MCN DVD Reviews: July 15, 2008

*The Wrap Up ...*

Xanadu Magical Musical Edition with CD	If it weren't for the concurrent 1980 releases of the inadvertently risible musicals Can't Stop the Music and The Jazz Singer, Xanadu might have danced away with a half-dozen of the inaugural Razzie awards. As if to prove that it's impossible to keep a good bad movie down, the Olivia Newton-John dance-athon has returned on DVD in a special edition that not only honors the original, but the live stage musical that's knocking 'em dead on Broadway. The Aussie mini-diva plays a heavenly muse sent to Earth to open a roller-derby disco. (Don't ask.) Today, apart from its substantial camp value, Xanadu may be most notable for being Gene Kelly's last feature film. Its notoriety helped convince director Robert Greenwald to put Hollywood in his rear-view mirror and begin creating outstanding lefty documentaries, including Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers. That the package also includes the soundtrack CD may be its biggest selling point, however. -- Gary Dretzka

Stop-Loss	The distributors of Stop-Loss faced a rather substantial hurdle when they opened their pro-soldier, anti-administration drama on 1,000-plus screens, directly on the heels of box-office disappointments Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Redacted, Grace Is Gone, In the Valley of Elah and a dozen excellent, if little seen documentaries about the Iraq war. Not surprisingly, perhaps, what didn't work for those films didn't work for Kimberly Peirce's provocative follow-up to Boys Don't Cry, either. In hindsight, a specialty-house rollout might have served Stop-Loss better, but, of course, that falls into the category of wishful thinking. At a time in our nation's history when citizens have been bullied into thinking any politician who isn't sporting a facsimile of Old Glory on his lapel is a potential traitor, apathy has become an antidote for the feeling of helplessness that comes with caring too much. Shot and edited to resemble the videos sent home by soldiers fighting in Iraq, Stop-Loss describes how the same Catch-22 that tormented Yossarian now is being used to enslave our troops and National Guard units. Because the Bush/Cheney braintrust has correctly determined it would be political suicide to re-instate the draft - if only to replenish exhausted personnel - the military has been forced to rely on mercenaries and a strategy that forces combat veterans to repeatedly return to duty, even after their commitment has expired. Here, after demonstrating their courage in a bloody skirmish with insurgents, a closely knit unit of Texans returns home to a hero's welcome. To a man, they accept the fact they may be maimed or killed in the service of their country. They don't question the President's rationale for being in Iraq or feel as if their buddies died in vain. They do, however, expect the military to honor its commitment to them. When squad leader Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) is prohibited from returning to civilian life, as planned, his refusal to return to duty drives a serious wedge between himself, his comrades and his bosses. In addition to replicating the intensity of battle, Pierce captures the mood of a town whose very existence is dependent on the military, and whose children are among the first to volunteer when the President tells them their services are required. Although the Pentagon was quick to brand King as a coward for insisting that he be allowed to return to ranching, the community is less sure. What rankles his buddies, most of whom bear permanent scars from the war, is learning they might have to go through the recovery process and/or another tour without King's sound judgment, courage and loyalty. Of course, these are the same qualities the army requires of its officers and can't afford to sacrifice in the name of fair play. In attacking this dilemma head-on, the script Pierce co-wrote with Mark Richard (Huff) requires her to rely far too heavily on pathos and melodrama to make the same point Joseph Heller made with humor and absurdist logic. The achingly pensive Phillippe gets great support from fresh faces Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Victor Rasuk and Abbie Cornish. The making-of and background featurettes are helpful in understanding the approach taken by Pierce, who was inspired by her brother's decision to enlist after 9/11. -- Gary Dretzka

Sleepwalking	Considering the large number of dark, brooding and downright depressing movies introduced each January at Sundance, it's a wonder Zoloft isn't among the items to be found at concessions stands in Park City theaters. Sleepwalking is the kind of skillfully executed indie drama that forces viewers to wallow in the muck of other peoples' tragedies, without much possibility that the climax will offer any more hope than the scenes that introduced the familial dysfunctions. Here, a bright and beautiful young girl, Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) is abandoned by her no-account mother, Joleen (Charlize Theron), and left to scratch out a meager livelihood with her soon-to-be-unemployed uncle, James (Nick Stahl). With James out of work, Tara is condemned to the hell of a local foster-care system. Instead of letting his niece rot - apparently, no nice people are taking in foster kids in this bleak corner of the Midwest - James snatches her from the facility and, together, they embark on the road to nowhere. After quick, unsatisfying visits with friends, the pair head for the spooky-gothic ranch home of James' tyrant of a father. Dennis Hopper has played a lot of monstrous human beings in his career, but this guy is so nasty that viewers will want to jump into the screen to kill him themselves. In Hopper's hands, the farmer is no mere gargoyle, though. Indeed, at first glance, he looks as if he might have one or two redeeming qualities. Alas, he doesn't. Near the end, Joleen reappears on the scene, leaving us to wonder if Tara will be forced to choose between the devil she knows and the devil in the barn. As unrelentingly punishing as Sleepwalking is, there is a scene towards the middle that makes the experience totally worth the effort. In it, Tara assumes Lolita-drag to toy with the dormant libidos of two boys sharing the same motel pool. The stunned looks on the faces of the pre-pubescents, as Tara skates around them in her bathing suit, betray an awakening of the senses that could inspire another movie altogether. Indie stalwarts Hopper and Theron, who also served as producer, deserve a lot of credit for helping so many aspiring filmmakers get their pictures made. -- Gary Dretzka

The Ruins: Unrated Edition The Mummy: Two-Disc Deluxe Edition The Mummy Returns: Two-Disc Deluxe Edition Jet Li's Fearless/Tai-Chi Master Blood Brothers	By now, you'd think Americans vacationing in Third World countries would know better than to stay in decrepit hostels and stray too far off the beaten path to admire the cultural artifacts. But, nooooooo, they act as if they haven't rented a horror movie in the last 20 years. In Carter Smith's tropical horror-show, The Ruins, ever-reliable Jena Malone (Saved), Jonathan Tucker (The Black Donnellys), Laura Ramsey (Whatever Lola Wants) and Shawn Ashmore (X-Men) are among a group of friends, who, while surveying the ruins of an ancient civilization, are attacked not only by unhappy Mayan warriors, but also blood-thirsty plants. Scott B. Smith adapted his own novel for the screen, changing several key elements along the way. The unrated and Blu-ray sets include commentary by the director and editor, as well as three featurettes, additional scenes, an alternate ending and trailers. Rent it with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! and The Little Shop of Horrors. With The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor about to open in a megaplex near you, Universal has repackaged the two previous installments of its Brendan Fraser franchise for diehard fans and Blu-ray owners (July 22) in two-disc sets. Based, of course, on the studio's landmark 1932 thriller - starring Boris Karloff - The Mummy typifies what can happen when archaeologists stick their well-educated noses into tombs sealed for eternity. In addition to an array of fresh background and making-of features, the new sets offer sneak previews of Dragon Emperor, as well as a coupon for a free ticket. (What, no popcorn?) Any Mummy film with Dragon Emperor in its title couldn't be expected to take place entirely in Egypt, if at all. Sure enough, the third installment involves the unearthing of the mummy of the first Han Emperor, entombed by a conniving sorceress (Michelle Yeoh). Who better to play the vengeful ruler than Jet Li, the martial-arts master who's expressed a desire to explore other genres. Universal is taking advantage of Li's appearance by repackaging his martial-arts swan song, Jet Li's Fearless. The set includes the original theatrical release, an un-rated version and one with additional 35 minutes of action. At the end of July, Dragon Dynasty is re-releasing Li and Yeoh's less-seen Tai-Chi Master, which also requires the stars to take on a bunch of impossibly tough hombres. While we're in the neighborhood, John Woo and Terence Chang are behind the period-gangster flick, Blood Brothers, directed by first-timer Alexi Tan. Set in 1930s Shanghai, three brothers from a rural province move to the big city, where they enlist in the army of a local mobster. When one of the lads gets jiggy with the boss' moll, they must band together to stay alive. -- Gary Dretzka

Sex and Death 101	Just as the title suggests, Daniel Waters' decidedly adult comedy concerns matters of sex and death, in that order. Greater minds than those in charge of this picture have already observed psychological and metaphysical links between the two, with the French even going so far as to label orgasm, la petite mort (the little death). Here, in a conceit borrowed from Heaven Can Wait, reformed male slut Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) mysteriously receives an e-mail message from heaven, listing all of the women with whom he's had sex and the names of those he's destined to bed before going to the big Playboy Mansion in the sky. Apparently, Blank was the only human being to receive such a list, while every other recipient simply got the date of their deaths. Naturally, only a cyber-angel would have administrative access to God's homepage. Knowing they can't retract the information or alter the recipients' destinies, they make a deal with Blank. Honesty requires Blank to inform his fiancé that it isn't likely he'll be able to resist the charms of the women named on the e-mail, so she might want to reconsider marrying him. After she splits, Blank makes quick work of the list, leaving only one option: a dignified death. The 101st and final name on the list is a Gillian De Raisx, a.k.a. Death Nell (Winona Ryder), a tempting sorceress who's been busy sealing the fates of less-fortunate e-mail recipients. Sadly, Nell is the only multidimensional character in Sex and Death 101. Although quite handsome, Blank's name perfectly describes his personality. With only one or two exceptions, the women on his list are every bit as single-minded as Blank, and possess even less charm. The average porn star is given more to do than the actresses here. So, yet another decent idea is beaten into the earth by poor execution, frat-boy humor and bargain-basement production values. Incredibly, Waters is the same man who wrote Heathers and several other very decent pictures. In the featurette,101 Perversions, Waters has fun disparaging the Hollywood system, oblivious, perhaps, to the fact that his contribution to the greater good isn't very special, either. -- Gary Dretzka

10,000 BC Journey to 10,000 B.C.: History Channel	Among the pitfalls of spending more than $100 million on a movie is being required to justify your decisions to a legion of seriously underpaid and increasingly underappreciated film critics, many of whom can't remember the last time they spent even $100 on anything. These frustrated boys and girls can be a tough crowd, especially if denied the opportunity to review the movie in time for opening weekend. This, I suspect, was the chief reason 10,000 B.C. was so widely trashed in the media. That, or they simply were still pissed at co-writer-director Roland Emmerich for making them sit through the 1998 version of Godzilla. Either way, methinks they protested too much. The movie brought me back to the Saturday matinees of my youth, when Steve Reeves, Victor Mature and, of course, John Wayne would save humanity on a weekly basis. As 10,000 B.C. progresses we can see that several different languages have already been established, tribes and clans populated vastly different environments and some civilizations were far more advanced technologically than others. Woolly mammoths were being used as beasts of burden and saber-toothed tigers knew how to return a favor. Or, something like that. 10,000 B.C. may not be good history, but it's a ripping good historical yarn about one clan's efforts to save friends and relatives captured and enslaved by the pharaohs of Egypt or someone very much like them. The acting won't win any awards, but the money spent on CGI and location shoots in New Zealand and Namibia was well spent. The making-of material, while pretty thin, offers examples of incomplete computer-imaging in deleted scenes. The History Channel has become a reliable correct-all for movies purporting to be historically accurate or based on a true story. Its researchers' take on 10,000 B.C. is as entertaining as it is informative, and probably would make a better study guide than Emmerich's interpretation of prehistoric events. The fight scenes aren't nearly as cool, however. To avoid buzzkill, it's probably better to watch these History Channel docs after seeing the movies they support. -- Gary Dretzka

My Blueberry Nights	Wong Kar-Wai has made several movies - In the Mood for Love and 2046 come immediately to mind - that could be described as achingly romantic. In his first English-land feature, My Blueberry Nights, Wong's characters suffer openly from the aches and pains of romance, but none of it seems real or terribly interesting. It begins in one of those New York City cafes that look as if they were left over from Mayberry R.F.D. A hysterical young woman, Elizabeth (Norah Jones), demands information about her no-good boyfriend from the owner, Jeremy (Jude Law), but eventually settles for homemade blueberry pie. They become confidantes over repeated servings of pie a la mode. After Elizabeth hits the trail to find herself, she encounters other suffering souls (David Strathairn, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz). Their characters look as if they might have just stepped out of an Alan Rudolph movie or Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart. None of the performances look as if they were phoned in from a poolside cabana in Vegas -- where nearly a third of the story takes place -- or that the actors were indifferent to the material. It's just that the screenplay didn't require them to do much more than look good while mourning lost love and saying goodbye to important people in their lives. First-time actor Norah Jones certainly doesn't embarrass herself in the lead role, but it's impossible to compete with our memories of previous Wong protagonists Maggie Cheung, Gong Li and Ziyi Zhang. Cinematographer Darius Khondji employs a deeply saturated color scheme to maintain a melancholy tone throughout the picture, as does Ry Cooder's original soundtrack and bluesy songs by Jones, Cat Power, Otis Redding, Ruth Brown and Cassandra Wilson. A bonus Q&A with the filmmaker helps make sense of some of Wong's choices, although not the more perplexing ones. -- Gary Dretzka




Superhero Movie The best that can be said of movies that parody movies that already are parodies of themselves is that they keep lots of C- and D-list actors off of the unemployment rolls. It would be sad to learn that 82-year-old Leslie Nielsen needed to appear in turkeys like Superhero Movies to keep from starving, but what other excuse could there be? His presence alone legitimizes these endeavors, and, as long as he's willing to phone in his performances, the studios will continue to churn them out. Here, writer-director Craig Mazin found inspiration in the disproportionate number of comic-book heroes plying their trade in Hollywood, today, with Spider-Man inspiring most of the gags. Given only that much information, it's easy to predict 90 percent of the jokes even before the opened credits have unspooled. That said, Superhero is far from the worst movie parody I've endured over the last few months. Fans of the genre will want to check it out, but everyone else can safely pass it by. The bonus features aren't all that terrific, either. -- Gary Dretzka

The Tracey Fragments Adapting stream-of-consciousness writing for the screen is a task that borders on the needlessly difficult. Considering that the vast majority of all moviegoers would prefer to have their eyes poked out by turkey vultures than buy a ticket for anything experimental, it's a wonder anyone even tries. The Tracey Fragments is veteran Canadian director Bruce McDonald's impassioned attempt to do justice to Maureen Medved's impressionistic study of teen angst. Ellen Page (Juno, Hard Candy) paints yet another remarkable portrait of a teenager who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders as she runs the gauntlet of insults delivered by classmates and deals with parents unfit to raise puppies, let alone children. To demonstrate Tracey's chaotic state of mind, McDonald employs multiple video windows -- in an array of shapes and sizes - and determinately non-liner time sequences. Here's our introduction to the protagonist, "My name is Tracey Berkowitz … 15 …just a normal girl who hates herself." Much is made of Tracey's flat-chestedness, but it seems more of a problem for her classmates and the hipster heartthrob, Billy Zero, who's just another cool-looking predator. Tracey's other big concern involves finding her 7-year-old brother, Sonny, who disappeared after she hypnotized him into thinking he was a dog. (A dinner-table scene, in which the kid answers his parents' questions with barks, is hilarious.) The Tracey Fragments is a difficult movie to watch, let alone understand, even at a mere 77 minutes. But, adventurous viewers will be rewarded for their patience. Tracey's quest is propelled, as well, by Broken Social Scene's dynamic, Velvet Underground-inspired soundtrack. -- Gary Dretzka

Flakes If it weren't for the occasional f-bomb, Flakes might fit neatly into the same general category as High School Musical, Camp Rock and the million of inspirational let's-do-a-musical stories inspired by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. I simply can't imagine what else to make of this slight romantic comedy about dueling breakfast bars. Yup, you read that right: cafes that offer customers as wide a choice of cereals as Ben & Jerry and Baskin-Robbins have flavors. Set and filmed in New Orleans, Flakes could changed its title and envisioned a David vs. Goliath contest between coffee shops, book stores or used-car dealerships, but writers Chris Poche and Karey Kirkpatrick must have woken up in a strange city one day, jonesing for some Sugar Smacks or Count Chocula. Aaron Stanford plays Neal, a prickly musician with a severe case of writer's block (rocker's block?), managing a funky cereal bar owned by an eccentric collector of classic brands (Christopher Lloyd, of course). His kooky girlfriend, Miss Pussy Katz, is played by the similarly kooky Zooey Deschanel, who, when she becomes frustrated with Neal's unwillingness to exercise his musical muscle, takes a job at the new, Starbucks-like cereal bar across the street. Tempers flare, and cooler heads don't prevail until Cupid gets tired off their squabbling and launches a pre-emptive arrow at their hearts. Naturally, local homeless people and other neighborhood eccentrics are enlisted by both storekeepers to further their causes. Tough to imagine anyone of voting age finding much to cheer for in Flakes - Stanford's character is especially unlikeable - but older teens might enjoy it. -- Gary Dretzka

Chop Shop The setting for this excellent urban drama, New York's Willets Point, is so far off the beaten path, it might as well be in Sao Paulo, Tijuana or Manila, which it more closely resembles. Equals parts scrap yard, flea market and slum, the Iron Triangle is the daytime home to a tightly knit community of mechanics, sanders, buffers, spray painters, welders, dent removers and hucksters of all ages and cultural backgrounds. At night, illuminated by the lights of Shea Stadium, next-door, the automotive beehive empties and Willets Point becomes a haven for grifters, thieves and sexual predators. When 12-year-old Alejandro isn't steering customers into the garage belonging to his benefactor, he's hustling everything from fenders and tires, to bootleg DVDs and boxes of M&Ms. His dream is to buy a canteen wagon, from which he'll sell food to blue-collar diners with his 16-year-old sister. His urgency grows after witnessing Isamar climbing out of the cab of a semi, whose driver she's just satisfied sexually. Besides City of God, Chop Shop is favorably reminiscent of work by Italy's post-war neo-realists. The credit belongs to the splendid acting of Alejandro Polanco and Isamar Gonzales, who were recruited from the New York school system by co-writer-director Ramin Bahrani. Chop Shop isn't to be missed by any indie-film enthusiast. It's that good. -- Gary Dretzka

Pleasure Factory Help Me Eros Younger American audiences have embraced the uniquely stylized horror- and suspense-thrillers exported during the last 10 years, or so, from Pacific Rim countries. It may take a while for the same viewers to embrace the arty soft-core stories that combine elements of J-pop with the kind of eroticism inspired more by Emmanuelle than In the Realm of the Senses. The stories that inform Strand's Pleasure Factory and Help Me Eros defy explanation. Pleasure Factory is set in Singapore's little-publicized red-light district, Geyland. The stories behind the sex workers and their customers meet are equal parts compelling and outrageous. You haven't lived until you've watched Taiwan's kooky F4 Girls - a cross between the Spice Girls and an American boy band -- slide down stripper poles in a street-side booth to entice passers-by to buy their betel nuts. (Check the Internet sites devoted to the sexy betel-nut runners. It's a hoot.) Then, too, there's the chubby suicide-hotline operator, Chyi, who is married to a gay chef and shares a bathtub with live eels and snakes (a.k.a., tomorrow's dinner). Chyi's alluring phone voice enchants a failed stock-market investor, who, when she turns down his advances, becomes her stalker. To compensate, he finds companionship with one of the pole-peddlers. The sexual couplings are beyond bizarre. -- Gary Dretzka

Impact Point Once every few years, someone attempts to find something interesting in beach volleyball beyond the bikinis and buff bodies. For pure camp value, alone, it would be difficult to top Side Out, which starred C. Thomas Howell, Peter Horton, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Kathy Ireland and Harley Jane Kozack, who now writes mystery novels. Impact Point is no threat to that fine film's legacy, but it does showcase the requisite number of hard bodies and sand bunnies. Oh, yeah, there's also a mystery stalker. -- Gary Dretzka

Cannon: Season One/Jake and the Fatman: Season One, Vol. 1 Army Wives: The Complete First Season Till Death Do Us Part Anglo Saxon Attitudes As strange as it might seem in 2008, there was a time when a fat old white man could solve crimes on TV and carve a niche for himself atop the Nielsen ratings. Standing 5-foot-7, William Conrad was sufficiently rotund to play the reclusive New York P.I., Nero Wolfe, and never be confused with co-star Joe Penny in Jake and the Fat Man. Conrad already was a familiar face, voice and physique in movies and television, when, in 1971, he accepted the role of overweight Los Angeles P.I., Frank Cannon. His bulk often worked against him in chases and fights, but television convention demanded that he win out at the end. Today, he probably would be arrested and sent to a fat farm. In1987, Conrad played Los Angeles D.A., J.L. McCabe. Both series were popular with viewers and remain a lot of fun to watch. Unfortunately, Paramount/CBS Video has only seen fit to release a half-season's worth of episodes at a time. Similarly short-changed are fans of The Streets of San Francisco: The Second Season, Vol. 1. Incidentally, Conrad provided the voice of Matt Dillon, in the radio version of Gunsmoke, and also narrated The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Lifetime's Army Wives, one of the surprise hits of 2007, has returned for a second stanza. The first-season package will get new fans up to date on the compelling relationships and storylines that transcended the usual prime-time soap-opera conventions. The strong-willed wives are played by Catherine Bell, Kim Delaney, Wendy Davis and Sally Pressman, while Sterling K. Brown is the token male whose wife is off fighting in Iraq. The series' writers don't avoid politics, but the best stories focus on the strain on relationships caused by endless tours of duty in the Middle East. Like Alfred Hitchcock before him, John Waters made a perfect choice to serve as narrator for a series of stories of about murder most foul. In the case of Till Death Do Us Part, the episodes focused on actual cases in which marriages ended in death, not divorce. Waters' Groom Reaper often seemed gleeful as he presented the 13 dramatized episodes. Although the production values weren't anything special, the final twists make the stories worth watching. In 1992, Thames Television adapted Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, Angus Wilson's darkly comic social satire. British TV mainstay Richard Johnson played Gerald Middleton, a distinguished historian involved in an elaborate hoax involving a pagan fertility idol and a 7th Century bishop. He's also having an affair with the fiancée (lovely Tara Fitzgerald) of his best friend and colleague. When it comes to scandals, American academics simply aren't in the same league with their British counterparts. Among the other new TV-to-DVD arrivals are 30 Days: The Complete Second Season, The Vice: The Complete Second Season, American Gangster - The Complete Second Season, Rebus: Set 3, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch: The Fourth Season and Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Complete Animated Series, Walker, Texas Ranger: The Complete Fifth Season, Wire in the Blood: The Complete Fifth Season and Soul Food: The Final Season. -- Gary Dretzka