Head on over to The Film Thugs blog to listen to the second episode of the HomeVideodrome podcast!
Folks, last week was overstuffed with new releases, this week is a bit of a dry spell. One of the bigger releases this week is the Joel Surnow-produced miniseries The Kennedys has been the subject of a great deal of controversy, and the trouble it had getting onto TV sets has been covered extensively by conservative blogs.
Crackerjack documentarian Robert Greenwald (who also directed such cinematic masterpieces as Xanadu) spearheaded the effort to keep The History Channel from airing the miniseries by starting a petition at a web site called Stop Kennedy Smears. This, along with the efforts of the Kennedy family, got the miniseries dropped from The History Channel, eventually landing it on the ReelzChannel. Barry Pepper’s portrayal of Bobby Kennedy won the actor an Emmy at the awards ceremony over the weekend.
One must wonder, what is more damaging to the Kennedy legacy: a mini-series drama, or the recently released tapes in which Jackie-O calls Martin Luther King a “phony” and talks about affairs and sex parties? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of those movies that is probably better known as a poster than as a movie, thanks to the dorm rooms of college girls everywhere. While Blake Edwards was a Hell of a director, I don’t think a lot of his movies have aged well, and this is one of them. Funnily enough, my first exposure to the movie itself was in the biopic Dragon, in which the scenes with Mickey Rooney offended the shit out of Bruce Lee, and his embarrassed wife-to-be escorted him out of the theater.
Available on Blu-ray.
Other Noteworthy Releases
Bridesmaids: This Kristen Wiig-scripted film directed by the great Paul Feig (the man behind Freaks & Geeks) was the sleeper comedy of the summer. Judd Apatow’s productions have caught a lot of flak for being overly male-driven, giving guys the cool, funny roles while giving the nagging, obnoxious roles to women. Kristen Wiig is by far the funniest actress that works with Apatow’s camp, so giving her a vehicle in response to this criticism makes perfect sense.
Dumbo: I remember primarily two things from Dumbo: an acid tab of a dream sequences that dwarfs the cemetery scene in Easy Rider in the drugged-out crazy department, as well as Disney’s racial sensitivity shown in the form of the musical number with the crows. John Nolte did an excellent write-up of the Blu-ray.
The Others: This eerie ghost story starring Nicole Kidman has the quiet, restrained suspense of an old Val Lewton production. Though it was often compared to The Sixth Sense, it’s far less sensational than what M. Night Shyamalan was doing at the time.
Available on Blu-ray.
Les cousins & Le beau Serge: French New Wave auteur Claude Charbol has two films coming separately to Criterion this week.
Les cousins is available on Blu-ray and DVD.
Le beau Serge is available on Blu-ray and DVD.
Dead Heat: Dead Heat, a zombie buddy cop movie starring Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo, is a semi-guilty pleasure of mine. I feel slightly guilty because it’s not a good movie, but I have a lot of fun with it. The thing is, not a ton of people have seen it. So if you put it on a guilty pleasures list, people say “What’s that?” instead of “What awful taste you have!” as their monocle proceeds to pop out of their eye and shatters on the pavement.
The Stuff: The Larry Cohen cult classic gets a DVD re-release, it’s not my favorite in Cohen’s canon of entertaining B-movies, but this one’s special because it features an entertaining performance from Big Hollywood’s Michael Moriarty. It’s pleasing to see the distributor has wisely kept the delicious original poster in tact.
Available on DVD.
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer – The Complete Series: Pulp mystery fans and noir nuts, go crazy!
Available on DVD.