DVD Releases: June 8, 2005

Beyond the Sea
US/Canada Gross - $6.14 million

The Hot Button: The ultimate vanity project, some critics react to the film as though Kevin Spacey was their 3-year-old making a really good poop in the toilet for the first time. Yes, Kevin Spacey can sing. But forget about young Bobby Darin. Dead Bobby Darin was eight years younger than Spacey is. Spacey could surely have aged Sandra Dee a little to make the movie experience a little more palatable. After all, as he keeps reminding us, it's just a movie. Well, almost.

The Worst 10 Of 2004: I have always been willing to admit to a classic screenwriter's trick… if you have something going on in your story that defies a reality that the audience will buy, call attention to it… be brash. Kevin Spacey uses that trick out until it's got a hole worn into its foundation.

The "Bobby Darins That Coulda' Beens" - Tom Cruise, Leonardo Di Caprio, Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis

Imaginary Heroes
US/Canada Gross - $.229 million

Imaginary Heroes offers a new spin on the old chestnut about how poorly some parents react to the suicide of a child, who, they've convinced themselves, showed no previous signs of despair. Far less bleak than Robert Redford's Ordinary People, which it resembles, Imaginary Heroes is kept afloat by an undercurrent of sarcastic wit and a wonderful ensemble cast that includes Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels as the grieving suburbanites, and Emile Hirsch as the surviving son who doesn't quite measure up to their golden boy. There are secrets aplenty, and always some hope for reconciliation. It takes a lot of patience, however, to get to the point where everything comes together in a psychologically meaningful cornucopia of neuroses. Unfortunately, the film suffers from the unsteady directorial hand of 25-year-old writer-director Dan Harris, who hasn't yet learned when enough is enough. As such, it plays best as an after-school special on Lifetime, for soccer moms… albeit, a really good one. Weaver's fans will get a kick out of her character's re-awakening to therapeutic joys of marijuana. -- Gary Dretzka

Pride, Unprejudiced: Imaginary Heroes is an uneasy mix of black comedy and intense alienation that comes to life in the faces of the younger actors, particularly in moments fraught with homoerotic tension, and the timelessly strong and sculptured features of Weaver despite unconvincing motivations for some of her actions, and an ending that manages to bring the disparate strands together.

Big Meat Eater

Somewhere, there's a festival for movies that are so amateurishly made and aesthetically cheesy they're actually great fun to watch. Naturally, it would be dedicated to the memory of Ed Wood, and be played strictly for laughs. My nominee for an opening-night musical would be Chris Windsor's delightfully tasteless and technically slipshod barrel of monkeys, Big Meat Eater. The schlock-opera bears comparison with the original Little Shop of Horrors, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Plan 9 From Outer Space, in that it imagines a nerdy butcher who stumbles upon a way to turn discarded meat scraps into radioactive fuel for flying saucers. Then, there's the Big Meat Eater, his own self. He's fat, black, wears a fez and doesn't use a grinder to make hamburger meat. The songs may be silly in the extreme, but they're reasonably tuneful and no worse than those in countless musicals that actually find their way to Broadway, before being trashed by critics. -- Gary Dretzka

Coyote Ugly: Unrated Special Edition
Gone in 60 Seconds

Nothing stirs the toxins within a critic's heart more than a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, especially those in which young women are encouraged to pour water on themselves. Coyote Ugly was despised more than most because the impossibly gorgeous and extremely wet bar dancers probably made more money in tips than the writers did in salary. Coyote Ugly isn't good movie, by any stretch of the imagination -- although, compared with Showgirls, it's The Little Foxes -- but, in all fairness, critics weren't among those in the target audience. It's strictly a fairy tale for the kinds of hunks and hotties who move to New York and Las Vegas, believing they can finance their dreams on the fantasies of dorks with lots of loose change … and, indeed, many do. Coyote Ugly: Unrated Special Edition adds some nipples, and a commentary track that demonstrates why supermodels should be seen and not heard.

Equally reviled by 85 of the 113 critics surveyed in a Rotten Tomatoes poll (18 of 86 hated CU) was Bruckheimer's updating of H.B. Halicki's drive-in classic, Gone in 60 Seconds, in which several dozen valuable cars need to be stolen in 24 hours. The new Director's Cut adds some new footage, featurettes on how the chases and car heists were choreographed and the obligatory music videos. It starred Nicolas Cage, Robert Duvall, Giovanni Ribisi and Angelina Jolie, all of whom played second-fiddle to the cars being stolen. -- Gary Dretzka

The Merchant Ivory Collection

With the untimely passing of producer-director Ismail Merchant two weeks ago, it's worth remembering that most of the great films in the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala
catalogue are available on video and DVD. Twenty-one of those titles have been collected by Home Vision Entertainment in its expansive Merchant Ivory Collection. The films represent almost three decades of work, from The Householder and Shakespeare-Wallah, to The Ballad of the Sad Café and Howards End. The films have benefited from new digital transfers, upgraded soundtracks and generous bonus features. As a producer extraordinaire, Merchant was famous for finding innovative ways to deliver beautiful and intelligent movies to distributors, on extremely tight budgets, and without compromising the quality of casts, scripts or the elegance of their settings. Moreover, Merchant Ivory's exquisite adaptations of classic works of literature inspired tens of thousands of viewers to rush to their local libraries for the full story, or travel agencies to plan trips to Florence, Paris, Bombay and all corners of England. Adults, especially, will sorely miss what Ismail Merchant brought to the banquet table in his films. -- Gary Dretzka

Father of the Bride: 15th Anniversary Edition

In Charles Shyer's impeccably cast, if totally predictable adaptation of Father of the Bride -- now being celebrated in a 15th Anniversary Edition -- Steve Martin, Diane Keaton and newcomer Kimberly Williams did a nice job subbing for Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and Elizabeth Taylor. Even so, I get the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere already is planning another updating of the story, with Adam Sandler and Renee Zellweger as the parents of a bride played by Dakota Fanning. Sean Hayes or Mario Cantone would still be young enough to portray the flamboyant wedding planner, based on the arch-type provided by Martin Short in the 1991 version. This second sequel wouldn't seem as fresh as the original, either, but it likely would be another crowd-pleaser. New to this special anniversary edition are interviews, commentary and an verbal joust between Martin and Short.

Matilda: Special Edition

Hard to imagine why Columbia/TriStar would go to the trouble of releasing and re-marketing a Matilda: Special Edition, without offering viewers the option of watching it on a wide-screen monitor. This very entertaining adaptation of a typically cranky Roald Dahl kids story isn't new to DVD, and has nothing to hide cinematically from viewers with one of those new-fangled televisions. Why not do it right the second time? Mara Wilson plays a very smart little girl whose parents (the perfectly matched Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman) treat her like a servant. When Matilda is finally granted her wish of being allowed to attend a real school, its principal is an ogre. Dahl is an author who can be appreciated by parents and children, alike, and, to hold everyone's interest, Matilda is never allowed an easy way out of her misery. Devito, who also directed, does a nice job of translating the material. The special edition adds several worthwhile behind-the-scenes featurettes, games based on Matilda's schoolwork and some interactive material. -- Gary Dretzka

The Seed of Chucky
The Propesy: Uprising
Hellraiser: Deader

Not being a huge fan of horror movies, I'm continually stunned by the large number of DVDs I receive each week that fall within the rather loose boundaries of the genre. The best ones tend to come from Asia and Europe these days, while genre specialists on these shores seem content to grind out new episodes of proven franchises, or remake foreign titles. Some find success at the box-office, while others go straight to video. In the absence of really scary monsters -- what could more frightening, after all, than a swarthy-looking guy on a airplane with a box-cutter? -- today's generation of gore-meisters is required to delve into the real-life nightmares of everyday citizens, especially teenagers.

Seed Of Chucky provides an example of what happens to a series when its creator runs out of fresh ideas. What began for Don Mancini as a relatively clever way to shed lots of on-screen blood, for fun and profit, has degenerated into an intentional parody of the franchise and its murderous animatronic dolls. If it weren't for the estimable presence of Jennifer Tilly, who's never been shy about mocking her own overgrown-kewpie-doll image, Seed of Chucky would deliver little except a few cheap laughs at the expense of some rather obvious pop-cultural and genre iconography. The fifth installment of the Child's Play saga, demands that Chucky and Tiffany go to Hollywood, where Tilly hopes to star in a movie about the urban legend that is their life. The movie isn't even remotely scary, but it is funny in spurts … literally.

This week, too, Dimension is delivering new, straight-to-video installments of two once-popular series, The Prophesy: Uprising and Hellraiser: Deader, starring the one and only, Pinhead. Also recently released are Alone in the Dark, a video-game spin-off that pretty much goes nowhere, starring Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff; and Malevolence, which imagines what might happen to a kidnapped 10-year-old, raised by a lunatic.

Much better is the Japanese import, Infection. In it, a killer virus seeks revenge on a group of unethical doctors, working in a rundown hospital -- Gary Dretzka

MCN's 2004 DVD Year In Review
Doug Pratt's Ten Best - Multiplatter And Single Platter
Digital Nation: Gary Dretzka's Best DVDs of the Year
Ray Pride's Five Best DVDs And Five Best Boxed Sets