Category: Movie DVDs (Page 70 of 100)

With 7 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 18, 2007 /

…The House Without A Christmas Tree.

If you can trust the box art for this particular DVD, then we’ve finally been gifted with the long-awaited release of a cherished holiday classic; as for me, I wasn’t familiar with the film…or if I once was, my memories of it didn’t stick with me for the long haul…but having now watched it, I can say that there’s probably a fair amount of truth in that advertising.

Addie (Lisa Lucas) is 10 years old and really, really, really wants a Christmas tree; unfortunately, her dad, James (Jason Robards), refuses to have one in his house. No, he’s not being a jerk…well, not intentionally, anyway. He’s still mourning the death of his wife, who died within weeks of Addie’s birth, and he readily associates the holidays with how much his wife loved that time of the year; unfortunately, he also associates his daughter with his wife, and it continues to haunt him that, once upon a time, he wished that she’d died instead of her mother. As such, the Christmas season is generally a pretty low-key affair around their house…to say the least. But when Addie wins a Christmas tree in a contest at school – through a method her father taught her, no less – and James still throws a fit over having a tree in his house, resulting in Addie running off in tears, one is forced to wonder if father and daughter will ever be able to reconcile.

Say, this sure sounds like a merry Christmas movie, doesn’t it? Well, don’t worry: it wouldn’t be a holiday classic if things didn’t eventually turn out all right…but, then, you probably already figured that.

Robards’ performance is appropriately gruff when he’s dealing with Addie while being just sad enough for us to realize that, yeah, that’s a major emotional rollercoaster the guy’s on, and who’s to say we wouldn’t react similarly in that situation? Mildred Natwick plays Addie’s grandmother (and James’s mom) in a manner that will no doubt strike a chord in many of us, the way she walks that tightrope between wanting to make her granddaughter happy without damaging the relationship with her own child. Lisa Lucas is…well, she’s a kid. She’s an average 10-year-old little girl. She was never destined to win an Emmy for her work, but she does well enough.

“The House Without A Christmas Tree” was made in 1972, and it shows, but that’s a good thing, actually; the reason it shows is that it was filmed on video tape, and the result is that it tends to feel less like a movie and more like a play. There really aren’t many different locales involved – the family’s house, the school, a store, and another nearby family’s house – and the brief outdoor shots could easily be left out if anyone wanted to make this into a stage play. You may also recall that 1972 was the year “The Waltons” premiered, so don’t be surprised when you tune in to find that A) the story takes place in the 1940s, B) the goings-on are, by and large, pretty mundane by today’s standards, and C) there’s as much heartbreak as there is happiness.

But, like I said, things turn out all right in the end, and that’s what counts.

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With 9 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 16, 2007 /

…Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

As much as it pains me to say this, honesty requires that I must: “Santa Clause 3” wasn’t as God-awful bad as I thought it was going to be…or, more specifically, it wasn’t as bad as the God-awful trailer for the film would’ve had me believe.

I mean, man, when I first saw that thing, my reactions were as follows:

* “The first film was legitimately enjoyable, the second one had its moments, but the funniest joke here appears to be the one in the title. The trailer is 100% laugh-free. David Krumholtz – formerly known as Bernard the Elf – should be sending his agent a solid gold Mercedes this Christmas for getting him ‘Numb3rs’ and keeping him far, far away from this picture.”

* “As Santa is my witness, the only highlights are the clips from the first two films. It’s really that unfunny. Example: a kid tells Jack Frost to ‘just chill,’and he howls, ‘I invented chill!’ Ughhhhhh.”

“Awful awful awful. Count on a solid opening weekend, but, God willing, word of mouth on the playground will kill the flick quickly after that. Even the under-10 set should have better taste than to accept this.”

And y’know what? I meant it. All of it. Every word. It was just that damned bad.

Having now subjected myself to a viewing of the film, however, I walked away from the experience far less horrified than I ever would’ve expected. Yes, there’s plenty of cheesy kid stuff in the flick, and if the inclusion of reindeer fart jokes isn’t enough to send most people with a modicum of taste running for the exits (or, in this case, the “eject” button on their DVD player), Martin Short’s hammy performance as Jack Frost will probably do the trick. If you can make it to the halfway point of the film, though, it falls back on the old “It’s A Wonderful Life” bit of seeing what the world would’ve been like if Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) had never put on the Santa suit but Jack Frost had instead. It’s a hackneyed Christmas plot device, but as a sci-fi geek who always enjoys a good alternate-universe tale, I still enjoyed it; it was also entertaining to watch Scott figure out how to get his old life back. Even Short earned a laugh when, after Jack’s plans have been foiled, he just kind of blinks and says, “Well, that didn’t work out like I’d hoped.” The best part of the film, though, was the surprise of finding Alan Arkin and Ann-Margret as Scott’s in-laws; I’m sure I’d known at some point that they were in the cast, but I’d totally forgotten it until they appeared on the screen. As ever, Arkin scores laughs, and Ann-Margret…well, she coasts by just by being herself.

I’m still of the opinion that only the first “Santa Clause” film is a must-see, but if my kid wants me to put this in at some future juncture, I probably won’t twitch…much.

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With 11 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 14, 2007 /

…The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas.

What on earth possessed Universal to suddenly release this 1996 made-for-TV flick onto DVD for this holiday season? I mean, it’s not like they haven’t had a decade’s worth of Christmases to get it out there, and it’s not like the popularity of “The Munsters” has suddenly soared. Well, whatever the reason, it’s here now, so let’s take a look at it, shall we?

As you can probably tell from the cover art, that ain’t Fred Gwynne playing Herman Munster. It’s always a dicey proposition when you take iconic TV characters and recast them – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – and this wasn’t Universal’s first attempt to bring back “The Munsters.” Only a year earlier, they’d done a TV movie called “Here Come The Munsters” which featured Edward Herrmann as Herman (yes, the patriarch of the Gilmore family once sported green make-up and neck bolts), Veronica Hamel (“Hill Street Blues”) as Lily, Robert Morse (“Mad Men”) as Grandpa, and Christine Taylor (a.k.a. Mrs. Ben Stiller) as the family black sheep, Marilyn. Presumably, it did pretty well, since it quickly spawned a sequel, but for whatever reason, every single role was re-cast. In “Scary Little Christmas,” Herman’s played by Sam McMurray, who tends to pop up on various sitcoms as the boss who thinks he’s way cooler than he actually is (he played Doug’s supervisor on “The King of Queens” and Chandler’s boss on “Friends”); Lily is now portrayed by Ann Magnuson (“Anything But Love”), Grandpa by Sandy Baron (he was Jack Klompus, the retiree on “Seinfeld” who foolishly told Jerry he could keep his pen), and Marilyn by the crazy-hot Elaine Hendrix, who wears spectacularly short skirts…and wears them well.

Personally, I always preferred “The Addams Family” to “The Munsters.” The latter always drifted way too much into slapstick for my tastes…and, as expected, this flick is very much in keeping with that tradition. There are several storylines running throughout which echo classic material from the original series – Eddie’s depressed, Marilyn’s found a new guy, Grandpa’s having trouble getting an experiment to work right – and they’re interspersed with the holiday-themed plots, including a holiday house decorating contest and, most importantly, Grandpa accidentally bringing Santa and two of his elves into his laboratory. As Grandpa tries to get Santa and his elves back to the North Pole in time to make his rounds, the elves are more interested in going to a bar and partying, while a potion error turns Santa into – scout’s honor – a figgy pudding. The highlights include the inspired casting of Mary Woronov (Miss Togar in “Rock and Roll High School”) as the neighbor who desperately wants to beat the Munsters in the decorating contest, the underutilized plot thread of the Munsters’ Christmas party (every Universal monster you can think of makes a cameo at the party, but the funnier bits come earlier on, when they’re receiving their invitations), and, okay, those short skirts of Marilyn’s really were awesome.

It’s a fair bet that fans of the original series will just cry “blasphemy” and take a pass on this flick, and I can’t really blame them, but most kids will really enjoy it…and, yes, even the little kid in me was entertained enough to feel like it was worth my time to have watched it. Of course, the adult in me probably just kept watching because of Elaine Hendrix, but, c’mon, look deep into those gorgeous eyes and tell me you don’t suddenly feel a burst of Christmas spirit yourself.

Yeah, I know, I could’ve made a far more tasteless joke about feeling one’s Yule log stirring. But I do have some standards, you know.

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Doc of the Day: “Fired!”

November 20, 2007 /

As a DVD, “Fired!” may be one of the funniest viewing experiences of the year. As an actual movie, however, it isn’t nearly as successful…but, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.

The story behind “Fired!” began when actress Annabelle Gurwitch was…you guessed it…fired. Fired by Woody Allen, to be precise, when he was in the process of prepping the cast for a play he was putting together and declared that Gurwitch looked “retarded” when she followed a particular stage direction. Having already told tons of her friends and family members that she was going to working with Allen, Gurwitch was decidedly wounded by this act, but instead of wallowing in her depression, she ended up in conversation with various folks who sympathetically shared their own stories of being fired. She soon realized that, as a performer, there was something that could be done with this material, and, voila, the “Fired!” stage show was born, where various performers would get up on stage and read the tales of various people’s experiences.

This documentary sprang forth from that show, but, unfortunately, it’s lost something in the translation. This is mostly because the flick trumpets appearances from Tim Allen, David Cross, Andy Dick, Jeff Garlin, Bob Odenkirk, Jeffrey Ross, Harry Shearer, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stein, Fred Willard, Illeana Douglas, and Anne Meara, then ends up feeling like it’s far more about Gurwitch herself. And, of course, it is about Gurwitch. Unfortunately, most of the other contributors just have funnier stories, which means we spent as much time waiting for them to come back as we do appreciating Gurwitch’s own humorous experiences as she struggles to find her way back from the abyss. Also, directors Chris Bradley and Kyle La Brache make the decision to chop up several of the stories being told at a performance of the stage show and come back to them periodically throughout the film for more of each story, which proves reeeeeeeally annoying.

So if I’ve got these complaints, why am I calling “Fired!” one of the funniest DVDs of 2007?

Well, like I said, the stories from the various contributors are pretty damned funny. Jeff Garlin talks about losing a stand-up gig because he couldn’t compete with the magician who opened for him, Fred Willard sits in a hot tub (with Harry Shearer loitering just outside the waterline) and recalls how he was dropped from a sitcom because he was honest and admitted that he wasn’t the guy who played Herb Tarlek on “WKRP in Cincinnati,” and Illeana Douglas concedes that she was once fired from a job as a coat check girl despite her years of experience in placing coats on hangers and then taking them off again. Andy Dick revisits the world of fast food and finds that he still can’t hack the pace, while Bob Odenkirk provides Gurwitch with a great it’s-not-you-it’s-us speech to show how you can be let down easy in situations like that.

Better still, however, are the outtakes from the film. David Cross talks about getting fired from a hardware store, numerous telemarketing jobs, and the Paul Simon Presidential campaign, but the best bit comes when he discusses how he was let go from a mail-room job in a law firm by a guy who was the perfect combination of Mr. Smithers and Mr. Burns. (“He said, ‘Just get out,’ and I said, ‘But I haven’t had a chance to take a dump in your desk yet!’ And, then, that was it; I knew I had no chance of coming back. ‘Oh, c’mon, guy, lighten up! That was a joke! Seriously, can I just work through the summer?'”) Paul Feig, co-creator of “Freaks and Geeks,” tells an awesome story about his experiences as a teenage Ronald McDonald, comedienne Hillary Carlip tells a dy-no-mite story about getting dumped from her gig as Jimmie “J.J.” Walker’s juggling instructor, Dana Gould talks about being let go from the Fred Savage sitcom, “Working,” Harry Shearer explains how he got fired from several radio stations, once for playing a Mel Torme record on an all-rock station (calling the experience “the sincerest form of ‘don’t do that again'”), and…oh, hell, pretty much every single story in the outtake section is hilarious.

Great concept, less than perfect execution, but given that your sides will hurt by the time you’re finished with the DVD, I guess the best description of “Fired!” is to call it an eventual success.

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Doc of the Day: “Brown is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream”

November 19, 2007 /

Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an entire episode of “The George Lopez Show,” but after having watched this documentary, I think I’m gonna have to check it out; I don’t have any idea whether it’ll actually be funny or not, but just listening to the guy’s comments in “Brown is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream” makes me predisposed to liking him. (Mind you, I was already pretty much in that camp after I heard that he’d gotten into a physical altercation with Carlos Mencia over Mencia purportedly stealing some of his material, but, still, this really sealed the deal for me.)

“Brown is the New Green” focuses on Latinos as they’re perceived on the small screen, and while it probably won’t come as any surprise that they haven’t always had the best representatives on the American airwaves – for awhile, their big three were Jose Jiminez, Speedy Gonzales, and The Frito Bandito – it’s heartening to realize that they’re finally getting their due. Now, if you’re one of those folks who gets pissed off every time they reach a voicemail menu that says, “For English, press 1,” I’m sure you’re already seething mad at the mere thought of what this documentary discusses; in fact, some of you may have stopped reading altogether while you work out a diatribe for the comments section about how giving Latinos airtime to trumpet their culture is akin to setting Old Glory afire and watching her burn.

Well, hang onto your hat, muchacho, because you may be surprised to find that a lot of Latinos aren’t so remarkably different from John Smith, Average American.

For instance, when George Lopez was casting his TV show, many actors came in to audition and, when doing so, they’d put on a heavy Spanish accent. “George would say, ‘Brother, cool down, you don’t need to do that,'” said producer Bruce Helford, “and they’d say, ‘Oh, cool, thank you,’ and then they’d do it in perfect English, with no accent at all!” Lopez himself reveals that, while building the sets for his series, the network complained that the kitchen didn’t look like a Mexican kitchen. “They said, ‘There’s nothing here that indicates that a Mexican family lives here. There’s not a tortilla maker.’ I said, ‘My tortilla maker was my grandmother!'”

For the most part, the so-called “Latino audience” is something which, more often than not, the entertainment industry views as an advertising demographic rather than a group of individuals who are looking for their own brand of entertainment. There’s an ongoing battle between trying to portray real Latino life versus what producers think middle America can handle; one guy mentions how, from his experience, the average Latino family doesn’t always have a father present, but TV can’t hang with the idea of a fatherless family scenario, while Lopez speaks about how absolutely no-one in his family was supportive of his attempts to build an American TV career. The most interesting interview, at least for me, wasn’t with Lopez but, rather, with Bill Dana, the comedian who portrayed Jose Jimenez. He was hugely popular for many years, but he wasn’t actually Latino, and as the tide of public opinion turned, the popularity waned dramatically…like, to the point where, when he announced that he was retiring the character, he was stunned at the resulting cheers.

“Brown is the New Green” is another fine PBS production, providing an interesting, educational, and – ultimately – depressing look at how little love the Latino community gets on television. Sure, it’s nice that “Ugly Betty” is a success, but you can’t really call that a step forward when, in virtually the same breath, ABC canceled “The George Lopez Show” in favor of “Cavemen.” Still, when the doc ends with the revelation that Lopez earned $5 million from the show’s final season, $15 million from the series’ syndication deal, and $9 million from his stand-up shows that year, at least you can’t say that his chapter of the story hasn’t had a happy ending.

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