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A Slice of Life
by Francine Brokaw
MARCH 2008 DVD Selections
12 Angry Men
This fascinating drama takes place in a jury room as twelve men deliberate on a murder case. If they say the boy is guilty, he will be executed. If they say he is innocent, he will go free. All this depends on “a reasonable doubt.” In the beginning it is 11 to 1 in favor of a guilty verdict. One man, Henry Fonda, wants to be convinced that the boy is guilty. During the hours they spend trying to convince him, several jurors slowly change their mind and it is an interesting look at how people can take facts and pick them apart little by little to find the truth. Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Joseph Sweeny, George Voskovec, Ed Begley and Robert Webber are all fascinating in this tense drama set in one small room. Two bonus features focus on the actors and the jury room, as well as director Sidney Lumet’s vision for his first directing job. He explains how his camera angels added to the tension as the time wore on and the jury continued to deliberate. This is a wonderful film in black and white from 1957. It was remade into a TV movie in 1997 and undoubtedly will be remade many more times.
Autopsy
Dr. Michael Baden, former NYC forensic examiner, discusses some high profile cases in this interesting edition of the HBO documentary series Autopsy. The cases in this edition are President Kennedy, OJ Simpson, Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, the murdered Romanov family, and the deaths and illnesses of the first responders to the 9/11 attack in New York. Basically, the flaws of the autopsies and the forensic gathering are put under scrutiny. Dr. Baden points out what the professionals did wrong and what they didn’t do during autopsy and in collecting the evidence at the scenes. This is quite interesting and will make viewers alert to the fact that even the professionals do not always know the best way to handle these situations. As technology improves, things are getting better. All of these cases are interesting to learn about and examine.
The Billy Wilder Collection
This DVD box set includes four of the film makers most memorable comedies. The Apartment stars Jack Lemmon as a clerk in a large company who happens to have an easily accessible apartment. This poor fellow gets stuck when the higher-ups in the company continually borrow his key to use for their dalliances. This guy has his eye on the elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) who happens to be his boss’s mistress and ends up in his apartment. Things get out of hand for this man who only wants to keep his job but finds himself in the middle of a complicated situation. Some Like it Hot also stars Jack Lemmon along with Tony Curtis as two musicians on the run after witnessing a mob murder. They disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band to escape the mob. Curtis falls for the singer (Marilyn Monroe) while Lemmon is wooed by a millionaire. Their problem is they are both men pretending to be women! What a hoot. Kiss Me, Stupid stars Dean Martin as himself. When he gets detoured on a trip from Las Vegas to L.A., he finds himself in the small town of Climax, Nevada and the two local songwriters take this opportunity to do everything they can to sell him their songs. And The Fortune Cookie has Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in a story of an attorney and an injured cameraman, and an injury settlement!
Bonus features include an alternate scene in Kiss Me, Stupid, A documentary on The Apartment, a featurette on Jack Lemmon, and several features on the classic comedy Some Like It Hot.
Enchanted
Giselle (Amy Adams) is the quintessential fairytale heroine, singing her way through life and wishes for her prince. With the help of her animal friends she is a happy woman, but longs for loves true kiss. When she meets her prince she prepares to marry him but the Queen (Susan Sarandon) wants to stop the marriage between her stepson Prince Edward (James Marsden) and this woman. She sends Giselle to a place where there "are no happily ever afters." This place is New York City! Soon Edward learns of her fate and follows. Up until now this is a typical animated film in the Disney tradition however when they arrive in NYC the human actors take over.
Giselle meets Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his young daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey) who think Giselle is a little weird because she is running around NYC in a beautiful wedding dress, singing, and acting strange. They take her to their apartment because she is alone. While there, Giselle gathers all the local creatures (mice, pigeons, cockroaches, etc.) to help her tidy up their place!
Unfortunately, the evil Queen sent a henchman to kill Giselle with - what else? - a poison apple. This mix of fantasy and reality are wonderful. Giselle starts to take on some of the traits of humans, unaware that the Queen and her henchman are near.
This is a fun film filled with charm and fancy. It's not just a kid's film adults will enjoy; it's more an adult film kids will enjoy!
The DVD contains some deleted scenes, wonderful bloopers (no, they didn’t get things right on the first take)filmmakers combined reality with CGI in A Happy Little Working Song, a featurette about filming in Central Park, and a featurette about the ball scene which combined many elements of most of the classic Disney fairy tales. Basically, how they combined real life sequences with CGI is examined in these delightful scenes. There’s also a bonus with the Princess’s chipmunk friend Pip in a pop-up story of Pip.
The Mod Squad – Season 1 Volume 2
The second half of the first season of this classic series is now available. The show was a groundbreaker in that it combined three young unknown actors and catapulted them to the top of the charts while making it cool to be a cop. Linc Hayes (Clarence Williams III), Julie Barnes (Peggy Lipton), and Pete Cochran (Michael Cole) were three young kids who were recruited by Police Captain Adam Greer (Tige Andrews) to blend in and help the department with special cases. The bonus feature is all about the look of Julie Barnes. Her wardrobe was simple, colorful, and reflected the time. The “Mod” look of mini skirts, over-the-knee boots, bright colors and prints made Julie a fashion icon of the day.
No Country for Old Men
Javier Bardem is Chigurh, a psycho murderer hunting down Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), after Moss accidentally comes across a bag of money while antelope hunting. Moss is desperately in need of the added greenbacks, however he never figured on a psycho hunting him down. Tommy Lee Jones is the local sheriff who comes across various murder scenes and tries to put the pieces together. Chigurh is a former special ops agent and as time goes by, another agent is hot on his trail. As Sheriff Bell comes upon one crime scene after another, he cannot fit everything together. And Chigurh is one step ahead of everyone. In the end, this is not a satisfying film and some might wonder why it was voted the best picture. It’s a modern-day Western, with a modern day ending. The DVD contains a “Making of” feature as well as one with the writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen. There is also a bonus called “Diary of a Country Sheriff” about the old time sheriff and the new kind of criminal that is coming onto the scene via the drug trade. As Tommy Lee Jones explains, it’s something that’s hard for him to understand.
Noble House
This TV miniseries was originally broadcast in 1988 and features Pierce Brosnan as the new “Tai-pan” of a big trading company in Hong Kong. In Cantonese “Tai-pan” means supreme leader, and Brosnan’s character, Ian Dunross, is now in charge of Struan & Company. His rival, Quillan Gornt (John Rhys-Davies), wants to take over Struan & Company (Noble House). Besides Gornt, Dunross must also face another rival, American tycoon Linc Bartlett (Ben Masters) and his beautiful associate Casey Tcholok (Deborah Raffin). With extortion, hostile takeovers, espionage, and deception, this clever window into the high stakes business world is well acted and brings viewers onto the streets of Hong Kong. This 8-Hour miniseries is filled with intrigue, romance, wheeling and dealing, and corporate cunning. This is a classic intense mini-series of the time. All four episodes are included in this 2-disc set.
The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show – The Complete Series
Those adorable little tykes are now teenagers. Pebbly-poo, as her father Fred Flintstone called her when she was a baby, is just like her dad. She says “Yabba, Dabba, Doosie” when she has a great idea. And Bamm-Bamm is like his dad Barney Rubble, always playing into Pebbles’ ideas. Sally Struthers voices Pebbles and Jay North voices Bamm-Bamm. Even though they are not babies any more, these two are still entertaining and funny.
The two-disc set includes all 16 episodes from the series which aired from 1971-1972. There are also four additional episodes from The Flintstones Comedy Hour which aired the following year.
Bedrock still rocks, as the young Flintstones and Rubbles form a band. While a little different from the original series, which incidentally was the first major prime-time animated series, this show is geared more for teenagers, however fans of the original series will enjoy seeing their beloved characters getting older. Sure, we all love babies, but check out these rockin’ teens. They’re young and fun, and viewers will have a Yabba Dabba Doosie of a time watching them.
Stargate: The Ark of Truth
The next chapter in the Stargate enterprise is a direct to DVD movie which puts a tidy end to the Ori storyline of the last two years of the series. Stargate SG-1 was the longest running sci-fi series on TV but even after 10 years there is more to tell.
In this movie the SG-1 team searches for an ancient weapon to defeat the Ori once and for all. They discover it is in the Ori’s home galaxy and take the Odyssey on the mission to find the Ark of Truth, which, when opened, will make everyone see the truth that the Ori are not gods. With the Ori preparing to attack the Milky Way Galaxy, the SG-1 team has little time to find this ark. And with the IOC (International Oversight Committee) sticking their nose into things, the Stargate team not only has their hands full searching for the ark, but also dealing with the return of the replicators.
Meanwhile, Tomin, a former Prior with the Ori, has seen the light and is now helping the SG-1 team. But Tomin is dealing with the fact that he was responsible for killing many innocent people in the name of the Ori. It is Teal’c who explains to him that he also has to live with the atrocities he committed when he was working for the Goul’d, and that will always be with him. The only way to set things right, or as right as it can be at this point, is to work to make other people’s lives better.
The DVD contains some additional features, including a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show along with interviews with several of the cast and crew. There is also a panel press conference from Comicon, which is hysterical and also gives a little insight into the next film, Stargate Continuum, which is due out later this year.
© 2008 Francine Brokaw
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