Film: Movie Review: Addicted To Fame

An army of parasites callously used Anna Nicole Smith over the course of a life that grew progressively less funny and more tragic. That didn’t end with Smith’s 2007 death, which if anything, exacerbated the problem. Addicted To Fame is a queasy new documentary that attempts to shed light on what director David Giancola implicitly seems to feel was the real tragedy of Smith’s death: that the funereal gloom over her high-profile tabloid passing completely fucked his ability to leverage her trash-culture notoriety for a big payday for Illegal Aliens, the low-budget science-fiction spoof that was to be Smith’s final film. Judging by the film’s alternately self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, and bitter tone, the schlock director is afflicted with a bizarre lack of self-consciousness to rival Smith’s own impregnable wall of self-delusion. Giancola complains about the media and Smith’s hangers-on using her without ever acknowledging his own complicity in her exploitation. In his mind, the media are a bunch of vultures out to take advantage of a weak woman’s decline and death, while he’s a plucky independent who was out to make his dream project, until he was screwed by a star thoughtless enough to die at the most inconvenient possible time.

Addicted To Fame chronicles the making, unmaking, and surreal afterlife of Illegal Aliens, a high-concept Charlie’s Angels spoof Giancola conceived as the ultimate tribute/homage to trashy B-movies. For his marquee attractions, Giancola picked a pair of infamous sexpots: WWE grappler Joanie “Chyna” Laurer (who, in spite of her reputation, was supposedly a dream to work with) and Smith, who put some of her own money into the project, receiving a producer credit and an associate-producer credit for her son Daniel. The production quickly went awry: Smith was possibly using drugs and was a nightmare collaborator. She forgot her lines, made constant demands, and generally behaved, as Giancola complains, like a 2- or 3-year-old. Then her son died, and she rapidly followed. 

Giancola understandably had a negative experience working with Smith, whose lack of professionalism was thorough and predictable. but it’s nevertheless troubling that he depicts her death almost exclusively through the prism of how it will affect his film’s commercial chances. Giancola, who narrated, directed, and edited Addicted To Fame, presents himself as a resourceful creator using his experience and ingenuity to make the best of an impossible situation, rather than merely the latest person to take advantage of a fragile, mentally ill woman and her train-wreck fame. Just like Illegal Aliens, Addicted To Love is an exploitation movie, albeit one without even the science-fiction spoof’s sunny, dumbass innocence.

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Film: Movie Review: Beware Of Mr. Baker

“Ginger Baker just hit me in the fuckin’ nose.” That’s how Jay Bulger’s documentary Beware Of Mr. Baker begins, with a frenzied solo by legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker on the soundtrack, and video footage of him arguing with Bulger, then rapping him in the face with a cane. Bulger first met Baker several years ago, while crashing at Baker’s South African compound to write an article for Rolling Stone. He returned two years later to expand the article into this documentary, knowing even before he began that for every spellbinding anecdote Baker would spin, Bulger might have to weather one of his subject’s rants. At one point, Baker’s sister talks about the family temper, and Beware Of Mr. Baker suggests that this is where his talent comes from: a pent-up rage that erupts through his sticks. Baker himself chalks it up to “a gift from God… natural time.”

Beware Of Mr. Baker is the life story of a man who’s led one hell of a fascinating life. Welcomed early into the fraternity of great jazz and blues drummers, Baker became a superstar while revolutionizing heavy rock music alongside Eric Clapton in Cream and Blind Faith, and became an iconic figure to boot, with his skeletal visage and demonic shock of red hair. But his problems with substance abuse and anger—coupled with his contempt for other rock ’n’ roll players who didn’t understand what he was doing—made him a difficult person to work with, long-term. So Baker became a hobbyist, taking the occasional gig in between obsessing over polo, African music, heroin, and young women. Meanwhile, he dealt with persistent money woes, because polo horses and drugs are expensive, and because Baker has mostly been paid as a sideman, not as an innovator just as responsible for his band’s best-known songs as their credited composers.

Bulger and editor Abhay Sofsky work wonders with the archival footage, giving Beware Of Mr. Baker its own jazzy rhythm, but they can’t do as much with the interviews, for which the arthritis-stricken Baker mostly sits immobile in his recliner. Some of the stories are illustrated with limited animation, which has become a visual cliché in modern documentaries, and Bulger seems to delight in aggravating Baker by stopping his reminiscences to ask that Baker clarify who he’s talking about, or by asking for more soul-searching than Baker is prone to. But then, that’s partly what Beware Of Mr. Baker is about. Bulger has the wizened, reflective likes of Clapton and Jack Bruce to play analyst. Baker is all about moving forward, enjoying the flow, and demanding that others keep up. Or as Baker himself snaps at Bulger, “Go on with the interview. Stop trying to be an intellectual dickhead.”

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Film: Movie Review: California Solo

It’s a nice touch that Marshall Lewy’s indie drama California Solo is set a couple of hours outside of Los Angeles, on a small organic farm, because the literal geography establishes the main character’s biographical geography. Robert Carlyle plays a former Scottish rock star who drives into the city once a week to sell the vegetables he helps grow, and every time he’s in the general vicinity of show business, he’s reminded of what he’s lost. Carlyle does keep a toe in the music world, via a podcast called Flameouts, in which he recounts the stories of famous musicians’ deaths. But even that is indicative of his situation: not on the radio or on TV, but consigned to the outskirts of the mass media. And it doesn’t help that Carlyle recently got busted for DUI, which—coupled with an old drug charge from his rocker days—is threatening to get him deported from the country he’s called home for the past dozen years.

California Solo doesn’t have much story. All of the details above are established in the first five minutes, then the movie becomes a character sketch, carried by its wealth of detail and a fantastic Carlyle performance. Visually, the film is unremarkable, and Lewy’s overall approach holds doggedly to the exhaustingly earnest Amerindie style, complete with moody soundtrack and quiet scenes of people parceling out their backstories. Lewy knows this character and his world well, though, and when Carlyle rants about Marc Bolan on his podcast, or tries to sell a guitar once owned by Paul Weller to people who’ve never heard of The Jam, it reinforces the idea that Carlyle has left behind a career where even the legends fade more with each generation. California Solo peaks with the scene where Carlyle records the Flameouts episode about his own band, describing his brother’s death in a rivetingly angry, self-pitying monologue. 

Eventually though, the lack of any real narrative drive catches up to California Solo, which in its last third stumbles through clichéd scenes of Carlyle going on drinking binges, while trying to make amends to and beg favors from the friends and family he’s disappointed during his decade in exile. It’s too bad Lewy (and Carlyle, who executive-produced the film) couldn’t find more to do with the hero. Even when he’s idling, there’s something touching about this self-described “moderately lazy Scot” who tries to keep his house in order, but finds that when he gets in trouble, his house is way too “wee.”

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Film: Movie Review: Dragon

Blending old-school kung-fu elements with a touch of noir and a plot that recalls A History Of Violence, Peter Chan’s Dragon is a drama about redemption masquerading as a martial-arts movie. This is mildly disappointing, since the film stars Donnie Yen (who also choreographed), and he can feel wasted onscreen whenever he isn’t engaging in impossible, wire-assisted action feats. Yen’s strengths have never been in his expressiveness, and Dragon plods when it centers on dramatic struggles, then leaps exhilaratingly to life whenever the fighting begins.

Yen plays a paper worker leading a quiet existence in a small village in 1917 China with his wife (Tang Wei) and two sons. He happens to be in the general store when two bandits attack it, and he takes them out with what initially appears to be luck and bravery. Sent to investigate, detective Takeshi Kaneshiro is able to divine from the scene that Yen actually knew exactly what he was doing, and discovers he’s a martial-arts expert and a former member of a bloodthirsty group called the 72 Demons, which continues to terrorize under the leadership of “the Master” (Jimmy Wang, whose The One Armed Swordsman is a major influence here). Yen’s act and Kaneshiro’s desire to bring him to justice draws the attention of the Demons, who soon come calling.

The choice to divide the film between its two superstar leads relieves the impassive Yen of some of the acting burdens, but makes for an uneasy balancing act between period crime drama and kung-fu flick, with Kaneshiro’s acupuncture expert offering up his own moody but less compelling backstory about tamping down his empathy to better serve the law. While the attempts at genre-bending and reworking classic tropes are admirable, the fight scenes provide all the high points, from a battle in a barn amid snorting water buffalo to an encounter that finds people chasing each other across the village rooftops. Wang’s arrival and the reveal of his ties to Yen lead up to the best showdown and the one that finally earns the film’s angst over identity and destiny. Dragon plays off and engages with the history of kung-fu films, but it only really sings when it’s content to be one itself.

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Film: Movie Review: King Kelly

It feels unfair to call King Kelly a found-footage movie—its title character, who frequently turns the camera on herself and preens in its gaze like it’s a mirror, has every intention of making everything she shoots publicly available online. A webcam girl fixated on the upcoming launch of her own site, Kelly (Louisa Krause) is the tireless star and most frequent DP of her own life-as-movie. She’s narcissistic, manipulative, and hooked on the immediate gratification of adoration from the fans who log on to get off on her streaming shows. Directed by Andrew Neel (Darkon), King Kelly is a broad indictment of the emptier side of self-documentation and a more nuanced one of the Internet as a source of affirmation. Its heroine looks to her fans for reinforcement about her desirability, her behavior, and the stardom she’s sure is coming for her, creating a narrow world in which she only needs to deal with people who adore her.

King Kelly was shot on iPhones and consumer-grade cameras standing in for iPhones, but that’s less horrifying than it sounds. Like Paranormal Activity 4, it makes use of framing that technology has made into common visual language; when Krause holds her camera up at arm’s length and offers a duck face, she’s recreating a shot used by thousands of other people catering to an exaggerated, web-driven idea of what it means to be sexy. And in spite of her convictions to the contrary, there’s nothing notable about her except her embrace of her own awfulness. She acts like a starlet on a binge, not the would-be proprietor of her own porn business—she gets furious when someone deems her a slut, but blithely confesses to dating someone only because he’s helping her code her website.

Taking place on July 4, King Kelly involves a stash of drugs that are essentially a McGuffin, and a night of partying, sex, and violence that spirals into something dark and dreadful, though Krause makes a chipper attempt to frame everything as a wacky adventure. And while the outsized obliviousness of the film’s protagonist can get grating and hard to believe, the side characters drawn into her orbit balance out her relentless self-absorption. Roderick Hill plays a state trooper who’s Krause’s biggest fan, and whose fixation quickly reveals a frightening side, while Libby Woodbridge is a tragic standout as Krause’s much-abused peon of a best friend and the only figure in her real life who buys into her persona as a celebrity in the making.

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Film: Movie Review: The Collection

Delivered with the efficiency of a fast-food value meal, The Collection—a sequel to the largely forgotten 2009 horror film The Collector, and like its predecessor, the work of the writing-directing team behind some of the later Saw sequels—doesn’t waste much time. Clocking in at a swift 82 minutes, counting the languorous opening and closing credits, the film almost immediately starts setting up its plot by letting a TV news broadcast recount the horrific efforts of a seemingly unstoppable killer. Then it sends its pixieish heroine (Emma Fitzpatrick) out into the night in search of a party, which she finds in the form of an underground dance club that’s secretly run by the killer himself. An athletic-looking figure wearing a black mask, he’s rigged the place with booby traps, including a thresher that, in the film’s most audacious sequence, mows down the dancers like so many stalks of wheat. Then Fitzpatrick gets kidnapped while Josh Stewart, The Collector’s hard-case hero, escapes, and a paramilitary group hired by Fitzpatrick’s father (Christopher McDonald) springs Stewart from the hospital to find the killer’s secret lair. These events unfold with the reckless momentum of downhill skiing.

The killer’s secret lair is the old, abandoned Hotel Argento, which provides one clue about the influences at play in The Collection. Another comes from the villain’s mask, which resembles that of the Italian pulp anti-hero Diabolik, memorably brought to the screen by Mario Bava. But the nods to classic Italian giallo are largely just that: nods. Mostly The Collection plays like a throwback to a more recent, but fast-fading into memory, horror-film era set into motion by Saw, one in which elaborate contraptions clank into action in ways designed to impale and dismember, no room is complete without unsavory-looking stains on the wall, and no door can be opened or closed without threatening to blow out the low-end of even the most state-of-the-art multiplex sound systems. In the Hotel Argento, every room is a death trap, and there’s always something squishy on the floor.

But even if it’s delivering the last gasp of its particular subgenre, The Collection still finds ways to make itself heard. That thresher sequence isn’t soon forgotten, nor are some of the images scared up by the film’s go-for-it attitude toward its thrift-store-goth production design, which includes everything from terrifying dolls to vats of fluid filled with bones assembled to resemble the skeletons of creatures that never walked the Earth. It also has enough nutty energy and oddball touches—The Wire’s Andre Royo shows up as a gun-toting, faux-hawk-sporting badass—that it’s never boring. Dumb, gross, gratuitous, and overly familiar, sure. But never boring.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Rock of Ages (Blu-ray)

Songs Produced by ADAM ANDERS and PEER ASTROM

"Paradise City"
Written by Steven Adler, Saul Hudson, Duff Rose McKagan, W. Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin
Performed by Tom Cruise

"Sister Christian"
Written by Kelly Keagy
Performed by Julianne Hough

"Just Like Paradise"
Written by David Lee Roth and Brett Tuggle
Performed by Julianne Hough

"Nothin' But A Good Time"
Written by Bobby Dall, C.C. Deville, Bret Michaels and Rikki Rockett
Performed by Diego Boneta, Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin

"I Remember You"
Written by David Michael Sabo and Rachel Bolan Southworth
Performed by Skid Row
Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp. by arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing

"Jukebox Hero"
Written by Michael L. Jones and Louis Grammatico
Performed by Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough

"I Love Rock 'n Roll"
Written by Jake Hooker and Alan Merrill
Performed by Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
Written by Eddie Schwartz
Performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones

"Oh Sherrie"
Written by Bill Cuomo, Randy Goodrum, Craig Krampf and Steve Perry

"Waiting For A Girl Like You"
Written by Michael L. Jones and Louis Grammatico
Performed by Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough

"Don't Stop Believin' (Acoustic)"
Written by Jonathan Cain, Neal Schon and Steve Perry
Performed by Diego Boneta

"Talk Dirty To Me"
Written by Bobby Dall, C.C. Deville, Bret Michaels and Rikki Rockett
Performed by Poison
Courtesy of Capitol Records under License from EMI Film & Television Music

"More Than Words"
Written by Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt
Performed by Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta

"Heaven"
Written by Jani Lane
Performed by Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta

"Rock Of Ages"
Written by Joseph Elliot, Peter Willis, Richard Allen, Richard Savage, Robert Lange and Stephen Clark
Performed by Def Leppard
Courtesy of Universal International Music, B.V. under License from Universal Music Enterprises

"Wanted Dead Or Alive"
Written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora
Performed by Tom Cruise and Julianne Hough

"I Want To Know What Love Is"
Written by Michael L. Jones
Performed by Tom Cruise and Malin Akerman

"I Wanna Rock"
Written by Dee Snider
Performed by Diego Boneta

"Pour Some Sugar On Me"
Written by Joseph Elliot, Philip Collen, Richard Allen, Richard Savage, Robert Lange and Stephen Clark
Performed by Tom Cruise

"Harden My Heart"
Written by Marvin Ross
Performed by Julianne Hough and Mary J. Blige

"Bringin' On The Heartbreak"
Written by Joseph Elliot, Peter Willis, Richard Allen, Richard Savage and Stephen Clark
Performed by Def Leppard
Courtesy of Universal International Music, B.V. under License from Universal Music Enterprises

"Shadows Of The Night"
Written by D.L. Byron
Performed by Mary J. Blige and Julianne Hough

"Here I Go Again"
Written by David Coverdale and Bernie Marsden
Performed by Diego Boneta, Julianne Hough, Mary J. Blige, Paul Giamatti and Tom Cruise

"Can't Fight This Feeling"
Written by Kevin Cronin
Performed by Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin

"Any Way You Want It"
Written by Steve Perry and Neal Schon
Performed by Mary J. Blige, Constantine Maroulis, Paul Giamatti, Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough

"Undercover Love"
Written by Adam Anders, Peer Astrom and Savan Kotecha
Performed by Diego Boneta

"Every Rose Has Its Thorn"
Written by Bobby Dall, C.C. Deville, Bret Michaels and Rikki Rockett
Performed by Diego Boneta, Julianne Hough, Tom Cruise and Mary J. Blige

"We Built This City"
Written by Bernie Taupin, Dennis Lambert, Martin Page and Peter Wolf
Performed by Russell Brand

"We're Not Gonna Take It"
Written by Dee Snider
Performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones

"No One Like You"
Written by Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine and Herman Rarebell
Performed by Scorpions
Courtesty of The Island Def Jam Music Group under License from Universal Music Enterprises

"Don't Stop Believin'"
Written by Jonathan Cain, Neal Schon and Steve Perry
Performed by Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand and Mary J. Blige

"Cum On Feel The Noize"
Written by James Lea and Neville Holder
Performed by Quiet Riot
Courtesy of Pasha/CBS Records by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

"Rock You Like A Hurricane"
Written by Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine, and Herman Rarebell
Performed by Tom Cruise and Julianne Hough

Mary J. Blige appears courtesy of Interscope Records,
a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

Julianne Hough appears courtesy of Mercury Records,
a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Blu-ray)

At the end of the last Pirates of the Caribbean film in 2007, we last saw Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) missing his ship, the Black Pearl - but with a special map that would lead to the Fountain of Youth. In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the race is on to see who can find the Fountain first: the Spanish, the English, or dread pirate Blackbeard. On the English side, Sparrow is hired by King George II (Richard Griffiths) to guide an expedition to find the Fountain, led by rival Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who is now missing a leg. But soon Sparrow reunites with Angelica (Penelope Cruz), his former lover - and daughter to Blackbeard (Ian McShane) - and is soon captured by Blackbeard and forced to help him find two chalices related to the Fountain. In the process, we encounter Philip (Sam Claflin), a missionary captured by Blackbeard, and a mermaid Syrena (?strid Berg?s-Frisbey) whose tear is needed in one of the chalices for the Fountain to properly work. But soon it is revealed that everyone has ulterior motives for wanting to find the Fountain, and former enemies might have to team up to prevent a greater threat.

Directed by Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha's Rob Marshall, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides feels more like a dead fish compared to the previous outings, and lacks the fun spirit of the original film: this is certainly the low point of the series. It's hard to fault McShane, who does the best with the material he's given, but Depp feels like he's phoning it in, only occasionally giving us the playful spark that made his character so entertaining. Penelope Cruz tries her best to be sultry, and the always excellent Geoffrey Rush gives a new twist to Barbossa, so that's not all half-bad. The problem comes from the unnecessary side stories that weigh down the plot, the attempt at a romantic element between Philip and Syrena that falls flat on its face, and a director that was clearly out of his element. You know there's a problem when the film's big action set-pieces don't spark any adrenaline or sense of excitement, no matter how well choreographed they may be. There is one sequence in particular that stood out for me - the mermaid cove. Here, the tension, the visual effects, the action, and Hans Zimmer's frenetic score all came together to work in that "special" Pirates way. But other than that, the film just didn't hold together for me. Another part of the problem might have been that the film was adapted from a novel, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, and in an effort to force the square peg of the novel into the round hole of the Pirates universe, things probably got a bit lost-in-translation.

Shot digitally and in 3D, the 2D Blu-ray of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides features a very well done, and slightly too clean, presentation. Detail is impeccable, and there is no film grain at all to contend with; the omission of which actually makes it feel a little less film-like, and a little more 24p video-like. Colors are natural and don't have an overly-stylized saturation to them, and the shadows seem to retain most of the detail, without devolving into inky murkiness. In all, it's a very admirable presentation, one that undoubtedly would look even more stunning in 3D.

Audio is presented in a thunderous immersive DTS-HD Master Audio English 7.1 mix that will shake your floors and rattle your windows. Dialogue is clean and centered, while sound effects wash around you and Hans Zimmer's score keeps the action moving forward. Your subwoofer will keep punching your kidneys, and your ears might not stop ringing for a few hours afterwards, but this is one heck of an active track. In addition to the main track, French and Spanish DTS-HD HR 7.1 tracks are provided.

As far as supplements go, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides probably showcases the least number of extras of all the Pirates films. We start off with a feature-length commentary track from director Rob Marshall and executive producer John DeLuca. The track is a little languid and contains more than its fair share of back-patting and lauding the talent involved in the film, but there is still plenty of interesting and insightful information imparted. In particular, Marshall talks about the similarities between dance choreography and stunt choreography, the challenges faced with filming in 3D, some of the plot issues and how they resolved them, and (most importantly) how they tried to make this film stand apart from the previous trilogy (for better or worse).

"Bloopers of the Caribbean" (HD, 3-minutes) gives us a few blunders and gaffes on the set, and "Lego Pirates of the Caribbean" (HD, 5-minutes) provides us with a few side-story vignettes done in the very humorous and tongue-in-cheek Lego style (anyone who has played the various Lego games knows how they put their own spin on some classic film moments). The only other extra is what I feel to be one of the coolest cross-media ideas I've seen: Disney Second Screen. First they did it for Bambi, then Tron Legacy and The Lion King. And now with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, they give us direct access to so much production artwork, stills, concept drawings, storyboards, visual effects progressions, behind-the-scenes clips, and more, it's so incredibly impressive. And once you first run the app (on your iPad or on the computer), it unlocks the full thing, so you can explore it on your own, away from the film. Truly impressive stuff, and I can't wait to see what they do with it in the future. Unfortunately missing from this release are any real "behind the scenes" making-of featurettes, and deleted scenes - all of which are, apparently, only on the 3D Blu-ray release of the film. And still, no trailers. Oh well.

Sluggish and bloated, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides has some entertaining moments, but in the end, falls flat. While it sports a very good presentation on 2D Blu-ray, and has a reference quality sound mix, the meager sampling of extras means that you should either buy the 3D version if you want the full experience, or just rent it. But that presumes you have an interest in seeing Jack Sparrow's latest (although probably not last) adventure at all.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Magnificent Seven (50th Anniversary Blu-ray), The

Based on the 1954 Akira Kurosawa classic film Seven Samurai, 1960's The Magnificent Seven tells the rousing story about a village in need, and the gunfighters hired to protect them.? The dastardly bandit Calvera (Eli Wallach) and his gang keeps raiding a small Mexican village, and the townsfolk are finally fed up with it.? They go to buy weapons in an American border town, where gunslinger Chris (Yul Brynner) tells them that it would be cheaper to hire more gunslingers.? Chris ends up gathering six other gunmen (including Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Robert Vaughn), who set out to protect the village from Calvera and his gang. Soon the 'seven' realize that they might have taken on more than they bargained for, causing tensions that threaten their goal of ridding the village of Calvera.?

The film might not be the deepest, nor the most original (gunmen protect a village under siege), but where The Magnificent Seven succeeds is in the dynamic within the all-star cast.? Brynner is clearly the leader (at one point he thought he might direct the film himself), but everyone gets more-or-less equal screen time.? Directed by veteran Western filmmaker John Sturges, the movie runs at a fun pace, before getting a little bogged down at last act. The film only got one Oscar nomination, for Elmer Bernstein's original score, which is now considered a classic.?

Released as a single-disc Blu-ray, this is basically a way to get the original Magnificent Seven without buying the box set containing the four films.? This is the same transfer done for the 50th Anniversary in 2010, and while it might not be as impressive as it would be if they had done a true film restoration, it's still a very solid transfer for the film. It suffers from a few minor blemishes and specs on the film print, and the opening titles indicate a bit of wobble on the transfer, but overall the film grain is nicely retained, with no evident DNR or edge enhancement.? Colors are not deeply saturated, but they never were meant to be bold and popping. Black levels are deep but don't crush, and fine detail seems to be accurately reproduced.? All in all, it's a very good transfer.

Audio for the film is presented primarily in an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, but it's primarily a front-heavy track, save for the occasional bullet ricochet, and Elmer Bernstein's score probably benefits the most from the spatial re-mix. Purists need not fret, as a Dolby Digital English mono is also included, and a Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish track rounds out the audio options.

Billed as a "50th Anniversary Edition", this Blu-ray contains most of the extras from previous DVD releases, but is still missing a few things.? First up is the rather informative, albeit sparse at times, commentary track featuring actors James Coburn and Eli Wallach, as well as producer Walter Mirisch and assistant director Robert Relyea.

Carried over from the original 2001 Special Edition DVD release is the documentary on the making of the film, "Guns for Hire: The Making of The Magnificent Seven" (SD 16x9, 47-minutes).? This is a very solid and candid making-of piece, with interviews and behind-the-scenes photos helping flesh out the story of how the film got made. From the 2006 Collector's Edition DVD, we get "Elmer Bernstein and The Magnificent Seven" (SD 16x9, 15-minutes) is a very nice piece hosted by film music historian Jon Burlingame about the importance of Bernstein's score, and its place within the western genre. "The Linen Book: Lost Images from The Magnificent Seven" (SD 16x9, 15-minutes) looks at the rare linen book for the film that was found in the salt mine vault in Kansas, which has a lot of great behind-the-scenes photos, but because some of the same stories heard in the making-of documentary and the commentary are told again, it feels a tad repetitive.

A "Still Gallery" (HD) is included, as well as two "Theatrical Trailers" (HD), but we're missing the commentary track by film historian Sir Christopher Frayling, and his accompanying featurette which was on the Collector's Edition.? No idea what happened there, but they surely could have found the room on the disc for them, so I surmise that it might have been a rights issue.? So, don't get rid of your DVD just yet!

It might not be considered a true cinema classic, but you can't go wrong with The Magnificent Seven.? A solid remake with a star-studded cast, great musical score, soaring vistas and solid direction by John Sturges, the film is worth the upgrade on Blu-ray, but won't give you any new extras beyond what you probably already had.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Lion King (Diamond Edition Blu-ray), The

In 1994, Walt Disney Feature Animation was in the middle of its second renaissance, one proudly led by Jeffrey Katzenberg. There had already been three major hits - The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, and the studio was ramping up on another film, Pocahontas, another surefire hit.? But there was another feature film that had been in the works at the studio, an animal-only film that had some seriously dark plot points, Biblical and Shakespearian in nature.? Originally called King of the Jungle, this 32nd feature animated film from Walt Disney Studios would go on to become one of the studio's highest-grossing pictures, win a slew of Academy Awards, and was known as The Lion King.

Young lion cub Simba is presented to all the animals of the pride land by mandrill shaman Rafiki (Robert Guillaume), as the new heir to the kingdom.? His father Mufasa (James Earl Jones) is understandably proud, but not so thrilled is Mufasa's brother Scar (Jeremy Irons), who is now no longer in line for the throne. When Scar's plan to goad Simba into exploring the forbidden elephant graveyard (where he would be killed by hyenas) is thwarted by Mufasa, Scar comes up with a new plan to help the hyenas take of the pride lands.? He lures Simba into a dried riverbed, and has the hyenas instigate a wildebeest stampede.? Mufasa rescues Simba, but is killed when Scar refuses to save him.? Simba is convinced by Scar that Mufasa's death was his fault, and Simba runs away, ashamed of what he'd done. Nearly dead, Simba is rescued by a dramatic meerkat named Timon (Nathan Lane) and a flatulent warthog named Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella).? They take him in, nurse him back to health and they live a carefree lifestyle, their motto being "Hakuna Matata" ("No Worries").?

Years later, adult Simba (Matthew Broderick) rescues Pumbaa from a lioness attack only to discover that the lion is his childhood friend Nala (Moira Kelly), and learns that not only did everything think he was dead, but Scar and the hyenas have devastated the pride land and they're nearly out of food and water.? Though Nala begs, Simba refuses to come back and take his place as rightful king.? But when Rafiki ends up finding Simba, he forces the reluctant prince to look into himself and discover what his father had intended for him to be.

Co-directors Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers deftly guide us through this tale of family, betrayal, banishment, acceptance and revenge. There's a lot of deep stuff going on in the film - the father/son dynamic is excellent, and when Mufasa is killed, it's about as emotionally moving as when Bambi's mother died. The lighthearted moments are there, in thanks to Timon and Pumbaa and (to a degree) Rafiki's crazy-old-man schtick.? But it's the scheming ruthlessness of Scar and the always laughing-but-deadly hyenas that bring us back to a serious note.? All of this is heightened through Hans Zimmer's Oscar-winning score, full of emotion and energy, and the arrangements he did of Elton John and Tim Rice's songs are phenomenal.? The Lion King is Disney animated masterpiece that was not only a box-office smash when it first came out, but also managed to top the box office once again when recently released in 3D.?

Originally released as a 2-disc Platinum Edition DVD in 2003, The Lion King makes its high definition debut as a Diamond Edition Blu-ray release.? To say that The Lion King on Blu-ray sports a perfect transfer is an understatement. Not is the image so sharp and clear as to accurately render out every drawn inked line with amazing detail, but the colors are so pure and vibrant that I found myself pausing the film at times just to marvel in the glory of the image. Combine that with the fact that, at least on my screen, I didn't notice any banding in the fine gradients (and there are a lot of color gradients in this film!), and I applaud Disney for being consistent in delivering nearly flawless-looking Blu-rays.

The audio, on the other hand, left me with mixed feelings.? The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix is certainly well done, with aggressive use of the surrounds, deep bass and immersive soundscapes, but I found myself turning up the volume to hear the dialogue.? For some reason it just felt lower - even comparing it to the Dolby Digital 5.1 French and Spanish tracks seemed to confirm that the levels sounded lower.? The result of this, naturally, is that when the volume is raised to compensate for the dialogue, the Hans Zimmer's excellent score and Elton John's music and the sound effects are much louder, making it a somewhat uneven experience. ?It's too bad they didn't include the original theatrical mix on here, like they did with the DVD release, for 'purists'.

Unlike other "Diamond Edition" Blu-rays from Disney, almost all of the old archival DVD supplements are included only as a BD-Live streaming choice. More on that later. But we are given a few new extras, in addition to the old ones. First up is the well done commentary by directors Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers, and producer Don Hahn, which was not only on the original DVD release, but also the laserdisc release of the film.? "Bloopers and Outtakes" (HD, 4-minutes) is a bit of an audio gag reel that was animated. Cute, but unnecessary.? Going into "Backstage Disney: Diamond Edition", we get the first major chunk of new material, starting with a great new look back at the film with the cast and crew in "Pride of The Lion King" (HD, 38-minutes). This retrospective features directors Minkoff and Allers, producer Hahn, executie producer Thomas Schumacher, former Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, former president of Walt Disney Feature Animation Peter Schneider, former Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner, composer Hans Zimmer, lyricist Tim Rice, Broadway adaptation director Julie Taymor, actors Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, and so many more. Suffice it to say, the nearly 40-minute long extra is a great look back, with the insight that only the passage of time (nearly two decades) can afford. The natural follow-up to this is "The Lion King: A Memoir - Don Hahn" (HD, 19.5-minutes), a continuing look back, but instead of a look-back, we get actual behind-the-scenes footage and discussions about the project. Again, very well done.? Watch both back-to-back, and you have an excellent hour that will really take you into the whole making-of the film. "Deleted and Alternate Scenes" (HD, 14.5-minutes) gives us a look at five early storyboard versions of scenes from the film, some that were dropped, and some that were just shortened in the final version of the film.? Of interesting note is the deleted song "King of the Wild".

In the "Music and More" section, we are given two options: "Play movie with Sing-Along Mode" (basically the movie with subtitles that show up on the songs only), and "The Morning Report: Extended Scene" (HD, 3-minutes), a new song from the Broadway show that was animated and put into the Platinum Edition DVD release of the film, but now included just as an extra.? "Interactive Art Gallery" (HD) contains hundreds of beautiful HD imagery, completely searchable and browseable, categorized by "Character Design", "Visual Development", "Storyboards" and "Layout and Backgrounds".

My favorite new supplement is the "Disney Second Screen". If you don't have an iPad, don't fret, since you can use your laptop and view the material online. This method of syncing up your device with the movie as you watch it allows you to watch relevant video clips, browse production artwork, animation sketches, flipbooks, games, puzzles, and more. It's basically most of (if not all of) the artwork from the "Interactive Art Gallery", presented in an excellent way that supplements the movie as you watch it. They did it with Bambi and Tron Legacy, and I hope they keep doing it - it adds so much value to the product.

Probably the most disappointing feature is "Disney's Virtual Vault". Like the Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 Blu-ray release, all of the excellent archival DVD supplements have been relegated to a streaming BD-Live format, with an unfortunately slow and cumbersome interface.? While nearly two hours of supplemental material is included, not everything from the DVD release is here - and we still don't get the original trailers. So if you have the original DVD release, don't get rid of it if you want to keep the supplements easily accessible.

The Lion King has definitely been given the royal treatment for Blu-ray. It's got a phenomenal visual transfer, a good - but not perfect - sound mix, and some solid new extras (as well as the ability to access the old DVD extras). It's worth holding on to your original DVDs, but this release is also well worth the double-dip.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Lady and the Tramp (Blu-ray, Diamond Edition)

Walt Disney's 1955 animated feature Lady and the Tramp was in development at the studio for nearly twenty years before finally being released. The idea was conceived by Disney story man Joe Grant in 1937, based on his own experience of his dog–a springer spaniel named Lady–who got pushed aside when Joe's new baby arrived. Combining Grant's material with elements from a book by Ward Greene, the result was a two-stage story about a well-to-do-dog, Lady (voiced by Barbara Luddy) and her unlikely relationship with a mutt from the wrong side of the tracks, Tramp (voiced by Larry Roberts). The idea was that Lady's life was perfect and structured, whereas Tramp's life was spur-of-the-moment. Lady's owners soon have a baby, and Lady starts to feel a bit left out - a feeling made even worse when the owners go off on vacation, leaving the baby–and Lady–under the care of Aunt Sarah, who hates dogs and owns a pair of devious Siamese cats.

The cats frame Lady for some in-home destruction, and Aunt Sarah takes Lady to get a muzzle–but she escapes, and with the help of Tramp, gets the muzzle removed. She learns a bit about Tramp's fancy-free lifestyle, and the dangers of being out in the "real world," with the risk of being caught and sent to the pound an ever-present danger. This is a pretty basic (and yet touching) story, and know that it's entertaining, heartwarming, and (in typical Disney fashion) has a happy ending.

Now, 57-years after it was released (and 75 years after development started), Lady and the Tramp comes to home video as a "Diamond Edition" Blu-ray–and once more, the wizards at Disney Home Video have taken every effort to present Lady and the Tramp in a way that looks better than anything audiences in 1955 likely witnessed in theaters. The first Cinemascope animated feature film, this is a rock-solid, pixel-perfect restoration from start to finish. From the gorgeous painted backgrounds to the delightful hand-drawn characters, the film looks simply amazing. Colors are solid, blacks are deep, and the artist's brushstrokes and textures are clearly visible.

Audio, similarly, is given a wonderful and immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround track, with plenty of atmospherics and Oliver Wallace's excellent music surrounding you throughout the film, but without seeming out of place for a film of its age. An unexpected but welcome inclusion is a DTS-HD Master Audio 3.0 track of the original Cinemascope film mix, and while it might not feel as engrossing as the 7.1 track, it is really nice to have, simply out of respect. We're also provided French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks (which makes it fun to hear the songs in foreign languages).

The release contains all the extras from the old DVD, as well as some new goodies. An "Introduction by Diane Disney Miller" (HD, 2-minutes), Walt Disney's daughter, kicks off the extras. There is no scene-specific commentary track, but rather a re-creation of the story meetings (from the original meeting transcripts) is presented with voice actors in "Inside Walt's Story Meetings." It's a glimpse at the creative process from the Walt Disney Studios in the 1950s, and truly fascinating to hear how things evolved.

"Diane Disney Miller: Remembering Dad" (HD, 8-minutes) is a nice and touching trip down memory lane by Disney's daughter, as she reminisces about the legacy that he wrought, as well as his love of the simpler things in life, including his cherished time in the Victorian-styled apartment above the firehouse at Disneyland. Three new "Deleted Scenes" (HD, 19-minutes) are presented via storyboards, and a short never-recorded song for Tramp, "I'm Free as the Breeze" (HD, 2-minutes), is presented as well. This song was ditched halfway through the nearly twenty-year development/production of the film.

Over 2.5 hours of "Classic DVD Bonus Features" from the 2006 "50th Anniversary" special edition DVD are presented on the Blu-ray as well. "Lady's Pedigree: The Making of Lady and the Tramp" (SD, 53-minutes) is a seven-part documentary looking at the making of the feature, with tons of archival footage and material. "Finding Lady: The Art of the Storyboard" explores how storyboards were used while the story of the film changed, and how it influenced future filmmakers. "Original 1943 Storyboard Version of the Film" (SD, 12-minutes) is a short presentation reel that was made 12 years prior to the completed film. "The Siamese Cat Song: Finding a Voice for the Cats" (SD, 4.5-minutes) is a look at how the voices of the cats evolved; "Puppypedia: Going to the Dogs" (SD, 9.5-minutes) is a very kid-oriented look at the evolution of different dog breeds hosted by Fred Willard. A "Bella Note" music video (SD, 3-minutes) featuring Steve Tyrell is included, as well as three "Theatrical Trailers" (SD, 6-minutes). Three different "Excerpts from 'Disneyland' TV Shows" (SD, 42-minutes) are also included, and absolutely well worth watching. Finally , three more "Deleted Scenes" (SD, 13-minutes) are also included, again presented in storyboard form.

Missing from this release are the art galleries that were on the original DVDs–but that's redundant when you use the "Disney Second Screen" app on your iPad or computer. Synched with the film, we get hundreds of pieces of artwork, sketches, behind-the-scenes photos, trivia, and so much more. It's a great way to explore the film further, and there are even puzzle games included for the kids.

Lady and the Tramp is a Disney classic, a short but sweet story about love from opposite walks of life, told through our canine companions. With a (now expected) stunning transfer, solid audio presentation and impressive wealth of extras, Lady and the Tramp is easily yet another must-have Blu-ray from the Disney archives.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Dumbo (70th Anniversary Blu-ray)

A few times in the 20th Century, the Walt Disney Studios faced near financial ruin, only to be rescued by one of its feature animated films.? In 1940, the studio faced financial trouble again, due to the lackluster response to Fantasia, and they banked on a small elephant with big ears to save the studio once more.? Dumbo was a return to the Silly Symphony style of animation that helped give Disney his initial success, and the simple storyline and brief running time helped the studio recoup the losses on Fantasia, just in time for the USA's entrance into World War II.

Based on the novel by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl, Dumbo tells the story about circus elephant Jumbo, who is hoping for a baby elephant. When the stork finally delivers her little one, she is shocked to discover that he has enormous ears - a now constant source of ridicule by her fellow elephants, as well as the circus clowns.? But she loves Jumbo Jr. with all her heart, even though the other elephants now call him Dumbo.? When the clowns get a little abusive with Dumbo, the overly-protective Jumbo goes on a rampage and is locked away, deemed a "mad elephant".? Now alone, Dumbo soon forges an unlikely friendship in the form of Timothy Q. Mouse, who serves as Dumbo's pep leader.? With good intentions, Timothy convinces (subconsciously) the circus-master to put Dumbo at the top of an elephant pyramid, but the stunt goes horribly awry due to Dumbo's giant ears.?

Now a clown, Dumbo is shunned by the other elephants and more miserable than ever.? Timothy arranges a visit to his jailed mother, which helps cheer him up a bit (aided by the heart-wrenching Oscar-nominated song "Baby Mine").? After Timothy and Dumbo drink water from a bucket that alcohol had spilled into, they have a bit of a psychedelic surrealistic trip (the infamous "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence) - and awake to find themselves high up in a tree.? A group of crows helps them figure out that it was Dumbo's large ears that got them up there, and that Dumbo can fly.? Fooling Dumbo into using a "magical" feather from one of the crows, he does indeed take to the air - and with his newfound confidence, returns to the circus where his new skills are revealed, propelling him into fame.

Dumbo is a fairly simple story, as evidenced by the synopsis above. The animation style is more caricaturist and "cartoony" than Pinocchio, and the animals are much more anthropomorphic, especially when compared to 1942's Bambi.? With the exception of the circus-master, all the humans are portrayed in costume, or in silhouette, a rather interesting choice. Unlike most Disney features, the songs don't do anything to further the storyline, and the surrealistic pink elephants sequence feels so out-of-place that it can actually be a turn-off from the otherwise engaging storyline.? The best moment of the film is the emotionally charged "Baby Mine" sequence, a tear-jerking moment every time you watch it.? It might be simple, and it might have some odd moments, but Dumbo is a straight-forward story about confidence that - 70 years later - still remains a timeless story.

Released as a 70th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, Dumbo burst into the 21st Century looking better than it probably did in the fall of 1941 when it was in theaters.? As has been par for the course for Walt Disney Home Entertainment, they have done a spectacular frame-by-frame restoration of Dumbo, and it looks dead-on perfect.? The watercolor backgrounds are gorgeous, and the colors are deep and vibrant.? ??The opening sequence with the circus tent being raised is an exceptional example of the way Walt Disney's animators were able to evoke tactile feelings - you can almost feel the rain, sweat and mud, all in gorgeous HD.?

Audio is presented in a new DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 English track, but you'd probably not really notice - most of the audio (music included) is front heavy, and with the exception of some sound effects, I barely noticed anything from the rear speakers.? Dialogue is clear, and the Oscar-winning music by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace is great, albeit all the audio seems to be stuck within the slightly limited frequency range that was common for a film recorded in the 1940s.? That's not a bad thing, just a reflection of the technology at the time. For purists, a lossy Dolby Digital 1.0 mono track is included, as well as French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks.

For this 70th Anniversary Edition, Disney went into the vault to pull out some old featurettes, as well as some delightful new extras.? Like the other early Disney features, the film was not widescreen, and you can opt to view the film in "DisneyView" mode, which puts custom artwork by Disney background artist James Coleman on the sides, changing depending on the scenes.? Watching the movie with "Cine-Explore" turned on gives us a great picture-in-picture version of the film, hosted by Pixar director Pete Docter, Disney historian Paula Sigman and Disney animator Andreas Deja.? With a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage, production photos and artwork and more, the whole history of Dumbo is laid out in real-time as the film plays out, making it essentially an excellent 64-minute "making-of" documentary.? But that's not all, there's still another making-of featurette, "Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo" (HD, 28-min), which fills in more of the gaps, while rehashing some of the information from the Cine-Explore.

Two "Deleted Scenes" are included, newly discovered in the Disney vault.? "The Mouse's Tale" (HD, 5.5-minutes) gives us a little more back-story on Timothy Q. Mouse and the history of the conflict between mice and elephants; "Are You a Man or a Mouse" (HD, 4-minutes) is a deleted song that would have been placed after Dumbo becomes a clown.? "The Magic of Dumbo: A Ride of Passage" (HD, 3-min) is a brief reminiscence about the creation and response that people have had to the Dumbo ride in Disneyland.?

From the original DVD release, we have a few archival extras, some of which have been upgraded to HD.? "Sound Design Excerpt from The Reluctant Dragon" (SD, 6-minutes) is a short sequence about sound design from the 1941 Disney film that went behind-the-scenes at the studio.? "Celebrating Dumbo" (SD, 15-minutes) is an older featurette that has a slew of film historians and artists talking about the film and its legacy.? "Original Walt Disney TV Introduction" (SD, 1-minute) is the original intro that Walt Disney gave when the film made its television debut.? Two "Theatrical Trailers" (SD) are included, from the 1941 release and subsequent 1949 re-issue.

Two Silly Symphony shorts are also included, upgraded to HD. "Elmer Elephant" (HD, 8.5-min) is a 1936 short about a timid elephant who is In love with Tillie Tiger; "The Flying Mouse" (HD, 9.5-min) is a 1934 short about a mouse who saves a butterfly and is granted a wish - but not everything is all that he bargained for.? Finally, we have "Art Galleries" (HD) which provide tons of storyboards, concept art, and much more.

Dumbo might not be the most complicated film from the Walt Disney Studio, but it has a ton of heart and a great moral to the story.? With some A+ extras, and the now typically expected mind-blowing transfer, Dumbo has every right to appear in the center ring of your home video three ring circus.

View the original article here

MOVIE REVIEW: Dumbo (70th Anniversary Blu-ray)

A few times in the 20th Century, the Walt Disney Studios faced near financial ruin, only to be rescued by one of its feature animated films.? In 1940, the studio faced financial trouble again, due to the lackluster response to Fantasia, and they banked on a small elephant with big ears to save the studio once more.? Dumbo was a return to the Silly Symphony style of animation that helped give Disney his initial success, and the simple storyline and brief running time helped the studio recoup the losses on Fantasia, just in time for the USA's entrance into World War II.

Based on the novel by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl, Dumbo tells the story about circus elephant Jumbo, who is hoping for a baby elephant. When the stork finally delivers her little one, she is shocked to discover that he has enormous ears - a now constant source of ridicule by her fellow elephants, as well as the circus clowns.? But she loves Jumbo Jr. with all her heart, even though the other elephants now call him Dumbo.? When the clowns get a little abusive with Dumbo, the overly-protective Jumbo goes on a rampage and is locked away, deemed a "mad elephant".? Now alone, Dumbo soon forges an unlikely friendship in the form of Timothy Q. Mouse, who serves as Dumbo's pep leader.? With good intentions, Timothy convinces (subconsciously) the circus-master to put Dumbo at the top of an elephant pyramid, but the stunt goes horribly awry due to Dumbo's giant ears.?

Now a clown, Dumbo is shunned by the other elephants and more miserable than ever.? Timothy arranges a visit to his jailed mother, which helps cheer him up a bit (aided by the heart-wrenching Oscar-nominated song "Baby Mine").? After Timothy and Dumbo drink water from a bucket that alcohol had spilled into, they have a bit of a psychedelic surrealistic trip (the infamous "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence) - and awake to find themselves high up in a tree.? A group of crows helps them figure out that it was Dumbo's large ears that got them up there, and that Dumbo can fly.? Fooling Dumbo into using a "magical" feather from one of the crows, he does indeed take to the air - and with his newfound confidence, returns to the circus where his new skills are revealed, propelling him into fame.

Dumbo is a fairly simple story, as evidenced by the synopsis above. The animation style is more caricaturist and "cartoony" than Pinocchio, and the animals are much more anthropomorphic, especially when compared to 1942's Bambi.? With the exception of the circus-master, all the humans are portrayed in costume, or in silhouette, a rather interesting choice. Unlike most Disney features, the songs don't do anything to further the storyline, and the surrealistic pink elephants sequence feels so out-of-place that it can actually be a turn-off from the otherwise engaging storyline.? The best moment of the film is the emotionally charged "Baby Mine" sequence, a tear-jerking moment every time you watch it.? It might be simple, and it might have some odd moments, but Dumbo is a straight-forward story about confidence that - 70 years later - still remains a timeless story.

Released as a 70th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, Dumbo burst into the 21st Century looking better than it probably did in the fall of 1941 when it was in theaters.? As has been par for the course for Walt Disney Home Entertainment, they have done a spectacular frame-by-frame restoration of Dumbo, and it looks dead-on perfect.? The watercolor backgrounds are gorgeous, and the colors are deep and vibrant.? ??The opening sequence with the circus tent being raised is an exceptional example of the way Walt Disney's animators were able to evoke tactile feelings - you can almost feel the rain, sweat and mud, all in gorgeous HD.?

Audio is presented in a new DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 English track, but you'd probably not really notice - most of the audio (music included) is front heavy, and with the exception of some sound effects, I barely noticed anything from the rear speakers.? Dialogue is clear, and the Oscar-winning music by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace is great, albeit all the audio seems to be stuck within the slightly limited frequency range that was common for a film recorded in the 1940s.? That's not a bad thing, just a reflection of the technology at the time. For purists, a lossy Dolby Digital 1.0 mono track is included, as well as French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks.

For this 70th Anniversary Edition, Disney went into the vault to pull out some old featurettes, as well as some delightful new extras.? Like the other early Disney features, the film was not widescreen, and you can opt to view the film in "DisneyView" mode, which puts custom artwork by Disney background artist James Coleman on the sides, changing depending on the scenes.? Watching the movie with "Cine-Explore" turned on gives us a great picture-in-picture version of the film, hosted by Pixar director Pete Docter, Disney historian Paula Sigman and Disney animator Andreas Deja.? With a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage, production photos and artwork and more, the whole history of Dumbo is laid out in real-time as the film plays out, making it essentially an excellent 64-minute "making-of" documentary.? But that's not all, there's still another making-of featurette, "Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo" (HD, 28-min), which fills in more of the gaps, while rehashing some of the information from the Cine-Explore.

Two "Deleted Scenes" are included, newly discovered in the Disney vault.? "The Mouse's Tale" (HD, 5.5-minutes) gives us a little more back-story on Timothy Q. Mouse and the history of the conflict between mice and elephants; "Are You a Man or a Mouse" (HD, 4-minutes) is a deleted song that would have been placed after Dumbo becomes a clown.? "The Magic of Dumbo: A Ride of Passage" (HD, 3-min) is a brief reminiscence about the creation and response that people have had to the Dumbo ride in Disneyland.?

From the original DVD release, we have a few archival extras, some of which have been upgraded to HD.? "Sound Design Excerpt from The Reluctant Dragon" (SD, 6-minutes) is a short sequence about sound design from the 1941 Disney film that went behind-the-scenes at the studio.? "Celebrating Dumbo" (SD, 15-minutes) is an older featurette that has a slew of film historians and artists talking about the film and its legacy.? "Original Walt Disney TV Introduction" (SD, 1-minute) is the original intro that Walt Disney gave when the film made its television debut.? Two "Theatrical Trailers" (SD) are included, from the 1941 release and subsequent 1949 re-issue.

Two Silly Symphony shorts are also included, upgraded to HD. "Elmer Elephant" (HD, 8.5-min) is a 1936 short about a timid elephant who is In love with Tillie Tiger; "The Flying Mouse" (HD, 9.5-min) is a 1934 short about a mouse who saves a butterfly and is granted a wish - but not everything is all that he bargained for.? Finally, we have "Art Galleries" (HD) which provide tons of storyboards, concept art, and much more.

Dumbo might not be the most complicated film from the Walt Disney Studio, but it has a ton of heart and a great moral to the story.? With some A+ extras, and the now typically expected mind-blowing transfer, Dumbo has every right to appear in the center ring of your home video three ring circus.

View the original article here

MOVIE REVIEW: Chernobyl Diaries: Blu-ray

Oren Peli burst onto the scene with his "found footage" horror film Paranormal Activity, spawning a whole new slew of "found footage" films–typically low budget films that are relatively fast to produce and are easy money-makers for the studios. After producing the highly successful Insidious, Peli turned his attention to a new idea: what if there was some kind of conspiracy surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine involving radiated survivors? The result was Chernobyl Diaries and while it has a great premise and promising start, the end result is just another cheap horror flick.

Chris (Jesse McCartney), his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and their friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) are in the middle of a European trip, working their way towards Moscow. They make it to Kiev, where they meet up with Chris' brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), where Chris reveals that he intends to propose to Natalie when they get to Moscow. Wanting to provide his brother and his friends with some excitement, Paul signs them all up for an "extreme tour" of the abandoned worker town of Prypiat adjacent to Chernobyl. Led by local "extreme" tour guide Yuri (Dimitri Diatchenko), the group is joined by another backpacking couple (Zoe (Ingrid Bolso Berdal) and Michael (Nathan Phillips)) and they all head out on the hours-long drive to Prypiat. They get to a checkpoint at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, only to be turned away by the military–but Yuri knows a back way in.

They make it inside the abandoned city and begin to explore, dismissing the occasional hints that some kind of radiated mutation has been taking hold of the city. When night begins to fall and they discover that the wires in the van have been chewed through, their situation becomes dire. Things go from bad to worse when a pack of aggressive dogs attack Chris–and Yuri goes missing. Now the group begins to play a game of cat-and-mouse as they try to survive the night, find a way to fix the van, and get out of Prypiat–but there is something worse than dogs out there in the dark.

Until the attacks begin, the way Chernobyl Diaries is presented is relatively solid. Director Bradley Parker does a decent job of giving us sympathetic characters to associate with and cheer for and the back story of the Chernobyl plant disaster and abandoned town of Prypiat is certainly ripe with potential. But as soon as night descends and things start to go bad for our band of unsuspecting travelers, the film begins to devolve into a typical horror film with lots of dark imagery that makes you question what you're looking at, lots of moments of silence before something bursts onto the screen, and a few chase segments that, while well executed, don't bring anything new to the genre. There is creative use of "found footage" (in this case, an iPhone video) to show us what happens to some of the characters and the ambient music score by Diego Stocco really helps with the tension of the film. It's a shame that the film ultimately didn't build a compelling and memorable mythology to the Chernobyl disaster, especially since it certainly had the ability to do so. In the end, Chernobyl Diaries will stand as another example of a very low budget film (reportedly only $1 million to make) doing well–justifying more just like it.

Shot digitally, Chernobyl Diaries comes to Blu-ray sporting a solid presentation that mirrors the original look of the movie in theaters. During the first act of the film, things are bright and crisp with the color saturation set at a nice medium and good detail present in the image. Things change a bit when the action moves to Pripyat; the palette loses its punch, things appear more drab and, when nightfall comes, the image gets even darker and murkier. It never felt like anything was blown out or punched up and the overall impression is that it's a good looking film, for what it is.

Audio is presented in an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that focuses much more on front-and-center dialogue than I would have expected. The "tension" (and rare "action") scenes pack more of a punch with the subwoofer and surround sounds kicking in and Diego Stocco's ambient music is subtle and effective in adding an extra layer of dread and anxiety to the film, especially in the low end.

Four meagre supplements are included on the Blu-ray. An "Additional Scene" (HD, 1-minute) is just a brief moment where the leads make a "toast" to their trip and an "Alternate Ending" (HD, 2-minutes) shows a silly (and thankfully unused) alternate fate to one of the characters. A fake commercial, "Uri's Extreme Tours Infomercial," (HD, 1.5-minutes) shows everyone's favorite tour guide making his sales pitch for his extreme adventures, and "Chernobyl Conspiracy Viral Video" (HD, 2.5-minutes) gives us a little bit of back story into the actual disaster, as well as a taste of the 'conspiracy theory' that inspired the premise of the film.

No trailer or behind-the-scenes material is presented, although this version of the Blu-ray comes with a DVD version of the film, as well as an Ultraviolet Digital Copy.

Chernobyl Diaries has a really cool premise, but ends up a missed opportunity. The Chernobyl reactor meltdown disaster and the ghost-town of Pripyat can certainly inspire any number of different conspiracy theories, but, in the end, the film devolves into a standard "creepy things in the shadows attacking our cast" monster movie. It looks and sounds nice on Blu-ray, but the lack of any substantial extras and weak second half of the film, make Chernobyl Diaries a rental, at best.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Rock of Ages (Blu-ray)

Songs Produced by ADAM ANDERS and PEER ASTROM

"Paradise City"
Written by Steven Adler, Saul Hudson, Duff Rose McKagan, W. Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin
Performed by Tom Cruise

"Sister Christian"
Written by Kelly Keagy
Performed by Julianne Hough

"Just Like Paradise"
Written by David Lee Roth and Brett Tuggle
Performed by Julianne Hough

"Nothin' But A Good Time"
Written by Bobby Dall, C.C. Deville, Bret Michaels and Rikki Rockett
Performed by Diego Boneta, Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin

"I Remember You"
Written by David Michael Sabo and Rachel Bolan Southworth
Performed by Skid Row
Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp. by arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing

"Jukebox Hero"
Written by Michael L. Jones and Louis Grammatico
Performed by Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough

"I Love Rock 'n Roll"
Written by Jake Hooker and Alan Merrill
Performed by Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
Written by Eddie Schwartz
Performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones

"Oh Sherrie"
Written by Bill Cuomo, Randy Goodrum, Craig Krampf and Steve Perry

"Waiting For A Girl Like You"
Written by Michael L. Jones and Louis Grammatico
Performed by Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough

"Don't Stop Believin' (Acoustic)"
Written by Jonathan Cain, Neal Schon and Steve Perry
Performed by Diego Boneta

"Talk Dirty To Me"
Written by Bobby Dall, C.C. Deville, Bret Michaels and Rikki Rockett
Performed by Poison
Courtesy of Capitol Records under License from EMI Film & Television Music

"More Than Words"
Written by Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt
Performed by Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta

"Heaven"
Written by Jani Lane
Performed by Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta

"Rock Of Ages"
Written by Joseph Elliot, Peter Willis, Richard Allen, Richard Savage, Robert Lange and Stephen Clark
Performed by Def Leppard
Courtesy of Universal International Music, B.V. under License from Universal Music Enterprises

"Wanted Dead Or Alive"
Written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora
Performed by Tom Cruise and Julianne Hough

"I Want To Know What Love Is"
Written by Michael L. Jones
Performed by Tom Cruise and Malin Akerman

"I Wanna Rock"
Written by Dee Snider
Performed by Diego Boneta

"Pour Some Sugar On Me"
Written by Joseph Elliot, Philip Collen, Richard Allen, Richard Savage, Robert Lange and Stephen Clark
Performed by Tom Cruise

"Harden My Heart"
Written by Marvin Ross
Performed by Julianne Hough and Mary J. Blige

"Bringin' On The Heartbreak"
Written by Joseph Elliot, Peter Willis, Richard Allen, Richard Savage and Stephen Clark
Performed by Def Leppard
Courtesy of Universal International Music, B.V. under License from Universal Music Enterprises

"Shadows Of The Night"
Written by D.L. Byron
Performed by Mary J. Blige and Julianne Hough

"Here I Go Again"
Written by David Coverdale and Bernie Marsden
Performed by Diego Boneta, Julianne Hough, Mary J. Blige, Paul Giamatti and Tom Cruise

"Can't Fight This Feeling"
Written by Kevin Cronin
Performed by Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin

"Any Way You Want It"
Written by Steve Perry and Neal Schon
Performed by Mary J. Blige, Constantine Maroulis, Paul Giamatti, Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough

"Undercover Love"
Written by Adam Anders, Peer Astrom and Savan Kotecha
Performed by Diego Boneta

"Every Rose Has Its Thorn"
Written by Bobby Dall, C.C. Deville, Bret Michaels and Rikki Rockett
Performed by Diego Boneta, Julianne Hough, Tom Cruise and Mary J. Blige

"We Built This City"
Written by Bernie Taupin, Dennis Lambert, Martin Page and Peter Wolf
Performed by Russell Brand

"We're Not Gonna Take It"
Written by Dee Snider
Performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones

"No One Like You"
Written by Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine and Herman Rarebell
Performed by Scorpions
Courtesty of The Island Def Jam Music Group under License from Universal Music Enterprises

"Don't Stop Believin'"
Written by Jonathan Cain, Neal Schon and Steve Perry
Performed by Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand and Mary J. Blige

"Cum On Feel The Noize"
Written by James Lea and Neville Holder
Performed by Quiet Riot
Courtesy of Pasha/CBS Records by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

"Rock You Like A Hurricane"
Written by Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine, and Herman Rarebell
Performed by Tom Cruise and Julianne Hough

Mary J. Blige appears courtesy of Interscope Records,
a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

Julianne Hough appears courtesy of Mercury Records,
a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Total Recall (Blu-ray)

Back in 1990, Arnold Schwarzenegger was riding high, after less than a decade of box office dominance that started with Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator and carried him through Commando, Predator, Raw Deal, Red Heat and more. He was the king of the action film–and he hadn't even done Terminator 2: Judgment Day yet. But a new science fiction film would help carry him into the '90s–Total Recall. Written by Ronald Schusett and Dan O'Bannon (Alien) with John Povill, the film is loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, and helmed by RoboCop director Paul Verhoeven.

Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is a construction worker who is plagued by dreams of Mars and a brunette woman. He asks his wife, Lori (Sharon Stone), to go on a trip to Mars. She would rather go somewhere on Earth to help with his stress because Mars is dealing with a revolt between Cohaagen (Ronnie Cox), the governor of Mars Colony who controls the air, and the rebels led by their mysterious leader, Kuato. After seeing a commercial for "Rekall"–where they implant the memories of a vacation experience in your head–Quaid thinks that a virtual Mars trip might be the best way to go to get the need out of his system. But something goes wrong, as apparently Quaid had already had his memory wiped and implanted with a new one. Suddenly, Quaid finds himself thrust into the middle of the revolt and finding out what the hell is going on requires him to go to Mars. There he meets the mysterious brunette from his dream, Melina (Rachel Ticotin), who just might hold the key to his identity, while trying to outrun Cohaagen and his second-in-commnd, Richter (Michael Ironside).

Total Recall is a delightfully fun, but exceptionally violent (for its time) film. Schwarzenegger gets some great one-liners in and, because of the way the story unfolds, there are plenty of hints to keep you guessing whether or not the whole thing is real or is a dream. Like he did with RoboCop, Verhoeven gives the film a few satirical tongue-in-cheek moments before the whole thing turns into an orgy of violence, enhanced by some Oscar-winning visual effects and on-set animatronics. Adding to the whole experience is Jerry Goldsmith's score, a thematic orchestral score with synth elements that still provides some great adrenaline-pumping moments. Is the whole movie a dream, or is it real? It's ultimately an unanswered question, but it's one hell of a ride and stands up as one of Schwarzenegger's better films.

It's been 22-years since the film came out and now a new remake is slated to hit the screen. That means that it's time for Total Recall to be dusted off and given the proper treatment on Blu-ray with a new transfer and a decent amount of extras (some old, some new).

The old release (which I didn't even bother to pick up) reportedly was dark, grainy, dirty and muddled. For this new release, dubbed the "Mind-Bending Edition," Lionsgate went back to the original camera negative and the visual results are excellent. The image is sharp and fine detail is easy to pick out in the frame. Jost Vacano's uniform set lighting creates that slightly artificial quality which Verhoeven was going for (also evident in RoboCop and Starship Troopers) and thankfully the blacks aren't crushed, allowing us to see the detail in the shadows. There is also a nice fine patina of grain over the whole film, which is quite natural and welcome. With the prevalent red hues that dominate the exteriors of Mars, there are a few instances where the color balance seems a bit off (slightly purplish in one shot, then back to red in the next) but those moments are few and far between. For a film that is over twenty years old, this is easily the best Total Recall has looked on home video.

Audio is presented in three flavors of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1: English, French and German. Interestingly, the DTS-HD ES 6.1 track from the old Blu-ray was scrapped, but the results are still the same. The first half of the film is a predominantly front-heavy film, with almost no discernible use of the surround sounds, even in the music. Once the film gets to Mars, and the action starts to kick up a bit, the rear speakers get a bit more use. Through the whole film, dialogue is cleanly presented in the front center channel and, by keeping it there, we get to clearly hear some great Arnie moments during the bigger action sequences ("Melina, RUN!"). Also benefitting from this 5.1 audio track is Jerry Goldsmith's powerhouse score, which never feels overwhelmed by the sound effects.

For this re-release on Blu-ray, Lionsgate brings us some–but not all–of the old 2001 "Special Limited Edition DVD." Missing are the "Rekall's Virtual Vacations" and "Visions of Mars" featurettes, as well as the "Visual Storyboard Comparisons," "Conceptual Art," "Cast & Crew Biographies," "Production Notes" and "Theatrical Teaser." But don't worry, we still get a few oldies-but-goodies. First up is the (now infamous) commentary track with director Paul Verhoeven and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about the film. The two men have a great chemistry, and their reminiscing about the film is enjoyable and informative, with the exception of Arnold's uncanny ability to describe to us what is going on on-screen. Imagining Total Recall (SD, 31-minutes) is a 2001 documentary that gives us a pretty in-depth look at the making of the film, replete with behind-the-scenes photos and footage, interviews with the cast and crew, and more. It's a shame it's so short, but in that brief amount of time we do get a fairly comprehensive overview of how Total Recall came about. But don't worry, we have a lot of new stuff that will help fill in some of the gaps!

First up, we have a new "Interview with Paul Verhoeven" (HD, 35-minutes) where the director looks back (even further) at the film and talks about the problems with the script when he came on board, how they tried to solve the issues of the third act, the challenges faced making the movie, and more–all as he walks the tightrope of whether or not it was all real or a dream, and supplemented with some film footage and behind-the-scenes material. "Models and Skeletons: The Special Effects of Total Recall" (HD, 23-minutes) looks back at the Oscar-winning visual effects with Miniature Effects Co-Supervisor Mark Stetson talking about the massive miniature sets they built for Mars and CGI Director Tim McGovern talking about the groundbreaking work they did on the skeleton X-ray sequence. It's all fascinating stuff, especially the anecdote about the motion capture session and Arnold's wardrobe. Sadly, makeup master Rob Bottin and his amazing work on the film isn't covered, mentioned or shown. I guess that's the main difference between visual effects and on-set work. Also, new to the Blu-ray is a short vintage "Making Of Featurette" (SD, 8.5-minutes) and a "Restoration Comparison" (HD, 5-minutes) which shows some before/after comparisons between the scanned negative and the final color-corrected result. We also get a ported-over short "Photo Gallery" (HD, 1-minute) and a rather horribly marketed "Theatrical Trailer" (SD, 2-minutes).

It might have been 22 years since it hit theaters and became a huge success, but Total Recall doesn't seem to have aged much. There are a few moments where the visual effects are clearly dated, but the energy of the film, the mystery of the story and the sheer fun of it all still holds up quite well today. With a new and much improved transfer, a decent audio presentation, most of the old supplements (as well as some interesting new ones) and a hard-to-beat price, picking up this new Blu-ray is highly recommended.

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MOVIE REVIEW: West Side Story - 50th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray)

Adapted loosely from Romeo and Juliet, Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story tells the tale of star-crossed lovers Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood) in the middle of a turf war between two teenage street gangs on the west side of New York City in the 1950s. The Jets are a group of white teens led by Riff (Russ Tamblyn), while the Sharks are a Puerto Rican gang led by Bernardo (George Chakiris). When the conflict between the two gangs comes to a head, the police intervene, and Lt. Schrank (Simon Oakland) and Officer Krupke (William Bramley) mandate that the two gangs have to reconcile, or else there will be a price to pay. The Jets, however, decide that it might be better to challenge the Sharks to an all-out rumble for full control of the territory, and Riff asks his best friend (and Jets co-founder) Tony to deliver the challenge to the Jets at the school dance. But it's there that Tony sees Maria - Bernardo's sister - and both are immediately smitten with each other. Thus begins their turbulent relationship, with the Jets and Sharks gearing up for war, and their romance caught in the middle.

As it's based on Romeo and Juliet, you can get a sense of where things are headed, and let's just say that it's definitely a heart wrenching tragedy. Directed by Robert Wise and choreographed and co-directed by Broadway icon Jerome Robbins, West Side Story is a masterful celebration of story told through dance and music. The songs, featuring lyrics co-written by Stephen Sondheim with Leonard Bernstein, are each memorable and now considered classics. It's a long film, running a little over 2.5 hours, but the performances from the actors as well as the creative filmmaking style never get boring. In 1961, it was not conventional to shoot musical numbers with such depth and artistry, and it truly did set the bar high for subsequent movie musicals. West Side Story would go on to win ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Editing and more - and it's all evident when you watch the film.

The new HD restoration of West Side Story looks phenomenal. From the opening aerials of New York City to the stylized rooftop sets to the heart wrenching finale, it's a gorgeous looking film. The deep color saturation is incredibly vibrant, the detail is crisp and sharp, and there is a delightfully slight bit of grain throughout the image reminding us that this was a film. There are occasional moments of moire pattern shimmer and some of the optical shorts feel a little fuzzy but that's just the nature of the medium. There has apparently been some concern regarding the visual fade-out from the overture into the main titles, and reportedly Fox will be offering a disc exchange program. Don't let that dissuade you from watching this on a big screen, though!

Audio for West Side Story is presented in a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track, repurposed from the four-track masters (and not the recently restored six track masters), and as such is not an exact replication of the original 1961 presentation. But that being said, Leonard Bernstein's music sounds phenomenal, dialogue is clean but slightly compressed (again, a product of the time) and while this isn't a reference quality track to show off your home theater, West Side Story sounds just great. Also included is an English 4.0 Dolby Digital track, a Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital track, a French 5.1 DTS track, and a German 5.1 DTS track.

Billed as the 50th Anniversary Edition, on the first Blu-ray disc, we have a few film-specific extras. "Song Specific Commentary by Stephen Sondheim" (HD, 19.5-min) is a brief but highly informative glimpse into the development of the songs, and Sondheim's candor and discussion about things that he likes and dislikes about the songs, as well as where he changed things from stage to screen, makes this a quick commentary well worth listening to. It's a shame it's so brief, though, since I'm sure there is a lot more behind the songs that would be worth having him discuss at length. "Pow! The Dances of West Side Story" (HD, 19-min) is a great deconstruction of the various dance sequences in the film, featuring interviews with people directly involved with the production as well as current experts on dance, film and music. It's available viewed within the film, or individually. "Music Machine" (HD, 85-min) lets you watch all the musical numbers in the film either individually, or in-a-row. >[?On the second disc, we get a wealth of extras, some old and some new. "A Place for Us: The Legacy of West Side Story" (HD, 29.5-min) is a new featurette that looks back at the amazing worldwide influence that the play and film have had on society and pop culture over the past sixty years. "West Side Memories" (SD 16x9, 56-min) is a holdover from the 2003 DVD Special Edition release, and is a rather in-depth and candid look at the making of the film. Interviews with living cast and crew members are mixed in with archival interviews and behind-the-scenes photos and footage to create a compelling and fascinating exploration of the challenges (and serious problems) encountered when making the film. "Storyboard to Film Comparison Montage" (HD, 5-minutes) is exactly what you would expect, a montage of shots from the film compared to their storyboards, set to music. Finally, four "Trailers" (HD, 12-min) are included, rounding out the extras on West Side Story.

As a groundbreaking film musical, West Side Story is a must-see for all fans of cinema and theater. That is has been given a great presentation on Blu-ray, combined with some solid extras, should make it a no-brainer and must-own for everyone.

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DVD: HomeVideo Review: The Incredible Mel Brooks: An Irresistible Collection Of Unhinged Comedy

From the moment Mel Brooks entered show business in the late ’40s, he became the comedy equivalent of a utility player, working as a writer, director, producer, performer, and all-around personality. Though Brooks will likely be best remembered for his string of hit movie parodies in the ’70s—along with the popular Broadway musical of his movie The Producers—his legacy also includes television sketches, comedy albums, sitcoms, and countless talk-show appearances. The six-disc box set The Incredible Mel Brooks: An Irresistible Collection Of Unhinged Comedy tries to encompass Brooks’ sprawling career, and does so fairly haphazardly. Eschewing chronology, The Incredible Mel Brooks jumps around, from Brooks doing guest shots on TV series in the ’90s, to him cracking up Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in the ’70s, to sketches from Your Show Of Shows in the ’50s, to a 60 Minutes profile in the ’00s, to the Oscar-winning 1963 short film “The Critic,” and so on, back and forth. Across its five DVDs (and single CD), the set collects all manner of odds and ends, anchored by extensive new interviews with Brooks, in which he reflects on the wide variety of work he’s done over the past 60-plus years.

Brooks is unpretentious, gracious, and insightful in the new material, looking back on his career with a combination of genuine gratitude for his good fortune and confidence that he had the goods all along. Even better are the older televised interviews, for which Brooks knew he’d be expected to be “on.” Talking with Dick Cavett or David Susskind, Brooks mixes anecdotes about New York showbiz in the early ’50s with the kind of off-the-cuff jokes and self-deprecating comments that allowed him to hold his own with the likes of Neil Simon and Larry Gelbart in Sid Caesar’s writers’ rooms. Of particular interest are the snippets of Brooks’ Tonight Show appearances: He does a spot-on spoof of Frank Sinatra singing “America The Beautiful” in one, and then in another answers Carson’s question about the hardest part of making movies by saying, “Putting all the little holes on the side of the celluloid. There’s like a million of ’em!”

As for the scripted Brooks work included in the set, it’s a decidedly mixed bag, leaning heavily on his three main themes: making fun of popular culture, lampooning Adolf Hitler, and taking on the persona of a cranky older Jewish fellow (sometimes way older, as in “The 2000 Year Old Man” routines that Brooks has performed with Carl Reiner since the ’50s). For the most part, the hodgepodge of Mad About You and Tracey Ullman Show guest shots—and the samples of Brooks’ voiceover work on commercials and Electric Company segments—just shows how his distinctive comic style has remained viable and comfortably familiar for so many decades. But the hidden gem of The Incredible Mel Brooks is the 1963 pilot for the sitcom Inside Danny Baker, which didn’t get picked up, even though its William Steig-inspired premise of a city kid with an active imagination comes off as funny, sweet, and original in its one and only episode. Inside Danny Baker is evidence that Brooks could’ve followed his pal Reiner into Dick Van Dyke Show-style family comedy, if the networks had let him. Instead, he helped writer Buck Henry create Get Smart, and his path to Hollywood success became more nutty.

Key features: The entire set is one big special feature, really, but the CD in particular is something special, containing a few of the best-known songs from Brooks’ movies (such as “Springtime For Hitler,” “I’m Tired,” and “The Inquisition”), along with the audio from some talk-show and game-show appearances for which the video has been lost. 

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DVD: HomeVideo Review: We Can’t Go Home Again / Don’t Expect Too Much

It’s tempting to argue that the making of the notorious lost Nicholas Ray experimental film We Can’t Go Home Again is more compelling than the film itself, but the making of the film essentially is the film. Ray made it with and about his students while teaching film in the early ’70s after his career as an A-list studio director had died, and the film makes a point of blurring the line between fact and fiction, documentary and narrative, behind-the-scenes drama and the quivering, overheated emotions shown onscreen. So it’s perfect that Oscilloscope’s release of the film is paired with a documentary about its making that is wryly and tellingly titled Don’t Expect Too Much. The documentary comes courtesy of Ray’s widow, Susan, who also worked closely with him on the making of We Can’t Go Home Again.

With this film, Ray was intent on “breaking the rectangle” of conventional film staging through the use of split screens, experimentation, and even a weird new instrument called the video synthesizer that colorizes frames so that they look like trippy kaleidoscopic acid freak-outs, but his ambitions went far beyond that. He wanted to reinvent cinema, to replace acting with living and stories with pulsating, unpredictable reality. Ray went from making the ultimate youth film in Rebel Without A Cause to attempting to make a movie with the real-life equivalents of James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo’s brooders, iconoclastic dreamers out of step with glum adult conformity. Ray had long been a hero and idol of the French New Wave and Jean-Luc Godard. With We Can’t Go Home Again, he was attempting a new kind of cinema employing Godardian working methods, Godardian goals, and Godardian content. It’s a fascinating work of intergenerational communion in which the teacher becomes the student, and one of the most influential filmmakers in American film began to follow the rebels who worshiped him. 

The film purposefully eschews a conventional plot—and, for that matter, linear comprehension—in favor of an abstract, empathetic, and nakedly emotional portrait of a generation at a crossroads. Though Ray took on a teaching position at SUNY Binghamton’s Harpur College that led to the film’s creation in 1971, We Can’t Go Home Again is very much about the dissolution and anxiety of a ’60s counterculture that was already fraying at the seams. Instead of a traditional narrative, the film gravitates toward individual moments of scorching intensity and unexpected connection, from Ray directing a student/protégé (Tom Farrell) as he tearfully cuts off a beard that is central to his identity, to an unexpectedly insightful confession from a student who sheepishly concedes that for all of their supposed decadence, he and his peers ultimately prefer food to sex. 

No less an authority than film editor Walter Murch described We Can’t Go Home Again as the biggest mess he’d ever seen, but if Ray’s late-period obsession is a mess, it’s a vital, vibrant, electric mess that pulsates with empathy and ideas. Ray himself takes center stage in much of the film’s action, fulfilling the role of guru, father, sage, star-maker, teacher, and contemporary to his students. With his towering and dramatic appearance, which is enhanced by a pirate’s eye patch and a cult leader’s undeniable charisma, Ray almost single-handedly holds this squirming, squealing, incoherent experiment together through sheer magnetism. In that respect, the film sometimes suggests an experimental, tragicomic variation on movies like I Love You, Alice B. Toklas or Joe, where members of an older generation tap into the energy and electricity of a youth movement that is throttling the culture. 

We Can’t Go Home Again alternates between extremes. It can feel revolutionary, tender, and true one moment and like a bad, leering parody of pretentious art movies the next. Ray and his erratic collaborators were operating without resources or a script, trying to transform the raw material of their lives into art, and the film doesn’t always succeed. Yet there is an unmistakable glory in its heroic over-reaching. It’s an unexpectedly moving elegy to the ’60s from an artist with unique insight into the angst of young people. We Can’t Go Home Again ends with a quote from Ray (“No one does it alone, not even the madness.”) that poignantly comments on the noble aims of a project that found his madness melding with the madness of his students and the madness of the times to create a film that at its best feels like a waking dream. 

Key features: Extended interviews with Jim Jarmusch and Ray biographer Bernard Eisenschitz, a pair of Ray’s short films (“The Janitor” and “Marco”), and a segment on the director from a CBS show called Camera Three highlight this generous extras package.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Cirque du Soleil: Iris

Cirque du Soleil, the Montreal-based acrobatic entertainment franchise, has tackled nearly every genre at this point. They have a water-themed show, O; a mythology show, Mystere; a fairy tale show, La Nouba, a sensuality show, Zumanity, a martial arts show, Ka; a Beatles-themed show, Love; a magic show, Criss Angel Believe; an Elvis-themed show, Viva Elvis; and even a Michael Jackson-themed show currently on tour. So it was no surprise when in the fall of 2010, Cirque announced that they would have a Hollywood-themed show in residence at the Kodak Theater (now the Dolby Theatre) at Hollywood & Highland, and home of the Academy Awards.

Iris would be a "magical journey through the world of cinema," and showcase some striking and emotionally charged acrobatic performances, while loosely following a narrative storyline, per the typical Cirque show. What would make this one different was that the music would be composed by Oscar-nominated film composer Danny Elfman, and feature a soundtrack performed by over 100 musicians.

Elfman's involvement with Cirque almost seems like a match made in heaven; since his early film score days, Elfman's musical style has typically been likened to dark and quirky circus music, which worked great for those early Tim Burton films, but seems almost like a no-brainer when it comes to Cirque. Borrowing some musical influences from his own concert work, Serenada Schizophrana, Elfman's music for Iris is dramatic, evocative, and moving, and times perfectly with the fantastic displays of acrobatic wonders on (and above) the stage. The set design by Jean Rabasse evokes an old Coney Island theater, the type where audiences were first exposed to the moving picture. In the balconies on the sides, a small musical ensemble surrounds us, and performs live to accompany the pre-recorded musical material.

As with many Cirque shows, the "clowns" are unique characters that work their way through the audience, entertaining us with their clever interactions before the show begins. After a pre-recorded (and witty) song (sung by Elfman) telling us to turn off our cellphones, and not to use photography, the show begins. The narrative follows "Buster," a struggling composer who is in search of true love, and "Scarlett," a fresh-off-the-bus actress who wishes to become a movie star. This storyline is interspersed (and even integrated) into the various vignettes. Starting with two acrobats swinging high above the audience, with only one strap holding them in, the show gets off to a brilliant and awe-inspiring start.

Since "cinema" is the theme, light and shadow features strongly in Iris. Rear projection, shadow puppetry and live video screens feature into the performances. In fact, the 'camera' is a recurring character, as multiple actors holding cameras work their way through the show with live feeds projecting their views onto screens on the stage. The first half of the show is more abstract when it comes to a cinematic tribute, as contortionists thrill us with their feats, choreographed ensembles delight us, and the whole spectacle fills us with wonder.

The second act starts to take a more structured and direct homage to film making, with the opening sequence being a well-choreographed and precisely timed acrobatic "behind the scenes" look at a production on the soundstage. This leads us into a bit of rear-projection cleverness, more stunts and acrobatic marvels, culminating with the coolest trampoline "rooftop fight" sequence I've ever had the joy to witness. All of it is engaging, with never a dull moment, and plenty of comedic interludes by the "clowns." Elfman's music never lets up, and by the time the final curtain call happens, you'll be humming the main theme and rushing out to buy the soundtrack album.

Cirque Du Soleil: Iris is scheduled to play at the Holllywood & Highland complex for ten years, so there will be plenty of opportunities to see the show. But don't let this one pass you by; it's a highly entertaining and marvelous tribute to moving images, with spectacular acrobatic and athletic stunts, and wonderfully engaging music. Tickets start at $43 and go all the way up to $133 (and even higher for VIP ticket packages), but it seems to me that any seat is likely to have a good view since they reduced the capacity of the theater to make sure of that.

Shows are currently Tuesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturdays have a 3pm matinee and 8pm evening show, and Sunday nights present at a 2pm matinee and 7pm evening show. The show runs about 2.5 hours including intermission.

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