Tag: opinion

Now Available on Laserdisc: December

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When you look at the cover of this movie, what is the first thing you see? “Jay, you need a better camera.” Okay, what else? “Better lighting.” And? “A better intro.” Try again. WIL WHEATON IS IN THIS MOVIE! OHH MAHH GAWWDDDdddd there he is, front-and-center in the group shot. Star Trek: The Next Generation was into its fourth season when this came out, so he is obviously the main attraction (could be the reason it got released in the first place). I like Trek but I am not a fanboy, and I don’t camp out at conventions hoping to get a sniff of Westley’s Essential Oils. I have actually never been to a Star Trek convention so I don’t know what it would be like, but I have an inkling that the attention these actors get – especially the TNG cast – is INSANE. Like, a real endurance test of patience and compassion to be able to tell the same stories; to sign autographs all-day; and to be accosted by fans of every sort, asking questions to plot points an average viewer would never have asked themselves. These are just the actors, people: not the writers. Wheaton seems especially game these-days to joke and explicate a career he left when he was a child, but he’s still famous for what he did when he was a kid and not really much else these days. Fame is messy. The more you know.

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Now Available on Laserdisc: Ghost

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Why would Costco still sell Blu-rays? Hasn’t the market moved-on already? Up until last year they would also have the TV box-sets around Christmas time but I suppose they figured that dried-up when they didn’t sell A SINGLE M*A*S*H COMPLETE SERIES SET. My nearest Warehouse had an entire table one year dedicated to just the M*A*S*H, X-Files, and Bond box-sets they were struggling to off-load. And then there was nothing; nada except for the newest releases. There is something tangible about holding something you’ve purchased in your hand: reading the blurb at the back; maybe there’s a paper-insert inside with a special offer or some trivia. I’ve had my share of DVD limited-edition sets and Laserdisc sets and sometimes it’s the only way to see a certain version of a film that you want, and other times you just want the pretty packaging. The benefit to the vinyl format of Laserdiscs are that sometimes with a two-disc set you get a nice gatefold with some pictures and text: sometimes it’s just the Chapter Listing, and other times – like with Criterion sets – it would be an essay. Ghost has neither.

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Now Available on Laserdisc: Project X

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Phew! It was a tough go, but I made it through two months of consecutive weekly posting. This month – to mix things up – I’m going to be digging into my home video archive to bring you a whole batch of articles on movies I own on the antiquated and inferior home video format known in some circles as the Reflective Optical Videodisc System, or DISCOVISION! I’m sure you’re thrilled.

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Jay’s Take: Dolittle

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Rarely can I shut my brain off and simply enjoy a movie on its own terms: my thoughts will travel in a million different directions and any one of them can affect my impression. One can claim to be critically non-biased but if I have a bad day and I want to unwind by going to see the latest Jane Austin adaptation AND THEN I HATE IT (which I most surely will, if the trailer preceding this particular feature was anything to go by) then I have no one to blame but myself, don’t I? There are a minimum of three new domestic movies released EVERY WEEK OF THE YEAR, not including international films or re-releases. There will always be movies to see. If I had my choice, then, would I have seen Dolittle? The much-maligned reboot-slash-reimagining of Doctor Dolittle with an unshackled-from-Kevin-Feige’s-basement Robert Downey Jr? No: I would have sneaked into it for free. What do you want? It had terrible pre-screening reviews; worrisome press about “reshoots” and “retooling”; and then it was release-dumped in January: a time when no one wants to go to the movies because everyone is still exhausted physically-and-financially from Christmas and suddenly become very aware of how much popcorn should actually cost. Is your movie’s tone a little darker then you would like it and the Men In Suits pay you millions of dollars to reshoot the ending, only to have the new one ruin the continuity of the rest of the film? Dump it in January. Are you up against another Star Wars or Fast & Furious sequel on your current release date and all the big Studio boys have paid double then what you can afford for May-to-December slots? Dump it in January. Silly horror movie starring the only boy from that Netflix show who was willing to suck-a-dick for a career? January. Oscar bait? January. A foreign film re-edited by The Weinstein Company, and if that wasn’t bad enough Harvey gets slapped by your lead actress and he shelves the movie for three years? Nos vemos en Enero. Doctor Dolittle 2020? SEE YOU IN JANUARY. Guy Ritchie’s movies keep getting released in January: I’m sure he is not impressed. But my wife and sister LOVED King Arthur with Charlie Hunnam, and they were stoked for this “new vision” of the Dolittle story, too (which sadly is not directed by Guy Ritchie – but there is a “popcorn flick” for ya). Would it be like the Rex Harrison original, which my wife grew up on? The Eddie Murphy movies, which my sister grew up on? Or would it be closer to the books?

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Selected Scenes: The Bone Collector

Spoiler Alert!

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Lincoln Rhyme is a living legend among the NYPD elite, and it’s a wonder he’s still living. The brilliant homicide detective-slash-criminologist has written the book – several in fact – on investigating crime, but since a tragic accident left him quadriplegic and bed-ridden he has lost the will to live. How can he do what he was born to when, along with being isolated, his colleagues think he’s more of a washed-up celebrity then the force of nature he was? A new serial killer is prowling the streets. When Rhyme is consulted on the crime scene photos, he sees a way to work from home: by letting the photographer, rookie Amelia Donaghy, be his eyes-and-ears on the ground. With his almost-supernatural ability to deduce and the cop’s instincts she inherited from her father, the duo grind the case out together but not quickly enough to save this murderer’s victims from the tauntingly-complex time-sensitive contraptions he has them hooked up to. Rhyme and Donaghy find out the killer is using a crime novel as his template and with the last murder in the book completed, he turns his attention to Rhyme. Turns out, the killer is not only one of Rhyme’s medical orderlies but a corrupt ex-cop who Lincoln slandered in one of his true-crime books, who was then “used as a human toilet” in prison and released with a taste for elaborately-plotted vengeance. How will Lincoln get himself out of this jam? Can he count on the new friends he made along the way? Will their kindness inspire a new joie-de-vivre in this crippled husk of a man? Am I digging for character depth too deeply in a movie where the lead actor got to lie down on a bed for ninety-nine percent of the time?

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