RoosterFlix DVD Picks for September 16th

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Speed Racer (2008)
dir. The Wachowski Bros.

I know I'm in the extreme minority here, but this is still my favorite movie of 2008 so far. There hasn't been a film this perfectly cast since Robert Altman's Popeye, and watching the movie is, as one reviewer put it, like having molten Starburst poured into your eyesockets. I went to the theater on opening weekend to see it and the place was completely empty. Bad for the movie but 100% awesome for me. This is the type of movie that must be seen on the largest screen possible to be fully appreciated. I really wish I would've been able to see it in IMAX. I know the last 2 Matrix movies were garbage, but Speed Racer left me genuinely excited for the Wachowski Brothers' next project.

Product Decsription:
An over-the-top, sensory overload experience determined to replicate its frantic, television-anime origins, Speed Racer is wild enough to induce a headache or wow a viewer with one dazzling effect after another. Adapted for the big screen as a live-action feature, Speed Racer is written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the sibling team behind the intensely satisfying The Matrix and its busier, less interesting sequels. Where the rich mythmaking of The Matrix was entirely accessible, however, Speed Racer's overwhelming and gratuitously complicated story exposition is an enormous challenge to follow, let alone embrace. After a while, one simply surrenders to the unbroken din of dialogue concerning corporate chicanery, corruption in the sport of racing, and a value conflict between racing as a family business versus multinational cash cow. At the same time, the film's hyper-real equivalent of the old Speed Racer cartoon's great whoosh of color, motion, and edgy production design--such as inventive uses of scene-changing wipes, bold framing, shifting perspectives--are more overbearing than fun.
Emile Hirsch plays Speed Racer, younger brother of a deceased racing legend, Rex, and son of car designer Pops (John Goodman). The latter invented Speed's Mach 5, and is singularly unimpressed by an offer from a giant conglomerate that would lock Speed into exclusive racing services. Speed opts instead for family loyalty, incurring the wrath of the conglomerate's unctuous head (Roger Allam). With family honor on the line and the affections of girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) behind him, Speed hits the track in hopes of fulfilling his destiny as a master racer. The cast is largely enjoyable, including Susan Sarandon as Speed's mom, Matthew Fox as mysterious Racer X, and a pair of chimps as the irrepressible Chim-Chim. All well and good, but in a movie that lives or dies by the excitement level of races that look like computer-animated Hot Wheels action, Speed Racer is a dreary adventure. --Tom Keogh

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Duckman - Seasons One & Two (1994-1995)
dir. n/a

One of the best animated shows of the 90s. Can't believe it took this long to reach DVD, although I'm skeptical about the fact that this DVD is listed as only having 1 disc, but it's the entire first two seasons? That's over 20 episodes, so either the quality is HORRIBLE, or the listing is wrong and there's more than one disc. I couldn't find any DVD reviews for this anywhere on the internet, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Product Decsription:
He's a foulmouthed mallard with a license to be a dick--Duckman (voiced by Jason Alexander) is a private detective with a chip on his shoulder, a family on his back, and a nonexistent work ethic. This cult animated series follows the sex-crazed duck as he rails against the Universe and gets in a succession of off-color adventures in the detective biz. Pushing the envelope years before SOUTH PARK and FAMILY GUY hit the airwaves, the adult cartoon's first two seasons are assembled in this collection.

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Snow Angels (2007)
dir. David Gordon Green

David Gordon Green isn't even mentioned on the box? I know he's not a HUGE director, but still, he's getting to the point where people seek out his movies because they're HIS movies. Can't wait to watch this.

Product Decsription:
Since 2000’s George Washington, his disarming debut, David Gordon Green has thrown in his lot with an assortment of down-on-their-luck characters. That empathetic tendency comes to fruition in Snow Angels, his most carefully-calibrated feature. Like a marginally more upbeat Ice Storm, solemnity never gives way to cynicism. The narrative revolves around a circle of small-town individuals (filmed in snow-covered Halifax, the action takes place somewhere on the East Coast). Restaurant worker Annie (Kate Beckinsale, in a career peak performance) is estranged from sporadically-employed high school sweetheart Glenn (Joshua's Sam Rockwell). The two have their own child, but in her younger days, Annie took care of co-worker Arthur (Lords of Dogtown's Michael Angarano), now a teenager himself. Arthur still carries a torch for his former babysitter, while artsy classmate Lila (Juno's Olivia Thirlby) finds him equally appealing. With the adult relationships around him crumbling--including that of his own parents (Jeanetta Arnette and Griffin Dunne)--Lila’s flirtatious behavior leaves Arthur flummoxed. When Glenn finds out about his wife's affair with the married Nate (Grindhouse's Nicky Katt), pent-up tensions give way to full-blown tragedy. In adapting Stewart O'Nan's novel, Green sets his film in the present rather than 1970s Pennsylvania, but the story is universal enough to work in any time or place. In the film's press notes, Rockwell says: "I believe the film is about second chances. Some of the people in the film get them, some don't." Fortunately, Green doesn't short-change a single one. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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Pushing Daisies - The Complete First Season (2007)
dir. n/a

I've been watching so many TV shows that it's hard to catch up, but this is definitely on my radar of shows to watch. I've read good and bad reviews, but the premise sounds like something I would probably really enjoy. I'll have to watch this before season 2 comes starts airing (which is October 1st, by the way).

Product Decsription:
Every not-so-often, along comes a show that's different. Wonderfully different. Pushing Daisies, TV Guide's Matt Roush writes, "restores my faith in TV's ability to amuse, enchant and entertain." It's the story of Ned, a lonely pie maker whose touch can reanimate the dead. Cool, but there's a hitch. If Ned touches the person again, the miracle is reversed. If he doesn't, a bystander goes toes up. What to do? Easy: Team with a private eye, bring murder victims back just long enough to discover whodunit, and collect the rewards. Things go well until Ned's boyhood sweetie is the next dear departed, and he can't resist bringing her back for keeps! Dig the wit, style and quirky romance: If you're not laughing, you may need a visit from Ned.

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Beetlejuice (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (1988)
dir. Tim Burton

With all due respect to Jack Frost, this is the best thing Michael Keaton has done, and it's one of Tim Burton's best. Apprently there is absolutely nothing "deluxe" about this DVD at all, with the only new features compared to the 1998 release are 3 episodes of the Beetlejuice animated series. At least the transfer got a bit of an upgrade.

Product Decsription:
Before making Batman, director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton teamed up for this popular black comedy about a young couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) whose premature death leads them to a series of wildly bizarre afterlife exploits. As ghosts in their own New England home, they're faced with the challenge of scaring off the pretentious new owners (Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones), whose daughter (Winona Ryder) has an affinity for all things morbid. Keaton plays the mischievous Beetlejuice, a freelance "bio-exorcist" who's got an evil agenda behind his plot to help the young undead newlyweds. The film is a perfect vehicle for Burton's visual style and twisted imagination, with clever ideas and gags packed into every scene. Beetlejuice is also a showcase for Keaton, who tackles his title role with maniacal relish and a dark edge of menace. --Jeff Shannon

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88 Minutes (2008)
dir. Jon Avnet

Product Decsription:
Al Pacino looks startled through much of 88 Minutes, as though taken by surprise at being cast in a thriller that must've first passed across the desks of Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford. Still, Pacino brings his usual oomph to the role of a Seattle forensic psychiatrist, whose testimony secured the death sentence for a crazy serial killer (Neal McDonough). Wouldn't you know it, the very day the killer is sentenced to die, a copycat "Seattle Slayer" is on the loose, and Pacino starts getting ominous phone calls telling him the exact time of his own death. Tick tock: it's 88 minutes away. The film then serves up more red herrings than a Stalingrad fish fry, as possible culprits pop up every five minutes or so (among them an attractive group of med-school students played by Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, and Benjamin McKenzie). Lapses in logic abound, but if you hunker down and zone in on Pacino's weary-eyed, poufy-haired professionalism, you can enjoy the goings-on. (They even make him run up flights of stairs, which one would have thought beyond him now.) Seattle's frequent stunt double, Vancouver, B.C., stands in as a location, and Jon Avnet supplies the slick direction. The cast is talented (including Amy Brenneman), leading you to guess that a lot of people will do anything just to work with Al Pacino. And you've got to admire Pacino's chutzpah at sharing the screen with statuesque actresses such as Brenneman and Sobieski; they tower over him, but he still holds his own. --Robert Horton

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An American in Paris (Two-Disc Special Edition) (1951)
dir. Vincente Minnelli

Product Decsription:
A GI (Gene Kelly) stays in Paris after the war to become an artist, and has to choose between the patronage of a rich American woman (Nina Foch) and a French gamine (Leslie Caron) engaged to an older man. The plot is mostly an excuse for director Vincente Minnelli to pool his own extraordinary talent with those of choreographer-dancer-actor Kelly and the artists behind the screenplay, art direction, cinematography, and score, creating a rapturous musical not quite like anything else in cinema. The final section of the film comprises a 17-minute dance sequence that took a month to film and is breathtaking. Songs include "'S Wonderful," "I Got Rhythm," and "Love Is Here to Stay." --Tom Keogh

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Gigi (Two-Disc Special Edition) (1958)
dir. Vincente Minnelli, Charles Walters

Product Decsription:
Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's 1958 direct-to-screen follow-up to their My Fair Lady was--miraculously--every bit as memorable as that stage smash. Set in fin-de-siècle Paris and based on a Colette story, Gigi also is about a girl (Leslie Caron) on a lower rung of society who blossoms into Cinderellahood before our eyes and ears. Thank heaven for Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier as her mentors, and Louis Jourdan as her prince. The screenplay writer and lyricist Lerner always said that Gigi's title song was his favorite of all he'd written, and it's easy to see why--"Gigi" is a transcendent anthem to being transformed by love from an unexpected source. The entire score, including "Say a Prayer" (which had been cut from My Fair Lady), "I Remember It Well," "The Night They Invented Champagne," and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," comprise a sparkling, rare soundtrack recording that stands alone and can be enjoyed and understood by those who have not yet seen the movie, deprived souls that they are. The winner of nine Academy Awards (plus a special Oscar for Chevalier), including Best Picture, Gigi was the last great MGM movie musical and one of the best. --Robert Windeler

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The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)
dir. Max Ophuls

Product Decsription:
French master Max Ophuls's most cherished work, The Earrings of Madame de . . . is an emotionally profound, cinematographically adventurous tale of false opulence and tragic romance. When the aristocratic woman known only as Madame de . . . (the extraordinary Danielle Darrieux) sells her earrings, unbeknownst to her husband (Charles Boyer), in order to pay personal debts, she sets off a chain reaction, the financial and carnal consequences of which can only end in despair. Ophuls adapts Louise de Vilmorin's incisive fin de siecle novella with virtuosic camera work so elegant and precise it's been called the equal to that of Orson Welles.

DVD Features:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary featuring film scholars Susan White and Gaylyn Studlar
Introduction by filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)
Interviews with Ophuls collaborators Alain Jessua, Marc Frédérix, and Annette Wademant
A visual analysis of the movie by film scholar Tag Gallagher
Interview with novelist Louise de Vilmorin on Ophuls's adaptation of her story
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by Molly Haskell, an excerpt from costume designer Georges Annenkov's 1962 book Max Ophuls, and the source novel, Madame de, by Louise de Vilmorin
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La Ronde (1950)
dir. Max Ophuls

Product Decsription:
Simone Signoret, Anton Walbrook, and Simone Simon lead a roundelay of French stars in Max Ophuls's delightful, acerbic adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's controversial turn-of-the-century play Reigen. Soldiers, chambermaids, poets, prostitutes, aristocrats—all are on equal footing in this multicharacter merry-go-round of love and infidelity, directed with a sweeping gaiety as knowingly frivolous as it is enchanting, and shot with Ophuls's trademark mellifluous cinematography.

DVD Features:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Susan White, author of The Cinema of Max Ophuls
Interview with Max Ophuls's son, Academy Award–winning filmmaker Marcel Ophuls
Interview with actor Daniel Gélin
Interview with film scholar Alan Williams
Correspondence between Sir Laurence Olivier and Heinrich Schnitzler (the playwright's son), illustrating the controversy surrounding the source play
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty
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Le Plaisir (1952)
dir. Max Ophuls

Product Decsription:
Roving with his dazzlingly mobile camera around the decadent ballrooms, bucolic countryside retreats, urban bordellos, and painter's studios of late nineteenth-century French life, Max Ophuls brings his astonishing visual dexterity and storytelling bravura to this triptych of tales by Guy de Maupassant about the limits of spiritual and physical pleasure. Featuring a stunning cast of French stars (including Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, and Simone Simon), Le plaisir pinpoints the cruel ironies and happy compromises of life with a charming and sophisticated breeziness.

DVD Features:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Introduction by filmmaker Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven)
English- and German-language versions of the opening narration
From Script to Screen, a video essay featuring film scholar Jean-Pierre Berthomé discussing the evolution of Max Ophuls’s screenplay for Le plaisir
Interviews with actor Daniel Gélin, assistant director Tony Aboyantz, and set decorator Robert Christidès
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by film critic Robin Wood
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Blood Simple (1985)
dir. The Coen Bros.

Aside from the updated cover art, I'm not sure if this is any different from the 2001 director's cut DVD. Great movie.

Product Decsription:
The debut film of director Joel Coen and his brother-producer Ethan Coen, 1983's Blood Simple is grisly comic noir that marries the feverish toughness of pulp thrillers with the ghoulishness of even pulpier horror. (Imagine the novels of Jim Thompson somehow fused with the comic tabloid Weird Tales, and you get the idea.) The story concerns a Texas bar owner (Dan Hedaya) who hires a seedy private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to follow his cheating wife (Frances McDormand in her first film appearance), and then kill her and her lover (John Getz). The gumshoe turns the tables on his client, and suddenly a bad situation gets much, much worse, with some violent goings-on that are as elemental as they are shocking. (A scene in which a character who has been buried alive suddenly emerges from his own grave instantly becomes an archetypal nightmare.) Shot by Barry Sonnenfeld before he became an A-list director in Hollywood, Blood Simple established the hyperreal look and feel of the Coens' productions (undoubtedly inspired a bit by filmmaker Sam Raimi, whose The Evil Dead had just been coedited by Joel). Sections of the film have proved to be an endurance test for art-house movie fans, particularly an extended climax that involves one shock after another but ends with a laugh at the absurdity of criminal ambition. This is definitely one of the triumphs of the 1980s and the American independent film scene in general. --Tom Keogh

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Noise (2007)
dir. Henry Bean

I remember seeing a trailer for this a while back, then it just kind of disappeared. The plot is kind of silly, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Product Decsription:
Academy Award® winner Tim Robbins stars as David Owen, a Manhattan husband and father so unhinged by the noise outside his window that he declares a one-man war on car alarms. But when David goes over the edge and becomes a citywide noise-vigilante known as 'The Rectifier', he incurs the wrath of New York’s sleazy blowhard Mayor (a hilarious performance by Oscar® winner William Hurt) who vows to stop him. How much damage will one guy inflict for a little peace and quiet? Bridget Moynahan (I, ROBOT) and William Baldwin (Dirty Sexy Money) co-star in this wickedly funny black comedy from award-winning writer/director Henry Bean (The Believer) that The New Yorker hails as "a splendidly eccentric film alive with the creative madness of New York City!"

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Surrender-Hell! (1959)
dir. John Barnwell

I would check this out based on the title alone. Fantastic.

Product Decsription:
The true-life WWII drama of Lt. Blackburn (Keith Andes) who avoided capture by the Japanese in the Philippines by venturing far into the unforgiving jungle, battling disease, starvation and hostile fire at every turn. He finally amassed a platoon of natives (including headhunters) to his cause, and led successful attacks on the enemy.

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Woman Times Seven (1967)
dir. Vittorio De Sica

One of the great Italian neo-realists directs Peter Sellers, Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine. Sounds interesting.

Product Decsription:
Widow, seductress, model wife or passionate lover, Shirley MacLaine stars in the seven roles of a woman's life in seven sketches- a tour de force performance that earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical/Comedy.

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The Man On The Eiffel Tower (1949)
dir. Burgess Meredith

Yep, THE Burgess Meredith.

Product Decsription:
Based on a novel by acclaimed writer Georges Simenon, THE MAN ON THE EIFFEL TOWER is a gleefully sinister romp through the City of Lights climaxing in a spectacular scene on the city s most famous landmark. The film follows Inspector Maigret (Charles Laughton) as he investigates a brutal killing that implicates a ne er-do-well playboy (Robert Hutton), a psychotic medical student (Franchot Tone), and a humble knife-sharpener (Burgess Meredith). Featuring a dark, droll script by journeyman screenwriter Harry Brown (A Place in the Sun), THE MAN ON THE EIFFEL TOWER is livened by cinematography by Stanley Cortez (Night of the Hunter) that captures late 40s Paris in the dark, moody palette of the Ansco Color process. The film was begun under the direction of producer Irving Allen. Laughton was so dissatisfied with Allen s work that three days into the shoot he threatened to quit unless Meredith (Rocky) be permitted to take control. Thus did the seasoned character actor land the most unexpected role of his career: director.
NOTE: THE MAN ON THE EIFFEL TOWER was photographed on ANSCO Reversal film, an early single strip color process, and no original elements exist today. This RESTORED film has been preserved from two nitrate projection prints, the only 35mm color copies known to survive.

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J'Accuse (1919)
dir. Abel Gance



Product Decsription:
The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.

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