March 29, 2024
Column

DVD Corner

“Bewitched: Complete Fifth Season”: Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), Darrin (Dick York) and Endora (Agnes Moorehead) reach deep into their old bag of tricks. Thing is, in this fifth season, that bag apparently was bottomless. The writing remains inventive, Montgomery still is game for anything, and likewise for Moorehead, whose ferocious outbursts retain their edge.

Don’t miss “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,” in which Endora infuses Darrin with a self-destructive bout of vanity. Guess who cracks? If there’s a disappointment, it’s that Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne) is missing from the entire season. Grade: B+

“Cult Camp Classics Vol. 1: Sci-fi Thrillers”: For those who love bad movies – really, really bad movies – this terrific set is like taking a one-two punch to the head. And yet you cry out for more. Featured are 1959’s “The Giant Behemoth,” in which London comes under attack by a huge palaeosaurus that gets zapped by radiation (natch) and goes on a tear. Next up is another behemoth, 1958’s “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” which is about as pre-feminist as it gets. But nothing in this set, which just gives and gives and gives, compares to the worldwide fear Zsa Zsa Gabor ignited in 1958 when she co-starred in “Queen of Outer Space,” the sci-fi disaster that cast Eva’s sister as the only rational woman on the planet Venus. So much for typecasting. With Zsa Zsa unable, or unwilling, to conceal her Hungarian accent, the movie became sci-fi for the Eastern bloc, a ripe piece of trashovitch that suggested horror in its purest form. One of the week’s best new releases. Grade: A-

“Miami Vice: Season Five”:

Some shows hold up. Others don’t. Viewed now, the fifth season of Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice” feels more like “Miami Blight.” Who knew the show would be among the first to champion the metrosexual? The series was a harbinger for the horrors of what was fashionable during the 1980s. It championed such things as the skinny neck tie, the geri curl, the white shoe, the pastel suit. It was a television show that was of and for the times, fetishizing the Ferrari Crockett and Tubbs drove, the expensive speedboats they raced, the stubble they sported, the bling that was part of their job. As such, the series now is something of a corroded time capsule. You might fondly remember all that went into it, but now, years later, in a different world, you also might wonder why you cared in the first place. Grade: C-

“The Patriot: Blu-ray”: A big-budget epic of the American Revolution, with Mel Gibson, of all people, leading the charge. The movie shamelessly stirs the emotions with the violence of the battlefield, the love of a family and the loyalties that fall somewhere in between. Gibson is Benjamin Martin, a former war hero, widower and father of seven who tries to keep his eldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), out of the war against the British. It doesn’t work. With a flip of his ponytail, Gabriel is off to enlist, with Benjamin predictably drawn into the fight when Gabriel is injured. As bloody as Gibson’s “Braveheart,” the film comes to life in its war scenes, with director Roland Emerich, never better, proving masterful behind the camera. Rated R. Grade: B

“Picket Fences: Season One”: From David E. Kelley, the first season of this eccentric series looked beyond the picket fences and saw into the heart of Rome, Wis. There, it found a wealth of sensational issues designed to raise one’s eyebrows: lesbianism, polygamy, AIDS, euthanasia, you name it. And yet Kelley, a good writer, was able to turn those cheap hooks into surprisingly sensitive family entertainment; no small feat, particularly given the more timid times in which the series was conceived. Tom Skerritt’s Sheriff Brock and Kathy Baker as his wife were pivotal to the show’s Emmy-winning success. They were something real and recognizable within Kelley’s button-pushing absurdity. Grade: B+

“The Sergio Leone Anthology”: His name might sound like a pair of designer jeans from the 1970s, but those who know and love Leone’s films know that few directors are better. He was as important to the emerging shape of the Western as Francis Ford Coppolla was to reimagining the gangster movie. Four of Leone’s seven movies are collected here, including the spaghetti Western trilogy “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” which made Clint Eastwood a star and then, with the last film, an American icon. Also included is “Duck, You Sucker,” with James Coburn notably not the sucker. Missing is Leone’s great film, “Once Upon a Time in America,” and while its absence is curious, there’s so much else here to absorb and to discuss – the DVD extras are excellent and many – it hardly is a strike against the collection. Grade: A

“Shooter”: After his Academy Award-nominated performance in “The Departed,” Mark Wahlberg went for the paycheck as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine who has two dimensions: bicep and tricep. Dumped from military service after his close friend is killed in the harrowing (and ruinous) Ethiopian mission that begins the film, Swagger is living in the Wyoming mountains when he’s tracked down by Col. Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover), who wants him to help foil a plot to kill the president of the United States. Swagger agrees, but finds himself framed and on the run. Exactly why he’s framed is so implausible, it’s akin to sitting on a day-old balloon; whatever air is left inside the movie gradually seeps out. But not without a fight. To be fair to “Shooter,” the film’s action is impressive, with director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “King Arthur”) again proving he’s best suited as a stylist than as a director who can pull together a three-dimensional character. Rated R. Grade: C+


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