Gary Dretzka « Movie City News
Murders in the Rue Morgue/The Dunwich Horror: Blu-ray
Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXXV
One of the things Hollywood-based reporters hear when assigned to write about movies that aren’t very good is that no one sets out to make a bad film. According to their stars and directors, the real stinkers were doomed from the start, wildly misunderstood or butchered by the suits. Actors rarely go into a project thinking they can phone in their performance from home. Directors, writers, cinematographers, grips and designers all hope to be congratulated by friends and relatives after the opening weekend. After the first round of budget cuts are announced, however, and pages begin to be ripped out of the working script, everyone begins to expect the worst. I only mention this because none of the genre specimens reviewed this week can be recommended for any other reason than being a guilty pleasure or for an individual performance or technical credit. I generally leave it up to the individual to decide whether a movie is “so bad it’s good.” These titles, I believe, are so bad that they almost defy description. Even so, the filmmakers and actors interviewed in the bonus features describe the movies we’ve just seen as being a lot better than they were, by any objective or critical standard. other than objectively inferior to most movies that have preceded it into the ancillary markets. It’s truly refreshing when a director comes clean as to how his dog picked up its fleas. In Hollywood, though, the truth isn’t a valued quality.
 
One definite tipoff to a picture’s distinct absence of quality is the number of titles its carried on its arduous journey to DVD/Blu-ray. Pigs was veteran character actor Marc Lawrence’s second and final foray into the business of making a feature film from behind the camera. Released briefly in 1972 as “The 13th Pig,” its working title was “Daddy’s Deadly Darling.” In Pig’s many re-edits and re-issues, it’s also been called “Blood Pen,” “Daddy’s Girl,” “Roadside Torture Chamber,” “The Secret of Lynn Hart,” “The Strange Love Exorcist” and “Horror Farm.” As far as anyone knows, the new Vinegar Syndrome DVD/Blu-ray represents the only time Lawrence’s vision has been realized intact. In it, Lawrence’s very attractive and amazingly buxom daughter, Toni, plays a young woman who one day shows up in a dusty speck on the map of California, where she takes a job at a restaurant owned by Zambrini (Lawrence), an elderly former circus performer who runs a small café and pig farm. Local legend has it that his pigs only eat human flesh and that in order to satisfy their growing appetites, Zambrini has begun to murder drifters. Coincidentally, his new waitress is an escapee from a mental facility and not at all averse to supporting her boss’ hobby. In fact, Lynn had killed her father after he raped her and now senses his abusive behavior is a condition shared by most men. Because it was made before the introduction of sophisticated special makeup effects and CGI, the titular stars of Pigs are limited to grunting before cinematographer Glenn Roland’s in-your-snout camera and terrorizing Lynn’s suitors by running through their legs. The pigs owned by the Chinese butcher in “Deadwood” were far more convincing, as was the wild boar in Razorback and the masks worn by the killers in Motel Hell, Saw and Berkshire County. Several movies have been inspired by Canada’s most prolific serial killer, pig farmer Robert Pickton. As bad as it is, VS has sent Pigs out in Blu-ray with a new 2K restoration from the 35mm Interpositive; featurettes with Toni Lawrence, also noteworthy for being Billy Bob Thornton’s second wife, composer Charles Bernstein (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Cujo) and Roland (Ilsa She Wolf of the S.S.); two alternate openings and alternate ending; and a gallery.
 
Anyone familiar with the work of sleazoid New Jersey auteur Bill Zebub already will have a pretty good idea what to expect when picking up his latest micro-budget extravaganza, Dickshark. Based on the jacket notes, we already know it will combine elements of creature horror, sci-fi experimentation and bargain-basement porn in the service of a story that satirizes the cottage industry of performance-enhancing ointments and other quackery pitched in late-night infomercials and pop-up ads on porn sites. The only thing open to question is the degree of depravity Zebub will achieve. Dickshark opens with a poorly endowed man borrowing what he believes to be his roommate’s penis-enlargement cream. In fact, the substance is the penile equivalent of Victor Frankenstein’s monster. The misinformed Romeo now is able to mold his unit into the shape of a small shark, which comes as bad news to his girlfriend. After shooting the dickshark off the body of her lover, she makes the tactical mistake of flushing it down the toilet. Its ability to survive the toxicity of the sewer water also allows it to grow larger and develop a penis-like appendage at the tip of its fin. When he isn’t busy fondling bimbos in the forest, the slovenly scientist must find a way to stop his monster while also preventing his experimental formula from falling into the wrong hands. If this doesn’t sound very promising, consider that Dickshark is only slightly less convincing than the many half-baked sequels to Jaws. I’m not a connoisseur of death-metal music, but Zebub finds a way to make it work for him here.
 
When it comes to genre parodies, timing is everything. In his American debut, promising Aussie filmmaker Geoffrey Wright (Romper Stomper) came up a month short to Keenen Ivory Wayans’ Scary Movie, a spoof of the already tongue-in-cheek Scream series. Cherry Falls not only was intended as a subtle sendup of the teens-in-jeopardy genre, but David Lynch’s nearly bulletproof “Twin Falls.” The central conceit in Ken Selden’s screenplay is that the killer is targeting virgins, instead going after the promiscuous teens usually slaughtered in the opening minutes of a slasher picture. It takes a while for the local sheriff (Michael Biehn) to figure out why the fiend is carving a “V” into the corpses of the victims and, when he does, he’s left with a dilemma. If the only way to avoid being killed is to be promiscuous, he’ll be put in the precarious position with their parents of promoting such behavior. Having gotten wind of the sheriff’s news, the students at Cherry Hills High don’t wait for permission to organize a potentially life-saving orgy. To prevent the mass deflowering and stop the killer, Sheriff Brent will have to revisit an episode in his distant past that might have prompted the crimes. The problem is that Cherry Falls is basically a two-gag comedy and, when the fun is wrung out of them, there’s nothing left to keep us interested. Wright probably could have salvaged something by making the comedy darker and the orgy a lot raunchier. The studio, by now probably eying a straight-to-TV release, decided to tighten the reins on him, instead. Apart from very decent performances by the eternally youthful Brittany Murphy and transitioning standup comic, Jay Mohr, there isn’t much else here to savor. The unfortunate backstory is explained in audio commentary with Wright and extended interviews with writer and co-executive producer Selden and producer Marshall Persinger and co-star Amanda Anka. Vintage interviews with Murphy, Biehn, Mohr and Wright, behind-the-scenes footage and the original script, via BD-Rom, also are included on the Blu-ray.
 
The new Scream Factory double-feature opens with Murders in the Rue Morgue, a truly unfortunate mashup of the Edgar Allan Poe story and The Phantom of the Opera. Director Gordon Hessler didn’t think he could wring any more excitement from what many people consider to be the first modern detective story, so he added an unconvincing psychosexual angle that might have been more interesting if it weren’t so tame. Although the period look isn’t bad, Jason Robards Jr. seems ridiculously out of place as the director of a Grand Guignol-type theater, where the players have suddenly become real-life victims. Victor Lom plays the disfigured actor, who no one considers to be the culprit because he’s believed to be long dead and buried. Adolfo Celi plays Inspector Vidocq, whose detecting skills are subordinate to the silly stuff happening in and around the theater. Michael Dunn and Lilli Palmer fare better in supporting roles. The Dunwich Horror was co-adapted from a short story by H.P. Lovecraft by future Academy Award winner Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential). Its primary claim to fame is a cast that includes Sandra Dee, Dean Stockwell, Ed Begley Sr., Talia Shire and Sam Jaffe and music by       Les Baxter. Otherwise, the story feels like a Druid take on Rosemary’s Baby. Dee plays the college girl who falls in love with the last descendant of a race of strange creatures that once inhabited the Earth. In an attempt to use her as a sacrifice in an unholy rite that will bring his people back to life, the young man comes face to face with a university professor whose knowledge of the occult is more than a match. The Blu-ray package adds commentaries with author and film historian Steve Haberman and the featurette, “Stage Tricks & Screen Frights.”
 
Normally, the “MST3K” compilations offer a movie or two that transcends its cornball reputation and offers something truly noteworthy to savor. Not so, with “Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXXV,” which inadvertently tests the aforementioned theory that no one sets out to make a bad movie. Take Teenage Cave Man … please. This film was shot under Roger Corman’s quick-and-dirty direction under the title “Prehistoric World.” American International Pictures changed the title to Teenage Cave Man to exploit the popularity of its own I Was a Teenage Werewolf, which made a small fortune for the company, prompting calls for an instant sequel. Hence, Teenage Cave Man, starring 25-year-old rising star Robert Vaughn, as the rebellious son of the clan’s Symbol Maker. After the dust clears from battles with dinosaurs, wild dogs and other monsters borrowed from previous AIP releases, screenwriter R. Wright Campbell delivered a surprisingly good ending, which presaged Planet of the Apes. In 1982, Corman’s New World Pictures would put its fingerprints on another future MST3K classic, Being From Another Planet (a.k.a., “Time Walker”). In it, professor Douglas McCadden (Ben Murphy) is exploring the tomb of King Tutankhamun when an earthquake causes a wall in the tomb to collapse, revealing a hidden chamber. Inside, McCadden discovers what he believes to be a mummy in a sarcophagus. After bringing it to his lab in California, the mummy reveals itself to be an extraterrestrial alien in suspended animation, wrapped up and covered with a dormant green fungus. Chaos ensues. Corman’s video production and distribution interest, Concorde Pictures, was responsible for Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell, a 1988 sword-and-sorcery fantasy and the third film in the “Deathstalker” tetralogy. It anticipated the cosplay phenomenon by two decades. The fourth entry in the “MST3K” compilation, 12 to the Moon, is a 1960 science-fiction film depicting a moon landing by an international crew. As laughable as it is, David Bradley’s picture deserves kudos for anticipating President John F. Kennedy’s commitment to “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” by the end of the 1960s. Moreover, it foresaw the International Space Station, which didn’t launch into orbit until 1998. Even as prehistoric sci-fi goes, however, it’s pretty lame, which is to say, perfect for Joel, Mike and their robot compadres Crow and Tom to satirize.
 
A Poem Is a Naked Person: Criterion Collection: Blu-ray
Rhythm ‘n’ Bayous : A Road Map to Louisiana Music
Today, with his long white hair and beard, Leon Russell more closely resembles a relic from a bygone age of rock ’n’ roll than a living legend still capable of raising hell on stage and in concert. Even before he helped Joe Cocker organize the 1970 Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour with, Don Preston, Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear, Carl Radle, Jim Price, Jim Horn, Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon and Chris Stainton – a who’s who of eminent sidemen and background singers – was known far and wide for his contributions to the recordings of rock’s biggest stars. The tour, along with several successful hit songs of his own creation, turned him into a marquee attraction in his own right. Deep down, however, Russell never stopped being a good ol’ boy from Tulsa, albeit one who looked like a character out of the Old Testament. In 1972, Russell and his British production partner Denny Cordell hired Les Blank – based on his 1968 film, The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins – to make a documentary set largely at his recording studio on Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees, in northeastern Oklahoma. It also would include footage from concerts, rehearsals, recording and interview sessions. That was the intention, anyway. After Blank moved into a cabin at the onetime fishing camp, complete with a first-rate Moviola editing machine, the project evolved into something very different. The result, A Poem Is a Naked Person, is as much Blank as it was supposed to about Russell. That’s because, while Russell was out of town, Blank was left alone to record things he believed made Russell what he became. They included interpretive images of the lake, woods, sunsets, hippies, artists and eccentric characters who lived between the lake and Tulsa. That the finished product clashed with Russell and Cordell’s idea of A Poem Is a Naked Person should be is an understatement. They hated it and, because they financed it, held it from general release for 40 years. Blank’s son, Harrod, would resurrect the project, with Russell’s tacit approval, shortly before his father’s death in 2013, securing clearances for the music and returning it to tip-top shape. Last March, a restored version of the documentary was screened publicly at the South by Southwest Film Festival, with Russell in attendance. It’s pretty easy to see why he wouldn’t have been thrilled with the finished product, as a lot of it bears a closer resemblance to a hillbilly freak show than and a rock-doc. It can be appreciated today, however, if for no other reason than it represents a missing chapter in Blank’s catalogue of bizarro Americana. The sparkling Criterion Collection edition adds a conversation between Harrod Blank and Russell; excerpts from an interview with Les Blank; a new making-of documentary; a short film by Blank’s creative assistant, “Out in the Woods,” Maureen Gosling; and an essay by Kent Jones.
 
Although Robert Mugge’s films are far less eccentric than those on Blank’s repertoire, they’re no less musically eclectic. The self-described ethnomusicologist has ridden along the same roads as Blank and partaken in the same ethnic and regional cuisine. Mugge’s camera is far less subjective, however absent the trademark idiosyncrasies and freak-show impulses. Like Blank, Mugge has repeatedly been drawn back to Louisiana, if not specifically for the food, then the great regional music. Rhythm ‘n’ Bayous: A Road Map to Louisiana Music is one of several recent explorations of the state’s musical heritage and current stars. What originally was intended to be a film about a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bus tour through New Orleans and southwestern Louisiana grew into a slightly broader appreciation of foot-stomping music, including Cajun, Creole, country, gospel, roots-rock, R&B, zydeco and “swamp pop.” The musicians to whom we’re introduced aren’t household names outside their own communities. The most familiar among them are old-timers, Dale Hawkins, who performs his 1957 single “Susie Q”; Claude King, doing his 1962 hit “Wolverton Mountain”; the duo, Dale and Grace, reprise their 1963 swamp- pop chart topper, “I’m Leaving It Up to You”; and Frankie Ford, best known for his 1959 hit, “Sea Cruise,” performs the A-side number, “Roberta.” (Ford died last September, at 76, in Gretna.) The younger and less known musicians are every bit as entertaining.
 
Sam Klemke’s Time Machine
I don’t know if Denver native Sam Klemke is the first person to have begun chronicling his life on the Internet, but, by the time YouTube got rolling, in the mid-aughts, already had 30 years’ worth of material to share with international geekdom. A caricature artist by profession, Klemke decided at 17 to begin recording annual updates on his life, using newly affordable and lightweight video technology. At the time, he was a reasonably handsome young man, bearded, but not one who would stand out from a crowd at a rock concert. As time went by, however, Klemke practically wrote the book on what it meant to be someone so obsessed with the Internet that everything, including his physical appearance, become subordinate to what’s happening there. It isn’t a pretty picture. Obese and disheveled, he barely makes an effort to avoid an early grave. Klemke isn’t a recluse, precisely, but he might as well be, because normal life held so far options for him. Somehow, he managed to find a like-minded girlfriend, who, eventually, would go to seed, too, but his friends were Web-based. Then, in 2011, Klemke (Shut Up Little Man!) decided to edit his videos into a reverse-aging clip, which went viral and resulted in Australian filmmaker Matthew Bate contacting him to make Sam Klemke’s Time Machine. It compares the subject’s ongoing self-portraiture to the 1977 NASA Voyager mission, which carried Carl Sagan’s golden recording of life on Earth to deep space. It’s a pretty neat conceit, especially considering the unappealing portrait of the protagonist.
 
Killing Them Safely
Anyone who’s watched more than a few episodes of “Cops” has seen how TASERs are supposed to work, when employed by police officers who’ve been trained how not to abuse the so-called non-lethal law-enforcement tool. Bad boys and even worse men, almost exclusively, are the targets of the electrical barbs shot by police, who, otherwise, might have considered using bullets or siccing police dogs on them. It looks safe enough, both for the offenders and cops, although it’s unlikely the producers would televise the death – or savage beating, for that matter – of an offender. As a corrective, first-time documentarian Nick Berardini offers Killing Them Safely (a.k.a., “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”), which argues that the rush to find a non-lethal alternative to lethal force helped create a different sort of monster. It turns out that stun guns can kill people, too, and some of them are only guilty of having rage issues. Berardini stacks the deck by introducing the power of the device with footage of a buffalo being stung and re-stung with electric charges in what amounts to a macabre dance. The point is that early stun guns could topple a large beast, even though the charges were far less powerful than the ones used today to incapacitate humans. Hideous, but, so far, no smoking gun. It isn’t until we watch a few of the hundreds of people who’ve suffered fatal heart attacks after being zapped multiple times. Berardini also wants us question the ethics of the company, TASER International, created by brothers Rick and Tom Smith, that’s profited mightily from the demand for non-lethal technology by police and the public. The Smiths may not be the most charismatic corporate spokesmen on the planet, but neither do they seem particularly evil. They don’t appear to have cooked the books to misrepresent the dangers inherent in the use of their product or market their products to children or demonstrably crazy people, as is the case with gun manufacturers. The interviews and data are fairly presented and balanced. Neither do they encourage police to zap suspects multiple times, when one might do. Some police officials are as concerned with the findings – and lawsuits – as any of us should be and no longer allow officers to use them. It’s possible that the only proven solution to charges of police brutality and misuse of tactical equipment is to equip all units with camera crews, so that arrests and chases can be chronicled for posterity. Hey, it works on TV.
 
Infrasexum
Blue Ice: Blu-ray
Newly upgraded to Blu-ray by the folks at Severin Films, the 1978 Aussie sexploitation romp, Felicity, plays like a dirty old man’s fantasy about what a 17-year-old girl fantasizes about before coming of age sexually. Fresh-faced Canadian Glory Annen looks every inch the obsessively horny convent-school student, who, in her free time, peruses the source novels of the films Emmanuelle and The Story of O. She’s proud of her still-developing body and doesn’t care who knows it. If that isn’t a textbook example of a male fantasy, I don’t know what is. She’s given the opportunity to live out her fantasies when she receives an invitation to visit a relative in Hong Kong. And, boy, does Felicity make up for lost time. Naturally, the nudity and sex scenes are handled with all the delicacy due a seriously soft-core Emmanuelle imitator. Writer/director John D. Lamond makes great use of his Hong Kong locations, which range from hilltop mansions to floating brothels, teeming markets to world-class restaurants. Besides Emmanuelle, Lamond says he was heavily influenced by The World of Suzie Wong. As these things go, Felicity is professionally made and rarely dull. The Blu-ray adds Lamont’s two previous Ozploitation flicks, The ABCs of Love & Sex … Australia Style and Australia After Dark, accompanied by commentaries on all three films; outtakes from the Not Quite Hollywood documentary; a fresh interview with Annen; and a John Lamond trailer reel.
 
It’s always fun to discover the first film made by a soon-to-emerge director or actor. Typically, they reveal at least a spark of talent, upon which a career can be built. Either that or an ability to turn in a reasonably coherent film on time and under budget. That, at least, was the Corman model. Three years before the commercial success of Deep Throat challenged creators of feature-length porn to incorporate recognizable narratives in their peep-show-ready sex scenes writer/director Carlos Tobalina introduced himself with Infrasexum, a sleazy affair Vinegar Syndrome deems worthy of being restored in 2K from a 35mm camera negative. Tobalina would go on to make nearly 50 more films, in a career that spanned 20 of the genre’s more productive years. With the possible exception of the 1975 sexploitation romp, Marilyn and the Senator, few of Tobalina’s pictures have stood the test of time and that’s only because he used exterior shots of the Watergate Hotel. Infrasexum represents a time in porn history before cameramen figured out how to make sex look interesting on camera and producers recruited hippie checks to make good on their dedication to the sexual revolution. Here, a middle-aged businessman, Errof Lynn (Brad Grinter), is sexually constipated and, on his doctor’s advice, leaves home to find relief. His path takes him to post-Rat Pack Las Vegas and post-Summer of Love California. I can only imagine how little the poor flower children were paid to have sex on camera with the impotent old fart. Beyond that, the story is nearly incoherent. Still. Tobalina scores points for trying, anyway.
 
Flash forward 17 years and things have improved immeasurably, in front and behind the XXX-rated camera. Blue Ice has a plot, passable production values and an all-star cast male stars. The women are less familiar, but professional. Herschel Savage plays hard-boiled San Francisco private eye Ted Singer, who has been hired by an eccentric high-roller (Jamie Gillis) to find an ancient and mysterious book that has the power to grant anyone who can open it the gift of eternal life and power. Also hot on the trail is a group of unrepentant Nazis, who believe that the book contains the formula for sexual bliss. Phillip Marshak’s effects-laden sci-fi “thriller” also features Jacqueline Lorians, Shanna McCullough, Paul Thomas, Ron Jeremy and character actor Reggie Nalder (The Man Who Knew Too Much). VS presents Blue Ice on Blu-ray and DVD in a new 2K restoration from its original 35mm camera negative. It adds an audio commentary track with Savage and co-star William Margold.
 
Stories of the Baal Shem Tov
Los Angeles-based animator Tawd B. Dorenfeld uses stop-motion techniques to illustrate the tales of handed down by Yisroel ben Eliezer, widely known as the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name), the 18th Century scholar, mystic and holy man who’s credited with founding the Hasidic movement. The Baal Shem Tov left the dissemination of his teachings to his disciples, who passed them along in the oral tradition or in print. According to the Holy World Productions’ mission statement, “Baal Shem Tov was renowned for his love of simple people and their honest pure ways of serving God.” That’s been translated into a series of short animated films – collected in the 80-minute anthology, Stories of the Baal Shem Tov – that are embedded in Jewish tradition and lore. “We visit poor Jewish families, who find hope in their spirituality … not because of their religious acts, but because of their human kindness.” Even if the hand-crafted stop-motion characters will appeal most to younger viewers, parents and grandparents should stick around to add their own impressions and interpretations. The universal messages needn’t be limited to strictly Jewish or Hasidic audiences, either. Mayim Bialik, Roseanne Barr and Du Du Fisher are featured in the voicing cast.
 
Death Valley Days: The Complete First Season: Collector’s Edition
PBS: Frontline: Netanyahu at War
PBS: American Experience: The Perfect Crime
PBS: Nature: Moose: Life of a Twig Eater
PBS Kids: Kate & Mim-Mim: Flight of the Flowers
The Nanny: The Final Season
CPO Sharkey: The Best of Season Two
Before Death Valley was accorded national park status, in 1994, and expanded to include Saline and Eureka Valleys, it’s likely that most American tourists were made aware of its unique properties and history through the long-running radio and television anthology series, “Death Valley Days.” Most of the episodes focused on the notoriously harsh environment and stamina of the pioneers who attempted to cross through it, mine its riches or make it home. The continuing sponsor was 20 Mule Team Borax, a cleaning product manufactured from boron mined in Death Valley. The ore was transported from the valley floor by team of mules pictured on the box of soap. The radio program was created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman and broadcast until 1945. From 1952 to 1975, “Death Valley Days” was produced as a syndicated television series. The hosts for the 532 episodes, repeats of which were syndicated under different titles, included Stanley “The Old Ranger” Andrews, Dale Robertson, Will Rogers Jr., Ray Milland, Rory Calhoun, John Payne and, finally, Ronald Reagan. Shout! Factory’s nicely scrubbed and polished DVD collection, “Death Valley Days: The Complete First Season,” features all 18 episodes in a three-disc set. We’re told that the straight-forward narratives are based on true events. Because the entire series was shot on location on black-and-white film, the unique scenic beauty of the park wasn’t readily apparent. The only things tourists knew to expect was the potentially deadly heat and lack of rain. What they didn’t know was that the extreme heat was only a factor for four months of the year and that, in winter, the even infrequent rainfall could produce blooms of normally dormant desert flowers. Visitors to Death Valley today can find many weathered remnants of the days represented in the series. In terms of storytelling, the first year’s episodes of “Death Valley Days” could have been repurposed from original radio scripts. Even so, they’re fun to watch, if only to see the occasional acting star of the past or future.
 
Anyone concerned about the situation in Mideast and our increasingly tense relationship with Israel should take a look at the “Frontline” presentation, “Netanyahu at War.” Historically, the U.S. has been a staunch supporter of the whatever government is in power in the Jewish state, over the last 65 years. The program uses Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s personal background to demonstrate how his hardline policies have impacted his relationship with President Obama, who has shown more of an open mind toward Arab concerns than previous presidents. Our recent negotiations with Iran over its nuclear stance and Netanyahu’s decision to back Republican congressional candidates are closely studied, as well. The results make for depressing, if necessary viewing, especially in an election year in which none of the candidates can be trusted to tell the truth about their intentions for the Middle East.
 
PBS’ “American Experience” presentation “The Perfect Crime” chronicles tells the shocking story of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, wealthy University of Chicago students, who amused themselves one day in 1924 by abducting and killing 14-year-old Bobby Franks, ostensibly to see if they could get away with it. They didn’t. At issue in the trial wasn’t their guilt or innocence, but whether defense attorney Clarence Darrow could convince the judge to spare them a date with the electric chair. It’s an amazing story, even if it only represented the third so-called trial of the century. (There would be more, of course.)
 
The most distressing news disseminated in the “Nature” presentation, “Moose: Life of a Twig Eater,” is the populations across many parts of North America is in steep decline and it has almost nothing to do with trophy hunters. The intimate nature documentary, filmed over 13 months in the spectacular wilds of Canada’s Jasper National Park, follows the birthing cycle and weighs alternative explanations for the drop in population.
 
From PBS Kids comes the pre-school favorite, “Kate & Mim-Mim: Flight of the Flowers,” which helps youngsters navigate some of the more difficult challenges facing them. They include Kate’s riding her bike for the first time without training wheels and Mimiloo’s efforts to learn to fly giant wind flowers.
 
Finally married, Fran and Maxwell Sheffield have all of Season Six to savor bliss of the marital variety. Alas, the first thing they experience together is being stranded on a deserted island, after falling off of the yacht carrying them to their honeymoon destination. Expect plenty more turmoil and excitement in “The Nanny: The Final Season,” not the least of which is a tenuous date with the stork for Fran and new opportunities for producer Maxwell, 3,000 miles away from New York, in La-La Land.
 
“CPO Sharkey: The Best of Season Two” is strictly for those who haven’t already purchased “The Ultimate Don Rickles” set, which includes both seasons of the sitcom, or a la carte editions of the first and second seasons. This release features six episodes, supposedly “selected by Mr. Warmth himself”: “The New Captain,” “Sharkey Flies Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Close Encounters of the Worst Kind,” “Captain’s Right Hand Man,” “Fear of Flying” and “The Used-Car Caper.”
 
 
Stealing Cars
Billy Wyatt (Emory Cohen) is a young man with tremendous promise, but a troubled past leads him to the Bernville Camp for Boys. Billy must navigate his way through dangerous inmates and a cruel and punishing staff, but during it all, he learns to inspire others and find out the truth about himself in the process. STEALING CARS is a compelling drama with powerful performances by Emory Cohen, John Leguizamo, Mike Epps and Academy Award nominees William H. Macy – Best Supporting Actor, FARGO, 1996 and Felicity Huffman – Best Actress, TRANSAMERICA, 2005.
 
Dixieland
Featuring explosive chemistry between rising stars Chris Zylka (The Leftovers) and Riley Keough (Mad Max: Fury Road) and impressive supporting performances from music legends Faith Hill and Steve Earle, Dixieland is an intoxicating portrait of life and love on the margins. Fresh out of prison, Kermit (Zylka), a mostly good kid mixed up with local drug dealers, returns home to his rural Mississippi trailer park. As he struggles to keep his nose clean, he falls for Rachel (Keough), his sultry neighbor who s turned to dancing in a club to support her sick mother. Determined to overcome their inauspicious circumstances, the star-crossed lovers make a desperate, last-ditch effort to escape their dead-end town but soon find themselves ensnared in a cycle of crime.
 
The Great Hypnotist
Xu Ruining (Xu Zheng), a nationally renowned therapist incredibly skilled in hypnotherapy. But when his career takes off, he meets a patient named Ren Xiaoyan (Karen Mok) who brings him a complex problem. Xu Ruining discovers that with this particular case, the struggle between the doctor and the patient is not as easy as he expected. Despite her thin and weak appearance, Ren Xiaoyan always reacts violently to any problems with Xu Ruining. He wonders what exactly makes her closed-off to everyone. Is it from a painful memory in her childhood or the ring mark still visible on her middle finger? While sparing no efforts to figure out what has happened, he finds himself falling into a horrible trap…
 
#Horror [Blu-ray]
You’ve got followers… Cyberbullying goes offline during one deadly night. Inspired by a shocking true story, #Horror follows a group of preteen girls living in a suburban world of money and privilege. But when their obsession with a disturbing online game goes too far, virtual terror becomes all too real. Chloe Sevigny leads an ensemble cast that includes Natasha Lyonne, Taryn Manning, and Timothy Hutton in Tara Subkoff’s directorial debut.
 
The Hallow [Blu-ray]
A family moves to a remote house in rural Ireland and finds themselves in a fight for survival with an ancient evil living in the secluded woods.
Special Features Include:
-Audio commentary with director Corin Hardy
-“Surviving the Fairytale: The Making of “The Hallow””
-Behind-the-Scenes: “The Story”
-“The Book of Invasions” original illustrations gallery
-Creature concepts gallery
 
Tumbledown [Blu-ray]
Pop culture scholar Andrew (Jason Sudeikis) comes to Maine to interview Hannah (Rebecca Hall), the protective widow of an acclaimed singer. When the unlikely pair strike a deal to co-write a biography, Andrew finds himself clashing with a cast of locals, including Hannah s hunky suitor (Joe Manganiello), and her loving but defensive parents (Blythe Danner, Richard Masur). When Hannah and Andrew’s stormy partnership blossoms into an unexpected connection, they face the possibility that the next chapter in their lives may involve each other. Dianna Aragon and Griffin Dunne costar in this startlingly funny and sweetly romantic tale of moving on and finding love in the unlikeliest of places.
 
Dreams Rewired’
Tilda Swinton’s hypnotic voiceover and a treasure trove of rare archival footage culled from hundreds of films from the 1880s through the 1930s much of it previously unseen combine to trace the anxieties of today’s hyper-connected world back a hundred years.Review
This film essay features an intricately, crafted voice-over by Tilda Swinton, melding together historic fact and contemporary theories. –Screen International
4 Stars! A marvelous essay film [that] leaves you fantasizing about what things there are to come. –Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian
Explores the history and ongoing narratives and idealizations that new advents in technology brought, like end to global crisis, less barriers to the outside world, as well as the end of privacy and security. –Aimee Murillo, Orange County Weekly
 
Mutual Friends
Liv is throwing a surprise birthday party for her too-perfect-to-be-true new fiancé, Christoph. And, the party must be flawless so all their friends will know how excited Liv is to be his wife. An amazing party might also help Liv atone for sleeping with her best friend Nate on the night of her engagement. Which meant nothing. Nate is averse to commitments, so he should just add Liv to his long list of women. And he usually could. But, as party time approaches, Nate begins to question his no-strings mantra and decides to make a full court press for Liv’s affections. As Liv is busy party planning and resisting Nate’s awkward advances, the rest of their friends head on a collision course through New York City. Prim, proper and newly pregnant Beatrice wants someone to admire her cabinets, while her husband, Paul is freaked out by the baby news. Paul admires Nate’s unattached ways and urges his buddy towards Ms. Sexy Hot Boss. Paul may not be able to take advantage of her charms, but he’s excited to know that Nate can. It may be torched Earth for Paul, but Nate still has a world of women to conquer. Across town, Liv’s older brother, the non-communicative Sammy, takes his stoner assistant to stakeout Sammy’s cheating wife. Where the fault lies in the break up of Sammy’s marriage may be unclear, but ignoring the problem, as Sammy tends to do, is not the answer. Meanwhile, drop-out brother Thomas has hired a stripper instead of a bartender and bought piñatas and disco balls to spice up Liv’s stuffy soiree. To make matters worse, Christoph’s ex, Annie, just showed up to win back her man or to punch him in the face. And, the party is just getting started–with or without the cock cake. When this tangled web of friends finally gathers, some people get lucky, some get even, and some go home in tears.
 
Deceived
Alejandro returns to his home in Puerto Rico, to help his sister Magdalena get her life together. Only to find out from an old acquaintance, Detective Garcia, that Magdalena has gone missing. Led to a bar in old San Juan, he discovers that not only was Magdalena working as an exotic dancer, but she was dating a drug dealing surfer, Laz. Here Alejandro tries to piece together the events that led to her disappearance and struggles to wrap his head around the interconnected nature of all the characters. Upon discovering that the bar manager, Michael, has a dark history and a millionaire philanthropist, Roman, is not just here to build an orphanage, Alejandro starts to realize that not everything is as it seems
 
Rows
is a horror/ fantasy/ thriller inspired by Grimm’s tales. ROSE works for her father, MARK, who turns cornfields into subdivisions. Rose must deliver eviction papers to HAVILAND, a squatter in a condemned farmhouse. Haviland is an evil enchantress– she puts Rose under a spell. Rose’s friend, GRETA, will also come under Haviland’s powers. They become lost in a seemingly infinite cornfield and must repeat a series of surreal or terrifying events in order to solve the mystery and break the spell. Rose and Greta (seemingly) murder Haviland, drag her into a cornfield, and bury her. But they cannot find their way out. Rose finds a portal, escapes and runs home. Inexplicably, Rose finds Greta waiting for her there. Events seem to repeat, but with shocking variations. When Rose and Greta return to the farmhouse, Haviland impales Rose with a knife. Greta and JACK (pawn of Haviland) drag Rose through the cornfield and throw her into the grave. The enchantment warps the laws of time and nature; Rose finds herself resurrected. She learns through a changeling that if the house dies, Haviland dies. Rose must fight back against Haviland and save her Father. The cycle repeats. This time however, Rose disrupts Haviland’s spell by “murdering” Jack. Rose attempts to set the farmhouse afire. Greta leads Rose underneath the farmhouse to a weird circular room. Rose’s father is drawn into the mystery, and Rose’s relationship with him is tested. A series of shocking reversals leads to a haunting climax: Rose finds her catatonic father. Greta, as Haviland’s mouthpiece, tells Rose that she must plunge the knife through her father’s chest, in order to break the spell. It won’t really kill him. Rose can’t make herself do it. In the end, Mark and Rose succumb to the Haviland’s powers. Rose will live as caretaker to the farmhouse, and Haviland, forever.
 
That Uncertain Feeling
Beautiful but neglected housewife Jill Baker visits a psychologist for treatment of her psychosomatic hiccups. There she meets neurotic pianist Alexander Sebastian and sparks fly. While boring insurance salesman Larry Baker ignores his wife, Sebastian is soon squiring her around town to art galleries, concerts and romantic lunches. When Jill requests a divorce, Larry reluctantly consents. She sets up housekeeping with Sebastian and learns that the grass that seemed so much greener, may be full of weeds.
After her performance as Lady Marguerite Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), gorgeous Merle Oberon headed for Hollywood and stardom. Some of her standout performances included The Dark Angel (1935), The Divorce Of Lady X (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939) and Desiree (1954). One of Hollywood’s greatest actors, Melvyn Douglas took home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1963 for his role in Hud and added a second Oscar in 1979 for his role in Being There. The excellent cast of That Uncertain Feeling includes Eve Arden, Alan Mowbray as the psychiatrist and a hilarious turn by Burgess Meredith as the wacky artist. Brilliant director Ernst Lubitsch was known for his witty and sophisticated handling of adult themes often referred to as the “Lubitsch Touch.” He is best remembered for his classics Ninotchka (1939), To Be Or Not To Be (1942) and Heaven Can Wait (1943).
 
Death Walks Twice: Two Films by Luciano Ercoli: Blu-ray
Emerging at the peak of the giallo boom of the early 70s, Luciano Ercoli s Death Walks films are two superlative examples of the genre linked by their shared casting of the stunning Nieves Navarro (billed under her adopted stage name of Susan Scott) as the lead woman in peril.finds herself terrorised by a black-clad assailant determined on procuring her father s stolen gems. Fleeing Paris and her knife-wielding pursuer, Nicole arrives in London only to discover that death stalks her at every corner.
Returning in Death Walks at Midnight (1972), Navarro stars as Valentina a model who, in the midst of a drug-fuelled photoshoot, witnesses a brutal murder in the apartment opposite hers. But when it becomes clear that the savage slaying she describes relates to a crime that took place six months earlier, the police are at a loss – forcing Valentina to solve the mystery alone.
Offering up all the glamour, perversity and narrative twists and turns that are typical of the giallo genre at its best, Luciano Ercoli s Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight anticipate the super-stylized trappings of Brian De Palma s early psycho thrillers (most notably, Dressed to Kill).
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Limited Edition boxed-set (3000 copies) containing Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight
Brand new 2K restorations of the films from the original camera negatives
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
Original Italian and English soundtracks in mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
Limited Edition 60-page booklet containing new writing from authors Danny Shipka (Perverse Titillation: The Exploitation Cinema of Italy, Spain and France), Troy Howarth (So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films) and writer Leonard Jacobs, illustrated with original archive stills and posters
DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS
Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas
Introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
Newly-edited archive interview with director Luciano Ercoli and actress Nieves Navarro
Master of Giallo brand new interview in which Gastaldi discusses Death Walks on High Heels and offers up his thoughts as to what constitutes a good giallo
An interview with composer Stelvio Cipriani
Original Italian trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT
Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas
Introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
Extended TV version of the feature [105 mins]
Crime Does Pay brand new interview in which Gastaldi discusses Death Walks at Midnight and a career script-writing crime films
Desperately Seeking Susan a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring the distinctive giallo collaborations between director Luciano Ercoli and star Nieves Navarro
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight)
 
NYPD Blue: Season 09
The Emmy award-winning drama from co-creators Steven Bochco and David Milch returns for another twenty-three riveting episodes in NYPD Blue: Season Nine. Always a series that effortlessly adapted to change, Season Nine finds Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) experiencing several dramatic developments in his life, including a long-overdue promotion, a surprising new romance with Detective Connie McDowell (Charlotte Ross), and a new partner in the form of John Clark (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). The 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City are also employed into the series, reflecting both the evolving emotions about our public safety as well as the steadfast strength and dedication of law enforcement officers in the wake of those real-life events.
 
 
The Forest [Blu-ray]
A young woman’s hunt for her missing sister leads to horror and madness in this terrifying supernatural thriller starring Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games franchise). When her troubled twin sister mysteriously disappears, Sara Price (Dormer) discovers she vanished in Japan’s infamous Suicide Forest. Searching its eerie dark woods, Sara plunges into a tormented world where angry spirits lie in wait for those who ignore the warning: never stray from the path. Exploring The Forest
Galleries
Feature Commentary with Director Jason Zada
 
Village of the Damned
A doctor battles children who exert deadly mind control over adults in a small Northern California town.
Special Features Include:
-“It Takes A Village: The Making of:” Featuring interviews with director John 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 featuring John Carpenter, Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Linda Kozlowski, Mark Hamill, and Wolf Rilla (director of the original “Village of the Damned”)
-Vintage behind-the-scenes footage
Bob Dylan – Triumvirate
Frank Zappa: In His Own Words
Arguably the sharpest tool in the rock musician box, Frank Zappa was never lost for words when presented with another’s opinion and would counter any position he did not agree with, fluently, eloquently and with the style and wit normally reserved for the great orator or the finest raconteur. Frank could be funny, serious and just about anywhere in-between and could literally talk for hours without losing a single member of his audience. This DVD collects together over 90 minutes of video interviews and talking engagements with or undertaken by Zappa across his career, during which the great man is on form and on the money throughout. Talking on numerous subjects and displaying variously; charm, intelligence, humour and impatience – sometimes all within the same interview – this is Zappa away from the day job but at his fascinating, albeit at times fearsome, best.
 
More than 50 years ago Bob Dylan entered New York’s Greenwich Village and created a one man tidal wave of musical change which most commentators of substance would agree was near instrumental in kick-starting what has come to be thought of as ‘modern music’ or ‘the rock age’. Dylan would of course balk at the idea, but by taking elements of just about everything that had gone before and dragging from the resultant soup a coherent blend of something that no one has ever been quite able to put their finger on, but which appealed to masses of youngsters, he succeeded as though destined to do so for millennia; Elvis and Little Richard had gone part of the way but Bob drove in the final nails of the coffin that put the past to rest and changed music in a way it had never changed before. This three disc set celebrates and documents the era during which Bob Dylan pulled off this extraordinary feat and created a musical enlightenment by doing so. Featuring documentary and interview material as well as rare footage from the time, this collection will leave no viewer in doubt as to where the roots of what we now largely take for granted were sown.
 
 
Biophilic Design
BIOPHILIC DESIGN is an innovative way of designing the places where we live, work and learn. We need nature in a deep and fundamental fashion, but we have often designed our cities and suburbs in ways that both degrade the environment and alienate us from nature. The recent trend in green architecture has decreased the environmental impact of the built environment, but it has accomplished little in the way of reconnecting us to the natural world, the missing piece in the puzzle of sustainable development. Come on a journey from our evolutionary past and the origins of architecture to the world s most celebrated buildings in a search for the architecture of life. Encounter buildings that connect people and nature hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children s test scores are higher, and communities where people know their neighbors and families thrive. BIOPHILIC DESIGN points the way toward creating healthy and productive habitats for modern humans.
 
Shadows of Liberty
SHADOWS OF LIBERTY reveals the extraordinary truth behind the news media: censorship, cover-ups and corporate control. Filmmaker Jean-Philippe Tremblay takes a journey through the darker corridors of the US media, where global conglomerates call the shots. For decades, their overwhelming influence has distorted news journalism and compromised its values. In highly revealing stories, renowned journalists, activists and academics give insider accounts of a broken media system. Tracing the story of media manipulation over the years, SHADOWS OF LIBERTY poses a crucial question: why have we let a handful of powerful corporations write the news? We re left in no doubt media reform is urgent and freedom of the press is fundamental.
 
MHz Networks: The Heavy Water War
MHz Networks: Mammon
AMC: Fear the Walking Dead: The Complete First Season: Special Edition: Blu-ray
AMC: Turn: Washington’s Spies: Season 2
NOVA: Secret Tunnel Warfare
NOVA: Mystery Beneath the Ice
Maude: Season Four
Nickelodeon: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Half-Shell Heroes: Blast to the Past
PBS Kids: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: Super Daniel
Of all the little-known stories about World War II, the least little-known may be the one in which Norwegian resistance fighters and British intelligence specialists combined forces to stall Hitler’s war machine by depriving his scientists of the “heavy water” required to control nuclear fission. That and the absence of key researchers – many of whom were Jewish and, therefore, scientists non grata in the Third Reich – kept Germany from beating the Allies to nuclear dominance. Besides being the subject of several books, the same story was first covered in the 1948 Franco-Norwegian production, Operation Swallow: The Battle for Heavy Water, with many of the original Nordic commandos playing themselves. In the 1965 British film, The Heroes of Telemark, Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris were cast in the key roles. Ray Mears’ 2003 documentary, The Real Heroes of Telemark, corrected several of the fudged facts in Anthony Mann’s hit movie. It and other historical made-for-cable docs have kept the memory of the courageous men and women alive to this day. At 267 minutes, MHz Networks’ mini-series “The Heavy Water War” (a.k.a., “The Saboteurs”) enjoyed the luxury of being as close to historically correct as possible, while also exploiting the inherent drama of the top-secret preparations and execution of the raid; the pressure put on German Nobel Prize-winner Werner Heisenberg to create a pineapple-sized bomb capable of decimating London; and the stress of family dynamics in Norway and Germany. There’s a hint of romance, but, unlike in The Heroes of Telemark, only of the unrequited variety between the essential Norwegian defector, Leif Tronstad (Espen Klouman Høiner) and a widowed intelligence officer (Anna Friel), who’s fictitious. What may not be recalled from previous versions of the story is the terrible toll paid by several dozen potential saboteurs, who were captured and killed by German soldiers before they could rendezvous with the advance team of four Norwegian fighters, who’d run out of food. Otherwise, the action bounces between Norsk Hydro plant in Rjukan, the British training base in Scotland, Berlin and the snow-covered mountains that stood between the raiders and factory. The mini-series doesn’t ignore the moral and ethical issues faced by scientists and spies, alike, including the slaughter of innocent civilians whose only crime is living too close to the target.
Also from Norway, by way of MHz Networks, comes the contemporary mini-series “Mammon,” which documents the end days of a decades-long financial and political conspiracy that becomes unraveled when a participant’s role is uncovered by his reporter brother, Peter Verås (Jon Øigarden), and, rather than spilling the beans, commits suicide. Bewildered and grief-stricken, Peter continues his investigation but the closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes for him and his family. Another mysterious suicide provides the journalist with the single verbal clue, “Abraham,” that suggests the financial wrongdoing also involves some old-fashioned Old Testament violence. Naturally, as Peter gets closer to developing leads into the increasingly bizarre scheme, he encounters resistance from his pastor father, nephew, an ex-girlfriend, police, editor, paid assassins, other reporters and prominent businessmen and politicians, who may or may not share links to Abraham. Given the six-day time span of the narrative and mini-series, the story is only slightly less complicated than it could have been if William Faulkner had been called in to do a rewrite. I didn’t recognize any of the cast members, but I’m pretty sure they’re all big stars in Scandinavia, where “Mammon” was a hit. Fans of such recent exports as “The Killing,” “Borgen,” “Wallander,” “The Bridge” and “Lilyhammer” should find a lot to enjoy here.
Working from the principle that American television will always find room for zombies and other undead creatures, AMC parlayed the huge success of “The Walking Dead” into a potentially even greater franchise, by adding the combination origin story/prequel, “Fear the Walking Dead,” into a companion series. The six-episode horror/drama mini-series is based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard. Its second season, debuting on April 10, will be comprised of 15 episodes.  This time, the epicenter of the plague in Los Angeles, when some hope for a cure is held by public-health officials and the infected are being warehoused in sports arenas. The family around whom the narrative revolves lives in the working-class enclave of El Sereno, on the city’s Eastside. It’s been set apart by a high chain-link fence, monitored by soldiers, after riots break out downtown. After escaping the violence, the Clark/Manawa and Salazar clans have found shelter in the abandoned homes of the barricaded suburb. Both extended families have troubles of their own to conquer before finding a permanent home, maybe in Georgia. Foremost among them, perhaps, is the heroin addiction of teen burnout Nick Clark (Frank Dillane), who’s finding it difficult to cop in the zombie apocalypse. The Salazars don’t trust the gringos and the Clark/Manawas are divided by marriage and rivalries between Travis’ first and second wives. “Fear the Walking Dead” gets a bit soapy around the edges, but it’s relieved by plenty of cool head-splattering action, as the epidemic spreads and becomes uncontrollable. Not surprisingly, the production values are all top-notch, especially settings that will be familiar to anyone who lives east of La Brea in L.A. The Blu-ray package adds the featurettes, “A Look at the Series,” a brief look at the series’ timeframe, setting, characters and trials, and “Inside the Characters of ‘Fear the Walking Dead,’”; audio commentaries; a widescreen version of the pilot episode; deleted scenes; and other undead goodies.
In the second season of AMC’s “Turn: Washington’s Spies,” the producers have moved beyond the origins of the Culper Ring, a spy network centered in New York City, Long Island and Connecticut formulated to feed intelligence directly to General George Washington. In 1776, the outcome of the Revolutionary War was anything but a foregone conclusion. As Season One opened, British forces recaptured Long Island, Staten Island and New York City for the Crown, leaving Washington’s army in dire straits. Against the wishes of his loyalist father, Long Island farmer Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell) would put his life in constant danger by passing through enemy lines in the guise of a merchant carrying produce to New York. The ring members developed invisible ink and other unique ways of communicating with fellow spies, known only by numbers. The arrest of Woodhull in the early episodes of the second season allows for the focus to shift to the evil machinations of Benedict Arnold and John Graves Simcoe; the fragile mental states of King George and General George; women volunteers on both sides of the fence; and the key roles played by black freemen. There are times in the narrative when it seems as if every character not fighting is spying, passing along gossip as fact or positioning himself for a job after the war ends. I think “Turn” is a terrific series – it returns in late-April – with a clear ring of authenticity throughout. Even at the end of the season, the war has a long way to go before it’s over. I hope “Turn” can find the audience necessary to take us there, with it.  The DVD adds deleted and extended scenes and a background featurette on Washington and William “Billy” Lee.
“NOVA” takes on two very different subjects, a world apart, in this week’s DVD packages. “Secret Tunnel Warfare” returns to the blood-drenched fields near the village of Messines, in Belgian West Flanders, where some of the heaviest fighting of World War I took place. To break a years’ long stalemate, Allies devised a devastating attack, planting 600 tons of explosives in secret tunnels carved under the German trenches. Scratch the surface of the cornfields there today and you’ll find a largely intact network of trenches, tunnels and mines left behind when the Armistice was signed, compete with live ammunition and corroding grenades, the skeletons of horses killed in the line of duty, helmets and unexploded ordinance. At the expense of a few dozen ears of corn, archaeologists are revealing the extraordinary scale and risks of the Allied tunneling operations in one of the biggest excavations ever undertaken on the Western Front. It opens a unique window on the frenzy of Allied mining activity that led up to the attack in June of 1917, during which mines planted under the German lines were simultaneously triggered, killing an estimated 10,000 German troops instantly.
In “Mystery Beneath the Ice,” the loyalty of PBS viewers is rewarded with yet another reason to worry about the imminent disruption of life on Earth. Apparently, the krill apocalypse has begun and it’s taking place under a thick crust of ice. The population of krill crucial to the Antarctic ecosystem – and, by extension, the world’s ecosystem –is crashing for reasons that continue to baffle the experts. One theory argues that the krill life cycle is driven by an internal body clock that responds to the waxing and waning of the Antarctic ice pack. As climate change alters the timing of the ice pack, their life cycle is disrupted. If krill go the way of the dodo, a primary food source for large sea animals goes with it. Scientists are working on, above and below the ice pack to discover ways to reverse the situation, but diving in frigid conditions makes it tough to find the breeding caves, where krill life begins.
It’s appropriate that Season Four of “Maude” opens with Our Heroine considering a run for New York State Senate, which, on paper, might sound like a good idea, but seriously threatens her marriage to Walter, who’s in danger falling off the wagon. Later in the season, Maude really shows off her independent streak when she spearheads a campaign to elect Henry Fonda as President of the United States, whether or not he wants to be typecast in the role.
Targeted at a slightly younger audience than other TMNT products, “Half-Shell Heroes: Blast to the Past” finds the turtles in the Jurassic Era, where they encounter some friendly dinosaurs and decidedly unfriendly aliens from the future. Using their ninja skills and transportation supplied by the dinosaurs, the four brothers must find a waу to save the daу and future simultaneously. It previously aired as a hourlong special, counting commercials, on Nickelodeon.
From PBS Kids comes Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: Super Daniel, with nine episodes sure to tickle the fancy of your preschoolers. Here, the young tiger uses his imagination and “superpowers,” to figure out ways to help his friends out of predicaments. The new collection offers almost two hours of previously aired episodes, including bonus feature, “Goodnight Daniel.”
IFC: The Spoils of Babylon: Season 1
Hallmark: When Calls the Heart: It Begins With Heart
PBS: Nature: Natural Born Hustlers
PBS: NOVA: Life’s Rocky Start
PBS Kids: WordWorld: Planes, Trains, and Trucks
What began in 2007 as a free-form Internet outlet for comedians and other clever people has evolved, as these things sometimes do, into a spot where producers and programming executives visit regularly to scout talent and borrow ideas. Like National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live and Second City before it, Funny or Die has become a brand synonymous with guaranteed laughs and an audience willing to go the extra mile to find offbeat humor. Founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, Funny or Die showcases videos of various lengths from a number of famous and amateur contributors. The in-house Funny or Die Team now creates original material for the site and other outlets. One such project, “The Spoils of Babylon,” aired on the IFC channel. In it, Ferrell plays Hemingway-esque author Eric Jonrosh, a master of dramatic fiction and chronicler of the Morehouse family. In a pose once adopted by Orson Welles to pitch wine to TV viewers with uncultivated taste buds, Jonrush introduces each week’s episode, following it with a postscript of overripe pomposity. In the first series, patriarch Jonas Morehouse (Tim Robbins) shepherds his daughter, Cynthia (Kristen Wiig), and adopted son, Devon (Tobey Maguire), from meager beginnings in the Texas oil patch to powerful boardrooms in New York City. Just as the Welles impersonation might fly over the heads of millennial viewers, the obvious references to such 1970-80s’ mini-series as “The Thorn Birds” and “The Winds of War” probably work more effectively on their Boomer parents. Even so, it was pretty easy to buy into the conceit, especially as enhanced by guests Jessica Alba, Val Kilmer, David Spade, Michael Sheen, Molly Shannon, Haley Joel Osment and a mannequin voiced by Carey Mulligan.  Not yet on DVD is the follow-up series, “The Spoils Before Dying,” in which Jonrosh’s banned movie of the same title is unearthed for a hipper generation of viewers.
“When Calls the Heart: It Begins With Heart” originally aired over the Christmas holidays as “A New Year’s Wish.” I don’t know why Hallmark felt it necessary to change the title, but it isn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last. Thus, as they said in ancient Rome, caveat emptor. Neither does it look particularly wintery in Hope Valley, this year. In fact, it looks downright tropical. Everything in the frontier outpost has a fairytale aura. The women are all gorgeous and the men abnormally attractive for the period. Everyone has good teeth and fashionable hairdos. There are other anomalies, but who’s counting? This time around, Rosemary’s essay on what it’s like to be a “real frontier family” has attracted the attention of a reporter from the San Francisco Herald, who arrives in time for the annual fireworks show. Problem is, because Rosemary isn’t married, she has to pose as Lee’s wife. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger pays a visit to the handsome Pastor Frank and Abigail opens her door and heart to a pair of ragamuffin orphans. There’s more, of course.
The latest release from PBS’ “Nature” series, “Natural Born Hustlers,” introduces younger viewers, especially, to animals noteworthy for their ability to fool predators and attract meals through genetic chicanery. They are the shape shifters, mimics, masters of disguise and illusion, cheats and sneaks in the natural world. The series reveals the modus operandi of remarkable animals going to elaborate lengths to claw their way to the top. I only wish that “Nature” was available in Blu-ray. “NOVA” continues its studies in advanced geology, with “Life’s Rocky Start.” Mineralogist Robert Hazen explains, in language most of us can understand how the same tumultuous convulsions that shaped the Earth also created the conditions ripe for the origins of life.
Also from PBS comes “WordWorld: Planes, Trains, and Trucks,” a show designed to help the youngest viewers get a leg up on the basics, when it’s their turn to begin school. All of the characters are made from the letters that spell their names, so, when Frog loses the letters PL from his plane, he and Bug Band must scour the jungle to find them. This DVD set is comprised of eight episodes, all pertaining to movement and travel.
The Bible Stories: In the Beginning
After serving President Jimmy Carter as White House communications director, the advertising and political strategist Gerald Rafshoon began a third career as a producer of such television docudramas as “The Atlanta Child Murders” and “Iran: Days of Crisis.” Getting a Georgia peanut farmer into the White House might have been a piece of cake compared to collaborating on a rapid-fire series of eight TV movies inspired by Old Testament scripture. The international co-productions were shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco, a desert mecca for studios in need of a reliable place to shoot period flicks set in the Holy Land. “The Bible Stories” collection has been released on video/DVD a couple of times since they aired here on TNT in the mid-1990s. The new Shout!Factory series looks as good as new. The three titles released this week are the four-disc collection, “The Bible Stories: In The Beginning,” with “Abraham,” “Jacob,” “Joseph” and “Moses”; “Abraham,” starring Richard Harris and Barbara Hershey; and “Moses,” with Ben Kingsley, Frank Langella, David Suchet and Christopher Lee. Individual releases of “David,” “Jacob,” “Joseph” and “Samson & Delilah” will trickle out through the spring. “Esther” and “Jeremiah” don’t appear to have a street date.
Peekarama: Erotic Adventures of Candy/Candy Goes to Hollywood: Blu-ray
Peekarama: The Young Like It Hot/Sweet Young Foxes
Sensual Encounters of Every Kind
Sex and Astrology
Movies featuring prostitutes, call girls, mistresses, madams, pimps and other freelancers are dime-a-dozen and have been since the silent era. Those set within the walls of a brothel are fewer in number, if for no other reason than the reality of life in a house is less easy to manipulate than those of individuals caught up in the game outside of one. The truly legendary bordellos no longer exist and the prostitutes can in no way be manufactured from a mold or cookie cutter. Among the titles that stand out are Belle de Jour, House of Tolerance, In the Realm of the Senses, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Love Ranch, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Pretty Baby, Working Girls, Saint Jack, the French TV series “Maison close” and such documentaries as “Cathouse: The Series,” Chicken Ranch and Born Into Brothels. The hypocrisy of the American government quietly sanctioning the existence of brothels during times of war, while legislating them out of existence in times of peace, was noted in “Biloxi Blues,” “Catch-22,” “From Here to Eternity” and the History Channel’s “XY Factor: Sex in World War II: The Pacific Front.” Released in 1991, Paprika combined social realism with co-writer-director Tinto Brass’ personal memories of killing time in legal brothels in post-war Italy, instead of attending college classes. It was inspired by John Cleland’s “Fanny Hill,” published in 1748, but updated to 1950s Italy. The astonishingly gorgeous and naturally sexy Debora Caprioglio plays a country girl, Mimma, who, after the death of her parents, lands a job in a big-city brothel to earn money for her boyfriend to start his own business. Given that the only business for which he’s shown any skill is pimping, Mimma soon will be sharing her earnings with the cad and Madame Collette, who nicknames her Paprika for her physical attributes. She only anticipates working at the brothel for two weeks, but is encouraged to stay on and conserve her money. To call Mimma a natural wouldn’t be an exaggeration. With a few exceptions, she enjoys the work and adapts well to the relative luxury and security of brothel life. The patrons are relatively well-heeled, but she falls for an aspiring seaman with dreams of owning his own boat. Mimma’s personal ambitions lead her from one house to another, as well as benefactors of increasing wealth and privilege. Besides the debt Mimma’s been led to believe she still owes her first boyfriend, the underlying tension throughout Paprika is a conservative initiative to close the brothels and return control of the business to pimps and mobsters. In an entertaining interview, Brass explains how the new legislation, while detrimental to his social life, probably forced him to focus on a career in filmmaking. Considering that Brass would become renowned as an eroticist, obsessed with busty babes with big butts, he clearly found a way to monetize the time wasted in his college days. Paprika isn’t exclusively interested in promoting the pulchritude of Italian womanhood, as is usually the case with Brass’ output. The narrative also offers commentary on the hypocrisy of Italian lawmakers and the plight of working girls, who, after the Merlin Law went into effect, in 1958, were forced to work the streets, take on pimps, rely on their own resources for health concerns and weather the ravages of age on their own. If Paprika has a happy ending, it can be credited in large part to the gumption and inspiration of Fanny Hill. Part of what makes Brass’ films such a treat are the brilliant production values on display, including the lighting, sets, costume designs and many strategically placed mirrors. No matter how one feels about his sexual appetites, his slightly softer than hard-core approach to porn never lacks polish, eye candy or winking humor. And, it looks great on Blu-ray.
Vinegar Syndrome’s series of “Peekarama” double-features takes viewers of a certain age back to a time in American eroticism when some companies gave lip service, at least, to the idea that porn needn’t be peddled exclusively to the rain-coat crowd. Some movies were distinguished by recognizable narratives, sex-positive couplings and attractive actors. (Ron Jeremy didn’t always resemble an overgrown Chia Pet.) That, of course, would change as budgets were kept from matching the aspirations of the more creative artists. In 1978, shortly after the amazing financial success of Deep Throat suggested that all things were possible, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner teased buxom blonds everywhere by hinting of a worldwide search for the actress to portray Playboy’s cartoon goddess, Little Annie Fanny, in a live-action movie. That didn’t happen, of course, but it wasn’t for lack of inspiration. VCX beat Playboy to the punch, intentionally or otherwise, with Erotic Adventures of Candy and Candy Goes to Hollywood, whose star, Carol Connors, combined the attributes of Daisy Mae Yokum and Little Annie Fanny. As conceived by Gail Palmer, the former is a comic adaptation of Voltaire’s, “Candide,” by way of Terry Southern’s novel, “Candy,” in which the virginal farm girl is curious about sex, but is forced to learn all the essential lessons the hard way. In Candy Goes to Hollywood, our heroine no sooner steps off the Greyhound on Hollywood Boulevard than she attracts the attention of a predatory sleazeball (John Leslie), who convinces her that he should serve as her agent. This one is full of the then-current pop-cultural references, including Saturday Night Fever and “The Gong Show.” The sex scenes aren’t anything special, but everything else easily qualifies as comedy. It includes a guest appearance by the late punk performer, Wendy O. Williams. Also in the mix of both pictures are such Golden Age stars as Desiree Cousteau, Sharon Kane, John Holmes, Rhonda Jo Petty, Richard Pacheco, Don Fernando, Georgina Spelvin, Paul Thomas, Patti Cakes and Eileen Welles.
The second double-feature is from 1983 and, therefore, more buttoned down, as these things go, anyway. Both qualify as couples’ viewing, though. Otherwise, Bob Chinn’s The Young Like It Hot and Sweet Young Foxes are noteworthy for introducing the glamorous Native American actress and two-time Miss Nude Galaxy, Hyapatia Lee, to adult-movie fans and, boy, did she make an impression. In The Young Like It Hot, telephone operators at a small-town company turn to phone-sex when threatened by their boss with automation. In Sweet Young Foxes, Lee plays a college freshman home from school and bored out of her mind. Along with some hometown friends, none of whom look remotely young enough to still be in college, Lee uncovers a world of sexual delights she never knew existed. In addition to Lee, the casts include Kay Parker, Shauna Grant, Lili Marlene, Herschel Savage, Mike Horner, Joey Silvera, Cara Lott, Pat Manning, Eric Edwards and a 30-year-old Jeremy. All four movies have been scanned and restored from 35mm camera negatives and add original theatrical trailers. Interviews with director Bob Chinn and actor Bill Margold are included in the former.
As long as we’re strolling down mammary lane, here, there’s 1978’s Sensual Encounters of Every Kind in which several more future all-stars – Leslie Bovee, Serena, Dorothy LeMay, Jon Martin, the ageless Spelvin and ubiquitous Leslie – pass an ancient talisman from one generation to another. Possession ensures its owner will be granted an ultimate sexual fantasy. The plot device will be used and reused for as long as porn exists. The new 2K restoration adds an audio interview with Jon Martin. Co-written by Harold Lime (Amanda by Night) is pretty hot, actually.
Even if Matt Cimber hadn’t created the ridiculous 1980s TV series, “GLOW: Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,” or anticipated the mainstream porn revolution with the 1971 mockumentary, Sex and Astrology, his place in the show-biz hall of shame would be assured by the notoriety surrounding the Pia Zadora vehicle, Butterfly, which he adapted from a James M. Cain novel. Historians will immediately recall Butterfly as the movie most closely identified with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s greatest moment of infamy. It also was nominated for 10 Razzies, including two for Oscar-winner Ennio Morricone and one for Orson Welles. (To be fair, Cimber also directed recently re-released The Witch Who Came From the Sea, which wasn’t half-bad.) Anyway,
in Sex and Astrology, Cimber explored the erotic, humorous and downright unappetizing confluences of the constellations and human sexuality. It extends from toga parties in ancient Greece and Rome, to hippie freakouts in the psychedelic 1960s. Vinegar Syndrome brings it to home video for the first time, restored in 2k from newly discovered 16mm vault elements.
Kung Fu Trailers of Fury: Blu-ray
Common wisdom among moviegoers today holds that trailers not only are too goddam loud, but that they give away far too much of the plot. If the trailer sucks, it’s highly likely the movie it plugs will, too. The nature of the cinematic beast now demands that teasers sometimes appear a year ahead of a potential blockbuster’s release, serving best as trailers for trailers to come. Those savvy viewers who wouldn’t think of taking their seats after the trailers begin to roll know that the earlier a trailer is shown, the less likely it is that a scene they see will appear intact in the finished product. The same is true for the music and, even, a character. That’s because the first trailers for highly anticipated movies are finished before shooting is completed and long before the soundtrack has been recorded or special effects edited. Exhibitors who gather in Las Vegas each spring expect to be shown previews of films they’ll be showing at Christmas, if not some early footage and appearances by a star or two. Genre films not destined for holiday release are allowed to take their time. From Severin Films comes “Kung Fu Trailers of Fury,” a two-hour compendium of vintage previews for dozens of movies from the Golden Age of Hong Kong action flicks. What’s wonderful about them is the amount of martial-arts action and stunt gags represented in the trailers, leaving almost nothing to anticipate when the finished product finally arrived. And, for Western audiences, many of these pictures never did open. Among the many actors shown in various stages of their career are Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Lo Lieh, Sammo Hung, Angela Mao, Chuck Norris, Jimmy Wang Yu and Wu Tang, in such classics as The Way of the Dragon, Death Blow, Two Champions of Shaolin, Daggers 8, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Shaolin Wooden Men, The Story of Drunken Master, Enter the Fat Dragon and Brutal Boxer. There’s plenty more, as well. They’ve been transferred in 2K from a collection of recently unearthed 35mm reels. Blu-ray bonuses add “A Brief History of Kung Fu Cinema,” with martial-arts nerds Ric Meyers and Frank Djeng; commentary with Meyers (“Films of Fury”), Michael Worth (“The Bruceploitation Bible”), martial-arts instructor Greg Schiller and Rick Stelow of Drunken Master Video; “The Way of the Cube,” on the discovery of the original 35mm trailers underneath the stage of a maverick UK cinema.
TV-to-DVD
The Bold Ones: The New Doctors: The Complete Series
Comedy Central: Drunk History: Season 3
Disney XD: Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales
Nickelodeon: Paw Patrol: Brave Heroes Big Rescues
With the release of “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors: The Complete Series,” Shout! Factory archivists have completed the cycle of groundbreaking series under NBC’s “The Bold Ones” umbrella: “The Lawyers,” “The Protectors” and “The Senator.” The network had also employed the wheel format for anthology series produced by Universal Studios, “The Name of the Game” and “The NBC Mystery Movie.” All of them reflected an effort by a new generation of producers to break from prime-time clichés and personality-driven gimmicks. Along with a mix of movie-tested actors and attractive newcomers, “The Bold Ones” showed new thinking in the various disciplines. “The New Doctors” chronicled the inner workings of the “prestigious” David Craig Institute of New Medicine, where Dr. David Craig (E.G. Marshall) and his assistants Dr. Paul Hunter (David Hartman) and Dr. Ted Stuart (John Saxon) tackled the most challenging of cases, frequently using cutting-edge medical techniques and “psychosocial” reasoning. At the dawn of the HMO era, doctors could afford the time to dig into maladies that today would be dismissed out of hand or passed along to another health-care provider. Despite some unrealistically soapy elements, the individual episodes – which ran for four seasons, from 1969 to 1973 — hold up pretty well today. Like most other network series of the time, women and diversity protagonists were limited to guest spots. (In “The Protectors,” African-American actor Hari Rhodes played a liberal district attorney to Leslie Neilsen’s conservative deputy chief of police.) Co-creator Steven Bochco was still a decade away from revolutionizing the industry with such series as “Hill Street Blues,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue.” Directors included Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon), John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) and Jerry Lewis (The Nutty Professor). The 43-episode set adds an “Ironside” crossover.
I don’t know if the producers of “Drunk History” have considered adding an interactive home game to the hilarious Comedy Central franchise. It wouldn’t be difficult for amateur comedians/alcoholics to improvise on their own, but a collection of scripts would save a tedious Wikipedia search for themes. The winners could be awarded a free Uber trip to a local rehab center or AA meeting. The star-studded show is an offshoot of the “Funny or Die” web series created in 2007 by Derek Waters and Jeremy Konner. In each episode, an inebriated narrator struggles to recount an event from American history, while actors enact the narrator’s anecdote and lip sync the dialog. Season Three topics include New Jersey, Miami, spies, New Orleans, Cleveland, games, journalism and Los Angeles. Guests include Kat Dennings, Colin Hanks, Jack Black, Jaleel White, Greg Kinnear, Stephen Merchant, Justin Long, Jason Ritter, Tony Hale and Christopher Meloni.  Since January 12, 2015, a British version of “Drunk History” has been broadcast on the UK’s Comedy Central.
A comparison can be made between “Drunken History” and the five-part mini-series “Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales,” in that the entire “Star Wars” story — “Phantom Menace” to “Return of the Jedi” – is told through the subjective memories of R2-D2 and C-3PO. As far as I know, the beloved robots were stone-cold sober while recalling events in the mega-franchise’s history, as dramatized by characters (and backdrops) built from Lego bricks. A working knowledge of all-things-Star Wars is probably necessary to fully enjoy the mini-series, but not essential. An accidental kidnapping occurs while the droids are reminiscing at a victory celebration in the Ewok village on Endor. Some parents may be concerned that “Droid Tales” is nothing more than an infomercial for related products, but, sadly, such interlocking synergies have become a fact of life. At least, young fans should enjoy the action and writing.
Nickelodeon’s popular adventure series for pre-schoolers is represented by the six-adventure collection, “Paw Patrol: Brave Heroes, Big Rescues.” Their daring canine heroes are required to “em-Bark” on missions that take them through dangerous caves, bunny-filled woods, an icy tundra, under the waves and Adventure Bay, to prevent a dinosaur invasion.  and more adventures.
Capture the Flag
Enrique Gato’s computer-animated sci-fi feature, Capture the Flag, was made in Spain, about one of the great conspiracy theories in American history. No sooner did the Apollo 11 team splash down in the ocean than skeptics began to spread the theory that the mission was staged on a Hollywood backlot and directed for broadcast by Stanley Kubrick, whose 2001: A Space Odyssey has made NASA groovy. Capture the Flag revisits the paranoia surrounding the mission and others to come. Mike Goldwing is a “plucky” 12-year-old surfer, whose father and grandfather were astronauts. Grandpa Frank remains haunted by the decision that kept him from joining Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface. Even that memory is being threatened by a billionaire, who wants to fly to the moon, mine its resources and steal the American flag planted there. In an effort to thwart the scheme and redeem his grandfather’s reputation, Mike, gramps and his best friends, stow away on the shuttle. While Capture the Flag could never be mistaken for a Pixar or DreamWorks production, scientific-minded youngsters should find something here to enjoy.
Dudes & Dragons
What I know about cosplay movies could be put in a thimble, with room left over for spare change. I can’t even tell the difference between a straight fantasy adventure and a parody of a fantasy adventure. The title here, Dudes & Dragons, sounds as if it could be a satire, but I think I missed most of the jokes. Then, I learned that it originally was called, “Dragon Warriors,” which, while more accurate, wasn’t nearly as promising. It has to count for something, though, that Maclain Nelson and Stephen Shimelk’s film won a top prize at the 2015 Dragon*Con Independent Film Festival. What was able to discern immediately was that all of the action was shot in front of a green screen, so, occasionally, it seems as if elements from other movies or podcasts are accidentally intruding on the characters in Dudes & Dragons. Despite the momentary presence of Luke Perry, I suspect that most male viewers will be attracted to the movie by the beautiful Lady Ennogard (Kaitlin Doubleday), who spends an inordinate amount of time chained to makeshift gallows in an outfit that reveals plenty of side-boob, if not nearly enough front-boob. She’s being punished for refusing to marry the evil wizard, Lord Tensley (James Marsters), who, in retaliation, releases a deadly dragon to terrorize the land and eliminate love. Only the intercession of a true Dragon Master can break the curse and neutralize the dragon. It gets far more complicated from here. At 122 minutes, there’s plenty of time for things to get uncomplicated. How many viewers will make it to the end is another question altogether.
 
The Curse/Curse II: The Bite: Blu-ray
Millennium / R.O.T.O.R.: Blu-ray
The environmental consciousness that grew out of the 1960s’ political movements not only inspired Earth Day and its various green-tinged offshoots, but also a slew of eco-horror films informed by the same dire warnings of disaster that fuel today’s cautionary tales about global-warming. Lacking sophisticated CGI technology and hobbled by Corman-esque budgets, few of these movies were scary enough to keep audiences from collapsing in unintended laugher. Nevertheless, eco-cide wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, so devising new twists was never a problem for screenwriters. Among the critters that were exploited almost to extinction, but still pop up occasionally in straight-to-DVD flicks are the 28 recognized subspecies of Apis mellifera, a.k.a., killer bees. The “Citizen Kane” of killer-bee movies, of course, remains Irwin Allen’s The Swarm, a big budget affair with lots of stars. Also released in 1978 was Alfredo Zacarias’ much less ambitious The Bees, which probably cost a tenth of what Allen spent on his picture, but squandered every opportunity to become a cult classic. Even with a driven-in-proven cast in John Saxon, Angel Tompkins and John Carradine, the Mexican director approached the project as if Tompkins hadn’t already proven her grindhouse cred in Prime Cut, The Teacher and Walking Tall, Part 2; Saxon hadn’t co-starred with Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon and was coming off a string of giallo flicks; and Carradine wasn’t a living legend in the horror genre. Instead, Zacarias played it completely straight, with his stars portraying the only three scientists standing between an accidental invasion of killer bees and the apocalypse. Vinegar Syndrome has accorded The Bees a bright new 2k restoration from the 35mm negative and added a video interview with Zacarias,
In a double-feature of The Curse and it unrelated sequel, Curse II: The Bite from the late-1980s’ drive-in circuit, the eco-monsters are represented by a toxic meteorite from space hell and irradiated rattle snakes. Neither movie is very good, but genre completists will find a modicum of value in both low-budget pictures. Based on H. P. Lovecraft’s short novel, “The Colour Out of Space” – re-adapted in 2010 by the promising Viet-German newcomer, Huan Vu — The Curse describes the evolution of a waterborne plague somewhere in the rural South, caused either by a virus carried by a meteorite or a fear-mongering land speculator. As the icy-blue rock begins to melt, the nearest farm’s vegetables and fruit appear to flourish unnaturally. On closer inspection, the produce is rancid. Soon, the drinking water is corrupted, as well, leaving residents horribly disfigured. When I say “horribly,” however, I don’t mean in a scary way. As directed by actor David Keith and written by David Chaskin, the most frightening thing in the movie is Claude Akins’ bible-banging bully of a patriarch. Also along for the ride are Wil Wheaton, Malcolm Danare, Cooper Huckabee, John Schneider and, as the horny hausfrau, Kathleen Jordon Gregory. The campier they play it, the better the movie is. Curse II: The Bite is set in the desert Southwest, where radioactive residue from an abandoned nuclear test site has had an adverse effect on the snake population. Once bitten, a snake’s victim begins to develop characteristics of the serpent (enhanced by special-effects master, Screaming Mad George). Here, the central focus is on a pair of young lovers (J. Eddie Peck, Jill Schoelen), who reject the advice of a local yokel by making a detour through the impacted area. Also playing along are Jamie Farr, Shiri Appleby and Bo Svenson.
A second double-feature from the same period and distributor, Shout! Factory, resurrects a pair of sci-fi turkeys, one of which could have benefited from a much larger budget and higher production values, and the other, a RoboCop and Terminator 2 rip-off, that is so unbelievably bad, it demands to be seen. Based on a novel by John Varley, Millennium opens with the collision of a commercial jetliner and alien spacecraft, trolling through a crack in the time/space continuum. Kris Kristofferson plays the NTSB investigator, who, after being encouraged to investigate the peculiar radio transmissions from the cockpit, can’t help but fall in love with a time-shifting woman warrior, Louise (Cheryl Ladd), from 1,000 years in the future. Louise’s cohorts want to prevent the Earth’s suicidal rush to environmental apocalypse, but her romantic inclinations complicate their mission. Originally slated for a much grander presentation, directed by Douglas Trumbull, Millennium suffers from budgetary malnutrition. In 1989, kiddie-television specialist Cullen Blaine decided to jump into the deep end of the filmmaking pool with R.O.T.O.R., a movie about a futuristic cop from the Robotic Officer Tactical Operation Research workshop near Dallas. In its prototype stage, R.O.T.O.R. is mistakenly activated and hits the street looking for criminals on whom to exercise its programmed directive: “Judge and execute.” We know that robotics have come a long way from the drawing boards of 1989, but, if anyone had actually seen it, R.O.T.O.R might have stopped all development in its tracks. That said, you may never experience a better worst movie.
The Space Movie
In 1979, British rockumentary specialist Tony Palmer was commissioned by NASA to make a film celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It wasn’t a natural fit, but someone at the space agency admired his epic history of 20th Century music, All You Need Is Love – spanning ragtime and glam rock – and gave him a shot at the project. At the time, the space program had lost the luster attached to it during the 1960s and early 1970s, and American taxpayers had adopted a been-there/done-that attitude, which would extend to the shuttle missions. Released to almost no acclaim or marketing push, Virgin Films’ The Space Movie combines rarely, if ever seen color footage made available by NASA with the prog-rock stylings of British musician and composer Mike Oldfield, whose “Tubular Bells” became a smash hit after being showcased in “The Exorcist.” Nowhere near as trippy as Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon,” Oldfield’s heavily engineered score complements the underlying mood of excitement and apprehension that accompanied every space mission, from the early rocket tests to the landing on the lunar surface. I’m pretty familiar with most of news footage that emerged from that period, but was surprised by the different looks NASA made available to Palmer. The same applies to some of the radio communications between the astronauts and engineers in Houston.
When Bette Met Mae
If there are two more luminous stars in the Hollywood firmament than Bette Davis and Mae West, you’d need the Hubble Space Telescope to locate them. Ingénues come and go, but the great stars shine forever. If When Bette Met Mae won’t win any awards for its documentary attributes, as a souvenir from a bygone era, it’s a pip. In the fall of 1973, a cocktail party was given by Charles Pollock, a West Hollywood antiques dealer, for his irrepressible friend, Davis, and her truly legendary guest, West. While they’d never met, Bette and Mae held each other in high regard. West was accompanied by her two escorts, Stan Musgrove and Glenn Shahan, who were eager to meet Davis. Also present were Vik Greenfield, who had been Davis’ personal assistant, and Wes Wheadon, a young optometrist and friend of the host. That night, Wheadon happily agreed to serve drinks to Pollock’s guests. He also made sure that a reel-to-reel tape was running and unobtrusive. Blessedly, the men held their peace while Mae and Davis discussed their careers, how they crafted their unique styles of acting, their screen images, writing scripts, demanding fair pay, screen rights and residuals. Neither did they ignore censorship and the Hays Code, stardom, husbands, boyfriends, children and their loyal gay fan base. Indeed, Mae recalls her controversial 1927 stage show, “The Drag,” which was gay, gay, gay before being gay was cool … or legal. What’s captured on tape and dramatized by lip-synching actors is the very definition of the lively art of conversation. If the acting is bothersome, close your eyes and imagine you’re listening to the radio. Sally Kellerman serves as narrator, adding some historical background and introducing archival clips, Polaroids and contemporary interviews. The tape recording has been painstakingly restored and is easy on the ears. The only regret comes in hearing Wheadon admit to running out of tape just as dinner was being served.
Becoming Bulletproof
Every so often, an actor with a physical or learning disability will land a recurring role on a television series, such as “Glee,” “Life Goes On” or “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” While their characters aren’t necessarily there to send a message to viewers about the need for inclusivity in the media – Peter Dinklage and Marlee Matlin are prime examples of actors who’ve transcended what others might consider to be their disability – it’s no sure bet these parts will go to similarly disabled actors. Becoming Bulletproof is a documentary about a Western being made by mixed group of able and disabled actors, as part of an annual endeavor under the Zeno Mountain Farm marquee to write, produce and star in original short films. The participants come from all parts of the United States and represent a myriad of disabilities. Prominent in both the documentary and “Bulletproof,” for example, are A.J. Murray, who uses a wheelchair and has cerebral palsy, and Jeremy Vest, who was born with Williams syndrome and plays the film’s titular hero. Such assignments aren’t easy to perform, but all of the performers are committed to completing the project and attending the Hollywood premiere. There’s nothing sappy about it. Two years ago, activists raised a storm when NBC cast Blair Underwood to play the paraplegic protagonist in a re-boot of the 1970s hit, “Ironside.” It’s possible that the network felt as if it could dodge controversy by hiring an African-American actor, but protesters would have preferred someone who’s actually confined to wheelchair. The makers of Becoming Bulletproof are making a similar case, although it’s more likely that it will be easier to prove their points by appearing in podcasts and on stage, first. To paraphrase the legendary Chicago Alderman Paddy Bauler, “Hollywood ain’t ready for reform.”
TV on DVD
Jesus of Nazareth: The Complete Miniseries: 40th Anniversary Edition: Blu-ray
Chuggington: Delivery Dash at the Docks
One thing is clear from the GOP presidential debates: while all of the candidates claim to have a personal relationship with God, none understands what it means to be Christian, according to the gospels in anyone’s bible. If Jesus suddenly appeared on the stage of a televised debate, he’d sweep it clean of politicians and spin doctors the same way he evicted the merchants and money changers from the Temple. When Pope Francis observed, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel,” he was acknowledging the messages delivered in “Jesus of Nazareth: The Complete Miniseries: 40th Anniversary Edition.” The pontiff probably would disagree vehemently with some of the positions held by Hillary and Bernie, as well, but, at least, they don’t claim to have God on their sides. While it’s true that Pope Paul VI asked Sir Lew Grade to consider making a film on the life of Jesus, the British impresario envisioned the project as being truly ecumenical in spirit. Directed by Franco Ziffirelli (Romeo and Juliet) and co-written by Zeffirelli, Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange) and Suso Cecchi d’Amico (White Nights), “Jesus of Nazareth” has been described as a cinematic Diatessaron (“gospel harmony”), blending the narratives of all four New Testament accounts. Even at 382 minutes, the writers elected to compress aspects of the biblical texts and use a few composite characters. There are miracles, but none that require elaborate special effects. Anticipating an international audience, Grace rounded up a cast of familiar names and faces, including Olivia Hussey, Anne Bancroft, Ernest Borgnine, Valentina Cortese, Claudia Cardinale, James Earl Jones, James Mason, Ian McShane, Christopher Plummer, Donald Pleasance, Rod Steiger, Peter Ustinov, Michael York, Stacy Keach, Ralph Richardson, Fernando Ray and Sir Laurence Olivier. Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino were considered for leading man, but it was awarded to the relatively unknown Robert Powell, whose performance appears to have been informed by Max von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told. In 1977, Zeffirelli’s no-frills, naturalistic approach to the subject and setting stood out from such less-traditional plays, books and movies as “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Godspell,” “The Passover Plot” and even “Life of Brian.” It should be noted that Jesus doesn’t break out in song at unexpected moments and families escaping tyranny aren’t referred to as “terrorists.”
I don’t know how much the British children’s series, “Chuggington,” owes to the earlier success of “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends,” both of which feature anthropomorphized train locomotives and adventures targeted at very young viewers. Despite giving more than a 25-year head start to the folks at ITV/PBS behind “Thomas,” including guest conductors Ringo Starr, George Carlin, Alec Baldwin and Pierce Brosnan, the Ludorum/BBC production benefits mightily from a distribution partnership here with Disney Junior. It would have been difficult for the creators of “Chuggington” not to be impressed by the merchandising, licensing and video acumen that propelled “Thomas” into the commercial stratosphere. In “Chuggington: Delivery Dash at the Docks,” Koko is thrilled to be spending the day training with Daley, the yard’s new express delivery engine, and new dock master Skipper Stu. Patience and teamwork are the primary lessons being learned in the new DVD compilation, which contains six episodes from the show’s fifth season and a collectible Daley collectible toy.
PBS: Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
National Geographic: Saints & Strangers
PBS: Best of Big Blue Live
PBS: Hudson River School: Artistic Pioneers
PBS: American Experience: Bonnie & Clyde
PBS: Frontline: Terror in Little Saigon
McHale’s Navy/McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force
Nickelodeon: Blaze & The Monster Machines: Rev Up & Roar
If through some wrinkle in time it would have been possible for members of the Black Panther Party of the 1960s to have occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, instead of a bunch of heavily armed ranchers and marginally employed rednecks, how long would it have taken the federal government to clear the grounds? Or, for that matter, militants of the American Indian Movement or SDS. In the same regard, how many of the NRA supporters who have won the right to carry weapons into schools, shopping malls and movie theaters are willing to credit Huey Newton and Bobby Seale for demanding that American citizens be allowed to openly carry firearms, even in the halls of the California State Legislature? None, probably. By contrast, if the FBI hadn’t successfully crushed the BPP, using illegal surveillance tactics and other provocations, would police officers around the country so freely shoot to kill children and young people of color? Those questions and more naturally come to mind while watching Stanley Nelson’s “Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,” which was picked up for airing on PBS. Released to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party, the film features firsthand accounts from participants, including Kathleen Cleaver, the first Communications Secretary of the Black Panther Party; Elaine Brown, former Black Panther Party chairman; Emory Douglas, the party’s Minister of Culture and chief art director for the party’s newspaper; retired police officers; lawyers; and much archival news footage. Police repression and government legal maneuvering inspired white radicals and liberal activists to enter the fray on the side of BPP, even when their contributions were questioned. The free breakfast programs for children in impoverished neighborhoods was largely ignored by the media or dismissed as a diversion. When Judge Julius Hoffman ordered Seale chained to his chair and gagged in the trial of the Chicago 8, simply for demanding his right to a fair trial, the national media began to understand what was at stake. Even so, when police raided the apartment of Illinois BPP chairman Fred Hampton, killing him and another sleeping member, the local Chicago media bought into the lie that he was killed in a “shootout.” In fact, an investigation soon would show that the hail of bullets was one-sided and the raid was based on lies supplied by a paid FBI informant. If the same thing had happened to one of the leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation, the shit storm would be keep Fox News buzzing for months. In effect, though, the Black Panthers were victims of their own image campaign. The black clothes, leather jackets, shades, berets and swagger – with or without openly carried weapons — brought the awe and respect of students and community members, along with the contempt and fear of J. Edgar Hoover, who demanded the movement be quashed. It wouldn’t take long before the national party collapsed under the weight of its individual egos, internecine squabbling, legal costs, paranoia and dissension. Much of what’s reported in Nelson’s film may qualify as old news, even if most of it has been long forgotten. What remains is the ironic notion that the more things changed in the early 1970s, the more they’ve stayed the same in the relations between the African American community and trigger-happy police, even with a black president. “Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” ends on a reflective note, neither optimistic nor overly pessimistic. Neither does a recounting of the party’s official list of demands by survivors sound particularly radical compared to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Republican leaders in Congress and candidates perfectly willing to arm right-wing kooks.
If it weren’t for the necessary violence and mild language concerns, the National Geographic Channel’s 192-minute mini-series, “Saints & Strangers,” would be an appropriate docudrama to show schoolchildren before they prepared for their first Thanksgiving pageant. By the time they’re adults, most of the wee pilgrims and Indians will have forgotten the message of the story, anyway, and this vivid representation is likely to stick in their memory longer than any recollection of Squanto’s good works and the promise of that first communal meal. Paul A. Edwards’ mini-series is best when it depicts the landscape of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and divisions that tested the resolve of both the English and Native Americans who populated the region. To put it bluntly, the pilgrims were divided by greed and religious fanaticism, with soldiers on hand to do what all soldiers are trained to do best: kill people who are a mystery to them. The religious colonists know that robbing graves and stealing food could cause problems down the road, but, since it’s God’s will for them to survive in Plymouth, it’s probably OK. For their part, the Pokanoket, Narragansett, Massachusetts and Wampanoag tribes were rewarded for peaceful overtures, generosity and restraint with an epidemic and being sold as slaves after 50 years of piece. Among the cast members are Vincent Kartheiser (“Mad Men”), Anna Camp (“Pitch Perfect”), Ron Livingston (“Office Space”), Ray Stevenson (“Rome”) and Natascha McElhone (“Californication”). Comedian/actor Tatanka Means (“Maze Runner”) and Kalani Queypo (“The New World”) and Del Zamora (“The Red Road”) may be recognizable in the Native American cast. All in all, it probably would have been better if Native Americans had discovered Europe, instead of the other way around. The DVD adds several deleted scenes.
As occasionally happens during TV coverage of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am tournament, the competition was dwarfed by the majesty of the oceanside setting. The sun shone on the competitors for the entire weekend, but the drama of a close finish was a sideshow to the crashing waves, blimp sightings of whales and other aquatic life, and scores of people gathered on the beach for reasons other than golf. Conditions aren’t always as conducive to tourism on the Monterey Peninsula. Sometimes, the fog turns Carmel, Pebble Beach and its 17 Mile Drive into a ghostly journey to points unknown. The terrific PBS documentary “Best of Big Blue Live” reminds us that golf isn’t the only thing that brings visitors to peninsula each spring. In what some might consider to be a perfect storm of disparate ecological forces, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary provides a semi-permanent home for marine life attracted by a bounty in krill and other edible links on the foods. “Best of Big Blue Live” is a whittled-down version of the original three-hour BBC One series, which was carried live from the observation deck of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, as well as research vessels, helicopters and divers on the edges of the kelp beds. It documents the extraordinary rejuvenation of the once endangered ecosystem through the migratory confluence of humpback whales, blue whales, orcas, sea lions, dolphins, elephant seals, sea otters, great white sharks, shearwaters and brown pelicans. If the hosts are sometimes overly giddy about the whip-around feeds, their enthusiasm is easily excused. If nothing else, viewers will be encouraged to conserve their money for an eco-cruise the next time they’re in the neighborhood.
From PBS, “Hudson River School: Artistic Pioneers” feels like one of those intentionally dull documentaries that used to bore high school students to death and, maybe, still do. As bright and colorful as the paintings on display are, the narration and interviews are just that dull and drained of emotion. The hour-long film explores the accomplishments of the first American school of landscape painting. From early 19th Century enclaves in New York’s Hudson River Valley, Adirondack Mountains, Catskill Mountains and White Mountains of New Hampshire, a group of American painters led by British born artist Thomas Cole forged an artistic vision of the American wilderness. While frequently overlooked by art teachers and curators, who favor European artists and sculptors, museum-goers enjoy discovering monumental paintings of the American frontier on their own. They don’t even seem to mind that the artists’ sometimes stretched the visual truth by adding spectacular dawns and sunsets, Native Americans, shepherds or children at play, and other unlikely juxtapositions. The same thing would happen as American artists wandered west with the easels and encountered such natural wonders as Yosemite. Even so, they describe an America that would soon give way to the intrusions of Industrial Age. Tellingly, perhaps, the film is sponsored by something called Clean Oil Painting, the city of Rhinebeck, N.Y., a paper-goods store and an agency for Hudson Valley tourism. You get what you pay for, I suppose. Here, the art speaks for itself.
By contrast, PBS’ “American Experience: Bonnie & Clyde” is a real crowd-pleaser. In addition to being a story with which we all are familiar, the documentary benefits from being unencumbered by Hollywood mythology and fact compression. Unless one discounts Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were the most famous criminal couple in U.S. history. What may surprise fans of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde is the savagery of Barrow’s early prison experience and Parker’s movie-magazine vision of live outside Depression-era Texas. He bore no resemblance to Robin Hood, let alone Warren Beatty, and she didn’t intend for her photographs to be splashed on the pages of newspapers across the country. The undeveloped film was discovered after they were hurriedly forced to exit a hideout. Even absent the embellishments, though, “Bonnie & Clyde” is pretty entertaining. The old clippings and photographs are fascinating to see, as is coverage of their funerals … separate, but equally well attended.
While American politicians fret about undocumented workers who cross the border to provide cheap labor to agricultural conglomerates and Beverly Hills households, our government seems unwilling to protect immigrants already in this country legally from exploitation by some their own people still fighting long-lost wars. That’s one of the messages conveyed in an investigation, “Terror in Little Saigon.” It was conducted by “Frontline” and ProPublica” into the murders of five Vietnamese-American journalists and a broader pattern of violence within the refugee communities that grew up in America after the Vietnam War. The violence goes back more than 30 years and appears to have perpetrated by a death squad sponsored by the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, an organization with tentacles extending from Houston to Laos. The journalists questioned whether the front was extorting money from members of the Vietnamese community in the U.S., ostensibly to finance an invasion of their home country from Laos and Thailand. Cuban-Americans have been praying for the same miracle for more than a half-century. What the show’s reporters discovered is that the FBI has suspected the Front for many years, but quietly closed its domestic-terrorism inquiry in the late 1990s. It’s possible that it’s investigators found too many links between the CIA and the Front and tired off hitting dead ends. Even 20 years later, a reporter was able to gather information and interview suspects – some reluctantly – able to provide insight into the killings. Their arrogance and disregard for American laws is frightening, if not terribly unusual.
The most significant difference between “McHale’s Navy” and McHale’s Navy the theatrical release is the Technicolor presentation and, well, that’s it. The TV series was shot on black-and-white film, but little was gained because the movie was shot on Universal’s backlot. It must have done some business, because McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force followed a year later, this time without Ernest Borgnine and Carl Ballantine. It could also be noted that, in 1942-43, McHale’s Navy could only have joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. Even by the low standards of the mid-1960s, these movies are irredeemably boring. What might have prompted Universal to risk millions of 1997 dollars on a remake, based primarily on the presence of Tom Arnold, Debra Messing, Dean Stockwell and David Alan Grier is anyone’s guess.
AJ is an 8-year-old techie, who drives monster-truck Blaze, the top racer in Axle City. The two go on adventures that have them taking on problems involving science and math. Many of the predicaments they face are caused by Blaze’s rival, Crusher, a tractor-trailer that will do anything to beat other vehicles to the finish line. Targeted at pre-schoolers, the animated “Blaze & The Monster Machines: Rev Up & Roar” covers areas of science, technology, engineering and math. It is comprised of the episodes, “Zeg and the Egg,” “Dino Dash,” “Gasquatch” and “Dragon Island Duel,” as well as a “Blaze of Glory” video storybook.
Sweaty Betty
Every Family Has Problems
I wonder if any woman in the last two millennia has been able to convince her husband of the possibility that the unexpected and largely unwanted child she’s carrying is the result of being impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Not many, I suspect. Even Joseph wondered what was going on with his new bride, before being visited in a dream by an angel of the Lord who asked him to go along with the ruse for the next 18 years, or so. (It’s believed that Joseph took his secret to a relatively early grave.) In Debbie Tucker Green’s provocative feature debut, Second Coming, an Afro-Caribbean woman living in south London is faced with a dilemma that would benefit from the appearance of a holy messenger. Instead, Jax (Nadine Marshall) dreams of strange lights and leaking ceilings. Jax hasn’t had sex with her husband, Mark (Idris Elba), in a long time, and, in any case, was told after the birth of her son JJ (Kai Francis Lewis) that she’d no longer be able to bear children. It explains why Jax has only confided in her best friend from work, who logically suggests she get an abortion before she begins to show. Before long, however, JJ tips his dad off by asking him what he intends to name the child he couldn’t possibly have helped conceive. Naturally, the mystery threatens to tear the hinges off their marriage and the stability of their working-class family. Green probably deduced early on that such a premise probably wouldn’t fly on the face of it, even though it’s a dandy idea. She wisely decided to invest in JJ a curiosity and wisdom that could be perceived by viewers as being angelic, without also requiring him to sprout wings or a halo. Second Coming requires a heck of a balancing act on the part of a first-time filmmaker and there are times when the center fails to hold. The acting more than compensates for the rocky patches, however.
With all due respect to the humans we meet in Joseph Frank and Zachary Reed’s thoroughly irresistible DIY docu-drama, Sweaty Betty, it could have just as easily been titled “Petz n the Hood” and attracted the same amount of attention in indie circles … possibly more. As far as I can tell there’s no Betty, sweaty or otherwise, in the movie. There is a 1,000-pound hog named Ms. Charlotte, however, and an abandoned pit-bull named Kilmer. The hog is owned by Floyd, a huge Redskins fan who takes Charlotte to tailgate parties in hopes of getting someone to name her an official mascot. “The Hogs” was a term coined by offensive line coach Joe Bugel during team’s training camp in 1982, when he told Russ Grimm and Jeff Bostic, “Okay, you hogs, let’s get running down there.” It caught on and encouraged diehard fans to wear hats designed with a snout and tail … still more politically correct than wearing an Indian war bonnet. It’s entirely possible, as well, that the street after which the terrier – it resembles Petey on “The Little Rascals” — was re-named to honor former Washington quarterback Billy Kilmer. Otherwise, the connection between the real-life characters is tenuous. Sweaty Betty offers a slice-of-life portrait of a neighborhood that straddles the border of the capital and suburban Maryland. Although it’s a leafy and clean residential neighborhood, the mostly African-American residents appear to be, by most standards, poor and marginally employed. A few blocks away from Floyd live Rico and Scooby, two teenage single fathers and best friends, who see in Kilmer an opportunity to make money by raising puppies or selling her outright. They get help from family members to nurture the children, who appear to be well taken care of, healthy and happy. Kilmer … not so much. Anyway, as the three men make their rounds in the neighborhood, we’re given an opportunity to watch people interact in ways movies, TV sitcoms and dramas, the nightly news reports don’t. If their dreams border on the highly unrealistic, the men share an enthusiasm for life that’s palpable. Likely shot on a cellphone camera – as was the prize-winning Tangerine – Sweaty Betty is as unpolished as a penny found lying on the sidewalk. Its fresh approach to the subject matter, however, is fresh and often quite funny. Oh, yeah, like The Harder They Come, the dialogue is subtitled to reflect the urban vernacular and patois. The DVD adds deleted scenes and a very weird short.
Like his older brother, Tyler, Emmbre Perry makes movies, some of which are produced as live recordings of stage plays. Also like his brother, the 36-year-old multi-hyphenate isn’t averse to slapping his name and photograph on DVD covers and lists of credits, whether or not he deserves the recognition. Unlike Tyler, however, Emmbre’s products aren’t even close to being ready for prime time. Every Family Has Problems is the second movie he’s written and the fourth he’s directed, behind No More Games, Let God Be the Judge and God Send Me a Man. You’d think, by now, he would have figured out how to mix an audio track in a way that doesn’t require viewers to continually adjust the sound levels. If it weren’t for the synopsis printed on the DVD cover, I wouldn’t have known what was happening on screen. Apparently, Every Family Has Problems concerns the disposition of a $500,000 life-insurance payout bequeathed to one of two stepbrothers living under the roof of an ill-matched pair of stepparents. Everyone suspects the boy has either stolen the money or is selling drugs. Perry plays the comic-relief grandfather with a beard so phony it wouldn’t fool a child, let alone the “upscale urban consumer” targeted by Perry’s production company. The cast also features Thomas Mikal Ford, rapper Lil Chuckee and a bunch of actors who were left off the credit roll, so as not to steal Emmbre’s thunder.
How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It)
Sheba, Baby: Blu-ray
If the minority-challenged folks at the motion-picture academy really want to make a statement at their annual Oscars soiree, they should, in addition to inviting the most bankable representatives of the African-American talent pool, consider going old-school … and I don’t mean trotting out Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, again. How about teaming Melvin van Peebles and Pam Grier to announce the winner in a high-profile category? Some observers might consider that to be a bit condescending, but it sure would make up for the absence of Will and Jada Smith. Joe Angio’s critically lauded 2005 tribute to Van Peebles, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It), presents all the evidence anyone would need to warrant such an honor, while also presenting a history lesson in African-American cinema. Although his self-produced 1971 feature film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, is widely credited as the first Blaxploitation film, its topicality and importance as a groundbreaking indie can’t be understated. Moreover, its early, no-nonsense take on police brutality speaks to what’s happening in cities around the country, today. Van Peebles’ contributions to the American theater, rap music and the civil-rights movement remain are significant, as well. The DVD adds a recent interview with Van Peebles, who’s as outspoken as ever.
The case for Grier is even easier to make. Simply put, for more than 40 years, she’s been one of the coolest actors — of any color or gender — in the business. Quentin Tarantino reminded us of that in Jackie Brown. More to the point, she was a bankable in her heyday as any actress not named Barbra Streisand. After starting out doing badass women-in-prison pictures in the Philippines, Grier claimed a new niche in Blaxploitation as a bona-fide action hero. Arrow Video/MVD’s refurbished edition of William Girdler’s 1975 Sheba, Baby may not constitute a prime example of the subgenre, but she’s in fine form as the revenge-minded daughter of an extortion victim and it’s still fun to watch. Her other 1975 credits included Bucktown and Friday Foster. Arrow adds such supplemental features as an original trailer for the film; a collection of stills and promotional materials; “Pam Grier: The AIP Years,” with historian Chris Poggiali; a new interview with producer and screenwriter David Sheldon; two audio commentaries; and a 14-page illustrated booklet, featuring Patty Breen’s essay “Sheba, Baby.”
This Changes Everything: Blu-ray
Disruptive Film: Everyday Resistance to Power, Vol. 1
Facets Kids
What will it take for citizens of the world to rise up and take action against global warming and the pollution caused by stripping the world of its natural resources: a) a series of meteorological disasters too relentless to ignore; b) the gradual absorption of prime real estate by swelling seas; c) when profit motives are stripped from the ecological equation, or d) the release of more well-meaning documentaries like This Changes Everything? All of the above certainly, but, as narrator Naomi Klein asks rhetorically in her introduction to Avi Lewis’ provocative, if less than groundbreaking film: Have we finally come to the point where preaching to the choir has actually become boring? This Changes Everything presents seven portraits of communities on the front lines of the fight, from Montana’s Powder River Basin and the Alberta Tar Sands, to the poisonous skies of South India and Beijing. Lewis produced the film in conjunction with Klein’s bestselling book of the same title, filming in nine countries and five continents over four years. Her premise: we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better. This Changes Everything was made before the unexpected decline in oil prices effectively took some of the wind out of the sails of the environmental movement, by encouraging short-sighted consumers to buy less efficient toys powered by carbon-based fuels. It also has given industrialists, utility companies and investors an opportunity to promote free-market solutions for problems caused by predatory capitalists. In California, however, when consumers successfully lowered water consumption in response to the ongoing drought, utilities requested a raise in rates to compensate for loss of profits. They’ll follow the same tack when and if independent solar-energy companies gain a foothold. Neither was the film made in time to reflect the lack of interest by presidential candidates of both parties to address the same issues in their so-called debates. Has the media pressed them to explain their positions, or lack thereof? No. Several of the Republican candidates have suggested either that global warming doesn’t exist or, if it does, it’s God’s will. As wonderful as it is to witness grass-roots activism occurring around the globe, it’s just as clear that most people won’t take climate change seriously until the patios of their beach homes are submerged under three feet of saltwater and the clouds above them rain coal dust. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes and interviews, as well as access to teaching tools.
Just when it began to seem as if every film student in the western world is putting the finishing touches on a groundbreaking new movie about zombies or spring break with Robert DeNiro, Facets Video comes along to remind us that there’s still room for expressions of disgust for the status quo, repressive governments, capitalist swine and unfettered gentrification. Actually, the 26 short-form experimental non-fiction titles collected in Disruptive Film: Everyday Resistance to Power, Vol. 1, aren’t limited to any particular historical period, country or cause. Curators Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner have successfully established a new history of film as political resistance, with radical global narratives that span from 1914 to the early 21st century and represent the diversity in approaches to documentary filmmaking. The collection has been arranged in nearly hour-long segments, representing “Globalized Resistances,” “Live Like a Refugee,” “Cultural Displacements” and “Performative Provocations.” It is intended to serve political and educational purposes, offering film, media and scholars a chance to review unaccountably under-appreciated works of film, video and animation that propose various strategies of resistance to power. And, no, not all of the films can be construed as being anti-American. Among those that are is John Greyson’s almost heartbreaking “14.3 Seconds,” a work of speculative video based on the notion that only 14.3 seconds worth of film stock went undestroyed after the 2003 bombing of Iraq’s film archives. In 2004, ICARP (Iraq Coalition Archives Restoration Project) announced that it intended to use these scraps to painstakingly reconstruct what was once considered the greatest collection of Arab Cinema in the world. It resulted in six different restorations, all lasting 14.3 seconds, in which the frames have been mixed and match in separate genre configurations.
For more than 30 years, Facets has hosted the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, the largest such event in North America. It annually welcomes 25,000 Chicago-area children, adults and educators, and features more than 250 films from 40 countries. These include live-action and animated feature films, shorts, TV series, documentaries and other child-produced works. Its mission is to showcase “the best in culturally diverse, non-violent, value-affirming new cinema for children, and is one of the only Academy Award-qualifying children’s film festivals in the world.” Facets’ Kids Film Camp introduces kids ages 7-14 to the techniques, language and process of filmmaking, through the expertise of professional filmmakers and respected critics. To coincide with the introduction of a new streaming service Facets Kids, four volumes of representative films have been released in DVD. They are “The Power of Imagination,” “Embracing Differences,” “Family and Community” and “Overcoming Obstacles.” There’s nothing quite like these compilations in the marketplace.
Sociopathia
Serial Kaller
Far better than it has any right to be, the micro-budget slasher flick, Sociopathia, was co-produced, -written, -directed and -edited by multi-hyphenate scream queen Ruby Larocca, who also found time to co-star in it. She does so alongside such like-talented actresses as Nicola Fiore (Slaughter Daughter), Asta Paredes (Return to Nuke ‘Em High), Tammy Jean (Apocalypse Kiss), Nicolette le Faye (Call Girl of Cthulhu) and lesser-known ingénues Tabetha Ray, Desiree Saetia and Brandy Noir. I don’t expect anyone to be familiar with most or any of these names. I just enjoy repeating them. Jean plays the mild-mannered Mara, a prop designer by day and psycho-killer by night. Desperately lonely, Mara can’t stand the thought of saying good-night to her lovers – mostly of the female persuasion – so she kills them and trusses them up as living dolls. When she’s hired by a fledgling producer, Kat (Parades), Mara faces choices she never thought would be available to her and the “dolls” resent having to share her creator with someone new. If the acting here won’t make anyone forget such legendary scream queens as Jamie Lee Curtis, Debbie Rochon, Tiffany Shepis or Linnea Quigley, at least they deliver the goods when it comes to semi-nudity and looking reasonably dead in zombie makeup. Moreover, it’s nice to see genre players get their own slice of the pie, for once. The DVD adds a complete B&W version of Sociopathia – don’t ask why – and seven deleted Scenes, including one with George Stover, a cult actor best known for his work in John Waters’ films.
Even more scream queens have been rounded up for Dan Brownlie and Dani Thompson’s Serial Kaller, in which a group of beautiful Internet models are trapped inside their studio by an unstable fan. Instead of stroking the caller’s ego, while he’s stroking his … the models decide it might be fun to insult him. Other factors may be at work, but dissing a paying customer is never a good idea. Among the voluptuous stars are Thompson, Debbie Rochon, Suzi Lorraine, Jessica Ann Brownlie and Ashleigh Lawrence. The ladies divide their time between their double-mattress stages and the dressing room, rarely bothering to change their lingerie, in between. Serial Kaller isn’t even as good as Sociopathia, but, at least, the actresses are given more to do than scream on cue.
In the House of Flies
Madness of Many
While having to listen to the disembodied voice of renaissance punk Henry Rollins would be unnerving in the best of circumstances, it seems especially diabolical coming from a telephone in a cinderblock dungeon occupied by a pair of unfortunate young lovers in In the House of Flies. The innocent couple, Heather (Lindsay Smith) and Steve (Ryan Kotack), have been abducted for no apparent reason by a stranger whose voice resembles that of the former frontman of Black Flag. The Voice’s “game” involves pitting his captives against each other, by promising things he may or not be able to deliver. He has left various props inside suitcases strategically placed inside the dungeon, which seemingly has no exit. That Heather is pregnant effectively raises the tension level in Gabriel Carrer and Angus McLellan’s alternating absorbing and tedious psychodrama. The DVD adds a 45-minute behind-the-scenes documentary; footage from the Spanish premiere; deleted scenes; and commentary.
Clearly inspired by Jörg Buttgereit (Nekromantik) and Tom Six (The Human Centipede), Danish filmmaker Kasper Juhl has created in Madness of Many a work of torture porn, so hideously graphic and profane that it begs the question as to what passes for sanity these days in Scandinavia. According to the marketing blurb, “The film depicts the psychological journey of a young woman named Victoria. Since her childhood she has been sexually abused by her family. One day she decides to escape but the world is against her and she soon finds herself cast into an inferno of torture and punishment. This causes her unimaginable suffering, but she also comes to understand the true meaning of her existence …” I take the last five words to mean that Victoria (Ellen Abrahamson) should accept the fact that she’s just one more female character in extreme jeopardy, who exists solely for the entertainment of sadists and perverts. To this end, Buttgereit is a master at creating makeup effects that wouldn’t be out of place in a snuff film. In a preface to Madness of Many, he says, “Pain and suffering expands my consciousness to find peace.” The problem comes in not being able to differentiate between storytelling and the equivalent to killing cats for masturbatory fun. It’s interesting, as well, that the DVD arrives in a package containing three separate discs, including one for bonus material and another for the soundtrack. The making-of featurette does a nice job demonstrating how much fun the actors were having on the set and why horror is just another form of make-believe … except when it isn’t, of course. When Buttgereit isn’t making movies, he’s the lead singer in the death- metal band Abscission. Of course, he is.
Freaks of Nature: Blu-ray
Black Mountain Side
Hellions: Blu-ray
The temptation to make and star in satires of genre flicks must be hard to resist. Mel Brooks did the world a favor by churning out parodies so dead-on funny that most potential imitators decided not to risk failure. The Scream and Scary Movie franchises reopened the floodgates, even as the National Lampoon series was running out of steam. Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright demonstrated the right way to have fun with genre parodies, in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, without insulting anyone’s intelligence or disrespecting time-honored tropes and conventions. Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows would be tough to beat, as well. Freaks of Nature (a.k.a.,“Kitchen Sink”) would appear to have had everything going for it, before it got caught up in some kind of a logjam at Columbia/Sony at the time of the hack . If I had to guess, I’d say it too closely resembled Hell Baby – also with Keegan-Michael Key – and The World’s End, with their all-star casts and Millennial humor. Among the recognizable players here are Nicholas Braun, Ed Westwick, Mackenzie Davis, Denis Leary, Vanessa Hudgens, Bob Odenkirk, Rachael Harris, Mae Whitman, Patton Oswalt and Werner Herzog’s disembodied. Director Robbie Pickering (Natural Selection) and writer Oren Uziel (22 Jump Street) don’t leave any of them hanging, exactly, but the laughs are sporadic. In a plot that might have been inspired by Troma’s Toxic Avenger, Freaks of Nature is set in the peaceful town of Dillford, Ohio, where vampires, zombies and humans co-exist in separate residential zones and everyone owes their well-being to a factory manufacturing dangerously unhealthy snacks made of brains. One day, a giant space vehicle hovers over the town and plant, causing the citizenry to panic and each other in stampedes. A force field prevents them from leaving. The key for their survival stands right before their eyes, but isn’t unleashed for 90 minutes of screen time.
In the horror comedy Mansion of Blood, Mike Donahue (Pooltime) appears to have invited everyone he’s ever known to a party at a haunted mansion in River Ridge Iowa, where the millionaire owner expects a lunar eclipse to shine light on a mystery that’s last several generations. As is the case in most eclipses, though, light eventually gives way to shadows. It does inspire a local witch to cast a spell to summon the spirit of her dead boyfriend, a trick that would be akin to bringing coals to Newcastle. The most noteworthy appearances here are by a creepy servant, played by Gary Busey, who looks more like Donald Trump every day. The other strange thing about Mansion of Blood is the inclusion of “college girls” whose breast implants might be older than the average age of their school’s student body.
I don’t know if Adam Mason’s Hangman is supposed to be a parody or comedy, but I lumped it in here because it very easily could have been funny and produced better results. Returning from vacation, the Millers (Jeremy Sisto, Kate Ashfield, Ty & Ryan Simpkins) find their home has been broken into by a very messy home invader. Naturally, they feel violated, angry and confused about what to do next. After a house search that completely misses the presence of the intruder and several screens linked to security cameras in the attic, they decide that lightning can’t strike twice in the same place and begin to go about their business as if nothing happened. Somehow, the Millers’ guest managed to install cameras so unobtrusively that they can’t be seen in the dozens of places they’re located. Every so often, the masked man drops down from the attic door to play pranks on the Millers and get closer to them than the cameras allow. His ability to do so, without causing the homeowners to call in exterminators or lock the door to the attic, finally becomes laughable.
In a high-altitude variation of The Thing and The Thing From Outer Space, writer/director Nick Szostakiwskyj pits a team of archeologists against a mysterious figure lurking on the fringes of the forest in British Columbia’s Monashee Mountains. Being the dead of winter, the scientists are trapped not only by the snow and cold, but also curiosity over the seemingly ancient structure they’ve found buried nearby. With nowhere to go, it becomes difficult to tell if the greater threat comes from the unknown or cabin fever. If nothing else, Black Mountain Side is easy on the eyes.
In Hellions, veteran Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald puts a rural twist on the Rosemary’s Baby conceit by having the interested bystanders to a teenager’s pregnancy be greedy little monsters using Halloween as a pretext for wearing creepy costumes and masks. Dora Vogel (Chloe Rose) just learned of her pregnancy that morning and is awaiting trick-or-treaters in the guise of an angel or fairy. The kids keep coming, even after the candy runs out. Ostensibly, the pro-life brats are torturing Dora because they assume she’ll abort the fetus. Always a welcome presence in genre flicks, Robert Patrick keeps everyone guessing as to his character’s motivation. McDonald also does a nice job with the arty dream sequences.
A Violent Life
Comin’ at Ya!: Blu-Ray 3D/2D
Hector the Mighty
E.N.D.
I’m not enough of a genre buff to know just how valuable One 7 Movies’ newly released A Violent Life might be to collectors of mid-century Italian cinema, except to point out that the 1970 drama appears to have lost its original title, “Ostia,” in the translation and given one used by Pier Paolo Pasolini for a 1959 novel about life among dispossessed youth in post-war Rome. The 1961 film adaptation of that book, by Paolo Heusch and Brunello Rondi, carried the title Violent Life, from the original “Una vita violenta.” Co-adapted and directed by frequent Pasolini collaborator, Sergio Citti (Salo, Accatone), Ostia/A Violent Life remains interesting for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that it prefigured the artist’s ghastly murder – still unsolved – on the same beach, five years later. Bandiera (Laurent Terzieff) and Rabbino (Franco Citti) are inseparable brothers – the sons of a brutal anarcho-communist peasant — who live on a patch of land outside Rome. As children, they’re traumatized by the callous devouring of a pet sheep and take out their rage on their drunken father. Years later, in the same fields, the petty criminals discover the body of a vivacious blond, Monica (Anita Sanders), whose sleep they mistake for death. The young brothers don’t seem particularly interested in ravaging the beauty, but their cronies take advantage of her dazed condition to finish what a wandering soldier and her father had previously attempted to do. While Bandiera and Rabbino are in prison for one crime or another, they’re given an opportunity to “cohabitate” with Monica, but only one shag per visit. Forced to choose between them, Monica inadvertently causes a rift between the brothers, who, otherwise, hadn’t shown any interest in her sexually. Upon their release, the trio goes for a swim in the sea. The sight of her nude body so casually displayed – in combination with latent jealousy – sparks a confrontation that’s possibly intended to remind us of Cain and Abel. A Violent Life may not be in the same league as Pasolini’s more noteworthy works, but it is of a piece with his earlier post-war studies of how poverty and caste impacted Italy before the economic “miracle” brought la dolce vita. Sadly, there are no bonus features.
Fifteen years after Italian genre specialist Ferdinando Baldi directed Django, Prepare a Coffin and Texas, Adios, he attempted to blow fresh air into the deflated Spaghetti Western category with Comin’ at Ya! Inspired, perhaps, by John Wayne’s 3D Western, Hondo, Baldi and writer/star Tony Anthony enthusiastically embraced the format. The story follows bank robber H.H. Hart (Anthony) as he exacts his vengeance on a pair of desperadoes who kidnap his fiancé, Abilene (Victoria Abril), at the altar and leave him for dead. The gunmen lock Abilene in the basement of a hacienda with a couple dozen other women they intend to sell as sex slaves. The question, of course, is whether H.H. can rescue the prisoners before they’re sold and dispersed throughout Mexico. Baldi appears to have been less interested in the intricacies of the story than creating opportunities to show off 3D effects. These include darts, snakes, beans, rats, spears, grasping hands, spiders, a bowling ball, bats, gun barrels, swords, cowboys falling down stairs, a spinning yo-yo and pinwheel, gold coins, apple peelings, flaming arrows and a baby’s bottom. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to purchase a 3D television simply to take advantage of the special effects, but those who’ve already made the investment might want to check out Comin’ at Ya!
Where the archivists at Cheezy Flicks find the masterpieces in their inventory, I’ll never know. As far as I can tell, Hector the Mighty never opened in the U.S. and, given the opportunity, stars Giancarlo Giannini and Vittorio De Sica might have considered buying the negative and destroying it. Giannini was on the verge of becoming a huge international star with Lina Wertmüller’s The Seduction of Mimi and Love & Anarchy, while 71-year-old De Sica still would go on to direct A Brief Vacation and The Voyage. Writer/director Enzo G. Castellari’s future held jobs helming The Inglorious Bastards and The Loves and Times of Scaramouche, so he, too, might have had reasons to keep Hector the Mighty submerged. Students of the Greek mythology might recognize the debt Castellari owes to Homer, as Helen of Troy’s kidnapping by Theseus is recalled in the abduction of Elena (Rosanna Schiaffino), wife of an Italian mob boss. Two powerful gangs compete to rescue her, even if she doesn’t want to be returned to her husband. Giannini plays Ulisse to Michael Forest’s Achilles. Because both men are recognized for their voicing talent, it’s a shame that they’re dubbing appears to have been performed by Three Stooges impersonators.
Five Italian filmmakers contributed to E.N.D. The Movie, a zombie-apocalypse drama whose related segments cover three different time periods, three different locations and three different gradations of a worldwide plague. The first takes place in a funeral parlor, where different employees are forced to deal with the earliest stage of an epidemic spread by cocaine. Soon, the corpses ready for the burial wake up in their coffins. On Day 1466, when the epidemic has already devoured the whole country, an American soldier and a pregnant woman are surrounded by zombies in a cabin in the woods. By Day 2333, the country is divided in two factions — humans and undead – neither of them what they appear to be. The DVD adds an interview with screenwriter Antonio Tentori.
Red Krokodil
Maybe you’ve heard or read about the street drug krokodil, which has been known to rot the skin of users from inside-out. Mostly popular in Russia and former Soviet states, where it surfaced in a heroin panic, krokodil was first synthesized in 1932 and patented in 1934 as desomorphine. A dose can be 8 to 10 times more potent than morphine, but have a far shorter active period. While it hasn’t been manufactured for pharmaceutical use for more than 30 years, it is relatively easy to make, given codeine and other ingredients readily available in Russia. Because it is known to cause such extreme gangrene and abscesses that a user’s muscles, tendons and bones can become exposed – and scaly ruptures surround the injections — it’s difficult to imagine even the most strung out junkie finding it therapeutic. Even so, a few cases of krokodil abuse have been reported in the U.S. In Domiziano Cristopharo’s harrowing Red Krokodil, we watch as the drug slowly destroys a young man who’s survived a nuclear disaster, like Chernobyl, but is consumed by loss and lack of hope for a future. Even though he lives in an apartment that can only charitably be described as a pigsty, his hallucinations carry him to places in nature where he can roam freely, naked as a jaybird. It doesn’t take long for Him (Brock Madson) to return to his world of hurt and decay, however, where his only companions are an imaginary Bunny Man and a stuffed toy crocodile given to him as a child. Red Krokodil is as nihilistic a movie as one is likely to encounter and not one for the faint of heart. As metaphors go, though, the drug certainly conveys how the filmmakers feel about a civilization destined to destroy itself. The DVD adds an alternate ending, a couple of deleted scenes and a photo gallery.
Hard Scrambled
Kurtwood Smith (“That ’70s Show”), whose face is far more familiar than his name, shines in David Scott Hay’s stagey character study, Hard Scrambled. Set primarily in a rundown urban eatery, Alice’s Diner is the kind of place where street urchins gorge themselves on coffee, but don’t spend much money on food. When the restaurant’s namesake (Beth Grant) suffers a terrible accident in the kitchen, Smith’s ex-con character and Richard Edson’s dreamer, Joe, compete to take over the operation, opening the door for financial scams and double-crosses. Hard Scrambled began its life as a play and its roots show throughout the movie. The DVD contains a lengthy making-of featurette, which likely will appeal to aspiring filmmakers.
Masterless: Blu-ray
I wonder if Craig Shimahara ever considered titling his debut feature “Gotta Serve Somebody,” after Bob Dylan’s gospel-rock classic, instead of the more ambiguous, Masterless. Kane Madison (Adam LaVorgnais) is a recently laid-off L.A. architect, whose spirit exists in two worlds. The first is in a hellishly competitive business environment, where godless capitalists are too busy worshipping the holy dollar to notice the emptiness inside them. The other is among the ancestors of his Japanese wife, who’s deathly ill, but must have some samurai blood coursing through her veins. In a conceit that’s far-fetched even by faith-based standards, Kane’s doppelganger spirit, Ronin, is an Anglo swordsman without a master, wandering through the forests of 19th Century Japan. He’s struggling in both spheres of consciousness. The idea, of course, is that no one can succeed without a master – God, for example — no matter how ruthless and well-armed they might be. (The word, “ronin,” also can be interpreted to identify a “salaryman,” between employers.)  Shimahara deserves credit for taking a chance here, both thematically and technically. Despite the elaborate conceit, it’s easy to keep track of the time shifts and the only really unlikeable character is Kane’s shrewish mother-in-law, who blames him for taking her daughter to America and allowing her to follow a Christian path. Those so inclined might enjoy the fresh approach to the genre by Masterless.
David Bowie: In His Own Words
Coldplay: Live Stories
Dicks: The Dicks From Texas
Charles Bradley: Live From the House of Soul
As coincidences go, this week’s package from MVD Visual contained a real doozy. No one at the company could have foreseen the loss of David Bowie, last month, at 69, to liver cancer, so the release of David Bowie: In His Own Words is purely and simply a coincidence. No one from the company called to give me head’s-up, as I’d already requested a copy in December. It’s possible that AXS-TV hadn’t scheduled showings of D.A. Pennebaker’s splendid 1973 concert film, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, before his death, but I’m glad I was given an opportunity to tape it. Filmed during the last stop of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour/incarnation, it could hardly be more entertaining or difficult to find through normal channels in mint condition. By contrast, “In His Own Words” contains virtually no music. The same applies to the same company’s Keith Richard: In His Own Words, released last month. They’re both comprised of interviews in the public record and other archival material, absent anything the producers would have to license. Because of the nature of the publicity tours from which most of the material was generated, the Bowie session provide far more insight into the man. For one thing, he’s asked better questions by interviewers who include Conan O’Brien and Carson Daly. Neither does he appear to be selling anything. He’s personable, funny, absent all pretext and completely forthcoming. Bowie seems at home talking about the fate of the planet, making wild but intriguing predictions about the future, chatting about the path of music or discussing any number of writers, poets, philosophers or artists who have inspired him. At 90 minutes, there’s more than enough material to make fans happy.
A similar coincidence applies to Coldplay: Live Stories, whose release coincided with the British band’s near disastrous appearance during the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Through no fault of the band’s own, it was expected to impress a packed stadium and tens of millions of TV viewers in exactly the wrong demographic range with songs they might have heard on the radio, but not associated with Coldplay. Neither did it help attract eyes when Chris Martin admitted to not knowing anything about American football. Why would he? Probably realizing that they’d made a mistake, the Pepsi promoters decided Coldplay couldn’t hold the interest of nacho-stuffed fans long enough to sell their latest concoctions. So, they invited Beyonce to join the party and plug her new album, alongside Bruno “Crazy Legs” Mars. Coldplay has filled venues around the world that are twice as big as Levi’s Stadium. No matter, it’s likely the check didn’t bounce and Coldplay didn’t look any worse, in retrospect, than the Carolina team. Coldplay: Live Stories, too, is largely free of music until near the end, when there’s plenty. What it does have, in spades, is band history going back to previous iterations and commentary by longtime followers. And, again, fans should love it.
Not at all coincidental, but similarly compelling are the two other music docs included in the delivery. Dicks: The Dicks From Texas recalls the early-1980s heyday the Austin band, which probably couldn’t get into the Super Bowl, even if the members purchased tickets. Cowpunk and “queercore” before either of those subgenres were remotely cool in Texas, the Dicks’ lead singer Gary Floyd could pass for Divine’s illegitimate child on stage. By all accounts, the Dicks were – and still are – influential in the national hard-core punk scene, even if they didn’t make any money at it. A good time is had by all in the DVD.
If Daptone Records sounds familiar, it’s probably because of its association with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, the funk/soul ensemble that backed Amy Winehouse on her breakthrough album, “Back to Black.” The Brooklyn-based label’s been around longer than that, however. Charles Bradley: Live From the House of Soul represents the first installment of Daptone Records’ new video series. Before settling on a career in the funk/soul/R&B arena, Bradley was a well-regarded James Brown impersonator.
Trancers: City of Lost Angels
Sci-fi completists are the primary audience for Trancers: City of Lost Angels, a long lost chapter in a three-part anthology concocted in 1988 by Full Moon founder Charles Band as “Pulse Pounders.” Once the money disappeared, so, too, did the 35mm negatives for “The Evil Clergyman” and a “Dungeonmaster” follow-up. A quarter-century later, a VHS transfer of an edited work print surfaced. In the 30-minute short, Tim Thomerson plays Jack Deth, a supercop from the future, who has put away three centuries worth of time-traveling criminals. Velvet Rhodes plays the violent assassin Edlin Shock, a recent escapee from a maximum-security prison. Now based in 1988 Los Angeles, Deth is involved in shaky relationship with 21-year-old Helen Hunt. The DVD adds some background features.
TV-to-DVD
El Rey: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series: Season Two
MHz: A French Village: 1941: Season 2
MHz: Spiral: Season 5
PBS: Nova: Making North America
PBS: BBC Earth: Earth’s Natural Wonders: Blu-ray
PBS: American Experience: The Mine Wars
PBS: American Experience: Murder of a President
Independent Lens: A Ballerina’s Tale: Blu-ray
While there’s no shortage of hot young vampires on television, very few of them are conversant in Spanish and represent the fastest-growing minority in the U.S. Developed by Robert Rodriguez, the supernatural crime series “From Dusk till Dawn” expands on its namesake film and straight-to-DVD franchise, which employs a more comic/horror tone. If you haven’t heard of the show, it’s only because the series is the cornerstone production of the El Rey network, which is only carried on a handful of cable and satellite services. In addition to the usual bloodsuckers, the featured creatures include characters from Aztec and other Mexican traditions. In Season Two, Santanico Pandemonium (Eiza González) and Richie Gecko (Zane Holtz) are impersonating a modern version of Bonnie and Clyde, Seth Gecko and Kate (Madison Davenport) are scraping by as small-time criminals in north Mexico and Ranger Freddie Gonzalez (Jesse Garcia) is struggling to protecting his family in the suburbs. Naturally, the Titty Twister strip club attracts desperadoes like a Venus flytrap attracts, well, flies. As confusing as the shapeshifting can be, the mix of little known actors and popular guest stars is nicely choreographed. While full of fantasy violence and mayhem, nudity is of the partial variety. Look for visits by Danny Trejo, Wilmer Valderrama, Jake Busey, Robert Patrick, Esai Morales, Jeff Fahey and Don Johnson. The Blu-ray adds commentary on select episodes, recaps, making-of featurettes and a presentation from the 2015 NYC Comic Con.
The MHz Networks import, “A French Village,” chronicles the impact of World War II on a small village in central France from the beginning of the German occupation, 1940, until the liberation by Allied forces in 1944. Newly available on DVD is the second of six seasons, mostly encompassing the events of 1941. As the residents settle down for the long haul, the German presence in Villeneuve has become firmly entrenched, eclipsing any notion that the Vichy government had any say in the matter. The interaction between the German troops and residents is about to devolve from almost cordial to antagonistic, with the resistance taking shape and threats to Jews becoming more direct. One interesting storyline involves discussions among Communist Party members as to how to show their support for their comrades on the Eastern Front, where the Nazis still appear to hold the upper hand. As we already know, any violent resistance against the enemy would result in reprisals against the population at large. Here, though, there’s still room dialogue, commerce and soap-opera romance. It’s an amazing series, well worth the effort it takes to endure the subtitles. The MHz streaming site appears to be a year ahead of the DVD releases.
Also from MHz comes Season Five of the contemporary police procedural, “Spiral,” winner of the 2015 International Emmy for best Drama Series. It is about the men and women who work at the heart of the Parisian judicial system, especially the interaction between the lawyers, judges, prosecutors and detectives who cross paths on the most serious and heinous crimes. As is the case with “Law & Order,” reality tends to spiral out of control for each character, blurring the boundaries between private and professional life. If anything, the tension between men and women on the force is greater in “Spiral.” Season Five begins with the shocking double murder of a woman and a girl, found bound together in a canal. Naturally, the investigation begins with the father, who appears to have disappeared with his young son, after a bitter domestic clash. Captain Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust) is still reeling from the death of a partner in Season Four and her demeanor is further tested by an unplanned pregnancy. As seemingly unrelated investigations develop, the characters find similarities to the original murders.
In its continuing effort to make viewers regret not taking advanced geology and Earth-sciences in college, PBS appears to have made it its business to explain not only how the world as we know it was shaped, but also the ways its continued to change … imperceptibly and in great physical upheavals. More to the point of television, though, such science-based series as “NOVA” and “BBC Earth” have made these changes look far more spectacularly beautiful than previous generations of students got have imagined. Drone technology probably will add new dimensions to our appreciation of the geologists’ art. The latest entries include “Making North America” describes how such elemental forces as volcanic eruptions, floods, glaciers and meteorites conspired to shape our land. The “NOVA” presentation serves as a sweeping biography of our continent and how it came to be. It is enhanced by hyper-realistic CGI animations, immersive geological field missions and the latest scientific research, The BBC’s “Earth’s Natural Wonders” travels to some of the planet’s most extraordinary destinations to show how their environments shape the lives of those who live there. They include Mount Everest’s Khumbu Icefall, the Amazon Basin and Grand Canyon.
From PBS’s “American Experience” come “The Mine Wars” and “Murder of a President,” the first taking an in-depth at struggle of mine workers to be compensated commiserate to the hazards of the job and needs of their families. The mine owners, of course, would have preferred the miner paid them to work there. They fought every effort to organize unions with repressive legislation, brutal police and national guard units, scabs and mercenary violence. If enormous profits weren’t available to management and the country didn’t need the coal to fuel our industrial engine, the strikes might never have been settled. It seems as if the unions have been fighting the same battles for respect, safety and adequate compensation since the early 1900s covered here. “Murder of a President” recounts the assassination and excruciating final months of President James Garfield’s life. Our 20th president was gunned down by a deranged Stalwart politician only a few months after taking office. He would die two months later from the wounds. A brilliant scholar, courageous general and fervent abolitionist, Garfield never wanted the job of president, but, once in office, he worked tirelessly to reunite a nation still divided 15 years after the Civil War.
Now playing on select PBS stations is “A Ballerina’s Tale,” which is a short version of Nelson George’s beautiful bio-doc of Misty Copeland, who made history when she became the first African-American woman to be named principal dancer of the legendary American Ballet Theater. George followed the Los Angeles-raised dancer for the past two years, during which her profile was raised to almost astronomical heights, if only because her backstory is as compelling these things get. Because of her ethnic background and non-traditional “body type,” the spotlight shown on her during her rise was harsher than the one accorded non-black ballerinas. The film also describes her career-threatening surgery for six stress fractures to her tibia. It is, at once, highly inspirational, motivational and entertaining,
Masterpiece: Downton Abbey: Season 6: Blu-ray
The Hee Haw Collection: Kornfield Klassics
The Carol Burnett Show: Treasures From the Vault: The Lost Episodes
Nickelodeon: Shimmer & Shine
In the wake of the recent re-lease of Ken Burns’ epic PBS documentary, “The Civil War,” comes the six-part mini-series, “Mercy Street,” which dramatizes life, death, love and political intrigue in a Union Army Hospital, across the Potomac River from Washington, in Alexandria, Virginia. The thread of soap-opera melodrama that runs through the story is bolstered by the conceit of having the facility situated inside a previously grand hotel owned and managed by a family that believes strongly in the Confederate cause. The Greens aren’t entirely altruistic, of course, seeing as though James Green (Gary Cole) is a businessman first and patriot second. If viewers are supposed to think of Gone With the Wind’s O’Hara family when considering the machinations of the Greens, it works. Some also will recall the film’s single most powerful scene, panning the immensity of makeshift hospital grounds barely able to cope with the carnage of the battle for Atlanta. What happens inside the Mansion House is a microcosm of that and other scenes in “GWTW,” as well as the BBC’s fine WWI frontline-hospital mini-series, “The Crimson Field,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “ANZAC Girls” and James Kent’s Testament of Youth. (Even stately Downton Abbey was converted to a medical facility.) Likewise, “Mercy Street” puts a tight focus on several volunteer nurses, surgeons and patients, representing a myriad of opinions on what’s at stake in the American Civil War. Then, too, parallel storylines follow former slaves walking a tightrope between tenuous emancipation and the possibility they could be kidnapped and returned South, even as freed men and women; corrupt Union officials; and plots to murder President Lincoln. The series is created by Lisa Wolfinger and David Zabel and inspired by memoirs and letters of actual doctors and female nurse volunteers at Mansion House Hospital. The DVD adds deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.
If the British writer Robert Graves had lived long enough to be a fan of “Downton Abbey,” he might borrow some thoughts from his autobiography, “Good-Bye to All That,” to describe his feelings about the show’s sixth and final season. The book was published in 1929, when the author was 34 and quite ready to leave behind the world described in the beloved “Masterpiece” series. As much as we’d all love to see “Downton” last forever – or, at least, until Mick Jagger or Jimmy Page bought the estate – the family’s lifestyle no longer could be sustained … or tolerated. Creator Julian Fellowes has done a nice job wrapping things up, without resorting to maudlin devices or atypical fireworks. He has allowed for the luxury of tying up loose ends, however, by inviting back some long-absent characters. “Season 6” remains what “Downton Abbey” always been: a class act. For those viewers who can’t wait until next month’s finale – or, are still catching up – the Blu-ray arrives with the featurettes, “Cars of Downton Abbey,” “Farewell to Highclere,” “Changing Times” and, of course, a “Visit Britain” interstitial. I suspect that a gala compilation will become available shortly before Christmas, so fans may want to start saving their pennies. The fate of “Mercy Street” has yet to be decided.
Time Life/WEA continues to dish out bite-size portions of much larger and more expensive compilations, the latest being “The Hee Haw Collection: Kornfield Klassics.” The latest package of episodes from the long-running syndicated series, which gave new meaning to the terms, “cornpone” and “hayseed,” contains Episodes 45 and 48. They include contributions from series regulars Buck Owens, Roy Clark, the Hagers, Nashville Edition, as well as guest stars Loretta Lynn, Roger Miller, Bill Anderson and Peggy Little.
Last Saturday, Carol Burnette accepted a lifetime-achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild for her six decades on the big and small screen, including her groundbreaking namesake variety show, which ran for 11 years. During the late-1960s, CBS was sometimes called “The Carol Burnett Show Network,” a joking reference to the program’s huge ratings and value to its advertisers. And, yet, the first five seasons hadn’t resurfaced — no reruns, streaming video, DVDs or other formats — until Time Life introduced “The Lost Episodes.” The new six-disc set, “The Carol Burnett Show: Treasures From the Vault: The Lost Episodes,” features 15 uncut episodes and such guest stars as Jonathan Winters, Joan Rivers and Mickey Rooney. There are more than four hours of bonus features.
Nickelodeon’s newest addition to its Nick Jr. block, “Shimmer & Shine,” features a young girl named Leah and two apprentice genies, Shimmer and Shine, who happen to be fraternal twins. They are allowed to grant three wishes every day, but, first, must travel to Earth from the magical land of Zahramay Falls, which is located inside their genie bottle. When not granting wishes, Shimmer and Shine live with their pets Nahal and Tala and travel around on a magic carpet. The trouble is, as genies-in-training, they sometimes misinterpret Leah’s wishes and often accidentally grant her wishes she didn’t mean to make.
Jack’s Back: Blu-ray
The Toxic Avenger Collection: Limited Edition: Blu-ray
Among the words that have almost completely lost their original meaning over the last 30-40 years is “geek.” Although it’s generally accepted today that a geek is a nerd with the ability of getting things done, instead of obsessing over how cool something will look once it’s finished, we’re reminded by writer/director Carlton Albright that it describes a gnarly midway performer who bites the heads off chickens and drinks their blood. If the ASPCA hasn’t already convinced legislators to ban such freakish behavior, it’s unlikely there’s much call for the talents of a geeks outside Tea Party conventions and birthday parties for meth addicts. In Luther the Geek, a gang of Depression-era farmers attends a performance of a caged geek, held in a barn. While they taunt him in the usual hayseed fashion, a boy accidentally hits his mouth on a board, dislodging several teeth. The taste of blood, combined with the excitement that comes with watching a crazed man decapitate a chicken, encourages Luther to follow the caged performer into show business. Before long, he’s replaced his lost teeth with steel dentures, filed to razor-sharp precision capable of biting through the throats of human beings. Absent the stealth and wiles of Jack the Ripper, Luther is captured and sentenced to an eternity in prison. In modern penal terms, an eternity too often translates to anywhere between 10 and 50 years. Somehow a majority of parole-board officials recognizes in Luther something resembling good behavior and he’s allowed to join polite society. No sooner is Luther kicked out of a supermarket – brazenly chugging raw eggs from a carton — than he attacks an elderly woman and attempts to bite off her head. To avoid the cops, the clucking geek (Edward Terry) jumps into the car of a shopper heading back to her farmhouse. Once there … well, you can probably guess the rest. If Luther the Geek could never be mistaken for a competently made horror film, it maintains a brisk pace throughout its 80-minute length, with more than enough gore, nudity and stupid behavior to satisfy the average genre nerd’s passion for mayhem. Newly refreshed with a 2K scan from the 35mm negative, the Blu-ray edition adds commentary with Albright, an interview with actor Jerome Clarke, outtakes and deleted shots, and reversible cover art.
If there was a film made in the 1980s as thoroughly reprehensible – in a good way — as Luther the Geek, it’s Robert Martin Carroll’s almost unrepentantly sick – again, in a good way – Sonny Boy, which co-star David Carradine once characterized as being a cross between Bonnie and Clyde, Bringing Up Baby and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In the remote desert town of Harmony, N.M., a psychopathic petty crook and purveyor of stolen TVs, Slue (Paul L Smith), is enjoying a life of redneck bliss with his transvestite girlfriend, Pearl (Carradine), when a local good-for-nothing, Weasel (Brad Dourif), delivers onto them a baby boy. Weasel had stolen the red convertible from the infant’s parents – now deceased – but neglected to look under the blankets piled on the back seat. It wasn’t until he got to Harmony that the baby decided to alert Weasel of his spoiled diapers, at which time Pearl decides she wants to experience the joys of motherhood. Her lover decides, instead, to cut out Sonny Boy’s tongue and toss him into a corn bin to fend for himself for the next 15 years. When the feral child (Michael Boston) escapes and begins to terrorize the unsuspecting residents of Harmony, they rise up as one to destroy Slue and Pearl’s stronghold. Because Slue owns a military-grade cannon, the body count promises to be impressive. For what should be obvious reasons, Sonny Boy was accorded a record low number of days in distribution. It arrives on Blu-ray in nearly pristine condition, alongside commentaries with Carroll and writer Graeme Whifler and a BD-Rom draft of the script.
No less gory, but far more coherent is Jack’s Back, in which a L.A.-based serial killer celebrates Jack the Ripper’s 100th birthday by committing similarly grisly murders. Because James Spader plays twin brothers John and Rick Wesford and is the only still recognizable star, there’s a very good chance he’s either the killer or will be the lead suspect required to prove one or both of them is innocent. Naturally, the brother who’s a surgeon and has the cutlery to prove it is both the most and least likely person to have killed the hookers.  For Spader, Jack’s Back was sandwiched between key supporting appearances in Less Than Zero and Wall Street and a breakout lead performance in Sex, Lies and Videotape. He worked steadily through the 1990s, but the movies shrank in importance. His return to form wouldn’t come until a dozen years later with a wicked turn in Secretary and the introduction of his ethically challenged lawyer, Alan Shore, in “The Practice” and “Boston Legal.” Writer/director Rowdy Herrington’s next assignment would be directing the endearing cult classic, Road House, with Patrick Swayze and Kelly Lynch. The Blu-ray adds Herrington’s commentary, a making-of featurette and interviews with producer Tim Moore, actress Cynthia Gibb and DP Shelly Johnson.
And, while we’re on the subject of gloriously grotesque cinema, there’s the arrival on Blu-ray of Troma’s The Toxic Avenger Collection, which is comprised of The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie and Citizen Toxie. For the uninitiated, the oddly endearing cult character, Toxie, arose 15 years ago from decaying carcass of Melvin Junko, a nerdy mop boy in a Tromaville gym, who dived out of a window, landing headfirst into a simmering vat of toxic waste. Suddenly, the woefully deformed Melvin has been transformed into a dogged crusader against corruption, thuggish bullies and indifference. In “Part IV,” however, an explosion transports Toxie to a parallel universe in which the superhero and his evil doppelganger, Noxie, chose opposite sides of the environmental fence to defend, while also impregnating the blond princess Sarah and her own evil doppelganger. Similarly affected by the explosion are Sgt. Kabukiman, the obese Chester/Lardass, Dolphin Man, and the late Lemmy Kilmeister. The “Toxet” adds intros by Lloyd Kaufman, commentaries, interviews with the cast and crew, marketing material, “Apocalypse Soon: The Making of ‘Citizen Toxie’” and Tromatic videos.
Nikkatsu Diamond Guys: Vol. 1: Blu-ray
Arrow Video once again discovers gold in a most unusual place. In the late 1950s, the venerable Nikkatsu film studio inaugurated a star system, designed to locate exploitable male talent and assign them to its Diamond Line for a series of wild genre pictures. This collection celebrates three of the Diamond Guys with classic films from directors Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill), Toshio Masuda (Rusty Knife) and Buichi Saito (Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril). Veteran tough guy Hideaki Nitani stars in Suzuki’s Voice Without a Shadow (1958), a noir whodunit about a former telephone-switchboard operator, Asako, who’s still haunted by the taunting voice of a disembodied killer. Reporter/narrator Ishikawa (Nitani) is pulled into the cold case when Asako recognizes the same voice emanating within the walls of her own home and calls her former co-worker for help. It belongs to one of the three men her husband has invited home for dinner and a game of mahjong. Her discovery triggers even more violence and an investigation that leads Ishikawa into the criminal underground.
Next, 1950s subculture icon Yujiro Ishihara stars in Masuda’s Red Pier as “Lefty” Jiro, a killer whose arrival in Kobe is complicated when he witnesses a man die in a crane “accident” that turns out to be anything but accidental. Much of the story unfolds in smoky nightclubs popular with trampy young women and slick gangsters. If Elvis Presley had been stationed in Japan, instead of Germany, he might have been convinced to spend his leave time acting in Saito’s The Rambling Guitarist, a 1959 action drama that resembles King Creole. Instead, pop superstar Akira Koabyashi stars as wandering street musician whose pugilistic skills endear him to a local crime boss and his daughter. The color cinematography adds a bit more of a Hollywood feel to the production, as well.
TV-to-DVD
USA: Mr. Robot: Season 1: Blu-ray
Nickelodeon Favorites: Whiskers & Paws
PBS Kids: Superwhy: Three Billy Goats Gruff & Other Fairytale Adventures
The Facts of Life: Season Eight
If, like me, the first time you paid attention to USA’s “Mr. Robot” was after it won two key Golden Globe awards, then you’ll be happy to learn that it’s easy to catch up on the series via DVD/Blu-ray, the USA Now app and select streaming services. Normally, I don’t give much credence to the organization, but, like a blind pig, it should be given due credit for finding the occasional acorn. The trophies for Best Television Series: Drama and Best Supporting Actor: Series, Miniseries or Television Film (Christian Slater) – as well as Rami Malek’s well-deserved Best Actor nomination – came as a happy surprise and vindication for early promoters of the show. The series follows Elliot Alderson (Malek), an extremely gifted, if totally creepy engineer, who works at the cybersecurity company Allsafe. As conceived by executive producer Sam Esmail (Comet), Elliot’s thought processes are heavily influenced by social anxiety disorder, paranoia and clinical depression. He connects to people by hacking them, like “human malware.” He isn’t averse to using his gifts to protect friends or punishing miscreants, including, in the first episode, a yuppie douchebag who mistreats his dog. Even so, Elliot finds himself at a crossroads when the mysterious leader of an underground hacker group recruits him to destroy the firm he is paid to protect. The antiheroic anarchist, known as Mr. Robot (Slater), woes Elliot by detailing a conspiracy designed to cancel all personal debts by taking down one of the largest corporations in the world. It’s the kind of revolutionary action behind which any TV viewer with a credit card or student loan can rally. At first, the scope of the plan intimidates Elliot. On balance, though, he decides that the mega-company is far too evil to be left to its devices. Just when the disparate pieces begin to come together, Elliot is forced to admit to a debilitating morphine addiction. What’s revealed in the detox-induced hallucinations takes us deeper into Elliot’s Lynchian backstory than some viewers may want to go. If there are times when Elliot acts as if he’s the love child of Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, Esmail admits to being influenced by such disparate entertainments as American Psycho, Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, The Matrix, Fight Club, Risky Business and “Breaking Bad.” Mac Quayle’s nightmarish soundtrack raises more than a few goosebumps along the way, as well. Anyone plagued by the notion that the Internet could come crashing down, 20 minutes before they were able to cash out their investments, may want to avoid binge-viewing “Mr. Robot.” It’s that freaky. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes, a gag reel and making-of featurette.
“Nickelodeon Favorites: Whiskers & Paws” features more than two hours of laughs from some of Nick’s newest shows. “Shimmer and Shine” and “Fresh Beat Band of Spies” make their DVD debut, as they encounter a zoo full of animals and an out-of-control bundle of bunnies. Other Nick adventures include the “PAW Patrol” pups trying to control some naughty kittens; “Dora and Friends” making peace between cat and dog; the “Bubble Guppies” getting an education in house cats; and Blue spending time with her bilingual kitten friend Periwinkle in “Blue’s Clues.”
In PBS Kids’ “Super Why: The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Other Fairytale Adventures,” the Super Readers employ basic literacy tools and strategies to uncover hidden clues in new and interactive ways. Among other things, the Super Readers reconsider “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” from the point of view of the Troll; Princess Pea and Red are partners in a potato sack race, but can’t decide whether to go slow and steady, as dictated in “The Tortoise & the Hare,” treat it as a sprint; and “The Elves and The Shoemaker,” in which Whyatt has a secret admirer and wants to know who it is.
In Season Eight of “The Facts of Life,” Blair, Natalie, Tootie and Jo say goodbye to their beloved Mrs. G, after she finds love and moves away. Her sister Beverly Ann (Cloris Leachman) steps in to keep an eye on them, but as the year passes and graduation from Langley College looms for Blair and Jo, things remain in flux. There’s also a rockin’ trip back to the 1960s; an Eastland girls’ reunion, featuring such familiar faces as George Clooney and Stacey Q.; and a surprising murder mystery, in which no one is truly safe.
Starz: Da Vinci’s Demons: The Complete Third Season
PBS: Frontline: Inside Assad’s Syria
PBS: Off the Menu: Asian America
The Saint: Seasons 3 & 4
Sisters: Season Three
PBS Kids: Caillou: Caillou Learns to Share
Although it would be difficult to exaggerate the amazing achievements of the great Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci, the highly entertaining Starz’ mini-series, “Da Vinci’s Demons,” suggests that he might, in fact, have been the first Marvel superhero. Impossibly handsome, a gifted swordsman and capable of visualizing complex scientific concepts in thin air, the troubled genius portrayed by Tom Riley more closely resembles Leonardo di Caprio or Leon Trotsky than the “portrait of a man in red chalk,” attributed to a 60-year-old Da Vinci, currently housed at Turin’s Biblioteca Reale. Riley’s Leonardo da Vinci wouldn’t be out of place in the CBS Western series, “The Wild Wild West,” playing Artemus Gordon to Secret Service agent James West. Through three seasons, Starz audiences have followed Da Vinci’s search for the mystical Book of Leaves, which, in Season Two, even found him in the New World. In the show’s third and final stanza, the Medicis and Pazzis continue their terrible rivalry, even as Turkish forces have established a beachhead at Otranto. This year, DaVinci’s vulnerability to the whims of the powerful leaders of Rome and Florence – as well as representatives of Satan, in the Labyrinth – nearly does him in. As the season comes to a close, however, a multi-episode re-appearance by Vlad the Impaler turns Italy’s darkest hour into a delightfully excuse for war. “Da Vinci’s Demons” must have been a terribly expensive show to mount, as it never looks less than convincing historically and the CGI touches never feel anachronistic. The show’s primary drawback, ratings-wise, might have resulted from a scarcity of the gratuitous nudity that attracts male eyes to other premium-cable shows. It’s there, but blink and you’ll miss it. Everything else about “Da Vinci’s Demons,” even the ending – re-shot after the cancelation was announced — is first-rate.
Even before Syria erupted in civil war, the country inherited by Bashar al-Assad from his dictatorial father was something of a mystery to most Americans. We knew that Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, had been a thorn in the side of western nations for most of his 30 years in charge of military and government affairs, specifically for harboring terrorists (including a Nazi war criminal), fomenting turmoil in Lebanon and being a staunch ally of the former Soviet Union. Syria remains, of course, a constant threat to Israel, with which it shares a disputed border. Beyond that, however, zilch. When the country did explode, as part of the Arab Spring uprising, the U.S. somehow convinced itself that Assad would be the next tyrant to topple at the hand of its own people. What President Obama and his advisers didn’t take into account, however, was the lack of common purpose in the Syrian resistance. Syrians were divided by religion, wealth, politics and ability to mount a rebellion. ISIS emerged from the fog of that war, as did a million or so refugees. What we’re learning today is just how desperate is the state of Syrians outside Damascus and the region controlled by ISIS. Entire populations are being starved to death and relief efforts are stymied. In the “Frontline” investigation, “Inside Assad’s Syria,” correspondent Martin Smith (“Obama at War,” “The Rise of the Isis”) was accorded access to government officials, militia leaders and areas generally off-limits to journalists. One of his guides, an Arab journalist, was killed in combat a day after they parted company outside the capital. Even as the death toll mounts, Smith was able to find delusional elements in the government and business community willing to promote Syria as a destination for tourism. He could hardly believe what he was seeing and hearing.
In their continuing efforts to keep pace with the Food Network and other food-centric programming, such PBS shows as “Off the Menu: Asian America” draw viewers by championing diversity and our willingness to merge cross-cultural influences. A half-century ago, no cuisine was as foreign to the American palate as that of Pacific Rim countries. Outside of New York and San Francisco, Chinese food came out of a can and Japanese dishes practically were non-existent. One of the great victories in the foodie revolution came with the realization that fresh ingredients and exotic spices could be blended to satisfy famously picky American tastes. Young people turned to their grandparents for recipes that reflected their ethnic backgrounds, instead of disguising them with ketchup, sugar and gravy. “Off the Menu” looks beyond China and Japan for examples of Asian/Pacific/American fusion. It takes us on a journey from Texas to New York, and from Wisconsin to Hawaii, using our obsession with food as a launching point to delve into a wealth of stories, traditions and unexpected characters that help nourish this nation of immigrants.
In the third season of “Sisters” Georgie (Patricia Kalember) carries Frankie’s baby via surrogacy and gives birth while trapped in car after an accident. Following the birth, Georgie has maternal feelings for the baby and feels unable to give the baby to Frankie (Julianne Phillips). Teddy (Sela Ward) finds success as a fashion designer; Alex (Swoosie Kurtz) feuds with Teddy and Alex’s daughter, Reed (Ashley Judd), gets married to Kirby (Paul Rudd). Frankie and Mitch (Ed Marinaro) deal with custody problems when they divorce and Alex battles cancer. Otherwise, nothing of much consequence happened. At the time considered groundbreaking for focusing on the lives of four women, “Sisters” dealt with human issues with warmth, heart and sensitivity.
A timeless figure of adventure since his creation by Leslie Charteris in 1928, “The Saint” has thrilled adventure aficionados with his exploits in a variety of media, including novels, movies and radio, but nowhere was the dashing Simon Templar more indelibly realized than in his 1960s television series. It starred the pre-Bond Roger Moore in the title role and, in Seasons Three and Four, featured early appearances for such actors as Burt Kwouk (“The Pink Panther” films), Carol Cleveland (“Monty Python’s Flying Circus”) and Donald Sutherland. The generous package adds “Behind the Scenes, With Sir Roger Moore as Director” and commentaries on “The Happy Suicide,” with guest star with Jane Merrow, “The Saint Bids Diamonds,” with Moore, producer Robert S. Baker guest star Eunice Gayson.
From PBS Kids, “Caillou Learns to Share” teaches his young fans one of the toughest and longest-lasting lessons they’ll ever have to learn. In it, Caillou discovers that sharing his things with the people he loves always turns out better in the end. From teaching his classmate Clementine his special art technique, to taking turns at playing conductor with his friends and family, to sharing his favorite things with little sister Rosie, Caillou learns that sharing not only makes him feel really good, it makes those around him feel good, too.
UpTV: Love Finds You in Charm
Hill Street Blues: The Final Season
The Wonder Years: Season Four
PBS: Reading Rainbow: Miss Nelson Is Back
How ya going to keep them Amish beauties down on the farm, once they’ve seen Charm, Ohio? That’s the musical question asked in UpTV’s original movie, Love Finds You in Charm, an extension of Summerside Press’ “Love Finds You” series of Christian-romance books. Although dozens of titles have been published, only Terry Cunningham’s Love Finds You in Charm and Love Finds You in Sugarcreek have been filmed. Love Finds You in Valentine is on tap for release next month on the Up TV cable network. Being made aware of that connection allowed me to make sense of the newly released DVD, which is set among Amish communities in Indiana and Ohio. The last Amish romance I can remember is Peter Weir’s Witness, in which Harrison Ford goes undercover to protect an Amish boy who’s the only witness to a murder in New York. While in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the newly bearded cop falls for a local widow (Kelly McGillis) and ruffles the feathers of a perspective husband played by the late Russian ballet star Alexander Godunov. (Thirty years later, McGillis would appear as a spinster aunt in “Sugarcreek.”) Frankly, I’m at a loss as to how true Amish and Mennonites feel about movies set in their communities. Absent electricity, it isn’t likely they’d have much opportunity to screen the finished products, in any case. In Love Finds You in Charm, a pretty Amish teenager, Emma (Danielle Chuchran), decides to expand her horizons by moving to her widowed cousin’s farm in Charm, where she’ll help her sell prize-winning produce to tourists. Eventually, Emma will have to decide whether she wants to live among the “Plain People” or ride around town in her friend’s red convertible and sell her hand-made cheese on the Food Network. Anyone who enjoys inspirational stories about Christian love and romance – as practiced by fundamentalists – should find “Charm” charming.
The latest release from Shout! Factory’s library of “Hill Street Blues” episodes represents the landmark show’s seventh and final season. In it, officer Patrick Flaherty (Robert Clohessy) and officer Tina Russo (Megan Gallagher) attempt to rekindle the intensity of the Bates-Coffey relationship of years past. Sgt. Stan Jablonski (Robert Prosky) was lowered to secondary status part way through this season, but it wasn’t until Daniel Travanti announced he would not return the next year that producers decided to pull the plug on the series. It was also moved to Tuesday nights, almost midway through the season, so as to clear the way for “L.A. Law” to inherit the catbird seat on NBC’s must-see Thursday nights.
In the fourth season of “The Wonder Years,” Kevin (Fred Savage) is entering his last year at Kennedy Junior High and feeling the effects of puberty more acutely than ever.  With Winnie (Danica McKellar) now attending a different school, he’s open to temptation in the form of Madeline (Julie Condra), a new girl in his French class. Later in the season, Winnie and Kevin will struggle to maintain their relationship, suffering heartbreak, denial and even injury in the tear-jerker episode, “The Accident.” At home, mother Norma (Alley Mills) takes a job at Kevin’s school; father Jack (Dan Lauria) gets a promotion that takes him on the road; elder brother Wayne (Jason Hervey) buys a car; and sister Karen (Olivia d’Abo) enters college, leaving her room up for grabs. In other firsts, Kevin gets a job as a caddy and tries to crash a 10th-grader’s slumber party (with beer). Again, the original music has been restored to newly released seasonal packages.
For more than 30 years, the PBS series “Reading Rainbow” has been bringing print stories to life. In “Miss Nelson Is Back,” hosted by LeVar Burton, we learn what happens when the teacher in Room 207 disappears for a week and the kids conspire to “really act up.” LeVar embarks on a treasure hunt, gets transformed by a makeup artist and attends a performance by Blackstone the Magician, before stumbling upon a surprise birthday party meant for him.
UPTV: Lyfe’s Journey
Valley Inn
This week’s selection of faith-based DVDs includes three films of special, but certainly not exclusive interest to African-American audiences. The best, Captive, combines true-crime drama with a story of redemption inspired indirectly from Pastor Rick Warren’s inspirational best-seller, “The Purpose Driven Life.” Clearly a product of a bargain-basement budget, Jerry Jameson’s hostage thriller benefits hugely from lead performances by David Oyelowo and Kate Mara, who probably agreed to take a substantial cut in pay as a favor to the producers. Brian Bird’s screenplay was adapted from Ashley Smith’s recollections of her harrowing experiences on March 12, 2005. In a bizarre confluence of desperate circumstances, Smith was abducted and held hostage by Brian Nichols, who was on trial for rape when he escaped from custody and murdered the judge presiding over his trial, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and later a federal agent. Already a captive to drugs, Smith was able to talk Nichols out of continuing his bloody day-long spree, in part by sharing passages from Warren’s books. In the movie, at least, she has just been given a copy of the book by her aunt (Mimi Rogers), who’s looking after Smith’s young daughter while she’s in the process of kicking her addiction. Blessedly, the proselytizing takes a distant backseat to the drama inherent in two people looking directly into the face of death. Given the popularity of Warren and Smith’s appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show, I’m surprised that Captive didn’t draw numbers in line with War Room and other faith-based fare. It adds several making-of and background featurettes.
In Stock Option, an out-of-work and homeless stockbroker (Amin Joseph) catches a break when he rescues a model (Antonique Smith) from being raped by a hoodlum lurking in the alley next to her studio. In an unlikely act of gratitude and Christian charity, Alina invites Marv – short for Marvelous, no less — home for a shower, meal and change of clothes. Not surprisingly, a little TLC does a world of good for the strikingly handsome young man, who also turns out to be a glib conversationalist. Before long, he volunteers to help Alina complete some household chores, for which he enlists other homeless buddies. Her sudden interest in the down-and-out stockbroker doesn’t sit well with her boyfriend, of course, who’s in a far less charitable state of mind. Marv will be required to clear several other hurdles before redeeming himself in the eyes of Alina’s family and friends he disappointed on his way to the bottom.
Although both movies debuted on different cable channels, Lyfe’s Journey is a product of the same Atlanta-based production company, Swirl Films. The company bills itself as America’s “number one urban film production company,” with over 40 original titles in the past 6 years. With a seemingly insatiable audience for original programming on niche cable outlets, it’s no wonder that evergreen dramatic conceits are recycled on a regular basis. The same strategy worked for Lifetime, after all. Here, family man David Lyfe (Keith Robinson) unexpectedly loses his lucrative job as a banking executive when the company falls into dire financial straits. It couldn’t come at a worse time for the father of a little girl and another in the oven. Despite solid references, Lyfe isn’t able to find another job. One night, he makes the mistake of commiserating over drinks with a suspiciously sympathetic young woman. The next thing he knows, his wife has thrown him out of the house. Desperate for a helping hand, he connects with a preacher who specializes in patching the broken souls of folks willing to contribute to their personal redemption. Besides paint-by-numbers scripts, both movies share attractive casts and protagonists we want to see succeed.
Valley Inn may be targeted at a different audience, but it shares the same Christian foundation as other faith-based films. If it also includes a subtle anti-capitalist subtext, then, so be it. Super-cute ingénue Jordan Scott plays a New Jersey college student, Emily, who accepts a summer job selling Christian books door-to-door in rural northwest Arkansas. Despite its location at the buckle of the bible belt, the territory proves to be less than fertile for book peddlers, especially those hawking tales already familiar to local residents. Expecting to be greeted with suspicion by stereotypical hillbillies, Emily finds herself surrounded by a surprisingly colorful and supportive collection of potentially new friends. The problem, of course, comes in knowing that the company for whom she toils expects sales and Emily isn’t anxious to force books on people with greater needs. Everything in Kim and Chris Spencer’s slight, if easy-on-the-eyes rom/dram/com leads to the region’s biggest event of the year, the Rodeo of the Ozarks. It’s here that Emily is given the opportunity to demonstrate just how much she’s grown over the course of a summer.
TV-to-DVD
Starz: Flesh and Bone: Blu-ray
Comedy Central: Broad City: Season 2
PBS: Nova: Cyberwar Threat/Inside Einstein’s Mind
PBS: Secrets of the Dead: Vampire Legend
PBS: American Experience: American Commandante
PBS Kids: Wild Kratts: Australian Adventures
The world of ballet may seem an unnatural setting for a premium-cable mini-series, but the folks at Starz have proven themselves to be remarkably adept at turning atypical subjects into captivating entertainments. In a remarkably short time, such shows as “The Missing,” “Black Sails,” “Da Vinci’s Demons,” “Spartacus,” “Boss,” “The Pillars of the Earth,” “Magic City,” “Outlander,” “Camelot” and “Crash” have attracted viewers to what once was considered to be a minor-league operation. Among the things the mini-series share, to one degree or another, are attractive stars, interesting locations, nudity, contentious situations and provocative dialogue. Did I mention nudity? “Flesh and Bone” doesn’t skimp in any of these categories, especially what some might consider to be gratuitous sex. (Not me, of course.) The artistic milieu also allows for some not-so-usual homosexual liaisons and post-coital extortion. The intrigue begins when Claire Robbins (Sarah Hay) flees her Pittsburgh home, for reasons that won’t become apparent for several episodes to come. No sooner does Claire arrive in New York than she impresses the socks off of the imperious creative director of a prestigious ballet company. Naturally, this spurs an outbreak of jealousy and suspicions among the other dancers. Adding to her other problems is the appearance of a potentially dangerous specter from her past. Loyal fans of premium-cable miniseries won’t be at all surprised to learn that the artistry of classical ballet isn’t the only dance discipline likely to be exploited. Claire also is drawn to a local gentleman’s club – run by a Russian gangster – where she excels in contemporary lap dancing and stripper-pole gymnastics. As goofy it sounds, “Flesh and Bone” could hardly be more compelling. This ballet on display isn’t bad, either.
If Beavis and Butt-Head died and were reincarnated into a pair of twentysomething Jewish women, both single and living in New York City, their show might look a lot like Comedy Central’s hilarious sendup of contemporary hipster mores, “Broad City.” (And, yes, it matters that they’re Jewish.) The show is an extension of improv specialists Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson’s web-series, which found an angel in Amy Poehler. Their characters, Ilana and Abbi, spend most of their time avoiding hard work and anything resembling mainstream culture. They smoke dope and drink wine to excess and, when high, enjoy experimenting with makeup and sex toys. Their closest friends and acquaintances are only slightly less extreme examples of themselves and, perhaps, archetypal characters introduced in “Seinfeld” and “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” They might be completely foreign to viewers outside New York and other urban centers, but Ilana and Abbi probably aren’t much different than your average Starbucks barista or Whole Foods clerk. Among the weekly pleasures in Season Two are surprise guest spots by such familiar faces as Kelly Ripa, Janeane Garofalo, Seth Rogan, Kumail Nanjiani, Susie Essman, Bob Balaban, Amy Ryan, Kimiko Glenn, Alia Shawkat and Patricia Clarkson. The set includes 10 episodes, deleted scenes, pop-ups and extended skits. The show has been renewed for a third season, beginning next month.
This week’s selections from PBS include a pair of “Nova” episodes, one of which might leaving you staring at your computer in fear, while the other could leave you gasping at the brilliance of a theoretical physicist easily confused with Harpo Marx. “Cyberwar Threat” is informed by documents released by Edward Snowden and stolen from Sony Pictures – as well as the “stuxnet” attack on an Iranian computer network — as stepping stones to a frightening discussion of the potential for disaster at the hands of computer hackers. Their anonymity and elusiveness only adds to the intrigue. “Inside Einstein’s Mind” retraces Albert Einstein’s early “thought experiments,” which led to an understanding of gravity and the theory of general relativity. I tried to understand the simplified explanations, but left as clueless as ever.
In the “Secrets of the Dead” episode “Vampire Legend,” Oxford professor John Blair uses forensics sciences to demonstrate how the vampire legend popularized by Bram Stoker in “Dracula” might actually have originated in England, not Eastern Europe. Evidence discovered in recently unearthed graveyards suggests a common belief that the dead could rise and terrorize the living. Beheaded skeletons found among intact remains have inspired a reexamination of the modern vampire mythos.
 
In the “American Experience” offering, “American Commandante,” we’re introduced to a renegade American soldier and fighter for other people’s freedom, who, had he not actually existed, could have emerged from a novel by Ernest Hemingway. The full story of Cleveland native William Alexander Morgan remains shrouded in mystery, but what is known describes a man who completely reinvented himself, trading a reputation as a military washout and mob flunky, for a larger-than-life hero in Cuba’s revolution and Fidel Castro’s subsequent betrayal of democracy. Oh, yeah, he might also have served J. Edgar Hoover as a counter-revolutionary.
PBS Kids’ “Wild Kratts: Australian Adventures” takes the Kratts’ crew Down Under, where they will test their wiles against harsh conditions of the vast Outback desert and endangered Eucalyptus forest. The episodes include “Koala Balloon,” in which Martin and Chris help a young koala stranded in the Outback get back to his natural habitat; “Kickin’ It With the Roos,” in which they meet up with a mob of pugilistic kangaroos and get their car keys stolen by a mischievous joey; and “Platypus Café,” during which the brothers are required to save the eggs of a platypus from ending up on the breakfast menu of a wicked chef.
Steam Room Stories: Volumes 1, 2 & 3
One of the things that distinguish web-based series from mainstream television is their ability to appeal directly to niche audiences. Neither are they limited to any one length or timeslot. This isn’t to imply that their appeal is limited to a specific audience, however. While “Steam Room Stories” scored a direct hit with its intended demographic: young gay men, who spend as much time on their appearance as they do on anything else. This 248-minute collection is comprised of 99 episodes of the series, in which a small handful of attractive guys, clad only in towels, exchange observations that are alternately witty, catty, bitchy and perceptive, about all sorts of things. The skits are consistently funny and observant.
IndiePix Mix 10 II
The second grab-bag collection of previously released DVDs from IndiePix – 918 minutes’ worth of provocative entertainment for just under $80 – once again is a tantalizing mix of drama, comedy and documentaries. It includes the 2009 Sundance Grand Jury-winning documentary, We Live in Public, which documents the loss of privacy in the Internet age; Bhopali, about the world’s worst industrial disaster; Disarmed, on the continuing threat from antipersonnel mines deployed in wars long past; White Shadow, Noaz Deshe’s horrifying drama about the plight of Tanzanian albinos; That Girl In Yellow Boots, a voyeuristic drama set against the sprawling chaos of Mumbai; Soldate Jean, a deadpan Austrian comedy from Daniel Hoesel; Road to the Big Leagues, on baseball in the Dominican Republic; Satellite, a romantic fable about a young couple who give up everything to find something better; and So Bright Is the View, an offbeat story about a Romanian woman seeking a job in Atlanta that probably doesn’t exist.
Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise
Jaco: The Film: Blu-Ray
Hawaiian Rainbow/Kumu Hula: Keepers of a Culture
No one embodies the rock ’n’ roll persona than Rolling Stones’ guitarist and co-founder Keith Richards. The fact that he’s still alive and kickin’ it at 72 has inspired tens of thousands of his fans to believe they’re also immortal. You can hate everything the Stones have recorded in the last 40 years and still love Richards, if only because, in 2006, while in Fiji, he was seriously injured while climbing a coconut tree, actually snorted the ashes of his cremated father and that he’s reprising his performances in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in the 2017 sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. After Johnny Depp admitted to infusing his character with Richards’ mannerisms, he agreed to play the continuing character Captain Teague, the father of Captain Jack Sparrow. I.V. Media’s makeshift bio-doc Keith Richards: In His Own Words effectively serves as an unauthorized supplement to his best-selling and critically lauded 2011 autobiography, “Life.” The DVD includes almost two hours of previously filmed interviews with the guitarist/singer/songwriter, a couple of which were staged during the publicity tour for the book. As such, much of the material is repetitive. Even so, it’s fun listening to Richards from different periods in his career, including about hiatus projects apart from the Stones. In one, a very pretty Italian reporter actively flirts with him, basically handing him the keys to her hotel room after the interview concludes. I may be wrong, but it seems as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough … maybe because Patti, his wife of 32 years, was lurking somewhere in the background.
If there were a competition for the coolest man in rock ’n’ roll, Leonard Cohen would either be a close runner-up to Richards or first in the singer/songwriter division. From Collector’s Forum comes the three-disc Leonard Cohen: Triumvirate, which includes the previously released Leonard Cohen: Under Review: 1934-1977, Leonard Cohen: Under Review: 1978-2006 and Leonard Cohen: The Mind of a Poet, a new compilation of vintage interviews and events. The analysis that accompanies the musical clips in the first two discs are extremely well-reasoned and informative. The career-spanning interviews package is marked by Cohen’s sense of humor and intellect, as well as visits to the Zen Buddhist monastery on Mount Baldy and other locations. (If anything, European audiences are more reverential than their North American counterparts.) This would make a terrific gift for anyone who’s fallen in love with Cohen’s music and poetry. Here, too, a toothy blond Scandinavian reporter cautiously passes along the question her co-workers urgently believe needs to be asked: Will you sleep with me? His enigmatic answer suggests he might have taken the bait, if he weren’t on his monkish best behavior.
Neither was the delightfully eccentric jazz composer, musician, band leader and mystic Sun Ra lacking in the coolness department. Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise does a nice job showcasing the improvisational master’s musical range on the piano and the “cosmic jazz” that shocked and challenged jazz audiences for more than four decades. Listen close enough and you’ll hear references to Count Basie. Ahmad Jamal, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor, alongside those to Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich. He was an early pioneer in the free-jazz movement of the 1950-60s, introducing synthesizers and electric keyboards to the mix. Holding him back, however, was a penchant for pthurple robes, pointed hats and philosophies that go back to ancient-traveler myths and the pyramids. It’s fun, but only for a while. My favorite chapter features Sun Ra exploring his deepest roots in a selection informed by several different blues stylings, but it’s the wild presentations of the Arkestra that we recall most fondly. Robert Mugge spent two years shooting Sun Ra and the Arkestra in a wide variety of locales, among them Baltimore’s Famous Ballroom, Danny’s Hollywood Palace in Philadelphia, and on the roof of Philadelphia’s International House on the edge of the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Sun Ra’s poetry and mythological pronouncements were filmed in the Egyptian Room of the University of Pennsylvania’s anthropology museum, in a sculpture garden in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., and inside and outside of the house he shared with key band members in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Songs performed in the film include such Sun Ra classics as “Astro Black,” “Mister Mystery,” “We Travel the Spaceways,” “Along Came Ra/The Living Myth,” “Spaceship Earth (Destination Unknown)” and “Requiem for Trevor Johnson.” The DVD includes extended audio versions of the songs.
How many homeless people have been accorded the honor of having the park they once inhabited named after them? Not many, I’ll bet. On the date that would have marked his 56th birthday, December 1, 2008, Jaco Pastorius Park was dedicated in Broward County, Florida. It’s where the bassist extraordinaire spent the nights leading to his untimely death on September 21, 1987, at 35. Wracked by bipolar disorder, Pastorius had 10 days earlier substituted alcohol for his meds and began kicking in the door of a local nightclub. The beating inflicted on him by the club’s bouncer would cause the massive brain hemorrhage that led to his death. Blessedly, Paul Marchand and Stephen Kijak’s heart-breaking Jaco: The Film saves the sad stuff for the end, after exploring his extraordinary contributions to jazz, rock, Afro-Cuban and other musical disciplines. Among other things, Pastorius radically changed the way musicians and audiences perceived the contributions of the electronic bass to a band or orchestra. By pulling out the frets with a needle-nose pliers, he discovered a way to make the bass perform like a cello and add a harmonic voice to the ensemble. Almost immediately after his death, he was inducted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame, joining only six other bassists: Jimmy Blanton, Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden and Milt Hinton. In 2008, Fender also released the Jaco Pastorius Jazz Bass, a fretless instrument in its Artist Series. Besides some amazing musical performances, Jaco: The Film features revelatory interviews with such artists as Flea, Joni Mitchell, Sting, Wayne Shorter, Mike Stern, Carlos Santana, Herbie Hancock and Geddy Lee, as well as friends, family member and industry executives. A second disc adds another 100 minutes’ worth of outtakes, anecdotes and stories, in addition to special footage used during the historic Jaco’s World Tribute Show 2015 at the Hollywood Bowl. True-blue fans will notice some missing associations with other prominent artists, but what’s here is pretty compelling stuff.
The evidence on IMDB.com suggests that no documentary maker has stuck his camera into as many musical corners as Robert Mugge. In addition to the aforementioned Sun Ra documentary, this week’s mailbag included the combined screener, Hawaiian Rainbow/Kumu Hula: Keepers of a Culture. Released back-to-back in 1988-89, the films introduced traditional Hawaiian music, dance, myths and culture to mainlanders whose concept of greater-Polynesian culture is limited to poi, pig roasts and lei greetings at the airport. In fact, the musical heritage is extremely rich and its roots stretch from Portugal and Spain, to Honolulu and back to Nashville. Inspired by what he encountered during his first visit to Hawaii in 1986, Mugge joined forces with Dr. Neil Abercrombie, University of Hawaii ethnomusicologists Dr. Ricardo D. Trimillos and Jay W. Junker, educator Vicky Holt Takamine and Honolulu Academy of Arts film programmer Ann Brandman to produce an 85-minute documentary on Hawaiian music shot largely on the Island of Oahu. Then, with the help of Cove Enterprises executives Roy Tokujo and Ronald Letterman, a second 85-minute documentary on Hawaiian dance was shot on all six of the primary Hawaiian Islands. In both cases, Abercrombie was able to convince his former colleagues in the state legislature to fund the films because of their educational and promotional value for the state. And, the narrative frequently sounds far too distant and bland, by comparison to the music and dance. Hawaiian Rainbow focuses on Hawaii’s traditional chants, percussion, ukulele, slack-key and steel guitar, male and female falsetto, and lush vocal harmonies. Kumu Hula: Keepers of a Culture examines the art of the hula and Hawaiian dance traditions going back to 500 AD, when Polynesians first arrived in the islands. Takamine and other respected kumu hula – master educators and trustees of ancient knowledge — reveal how traditions have survived, despite attempts by 19th Century missionaries, plantation owners and the U.S. Marine Corps to repress Hawaii’s indigenous culture. Both films were transferred to HD video from their original 16mm and stereo audio masters and lovingly restored.
Jenny’s Wedding
Although same-sex marriages have only been recognized by legal authorities for a couple of years, gender-neutral co-habitation within the LGBT community predated it by several decades. Watching Mary Agnes Donoghue’s strangely old-fashioned pro-tolerance rom-dram Jenny’s Wedding, I was left with the same feelings I had after enduring Hollywood’s first tentative steps toward recognition of interracial marriage, gay rights and women’s liberation. In an effort to offend the least number of viewers, studio executive essentially rendered their own products irrelevant to huge numbers of more enlightened audiences. If members of the Fox News demographic cared to see a primer on gay marriage and the misconceptions forwarded by their pinhead pundits, Jenny’s Wedding would be that movie. They probably wouldn’t dig the ending, but, at least, they could leave the theater knowing some of the archetypal characters here aren’t beyond redemption. After years of living together, Jenny (Katherine Heigl) and Kitty (Alexis Bledel) have decided to get married. They make an extremely cute couple, by anyone’s standards, have good jobs and probably haven’t received a speeding ticket since their Sweet 16 parties. Somehow, Jenny’s outwardly liberal parents (Tom Wilkinson, Linda Emond) have missed all of the signs that point to their daughter being a lesbian. They still can’t figure out why she isn’t interested in the men she’s introduced to by her happily married brother or why she hasn’t shown much interest in having children, like her unhappily married sister. No sooner do Jenny and Kitty break the news of the impending nuptials and hoped-for pregnancy to the family than Jenny’s parents and sister declare that they’ll take a pass on the ceremony, no matter that it’s going to take place in a church. The rest of the movie concerns itself with finding ways to make mom, dad and sis feel guilty about their decision and stopping them from treating Jenny – Katherine Heigl, for God’s sake – like a freak. No matter how Donoghue spins it, though. the process holds no surprises for anyone who watches ABC’s “Modern Family.”
Bread and Circus
Nightmares: Blu-ray
The Life of Death
Every so often, a genre picture from Scandinavia comes this way and typically it’s a doozy. It’s taken a dozen years for Blood and Circus to make the journey from Norway to the U.S. and, in all that time, it hasn’t lost any of its ability to gross out viewers. In a kingdom where non-conformists are hunted and killed, a man is born as a child to Mother Earth … literally. After his afterbirth is cleaned off, the Normal One is examined and allowed to enter the system. When NO gets old and useless, he’s scheduled for execution. Before that can happen, though, he carves a message on a stone for future generations to consider before they’re given business suits, marching orders and expelled through Earth’s anus. Outlaws lead a zombie-like existence, always wary of the shotgun blast to the brain that will wipe them out, too. A couple that finds the message attempts to put an end to the oppressive system. The rest is splatter. Blood and Circus should satisfy genre extremists’ lust for gore while repulsing everyone else.
From Severin Films comes a truly curious novelty. The Axe and Kidnapped Coed double feature is comprised of a pair of super-low-budget crime/horror films, from the mid-1970s, that appear to have been made back-to-back and with common elements. In each one, a small-time criminal (Eddie Matlock) conceives a nasty crime, which backfires in his face, leaving him in similar circumstances as the victim. In Axe, Jack Canon plays the heavy in a killing spree that ends with a hostage-taking situation at a remote farmhouse. The residents are a paralyzed old man and his teenage daughter, who’s more capable of defending herself than anyone could expect. In Kidnapped Coed, a young woman living in a boarding house is kidnapped by a small-time criminal (Canon), who hopes to be compensated by her wealthy father. When other crooks learn of the scheme, they short-circuit the abductor’s plans. In doing so, they get stuck in the kidnapped girl’s web. Taken on their own merits, these films feel incomplete. A third movie included as a bonus feature, Bloody Brothers, is an independently made mash-up of both pictures, in which Canon’s characters are evil twins separated from each other at birth. As adults, they unknowingly commit the similarly terrible crimes documented in Frederick R. Friedel’s Axe and Kidnapped Coed. It’s weirdly satisfying. The Blu-ray package adds several more bonus features than anyone would have felt necessary in the mid-‘70s.
Nightmares is a pretty decent, if tame horror anthology, directed by Joseph Sargent after he made MacArthur, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and White Lightning. His next high-profile picture would be the abysmal Jaws: The Revenge, so, maybe, he made a deal with the devil for early success and it ran out after Nightmares. The stories, though, all display the handiwork of a professional filmmaker and recognizable stars. If they aren’t terribly frightening, at least they’re clever and well made. Cristina Raines is a chain-smoking Topanga Canyon homemaker, who insists on going out for cigarettes even as an escaped madman is being hunted nearby. Emilio Estevez plays a video-game hotshot, who dares to take on a strange challenger. A troubled priest (Lance Henriksen) seeks to find the faith he has lost on the road, but instead encounters someone in the desert who is trying to drive him out of his mind; and, finally, when Claire (Veronica Cartwright) hears rats in the walls, her husband (Richard Masur) mistakenly believes he can take care of the problem with a few mousetraps.
In The Life of Death, real-life genre specialists discuss how they’ve come to perceive death during various periods in their lives and, likewise, how its certainty has influenced their work. It includes interviews and insights from Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, artist Bob Fingerman, writer Jack Ketchum, special-effects artist Tom Sullivan and scream queens Debbie Rochon and Caroline Munro, among other pros. It’s interesting, if only because the horror genre demands that death be considered separately with every new project.
TV-to-DVD
PBS: Unity: The Latin Tribute to Michael Jackson
American Experience: The Pilgrims
The Nanny: Season Five
PBS’ “Unity: The Latin Tribute to Michael Jackson” demonstrates the debt owed to the Gloved One by artists of a foreign musical genre. Peruvian-born, Miami-raised producer/multi-instrumentalist/arranger Tony Succar was able to round up more than 100 musicians and such Hispanic superstars as Judith Hill, Jon Secada and Obie Bermúdez in the first-ever Latin album salute to the King of Pop.
In the two-hour “American Experience” presentation “The Pilgrims,” Ric Burns chronicles the history, origins and critical first decade of the first permanent English colony in New England. Who were the men and women who constituted this multifarious band of English Protestants, in whose name we gorge on autumnal treats, football and parades? It’s a bit more complicated than what’s depicted in grade-school holiday pageants.
In the fifth season of “The Nanny,” Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) faces the very real possibility that her romance with Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) might lead to a promotion from babysitter to bride. This stanza’s guest stars include Ray Charles, Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg and Elton John.
The Dungeonmaster/Eliminators: Double Feature: Blu-ray
Blood Rage/Nightmare at Shadow Woods: Blu-ray
Arrow Video has almost singlehandedly breathed new life into exploitation flicks long dismissed as being cheapo knockoffs of American genre fare. At its height in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Italian movie industry was churning out about 350 titles a year, only a handful of which found their way into arthouses here. If most of them weren’t very good by anyone’s standards, some have aged pretty well. Taken in context, they are quite entertaining and not at all cheesy. An Italian-German co-production from 1972, What Have You Done to Solange?, can be enjoyed as both a classic specimen of early giallo and an erotic whodunit. Typically, once it reached these shores, the film was given at least four different names – “Terror in the Woods,” “The School That Couldn’t Scream,” “The Secret of the Green Pines” and its current, more representative title – and it almost certainly was independently edited for full-frontal nudity and some very nasty stuff involving knives and surgical tools. That most of the violence is perpetrated on sexually active teens – played by older-looking actresses – must have made American theater-owners queasy, as well. What immediately distinguishes What Have You Done to Solange?, though, is a creative team that includes director Massimo Dallamano (cinematographer on both A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More), veteran writer Bruno Di Geronimo (Dead Men Ride), music by the great Ennio Morricone and cinematographer Joe D’Amato, a sleaze-meister of the first water. The plot boils down to a search for a serial killer preying on the students of a prestigious all-girls academy in London. (The English setting and international cast was intended to snare global distribution.) There’s no shortage of suspects or clues, some of which may have been left behind as fool’s bait. Fresh off a key role in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Fabio Testi plays the prime suspect in the case, an oily gym teacher and seducer of one of the murdered students. Camille Keaton, who plays the missing girl, would go on to star in the infamous I Spit on Your Grave. As usual, the bonus package comes loaded with interesting making-of featurettes, commentary and freshly shot interviews, including one with Spanish co-star Cristina Galbó, who freely dishes the dirt on the production.
By the time Jesus Franco convinced Christopher Lee to reprise his signature role of Count Dracula in his adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel, he had already portrayed the Prince of Darkness a half-dozen times at Hammer Studios. Lots of people think he’s the best actor to put on fangs. Franco convinced Lee to join his multinational production, shot largely in Spain, by promising him that Count Dracula would faithfully re-create Stoker’s narrative, minuses the flourishes added by the dozens of filmmakers who felt they could improve on genius. Lee remains the primary draw here, as well, but he gets more than ample support from Herbert Lom (the “Pink Panther” series); nutty Klaus Kinski, as the bug-eating Renfield; Franco’s muses Maria Rohm and Miranda Soledad; and versatile regulars Fred Williams and Jack Taylor. And, Franco does play it straight … more so than fans of his soft-core work would have expected or desired. As movies about alpha vampires go, it’s pretty darn good. Extras for the Severin Blu-ray release include the uncut feature at Franco’s approved aspect ratio of 1.33:1; “Cuadecuc, Vampir,” an experimental making-of documentary by Pere Portabella; commentary with horror historian David Del Valle and actress Maria Rohm; “Beloved Count,” interviews with Franco, Taylor and Williams; “Stake Holders,” an appreciation by filmmaker Christophe Gans; and Christopher Lee’s dramatic reading of the original novel.
Virginia Madsen, Sherilyn Fenn and James Wilder had hardly begun their careers in earnest when they agreed to play lead parts in the teens-in-jeopardy horror flick, Zombie High, which, even by 1987 standards, was pretty weak stuff. Their association with the zombie-less stinker didn’t hurt their careers, however, for the simple reason that no one bothered to go see it, apparently not even casting directors. In it, Madsen plays the perky new blond at a classy prep school, where a sexy brunette, portrayed by Fenn, is her roommate. It doesn’t take long for viewers to sense that something sinister has cast its spell on the student body, apparently composed of the sons and daughters of the Stepford wives. The faculty members are quite a bit livelier, if only because they’re the beneficiaries of the blood that once flowed through the veins of the student body. When the voluptuous blond and her townie buddy (Richard Cox) discover the school’s secret laboratory, they’re confronted by their teachers and seemingly lobotomized classmates. By comparison to almost everything else in the genre in 1987, Zombie High could have passed as an afterschool TV special. How it earned an R rating is a mystery. Co-star Paul Feig would survive, as well, going on to create the TV series “Freaks and Geeks” and direct such films as “Spy,” “Bridesmaids” and the 2016 remake of “Ghostbusters.”
Released and retitled at the height of the Dungeons & Dragons craze and dawn of the Nintendo and Sega home-entertainment era, Dungeonmaster (a.k.a., “Ragewar”) required the services of seven different directors and eight writers to create a film that delivers about 15 minutes of entertainment. Prolific-to-a-fault producer Charles Band thought it might be fun to assign different levels of the arcade-game experience to members of his creative team who wanted to add their stamp to a feature film, however sliced and diced it might be. Jeffrey Byron plays a young computer wiz, Paul, who becomes so obsessed with a new arcade game that he begins to ignore his girlfriend, school work and meals. Paul has been challenged by the deus ex machina, Mestema (Richard Moll), to a series of seven death-defying encounters, which he must survive not only to beat the game but also to save the life of his girlfriend (Leslie Wing). No one knows what happens when a player conquers all seven levels, because it hasn’t been done. It doesn’t take more than 73 minutes for us to find out, however. Dungeonmaster probably would have been a more entertaining film if Band had allowed his team the freedom to fully test their imaginations in the anthology format. Until I watched the featurettes, I was unaware that each level was conceived by a different filmmaker.
Sharing the Scream Factory double-bill with Dungeonmaster is Eliminators, a very silly sci-fi/action/adventure flick also produced by Charles and Albert Band’s Empire Pictures. The protagonist is a half-human, half-cyborg Mandroid (Patrick Reynolds), created as part of a sinister time-travel experiment by an evil scientist, Abbott Reeves (Roy Dotrice), and his well-meaning assistant, Doctor Takada (Tad Horino). Takada helps Mandroid escape the jungle laboratory before he’s decommissioned by Reeves, but is struck with amnesia on the way to civilization. To prevent the scientist’s scheme from being carried out, Manimal enlists the help of Andrew Prine, Denise Crosby and Conan Lee. Before they reach the lab, however, Manimal leads them through a time warp or two, where they encounter cave men, river pirates and a robotic Tinkerbell ’droid. The making-of featurette provides a glimpse into what must have been a very bizarre location shoot. As it is, Eliminators is more fun than it has any right to be and, for guys, anyway, the presence of Der Bingle’s granddaughter is worth the price of a rental.
What’s that old line about something being so nice, they made it twice? In the opinion of Arrow Films’ crack restoration team, the 1983 slasher epic Blood Rage was so nice, they not only made it thrice, but they also gave it three different titles: “Slasher” (clapboard), “Blood Rage” (1983) and “Nightmare at Shadow Woods” (1987 U.S. release). Even in its final incarnation, John Grissmer and Bruce Rubin’s movie wasn’t something anyone would wait in line more than 10 minutes to see. Almost 30 years later, it’s worth a visit for several buff-specific reasons: 1) the violence and gore are  gloriously excessive, even considering how late it arrived in the subgenre’s heyday; 2) Louise Lasser, still riding the success of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” is a delight, despite a push-up bra that would make Frederick of Hollywood choke on his popcorn; 3) the female characters’ ridiculously “big” hairdos; 4) a punishingly creepy synth score; and 5) special makeup effects that deserve enshrinement in the Hollywood Museum, housed in the Max Factor Building. By any name, Nightmare at Shadow Woods boils down to a good-twin/bad-twin picture, in which the good twin was committed to a mental facility by mistake, after a brutal ax attack on naked lovers at a drive-in movie theater, and, 10 years later, his escape threatens to trigger a killing spree by the evil twin. Apparently, the impressionable lad was traumatized by watching his parents make out and decided to punish all young lovers. The Blu-ray bonus package is extremely generous, copious making-of featurettes, interviews, outtakes and three complete versions of the film.
TV-to-DVD
Netflix: Marco Polo: Season 1: Blu-ray
PBS: American Masters: Althea
PBS: Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans American History
PBS: Frontline: My Brother’s Bomber
PBS: Nova: Dawn of Humanity
PBS: The Mind of a Chef: David Kinch: Season 4
PBS: Nature: Pets: Wild at Heart
Although I would encourage students of Asian history to take what is depicted in the Netflix mini-series, “Marco Polo,” with more than a few grains of salt, it would be nice if lessons were presented in as entertaining a fashion. Teachers could require their students to watch movies and mini-series, then work backwards by pointing out the mistakes and actual history of the events portrayed. The scene in which a naked-except-for-swords royal courtesan, Mei Lin (Olivia Cheng), uses her kung-fu skills to defend herself from a trio of soldiers loyal to Chancellor Jia Sidao (Chin Han) from brutally raping her, alone, would provide enough incentive for any young scholar to check out its accuracy in Wikipedia, at least. The same merger of dubious history and 21st Century sensuality prevails in such period mini-series as “Rome,” “The Borgias,” “The Tudors,” “The White Queen” and “Da Vinci’s Dreams.” Here, Marco Polo (Lorenzo Richelmy) is a Venetian stud, whose father built the land bridge connecting the trade routes of Asia and Europe. When the strangely ecumenical Kublai Khan decides to test the mettle of the Holy Roman Empire, he orders the father to return to Italy and bring back emissaries of the Pope. The son, Marco, is left behind as collateral. In the meantime, he makes himself extremely valuable to the Khan as an intellectual and military adviser. He also becomes proficient in the martial arts, under the tutelage of a blind monk known as Hundred Eyes (Tom Wu). The Mongol empire has long been in conflict with the Song Dynasty, soon to be led by Jia Sidao, whose headquarters are behind the fortified walls of Xiangyang. For fans of graphic violence, the Khan’s willingness to brutally dispatch with anyone perceived to be thwarting his will is well represented, with beheadings, slave soup and enemies trampled by Mongolian horsemen, while wrapped in rugs. What I liked about the mini-series most, aside from the aforementioned sword fight, are the magnificent Kazakhstan locations, which closely approximate the Mongolian steppes. The interior settings and costumes are splendid, as well. Netflix reportedly invested $90 million in the 10-episode project and every penny shows. This includes music by Mongolian bands Altan Urag and Batzorig Vaanchig of Khusugtun, who appears as a singer. The lavish presentation includes the many interesting bonus features, among them a 40-minute documentary on the historical Marco Polo, with the filmmakers and their technical advisers; several other making-of pieces; deleted scenes; and a gag reel.
It’s entirely fitting that PBS’ “American Masters: Althea” should arrive almost simultaneously with the naming of Serena Williams as Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year. While it’s entirely possible that Serena and Venus Williams might have become tennis champions without Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe first paving the road for them, the color barrier might still have been in place upon their arrival on the scene. As it is, they faced an uphill climb in the press and tennis establishment. When Gibson emerged from the streets of Harlem in the 1950s, much of the sporting world was as segregated as any capital of the American South. She would become the first African-American to play and win at Wimbledon and Forest Hills, a decade before Ashe. The profile covers her roots as a sharecropper’s daughter, the family’s migration north to Harlem, her mentoring from Sugar Ray Robinson, David Dinkins and others, and the fame that thrust her unwillingly into the glare of the early Civil Rights movement.
Ric Burns’ “Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans American History” aired on Veterans Day, as a tribute to the history of disabled fighting men and women. It isn’t always a pretty or particularly honorable picture that Burns paints. “Debt of Honor” takes an unflinching look at the reality of warfare and disability, beginning in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War and continuing through today’s conflicts in the Middle East. It is informed by interviews with some of the country’s most prominent disabled veterans.
For some 25 years, filmmaker Ken Dornstein has been haunted by the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The ghastly terrorist act killed 270 people, including his older brother, David. Now, Dornstein sets out to find the men responsible, hunting for clues to the identities and whereabouts of the suspects in the ruins and chaos of post-Qaddafi Libya in the “Frontline” spy thriller, “My Brother’s Bomber.”
For PBS’ “Dawn of Humanity,” producers from “Nova” and National Geographic were accorded exclusive access to an astounding discovery of ancient fossil human ancestors, deep in a South African cave. A special team of experts has brought to light an unprecedented wealth of fossils bridging a crucial gap in the record of our origins that spans the transition between the ape-like australopithecines (such as the famous Lucy) and the earliest members of the human family.
The latest installment of PBS’ “The Mind of a Chef” follows award-winning Chef David Kinch as he reflects on his inspiration, creative drive and the unforeseen challenges faced by chefs in their pursuit of excellence. In Season Four, Kinch invites us to explore a night of service at his restaurant, the people that make it work, the purveyors that provide the ingredients and his travels back to New Orleans to cook with old friends.
And, finally, what would box full of DVD screeners from PBS without at least one for lovers of domesticated animals. The “Nature” presentation “Pets: Wild at Heart” invites viewers into a secret world of wild behavior and natural abilities that we hardly notice or recognize. This two-part series explores the extraordinary senses and special skills of our pets, using with all sorts of high-tech devices:  spy cameras, moving X-rays, night-vision cameras, drones, miniature on-board cameras and high-speed cameras.
Dora and Friends: Season 1
CPO Sharkey: The Best of Season 1
Unlike so many other popular television characters, Nickelodeon has given Dora an opportunity to grow older and evolve alongside her fan base. In the bilingual “Dora and Friends: Into the City!,” the Latina heroine moves into an urban environment, where she attends school and makes friends with kids who work together to give back to the community. Armed with a magical charm bracelet and trusty Map App, Dora is always ready to solve problems, speak and teach Spanish, and go on real-life adventures. The four-disc “Dora and Friends: Season 1” offers more than seven hours of edutainment, including the never before-aired episode, “Dragon in the School,” a Nick Jr. bonus disc, doggie adoptions, puppy princesses and beautiful mermaids.
Just for the record, “CPO Sharkey: The Best of Season 1” delivers only six complete episodes culled from the complete-season package released in May by Time Life/WEA, so, if you have one, you don’t need the other, unless as a stocking stuffer. Episodes include “Oh Captain My Captain,” where the chauvinistic Sharkey (Don Rickles) meets his new commanding officer, who turns out to be a woman; “The Dear John Letter,” in which Chief Robinson (Harrison Page) suspects Sharkey to be a smooth ladies man; “Goodbye Dolly,” featuring an inflatable doll that causes a ruckus in the barracks, until Sharkey deflates the situation; “Sunday in Tijuana,” with some South of the Border jail time for the men of Company 144; “Sharkey Boogies on Down,” where Rickles tests his dance moves at a disco for Chief Robinson’s birthday; and, “Sharkey’s Secret Life,” in which the recruits are convinced that Sharkey may be gay after he purchases a toupee from a mysterious, shoulder-purse-toting wig salesman.
Hole
Killing Heat
When Mother (Susanne Wuest) returns to her isolated glass-walled summer home with bandages wrapped around her face, we, like her twin sons, Lukas and Elias, wonder what happened to her in the hospital. Was she in an accident? Has she undergone cosmetic surgery to repair damage done by an abusive husband or merely to maintain looks that once graced the cover of fashion magazines? The boys’ father isn’t around and there aren’t any photos of him on the walls. Mom seems lost in a world of her own. More to the point, however, is the almost telepathic relationship shared by the twins, who have full run of the gorgeous property, which lies between a pristine Austrian lake, thick pine forest and a carefully managed cornfield. By all outward appearances, they’re perfectly normal 9-year-olds, with imaginations that sometimes lead them astray. Because we’ve seen the kind of mischief twins get into the movies – those not made by Disney, anyway – we’re ready for anything. As much as Mother tries to distract their attention away from her face, she can’t keep the boys from wondering if she might have been switched with another woman while in the hospital. Their concern becomes especially acute after she appears to be favoring one of them over the other and forbidding the other to speak or wear clothes of his own choosing. In their minds, Mother is merging them into a single entity and they don’t like it. Considering how close we are to being in Michael Haneke territory, nothing ought to surprise us from this point forward. The boys become more conspiratorial, while Mother is too consumed with her self-image to recognize the signs of imminent danger. Goodnight Mother (a.k.a., in German, “I Spy With My Little Eye”) easily qualifies as “arthouse horror,” if only because of how writer/directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz use the house’s unique architecture to add another layer of tension to the story. There’s no reason for other genre buffs to be intimidated by the fancy stuff, though. The Blu-ray adds an interesting conversation with the filmmakers.
Ed Kunkle, the antagonist of Hole, also has mommy issues. When he was young, she would tie him to a chair in a room full of wooden dolls and berate him. Guess what Ed grows up to be?  Remember “Buffalo Bill” in The Silence of the Lambs? The two characters share several horrifying traits, including a fondness for sewing. Joaquin Montalvan’s follow-up to The Legend of the Hillbilly Butcher does a pretty good getting inside the mind of an ex-con who’s tormented by demons of his own making and others left behind from his mother, after he killed her. By the way, Ed’s weapon of choice is a sledge hammer. What distinguishes Hole from most other DVD originals is Montalvan’s ability to drive his narrative with something other than the periodic bludgeoning deaths of his victims. If the movie thrives on the many conceptual conceits he invests in the story, they sometimes feel gratuitously clever. Much of Hole was shot on what appears to be damaged film stock, while the soundtrack mimics the drone of defective brain cells reverberating through the skull of a maniac. Montalvan mixes colors and textures at will, usually, though, to good effect. He also bombards us with flashbacks, flash-forwards, visual references to other horror films and experimentation for the sake of experimentation. Paul E. Respass, who plays Kunklem, has appeared in the director’s last two films and seems comfortable in the role of the monster. The DVD adds commentary, a making-of featurette and “Ed’s Journal,” which re-creates a weathered facsimile of “Wisconsin Death Trip.”
Also from exploitation specialist Wild Eye Releasing comes Killing Heat, an action flick with almost no action – until its half over, anyway – but plenty of disturbing attitude. Set in some infrequently seen Thai locations, co-writer/director/actor/producer/cinematographer Daniel Dahl’s thriller-without-thrills is so ludicrously scripted and ineptly made as to be laughable. And, it might have been funny, if its racism, sexism and violence weren’t so crudely drawn and executed. Imagine if the “two wild and crazy guys” from “Saturday Night Live” made a home movie while seeking “swinging adventures” in an exotic setting. And, I don’t mean Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd playing the Czech brothers … I mean the Festrunks, themselves. Here, Norwegian businessman J.D. is invited to Thailand by his bro’s for a bit of R&R after being fired from his desk job. For a couple of nights, they have a good time getting wasted, laid and tricked into paying for blowjobs by two of Bangkok’s famous lady boys. After one such debauched night out, J.D. wakes up in the jungle with no memory of how he got there. After raping a child – I’m not kidding – J.D. is forced to hightail it back to Bangkok, with half of the rural population chasing him. He manages to kill most of them with marksmanship that rivals Annie Oakley. Even the dubbing is horrible. The Festrunks couldn’t have made Killing Heat worse than Dahl already has, no matter how hard they tried. The only truly good idea Dahl has to offer comes in the final five minutes, but it’s too little, too late.
A Year and Change
Addiction: A ’60s Love Story
While it’s possible that fans of “How to Make It in America” and “One Tree Hill” will find something interesting in Bryan Greenberg’s performance in Stephen Suettinger’s unfocused rom/com/dram, A Year in Change, it isn’t likely that anyone else will. He plays Owen, an alcoholic vending-machine proprietor who’s squandered every opportunity in life, but feels as if there’s still time to sober up before things get too dire. That point comes when his ex-wife (Kat Foster) tells him that she’s landed a job in San Diego and is taking their son with her. It also coincides with him falling off the roof at a house party, while reaching for a bottle of beer in the rain gutter. If that weren’t sufficiently symbolic, Owen is required to endure several other indignities before the filmmakers deem him salvageable. Characters played Marshall Allman (“True Blood”) and T.R. Knight (“Grey’s Anatomy”) have troubles of their own, but look so much alike I managed to confuse them halfway through the film. Besides nearly screwing up his relationship with his son, Owen also is required to misread every cue thrown his way by a lovely, recently jilted bank teller (Claire van der Boom), who’s far too good for him. Unfortunately, by the time Suettinger and Jim Beggarly’s script allows for Owen to redeem himself, we’ve given up on him.
The same caveat applies to Addiction: A ’60s Love Story. Only fans of “Pretty Little Liars” star Ian Harding – or Luna Lovegood, in the “Harry Potter” films – are likely to do handsprings over what they see in Tate Steinsiek’s debut feature. In it, Harding does an OK job as Max Bornstein, a Jersey boy who dropped out of college to pursue a career in the then-underground porn industry, a heroin addiction and broken marriage. Long after getting clean and sober, Bornstein wrote a book about his experiences, which, except for the porn, resembles every other memoir by a middle-class white guy, who fell in love with drugs and pissed away a fortune in friends and money before finding the light. His real talent was hiding his vices from his family, including his wife (Evanna Lynch), until his book was published. The DVD adds interviews.
The Hunting Ground
A few weekends ago, CNN aired Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s stunning documentary about rape on campus, “The Hunting Ground,” despite threats of legal action from a lawyer for one of the athletes specifically accused in it by a “survivor.” That player, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston, had ducked investigations while enrolled at Florida State University and law-enforcement officials in Tallahassee failed to investigate the alleged rape. Once the national media caught wind of the allegations and began to smell something fishy about the ease with which FSU athletes have been able to avoid persecution on most crimes, the police announced that they had no reason to believe the sex wasn’t consensual, as Winston argued, and refused to press charges. If FSU was an isolated example of athletes being allowed to behave badly, Dick and Ziering (The Invisible War) probably would have been forced to leave well enough. Instead, they discovered a network of dozens of women, connected by the Internet, who were willing to come forward and tell the world how they were seduced by their assailants and abandoned by school officials. The patterns are all too familiar, as they largely involve officially sanctioned fraternities and athletes who traditionally have been given a pass.
While it’s extremely difficult to differentiate between consensual sex between overserved and often underage students, it’s difficult to argue against the intention of frat boys chanting, “No means yes, yes means anal,” for all the world to hear. The preponderance of the evidence demonstrates how little support university officials will accord victims – women and men – when alumni money and prestige is involved. There’s also the testimony of parents, fathers mostly, who had watched helplessly as their precious daughters were vilified and bullied by Internet fiends and ignored by college administrators. Detractors have complained about the film’s structure and FSU president John Thrasher called The Hunting Ground “inaccurate and incomplete.” Like other officials mentioned in the film, Thrasher lacked the courage to appear on the follow-up program CNN arranged to address such complaints. As for questions raised by critics, they didn’t prevent Producers Guild of America from nominating the film for its top documentary award or Oscar nominators to include it on their short list.
Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats: Blu-ray
Wake Up and Kill: Blu-ray
The Amazing Doctor G
For a short story first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of the Saturday Evening Post, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” has enjoyed a long and fruitful life on the screen. Nine of them, at least, not including the parodies that followed very closely in the wake of the story’s publication. The idea of commissioning different artists to freely adapt “The Black Cat” isn’t new. Universal Pictures released a “Black Cat” in 1934 and 1941, and borrowed from the story for “Maniac,” also in 1934. In 1962, Roger Corman and Richard Matheson’s Tales of Terror combined “The Black Cat” with “The Cask of Amontillado” and sandwiched it between adaptations of “Morella” and “”The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.” The 1990 film Two Evil Eyes presents two Poe tales, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” and “The Black Cat.” The former was written and directed by George A. Romero while the latter was written and directed by Dario Argento. Arrow Video’s lavish Blu-ray box, “Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats” goes all giallo on us with Sergio Martino’s kooky 1972 thriller “Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key” and Lucio Fulci’s nasty 1981 take, “The Black Cat.” It’s funny how movies that once looked so cheesy on VHS become classic with 2K scrubbings from the original camera negatives and hi-def presentations. Martino’s contribution puts a hippy-dippy spin on the tale, as well adding sexy star turns by Edwige Fenech, Anita Strindberg, Angela La Vorgna and Dalila Di Lazzaro. Fulci’s contribution brings the story and the cat to an estate in rural England. Patrick Magee is outstanding as the mad psychic, who thinks he can control the cat’s killer instincts. The package arrives with new interviews with Martino; the featurettes, “Dolls of Flesh and Blood: The Gialli of Sergio Martino” and a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring Martino’s unique contributions to the giallo genre and historian Stephen Thrower on “Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci”; reversible sleeves featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin; and a limited-edition 80-page book, featuring new writing on the films and Poe’s original story.
Also from Arrow Video and Italy, Carlo Lizzani’s Wake Up and Kill (a.k.a., “Wake Up and Die”) chronicles the exploits of the notorious armed robber Luciano Lutring, who, during the 1960s, committed more than 100 armed heists in Italy and on the French Riviera. Like Jesse James, John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, Australia’s Ned Kelly, France’s Jacques Mesrine and Canada’s Edwin Boyd, Lutring was afforded a Robin Hood-like mystique by the media. Dubbed “the submachine gun soloist,” because he kept one in a violin case, Lutring’s stylish career lent itself to exploitation by filmmakers and Wake Up and Kill began production only months after his arrest on September 1, 1965. Compared to the poliziotteschi to come, in the 1970s, Wake Up and Kill is a no-frills account not only of Lutring’s spree, but also the glamorous singer (Lisa Gastoni) who became his moll. Robert Hoffman bears a closer resemblance to James Dean than Lutring, who died a free man in 2013, at 75. (The same can be said of Alain Delon, about his portrayal of the “gentleman thief” in Jose Giovanni’s 1975 thriller, Le Gitan.) Lizzani’s career spanned nearly 60 years, beginning in post-war neo-realism (Bitter Rice), moving on through giallo, cops-and-robbers and spaghetti-Westerns (Requiescant, The Violent Four), topical dramas (Love and Anger, Kleinhoff Hotel) and documentaries (Celluloid). Wake Up and Kill was scored by Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in the West), co-scripted by Ugo Pirro (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion), shot by Armando Nannuzzi (The Damned) and co-starring Gian Maria Volonté (The Death of Mario Ricci). That’s a lot of fire power for a movie that some might construe as a genre flick, albeit one that was hugely popular in Italy. The  Arrow upgrade, as usual, is excellent, and it arrives with a short English-language version.
The great Spanish actor Fernando Rey has done outstanding work in such noteworthy films as The French Connection, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire, Tristana, Elisa, My Life, Seven Beauties and Don Quijote de la Mancha. He’s been directed by William Friedkin, Luis Buñuel, Frank Perry, Robert Altman, Carlos Saura, Lina Wertmüller and Orson Welles. In the same year that Rey appeared in Welles’ Chimes at Midnight, he played the title character in a James Bond parody, The Amazing Doctor G, which also was sold as “The Two Crazy Secret Agents,” “Two Mafiosi Against Goldginger” and “Goldginger.” The Bond books and movies have been satirized endlessly since the early 1960s, often very well. From the appropriately named Cheezy Flicks – a distributor that specializes in such amusingly toxic fare — The Amazing Doctor G is not one of them. By comparison, it makes Austin Powers in Goldmember look like Commedia dell’arte. The evil Doctor Goldginger is planning to take over the world by brainwashing important leaders from around the world and start a war between the USA and the USSR. Upstaging Rey at every turn are photographers Franco and Ciccio, who are kidnapped by Goldginger. Sicilian comedians Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia play the foils to Goldginger and Agente 007 (George Hilton). These sorts of parodies were churned out for popular consumption during a period roughly spanning the end of Italian neo-realism and the rise of spaghetti-Westerns and giallo.
Assassination: Blu-ray
For many people, World War II began well before the attack on Pearl Harbor forced the hand of a divided Congress. It’s one of the things Americans can learn in new movies from Korea and China, where Japanese imperialist forces were making life miserable for the native populations long before December 7, 1941. The overall quality of the war pictures that find their way to the U.S. is excellent, with larger than ever budgets for talent and special effects. At 140 minutes, Choi Dong-hoon’s Assassination may seem like too daunting a test for Americans whose knowledge of what transpired in the Pacific Theater is necessarily limited to the Allies’ tortuous island-to-island march to victory. In 1933, much of Korea’s resistance movement is in jail or hiding in Manchuria. A group of exiled rebels have been instructed to return to Korea to assassinate the governor of the Japanese garrison in Gyeongseong and a pro-Japanese Korean business tycoon. Before they can begin, however, an elderly hero from an earlier resistance movement is recruited to break three specifically trained fighters from jail and take them to Shanghai, before re-entering Korea. One is a petite woman sharpshooter, who will have less trouble clearing security personnel than the men. Once inside Korea, however, they are required to deal with the added inconvenience of ferreting out an informer. Freelance assassin Hawaii Pistol and his sidekick Old Man have been hired to intercept the assassins. It’s complicated, alright, but there’s plenty of time to sort things out and the tension is relieved by more than a few light-hearted moments.
All About E
After watching Louise Wadley’s sure-footed buddy/road picture, All About E, I wondered what a 2015 remake of Thelma & Louise might look like if the protagonists were allowed to fall in love on their journey, naturally and without the angst usually associated with coming to grips with one’s sexual identity. They wouldn’t kick Brad Pitt out of bed for eating crackers, but they’d sure as hell not leave him in the same room with their money. Would the dynamics between Harvey Keitel’s sympathetic Detective Hal Slocumb and T&L change if he learned that the outlaw buddies had become don’t-give-a-shit lovers? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they wouldn’t feel it necessary to take the plunge into the canyon after their goodbye kiss. Maybe they’d call Gloria Allred, instead. In All About E, Mandahla Rose plays the title character, a Lebanese-Australian lesbian, who is the star deejay at a Sydney nightclub frequented by gay men, including her red-haired BFF, Matt. She’s lost her interest in a music career and her blond lover, Trish, has split for an Outback farm to escape the drama. One night, E finds a bag full of suitcase full of cash, lying there for her to steal it. When she learns that it belongs to her boss, a gay hoodlum, E decides to grab Matt for a road trip to the unknown. After visiting her parents, who’d love for her to pick up the clarinet again, E&M head for the farm for a possible reconciliation with Trish and a showdown with her very pissed-off boss. Things don’t work out exactly the way E imagined they would, but the ending is satisfying, anyway. The DVD adds interviews with Wadley and the filmmakers.
Zoolander: SteelBook Edition: Blu-ray
As most of the civilized world already knows, Zoolander No. 2 arrives February 12, in time for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and the Feast of Saint Valentine. As far as I know, neither Sacha Baron Cohen nor supermodel Bruno make appearances in it, although it would be fun if one or both of them did. I suspect that diehard fans already own the Blu-ray or DVD edition of the outrageous fashion-industry comedy, which share most of the same bonus features. Zoolander: SteelBook Edition, available only at Walmart until February 2, adds footage of Owen Wilson and Justin Theroux rehearsing their “epic” breakdance fight, under the direction of Ben Stiller, and an alternate version of the brainwashing sequence told through storyboards. What makes it giftable, though, are a collectible Zoolander headband, embellished with Derek’s world-famous coif; a look at “Zoolander No. 2”; and a coupon worth up to $8 towards a ticket to see the new film in theaters.
TV-to-DVD
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXIV
The Bold Ones: The Senator: The Complete Series
Angry Birds: Toons/Piggy Tales/Stella
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Revenge!
Shout Factory’s latest compilation of intergalactic schlock, “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXIV,” puts a tight focus on American International Pictures and its ability to change the way teenagers, especially, watched movies during the 1950s youthquake. The major studios tight grasp on available screens had been loosened significantly by new anti-monopoly laws and drive-in theaters provided a home away from home for kids anxious to taste the newfound freedom provided by access to automobiles. It’s not a new story, but one that’s fun to revisit on film. The titles represented here follow Samuel Z. Arkoff’s “formula” for producing a successful low-budget movie: action, entertainment, revolution, killing, oratory, fantasy and fornication … not necessarily in those exact words or order of preference. The selections include Roger Corman’s Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (a.k.a. “The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent” ) and The Undead; Bert I. Gordon’s War of the Colossal Beast; and Edward L. Cahn’s The She-Creature. The longest of these is 77 minutes, which affords plenty of room for a second feature, intermission, previews and, perhaps, a cartoon. They also provide plenty of excuses for necking through the dull parts. In a fresh interview, Corman allows that “Viking Women” severely tested his ability to work with advanced special effects on a miniscule budget. A lengthy featurette discusses AIP and its place in cinematic history.
Timeless Media Group adds to its “Bold Ones” collection that includes complete-series sets of “The Bold Ones: The Lawyers,” featuring Burl Ives, Joseph Campanella and James Farentino; “The Bold Ones:  The Protectors,” with Leslie Nielsen and Hari Rhodes; and “The Bold Ones: The Senator,” with Hal Holbrook and Sharon Acker. “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors,” with E.G. Marshall, John Saxon and David Hartman, has yet to be shipped. Produced by Universal Television, the series were broadcast on NBC from 1969 to 1973, using the same wheel format that worked for “Columbo,” “McCloud” and “McMillan & Wife.” Instead of relying of being tied exclusively to crime-solving and personality-driven themes, “The Bold Ones” developed stories inspired by headline-making events, without stereotyping the characters. Examine the credit lists and you’ll find the names of veteran actors alongside those of such up-and-comers as Michael Ritchie, Steven Bochco, John Badham, Richard Donner, Will Geer, Georg Stanford Brown and Fred Williamson. They’re still fun to watch.
Originated in Finland, “Angry Birds” has grown from a single video game, in 2009, to a marketing phenomenon, in 2010, to a huge multimedia franchise, today, with a 3D feature film scheduled for May, 2016. There are almost too many non-gaming spinoffs – from toys to soft drinks to theme parks — to count. We’re talking billions of downloads here, folks. On March 16, 2013, “Angry Birds Toons,” a TV series based on the game, made its debut on Comcast’s Xfinity On-Demand, Samsung Smart TVs and Roku set-top boxes. “Toons” is available on mobile devices, by an additional Toons channel on all of the Angry Birds apps home screens. In April, 2014, Rovio released “Piggy Tales,” a stop-motion animated series that tells the stories of the Minion Pigs’ life. Stella and her five BFF’s have been given their own series as well. The new DVDs include, “Angry Birds: Stella: The Complete First Season,” “Piggy Tales: The Complete First Season” and “Angry Birds Toons: Season Two, Volume One.”
In the episodes included in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Revenge!,” Leo, Raph, Donnie and Mikey encounter new mutants, time travel and take on new Earth-threatening enemies. The two-disc collection contains the final 12 episodes (67-78) from Season Three of Nickelodeon’s hit animated series. Some of the new and old mutants are Muckman, the Mighty Mutanimals, Mondo Gecko, Serpent Karai, the Mega Shredder, Tiger Claw, the Creep, Bebop and Rocksteady. The DVD adds special features and a Leonardo zipper-pull gift with purchase.
The Great American Dream Machine
McHale’s Navy: The Complete Series
Sgt. Bilko/The Phil Silvers Show: The Final Season
The counterculture of the 1960s not only was spawned from the antiwar, civil rights, feminist and gay rights movements, but also a collective belief that white bread, pollution and petroleum-based products would have the same lasting effect on American consumers that Agent Orange had on the forests of Vietnam. Such feelings of impending doom, combined with the malaise caused by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., the Kennedys and Malcolm X made the United States a rather humorless place to be, heading, as we were, into the 1968 presidential race. What this country needed more than anything else, perhaps, was a good laugh. With Lenny Bruce already gone and Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory busy chasing down conspiracy theories, such previously conventional comics as the Smothers Brothers, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, George Carlin and Richard Pryor stepped up to fill the vacuum and give network censors fits. The controversial decision to allow Donald Trump to host “Saturday Night Live” might have been made by someone old enough to remember Richard Nixon’s brief appearance on “Laugh-In,” 47 years ago, simply to ask the rhetorical question, “Sock it to me?” If nothing else, it demonstrated that Tricky Dick might actually have a sense of humor, buried under his jowls and scowls. His opponent, Hubert Humphrey, was extended an invitation, as well, but declined. According to George Schlatter, the show’s creator, “Humphrey later said that not doing it may have cost him the election,” while “[Nixon] said the rest of his life that appearing on ‘Laugh-In’ is what got him elected.” It certainly didn’t hurt.
At a time when public-broadcast stations were commonly referred to as “educational TV,” a show likened to an “intellectual ‘Laugh-In’” began production on New York City’s non-commercial WNET. “The Great American Dream Machine” was a weekly satirical variety television series – first 90 minutes, then 60 – that was picked up by PBS affiliates around the country. Its audience may have been miniscule, compared to “Laugh-In,” but it was composed of hard-core liberals, media mavens and the next generation of opinion-makers. It didn’t take long for the show to bear fruit in the form of “The Groove Tube,” “Saturday Night Life,” “SCTV” and Kentucky Fried Movie.  (Imported episodes of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” “That Was the Week That Was” and Mad magazine also deserve credit in this regard.) The first disc in Entertainment One’s long-awaited greatest-hits compilation, “The Great American Dream Machine,” opens with citizens from all walks of life being asked to relate their concept of American Dream. Not surprisingly, none was the same as the one before or after it. The first person profiled as a possible Great American Hero, was Evel Knievel, who, at the time, was known more for breaking his bones in failed motorcycle jumps than completing them. The show also featured animated material, skits, music, literary readings and satirical reports by Marshall Efron, who lambasted laws that were intended to protect consumers, but mostly protected corporations from lawsuits. Another fondly recalled bit is Albert Brooks’ hilarious short film, “The Famous Comedians School,” which, in merging comic clichés and magazine ads for the Famous Artists School, was a precursor of the mockumentary subgenre. Interview subjects included oft-divorced band leader Artie Shaw, burlesque queen Blaze Starr and hot-rod designer “Big Daddy” Ed Roth. Other notable contributors included Chevy Chase, Andy Rooney, Penny Marshall, Henry Winkler, Tiny Tim, David Steinberg, Linda Lavin and Charles Grodin. Watch the show today on DVD and you’ll recognize the forebears of Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Trevor Noah and John Oliver. Liner notes are provided by critic David Bianculli.
If John F. Kennedy had decided to stay in Boston and get into the roofing business, instead of politics, it’s hard to say if anyone would have made a fuss over his heroism in the South Pacific, during World War II. After the boat he captained was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and cut in two, Kennedy used his swimming prowess to help rescue several of the 11 men who clung to PT-109’s slowing sinking bow. He also would swim to neighboring islands in search of water, food and communications equipment. There’s no question of the future president’s role in the harrowing attack or that the story, minus the bravery of native islanders, was milked by his advisors in future political campaigns. After he entered the White House, the incident became a cultural phenomenon, inspiring a song, books, movies, various television shows, collectible objects, scale-model replicas and an action figure, from Hasbro. It must have convinced ABC to green-light the comedy series, “McHale’s Navy,” which appeared to be inspired as much by “The Phil Silvers Show” as the President’s heroism. In it, a rag-tag crew of sailors was left stranded on a tiny South Pacific island, after a bombing raid by Japanese fliers. Although Earnest Borgnine bore no physical resemblance to JFK, as did Cliff Robertson in the 1963 biopic, PT 109, the Academy Award-winning actor (Marty) would be enlisted to play Lt. Commander Quinton McHale in the 1962-66 series. He favored Hawaiian shirts over fatigues and dress khakis, and, when his men weren’t shooting craps on the pier or hitting on the wahinis, they enjoyed water-skiing behind PT-73. The show’s beleaguered base commander, Captain Wallace B. Binghamton, was played by the ever-exasperated Joe Flynn, with Tom Conway also on board as the flustered Ensign Charles Parker. Long before Gavin McLeod took the wheel of the Love Boat, he portrayed the sailor, Happy Haynes. From Shout! Factory, “McHale’s Navy: The Complete Series” comes in a cardboard ditty box, containing 61 hours’ worth of programming; the featurettes, “The Crew Reunion” and “Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway Remember”; and two full-length feature films, McHale’s Navy (1964) and McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force (1965). Listen carefully and you might hear a character mention an unnamed commander of torpedo boat, PT-109.
“Sgt. Bilko” would also provide the template for “Hogan’s Heroes” and “F Troop,” madcap military farces in which conflicts between historical antagonists were played for laughs. For those fans of the classic comedy who don’t already own “Sgt. Bilko/The Phil Silvers Show: The Complete Series,” Shout! Factory finished rolling out individual complete-season DVDs, “Sgt. Bilko/The Phil Silvers Show: The Final Season.” The episodes are as funny in repeat viewings as any show currently on television. In Season Four, Bilko and the rest of his platoon are transferred to California’s Camp Fremont, a vacant facility where Bilko is convinced that a fortune in gold is hidden. Although his scheme doesn’t pan out as foreseen, at least the camp is closer to the target-rich cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tijuana and Reno. It also allowed for cameos by such stars as Dean Martin, Lucille Ball, the sons of Bing Crosby and Mickey Rooney. Bilko’s schemes get more elaborate as the finale nears.
The Quay Brothers: Collected Short Films: Blu-ray
To the extent that Stephen and Timothy Quay’s short films are known outside the arthouse and academic communities, it’s for the puppetry and stop-motion animation featured in music videos for Alice in Chains, Peter Gabriel (“Sledgehammer”), His Name Is Alive, Michael Penn, Sparklehorse, Legion of Horses, Pere Ubu and 16 Horsepower, as well as contributions to Frida and Jack and Diane. Someone even went to the trouble of replacing the soundtrack to the whimsical short, The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer, with Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart’s “Willie the Pimp,” and attributing it to another animator. Unlike most of their imitators, the Quays aren’t reluctant when it comes to revealing their influences, who range from the Polish animators Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica, to puppeteers Wladyslaw Starewicz and Czech Richard Teschner, writers Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Robert Walser and Michel de Ghelderode, and Czech composers Leoš Janáček, Zdeněk Liška and Pole Leszek Jankowski. They’ve also designed book covers, theater sets and installations for prominent galleries. Their best-known film, the 21-minute Street of Crocodiles, was based on the darkly metaphorical memoirs of Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz, murdered by a Gestapo thug in 1942. In describing the bleakness of life in interwar Poland, the Quays follow a mute protagonist as he explores a realm of “mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures.” It was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the 10-best animated films of all time, while and critic Jonathan Romney included it on his list of the 10 best films in any medium for Sight and Sound’s 2002 critics’ poll. Most of their films feature puppets made of doll parts, and other objects and surfaces discovered Eastern European markets. They’re posed within tableaux resembling dollhouses haunted by ancient ghosts and extinguished dreams. The carefully chosen avant-garde musical scores complement the macabre settings and bizarre inhabitants of the Quays worlds. The intricacy demands repeat viewings, and Zeitgeist Films’ splendid Blu-ray edition, The Quay Brothers: Collected Short Films, allows for nearly microscopic inspection of the materials and props. Along with the aforementioned titles, the compilation includes This Unnameable Little Broom (1985), Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies (1987), Stille Nacht I-IV (1988-94), The Comb (1990), Anamorphosis (1991), In Absentia (2000), The Phantom Museum (2003), Maska (2010), Through The Weeping Glass (2011), Unmistaken Hands (2013) and “Quay,” an appreciation by Christopher Nolan (2015). Inside the digipak is a 28-page booklet, containing an updated Quay Dictionary and an introduction by Nolan. Although most of the shorts can be appreciated on one level or another by anyone with a childlike fascination of miniature worlds and clockwork gadgetry, for gifting purposes, “Collected Short Films” likely will best be appreciated by serious students of the animators’ art and amateur Freudians. The brothers’ commentaries, alone, are worth a second viewing.
The Civil War: 25th Anniversary Edition: Blu-ray
In case anyone is wondering if Ken Burns’ exceedingly giftable The Civil War: 25th Anniversary Edition features a different outcome to our country’s most terrible conflagration, the answer is “no.” The good guys still win, but, sadly, a minority of loudmouths on the losing team continues to wage war against human decency, civil rights and common sense. Some of them are even running for president. Neither has Burns anything new to add in the way of history lessons, beyond what we learned in the comprehensive nine-episode mini-series that drew millions of viewers to PBS. What makes this volume valuable is the effort that went into preserving the original footage for optimal video and audio quality. Blessedly, very little was damaged while in storage for the last quarter-century. So, all that was needed was a good digital scrub to restore details and eliminate artifacts. It looks good as new … maybe better. The six-disc collector’s set also features more than two hours of new bonus video, including the featurettes, “Making ‘The Civil War’: 25 Years Later” and “Restoring ‘The Civil War’” and complete Shelby Foote interviews.
Gosei Sentai Dairanger: The Complete Series
Although the obsessive popularity enjoyed by the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has fluctuated over the last nearly 25 years, it’s never completely evaporated. New iterations of the concept have appeared in different formats and mediums, with a new theatrical film, designed to reboot the series, planned for release in January, 2017. If that comes as good news to you or someone on your gift list, you might want to consider picking up the boxed set, “Gosei Sentai Dairanger: The Complete Series,” the original Japanese series that inspired the Power Rangers franchise. The Toei entertainment conglomerate titled the series, “Star Rangers,” for international consumption. Elements from it were merged into the second season of “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” specifically the action sequences between the giant robots (which became the Power Rangers’ Thunderzords) and some of the monsters. It would take a full day to lay out the many permutations of the story and characters, and I’d probably get them wrong, so let’s assume that fans of one series likely would be interested in seeing the source materialq.
The Colbys: The Complete Series
Released on DVD last spring by Shout! Factory, “The Colbys: The Complete Series” is one of those shows that must have looked like a no-brainer upon its release on ABC, on November 20, 1985, but, after a bright opening, lost all of its luster going its second and final season. Originally titled “Dynasty II: The Colbys,” the prime-time soap starred Charlton Heston, Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Ross and Ricardo Montalban, who, at the time, might have been better suited for appearances on “The Love Boat,” which didn’t have much steam left in it, either. Produced by Aaron Spelling, it was a spin-off of the top-rated “Dynasty” – some critics called it a clone – featuring characters who are relatives by marriage of the Carringtons. If anything, they were even wealthier and more decadent than their in-laws. In a decision that smacked of suicidal hubris, ABC positioned the series against NBC’s powerhouse lineup of “Cheers” and “Night Court.” A year later, it was forced to stand up to CBS’ “Dallas” spinoff, “Knots Landing” and the Peacock’s re-positioned “The Cosby Show.” For that reason, alone, it might be more fun to watch the show today, than 30 years ago, when Americans were still trying to master their VCRs.
Shaun the Sheep Movie: Blu-ray
Through its mastery of stop-motion animation, Aardman has carved a niche in the family-entertainment game that few of its competitors have been able to match. It’s been a while since anything attached to company frontman Nick Park has lasted longer than 30 minutes and that was 10 years ago, with the Oscar- and BAFTA-winning The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The latest feature-length Aardman Animations production, Shaun the Sheep Movie, is based on Park’s “Shaun the Sheep” television series, which began in 2007 and is still going strong. Here, though, Park handed the reins to Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, who were able to commit six years of their time to the project. That it works so well without a single line of recognizable dialogue is a testament to the team’s ability to tickle our imagination with things other than words and anthropomorphic characters who wouldn’t be out of place in a petting zoo. Park introduced Shaun the Sheep in the 1995 “Wallace and Gromit” short “A Close Shave,” which also took top prize in Academy Award and BAFTA competition. Since then, Shaun has starred in 31 shorts of his own. Here, the mischievous ball of wool conspires to put the Farmer to sleep, in the usual sheeply way, so they can have some fun. The dull-minded doofus decides to take a nap in a trailer that soon will be rolling out-of-control to the nearest big city, where quickly loses his memory of anything except the use of shears.
Meanwhile, when things take an anarchic turn on the farm, Shaun and the flock decide to track down their master and bring him back to Mossy Bottom Farm, where the pigs have taken over the farmhouse. Unaware that untethered animals can be rounded up and impounded, until such time as they’re claimed or euthanized, Shaun makes the mistake of getting on the wrong side of the city’s animal-containment officer, Trumper. While inside the pound, Shaun finds allies in other caught critters, anxious for freedom. Almost accidentally, the escapees discover that Farmer has become a big star, shearing the heads of humans in fanciful shapes. Once again, the sheep put him to sleep and bring him back home, where Trumper is waiting for them. If the plot sounds simplistic, Aardman fans know to expect enough clever sight gags, musical cues, homages to previous films and crude barnyard humor to satisfy kids and adult viewers, alike. The Blu-ray’s audio/visual presentation literally sparkles, technically and artistically. The bonus features add “Making the Shaun Movie,” “Meet the Characters,”  “Join Shaun Behind the Scenes,” “Meet the Crew” and a “Parody Poster Gallery.”
No Escape: Blu-ray
In an interview contained in bonus package, John Erick Dowdle and his brother, Drew, describe No Escape as a “family drama, masquerading as an action film.” They’re too young to remember the type of political dramas that also were referred to as “paranoid thrillers,” but there’s a bit of that subgenre visible in No Escape, as well. Among the titles lumped under the same heading were The Parallax View, The China Syndrome, The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor and, even, All the President’s Men. The Dowdles’ probably owe more to such films as Taken and Die Hard than any of those titles, but, here, too, bad things happen to good people for politically motivated reasons that will be revealed somewhere down the road. Owen Wilson plays a Texas-based engineer hired by an international conglomerate that facilitates the availability of fresh water in underdeveloped countries. Because he believes in his new employer’s mission, Jack convinces his wife, Annie (Lake Bell), and two young daughters, to move with him to an unnamed Southeast Asian nation that borders on Vietnam. Because viewers have already witnessed the assassination of a local potentate, after a meeting with a western business executive, we know more about what’s about to happen than the jet-lagged American. The next morning, while Jack is wandering the neighborhood of his swank hotel for a newspaper, he finds himself trapped between a phalanx of riot police and insurgents dressed like the assassin. Jack’s route back to the hotel is now strewn with hacked-up bodies and the flaming husks of automobiles and motorbikes. Outside the entrance to the hotel, the same rowdy bunch of protesters is clamoring for something or other. When another westerner is murdered before his eyes, Jack rushes to the rescue of his family. On his way up the elevator, he encounters the mysterious fellow, Hammond (Pierce Brosnan), they befriended on last night’s trip from the airport to the hotel. Before dealing with a pair of rebels in pursuit, Hammond tells Jack to take his family to the roof. The chase is on.
Any resemblance between the mob outside the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi and the machete-wielding rabble outside the hotel likely is coincidental. In a few minutes, Jack will discover that they’re pissed off at his company, which is conspiring with the government to monetize the water system by charging for a commodity that has always been free. (This already is happening in sub-Saharan Africa, where potable water is as precious as gold.) When the government inevitably runs out of money to pay for their end of the deal, the conglomerate takes control of the water system, setting rates poor people can’t afford. Because Jack’s face appears on a corporate banner in the hotel lobby, he’s being held responsible for the objectionable policy. At this particular point in the narrative, mind you, Jack has no idea why his company is being singled out or why no one there has made contact with him. By this time, though, it doesn’t really matter, because the crowd has fallen in love with the smell of blood and wants more of it. Despite a certain absence of logic as to why there’s been so little military response to the lightly armed crowd, the Dowdles do a nice job investing us in the safety of the family and, tangentially, Hammond. If viewers were given a few seconds to think about the conglomerate’s odious designs, we’d probably sympathize with the insurgents, who are dressed to resemble Al Qaeda wannabes. Any questions we have about other political affiliations and motivations, like those surrounding the identity of the country, will go unanswered. Wilson and Lake are entirely credible as endangered and likely clueless couple, while, as usual, Brosnan keeps things interesting whenever he’s on the screen. The can be said about the Chiang Mai, Thailand, setting. The Blu-ray adds a couple of deleted scenes and interviews.
The Dinner
A few years ago, Hollywood fell in love with stories in which seemingly normal kids in model communities commit horrible crimes and their parents are forced to deal with the consequences. These ranged from deciding whether to report their children to police after a terrible automobile accident, to facing the survivors of a massacre caused by their demented little angels. These weren’t abstract situations, either on film or in contemporary life. That parents are among the last people to recognize the signs of potential psychosis in their kids no longer is unthinkable. In the aftermath of school massacres, we’ve learned that classmates tend to understand the motivations of perpetrators of crimes better than any parent could be expected to perceive in conversations around the dinner table. Based on a best-selling novel by Herman Koch, The Dinner Party immediately recalls Barbet Schroeder’s Before and After and Terry George’s Reservation Road, in which the moral dilemmas faced by the adult characters are thrown into the laps of viewers. Ivano De Matteo and co/writer Valentina Ferlan’s story adds an additional layer of tension between adult brothers – a lawyer and a doctor – and their respective wives, who only see the worst in each other and their kids. The movie opens with an incident that is only tangentially related to the brothers. In a case of road rage, a brutish Roman driver takes offense at hand gestures directed at him by another motorist. When both cars come to a stop, the offended driver picks up a baseball bat and charges the driver, who’s still in the driver’s seat. Just as the bat is about to hit glass, the second driver – a cop – picks up his service revolver and shoots, killing the man and wounding his son. Not being the United States, the cop is taken into custody in advance of an investigation into unauthorized use of a weapon. At the couples’ monthly dinner, brothers Massimo (Alessandro Gassman) and Paolo (Luigi Lo Cascio) spark over the former agreeing to defend the cop, while the doctor is treating the seriously injured boy. At this point, it’s little more than a coincidence.
Paolo’s wife, Clara, is addicted to a popular real-crime show on television. As she’s watching a segment in which security-camera footage captured the unsolved beating of a homeless woman being mercilessly beaten, Clara intuitively begins to worry that her teenage son, Michele, might be involved. If so, the tape might also reveal the participation of his cousin, Massimo’s daughter Benni, who had invited Michele to a party that night in the same neighborhood. Of course, they deny everything. Clara decides to do an end-run around her husband, by consulting Massimo, not only about their legal options, but also how to squeeze the truth from the cousins. Paolo’s immediate response is to be pissed off at his wife for consulting his brother, first, and possibly giving him something to lord over the doctor. When Benni is forced to acknowledge her role in the crime, both couples are required to come to grips with a situation that could ruin their families’ stability and damage their reputations in equal measure. Michele and Benni are willing to blame everything on being wasted at the time of the incident and, therefore, absent of any real blame in what they perceive to be an accident.
Naturally, the adults aren’t so sure about how to proceed. Both of the men are bound by the moral dictates of their jobs to be advocates of the truth. They disagreed on how the road-rage killing should have been handled and, here, the murder of a homeless woman can’t even be dismissed as self-defense. Presumably, the in-laws’ next discussion over the dinner table will result in an agreed-upon solution to their dilemma, without destroying their kids’ futures or sending the wrong message by not holding them accountable. After all, crimes like this don’t happen in the best of families. DeMatteo never ratchets down the tension that’s built up between the couples or, for that matter, between the characters and viewers. The Film Movement DVD adds a making-of featurette. Apparently, an American adaptation of Koch’s novel, with Cate Blanchett at the helm and Oren Moverman (Love & Mercy) at the typewriter.
Applesauce: Blu-ray
Like The Dinner, the primary characters in Applesauce are couples who meet for dinner on a regular basis, but who share one secret too many between them. Writer/director Onur Tukel plays Ron Welz, an inner-city teacher who challenges his students to put down their cellphones and check out what life has to offer. A decent guy, with discernible doofus tendencies, Ron is fascinated by a radio talk-show host (Dylan Baker), whose great talent is allowing his listeners the space to hang themselves with embarrassing revelations about themselves. On the night he works up the nerve to reveal his own worst moment, Ron is forced to sign off early by his wife, Nickki (Trieste Kelly Dunn), who’s anxious not to be late for their weekly dinner. When they’re asked why they’re late, however, Ron feels obligated to tell them what he was about to say to thousands of talk-show listeners. While unappetizing and potentially embarrassing, his faux pas more closely resembles an urban legend than actual occurrence. Even so, the next time they got together, Ron feels entitled to ask Les (Max Casella) the worst secret he might be harboring. Turns out, it’s a real game-changer for the four friends.
Meanwhile, after Ron reveals his secret about causing an adversary to lose a hand in a college tussle, someone begins sending him severed body parts in the mail and other deliveries. It unnerves him to the point that he begins to mistrust Les, Nikki, the Chinese take-out guy and an unruly student. Attentive viewers won’t have the same problem as Ron. Les’ secret, too, takes on a life of its own. In such uber-indies as Summer of Blood and Richard’s Wedding, the New York-based Tukel has already proven what one determined guy can accomplish on a mercilessly tiny budget, a few good ideas and game actors. When boiled down to the basics, Applesauce is a dark comedy about the law of unintended consequences and the dangers of being too honest with friends and strangers, alike. Not everything works as intended, but Applesauce demonstrates how Tukel may be ready to take a step or two up the indie ladder.
Ghost Story: Blu-ray
Audiences have become so accustomed to not seeing adults over the age of 30 in starring roles that the cast of John Irvin’s 1981 supernatural thriller, Ghost Story, might seem freakish to them. With the exception of two actors who play double roles — Craig Wasson (Body Double) and Alice Krige (Star Trek) – the movie represents something of a walk-of-fame reunion. Nearing the end of their long and distinguished careers, Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and John Houseman play four elderly New England gentlemen, who don tuxedos on a regular basis and tell tales of horror to each other. The Oscar- and Tony Award-winning actress, Patricia Neal (Hud), is a spring chicken compared to her older co-stars. Today, the odds of finding such a distinguished lineup in a genre film would be small-to-none. In 1981, however, any picture adapted from a best-selling novel by Peter Straub would warrant a budget that elevated it from ranks of drive-in and grindhouse fare.
The way Irvin makes us aware of the awful secret the lifelong friends have carried with them for more than 50 years is through flashbacks to their Jazz Age selves. In the interim, they became pillars of the town’s social and business communities. Recently, though, a ghost from the past has returned to haunt their dreams and those of younger family members. Knowing that their time in this world isn’t long, the specter appears to be working overtime to make their passage to the other side as painful as possible. As might be expected of a movie adapted from a novel, the thrills derive less from special makeup effects and jump scares than old-fashioned lighting tricks and anticipation. It worked then and still does, today. It helps mightily that the big reveals take place near the end of the movie. More than anything else, though, it’s fun to watch and guess along with the characters as to who will be the next to die. The upgraded Blu-ray adds commentary by Irvin; interviews with Straub, Krige, screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen, producer Burt Weissbourd and matte photographer Bill Taylor, as well as a vintage theatrical trailer, TV and radio spots and a photo gallery.
The Badger Game: Blu-ray
As most students of crime already know, a badger game is an extortion scheme in which a married man – usually – is lured into a compromising position by an attractive woman – usually — and blackmailed into scrapping up enough money to satisfy the crooks holding evidence of his cheating ways. Anyone attracted to Joshua Wagner and Thomas Zambeck’s The Badger Game by the wildly costumed actors on the cover needn’t worry about picking up a highlight reel from the University of Wisconsin’s march to the Final Four last year, because we’re talking about a different set of badgers. Here, two young women (Augie Duke, Jillian Leigh), who’ve fallen victim to a wealthy philanderer, scheme with a stripper and ex-con (Sasha Higgins, Patrick Cronen) to blackmail the man who’s done them wrong. They know that the “mark,” Liam (Sam Boxleitner), is worth $2 million and, because most it comes from his wealthy wife, he’d hate to give her reason to cut off the funding. It’s a sound idea that even allows for a couple of unexpected wrinkles. What can’t be anticipated, however, is Liam’s stubborn response to the threats and how the women will react to the cruelty of the sadistic ex-con. Hesitation and rookie mistakes ensure that everything that can go wrong in the basement of the big house in the woods does go wrong, including the arrival of a private eye interested in extorting the guy’s money before the amateurs get to it. The directors pull back from the sight of extreme torture, preferring to focus on tensions that arise upstairs between the kidnapers. The actors keep things from getting boring, at least. The package includes two separate commentary tracks and footage from a reception at a festival screening. (By the way, such blackmailing schemes go back at least to 1792, when the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was extorted for money and information by the husband of Maria Reynolds, with whom he was having an affair.)
Blood and Lace: Blu-ray
When Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace found its way to the U.S. in the mid-1960s, giallo was a subgenre of Italian psycho-thrillers in its infancy. Critics greeted it and other Italian imports with only mild interest and some outright disdain, comparing the style to something Hitchcock might have dismissed on the way to making Psycho. Every visual and audio aspect seemed exaggerated by half and the cinematography felt garish in the extreme. In 1971, Philip Gilbert’s Blood and Lace was released to similarly glum notices, disappearing not long after its debut. VHS was still years away, so it wouldn’t be easy to find for a long while to come. I can’t recall how long it took before Americans began to accept giallo as entity onto itself, certainly longer than the acceptance of spaghetti-Westerns. The proliferation of classic titles pretty much coincided with the introduction of DVD and the added value of commentaries and other bonus features. Today, it’s as popular and widely imitated as it ever was. Still, it’s taken this long for the first American giallo to find a distributor willing to invest some money in an upgrade.
Typically, Blood and Lace opens with the hyper-violent murder of a prostitute and her trick, while asleep, by a hammer-wielding fiend whose face isn’t shown. Before the woman’s teenage daughter, Ellie (Melody Patterson), can leave town, she’s captured and sent to an isolated orphanage run by Gloria Graham’s sadistic Mrs. Deere and her handyman, played by Len Lesser, who would go on to immortalize Uncle Leo, from “Seinfeld.” They profit from the number of orphans they house and the corners they cut on budget items that are subsidized by the state. When one disappears, it raises suspicions with local authorities, including a sheriff played by Vic Tayback (“Alice”), who has a special interest in Ellie. It becomes especially acute when it appears as if the hammer-wielding stranger has begun to stalk the girl. Blood and Lace remains as unapologetically lurid today as it was 40 years ago. It exists more as a curiosity than anything else, especially for the involvement of 1952 Best Supporting Actress, Graham (The Bad and the Beautiful) and the recently deceased blond bombshell, Patterson (“F Troop”). The Arrow Blu-ray adds commentary by film historian Richard Harland Smith and an alternate opening title.
Cut Snake
The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Last House
In such testosterone-fueled movies as Romper Stomper, Chopper, The Hard Word, Animal Kingdom, The Proposition and the Mad Max series, Australian filmmakers have shown international audiences what it means to be a hard-ass action hero from Down Under. Look at some of the early films of Bryan Brown, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Eric Bana, Heath Ledger and Joel Edgerton and it’s possible to wonder how anyone that intimidating could play rough-and-ready in one film and soft-and-sensitive the next. Feel free to add Melbourne-born Sullivan Stapleton to that list of actors who seem to appear out of nowhere, grab you by the throat and leave you kicking and screaming for more. In Tony Ayres’ Cut Snake, Stapleton plays the kind of prison-sculpted monster we met in Chopper and Bronson and hoped would never be released from stir. Set in 1970s Australia, it describes what happens when hardened criminal Pommie (Stapleton) is freed from prison and heads straight for the home of his former cellmate, Sparra Farrell (Alex Russell), who, since his release, has lived the life of a fully rehabilitated citizen. He’s engaged to the beautiful Paula (Jessica De Gouw) and gainfully employed as a machinist. It isn’t until well past Pommie shows up on their doorstep that Sparra feels it necessary to come clean about his stint in prison. Being young, handsome and not particularly tough, Sparra almost immediately becomes a target for the psychopaths and sexual predators. When Pommie took him under his wing, however, the torment ended. Once free, Pommie expected that Sparra would quit everything and go on a hell-raising tour of eastern Australia. It didn’t take much to set the musclebound ex-con off, however, and, within days, Pomma has set the wheels in motion for disaster. The story appears to have been informed, in part, by 1973 firebombing of the Whisky Au Go Go nightclub in Brisbane, in which 15 people lost their lives. Admirers of The Hard Word and Animal Kingdom should find a lot to like in Cut Snake.
I wonder if Stanford University gets royalties from the half dozen, or so, movies and documentaries based on its famous 1971 prison experiment. Conducted from August 14–20, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo, the experiment was staged in the basement of the psychology building. Twenty-four male students were divided into groups of 12 guards and 12 prisoners, including 3 alternates in each team. Zimbardo took on the role of the superintendent, and an undergraduate research assistant the role of the warden. They attempted to approximate the many variables that affect real prisoner/guard dynamics. After six days, the experiment had gotten so out of hand that Zimbardo was encouraged to call it off, which he did. Six years later, Italian director Carlo Tuzii adapted the experiment to an Italian environment, in La Gabbia (“The Cage”). The 1992 documentary, Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment – written by Zimbardo and directed by Ken Musen — was made available via the SPE website. Mario Giordano’s novel “Black Box” was adapted for the screen by German director Oliver Hirschbiegel, as Das Experiment. An English-language remake of that film, The Experiment, was released in 2010. Newly released into DVD, The Stanford Prison Experiment, stars Billy Crudup as Zimbardo, from whose point-of-view the story is told. Other cast members include Ezra Miller, Olivia Thirlby, Tye Sheridan, Keir Gilchrist, Michael Angarano and Thomas Mann. Spoiler alert: the conclusions are the same in all of the films. Ironically, the study was financed by U.S. Office of Naval Research, which apparently neglected to pass the results along to the guards assigned to the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. As could have been predicted, they abused the powers not specifically denied them by their superiors. Commentary on the DVD is provided by Zimbardo and director Kyle Patrick Alvarez. It adds featurettes, “Bringing to Life the Stanford Prison Experiment” and “The Psychology Behind the Stanford Prison Experiment.”
I was reading one of those where-are-they-now articles on the Internet a few days ago and, in it, the writer speculated on what Jason Mewes might have been up to since his last on-tour film, Jay and Silent Bob Get Irish: The Swearing O’ the Green. Mewes, who knows he’ll never be mistaken for Sir Laurence Olivier, has had endured several well-documented run-ins with the law and addiction problems since becoming Kevin Smith’s muse, in Clerks, but a quick perusal of IMDB.com would have shown that he’s currently as busy as ever. He serves as leading man in Sean Cain and Wes Laurie’s hookers-in-jeopardy thriller, The Last House (a.k.a., Breath of Hate), which is set in a for-sale Hollywood mansion taken over by a trio of loony-bin escapees. The leader of the gang, Hate (Ezra Buzzington), has a thing for female sex workers, so it’s only natural that he becomes possessed with one named Love (Lauren Walsh). The others suffer the same fate as naughty girls in horror movies, in which sex is followed by death. To rescue his damsel, Mewes’ Ned is required to follow a trail that leads through an unusually sleazy strip club and a pimp who keeps a turtle as a pet. Otherwise, it’s fairly standard straight-to-DVD fare. It’s interesting to see such soft- and hard-core veterans as Monique Parent (Play Time) and Joanna Angel (Tattooed Babysitters Club), if only for the most obvious of reasons. The DVD adds a deleted scene, director interview and festival Q&A.
The Color of Noise: Blu Ray
Dirty Works: Rebel Scum
In the history of contemporary music, the underground sub-genre “noise rock” represents little more than a footnote. But, in the eyes and ears of many parents, all music produced after the swing era qualified as noise, so why parse the difference. Freshman documentarian Eric Robel, the writer/director/cinematographer/producer of The Color of Noise, thought enough about the post-punk, pre/grunge movement to devote two hours of digital space, not including featurettes, to the subject. It could have been longer, but Robel wisely chose to focus his efforts on former U.S. Marine Tom Hazelmyer (a.k.a., Artist Haze XXL) and his notorious record label, Amphetamine Reptile Records. To be precise, Hazelmyer joined the corps only after he’d become disillusioned with his future as a punk musician. While stationed near Seattle, he established Amphetamine Reptile with the intention of issuing albums by his band Halo of Flies, which had already been turned down by several recording labels. “Ooh Rah!” Eventually the label’s roster expanded to include releases by Helmet, the Melvins, the Cows, Helios Creed, Chokebore, Servotron and others. The operation would move to Minneapolis, which, like Seattle, was home to a burgeoning alt-rock scene. In addition to the time devoted to performance footage, The Color of Noise excels in the label’s role in the resurgence of poster art, EP covers and concert leaflets. The artistic discipline had lain more or less dormant since the collapse of the psychedelic era. The film also features more than 50 interviews from fans and practitioners around the globe.
Representing yet another rock subset is the Knoxville-based, the Dirty Works, which describes itself as a “white trash punk band” and the nexus of the Bible Belt and Punk Rock. Dirty Works makes the Sex Pistols look like the Beach Boys, while its frontman Christopher Scum makes Iggy Pop look like Donny Osmond … not in a particularly good way, either. In Video Rahim’s almost painfully intimate documentary, Dirty Works: Rebel Scum, we watch as what essentially is a single-gimmick bar band develops delusions of grandeur and self-destructs in a haze of marijuana smoke, heroin, methadone and, especially, hard liquor … lots and lots of it. Scum’s shtick basically requires of him that he bang his head throughout each set, while shouting anti-social lyrics, until blood begins to drip from his forehead. It isn’t the most original gag in the biz, but it still impresses the rubes. Rahim appears to have been given an all-access pass to some of the worst behavior ever displayed by a rock band, much of which falls under the general heading, “It’s only rock ’n’ roll.” In fact, though, alcoholism and heroin is never attractive, especially when the victim lacks the financial and professional wherewithal of Keith Richards. Or, when the lead singer’s devoted girlfriend gives up trying to help him repel his demons and joins him in partaking in the poison. As entertainment, Dirty Works: Rebel Scum is pretty unappetizing, but, as a street-level cautionary tale, it could hardly be more effective.
TV-to-DVD
Comedy Central: Inside Amy Schumer: Season 3
PBS: Secrets of the Dead: Jamestown’s Dark Winter
PBS: The Brain With David Eagleman
When it comes to production values and research, Alicia Dwyer’s seasonally appropriate documentary, “Xmas Without China,” doesn’t rival a Rick Burns’ production. It does, however, make some interesting points about how Americans celebrate what once was a religious holiday, with the help of people once considered to be godless communists. In fact, if it weren’t for China and its infamous sweatshops, Christmas would be a rather drab and far more expensive celebration. Dwyer follows Chinese immigrant Tom Xia around his family’s adopted hometown of Arcadia, California – heavily Asian-American and increasingly upper-middle-class – where he’s challenged residents to celebrate the holiday without the benefit of exports from China. The products would necessarily include the types of toys roundly condemned by consumer advocates for being potentially harmful to children. Xia wasn’t attempting to make any particular political point, preferring to question the American media’s blanket condemnation of imports from the PRC. The Jones family, which seems representative of the city’s non-Asian citizenry, agreed to give up toys, plates, lamps, clothes, appliances, entertainment platforms and decorations. They could substitute with products made elsewhere, but it turned out to be a more difficult task than actually finding a bull in a china shop. Meanwhile, Tom’s parents are constructing a new home, proudly using Chinese materials to build their American dream house. When they attempt to emulate their neighbors in the ritual of decorating their home and yard with lights, they, too, learn a lesson in consumerism, American style. (Having lived in the same neighborhood for many years, I can attest to the intense competition for most-brightly-lit house and hugely inflated prices for houses, which is forcing longtime residents, like the Jones, to consider selling at the top of the market and finding homes, elsewhere.) Xia also shares a visit to family members in China, where he also checks out how or even if the country’s export-based prosperity has trickled down to average citizens.
I wonder if anyone at Comedy Central has started a pool to guess how long superstar comedian Amy Schumer will continue hosting “Inside Amy Schumer,” before reserving her talents exclusively for the big screen. She’s already lasted a year longer at the network than Dave Chappelle, who took a powder from his hugely popular “Chappelle’s Show” after being accorded a $50-million contract. It’s difficult to believe that Schumer would risk her still young career for the uncertainty of Hollywood fame, but stranger things have happened. The third season DVD package represents her sassiest and most provocative stage and, yes, she’s already committed to a fourth stanza. The show has received a Peabody Award and has been nominated for eight Primetime Emmy Awards, winning two. Season Three opened with a bang, with Amy joining Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Patricia Arquette in a discussion about how it felt to reach their “Last Fuckable Day” in show business, as well as a hip-hop version of the scatological “Milk, Milk, Lemonade,” with Method Man, Amber Rose and other special guests. It would have been tough to top those show-stoppers, but Amy found ways to keep “Inside Amy Schumer” rolling for another nine episodes, ending at the same orifice that she began the season. It includes an unaired sketch and other goodies.
In PBS’ fascinating, sometimes macabre series, “Secrets of the Dead,” state-of-the-art forensics techniques are used to shed light on some of the most mysterious events in recorded history. The new DVD release, “Jamestown’s Dark Winter,” was inspired by a discovery made by a team of archaeologists excavating the site of the famously doomed early-American colony. Buried in the trash layer of a cellar, they discovered the remains of a young woman, dating back to 1609. The settlers faced an extremely harsh winter, surrounded by hostile members of the Powhatan tribe, who weren’t in a Thanksgiving state of mind. More surprising than the location in which they were found are the cut marks on the lower jaw and front of the cranium. With the help of forensic anthropologists, the extraordinary and frightening story of this young woman comes to life.
The six-part PBS series “The Brain With David Eagleman” reveals the human story behind neuroscience by blending scientific truth with innovative visual effects and compelling personal stories. Written and hosted by the genial scientist, the program attempts to educate neuroscience neophytes on the most fundamental processes of our most important organ: how it channels thought, how it processes reality, how it functions in both conscious and unconscious states. With barely a brain scanner or a white coat in sight, “The Brain” focuses on understanding the fundamental truths of what it means to be human now and in the coming centuries, while communicating these elegant and simple ideas as they apply to us and our experiences.
Shelby: A Magical Holiday Tail
Up TV: Marry Me for Christmas
Up TV: Christmas Mix
Original Christmas Classics Anniversary Collector’s Edition: Blu-ray
PBS Kids: Peg + Cat: A Totally Awesome Christmas
It’s been a while since a truly endearing movie about Christmas has been released into theaters and went on to become an annual treat. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the costs of making and marketing such recent holiday pictures as Arthur Christmas, Four Christmases, The Santa Clause series – however modest and likely profitable – no longer is worth the risk. The number of available screens has also been reduced by studios pushing their awards candidates and potential blockbusters. The safer option today has become the VOD, PPV and straight-to-DVD marketplace, where a few recognizable names on a cover can mean a few million dollars in revenue. Shelby: A Magical Holiday Tail is the kind of picture that can be enjoyed by anyone who loves dogs – especially those of the talking variety – and can remember the better days of Chevy Chase, Tom Arnold and, even, Rob Schneider, whose best work since “SNL” has come as a voice actor. Shelby is a stray beagle, who has proven adept at escaping dog pounds. Arnold plays the frazzled animal-control officer whose life Shelby has made miserable. When a spoiled rich kid tries to adopt him for all the wrong reasons, Shelby runs away and hides in the suburban basement of 10-year-old aspiring magician Jake Parker (John Paul Ruttan). After the rich kid’s family offers the dogcatcher a $5,000 reward for the slippery doggy, Chase plays Jake’s grandfather and most dependable ally. The Dove-approved movie adds enough rowdy behavior and silly pranks to keep everyone happy.
Another reliable place to find holiday-themed entertainments is cable television, especially the niche networks that have learned a few tricks from the folks at Lifetime: recognize your audience, give your viewers what they want and don’t push your luck by taking them for granted. Once known as the Gospel Music Channel, Up TV is dedicated to presenting “uplifting, family-friendly original movies, series and specials.” It doesn’t cater specifically to so-called urban audiences, but those who remember its gospel roots haven’t been forgotten. Up TV began putting its holiday inventory of original programming on heavy rotation, beginning on November 1. I don’t know how much the 2013 rom-com, Marry Me for Christmas, owes to The Proposal, in which a pushy boss (Sandra Bullock) forces her young assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her in order to keep her visa status in the U.S. and avoid deportation to Canada. Here, Marci Jewel (Malinda Williams) is the owner of an up-and-coming ad agency and thrilled with her single life in New York. With the pressure on at home for more grandbabies – and a deadline looming at work – Marci drags her employee, Adam (Brad James), to Atlanta, where he’s required to pretend to be her fiancé. While caught up in the family’s frenetic holiday drama, Marci learns some unexpected lessons about love, trust and family, particularly when it comes to her new ‘fiancé’ and lifelong friends.
As is too often the case with made-for-cable movies, Up TV’s original “Naughty and Nice” turns up on DVD as Christmas Mix. After infuriating advertisers with one of his trademark stunts, Los Angeles radio personality Pepper Sterling (Tilky Jones) gets exiled to the quaint town of Idyllwild for the holiday season. Forced to share airtime with his polar opposite, the buttoned-down psychologist Sandy Love (Haylie Duff), Pepper finds that he has met his match. After Christmas, Pepper is offered the chance to return home and resume his life as a radio celebrity. Gee, I wonder what he’ll do.
I can’t think of an actor who’s starred as the romantic lead in as many cable-original movies as Dean Cain. In Ion Television’s Merry Ex-Mas, he plays security specialist Jessie Rogers, who’s caught in a compromising position with his rock-star client, his humiliated wife Noelle (Kristy Swanson) swiftly files for divorce. Unable to convince her of his innocence, Jessie gets an assist from Jack Frost when they’re stuck in a cabin during a blizzard.
“The Original Christmas Classics Anniversary Collector’s Edition” includes Blu-ray editions of seven holiday favorites that are so old they’ve begun to grow whiskers: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Claus Is Comin to Town,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “Frosty Returns,” “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” “The Little Drummer Boy” and “Cricket on the Hearth.” The set adds several new hi-def featurettes, including “Be an Artist and Create,” starring Joe Vance, director of character art at DreamWorks; the “Kringle Jingle” ditty; “Santa Special Delivery,” with historical factoids about Santa Claus, trivia about the television show and song, as well as some interstitial interviews with kids; “Learn to Draw,” with Dave Burgess of DreamWorks Animation; “Rudolph Unwrapped,” another trivia track; another sing-along, “Magical Melody”; and “Frosty Snowflake Surprises,” with trivia factoids. After decades of use, these old chestnuts have never looked better.
At PBS Kids, the name of the game is repackaging, a common practice when showcasing DVDs for the youngest viewers. In fact, not all of the episodes in these holiday-themed collections have anything to do with Christmas. In “Peg + Cat: A Totally Awesome Christmas,” Santa’s got serious problems, Peg and Cat have to figure out how to make and wrap presents for all the children of the world, and then deliver them using 100 sleighs. “WordWorld: Merry Christmas” offers five adventures, including “The Christmas Star” and “A Christmas Present for Dog.” “Caillou’s Christmas” features 12 fun-filled holiday- and winter-themed adventures, from visiting Santa and going Christmas-tree shopping in “Holiday Magic,” to planning to stay up all night to see Santa in “Caillou’s Christmas Eve.” “Odd Squad: Reindeer Games” follows Olive and Otto to the North Pole, where Santa needs help delivering presents and rounding up reindeers that have escaped from their pens. The set also includes “Ms. O Uh-Oh” and “Party of 5,4,3,2,1.”
Crumbs
Forbidden Zone
As tiresome as most movies about our shared dystopian future have become, longtime fans of the increasingly predictable sub-genre shouldn’t give hope of finding something new and different until they’ve seen Crumbs, an instant classic from a place that looks as if it had already experienced the apocalypse and was left standing. Earlier this year, Ethiopia-based Spaniard Miguel Llansó captured the New Flesh Award for Best First Feature at Montreal’s Fantasia Festival and the Imaging the Future Award at the Neuchâtel International Fantasy Film Festival. If it isn’t given serious consideration for a Spirit Award, it’s only because the folks at Film Independent haven’t cast their nets out far enough this season. If it had been made 30 years ago and released here as a midnight movie, Crumbs might be mentioned today in the same breath as El Topo, Eraserhead, Freaks, A Boy and His Dog and Pink Flamingos. It’s that fresh and unique. Crumbs was shot primarily in the far northeastern tip of Ethiopia, in and around the ghost town of Dallol, which is one of the most remote human settlements on Earth. It makes the Salton Sea look like the Garden of Eden.
A tiny malformed scavenger, Candy (Selam Tesfayie), whiles away his daylight hours in the punishing sun, picking through remnants of late twentieth century pop culture. At night, he shares a long-abandoned bowling alley with his artistic lover, Birdy (Daniel Tadesse), who worships the found relics in the same way as religious artifacts, ancient coins and antique jewelry are today. An amulet crafted from a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine is considered to be an especially significant item, as are a vintage copy of Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” LP and is a framed photograph of Michael Jordan. The only other thing of relevance to the Amharic-speaking survivors – including a witch, gangly old man in a Santa Claus suit and a horseman in Nazi garb – is a mysterious spacecraft that hovers over the planet, like a monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Silent for generations, Candy senses that the ship is coming back to life – the ball-return machinery starts working again – and he wants to be on it when it makes its next move. Llansó makes full use of the remnants of the mining community that were left behind after its minerals were played out in the 1960s. He and cinematographer Israel Seoane also pay homage to such fantasies as District 9, WALL-E, E.T. and Wizard of Oz along the way, with a special musical nod to Andrei Tarkovsky. If this all sounds suspiciously pretentious, know that Crumbs times in at a comfortable 68 minutes and the surprises along the way make it feel even shorter. The DVD adds “anecdotes” and the short films “Night in the Wild Garden” and “Chigger Ale,” also featuring Tadesse.
If the mere mention of the band Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo raises a smile, it isn’t necessarily because you can recall whistling along to the band’s hits, “Dead Man’s Party” and “Weird Science,” or that you were among the few to see Forbidden Zone, upon its release 35 years ago. Relegated to the midnight-movie ghetto, it disappeared completely after politically correctness reared its ugly head and the whistle was blown on some inarguably racist characterizations. Forbidden Zone originally was conceived as a video showcase for the theatrical eccentricities of Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo’s extravagant live performances. Tentatively titled “The Hercules Family,” the 16mm film would consist of 12 musical numbers and bumpers loosely constructed around a family’s unfortunate decision to move into a house whose basement served as a portal to hell. As Richard’s 16mm vision evolved into a 35mm reality, the musical sequences were extended to reflect its completely off-the-wall narrative and the Elfmans’ cinematic aspirations. It now betrayed influences ranging from Spike Jones and the City Slickers; the Three Stooges; Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer’s 200 Motels; Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson’s Monkees’ musical, Head; music videos by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band; and Terry Gilliam’s animation on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Among the many surprises in Forbidden Zone, apart from 3-foot-11 Hervé Villechaize’s portrayal of King Fausto of the Sixth Dimension, are delightfully twisted, if questionable homages to Josephine Baker and Cab Calloway. There’s also a human-size dancing frog, jockstrap-clad Kipper Kids, a chicken-boy able to communicate telepathically with his transvestite brother, Joe Spinell as a drunken sailor, classroom violence, a Jewish wrestler fighting a guy in an ape suit, and Danny Elfman playing Satan, while singing “Minnie the Moocher.” The Blu-ray set includes a re-mastered version of the original B&W film, a later colorized edition and interviews with the Elfmans, co-writer Matthew Bright, and co-stars Susan Tyrrell and Marie-Pascale Elfman. Danny Elfman’s next project was composing the theme music for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.
Meru: Blu-ray
Gringo Trails
Before April 18, 2014, when an avalanche crashed down the slopes of Mount Everest, killing 16 Sherpa guides, climbing the world’s tallest peak was becoming as newsworthy as riding the Matterhorn at Disneyland. Reports of gridlock on the most direct route were being common, as were issues surrounding decades’ worth of garbage and human waste, and, more recently, how to deal with the growing number of frozen corpses of less-fortunate mountaineers visible to trekkers. Even after Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air” and Lou Kasischke’s “After the Wind” described the events surrounding the 1996 tragedy, in which eight climbers were killed, the rush to “conquer” Everest continued apace. So did such theatrical films, documentaries and cautionary tales as Touching the Void, The Wildest Dream, The Beckoning Silence, K2: Siren of the Himalayas, The Summit, Messner, Cold, North Face, Dying for Everest, The Climb, Blindsight and Farther Than the Eye Can See. No such traffic jams exist on the trails leading to Meru Peak, a mountain which lies in the Garwhal Himalayas, in the Uttarakhand region of India. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2001 that Russian climber Valeri Babanov reached the summit of Meru Central, overcoming a 100-meter rock face along the way. It would take another 10 years before the more direct and difficult central route – imagine clinging to the edge of a shark’s fin, 21,000 feet high — was used to reach the top by a team consisting of Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk. The fabulously thrilling documentary, Meru, is their visual record of the feat, as well as the preparations and setbacks that led up to it. It was co-directed by Chin, who carried a Red Epic digital camera on the climb, and his wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who chose to keep her feet planted firmly on the ground. Mountain climbing isn’t often lumped together with so-called extreme sports, unless fingernails are used instead of ropes and climbers sleep in portaledges, high above the floor of a canyon below them. There’s almost nothing in Meru, however, that viewers wouldn’t consider to be extreme, in one way or another. The Music Box Blu-ray is excellent, with deleted scenes, commentaries and interview segments.
No matter how spectacular the images in Meru are, it isn’t likely that tourists and amateurs will beat a path to the doors of its permanent residents, including the local fakirs. The peak is far too forbidding for anyone not a world-class climber to attempt. Icarus Films’ provocative documentary, Gringo Trails, raises questions asked previously in films decrying the trashing of Everest. It boils down to  the steep price paid by the native populations when their homeland is “discovered” and revenues from tourism become impossible to resist. The exploitation of each new earthly paradise happens in dozens of different ways, some obvious and other far more subtle. As depicted by director Pegi Vail, associate director of the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University, the examples are all too familiar to what’s happened in and around our national parks, and during spring break in Florida, Texas and Palm Springs. In 1981, Israeli backpacker Yossi Ghinsberg survived a month lost in the Amazon, emerging from the jungle nearly as emaciated as a concentration-camp survivor. Rather than frighten tourists away from the Amazon basin, his memoirs resulted in a new cottage industry, with adventurous tourists delivering prosperity to some and new forms of poverty to others. Likewise, an intrepid backpacker’s search for an “unspoiled” island paradise in Thailand has the unintended effect of turning it into a destination for debauched young people from around the world. Another victim of word-of-mouth publicity is the original inhabitant of an island on the Salt Flats of Bolivia, whose kindness to strangers nearly turned his backyard into an eco-tragedy. If all Vail related in her film were horror stories, it would hardly come as news to most enlightened American travelers. (The titular gringos aren’t limited to Yanks, by any means. We’re simply the most desired and despised of tourists.) She finds several examples of local residents taking control of their own tourist industry and limiting our footprints to something manageable and eco-friendly. Several of the experts interviewed are travel journalists whose job it is to discover such destinations and alert well-heeled readers and their backpacking kids to them before they’re spoiled by Euros and other people just like them. Bonus material adds another 45 minutes to the 79-minute film.
Short Skin
When it comes to dealing with sexual maturity, teenagers have a tough enough time without adding rare and potentially embarrassing ailments to the mix. In the sensitively rendered Italian export Short Skin (“I Dolori Del Giovane Edo”), Edoardo is a 17-year-old virgin with an obstacle to manhood most males aren’t even aware exists. While most boys his age routinely fret about the width, length or shape of their penis, even despairing of the appearance of pubic hair, Edoardo (Matteo Creatini) suffers from phimosis: a potentially painful condition, in which the foreskin is too tight to be pulled back to accommodate urination and/or ejaculation. (In women, phimosis prevents the clitoral hood from retracting, limiting the ability to experience orgasm.) Apart from that, Edoardo is every bit the normal teenage boy: gangly, chronically horny and regrettably ill-informed about human physiology. This summer, however, he’s complicated his situation by accepting a wager proposed by his best friend as to which of them will be the first to lose their virginity. Fortuitously, the post-pubescent girls in his neighborhood have begun to see in Edoardo something they could use to cure their strange longings. What they can’t see, of course, can’t freak them out. Sensing future sexual challenges, he reluctantly seeks the advice of his parents and local doctors. It isn’t until he consults a prostitute, though, that he’s made to feel reasonably confident that he’s not a freak. Knowing this, however, doesn’t make it easier for the girls in his life, also virgins, to accept the fact they aren’t causing his pain by doing something “wrong.” As unentertaining as this might sound, first-timer Duccio Chiarini finds ways to mine enough humor from the material to enjoy it as a comedy, in all of the usual ways coming-of-age films are funny. Among other things, Short Skin does for octopi what American Pie did for apple pie. The DVD adds deleted scenes and a pair of short films by the director.
Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery
While movies and documentaries about noteworthy artists and sculptors can be stimulating, they are rarely, if ever more fulfilling than visits to a museum or in a private collection. Films that dramatize the struggles of women artists — Séraphine, Frida, Artemisia, Camille Claudel – tend to be significantly more interesting than biopics of male artists, struggling or otherwise. Movies in which models, clothed and unclothed, steal the spotlight from famous painters — La belle noiseuse, Renoir, Klimt, The Girl With the Pearl Earring, Surviving Picasso, Goya’s Ghosts – are better than those in which artists sit around a table at a Parisian bar sipping absinthe. Mr. Turner and Vincent & Theo succeeded, in part, because they demonstrate how difficult it is to capture the grandeur of nature on canvas and why so few artists are capable of doing so. In terms of sheer entertainment value, however, it’s difficult for biopics to beat stories in which forgers, phonies, thieves and conmen exploit great beauty for their own selfish purposes. Arne Birkenstock’s fascinating documentary, Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery, many not ask as many penetrating questions as Orson Welles’ F for Fake, but it does a nice job getting inside the head of artists of a more larcenous bent. Wolfgang Beltracchi is a German art forger and artist, who has admitted to producing hundreds of fake paintings from the works of about 50 prominent painters. Beltracchi, his wife, and two accomplices sold these as original works by such famous artists as Max Ernst, Heinrich Campendonk, Fernand Léger and Kees van Dongen. Beltracchi’s genius, if you will, involved selling the legitimacy of the forgeries to people whose job it is to protect well-heeled consumers, auction houses and gallery owners from crooks exactly like him. For the police to build their case, though, they not only had to separate the masterpieces from the fakes, but also get Beltracchi’s victims to admit that they were capable of being conned.
If there were a mold, from which forgers and thieves were cut, it probably wouldn’t fit Beltracchi. If anything, he resembles a former hippie who struck it rich somewhere along the way and sees no reason to cut his hair or throw away the jeans he wore to Woodstock. He’s personable, funny and forthcoming, even as he is being interviewed within the lax confines of a minimum-security prison in Germany.  Before their release, Beltracchi and his wife, Helene, even were allowed to take commissions and work together in their home studio during the day, before having to return to their respective cells at night. His six-year sentence, which began in 2011, ended last January with a promise to paint only in his own name and move from Germany to France. There’s no indication in the documentary that Beltracchi suffers from remorse, guilt feelings or poverty. He was charged and found guilty of forgery and corruption related only to 14 works of art, which sold for a combined $45 million.  One of the ways he escaped detection for as long as he did was forging paintings by well-regarded, albeit lesser-known artists, and confusing their provenance through dummy galleries and auction houses. In an overheated marketplace ruled by blind greed, it wasn’t difficult to create and maintain a business creating paintings that few outside the cognoscenti would recognize, let alone sniff out as forgeries. A great Hollywood ending might have come if Beltracchi and his merry band of con artists had sold a piece of art to an investor whose collection was subsequently stolen by thieves whose fence recognized the works as phonies. A similar scenario played out in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley Under Ground,” in which Tom Ripley is confronted by a collector, who correctly suspects that the paintings sold to him are forgeries. He probably should have left well enough alone.
Gil Scott-Heron: Black Wax
Martha Davis and the Motels Live at the Whisky a Go Go 50th Anniversary: Blu-ray
Gil Scott-Heron didn’t coin the Black Power slogan, “The revolution won’t be televised,” but, by surrounding it with radical poetics, bongos and conga drums, he created an anthem for the movement that had left “We Shall Overcome” behind, in its militant wake. Forty-five years later, the B-side to Heron’s first single, “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” has lost none of its ability to stir dissent. Although the Chicago native’s popularity would wane in the years before his death, in 2011, the debt owed to him by two generations of rappers and hip-hop artist is still being paid. In Robert Mugge’s essential 1982 documentary, Gil Scott-Heron: Black Wax, the self-described “bluesologist” gave viewers of the UK’s then-brand-new Channel 4 Television a tour of Washington, DC, unseen by tourists. In soft, but authoritative tones, Heron could be mistaken for an afro-coiffed Fred Rogers welcoming guests to his adopted ‘hood, starting with the monuments within walking distance of crime-plagued projects and flop houses. The setting moves to the Wax Museum Nightclub, where Heron stands among frozen-in-time politicians, musicians and celebrities to introduce half-sung/half-spoken renditions of his repertoire, backed by his 10-piece Midnight Band. Although “The Revolution Won’t Be Televised” isn’t on the night’s playlist, the doc features full performances of “Winter in America,” “Alien,” “Johannesburg,” “Storm Music,” “Waiting for the Axe to Fall,” “Gun” and “‘B’ Movie,” a scathing analysis of how Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. On his walk-and-talk tour of the capital, Heron recites his poems “Paint it Black,” “Black History,” “Billy Green is Dead,” “The H2O-Gate Blues” and “Whitey on the Moon.” The original 16mm print has been restored to tip-top shape.
Martha Davis and the Motels Live at the Whisky a Go Go 50th Anniversary may be a long and unwieldy title for a concert Blu-ray/DVD, but it conforms to the truth-in-marketing dictates of the DVD Wrapup. That’s because Martha Davis and the Motels is what remains of groups formerly known as The Motels Featuring Martha Davis, Martha Davis, solo, The Motels, Angels of Mercy and, way back in 1971, the Warfield Foxes. To be completely accurate, please note that it’s the venerable Whisky a Go Go that was marking its 50th year in business, not the group, which, excluding separations, is closer to 27. Of the original members on stage that night, only Davis and sax and keyboard player Marty Jourard performed. Even so, the audience dug watching Davis belt out such hits as “Suddenly Last Summer,” “Only the Lonely,” “Mission of Mercy” and “Total Control.” Being her birthday, Davis was gushingly introduced by Rosanna Arquette and singer-songwriter Linda Perry. The film was shot in hi-def by Roy H. Wagner, and directed by choreographer Denise Faye. It includes a chat with former band members.
Tenderness of the Wolves: Blu-ray
The Voyeur: Blu-ray
Queen of Blood: Blu-ray
Although only partially based on the same serial killer who inspired Peter Lorre’s character in M, Ulli Lommel’s thoroughly disturbing crime drama, Tenderness of the Wolves, is cut from the same torn cloth. As portrayed with nightmarish precision by co-writer Kurt Raab, Fritz Haarmann is within weeks of being arrested, charged and convicted in the sexual assaults, murders, mutilations and dismemberments of at least 24 young men and boys in Hanover, Germany, between 1918 and 1924. Unlike Lorre’s deeply disturbed fiend, Hans Becker, Haarman was a homosexual. (The word, gay, doesn’t quite fit the description, here.) He earned the moniker, Vampire of Hanover, by attempting to rip out the Adam’s apple and trachea of his victims, before strangling them. Shaved bald and bearing a curious resemblance to Lorre and F.W. Murnau s Nosferatu, Raab plays Haarmann as a reasonably social being, with friends in high and low people. They weren’t limited to gay men and he didn’t have to lurk in the shadows to narrow down his choices of victims. Germany was still reeling from the impact of losing World War I – here, updated to World War II — and Hanover bore no resemblance to the divinely decadent Berlin. Lommel does a great shop capturing the menace in the air and desperation in the streets that followed both wars. He experiments with German Expressionist shadings, but a color scheme favored by producer Rainer Werner Fassbinder is especially scary in Blu-ray. Considering the nature of the crimes, Tenderness of the Wolves limits the extreme violence to specific scenes. We’re also spared any questions of guilt or innocence based on mental illness. What’s likely to shock most viewers are the insinuations of non-censual sex between Haarmann and minors, and full-frontal male nudity in more consensual preludes to murder.  The high-definition digital transfer was prepared by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, which is doing a great job restoring his library. Also new are insightful interviews with Lommel and director of photography Jürgen Jürges; an informative appreciation, by film historian and expert on European horror cinema Stephen Thrower; a theatrical trailer; reversible sleeve, featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by the Twins of Evil; and an illustrated booklet featuring new writing on the film by Tony Rayns. If Lommel’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because of his mid-career move from Fassbinder’s factory to Andy Warhol’s Factory and such movies as Cocaine Cowboys and The Blank Generation, in which the artist cameoed as himself, and a string of straight-to-video genre flicks universally loathed by critics. (Look for a brief Fassbinder appearance in “Wolves.”)
At a time when American porn specialists were draining the eroticism from soft- and hard-core films, Tinto Brass decided to fill the worldwide vacuum by breathing fresh air into the moribund Euro-porn sub-genre. By 1990, home-grown producers of hard-core movies had fully committed to video and gonzo sex that was completely devoid of a narrative framework. Soft-core films were made to conform to the dictates of late-night cable television, which required of surgically enhanced actresses that they strategically position their hands during sex, so as to avoid any hints of genital-to-genital contact or pubic hair. Brass embraced fables of sexual desire, adding world-class cinematography, lush soundtracks, expensive lingerie, sumptuous locations and performers capable of acting and making love simultaneously. If he too often fell back on the use of mirrors, reflective glass and window frames in his films, and he favored women with large buttocks to those with more average figures, not all of the women required breast implants, at least. And, in another departure, male roles weren’t limited to gym rats under 25. The Voyeur was adapted from the erotic novel, “L’uomo che Guarda,” by Alberto Moravia. It tells the story of “Dodo,” a handsome professor of French literature who fears being cuckolded by his exhibitionist wife and cock-blocked by his father, whose live-in nurse specializes in leaving her clients with blue balls. Even when Dodo allows himself to be seduced by a gorgeous mixed-race student, his wife steps in at the last moment to share the experience with him. The Voyeur may look overly familiar to longtime fans, but newcomers and couples should be pleasantly surprised by what they see. The extras include a stills gallery, trailers for the main feature, as well as other Tinto Brass films, and a 25-minute interview with the quintessential dirty ol’ man, himself.
There’s nothing quite so foolhardy for a genre journalist to attempt than make a movie of his or her own and invite criticism from juries of their peers. Chris Alexander is the Toronto-based editor of Fangoria magazine, a critic with the Toronto Film Critics Association and, of late, a multi-hyphenate filmmaker. His 2012 directorial debut, Blood for Irina, won the Best Experimental Feature Film award at the 2013 PollyGrind Film Festival, in Las Vegas, which may offer prizes in more categories than the AVN Awards, which I never thought possible. I don’t often say this, but I doubt there’s any way that someone not familiar with the original can fully appreciate the sequel, Queen of Blood, as they share the same dialogue-free conceit and blood-starved lead character, the vampire Irina (Shauna Henry). In the former, Irina has reached the end of her 100-year run on Earth. By day, she’s living in a run-down motel on the water (probably Lake Ontario), while, at night, she stalks city streets looking for fresh blood. Her desperation is mirrored by the motel manager and a prostitute “living a life on the fringe, trapped in world of literal and figurative decay.” In the latter film, we first encounter Irina slowly emerging from a bog in the middle of a forest, trailing a stream of blood like the umbilical cord it represents. After being rescued by a mysterious fellow who lives in an isolated cabin, she seems to appreciate being cleaned up and given new clothes. Just as we begin to think that pathetic creature might have adopted an ethical code, she uses her razor-sharp fingernails to rip out his throat. And, so it goes, until Irina comes upon a pregnant woman … and, well, you might be able to guess the rest. Queen of Blood benefits from a certifiably Euro-horror look and an evocative soundtrack that almost makes up for the lack of dialogue.
The 9th
Here’s a movie that arrives with almost no advance marketing push or buzz, from a fledgling production company with no track record, except for a single festival appearance, in Europe. The synopsis in the press kit doesn’t appear to have been translated correctly into English and there were no published reviews for The 9th. What the DVD does have going for it, however, is the kind of cover art that draws one into a movie like a magnet, not unlike a classic poster by Saul Bass. The setting for Nathan Codrington’s debut feature, promoted as “a neo-noir psychological drama,” is a cocktail party in the penthouse apartment of what appears to be a swank urban residence. I kept waiting for Dos Equis’ “most interesting man in the world,” to walk in at any minute, surrounded by young men in tuxes and women in low-cut gowns. Here, though, the drink of choice is champagne and mystery is in the air. In fact, something terribly sinister is happening in a room not far from the gathering. A man in diapers and angels wings is being tortured for reasons unknown by thugs whose faces remain unseen, as directed, perhaps, by the party’s Master of Cermonies (Edward Barry). The 73-minute film clearly is based on two very different entertainment vehicles: the game, Clue (a.k.a., Cluedo) and seminal jazz pianist, Earl “Fatha” Hines. (The names of the characters are derived from famous singers and musicians.) Beyond that, I’m not sure of anything, including my interest in discovering who’s doing what to whom and why. The music, as performed Nigel Hart and Dan James, had the desired effect on me, however.
Nightmare Code
3’s a Shroud
Troll/Troll 2: Blu-ray
Listen to enough futurists and you’ll think that day artificial-intelligence technology supplants human intelligence is just around the corner. After watching the Republican debates, however, a robot would make a better alternative to any of the morons hoping to call the White House home. Nightmare Code is a cautionary sci-fi thriller that argues against our current system of checks and balances being able to stand up to a threat built into a computer network by a mad genius. Here, a paranoid nerd goes off his rocker when he comes to believe that he won’t get the credit he deserves for inventing an important new computer program. To avenge the perceived slight, he introduces a virus into the Internet that overrides the software from controls programmed into the system, triggering artificial intelligence at its least benign. Almost everything that happens in Mark Netter’s surprisingly accessible debut feature takes place through the multiple lenses of security cameras monitoring activity in the technology-company’s offices, hallways, computer system and meeting rooms. The government client appears ready to shut down the advanced behavior-recognition project, perhaps causing a key programmer to commit suicide and take a few of his colleagues with him, ostensibly to consult with Steve Jobs in the afterlife. With just a month to finish ROPER and a depleted staff left to do it, a famously brilliant young programmer, Brett Desmond (Andrew J. West), is recruited to burrow his way through the installed software to discover how much damage was done by the paranoid slob before he ate his pistol. As it turns out, more than anyone can imagine. And, beyond that, lie spoilers. Blessedly, the use of a quartered-frame screen doesn’t feel as gimmicky as it usually does, actually complementing the action taking place within the Skype-like system and reading the minds of the characters as they move out of one and into the other. Because Brett brings some emotional baggage of his own to the rescue mission, important things are revealed, as well, in conversations with his wife and daughter, at home. Mei Melançon plays the hot Eurasian programmer who inconveniently and unexpectedly adds her baggage to Brett’s pile. The DVD interviews are helpful.
3’s a Shroud is described as a modern British horror anthology in the tradition of Asylum and Tales From the Crypt. It earned some favorable notices on the festival circuit in 2012, none of which translated into a wide distribution. This hardly qualifies as news to horror aficionados, especially fans of the anthology sub-genre. With the exception of scream queen Suzi Lorraine (Busty Cops), none of the segments writers or directors — Dan Brownlie, David V.G. Davies, Andy Edwards — has yet to make a splash in feature-length films, so name recognition always becomes a problem. The individual shorts aren’t at all bad, however. Randle plays the maughty-nanny babysitter, who’s asked to read three scary stories to the boy and his Teddy before dozing off. None of them can be summarized in a sentence or two, except to suggest they might not be the kind of bedtime stories you’d want a babysitter to tell your children.
Eleven years before J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels became a worldwide sensation, Noah Hathaway and Michael Moriarty played Henry Potter Jr. and Harry Potter Sr. in John Carl Buechler 1986’s cult classic, Troll. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The resemblances between Trolls, Ghoulies and Gremlins, however, is much more suspect. Harry Potter Sr. and his wife, Anne (Shelley Hack), are moving into a rented apartment in San Francisco, when Junior and daughter Wendy (Jenny Beck) first encounter the wicked troll, Torok, who uses his magic ring to possess the girl’s body as a host to transform the apartment dwellers into other trolls. When Junior senses that something is wrong with Wendy, he consults upstairs neighbor/witch Eunice St. Clair (June Lockhart). If the presence of Lassie’s mom weren’t enough, Troll also represented Julia Louis Dreyfuss’ first film appearance (and nip slip) and one of Sonny Bono’s last, before accidentally becoming mayor of Palm Springs. It adds “The Making of Troll,” with interviews and background material. Also included in the Blu-ray package is Troll 2, a film so onerous that it once maintained a 0-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (That’s improved to 6 percent with “top” critics and a stunning 44 percent audience score.) Apart from not resembling the original in any meaningful way, the sequel is about as frightening as a “Three Little Pigs” cartoon. Actors George Hardy and Deborah Reed provide commentary. A limited number of Blu-ray packages contain a separate disc with the feature-length, “Best Worst Movie,” a documentary that extends making-of memories to include reconnections with cast and crew.
Swim Little Fish Swim
It would be just as unfair to lump every quirky low-budget indie, informed by hyper-chatty dialogue and socially unformed characters, to the Mumblecore subgenre as it is to think that every neurotic New York Jew, wearing nerdy glasses and addicted to psychotherapy, is created by a Woody Allen wannabe. Sometimes, it just seems that way. Still, I can’t think of a more accurate way to describe Lola Bessis and Ruben Amar’s practically weightless rom-com Swim Little Fish Swim than to say it reminds me of films that might have featured the work of Greta Gerwig, Joe Swanberg, Andrew Bujalski and the Duplass Brothers. That, or Lena Durham. Set in the New York demi-monde of aspiring artists, musicians and perpetual slackers, Swim Little Fish Swim stars the waifish Bessis as a visual artist, Lilas, desperate to convince immigration officials to renew her visa. One night, after being tossed out of her crash pad by a pervy artist, Lilas finds shelter in the already crowded apartment of  Leeward (Dustin Guy Defa) and Mary (Brooke Bloom), a married couple about to discover just how unsuited for marriage they are. While Mary works overtime as a nurse to support their household, Leeward jams with friends who play instruments they might have purchased at a FAO Schwarz toy store. Thoroughly coddled by his anti-capitalist parents, Leeward has convinced Mary that he’s willing to do commercials to help her out financially, but has committed his resources to a CD of songs written for his pre-school daughter, Rainbow/Maggie, depending on which parent you ask. Some of them aren’t bad, while others are aggressively pretentious. Not surprisingly, Lilas and Leeward are two peas in a pod. Her hang-up, though, it being the daughter of a prominent avant-garde artist, who denigrates her multi-media collages whenever she can. In various off-kilter ways, they lift each other’s spirits and even enlist Sunshine/Maggie in their harmless conspiracy. Swim Little Fish Swim ends much better than it begins, I think, even though none of the characters appear able to survive in New York’s artistic community without trust funds or generous grandparents.
Living in Oblivion: 20th Anniversary: Bluray
The great thing about re-watching Living in Oblivion, probably for the third time in the last 20 years, comes in the realization that the more you know about how independent films are made, the funnier it is. In 1995, I’d never been on a set, interviewed a star, attended a festival or covered a Spirit Awards ceremony. As much as Tom DiCillo exaggerates the process in Living in Oblivion, everything about it now rings true to me, especially how many things can go wrong in a short period of time. Then, too, there’s the coddling of fragile egos, the boredom that allows tensions to fester, the obsequious nature of on-set etiquette and the surprises that come with improvisation. While I haven’t witnessed the kinds of outbursts we see in the film, I have seen the happiness on the faces of everyone on the set when things go indisputably right. It also is wonderful to see some of the great actors of our time, at a point in their careers when they were standing on the cusp of crossing over from indie popularity to mainstream stardom. See if you recognize these names: Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, Kevin Corrigan, James Le Gros and Peter Dinklage. The sad thing is knowing that after making the entertaining, if unprofitable Johnny Suede, Box of Moonlight, The Real Blonde, Double Whammy, Delirious and the Doors documentary, When You’re Strange, has been limited to doing episodic television. It’s better than the alternative, however. The Blu-ray includes a deleted scene, a 2002 Q&A with the DiCillo and Buscemi, and longer interviews with cast and crew.
The Breaking Point
At a brisk 75 minutes, The Breaking Point probably could have been trimmed even more to fit the boundaries of a cops-and-courtroom drama on television. There are several scenes in James C. Hunter’s thugs-in-the-hood drama that wouldn’t missed and room made for commercials, without ruining the flow of the narrative. Does this sound familiar? Three gangbangers with completely different physiques and hairstyles enter a convenience store. Before they can even demand the contents of the cash register or Lottery tickets, one of them pulls out a gun and, instead, points at the angelic white woman we’ve just seen handing out goods to local residents. When she resists, he shoots and kills her. Turns out she’s the wife of a former cop, who vows revenge, knowing the unlikelihood of the store manager going the distance as a witness in a trial. It then becomes a race between the angry widower and the police, as in any procedural. Well, not only is there a trial, but a “Law & Order” trick ending, to boot. While it’s nice seeing this many young African-American actors working a feature film, it’s a shame that The Breaking Point feels as if it were made in 1987.
MHz Networks
Camilla Läckberg’s The Fjällbacka Murders, Set 1/2
A French Village: 1940: Season 1
MHz Networks is a programming service that has begun to provide viewers in the U.S. access to some of the most interesting shows on networks around the world via streaming and over-the-air digital transmission. In this way, it’s similar to Acorn TV, which specializes in English-language programming from the UK, Australia and New Zealand, including series and mini-series previously shown on PBS and BBC America. Both services are well worth the effort it takes to find them on such services as Hulu, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, iPhone, iPad, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. For the purposes of DVD Wrapup, however, many of the shows are now being packaged on DVD, as well. The latest MHz titles I’ve seen include:
From France, “The Churchmen” is the most unlikely of mini-series dramas. It follows five young candidates for the priesthood after their arrival at Paris’ Capuchin Seminary. As is usually the case with such ensemble shows, the characters come from wildly different backgrounds, bringing with them very different reasons for setting out on such a difficult path. As they prepare to take their vows, each of the men will be tempted, tested and tormented by forces from outside and within the seminary walls. As, yes, that includes issues of sexual preference of the adult variety, if not pedophilia. They also are required to slog their way through an aging institution fraught with its own weaknesses, not the least of which is a power struggle between seminary head Father Fromenger and the ambitious Bishop Roman. One needn’t be Catholic to become hooked on “The Churchmen” after giving it an episode or two. The intricate drama is complemented by settings that recall an institution that’s withstood countless dilemmas – most of its own making – and hasn’t surrendered to the same trappings of modernity embraced by the American Church.
In the same ballpark are the extremely popular “Don Matteo” mysteries, from Italy, in which Spaghetti Western star Terence Hill (They Call Me Trinity) plays the titular small-town priest with an extraordinary ability to read people and solve crimes. The series has been airing since 2000 on the premier channel of Italian national television. Hill’s cheeky portrayal reminds me a bit of “Columbo.”
I wonder how American audiences would react to “Kaboul Kitchen,” a black comedy set in the embattled Afghan capital, circa 2005, years before the current Taliban offensive and at a point when dollars were flowing through the hands of warlords and profiteers like water. The Kaboul Kitchen is a multipurpose gathering place in the heart of the city, where westerners can enjoy a non-halal meal, a stiff drink and a dip in the pool, surrounded by women in bikinis. As such, much of the show’s intrigue comes from the owner, Jacky (Gilbert Melki), having to negotiate his way through the roadblocks of war, religion, bureaucracy, corruption, espionage and family. After operating his business on a par with Rick Blaine, in Casablanca, Jacky walks into the club one day only to find his long estranged daughter, Sophie (Stéphanie Pasterkamp), who’s taken a job with a humanitarian-aid organization whose most recent charitable contribution was a truckload of skiing equipment. The series is loosely based on the real life experiences of journalist and co-creator of the series, Marc Victor.
“The Fjällbacka Murders” is based on the world of Swedish crime writer Camilla Läckberg’s character, Erica Falck. She’s a successful crime writer and mother of three, who’s moved from the city to her hometown of Fjällbacka, a fishing village on a picturesque island off the coast of Sweden. Her return seems idyllic, but simmering beneath the village’s surface lie hidden secrets, twisted desires and murderous deceit. The chapters are based on the characters from Läckberg’s novels, but the stories are largely new, with actors Claudia Galli and Richard Ulfsäter playing the lead characters. Like most other Swedish exports, this mystery series is quite engrossing.
The ambitious period series ”A French Village” is set in Villeneuve, a fictional town in German-occupied France during World War II. Since 2009, it has dramatized year-by-year accounts of life there, as despair gave way to hope and fascists of both the German and Vichy variety fought for control of the sleepy district with the Resistance and Allied saboteurs. Liberation would come to central France, of course, but for not for five more TV seasons.
TV-to-DVD
PBS: Undiscovered Haiti With Jose Andres
PBS: Mary Tyler Moore: A Celebration
Comedy Central: Nathan For You: Seasons One & Two
Gene Autry Collection 12
The Rebel: Johnny Yuma: Season Two
WKRP in Cincinnati: The Final Season
During his nearly 50-year career in television, Glen A. Larson wrote and produced some of the most memorable series in the history of the medium. Such long-running series as “Knight Rider” (1982), “The Fall Guy” (1981), “Magnum, P.I.” (1980), “Battlestar Galactica” (1978), “Alias Smith and Jones” and “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (1979) will find homes on cable-TV outlets for a long time. Others barely lasted half a season. Newly released in complete-series packages are two shows that will live in infamy for as long as historians retain a sense of humor about the 1980s. In his lifetime, Larson frequently was accused of ripping off concepts, characters and storylines from popular movies. It’s possible, then, to imagine that the 1983 sci-fi “Manimal” was inspired by the erotic thriller, “Cat People,” in which a brother and sister shared the ability to shape-shift into black panthers. “Manimal,” which lasted all of eight episodes, told the story of Dr. Jonathan Chase (Simon MacCorkindale), who could turn himself into any animal he chose to fight crime, but preferred being a black panther. Only two people were aware of Jonathan’s secret, his friend Ty Earl (Michael D. Roberts) and police detective Brooke Mackenzie (Melody Anderson). The transformation sequences were designed and created by the Academy Award-winning SFX artist Stan Winston. Sadly, the potential for a bestiality throughline involving Chase and Mackenzie never was fully realized. Otherwise, this one had “cult classic” written all over it from the moment it was canceled on December 17, 1983
The lineage of Larson’s “Automan” was far more obvious, as the sci-fi/cop series shared a producer (Donald Kushner) with Tron, a movie that many considered to be several years ahead of its time, because it took place inside a video game. The brilliant blue outlines for the computer-generated vehicles and uniforms look exactly the same. Desi Arnaz Jr. plays Walter Nebicher, who’s constantly ridiculed for pushing computer-based crime detection on the department’s resident dinosaurs. Their attempts to keep Nebicher rooted at his desk are stymied, however, by an artificially intelligent computer hologram that looks real, sounds real and given enough electrical power can physically exist in the real world. Together, Walter, Automan and Cursor — a small floating droid that creates any object Automan desires — battle crime on city streets. It’s every bit as lame as it sounds. It lasted 13 episodes, before being achieving immediate cult status.
As unfathomable as it sounds today, NBC’s “Sisters” was the first primetime network television drama series to focus specifically on the lives of women and the issues relating to them. “Maude” dealt with many of the same hot-button issues, years earlier, but it typically used caustic humor to make its point, often at the expense of the recurring male characters. The sponsors of
“Sisters” risked losing male viewers to capture women in the key demographic segments. The 1991-96 show succeeded well enough to log a run of 127 episodes, a number that easily cleared it for syndication. “Sisters” follows the trials and triumphs of the four very different Reed sisters, living in the upper-middle-class Chicago suburb, Winnetka. Besides having unique personalities, the characters played by Sela Ward, Swoosie Kurtz, Patricia Kalember and Julianne Phillips looked as if they had either been adopted or had different fathers by the same mother. The poor sap had died a year before the series’ storylines began, causing his wife to bury herself in an alcoholic haze. He left enough secrets behind, however, to inspire several episodes throughout the show’s tenure. The new compilation contains all 29 episodes from the critically acclaimed first and second seasons, The series would go on to receive eight Emmy Award nominations, winning once in 1994 for Ward as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Kurtz was also nominated twice in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category in 1993 and 1994. The package adds lengthy conversations with created by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who also developed the American adaptation of “Queer as Folk.”
Celebrity chef Jose Andres returns to Haiti, once again, after the 2010 earthquake inspired him to found the World Central Kitchen, as a non-profit that fights hunger and poverty in developing nations. He opened a bakery in an orphanage in Haiti that not only feeds the orphans and staff there, but also provides job training for the kids and has become such a successful business that it is bringing in several thousand dollars a month. In “Undiscovered Haiti With Jose Andres,” he hopes that by boosting the profile of Haitian cuisine, he can inspire more travelers to visit the much-maligned island. The special shows him spending time with local chefs and markets, and sampling island specialties ranging from spicy pikliz sauce to djon-djon rice and akasan, a sweet, thick, milky beverage. In between hunting for crabs, visiting a hilltop fortress and attending a voodoo ceremony, Andres visits with former President Bill Clinton and chef Mario Batali.
She “turned the world on with her smile” on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” “Mary Tyler Moore: A Celebration” features dozens of classic clips, plus comments from Betty White, Ed Asner, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Gavin MacLeod, John Amos, Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke and the actress, herself. Plus, Oprah Winfrey recounts Mary Tyler Moore’s critical role in inspiring her — and millions of other women — as TV’s first independent career woman.
Nathan Fielder is an “alternative” Canadian writer and comedian, who’s found a niche on cable TV offering off-the-wall business tips to entrepreneurs in desperate need of turning a profit. The fun in “Nathan For You” comes from convincing the business owners to embrace marketing tactics no traditional consultant would dare attempt. He made headlines when one of his clients agreed to create a coffee shop called Dumb Starbucks. He also suggested inventing a poo-flavored yogurt and staging an elaborate viral video, in which a pig saves a goat. While Nathan’s efforts may not always succeed, they always have big results. The package includes all 16 episodes from the first two seasons!
Beside the good ol’ boy joshing around between cowboy hero Gene Autrey and sidekick Pat Buttram, the 12th edition of “The Gene Autry Collection” features The Sagebrush Troubadour (1935), in which Rangers Gene Autry and Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette) travel undercover as Western troubadours to find the killer of old, half-blind Frank Martin. Their only clues are a guitar string and a swayback horse that is the key to finding the dead man’s lost goldmine. It’s one of only two whodunits on the singing cowboy’s resume. The other movies in the set are Ride, Ranger, Ride (1936), Yodelin’ Kid From Pine Ridge (1937) and Gold Mine in the Sky (1938).
Shout! Factory brings out farewell packages of “The Rebel: Johnny Yuma: Season Two,” in which the protagonist visits his namesake city and has to convince a diehard Confederate loyalist from killing General Grant, and “WKRP In Cincinnati: The Final Season,” which opens with the station getting a terrorist threat and the staff’s attempt to form a union.
Stations of the Cross
Marie’s Story
Last awards season, Ida, Pawel Pawlikowski’s impassioned story about a novitiate nun in 1960s Poland, walked away with an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Agata Trzebuchowska delivered a stunning performance as a young woman who was raised as a devout Roman Catholic, but discovers on the eve of taking her vows that almost everything she’s learned about her parents and religious background is a lie. While providing a not altogether unkind profile of the Church under Nazi and Communist domination, Ida revealed truths about the deeply engrained anti-Semitism of many of the faithful. Stations of the Cross is Dietrich Brüggemann’s tragic depiction of religious fundamentalism at its most destructive and, as such, can be construed as serving as an indictment of one particularly conservative Catholic order. This one is based in southern Germany, an area not immune to fanaticism. Given the Vatican’s current leadership, it’s difficult to believe the cruelty perpetrated here on the 14-year-old protagonist in the name of Christ. American Catholics who came of age in a darker period of Church history shouldn’t have any trouble accepting the film’s premise, though. Bruggemann shares the writing credit with his sister, Anna, who also plays a character in the movie. Like Trzebuchowska, newcomer Lea van Acken is unforgettable as Maria, a 14-year-old German girl about to be confirmed as a soldier of Christ. In many Catholic homes, it is a sacrament that priests and nuns take far more seriously than the parents of the kids forced to endure accelerated catechism lessons. Maria’s mother (Franziska Weisz) takes the rite very seriously, indeed, as do the clergy attached to the real-life Society of St. Pius X. Founded in 1970 by the traditionalist French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, its adherents reject the more secular rulings of the Second Vatican Council, especially changes in the liturgy and revisions to the Roman Missal. While the longing for a return to the Latin mass isn’t particularly unusual among older Catholics, Maria’s treatment is something quite different. She’s been taught that anything that brings pleasure – contemporary music and helping boys with their homework, for example – could lead to promiscuity. Mutter insists that even the most innocent contact with boys her age opens the door for Satan. Because Maria is too isolated too challenge her parents’ beliefs, she maintains a safe distance from temptation. In her mind, disobeying Mutter would be as disrespectful as using a crucifix as a doorstop.
The title, Stations of the Cross, refers to the 14 Stations of the Cross that Jesus endured on his path to Golgotha. Maria’s been taught that the same path not only leads to heaven, but also could cure her younger brother’s autism. Bruggemann tells Maria’s story through 14 fixed-angle, single-shot tableaus. The same ritual was depicted in excruciating detail in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. (On the cover, Maria is shown wearing a crown of thorns.) The nearer Bruggemann gets to the 13th and 14th station — Jesus dying on the cross and being laid in his tomb – the closer Maria gets to her personal Calvary. Instead of pulling the girl back from the brink of disaster, Mutter treats Maria’s ordeal as the first step toward beatification. Anyone who grew up Roman Catholic in a predominantly Catholic community, during the 1960-70s, won’t have any trouble recognizing the forces at play in Stations of the Cross. While many priests and parishioners embraced the reforms brought about during the Second Vatican Council, a vocal minority rejected it outright and still prays for a return to fundamentalist values. In their eyes, the pope is anything but infallible. It’s impossible not to equate Maria’s plight with the treatment of Moslem girls — Malala Yousafzai comes to mind — as they approach puberty and the likelihood of enslavement to a man not of their choosing. Certainly, Mutter and the parish priest could give the Taliban a run for their money. Stations of the Cross is powerful film that deserves to be seen and discussed by co-religionists and anyone who thinks Islamists have a monopoly on fanaticism. Bonus features include the director’s commentary and the short film, “One Shot.”
Also from Film Movement comes a more familiar story of Catholic faith and near-saintly charity. This time, the central figure is a French nun who sacrificed her own personal freedom to mentor a deaf and blind girl nearly given up for lost by her helpless parents. The true story of Sister Marguerite (Isabelle Carré) and Marie Heurtins (deaf actress Ariana Rivoire) unfolded at roughly the same point in the late 1800s as when Annie Sullivan was working her magic with Helen Keller, an ocean away in Massachusetts. Marguerite taught deaf girls to sign at the esteemed Larnay Institute, near Poitiers. In Jean-Pierre Améris’ tremendously moving Marie’s Story, her great challenge comes when a humble artisan brings his deaf and blind daughter to the rural facility in a last-ditch effort to keep her from being sent to an asylum for the mentally ill. When Marie is left at Larnay, the girl acts out her bewilderment, fear and anger in ways that recall Victor, Francois Truffaut’s l’enfant sauvage in The Wild Child. When the mother superior denies Marguerite’s request to tame the feral child, she’s treats the rejection as a direct challenge from God to serves as his miracle worker on Earth. (I wonder if Keller ever learned of Marie’s parallel story.) To accomplish this feat, the nun felt it necessary to distance herself from her other obligations and search for answers in nature. After much tussling, frustration and exploration, Marguerite feels confident of Marie’s ability to return to Larnay, where they can learn out to correspond using hand-to-hand signing techniques. Sadly, the other girls have yet to be taught the meaning of Christian charity, as they torment Marie whenever Marguerite leaves the room. Learning that the nun has been diagnosed with tuberculosis only makes us feel that much more fearful for Maria’s fate. Améris keeps a tight hold on the throttle here, nicely balancing the dramatic throughlines and resisting the temptation to play to the cheap seats. The acting is universally excellent and the lush rural settings open up a story that might have induced claustrophobia if the action remained indoors. Do I need to mention that Marie’s Story easily qualifies as entertainment for the entire family? The bonus features include an informative making-of featurette and the Iranian short film, “Motherly,” in which a blind woman “spies” on her wheelchair-bound son to determine if his girlfriend is marriage material.
Code Unknown: The Criterion Collection: Blu-ray
When Code Unknown debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000, the influx of immigrants into Europe was still deemed manageable and writer/director/playwright Michael Haneke was known primarily for his almost unbearably intense home-invasion thriller, Funny Games. Haneke would go on to become a perennial favorite at international festivals and, by 2015, undocumented immigration would reach crisis proportions throughout Europe and North America. If anything, critics then were more impressed by Juliet Binoche’s terrific performance than Haneke’s observations about the growing communications gap between native Parisians and newcomers from Africa, Kosovo and other hotspots. Today, I think, the opposite would be true. We’ve come to expect great acting from Binoche and Haneke’s response to the immigration problem would be considered prescient. The complete title, “Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys” sums up the filmmaker’s narrative conceit pretty well. The central event involves the runaway brother of Binoche’s boyfriend, a photographer drawn to war zones around the world. Angry that the actress refuses to accept the boy’s frustration with farm life as seriously as he does, Jean crumples up a bag of pastry and rudely throws it into the lap of a Kosovar woman begging on a curb outside the bakery shop. Disturbed by the show of disrespect, a Malian student confronts the boy and is arrested for being the instigator of a tussle. The beggar is deported and the boy returns to the farm. Haneke revisits these characters throughout the rest of the movie, through vignettes separated by short blackouts. He also bookends the series of vignettes with scenes from a game of charades played by deaf students from several different cultural backgrounds.
In Code Unknown’s most troubling sequence, the actress is confronted on a subway train by an Arab youth, whose idea of fun is intimidating passengers he knows won’t fight back. At the time, at least, such provocations weren’t at all uncommon. Today, of course, the fear would be that the Arab youth would be in possession of a bomb or knife. I suspect some viewers might see the provocations as being too one-side and deduce that Code Unknown is an exercise in politically incorrect stereotyping. It would be difficult, however, to overstate the potential for violence and political extremism in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis. Until President Trump clears the street of America of illegal immigrants, it will remain a problem without a solution here, as well. In this regard, even after 15 years, Code Unknown feels fresh and urgent. Haneke’s ability to keep the disparate characters from tripping all over each other is remarkable. Ten years after Funny Games raised his flag at Cannes, Haneke felt compelled to remake it almost verbatim for English-speaking audiences. Is it too much to ask of him to consider revisiting the issues raised in Code Unknown in a contemporary setting? The Criterion Collection upgrade includes a newly restored 2K digital transfer, approved by the director, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack; a new and vintage interview with Haneke; an introduction by Haneke, from 2001; a 2000 making-of documentary, featuring interviews with Haneke, Binoche and producer Marin Karmitz; a new interview with film scholar Roy Grundmann; and an essay by critic Nick James.
Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties: The Criterion Collection: Blu-ray
No less an expert than Graham Greene called Julien Duvivier’s Algiers-set crime drama, Pépé le moko, “One of the most exciting and moving films I can remember seeing. … (It) raises the thriller to a poetic level!” It would serve as inspiration for Greene’s novel, “The Third Man,” and the American remakes, Algiers (1938) and Casbah (1948). As if to demonstrate that Duvivier was no one-hit wonder, Criterion Collection has released a quartet of films he made between the end of the silent era and the release of “Pepe,” in 1937. Though decidedly French in origin, all four films would fit neatly on the nights Turner Classic Movies devotes to film noir classics. David Golder (1931) is Duvivier’s the first sound film and first collaboration with actor Harry Baur, who appears in all four pictures. it brings to life the vivid protagonist of Irène Némirovsky’s novel, an avaricious, self-interested banker whose family life is as tempestuous as his business dealings in inter-war France. Poil De Carotte (“The Red Head”) is Duvivier’s 1932 remake his own silent adaptation of a popular turn-of-the-century novella about a farm boy nicknamed Carrot Top, who desperately wants to connect with his father; 1933’s La tête d’un Homme (a.k.a., “A Man’s Neck”) is one of the first adaptations of Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret novels. It stars Baur as a novelist, investigating the odd circumstances surrounding the killing of a wealthy American woman in Paris. Every bit Baur’s equal is the Russian émigré actor Valéry Inkijinoff, cast as a nihilistic, reptilian medical student. Julien Duvivier gives the viewer one evocative image after another, constructing a work of sinister beauty. In Un Carnet De Bal (“Dance Program”), a rich widow, nostalgic for the lavish parties of her youth, sets off across Europe to reconnect with the many suitors who once courted her. In doing so, she embarks on a journey of discovery, both of herself and of how greatly the world has changed in two decades. The set is the 44th entry in Criterion’s valuable Eclipse Series.
Two Men in Town: Blu-ray
At a time when executions in the U.S. have been postponed in several states, due primarily to questions raised about the legality of the chemical formula used in lethal injections, it may come as a surprise for many Americans to learn that France relied on the guillotine until 1977. Four years after the execution of Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian pimp convicted of torture and murder, the guillotine and death penalty finally were abolished there. Four years before Djandoubi fell victim to the steel blade, a movie written and directed by a former Death Row inmate may have laid the foundation for their abolition. Far from being an emotionally draining drama on the order of Dead Man Walking, however, José Giovanni’s Two Men in Town (a.k.a., “Two Against the Law”) stuck a knife directly into the heart of France’s hypocritical justice system, which promoted punishment over rehabilitation for convicted criminals … much in the same way as American prisons do today. Giovanni (born, Joseph Damiani), knew whereof he spoke. After World War II, he joined the Corsican mob as a petty criminal and was involved in a crime that claimed three lives, including those of his older brother and an uncle. Despite the fact that he wasn’t armed, Giovanni was convicted and sentenced to death. After some political strings were pulled, clemency was granted and he began a more legitimate career, as writer of hard-boiled fiction set in the criminal underworld or prisons. Several would be adapted into excellent movies, starring such high-profile European leading men as Lino Ventura, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Paul Meurisse, Daniel Auteuil, Jean Gabin and Alain Delon. He would add a couple more hyphens to his title before his death, in 2004. In Two Men in Town, Delon plays a safecracker who’s released from prison early after being vouched for by a social worker and prison reformer, portrayed by Gabin, then 69. Committed to going straight, Gino Strabliggi encounters three huge obstacles in his path: a tragic romance, his former mates and a cop bent on sending him back to the joint. Throughout it all, Gabin’s Germain Cazeneuve remains in his corner. Finally, though, a system that puts its trust in crooked cops, over rehabilitated sinners, causes Gino to make the kind of foolish mistake that results in dates with the guillotine. Although Two Men in Town suffers a bit from a less-than-fluid narrative, it doesn’t soften the power of Giovanni’s message. Last year, his original screenplay would be re-adapted to fit an American setting by Rachid Bouchareb (Days of Glory), with Forest Whitaker and Harvey Keitel facing off against each other in comparable roles. Newly restored in 4K, the Cohen Media Blu-ray adds commentary by Gabin biographer Charles Zigman, as well as the very different original and re-release trailer.
Full Moon in Paris: Blu-ray
The Marquise of O: Blu-ray
Amour Fou: Blu-ray
And, since we’re on the subject of foreign films, here are three more Film Movement releases to consider, all with deep connections to the famously idiosyncratic French auteur, Eric Rohmer. His 1984 romantic drama, Full Moon in Paris, is the fourth in his “Comedies and Proverbs” series, in which he probes the cycles, permutations and mysteries of love and desire. (Who does this kind of cool stuff, anymore?) It stars the dangerously thin and weirdly coiffed Pascale Ogier, who died very soon after winning the Venice Film Festival’s Best Actress prize, at 26. Her flighty interior designer, Louise, personifies the film’s gender-reversed epigram, “He who has two women loses his soul. He who has two houses loses his mind.” Louise lives with her hunky boyfriend, Remi (Tcheky Karyo), in a suburb of Paris. She loves him, but doesn’t dig his possessive nature or the wasting away of her young life in the sleepy town. Plus, Remi doesn’t dance. So, Louise elects to divide her time in a Paris apartment, where she strings along her effete friend, Octave (Fabrice Luchini), a married writer. She doesn’t mind living or sleeping alone, even while retaining strong feelings for both men. It isn’t until Louise lets down her guard to the point where she spends the night at a rock musician’s apartment that she begins to understand the wisdom in the epigram. If Louise looked a bit more like a young Catherine Deneuve or Nathalie Baye, we’d wonder why such a determined female character would care to split her time between such imperfect men. In a Hollywood movie, though, Ogier would be relegated to geeky sidekick roles and settling for scraps left behind by her friends on the cheerleader squad. It’s these kinds of departures from the norm that make Rohmer’s work so diverting.
The natural tendency when first coming across Rohmer’s 1976 period drama, The Marquise of O, is to assume it has something to do with the Marquis de Sade or the S&M classic, “Story of O,” by Anne Desclos (a.k.a., Pauline Reage_. Alas, no. In fact, it was adapted from Heinrich von Kleist’s 1808 novella, about a young widow, the Marquise, who places an ad in the local paper seeking the father of the baby she’s carrying, but doesn’t remember conceiving. In flashback, Rohmer recalls an attack by Russian soldiers on a northern Italian town, during the Napoleonic Wars and the attempted rape of Die Marquise by soldiers overrunning the citadel. It is interrupted by the Russian Count F (Bruno Ganz), who returns the unconscious damsel to safety. The Marquise is distraught that her savior had to leave town after it was ransacked and was mistakenly reported dead in the advance. Soon thereafter, however, the count returns to her home and asks Der Vater – who had unsuccessfully defended the town against the Russians — her hand in marriage. Before this can happen, however, the count once again is called back to duty, with the promise that the matter would be revisited upon his return. Soon thereafter, the Marquise will learn she is pregnant and begin the search for the father. Things get considerably more complicated, but in ways that are difficult to predict. Ganz is excellent as the imperious count, as is Edith Clever as the extremely fragile Die Marquise. The film, which is an exhaustive depiction of long-buried manners and protocol, won the Grand Prix Spécial Prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.
The connection to Rohmer in Jessica Hausner’s Amour Fou is the dramatization of the hopelessly romantic Von Kleist’s final weeks of life, which culminated in a double suicide with the similarly minded musician Henriette Vogel, who lived in a grand estate near Potsdam. Greatly impressed by Von Kleist’s poetry, Vogel invites him to spend time with her family, which includes a husband and child. Led to believe that she’s suffering from a terminal illness, Vogel (Birte Schnoeink) allows the writer (Christian Friedel) to talk her into going out in a blaze of romantic glory, according to the lofty dictates of his poetry. This account differs from the historical record, as does the mystery that surrounds Vogel’s illness, but where’s the fun in the truth? While the dialogue leading to the suicide pact borders on crazy-talk, Hausner’s depiction of life among the aristocracy at a time when the clamor for democracy and the potential for taxing the rich were blowing strongly in the wind is captivating. She also does a splendid job depicting the grandiosity of the estates where the bewigged twits frittered away their days. The bonus features include commentary with the director, deleted scenes, “Why We Selected” and the short film, “OIDA.”
Do I Sound Gay?
I wonder if, even 20 years ago, David Thorpe’s insightful documentary, Do I Sound Gay?, would have attracted the number of men willing to be interviewed on a subject that, in other hands, might be considered politically incorrect. It’s also worth considering where such a film might have been exhibited outside of gay and lesbian film festivals. Back then, religious zealots still were able to sell the idea that homosexuality could be reversed or cured. Today, of course, the stigma of speaking in a stereotypically gay voice – or, what once was dismissed as a lisp – has practically disappeared, at least in big cities and campus communities. Not caring how one sounds in social situations, job interviews, on screen or at church is as much a sign of the times as having same-sex marriage announcements published in the New York Times. Thorpe uses the break-up with his boyfriend as an excuse for confronting his anxiety about “sounding gay.” To this end, he solicits the advice of acting coaches, linguists, friends, family, total strangers and celebrities. What starts as a personal journey, though, effortlessly evolves into larger discussions about sexuality, identity, self-esteem and, finally, gay pride. The interesting thing to remember is that actors have been affecting gay voices and mannerisms for a very long time, and not always in cruel parodies. Some have been able to use their normal voice and profit from it. It isn’t likely that Liberace, Paul Lynde and Clifton Webb would have profited from going butch. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is how what’s accepted in entertainers and celebrities can still divide families. Among the more prominent witnesses called to testify here are Tim Gunn, columnist Dan Savage, David Sedaris, George Takei and Margaret Cho.
Bound to Vengeance: Blu-ray
When J.M. Cravioto’s hyper-violent revenge thriller Bound to Vengeance was shown at this year’s Sundance Festival, its title was “Reversal.” There probably was a logical reason for the change, although I can’t think of one right now. The reviews that followed its screening were close enough to the ones that greeted I Spit on Your Grave and its sequels to raise the question as to just how violent a movie has to be these days to offend critics gathered at a festival devoted to indies. While there’s no denying Bound to Vengeance’s exploitative ambitions, such reviews suggest that the bar separating good exploitation from bad exploitation hasn’t moved much in the last 37 years. In Rock Shaink and Keith Kjornes’ story, a young woman, Eve (Tina Ivlev), escapes her psychopathic captor after being chained in a basement and abused for nine months. While attempting to take flight, Eve discovers photos taken of other women whose lives appear still to be in jeopardy. Assuming that her captor knows where the others are imprisoned, she beats him to within an inch of his life and puts him in a metal harness, which can be manipulated to inflict more pain. By promising the fiend (Richard Tyson) medical attention, Eve is able to elicit the location of another victim, who agrees to join her crusade, and, so on and so forth. The further the trail leads into the horror zone, the more resistance they meet … and, yes, reversals. The obvious questions become, why doesn’t Eve call the police and where does vengeance end and sadism begin? Then, too, is a harder line drawn by mainstream critics when an exploitation flick debuts at Sundance, instead of going straight to DVD, where such genre fare can be ignored? Methinks, yes. Critics don’t enjoy wallowing in gore any more than the victims in exploitation movies. I don’t either, but VOD and straight-to-video titles are a large part of my workload. That said, because the violence in Bound to Vengeance is directed far more at the evil male characters than helpless women, the titillation factor associated with I Spit on Your Grave and its ilk isn’t at play here. While far from a home run, the movie is just good enough to raise the profile of its talented Mexican director in his debut feature.
The Aviation Cocktail
Like other first features made on miniscule budgets, David R. Higgins’ The Aviation Cocktail is long on style, but short on follow-through. At its best, the Nebraska-set crime drama represents the kind of rural noir Richard Brooks injected into In Cold Blood. Set in the kind of sleepy Midwestern town profiled in Truman Capote’s account of the Clutter Family murders, Higgins’ film benefits from being shot in, around and above the Sandhills National Natural Landmark, in the north-central part of Nebraska, as well as a snow-covered patch of nothingness in Colorado. There are times when it also resembles the more barren landscapes of Coen Brothers’ Fargo, North Dakota. The movie opens with a shootout between a posse of police sharpshooters and the kidnaper of a girl, who’s already dead when they approach the dilapidated shed. While the wounded suspect is being flown to a hospital in a shiny silver prop plane, the three other passengers conspire to exact their own form of vigilante justice on him. Sheriff Henry Fisher (Beau Kiger), his brother, Jack (Michael Haskins), and friend Bob Halloran (Brandon Eaton) are World War II veterans, not at all averse to keeping the prisoner’s fate secret. Things don’t begin to unravel until the cuckolded sheriff’s unfaithful wife, Alice (Leah Lockhart), begins flashing her boobs to everyone willing – or unwilling – to look at them. Her lovers include the pilot, Bob. Like everyone else in town, Jack is aware of the situation, but doesn’t want his brother to slide completely off, into the deep end. As if to demonstrate how haywire things can go in a small town largely populated with heavily armed alcoholics, Higgins adds the dead girl’s religious-fanatic brother (Connor L. Boyle) to the mix and gives him a handgun. By the time the shit hits the fan between Henry and Alice, though, the story’s gotten bogged down with too many characters and subplots. Even so, it’s difficult not to be impressed with Higgins’ choice of locations and obsession with period accuracy, especially in the vintage vehicles.
Before We Go: Blu-ray
If I were to guess, I’d say that prolific-to-a-fault screenwriter Ron Bass woke up one morning thinking it might not be a bad idea if someone crossed Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise with Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, and that his assistants might have fun throwing it together. Before We Go reportedly began to take shape in 2008, as “1:30 Train,” and with director Joel Schumacher and Monica Bellucci attached to the project. By the time shooting began, in 2014, the retitled rom-com starred frequent superhero Chris Evans and Reece Witherspoon look-alike Alice Eve, with Evans doubling down as first-time director. Evans has said that he doesn’t want to play Captain America forever, but, even if Before We Go is far from a disaster, he may want to reconsider killing the goose that’s laying the golden eggs. In it, Evans plays a subway busker, Nick Vaughan, who hopes to join an established jazz ensemble after an audition scheduled for the next day. He becomes attracted to Eve’s Brooke Dalton after noticing that she’s missed her train to New Haven and is upset because her expensive purse has been stolen and her phone is broken. Sensing a damsel in distress, Nick volunteers to help her locate her bag and raise the money she needs to get back to her philandering husband. They make a cute couple, traipsing around the Lower East Side, even if there’s no guarantee they’ll still be a twosome by the time sunrise rolls around. The problem is that they don’t look as if they could survive a night in the mean streets of Omaha, let alone Manhattan, especially while attempting to recover a purse worth more empty than Nick’s made in all of his performances at Grand Central Station. We’re left with an urban fairytale as phony as the knock-off accessories sold on street corners by Nigerian conmen.
Charlie’s Farm
Theatre of the Deranged II: Blu-ray
Symphony in Blood Red Blu-Ray,
Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.: Blu-ray
Caesar and Otto’s Paranormal Halloween
Bloodsucking Bastards: Blu-ray
If the Aussie export, Charlie’s Farm, is based on an overly familiar trope, writer/director Chris Sun deserves a lot of credit at least for creating a monster that fans of old-fashioned slasher flicks aren’t likely to forget. The story opens with a flashback to the night a vigilante mob confronted the owners of an Outback farm, believed to house a family of serial killers of trespassers and cannibals. The only person who escapes the carnage is the son, Charlie Wilson, who, 20 years later, has grown into a grotesque 6-foot-11, 360-pound killer, who wields handmade weapons of medieval origins. On this particular weekend, a quartet of fearless young suburbanites descends on the vacant farmhouse to test the validity of a horrifying local legend involving Charlie. While it’s easy to predict what’s going to happen to the couples, horror fans should enjoy guessing how they will be dispatched and in what order. It’s all pretty blood-curdling. American viewers may be tempted by the presence of Tara Reid, who hasn’t starred in anything more noteworthy lately than “Sharknado” and “Sharknado 2.”  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that a sequel is already in the works … probably without Reid.
Reportedly, first-time screenwriter Adam Aresty came up with the idea for Stung while working as a caterer at an outdoor party with a severe wasp-infestation problem. Based solely on that much background information, anyone who can’t guess what transpires over the course of the next 87 minutes of Aresty and Benni Diez’ film should be required to take a remedial course in creature features. Although I would have held out for predatory yellowjackets, Diez’s special-effects acumen (Melancholia) worked in the favor of the increasingly large, black wasps. If Stung had been made in the 1960-70s, it might have attracted Roger Corman’s attention and been distributed to drive-ins around the country. As it is, I can’t imagine how Syfy might have passed on it. It stars Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Clifton Collins Jr. (Pacific Rim), Matt O’Leary (Mother’s Day) and Jessica Cook (Awkward).
Pro-Wrestlers vs. Zombies isn’t the final movie Rowdy Roddy Piper made before his death this summer, at 61, but he’s the only good reason to check out Cody Knotts’ follow-up to Breeding Farm and Lucifer’s Unholy Desire. Although the title doesn’t need any further explanation, it’s worth noting that the battle royal takes place at night in an abandoned prison, where a troupe of professional wrestlers is booked for a private show. To their great surprise, the grapplers are confronted by a small army of zombies. The wrestlers turn to their weapons of choice – ladders, folding chairs, boards and sleeper holds – to turn back the undead horde, which relies primarily on rotten teeth and decaying fingernails. Besides Piper, the humans include Matt Hardy, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, The Franchise Shane Douglas, Kurt Angle, Reby Sky, Sylvester ‘Bear’ Terkay and associate producer Camera Chatham Bartolotta. The action isn’t any more violent than what one might see at a Wrestlemania. The biggest problem is the under-lit setting, which makes the action tough to dicipher, even in hi-def. It adds commentary by Knotts and an introduction by Troma boss Lloyd Kaufman.
In the sequel to Troma’s 2012 horror anthology, Theater of the Deranged, Internet freak Damien Shadows takes over the reins as host from Andy the Arsonist. Shadows calls himself a paranormal investigator, a title that’s hardly exclusive to self-promoting young webheads who resemble Alice Cooper. As before, Theater of the Deranged II is comprised of a half-dozen very strange short films, this time directed by James Cullen Bressack (Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys), Shawn Burkett (A Shameless Revenge), Eric Hollerbach (Pets of the Rich and Famous), Christopher Leto (Die Die Delta Pi), Dustin Mills (Kill That Bitch) and Shane Ryan (Amateur Porn Star Killer). And, yes, included in the cast of miscreants is a killer mime. It adds bloopers, commentary and other Troma stuff.
There may very well be more filmmakers imitating Dario Argento, today, than there ever were during the heyday of giallo. And, why not? Those movies were built on a recognizable foundation of violence, sex and vivid imagery and the DVD/Blu-ray revolution works to the advantage of those sick individuals for whom murder, nudity and stylistic cinematography are as vital as mother’s milk. The 2010 Troma import, Symphony in Blood Red, doesn’t bother to conceal its influences, even adding a pair of featurettes in which Argento’s name, spirit and thoughts are invoked. In it, a psychologist unleashes her mysterious patient’s latent madness, by insisting he seek further help in a more specialized institution. Instead, he kills her and becomes his own therapist, recording his feelings in a crazy “crescendo” with a small camera. Somehow, he’s come to belief that he’s emerging from a chrysalis state and the next step is full-blown madness. Symphony in Blood Red was written by Antonio Tentori (Dracula 3D) and Luigi Pastore, who also is the director. The genre-specific score is by Claudio Simonetti. The Blu-ray comes with an intro by Lloyd Kaufman; a documentary with the “best voices of Italian horror,” including Dario Argento; a behind-the-scenes piece; a “Minute With Dario Argento: Make Your Own Damn Movie lesson; highlights from the 16th Tromadance Film Festival; Kabukiman’s Cocktail Corner trailer; and a music video, directed by Kaufman.
And, we’re not done with Troma just yet. On the 25th anniversary of Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D., Lloyd Kaufman has decided to re-launch the sci-fi cop adventure in Blu-ray. Harry Griswald is a NYPD cop possessed with the spirit of a great Kabuki master. This has made him “the chosen one” to do battle with “the evil one.” Sadly, not everyone in the Big Apple is ready for reform or such superheroics. Among the bonus features are commentary by Lloyd Kaufman, an animated Kabukiman, Kabuki rap, “Sgt. Kabukiman Accused of Sexual Harrassment,” Tromaville Cafe with Rick Gianasi and the ever-popular Troma Trailers.
Caesar and Otto’s Paranormal Halloween isn’t from Troma, but it might as well be, I guess. The titular protagonists return to the DVD marketplace to mess with sci-fi and horror conventions and clichés, while also paying homage to classic scenes and characters. Previous chapters have included C&O’s Summer Camp Massacre, C&O’s Deadly Xmas and C&O Meet Dracula’s Lawyer. It helps to have a solid background in horror history.
You know that any improv-comedy group with the chutzpah to name itself Dr. God is going to work extra hard to make people laugh. Anything less would be sacrilege. Dr. God is a Los Angeles-based troupe that develops content for film and television, in addition to performing live all across the country. Besides producing Bloodsucking Bastards, it currently is working on “MOCKpocalypse” for AXS-TV.  It is intended to appeal to fans of such movies as Shaun of the Dead, Office Space and “The Office,” among other influences. The DVD adds a gag reel, a making-of featurette and commentary with Dr. God members, including director Brian James O’Connell, producer/actor Justin Ware, writer/actor Sean Cowhig and actors Neil W. Garguilo and David F. Park.
Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart
Nothing in Jeremiah Zagar’s intriguing documentary Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart leads me to believe that the subject of his inquest was railroaded or deserves a new trial. It does, however, demand of viewers that we question, at least, if any defendant can get a fair hearing after being deemed exploitable by media outlets able to introduce facts, hearsay and outright lies jurors wouldn’t be allow to hear in court. Twenty-five years ago, Pamela Smart’s case made a huge splash when she was charged with encouraging her teenage lover and his slacker buddies to murder her husband. She had met the three teenage boys and a girl at Winnacunnet High School, in Hampton, New Hampshire, where she was employed as a “media coordinator.” Before the seduction and murder occurred, Smart and the students were linked by a mutual interested in heavy-metal music. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because of the intense media coverage of the trial – the first, even before O.J., to be televised from start to finish – and Joyce Maynard’s 1992 novel, “To Die For,” which was adapted by Gus Van Sant’s movie of the same title, starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon and Joaquin Phoenix. Smart also was portrayed by Helen Hunt in the CBS movie, “Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Wojas Smart Story,” and she appeared on “Oprah” in 2010 to plead her case for a new trial. It was rejected, despite several inconsistencies in the testimony of her co-conspirators.
Zagar’s most salient point is that, once the media began to exploit the story for all it was worth, it would have been impossible for Smart’s case to be fairly heard by an untainted judge and jury. If a presumption of innocence is the rule of law in any courtroom, a presumption of guilt is what sells papers and pumps up ratings. Among the things working against Smart was a too-pretty face, an expensive hairdo and photos of her in a bikini. How could three boys in their mid-teens resist such a sorceress? Or, so the prosecutor’s argument went. Even if we agree with the guilty verdict and punishment of life without parole, what are we to make of decisions that have already allowed the boys, including the 15-year-old who stabbed Smart’s husband to death, to already be free on parole? Zagar asks other worthwhile questions, while also interviewing Smart in prison. The documentary is informed, as well, by numerous court records, transcripts and fresh interviews with people on both sides of the argument. For those who followed the trial or simply are fans of true-crime stories, “Captivated” should be considered a must-see.
Adam Ant: The Blueblack Hussar
Although Adam Ant enjoyed a substantial career in the UK, in the post-punk 1980s, I can only recall him having a single memorable hit on the U.S. charts, “Goody Two Shoes.” He found some traction on MTV for his theatrical music videos and quasi-military costume  – he appeared to be channeling Monty Python’s inept highwayman, Dennis Moore – but pretty much disappeared by 1985. Jack Bond’s documentary, Adam Ant: The Blueblack Hussar, describes the 61-year-old singer/actor’s attempt to relaunch his career after stops along the way doing television, film and theater gigs and dealing with his bipolar condition. This time around, Ant (born, Stuart Leslie Goddard) resembles a cross between Jack Sparrow and the Mad Hatter. He’s still rocking – thanks to a solid band and hyperactive backup singers — but the lyrics to his new songs sound as if they were written during therapy sessions. Even so, the doc should appeal to 1980s’ nostalgists and fans who might have lost track of Ant. Among the more familiar guest stars are Charlotte Rampling (he’s a big fan of The Night Porter), guitarist Mark Ronson, sculptor Allen Jones, John Robb (Goldblade) and Jamie Reynolds (The Klaxons). Bonus features include live performances of “Whip in My Valise” (at The Scala in London), “Deutsche Girls” (at Electric Ballroom), and “Young Parisians” (duet with Boy George of Culture Club). There’s also an extended Q&A with Bond and Robb.
PBS-to-DVD
Masterpiece: Worricker: The Complete Series
On Two Fronts Latinos & Vietnam
American Masters: Pedro E. Guerrero:  A Photographer’s Journey
Henry & Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History
My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes
The Jewish Journey: America
Nature: Nature’s Miracle Orphans
Cook’s Country: Season 8
It isn’t always easy to keep track of our favorite British series once we’ve fallen in love with them on PBS or BBC America. Few of them can afford the marketing push that alerts us to every new season of “Downton Abbey” and “Dr. Who,” so we’re pretty much left to our own devices. Fortunately, the release of these shows on DVD/Blu-ray has become far more predictable, and at their original UK lengths. (Yes, the U.S. outlets edit for language, nudity and the time necessary for pledge-drive hustles and commercials.) It explains why the arrival of “Masterpiece: Worricker: The Complete Series” will be greeted with joy by fans of British spy stories and Bill Nighy, in particular. As conceived and administered by David Hare, Johnny Worricker is a veteran MI5 officer, whose boss and best friend (Michael Gambon) in the first chapter, “Page Eight,” died unexpectedly, leaving behind a mysteriously encrypted file that threatens the stability of the agency. Meanwhile, a seemingly chance encounter with Johnny’s striking next-door neighbor and political activist (Rachel Weisz) proves too good to be true, forcing Worricker to leave the agency to discover the truth. In the second chapter of the trilogy, “Turks & Caicos,” Worricker is laying low on the titular tax-exile islands, when a CIA agent (Christopher Walken) forces him into the company of some ambiguous American businessmen who claim to be on the islands for a conference on the global financial crisis. When one is found dead, the head of the company’s publicity agency (Winona Ryder) leads Worricker in what could be a wild goose chase that leads back to the events described in “Page Eight.” The third episode, “Salting the Battlefield” follows Worricker as he criss-crosses Europe with a former girlfriend (Helena Bonham Carter), attempting to stay one or two steps ahead of MI5 agents pursuing him in the name of the prime minister (Ralph Fiennes). It’s a terrifically excitin series, with plenty of fresh insights into the game within the game. The casts also include Judy Davis, Olivia Williams, Rupert Graves, Felicity Jones, Dylan Baker, James Naughton and Tom Hughes.
More than any previous conflict involving American soldiers, the Vietnam War was fought by conscripts of working-class and impoverished backgrounds, most of whom had no desire to be there. Meanwhile, college deferments allowed more privileged youths to postpone or entirely avoid their obligation to become cannon fodder for Uncle Sam. When Hollywood finally caught up with Vietnam, it was largely portrayed as a war in which African-American males either were killed or came of age as dope fiends or Black Panthers. The cold facts demonstrated that young working-class Latinos were drafted in similar proportions to black high school graduates and paid the same terrible price. A generation later, Hispanic men and women would comprise an inordinately high percentage of slots in the all-volunteer military. This number included undocumented immigrants who would parley the experience into American citizenship. The PBS documentary, “On Two Fronts: Latinos & Vietnam” frames the documentary within the memoirs of two siblings, Everett and Delia Alvarez, who stood on opposite sides of the Vietnam War, one as a POW and the other protesting at home. Other stories deepen the narrative: in Greenlee County, Arizona, miners’ children fought and died for their country in devastating proportions; sisters and mothers took notice and action; and a farmworker’s son translated his military experience into a career, before resigning in protest from his post on a local draft board.
The “American Masters” presentation, “Pedro E. Guerrero:  A Photographer’s Journey,” tells the remarkable story of a Mexican-American native of then-segregated Mesa, Arizona, who developed a love of art, photography and architecture that carried him to the loftiest peaks of his craft. His collaborations with architect Frank Lloyd Wright and sculptors Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson have been seen by millions of magazine readers who have no idea who took the photographs or how his cultural background may have influenced his work. He also established an international reputation photographing the mid-century modern houses of such luminaries as Eero Saarinen, Edward Durell Stone, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, Philip Johnson, John Black Lee and Joseph Salerno. Magazine assignments also took him to Julia Child’s pot-lined kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and to John Huston’s castle in Ireland. For his early opposition to the Vietnam War, however, Guerrero was blacklisted by the same publishers of major shelter magazines who profited from his work. One needn’t be Hispanic or a student of design to enjoy this beautifully composed profile of an important American artist.
Among the historical figures who deserve to be given a temporary rest, at least, by filmmakers and documentarians are the Henry VIII of England and his unfortunate wives. It’s not that we’re not interested in their stories of star-crossed love, just that it’s almost impossible to imagine anything new and compelling to be derived from them. Tell that to historian Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb, who, in “Henry & Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History,” puts a tight focus on the heir-obsessed monarch and the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. In what amounts to a fact-based Harlequin bodice-ripper, Lipscomb illustrates her exhaustive research with sumptuous dramatizations and reconstructions, drawing on first-hand accounts from the time, and visiting the places where Henry and Anne lived. The only thing missing is a cameo appearance by Fabio, as the Lord High Executioner.
At a time when it would seem impossible to discover new accounts of heroism from World War II, here comes “My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes,” which adds quite a bit more than a footnote to the story. In it, we’re introduced to dozens of largely unsung protectors of Jewish refugees, including Italian cycling champion Gino Bartali and citizens of a city that risked annihilation for hiding them. The film also offers an alternative take on the Catholic Church’s role in protecting scores of refugees. While not denying the presence of Vatican-endorsed “ratlines,” which allowed countless ex-Nazi leaders to escape Europe, Oren Jacoby’s film chooses to promote the actions of priests and nuns who adopted a more Christian response to Mussolini and Hitler’s insanity. Not all of the accounts have a happy ending, of course, but more than were previously known, at least. The film is narrated by Isabella Rossellini.
On a significantly brighter note, “The Jewish Journey: America” traces Jewish immigration to the U.S. from the earliest arrivals in the mid-17th Century through the impact of the Nazi regime in World War II and subsequent breakup of the USSR. It also chronicles the choices made by American-born Jews in the 20th Century, as the religion faced challenges from within. Among those interviewed are two American-born rabbis whose own “Jewish Journey” has taken them from an assimilated household, with no real roots in the rituals of the religion, back to a life of observance. Top scholars, notable writers and immigrants themselves share stories of those who made a leap of faith to escape persecution or pursue opportunity.
There were several times during the two-part “Nature” mini-series, “Nature’s Miracle Orphans,” when I was tempted to put on one of the many recordings I have of the traditional Negro spiritual, “Motherless Child.” There were other times, however, when a happier tune would be a more appropriate accompaniment. As sad as it is to watch baby animals come to the grips with the absence of their parents – especially those of the maternal persuasion – it’s just that uplifting to see them discover ways to survive and prosper independently. While some orphans are taken in by foster parents, others are forced to go it alone or with the help of human volunteers. They include baby koalas, wallabies, kangaroos, sloths and anteaters.
Season Eight of PBS’ mouthwatering “Cook’s Country From America’s Test Kitchen” features the usual array of regional specialties prepared by host Christopher Kimball and chefs from America’s Test Kitchen. Among them are Delta Hot Tamales, Smoked Bourbon Chicken, Dakota Peach Kuchen, Latin Fried Chicken, Pork Ragu, Frosted Meatloaf and Barbecued Burnt Ends. It also includes “Tips & Techniques,” food tastings, equipment tests, and printable versions of all 26 recipes.
The Farmer’s Daughter
42nd Street Forever: The Peep Show Collection, Vol. 13
Watch enough porn and you’ll be surprised at who shows up in one. The late, great monologist and actor Spalding Gray plays a leading role in a nasty little ditty, The Farmer’s Daughter, which has been re-released by Impulse Pictures. It also starred Golden Age favorites Marlene Willoughby, Susan McBain and Gloria Leonard, but it should hardly come as a shock to find them in a 1976 porno. Directed by Zebedy Colt (a.k.a., Edward Earle Marsh), it extended the old joke about the farmer’s daughter by adding a couple siblings, a trio of escaped convicts, a moronic farmhand and trigger-happy farmer, a girl-on-boy gang rape, gender-neutral golden showers, incest and some anal. If it weren’t so rough, The Farmer’s Daughter could pass for comedy. Gray doesn’t exactly distinguish himself as one of the randy convicts … that would come eight years later, when he played the U.S. consul, in The Killing Fields. In 1985, he gained prominence on stage with the autobiographical monologue, “Swimming to Cambodia.” Gray also took uncredited roles in a pair of adult classics, Maraschino Cherry and Little Orphan Dusty. In those days, it wasn’t uncommon for struggling actors to supplement their income with work in XXX flicks. No one could foresee the introduction of VCRs or that anyone might be able to reference past work in unsung flicks. Some of the then-unknown actors and peep-show veterans, including Leonard, would go on to make very decent money in the genre and never feel the need to apologize for it.
Among the future stars who likewise honed their craft in loops and other grindhouse attractions are Chris Cassidy, Tina Russell, Susan Nero and Sharon Mitchell, who can be found in “42nd Street Forever: The Peep Show Collection, Vol. 13.” The recently deceased Leonard, who also would serve as publisher of High Society, has appeared in previous editions of the series. As usual, liner notes for both sets are provided by Cinema Sewer publisher, Robin Bougie.
Toy Story That Time Forgot: Blu-ray
A LEGO Brickumentary: Blu-ray
Somehow, I managed to overlook the release of Disney/Pixar’s highly ambitious and thoroughly entertaining Inside Out when it finally dropped domestically on June 19. By that time, though, the $175-million animated feature had already been showcased at festivals in Cannes, Seattle, Sydney, L.A., Taormina and Buenos Aires. It also had opened theatrically in Egypt, the UAE, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and a couple dozen other far-flung places before American audiences got a crack at it. I’m just patriotic enough to be concerned about what Disney’s increasingly erratic distribution patterns have to say, if anything, about serving mainstream audiences at home, as well as the confusion that occurs when reviews are published or aired any time within a nearly month-long window … six months, if you count the Blu-ray/DVD trades. It’s entirely possible that I read the trade reviews from Cannes, published on May 18, and wasn’t paying attention when the glowing opinions of mainstream critics were issued three weeks later. I concur, so anyone looking for a contrary opinion will be disappointed. If Oscar voters don’t give it serious consideration as a Best Picture candidate, they deserve to have their credentials revoked. At first, I thought that Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen and their team were searching for a clever way to create a narrative based on the many different emoticons that are used as shorthand in Internet communication. On closer examination, however, Inside Out is far more complex and challenging for parents who may be required to give their kids a crash course in Psychology 101. The story concerns an 11-year-old Minnesotan, Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias), who’s devastated by her father’s decision to take a job in San Francisco, which mostly exists as a playground for adults. Things get even worse when she fails to make a smooth transition to her new school. Mirroring Riley’s outer turmoil are anthropomorphized inner Emotions: Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. Each is represented by different colors, shapes, tones and textures. (The writers considered up to 27 different Emotions, but settled on five to make the story less complicated.) Also impacting Riley’s mood shifts are thousands of memory beads, stored like drops of honey in a giant hive, also controlled by the Emotions. With a bit of assistance from Riley’s understanding parents, she will come to appreciate the things San Francisco has to offer an 11-year-old, but not before attempting a jailbreak. If you’re thinking that her separation from her school’s hockey team might be one of the things the Emotions must overcome, you’d be right … but, stay tuned. The audio/visual presentation on Blu-ray is impeccable. As you can imagine, the richly endowed color palette employed by Inside Out’s artists is more crucial to any appreciation of the movie than most other animated features. I paused the picture several times to study the intricately drawn images. The choice of shapes and colors also was crucial to the depiction of the Emotions. Each of the actors voicing the Emotions — Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling and Lewis Black — is given a unique look and hue.  Not surprisingly, Black’s Anger is painted bright red. The bonus material included on the film disc includes; “Lava,” a short, musically centered, volcanic love story; another related short, “Riley’s First Date?”; “Paths to Pixar: The Women of Inside Out,” in which female cast and crew members share stories from their lives, their work on the film, characters with whom they identify, their thoughts on human emotion and how they connect with the film; “Mixed Emotions,” a quick look at character design; and commentary with Docter and Del Carmen. A separate disc adds deleted scenes and several more making-of featurettes.
With at least three years to go before Disney-Pixar delivers “Toy Story 4,” the Blu-ray edition of Toy Story That Time Forgot will have to keep devoted fans satisfied. In fact, the delightful 22-minute short was unveiled on television almost a year ago, as something of a pre-holiday stocking stuffer. It has since been made available through streaming services, legally and surreptitiously, on the Internet. Normally, an already widely available movie wouldn’t be an easy product to recommend for purchase, even considering that voicing superstars Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Kristen Schaal, Don Rickles, Timothy Dalton, Joan Cusack, Wallace Shawn and newcomer Kevin McKidd (“Grey’s Anatomy”) were hired to class up the short film. Here, during one of Bonnie’s post-Christmas playdates, the Toy Story regulars are challenged by a set of action figures that were given to her friend, Mason. His Christmas haul includes a full line of Battlesaur action figures and a new video game system, complete with a virtual-reality headset. As befits their bellicose nature, the Battlesaurs threaten Mason’s old-school guests with extinction. Their only hope for survival is to convince Reptillus Maximus that he’s a toy, not a wartime leader. Writer/director Steve Purcell (Brave) does double-duty here as the cunning Cleric. The big selling point, though, besides the sparkling hi-def presentation, is a bonus package that includes, “Reptillus!,” a catch-all look at the importance of building a detailed backstory for the new characters, through design, digital animation, study in the real world and voice acting; “Toy Story Goes to Comic-Con”; “Karaoke: My Unexpected Friend,” with “Reptillus Sings” and “You Sing”; “Battlesaurs: Animated Opening,” a mock-up opening sequence for the fictitious Battlesaurs TV program; deleted scenes; and audio commentary with Purcell and Head of Story Derek Thompson.
One of the highlights of the 2014 film calendar was the release of The LEGO Movie, a truly inspired entertainment that accomplished with tiny plastic bricks what most studios can’t with nine-figure budgets, marquee actors and the best crews in the business. While nowhere near as surprising, A LEGO Brickumentary complements that accomplishment by showing how real-life Master Builders have expanded on that vision by creating sculptures, toys and artwork that border on the miraculous. They’re also being used in therapy and schools to encourage creativity, individual achievement and teamwork. Like any other geek pursuit, LEGO’s reach is global and “Brickumentary” is as dispassionate a film as its fandom’s zeal is uncontainable. Directors Kief Davidson and Daniel Junge open with an examination of the company’s surprisingly long roots, before describing how it bounced back from over-exposure in the early 1990s, basically trusting its customers to lead it into new directions. There’s no telling what parents might discover about their kids by watching “Brickumentary” with them. The Blu-ray makes good use of the toys’ bright color scheme, adding lengthy deleted scenes and an obligatory pitch for San Diego’s LEGOLAND amusement park.
The Benoit Jacquot Collection: Blu-ray
There’s no better example of the importance of niche distributors of DVD/Blu-ray titles than Cohen Media Group’s The Benoit Jacquot Collection. It serves as a triple-feature of films made in the 1990s by a veteran French director, only recently risen to prominence in the United States, with Farewell My Queen and Three Hearts (also from Cohen). Those pictures are far more accessible to mainstream American audiences than the decidedly arthouse-oriented The Disenchanted (1990), A Single Girl (1995) and Keep It Quiet (1999), which reflect more of a post-New Wave approach. Born in 1947, Jacquot began his career as an assistant director on Marguerite Duras’ Nathalie Granger (1972) and India Song (1975), and also an actor in India Song and Jean-Claude Biette’s 1973 short film La Sœur du cadre. Duras’ minimalist influence is most apparent in The Disenchanted and A Single Girl, which can be enjoyed as closely observed character studies of young French women whose young lives are very much in flux. Indeed, one of Jacquot’s strengths has been his ability to elicit signature performances from such prominent French actresses, including Virginie Ledoyen, Judith Godrèche, Isabelle Huppert, Vahina Giocante, Sandrine Kiberlain, Isabelle Adjani, Isild Le Besco, Léa Seydoux, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Chiara Mastroianni. In The Disenchanted, Godrèche plays a 17-year-old standing at an unusually messy crossroads of sexual maturity, adult responsibility and youthful curiosity. In A Single Girl, Ledoyen’s curiously vague hotel maid also is required to come to grips with unexpected realities of adult life, after discovering she’s pregnant and, for the most part, alone. Keep It Quiet is an ensemble piece, in which a popular television host (Vincent Lindon) becomes emotionally unglued after his CEO brother (Fabrice Luchini) is released from prison, taking on a persona roughly that of Chance the Gardener, in “Being There.” Huppert and the much younger Giocante find themselves caught in the middle of the sibling drama, but from very different perspectives. All three of the films reward viewers for their patience, as Benoit typically maintains an almost glacial pace. Each is presented for the first time in new high-definition re-masterings, with commentaries by critics Wade Major and Tim Cogshell and insightful discussions between director Benoît Jacquot and the New York Film Festival’s Kent Jones.
In the Grayscale
Eastsiders: Season 2
Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine
Set in Santiago, Chile, where being gay probably isn’t as commonly accepted as it is in other countries, movies like In the Grayscale still resonate with young-adult professionals coming to grips with their sexual identity. As such, the emotional tug of freshman director Claudio Marcone and sophomore screenwriter Beppe Norero may be diluted for American audiences by overfamiliarity with the coming-out process. Here, Chilean TV star Francisco Celhay plays an architect, who, in the course of researching a commission, develops passionate feelings for an openly gay history teacher and guide, Fernando (Emilio Edwards), who’s helping with the project. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Bruno is married and the father of a son at an impressionable age. After moving out of their home, ostensibly to “find himself,” he realizes that his refusal to commit one way or the other isn’t doing either of the people he loves any good. The pressure builds to the breaking point when his son is teased by a boy whose father witnessed an indiscreet kiss between Bruno and Fer, in public. The boy is so shaken by the revelation, along with Bruno’s absence from home, it causes the adults to finally deal decisively with the dilemma. That Bruno’s wife engaged in a dalliance of her own modulates her desire to punish him unreasonably for hurting the child. As Fer begins to prod the architect into making a commitment to him, Bruno’s work begins to reflect his inner torment, as well. Despite any overfamiliarity, In the Grayscale displays Marcone’s sure hand on the throttle. The Chilean setting is interesting and performances are uniformly solid. I wonder if Celhay risked any career blowback from his fan base, which presumably extends throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
Reportedly Venezuela’s first lesbian drama, Liz in September is based on Jane Chambers’ landmark play, “Last Summer at Bluefish Cove.” In a low-key debut performance, Eloisa Maturen plays an attractive straight woman, Eva, whose car breaks down in a small coastal village. With no room at the local inns, the mechanic points her toward a resort hotel he neglects to tell her has a loyal lesbian clientele. It’s crowded, as well, but a bed is found for her. An annual reunion is being held by a multigenerational group of friends, all of whom appear to have slept with the titular character, Liz, played by Venezuelan actress and supermodel Patricia Velasquez (“The L Word”). Not at all shy about her sexual prowess, Liz bets the other women that she can seduce the newcomer within the three days it probably will take the mechanic to fix the car. It takes a while for us to learn that both women are nursing painful secrets, unrelated to any previous sexual conquest. Indeed, a different sort of relationship develops between Liz and Eva. It will be tested when Eva’s husband arrives to rescue her from the world’s laziest repairman. The wager forgotten, by now, the fate of their relationship rests on Liz’ willingness to fight for Eva’s love and Eva’s ability to live apart from Liz, even for a day or two. Everything that happens from here is patiently rendered by director/writer Fina Torres (Woman on Top). Despite the potential for fireworks and the jerking of tears, Liz in September is neither exploitative nor maudlin. The movie benefits, as well, from the beautiful coastal setting.
Roberto Cuzzillo’s timely Russian drama Dreams from Strangers uses evocative cinematography and poetic words to describe how painful it can be for gay men to connect in a society turned against them by the country’s despotic leader, Vladimir Putin. Italian swimmer Massimo falls in love with the team’s interpreter, Vladimir, while in St. Petersburg for a competition. Besides any natural cultural barriers between the two men, Putin’s virulently anti-gay stance ahead of the Winter Olympics has effectively put a bounty on LGBT people caught expressing their feelings in public. Cuzzillo employs artsy black-and-white photography to reflect the depth of the emotions shared with viewers in these desperate times. The DVD adds Cuzzillo’s short film, “Polaroid.”
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that it took the horrifying murder of Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard, in 1998, to awaken Americans to the epidemic of bullying and harassment of LGBT youths that went largely unchallenged by police, lawmakers and opinion makers. Gays and lesbians had been demanding protection from such attacks for almost 30 years before the news broke and, in some cases, policing their own communities. Prosecution of those arrested in such cases remained difficult, however, if only because too many potential jurors bought into the belief that predatory homosexuals were a greater risk to society than hate crimes. The facts in the case against the men charged in the robbery and beating death of Shepard in a field outside Laramie were so ugly that the media picked up on it – after being tortured, the 21-year-old was tied to a fence post and left to die – and spread the news around the world. Benefits would be organized, support groups formed, plays commissioned and legislation proposed … all in Shepard’s name. Freshman documentarian Michele Josue, a close friend of Shepard’s, made Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine to separate the man she knew from the symbol he became. Using personal reminiscences, never-before-seen photos, rare video footage and new revelations about Shepard’s life, it succeeds on all counts. Maybe if Putin could be encouraged to view the documentary, the sad conditions dramatized in Dreams From Strangers might change cease to exist without the interference of martyrdom.
Although Los Angeles’ primary gay ghetto is located in West Hollywood, Silver Lake and Echo Park have emerged as affordable alternatives both for millennials and couples who want to distance themselves from the bar and barbell scene in WeHo. Silver Lake also is home to a large collection of yuppies, hipsters and artists. Eastsiders is a Web-based soap opera that’s recently made the leap into streaming video. Without offering as much gratuitous nudity and lascivious behavior as “Queer as Folk,” its gay, lesbian and semi-straight characters share many attributes. (“The L Word,” set on L.A.’s far west side, always struck me as being more obsessively bourgeois.) Clearly not blessed with a large budget, actor/writer/director Kit Williamson (“Mad Men”) is able to take advantage of such talented actors as Van Hansis (“As the World Turns”), Constance Wu (“Fresh Off the Boat”), Brea Grant (“Heroes”), Brianna Brown (“Devious Maids”), Steven Guarino (“Happy Endings”), Willam Belli (“Rupaul’s Drag Race”), John Halbach (“Such Good People”), Matthew McKelligon (“Interior Leather Bar”) and Vera Miao (“Best Friends Forever”). Anyone who can recall when Traci Lords (Cry Baby) scandalized the porn industry by admitting to being underage when starring in several prominent adult films might be amused to learn that, in Eastsiders, she plays the hard-drinking mother of one of the male characters.
Paulo Coelho’s Best Story
Although I consider myself to be a well-read fellow, I have to admit to not knowing a lot about an author, lyricist, screenwriter and playwright whose international reputation is almost inconceivably grand. The 68-year-old Rio de Janeiro native, Paulo Coelho, is credited with having written 30 books that have sold over 165 million copies in more than 150 countries and been translated in 56 languages. This doesn’t take into account the numbers associated with his musical collaborations, plays and Internet correspondence. Not to belabor the obvious point made by Daniel Augusto in his choice of titles, but Paulo Coelho’s Best Story truly is himself. Coelho’s life could hardly have been more eventful. Like so many children of successful parents, his desire to pursue a literary life as an adult was greeted with disapproval. Unlike most children with such aspirations, however, his dreams prompted his parents to have him committed in a mental institution, from which he escaped three times by the time he reached 20. Coelho’s willingness to appease them resulted in a one-year stint in law school. It was followed by a lifestyle that closely approximated that of millions of hippies around the world. If nothing else, he would learn that he wasn’t alone in his desire to explore the planet, savor different cultures, embrace the occult, partake in various illegal substances and treat the act of making music as if it were a sacrament from God. When he became popular enough for Brazil’s military junta to pay attention to the lyrics to his music, they mistook quasi-religious references for subversion and threw him in prison, where he was tortured. It caused him to move to France, where he began writing novels. His most popular and noteworthy work, the allegorical novel “The Alchemist,” was published in 1988 and is still going strong. The folks who keep track of such things at Guinness World Records, were impressed by the fact that, by 2009, the book had been translated into 67 distinctly different languages. Among his non-literary achievements, Coelho would turn his personal enlightenment on the 500-mile Road of Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, in northwestern Spain, into a destination for spiritual tourists. As is too often the case with literary biopics, however, Paulo Coelho’s Best Story is more reverential than inspirational. Fans of Coelho shouldn’t find that to be a problem, thanks to Julio Andrade’s fine portrayal. They will want to stay put for bonus material, which is more extensive than most making-of featurettes.
Seymour: An Introduction
Giving Up the Ghosts: Closing Time at Doc’s Hall
It’s possible that the word, “genius,” has been applied to classical musicians and composers more often than to any other professional. Count the number of times musicians have been profiled on “60 Minutes,” for example, and you’ll understand the reverence with which these men and women are held by society. Simply put, they’re able to express themselves in ways most of can’t and never will be able to do. It’s a language that knows no borders and affects listeners of all nationalities and backgrounds. A musician’s dedication to his or her art demands discipline rarely found outside of concert stages and rehearsal halls. We’ve bestowed genius on athletes, scientists and the occasional chef, but, somehow, the great musicians respond to a higher calling and greater audience. Even their idiosyncrasies are more interesting and, therefore, tolerable to those of us whose duty it is merely to listen to them. If that makes genius sound like one long cliché, watch Ethan Hawke’s heartfelt documentary, Seymour: An Introduction, and tell me how else to explain the brilliance of its subject, Seymour Bernstein. If his name is less familiar than other prominent classical musicians and composers, it’s probably because there are so few public venues for their genius in the United States, outside of concert halls and a handful of radio stations dedicated to their work. The disappearance of Ed Sullivan’s variety show, which routinely added highbrow music to its mix of vaudeville acts, Broadway stars and comedians, greatly reduced exposure to musicians who consider Carnegie Hall to be a second home. Bernstein, a virtuoso pianist, gave up a successful concert career, at 50 – he turned 88 in April — to teach music and write. These are noble callings, to be sure, and Hawke allows us to eavesdrop on his sessions with students, during which he imparts words of wisdom, as well as insightful reflections on art, creativity and the search for fulfillment. His gentle, soft-spoken demeanor, backed by the authority that comes with age, is infectious. It’s a beautiful documentary that deserves to make the short list of Oscar candidates, at least, when it’s announced. The DVD includes a performance, filmed in what appears to be a street-level Steinway showroom in New York.
Doc’s Music Hall may not resemble Carnegie Hall in any of the usual ways, but, for the jazz and R&B cognoscenti of Muncie, Indiana, they might as well share a post-office box. Muncie is one of those Rust Belt towns whose once-thriving downtown business district took a direct hit in the industrial downturn of the 1980s, leaving plenty of abandoned buildings that could be used for art studios and musical venues, like Doc’s. If nothing else, it attracted folks who hadn’t been downtown since their favorite shoe store years earlier. From 1992 to 2012, things worked out pretty well. Music doc specialist Robert Mugge (Last of the Mississippi Jukes) has made a living discovering hidden treasures in the nooks and crannies of America’s still-vibrant blues, folk and zydeco scene. Giving Up the Ghosts: Closing Time at Doc’s Music Hall feels very much like a valentine sent to an old friend who’s probably spent most of his earnings promoting good music and young talent in what’s affectionately known on the coasts as the boonies. Proprietor John Peterson splits his time between his medical practice, where he merges traditional and alternative medicines, and the club. Before he got the calling, the Iowa native toured the Midwest opening for more prominent acts and scratching for greater recognition. The experience provided the keyboardist with plenty of anecdotes to share with his audience in the club’s final concert, recorded here for posterity. The club also provided a local stage for better known touring acts, whose music sometimes would be channeled into the house band’s improvisational riffs. The film also includes a discussion of the ghosts of long-dead entertainers that many claim to have seen and heard in the building over the years. Anyone who’s experienced the cultural deprivation that comes with life in small-town America will recognize the folks who populate Giving Up the Ghosts.
The Death of April
Completed in 2012, Ruben Rodriguez’ Internet-inspired thriller, The Death of April, is only now finding a home on DVD. The idea of using a video blog to chronicle the descent into madness – and beyond – of 19-year-old Meagan Mullen would have been quite a bit fresher, if it had been released before the tsunami of lost-footage flicks deluged the marketplace in the interim. Katarina Hughes’ portrayal of the unfortunate student is as lackluster as the character, who remains in her bedroom even as the evidence mounts that it’s haunted by a digital poltergeist hidden somewhere in the wireless router, one presumes. The lost-footage element only comes into play after the first false climax, when a police spokesman admits to being flummoxed by what everyone’s witnessed before their eyes. Still, it’s unlikely that anyone lost much time or money in the creation of The Death of April.
Bloody Knuckles: Blu-ray
It’s sick, depraved and disturbing movies like Bloody Knuckles that give the horror genre a bad name … or a good one, depending on one’s ability to endure 85 minutes of unforgiving and largely gratuitous quantities of violence. Or, to wade through piles of gore to find the humor in situations most mainstream critics wouldn’t waste more than 10 minutes of their time watching. And, yes, I made it through the whole thing. Believe me, the bonus short film “Electric Fence” may even be worse. Perth native Adam Boys (Leprechaun: Origins) plays Travis, a boundary-pushing author of an underground comic book, Vulgarian Invasions, that succeeds in its mission to offend anyone not on the same wavelength. When one of the issues insults a Chinatown crime boss, the gangster punishes Travis by chopping off his drawing hand. While Travis drowns his sorrows, the discarded hand prepares for its entrance, stage right. Soon after, the artist and the vengeful hand join forces with a masked S&M superhero to rid the city of evil. Anyone with the stamina to make it this far in the narrative will already have bought into Matt O’Mahoney’s twisted sense of humor and willingness to test the limits of censors, should any make their feelings known. For those looking for romance, there’s a bit of that here, too. In addition to the pair of short films, O’Mahoney is interviewed individually by editors of genre publications.
Operator
Mining for Ruby
Without much fanfare, Mischa Barton has managed to resurrect her once-promising career by becoming one of the reigning queens of straight-to-DVD cinema. In the past two years, alone, the former star of “The O.C.” has worked alongside such genre stalwarts as Lorenzo Lamas, Ving Rhames, Michael Pare, Danny Glover, Vinnie Jones, Eric Roberts, Danny Trejo, Andy Dick, Tom Sizemore, Michael Madsen, Daniel Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Kal Penn … some of them, two or three times. If there was a Walk of Fame in Toronto or Vancouver, those names would be embedded in stone. Someone’s got to make ’em, right? Rapidly approaching the ripe old age of 30, Barton is quite good in the title role of Operator. In Amariah and Obin Olson’s police thriller, she plays a 911-line operator trained to guide crime victims through their ordeals. Burdened with family problems, her Pamela Miller is in danger of losing her job, due to tardiness and careless mistakes. On this day, a caller demands she not break contact with him, as he requires her to keep direct police – including her estranged husband – to places in the city where their lives might be endangered. If Pamela disobeys the orders, she risks putting their young daughter further in harm’s way than she already is, after being kidnaped from the school playground. Viewers are encouraged to guess the identity of the all-knowing caller, with just as many clues as those given Pamela. Typical of a DVD original, logic gives way to action at about the halfway point in Operator, but, by then, you’re either willing to cut it some slack or shut it off. Barton plays Pamela with much the same intensity and sense of purpose as Halle Berry’s 911 operator in Brad Anderson’s The Call.
Barton is given much less to do in Zoe Quist’s Alaska-set rom-dram, Mining for Ruby. Mostly, she gives advice by phone to her brother, Jack (Daniel Ponickly), a handsome bloke who’s still despondent over the death of his wife. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to fall in love with the gorgeous graduate student, Ruby (Antoinette Kalaj), he meets as she’s investigating a possible toxic-waste discharge near his cabin outside Fairbanks. In a forced contrivance, Jack is required to prove his manhood against Ruby’s dimwitted ex-boyfriend, while she’s conned into defending data that’s been manipulated by a rival student. Billy Zane, the king of straight-to-DVD movies, plays the students’ largely chair-bound adviser.
TV-to-DVD
PBS: The Great Fire: Blu-ray
Starz: Black Sails: The Complete Second Season: Blu-ray
Syfy: Lavalantula
PBS: In Their Own Words: Jim Henson/Queen Elizabeth
PBS: Food Forward
As devastating blazes go, the Great Fire of London still ranks as one of the all-time worst. It began shortly after midnight on Sunday, September 2, 1666, in a London bakery on Pudding Lane, and raged for four days. Although the death toll is believed to have been surprisingly small, the physical damage was huge. The fire consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul’s Cathedral and most of the buildings of City authorities. It is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City’s 80,000 inhabitants. Much of what we know about the inferno has been gleaned from the diaries of Samuel Pepys, an obsequious gent who plays a prominent role in the four-part ITV mini-series, “The Great Fire,” which hasn’t been accorded the same exposure as other such period productions of late. Unlike the doubts surrounding the guilt or innocence of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, in the Great Chicago Fire, it’s known exactly where the London conflagration began and almost certainly how. Thanks to Pepys, we also have very good idea as to what was on the minds of Charles II and his brother, James, the Duke of York, who’s portrayed as being a participant in a conspiracy to assassinate the king. Meanwhile, Charles II was encouraged to believe that Roman Catholic terrorists, on the orders of the Pope, were also lying in wait for His Majesty. To dramatize what was happening in the streets, writers Tom Bradley, Tom Butterworth and Chris Hurford framed the chaos through the fictionalized perspective of Thomas Farriner, at whose bakery the spark was lit. And, he’s given sufficient reason to be angry with the royals, if not to destroy his business. Pepys intercedes at least once on Farriner’s behalf, but can’t keep the sister-in-law from being a prime suspect in a trumped-up conspiracy. The fun comes in watching the interaction between the royals and residents of the city, several of whom, we’re told, were forced to prostitute themselves to slumming royals to pay the bills. Not surprisingly, the costumes are wonderful, especially the men’s wigs. I couldn’t help but wonder if any American producer might borrow the conceit and build a similarly dramatized mini-series around the Chicago fire.
The second season of Starz’ sexy-pirate adventure, “Black Sails,” not only lived up to the expectations of its first-season critical notices, but also its notoriety on the celebrity-skin websites. It also extended a dandy lost-treasure storyline that kept the attention of viewers who expected a bit more for their premium-cable dollars. Here, the Walrus crew is stranded in Nassau with an army of Spanish soldiers, standing between them and their precious Urca gold. Chained together for earlier sins, former rivals Flint and Silver must join forces in a desperate bid for survival. Meanwhile, Eleanor Guthrie (Hannah New) struggles to maintain her grip on Nassau, as a new breed of pirate arrives in the form of the sadistic Ned Low (Tadhg Murphy). It requires hunky Captain Charles Vane (Zach McGowan) to commit to the powerful blond wench or the respect of his scurvy knaves. I think it’s one of the best shows on TV, with something to please men and women viewers, alike. Shot in South Africa, “Black Sails” looks terrific on Blu-ray.
There’s no mistaking a Syfy-original movie from every other DVD in my ever-lofty stack of screeners. Their titles and cheesy jacket art give them away. And, as if there was any question, a cover line on “Lavalantula” reminds browsers, “From Syfy, the network that brought you “Sharknado.” What better advertising could there be? “Lavalantula” may not measure up to that virtual blockbuster’s exacting standards – What could? – but it follows the recipe pretty well, and that’s usually all that’s necessary. After a dormant volcano erupts in the Santa Monica Mountains, it triggers an onslaught of giant arachnid-like creatures with an obsidian-black exoskeleton. Oh, did I mention that the spiders spew molten lava at their targets? The critters may look goofy as hell, but it explains the title, “Lavalantula” … if the creatures more closely resembled tarantulas, that is. The presence of Steve Guttenberg (“Diner”), playing a washed-up action star, ensures that the comedy in Mike Mendez’ second enormous spider flick in two years (Big Ass Spider!) is genuine. The DVD adds a decent making-of featurette.
Considering that every man, woman and cartoon character of any stature, whatsoever, has been profiled on the History, Biography, A&E and related cable channels, it’s nice to see that PBS is making the effort to add something new and different to the genre. “In Their Own Words” explores “an elite few of the 20th Century’s greatest figures” through words that “describe the subject creatively and intimately.” The inaugural season features episodes on a diverse trio of extraordinary subjects: Muhammad Ali, Queen Elizabeth II and Muppets creator Jim Henson. While none of these august personages is a mystery to viewers, the graphic presentation and reliance on quotes adds a new spin to the tired formula.
One of the cottage industries in the DVD universe involves promoting current theories in food production and preparation, with an emphasis on how multinational corporations have disrupted God’s original plan. Watch enough of these things and you’ll be tempted to give up eating anything that hasn’t been personally supervised by Anthony Bourdain or Alice Waters. The PBS series “Food Forward” showcases innovators and food rebels who are transforming the way we grow and eat our food. In it, we meet farmers, chefs, teachers, scientists, fishermen and ranchers in more than 50 cities across the country providing new solutions to help combat America’s growing food challenges. To this end, every episode incorporates beautiful cinematography, clever animation, cooking segments and original music videos, blending personal storytelling with a unique educational perspective. The newly released compilation weighs in at 390 reassuring minutes of tasty content.