Moriarty's DVD Shelf! New Release Tuesday For August 22nd!!

Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

I really can’t believe how far into the year we are. It doesn’t seem possible that the summer’s already over. And it must be if we’re already getting summer movies from this year on DVD. It seems to me like I’ve lurched from one big event to the next all year so far, and I sort of lost track of time. I guess it makes sense that we’re shifting gears into the fall season. I’m starting to see screenings of films for the rest of the year, films like BABEL and THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP and PAN’S LABYRINTH, and even some stuff I’m not allowed to talk about yet. At the same time, I’m mainlining the stack of discs here by the TV in my office, and I’ve noticed a real shift in the sort of stuff that’s showing up. Sure, there are still the normal studio releases, the big theatrical titles five or six months later, but the truly special collector’s editions are slowing down, and we’re seeing a lot of catalog stuff now. I enjoy it because I like that variety. I like seeing companies have to dig deeper into their vaults to keep coming up with titles to feed the beast. Now’s when it gets really interesting, and the release schedule between now and the end of the year should see some real oddball weeks.

I had to really debate what would be my big pick for this week. There were two completely worthy nominees, but in the end, only one can win, and so, as always, let’s kick things off with...

This Week’s Featured Title (8/22)

VERONICA MARS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON

DVD has absolutely changed the way I watch TV, and I’d argue it’s also changed the way TV is written these days. For the better, too, it seems. Many shows these days seem custom-designed to be watched all at once on DVD, like they’re better-enjoyed that way.

When I first heard the premise of this series (female private eye in high school), I pretty much wrote it off as a post-BUFFY update of NANCY DREW. Sure, it was created by Rob Thomas, whose CUPID is one of the most unjustly cancelled shows in recent memory, but I don’t make a lot of time for TV each year. Even when Hercules The Strong lost his damn fool mind over the show, I remained skeptical. After all, it’s a well-known fact that Hercules is a 14-year-old girl, so whenever it’s a girly show, I try to factor that into his reaction. In this particular case, though, he was right. I caught up with the series when the first season hit DVD last summer, and I was pretty much immediately smitten. I wrote about it pretty extensively on my DVD blog at the time, but when the new season started I once again found reasons not to watch. I’m not even sure when VERONICA MARS aired this year, but I think it was in conflict with something I already had the Tivo set for. I spent the year avoiding spoilers studiously and then happily dug in and watched the entire second season in two days when Warner sent it to me this week. My reaction to it compared to season one? Loved it. I thought it was a clear step forward from the groundwork laid so well in season one, and I think the cast got even better this time around.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the bare-bones description above hardly does it justice. Veronica Mars (played with the adorable turned to high by Kristen Bell) is the daughter of Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni), a private eye in the small town of Neptune, California. Neptune’s one of those communities like Palo Alto... a small, sleepy suburban town grown suddenly fat on technology money. As a result, Neptune’s got a pretty clear line between the haves and the have-nots, and Veronica is firmly entrenched on the have-not side of things. In the first season, her best friend Lily Kane (Amanda Seyfried) was murdered. Lily was an “09-er,” one of the haves. Her brother Duncan (Teddy Dunn) was Veronica’s boyfriend at the time of the murder. Unfortunately, Keith Mars was still sheriff of Neptune at the time, and he accused Jake Kane, their father, of Lily’s murder. That led to his disgrace and his dismissal from office, and it also pretty much destroyed Veronica’s social standing at Neptune High. Season one dealt with the investigation into the truth about Lily’s death, and it also did a heck of a job setting up all of the characters in Veronica’s world.

Season two begins with the ripples still playing out from the explosive ending of that first season. The real murderer is exposed, but Neptune’s more volatile than ever. Veronica starts the summer with one boyfriend, but by the time the show picks up for season two, she’s already move on to someone else. There’s a certain degree of soap opera to the show, but at this point, there’s not a single show that doesn’t play that game to some degree. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and THE SHEILD do soap opera pretty well, for pissakes. What really saves VERONICA MARS from being LAGUNA BEACH with mysteries is the wit of the writing and the genuine depth of the characters. This is a show that constantly reminds its audience that people are rarely what they seem to be on the surface. The first few episodes of the first season were all about setting up these stereotypes, and then the entire series since has been about demolishing those stereotypes.

I dearly love the chemistry between Bell and Colantoni as father and daughter, but there’s not a weak link in the large cast. Percy Daggs III as Wallace makes a great sounding board for Veronica, and Francis Capra as Weevil manages to make it convincing that he could be both ally and enemy to Veronica. Tessa Thompson was a new addition for this second season, and I appreciate the fact that she was part of a mystery of her own, but not involving murder or rape or any of the mainstays of the show. She’s got great presence, and I’m sorry she won’t be returning for season three.

Two cast members who played smaller roles in the first season get bumped up to great effect this year. Ryan Hansen is Dick Casablancas, one of the biggest shithead party boy morons of the ‘09ers. His younger brother Cassidy, known to all as “Beaver,” is played by Kyle Gallner. Both of them are given a lot to do over the course of the season, and without giving any spoilers as to their eventual fates, they both manage to find the human identifiable side of characters who are not terribly sympathetic. The king of that, of course, is Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls. Dohring’s a guy with a shtick. By the end of this second season, he’s got it down so cold, and he’s so expert at doing the Logan brood, that he’s pretty much one of the cornerstones the whole thing is built on.

Honestly, I think Logan drives this show as much as Veronica and her father do, and I think from his point of view, the whole thing’s a hilarious fucking tragedy. See it his way. Logan gets shafted constantly. He brings it on himself to a degree, and he makes bad situations worse, but there’s no denying. He gets screwed. A lot. And most of the time, when he really gets hurt, it’s because he takes the bullet for someone else. Usually Veronica. Dohring does a great push-me-pull-you dance with Bell for the full season, and it’s the soapiest thing about the show. Their chemistry is also one of the reasons you have to watch it. It really does pay off with some great work.

Unlike the season one set, this year’s episodes come with a smattering of special features. The best of the bunch is a genuinely funny gag reel. I highly recommend this collection, as well as season one, and I look forward to completely missing this year’s episodes when they air in anticipation of another kick-ass box set on the other side.

THE APARTMENT

Hey... that doesn’t look like Shirly Maclaine OR Jack Lemmon! Oh, wait, this is L’APPARTEMENT by Gilles Mimouni. This is... what? A decade old? More now? Is this really the first domestic release of this film on DVD? That seems insane to me. Then again, until now, I hadn’t realized that I do not have this film in my house. That seems positively criminal. This was released the same year as THE USUAL SUSPECTS, but in France, and it should have been the kickstart to a huge career for the writer-director, but instead, this was it. After this, there’s nothing. Occasional rumors of work. He claimed in ’97 that he was working on “a spy film.” In 2004, he was replaced by Christophe Gans on an adaptation of THE SWEDISH CAVALIER. But since 1996, he’s done nothing that’s been released. That seems sort of incredible to me. This is a brain-bending thriller about desire and memory and identity, like the very best of De Palma’s work. There’s a definite Hitchcock fetish to the work Mimouni did, but there’s also real undeniable talent.

He’s got a voice in this movie. It’s inventive and it’s got a soul. It’s not just technique for the sake of it. This was the movie where Vincent Cassel met Monica Bellucci, and it shows onscreen. They are explosive together. What’s crazy is that Cassel has even better chemistry with Romane Bohringer, the other female lead. This was definitely a post-Tarantino film, just as THE USUAL SUSPECTS was, movies that only got made because PULP FICTION made money. There were a lot of those movies getting made in 1996. This one stands out, though. You’ll either love the film for its ending or reject it completely, but you’ll definitely react. I can’t vouch for this particular edition, not having seen it, but I’ll definitely pick it up and give it a try.

BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

POSEIDON

Sequels and remakes... seems like we’re all dangerously close to reaching our limit with both, and here, we’ve got an example of each for the same property. Paul Gallico’s novel THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE spawned a big-budget Irwin Allen movie, and then a sequel, and then a TV movie remake, and then this year’s big-budget remake. Kind of amazing considering how thin the material is in the first place.

So Paul Gallico writes the novel THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, and it gets turned into a movie. And, like most films, they sort of ignore the book while adapting it. So the film becomes a huge hit, and Gallico is hired to write a novel that’s a sequel to the film, not to his original book. And he does. And then when they make the sequel film, they pretty much throw out his entire book again. I haven’t read his books, but I like the idea for this film, as two opposing teams of scavengers enter the upside-down wreckage of the POSEIDON at the same time, one looking for money, the other looking for plutonium. As they race to find what they want as the ship keeps sinking, they also have to contend with more survivors and planning their own escapes from the deathtrap before it goes under once and for all.

I just wish the film lived up to that great pulpy premise. Irwin Allen directed this one as well as produced it, and they certainly threw a big cast at the thing. Michael Caine, Sally Field, Telly Savalas, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, a couple of Shirleys (Knight and Jones), Karl Malden, Slim Pickens, a young Mark Harmon, and more. The film’s not smart enough to embrace the trashy fun of the venture, and as a result, it’s just sort of dull. The only special feature here is a vintage “Behind The Scenes” documentary from the original release.

Then we’ve got Wolfgang Petersen’s remake from this summer. If you want to really enjoy the first half of this film, I suggest that as you watch it, imagine that Kevin Dillon is actually Johnny Drama from ENTOURAGE, and that it’s Drama who got the role in POSEIDON. Trust me... every moment he’s onscreen becomes explosively funny if you do, especially his final scene. Otherwise, the film’s another missed opportunity, a case where some interesting bits and pieces failed to gel into a satisfying whole. I sort of like the way the narrative is stripped down to its nuts and bolts, but I just wish Petersen had made the film as tense and terrifying as he and John Seale suggested it would be when I visited the two of them on the set for the film. As it is, the film impresses on a physical production level, but it remains fairly uninvolving on a character level. The large ensemble cast seems like they were game for anything Petersen threw at them, but it’s the script that let them down. Considering how big a film this is, very little seems to actually happen. The DVD has a fair sampling of extra features, including a behind-the-scenes documentary from an intern’s point-of-view that was fun. It’s worth a rental just for the kick that any disaster movie delivers, but I doubt this will be an important addition to anyone’s permanent collection.

THE BILL COSBY SHOW: SEASON ONE

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again... God bless Shout! Factory. They’re one of the coolest companies doing TV box sets right now, because they get to pick and choose what they work on. They rescue shows that were forgotten or they put together elaborate boxes that no other company would bother with. Their SCTV box sets are awesome, and must have been a legal bitch to negotiate. Their BEST OF THE ELECTRIC COMPANY collection earlier this year is one of my favorite DVDs of any type that I own, and now, they’re putting out the first season of the best of the Bill Cosby TV shows, the first solo show he starred in after the enormous success of I SPY. I’ve only ever seen a few episodes, so I’m really pleased to finally be able to watch this one in its entirety, from the start. It’s hard to remember now, on this side of THE COSBY SHOW, but Bill Cosby was at one point a seriously hip motherfucker. I still maintain that his comedy albums, his early body of work, is some of the finest stand-up ever recorded. He was fantastic at what he did. He was a great storyteller, first and foremost. This show went on the air in 1969, and it was his first comedy. It broke a lot of the rules of the sitcom as understood at that time. It’s not an issue-oriented show, but it had a strong social conscience. Cosby came at morals sideways in the show, frequently not playing the obvious card. The show’s decision not to use a laugh track (something Cosby evidently had to fight for) is a great one, and it pays off in a show that never tells you what to think or feel, instead trusting you to think or feel for yourself.

I don’t have this one yet, but I’ll pick it up for the episodes and for the new interview with Bill Cosby. They’ve worked with him on this show and on THE ELECTRIC COMPANY now, and I think Shout! Factory’s in a position to really help archive the best of Bill’s television work in the proper fashion. This is the first 26 episodes of the two-season show, and I’m hoping we’ll see the next 26 at some point soon.

A BIT OF FRY & LAURIE SEASON TWO

HOUSE M.D. SEASON TWO

It’s a little-known fact that you can never have too much Hugh Laurie. It’s just not possible. It’s also a little-known fact that Stephen Fry is smarter than you are.

Actually, I think Stephen Fry has done his best to make that second fact not so little-known, but you take my meaning. Both Fry and Laurie are huge personalities, and they’ve got great bodies of work. This series was the showcase that launched everything else for them, and anyone who’s ever enjoyed this show knows just how great they were, how crisp their wit was. I don’t know one season of this show from another because I’ve never seen it all in order, so I’m curious to see what these six episodes are actually made up of. Whatever it is, these guys showed an early promise that was breathtaking.

And for fans of Hugh Laurie, this series was a long time coming, a proper vehicle for him that has finally made him an American star. I think at this point, people know him. Even people that don’t watch HOUSE M.D. know the character by this point. He’s the cranky sarcastic doctor who diagnoses rare diseases, the bitter genius. He constantly browbeats his team of young doctors (Omar Epps, Jennifer Morrison, and Jesse Spencer), getting their best out of them even if they end up hating him for it. I particularly like Morrison and the way she plays off Laurie. She’s great, and I hope this show leads to more work for her. It’s a total formula, and it’s not the sort of show I felt like I had to watch every episode of while it was on the air. It’s good fun, though, and there’s a sort of Sherlock Holmes kick to watching House puzzle his way through the insane mystery ailments each week. There’s a hefty amount of extra features as part of this box set from Universal, but at a fairly reasonable price.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY

A classic. A must-have. This is essential film viewing for pretty much anyone, whether you’re a casual film fan looking for a wicked-smart piece of entertainment or whether you’re a hardcore film nerd who’s excited to finally have this great film available as part of Universal’s Legacy Series. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck both contribute career-best work here as an insurance salesman and a housewife who hatch a plan to kill her husband for a huge payoff. Billy Wilder’s comedies always have a dark edge to them, but here he’s able to indulge that cynical world-view to its fullest extent. There are two commentaries here, one by Richard Schickel and one by Lem Dobbs, and there’s also a documentary about the film. All of that is just gravy, though, and just having this film finally available is reason enough to rejoice.

FILM GEEK

Duh.

H6: DIARY OF A SERIAL KILLER

THE MAID

Tartan Films drops a few more horror titles today, and as always, they’ve found some provocative material that’s well worth seeking out for fans of the genre.

Martin Garrido Baron’s film is hard to watch, even for the most jaded of viewers, because there’s little interest here in creating the typical sympathies you’d expect from a film like this. Instead, this is right in line with the current trend towards brutal torture as horror, and consider yourself warned. If that’s your cup of tea, this film wallows in it. There’s not much else to it, either, so be aware of what you can expect before you throw this on.

I think this is the first horror film from Singapore that I’ve ever seen. Hell, it’s probably the first film of any genre from Singapore that I’ve seen. It’s not a bad movie, either. A young woman from the Philippines is sent to work as a maid in Singapore, but she picks her moment poorly, arriving just as the gates of Hell open for a month-long rampage by evil spirits.

JUST MY LUCK

Lindsay Lohan is deeply underrated as a performer, and one day, this film will be looked upon as a key transitional stage in her... oh, who the fuck am I kidding? There is a strange thrill that comes from watching someone’s rapid slide from “promising starlet” to “party girl train crash walking skeleton,” and my sinister curiosity about her waning appeal must be appeased. I expect nothing good from this movie, but still... I am compelled to witness the horror.

KICKING AND SCREAMING (Criterion)

A full decade before he made a splash with THE SQUID & THE WHALE, Noah Baumbach scored a pretty direct hit with his hilarious and bittersweet KICKING AND SCREAMING. This was a pretty wonderful comedy about graduating from college into a whole lot of nothing. It’s about frustrated potential. It’s a showcase for the cast, including Josh Hamilton, Carlos Jacott, Eric Stoltz, Jason Wyles, and the great Chris Eigeman. I think a lot of people tried to make a movie about “slacking” right at this point, and Baumbach was the guy who got it most right. This is a sweet Criterion edition, with new video interviews with Baumbach and the cast, as well as a short film by Baumbach, interviews done in 1995, and a book insert. This is a really nice catch by Criterion, worth the treatment.

THE ROBINSONS: THE COMPLETE SERIES ONE

I admire Martin Freeman greatly for his work in THE OFFICE and THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, and I’m curious to see how this starring vehicle is for him. He plays a 32-year-old who may be the biggest disappointment in an extended family of lunatics. So far, this show hasn’t been renewed, so these six episodes may well be all there ever is of THE ROBINSONS, and I’d like to see what it was all about.

SILENT HILL

Our own Quint wrote about this DVD earlier in the week, and I reviewed the film when it was released earlier this year. SILENT HILL is all mood and atmosphere, and even if it is a bit of a narrative mess, there’s a lot about the film that I enjoyed. It’s definitely a film that I’ll revisit as part of this year’s horror-thon in October, my annual month-long horror festival, and I think it’s worth a second look.

SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY

I love Sydney Pollack. In fact, I think I’m fonder of him onscreen than I am as a director. He strikes me as one of the funniest, sharpest guys of his era, and I’ve always loved seeing him turn up in films as a performer.

I’m intrigued by the idea of him directing his first documentary not only because the subject, architect Frank Gehry, is a fascinating one, but also because Pollack spends much of the film’s running time onscreen. I imagine he’ll make a great host as we learn about what it is that makes Gehry tick. Gehry’s work either delights or infuriates most people, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground. I think he’s an adventurous artist, and even when I’m not sure a building of his seems practical, it definitely has a style and a signature that marks it as an original. I hope the film lives up to the reputation that Gehry’s work has.

STATE OF THE UNION

Frank Capra gets a bum rap these days as a man who only made corn. Not true. There’s certainly an optimism to his work that is uncommon in a lot of today’s filmmakers, but Capra strikes me more as a realist who hopes for the best from people. This film deals with the question of what sort of person runs for President of the United States, and how frequently ambition can mute even the best of intentions. Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn star, and as always, they crackle onscreen together. This isn’t one of Capra’s very best films, but it holds up well and certainly has something to say, especially in an age where we have simply accepted that we aren’t supposed to like or trust our politicians, a sad state of affairs, indeed.

THIS ISLAND EARTH

I can’t believe this is the first time this has been released on DVD. Unless you count MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE as a release, which is probably why some fans are still annoyed by that movie.

THIS ISLAND EARTH is dated, sure, but it’s not a terrible movie, and its roasting by MST3K tarnished what was always thought of as one of the best of the SF B-films from the era. A scientist is sent a device and the plans to build it, and when he does, he finds himself contacted by an alien race who are assembling all of the smartest men on Earth, hoping that they’ll be able to help the aliens defend themselves. It’s a fun film, and even without any extra features, this is a title I’ll be picking up at Amoeba this week.

THE UNINVITED GUEST

This Spanish horror film is one of the next titles in my stack of stuff waiting to go in the player, and I’m curious. I like the premise. A guy living in a huge house by himself answers the door one night to a stranger who asks to use the phone. The stranger comes in and promptly vanishes, leaving the guy to wonder if he’s ever left, or if the stranger has in fact taken up residence in the house somehow, hiding himself within. Creepy, and if it lives up to that promise, then I’m looking forward to the film by Guillem Morales, released domestically by HBO Video.

THE WICKER MAN

Hats off to Anchor Bay for taking advantage of the release of Neil LaBute’s remake to put out a nice new super-low-cost edition of this outstanding cult film. I have trouble calling THE WICKER MAN a horror film, because I think it’s stranger and richer than that. It’s a movie that works on you from the moment it starts, creating a sense on unease that is undeniably powerful, and it’s got one of the best endings ever. Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, and Christopher Lee are all really well-used here, and director Robin Hardy is the perfect match for Anthony Schaffer’s script. This really isn’t like any other film I’ve ever seen, which is why I would recommend you pick it up and check it out, especially at such a nice price.

THE WIZARD

Nintendo kids everywhere are probably shaking in geek-frenzy at the idea that this is finally coming out on DVD. Released in 1989, this was pretty much an excuse to showcase a new Mario game. It’s all about Fred Savage and his autistic little brother, who happens to be a pinball wiz... er, a video game phenomenon. Fred takes his brother on the road while their parents argue about their divorce, and they make it to the Nintendo World Championships, where Fred’s determined his brother will win. What amazes me most is that this is one of the few feature film credits of Todd Holland, who is best known for TV work like MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE and his remarkable run on THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW.