Wall-E
DVD and Blu-ray
Disney
Pixar has changed the way we perceive animation, but it’s not just about technological leaps in CGI; it’s also about knowing how to tell a story that moves and touches both children and adults. Every Pixar/Disney release has not hit on all cylinders, though even when it’s more lightweight (for example, Cars), it’s still loads of fun. And then there are works like Wall-E. The no-dialogue early part of the film is a tribute to silent comedies now long-gone and also a brilliant risk-taking move that succeeds beyond expectations. Set in a future where mankind has abandoned our planet after using it like a trash bin, all that’s left is Wall-E the trash compacting robot…until a spaceship arrives. It’s love story with a definite nod to Charlie Chaplin and a cautionary eco-tale that also warns against rampant consumerism and a couch-potato life. It’s never preachy and always vibrant with joys of life — even sentient machine life. Wall-E is a wonder. The three-disc special edition in DVD and Blu-ray continues Disney’s smart move to include a digital copy for computers. Plus, the bonus features include a new featurette cartoon about a fellow robot, Burn-E.
Tropic Thunder: Director’s Cut
DVD and Blu-ray
Paramount
Simply hilarious and sometimes even brilliant as an action-comedy, Tropic Thunder is the best work Ben Stiller — as actor, co-writer and director — has ever done…but it’s not just him. This is a definite ensemble, especially Robert Downey, Jr.’s Aussie Oscar-winner deep into a role as a black character (he’s amazing) and Jack Black’s pill-addicted gross comedy star, plus Tom Cruise’s blow-out turn as an a-hole to the extreme Hollywood agent, so much so you don’t recognize him at first, and Nick Nolte as a grizzled nutjob Vietnam War vet. It’s Apocalypse Now gone funny, but not without some geunine drama and pathos as well, so much so you may not cheer out loud by the ending, but you’ll shout with joy inside and surely smile too. From its beginning, with fake movie trailers that set up the film’s main characters to a winning finish and Cruise’s best dance number since, well, Risky Business, Tropic Thunder makes no blunders.
Studio One Anthology
Koch Vision
From the golden age of television in its early years — the late ’40s through the mid-’50s — comes this special collection of dramas from the series Studio One, which aired for nine years on CBS and was an Emmy-winning benchmark of TV history. The box set includes the 1954 original television production of Twelve Angry Men, as well as productions of Julius Caesar and Wuthering Heights. The acting talent is stunning, including Art Carney, Jack Lemmon, Charlton Heston, Eddie Albert, Norman Fell, Lorne Green, Eva Marie Saint, Lee Remick, and Leslie Nielsen, with teleplays written by Rod Serling and Gore Vidal, among others, on this six-disc set. Bonus material includes the inclusion of the original Westinghouse commercials on the TV drams, plus historical featurettes and archive material along with a 52-page book.
Star Trek
Season Three Remastered
Paramount
The third and final season of the remastered original Star Trek, with new visual effects and sonic upgrades, finds the show featuring some of its most memorable episodes, good and bad. There’s the “Requiem for Methusalah,” as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy encounter the immortal Flint. But there’s also “Spock’s Brain,” so beyond ridiculous it’s loved for its silly though played-straight story as the first officer’s cerebellum is swiped. Other great eps here include “Elaan of Troyius” (guest-starring a way-snotty France Nuyen and “Plato’s Stepchildren,” featuring the late and truly great Michael Dunn (Wild Wild West’s Dr. Loveless making a crossover to Trek in a different role), while on the lame side of things, there’s the hippy-dippy “Way to Eden,” where Walter Koenig gets his Chekov moment. Still, it’s the stuff that launched the legend and franchise that would span decades up to next year’s JJ Abrams feature film relaunch. Hi-tech buffs already deep into Blu-ray may want to hold out for that version of the set, but this will do fine for most of us to live long and prosper with an all-time fave TV series.
Sabrina – Centennial Collection
Roman Holiday - Centennial Collection
Sunset Blvd. – Centennial Collection
Paramount
Some of my favorite films of the ’50s have been reissued as part of the Centennial Collection. Topping the list is Sabrina, one of the all-time best romantic comedies which showed another side to the supreme Humphrey Bogart (reportedly, the debonair demeanor was more like he was in real life as opposed to rough-hewn tough-guy), a young William Holden, and the ever-charming delights of Audrey Hepburn. Produced and directed by Billy Wilder, the remake in the ’90s, even with great turns from Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear, just can’t compare to the original.
Then there’s Roman Holiday, again featuring Hepburn with Gregory Peck (is there a comparable actor today? That’s one to fathom). This fable of a tale is set in Italy as a contemporary princess cuts loose to discover Rome away from royal trappings. Directed by William Wyler, it won three Oscars and surely falls into the they-don’t-make-’em-like-they-used-to-category. Just say no to colorizing! This is proof you don’t need it or want it for a film like this.
Finally, we have the mellodrama of Sunset Boulevard, another Billy Wilder film also featuring the young Holden and then-aging star from the ’20s and ’30s Gloria Swanson as the disturbed silent screen star Nora Desmond. It’s a dark look into Hollywood of the day, though still makes one wonder how much as elementally changed more than a half-century later.
Know a classic film buff? Get ‘em all three of these.
Sounder
Misty
Koch Vision
We go back to the ‘ 60s and ’70s for these two film reissues on DVD. Set in the depression-era South, Sounder was a break-out performance for Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield too, also featuring musician Taj Mahal and Kevin Hooks in this story of a share-cropper forced to steal food so his family can survive during the worst of times. Very moving, even today. Certainly a family movie, but hardly bright and chipper.
More typically a family film is Misty (stories about horses and children are always family films, aren’t they?). Based on the Newbery Honor Award-winning novel Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henr, the film takes place on an island off the Virgina coast where wild ponies run, including Phantom and the colt Misty. The cast includes David Ladd, the venerable Arthur O’Connell, and Anne Seymour.
Carlos Mencia
Performance Enhanced
Comedy Central
Oh, that wacky, politically incorrect badboy madman Mencia. Unless you’ve got a stick up the rear when it comes to smashing all things ethnic and racial with comedy, he’ll have you yucking it up with his rants on the state of things as we interact with each other. The zinger-filled rave-ons were shot at the Hard Rock Hotel in Florida before a live audience, as they say. Outrageous? Sure. But funny? Hell yes.
Comedy Central Salutes George W. Bush
Comedy Central
The world’s most obvious target of the past few years when it comes to political comedy gets the bash-a-lot treatment here in this farewell to his time in the White House. In addition to comedy bits, there are Bush-centric episodes of South Park, the obvious-to-include Lil’ Bush and That’s My Bush, plus Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil. The new administration taking office in January will surely inspire hope, but surely not as many laughs.
Related Stories: Uncle D’s DVD Shelf, Tropic Thunder, Uncle D’s Blue-Ray Bonanza, TV on DVD Then and Now, Ben Stiller Interview
Tags: Art Carney, Audrey Hepburn, Ben Stiller, Carlos Mencia, CBS TV Network, Charlton Heston, Cicely Tyson, comedy central, Eddie Albert, Eva Marie Saint, Golden Age of Television, Gregory Peck
