I believe someone entirely more talented said it better when he wrote – "we were somewhere outside of Barstow when the drugs began to take hold." Not that you’d want to be outside of Barstow, primarily because it’s a gigantic wasteland of nothingness while the highway from Needles into Los Angeles is the place where hole smashers are born and bred. But as our brain passages and pleasure receptacles were transformed into a mixture of elation and skepticism, I kept pondering the meaning of life, the hot dog to bun package ratio and why Alf looks so creepy in every wideshot.
Penny for Val’s thoughts
Shelved for quite some time, Renny Harlin’s surely underrated Mindhunters (read Wade’s "first!" review and then enter CHUD’s Contest!) was quick into theaters and even quicker into the safety of your own home and problematic Val Kilmer fetish. Here, Kilmer plays group leader, sans a kick-ass moustache to twirl, and the world frowns knowing that it’s going to be a little longer before we can see his supposed tour de force in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Speaking of such, it’s tough to deny the presence of LL "my hat is like a shark’s fin" Cool J, the man who ripped the fires of excellency in Harlin’s killer sea creature movie. Here, the Cool James, along with several others, including Christian "touchy" Slater, Johnny "I touched Angelina Jolie" Lee Miller and Kathryn "Hey, I was Tom Cruise’s wife in Minority Report … anyone?" Morris are all FBI profilers, in on an elaborate game to figure out the veritable Mad Libs of Serial Killers. Putting their good skills to use on an abandoned island (without any escape via Hervé Villechaize’s plane), Kilmer makes the cadets wander about without help, all the while threatening them with repeated Alexander viewings. As evidenced in the thousand or so trailers from the film as it laid waste to a thousand weeks in the process, the issue of time is of huge importance, but not as big as one of their own being a cereal killer among them. I’m gonna go with Captain Crunch. Or Count Chocula. You knew I was probably going to go there. For that, I apologize, and then confess: Dr. Moreau’s little clone did it.
Deepest, bluest – with: audio commentary with Mr. Renny Harlin himself, the feature: Profiling Mindhunters, a stunt sequence and the featurette: A Director’s walk through Crimetown.
Adam Sandler is back! The fresh-faced comic livens things up in the comedy of the season! In his newest, The Longest Yard (read Devin’s "this movie is going to be huge! (… in its target market)" review), he plays the role originally inhabited by Burt "bare-skinned Cosmo" Reynolds (who makes quite the appearance on … and off the field!). And the laughs, well, they keep on coming! Imagine this: As Paul Crewe, New Hampshire’s own Sandler violates his own parole and ends up thrown back in jail, this time as SAG secretary and Babe-magnet James Cromwell keeps a ever roving eye on him. See, he wants the ‘Wrecking’ Crewe to join his local guards versus prisoners’ football game. And he has to agree to these terms, because if he doesn’t, there’ll be hell to pay! But it doesn’t stop there! No sir! As Sandler and his merry band of tattooed thespians, including "Pimp Juice" Nelly, The Chris Rock Show‘s Chris Rock, William "The Fitchner" Fitchner, Courtney "Brian" Cox, and Cloris Leachman all band together to create some sort of cohesiveness into the narrative fold. Not to say that the movie, which Peter Segal (Tommy Boy) directed isn’t great – it’s spectacular! 3 stars! I don’t think you could do any better this year, and mark my words, this might be a complete and utter lock for the best movie of the year! So, go for the conversion, because this is one comedy you’ll be dancing in the end zones for!
Uh, yeah – with: audio commentary with Peter Segal, some deleted/extended/alternate scenes with optional director commentary and a music video – "Errtime" by Nelly.
Now that Mark Felt has been fingered as one of two Deep Throats (read Devin’s review, that he gagged on!), it’s time to return to the other one, that of the cultural heirloom of iconic seventies porn that your Dad most likely saw and is afraid to admit it (along with Debbie Does Dallas … hello, documentary makers!). Hell, it even made Tricky Dick Nixon, the man who fucked everyone if they couldn’t take a joke, blush and shake his jowls. The room was probably sufficiently lubricated after that. Uber producer Brian Grazer focused a team that includes the documentarians Randy Barbato & Fenton Bailey, the team behind Eyes of Tammy Faye (purchase it from your makeup-less friends from CHUD!), into delving rather long and hard into the world that time forgot. So pull up a chair, pull down your pants, and watch as the filmmakers discuss Deep Throat in a very encompassing context, especially with the political, moral and social upheavals occurring daily in the tumultuous seventies. Inside Deep Throat also includes the legendary scene, the one that will definitely cause most Missourians to erect more "Pornography Is Jeffrey Jones’ Fault!" billboards.
Open wide – with: several features, like The Binghamton Trial: Cliterally Speaking, Beverly Hills: Holly Gets Wood, Quincy House: Poison Ivy League, Princeton: Throat Deep in Suburbs, Cut Throat: Where in the World is Bobby De Salvo (google says … maybe The Valley), Harry Reems’ Athletic Club, Firedance with Me, Women Against Pornography and Linda’s Exit: What’s the Big Deal?. The NC-17 version also comes with: The Zen of Deep Throat, Linda Does Hollywood, The Legends of Erotica: Remembering Linda, The Last Word for Now and The Tucson Trail: When Gerry Met Annie. Stays fresh, all night long.
You’ve got to hand it to forward-thinker Robert Rodriquez. He keeps it in the family. From the mind of one of his younger sons comes the Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D (I know you’re all holding your breath for CHUD’s DVD review) cashing in on the mandate he received during Spy Kids 3-D, a movie you most likely watched for Stallone hamming it up. Or possibly for Ricardo Montalblan working the room in his hover chair. Anyway, our main character, Max, and his life are a bit topsy-turvy and not in that Mike Leigh improvisation sort of way. He’s being pushed to his limits, so it’s only natural that his own personal creations, Shark Boy and Lava Girl, come forth from his dream world to grab hold of his arm and lead him into the ultimate journey into a planet that he also happened to create. As Mr. Reeves said it so succinctly, "whoa." If there’s one thing you can count on, your nieces and nephews and illegitimate children you’ve spawned all across this dirty bleached Earth will most likely want to watch this thing, and you’re powerless to stop it. Unless you’re kicking it old school, in your own hover chair.
Come away O human child, to the waters and the wild – with: four pairs of 3-D glasses! Wait for the Special Edition, which you know is coming.
Come gather ’round people, wherever you roam, as two titans of music and visuals collide in No Direction Home, the singer/songwriter and S. Dube hero Bob Dylan and maestro Martin Scorsese, bringing his visual accompaniment to the documentary that explores the inner most Dylan and his young fledgling years. Scorsese’s no stranger to the annals of documentary filmmaking and his My Voyage to Italy and Personal Journey through American Movies (purchase both here and here, because CHUD loves documentaries too!) are definitely worth your time in every regard, even if there are ladies, gentlemen or animal friends a-callin’. Focusing primarily between Dylan’s most creatively inspiring years, 1961-1966, Scorsese was able to cull together footage from hours of previously unreleased footage that Mr. Dylan allowed him to pour over. You’re going to see a lot of live performances for those who were still kicking uteruses at that time, some spectacular insight into Dylan in his recording studios and Mr. Dylan and a bunch of other artists and musicians discussing what it takes to be like a rolling stone. Like Highlander, there can be only one, and this certainly is all about the one who has cut a swath across the face of modern music as our young primitive ears know it.
Have the Memphis Blues again – with: Bob Dylan performances (Blowin’ in the Wind, Girl of the North Country, Man of Constant Sorrow, Mr. Tambourine Man, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, Like a Rolling Stone and One Too Many Mornings), an unused promotion spot for "Positively 4th Street" and the (hotel room) work in progress "I Can’t Leave Her Behind."
As the advertising campaign kicks in full gear for Desperate Housewives Second Season, you can finally bring it back to the First Season you skipped or ignored (Devin’s DVD review is arriving shortly) to get back at all of the hip people on your block. Unless you happen to be one of those people on Arrested Development that picketed Marc Cherry’s house. The thoroughly skewed denizens of Wisteria Lane are out to solve the murder-mystery of Mary Alice Young, a fellow housewife who decided that cooking and running the house also translates into cleaning your brain all over the place. As the remaining wives grapple with the loss, the truth starts to emerge and spread all over the place like the relentless Andromeda Strain it is. Or like the sexual escapades of the foursome, which includes a former Tango & Cash alum, a lady from Sports Night who is also married to The Cooler, some other lady and another lady who no one knew previously. Oh, and that girl from Spy Hard. Yeah, that movie wasn’t great. But the show, oh how it captivated the hearts and minds and various nether regions of America. So, if you were on the fence, now’s the time. Just make sure to get the hell off of it, I paid good money for that.
Give Mommy a hug – with: Unrated, extended versions of Who’s That Woman, Anything You Can Do, Every Day a Little Death, Impossible, Sunday in the Park with George, and Goodbye for Now, audio commentaries with creator Marc Cherry, director Larry Shaw, Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, Nicollette Sheridan, and Teri Hatcher, seven deleted scenes with optional commentary by Marc Cherry, a multi-language sequence: Bree’s dinner party, several featurettes (A Stroll Down Wisteria Lane, Desperate Housewives Around the World, Dressing Wisteria Lane: A look at the costume and set design, Secrets of Wisteria Lane and Oprah Winfrey Is The New Neighbor), Behind the Scenes with The View’s Meredith Viera and a blooper reel.
The film that introduced me to Kevin Smith, Mallrats, is already 10 years old. Dude. And while eschewing all of the hallmarks that make up a Kevin Smith movie, like poop and fart jokes, no wait, his keen sense of dialogue and interesting characters, Mallrats still manages to hold a special place in my black heart and in my stink palmed hand. Perhaps it’s the angst on display from Jeremy London, or his desire to pop the question on the Jaws ride at Universal. Maybe it’s the caution that Jason Lee throws into the wind, taking along his famed cookie and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Quite possibly it’s the sailboat, the ocean, or even those big-titted mermaids doing some of that lesbian shit. In all of this, though, it’s always nice to know you can always go home and play some NHL 94 on your genesis. That game was fucking awesome. Sven-Ole Thorsen, not so much. He’s got the powerful western European grip, like Zangief. Affleck, meanwhile, has absolutely no respect for people without any shopping agenda, so make sure to pick this one up, lest he sleep with yet another 15 year old.
Screw in the back of a very uncomfortable place – with: audio commentary with Kevin Smith, Ben Afflect, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, Scott Mosier and Vincent Pereira (most likely the same as the last version), an introduction to the film from Smith himself, some hi-liarious outtakes, The Erection of an Epic – The Making of Mallrats, a Mallrats Cast Reunion Q & A, a conversation with Kevin Smith & Scott Moiser, The Goops "Build Me Up Buttercup" Music Video, some production photographs and a Mallrats: The Reunion feature.
One of the very best De Palma movies of the last decade (who made Mission To Mars again?), Carlito’s Way happens to be most notable for De Palma’s insane use of framing and the ways he digs deep into his cinematic bag of tricks, pulling out, like the magician he is, the story of Pacino’s relationship with the criminal life. While he keeps trying to escape, it keeps pulling him right back in, much like the tricky ways of Internet pornography. De Palma, clearly relishing each and every one of his characters, is in full mode here, parading all of his actors into an emotional situation that can only have one tragic circumstance after another. But the real spectacularity arises in the wily haired lawyer inhabited by Sean Penn. While not taking various global administrations to task, or saving people in a boat, his bravura transformation at the hands of greed and hundreds of millions of greenbacks is a marvel to behold and a joyous explosion to watch. Especially as De Palma tracks down his Miami beach house, cocaine, hookers and gruff Pacino all meshing into one another for the ultimate in excess. Wealthy in every sort of cinematic way, Carlito’s Way proves that if you think you’re big time, well, you’re gonna fucking die – big time.
You a gangster now – with: De Palma on Carlito’s Way, some deleted scenes, the making-of Carlito’s Way, and original promotional featurette, a photo and poster gallery and the original theatrical trailer.
Do it for Johnny! – with Thor’s review of The Outsiders: The Complete Novel, which is fully packed for all of you Coppola completists out there and for anyone who likes young boys, like deranged Star Trek fans. Dolls makes a much heralded comeback into your purchasing power, and several Criterion DVDs make some people salivate, the least of which is a man who just wants to get Naked. Then there’s Pumpkinhead II, so it all comes full circle.
Oktoberfest
Criterion, not one to be outdone by anyone in their movie loving tendencies, proceeds to get all dour on your asses, bringing forth slicing and dicing Samurais (on the 4th and 18th), John Woo loving French Hitmen (on the 18th), and contract workers who, against all of Taylor Hackford’s odds, must band together on an intense and fearful journey (that happens on the 18th as well). So, get ready to lose all of your cash, because October is going to be a fairly pummeling month, which sees no less than three million releases on the same day.
If you haven’t seen Jef Costello and the situation he finds himself into, check it out. Le Samouraï is an honest-to-Mr. Topps masterpiece. Wages of Fear is particularly thrilling, even if William Freidkin remade it and turned it into Sorcerer, which is great in its own way. November has Criterion dishing out a cornucopia of awesomeness, including Bresson’s Pickpocket, Tales of Hoffman, Ugetsu and Kurosawa’s destroyer – Ran. We’ll discuss those in a month, unless Keith David starts throwing fists in my local back alley.
THE LIST
Capitals might strike fear into the hearts of the unknown or the uninitiated, but around these parts every month, we proceed to unload all of our … future titles onto your unsuspecting mugs. We all know what Kobe Tai’s friends do to her. Unfortunately for us, we’ve got titles to attend to that don’t end in Volume 18, but rest assured, if you’re looking for another installment of Star Gate: SG-1, it’ll fall on deaf ears.
10.04.05:
Alien Apocalypse
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season One
The Amityville Horror
Billion Dollar Brain
Cinderella: Special Edition – DVD Platinum Collection
Cop
Count Duckula: The Complete First Season
Demon Seed
Dracula A.D. 1972
Drawn Together: Season One
The Fly – Special Edition
The Fly II – Special Edition
The Fog – Special Edition
House of D
Innocent Lies
The Interpreter
Into the West
Jiminy Glick in La La Wood
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Kolchack: The Night Stalker
Kill! – Criterion Collection
The Man with Nine Lives
Man with the Screaming Brain
Monster High
Mortuary Academy
My Summer of Love
The New Kids
Night of the Lepus
Private Parts
Pulse
Robot Jox
Samurai Rebellion – Criterion Collection
Samurai Spy – Criterion Collection
Santa Claus: The Movie – 20th Anniversary Edition
The Spiral Staircase
Star Trek: The Motion Pictures Collection
Star Trek: Nemesis – Special Collector’s Edition
A Stranger is Watching
Three’s Company: Season Five
The Tunnel
Val Lewton Horror Collection Box Set (SE’s older pick of the month)
Vlad – Director’s Cut
The Warriors: Ultimate Director’s Cut
Wild Palms
10.11.05:
Arrested Development: The Complete Second Season
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Dark
Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids Volume 2
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: The Complete Second Season
Happily Ever After
High Tension
Hondo – Collector’s Edition
Imagining Argentina
The Jeffersons: The Complete Fourth Season
Kicking & Screaming
Kingdom of Heaven
King Kong: King of Atlantis
The Legend of Zelda: The Complete Series
Me and You and Everyone We Know
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Soap – The Complete Fourth Season
South Park: The Complete Sixth Season
Stephen King Presents Kingdom Hospital: Post Mortem
Undead
Unleashed
Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season
Z Channel – A Magnificent Obsession
10.18.05:
Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Season
Al Pacino: An Actor’s Vision
Author! Author!
Batman Begins
Batman – Special Edition
Batman Returns – Special Edition
Batman Forever – Special Edition
Batman & Robin – Special Edition that no one asked for
Batman & Robin – Special Edition
Batman: The 1943 Serial Collection
Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997
Big Lebowski – Collector’s Edition
Black and White
Blood of Beasts
Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection
Chained Heat 2
Coen Brothers Collection
CSI: NY – The Complete First Season
Dark Shadows – The Complete Revival Series
Day of the Dead 2: Contagium
Dot the I
Elektra: Unrated Director’s Cut
The Emperor’s New Groove – The New Groove Edition
Eternal
Excessive Force II: Force on Force
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest – Special Edition
Five Children and It/The Return of It
George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead
Le Samourai – Criterion Collection
Lifeboat – Special Edition
Mad Hot Ballroom
Ma Mere
The Mask of Zorro – Deluxe Edition
Panic in Needle Park
The Sabata Trilogy Collection
Saving Face
Saw – Uncut Edition
Sword of the Beast – Criterion Collection
Tarzan – Special Edition
Tell Them Who You Are
Unscripted
10.25.05:
3rd Rock From the Sun: Season 2
5×2
Alias: Season 4
American Gothic: The Complete Series
Battle of Britain – Collector’s Edition
Bewitched – Special Edition
A Bridge Too Far – Collector’s Edition
Darling Lili
Degrassi Junior High: The Complete Series
Detective Story
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist
Effects
George Romero’s Zombi
Gus Van Sant’s Last Days
Herbie: Fully Loaded
Horatio Hornblower – Collector’s Edition
House of Wax
House of Wax/House of Wax (1953)
In Living Color: Season 4
Looney Tunes: Golden Collection – Volume Three
Looney Tunes: Movie Collection
The L Word: The Complete Second Season
Melinda and Melinda
The Munsters: The Complete Second Season
Noel
Point Pleasant: The Complete Series
Single White Female 2: The Psycho
Spider Forest
Super Mario Bros. Super Show
Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Second Season
Titanic: Special Collector’s Edition
The Wizard of Oz: Two-Disc Special Edition
The Wizard of Oz: Three-Disc Collector’s Edition
Waddling Suits
Those goddamned Penguins, purveyors of the rare box office phenomenon known as Legs, are taking their cold journey to make-a the babies on 11.29.05 in their film March of the Penguins. Since everyone and their mother saw this film (and a bunch of old crusty ladies I saw last night at a another screening I went to) it was natural for those of us who hate to be on top of things to shrug this one off and pretend that we cooler than you. But the joke’s on us, because the word got out that this was actually a very beautifully moving documentary complete with a shocking scene that would move anyone to tears, unless you’re Frank Booth. Narrated by narrator du jour Morgan Freeman, a voice of massive authority and gravitas, the Penguins’ journey begins with finding the perfect companion, one that will give them life, one that Zardoz absolutely hates with a passion (the joke, it never gets old!). It continues with the one that will trek across freezing terrain to get to their frozen love shack, where the sweet sounds of Barry White will permeate any frosty night. I don’t know if it has a tin roof, rusted, though.
Needs more Chilly Willy – with: 2 documentaries (Of Men and Penguins and National Geographic’s Crittercam: Emperor Penguins), the classic Looney Tunes cartoon 8 Ball Bunny and the original theatrical trailer.
