RIC MEYERS: Miami Sand Fox
A few weeks back I was waxing enthusiastic about Sony Home Entertainment’s line of Columbia Classics Collectors Editions, especially The Guns of Navarone two-disc set. Well, it turns out that 20th Century Fox wasnt going to take that lying down, so they started peppering me with flicks young and old for the old ultra-violence (yes, that’s A Clockwork Orange reference, what of it?).
Starting with the young (and time-relevant): out this week is Reno 911!: Miami: The Movie (Unrated), a fittingly jaunty title for a fitfully hilarious film. In the spirit of complete disclosure, I’ve been a fan of this group’s creative core (Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, and Kerri Kenney-Silver) since seeing them on MTVs The State, and have been appreciating their work through their abortive CBS/Disney stint, Viva Variety, and their contributions to the screenplays of The Pacifist, Herbie Fully Loaded, and A Night at the Museum.
The yoks start in earnest at the menu page where Kerri, in character as passive-aggressive Deputy Trudy Wiegel, lets you know in no uncertain terms that this is the unrated version by unleashing the kind of words you didn’t hear in the rated edition. Then there’s the film itself, which benefits from its unratedness with elaborately salty vernacular, not to mention some of the finest looking natural breasts recently put on video (as well as some of the unfinest [Kerri was quick to point out on one audio commentary that she had just had a baby at the time of filming]).
The Reno 911 squad is not through with you yet, however. There are three audio commentaries: an entertainingly informative one with director Garant and writers Lennon and Kenney-Silver, and then two more with the cast in character as the hapless Nevada cops they play on TV. It’s like watching three different takes of the same movie. The group then go on to make it clear that they probably could’ve actually made three different movies, or more, with the extended deleted/alternate scenes, which, as is their wont, last fifteen minutes or more, until the improv runs out or the cameraman drops from exhaustion.
The disc also includes the Fox Movie Channels special, covering the films premiere, but probably my favorite extra is the series of Public Service Announcements in which the characters address various problems plaguing today’s cineplexes (as Kenney-Silver so succinctly puts it: shut up or I’ll shoot you and blame it on a crack addict). This DVD will give you hours o’ cringey fun.
Speaking of favorite, now starts our coverage of the Fox Cinema Classics Collection with one of the best DVDs I’ve ever seen in terms of this column’s theme. The Sand Pebbles two-disc special edition looks innocuous enough on the shelf. The only hint of the riches within comes with its weight and heft. No wonder: the package is literally bulging with stuff: illuminating liner notes, a recreation of the releases original souvenir book, and even an envelope of postcard-sized, full-color, lobby cards.
Then theres the discs: three sides containing the 183 minute theatrical version, the 196 minute Roadshow version, and so many new featurettes (nine in all), as well as six original docs from the Fox vault, that I wish I could roll around in them. Back in the department of full disclosure, I’ll admit Im a big fan of star Steve McQueen, but especially underrated director Robert Wise, who could, and did, do everything.
Every so often historians find something that appears to be the final piece to a puzzle.
On its last day, the Licensing Show at New York City’s Javitz Center was just as crowded, just as large, and just as overwhelming as it was on Day One. This time, however, I knew where I was going and what I wanted to see.
The Licensing Show in New York City is a three-day orgy of consumerism. I don’t mean like Las Vegas is an orgy of consumerism, or like Christmas has been debased into an orgy of consumerism. No, the Licensing Show is an entire Javitz Convention Center full of companies large and small, looking to expand their properties onto more properties.
There were lots and lots of Asian companies trying to be the next Sanrio (there was also Sanrio, for that matter). I was especially pleased to discover Aska Studio, a Taiwanese company with lots of properties. The best, IMO, was the Mouchoir Club, about a box of tissues and a roll of toilet paper that have adventures. As the handout says, "They bring hapapiness to people; heal them of broken heart. Moreover, at the same time, they found the meaning of life." I’d buy a pillowcase that could do that for me.
This may come as something of a shock, but tomorrow night is the last episode of The Sopranos. 
On this day in 1912, Carl Laemmle merged his movie studio, the Independent Moving Picture Company (IMP), with eight others, creating Hollywood’s first major studio, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company — later to become Universal Pictures Company. Universal would unintentionally give gigantic starts to other film companies, like not paying Irving Thalberg enough money to keep him from being lured away to MGM, or by refusing to pay a decent production fee to produce cartoons starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to a young up-and-comer named Walt Disney.
A cinematic masterpiece just passed a major anniversary — a cutting-edge film showing a battle between light and dark that changed the way movies are made and the way movies are looked at, a film that still holds up after all this time. And while it’s often considered him to deride it, it laid the foundation for almost every movie in theaters today.
