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DigiGods Episode 24: ¿Por qué 4k?
50 Plays9 years ago
This week, Wade reviews 4K Blu-rays! Is it worth thousands of dollars in new equipment to see Matt Damon, Jennifer Lawrence and Samuel L. Jackson in UHD? Find out!
DigiGods Podcast, 03/29/16 (MP3) — 29.49 MB
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In this episode, the Gods discuss:
- After the Fox (Blu-ray)
- Bandits (Blu-ray)
- Bicycle Thieves (Blu-ray)
- The Black Sleep (Blu-ray)
- Braddock: Missing in Action III (Blu-ray)
- Breaker! Breaker! (Blu-ray)
- A Brighter Summer Day (Blu-ray)
- Cherry Falls (Blu-ray)
- Clean Slate (Blu-ray)
- CPO Sharkey: The Best of Season Two (DVD)
- Disturbing Behavior (Blu-ray)
- Donovan's Brain (Blu-ray)
- Ender's Game (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Exodus: Gods and Kings (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Expendables 3 (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Freaks & Geeks Blu-ray Collector's Edition (Blu-ray)
- Invasion U.S.A. (Blu-ray)
- Jinxed (Blu-ray)
- Kill Me Again (Blu-ray)
- Kingsman: The Secret Service (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Last Witch Hunter (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Making the Grade (Blu-ray)
- The Manchurian Candidate (Blu-ray)
- The Martian (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Dunwich Horror (Double Feature) (Blu-ray)
- My Summer Story (Blu-ray)
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 Vol. XXXV (DVD)
- Perry Mason Movie Collection: Volume 5 (DVD)
- A Poem is a Naked Person (Blu-ray)
- Pray For Death (Blu-ray/DVD)
- The Sicilian (Director's Cut) (Blu-ray)
- The Trip (Blu-ray)
- Turn: Washington's Spies - The Complete Second Season (DVD)
- Undertow (Blu-ray)
- Wake Up And Kill (2-Disc Special Edition) (Blu-ray/DVD)
- What Have You Done To Solange? (Blu-ray/DVD)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (4k UHD Blu-ray)
Please also visit CineGods.com.
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Transcript
Naked Intros & New Recordings
00:00:21
Speaker
Yes, our naked intros are almost done. We will be shortly recording all the cool new intros with Corey and setting ourselves up for another good solid year of fun intros.
Streaming Mundanity: End of Civilization?
00:00:32
Speaker
Mark, you just forced me to witness the end of civilization as we know it.
00:00:37
Speaker
Well, I guess although we do want to talk about your very special sneak peek at 4K. Yes. But yes, I mentioned last week that I bought a PlayStation 4 and that you can watch people as they stream. You can watch them for hours and hours if you like and they're from all over the world and they all have no, probably no jobs because they're all just
00:00:58
Speaker
fat, lazy, and stupid, and it's unbelievable. Like all over the world, people sitting around on couches in small, completely disheveled apartments with the camera pointed at them doing nothing in particular, and they are interfacing with people who apparently are amusing themselves by just watching these people do nothing. I don't really understand it. We have literally, literally every part of the globe now has
00:01:23
Speaker
hundreds of satellite and cable channels, networks that spend millions of dollars on sophisticated programming to capture your attention, to hold it week after week. They pay writers and directors and producers and they have actors who get paid big bucks. They build sets. They make series. And then somebody actually would rather sit there and watch somebody just sit on their couch and eat Cheetos. I don't understand this.
00:01:52
Speaker
And that's all they do. Literally, we would rather watch some truck-sized woman, right, with a blanket over her body, talking a thick British accent with a beer in her hand, and her dog, you know, gnawing at her. Talk about, how dare you make fun of my dog? I don't get it. It's the end of civilization. The best. I just don't understand.
Development of 4K Systems
00:02:12
Speaker
Wade, why don't you tell everybody the excitement, the thrill of 4K? Okay, so here's the deal.
00:02:20
Speaker
We are still building our 4K system because obviously there's only one 4K Blu-ray player out there. There's only a handful of 4K receivers. So ours is a work in progress, at least mine is. Mark, you're not even planning on 4K yet, are you?
00:02:35
Speaker
No, I mean, when, when there's a preponderance of, uh, players and Blu-rays available, we don't want Ender's game on 4k. I'm sorry. So in any case, but we do have access to a system, which, uh, which I am using, uh, for the time being to, uh, review whatever we are sending 4k until we build our own superior system. But this is so that everything I am seeing is on an early adopter system, by the way, it is, it is on a, uh, an,
00:03:04
Speaker
an LG 4K TV with the Samsung, which is the only 4K player available right now. There's only one. Samsung is the only one. So it is entirely possible that the Samsung being the earliest machine is not reproducing the 4K image as amazingly as future players will. So we have to wait until the end of the year when we will
00:03:24
Speaker
see what the oppo can do. Oppo, I've gone back and forth. We love the oppo. I love the oppo, and I've gone back and forth with people at Oppo, and they don't rush anything. That's what I love about him. Jason over at Oppo has always been really, really great, and anytime I ask him a question, he takes a great deal of time to explain it.
00:03:41
Speaker
And they're very, very accommodating in terms of explaining technical things and what they do to sort of develop the next line. Anyway, so here's what we were sent as far
Early 4K Blu-ray Issues
00:03:49
Speaker
as 4K. There's a lot of 4K stuff that's come out in the last few weeks. Only a handful of it was sent to us. Now, mind you, 20th and Lionsgate jumped right on top of this immediately. And 20 sent us four titles. Lionsgate sent us three. My feelings on it all is very mixed, to be honest.
00:04:10
Speaker
I do not get the sense that, and it's sort of, you remember like when DVD first came out, it felt like everybody was just taking their one inch masters, their one inch, excuse me, their one inch videotape masters and they were just kind of just throwing that onto a DVD. And then what you were looking at still looked like videotape in some cases. Sure. There was no professional cleanup involved. No cleanup. And then the earliest blue rays just looked like somebody just kind of, you know,
00:04:39
Speaker
transferred a DVD to a blu-ray and it didn't you know it took some time before people actually honored the format
00:04:46
Speaker
before they actually sort of understood the format, they understood, uh, like a lot of those early Blu-rays, you remember how just pasty people looked? It just took, it did horrible things to the complexions of people. I mean, early Blu-rays were not a pretty thing. They, they scared a lot of people away from the format. They almost preferred to go back to DVD, which softened things and was kinder to the picture. So I feel like we're in a similar zone with some of these early 4k Blu-rays, which is that they,
00:05:14
Speaker
It does not look to me as though somebody has given careful enough attention as to how a film
00:05:23
Speaker
that lives on 4K, obviously, for 4K projection in a theater, how that reproduces slightly differently on a 4K television. I do get the sense that the colors in many cases are a little bit oversaturated, which you can adjust for with the TV modes. But still, you can just tell in the transfer, the colors are a little oversaturated. They're designed to be thrown at a distance from a projector.
00:05:50
Speaker
And they haven't adequately compensated a lot of the colors. So that being said, I'm not going to not recommend these because yes, the image is much more clear and the sound is just through the roof. It's not to be believed. If you have a great system, if you've really invested in audio and if you have a large enough television, if you have like at least a 50 inch, I would say a 55 inch at the very least for 4K to be significant.
4K Movie Reviews: Exodus, X-Men, The Martian
00:06:15
Speaker
Go for it, but Exodus Gods and Kings. Let's start with Exodus Gods and Kings. So Exodus Gods and Kings, not a great movie, although, oh my gosh, did you see the new, the Ben Hur trailer? As long as we're on the subject of films, it should never be on. We talked about this on the Digigods Facebook page. It's a disaster. It looks horrendous. It's just a bunch of CGI nothing.
00:06:36
Speaker
Oh, but even the stuff that's not CGI, it looks all handheld. The casting is bad. Like, I knew that... That guy who plays Ben Hur, he looks like a nobody. He's a random guy. He's a Houston. Whatever, some random guy. But it's terrible. It looks awful. It looks dreadful. And I knew that Timur Bekbambadov would make a bad movie. I mean, that was never in doubt, but I didn't think he'd make a movie that bad.
00:06:57
Speaker
Wow. It's just dreadful. There's been this sword and sandal rehash that's blipped up a little bit. It's not working. First of all, that ABC show, Gods and Prophets. Two episodes. Disaster. Done. Gone. Two episodes done. In fairness, did you watch any of that show? No. I saw the first episode.
00:07:16
Speaker
I figured, why not? Let's see how it is. It was something clearly rushed to television, too many cooks in the kitchen. You could tell there's no single vision to it and they're sort of trying to hit all of these faith-based demographics, but also try to hit the
00:07:31
Speaker
the Game of Thrones demo, right? You could tell there was sort of like a checklist of things the show had to meet. There's no sort of artistic vision. That being said, probably could have had a future, but they stuck it in that terrible like Tuesday night, 10 p.m. time slot that just kills every show.
00:07:47
Speaker
I mean, ABC's been trying to get that time slot to work for the longest time and they just can't. Like, no one wants to watch ABC on that slot. Anyway. So, uh, Exodus, Gods and Kings, the whole Moses and, uh, fair ordeal. Um, director of Ridley Scott before he redeemed himself with the Martian, which we'll also talk about.
00:08:03
Speaker
Exodus Gods of Kings, not great, a lot of CGI, not really well written. Bottom line in, why would you release this in 4k? Well, because it's got loads of CGI, and you know what, it's even more obviously CGI in 4k. Cannot really heavily recommend this. That being said, you know, it's got your regular Blu-ray on it as well, so you'll always have that. And, you know, commentary and all the usual stuff. So not
00:08:31
Speaker
Not great. X-Men Days of Future Past, probably the best one of all of these. I like this movie. It's a good movie. It's not just because it's a good movie. It's a good 4K. Partly, I think, because the movie itself looked a little bit desaturated in theaters.
00:08:48
Speaker
I don't know if you are aware of that. Did that strike you? It has a certain periodness to it. It has a certain periodness to it, but that as a result, when it oversaturates a little bit in 4K in this format, it winds up still looking really, really good, really decent. So the special effects benefit, the audio is fantastic. So I would say if you're going to watch a film that really, really shows off 4K, X-Men Days of Future Past is the one. And man, am I looking forward to Apocalypse, right? Right?
00:09:16
Speaker
I am? Of course you are. I mean, I like the X-Men films. They're good. But you realize who's playing Apocalypse? Oscar Isaac. Oscar Isaac, right? Come on, man. He rules. He does rules. He's so rules. I just love that guy. Everything he does. So anyway, X-Men Days of Future Past. Good movie. Very good. 4K Ultra HD.
00:09:38
Speaker
Again, Ridley Scott with The Martian. He's the first director to have two films on 4K Blu-ray. Isn't that amazing? One week. Boom. Not really. The Martian. Looks good. Looks good. It looks about as good as can be expected. Did it look better than a regular Blu-ray to me? I'm not so sure. It certainly didn't have a lot of the flaws that I thought that Gods of the Kings had. My second favorite of all these is Kingsman, Secret Service.
00:10:06
Speaker
Oh, I love this movie. I love this movie. I'm so glad they're doing another one. Yes. I'm so glad. But I'm just so sad that the casting is going to be a little different, which we, you know, if you haven't seen this, I'm not going to say anything else.
00:10:16
Speaker
Great movie, absolutely great movie. Matthew Vaughn just kills it in this, absolutely great. He could have been the other, the second director to get two films on 4K if they had released the previous X-Men film, which he directed. Holy Christ. That would have been great. But anyway. That would have been amazing. This one, you know, all the same usual goodies and fun stuff. The Blu-rays are all included in these. You get a Blu-ray. It's not like you have to worry about losing a format. You get this, you also get the Blu-ray.
00:10:46
Speaker
Uh, so this is the, uh, you know, and you also get, um, ultraviolet, by the way, too. So that's, that's part of this as well. So, um, you know, yeah, Kingsman looks good, mainly because of the action stuff, which is so ferocious and fast and tenacious. Really, really easy to watch on a big screen. Uh, 4K, beautiful. All that fast moving action fight stuff.
00:11:09
Speaker
comes off beautifully. There's no blurring, no tracking error, nothing. It is just, boom, right there. But you don't ever feel like it's hitting you in the face. It's punching you in the face with the 60 hertz stuff. Because you clock it right back down to 24 hertz, 30 hertz, whatever, to get that 24 frame a second look, get that film look, and the action is still crisp. So it's beautiful. That was really, really appreciated. Now, on to the Lionsgate titles, which includes Ender's Game,
00:11:39
Speaker
and two other movies, which will remain nameless until I laugh
4K Reviews: Ender's Game & Expendables 3
00:11:42
Speaker
at them. Uh, Ender's Game, good film. I don't know why this was chosen for 4K. I don't know why any of these were chosen for 4K. Well, but Ender's Game is kind of the one I, like, okay, fair enough, fairly recent, but I don't really, I mean, is this like a visual feast to such a degree that
00:12:00
Speaker
Oh, it's the best. It has Harrison Ford. Yeah. Well, anyway. It is best base of Profundo Harrison Ford. Based on the the novel, which took forever to get made. They were trying to make this thing just honestly forever. Gavin Hood, you know, from South Africa, who's won an Oscar, keeps trying to get that Hollywood career going and he couldn't get it going with with Wolverine. So he's kind of trying to get it going with this.
00:12:22
Speaker
This doesn't hurt him. I guess the 4K release probably gives him a little bit of bragging rights. But how does the 4K look? Fine? It's fine? I don't think it looks better than the Blu-ray. It certainly looks comparable, given all the other errors. Here's what looks horrible. The last Witch Hunter.
00:12:41
Speaker
First of all, I don't even know why this movie was made. It's a terrible film, and they put absolutely no attention into the 4K. The effects are just grotesque. They're even more grotesque in 4K, and the film is even glaringly worse of a movie when you see it in 4K. It's kind of an embarrassment. And then lastly, The Expendables 3? What?
00:13:04
Speaker
Well, I think the reason why they did that is because they know that you have to be of a certain age to be able to afford the monitor and the player and the cords and the whatever. And those people tend to be of a certain age that might appreciate Stallone and all those old people and do the expendables or the expendables to which was really a lot of fun. Expendables three is a terrible movie.
00:13:28
Speaker
If you have a nostalgic attachment to this franchise, three is the one that killed it. Two is the one that sort of cemented it.
00:13:35
Speaker
I mean, come on, seriously. Well, maybe, maybe, I'm not defending it, but maybe Expendables 3 has more to show off the system. I suppose. Anyway. Because you know what? Because when Expendables came out, with each successive sequel, they probably got a little bump in the budget. Yeah. They can use that for more CGI, more polished production, and that might show off better. So the one thing that I can say about Expendables 3 is the Dolby Atmos audio is really, really good. The movie's terrible.
00:14:03
Speaker
The audio is really, really good. The mix on this film is actually surprisingly good. And it works very nicely in a home environment with the multiple, with 5.1, 7.1, 9.2, whatever your speaker setup is. It's going to really make it home. It almost makes it irrelevant how many speakers you have at a certain point. As long as you have some kind of a surround system and it's cranked up loud enough, you're going to get the benefit of this.
00:14:27
Speaker
Now, mind you, the extras, I should point out, the extras in all of these, almost all of these are on the Blu-ray only. They're not on the 4K disc, because there's no room left on the 4K disc to put a whole bunch of extras. And that seems to be the way that things are going to be going forward. So if you want to watch the extras, you're not going to be watching the extras in 4K. You're going to be watching the extras in Blu-ray. Well, that's fine. Which is fine. Which should be perfectly fine. The movie in 4K is really the thing.
00:14:52
Speaker
So anyway, so bottom line, the format is it's like the early days of DVD and Blu-ray. It's very much subject to all kinds of variables and how much attention people have given to it and the fact that they're really, the mastering is new. So the people who are the monkeys who are running the machines, who are the hamsters that are running on the treadmills, they aren't
00:15:14
Speaker
They aren't yet clearly yet. They haven't sort of mastered the whole process and they're still getting up to speed So my guess is that a lot of these things one reason that they're releasing movies that are probably not too great is That they're expecting to re-release them later based on sales, etc. Etc. I would be willing to bet that of all of these X-Men days of future past and the Martian will be re-released in some kind of a big flamboyant special edition anniversary edition 4k down the line and they will be redone and
00:15:44
Speaker
they will be remastered in a way that the current technology, the current mastering tools don't allow them to do. I would expect to see those two, maybe Kingsman, re-released somewhere down the line. So anybody who's buying them now should probably assume that they're going to have to double dip down the line. That's true. And then the thing with 4K, although I enjoy the fact that at least the studios have some faith left in packaged media. Yeah.
00:16:06
Speaker
Don't expect, you know, Weekend at Bernie's in 4K. No. Really, this is Collector City for the great films that really deserve to be in 4K. Look how much stuff is still on DVD. Most classic TV shows. You're not going to see Three's Company on Blu-ray anytime soon. Oh, Three's Company? I know. You're not going to see Three's Company on Blu-ray. He's hers and his and hers. Three's Company, too.
00:16:24
Speaker
By the way, after the whole Jeffrey Tambor thing last week, there was a little thing that I found online, which is 16 little trivia tidbits about 3's company, one of which was Jeffrey Tambor, played three different characters on the show. But did you know the brunette at the beginning in the credit sequence, who Jack sees and then he falls over on his bike? That's Suzanne Summers wearing a wig.
00:16:49
Speaker
Really? Yeah. Suzanne Sommers in a brunette wig. Now, is that something we would know if we weren't like three years old when the show came out? No, you'd never have known. If we watched it now, would we say that's so Suzanne Sommers. If you had memorized her buttocks, like the curvature of her buttocks, you would know that. Oh, so you don't see her face. So you said she has a wig. Oh, they show up from behind. Be sure I'm behind. Okay. And then...
00:17:09
Speaker
Now you're going to look it up. And during that same credit sequence, the little kid who runs over to Janet at the zoo, that was not planned. That's John Ritter's little boy. And he just ran away from his mom and ran into the frame. And she was never supposed to be approached by a little kid. But it just wound up being such a charming, impromptu moment that they kept it in. And it's part of the show. Isn't that great? Not really. I love it. I love that.
00:17:35
Speaker
Oh, these guys, I'm watching on YouTube and because as a podcast, I know you guys love it when we watch stuff. Yeah. On YouTube, but. It's wonderful. I'm watching this now. You talk, I'm going to look at, look for Suzanne Sanders. No, me talk. Okay. Well, fine. But I'm just going to run through a, I'll run through more classic movies. A bunch of olive titles. Olive. What a great, what a great lineup they have this week. This is great stuff.
00:18:04
Speaker
A fairly obscure film that Olive has thrown our way, directed by David Gordon Green, is undertow. David Gordon Green, of course, goes, vacillates back and forth between things like Pineapple Express and George Washington. You know, one is great and one is horrible. Now, was that season one, the open for season one? Because they have a different, like I'm looking at season three open, it's different. No, season one. Oh yeah, season one for sure.
00:18:30
Speaker
Anyway, David Gordon Green made this in 2004. This is one of his more serious films, one of his kind of Terrence Malick-ish films, and really very nice, based on a story by Lingard Jervy, and scripted by Joe Conway and David Gordon Green, and really good performances here by
00:18:54
Speaker
Josh Lucas in particular, Dermot Mulroney, Jamie, a young Jamie Bell. Really kind of a beautiful family saga with a, you know, kind of a rural backdrop to it. Exactly the kind of thing that David Gordon Green does very, very well. That is on Blu-ray from Olive and it's a wonderful pickup.
00:19:12
Speaker
My summer story, Charles Grodin, Mary-Stein Burgeon. Another film that kind of fell between the cracks. This is a Bob Clark movie from 1994, which is ostensibly a sequel to a Christmas story, even though none of the same actors are in it, but it is a sequel in the sense that it is
00:19:31
Speaker
based on the sequel novel by Gene Shepherd and it's not as charming as a Christmas story but it's certainly if you like a Christmas story you'll find a lot to appreciate and relate to in it so and Charles Grodin is just always wonderful. You know Chuck Norris
00:19:48
Speaker
We're going to talk about a couple of other Chuck Norris movies. Actually, you know what, Mark? I'm going to set this aside. I'm going to set this aside so we can cover it in our Chuck Norris segment. I think you should. That's what I'm going to do. Because even though this is Olive and the other two are Shout Factory, Scream Factory, we'll cover that in the same bit. So we're going to improvise. Bette Midler in Jinxed. This is when Bette Midler was trying to still desperately capitalize on her Academy Award nominee. Wait, wait, wait. You mean this? Hang on. This will go back to the threes company. OK, hold on. You mean this bit here?
00:20:19
Speaker
That is Suzanne Summers. That's Suzanne Summers. So John Ritter is riding his bike on the bike path in Santa Monica. In Santa Monica, yep. Interesting. You know what? I would not have known that. Isn't that funny? You might as well be her. Yeah, why not? Why hire an extra just for that shot? Exactly. What was the other thing? Oh, it's a zoo shot with Janet. I forget what season that was. That might have been the second season. No, no. Actually, I just saw it. So it was a zoo. They were at the zoo. And Don Knotts is in that shot.
00:20:48
Speaker
It's John Ritter's son. Oh, I know where it is. Hang on. It's coming. Yeah. We're so lame. Yeah, we're the best.
Roger Corman's 'The Trip' and 60s Drug Scene
00:20:57
Speaker
So while you're doing that, let me just keep going. Bette Midler in Jynx. So she had been in The Rose, gotten an Oscar nomination for The Rose, and then was trying to sort of reinvent herself as a major actress, but something closer to her regular persona. And Jynx does not quite that movie, but it is significant that it was directed by Don Siegel, one of his final films, in 1982. The Don Siegel, of course, who made many great Clint Eastwood films, including Dirty Harry.
00:21:19
Speaker
And one of the great directors of the 60s and 70s. And it's been a strange film. It's very much a vehicle for Bette Midler, with Bette Midler basically playing Bette Midler. But you know what? It's one of those interesting 80s films. It's nice to have it out. And it's a good looking Blu-ray. My favorite this week, oh my gosh, what a good transfer this is. The Trip, Roger Corman's, now what?
00:21:44
Speaker
Okay, I'm sorry for I'm not gonna make wait stop the recording look how cheesy and 70s Richard Klein's Reaction is this is this the worst. Oh, I'm sorry folks folks. I have to do this. Yeah. Okay. Let me see it Watch Richard Klein, this is the season seven opening I
00:22:10
Speaker
Now is it this kid? Is it this kid that Don Knotts is about to talk this kid here with the blonde? No, no, no, no, no, no Because there's another kid in the open No, no, no, no. I think this may be too late in the season. It's a kid who runs up to Janet. Oh, wait. It might be Yeah, that's after Suzanne Summers left the show. That's Priscilla Barnes. Yes. This is the only thing she's ever done anyone cares about.
00:22:36
Speaker
That's the one. One of these kids is John Ritter's kid. Yeah, that's John Ritter's little boy. It's exciting. Yep, just walked right up to her. Isn't that great? Maybe he just walked right up. Oh, you mean like he wasn't supposed to? He wasn't supposed to. Oh, really? Really? Yeah, he ran away from his mom. That's the beauty of that moment, and they just kept it. Now, does Joyce DeWitt have any... This is so boring for people. Does Joyce DeWitt have any reaction to this? Sort of. Here it comes.
00:23:05
Speaker
No, she stayed totally in character. Cause you know, she would have looked at the kids and said, well, she would have like made some sort of like,
00:23:16
Speaker
There you go. So anyway, back to our show. Roger Corman, you know, directed all kinds of films and some good films and some bad films, but they were always, he was always trying to stay on track with what the kids were, you know, what was in the pop culture and his exploitation stuff. The trip is a cool movie, man. The trip is a cool movie. Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Susan Stross, Bruce Dern.
00:23:37
Speaker
Nothing else had sort of tackled the whole drug scene of the 60s. Everybody was kind of afraid of it. They didn't want to put it in a movie. They weren't sure what the censorship consequences might be. This is right on the cusp of the rating system opening up everything. So you're still under the Hays Code, under the production code. It's 1967. You're getting the envelope pushed a little bit with things like, in the heat of the night, racial issues and a lot of social issues are making their way into movies. And Corman's like, let's just make a drug movie. Call it the trip.
00:24:07
Speaker
Jack Nicholson wrote this movie. That's right. Jack Nicholson wrote this movie from deep experience, I'm sure. And yeah, it's got everybody in it who was part of that whole scene, those biker films and those teen films and those rebel films, Bruce Dern, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper. They're all in it. You know, Nicholson wrote it, but Dern and Hopper are basically the stars of it, along with Peter Fonda.
00:24:28
Speaker
And this is pre-Easy Rider, so this is, you know, you're sort of getting the Easy Rider clan, they're sort of getting their vibe on, which of course they did without Corbin, but...
00:24:41
Speaker
I think this is a really fun, funky throwback film. The garish colors, it is so of the era. It's just all the drug stuff. It's really very cool. It's not as cheesy as you would think it is. It really kind of represents an era and a mindset and a sensibility. And the transfer is great. They did a great job. Olive did a great job. So bravo to that.
00:25:02
Speaker
And then we also have Clean Slate with Dana Carvey. I'm not quite sure why they picked this one up. Mick Jackson, who had a career once doing stuff like... LA Story. LA Story. He kind of bonked it. And he hasn't really had a career since. He's done a couple of things. But you know what was weird, watching this all over again, is seeing some of the people who show up in this thing. It's bizarre. I mean,
00:25:27
Speaker
There are people who just wait till you see some of these supporting actors in this you'll be like oh my gosh That's where they started Kevin Pollock is in this of all people you realize that Kevin Pollock is in this is one of those to know him Yeah, one of his early things is in 1994 Yeah, it's just it's very strange. It's a very strange movie. It's strange comedy vehicle for Dana Carvey making the grade
00:25:50
Speaker
kind of a quasi John Hughes thing with Judd Nelson and Jonah Lee and Gordon Jump, shows in this before he passed away. This is a canon film from 1984, trying to sort of do that John Hughes thing in the middle of the John Hughes era, not really succeeding very well, but like all those canon things, you could tell that it was sort of
00:26:14
Speaker
Its aspirations were not met by its budget. Let's put it that way. And then the last two, other than the Chuck Norris thing from these olive titles, Bandits, which was a well-meaning film with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Kate Blanchett, directed by Barry Levinson. This was a well-meaning kind of capery, heisty star vehicle. Didn't quite pan out. This was made in 2001.
00:26:44
Speaker
But it's got bits and pieces of it that actually aren't so bad. Written by Harley Peyton. Features some very, very charming stuff. I just think this movie was too long. I think that was part of the problem. It is over two hours. Kate Blanchett is amazing. She is absolutely wonderful. Bruce Willis, a little bit oddly miscast. Billy Bob Thornton, miscast, but he makes the best of it.
00:27:06
Speaker
But this is a cool little underground movie that kind of, nobody really, uh, it got overlooked. I thought it was kind of nice. If it was, if this was like 15 minutes shorter, I would like it a whole lot better. But it is, but it's not a bad film. It's just an interesting kind of weird oddity that fell between the cracks. And it didn't really help anybody's career. Certainly hurt Barry Levinson's, but still, uh, it's called bandits and, and Kate Blanchard is just phenomenal. I mean, she's phenomenal in it. She's phenomenally good. And then the last one here.
00:27:33
Speaker
Um, is kill me again, which our friend Tim actually worked on. Did you know that Tim worked on this? This is from that period. Uh, Tim worked for, um, ITC, uh, for, for a while back in the, uh, kind of late eighties, early nineties, whenever that was early nineties, primarily.
00:27:49
Speaker
This was in 1989, so I guess it was late 80s when he was working for him. But Tim, this was one of the first things I think he worked on out here. Anyway, John Dahl made a number of these kind of low-grade thrillers that were very Hitchcockian, very cool, very moody before he got all the big budgets and started making junk. Isn't that funny how they can handle those big budgets and then their careers just tank? I know.
00:28:08
Speaker
He was doing so well when he was on a shoestring. And this is one of them. This is a really cool kind of Hitchcockian thriller with a lot of mood and a lot of style. It stars Michael Madsen and Val Kilmer and Joanne Wally Kilmer. They were married at the time. And it's kind of this along with Red Rock West, which he made right before it, and The Last Seduction, which he made right after it, or kind of like his master trilogy of cool thrillers.
00:28:35
Speaker
And I still think those are probably his three best films by far. Most people prefer The Last Seduction. I actually think in many ways this is a better film. It's got all of those, you know, all those, everybody in this movie is a renegade. And there's a lot of kind of, you know, twisted identity and did he die and didn't he die and all this misdirection. And I won't give you anything, but it's a very, very clever script.
00:29:00
Speaker
And Joanne Wally Kilmer really steals it. She steals it from her husband, and she steals it from Michael Mattson, who I've seen in so many of these parts, and I'm afraid that he's really as scary in real life as he is in his movies. He scares me. John Dole, by the way, just to finish up the thought on him. He's since given up film pretty much, and now just does TV. But he does good TV. Ray Donovan, Justified, House of Cards.
00:29:21
Speaker
It's a good gig. Californication. I guarantee you, he gets paid well for those shows and for a director with his pedigree. He gets paid well over $100,000 an episode.
Michael Cimino's 'The Sicilian' Review
00:29:33
Speaker
I mean, there is not one thing in his directing filmography from, let's say, there is no movies. There's a TV movie in 2012. Otherwise, it is all television series. All right, Mark, let's do the Shop Factory stuff. Judd, we're talking about a shout? Does it mean the Shop Factory stuff?
00:29:51
Speaker
We have a double feature from the folks at Scream factor. We have murders in the room org and the done witch horror. Now murders in the room org has been done a number of times. This one is from 1971 and I liked it only because it features Jason Robards and Herbert Lam who of course you know from the Pink Panther films.
00:30:12
Speaker
And I like this movie, actually. It's got a good audio commentary by Steve Haberman, very insightful. And it's got a couple of featurettes. The Dunwich Hard from 1970, not my favorite. It's got a really cheesy cast. Dean Stockwell's in it, Ed Begley's in it. And it's all about what's going on in this New England town. I would definitely check this out for Murs and the Rue Morgue. I think it's pretty good.
00:30:36
Speaker
Next, we have the Sicilian. Now, the Sicilian is Michael Cimino, and we all know Michael Cimino, we don't have to go on and tell everyone Michael Cimino's CV. He was falling apart by the Sicilian. This was interesting at the time, because I remember when this was announced, and I thought, well, that's interesting. That was Mario Puzo. That's it. It's like, OK, Michael Cimino, Mario Puzo material with Christopher Lambert. Like, you're kind of pulling together pieces that seem to make sense. How bad could it be? How bad could it be?
00:31:06
Speaker
Oh yeah, it could be bad. Well, I'm still really forgiving of that movie. It's not good, but it's got a certain kind of style to it. But it's got a cheesy style that's more like his Year of the Dragon style than anything he did before that, right? Yeah, but that's like a journeyman style. Year of the Dragon. Yeah. And as you probably know, by the way, Michael Cimino has since become a freak.
00:31:29
Speaker
Oh my gosh, yeah. Well, he kind of always was. He's just sort of... No, no, now he's... he's almost gone transgender without actually looking down to him. But he claims he's not. He claims he's not. Yeah. You know what? He hangs out... supposedly he hangs out at the coffee bean on Larchmont. I was at the coffee bean on Larchmont and I wound up talking to this guy who knows Michael Cimino.
00:31:52
Speaker
And he said that sometimes Camino hangs out at that coffee bean. So I no longer go to that coffee bean. Anyway, I'm forgiving of the Sicilian. I think it's a misfire, but it's an interesting misfire. I think it's worth checking out. I really do. I think there's...
00:32:08
Speaker
There is some strange value to it, even though it's two and a half hours long. And this is the director's cut, we should point out. This is longer than the original theatrical cut. This is by like 20 minutes or something. But it doesn't make it a better movie. It just makes it a little more cohesive. But it's still interesting. I mean, if you want to see, if you're kind of a chimino completist and you want to watch, you know, The Deer Hunter and, you know, what?
00:32:37
Speaker
So I just I've early on said Alzheimer's the deer hunter and the deer hunter and Heaven's Gate. That's where I was going. You completely took me off my game. You started having like an apoplectic fit here at the end of the table and I wasn't sure what you're doing. Anyway, if you look at the that trajectory from deer hunter to Heaven's Gate to the Sicilian, it's it's sad, but it's also interesting. So it could be worth it if you're kind of a cinephile and you want to go there.
00:33:05
Speaker
Cherry Falls from the wonderful year of 2000 is a lame film directed by an interesting guy who never went anywhere. Jeffrey Wright directed Romper Stomper back in the day. Romper Stomper was the coming out party for Russell Crowe and that was from 1992. Very intense movie.
00:33:22
Speaker
And it's a good movie. It is a good movie. Yeah. And then he winds up doing this thing called Cherry Falls with the completely meh cast of Brittany Murphy, Michael Bean and Jay Moore, of all people. And there's some crazy stuff going on in a town called Cherry Falls. And Brittany Murphy plays the daughter of the town sheriff, played by Michael Bean. They got to figure out what's going on. This is just really just silliness. Although, you know what? Scream Factory. They really put this stuff together, man. They do a good job. There's a new audio commentary from Jeffrey Wright.
00:33:51
Speaker
Now, Jeffrey Wright, this guy has done really nothing. He is basically over for Jeffrey Wright, which is kind of a shame because Romper Stomper was such a good film. And there's a bunch of special features. The script as a B.D. ROM. You can check that out. So good features better than the movie Cherry Falls. Finally, we do have a Chuck Norris threesome. Yeah. Well, you want me to do that? You want to do this? Well, I can do this. Disturbing behavior.
00:34:18
Speaker
It's almost as bad as Jerry Falls. From 1998, Disturbed Behavior. This is just a piece of silliness. This is with James Marsden, Katie Holmes, and Nick Stahl. Now, again, this is 1998. It's a long time ago. directed by a guy named David Nutter. Now, David Nutter has since gone on to do some good TV stuff. But as for now, with Disturbed Behavior, it's essentially the Stepford Wives. Essentially, like normally with these teen films, they're like nice kids who go bad. Yeah. But in Disturbed Behavior, they're bad kids who go nice.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's like they become step for teens. What is happening in this town? That they become nice. Okay. You'll have to get to the bottom of it. All right. Or actually don't get to the bottom of it. In fact, why don't you just read the wiki page and maybe that'll tell you everything. Anyway, so there you go. Disturbant behavior, not a good film, but there is an audio commentary with David Nutter, some deleted scenes and an alternate ending, none of which you will ever see because you should not be seeing this movie.
00:35:14
Speaker
Alright, so there are two Chuck Norris periods for those who don't know this. Historically, we refer to them as PB and AB, pre-beard and after-beard. The pre-beard films are actually the good ones. Good Guys Wear Black and the one I'm going to talk about in a second.
00:35:34
Speaker
The PB or the AB era, the after beard era, is when he started doing all this stuff for canon and it just goes completely off the rails. So Chuck Norris' first standalone starring vehicle, not just a movie he acted in, like he fought Bruce Lee in Return of the Dragon. No, his first starring vehicle was Breaker Breaker.
00:35:56
Speaker
I like how you said it's his first starring vehicle. You thank you. Uh, anyway, this was 19. It's about, it's about, it's a part of that whole trucker scene, right? We had convoy and moving on one television and BJ and the bear and it was just, you know,
00:36:13
Speaker
Everything was about truckers and good buddies. I was into that at the time. I was. I had a CB radio. I did too. No, you know what? I think a friend of mine. No, you know what? I did not have one. A friend of mine had a CB radio. And I would go to his house. And I would try to find truckers. Yeah. I mean, I'd be trying to find truckers in the way that you're envisioning. Yeah.
00:36:30
Speaker
I mean, try to find truckers. Well, I was particularly into it at the time because one of my very good friends in elementary school, his dad was the editor of Convoy for Peckinpah. He was the editor, and we were like, your dad's in it. We didn't know what an editor was. He's an editor. Cool. All we knew was he was working on Convoy, and we saw the commercials. He's a very good buddy, 10-4. Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
And we memorized the 10 code. All I remember now is 10-4 and 10-20. I don't remember the rest of them. There's like 30 others. Oh, yeah. But I memorized all that stuff at the time. It was a lot of fun.
Chuck Norris's Film Eras
00:37:06
Speaker
So anyway, this tried to sort of merge martial arts with that whole trucking scene in the 1970s. This is from 1977, same year as Star Wars, and Chuck Norris.
00:37:18
Speaker
basically is a trucker trying to find his kidnapped brother, and he must kick butt in order to do it. And that's it. It's just an excuse for him to do an awful lot of, you know, laying into people. It's nice. Jack Nance shows up in this from Eraserhead, which was made exactly the same year, which is interesting. He was, you know, slowly making his move as
00:37:39
Speaker
Jack Nance, by the way, who was also in Twin Peaks, which is coming back next year. Looking forward to that, big time. But anyway, Chuck Norris does some really fun fighting in this. The movie's pretty raw. It's not a well-made film, but it's a historically significant film. The other two that we have from Shop Factory, that one's from Olive, the two from Shop Factory this week are from his Canon Films era, one of which is horrible, the other of which is not bad. The horrible one is Chuck Norris Braddock, Missing in Action 3.
00:38:07
Speaker
That whole Vietnam thing, rescuing the MIAs, became such a cliche. I know. I'm Tommy baller and it was a bunch of- Oh, it became such a cliche in the 80s. This is from 1988. It's so overdone at this point. Rambo was kind of part of that scene originally. Hollywood was trying to refight and win the Vietnam. Yes, exactly. And of course, Platoon winning the Academy Award in 1986 had a lot to do with that as well. Full metal jacket in 1987, a year later.
00:38:36
Speaker
Uh, and obviously all the Vietnam films from the late seventies already, uh, you know, deer hunter and apocalypse. So it was, it was in the zeitgeist and by 1988, it is so done. And, uh, this is directed by Chuck Norris's brother, Aaron Norris, who was until the eighties, a stunt director and stunt coordinator on all of Chuck's movies. And then he got to direct and he's really not a very good director.
00:38:58
Speaker
But this is just, this is the last one of those missing in action films and boy was it terrible. Now, Invasion USA on the other hand, not so bad actually. This has moments. It's still cheesy. It still has that whole canon films, Golan Globus vibe to it where you kind of snicker a little bit. But directed by Joseph Zito who did a lot of those kind of
00:39:18
Speaker
a lot of the action things for Canon, the American Ninja stuff. He was part of their troupe, a better director, and this has a cold war kind of Rambo thing, like a second tier Rambo, where he's just this one man, shoot him up, who has to take on the Russians and everybody else. And we're right at the tail end here of, this is 1985, so we're the last few years of the Soviet Empire.
00:39:43
Speaker
And it's okay. It's still cheesy, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was not objectionable on the level that a lot of those late era Chuck Norris movies were. Russians are always good for bad guys, and so much in this one too.
00:40:00
Speaker
Alright, Mark, we have... You know what? Let's do the criterions. Seriously, let's do the criterions. Seriously? Yeah. Not jokingly? Not jokingly. We've got four fabulous criterions. No, no, no. We don't just have. You know, can I say something about the movie that I'm staring at right now? Yeah, go ahead. I enjoyed it when it was its other name.
00:40:22
Speaker
Oh, before they corrected it? Yeah. See, I think the bicycle thief is a better name than bicycle thieves. Yeah. Because to the whole movie, you think that the guy who stole the bicycle is the bicycle thief. It turns out at the end, he's the bicycle thief. Yes, exactly. The original, this happens a lot actually with movie titles where the Americanization of the title winds up being smarter than the original title. That happened just this last year, actually.
00:40:51
Speaker
with the, um, it's a Chilean film, I believe Chilean film, uh, the other month, the second mother, right? Okay. Which is not the original title. The original title is like mother will be back in a week and a half or something like that. It was like this, it was this sort of elaborate thing that will be back in a week.
00:41:06
Speaker
somebody here or mother mama will soon come back it was something not quite so remarkable but but the the second mother is genius that's the American title that's the English language title and it's genius because that title means something different like five different times in the movie like you go oh that's what the title means no that's what the
00:41:27
Speaker
That's what the title means like it keeps changing its meaning it's amazing and I don't know what I think they should go back and just Rename the movie because the English language title is so much better than the original Spanish title And this is I I would agree with you the bicycle thief is It makes more sense even though the bicycle thieves is the original to seek a title in Italian. Yes. Yes, I agree
00:41:48
Speaker
Anyway, so this finally is coming out and obviously this is the masterpiece of Italian neorealism and it's from 1948 and you guys absolutely have to watch this. It's got a great 4K digital restoration. As usual, Criterion knocks it out of the park with a whole bunch of extras, including a little bit of history on Italian neorealism, which is great if you're not quite sure what Italian neorealism was.
00:42:12
Speaker
There's a documentary on Vittorio De Sica and this is just a great film. It's essentially a guy, he's got a new job and he's in desperate straits, needs his job, winds up, his bicycle gets stolen. So he runs around the city with his son and tries to find his bicycle and that's really the whole film.
00:42:33
Speaker
And that is totally what Italian neorealism was. Very simple stories that are told in a way that is just ground level and realistic. But also capturing the sensibilities of post-war Italy, which is a nation that had lost its identity. You know, it's about rediscovering the people, not sort of the national narrative. I mean, Italian films as far back as the silent era were these opulent period things. They were very much about Italian history.
00:43:00
Speaker
And then Mussolini, like Hitler, and of course like Stalin, tried to use cinema, built Cinecitta, you know, the studio, wanted to use cinema to sort of preach this vision of what Italian identity was. And after World War II, Italy was a devastated nation. It had to reinvent itself. You had people who were, you know, who were anarchists, and people who were Marxists and Communists,
00:43:21
Speaker
and democrats and it was you know it was sort of looking for what is italy going to be in the post-musilini era in the post-colonial era we have no more colonies we have no more prestige who are we going to be and i don't know that italy's ever really re-emerged from that i think it's still in that phase you know some 80 years later and um
00:43:41
Speaker
or certainly 70 years later, and the Bicycle Thieves is very much about that. I mean, the city's in ruins. These are people just trying to live their lives. Who are the people? Independent of all that other stuff. Who are the people? And that kid, man, is he not just the greatest thing ever? He's a non-actor.
00:43:58
Speaker
Seriously. But that was... It's a non-actor. It's incredible. Well, that's the thing. That's what neo-realism did. It used to be non-professional. It's just the real people. Non-professional actors. There's stories about poor people, about working class folks. They're all filmed on location. And that was part of the aesthetic. And that aesthetic really, as Wade says, that aesthetic really resonated with a country devastated by World War II. And so bicycle thieves would be the ultimate expression, I think,
00:44:28
Speaker
Absolutely. Brighter Summer Day is the 1991 film by Edward Yang, the the late Taiwanese director, who I his sister lives in LA, by the way, and I know that because I had the privilege of interviewing Edward Yang before he passed at a restaurant mark at a at a diner, not half a mile from here. What? Not half a mile from here. Was it was Jeffrey Tambor there? No.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah. No, and it was wonderful. Edward Yang, a seriously underrated director who had his moment, of course, in the 90s, 1991 was really just on the cusp of him kind of breaking through. When I was at the Cannes Film Festival in 92, he had a film and competition there as well.
00:45:12
Speaker
uh... which was really extremely well received a delightful man anyway uh... brighter summer day is is a is really really sweet film it is also an incredibly long film like most of his movies are you have to understand this is a taiwanese film mandarin and taiwanese language it is four hours long i just want to warn you it is four hours long but it is magnificent it takes place in uh... the early nineteen sixties
00:45:38
Speaker
And it's a crime film. It's a very methodical crime film based on a factual crime, based on an actual thing that happened. And I won't give you the details of it, but it's sort of a real life crime story that acts as a prism on all of Taiwanese society in the 1960s. And there's a lot of interesting stuff about Taiwan in the 1960s relative to
00:46:05
Speaker
You know, are we Taiwan? Are we part of China? All of that is refracted in this in a beautiful way. And it includes a two-hour documentary from 2002 that is all about the new Taiwan cinema movement. And that includes, you know, Hu Xiaoxian and Simon Liang and other famous directors of the same era.
00:46:26
Speaker
and tons of other great stuff. There's a new interview with Chang Chen. It's really, it's beautiful. And Tony Rains, who's done commentaries before, also does a commentary. It's a beautiful film, a fascinating film. It might be Edward Yang's best film. I haven't made that decision yet. And then also, a poem is, Leon Russell stars in A Poem is a Naked Person, which is a less blank film that I've never been particularly fond of from 1974. You know, less blank made these kind of
00:46:55
Speaker
neo-documentaries at the time, and it's not really my kind of filmmaking, but, you know, Les Blank would do more straight documentaries that I would, of course, appreciate, like Burden of Dreams, which I think is genius, the making of Fitzcarraldo. But, you know what, this took him two years to do this. It's all about Leon Russell, singer-songwriter.
00:47:16
Speaker
It is a significant film, I think historically more significant than it is necessarily good. But if you like Les Blanc, if you like Leanne Russell, this is for you. A lot of extras on here, including a film's 40-year journey, The Making of A Poem is a Naked Person, which is a brand new documentary that's actually, I think, probably more interesting than the movie. So anyway, that's also out there from Criterion on Blu-ray.
00:47:38
Speaker
uh... manchurian candidate finally the john frackenheimer classic from nineteen sixty two we say nineteen sixty two because when it was made the year was made very very important uh... for reasons i will eliminate in a second uh... this of course is the classic about a uh... a korean uh... war that who is uh... who becomes a sleeper assassin he is brainwashed by the korean government to assassinate a presidential candidates but of course because he's a sleeper he doesn't know that he's been brainwashed
00:48:07
Speaker
Nobody knows he's in brainwash. It's only when he is triggered by his Korean captors does he go off and try to assassinate this presidential candidate. The only person who knows that he's a sleeper assassin is Frank Sinatra. Now Frank Sinatra was instrumental in the making of this film. First of all, it was Frank Sinatra who I
00:48:28
Speaker
I think he was the one who I think bought the rights and kept it out of release after Kennedy was assassinated. Oh, really? Yes. I'm going to have to look that up somewhere because the film was released in 1962. And then when Kennedy was assassinated, people looked at the film and they started to think maybe Lee Harvey Oswald was a Manchurian. Like the term Manchurian candidate became synonymous back then with a sleeper person who was triggered to do a horrible act.
00:48:58
Speaker
when commanded to. And people thought that Lee Harvey Oswald might have been the Manchurian candidate. Ah, yes. But I have it. I'm trying to find it here somewhere. I don't know who has this. You know what, you know who has it? Okay, this is what Roger Ebert says. Roger Ebert says that Frank Sinatra purchased the rights to the film and kept it out of release from 1964 until 1988.
00:49:20
Speaker
And the story goes that he was inspired to do so by remorse after Kennedy's death. And then he goes on to say that that wasn't really the reason. But anyway, needless to say, not only is the film great, but there's a lot of real deal historical significance to the film. And as you can imagine, Criterion does a great job with it. This is a 4K digital restoration. It's an old film. It's a black and white film. So it's not going to look pristine. But still, it does look terrific. There's a new interview with Angela Lansbury.
00:49:49
Speaker
Now the story goes that Angela Lansbury plays the mother of the Frank Sinatra character. And so it was like, wow, she plays the mother of Frank Sinatra character. She must be like 30 years older than Frank Sinatra. She was like three years older, even though she played the mom. Yeah, that happens. That happens a lot. With actresses who have that sort of older look to them. Shelley Winters being another one who always got those roles.
00:50:19
Speaker
Um, yep. Anyway, so it's a great film. Yeah. Thank you. By the way, you know what movie I have watched more than any other movie over the last, you know what apps. Sorry. Hang on. It was Raymond's mother. Yes. The, I knew what you meant. I'd carry on. You should have corrected me. I can't remember things anymore. I was focusing on mother. Anyway, Lawrence Harvey plays Raymond Shaw. He's, he's the, he's the sleeper assassin. Yes. And so Raymond's mother played by Angela Lansbury in real life was like three years old.
00:50:45
Speaker
Lawrence Harvey, whose daughter, by the way, whose actual daughter was the the crazy madcap loony wild child whose life wound up being the subject of the Tony Scott film. Domino. Domino. That's right. Domino Harvey. Yeah, played by what's your name? Asia. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the British actress. Keira Knightley. Thank you. Keira Knightley. Thank you.
00:51:12
Speaker
Anyway, that's a crazy movie, Domino. All right, so we've got some- How could I have forgotten that? Why did I say Frank Sinatra? Because we go a mile a minute on this show, that's why. Anyway, my fault, it was Lawrence Hart.
00:51:24
Speaker
Good ol' Lawrence Harvey. Alright, we got three from the Arrow collection, courtesy of MVD distributors, music video distributors. The Arrow library, this is an interesting one here. This is jointly from Arrow and MGM. This is Pray for Death. Totally forgot this movie even existed. Pray for Death is a kind of, this is really a
00:51:47
Speaker
Actually a better movie than has any business being the stars show kosugi who of course was in all of those american ninja movies that were Part of the the canon library in the 80s as well
00:51:59
Speaker
mentioned him a little bit earlier. And Shokusugi is a legit martial artist, not a particularly great actor, but a really great martial artist. And none of those canon films necessarily showed off his skills particularly well. This one does. So forget about, you know, Enter the Ninja or any of those other things that he made. Here he is
00:52:20
Speaker
essentially a vengeful ninja and it is a really, this is an incredibly well done film, really a cool bit of 80s exploitation cinema and beautifully directed by Gordon Hessler who would not go on to have much of a great career and probably should have, but this is really very well done. Good script by James Booth and tons and tons of extras on here, very very sharp stuff from the premiere and
00:52:45
Speaker
stuff on Shokusugi, and it's good. It's a great transfer, a good-looking Blu-ray, really a nice addition to the Arrow library. Then they also have What Have You Done to Solange, one of the worst titles of any movie ever, but an interesting film nonetheless.
00:53:03
Speaker
What Have You Done to Solange is directed by Massimo Dalamano, who was the cinematographer for A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More. And this is essentially a Giallo film, but it is kind of a somewhat classier Giallo film in some respects. Basically about a killer who's attacking Catholic schoolgirls.
00:53:28
Speaker
And it really is distinguished by this particular Blu-ray set. It's distinguished by a lot of really, really interesting extras. A great Ennio Morricone score and an interview from 2006 with the producer Fulvio Lucasano, which I thought was really, really interesting. And then lastly,
00:53:49
Speaker
is Wake Up and Kill, which is another Italian film, this one directed by Carlo Lozani. And this is essentially a heist film in really, really cool European locations, also with a great Ennio Morricone score, tons of really, really cool extras, beautiful 2K restoration on Blu-ray, certainly a great
00:54:09
Speaker
Really kind of a cool, kind of a cool Euro heist film from the era. If you like all that sort of stuff, if you like the Italian job, stuff like that, this is kind of in that same vein. Certainly worthy of it. So check it out. That is Wake Up and Kill, Blu-ray from Arrow. All of these are Blu-ray DVD combo sets. So all of them, if you want to make sure, you know, if you want to
00:54:35
Speaker
have a DVD on hand as well, just know that Wake Up and Kill, What Have You Done to Solange, and Pray for Death with Show Kasugi also all have the DVD there, combo sets. Wade, we have a very interesting combination of folks who worked on this film from 1966 after The Fox. It was directed by Vittorio De Sica, who we just talked about as being the great Italian neorealist director, written by Neil Simon, music by Burt Bacharach starring Peter Sellers.
00:55:05
Speaker
basically that's the coolest that's a cool bunch that is okay bunch Vittorio De Sica okay yeah written by Neil Simon yeah I know and starring Peter Sellers no and the funny part is it's good it is good it's funny Peter Sellers can't beat that script by Neil Simon how can it be and the funny thing is that this really has
00:55:25
Speaker
This has none of DeCica's neorealist trappings. This is kind of a straight ahead, kind of a bit of a farce, and it's great. It's about a criminal mastermind, and there's a bunch of gold that's going from Egypt to Italy, and someone's got to find it and steal it, and it's really kind of crazy and fun. It's called After the Fox. A victim matures in this as well. And yeah, this is well-recommended, a total gem that Keno Lorber has dug up after the fox, and it's dripping.
00:55:55
Speaker
That's true to figure two movies about brains two movies about brains
00:56:00
Speaker
Donovan's brain. And neither is a zombie film. That's true. Donovan's brain is actually the better of the two that I'm going to talk about now. Donovan's brain directed by Felix Feist. And he wrote it to Felix Feist. It's about this doctor, played by Luiz, who he's got this method of keeping brains alive after the body dies. Very exciting. Turns out there's this businessman who was killed in a plane crash. And so this brain is sort of taking on a life of its own. What's going to happen?
00:56:29
Speaker
It's going to take the control of the body of the scientist. What will happen, Wade? I don't know. The disembodied brain of a dead businessman is now controlling a scientist. Go on vacation, go to the Bahamas? Exactly. Anyway, that's a bunch of silliness, but even worse, because it wastes a good cast, is the black sleep.
00:56:47
Speaker
Black Sleep is with Basil Rathbone and Lon Chaney, John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, of course Lugosi, Chaney and Basil Rathbone being three of the classic horror movie actors. This one is also about a brain surgeon and his wife
00:57:05
Speaker
Bas Rathbaum plays a surgeon whose wife slips into a coma, and so he wants to try to find a donor for the unorthodox brain transplant that he's got in mind. And it's really silly. It's silly and it wastes a perfectly good cast, but it does feature Tor Johnson, who's that big hulking guy from Plan 9 from Outer Space. And yeah, I would definitely pass on the black sleeve.
00:57:29
Speaker
All right, we're going to wrap out with some TV. And first up is something that makes me extremely and exceedingly happy. And if you're a Judd Apatow fan, if you're a fan of anybody who is involved in this, I'll tell you, Freaks and Geeks, the complete series in a Blu-ray collector's edition is cause for celebration. This is fantastic. Beautiful box set from Shop Factory by way of DreamWorks Television, which is the complete
00:57:56
Speaker
lead freaks and geeks on blu-ray. What a great show this was and it was just so misunderstood and unappreciated at the time and I'm so happy that it's out. This is just absolutely fantastic. Paul Feig and Judd Apatow are both involved in this. Paul Feig of course created it.
00:58:12
Speaker
Judd Apatow was the executive producer, and this was my childhood. These were in my teen years. I was a Star Trek geek, and everybody that we are sometimes friends and often nemeses were the D&D freaks. That was it. Freaks and geeks. It is true. I totally related to this. I related to every single bit of it.
00:58:33
Speaker
The D&D folks, the Dungeons and Dragons folks, they were weird, man. Yeah. The Star Trek people were cooler. They were definitely cooler. Yeah, way cooler. We're totally copacetic there. So this has gobs of extras. By the way, this show was only 18 episodes. It was only 18 episodes. And they have them both in the original broadcast aspect ratio and widescreen, which is a whole new thing because they were shot widescreen. But at the time, we didn't have widescreen TVs.
00:59:02
Speaker
And it's just great. Everybody from the cast, they've all gone on to do great things. I mean, really, when you think about who was in this cast, it is just amazing. They've all gone on. And 28 commentaries on here. It's just bloopers, outtakes. It's just amazing. So this is great.
00:59:25
Speaker
Really great. Multiple commentaries per episode, by the way. I mean, it's just, it's fantastic. It's a dream come true. You can watch this between the commentaries and the episodes over and over and over and over again. James Franco, man. I mean, James Franco, come on. Linda Cardellini. This is where they came from. That is true. They were baptized in this great show. Fantastic. So Freaks and Geeks is out there. And then we also have another Perry Como. A Perry Como. Perry Mason movie collection. Can you imagine a Perry Como movie collection? Perry Como mysteries.
00:59:54
Speaker
Perry Mason movie collection, volume five. I completely did not know that they stretched this on that long. We got three more discs with double features apiece. So that's six stuff like the case of the killer kiss and the case of the wicked wives. It's Perry Mason. It's all the same. And I'd recommend this only if you just cannot get enough of Raymond Burr or the character. But otherwise, this stuff is really just kind of put it on in the background and don't pay too much attention to it.
01:00:26
Speaker
Yes. Oh, was I supposed to say something? It's your turn. Oh, my turn. Speaking of turn, we have on DVD the second season of Turn from AMC. This is a fairly well-mounted series about the Revolutionary War. I haven't tried to make the Revolutionary War look like the Cold War, but whatever.
01:00:48
Speaker
But well, because here's the thing is that, you know, people don't realize that back then, Benedict Donald, who now, of course, is synonymous with with treason and whatnot, he was Washington's, you know, kind of his closest ally. And so that's kind of where this this show takes off, takes his jumping off point from. And it's good. I think the show is totally fine. The DVD, not the Blu-ray includes some deleted and extended scenes. And yeah, good stuff.
01:01:15
Speaker
We have C.P.O. Sharkey, the best of season two. Now, I don't know why they just didn't come up with C.P.O. Sharkey, season two. Gotta be six episodes of the best of season two. This show is something your grandfather might like. I just I mean, Don Rickles is the best, but it just doesn't. And then finally, me, Mark, the world's biggest mystery science theater fan, cannot get cannot just wrap his head around
01:01:41
Speaker
the set that is 35. 35, I know. 35 of these. I have to say, I have a lot of these and I've started giving them away.
01:01:52
Speaker
I don't want 35 of these. I mean, come on. From each one's two hours, they have like four movies and a bunch of... I don't need all that. I know. This one has Teenage Caveman being from another planet, 12 to the moon, Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell. You know, I just think after 35, if you have all 34 previous, you need to get a life. And I'm a huge fan, by the way. I hear you. All right. Well, with that, we are done. We will see you guys next week.
01:02:23
Speaker
So,
01:03:20
Speaker
So.
01:04:09
Speaker
you