I never know which tone to take: “Yeah, yeah, I missed a few deadlines. Whatever. Moving on!”, or “I’m really sorry about the last few weeks, guys, and I hope this week’s column does as much as is possible to catch up.”

Whichever you’d prefer, please just pretend that’s the one I opened with.

My big DVD news of the week is that I took Toshi to Amoeba today to pick up a basketful of movies. I know that’s not big news to you, but trust me... in my house, this was a major, major event. Toshi has officially run amuck amidst Amoeba’s movie stacks now. He was preposterously charming while doing so. He was given a free t-shirt in his size by the cashier because he turned on the dimples and flashed his baby blues a bit. My kid is fifteen months old, and he’s got more game than his old man ever had.

I’m cool with it. Really.

Let’s do this week’s releases first, and then we’ll go back and take a look at what I missed over the last two weeks, when the column was not published.

This Week’s Featured Title (10/24)

SESAME STREET: OLD SCHOOL, VOL. 1 (1969-1974)

Earlier this year, Shout! Factory put out an excellent ELECTRIC COMPANY box set. Now the other shoe has finally dropped, and we’ve got this amazing collection of material from the first five years of this groundbreaking show. Not many television programs can legitimately claim to have affected an entire generation of children, but SESAME STREET can. I can tell you without hesitation that this show taught me to read. At the age of three, I told my parents one day that I wanted to show them something, and I sat them down and read them the front page of the newspaper. And it was because of SESAME STREET twice a day. It didn’t even seem like learning. It was just absorbing the message built into the entertainment.

Which, of course, was the point. But there were other concepts that were woven into the very fabric of the program that were even more important, although I think they were less obvious in terms of immediate impact. On Sesame Street, everyone lived side by side. Black, white, Hispanic, birds, grouches, monsters, and even little gay yellow puppets. And that sort of all-inclusive world view was also instilled in me by osmosis, and I think it’s the reason my generation has a very different perspective on race than the generation before us.

Looking at these early episodes, there’s an optimism to them that is moving. These people producing these shows really did want to change the world and make it better. So often, people are mocked for pretension, for trying to do something profound, but when you see the passion and the sense of humor and the generosity of spirit that is inherent to every bit of this collection, it’s hard to resist.

There is a wealth of familiar bits and pieces here. There are five full episodes, one from each of the first five seasons, and then two and a half hours full of extra material made up of select segments that anyone who grew up on the show will recognize, a sort of “greatest hits” jukebox. “Bein’ Green,” “Rubber Duckie,” “I Love Trash,” “C Is For Cookie,” and many more are included, and the result is a DVD that my son already seems to love as much I did when I was his age. This is just a sampling of what I hope they eventually make available, but it’s a nice start.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY: VOLUME ONE

THAT’S MY BUSH: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION

Here are a couple of sitcoms that play with the conventions of the genre in interesting ways, one from the classic age of TV and one that aired more recently. Both are worth your time.

Back in the ‘60s, it seemed like there were always two of every sitcom. BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE, for example.

Personally, I’ve always preferred THE ADDAMS FAMILY to THE MUNSTERS. Although the show never quite reached the depraved darkness that the original one-panel cartoons by Charles Addams seemed to evoke so effortlessly, I think the show managed to be subversively funny at a time when prime time was as safe as safe could be. I’ve always loved how the Addamses picture themselves as the most normal people around, and they are constantly freaked out by the “normals” that they encounter. They don’t know they’re creepy. In fact, they would vigorously disagree with anyone who said so. I have always loved the way Gomez and Morticia are so passionately into each other. How can you argue with them as a model of the perfect family? They support each other completely, they indulge each other’s eccentricities, and they have enough money to be able to mold the world around them into whatever they want. John Astin and Carolyn Jones are hilarious together, with her always serving as a sort of moral anchor who just barely keeps Gomez from spinning off into complete delicious madness. Jackie Coogan’s Uncle Fester is a weird animal of sorts, a big kid who makes a perfect playmate for Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax) and Wednesday (Lisa Loring), all of them enjoying some truly morbid games. Round the family out with Lurch (Ted Cassidy), their gigantic freaky butler, and Thing, the disembodied hand that pops out of boxes all over the house to help out at certain moments.

I’m not really sure why they only included the first 22 episodes of the season, when there were actually 34 episodes aired that year. But I still look forward to adding this one to the collection so I can check out the extra features (like cast commentaries) as well as the episodes themselves.

When THAT’S MY BUSH originally aired, I barely watched it. I just didn’t like the show as a concept. I really wasn’t in the mood to watch a comedy about the President, whether it turned out to be Bush or Gore, thanks to the sour taste the entire election left in my mouth.

Looking back at it now with the release of this DVD, I see that the show isn’t about the President at all; it’s about sitcoms, and it’s a fairly astute laceration of the form. Basically, this is just a combination of the cliché of the workplace sitcom and the cliché of the family sitcom. George Bush and his wife Laura live in the White House, where they partake in wacky hijinks with their smart-mouthed maid, Maggie, their annoying neighbor, Larry, George’s stupid-but-sexy secretary, Princess, and George’s slimy advisor, Karl Rove. Each week, it’s a standard sitcom premise applied to an over-the-top controversial topic. My favorite episode is the one where George and Karl decide that the Bush family cat has got to be put to sleep, but when Laura overhears them talking about “that smelly disgusting hairy thing,” she thinks it’s her vagina they’re describing. Yep... the ol’ THREE’S COMPANY “overheard something dirty-that-really-isn’t” trick, taken to the furthest possible extreme. It’s silly, it’s obvious, and it’s very funny. The last episode out of the eight has George screw up so badly that he is “fired,” and he has to leave the White House, leading to a series of other sitcoms as George tries job after job, as a teacher or a bartender. It’s a crash course in every rotten stereotype that network TV has ever sold us, and it’s a perfect example of why this show wasn’t built to last the same way SOUTH PARK was. This show pretty much burned through every gag possible in the brief time it was on the air. It’s definitely an entertaining collection, and there are some great mini-commentaries by Matt Stone and Trey Parker on each episode, as well as full commentaries by the cast.

AN AMERICAN HAUNTING (Unrated Edition)

NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES: FROM THE STORIES OF STEPHEN KING

THE RED SHOES

SLITHER

It’s been a disappointing month for horror releases, I feel, but at least a few new things are being squeezed out each week, and there are a few worth noting today.

The Bell Witch has served as inspiration for many stories since it allegedly occurred in 1820. Here, writer/director Courney Solomon appears to have admirably redeemed his career after the rocky start that was DUNGEONS & DRAGONS a few years back. Working with a good cast that includes Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, and the stunning Rachel Hurd-Wood, Solomon has made a very stark ghost story that, for once, does not feel like the fifty-third regurgitation of a Japanese film this month. Adrian Biddle, the late cinematographer who shot ALIENS, V FOR VENDETTA, and THE PRINCESS BRIDE, is a big part of the reason this movie’s got such a great sense of atmosphere, but there’s no denying: Solomon has real promise, and if he shows the same amount of growth from this film to his next as he did from his first to this, then he’s going to be someone worth paying close attention to.

Anthology shows are always difficult, and one of the reasons they’re hard to keep on the air is because audiences know that they’re going to see some good, some bad, and a whole lot of in the middle. At least with this series, there’s a consistency in that they’re all based on the works of perhaps the most adapted author of our time, Stephen King.

I really like “Battleground,” an almost-entirely non-verbal episode starring William Hurt as a professional hit man who is sent a dangerous package. Brian Henson directed the episode, and it’s a nice effects-based story that really delivers. William H. Macy makes “Umney’s Last Case” work as a writer and his fictional detective creation who manage to switch places. “End Of The Whole Mess” is a smart character piece about a man-made apocalypse. The other stories are okay at best. “Crouch End” doesn’t really work at all. “You Know They Got A Hell Of A Band” is okay, but it worked on the page in a way it just can’t when brought to life.

Overall, the series is handsomely produced, and it’s worth at least a rental if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

What would a week’s worth of horror releases be without at least one contemporary Asian horror film? It’s hard to believe how much of a staple they’ve become in the last ten years since this site was started. Here, a pair of mysterious shoes bring sorrow and horror to everyone who ends up owning them. As they move from owner to owner, each one driven to possess them, they cause all sorts of supernatural occurrences. It’s a decent film, but where it really excels is as a visual experience. It’s a beautiful film, remarkably shot and composed, and even when the film hits some overly familiar beats, it’s engrossing because of the assured sense of style.

James Gunn is a funny man. There is plenty of evidence to support that currently available on DVD, like THE SPECIALS or LOLLILOVE. And based on this and DAWN OF THE DEAD, I’d say he’s also got the goods as an authentically scary horror writer. This film is completely lunatic, but in a way that dares you to look away. It’s the world’s biggest budget Troma film, and it delivers the goods to a surprising degree. This film resolutely resists playing to conventional Hollywood formula. It’s gleefully weird in a way that I admire. It knows exactly what it wants to be, and unlike many horror comedies, it gets the balance right. It’s absurd, and it’s even occasionally touching, but it always eventually gets back to scary and gross.

This might actually be my pick for the month as far as horror films goes, since it’s been a woefully thin October for new horror titles to be released. If you’re looking for something fun to show at Halloween, the good news is, based on the box-office take for this one, most of your guests will not have seen the film before. You’ll be doing them a favor, introducing them to it. If they like gooshy horror gore from the ‘80s, they’ll definitely enjoy this. The movie’s filled with fun character actors like Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion, Gregg Henry, Jenna Fischer (Gunn’s real-life wife), and Elizabeth Banks, with a story that involves slugs from outer space and lots of bodily fluids.

This is a film like TREMORS, a film that fully embraces its B-movie roots, that doesn’t pretend to be more than what it is. I find that incredibly charming, and I’m really interested to see whatever Gunn’s up to next based on how well he pulled this film off.

Quint already did a run-down of the extra features on the disc, which I actually haven’t seen yet. I like that Lloyd Kaufman shows up on the disc, though. That’s fitting. Gunn is one of those guys who isn’t remotely ashamed of starting in very low-budget exploitation films, and that’s awesome. He shouldn’t be. Troma Films have got to be a ton of work to make with very little cash in return, but they’re also great playgrounds for young writers and directors. I have a lot of respect for Gunn for paying homage to his own roots with this one, and I look forward to enjoying it again.

ASTAIRE & ROGERS ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S EDITION

I don’t know what to tell someone who claims to not like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films. Warner’s first collection of their work was a pure joy from start to finish, and now this set puts that together with a new collection released today, so that all of the films in which they appeared together are finally available.

The first collection includes TOP HAT, SWING TIME, FOLLOW THE FLEET, SHALL WE DANCE, and THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY. I’d say those are pretty much the biggest of the filsm they made together, but there are plenty of gems included here, too. FLYING DOWN TO RIO, ROBERTA, THE GAY DIVORCEE, CAREFREE, and THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE showcase the pair in several different scenarios, but the main attraction is always the same: seeing them dance together.

I give Warner Bros. extra credit for being smart enough to know that many of the people who already own the first five-film box set are going to want that Ultimate Collection, but they’re not going to want to buy those same five films a second time just to get the CD and the other extras that are part of this collection.

So you can either buy THE ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S EDITION, or you can buy THE PARTIAL ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S EDITION, which is the same thing but without the first five films. That’s the most consumer-friendly solution to this sort of situation that I’ve seen someone try, and I deeply appreciate being given that sort of choice. Whichever option you choose, you’ll get your money’s worth.

BATMAN BEYOND: SEASON TWO

BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD: THE COMPLETE MIKE JUDGE COLLECTION

CREATURE COMFORTS: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED: SEASON ONE

MONSTER HOUSE

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: THE BEST OF SATURDAY TV FUNHOUSE

Oddly, animation fans are going to have a bigger day at the DVD store this week than horror fans. Since I love both, I guess I can’t complain.

BATMAN BEYOND is probably the strangest of all the permutations of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, and since this is obviously meant to be part of that same canon, I would definitely consider them to be part of one big story. I think the second season of this show actually got stronger as it built on some of the ideas and villains introduced in the first season, and as it refined the world even further. Over the course of the 26 episodes included here, quite a bit of ground is covered, and once again, Batman proves to have one of the most interesting rogue’s galleries around. There are some good extras here, but if you’re going to pick it up, do it for the show itself.

This is a double-dip, and it’s a frustrating one. Over the last few months, Paramount’s being doing a great job of putting out these BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD discs, made up of episodes that Mike Judge has approved, and packed with nicely produced extras. They released them as three separate collections, and then did a nice remaster of BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA to round it out.

Now they’ve put all three boxes and the film together in one large collection. There are no new extras, either, so there’s no incentive for anyone to upgrade. However, if I’d had the choice, I would have simply purchased this one first and saved a few bucks.

You’d think that the joke would have worn thin by now, but Aardman Animation somehow manages to keep culling brilliant comedy from man-on-the-street interviews that they bring to life using stop-motion animation, turning the British public into animals and making some wry comments on the way we see the world around us in the process. Clocking in at just under two hours, these twelve short films are all very funny and even a little bit provocative, and there’s a bonus Christmas episode as well as a fair amount of behind-the-scenes material. The entire family can watch this one, and everyone will get something different from it. Great stuff.

I love that superhero action shows have gotten much more confident in recent years. In this collection (which actually features the first two seasons of the show for a total of 26 episodes), Warner Bros. basically turned Bruce Timm and the rest of the creative team loose on the entire DC Universe. Over 50 of the label’s characters show up at one point or another over these two seasons, and it’s so much fun to see them show up if you’ve grown up reading DC. In some ways, it feels like all various SUPERMAN and BATMAN and JUSTICE LEAGUE shows that preceded this were warm-ups for this one, and they finally cut loose and turned out a nonstop geekfest that delivers on all fronts.

Gil Kenan’s debut feature was one of the summer’s most enjoyable surprises, a throwback to the classic Amblin’ films of the ‘80s. It’s also the most successful of the completely mo-cap animated films, with characters that feel natural and without all the dead doll eyes that made POLAR EXPRESS so creepy. Kenan demonstrates a real knack for orchestrating the kind of creepy comic mayhem that guys like Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis made their names with at the starts of their careers. There’s a healthy assortment of extra features, including a commentary track by Kenan, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and a breakdown of how one particular scene was developed.

The Ambiguously Gay Duo. Fun With Real Audio. Bambi 2002. Michael Jackson. Journey To The Disney Vault. The X-Presidents. Sketch for sketch, joke for joke, Robert Smigel’s TV’S FUNHOUSE is the most consistent thing about SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE these days, and this is a nice selection of material that gives you a real sense of what Smigel’s capable of. The thing I’m most interested in is a feature-length commentary that features 19 different people, including JJ Sedelmaier, Smigel, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, James Carville, Tracey Morgan, Al Franken, and even Mickey Mouse.

BODY HEAT: DELUXE EDITION

1981 must have been a great year for Lawrence Kasdan. He was the screenwriter of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, which was a giant megahit during the summer, and then in August, his directorial debut was released to critical acclaim and commercial success. BODY HEAT is an modern noir, an updated spin on DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, and it features great performances by both Kathleen Turner and William Hurt.

In many ways, Kasdan was a more subtle version of Quentin Tarantino, a canny regurgitator of genre convention. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RAIDERS, and BODY HEAT are all firmly rooted in the films of the ‘30s and ‘40s, and what made them work was the way he knowingly tweaked the memories we as an audience share of those films. He also had a great ear for dialogue, and this movie crackles with some of the best back and forth he ever wrote. “You aren’t too smart. I like that in a man.” “Sometimes the shit comes down so heavy I feel like I should wear a hat.” “You shouldn’t wear that body.” The entire thing plays overheated and supercharged, and it’s worth revisiting. There are some new behind-the-scenes features included and some vintage interview footage as well.

HANDS OVER THE CITY (Criterion)

SWEETIE (Criterion)

Criterion, as always, has come up with an eclectic mix of titles for this week.

I’m unfamiliar with this one, but seeing Criterion release it automatically makes me pay attention. Rod Steiger stars here as a land developer trying to build in Rome, a simple set-up which allows director Francesco Rosi to explore the way real-estate speculation almost destroyed Naples. I like Italian neorealism, and this actually won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, so I want to give it a chance as soon as possible.

SWEETIE, on the other hand, I am very familiar with. Jane Campion may have dropped off the radar after the one-two-three punch of PORTRAIT OF A LADY, HOLY SMOKE, and IN THE CUT, but she started strong. When this film was released in 1989, it marked her right away as a strong, interesting voice, and a filmmaker worth paying attention to.

This is the story of two sisters, Kay (Karen Colston) and Dawn (Genevieve Lemon), and the way they define each other. Kay’s the responsible one, and Dawn, known to everyone as Sweetie, is a complete train wreck, a slow motion catastrophe who knows full well that no matter how far out of control she gets, her sister will be there to help clean up the mess. Kay’s resentment finally boils over, and the film details what happens when she’ll no longer accept responsibility for Sweetie or her life.

This is a difficult film, and Sweetie is one of the most unlikeable characters I’ve ever encountered. But I understand her, and I think there’s an authentic, honest quality to the film that really distinguishes it. This edition of the film features a new transfer, a commentary with Campion and screenwriter Gerard Lee, a new behind-the-scenes piece, and several of Campion’s student films. If you’d like a reminder of why Campion matters, and why many of us are still hoping for her to return to form, this should do it.

LA COMMUNE (Paris 1871)

I’ve never seen this, but I’m intrigued by the descriptions I’ve read. I love mind game movies, films that play with the audience, and I love the notion of creating a news documentary set in the year 1871. As the French struggle to recover from the Franco-Prussian War, a camera crew wanders the poorest sections of Paris, talking to people on the street. These interviews are intercut with the “official” news from the government. Peter Watkins, the director, made his name with a series of films that honed this style, using documentary and news techniques to bring history to life. This five and a half hour epic is considered his crowning accomplishment, and it’s also the last thing he’s made so far. It sounds fascinating, and I look forward to it.

NACHO LIBRE

I’m still confused by the hostility people had toward this earlier in the year. I thought NAPOLEON DYNAMITE was greatly overrated, which may be why people went after this with such venom. I actually think this is a nice next step for Jared Hess, and I think this is one of the best kids films of the year. Jack Black is like a big silly kid himself as he plays luchador-crazed monk Nacho. He dreams of wrestling, but it’s not until he dedicates his fighting to the children of the orphanage he and the other monks run that he begins to win. Ana de la Reguera makes for an adorably sweet and completely chaste love interest for Nacho, and they have genuine chemistry. I also think Hector Jimenez does a great job as the strangely animal Equeleto, Nacho’s sidekick. This isn’t a hipster comedy like I’m sure the TENACIOUS D film will be; it seems to be pitched squarely at the audience that thinks SPONGEBOB is hilarious. That’s fine, though. The film knows what it is, and I think it’s a lovely piece of candy that will find its audience at home.

THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO

I’ve said here before that Michael Winterbottom is one of the most underrated filmmakers working, and this sounds like explosive subject matter for him to tackle. Using the story of the “Tipton Three,” British Muslims who spent two years in Guantanamo Bay, held without having any charge filed against them, this film mixes drama and documentary. In an age where security and civil liberty fight for priority in the minds of the public, a film like this is important because it forces us to examine the difficult questions. At what point does our security become a burden on the innocent? Do we excuse our occasional mistakes in the name of something larger? Or is it even more important now that we get every single case right? I haven’t seen this one yet, but I hope Winterbottom and his co-director Mat Whitecross serve this material well.

SCTV: BEST OF THE EARLY YEARS

VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA: SEASON TWO, VOLUME ONE

Finally today, we’ve got two TV collections that are very different, but equally interesting.

God bless you, Shout! Factory. You’ve done right by SCTV fans over the last few years, issuing full-season box sets that have allowed me to finally revisit one of the best of the sketch comedy shows ever produced. Now they’ve gone back to put together a compilation of highlights from the half-hour version of the show that ran from 1978-1980, a sort of prototype for the NETWORK 90 show that NBC finally picked up. This 3-DVD collection features 15 half-hour episodes and several extras including some commentary tracks, an Andrea Martin featurette, and a Canadian special about the McKenzie Bros. phenomenon.

Finally, there’s this 13-episode collection of the adventures of the crew of the SEAVIEW, a nuclear submarine owned and operated by the Nelson Institute Of Marine Research. As a kid, I loved the episodes where they’d run into monsters or dangerous sea life, but when I saw some episodes again a few years ago, it struck me as much more nakedly interested in telling stories about the Cold War environment in which it was made and originally aired.

Richard Basehart and David Hedison are the stars here, and this season, the first to be aired in color, features some of the best episodes from the entire series. I have one complaint, though. I wish companies would stop breaking these seasons in half and doing two-volume seasons of things. Please... just do a season per box. Don’t stretch it out and ask the consumer buy a half a season at a time. True, this is only $20 or so, but it would be great if you could just put this on a shelf complete instead of having to wait another three or four months to get the rest of it.

And on that note, I’m going to wrap this one up. I’ll have my catch-up column to cover the stuff I missed this coming weekend, and then we’re back on track for this column on a weekly basis. Now I’ve got to get going, since I’ve got more stuff to prepare for you today, and I’m off to a screening tonight of one of my most anticipated films of the year.

Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles