Mandingo (1975) – DVD

June 18, 2008Posted in1970s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Drama, DVD

***½/**** Image B- Sound B-
starring James Mason, Susan George, Perry King, Ken Norton
screenplay by Norman Wexler, based on the novel by Kyle Onstott
directed by Richard Fleischer

Mandingocap

by Alex Jackson I was just about to say that I wish Mandingo were better than it is, but then I realized it wouldn't be nearly as good as it is if it weren't also "flawed." Some snarky hipster (Mitch Lovell of the LiveJournal blog (?!) THE VIDEO VACUUM, if you must know) rather brilliantly and concisely summarized the problem of the film in saying, "If you ever wanted to see Mr. Bentley from 'The Jeffersons' check a muscle-bound slave for hemorrhoids, this is the flick for you." Indeed, we get this image in the first ten minutes of the film. The checking of the muscle-bound slave for hemorrhoids, well, that I guess I can…appreciate, for lack of a better word. We all understand that slavery was "evil" on a purely intellectual level, but I don't think we have a terribly substantial visual database of the horrors and humiliations of it–and so I feel there's a real need for a disgusting and sensationalistic exploitation film about the subject. On those terms, let it be said that Mandingo does not disappoint. This has to be the most emotionally ugly film I've seen since Brian Robbins's Norbit.

Square Pegs: The Like, Totally Complete Series… Totally (1982-1983) + Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985) – DVDs

June 16, 2008Posted in1980s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Music, Romance, Teen, Television, ZERO STARS

SQUARE PEGS
Image B+ Sound B Extras B+
"Square Pegs (Pilot)," "A Cafeteria Line," Pac-Man Fever," "Square Pigskins," "Halloween XII," "A Simple Attachment," "Weemaweegate," "Open 24 Hours," "Muffy's Bat Mitzvah," "Hardly Working," "A Child's Christmas in Weemawee," "It's All How You See Things," "Merry Pranksters," "It's Academical!," "The Stepanowicz Papers," "To Serve Weemawee All My Days," "No Substitutions," "No Joy in Weemawee," "The Arrangement"

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN
ZERO STARS/**** Image B- Sound B
starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, Shannen Doherty, Lee Montgomery
screenplay by Amy Spies
directed by Alan Metter

by Ian Pugh The "square pegs" of the title are brainiac Patty (Sarah Jessica Parker, already having settled into a halting conversational style that never left her) and "fat girl" Lauren (Amy Linker), newly-initiated freshmen at Weemawee High School who pledge during the opening narration of each episode that this year, this year, they're going to be popular. Unfortunately, their never-ending–maybe even Wile E. Coyote-esque–bid to break into Weemawee's social elite always results in half-baked schemes and humiliating compromises. (Upon being ousted from a table in a crowded diner by the popular crowd, Lauren rationalizes that "having them sit where we were just sitting is almost as good as sitting with them.") While "Square Pegs" never fails to empathize with the folks who are young and foolish enough to believe in such a ridiculous enterprise–because it's all they know at this stage of their lives–what really makes the series special is how it forces older viewers to contemplate the people they were in high school and who they are now.

There Will Be Blood (2007) – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

June 15, 2008Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Paul Thomas Anderson, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own

****/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A Extras B+
BD – Image A Sound A+ Extras B+
starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds
screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the novel OIL! by Upton Sinclair
directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Mustownby Walter Chaw The jarring, discordant first notes of Jonny Greenwood's score announce that Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood will realize the promise shown by the auteur's closest analog, Punch-Drunk Love. Almost experimental in its marriage of noise and vision, it's reminiscent in that regard of a Sergio Leone epic about the foundation of a specific aspect of the American character. Pithy that such a thing plays like watching an insect under glass: There Will Be Blood is accurately described as a piece of existential entomology–Kafka somehow married to Upton Sinclair (on whose OIL! the film is formally based). It's a modern, and modernist, take on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, starring an actor who may be the best of his generation turning in a performance destined for legend, though I'd offer that when Daniel Day-Lewis actually does go off the rails in making a mad catchphrase out of "I drink your milkshake!", it's proof that the rest of his work here is really rather restrained. The best movie of the year if not for No Country For Old Men, it shares with that masterpiece this idea that money corrupts absolutely, its venom catalyzing on contact. Choosing to open with a silent 16-minute introduction that sees Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis)–digging for riches by himself in what could be an outtake from Sierra Madre–discovering his share of silver and parlaying it into an oil empire that will eventually leave him alone, misanthropic, and finally insane, Anderson is clearly implying that material pursuits mine the humanity from mortal loam. While he has disdained political reads of the picture, the philosophical ramifications of Anderson's barren exteriors held up against Plainview's barren interiors–the both of them with endless potential, it would appear, for bottomless wells of bubbling black–are subtext enough, if not, of course, inextricable from politics.

The Recruit (2003) – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

June 1, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Al Pacino, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Drama, DVD, Switzerland, Thriller

*½/****
DVD – Image A Sound A Extras B-
BD – Image B Sound A Extras B-
starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynahan, Gabriel Macht
screenplay by Roger Towne and Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer
directed by Roger Donaldson

by Walter Chaw Aussie director Roger Donaldson's No Way Out is one of the better Cold War paranoia films: sexy, tricky, and packed with the sort of performances (from Kevin Costner, Sean Young, Gene Hackman, and Will Patton) that spin gold from proverbial straw. Donaldson's The Recruit is another derivative post-Cold War knockoff: boring, predictable, and laden with the sort of hackneyed turns that are not only immanently forgettable, but also doomed to eventually be left off the resumé during those Academy clip retrospectives. What a difference sixteen years makes.

Signs (2002) [VISTA Series] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

May 25, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: M. Night Shyamalan, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

**/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A Extras B
BD – Image A- Sound A Extras B
starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin
written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan

by Walter Chaw M. Night Shyamalan makes very specific films about very specific concerns in a very specific manner: long master shots; an unusual trust in silence; remarkably few edits for a modern picture; joy in the choice of garish topics; and a thing for failed fathers and their lost little boys. He reminds of Hitchcock in his elevation of pulp art into high art, but differs in that his concerns aren't so much about abnormal psychology, the nervy manipulation of the audience, and the voyeuristic implication of movie-watching as they are about personal demons and Shyamalan's increasingly obvious desire to be considered in the same breath as his idol.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982/2007) [Four-Disc Collector’s Edition] – DVD

May 19, 2008Posted in****/****, 1980s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Ridley Scott, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
directed by Ridley Scott

Bladerunnertfccap

Mustownby Walter Chaw The prototype for the modern science-fiction film, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, through its seemingly endless iterations, through its growing cult of personality and a production history that's become as familiar as a Herzog shooting mythology, retains its ability to astonish as–along with John Carpenter's contemporaneous The Thing–the last hurrah for the non-CGI, in-camera effects piece. Tron, The Last Starfighter, and Firefox were destined to be the rule of the day at the expense of matte painters and model-makers, here working out puzzles like how to make a futuristic, mechanized advertising blimp appear to be shooting strobes through the glassed ceiling of the Bradbury. Indeed, it's almost impossible to watch Blade Runner now without taking its technical brilliance for granted. It looks like it was made in 2007 (particularly in its newest, digitized incarnation); with its lack of the bluescreen artifacts that plague many of its contemporaries, it's easy to think of a mainframe as the movie's author.

National Treasure (2004) [Widescreen] + Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) [Director’s Cut – Unrated, New Extended Version] – DVDs|National Treasure [Collector’s Edition] – Blu-ray + DVD

May 11, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, DVD, Mystery, Nicolas Cage, Thriller

NATIONAL TREASURE
½*/****
DVD – Image B Sound A Extras C+
BD – Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Diane Kruger
screenplay by Jim Kouf and Cormac Wibberley & Marianne Wibberley
directed by Jon Turteltaub

Nationaltreasurecapby Walter Chaw How's this for a barometer of the national cinematic weather? National Treasure is going to get more praise than condemnation from me because it isn't homophobic, misogynistic, or blatantly misanthropic. All it is, really, is astonishingly boring, terribly stupid, and, it bears repeating, boring. It's boring. (Also stupid.) Essentially the film is a Hardy Boys adventure where cryptic clues have our intrepid boy scouts traversing America's historic landmarks on a scavenger hunt for two hours and change. Where the hero is a misunderstood scholar, his sidekick is a computer nerd, and his girlfriend's hobby is history because history is cool. (The sequel will probably touch on spelling, maybe arithmetic–be still my beating heart.) And where inspiration runs out a little over half-an-hour into the runtime, causing National Treasure to resort to recycling the same rising and falling in action over and over into–and our film's history buffs will appreciate this–what seems an eternity.

Jack Ketchum’s The Lost (2008) – DVD

May 6, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Drama, DVD, Horror, Teen

***/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B+
starring Marc Senter, Shay Astar, Alex Frost, Ed Lauter
screenplay by Chris Sivertson, based on the novel by Jack Ketchum
directed by Chris Sivertson

Thelostcap

by Alex Jackson SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. The Lost is simultaneously polished and crude. For all intents and purposes, it's a direct-to-video release*, and it has a "direct-to-video" vibe to it. There's a broadness to the acting, to put it delicately. It's not that these are bad actors, exactly, it's just that their performances are superficial. I want to say that they lack the nuance of what you'd get in a theatrical feature, but I'm beginning to wonder if there is something about the very nature of the "theatrical film" that is more accommodating of excess. That perhaps the very size of a theatrically-released film can dwarf an over-actor and make the severity of his or her offense somewhat less significant, whereas if a film goes straight-to-DVD, it becomes more performance-oriented. It seems that it's really hard to find camp in a theatrical release and it's really hard to avoid it in dtv product. I don't know whether this is me the viewer projecting something from outside the film–I guess it must be, as I wouldn't imagine that most filmmakers actually intend their movies to bypass the big screen altogether. But wherever it comes from, it's there.

Lake of Fire (2007) – DVD

May 6, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Documentary, DVD

**½/**** Image A Sound A-
directed by Tony Kaye

by Alex Jackson I'm all over the map on Tony Kaye's epic abortion documentary Lake of Fire. I suppose the first thing that bothers me is that the film purports to be about a controversial issue, as I don't perceive any controversy on the issue of abortion: anybody trying to take away women's access to safe and legal abortions is a moron. It's not that the pro-life movement is immoral and it's not that they merely have values that differ from my own. It's that they are idiots. There is only one right answer and if you can't see it, it's because you are a moron and haven't really thought the situation through.

12 Angry Men (1957) [Collector’s Edition] – DVD

May 1, 2008Posted in1950s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Drama, DVD

***½/**** Image A- Sound B Extras B
starring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E.G. Marshall
screenplay by Reginald Rose
directed by Sidney Lumet

by Alex Jackson SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men is centred around the notion that the guilt of an accused man must be established beyond a reasonable doubt if he is to be punished through the legal system. It’s a notion that most educated adults in this country have already accepted as a basic moral principle, yet 12 Angry Men manages to come off as surprisingly edgy for arguing sincerely in favour of it. The film never answers the fundamental question of whether or not the accused is indeed guilty. (We as an audience are never shown what actually happened on that fateful night, nor do we ever meet another potential suspect.) The possibility that he could have committed the murder and gotten away with it is left smugly unaddressed. Because it could not be proven in court, it simply doesn’t matter.

Hiya, Kids!!: A ’50s Saturday Morning – DVD

April 27, 2008Posted in1950s, 2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, DVD, Esoterica, Family, Scream/Shout! Factory, Television

by Ian Pugh Take a gander at the stuff you used to watch as a kid and you'll more than likely come to two realizations: 1) that a lot of stupefying crap wormed its way into your living room; and 2) that the shows that were actually pretty good tended to throw out a lot of jokes that flew right over your preteen head. Dedicating each of its four discs to a different block of children's programming from some indeterminate period of the Golden Decade*, Shout! Factory's Hiya, Kids!!: A '50s Saturday Morning DVD collection strongly suggests that this would prove true of every generation from the boomers on. Entire plotlines ripped from the pages of LIFE magazine, a bobbing camera briefly acting the part of the audience collectively nodding its head in agreement, "Hamlet" characterized as a comedy–watching television from fifty years ago is an interesting venture, though "interesting" may be as far as a greenhorn like me can go in examining this set. Although it appears to have deliberately avoided iconic moments from the shows in question in order to maintain the illusion of simply stumbling on them with a flip of the dial, Hiya, Kids!! is somewhat self-defeating as the re-creation of an experience. It's easy to get the gist of the show in question (the "dramas" are especially easy to pin down), but it's extremely difficult to form a substantial opinion about anything in this line-up. True that you often decide whether or not to dedicate yourself to a TV series on the basis of one episode, but with the sheer number of interactive concepts on display–most notably in all-inclusive "clubs"–you realize that the phenomenon that surrounded many of these programs contributed immeasurably to their purpose and appeal. Alas, without much context, the brilliant concept behind Hiya, Kids!! tends to feel a little arbitrary.

Coyote Ugly (2000) [The Unrated Extended Cut] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

April 24, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Music, Romance

*½/****
DVD – Image A Sound B+ (DD)/A- (DTS) Extras C
BD – Image A Sound A- Extras C
starring Piper Perabo, Adam Garcia, Maria Bello, Melanie Lynskey
screenplay by Gina Wendkos
directed by David McNally

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover J. Hoberman once nailed the work of '80s trash director Adrian Lyne by calling it "the spectacle of female self-actualization (as enacted for a male viewer)." This shrewd playing of both sides of the gender fence figures heavily into Coyote Ugly, which combines a cheesy uplift story with bounce-and-jiggle eye candy to maximize the number of potential ticket buyers. But though it was produced by former Lyne benefactor Jerry Bruckheimer and practically channels the director's empty-calorie flash, the his 'n' hers formula doesn't work this time around: whatever else could be said against the dissipated Brit, there was a hysterical urgency to Lyne that his substitute, David McNally, can't match. You see the flesh, you hear the pain, but aside from some very obvious body-double skin added to the film for DVD, none of it adds up to anything you can't get from Moses Znaimer on a Sunday night.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD

April 23, 2008Posted in****/****, 1960s, Adventure, Authors: Alex Jackson, Directors: Stanley Kubrick, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, FFC Must-Own, Sci-Fi

****/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras B+
starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick, based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel"
directed by Stanley Kubrick

2001cap

Mustownby Alex Jackson Seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey as a film about evolution is natural but ultimately inaccurate, I think. The Darwinist views evolution as an external response to the world–a survival mechanism–while the Nietzschian views it as an internal, ethical one. Both are touched on in 2001 and both are misleading in that they fail to acknowledge that Man's evolution in this film is born out of destiny. Out of fate. More appropriate to view evolution here in terms of the lifespan of the butterfly or moth. Guided by a supreme alien intelligence, the species of 2001 evolves from the larva (ape) to the pupa (human) to the butterfly (star child).

Bionic Woman: Volume One (2007) – DVD

April 15, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Ian Pugh, DVD, Sci-Fi, Television, Thriller

Image A- Sound A Extras C
"Pilot," "Paradise Lost," "Sisterhood," "Faceoff," "The Education of Jaime Sommers," "The List," "Trust Issues," "Do Not Disturb"

by Ian Pugh David Eick's remake of the old Lindsay Wagner series "The Bionic Woman" is a near-literal relic straight out of 1976 so thoroughly convinced of its premise's timelessness that it merely tosses the same old shit together with popular concerns of the 21st century–terrorism, the Iraq War, North Korea, the omnipresence of computer technology–in the vague hope that it will all alchemize into something that can stand on its own two feet. Call it the oblivious antithesis to an astonishing meta property like Live Free or Die Hard: it carries the expectation for tension within a battle of seemingly-incalculable odds when the outcome was long ago decided in the little guy's favour–I mean, like, decades ago. Interestingly enough, amid its largely indifferent applications of wire-fu, the new "Bionic Woman" offers the best auto-critical metaphor with its mustiest holdover from its precursor: the super-futuristic "action" sound effect that originated in "The Six Million Dollar Man" has been replaced by something that sounds like a computerized approximation of a stalled car.

The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) – DVD

April 15, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound B- Extras D
starring Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Marc Blucas, Lynn Redgrave
screenplay by Robin Swicord, based on the novel by Karen Joy Fowler
directed by Robin Swicord

by Walter Chaw I hate smug little pieces of masturbatory treacle like Robin Swicord's The Jane Austen Book Club, bits of piffle strutting around like peacocks on a parade ground, secure in the knowledge that it's pretentious in just the right way for the only demographic that it cares about at all. What kills me is that the idiots thronging to shit like this are the same ones who criticize "mainstream" Hollywood for its propensity to squeeze out cookie-cutter nuggets of worthless effluvium for the slavering approval of teenage boys. I wonder if young men and middle-aged women (the kind who watch "The View" and join Oprah's Book Club) aren't, in fact, natural ideological enemies: the former unaware of the evil stereotypes perpetrated by their favoured entertainment, the latter, you know, likewise. In our age of missing information, it makes perfect sense that mouth-breathing pundits find favourable spawning conditions. And in any age, it makes perfect sense that the stupid ones seek them out.

Life of Brian (1979) [The Immaculate Edition] – DVD + The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) [20th Anniversary Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

April 8, 2008Posted in1970s, 1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Directors: Terry Gilliam, Drama, DVD, Fantasy, UK, West Germany

LIFE OF BRIAN
***/**** Image B Sound C Extras A
starring Monty Python
screenplay by Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Terry Gilliam & Eric Idle & Terry Jones & Michael Palin
directed by Terry Jones

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN
**/****
DVD – Image B- Sound B+ Extras B+
BD – Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B+
starring John Neville, Eric Idle, Sarah Polley, Oliver Reed
screenplay by Charles McKeown & Terry Gilliam
directed by Terry Gilliam

Advofbaronmunchausencapby Walter Chaw Call it a rite of passage, but I'm thinking that boys of my generation memorize the Monty Python repertoire as a buttress against the terror of losing their virginity. (No colder shower than a round of "ni"s, let's face it; reciting the entirety of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the antithesis of smooth and as such becomes the chit one trades for entry into the club of delayed experience.) Not until you get a little older do you appreciate that Monty Python earned their outsider status by being a satirical animal as opposed to a slapstick one–that the lengths to which they'd go for a joke has more to do with camouflage than with their stated goal of silliness. Owing to my knowing it almost subliminally at this point (let's just say the surprise is gone), I must confess I don't find Life of Brian that funny anymore–but I do find it to be a little amazing. This most recent viewing is the first time I've seen it with thousands of films packed dense into the rear-view, as well as the first time I've been able to appreciate that Life of Brian isn't one of dozens of films that take an irreverent run at fundamentalism, but rather one of the only ones. It's a revelation I greet with equal parts admiration for the picture and horror at the paucity of real conversation about skepticism in our Judeo-Christian culture. Always a lot of dust kicked up when another Dutch artist takes a run at Islam; the only difference in fundamentalist Christianity's response to Life of Brian is that the government didn't sanction the death threats it provoked.

The 6th Day (2000) – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

April 7, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Mystery, Schwarzenegger, Sci-Fi, Thriller

**/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A- Extras C
BD – Image A- Sound A Extras B-
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Rapaport, Tony Goldwyn, Robert Duvall
screenplay by Cormac Wibberley & Marianne Wibberley
directed by Roger Spottiswoode

by Bill Chambers The 6th Day has one idea that made me sit up and take notice. In a future that’s “sooner than you think,” some henchmen from the shallow end of the gene pool have been sent to dispatch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s illegally-cloned charter pilot. Said goons aren’t nervous when confronting the Austrian Oak because they’ve always got a contingency plan: should Ah-nuld snap necks like he’s been doing since Commando, the casualties will be shipped off to a lab for regeneration. In other words, the PG-13 film antiquates Schwarzenegger once and for all.

Hidalgo (2004) [Widescreen] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

April 1, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Morocco, Sports, Western

*½/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A Extras C
BD – Image A- Sound A Extras C
starring Viggo Mortensen, Zuleikha Robinson, Omar Sharif, Louise Lombard
screenplay by John Fusco, based on the lies and half-truths of Frank Hopkins
directed by Joe Johnston

by Walter Chaw The lugubrious splits time with the ridiculous in Hidalgo, the sort of movie that isn't made much anymore for good reason. The good old days weren't always good, and this Gunga Din yarn–aspiring for the epic adventure and achieving near-lethal doses of misogyny, racism of the paternalistic and other kind, and bald-faced historical revisionism that smacks of something about the opiate of the people–is so dated that it seems fresh again. (At least insofar as a dead horse can ever seem fresh.) The question with currency isn't why this film was made, but why the screening audience I saw it with applauded at the end–what exactly has been celebrated by this facile tall tale of race and a race, and what sort of message does it send about the popular appetite for obvious horse operas produced by Disney in decline? Consider, too, at the end of everything that the film is named after a horse, and that the horse, though a better actor than anyone else in the picture (including poor Omar Sharif), has very little to do with anything.

Cops: 20th Anniversary Edition (1988-2007) + Smurfs: Season One, Volume One (1981-1982) – DVDs

March 30, 2008Posted in1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Belgium, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Television

COPS: 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Image B Sound B+ Extras B-
"Cops: 20th Season," "Pilot," "Las Vegas Heat," "First Ten Seasons," "Second Ten Seasons"

THE SMURFS: SEASON ONE, VOLUME ONE
Image B+ Sound B- Extras D
"The Smurf's Apprentice/The Smurfette/Vanity Fare," "King Smurf/The Astrosmurf/Jokey's Medicine," "St. Smurf and the Dragon/Sorcerer Smurf," "The Smurfs and the Howlibird," "The Magical Meanie/Bewitched, Bothered and Besmurfed," "Smurf-Colored Glasses/Dreamy's Nightmare," "Fuzzle Trouble/Soup a la Smurf," "The Hundredth Smurf/Smurphony in 'C'"

by Ian Pugh Kevin Rubio's "COPS"-Star Wars mashup Troops is painfully predictable, but there's a little nugget of profundity in its twist on "COPS"' familiar narration: "Suspects are guilty, period–otherwise, they wouldn't be suspects, would they?" It's the most concise description and criticism of "COPS" one could muster, almost impossible to build on because it so handily defines the tacit agreement the show's producers have with its audience. I mentioned in my review of the parodic "Reno 911!" that Fox's long-running reality show is useless in any political debate about police conduct, and it is–but upon watching several hours' worth of the series in a new "20th Anniversary Edition" DVD set, I became more perturbed by how it attempts to forge an uncrossable distance between you and the suspect. "COPS" always poses itself as something completely external to the viewer: in the interests of entertainment, the vast, vast majority of scenarios involve idiots caught in the act or resisting arrest. You're therefore not only a rubbernecker looking for a visceral thrill–you also come to consider yourself exempt from police scrutiny because you don't break the law and certainly wouldn't do so as blatantly and stupidly as these criminals. It's the equivalent of the moron who has no problem with the government wiretapping his phone because he doesn't believe he does anything to warrant their attention.

Time (2006) – DVD

March 24, 2008Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Japan, Mystery, Romance, South Korea

Shi gan
****/**** Image B- Sound A Extras D
starring Sung Hyan-ah, Ha Jung-woo, Park Ji-Yeon
written and directed by Kim Ki-duk

Timecapby Walter Chaw Horror is the product of Kim Ki-duk's Time, the South Korean auteur's unbelievably unpleasant treatise on misogyny and objectification: the twin crosses he bears in the crucible of his own country's harshest criticism of him. To see it as the director's response to his detractors is simplistic, to be sure, and given that other filmmakers' marches to rhetorical cavalries (Todd Solondz's Storytelling, Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things) are so obviously band-aids applied to sucking chest wounds, it's not a flattering analysis, either. But Time is the species of rebuttal that functions as a prime example of the artist's essential concerns applied to what are perceived to be his essential blind spots. It's a Kim picture that clarifies other Kim pictures–a treatise on misogyny that is not in itself misogynistic. It's self-aware in a way that Kim's films haven't been so far, enough on point throughout that common charges of Kim's wandering attention span are difficult to levy. What elevates Hitchcock into the pantheon has more than a little to do with the fact that his masterpieces are consistently and mainly about his blind spots. You don't so much dissect Vertigo as Vertigo, with every year and every subsequent viewing, dissects you. Time isn't Vertigo, but it lives behind the same door in our collective, Jungian cellar. It tackles the big existential question of personal identity by concerning itself topically with the current plastic-surgery fad run amuck in South Korea. Peel back its surface to find an underneath writhing with a universal horror of temporariness and mortality.