The Clowns (Fellini) Blu-ray review

The tiresome “ohmygod, clowns are so creepy” trope is about as worn-out as the holes in the big, floppy shoes one associates with these face-painted goofballs, but watching The Clowns, one begins to understand that the meme is rooted in truth. Yes, this is a G-rated, made-for-TV look at clowns, but it’s also one written and directed by Federico Fellini, which means you’re gonna get, to quote the box, a “sex-crazed hobo, a midget nun [and] a mutilated Mussolini disciple.” The 1970 film is making its Blu-ray debut and, as with all Fellini works, the crisp resolution adds hugely to the experience, bringing spectacular contrast and color saturation to the director’s fever-dream set pieces. Of particular note here is the inclusion of a beautiful (if small) 50-page booklet filled with Fellini’s production notes and sketches. (available now)

Special Features: Fellini short, visual essay, booklet

Originally appeared October 20, 2011 in Orlando Weekly.

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town DVD review

The thing to keep in mind when settling in to watchDeath Comes to Town for the first time is that this series is not sketch comedy. In fact, it barely qualifies as comedy at all. The Kids in the Hall made their name peddling a brand of humor that was very much devoid of narrative structure; maybe there would be a recurring idea here or a consistent character there, but for the most part, the Kids leaned on their sly delivery, odd characterizations and utterly bizarre imaginations to deliver the laughs.

When the team tried to combine their comedic approach with a story – as they did with 1996’s Brain Candy – they failed pretty miserably. Yet, with Death Comes To Town, the focus is almost purely on the story. Hell, it’s a murder mystery, so they end up trying to drive a cohesive story arc for eight half-hour episodes. They don’t completely succeed.

Stocked to the brim with a baffling array of new and classic Kids characters, Death Comes to Town feels like a Canadian take on “The League of Gentlemen” or “Little Britain”: outlandish and occasionally grating characters orbit around a central plot that alternates between being on-the-nose (who killed the mayor?) and incomprehensible (why is the Grim Reaper hanging out in a hotel?). The astonishing number of characters that are poured into the eight episodes are, for the most part, all played by the five Kids (of course, the women are too), and while such role-switching works in five-minute comedy sketches, it winds up (especially during a DVD marathon of the episodes) muddling the viewer’s ability to play along. Which wouldn’t be too terrible if the jokes were flying, but it appears that the Kids have moved beyond punchy surrealism and into a sort of aggressively cynical weirdness that ends up subverting both the humor and the narrative.

First appeared in Orlando Weekly on May 26, 2011.

Spaghetti Western Collection DVD review

There may be such a thing as a casual fan of spaghetti westerns, but it’s a rare creature. To the contrary, aficionados of the genre tend to border on the obsessive; they treat the Sartana-Django divide as a top-shelf split akin to the Beatles and the Stones, preferring to save their debate strength for deciding whether Gianfranco Parolini or Tonino Valerii has the most appropriate directorial style for the genre.

For those fans, this 44-film collection – yes, forty-four movies on 11 DVDs – is a godsend. Appropriately cheap (list price: $29.98, but you can easily get it for less than half that) and slapdash (the double-sided DVDs come in thin envelopes jammed into an oversized case), this set easily evokes the budget-minded approach that went into the production of spaghetti westerns in the ’60s and ’70s. By grabbing aspiring (or down-on-their-heels) American actors and filming in a quick-and-dirty fashion, these westerns were notable for their lack of formalism, but also for their creation of a film language all their own. Less morally constrained than the Ford school of American westerns, these Italian directors unleashed films that were considerably more violent (and considerably less rehearsed) than their U.S. counterparts.

The sheer quantity of films that emerged during the heyday of the spaghetti western means that even a 44-film set could only scratch the surface; notably, this set just skips right past the surface and goes right to the middle and bottom of the barrel. Although stars like Lee Van Cleef, George Eastman, Franco Nero, and Robert Widmark are here – along with Leslie Nielsen and William Shatner! – there are only a few genre classics to be found. Death Rides a Horse, Django vs. Sartana, Johnny Yuma, and 3 Bullets for Ringo are here, but questionable entries like Jesse and Lester, Four Rode Out and others claim the bulk of the space.

First appeared Dec. 23, 2010 in Orlando Weekly.

‘Rare Cult Cinema’ DVD review

With 12 movies crammed onto three DVDs, it goes without saying that the fidelity of the 19 hours of cinema in this Cult Classics set is pretty awful. Of course, lo-fi is the best way to appreciate most of these movies, which were produced by Crown International, a company best known for its far better drive-in exploitation fare likeChain Gang Women and The Van. Unfortunately, most of these flicks are from the bottom of Crown’s already bottom-heavy barrel, and more than half are easily forgettable. Still, seeing Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings in their late ’60s heyday (1967’s Road to Nashville) would be a treat even if the movie wasn’t so hilariously cheap. Meanwhile, 1989’sMy Mom’s A Werewolf (marquee star: Marcia Wallace), 1982’s Liar’s Moon (with Matt Dillon as, of course, a kid from the wrong side of the tracks and Yvonne De Carlo as a super-campy matron of a boarding house) and 1987’s Deathrow Gameshow are treats from the waning days of drive-ins. (available now)

First appeared Nov. 25, 2010 in Orlando Weekly, inexplicably attributed to Justin Strout.

‘The Prisoner: The Complete Series” Blu-ray review (Detroit Metrotimes)

One of the most confusing, complex, paranoid and endlessly rewarding television series of the ’60s has been remastered in high-definition just in time for the debut of a revamped new version on A&E. While the new mini-series has been the justifiable recipient of plenty of praise, digging into the original, 17-episode series is still a far superior experience. The densely plotted (and often convoluted) tale of a former spy (known only as “Number Six”) and his perilous travails in “The Village” – a top-secret holding pen for ex-spooks and other high-security-clearance individuals who are no longer working for the government – is not only ripe for repeated viewings, but the new Blu-ray transfer brings out the sort of visual detail that is all too often overlooked in television material this old. The creators of the show took nearly as much care with their set-pieces and camera angles as they did with the action and dialogue in the show, and on Blu-ray, those efforts are on ample display. Although The Prisoner is still a thoroughly British experience (Patrick McGoohan’s “Number Six” perfectly nails the mix of late ’60s zeitgeist and quirky sobriety that were battling for England’s soul at the time), the layers of espionage drama, allegorical fiction, and sheer weirdness translate well to anyone seeking a truly engrossing television experience. Lost fans take note: you may find your favorite show to be a little more derivative than you previously thought.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense 25th Anniversary Blu-ray review (Detroit Metrotimes)

As soon as you wrap your head around the fact it has been a quarter-century since Jonathan Demme and David Byrne teamed up to create Stop Making Sense, you may settle into another realization: Despite the intervening years bestowing a sort of classic-rock status upon the band’s hits, the Talking Heads were always an amazingly weird band. After all, what other band would spend nearly the first third of a concert film simply getting all of its equipment and personnel onto the stage? From the opening scenes which find David Byrne plunking out “Psycho Killer” with no other accompaniment other than an acoustic guitar and a boom box, Stop Making Sense slowly builds into an art-rock concert par excellence, and always — amazingly — keeps the focus on the music. Even with Byrne bopping around in his big-ass suit, demanding that everyone acknowledge the concert as An Art Event, the smiles of Tina Weymouth and, more notably, P-Funkateer Bernie Worrell, are far more captivating. This Blu-ray edition offers superb fidelity and a miraculously clean transfer — so clean, in fact, that the film grain is noticeable throughout — but also a wealth of bonus material, including a hilarious Byrne self-interview, two songs (“Cities” and a medley of “Big Business” and “I Zimbra”) that were inexplicably cut from the original version, plus, you get the choice of either the feature film’s audio mix or a studio mix of the material.

First appeared Nov. 4, 2009 in Detroit Metrotimes.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense Blu-ray review (Detroit Metrotimes)

As soon as you wrap your head around the fact it has been a quarter-century since Jonathan Demme and David Byrne teamed up to create Stop Making Sense, you may settle into another realization: Despite the intervening years bestowing a sort of classic-rock status upon the band’s hits, the Talking Heads were always an amazingly weird band. After all, what other band would spend nearly the first third of a concert film simply getting all of its equipment and personnel onto the stage? From the opening scenes which find David Byrne plunking out “Psycho Killer” with no other accompaniment other than an acoustic guitar and a boom box, Stop Making Sense slowly builds into an art-rock concert par excellence, and always — amazingly — keeps the focus on the music. Even with Byrne bopping around in his big-ass suit, demanding that everyone acknowledge the concert as An Art Event, the smiles of Tina Weymouth and, more notably, P-Funkateer Bernie Worrell, are far more captivating. This Blu-ray edition offers superb fidelity and a miraculously clean transfer — so clean, in fact, that the film grain is noticeable throughout — but also a wealth of bonus material, including a hilarious Byrne self-interview, two songs (“Cities” and a medley of “Big Business” and “I Zimbra”) that were inexplicably cut from the original version, plus, you get the choice of either the feature film’s audio mix or a studio mix of the material.

First appeared Nov. 4, 2009 in Detroit Metrotimes.

‘Fear(s) of the Dark’ DVD review (Detroit Metrotimes)

Animation and horror would seem to be the sort of chocolate-and-peanut-butter combination that more folks had experimented with; the visual possibilities of strong animation work would give a creative horror-film director all sorts of provocative canvases to splatter blood all over. Yet it’s still relatively uncharted territory, perhaps because the most essential part of any horror film – even the most absurdly plotted horror film – is a sense of reality, the viewer’s feeling that the carnage going down onscreen could happen to them on the way to their car. For Fear(s) of the Dark, six renowned artists dispense with the notion of reality and emerge with a dark, evocative, and occasionally chilling anthology of animated horror that delivers on all the untapped potential of this relatively unexplored form. Although the six pieces here are distinct in visual style and execution (hehe), the thematic thread that runs throughout ties them together with a sense of doom that relies less on splatter than on spookiness.

‘Urgh! A Music War’ DVD feature review (Orlando Weekly)

It’s been a long time coming, but nearly 30 years after it was released to theaters, Urgh! A Music War is again available for purchase. For music fans of a certain age – especially those who have suffered from years of squinting at grainy VHS dubs and bootleg DVDs – its purchase is mandatory; Urgh! is the ultimate document of the post-punk movement known as “the New Wave” (not to be confused with the later, poppier genre generality of new wave).

Thanks to a pioneering initiative at Warner Bros. Pictures called the Warner Archive, in which films with limited retail appeal are sold on a duplicated-to-order basis, that purchase is just a few clicks away. Although Urgh! can’t be picked up at your local music shop or on Amazon, the archive’s online store (www.wbshop.com) offers a direct-to-your-door deal that gets you a DVD-R pressing of the movie made from reasonably clean prints for $20. And it’s official, which means that, hopefully, some of the 30-plus artists featured on the movie will see some of that money.

Urgh! was briefly sold in the ’80s on VHS tape and laserdisc, but neither of those versions stayed in print for long. It’s important to remember that, in the early and mid-’80s, home video libraries weren’t nearly as common as they are now; most videotapes were sold to video stores for rentals, while laserdiscs, though beloved by cinephiles, were never broadly embraced by the general public. So videos frequently fell out of print quickly after their first run. In the case of Urgh!, it probably didn’t help that the USA Network’s excellent Night Flight program seemed to play the film and various clips frequently, thus negating the need for anyone to actually purchase a high-priced former rental tape or track down the hard-to-find laserdisc.

In the 28 years that have passed since Urgh! was originally released, the film has taken on a legendary reputation, due to its content and its rarity. The relative ease with which the music was licensed for the original production was a natural facet of the late-’70s music business; nobody was considering cross-collateralization, digital download residuals or multiplatform hybridization. Producer Miles Copeland (founder of IRS Records, brother of Police drummer Stewart Copeland) presented all of the artists with a fairly straightforward contract that permitted the use of their music and performances in Urgh!’s theatrical presentations and television broadcasts, and allowed for the initial home video versions as well as a double-LP soundtrack – which, sadly, remains out of print. Everything after those initial permissions would require every single artist – all 34 of them – to sign off on any new versions; thus, no CD of the soundtrack and, until now, no DVD of the movie. How Warner Archives got around those contracts is a mystery, but the fact that Urgh! is only available as a bespoke DVD – rather than in a full retail version – is probably reflective of the acres of red tape that have accumulated around it.

All those licensing issues, and all those memories of tracking down nth-generation copies, fades immediately upon popping in the Warner Archives DVD. The film itself hasn’t undergone any remastering process, but the print used for the transfer is suitably crisp, and the difference between this version and the unauthorized versions that have been traded for years is simply remarkable. More importantly, the Dolby stereo audio track provides a powerful and dynamic reproduction of the music.

Of course, the music is the entire point of Urgh! Filmed – not on video, but on film – at a multitude of concerts in various venues around the world in 1980, Urgh! features live performances from ’80s crossover stars Joan Jett, the Police, Devo, the Go-Go’s, Gary Numan (doing “Down in the Park” on an overwhelming stage setup) and Wall of Voodoo – all captured at the moment just before MTV made everyone tired of them. Beyond those marquee names, though, are the stars of the post-punk underground – Echo & the Bunnymen, the Cramps, Magazine, XTC (yes, live), Dead Kennedys, Surf Punks, Oingo Boingo, Chelsea (snarling through “I’m on Fire”), Pere Ubu, Gang of Four. Combine those well-known names with excellent, now-footnoted acts like the Members, Toyah Willcox, Skafish and Athletico Spizz 80 and the variety of music on display here – punk, post-punk, power pop, electro-pop, reggae, quirky new wave, a touch of postmodern weirdness and even spoken word – is simply staggering. There’s not a single performance on Urgh! that’s less than impressive: The Cramps’ blistering take on “Tear It Up,” Echo’s fiery, angsty version of “The Puppet,” Klaus Nomi’s legendarily operatic “Total Eclipse” and the Police’s taut and terrific runthrough of “So Lonely” are essential watching.

While some viewers might complain that the Warner Archives version doesn’t allow skipping right to those moments (you can only skip through in 10-minute intervals, not by indexed, single-song chapters), watching Urgh! straight through is how the film has been experienced for most of its 28-year history. If you could go straight to 999 playing “Homicide,” you’d end up skipping past the Alley Cats doing “Nothing Means Nothing Anymore,” and you would probably never even bother watching the masked men of Invisible Sex play their cardboard guitars on “Valium.” (Worth noting: The fifth chapter skip takes you right to the beginning of the Dead Kennedys’ “Bleed for Me,” which, with its segue into Steel Pulse’s “Ku Klux Klan,” is a highlight of the film.)

While this was probably a money-saving (or licensing) consideration, it actually helps preserve the dizzying effect the original had on audiences. And to those who try to make the argument that new wave was the purview of well-coiffed, telegenic pretty boys who couldn’t play their instruments, I highly recommend buying this DVD and preparing for a two-hour lesson in just how great this period in music was.

First appeared Oct. 22, 2009 in Orlando Weekly.

‘A Jihad For Love’ DVD review (Detroit Metrotimes)

With the California Supreme Court’s recent decision to not overturn Proposition 8, a number of more hyperbolic commentators took the opportunity to compare the continued commingling of religion, public policy and sexual orientation to the oppression faced by gays and lesbians living in predominantly Muslim countries. While one certainly doesn’t want to minimize just how disturbing the motivations behind (and portent of) Prop 8 were, one only needs to watch A Jihad for Love to know that we have a long way — a very long way — to go before our fundamentalist nutballs begin to look like the Arab world’s fundamentalist nutballs. Director Parvez Sharma takes the discussion to its most effective forum: the way these laws work on real folk. By looking at the day-to-day lives of 16 different people who are wrestling with their faith, the laws of their land and the fact that they’re gay, Sharma not only emphasizes the deleterious impacts of legislated morality, but also the sheer normalcy of her subjects. In a dozen different countries, these 16 people all struggle with many of the same issues — exclusion, oppression, confusion — but they’re all so utterly unremarkable as subjects that the intolerance they face seems that much more bizarre. While the brisk running time of A Jihad for Love doesn’t allow Sharma to paint a full picture of any of his subjects, quantity more than makes up for quality in this case.

First appeared June 3, 2009 in Detroit Metrotimes.