would add a cult-like sheen to “Cop Rock.” (The same can’t be said of NBC’s “Hull High,” also launched in 1990, which lasted all of eight episodes, but would directly influence “Glee” and “High School Musical.”) Shout! Factory, a company known to take chances on longshots, has decided that the time might be right for a DVD revival of “Cop Rock.” If the individual episodes remain offbeat to a fault, it’s still fun to watch such members of Bochco’s repertory company as ex-wife Barbara Bosson, Larry Joshua, James McDaniel, Peter Onorati, Ronny Cox, CCH Pounder and guest stars Michelle Greene, James Sikking, Jimmy Smits, Gordon Clapp, Sheryl Crow, Gina Gershon and theme-song composer Randy Newman pop up every now and again. The police action and courtroom scenes should remind Bochco fans of scenes from his more fortunate efforts. The DVD adds new interviews with Bochco and series star Anne Bobby.
Perhaps the most provocative play in William Shakespeare’s repertoire, “The Merchant of Venice” has perplexed audiences as long as it’s been performed, somewhere in the neighborhood of 418 years. Aside from the lingering questions about the Bard’s intentions when it comes to his portrayal of the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, the play’s ending defies easy categorization as to whether it’s technically a tragedy or comedy. It kind of depends on how one feels about the forced conversions as punishment. Shylock’s painful status in Venetian society is emphasized in his celebrated “Hath not a Jew eyes?” speech, even as the epithets of his enemies continue to sting the ears of contemporary audiences. Because of this ambiguity, the play has lent itself to contemporization as a vehicle for anti-Semitic vitriol by bigots and a loud call for tolerance by others. Then, too, by allowing Portia and Nerissa to don judicial disguises and beg Shylock to reconsider his demand for a pound of Antonio’s flesh — “(Mercy) is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes” – Shakespeare appears to be making a case for gender equality. The 1973 adaptation newly released on DVD here by Shout! Factory originally aired on Britain’s ITV and ABC on this side of the pond. Sir Laurence Olivier and Dame Joan Plowright lead a stellar cast of actors (Anthony Nicholls, Anna Carteret, Jeremy Brett, Louise Purnell), most of whom originally appeared in the 1970 National Theatre stage production. That’s reason enough to check it out. Like Jonathan Miller, director John Sichel advanced the action to Victorian times.
ITV is also responsible for the surprise hit series, “Mr. Selfridge,” which currently is wrapping up its four-year run on PBS. In the episodes included in “The Complete Fourth Season” Blu-ray edition, creator Andrew Davies has advanced the narrative several years to the eve of the store’s 20th anniversary celebration. The Roaring ’20s have caught up with Harry, who’s begun to party like it’s 1909, again, and is paying for it. After missing Season Three, Lady Mae (Katherine Kelley) returns to London and, not surprisingly, Harry eventually finds himself in dire financial difficulty. A prominent newspaper publisher has declared war on him, as well. Faithful fans of the Sunday-night soap won’t be disappointed by the introduction of new characters — the hotsy-totsy Dolly sisters, a cocky business partner, a black seamstress — and story threads that need to tied before the series concludes. The Blu-ray adds four background featurettes.
Shout! Factory and Timeless Media Group extend their inventory of shows from the so-called Golden Age of Television with “The Red Skelton Show: The Best of the Early Years, 1955-1958.” Historically speaking, it marks the start of the beloved comic’s association with Johnson’s Wax and Pet Milk, as well as CBS’ experimentation with colorcasts on Tuesday night. Otherwise, the show continued to provide a home for such
delightful characters as Clem Kadiddlehopper, Cauliflower McPugg, San Fernando Red and Freddie the Freeloader. Among the guest stars are John Wayne, Johnny Carson, Jack Benny, Phyllis Diller, George Raft, Martha Raye and Carol Channing, in other words the cream of Hollywood’s vintage crop. Young viewers will have to take my word on this, but the 18 shows represented here are as funny as anything on TV right now … not so much the dance and song routines, though.
Besides providing lots of laughs, the 1966 special “Carol + 2: The Original Queens of Comedy” offered a preview of the arrival of “The Carol Burnett Show.” Alongside the two redhead comedians is Broadway dynamo Zero Mostel, whose unpredictability was his hallmark. Carol’s wedding anniversary sketch with Mostel points to future marital angst with Harvey Korman. When she and Lucy clean up at the William Morris Agency, as imaginary “charwomen of the board,” she offers a variation of the character whose animated likeness opened the show. The first appearance of the character, included here in a bonus sketch, was on Burnett’s 1963 special, “Carol & Company.” The DVD also includes the 1972 CBS television movie version of “Once Upon a Mattress,” in which Carol reprises her 1959 Tony-nominated Broadway debut role as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone. Joining her are Ken Berry, Bernadette Peters and Jack Gilford, all of whom (in addition to Lucy) would guest star on “The Carol Burnett Show” multiple times over its 11 seasons.
“The Facts of Life: The Final Season” wraps up nine years of life in and around Eastland School for Girls, a boarding school in Upstate New York. A spin-off of “Diff’rent Strokes,” the series focused on the school’s housemother and dietician Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae). Also under her wing are students Blair (Lisa Whelchel), Natalie (Mindy Cohn), Tootie (Kim Fields) and Jo (Nancy McKeon), who by this time, were probably closer to retirement than puberty. As the girls prepared to join the world outside Peekskill, Blair rallied the troops one more time to save Eastland from bankruptcy. Oh, yeah, one of the girls finally loses her virginity in the ninth season. Despite solid ratings, NBC was forced to cancel the show when Cohn and McKeon decided to move on to grown-up shows.
Before the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers stormed America in the 1990s, the Japanese series, “Super Sentai Zyuranger,” laid the foundation for its success of tokusatsu television. The sixteenth installment in the long-running “Super Sentai” franchise of superhero programs would provide the raw material for Saban’s “Power Rangers” franchise. The storyline in the “Complete Series” box is nearly incomprehensible. Apparently, though, “It’s been a long time since the great war between the Three God Generals and the Youkais, an ancient race of monstrous spirits. Since then, imprisoned in a cave protected by the mystical Seal Door, their leader Daimaou and his Youkai army wait, planning for the day they can finally strike. That day has arrived and it is up to the Kakurangers, along with the Three God Generals, to defeat the Youkais, before Daimaou’s villainy destroys Earth.” That, from the publicity blurb from Shout! Factory for the boxed set. Some things, you simply can’t make up.
BBC/A&E: War and Peace: Blu-ray
Bob Hope: Entertaining the Troops
Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Season One
Newhart: The Complete Fifth Season
PBS: Ecuador: The Royal Tour
PBS: NOVA: Iceman Reborn
PBS: Yoga for the Rest of Us: Easy Yoga for Diabetes
Nickelodeon: Bubble Guppies: Fun on the Farm
Like most people who claim to be well-read, I’ve never finished “War and Peace,” a novel considered essential by many scholars and librarians. At a length of more than 1,000 pages, there’s a very good chance that I won’t get to it again in my lifetime. I don’t say that with any sense of pride, arrogance or xenophobia, however. In some ways, I greeted the prospect of watching the 354-minute BBC/Weinstein mini-series, “War and Peace,” with the same degree of trepidation. But, watch it, I did … in two sittings. While there’s no doubt on my part that I missed almost all of the key literary nuances and subtexts invested in the story by Tolstoy, I took away plenty of worthwhile things, perhaps, even, a desire to tackle the novel on a long vacation. As adapted by the reigning king of British prime-time soaps, Andrew Davies (“Mr Selfridge,” “House of Cards”) and directed by relative newcomer Tom Harper (“Peaky Blinders”), this “War and Peace” offers concessions to easily distracted viewers, without sacrificing the major themes or shortchanging the characters. The fine Anglo-American cast includes Paul Dano, as Pierre; James Norton, as Andrei; Lily James, as Natasha; Tuppence Middleton, as Helene; and, in other prominent roles, Greta Scacchi, Jack Lowden, Aisling Loftus, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Rea, Chloe Pirrie, Gillian Anderson and Brian Cox. There are dozens more, of course. We meet most of them in St. Petersburg, circa 1805, as the young officers prepare to join Austria in its crusade to stop Napoleon from taking control of Europe. They settle for a temporary non-aggression pact the older soldiers know won’t satisfy the pip-squeak potentate. The lull does give the young aristocrats a chance to polish their brass buttons, take dancing lessons and find suitable partners for a lifetime of luxury. The war proves cruel for everyone involved, however, especially the French lured to Moscow like a doomed mouse to the cheese in a trap. I don’t know if Tolstoy maintained a 50/50 balance between war and peace, but, here, I’d say the balance is tilted slightly in favor of romance and other palace intrigue, which, for the purposes of the medium, is OK. Some people might be curious about Dano’s casting as the idealistic Pierre, the illegitimate son of Russia’s richest man, but, finally, a real mensch. They might want to check out his work in Youth, Love & Mercy, Looper and 12 Years a Slave before passing judgment. The Brits, of course, appear to be of the manor born. The bonus features are short and insufficient to any understanding of the production challenges, but, after six hours of binge viewing, they’ll do: “From Page to Screen,” with writer Andrew Davies expanding on key parts of the writing process, including stage directions, and Tom Harper discussing staging the production; “The Read Through,” an inside look at the first stage of creating chemistry among cast members; “Making the Music,” with Michael Garvey, director of music, composer Martin Phipps and Andrew Skeet, orchestrator and conductor; “Count Rostov’s Dance,” in which choreographer Diana Scrivener and actor Adrian Edmondson quickly recall a captivating dance scene from the program; “Rundale Palace,” which examines the locations’ historical highlights; and “What Is War & Peace?,” another quick, playful piece in which the cast offers a few thoughts on what the story has to offer.
There’s something terribly sad buried deep within the levity on the surface of the shows featured in Time Life/WEA’s “Bob Hope: Entertaining the Troops.” The smiling faces in the audiences aren’t at all dissimilar to those seen in 50 years’ worth of the beloved entertainer’s previously broadcast Christmas specials. The entertainers seem genuinely pleased to be in Hope’s company, whether they’re performing to full houses on bases a half-world away from the shit or others only a few klicks from the DMZ’s in Korea and Vietnam. The DVD features three specials, two from the Vietnam era and a never-before-released 1951 special from Korea. Although Hope takes some shots at the pace of the Paris peace talks, only a single question from a soldier reveals the hostility we’ve been told greeted the entertainer as the Vietnam war dragged on and men died unnecessarily. The years, 1970 and 1971, were still pretty hot, despite President Nixon’s occasional pullouts and ceasefires. In a very real sense, though, it’s hard to look at the faces in the crowds and not see the ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come. Too many of them wouldn’t be coming home. Then, too, we’ve since watched a USO show go terribly wrong in Apocalypse Now andApocalypse Now Redux, in which the fate of the Playboy Bunnies is dramatized in the aftermath of the chaotic liftoff. “Bob Hope: Entertaining the Troops” encourages us to take the shows at face value, though. As corny as the jokes are, we laugh at them along with the audience members, who’d been deprived of any kind of television for months. There was no scarcity of skin mags in Vietnam, but the guys still go ape at the sight of Connie Stevens, Ursula Andress, the Golddiggers and various Miss Universes to which they’re introduced from the stage. It’s almost quaint. Most poignant are the shots of wounded soldiers carried to the shows on stretchers, while the cigar-chomping brass lounged nearby on cushioned chairs. The stops weren’t limited to war zones, though, as Hope made sure the men and women in far-flung bases and ships were entertained, as well. The 1951 special takes place on an aircraft carrier not far from the fighting in Korea. In its wisdom or lack thereof, the government had disbanded the USO after WWII due to lack of funds, but Secretary of Defense George Marshall and Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews requested that the USO be reactivated to serve the troops in the soon-to-be-hellish conflict. It’s worth mentioning that the USO continues to provide entertainment for troops around the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2009, Stephen Colbert performed the last episode of weeklong taping of “The Colbert Report,” carrying a golf club on stage and dedicating it to Bob Hope’s service for the USO.
Shout! Kids Factory and Hasbro Studios have combined once again to bring the well-travelled characters from “Transformers: Robots in Disguise” to DVD. The 26 episodes of Season One lead off with a Cybertronian prison ship filled with Decepticons crash landing and unleashing its prisoners on Earth. Bumblebee returns to the planet he once called home and, with Strongarm, Sideswipe, Fixit and Grimlock, tracks the escapees down, in order to bring them to justice. Along with their new human allies, Denny and Russell, this unlikely team of robots in disguise must protect the Earth while preparing for an ominous threat suited only for a Prime. The DVD includes all 26 episodes and bonus features of the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International Panel, featurettes and animated shorts.
Comedy legend Bob Newhart returns as harried innkeeper Dick Loudon for a fifth season of “Newhart,” alongside his lovely, forever sweater-clad wife Joanna (Mary Frann) and such off-kilter friends and colleagues as handyman George (Tom Poston), yuppie-in-training Michael (Peter Scolari), spoiled and sassy Stephanie (Julia Duffy) and wacky brothers Larry (William Sanderson), Darryl (Tony Papenfuss) Darryl (John Voldstad). Only a comic genius could pull off even half of the off-the-wall setups for the 24 episodes included in the new package and it has three more seasons to go.
PBS’ “Ecuador: The Royal Tour,” represents the seventh in a series of “ultimate” or “royal” tours of countries conducted by seasoned host Peter S. Greenberg … 8½, if you count “Mexico: Mucho Mas” and “Maria Shriver’s California.” As the titles suggest, Greenberg is given extraordinary access to off-the-beaten path destination and clear sailing through crowded tourist spots and markets. If the schmoozing wears thin after a while, it pays off in treatment most of us could never hope to expect, including transportation to far-flung places by private jets, helicopters and sponsored vehicles. President of Ecuador Rafael Correa rolled out the red, green and liquid carpet for Greenberg as they swam with piranha in the Amazon rainforest, went whale watching off the coast of Manta, shopped like locals in a rural market in the Andes, returned to the President’s hometown of Guayaquil and the school he attended, visited a cacao plantation and went diving with sharks in the Galápagos Islands. Previous destinationsin the series included Jordan, New Zealand, Israel, Mexico, Peru and Jamaica.
Armed with the latest 3D modeling tools, “NOVA” returns to the scene of world’s oldest known murder mystery in “Iceman Reborn” Since the discovery of Otzi’s mummified corpse was discovered by hikers in 1991, PBS has established a beach head when it comes to his case and those of similar finds in Egypt, the Andes, Bronze Age bogs and Washington State. The Iceman found on a barren pass in Italian Alps, has been poked, prodded, drilled, detailed and re-frozen to the point where you’d think there was nothing left for the imagination. The latest modeling technology allows for the creation of a virtual clone, reborn with resin, clay and paint under the supervision of artist and paleo-sculptor Gary Staab. We also are made privy to new revelations about Otzi’s life and legacy, including surprising secrets hidden in his genetic code.
In PBS’ “Yoga for the Rest of Us: Easy Yoga for Diabetes,” veteran instructor Peggy Cappy demonstrates her signature approach in a daily workout for people struggling with diabetes or pre-diabetes. The disc is divided into seven separate segments, with exercises that can be performed at home, all at once in just over an hour, or a segment at a time. Contrary to what some yoga fanatics argue, the exercise discipline isn’t a sure-fire cure-all. People living with diabetes are strongly advised to observe dietary restrictions. Other installments in the “Yoga for the Rest of Us” focus on arthritis, pain management and the heart. The bonus features emphasize circulation, breathing and diet.
The new collection of “Bubble Guppies” episodes, “Fun on the Farm,” invite young viewers to join the stars as they explore the world of farming and meet new animal friends, such Bubble Kitty and Spring Chicken. Kids can also join in exciting farm events like the Cowgirl Parade. The five episodes collected “Fun on the Farm” are “Have A Cow,” “The Bubble Bee-Athalon,” the “Bubble Kitty!” episode “Whiskers & Paws,” the “Spring Chicken Is Coming” episode of “Springtime Adventures” and the “Cowgirl Parade” of “Rootin’ Tootin’ Wild West.”
42nd Street Forever: The Peep Show Collection, Vol. 16
I suppose there are tens of thousands of these things lying around in warehouses and garages around New York and New Jersey, just waiting to be discovered, re-tooled and re-distributed to folks who’ve never dropped a token into a slot in a peep-show gallery. According to “porn archeologist” Dimitrios Otis, Vancouver’s Movieland Arcade may be the last place in North America, at least, that still provides booths for pervs to enjoy 8mm and 16mm loops, as God intended them to be shown. To call the ones shown in 42nd Street Forever: The Peep Show Collection, Vol. 16 old-fashioned is akin to saying Pong is an old-school video game. And, yet, here are 15 more “classic” loops – Volume 16, to be exact — with such recognizable stars as Linda Shaw, Lisa DeLeeuw, Erica Boyer, Marlene Willoughby, John Holmes and the ageless Ron Jeremy, which suggests that some of the titles may be as recent as 1978, at the dawn of the VHS revolution.
Submerged: Blu-ray
The Mirror
Among the many rites of passage for new parents is the hiring of a babysitter and handing over responsibility for their children’s well-being, in some cases, to a stranger. In the movies, babysitters have been portrayed as heroes and villains, protagonists and antagonists. The tough part is predicting exactly when the distinction between good and evil is made abundantly clear and viewers are forced to take sides. In their first feature, Emelie, director Michael Thelin and writer Richard Raymond Harry Herbeck, leave the question hanging for a short time, before revealing that substitute babysitter, Emelie (Sarah Bolger), isn’t the benevolent guardian she appears to be. Our curiosity is piqued when Emelie wins over the youngest children by allowing them to draw on the walls and play crazy pretend games. The sullen older boy senses that things are completely out of whack when Emelie treats the kids to a cassette of their parents mimicking porn actors. Even so, her motivations remain cloudy for most of the movie’s brisk 80-minute length. Thelin does a nice job balancing the forces at work here, allowing big brother, Jacob (Joshua Rush), ample opportunity to take control of the situation, before Emelie rebounds in her effort to do … what, exactly? The parents aren’t given much to do, except being blissfully unaware of what’s going on at home. The spotlight belongs to Bolger (“The Tudors”) and Rush (“The Lion Guard”), whose dangerous game of cat-and-mouse rarely gets tiresome. If Emeliewon’t make anyone forget the scene in Curtis Hanson’s The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, in which the nanny played by Rebecca De Mornay begins breast-feeding the couple’s newborn child in an effort to make it her own, what could? The making-of featurette adds interviews with Thelin, Herbeck, the principal adult cast and several of the film’s producers.
Genre specialist Steven C. Miller (Automaton Transfusion) tries his best with writer Scott Milam’s claustrophobic closed-room thriller – here, a stretch limousine full of millennial scum at the bottom of a canal – that wastes far too much time outside the vehicle, explaining how the disco dogs and dollies ended up in such a predicament. The explanation takes longer to unfold than the time it takes for the limo to sink, leaving precious little time for viewers to feel claustrophobic. In the obviously titled Submerged, the car is being chased by a team of masked ninjas, intent on kidnapping Jesse (Talulah Riley), the daughter of a corrupt corporate mogul (Tim Daley). Jonathan Bennett (“Awkward”) plays a former Army Ranger, hired by the businessman to protect Jesse from creeps looking for ransom bait. All too conveniently, though, the limo has been tricked out to withstand all manner of attacks and prevent it from filling up with water too quickly and drowning the insufferable passengers. Submerged also stars Cody Christian (“Teen Wolf”), Rosa Salazar (“Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials”) Mario Van Peebles (New Jack City).
Based on allegedly real events, which apparently set certain quarters of the Internet atwitter, The Mirror dives into the deep end of found-footage flicks and almost fails to return to the surface. Three friends purchase a supposedly haunted mirror on eBay, with the intention of capturing proof of the paranormal on camera and winning a large financial prize from a vague online competition. The first sign of trouble occurs when one of the tenants begins to sleepwalk around the apartment, eventually grabbing a butcher’s knife and stalking a lone woman outside. The Mirror stars Jemma Dallender (I Spit on Your Grave 2), Joshua Dickinson and Nate Fallows.
TV-to-DVD
PBS: 10 That Changed America
Fox Kids: Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation: The Complete Series
Nickelodeon: Let’s Learn: S.T.E.M. Vol. 2
PBS Kids: Wild Kratts: Wild Animal Babies
This enticing compilation of episodes from PBS’ “10 That Changed America” series argues convincingly that all of what’s good in our country’s towns, parks, homes, churches office buildings can be traced to the genius of a few dozen architects, designers and visionaries. Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis H. Sullivan, Frank Gehry, Charles and Henry Greene, Charles and Ray Eames, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Frederick Law Olmsted and Thomas Jefferson are appreciated, sometimes more than once. So, too, are the anonymous builders of the centuries-old Taos Pueblo and city of St. Augustine, Florida. Hosted by Geoffrey Baer, the tours are more of a whirlwind than a stroll in a park, but all of them should inspire family road trips and architecture tours. Some are a bit far out of the way. Others are a bus ride away. Don’t worry, you won’t be tested afterward.
Under the tutelage of Master Splinter, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo spent their formative years fighting their nemesis, Shredder, and his evil army, in the sewers of New York. In the 26-episode “Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation: The Complete Series” the world inhabited by the live-action turtles is about to change. If you thought Shredder was bad, wait until you meet the newest TMNT foe: Dragon Lord. It will take all the power of the turtles to combat this new villain. This time around, though, they will have help from a female turtle named Venus De Milo. If fans can’t find it in the usual places, they might try Walmart. Bonus material includes the special “Power Rangers in Space” crossover episodes and a music video.
Nick’s “Let’s Learn: S.T.E.M. Vol 2” contains more than 140 minutes of S.T.E.M.-themed adventures with Blaze and the Monster Machines. The show is the first preschool series to comprehensively cover all areas of S.T.E.M. – science, tech, engineering, math — in every episode, as well as fan-favorites “Dora and Friends: Into the City,” “PAW Patrol” and “Team Umizoomi.” In addition to expanding imaginations and developing inquisitive minds, the DVD also comes with a themed worksheet to reinforce some of the lessons learned throughout the collection.
“Wild Kratts: Wild Animal Babies” allows pre-schoolers to explore nature, discover amazing animals and meet wild animal babies. Join Martin Kratt and Chris Kratt as they learn about the unique ways young animals are raised and protected by their parents. In select adventures on this DVD, the crew helps an adorable (and destructive) baby elephant stay out of trouble, wrangle some playful lion cubs and more.
Son of Saul: Blu-ray
Phoenix: Criterion Collection: Blu-ray
As much as we’d like to put World War II in our rearview mirror and move on to less nightmarish film fodder, the sad truth is that we need constant reminders of what happened then and what could happen again, if hate is allowed to trump cries for peace and sanity. The sick legacy of Third Reich simply refuses to disappear into the fog of history, either in real life or in the movies. What’s amazing is that even 70 years after peace treaties were signed, ever more heart-wrenching stories continue to surface from the conflagration. How many more remain to be told is anyone’s guess. The concurrent release of Son of Saul and Phoenix on DVD/Blu-ray suggests that European historians, writers and filmmakers – the children and grandchildren of the silent generation — still have plenty to say on the subject. Hollywood studios didn’t waste any time lionizing the heroism of American troops in the service of the Allied cause. It wasn’t until Steven Spielberg put audiences directly in the line of fire, during the first half-hour of Saving Private Ryan, that American audiences were forced to come to grips with the fact that John Wayne had died and no longer could shield us from the ugliness of combat. Outside the Soviet Union, where the Red Army’s triumphs were duly celebrated and atrocities ignored, European filmmakers struggled with ways to confront the reality of rampant of anti-Semitism and early appeal of fascism that allowed Nazi forces to cakewalk across borders. For too long, a dark shroud of guilt and shame kept artists from directly addressing the root causes Holocaust and the intricate machinery of death that served Hitler’s madness. Released in 1964, Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker was the first American movie to deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a camp survivor. Typically, though, enforcers of the Production Code, the MPAA and Legion of Decency fretted more over the exposed breasts of two key characters than the good that could come from endorsing the distribution of a necessarily dark drama. It wasn’t until the 1970s, though, that non-documentary films and mini-series found audiences in large enough numbers to support a subgenre of war pictures dedicated to the Holocaust. In 1990, Polish director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland’s Europa, Europa opened the door for movies that dealt with complex issues pertaining to ethnic identity and survival. Today, finding new ways to interest viewers in Holocaust-themed stories – even those involving doomed dissidents, homosexuals, Gypsies, Slavs and intellectuals — seemingly would be a difficult task for any filmmaker, especially in the long wake of Schindler’s List, Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and Oscar-winning Life Is Beautiful. Judging simply from such multifaceted European movies as Holland’s In Darkness, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book, Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s Sarah’s Key and Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters there are many more stories – albeit subtitled — out there to tell.
 
In addition to winning major prizes in nearly every competition in which it was entered – if only in the stopgap categories limited to foreign-language pictures — László Nemes’ breathtaking Holocaust drama, Son of Saul, probably deserved to capture the Academy Award for Best Picture or, at least, be nominated for it. That’s strictly my opinion, but I offer it after finally seeing all of the finalists on the big screen or on Blu-ray. They’re all excellent, but none compares to the wallop delivered by Son of Saul, which also is remarkable for its technical achievements and acting. The setting is Auschwitz-Birkenau, in October of 1944, as the Red Army is advancing on Germany with guns blazing and revenge on its collective mind. Unwilling to admit imminent defeat, Adolph Hitler has ordered the Gestapo to pick up the speed in transporting Jews to concentration camps. So many are being systematically murdered that the crematoriums can’t keep up with the volume and bodies are being stacked up in the open. Saul (Géza Röhrig) is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners forced to assist the Nazis in the rounding up of new arrivals and directing them almost immediately to their deaths. While waiting for them to die, the prisoners were required to retrieve, sort and pile everything left behind by the doomed men, women and children. The Sonderkommandos weren’t exempt from death in the gas chamber, but the Nazis needed all the help they could get in expediting the process and pretending that hands other than Aryan were executing the dirtiest of deeds. Moreover, the cynical policy ensured that survivors would forever debate the morality of Jews serving the Nazis, even faced with death for disobedience, in such a hideous way. Despite the fact that many of the prisoners we meet here already consider themselves to be dead, the strongest among them conspire to sabotage the machinery and kill as many of the guards as they can before, if possible, rendezvousing with the advancing Soviets. Nemes based his story on testimony from camp survivors, repeated viewings of Shoah, and the “Scrolls of Auschwitz.” These were the diaries of members of the Sonderkommando, written and buried before they revolted.
 
Saul considers himself to be one of walking dead, going through the motions until it’s his turn to die. It isn’t until he discovers the body of a teenage boy, left barely breathing after everyone else in the chamber is dragged to the crematoriums, that something ignites a spark of reflection in his brain. Disturbed by what could be a glitch in the system, a German doctor orders Saul to transport the boy to an operating theater where he will be allowed to die in his own time – not long — and have an autopsy performed on him by another Jew forced to comply with the cruelest of commands. After learning that the boy is Hungarian, Saul decides that the boy is his illegitimate son and deserving of a religious burial. For this, he needs to find a rabbi among the multinational crush of prisoners and compel him to recite Kaddish over a single corpse, while ignoring so many others. His single-minded mission convinces Saul’s fellow prisoners that he’s completely mad, even in a place where all madness is relative. While they’re preoccupied with gathering the tools for their uprising and disguising them from the Nazis, as they continue to perform their tasks, Saul interrogates the newly arrived Jews to find a rabbi. Son of Saul, which takes place over the course of 36 hours, isn’t a story of survival or heroism. Instead, Nemes says that it’s about the reality of death and coming to terms with it. Even so, by tightly focusing on the faces, hands and whispered conversations of the living, rather than the dead and dying bodies in the slightly blurred background, the horrors of the gas chambers are almost blessedly muted. A student of Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, a master of framing and long uninterrupted tracking shots, Nemes conspires with cinematographer Mátyás Erdély and sound designer Tamás Zányi to keep the viewer trapped in the immediacy of Saul’s world. The effect is mesmerizing. The drab color scheme argues, as well, that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a place the sun’s rays didn’t reach. Comprehensive, informative and sometimes philosophical commentary is contributed by Nemes, Röhrig, and Erdély. There’s also a deleted scene and a post-screening Q&A at the Museum of Tolerance, with the same participants. Admirers of Son of Saul should consider it to be required viewing.
 
German writer/director Christian Petzold takes a very different approach to his Holocaust-inspired, Phoenix, adopted from a novel by Hubert Monteilhet. Set in Berlin, in the early days of the Allied occupation, it measures the pain and guilt experienced by two women who never thought they’d survive, let alone return home. Before she was gathered up by the Gestapo, Nelly (Nina Hoss) was a nightclub singer in Berlin. Her souvenir from Auschwitz is a face disfigured by a bullet wound after its liberation. Travelling in the care of a protective friend, Lene (Nina Kunzendorf), Nelly has inherited enough money from a deported family member to pay for a plastic surgery operation that she knows will make her a stranger to herself. After Nelly is completely healed and they get their affairs in order, the women plan to buy an apartment in Haifa and quit Germany for good. Before that, however, Nelly wants to reunite with her former husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), who survived the war by ratting out her out, along with other Jewish friends. As the picture opens, however, she isn’t aware of the fact that it was his deceit that led the Gestapo to her. In a decidedly Hitchcock-inspired twist, Nelly’s reconstructed face allows her to sidle up to her onetime pianist, who’s employed as a janitor in the Phoenix cabaret, without recognizing her. Neither does Nelly reveal herself when Johnny enlists her in a plan to recover property confiscated from his wife after her arrest. This requires Johnny to teach his ex-wife how to act, walk and write as she did when they were together. The similarities give Johnny pause, but only momentarily. Such parasitic opportunists probably were as common in post-war Berlin as pigeons or rats. The more Nelly learns about Johnny’s backstabbing in her absence, the more we want to see her exact revenge on him. But, will she succumb to long-dormant romance … and, given the Hitchcockian plotting, how would she do it? Then, too, why aren’t Nelly and Lene already in Haifa? Even though, like Saul, they feel as if they’ve already died and are uncomfortable among the living, the payoff to these questions is very satisfying. Another thing that makes Phoenix special is re-creation of post-war Berlin, with special attention given to the nightclub, which now caters to GIs looking for a taste of the divine decadence forbidden by the Nazis. Personally, I was surprised not only that such places existed so soon after the war, but also that Nelly was confident that she’d recover wealth confiscated by the Nazis. In this, we probably know more about post-war Germany than a survivor possibly could. In addition to the Hitchcock touch, Petzold borrowed ideas from the Douglas Sirk playbook, Germany Year Zero and Out of the Past. Phoenix is the fifth out of his seven feature films to feature the wondrously talented Hoss and the second film in a row, after Barbara (2012), to star Hoss and Zehrfeld in the leading roles. Petzold won the FIPRESCI Prize at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and Hoss was voted top actress at several other events. The Criterion Collection package adds a conversation with Petzold and Hoss; an interview with cinematographer Hans Fromm; a making-of featurette; and an essay by critic Michael Koresky.
 
Losing Ground: Blu-ray
Founded in 1990, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller’s Milestone Films has received several prestigious awards for its restoration, preservation and release of such endangered and rarely seen movies as Alfred Hitchcock’s Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles, Lionel Rogosin’s On the Bowery, Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba, Marcel Ophuls’s The Sorrow and the Pity, the Mariposa Film Group’s Word is Out, Shirley Clarke’s The Connection and Ornette: Made in America. In December, 2012, Milestone became the first-ever two-time winner of the New York Film Critics Circle’s Special Award, this time for its work in restoring, preserving and distributing the films of iconoclast Clarke, whose Portrait of Jason also was greeted warmly by collectors and buffs. The company’s latest reclamation project, Losing Ground, is being acclaimed for re-introducing filmmaker Kathleen Collins to a new generation of viewers, many of whom have grown accustomed to not seeing minority actors and themes represented on screen. The low-budget 1982 drama was one of the first features directed by an African-American woman. If it didn’t find distribution in the United States, the fault probably can be laid at the feet of distributors whose pre-conceived notions of what black audiences would pay to see was tilted toward Blaxploitation flicks and comedies with such popular stars as Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. Losing Ground reflects a completely different aspect of the African-American experience, then and now. Closer thematically to films of the French New Wave and intimate dramas of Ingmar Bergman and John Cassavetes, it profiles the marriage of a black philosophy professor (Seret Scott) at a New York college and an uncompromising abstract painter (Bill Gunn), who’s just sold his first piece to a major gallery. Although Sara is working on a paper about the “ecstatic experience” in religious rites, she’s as shy, sober and strait-laced as they come. By contrast, Victor is the kind of guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve and isn’t reluctant to push Sara into uncomfortable positions to share his exuberance. That summer, he convinces her to take a break from the city by joining him in a slightly rundown estate in an artists’ colony along the Hudson River in upstate New York. The quaint little town appears to be a magnet for Puerto Rican women and their families, seemingly on a full-time basis. If there’s nothing abstract in the scenery and faces available to Victor here, he’s reinvigorated by nature and colors that don’t come in geometric forms in the city. For her part, Sara would feel more comfortable in a town able to accommodate her needs for a library suited to her academic pursuits. (The Internet was a distant dream, if even that.) Not surprisingly, perhaps, Victor latches onto a young Puerto Rican neighbor, Celia (Maritza Rivera), who seemingly is the polar opposite of his wife and agrees to model for him. While Sara is in the city doing some research, she’s approached by a student who’s making a film that requires some dancing and dramatic displays of emotion. At first reluctant, Sara’s further encouraged by a dashing black actor, Duke (Duane Jones, star of the original Night of the Living Dead), who seems determined to bring out the blackness in her. They’re paired in a retelling of the “Frankie and Johnny” tragedy, which demands she let her hair down. Meanwhile, Victor’s attempting to stoke some of the Latin fire in Celia, both on canvas and over wine in the late afternoon and evenings, surrounded by old-growth trees.
 
Without going into detail, let’s just say that the tables eventually get turned on the Sara and Victor, in ways consistent with their characters’ personal trajectories and some narrative judo on Collins’ part, which provides a surprisingly satisfying ending. If Victor acts pretty much like any temporarily unattached and sexually frustrated man would in similar circumstances – or in an Eric Rohmer film, for that matter — Sara clearly is a stand-in for Collins, who was educated in France and became involved with SNCC in the civil-rights campaigns. She admits as much in the fascinating interview attached to the Blu-ray bonus package. This would be an appropriate time to point out that the filmmaker would succumb to cancer, in 1988, at age 46. The consistently challenging process of financing, producing and finding a distributor for Losing Ground must have taken its toll on her, especially when compared to her work in the theater and teaching at the college level. The Milestone package also contains her first film, the 50-minute The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy, which she based on episodes from “Cruz Chronicles,” a “novel of adventure and close calls” by Henry Roth. In it, three mischievous Puerto Rican lads find a summer job fixing up the once grand riverside home of an elderly stage actress. It takes a while for them warm to each other’s presence, as they share almost nothing in common. While the boys are directed by the practical, if ethereal advice of their dead father, Miss Malloy frequently gets lost in memories of a glorious past. It’s a lovely story, practically unseen since being made in 1980. Collins’ creative partner, cinematographer Ronald K. Gray, is represented by the 7-minute 1976 short, “Transmagnifican Dambamuality.” Lengthy interviews with Gray, playwright/actor Seret Scott and daughter, Nina Lopez Collins, add to the experience, as does a vintage 1982 interview with Kathleen Collins at Indiana University, in which the emphasis is on teaching.
 
Jane Got a Gun: Blu-ray
In Gavin O’Connor’s revisionist Western, Jane Got a Gun, wee Natalie Portman plays a frontier woman and former sex slave who calls on a onetime lover to help her save her daughter, homestead and severely wounded husband (Noah Emmerich) from a gang of revenge-minded gunmen led by Ewan McGregor. The ex-boyfriend, Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton), isn’t anxious to risk his life in what amounts to a suicide mission, but, knowing Jane will go it alone if necessary, he accepts the challenge. Set in scenic badlands of northern New Mexico, which could pass for 1865 B.C. if it had to, Jane Got a Gun was heavily influenced by the 1971 Western, Hannie Caulder, starring the physically more formidable Raquel Welch. In it, Welch plays the aggrieved widow who enlists a bounty hunter (Robert Culp) to teach her how to be a gunfighter. In both movies, the male lead is required to pull a trick out of his sleeve to balance what appear to be 20-to-1 odds against the protagonists. If all anyone requires is action and atmosphere in their Westerns, Jane Got a Gun shouldn’t disappoint. Beyond that, however, there’s nothing revolutionary here. I’d be surprised if Portman returns to the genre anytime soon, if only because the payoff rarely equals the investment in time, energy and money, anymore. As far as I’m concerned, the 2011 Oscar-winner can do whatever she wants … especially since she’s one of 30 names listed as one variety of producer or another. By 1971, Welch had already established herself as a sex symbol who wasn’t relegated to generic parts that required nothing more than unbuttoning her blouse. She was the primary drawing card in 100 Rifles and Bandolero! It would take another 20 years before women would be given top billing, even in revisionist and indie Westerns. Since then, we’ve seen The Ballad of Little Jo, Bad Girls, The Quick and the Dead, Meek’s Cutoff, The Homesman, Dead Man’s Burden and The Missing. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s portrayal of the doomed Daisy Domergue in The Hateful Eight is anything but typical. The problem, of course, is convincing audiences, especially women, to support Westerns in which female protagonists can hold their own in the blood-letting department. Jane Got a Gun ran into some serious problems during production, so, probably in consideration of budget constraints, there are no bonus features. The production values speak for themselves.
 
The Driftless Area
Burning Bodhi
It’s been seven years since Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt stole the hearts of indie audiences in the quirky, non-linear romance (500) Days of Summer. At the time, it was the irresistible 30-year-old’s most complete performance to date and a picture that made a bunch of money for Fox Searchlight. Instead of catching another big wave, Deschanel decided to take a chance on the wonderfully quirky Fox-TV series, “The New Girl,” which became an immediate hit in the most desirable demographics and turned her into a multi-platform star. That she’s stuck with the series all these years, without churning out a prestige picture or two during the hiatus periods, struck many observers as unusual. Instead, Deschanel focused whatever energy she had left on She & Him, the duo she formed with singer-songwriter M. Ward before (500) Days took off. In July, 2014, she gave birth to a daughter, Elsie Otter. She would appear in a few feature films – Our Idiot Brother, Your Highness and Rock the Casbah – but nothing to make anyone forget her earlier, more promising work. Along comes The Driftless Area, a very compelling neo-noir, which, for some reason, Sony has decided to launch on DVD and VOD. This, despite an ensemble cast that also includes Anton Yelchin, Aubrey Plaza, John Hawkes, Frank Langella, Alia Shawkat and Ciarán Hinds. Shot in B.C. and Wisconsin on what must have been a shoestring budget, co-writer/director Zachary Sluser adapted the story from Tom Drury’s 2006 novel. In it, a restless young man, Pierre (Yelchin) falls in love with a mysterious woman, Stella (Zooey Deschanel), who rescues him from a well, into which he fell while strolling through the countryside. Pierre had already been introduced to us in an ugly encounter he has with a local hoodlum (Hawkes) while hitchhiking home. A brief struggle leads to a potentially catastrophic event that drives the action for the next 90 minutes and adds a distinct air of magical realism to the proceedings. As his relationship with Stella deepens, Pierre is driven to engage in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with the driver who assaulted him and, in a freak accident, was left for dead on the side of the highway. We’ll soon learn how the lives of all three of these characters intertwine in the most unusual of ways. I think The Driftless Area might have found a loyal audience in theaters if given the opportunity to create buzz and garner positive reviews. The DVD arrives with a decent making-of featurette.
 
Kaley Cuoco has been working in Hollywood, mostly on television, for 20 of her 30 years on the planet. Unlike Deschanel, the Camarillo native didn’t enjoy the luxury of garnering big-screen credentials before climbing on board “8 Simple Rules,” “Charmed” and the sitcom juggernaut that became “The Big Bang Theory.” Her character, Penny, represents a slight variation of the archetypal TV blond, whose lineage can be traced at least as far back as Elizabeth Montgomery on “Bewitched” and Barbara Eden on “I Dream of Jeannie.” Penny hasn’t been required to wear the dumb-blond yoke to play Penny, unless it was in the show’s early beauty-and-the-geeks period, as was the case for Goldie Hahn on “Laugh In,” Suzanne Somers in “Three’s Company” and Beth Behrs currently on “2 Broke Girls.” Nonetheless, when Cuoco was offered a non-comedic role in a contemporary ensemble piece, she didn’t have to think twice, even at small fraction of her $1 million/week salary on the “The Big Bang Theory.” In Matthew McDuffie’s indie drama, Burning Bodhi, Dylan (Landon Liboiron) finds out via Facebook that his best friend from high school, Bodhi, has died of an aneurysm. With no small degree of trepidation, he returns to Albuquerque to share in the grief generated by the deceased’s many friends. The former classmates struggle with the experience of confronting not only Bodhi’s sudden passing, but their own vulnerability to blind chance. Throughout their reunion, sticky feelings of love, longing and regret are stirred up in the characters – Cuoco, Sasha Pieterse, Cody Horn, Andy Buckley, Tatanka Means, Virginia Madsen, Meghann Fahy – whose lives he touched. As was the case in The Big Chill, they’ve all changed since going their separate ways after high school … or, not going anywhere at all, as the case may be. If Burning Bodhi couldn’t possibly make anyone forget Lawrence Kasdan’s Baby Boomer classic, it should please fans of the young actors, who, like Cuoco, are known far more for their work on television than on the big screen.
 
Packed in a Trunk
Anyone impressed by the 2013 American documentary Finding Vivian Maier, about the posthumous unlocking of a treasure trove of photographs taken by a previously unsung Chicago nanny and amateur street photographer, almost certainly will enjoy Packed in a Trunk. Although the circumstances are very different, both films describe an almost miraculous discovery of artistic gems created before the women responsible for them could benefit from their fame. In this, they shared certain qualities and demons with Vincent Van Gogh. In the case of Finding Vivian Maier, historian John Maloof purchased a box of photo negatives at a 2007 Chicago auction, then scanned the images and put them on the Internet site, Flickr. After news articles began to come out about Maier and another collector’s similar discovery of her work, a Kickstarter campaign for the documentary was launched. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 87th Academy Awards. The title, Packed in a Trunk, refers to the discovery of paintings by the obscure lesbian artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, who was part of the Provincetown art scene from 1914 to 1923. In 1924, at the recommendation of her crooked estate attorney, Wilkinson was committed to a decrepit, if expensive mental-health facility, in large part due to her “close and constant contact” with longtime companion. Once the artist was put away and abandoned, Edith’s work and all her worldly possessions were packed into trunks and shipped off to a relative in West Virginia, where they sat in an attic for the next 40 years. Edith’s great-niece, writer/director Jane Anderson (“Olive Kitteridge”), grew up surrounded by Edith’s vibrantly colorful Impressionistic paintings. On a whim, her mother had poked through the trunks and boxes in her dusty attic and rescued Edith’s work, if only for her own enjoyment. The film follows Anderson in her decades-long journey to find the answers to the mystery of Edith’s life and, then, return the work to Provincetown, where they could be recognized by the larger art world. As such, it also shines a light on the nation’s gay and lesbian community at a time when coming out of the closet often meant being locked up in jail or an asylum. She was joined in her quest by writer/director Michelle Boyaner (“A Finished Life: The Goodbye & No Regrets Tour”).
 
Dillinger: Special Edition: Blu-ray
Dolemite: Blu-ray
It wasn’t until Bonnie and Clyde was released in 1967 that anyone in Hollywood attempted to take a chance on showing the effects of lead on flesh and bone, in slow motion and excruciating detail. The Production Code may have been on its last legs, but no one could predict with any certainty how audiences would react not only to witnessing full-blown carnage in living color – ABC’s highly controversial “The Untouchables” was shown in black-and-white – but also to what some saw as the romanticizing of criminality. It worked. And how! It didn’t take long for Roger Corman and his team of recent film-school graduates to breathe new life into the gangster genre and develop a formula to make it profitable. Among the throwback titles the company released were Corman’s Bloody Mama, Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha and John Milius’ Dillinger, which has just been accorded a first-class refurbishing by Arrow Video. Although there’s nothing particularly wrong with Michael Mann’s 2009 Public Enemies, the only justification for its retelling of John Dillinger’s story and $100-million production budget was the presence of Johnny Depp as titular bank robber. Milius, who had already joined the list of Hollywood’s screenwriting elite, agreed to participate in Dillinger if he could direct the picture, as well as write it. The $2.5 million AIP spent on it might not have covered the cost of renting vintage automobiles on Public Enemies, but it was money well spent. Both pictures took liberties with the facts, but nothing that would cause anyone to rewrite the time-honored legend. If J. Edgar Hoover was actually moved to complain about the portrayal of the G-men in Dillinger, he no longer carried the weight in Hollywood he once did. What was great then and is still the No. 1 reason to pick up a copy of the Blu-ray is a cast the included some of the greatest supporting actors in the industry: Warren Oates is a dead ringer for the boastful bank robber; Ben Johnson plays the cocky FBI bloodhound, Melvin Purvis; Harry Dean Stanton, Geoffrey Lewis, Steve Kanaly and star-to-be Richard Dreyfuss play ancillary gang members; Cloris Leachman, is a nice fit as the Lady in Red; and Mamas and Papas’ singer Michelle Phillips, in her first big movie role, doesn’t embarrass herself as the moll. As for action, Dillinger could still inspire wet dreams in card-carrying NRA members. Commentary is provided by Stephen Prince, author of “Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema”; new interviews with producer Lawrence Gordon, director of photography Jules Brenner and composer Barry De Vorzon; a stills gallery; reversible sleeve, featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips; and a booklet containing new writing by Kim Newman on fictional portrayals of Dillinger, plus an on-set report containing interviews with writer-director John Milius and others, illustrated with original production stills.
 
Released in 1975, as the Blaxploitation subgenre was beginning to lose steam, Dolemite is an extreme example of the pimp as anti-superhero. Rudy Ray Moore, who resembles an over-the-hill heavyweight boxer, plays the title character, who’s just been released from prison and given carte blanche by a friendly FBI agent to take out his chief rival Willie Green (director D’Urville Martin). The well-connected thug had set up Dolemite on a phony drug charge and stole his club from under former partner-in-crime, Queen Bee (Lady Reed). In his corner, he’ll find a bevy of kung-fu-fightin’ prostitutes anxious for him to get back in the game. Supporting Green is the corrupt mayor, some crooked cops and a duplicitous preacher. Dolemite is an old-school pimp from the word, “go.” He’s also the headliner at his nightclub, the Total Experience, singing, dancing and signifyin’ with his hooker chorus line. Technically, Dolemite is a real mess and the acting isn’t much better. It may not hold a candle to The Mack … but, honestly, what does? The character and movie directly influenced Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, Eddie Murphy and Quentin Tarantino. The most essential thing about the newly scanned & restored in 2K version from Vinegar Syndrome is the background material on Moore, who enjoyed a thriving career as nightclub entertainer, freelance record distributor and producer, and X-rated comedian, before turning to the movies. In fact, Dolemite is an extension of a character he established in his act. The Blu-ray adds a delightful making-of documentary, “I, Dolemite,” and commentary track from Moore’s biographer, Mark Murray, featuring interviews with Moore as well as co-stars Jerry Jones, Lady Reed, John Kerry and cinematographer Nick von Sternberg; featurettes “Lady Reed Uncut” and “Locations: Then & Now”; the intended 1.85:1 widescreen frame and an alternate full-frame “boom mic” version; original trailers for Dolemite and The Human Tornado; and original cover artwork by Jay Shaw.
 
All Night at the Po-No: Storefront Theatre Collection: Volume #1
Trashy Lady: Blu-ray
I don’t know if the history of pornography can be traced beyond the Paleolithic cave paintings discovered in France’s Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Caveto, but who would be surprised to learn that some of our ancient ancestors, at least, were as fixated on sexuality as the lions, rhinos, deer and bears that adorned the walls of Chauvet Cave? In fact, some archeologists believe that representations of genitalia and sexual coupling can be traced back at least 11,000 years to the Creswell Crags in England, although it couldn’t be determined if they were intended to stimulate the caves’ residents or sex-ed classes for the young’uns. Clearly, though, the graffiti artists of Egypt, Greek, Rome and Peru had something on their minds beyond landscapes, portraits and still lifes. Pornography has existed throughout recorded history and has adapted to each new medium, from papyrus to the Internet. Eroticism on film goes back to the invention of motion pictures and many of the earliest shorts still are available for perusing on You Tube Red. The borders separating titillation, Victorian pornography, sexploitation and art blurred forever from there. In the exhaustively researched and often quite entertaining documentary, That’s Sexploitation!, writer/director Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case, Frankenhooker) and producer David F. Friedman (a.k.a., Mighty Monarch of Exploitation) pick up the subject in the 1920s, when the monetization and widespread delivery of porn products became nearly unstoppable. That isn’t to say that law-enforcement officials and religious leaders didn’t attempt to eliminate it, just that the purveyors of smut always found ways to get around their efforts, thanks, in large part, to the insatiable appetite of the American public. Depictions of explicit nudity, sexual intercourse and medical diagrams were famously inserted into films distributed as “hygiene” or “educational” and exhibited before audiences segregated by gender. In the post-war era, stag films, nudist camp shorts and nudie-cuties would give way to hard- and soft-core pornography openly shown in large cities where adherence to the First Amendment wasn’t considered voluntary. Even so, up until the latter half of the 1960s, much of the quasi-legal content was tamer than what could be found in the ruins of the brothels of Pompeii. This kind of explicit material isn’t for everyone, of course. Among its shortcomings is a reluctance to pay attention to the participation of organized crime in the industry or the mainstreaming of porn, in the Golden Age. In addition to the two-hour-plus documentary from Severin Films, That’s Sexploitation! offers three more hours of shorts from the Something Weird Archives and commentary with Henenlotter and Something Weird’s Lisa Petrucci.
 
As if anticipating the release of That’s Sexploitation!, Vinegar Syndrome has sent out the three-disc concept compilation, “All Night at the Po-No: Storefront Theatre Collection: Volume #1,” which is comprised of titles made immediately preceding the Deep Throat phenomenon and were exhibited in spaces that today might accommodate a Subway or Chinese take-out joint. Unlike larger houses, including those in the Pussycat chain, the films screened in these cozy spaces were low-budget 16mm efforts, affectionately known as one-day-wonders. Hundreds of these theaters dotted the landscape, attracting the anonymous work of aspiring independent and underground filmmakers. If there’s a common denominator here, it’s the presence of amateur actors who might have been recruited at hippie acid tests and whose acting chops make Harry Reems and Marilyn Chambers look like Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. The women, especially, are far from unattractive, but hardly classic movie goddesses. Their emotional range stretches from bored to giddy and none appear overly concerned about carrying a few extra pounds. Fetishists will welcome the absence of razors, implants and big hair. The male actors, with the exception of a very young John Holmes, are interchangeable. Most find it difficult to maintain an erection for more than a few minutes. Of the 12 films here, a few are no more than extended loops. Others tell stories that display a strong sense of humor, narrative and character development. The industry had not yet migrated from to L.A., from New York and San Francisco, so the action isn’t reserved exclusively to generic indoor sets. The titles include Huck Walker’s “All American Hustler,” Anthony Spinelli’s bizarre vampire comedy “Suckula,” Rik Taziner’s low-rent costume saga, “The Erotic Adventures of Hercules,” as well as such anonymously directed efforts as “Carnal-Go-Round,” “Sex Before Marriage,” “Homer the Late Comer” and the experimental subjective-camera feature, “Erotic Point of View.” Besides Holmes, only Rene Bond and Sandy Dempsey are remotely familiar. All have been scanned in 2k from rare original theatrical prints to re-create the experience of stumbling into the Po-No theater late one evening and not leaving until dawn the next day. Another thing that differentiates the films here from those to follow is a willingness to portray drug use and abuse honestly. Listen carefully and you might even catch a then-popular song by Paul Simon or Herb Alpert that’s been appropriated by the filmmakers, almost certainly without permission.
 
In a separate release, Vinegar Syndrome flashes ahead a mere 10 years to Trashy Lady, one of the most stylishly made and technically advanced hard-core films of the shot-on-35mm age. In the Roaring ’20s-period production, Harry Reems plays a slick gangster, Dutch, who has been ditched by his regular dame, Jessie (Cara Lott). Upon being introduced to the beautiful cigarette girl, Katherine (Ginger Lynn), who’s just begun to work at his classy speakeasy, Dutch is immediately smitten with her “good girl” looks and aura of innocence. Soon enough, though, he enlists the help of Rita (Amber Lynn) to teach her the tricks of the trade. It so happens that Rita served as main moll to Dutch’s incarcerated rival, Louie (Herschel Savage). Trashy Lady was nominated for six XRCO awards, including best director (Steve Scott), and featuring AFAA-award-winning cinematography by Tom Howard as well as an AVN-award-winning performance from Reems. In my opinion, though, Ginger steals the show with a performance that combines comedic chops with natural acting talent and natural girl-next-door beauty. The film arrives in Blu-ray for the first time, newly restored from its original 35mm negative, and Scott and Howard’s 1971 time-travel flick, “Coming West,” which very easily could have fit in the “Po-No” collection. The bonus package also includes commentary with Howard, moderated by filmmaker David McCabe, and a second commentary track with co-star Savage and XRCO co-founder, Bill Margold. Although Savage co-starred in Trashy Lady, he can barely recall the experience. What he and Margold can remember of the actors borders from offensive to hilarious.
 
What?: Blu-ray
After his wife, Sharon Tate, was so brutally murdered in an orgy of violence orchestrated by Charles Manson, it was easy to forgive any cinematic misstep taken in its immediate wake by Roman Polanski … until, of course, the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in Jack Nicholson’s Hollywood Hills home. Despite receiving several excellent reviews by mainstream critics, the public response to his adaptation of Macbeth, made for or Playboy Productions, was dampened by the X-rating attached to it by the MPAA’s concerns of extreme violence and a scene of Lady Macbeth ruminating in the nude. Then, Polanski produced a lifestyle documentary on the effort by Jackie Stewart to win the 1971 Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo. After being shown at the 1972 Berlin International Film Festival, Weekend of a Champion was shelved for 40 years. Entertaining and occasionally exciting, it was re-edited and re-released briefly in 2013, before being sent out on DVD a year later. Blessedly forgotten after Polanski’s triumphant return to Hollywood with Chinatown was the over-the-top sex farce he made with Carlo Ponti’s money on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. What? (a.k.a., “Diary of Forbidden Dreams”) would be as reviled as Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown were universally admired. Written by Polanski and frequent collaborator Gérard Brach, What? chronicles the sexual indignities that befall a curly-haired American hippie while hitchhiking through Italy. As portrayed by Akron native Sydne Rome (Just a Gigolo), the only differences between her naïve and over-accommodating Nancy and Little Annie Fannie is a surprisingly scholarly and artistic background that manifests itself in unexpected ways during the film. After being attacked by three lecherous Italians while hitchhiking, she escapes down the steps and funicular leading to a villa overlooking the sea. It is owned by a wealthy art collector (Hugh Griffith) and inhabited by an international collection of wackos and what appear to be very expensive prostitutes, including the recently retired pimp, Alex (Marcello Mastroianni), and the proprietor’s sneaky son, Mosquito (Polanski). As near as I can figure, the rest of the movie is taken up by Nancy attempting to keep her clothes from being stolen by the villa’s rambunctious watchdog and humoring the sexual fetishes of the other residents. What? reflects the prevailing attitudes toward sex in Europe, which found some humor in forced intercourse in unlikely place and frequently exploited the liberating aspects of the sexual revolution. If the women characters tended to be almost freakishly glamorous and voluptuous, the male characters in comedies would be portrayed as sexually inept buffoons. Mastroianni was able to pull off being the debonair leading man in one film and a hopelessly deficient playboy in another. Here, his grabby character might have been inspired more by the chick-chasing Harpo Marx, than, say, Marcello Rubini in La Dolce Vita. As clueless and vulnerable as her character frequently is, Rome is the only actor who comes out of What? unscathed. The nicely restored Blu-ray adds new interviews with Rome, composer Claudio Gizzi and cinematographer Marcello Gatti.
 
The Zero Boys: Blu-ray
Sssssss: Blu-ray
Before seeing the delightfully twisted Scandinavian fantasy, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, I was completely in the dark about the European holiday tradition that involved the “half-goat, half-demon” anti-Santa, Krampus. Appearing on the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas, Krampus would appear to children who didn’t live up to their holy obligation of being good little boys and girls in the preceding 300-some days leading up to Christmas. Where Saint Nicholas might award the lucky children rarely available fruit, nuts or trinkets, Krampus might bestow a lump of coal on the naughty ones, at best. Jalmari Helander’s inky black comedy, released here in December 2010, added several diabolically new wrinkles to the legend that also required reindeers and elves. I suspect that I wasn’t the only one unaware of Krampus, because, according to IMDB.com, it wasn’t until 2012 that the character appeared in an American entertainment, that being an episode of “Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated,” titled “Wrath of the Krampus.” Since then, he’s made more than a dozen appearances. The latest, Michael Dougherty’s Krampus, did well enough at the box office to think that it might be trotted out as every new holiday season approaches, not unlike National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. It succeeded even though its distributors decided not to show the picture to reviewers ahead their Friday deadlines – typically holiday-themed horror flicks haven’t fared well with mainstream critics – and most potential viewers hadn’t yet heard of Krampus. As is the case in the Griswald’s annual “Christmas Vacation” reunion, the spirit of the holiday is threatened by warring branches of the same dysfunctional family. The only one demonstrating anything close to a traditional Christmas mindset, if only in the form of believing in Santa Claus, is pre-teen Max. After being ridiculed by his obnoxious cousins, Max decides that putting too much credence in the holiday tradition no longer is worth the effort. This show of weakness emboldens the spirit of Krampus, who’s in the neighborhood this year. After killing the town’s electrical grid, the beast directs its wrath at Max’s family. Thanks to some effective special effects, the fury unleashed is pretty convincing, as are the monster’s makeup and costumes. If Universal lacked faith in its product in December, it’s made up for it with a bonus package that should please genre buffs. In addition to a digital copy of Krampus and UltraViolet access, it contains an alternate ending, deleted and extended scenes, a gag reel, galleries, commentary with Dougherty and co-writers Todd Casey and Zach Shields and featurettes, “Krampus Comes Alive!,” “Behind the Scenes at WETA Workshop” and “The Naughty Ones: Meet the Cast.”
 
I’m not at all sure what possessed Arrow Video to pull out the red carpet for The Zero Boys, a straight-to-video slasher flick from 1986 that also fit under the spam-in-a-cabin banner. In a nutshell, the story involves a group of “weekend warriors” – or, Rambo wannabes, take your pick – who, after a day spent shooting paintballs at pretend Nazis, ends up deep in a section of the woods north of Hollywood haunted by real killers. They’re accompanied by a small group of women, one of whom was the prize for winning that afternoon’s competition. It doesn’t take long for the couples to realize they’ve really stepped into some deep shit. In some ways, The Zero Boys appeared to be based on Charles Ng and Leonard Lake’s cabin of horrors in the Sierra Nevada foothills 150 miles east of San Francisco. Finally, though, the targets of the fiends’ sociopathy discover a way to turn their faux armaments into killing machines and a battle royal ensues. Blond scream queen Kelli Maroney (Night of the Comet) turns in a decent performance as the hard-boiled prize catch. More interesting stuff can be found in the bonus package, including a pretty entertaining piece in which Mastorakis interviews himself on the highlights of his long and varied career (The Greek Tycoon, Ninja Academy). He’s extremely proud of the contributions made by future Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, cinematographer Steven Shaw (“Pandora’s Clock”), Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption) and other up-and-comers. Co-stars Kelli Maroney and Nicole Rio provide new interviews; Maroney and Mastorakis are on separate commentary tracks; a stills gallery; reversible sleeve, featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys; and a fully-illustrated collector’s booklet with new writing by critic James Oliver.
 
Released in 1973, SSSSSSS remains interesting mostly for the very real cobras and pythons imported specifically for the production from the jungles of Southeast Asia, as well as a typically manic performance by Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke). He plays the head of research at a facility far enough from civilization to avoid the prying eyes of the medical-ethics police. Dr. Stoner’s madness manifests itself in his desire to develop a serum that can turn a man into a King Cobra. It takes a while for his daughter (Heather Menzies) to figure out that Stoner is using her boyfriend (Dirk Benedict) as a guinea pig. Considering its age, SSSSSSS looks pretty good for an early creature feature. The Blu-ray adds interviews with Benedict and Menzies, and a photo gallery.
 
Death Becomes Her: Collector’s Edition: Blu-ray
In this extremely broad and occasionally crude sendup of show-business narcissism, director Robert Zemeckis employs groundbreaking special effects in the service of what essentially is a 104-minute catfight between two of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Image-obsessed diva Madeline Ashton is played by Meryl Streep, who, in the early 1990s, had yet to convince critics that she could do as well in comic roles as she did in dramas. In the somewhat more sober role of Helen Sharp, the girlfriend of a miracle-working plastic surgeon, Goldie Hahn was uncharacteristically asked to play straight man to Streep. As Death Becomes Her opens, Helen introduces Madeline to her escort, Dr. Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis), in a backstage visit after a performance of a play based on Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth.” Hearing the words “plastic surgeon” elicits the same Pavlovian response in the actress as being told she’d being nominated for an Oscar or Tony. David Koepp and Martin Donovan’s screenplay flashes us forward to a period when Madeline and Ernest are unblissfully married and Helen has devolved into an obese coach potato. Another flash-forward reverses the roles of the two women, this time with Helen a successful author of self-help books, Madeline a nearly over-the-hill star and the doctor doing makeup on corpses at a funeral home. Now completely desperate, Madeline hands her fate to the mysterious seductress Lisle Von Rhoman, who claims to be 71 but looks, well, exactly like Isabella Rossellini in her prime. Lisle offers Madeline the secret to eternal youth, courtesy of a glowing purple potion that immediately restores her earlier beauty and figure. Like any miracle drug or promise of eternal youth, however, there’s a catch. I won’t reveal it here, except to say that it required all of Zemeckis’ pre-CGI expertise and it’s hilarious. The Blu-ray adds “The Making of ‘Death Becomes Her,’” featuring interviews with Zemeckis, Koepp, director of photography Dean Cundey, production designer Rick Carter and special effects artists Lance Anderson and David Anderson; a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette; and photo gallery.
 
PBS: Nature: Raising the Dinosaur Giant
PBS Kids: Caillou: Caillou’s Pet Parade
Just when paleontologists think they have the whole dinosaur thing figured out and can rest on their laurels for a generation, or two, a shepherd in Mongolia or Argentina will stumble upon on the fossilized remains of a previously unknown creature and force them to rewrite their textbooks. This is exactly what happened in 2014, in a remote corner of Patagonia where a portion of a thigh bone was discovered sticking out of a rock formation. Another 200 bones from the same species of titanosaur were discovered in the same vicinity. As yet unnamed, the gigantic herbivore is expected to weigh in at just over 77 tons and stand 121 feet from head to tail. In the “Nature” presentation, “Raising the Dinosaur Giant,” Sir David Attenborough guides us through the remarkable journey of “waking the giant” as it happens, connecting the dots, translating the paleo jargon and explaining the revelations using living examples, other dinosaur discoveries and CGI visuals.
 
The PBS Kids’ series “Caillou” is based on a series of books by Quebecoise writer and illustrator Hélène Desputeaux, which center on a 4-year-old boy who is fascinated by the world around him. In the DVD compilation, “Caillou’s Pet Parade,” he enjoys learning to care for different types of animals and pets belonging to his neighbors, parents and grandparents. The 13-episode collection times in at an hour.
A Dog Named Gucci
Biophilic Design
On “Real Time With Bill Maher,” hardly a week goes by before the host or a guest asks why no one in the global Muslim community seems willing to publically condemn the extremists and fundamentalists who use terror to advance their various religious, political and cultural agendas. The other question commonly heard involves the seeming lack of commonality among Arab states as to who, besides the United States, should lead the military offensive against ISIS andAl Qaeda. Answers to those very good questions have eluded us since such PLO spinoffs as al-Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Black September decided that it was easier to slaughter innocent men, women and children than take on the Israeli military head-on. In the wake of brutal terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, talk-show hosts across Europe are probably asking the same questions as Maher.
After watching Terry Spencer Hesser and Stephan Mazurek’s thought-provoking documentary, Love Is a Verb, it’s less difficult to understand why no one on that side of the argument has stepped forward to condemn violence committed in the name of Allah. Now living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, the Islamic preacher, scholar and reformist Fethullah Gülen is as close to a recognized spokesman for his co-religionists as anyone else on the planet. He teaches a Hanafi version of Islam — known as Hizmet, meaning service in Turkish — deriving from Sunni Muslim scholar Said Nursî’s teachings and Sufism. The secular leadership of Turkey so fears Gülen’s ability to inspire a parallel government, sufficiently powerful to impose its Islamic will on the nation, that it continually harasses and jails his followers. At first glance, the Gülen introduced to us in the documentary exists as the Bernie Sanders of Islam. Among other things, he promotes direct social activism, serving the poor and destitute, benevolent capitalism, traditional education and interfaith dialogue. He also believes that women play an essential role in the religion and science and faithreligion can co-exist in the network of schools he’s built here and around the globe.
At 55 minutes, however, Love Is a Verb begs almost as many questions as it attempts to answer. Foremost among them is why he prefers not to become the spokesman so many of us would love to see on talk shows and the speakers’ circuit. (Like everyone else, Gülen would probably love to live the rest of his life without having to fear a suicide bomber knocking on the gates of his 26-acre compound.). Despite the awards garnered by Gülen’s charter schools and graduates, are they immune from dogmaticto manipulation or a narrowing of values? If, as assumed, he favors sharia law over the current Turkish judicial system and corrupt secular elites, can it co-exist with modernist ideals. At 75, it’s also worth asking if Gülen has established a line of succession that can stand up to less moderate forces inside Turkey and beyond it, or, for that matter, the Pentagon.
For the last four years, reporters and lumberjacks have vied for dubious title of Worst Job in America, according to CareerCast.com. While I can understand why logging would be an unappealing career to pursue – if only because it’s extremely dangerous – it’s difficult to fathom how being a reporter ranks so low. Perhaps, it’s because the folks at CareerCast.com have an increasingly difficult time placing candidates for lucrative positions and job security for people older than 45 is almost non-existent. It sure beats yelling, “Timber,” or dodging falling trees for a living. In Jean-Philippe Tremblay’s disturbing documentary, Shadows of Liberty, several distinguished journalists describe why they’ve fallen out of love with their jobs. In the cases described here, it’s because the heyday of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers ended when the government allowed international conglomerates to purchase prominent media interests and milk them for every cent they could. In doing so, company brass began to kowtow to government agencies and the White House, for any number of bad reasons. The reporters remind us of several high-profile investigations – weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the CIA/Contra/crack conspiracy — that were successfully quashed or twisted from on high and one, at least, that was deemed too hot to handle, entirely. As alarming as this stuff is, solid reporting couldn’t prevent the re-election of George W. Bush, the rise of the Tea Party, iconization of the Kardashians and emergence of Donald Trump as a political force. Among those testifying here are Dan Rather, Julian Assange, Daniel Ellsberg, Amy Goodman and former CIA agent Robert Baer. The doc was originally released in 2012 and things have only gotten worse since then.
One needn’t be a dog lover to admire Gorman Bechard’s A Dog Named Gucci or even someone who’s owned a pet. All that’s necessary is a heart and profound sense of fairness for all living things. It opens with the horrifying story of Gucci, a 10-week old chow-shepherd mix, that was hung by his neck by aspiring teen sociopaths, beat up, doused with lighter fluid, and set afire. Doug James, standing on his porch nearby, heard the puppy’s cries and ran to help. After taking in the poor thing, at the request of Gucci’s 15-year-old runaway owner, he turned to specialists at Auburn University to nourish its recovery. What happened next is just as remarkable. When the perpetrators were given a slap on the wrist, James would convince local legislators to push for the passage of the “Gucci Bill,” making domestic animal abuse a felony. As word of the victory spread, Gucci’s story would inspire advocates in other states to follow the same strategy. Bechard, whose previous focus was on rom-coms and music videos, emphasizes how social media now allows people to maintain a network for the protection of domestic animals and strengthening of laws to prevent and punish it.
Normally, the last thing on the mind of business executives is the health, comfort and well-being of their office-bound employees. The more uniform the environment, the less work it will take the custodial workers to keep the place tidy. The easier the task, the fewer the number of employees are needed on the payroll, leaving more money for stockholders and budget-obsessed bosses. Too often, though, such exercises in corporate conformity cause morale, loyalty and productivity to plummet and absenteeism and turnover to rise. Stephen R. Kellert and Bill Finnegan’s documentary, Biophilic Design, makes a convincing case for so-called green architecture that humanizes the workplace by bringing the outdoors in and uses sustainable materials in creative ways. The concept is shown to work in hospitals, schools and other places where people need to be reminded of their natural roots.
TV-to-DVD
Syfy: Haven: Complete Final Season: Blu-ray
PBS: The Human Face of Big Data
PBS: Nova: Himalayan Megaquake
Hallmark: When Calls the Heart: Troubled Hearts
It’s difficult for any television series to sustain a gimmick as far-fetched as the one that lured fans of “Haven” to Syfy for five seasons. It helps, of course, that the network could promote the connection between the show and the Stephen King novel, “The Colorado Kid.” As is frequently the case with cable-based series, “Haven” opened in the summer of 2010, absent the kind of competition it might have faced two months later, when the more prominent networks introduced supernatural series of their own. The series opened with Emily Rose playing FBI special agent Audrey Parker, who is assigned to the small Maine town of Haven, where strange things happen to seemingly normal people. It doesn’t take long for her to experience “The Troubles,” a plague of paranormal afflictions that have occurred in the town at least twice in the past. As it turns out, Audrey is amenable to possibility that things in Haven really do go bump in the night and someday one of those things could lead her to the mother she has never known. In Season Five, the protagonists struggle to keep the town’s secrets under wraps, even under the watchful eyes of a smart CDC doctor, who comes to believe that there may be an underlying genetic marker to the Troubles. In the final 13 of 26 episodes of the fifth season, Haven has been cut off from the rest of the world by a mysterious fog bank. Through journeys into the past, the future and the very fabric between worlds, events in Haven hurtle towards a cataclysmic showdown. Patient fans will welcome the secret behind the “Croatoan” mystery. Special features 13 “Inside Haven” featurettes and commentary tracks; interviews with Eric Balfour, Lucas Bryant, William Shatner, Adam Copeland and producer Shawn Piller; a mythology refresher; and backgrounders. DVD buyer should be aware that the first 13 episodes of the final season already have been released.
After Edward Snowden became Public Enemy No. 1 by revealing the extent of spying – or, perhaps, the tip of the espionage iceberg – on people who may or may not have anything to do with terrorism, Americans were given something homegrown to replace the Red Scare. Any sense of security we’d developed over access to our financial, political and personal information vanished overnight. PBS’ “The Human Face of Big Data” argues that not everything in the digital universe is an open secret. The massive gathering and analyzing of data in real time is allowing us to address some of humanity’s biggest challenges, not all of which have anything to do with national security. This film captures the promise and peril of this extraordinary knowledge revolution.
On April 25, 2015, a devastating earthquake rocked Nepal. As it ripped across the Himalayas, it wiped out villages and left thousands dead or stranded, as were climbers preparing to tackle Mount Everest. Through dramatic eyewitness footage, expert interviews and stunning graphics, NOVA’s “Himalayan Megaquake” takes viewers beyond the pictures of destruction by exploring what we can learn from the deadly combination of earthquakes and landslides. If it seems as if NOVA’s producers are Johnny-on-the-spot whenever a large natural disaster, it’s only because they are.
In “Troubled Hearts,” the latest DVD release from Hallmark Channel’s “When Calls the Heart” series, big revelations are in store for Hope Valley as Elizabeth moves into her own house, dismaying Jack, who has been planning to build a new home for the both of them. Rosemary discovers that Lee has taken out a loan and worries that he is in financial difficulties. And Jesse, the young drifter who works in Abigail’s kitchen, has information that could ruin Pastor Frank’s good standing in Hope Valley.
Frank Zappa: In His Own Words
 
I receive a dozen, or so, discs each year from MVD Visual, in which celebrated musicians are profiled without their specific authorization or participation. In addition to footage borrowed from music videos, free concerts and other public-domain events, they include interviews with old friends and entertainment reporters, studio technicians, session musicians and learned critics, mostly of the British persuasion. Some of these clip shows are better than others, but few deserve unequivocal praise. While I expected some interesting material to emerge from Bob Dylan: Triumvirate and Frank Zappa: In His Own Words, I wasn’t prepared to be as entertained as I was by them. Typically, Dylan and Zappa – before the guitar wizard’s untimely death in 1993, at 52 — have proven to be hugely elusive, famously enigmatic and occasionally antagonistic targets for interviewers. Nonetheless, the MVD catalogue, alone, offers some 60 DVD and CD titles on various stages of Dylan’s career and 30 on Zappa. As unsanctioned as the material may be, they represent a treasure trove for fan-atics. The first two discs in Triumvirate cover the years 1961-65, during which Dylan evolved from struggling refugee from the frozen tundra of Minnesota to emerging genius and potential threat to the international folk music establishment. Dylan buffs will already have seen and heard most of it in previous documentaries, in unauthorized biographies, Martin Scorsese’s “No Direction Home” and his autobiography, “Chronicles.” It’s the third disc, containing vintage interviews conducted in tour stops around the world and including his “60 Minutes” session with Ed Bradley, that makes this set essential. What sets these interviews apart is how happy and outgoing he appears to be in person and in the forthcoming responses he gives the reporters, most of whom aren’t in the same league with Bradley. He tells stories, laughs easily and opens up about his influences. It’s a side of the man I haven’t seen, unless one goes back to his interchanges with Johnny Cash on the country giant’s TV show. They almost serve to contradict the wiseass attitude Dylan revealed to hostile mainstream reporters in D.A. Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back,” shot back in 1965. The MVD/Collector’s Forum label recently released a similarly inclusive three-disc package on Leonard Cohen, also titled “Triumvirate.”
 
Likewise, Frank Zappa: In His Own Words showcases the iconoclastic musician at his most casual and chatty. In interviews recorded in Scandinavia, England and Australia, he cuts the largely uninformed interviewers a lot of slack with responses that are informative and absent snark, impatience or cynicism. In one panel discussion, the only thing the talk-show host appears to be interested in learning is the role groupies play in the rock world. Duh. Others clearly wondered why all of his albums weren’t as funny or caustic as the early Mothers of Invention material. (I was reminded of Joni Mitchell’s observation, “Nobody ever said to Van Gogh, ‘Paint a Starry Night again, man!’ He painted it and that was it”) Frank really perks up whenever a reporter chooses to discuss his forays into classical music and the threat posed by then-Second Lady Tipper Gore and Parents Music Resource Center.
 
Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jorg Buttgereit: Blu-ray
 
Bride of Re-Animator: Limited Edition: Blu-ray
 
If a subgenre has been reserved for transgressive cinema, surely German filmmaker Jorg Buttgereit’s unparalleled work tops the rather short list of truly grotesque, unsettling and overtly anti-social titles only hard-core fans should be encouraged to watch before they die. Only those viewers who fully comprehend the risks to the brain of watching such provocations should attempt Cult Epics’ daring “Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jorg Buttgereit.” This carefully archived collection is comprised of his most noteworthy underground feature-length films: two versions of Nekromantik, Nekromantik 2, Der Todesking (“The Death King”) and Schramm, all in uncut and uncensored hi-def, as well as the documentary, “Corpse F*****g Art” and short films “Hot Love,” “A Moment of Silence at the Grave of Ed Gein,” “Horror Heaven,” “Bloody Excess in the Führer’s Bunker” and “My Father.” Add commentaries, making-of featurettes, separate soundtrack CD’s, a 40-page booklet containing interviews and photos with Buttgereit and collaborators, and trailers, and you’ve got the cinematic equivalent of a medieval slaughterhouse. Of special interest to collectors are Buttergreit’s music video, “Half Girl,” a live concert presentation of Nekromantik 2 and new art design by Silver Ferox. As transgressive as the films collected here may be, at least it’s clear there’s a mind at work behind them, which is more than one can say for Tom Six’s The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence).
 
And, while we’re on the subject, there’s Arrow Video’s Blu-ray upgrade of Bride of Re-Animator, the inevitable, if unnecessary sequel to Stuart Gordon’s horror/comedy,Re-Animator (1985). That cult classic was adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s “Herbert West, Re-Animator.” Its success helped open the floodgates to dozens of other films inspired by Lovecraft’s work. Not only is Gordon’s hand missing from the sequel, but so, too, are freshly conceived characters from the author’s canon. As producer of Re-Animator, Brian Yuzna (Society) was as logical a choice to replace Gordon as anyone. He was well aware of the need to create a solid balance of gory horror, inky black humor and T&A. The sequel is set eight months after the events of the original, with the nutso scientist Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) and his reluctant assistant Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) in Peru performing illegal experiments on soldiers killed in a civil war. (Did I miss something?) Once back in the U.S.A., West continues his experimentation on corpses stolen from the graveyard next-door and the heart ripped from Cain’s dying lover (Mary Sheldon). If the bright yellow serum is effective in re-animating corpses, it also has the unexpected consequence of turning them into ferociously aggressive zombies. The less time viewers spend scrutinizing the narrative, the longer they can savor the cagey humor in the interaction between mortician Dr. Graves (Mel Stewart) and the disembodied head of Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), as well as the creations of special-effects master Screaming Mad George. Arrow’s fully upgraded three-disc set contains 2K restorations of the unrated and R-rated versions of the film; original Stereo 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray), newly commissioned artwork, by Gary Pullin; a limited-edition booklet and packaging; fresh commentary with Brian Yuzna, alone, and alongside Combs, visual effects supervisor Tom Rainone and the effects team John Buechler, Mike Deak, Bob Kurtzman, Howard Berger and Screaming Mad George; another commentary track with Combs and Abbott; and featurettes “Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-Animator,” “Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-Animator” and “Getting Ahead in Horror”; and deleted scenes.
 
Village of the Damned: Blu-ray
 
Destroyer/Edge of Sanity: Blu-ray
 
In an interview conducted for the Blu-ray edition of his 1995 Village of the Damned, John Carpenter acknowledges that he agreed to remake Wolf Rilla’s sci-fi/horror classic, released in 1960, in return for the money necessary to put his stamp on Creature from the Black Lagoon. I don’t know what happened to that project or the money promised to him. (Wes Craven’s Swamp Thingprobably would have sated most horror fans’ appetite for such a thing.) One reason the original black-and-whiteVillage of the Damned was so scary is that it was among the first to suggest that a sinister force could control the destiny of children born to unsuspecting parents. Like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the children in Village of the Damned appear to have been engineered to conform to certain social and political norms, before growing up to become mindless communists, fascists or pawns of an intergalactic Caesar. The idea would be revisited in The Boys from Brazil (1978) and other movies about the cloned spawn of Adolf Hitler. Stranger things have happened, I suppose. How else to explain Ted Cruz? Besides adding color to the movie, Carpenter relocated the story to an isolated rural community in northern California and chose to tell it from the point of view of the women who were impregnated during the mysterious blackout period. Standing in the children’s way is Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve), whose own daughter is among the damned kids, and a scientist (Kirstie Alley) who stole the only stillborn baby from the mass maternity ward and is conducting experiments on it. Linda Kozlowski (Crocodile Dundee) plays the mother of a boy who might actually possess a conscience. The children are sufficiently scary and evil, but the addition of color tends to flatten the impact of their laser-beam eyes. So does our familiarity with the conceit and the absence of a convincing perpetrator of the mass pregnancy. That mostly applies to adult viewers and sci-fi buffs, however. Carpenter’s Village of the Damned is well enough made to scare first-timers. Special features include “It Takes A Village: The Making of ‘Village of the Damned’,” featuring interviews with Carpenter, producer Sandy King, actors Michael Pare, Peter Jason, Karen Kahn, Meredith Salenger, Thomas Dekker, Cody Dorkin, Lindsey Haun, Danielle Wiener-Keaton and make-up effects artist Greg Nicotero; “Horror’s Hallowed Grounds,” revisiting the locations of the film; “The Go-To Guy,” Peter Jason on John Carpenter; vintage interviews with Carpenter, Reeve, Alley, Kozlowski, Mark Hamill and Wolf Rilla; a stills gallery; and vintage behind-the-scenes footage. It would be Reeves’ final feature role, before being paralyzed in an equestrian accident involving a horse used in the film.
 
The common element in the Scream Factory double feature,Destroyer/Edge of Sanity is Anthony Perkins, who made the pictures back-to-back in 1988-89. While far from his prime as an actor – he would die a couple of years later from complications of AIDS – the 57-year-old star ofPsycho still was capable of raising goosebumps when the occasion arose.
 
In the women-behind-bars flick, Destroyer, Perkins’ replaced Roddy McDowall on short notice. He plays a director making an exploitation picture in a prison that, 18 months earlier, had been the site of a botched execution and terrible riot. The place is still haunted by the spirit of Moser (Lyle Alzado), a muscle-bound freak who defied death in the electric chair and is obsessed with the picture’s star, Deborah Foreman. (All of the female inmates wear stockings, a garter belt and heels.) While the picture is flimsy around the edges, Alzado’s menacing presence is enough to keep viewers from dozing off in mid-scene.
 
In Edge of Sanity, Perkins pulls double duty as the rational Dr. Henry Jekyll to the murderous Jack Hyde, who, after his alter ego freebases cocaine, might commit crimes historically attributed to Jack the Ripper. Jekyll’s sexual inadequacies cause him to take to the streets and brothels of London as Hyde. His gorgeous wife, Elizabeth (Glynis Barber), does charity work with the working girls of Whitechapel, some of whom have had near-misses with the monstrous Hyde, who she only knows as Henry. Gérard Kikoïne’s thriller benefits from some very convincing design work and cinematography, which recalls the heyday of Hammer Films.
 
Bannister: Everest on the Track
 
In 1952, when Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne, Britain pretty much defined what it meant to win the war, but lose the peace. Work was scarce and financing for ambitious projects, including the 1948 Olympics, was even tougher to secure. The empire had shrunk dramatically, while the U.S. and Soviet Union, vied for the title of world’s most dominant superpower. What the shrinking commonwealth desperately needed was something to stiffen its citizens’ upper lips. The first such event made headlines on the same day as the queen’s long-delayed coronation, when a British mountaineering team led by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay became the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest. A year later, medical student Roger Bannister would accomplish a feat many people also thought to be impossible. On May 6, 1954, at Iffley Road track in Oxford, he became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes. Given the number of climbers and runners who’ve done the same thing in the past 60-plus years, it would be easy to argue that both giant leaps for mankind were inevitable, thanks to modern training methods and advanced equipment. The same could be said about the first lunar mission. Tom Ratcliffe and Jeremy Mosher’s no-frills documentary, Bannister: Everest on the Track, does a nice job setting the stage for the worldwide acclaim and honors bestowed on Hillary and Bannister as soon as the news spread around the world. They use vintage interviews to capture the excitement and frustrations that accompanied Bannister’s mission. Unlike almost everyone else who would follow in his pin-spiked footprints, he was a student first and athlete second. He practiced when it didn’t interfere with his studies and even showed up for work on the day he would set the record. Bannister: Everest on the Track isn’t the kind of film that is likely to get any young athlete’s heart racing, but, in the run-up to the Summer Olympics, there are far less entertaining ways to kill 70 minutes,
 
Sisters: Season Four
 
The latest installments in executive producer Gerald Rafshoon’s series of made-for-TV bible epics are “Samson and Delilah” and “David,” which debuted here in the mid-1990s on Turner Network Television before moving into the ancillary markets and the Trinity network under various banners. The Shout! Factory editions are being released as “The Bible Stories.” Like most chapters in the Old Testament, they would appear to have been written in anticipation of God’s vision for Hollywood – Sodom & Gomorrah West – in mind. Checking in at or around three hours in length, they featured actors known to audiences around the world and behind-the-camera talent with experience on feature films. The timeless Moroccan locations added a palpable air of period authenticity, as well. What distinguishes Nicolas Roeg’s “Samson and Delilah” from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1949 Technicolor pageant – besides the unlikely pairing of Roeg and the Book of Judges – is the presence of Dennis Hopper, Elizabeth Hurley, Eric Thal, Michael Gambon and Diana Rigg in some of the same roles played by Victor Mature, Hedy Lamar, George Sanders, Henry Wilcoxon and a young and surprisingly hot Angela Lansbury. Although there are many discernible differences in the two movies, the basic framework is still visible. God imbues in Samson the supernatural strength necessary to battle the Philistines, who kept the Israelites under their collective thumb. After scoring several miraculous triumphs, Samson famously succumbs to forbidden pleasures of the flesh and loses his precious hair in the process. Lesson learned, Samson is allowed one more opportunity to serve God and punish the Philistines. If nothing else, Roeg (Walkabout) demonstrates that he’s still comfortable making movies about forbidden love in desert settings.
 
Robert Markowitz’ 1997 interpretation of the story of David faced competition that was even fresher in the minds of fans of bible epics. In addition to Henry King’s David and Bathsheba and, indirectly, King Vidor’s Solomon and Sheba, from the 1950s, there were Bruce Beresford’s 1985King David, starring Richard Gere and Alice Krige, and, a year later, the animated David and Goliath, with Robby Benson voicing the future king. At 190 minutes, David was accorded plenty of time to expand on the anointing of the shepherd boy (Nathaniel Parker) as future king of Israel by the prophet Samuel (Leonard Nimoy), through his slaying of Goliath, the tests presented by King Saul (Jonathan Pryce) and the seduction of Bathsheeba (Sheryl Lee), and on to the succession struggle with their sons. It’s a thrilling story, which continues to reverberate today in Jerusalem.
 
Not having watched a single episode of “Babylon 5,” I’d be one of the last people to judge anything related to its story or position in the hierarchy of episodic sci-fi shows. Based on what I’ve heard from people I respect, however, the series was admired by the kind of viewers who read things other than science-fiction and don’t aspire to being buried in a model of the bridge of the Enterprise. Although the ratings didn’t match those of the various “Star Trek” offshoots, its demographic appeal was sterling. In a sense, “Babylon 5” was the flagship of the ambitious, if short-lived Prime Time Entertainment Network, which only existed from 1993 to 1997. The show would be revived for a fifth and final season, beginning in 1998, by TNT. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski reportedly conceived of “Babylon 5”as, fundamentally, a five-year novel for television. “CNN Documents Babylon 5” offers diehard fans something unusual to the point of being unique. In anticipation of special news presentation, CNN producers were invited to the sets and stages used to create “Babylon 5” to conduct lengthy background interviews and collect footage to accompany the edited chats and clips. In any such report, hours of videotape might produce a mere10-15 minutes of footage, which will supplement a staff reporter’s narrative. The CNN package is comprised of five hours of vintage material: three hours of never-before-released video and two hours of bonus content. It is broken into five “encounters”: “Behind the Scenes,” “Behind the Scenes With Tour Guide Jason Davis,” “Complete Interviews,” “Complete Interviews With Video Footnotes” and “20 Years Later,” a picture-in-picture look back with Jerry Doyle and Claudia Christian.”
 
The third season compilation of “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Henry Gates Jr., continues to examine our nation’s fascinating ethnic mixture. The show employs traditional genealogical research and genetics to discover the family history of well-known Americans. The pairings include Donna Brazile, Ty Burrell and Kara Walker; Bill O’Reilly, Bill Maher and Soledad O’Brien; Shonda Rhimes, Maya Rudolph and Keenen Ivory Wayans; Bill Hader, Jimmy Kimmel and Norman Lear; Richard Branson, Frank Gehry and Maya Lin; Sean Combs and LL Cool J; Patricia Arquette, John McCain and Julianne Moore; Sandra Cisneros, Neil Patrick Harris and Gloria Steinem; Lidia Bastianich, Julianna Margulies and Azar Nafisi; and Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow.
 
In “Supplements & Safety,” PBS’ “Frontline” tackles the booming $30 billion industry built on vitamins and other dietary supplements. It’s estimated that half of all Americans take a health supplement every day, ranging from fish oil to multivitamins to diet pills. Some 85,000 supplements currently are on the market, which is largely unregulated and tests the limits of FDA regulators. The lack of proof in labelling has also become a hazard to consumers.
 
The early highlight of Season Four of NBC’s women-first drama, “Sisters,” is the addition of George Clooney as police detective James Falconer, who’s assigned to Cat’s (Heather McAdam) rape case and grows close to Teddy (Sela Ward). Jo Anderson (“Roswell”) also joins an already strong supporting cast as Dr. Charlotte ‘Charley’ Bennett. Otherwise, Season Four “Sisters” provides the same bewildering tangle of melodrama, drama, humor, tragedy and out-of-the-blue surprises as it did for six heart-tugging, gut-wrenching seasons.
 
PBS: Arlo Guthrie: Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Concert
NYPD Blue: Season 09
Power Rangers: Wild Force: The Complete Series
PBS Kids: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: Daniel Goes Camping
PBS Kids: Peg & Cat: Super Peg & Cat Guy
Among the landmark moments in the life of any true hippie’s life would have to be the first time they heard Arlo Guthrie’s recording of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” Upon the release of his 1967 album from which it was taken, the only thing most people knew about the bushy-haired musician was that his father was the great folk singer, songwriter and Okie raconteur Woody Guthrie, who succumbed to the ravages of Huntington’s disease the same month as the song was released. The rambling 18-minute song/monologue was based on a true incident from Arlo’s life, which began on Thanksgiving Day 1965 with a citation for littering, and ended with the refusal of the U.S. Army to draft him because of his conviction for that crime. The garbage that Guthrie was charged with dumping illegally at a closed dump, outside Great Barrington, Massachusetts, had been stored at a deconsecrated church being used as a home for two of his friends, Alice and Ray. For young people protesting the Vietnam War and other things that bothered them about their country, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” contrasted what was wonderful about the burgeoning counterculture and its adoption of a communal lifestyle, with the arrogance of moralistic cops and judges, the inherent hypocrisy of military conscription and frustration that comes with banging one’s head against the walls built to preserve mainstream conformity. Flash forward 50 years and the song is still being trotted out every Thanksgiving by FM classic-rock stations and PBS outlets in need of pledge-month entertainment. “Arlo Guthrie: Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Concert” demonstrates just how timeless a well-told story can be, even several decades after the counterculture imploded and restaurants, like Alice’s, were turned into IHOPs. Arlo still has a full head of hair, albeit gray, and his voice remains evocative of a bygone era, not only of the Summer of Love, but also a period of time when acoustic music reigned and topical lyrics broke through the sounds of silence. The disc adds 13 additional songs, ranging from the whimsical “Motorcycle Song” and “Coming Into Los Angeles,” to “City of New Orleans” and “This Land Is Your Land,” and a featurette on the Guthrie Center’s annual “Arlo Guthrie’s Historic Garbage Trail March.”
Like everything else in New York City that fall, the launch of the ninth season of “NYPD Blue” was overshadowed by the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It would take a few weeks before the writers could incorporate the tragedy into the storylines, but shadows of gloom and doom hung over the 15th Precinct for most of the early episodes. Once again, Sipowicz would have to adjust to the reality of a new partner in the field, John Clark Jr. (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), and another in his heart (Charlotte Ross). He also is accorded a promotion. Clark took over for Danny Sorenson’s character, who disappeared in a dangerous bust at the end of Season Eight. Turns out, Sipowicz has had run-ins in the past with Clark’s dad, who steer’s the young man’s career from above, whether or not he wants the help. The cast also includes Gordon Clapp, Henry Simmons, Bill Brochtrup, Garcelle Beauvais, Esai Morales and newcomer Jacqueline Obradors.
Power Rangers: Wild Force: The Complete Series is something of an oddity, in that it lasted all of a single season and its production was split between Saban Entertainment and Disney’s BVS Entertainment, which took over the franchise from Fox. For those keeping score at home, “Wild Force” officially represented the 10thseason in the “Power Rangers” series. (This season used footage from “Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger.”)  Episode 34, “Forever Red,” represented an anniversary commemoration with nearly every Red Ranger. To confuse things even further, Disney moved production to New Zealand, allowing it to lay off many crew members and all voice actors. Saban would repurchase the company in 2010 and move the show to Nickelodeon and Nicktoons. There’s more, but who really cares? The year’s episodes revolved around the Orgs returning to the floating island in the sky, the Animarium, which is all that remains of an ancient kingdom destroyed 3,000 years ago. The Power Rangers are summoned to Animarium, where they join forces with giant beasts, known as Wild Zords.
The latest DVD offerings from PBS Kids include “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: Daniel Goes Camping,” in which the feline star camps outdoors for the first time and experiences everything that makes nighttime special, from twinkling stars and playing with flashlights, to singing “Goodnight Sun.” The set includes “Backyard Camping,” “Daniel’s Sleepover” and an extended version of “Nighttime in the Neighborhood.” In “Peg & Cat: Super Peg & Cat Guy” the dynamic duo uses basic math and geometry concepts to protect the citizens of Mathtropolis.