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Hal Ashby's 1982 gambling comedy, directed from a script
co-written by star Jon Voight, was a critical and commercial flop on its
original release. Seen today, in a longer cut than was originally released, it
looks better, if not quite great. Voight is a hopeless gambling addict with
unflagging optimism and perpetual motion energy who sets off to Vegas with his
good-hearted schlub of a best friend (Burt Young) for a "big score" to settle a
gambling debt. The plot is a completely unconvincing series of coincidences, but
the dynamism of the characters and their friendships is marvelous. Voight and
Young are like kids when they get excited, immature but utterly devoted to each
other, and Ann-Margret is touching as a woman from Voight's past whose romantic
optimism is tempered by her growing realization that her old lover is completely
unsuitable as a father to her daughter. Ashby's indulgence allows the film get
lost in comic chases and brawls (not to mention the crazy plot involving
mistaken identity and a washed-up gambler played by Bert Remsen), but he always
returns to the characters, who are the real story of the film. But, oh, that
'80s synthesizer score is painful.
Hal Ashby's original cut was edited
down by 15 minutes under studio pressure. His original two-hour version was
recently discovered in the studio archives and premiered at a Hal Ashby
retrospective in 2009, and that's the cut featured on the DVD debut. The story
is explained in the 16-minute retrospective featurette "Lookin' to Get Out: The
Cast Looks Back," featuring new interviews with actor/co-writer/co-producer Jon
Voight, co-writer Al Schwartz, and co-stars Burt Young and Ann-Margret. It's the
only supplement (besides the trailer) on the disc.
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| Kaidan |
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Hideo Nakata, director of the original "Ringu" and "Dark Water,"
returned to Japanese cinema (after his frustrated Hollywood sojourn) with this
remake of the classic ghost story. It's a gorgeous period piece, more about mood
and visual eeriness than horror or startles, and Nakata turns what could be a
straight revenge film into an ambiguous tale of jealousy and revenge from beyond
the grave. What's missing is the sense of fate, powerful forces of poetic
justice or emotional spirits behind these terrible crimes. Nakata was once a
master at easing audiences into the states of helplessness and confusion
suffered by his characters, but he is too removed to give us an emotional stake
in this story. Japanese with English subtitles. No supplements.
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| Direct Your Own Damn Movie! |
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Troma honcho and grunge-movie auteur Lloyd Kaufman follows up
his five-disc "film school in a box" DVD "Make Your Own Damn Movie!" with this
four-disc set of practical tips from working directors and producers. A two-hour
documentary featuring new interviews with Eli Roth, William Lustig, Stuart
Gordon, Mick Garris, Ernest Dickerson, Penelope Spheeris, Whit Stillman, Monte
Hellman and Joe Dante (among many others) is the foundation of the set. The rest
is filled in bonus interviews and featurettes. It's a survey in bits and pieces,
but Kaufman is all about practical lessons and examples from experience in a
presentation spiced up with humor. True to character, he invites his subjects to
critique his films and his style, and they take the assignment seriously.
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| Pufnstuf |
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This feature length musical spun off from Sid and Marty Krofft's
bizarre, life-sized puppet TV show plays like a grade-school remake of "The
Wizard of Oz" on acid. Shot on the same painted backdrops and flat sets as the
series, it feels less like a movie than a continuing episode with guest stars
(including "Mama" Cass Elliot singing the psychedelic interlude). Apart from the
sheer weirdness of entire enterprise (just what stuff were they puffin' when
they came up with this?), it's a painfully sloppy picture, but Billie Hayes
almost powers it single-handedly in a cackling, kinetic performance as
Witchiepoo.
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| Beast Stalker |
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Dante Lam directs this long, slow, grimly humorless Hong Kong
crime drama of a hot-shot young police captain (Nicholas Tse) who drops out of
the force after one of his cases ends in tragedy and then goes rogue to save the
kidnapped daughter of a prosecuting attorney from a half-blind kidnapper/killer
for hire (Nick Cheung). There are some effectively staged sequences, but there's
nothing to distract the audience from these glaring gaps in rational thought.
The characters are blank under their glib psychological profiles, and the
procedural sequences drag the film down between the bursts of grim, grimy
action. Includes featurettes and deleted scenes, all in Cantonese with English
subtitles.
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Sean Axmaker is a film critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a DVD
columnist for MSN Entertainment and a contributing writer for GreenCine.com,
Turner Classic Movies Online, Parallax View and Asian Cult Cinema, among other
publications. Find links to all of this and more on his shamelessly self-promoting blog.
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Movie Violations Buzzing cells, crackling
wrappers and big hats! Are you an annoying theatergoer? So You Wanna Be A Vampire? Two recent (and
very different) DVD vamp releases may help you decide if bloodsucking is the
life for you Start Your Engines With 'Fast
& Furious' roaring through theaters, we look at the greatest car movies
Rotten Real Estate With the
housing market in grave shape, here are some cinematic haunted houses you could
probably get dirt cheap | |
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