Articles by ric-meyers

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Tue Jul 1, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

'Batman: Gotham Knight' Review

Six anime directors and stellar special features get you starvin' for Dark Knight

As we await the gourmet meal that The Dark Knight promises to be, a worthwhile hors d’ouevre to truly whet your appetite is Batman: Gotham Knight -- a DC Universe Animated Original Movie DVD arriving in stores July 8th.

As director Christopher Nolan prepared his audacious sequel to Batman Begins, someone got the great idea to unleash the crew who brought you the direct-to-DVD Animatrix (arguably superior to the Matrix sequels themselves) on the caped crusader. The result starts intriguing, than grows to become involving, then engrossing, and finally inspired and inspiring.

Three renowned anime studios (Madhouse, Production LG, and Studio 4°C) were given six short scripts – by comic and film scripters Brian Azzarello & Greg Rucka, Alan Burnett, Jordan Goldberg, David S. Goyer, and Josh Olson – and carte blanche (within budgetary reason). They assigned anime directors Yasuhiro Aoki, Futoshi Higashide, Toshiyuki Kubooka, Hiroshi Morioka, and Shojiro Nishimi one tale each, then sat back and savored.

The result is an eye- and mind-full. Although the cover copy says the stories are interlocking, they are actually held together by the power of Batman’s personality, psychology, and myth – making them a perfect set-up for the live action movie which appears ten days later. More accurately, the animated thrillers are cumulative – starting with character revelations and finally exploding into full-blown mini-action movies.

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Sat Apr 12, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Review: Jackie Chan and Jet Li in 'Forbidden Kingdom'

There's a good reason it's 'forbidden'...

Granted, I’m not the sort of person you should see this film with. As the author of multiple martial art movie books, a martial art hall of fame member, a tournament gold medal recipient, the co-creator of Jackie Chan's Spartan X comic book, and a columnist for Inside Kung-Fu magazine, I’m like that history expert at a war movie who grumbles things like “that plane wasn’t in service until the following year,” or “that isn’t the right insignia!”

Even so, suppose you had two of the film industry’s greatest, say, dancers, like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Would you attach unnecessary, distracting wires to them in virtually every scene, diminish their physical genius with intrusive special effects, jerk the camera around with every move so their choreography was obscured, convince them that all “the kids” wanted to see was the peppermint twist, paste together a plot that showcased the dance culture of Zanzibar, and saddle them with a pretty, vapid (or pretty vapid) supporting cast who could dance about as well as Fred and Gene could sew?

Well, that’s pretty close to what they did to Jackie Chan and Jet Li in Forbidden Kingdom, not to mention choreographer and executive producer (in name only) Yuen Wo-ping. The wire and FX stuff is a precise comparison to the previous paragraph’s dance fantasy, but it really starts getting insulting when someone obviously told all involved that “Ultimate Fighting” was really what Americans wanted– dooming Jackie and Jet to monotonous straight-armed punches and kicks throughout, without an iota of the versatile, involving brilliance they display in their many kung-fu classics.

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Sun Mar 30, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

A Time Warrior to India, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #43

I like it when the DVDs I review here are similar, but I also really like it when they’re very different. And other than being made by British talents, the DVDs in this edition are about as different as they can get. First, there’s the cultural classic that is A Passage to India. Columbia Pictures decided that marking the 100th anniversary of director David Lean’s birth (March 25, 1908) was a great excuse to remaster three of his films as “2-Disc Collector’s Edition Columbia Classics.” First out of the box is Lean’s final film, a two-hour and forty-four minute “intimate epic” based on E.M. Forster’s lauded novel of the same name.

Lean came at the challenge with a lot to prove. Despite being one of the world’s most respected filmmakers, with an unprecedented run of sweeping successes behind him, the critical thrashing his turgid, half-badly miscast, penultimate film, Ryan’s Daughter, suffered, had sent him reeling into a fourteen year self-imposed exile. He returned to tackle a cerebral, controversial story that many felt was effectively unfilmable, including, according to the DVD’s extras, the author and several actors in the production.

The reaction at the time of its 1984 release ranged from grudging to delirious, though a majority seemed to feel it still wasn’t quite up to his undisputed classics, Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia (the other two films set to be part of this 100th birthday DVD celebration). The passage of time, however, has been great to this particular film, and this new release could do much to elevate its standing, since it’s fascinating, intriguing, beautiful, and in this artificial age of cgi additives, all natural.

The special features are involving, if not as exceptional as the film. They are, at their best, reserved and civilized like the subjects of their interviews. If the producers and actors had been American, there might have been lots of superlatives and hyperbole, but the likes of producer Richard Goodwin, Lean’s young assistant directors, and actors Nigel Havers and James Fox are polite to a fault.

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Sun Mar 23, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

30 Days of Wakeful Nights, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #42

Any regular reader will no doubt have noticed something by now. I think I may have mentioned it once before, early on, but there should be no harm in repeating it: this column isn’t really for the big-time releases any DVD fan already know exist. Naturally, by all rights, I, like everyone else, should review I Am Legend and maybe even The Mist, but hey, you’re going to watch, or not watch, those without any input from me – no matter how good or bad the special features are.

Instead, I most like to consider the DVDs that may have slipped under your radar, like Wakeful Nights, which is really an amazing movie for several reasons. Japan in general, and Tokyo specifically, is two different places. It’s an amazingly exciting, beautiful, cultured, exotic place for people who don’t speak or understand Japanese, and it’s an incredibly perverted, sex-soaked, practically demented place for those who do. Wakeful Nights is a DVD that both reveals the lusty fun just under the well-designed, well-dressed surface, as well as revels in the classic art of filmmaking and the ancient delights of Rakugo (Traditional Comic Storytelling).

Director Masahiko Makino was inspired by his grandfather, who was credited with initiating a “100 Years of Japanese Filmmaking” celebration, so he brought together generations of actors, writers, and singers to create a lewd, crude, but loving tale of a family gathering for a master comic storyteller’s funeral. Deciding to release this iconoclastic comedy in America, the good folk at AnimEigo had their translating and subtitling work cut out for them. But, for the most part, little is lost in translation … which is really saying something, considering the content and subject matter of the romp. Much of the time they have to put everything in context for American eyes, while still maintaining the momentum of the warped, culturally-punny jokes.

That’s where the extras help. They include some deleted scenes that contain some of the least effective diversions, but the real fun is to be had with the additional songs and their karaoke companions.  First you get to watch two characters have a “Geisha Idol” contest to see who best can deliver the jolly performance and raunchy lyrics of classic sexy songs usually performed by pretty hostesses at mens-only parties, then you get to try your luck at the same songs, with the help of phonetic lyric subtitles, and the occasional actor pop-up. It’s fun to watch and hilarious to try.

Then comes AnimEigo’s vaunted program notes, which are exhaustive to a fault, and much welcome in this multi-layered anniversary effort. Despite their attempt to answer every query the film might elicit, they are also a great starting point for further research – a fact the company seems well aware of, because the final program note is a long list of websites where more material can be found. By the last frame, I felt indoctrinated into a special place in Japanese entertainment, rarely experienced by any outsider. But even if you don’t share that feeling, it’s hard not to appreciate a DVD that comes with the warning: “Contains adult situations and language, disgusting puns, sick jokes, filthy karaoke, and a traumatized Manta Ray.”

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Sun Mar 16, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Gattaca Tales, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #41

Well, it’s SF week at the ol’ DVD Xtra. Not sci-fi week, but SF week, using the “official” contraction sanctified by the Science Fiction Writers of America, of which I was once a member. Now, if I were considering the likes of I Robot and/or I am Legend – two Will Smith vehicles adapted from far superior books – then maybe it would be sci-fi week. But, no, I’m reviewing two wildly divergent films – one totally out of control and one totally in control – that best exemplify the “genre of ideas.”

As virtually almost always, the studios green-light these projects then never really know what to do with them or how to market them. So, while both these releases should have been (and would have benefited greatly from being) glutted with special features the way Will Smith’s DVDs are, they’re both a tad light in the digital loafers (as it were). The lightest, and the most needy, is Southland Tales, another ready-made cult classic created by writer/director Richard Kelly, who had already given the world Donnie Darko.

Anybody involved had to know what they were getting here. It’s not like the whole thing was improvised. In fact, during the thirty minute “making of” doc called “USIDent  TV: Surveilling the Southland,” actors professed to not being able to understand the long script but signing on anyway. If any film needed an audio commentary, this one does, but it doesn’t have one. Instead, the half-hour behind-the-scenes featurette skims over a wide range of approaches – from actor interviews to set decoration to stunt detailing. Richard Kelly is much in evidence, however, vainly trying to defend and detail his base-level Dr. Strangelovian funhouse of a film.

Here, again, is where DVDs can improve the viewing experience. In theaters, Kelly’s overstuffed confection would, and did, become fairly intolerable. But taken in DVD chunks (or chapters, if you will), the futuristic action mystery musical dramedy can even be enjoyable … if only to marvel at Kelly’s hubris, and the huge cast who agreed to participate. Even as a game of  “spot the cult fave,” the film can be fun. There’s the Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Christopher Lambert, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Kevin Smith, Curtis Armstrong (Booger!), and Janeane Garofalo, as well as a bunch of past and future Saturday Night Livers and Mad-TVers.

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Sun Mar 9, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

No, You're Outta Order…!, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #40

 
DVD special features are an invaluable tool for aspiring filmmakers. In addition to the discs that let you reedit sequences, there are many who simply present the filmmakers’ points of view in such a clever, informative, interesting, and edifying way that volumes can be learned with even a cursory viewing.
 
Cases in point: this week’s selections – both scheduled to break into home entertainment sites and shops this coming Tuesday. First there’s Sleuth, a fascinating but ultimately unnecessary remake of the original 1972 movie adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s hit Broadway who-what-why-where-dunnit. Not that you could blame anyone involved for wanting to be a part of the action. First they get the two movie Alfies, Michael Caine and Jude Law, to star, then get award-winning playwright Harold Pinter to adapt the screenplay, then secure master showman Kenneth Branagh to direct.
 
Only one problem … like Presumed Innocent before it, the pulpy delights of Sleuth don’t  really benefit from grade A veneer. At its heart, it’s an old-fashioned, now somewhat wheezy, puzzle pic. But that’s just the movie. It’s the extras on the disc that make this purchase worthwhile. The “making of” doc is fine, but nothing extraordinary. The short “Make-up Secrets Revealed” featurette is okay, although abrupt. But the commentaries really deliver the goods.
 
If you read the back cover, it gives the impression that there is one commentary with director Branagh and stars Caine and Law. But actually there are two commentaries: one with Branagh and Caine, and the other with co-star/co-producer Law. That makes all the difference, because the play and films are a two-man show. The whole plot is predicated on which man’s point of view you take or believe. So it’s inadvertently brilliant that you listen to Caine’s p.o.v. on one track, and Law’s on another. You not only appreciate the movie’s story, but the making of the movie’s story, from their two different, unique, points of view. And Branagh is no slouch either in the creativity department, either.
 
Besides, I love Michael Caine’s work, and the commentary allows him to be there in the room with you, having a pleasant (albeit one-sided) chat about film, life, acting, and et al. The fact that Caine was also in the original 1972 version, playing the Jude Law role, is just icing on the cake. 
 

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Sun Mar 2, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Human Giant Blood+, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #39

 
Eight years ago an anime appeared that has stood, and even reverberated, the test of time. Blood: The Last Vampire was a groundbreaking and engrossing effort that clearly left virtually everyone who saw it wanting more. Clocking in at a breathless, seemingly unfinished, forty-eight minutes (just enough to fill a network TV hour slot), it showcased a pretty, young high school co-ed who swung a mean samurai sword against vampires at a Vietnam-era military base.
 
It was so well done and memorable that the sequel clamor has rung loud and steady to this day. Now, finally, a box set of the first twenty-five episodes of the follow-up television series, cleverly titled Blood+, is ready to slice into U.S. stores. For all those readers who are cringing at the thought of a TV continuation, you obviously don’t know Japanimation. Although there have been a few near misses, generally the small screen adaptations of major action anime have been well inside the strike zone (Ninja Scroll, R.O.D. [Read or Die], and especially Ghost in the Shell have all nimbly survived the transition).
 
Blood+ may head that list, since the skeletal original has been nicely filled out with a backstory and mythology which deepens and broadens the story -- aided and abetted by a design and animation style that can’t match the cgi-ness of the original, but more than makes up for it with blood-splatteringly good direction, editing, and an exceptional soundtrack produced by Hans Zimmer. It’s just a shame for me, personally, that the box set was seemingly created to delight the more superficial anime fan and not the movie lover.
 
The big box contains three slim cases for the six discs, an even slimmer twelve page preview of the Dark Horse comic book version of the translated manga, and a black t-shirt (size: L) boasting the series logo. Once the apparel is removed, the rest rattles a bit. Five of the discs contain twenty-five half-hour episodes. The sixth contains something they’re calling “Inside Blood+” – which is interviews with a whole bunch of the original voice actors.
 

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Sun Feb 24, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Five Fistfuls of Justice, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #38

 
I hope you’ve already read Matt Raub’s advance review of Justice League: The New Frontier  -- DC Universe’s Animated Original Movie -- which was posted days ago. Naturally, since it’s coming out in stores this coming Tuesday, it’s time, keeping with the comic source material, for my variant review. Matt critiqued the film itself. I, of course, am reviewing the Two Disc Special Edition’s extras.
 
This baby more than makes up for what I felt last week’s He-Man Volume One DVDs lacked: right on the first disc they have a near-full-length (nearly 45 minutes) doc called “Super Heroes United!: The Complete Justice League Story.” It tracks the comic from its inception back in the 1940s ‘til today, using images, clips, and just the talking heads of most of the major comic creators of the era. The information from the likes of Roy Thomas, our own Denny O’Neil, and even Stan Lee was so comprehensive that the doc doesn’t even require a narrator or narration. It does benefit mightily, as do all the featurettes, from the soundtrack music of Kevin Manthei.
 
Then the first disc alone more than makes up for what I thought the Resident Evil: Extinction DVD lacked: their doc sneak-peek of the upcoming animated Animatrix-like Batman: Gotham Knights D2 (“direct to”) DVD shows the lame, cheat sneak peek of Resident Evil: Degeneration how it’s done. There’s plenty of making-of stuff, talking heads, and exciting glimpses of the finished product as opposed to Resident Evil’s peek-a-boo tease. The first disc of Justice League wraps with two audio commentaries – the first a gang approach, with six participants from the production and DC Comics (though not a single person from the pic’s impressive voice cast), and the second with the writer/artist of the source graphic novel, Darwyn Cooke.
 
The second disc kicks off with a slightly shorter but just as interesting history of “The Legion of Doom: Pathology of the Super Villain.” While it contains many of the same talking heads as the “Super Heroes United” doc (Michael Uslan, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, etc.), it also benefits from a Malcolm McDowell narration. Then, perhaps as compensation for the film’s inability to recreate the delightful style of the original graphic novel (understandably opting for the previously established designs of DC’s  recent Kids-WB Superman and Batman animated TV series), there’s the “Comic Book Commentary: Homage to The New Frontier” featurette, which goes into detail with and on Darwyn Cooke’s original. 
 

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Sun Feb 17, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

He-Man and the Nine Amateurs, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #37

 
Note to producers: either retire words like “phenomenal” and “unbelievable” from your vocabularies or think thrice before allowing yourself to be filmed for DVD special features. Rest assured it will only help your cause. The aforementioned suggestion comes as a result of watching two long overdue DVD offerings back to back. If you watch only the extras, you’d think The Amateurs was the movie to see rather than The Nines. Neither movie will ever usurp the place of, say, the newly hi-deffed Lawrence of Arabia, but they surely prove how influential special features can be.
 
The Amateurs (known as The Moguls in the U.K. and Australia) is a cute, contrived, long-shelved, high-concept project from the indie upstart First Look Studios, while The Nines is a convoluted, contrived, high-concept project written and directed by the screenwriter of Corpse Bride, Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and Titan A.E. One big difference between the two is that the former has an amazing cast serving a creaky script, while the latter has a small, solid cast laboring to bring home a script that may not be more than a sum of its well-done parts.
 
It’s also great to compare the director/producer relationships. On The Amateurs, novice writer/director Michael Traeger is well served by temperate producer Aaron Ryder. On The Nines, writer/director John August is so outrageously lauded by producer Dan Jinks that the overstatements are hard to accept. Nevertheless, The Nines is the better film, which some critics, at the time of release, had a hard time understanding. 
 
The DVD itself showcases Entertainment Weekly’s review: “You’ll go ‘huh?’ but you won’t feel cheated.” Their confusion is fairly odd, since I felt the twee flick, which obviously took to heart Joan Osbourne’s song “What if God Were One of Us,” straddles the genres of Memento and Meet Joe Black (i.e. Death Takes a Holiday) in a fairly obvious way. In other words, I didn’t go “huh,” but I nearly went “so what?”
 

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Sun Feb 10, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Turok: Son of Stanley Kramer, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #36

 

Unarguably, one of the things DVD has way over VHS is its compression. Far more discs fit in any given space than cassettes – allowing producers to create compact yet extensive homages to filmmakers or genres. A welcome addition to this group arrives this week in the form of the Stanley Kramer Film Collection. We’ll now take a moment for average film-goers to say “who?” and film-lovers to go “ahhhhh!”
 
For the a.f.g.’s amongst you, Kramer was a true maverick-altruist among those about whom the great comedian Fred Allen once said: “You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart.” Kramer’s filmography was chock-ablock with socially-conscious challenges which were as ground-breaking as they were entertaining. As producer and/or director, he constantly strove to do both the right and best thing, including breaking the iron rule of the blacklist and rampant racism.
 
Amongst his classics not in this six-DVD set are The Defiant Ones, Death of a Salesman, High Noon, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Caine Mutiny, and (arguably) It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. This collection, however, features some of his rarer (The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T), most influential (The Wild One), heartfelt (The Member of the Wedding, and ambitious [Ship of Fools)] efforts -- culminating with the 40th Anniversary release of his last great masterpiece Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. 
 
The latter film has a special edition disc of its own, featuring deserved kow-tows from Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones, Tom Brokaw, Alec Baldwin, and many others. It also has a two-part “making of:” one for the daring interracial romantic comedy-drama itself, and one just on its final pairing of Katherine Hepburn and the dying Spencer Tracy (when the cast and crew recount his final day on the set, delivering the film’s final speech just a fortnight before he passed away, I’ll defy you not to be as misty-eyed as they are).

 

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Sun Feb 3, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Across the Midnight Express Universe, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #35

 
This week I watched two DVDs that considered the same turbulent period, but from two wildly divergent vantage points. 
 
First, the divider. Reviewers were almost totally at odds over Across the Universe, director Julie Taymor’s “homage” to The Beatles. Homage is in quotation marks because half the critics thought its liberties and excesses were trumped by its imagination, while the other half thought it was simply, cringingly, awful. 
 
I doubt the 2-Disc Deluxe Edition that’s showing up next Tuesday will do anything to dispel the opposites. It’s obvious that Taymor – best known as the director of Broadway’s The Lion King -- was aiming for the same sort of cinematic success as The Who’s Tommy or Pink Floyd’s The Wall, but the nay-sayers pushed it toward 1978’s campy bomb, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band starring the Bee Gees. 
 
The talented Taymor dodged that bullet, but couldn’t Matrix them all. The Beatles are a creative touchstone, all right, but not always for the best. Just as it’s more difficult to adapt a great book to film (The Kite Runner, Love in the Time of Cholera, etc.) than it is a pulpy one (Jaws, Psycho, The Godfather), it’s also extremely problematic to create a new musical from iconic music. And there’s hardly anything more iconic than The Beatles. The new, obviously far less talented, interpreters will always come out the short end.
 
To her credit, Taymor doesn’t try to overwhelm the music with vocal gymnastics (save for one exception) or distract audiences with stunt casting (save for the welcome inclusion of Bono and Joe Cocker in the supporting cast). But, apparently she can’t resist hurling buckets of creative energy all over the Frankenstein-stitched, wedged-in soundtrack. There are two kinds of directors: those who say “I” and those who say “you”: you’ll feel this, you’ll think this. Guess which one Taymor is.
 

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Sun Jan 27, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Life of Groundhog, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #34

 

Oh, it’s been a good week. Two of my (diametrically-opposed) favorite comedies are coming out on remastered special edition DVDs this coming Tuesday (one which was embraced by all religions while the other was roundly condemned by all religions) and I could hardly be happier. The operative word here is “hardly,” because, for while both DVD editions are good, one, in particular, could have been great.
 
But this is sour grapes on my part. I love Groundhog Day, and appreciate the skills of its star, Bill Murray, so much that I shouldn’t begrudge his disinterest in participating with the 15th Anniversary release’s special features – but yet, I still do. I shouldn’t be so petty, too, because of Bill’s absence, the true value of director/co-scripter Harold Ramis comes into sharp focus.
 
I’m a big fan of Ramis as well, ever since I saw him as harried station manager Moe Green on the original import of the milestone Canadian comedy series SCTV. I can never forget his delivery as the evil boss in the show’s satire of The Grapes of Wrath, The Grapes of Mud; “You think this land is urine … but it’s all our land, not just urine” (you had to be there, I guess).
 
Ramis left SCTV early, which I also begrudged, come to think of it. But all was forgiven when he started helming, or being intimately creatively involved with, such comedy mainstays as Animal House, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, As Good As It Gets, and Analyze This. Groundhog Day could be his masterpiece, however, given that it’s a romantic comedy fantasy classic.
 
Columbia Pictures, minus Murray’s input, could only muster a single, pretty poorly photoshopped, disc, but Ramis is all over the extras. There’s a commentary with him, which I lapped up with my admiring head nestled on my hands. There’s also a video talking head grandly titled “A Different Day: An Interview with Harold Ramis,” which I watched appreciatively with my chin on my fist. Then there’s the making-of doc called “The Weight of Time” (borrowing a phrase by story creator and co-scripter Danny Rubin), which I watched with the back of my head resting on my sofa top. 
 

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Sun Jan 20, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Hooray For Ray Harryhausen, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #33

What a relief! Fellow audio-blogging ComicMixer Mike Raub put it in perspective for me as soon the credits ended on Cloverfield: “What ever happened to science?” he asked. “Remember the good old days when movie characters would actually think about why something was happening rather than immediately whip out the heavy artillery?”

Well, Mike, my friend, I do, I really do, because this week I got two new, colorized, long-delayed, two-disc special editions from the “Ray Harryhausen Presents” line: It Came From Beneath the Sea and, especially, Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers. In the latter film, particularly, smart people do courageous things to foil an attack from the stars, and the literate, logical, talk – so absent in Cloverfield – would do Mr. Spock proud.

But first things first. It Came from Beneath the Sea arrived first, in 1955, with a Godzilla-esque tale of a nuclear-radiated giant octosquid attacking San Francisco. The following year saw the release of Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, which was succinct and accurate in its title. Both are being re-released on DVD now because Ray supervised their colorization, and Sony has done a nice job of presenting them in both their original B&W as well as colorized forms, with a “ChromaChoice” toggle so you can go from one to the other with ease.

Only one problem with Ray supervising the coloring: the monsters look great … but the people often also look like they’re made of clay … or used a scoonch too much liquid tanner. All in all, however, it’s one of the more successful colorization jobs, and rarely too distracting. Besides, what with Ray’s Dynamationalized characters, the whole thing has a nice sheen of artificiality anyway, which the colorization folds nicely into.

 

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Sun Jan 13, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Big Miserable Love, Juvenile Attell, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #32

Welcome to the January doldrums, where, even if the Writers Guild of America wasn’t on strike, there’d still be precious little good new product, since this is the season where studios dump their loss leaders … I mean, this is the month where studios allow their most challenging productions to find their audience.

Actually, both estimations are true, and the titles considered in this column will reflect that. But since I also have a little breathing space, I want to take the opportunity to toast the year of the bummer. If the movies produced at the end of 2007 are any evidence, we’re all feeling really bad. How else do you comprehend a holiday when the most lauded films share a p.o.v. so bleak and unremittingly tragic that the bitter ending of Gone With The Wind seems positively giddy? 

No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood, and Atonement – all … to quote George Harrison in A Hard Day’s Night: “a drag, a well-known drag.” In fact, Atonement not only shoves your face chin-deep into misery, but holds out a small, shiny piece of possible happiness, only to take great pleasure in then ramming it into your eye socket so it can shatter against your brain. Not to say that these aren’t great films, but to quote John Cleese in the fine farce Clockwise: “It’s not the despair. The despair I can handle. It’s the hope…!”

This is where the HBO Comedy Special DVD Dave Attell: Captain Miserable comes in. I’ve been a fan of this “functionally alcoholic” comedian since the days (or should I say nights) of his Comedy Central series Insomniac, where he’d go out after his act and see what the town he was playing in had going on in the wee hours. This is his first HBO special, following in the footsteps of George Carlin, Robert Klein, and Chris Rock, among others. 

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Sun Jan 6, 2008 — by Ric Meyers

Resident Dragon Extinction, by Ric Meyers

DVD Xtra #31

Let us now celebrate one of the greatest boons to entertainment in the entire history of film. It is seemingly small and insignificant – just a tiny speck amongst many others – but with a mere touch it can turn dreadful wastes of time into tolerable, even enjoyable, enhancements to one’s well-being. 
 
It is, of course, the fast forward button on your DVD remote, and, thanks to this brilliant advance in viewing pleasure, productions which were execrable in the cinema are made amusing at the very least. And, not only will it bridge the mind-numbing gaps between a mediocre film’s decent scenes, but it does so at a wide range of speeds.
 
You can watch at double-time, where, if your eye reflexes are honed by Wii or PS2/3, you can still catch the bulk of any subtitles (which is lucky for the likes of me and fellow kung-fu film fans). The FF button has, in fact, saved my emotional life many times, and it certainly was a godsend during this week’s DVD viewing – which, if truth be told, rarely got below 16X.
 
Of course I watched the special features at regular speed. That’s the least I could do, considering my ComicMix responsibilities. Besides, the extras are almost always interesting, whether they feature an underdog’s hopes or the stereotypically overstated prattle of seasoned hackmeisters. Both were on display in abundance this week.
 

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this gets replaced with a player