The Wrap Up ...
Robert Mitchum: The Signature Collection	No one made acting look as effortless and manly an occupation as Robert Mitchum. To say they don't 'em like him anymore presupposes "they" want middle-age actors who've been around the block a few times, can personify good and evil with equal precision, and light a cigarette in a way that is as sexy as it is ominous. Many Mitchum fans will argue that the titles included in "Signature Collection" aren't among his best or most representative. None will be disappointed, however, by the amount of TLC lavished on Angel Face, Macao, The Sundowners, Home from the Hill, The Good Guys and the Bad Guys and The Yakuza, movies that span nearly three decades of work. In these films, Mitchum was surrounded by such stars and directors as Otto Preminger, Jean Simmons, Josef Von Sternberg, Jane Russell, Vincente Minnelli, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard, Fred Zinnemann, Deborah Kerr and Sydney Pollack. Among those providing commentary are Pollack and Russell.
Catch A Fire	The protests that brought about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were grounded on non-violent principles forwarded by Martin Luther King Jr. In South Africa, the leaders of the struggle to end apartheid were routinely silenced by imprisonment or assassination. Most the violence was instigated by police and soldiers, but anti-apartheid guerrillas would resort to sabotage and bloodshed when opportunities presented themselves. Catch a Fire is the story of Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), a South African refinery supervisor who was radicalized not only by the experience of being unjustly accused of a political crime but also in the knowledge that his wife also was brutalized by security forces. Upon his release, Chamusso traveled north to join the military wing of the African National Congress. He would return to his ramshackle village to finish the job on the refinery started by other militarists. It is a true story, told with credence to actual events. Chamusso was trained by the father of screenwriter Shawn Slovo, and the film was shot at locations central to the anti-apartheid fight. In different hands than those of director Philip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Quiet American), Catch a Fire might have had all the impact of a biopic on cable TV. Instead, he shot it as a political thriller, treating the arc of Chamusso's radicalization as if it might have been written by a novelist. Unfortunately, the film's inherent lack of timeliness served to weigh against a greater appreciation of the movie by the public. Neither did it help that, since 9/11, audiences have become less willing to differentiate between good and bad terrorism. Luke's performance, alone, was worth the price of admission, however. -- Gary Dretzka
Viva Pedro!	MCN Voices: Viva Sony Pictures Classics! for taking this bold, unprecedented step, which is sure to turn 2006 into "The Year of Almodovar." The films are so wonderful, vibrant and varied, how could it not? Take it from one who has just seen all nine of them in one amazing, mesmerizing week. They (almost) all stand up to the scrutiny of time, and of being compared both to each other, and to Almodovar's greatest, most recent, mature works, the Academy Award winners Talk to Her (Best Original Screenplay 2002) and All About My Mother (Best Foreign Film, 1999) which are included as an essential part of the "Viva Pedro" festivities. As a body of work, or even singly, there are simply no films around today that even begin to measure up to with them.
Flyboys	Critics bent over backward to damn this ambitious World War I action-drama with either faint praise or cheap shots. They balanced any compliments for the choreography of the dogfights with cynical comparisons to Norman Rockwell paintings. What they really were trying to imply was that by pulling punches to achieve a PG-13 rating, it wasn't up to the standards set by such recent triumphs as Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line and Letters From Iwo Jima. I agree that Fly Boys overstayed its welcome by about 20 minutes, but, after finally seeing the film in DVD, can see appreciate that not all cinematic carnage need be enhanced by special visual effects and that dialogue doesn't always have to be 100 percent authentic. Some movie do. This one didn't. Tony Bill's intention was to showcase the heroics of the young Americans who joined the French cause as pilots, while politicians back home twiddled their thumbs. The Lafayette Escadrille took on better-trained German aerialists, and, in doing so, anticipated not only the U.S. Army Air Corps and Air Force, but also the Postal Service and commercial airlines. I'm not sure how deadly accurate is the screenplay, but whatever it lacked in verisimilitude was made up for in exciting aerial action, enhanced by motion-capture aircraft. Typical of old-fashioned Hollywood war pictures, Fly Boys included a highly unlikely, if harmlessly romantic subplot. This probably pissed off the critics, too. In any case, the DVD and its bountiful bonus features should appeal to a segment of the audience underserved by studios, as well as those who might have been turned on by The Aviator or, much earlier still, The Blue Max. Younger teens might find the video-game-style action to their liking, as well. Apart from hunky James Franco and Jean Reno, as a generic French officer, the cast is young, appealing and mostly unknown. -- Gary Dretzka
Jesus Camp	Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth may be the odds-on favorites for the Oscar as best feature-length documentary, but all of the other nominees are as deserving of the honor. In addition to being a very provocative work, Jesus Camp benefits from being more timely than anyone could have expected it to be. It was showing in several dozen theaters when one of the film's centerpiece figures -- the fire-breathing Rev. Ted Haggard -- was relieved of the presidency of the National Association of Evangelicals, for soliciting gay sex and using illegal drugs. Haggard was viewed as a hero and role model by the flock of young Evangelicals followed by filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady in Jesus Camp. The kids were headed for a summer retreat in North Dakota -- inappropriately named, Devil's Lake -- where Pentecostal Pastor Becky Fischer would train them to be soldiers in God's Army. In this case, at least, the campers were volunteers, not draftees. If it weren't for the youngsters' passion for the fundamentalist cause -- and their bizarre parroting of the conservative political beliefs of their mentors -- they wouldn't seem out of place at any summer camp in the Midwest. Although Ewing and Grady appear not to have taken sides, it would be just as difficult for a liberal not to be horrified by what they see, as it would for an Evangelical to find fault in Fischer's mission. Indeed, the distributors chose to launch Jesus Camp in the same Midwestern cities in which the Evangelical movement was strongest, and to wait a week or so before hitting the arthouse circuit. In this way, the film could open ahead of reviews that likely would have accentuated the creepiness factor and comparisons to Hitler Youth. Like most other documentaries, Jesus Camp didn't make a whole lot of money at the box-office, so it's difficult to determine if the strategy worked. It certainly deserves a larger audience in DVD, upon which can be found deleted scenes, commentary and extended coverage of Haggard's rant. -- Gary Dretzka
The Guardian	One of the things that Hollywood filmmakers do better than anyone else in the world is turn out the kind of sprawling, brawling and unabashedly inspirational action pictures that pit crusty veterans of one profession or another against hot-shot recruits in need of a reality check. The Guardian, which celebrates the accomplishments of the largely unsung U.S. Coast Guard, immediately recalls such recent hits as Top Gun, Officer and a Gentleman and G.I. Jane. (The formula works equally well in movies about cops, arbitrage traders and, one imagines, plumbers.) Here, Kevin Costner is the hard-to-please pedagogue, and Ashton Kutcher is the upstart kid. After being injured in a failed rescue mission, Costner's Ben Randall has been assigned to take over the service's intensive 18-week basic training course. Kutcher's Jake Fischer not only expects to graduate with honors from the school but also to break all of Randall's swimming records. The rest of the story wouldn't surprise anyone who's been to a movie in the last 30 years, but neither will it disappoint fans of such yarns. The primary reason no one else can touch Hollywood on action-adventures like The Guardian has more to do with a studio's willingness to spend vast sums of money to make it look spiffy and reasonably authentic. This attention to detail manifests itself here most obviously in the choice of highly recognizable supporting actors, a first-class score and military-sharp set design. Purposefully left invisible are the seams that join CGI, live-action, archival and water-tank footage. Andrew Davis has been here before in such thrillers as The Fugitive and Under Siege, and has a firm grip on the rudder in The Guardian. Given all the attention paid recently to the ravages of hurricanes and tsunamis, The Guardian is both timely and illuminating. Whoever decided to include veteran R&B singer Bonnie Bramlett in the cast deserves an Oscar. The extras shed even more light on the work of the Coast Guard. -- Gary Dretzka
Quinceanera	Filmed entirely on location in Los Angeles' increasingly gentrified Echo Park neighborhood -- on a budget that can charitably be described as shoestring -- Quinceanera had the good fortune of winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, before venturing into the non-festival world. It was backed by an aggressive grass-roots marketing campaign, which tapped into several market niches: Hispanic, gay, yuppie, art house, couples. And, it made a little money. With any luck at all, it will do better in DVD. The title of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's drama derives from the imminent arrival of the 15th birthday of Magdalena (Emily Rios), the daughter of a store-front preacher in Echo Park. In the Mexican-American community, quasi-religious quinceañera ceremonies mark the coming of age of girls, many of whose parents are expected to show their enthusiasm by throwing parties they often can't afford. Unlike other families, Magdalena's won't pay for such extravagant accessories as a Hummer limousine. Not surprisingly, news of Magdalena's mysterious pregnancy trumps any concern over transportation. She's forced to take refuge in the home of her kindly great-uncle, Tomas, a street vendor who's lived in the neighborhood forever, but never bothered to invest in a house. The bungalow Tomas shares with Magdalena and another outcast nephew, Carlos, sits behind a larger home that recently was purchased by a gay couple hoping to capitalize on the affordability of Echo Park. They are among the first wave of thirty-something gays and lesbians who hope to trade the bar scene of West Hollywood for quiet tree-lined streets, boho coffeehouses and backyard gardens. This doesn't always sit well with the established community, but gentrification isn't the only challenge facing the characters. Carlos, the would-be gang-banger, becomes involved emotionally with Tomas' landlords, who eventually plan to usurp the old man's home and grotto. Sounds too ambitious by half, doesn't it? Somehow, all the disparate parts of Quinceanera come together smoothly and without a backwash of sentimentality. It's all heart. The DVD also contains commentary with the filmmakers and cast members, a Q&A and making-of featurette. -- Gary Dretzka
Cocaine Cowboys	Billy Corben's extremely informative and entertaining Cocaine Cowboys documents the period in Miami history when the city emerged from its long sleep, and became the drug-dealing capital of the known universe. More to the point, it fixes the exact moment at which the good ol' days of pot smuggling gave way to the murderous reign of Colombian cartels and mercenary narco-terrorists. Apart from the archival photographs and news stories, Cocaine Cowboys is informed by the first-person testimony of several of the period's key players, including a trafficker, wholesaler and killer. Although, in several important ways, the film can viewed as ancient history, it is a story worth re-telling if only for its entertainment value. These were, after all, the real-life individuals who either inspired or witnessed the incidents borrowed by the makers of Scarface and Miami Vice. We also meet a largely unsung player -- nicknamed, the Godmother -- who makes Tony Montana look like a Boy Scout. Corben and co-producer David Cypkin provide the commentary on the film and deleted scenes, which appear alongside the featurette Hustlin' with the Godmother: The Charles Cosby Story. -- Gary Dretzka
The Illusionist	The first thing I did after watching Neil Burger's intriguing period piece, The Illusionist, was go to the IMDB website to check out the film's budget. Set in turn-of-the-last-century Vienna, it has the lush texture of an old-fashioned Hollywood costume drama, with recognizable stars, high design values and a story that owes more to literature than to comic books and magazine articles. And, yet, it came in at an estimated $16.5 million, a sum reasonable even by the standards set by other Czech-staged entertainments. Burger, whose freshman effort was the creepy Interview With the Assassin, has been nominated for an Indie Spirit award for his adaptation of Steven Millhauser's short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist." Edward Norton plays the popular illusionist, Eisenheim, who engages in a dangerous battle of wits with Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) and a high-ranking Vienna police detective, Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti). The son of master furniture maker, Eisenheim has a gift for magic that would make Lance Burton jealous. When he learns that his childhood sweetheart is engaged to the brutish tyrant, Leopold, Eisenheim conjures illusions designed to reveal his rival's worst traits. Embarrassed in public, Leopold takes his revenge on the magician (inspired by "Prophet of the Third Reich," Erik Jan Hanussen) by brutalizing the beautiful Sophie (Jessica Biel). The final disposition of the mystery is best kept secret, but it involves a good deal of romance, detective work, political intrigue and clairvoyance. More than anything, The Illusionist is a good story, well told. I would have expected the extras to include some historical background from magic consultants Ricky Jay and James Freedman, but you can't have everything. -- Gary Dretzka MCN Review: The Illusionist is a long-gestating project that Bob Yari ended up backing with Michael London as one of the three producers. Edward Norton plays the humorless Illusionist. Paul Giamatti plays the not-as-funny-as-Giamatti-was-clearly-ready-to-make-him police chief who is under the thumb of the scenery licking, bulgy-eyed Rufus Sewell. And what brings them all together is the lovely Jessica Biel, whose creamy skin and bee-sting lips offset her modern woman vibe... along with some very... slow... dialogue... readings...
Idiocracy & The Animation Show: Vol. 1 & 2	Anyone who enjoys a good conspiracy theory ought to check out Idiocracy. Written and directed by Mike Judge, the futuristic sci-fi satire would seem to be as worthy of distribution as any one of a hundred other comedies released into theaters in 2006. Instead, 20th Century Fox put Judge's follow-up to the sleeper hit Office Space into a deep-freeze before sending it out without the benefit of a press junket, ad campaign or critics screenings. Even though there's an audience willing to sample any new work by the creator of Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill, promotion for the DVD launch of Idiocracy was similarly anemic, even to niche markets. In it, two extremely average Americans -- a military librarian (Luke Wilson) and prostitute (Maya Rudolph) -- are recruited by the Pentagon for a hibernation experiment. Instead of being awakened after one year, as planned, they awaken in 2505 to a world populated entirely by morons. By comparison, the average intelligence of the citizenry makes the time-travelers seem like geniuses, and, therefore, a threat to the status quo. Indeed, the characters in My Name Is Earl would find themselves at the top of the food chain here. Ironic, considering that many pundits once held up Beavis and Butt-head as examples of the dumbing-down of America, alongside Jackass, Jerry Springer, the re-election of George W. Bush, the ascendancy of Fox News (the official source for news in America 2505) and the celebrity-hood of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. Idiocracy won't be confused with any of the masterworks of the satirical or sci-fi genres. Judge appears to have been limited to a cable-TV budget, the acting is erratic and exposure to even the most inspired stupidity gets old after a half-hour. Still, it has many funny moments, and, like good sci-fi, offers a cautionary view of the future. Like the promo campaign, the extras leave a bit to be desired. Not so The Animation Show, which is bursting at the seams with award-winning shorts and bonus features illuminating the animation process. These films comprised the nucleus of a traveling shorts festival, co-founded in 2003 by Judge and Don Hertzfeldt, to re-introduce such material to audiences too young to remember when cartoons were a staple of every movie-going experience. The two-disc boxed set features 20 short films personally selected by the artists. They include Academy Award nominees The Cathedral, The Rocks and Mt. Head, as well as Judge's Early Pencil Tests and Other Experiments. Movie City Indie: Fox dumped Idiocracy, Mike Judge's savage, often very funny satire of media and mediocrity over the weekend, with little notice and no advance screenings. After catching it on Saturday with an audience of five (and I seemed to be the only English speaker in the room), I was pleased to run across three other moviegoers over the holiday who had seen it and were buzzing about its brazen “Planet Butt-head” mix of stupid characters behaving in numbingly stupid ways. Luke Wilson plays very ordinary Army private Joe Bowers who’s conscripted into a cryogenics experiment that should last a year, but lasts until The Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505. He wakes to a world of relentless crudity, but of Kafkaesque familiarity and repetition, with a fistful of familiar brand names, transformed into gaudier (truthier?) versions of their current incarnations: Fox News is read by naked bodybuilders, FuddRuckers has transformed into ButtFuckers (where a kiddy birthday party can be seen under the sign) and Starbucks has become a chain of handjob parlors.
The Motel Red Doors Anyone who doubts just how far Asian-American cinema has evolved since Wayne Wang's cross-over hit, The Joy Luck Club, ought to check out this compelling pair of indie comedies. Michael Kang's The Motel is set at the kind of sleazy roadside motel frequented by prostitutes and their johns (who pay by the hour), drug dealers, unsuspecting tourists and villains in slasher movies. This one is run by a world-weary Chinese-American woman and her long-suffering father, who try mightily to keep the fleabag sanitary, if nothing else (anything better would be impossible). The centerpiece character, however, is her rotund 13-year-son, Ernest. The boy runs the desk at night, which, besides putting him in direct contact some rather seedy individuals, also gives him time to write essays. His mother considers Ernest's hobby a waste of time, even though one piece will win an honorable mention in a statewide contest. At the same time, Ernest's nascent sex drive is awakened by porn magazines left behind by customers. Helping him make the transition from boyhood to adolescence is a charismatic hustler (Sung Kang) who tried him like a cherished nephew. He is the last person Ernest's mother would want to mentor her son, but, in fact, he opens just the right doors for the curious and surprisingly well-grounded boy. The Motel is full of unexpected pleasures. Georgia Lee's Red Doors feels a bit more familiar than The Motel, in that it imagines a suburban New York family dominated by the antics of three flighty daughters. They are nearly as American as apple pie, but haven't completely abandoned the traditional values of their parents. The oldest of the Wang girls is a businesswoman on the verge of getting married to a guy she may or may not love (and, no, it wasn't an arranged marriage, and the guy isn't Chinese); daughter No. 2 is a medical student on the verge of falling in love with an actress about to star in a medical drama; and the youngest is a high school senior on the verge of getting arrested for terrorizing the boy-next-door, upon whom she has a crush. Dad has just retired, but, having lost interest in living in such a meaningless world, seeks shelter and wisdom in a nearby monastery. Mom, of course, provides the connecting tissue that keeps everything from flying off into a million different directions. Like The Motel, Red Doors will keep you guessing -- and delighted -- for most of its 90-minute length. Naturally, neither film was given much of a chance by distributors to find an audience. (Included on the DVD is a short film by Lee, which takes a scathing look at the fixation among some Chinese-American parents on getting their kids into the right colleges.) -- Gary Dretzka
I Trust You to Kill Me Broken Bridges Any time an actor's name jumps out from the cover of a rockumentary, the natural inclination is to cringe and fear yet another over-hyped vanity project, such as the ones fronted by Juliette Lewis, Gary Busey, Dan Ackroyd and Jim Belushi, Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves and Russell Crowe. In the case of Keifer Sutherland and I Trust You to Kill Me, the celebrity in question does everything but sing and play guitar, thank goodness. The world-saving star of Fox's 24 owns the indie record label for which Rocco DeLuca & the Burden toil, and, on their first European tour, the boss also helps load and carry equipment, serves as the band's road manager, hustles audiences and gets drunk with the lads. Burden's music falls into the roots-rock category, and the band isn't half-bad. Until Burden scores a hit song, Sutherland fans are the only ones likely to savor I Trust You to Kill Me. Just as actors yearn to be rock stars, singers aspire to be actors. (Models, a different breed entirely, date rock stars and dream of becoming movie stars.) Thanks in large part to his repertoire of honky-tonk and patriotic anthems, almost no one is a hotter musical commodity than Toby Keith. In Broken Bridges, the burly singer plays a down-on-his-luck country star who returns home to pick up the pieces of his broken life. There, he reunites with his childhood sweetheart (Kelly Preston) and is introduced to his 16-year-old daughter. In his freshman effort, Keith certainly doesn't embarrass himself, but he might consider sticking to key supporting roles in the future. Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds lent some marquee value to the DVD, which also contains interviews, concert footage and a salute to our fighting men and women. -- Gary Dretzka
The Night Listener Hard to imagine any actor stealing the spotlight from Robin Williams, even when he's dialed down his nutso shtick to fit a purely dramatic role. Toni Collette isn't just any actor, however. When the Aussie chameleon is playing at the top of her game -- as has been the case recently -- she gives few actors an opportunity to upstage her. Based on a novel by Armistead Maupin, and, we're told, a true incident in his life, The Night Listener isn't a world-beater thriller. Neither is Collette challenged much by the screenplay. Nonetheless, she adds a layer of creepiness that probably would have gone missing without her sinister presence. Williams plays Gabriel Noone, a radio talk-show host obsessed with the memoirs of a young victim of extreme sexual abuse. We learn more about the boy's plight in the on-air phone conversations he has with the deejay. At a certain point in their long-distance relationship, Gabriel begins to have doubts about the boy's story. Unnerved and unable to work, he travels to rural Wisconsin to sort things out for himself. Things may not get much clearer for him in Wisconsin, but they certainly get weirder. The Night Listener was released at around the same time as author JT LeRoy was unmasked as a fraud and James Frey was made to apologize to Oprah for dishonoring her book club. Not a bad rainy-day thriller. -- Gary Dretzka
Lucky Louie: The Complete First Season Benny Hill Complete and Unadulterated: The Hill's Angels Years, Set Six (1986-1989) The Festival: The Complete First Season The Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower Just as The Flintstones was conceived as a prehistoric homage to The Honeymooners, the HBO's Lucky Louie tweaked the landmark sitcom's template by adding R-rated dialogue and raunchy storylines. The lumpen blue-collar characters, as portrayed by Louis C.K., Pamela Adlon, Jim Norton, Mike Hagerty, Laura Kightlinger and Jim Norton, always seemed to be one phony sick-day call-in from the unemployment line. Even Louie's cute little kid was a slacker. The package includes the featurette, A Week in the Life of Lucky Louie, an unaired Episode 13 and commentaries. The material in the latest volume of Benny Hill Complete and Unadulterated represents the final season in the cheeky comedian's four-decade run on television. Hill's basic shtick -- naughty sketches, slapstick humor, cornball singing -- was a throwback to an era when burlesque was king and women on stage were as anonymous as they were stacked. The material could be very funny, but how the show lasted into the late '80s is anyone's guess. The set contains the featurette, Hill's Angels: In Conversation, and the Benny Hill Cheeky Challenge Trivia Quiz #6. With the recently completed Sundance still in the news, it's a perfect time to check out The Festival, a six-part mockumentary series from IFC satirizing the current obsession with film festivals. In it, an ambitious young filmmaker's effort to showcase The Unreasonable Truth About Butterflies at the Mountain United Film Festival (M.U.F.F.) and compete with the big boys for distribution. Naturally, everyone from the executives and filmmakers, to the buffs and groupies, is utterly full of themselves … just like at Sundance. One of the truly great advantages of subscribing to cable television is the easy access to documentaries and other fact-based historical material. Desperate Crossing is a presentation of the History Channel, which does very well re-packaging its original programs on DVD for those folks without cable. This one recounts the events that led to Mayflower's journey to the New World. Unless one had a very good history teacher, most of the material found here will be new … and fascinating. -- Gary Dretzka
May 6th Van Gogh At a time when the media seemingly give more weight to the outcome of American Idol than assassinations of cultural figures in faraway countries, an incident that makes headlines one day often falls right out of the paper the next. Such was the case of the outspoken Dutch filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh, whose death at the hand of an Islamic radical alarmed people around the world, but pretty much vanished from media radar screens in a week's time. May 6th, which debuts here on DVD, is the political thriller on which Van Gogh was working at the time of his death. It is based directly on the 2002 murder of right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn, whose ideas and popularity shook the historically tolerant nation to its democratic core. In the film, a fashion photographer on a location shoot inadvertently captures images of men and vehicles involved in the murder of Fortuyn. The discovery inspires the photographer to embark on a personal investigation, which reveals a host of potential suspects: a Turkish immigrant, Green Party activists, Dutch police, greedy businessmen and the American CIA. Skillfully rendered by Van Gogh, whose great-grandfather was the Impressionist painter's brother, the film favorably recalls both Blow-Up and any number of titles by Hitchcock and Costa-Gavras. Apart from the obvious topicality of the story. May 6th is sufficiently exciting, intriguing and sexy to stand on its own in any film marketplace. That it only played in a handful of film festivals, outside its Netherlands release, smacks of a different kind of conspiracy. In addition to other politically incorrect causes, the filmmaker was an admirer of Fortuyn and a vocal critic of Islamic fundamentalism. Also included in the package is a fascinating 55-minute documentary, which examines the murder of Van Gogh and attacks Dutch ethical duplicity. It wouldn't be out of place on 60 Minutes. And, speaking of Van Gogh, Maurice Pialat's compelling 1991 biopic of the tortured painter has finally made its way to DVD. It appeared only a year after Robert Altman's even-better Vincent & Theo, killing any hopes for an American campaign. Pialat's version is set in Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh (Jacques Dutronc) is being treated by Dr. Gachet in the last months of his life. Playful and curiously horny, Dutronc's Van Gogh doesn't seem to be anyone who might commit suicide any time soon. Good to see Van Gogh in happier times. -- Gary Dretzka
La Moustache Changing Times La Moustache opens with a Parisian architect asking his wife, "What if I shaved off my moustache?" The answer, we soon learn, is nothing. Indeed, neither she nor anyone else Marc meets comments on its absence or treats him differently than they did a day before he shaved. Indeed, they act as if Marc never grew a mustache. When pressed, his wife and friends grow weary of Marc's misplaced vanity, and, in turn, he starts to unravel. Even as La Moustache begins to resembles something Rod Serling might have written for The Twilight Zone -- with a nod to Kafka and Beckett -- it's difficult to imagine it emerging from any nation's cinema but that of France. Waiting for someone to notice Marc's missing mustache is an exercise in patience akin to waiting for Godot, and, once hooked, it's impossible not to stay with the movie until its end. Writer-director Emmanuel Carrère deserves a lot of credit for maintaining our interest, but it all would have gone for nought, if such splendid actors as Vincent Lindon and Emmanuelle Devos hadn't come along for the ride. Another superb entertainment for lovers of peculiarly French romances comes from the sure hands of veteran filmmaker Andre Techine. In Changing Times, a construction supervisor nearing retirement (Gerard Depardieu) takes it upon himself to re-connect with his one great love in life, Cecile (Catherine Deneuve). In the 30 years since Antoine and Cecile last saw each other, he has carved out a successful career and she has raised a family with her doctor husband in Tangiers. The timing of Antoine's posting coincides with the arrival of Cecile's bisexual son, his girlfriend and her young son. Cecile's son is in town more to visit a boyfriend than reminisce with the folks, while his pill-popping lover hopes to see an estranged twin sister who's suddenly found religion (in this case, Islam). Meanwhile, Cecile's younger husband has gone middle-age crazy, balancing bankruptcy with encroaching alcoholism and a thorny marriage. That's a lot of bad emotional baggage for a 95-minute movie to carry. Techine manages to keep all the balls in the air, as if in anticipation of the moment when love will triumph against increasingly difficult odds. Tangiers is a place where people of diverse cultures converge and separate on a daily basis, and, as such, provides a terrific backdrop for the film's coincidences and surprises. If you feel much older learning that Changing Times marks the seventh pairing of Denueve and Depardieu … well, you're not alone. -- Gary Dretzka
Don't Knock the Twist /Twist Around the Clock Don't Knock the Rock /Rock Around the Clock The Best Of Hootenanny Adults of a certain age will remember when rock 'n' roll was in its infancy and many considered it to be a passing fancy. The pounding rhythms and jitterbugging were being blamed for such demonic behavior among teenagers as juvenile delinquency, wearing motorcycle boots to school, necking in the balcony, succumbing to the red menace and dancing like Negroes. Documentary footage from the '50s makes the ranting of preachers and politicians look far more comic than it was at the time. Only 20 years removed the burning of books in Nazi Germany, American-bred potentates were demanding of their faithful to do exactly the same thing to records. As the Don't Knock … and … Around the Clock demonstrated, rock 'n' roll would prove too powerful a force to keep down. Although much of the music is lip-synched and the plots are wafer thin, these double-feature packages are delightful reminders of those good and bad ol' days, when such pioneers as Little Richard, Bill Haley, deejay Alan Freed, the Platters, the Treniers, Chubby Checker, Dion, Gene Chandler and Len Barry (all of whom play themselves, here) became the pied pipers of a generation. Before long, record labels would attempt to homogenize the music, by having white artists -- Pat Boone, especially -- suck the soul out of the songs in syrupy cover versions. In another decade or so, radio executives would dishonor the pioneers even further by segregating play lists (as is the case now). Boomer parents and grandparents will enjoy sharing memories of rockin' round the clock with their kids, who will find a lot to like in the music, themselves. At approximately the same time as socialites began lining up at New York's Peppermint Lounge to learn the Twist, college students dialed in to a more quiet and topical sound. Folk music could be heard alongside rock, doo-wop and R&B on top-40 stations, even though most of the songs literally were as old as the hills. Hootenanny arrived on television in 1963 to take advantage of the trend, just as Shindig and Hullabaloo would do after the first wave of the British Invasion hit our shores. Some of the leading lights of folkdom had already signed contracts restricting their television appearances, but Hootenanny never suffered for lack of talent. The 90 tracks in the three-disc Best of Hootenanny package compensate with the presence of such artists as Judy Collins, Carly Simon, the New Christy Minstrels, Hoyt Axton, the Limelighters, Johnny Cash, Ian & Sylvia Tyson, Joe & Eddie, Marion Williams, the Dillards and Flatt & Scruggs. Also shown on the kinescope recordings are comedians Woody Allen, Louis Nye, Bill Cosby and impressionist Vaughn Meader, whose career would end abruptly with the assassination of JFK. -- Gary Dretzka
Border Radio: Criterion Collection The Very Best of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons: Live in Concert Rock 'N' Roll Jukebox: Vol. 1 It isn't often that Criterion Collection is entrusted with such a rough-hewn freshman effort as Border Radio, a document more interesting as a curiosity than a lost classic or cult phenomenon. It's most noteworthy for introducing Allison Anders, who had just graduated from UCLA film school with co-writer/directors Kurt Voss and Dean Lent, and soon would make Gas, Food Lodging and Mi Vida Loca. Border Radio describes what happens after a trio of Los Angeles punk rockers break into the safe of a promoter who owes them some money. The local L.A. punk scene was two decades removed from the days of peace, love and good vibes, and, as presented by Anders, it more resembled a hoedown after a long cattle drive. Singer-songwriter Jeff Bailey (Chris D, of the Flesh Eaters) elects to lay low in an oceanside trailer camp in Ensenada, leaving his wife to deal with their child, his record label and guys who take the opportunity to hit on her. The storyline is loudly punctuated with musical contributions by Dave Alvin, the Divine Horsemen, Green on Red, Los Lobos, the Lazy Cowgirls and Chip Kinman. (X's John Doe also plays a key character). The package adds commentary, a 2002 documentary on the film, nine deleted scenes, a music video of the Flesh Eaters' The Wedding Dice, photos and an essay by journalist Chris Morris. The heyday of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons came in the years preceding the first wave of the British invasion and ascendancy of Motown, but their music has never gone out of style. The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Jersey Boys demonstrates just how durable is the group's legacy and the popularity of doo-wop. The songs on The Very Best of Frank Valli and the Four Seasons were recorded during a 1992 concert in Atlantic City. Valli's trademark falsetto holds up pretty well, and Boomers -- especially those who can remember necking with these songs in the background -- will enjoy the DVD quite a bit. The material on Rock 'N Roll Jukebox was recorded live at the Rock 'n Roll Palace, in Orlando. The acts represented on the first volume of the series include the Coasters, Del Shannon, Bryan Hyland, the Diamonds, Tommy Sands, Jive Five, the Tokens and the Dixie Cups. -- Gary Dretzka
Extras: The Complete First Season The Street Ricky Gervais, the British actor who created The Office, followed up that success with Extras, for HBO. In it, he plays an actor whose talent has yet to be appreciated by casting directors and audiences. Thanks to the ineptitude of his hapless agent, Gervais' Andy Millman has spent the last half-dozen years toiling as an extra on movies and TV shows. This isn't to say that he's a hack. He's as capable as most of his peers with speaking parts -- at least in his own mind -- but has trouble getting people interested in his pipe dreams. As pitiable as Andy is fellow extra Maggie, who doesn't get any respect at all. Extras shares many of the same subtle charms as The Office, a comedy that refused to telegraph its gags or rely on sitcom cliches when a wink or a nod were just as effective. Among the bonafide stars who fall within Andy and Maggie's orbit are Kate Winslet, Ben Stiller, Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Stewart. There are plenty of deleted scenes and outtakes, as well as making-of featurettes. Also from Britain comes The Street, a six-part dramatic anthology series noteworthy for its splendid scripts and acting. Roughly based on the concept of love -- in all of its unpredictable, tortured and messy manifestations -- the stories play out in a working-class section of Manchester. Among the many familiar faces from film, theater and television are Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, and Jane Horrocks. Their presence is reason enough to take a chance on The Street. -- Gary Dretzka