DVD Babble Blurb Bash-tacular!

I have seen a lot of recent DVDs over the last few months that I haven't been blogged about so I thought it would be good to take a break from the summer sequel season and round up a handful and square them off. I tried to keep it in a brief blurb format but since this is film BABBLE the reviews of course wind on and on. Let's start with -

New Release DVD Recommendations :

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (Dir. Clint Eastwood, 2006) Word was that this was vastly superior to FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS but this politically correct companion piece is roughly the same quality in my estimation. Told from the Japanese point of view entirely in their language with sub-titles LETTERS has the same sense of earnest honor and the same grey overcast tint. The standout characters are General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) the young Saigo (Kazunari Ninomira) who run into each other more than once in the tunnels between Mount Saribachi and the north side of the island as bombing and ground attacks by the American troops rage above. The melodrama involving the sympathy that emerges is handled deftly by Eastwood while the sentiment - such as the sunny Speilbergisms that sadly have defined the modern era war-film is kept in check. It may be too much to watch both FLAGS and LETTERS in one sitting or some double feature setting but both even with their glorified old-school faults (most likely from the screenplay written by CRASH * director Paul Hack-ish, oh - I mean Haggis) should not be missed.

* Incidentely my least favorite Best Picture Academy Award winning film ever!



49 UP (Dir. Michael Apted, 2005) The 7th in the excellent documentary series that began in 1964 with the bold statement - "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" and followed 14 British children catching up with them every (yep) 7 years. Since most people I know haven't seen any of these movies I'd highly recommend the Up Series box-set which has the previous 6 films but honestly that's not absolutely necessary to enjoy this movie. Plenty of clips from all the films inform and enhance the new material and don't come off as redundant for those who have kept up. It would be too much for me to recount all the names, stories, and economic backgrounds so check out this Wikipedia entry if you are curious. Seeing this group of real people at the various stages of their lives through turmoil and peace makes for extremely satisfying viewing. Bring on 56 UP!

ROCKY BALBOA
(Dir. Sylvester Stallone, 2006)

It's hard for me to believe this is making my recommendations list. I mean as a kid I hated the ROCKY movies, ridiculed them with other snotty pimpled faced friends, and grew up to believe them to be populist Narcissistic America at its most lame brained epic-wannabes. At some point when I got older I caught the original Best Picture winning ROCKY and found myself liking it. It came from my favorite era of cinema (the 70's dummy!) and it was grittily touching in its portrayal of the boxing underdog making a name for himself. Then sequel-itis set in and the character became a machine who could never lose in glitzy gimmicky match-ups with Mr. T (III) and that evil Russian powerhouse played by Dolph Lundgren (IV) - yes that's right - Rocky was going to win the Cold War! I never even saw ROCKY V (1990) - so why do I like and recommend ROCKY BALBOA? Because we have Stallone at his most likable - an aging humble simpleton running a restaurant named after his deceased wife Adrian (Talia Shire - who is not deceased; she just didn't return to the series), telling the same fight stories, and brushing off daily indignities. It seems oddly necessary for Stallone to return to his Rocky roots - this is his best and most definable character and even with the contrived 'inspired by a video game simulation Rocky gets an exhibition match with the current troubled champ Mason 'The Line Dixon' (Antonio Tarver)' scenario, I hate to admit it but it works. Bring on JOHN RAMBO! Okay, no wait - that's a bit much.

And now :

New Release DVD Disses :

BOBBY (Dir. Emilio Estevez, 2006) I had heard the news upon its theatrical release that this was a NASHVILLE remake - relocated to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles with the RFK assassination the backdrop to a convoluted mishmash of over 20 cliched '60s stereotypes. I held out 'til it came in that red Netflix envelope because of my love for political period pieces but damn was that description right on the money! The Altman derived framework doesn't disguise the awful screenplay with ham-fisted base dialogue like Nick Cannon playing an insufferably idealistic Kennedy staffer emoting "now that Dr. King is gone - no one left but Bobby. No one." Cannon joins an ace cast including Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence Fishborne, William H. Macy, Harry Belfonte, Christian Slater (one of the few non-idealist characters - he plays a base racist), and Estevez's Daddy Martin Sheen. Not so ace actors here include Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Demi Moore and Estevez himself. The cringe inducing cliches pile up - Ashton Kutcher does his worst acting ever (can't believe that was possible) as a hippy that would look phony on Dragnet 1967- during a horrifyingly stupid acid trip sequence actually sits staring at an orange in his hand saying "no, you shut up!", every TV set has a perfect quality picture of carefully chosen clips of RFK speeches and there's even a MAGNOLIA-esque montage going from strained close-up shots actor to actor. Can't deny the heart that went into this movie but all we have here is an A-list cast, B-list production values, C-list cliches, D-list overused soundtrack standards, and an F-list script. Somebody revoke Estevez's cinematic license! He should be exiled to the TV movie circuit after this film felony.

SMOKIN' ACES (Dir. Joe Carnahan, 2007) Another better than average cast slumming it through derivative drivel. Flashy Vegas gangster caper in which every one in the cast is after sleazy magician soon to be snitch Buddy Aces (Jeremy Piven - pictured on the left). Some are trying to protect him - (lawyer Curtis Armstrong, FBI agents Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta under the supervision of chief Andy Garcia) but everybody else is trying to kill him including Alicia Keys, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, and rapper Common - okay yeah so it's not A-list but most of them are still better than the material in this worn entry into the PULP FICTION-GET SHORTY-LOCK STOCK-GO sweepstakes that expired over a decade ago. Kind of like Shane Black's also post-dated glib witless KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005) SMOKIN' ACES is a lesson in how quick cutting and hip-hopisms don't ensure a clever crafty meta-movie. Just say Tarenti-NO to this piece of pop-nonsense.

This post (especially the disses) is dedicated to Good Morning America critic Joel Siegel (1943-2007). He became a film babble hero when he walked out of a screening of CLERKS II last summer. Knowing his days were numbered he figured he didn't want to waste his last hours on that crap. The fact that it pissed off Kevin Smith was the icing on the cake! Check out Roger Ebert's heartfelt tribute.


More later...

Cult Movie Catch-Up Via NEw Special Edition DVDs

Since this blog is relatively new we like to catch up with older films and appraise their recent special edition DVDs. Here I meet up with a couple of old friends: 

REPO MAN (Dir. Alex Cox, 1984)

A young punk (Emilio Estevez) becomes a automobile repossession man, who stumbles upon a car with dead space aliens in it and an entire low-life network bent on stealing it.

Harry Dean Stanton puts in a great gruff performance as Estevez's partner and has many pivotal lines that build his character as a master of poor man philosophy. Songs by the Circle Jerks, Iggy Pop (who wrote the theme song), the Plugz, and the Juicy Bananas among many other punk staples all line the frames of this flick perfectly. I saw this movie on cable many times in the '80s and love almost everything about it - especially the way every product - whether beer can or soup can is generically labelled i.e. with a white label and the word - "food" or "drink" printed alone.

The new DVD has a print of the film that looks better than I ever remember it looking and the overcrowded commentary with director Cox, executive producer Michael Nesmith (the Monkees!), three of the actors, and the casting director is fun too.

SUBURBIA (Dir. Penelope Spheeris, 1984)

I can't remember if I actually saw this movie back in the day. I remember the commercials for it with one punk saying “wake up and smell the coffee, man” being the first time I had ever heard that expression, but I don't remember it or other Roger Corman-produced movies for that matter being in heavy circulation on '80s HBO or Showtime.

Well, I mean as heavy as PORKY'S or POLICE ACADEMY or even BUCKAROO BANZAI for that matter. 

This movie about kids who squat on the outskirts of the suburbs in abandoned tract housing sure feels familiar, but maybe I'm thinking of OVER THE EDGE with Matt Dillon. Man, I loved that flick. This one has more roaches, rats, and rawk music in it so it goes much further over that supposed edge.

It’s funny that from this cast the most well known player here is Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Chris Pederson who recited the “smell the coffee” line was later in Oliver Stone's PLATOON and Kathryn Bigelow's POINT BREAK, but I doubt he’d really register with today's movie watching crowd.

This disc released as part of a Roger Corman Director's series on New Horizon video, has great commentary by director Spheeris. “The kids today look exactly the same,” she says more than once talking about the current resurgence of the punk movement.

With blueprints like this and SID AND NANCY getting the special treatment in rereleases and spiffy new digital transfers the punk kids of 20 years from now will look the same too. 

More later...