Year:  2011
Genre:  Comic book, Action
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Chris Evans, Tommy Lee Jones, Hayley Atwell, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci 
Cameo:  Samuel L. Jackson
Director:  Joe Johnston
Run time:  124 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     One good thing I can say about Captain America is that they sure got the name of the movie right.  Captain America sure is a captain.  And he SURE is American!  Real Americans, you see, are patriotic to the point of lunacy.  So is Steve Rogers, who is a short little 90 pound athsmatic weakling deemed unfit for military service. 

     But Steve won’t take no for an answer, and does everything in his power, like a good little American, to trick his way into the army so he can go overseas and be (almost certainly) killed by the Germans in World War II.  He is SO patriotic, and wants SO BADLY to fight for his country, that it never occurs to him that if he DID get to go over there to fight, he would surely be more of a hindrance than a help.

     Like all good Americans, Steve Rogers never backs down from a fight, even when four huge guys are beating him to death.  All good Americans must be…really stupid?  Then, he gets some kind of crazy scientific experimental procedure done (thanks military!), and now he’s no longer a little weakling.  Now, he’s a jacked up muscular huge guy. 

     Like all good Americans, he realizes that being huge is far more important than being smart.  And he chooses a brightly painted red white and blue shield to carry, so no one can forget that he’s American.  This makes a little bit of sense, because the shield is this really cool brand new matal material that stops bullets and…well, I guess that’s it.  It stops bullets.  But it stops them Better Than Anything Ever In The World.

     Like Linus and his security blanket, Steve Rogers (now Captain America) carries the shield everywhere he goes.  Which once again, makes sense – he’s doing a USO tour to lift the spirits of the troops…or something?  No one including the Captain seems to understand exactly what he’s doing at these silly shows.   Of course, though, the Captain is upset about the dog-and-pony show, because he’s Just Not Helping His Country with his new big muscles.

     So of course he goes on a singlehanded raid behind enemy lines to break his army buddies out of a nazi POW camp.  He’s going to be really stealthy, so he wears the same clothes as the Germans and hides behind tanks and trucks and then runs very fast so he won’t be spotted.  Except that you can spot him from SPACE, because he’s still carrying this stupid, gaudy, red white and blue shield!

     I realize that in this review, I’m criticizing the character of Captain America more so than the movie itself.  And my feeling that Captain America is a really stupid superhero creates the feeling, in me, that his movie is a really stupid movie.  And I guess this is the way you decide whether YOU like it.  Captain America is a cartoon character that runs fast, lifts heavy stuff and does some very, very stupid things that just happen to work out because he’s the hero of the movie.  If that sounds like something you might like then, by all means, rent this one on DVD, out October 25th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

     One last thing – the big question here is of course this – do you have to watch this film before watching The Avengers when it goes all blockbuster next summer?  Frankly, I don’t know.  I doubt it.  There are some vague tie-ins – Dominic Cooper plays Howard Stark, the father of Robert Downey’s Tony Stark in the Iron Man series.  Samuel L. Jackson makes the same brief cameo at the end that he does in all the others – Iron Man, Thor, etc.  And that’s about it.  Captain America is a muscular super-soldier, he’s American to the point of silliness, and he has a really strong shield.  Now you can skip this and wait for The Avengers, next year.

     There are five movies, comprising six discs, on the new Art of Filmmaking box set, out October 25th from First Run Features.  Think of a director, or a big-name actor, or a giant music producer, and chances are they appear in at least one, if not more of the five documentaries.  Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Jerry Bruckhemier, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Susan Sarandon, the list goes on and on and then some.

     This is the ideal box set for the aspiring filmmaker – the best of the best talking about their craft in all sorts of different film genres.  Herzog, Morris, Kevin MacDonald, Scott Hicks and dozens of other documentary filmmakers talk about their craft in the 2008 movie Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary.  To hear an interview I did with the director of this film, Pepita Ferrari, click here.  The one complaint I have here is that the initial DVD release of Capturing Reality came with an excellent second disc of bonus features, and that disc is not included in this set.

     Spielberg, Eastwood, Scorcese, Tim Burton, James Cameron, Robert Altman, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Terry Gilliam, Sydney Pollack, a ton of other directors and some huge-name actors (Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman) appear in the movie Directors: Life Behind the Camera.  Both discs of this film are included in this box set, and they’re a bit of an effort to get through – you’ve got to click through on a ton of different menus – but with this incredible list of participants, it’s totally worth it.

     John Carpenter, who wrote Hallowe’en, Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption), and Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) are just three of the dozens of screenwriters who appear in Tales From The Script, a wonderful documentary about the art of screenwriting.  This is probably the most entertaining movie in the box set – the screenwriters are more engaging and funnier than many of the directors and actors in the other films.

     Light Keeps Me Company is more focused – a look at one man, Sven Nykvist.  Nykvist was the legendary cinematographer behind many of Ingmar Bergman’s most famous movies, and a two-time Oscar winner.  Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Susan Sarandon and Bergman himself show up in the movie to talk about Nykvist, and the clips of Nykvist’s celebrated cinematography are still magnificent – especially when described by fellow movie legends.

     The fifth movie in the set is 1997′s Lavender Limelight, which takes a look at lesbian indie filmmakers like Cheryl Dunye, Heather MacDonald and Jennie Livingston.  This is a much different film than the others in the set, if only because nobody being interviewed is a really big name, and most of us have never seen their movies, like Watermelon Woman or Paris Is Burning. 

     That’s the best thing about this box set – every documentary is different, interviewing big-time filmmakers, little indie filmmakers, documentarians, cinematographers and writers, all in one box.  An amazing box, that you can get here, from First Run Features.

Year:  2008  
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Directors:  Jennifer Brooke, Beatrice Alda
Run time:  64 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     Out Late is a documentary from 2008, out on DVD now from First Run Features.  It’s an interesting look at a bunch of interesting people – gay and lesbian men and women who didn’t “come out” until much later in life.  Some participants in the documentary are in their 80s. 

     The thing is – there’s not much more to the documentary than that.  Interesting interviews with compelling people.  At times, the movie starts delving into social issues, like the couple who live next to a lesbian couple who are fundamentalist religious people and don’t believe in gay marriage.  A lot of the gay participants are religious, and there is a lot of footage in churches.

     But every time the movie starts heading in that direction, it pulls back.  So what we’re left with is a series of interviews with likeable people.  Which is fine, but there aren’t a lot of really amazing stories. 

     I found the most interesting story to be that of Elaine, who came out when she was about 80.  For her, the most difficult thing is finding someone with whom she can have a relationship.  Which is, of course, terribly difficult for someone who is that old, and who just now revealed that she is homosexual.  And of course, now that she has finally come out, she wants to go crazy and live it up and finally be herself.  But she’s waited so long that it’s nearly impossible, and she can be a little too aggressive for some people.

     But mostly we learn about the families, how they reacted, how long these people have known they were gay.  Which is okay, and it’s interesting enough, but when the movie was over I had more questions than answers, and I wanted a lot more out of it.  What makes someone stay closeted for so many years, then what makes them decide that NOW is the time to come out?  These are questions that are touched on, never fully explored.

     With the tragedy that took place here in Ottawa last week, the suicide  of councillor Allan Hubley’s teenage son, I was looking for something more here.  And maybe I was hoping for more for the wrong reasons.  15-year-old Jamie Hubley was the only openly gay student at A.Y. Jackson, where my stepson also goes to high school.  His suicide was a direct result of the bullying he endured at that school, bullying my stepson tells me is very commonplace. 

     The message a lot of us took from Jamie’s tragic death was that although yes, it does get better, asking a 15-year-old to wait three years until college, or maybe even seven years until school ends, can be way too much.  His story told us how difficult it is to come out when you’re so young – and how sad it is that this is so often the result.

     It seems as though this would have been much worse 60 years ago – I would have liked Out Late to talk a little more about that.  The movie makes it clear that the fear of revealing one’s true self is a lifelong trepidation – and the one thing that is consistent among these older people is that they almost all say they wish they had come out much, much sooner.  It’s a nice story, these are nice people, but there’s just not a whole lot of bite to it, and almost no connection to the larger issues affecting the gay community.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Comedy, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine, Anders Holm, Kyle Newacheck, Maribeth Monroe, Jillian Bell, Edward Barbanell, and a guest appearance by Clint Howard 
Creators:  Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine, Anders Holm, Kyle Newacheck
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Penis pictures have been in the news a lot lately.  Brett Favre, Antony Weiner, Justin Timberlake.  And then there are the naked self-portraits from Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities who have had their phones hacked.  (By the way – did you see that the guy who hacked into their phones could face 121 years in prison?  That’s the United States I guess…tough on computer crime and weed.  Speaking of weed…well, stay tuned.)

     We’ve talked about that a lot in the last few weeks – why would you HAVE a naked picture of yourself on your own phone in the first place?  And what woman in the world would come to your house and hop into bed with you because you sent her a picture of your junk?

     The very first scene of the first episode of the first season of Workaholics answered this question for me right away in about eighty seconds.  It’s stoners who get tricked by their friends into doing it.  See, Anders is dating a girl, and his friends trick him into thinking she’s sent him a picture of her nipple.  (Which is of course impossible.  If Anders knew he was on TV, he would know that they could never show a picture of a nipple of a girl, and therefore it MUST be a man’s nipple on his phone.) 

     And then they convince him that the obvious next step is to send HER a picture of his penis.  Which of course then gets sent to everyone he knows.  And I was hooked.  Season One of Workaholics comes out October 11^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, and it’s hilarious.  One of the funniest shows on television.

     The basic premise: Three stoners (Blake, Adam and Anders) work in a telemarketing office, with a vicious but hot boss (Maribeth Monroe) and a bunch of VERY funny co-workers (big ups to Jillian Bell, who is amazing!).  Then they come home and take a whole lot of drugs.  Each show has a crazier premise than the last, going from a workplace drug test to a strike over the holiday of half-Christmas, to a camping weekend inside the office with burglars breaking in. 

     But they all work, there are no weak scenes in the show at all, and I have a hard time remembering the last show that made me laugh as much as Workaholics.  And maybe the best thing about it – although an awful lot of it is about drugs and drinking and all that bad stuff – is that it isn’t the typical stoner comedy where just getting high is assumed to be funny enough.  Instead this is a truly funny comedy where the protagonists just happen to be on drugs most of the time.  Pick this one up, please!

Year:  2011
Genre:  Comedy, Music
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Weird Al Yankovic
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     It’s weird how some things just don’t translate from my childhood to the childhood of my own kids.  I was obsessed with baseball.  My kids are as likely to watch baseball as they are to watch Matlock, and they’re as likely to play baseball as they are to be Matlock.  They don’t get Seinfeld at all, they’re indifferent to The Simpsons and the absolutely HATE MacGyver.  Which I think makes them heathen little turdfarts, but they disagree.

     Then again, it’s surprising to me how some of the things I was into actually still work.  I was into Transformers.  Now that I HATE the new Transformers movies, the kids love them.  I loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  And one crappy new movie and they’re right into it too. 

     Then there’s Weird Al.  When I was 12, I was a Weird Al fanatic.  I bought every tape.  (Well, to be fair, I forced my parents to buy every tape.  Remember cassettes?)  I watched all the videos.  I saw UHF on day one.  And now, MY 12-year-old is just as fanatical.  Somehow, Weird Al Yankovic has managed to endure for 20 years without slipping, and watching his new DVD, The Alpocalypse Tour, he appears not to have aged a day. 

     We watched it together, and sadly I realized that Weird Al has, in fact, passed me by.  My 12-year-old LOVES it.  He sings along with every song, he keeps looking at me to make sure I’m laughing as hard as he is.  But I’m not, not any more.  I still felt a sweet pang of nostaligia when I heard some of the old classics – “Fat”, “Lasagna”, “Eat It”.  You know, all his food-related parodies.  And the rest of it, thanks to Owen, was very familiar.  Polka Face, Yoda, Amish Paradise, Craigslist, eBay. 

     But the only recent song of Weird Al’s that I find to be true genius is his Lady Gaga parody “Perform This Way”.  (Also, during the live DVD, it gives him a chance to make a terrific wardrobe change – see above video).  I still enjoyed The Alpocalypse Tour, out October 4^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  And I’m certain I’ll be watching it seven or eight more times.  Just not by myself.  Not any more.

Year:  1959
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  James Arness, Milburn Stone, Amanda Blake, Dennis Weaver, Ken Curtis
Creators:  John Meston, Norman MacDonnell
Run time:  8 hours 43 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I have figured out the morality that exists in Gunsmoke.  It took me a while to get a handle on it – five seasons, in point of fact.  Paramount Home Entertainment releases Season Five Volume One on DVD October 11^th, and it’s full of morality plays, all contained neatly in one episode at a time.  James Arness, as always, is the arbiter of that morality, never questioning a decision and apparently never making a wrong one.

     Here’s how it works (I think).  If you’re greedy, you die.  That is, if you murder for money or personal gain.  If you murder for a passionate reason, on the other hand, like the love of a woman, you get arrested and go to jail for a (presumably) long time.  If you rustle cattle, you die.  If, on the other hand, you steal horses, you usually just get beaten up and go to jail. 

     If you’re a woman, (see video above) you are protected at all times no matter how unpleasant you are.  If, on the other hand, you are a murderous woman, you are treated gently on your way to jail.  That applies even to the ugly serial killer sniper woman who murders her husband and tries to murder another man just so people might think men are fighting over her.  Marshall Matt Dillon handles her gently, because he knows she’s just a weak-hearted woman who doesn’t know any better.

     Season Five Volume Two is on the way before Christmas, and I’m sure it will feature more of the same.  Cattle rustlers will be shot, horse thieves will be caught, and more justice will come from the marshal’s pistol than from the hangman’s rope.  The jail in Dodge City will remain empty.  There’s never anyone in the jail, you’ll notice – they’re either shot and dead, or they didn’t do anything bad enough to warrant being locked up.  That’s the morality of Gunsmoke.

Year:  1961
Genre:  TV series, Western
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker
Creator:  David Dortort
Director of note:  Robert Altman
Run time:  13 hours, 12 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I don’t know how much there is to say about Bonanza, with this fourth DVD being released October 11th by Paramount Home Entertainment.  Two volumes of season one, two of season two…and it’s Bonanza!  This one opens with Hoss and Joe robbing a bank.  But don’t worry – this is the Cartwrights, and they of course robbed the bank for the best of reasons, and won’t end up in prison or shot or anything. 

     So…a reason to get this DVD, other than the fact that it’s Bonanza and you like old classic TV.  Or you’re 80 years old and it brings back warm fuzzy memories of childhood…Sometimes, when you watch a really old TV show on DVD, you get a chance to pick up some really cool things (if you’re a movie buff).  For example, a very young Kurt Russell appears in an episode during the last volume of The Fugitive.  The third season of Rawhide had an episode where acting legends Peter Lorre and Clint Eastwood shared the screen for the first time ever.

     But in Season Two, Volume Two of Bonanza, there is a new twist for the film buffs out there.  Sure, there are some neat guest stars here and there, like Harry Dean Stanton and George Kennedy.  But the biggest star on the DVD never appears on the screen.  It’s legendary director Robert Altman, who directs the very first episode, “Bank Run”. 

     Robert Altman, who had no film credits to his name yet in 1960.  Robert Altman, who went on to direct some of the greatest movies ever made, like MASH, Nashville, The Long Goodbye, Gosford Park.  The same Robert Altman who has a lifetime achievement Oscar.  And he’s directing an episode of Bonanza!  Actually, he directed a couple more on this DVD as well.  I think three in total.

     When I think about it, it’s not THAT cool or unusual.  Every great director had to start somewhere.  I’m just trying to give you a reason to pick it up.  Otherwise, all I’ve got is hey – it’s Bonanza!  Hoss and Ben and Little Joe and Adam Cartwright and the Ponderosa.  Not that those aren’t good reasons to get Season Two Volume Two.  I love Bonanza.  But dude, Robert Altman!

Year:  2011
Genre:  Documentary, TV series, History 
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Voices:  Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Waterston, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt, Adam Arkin, Patricia Clarkson, John Ligthgow, Blythe Danner, Paul Giamatti, Josh Lucas, Amy Madigan
Director:  Ken Burns
Run time:  6 hours
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     If there is one DVD I can convince you to buy on October 4th, I fervently hope that it’s Prohibition, the Ken Burns PBS documentary that comes out today.  I truly, truly hope you’ll buy it, and watch it, and then watch it again.  Or, at least, watch it on PBS, as it’s running right now.  Tonight.  But you’ve already missed the first hour.

     The main reason I want you to watch Ken Burns’ Prohibition is, of course, that it is amazing.  Ken Burns always does amazing work, and this tale of politics, drunkenness, temperance and womens rights is as fascinating as anything he’s ever done.  The gangsters are interesting, and of course a lot of time is devoted to Al Capone and his Chicago mob, but there were so many other interesting bootleggers. 

     The lawyers who quit practising law to build vast empires through the sale of illegal booze.  The politicians who voted to outlaw alcohol while still indulging their own vices behind closed doors.  The incredibly powerful lobby groups, many of them led by women, and the connection between the right of women to vote and prohibition itself. 

     Oh, of course there’s more.  There’s a ton more, because it’s Ken Burns and he doesn’t do anything by half measures.  But in this case, Prohibition is (relatively) short!  Just three discs, rather than the imposing monster sets that make up his Baseball, Jazz and Civil War documentaries.  And that’s another reason I hope I can convince you to pick up Prohibition today.  It’s a gateway documentary. 

     Sure, you can sit down for six hours and watch something this awesome.  But it might be so amazing, and so fascinating, that you are THEN willing to sit down and watch TEN hours about the civil war.  Or TWENTY hours about baseball or jazz music.  And if you do THAT, then my job is done.  And I am happy.  Paramount Home Entertainment releases Prohibition on DVD today.  Please go buy it.

Year:  1962
Genre:  TV series, Lawyer, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     In most cop shows, the cops use some varied techniques to catch the bad guys.  In Blue Bloods, Donnie Wahlberg just beats everyone up until someone finally turns out to be the killer.  In CSI and NCIS, they examine forensic evidence until the killer is behind bars.  In Criminal Minds they investigate his brain until they find him.  And in Hawaii Five-O, they just drive around in fancy cars, banter a bit and flex a little, and eventually the bad guy just seems to show up for some reason.

     But it wasn’t always this way.  No, sometimes there were shows where the cops didn’t catch the bad guys.  In fact, there were shows where the cops were so incompetent that they always arrested the wrong people.  One of those shows was Perry Mason back in the 50s and 60s.  Season Six, volume one comes to DVD October 4th from Paramount Home Entertainment. 

     The DVD set features fourteen episodes where Perry Mason masterfully  defends all kinds of wrongfully accused folks.  It’s convenient for him, and for the show, that his clients are always innocent of the murders they are accused of committing.  Not so convenient, however, for the cops.  They try to catch the killer of an old book dealer.  They arrest the wrong woman.  They go after the killer of a super rich heir.  They arrest the wrong woman.  They investigate the shooting of a nefarious boxing promoter, and arrest the wrong man.

     At what point does the police department start getting embarassed?  It’s always the same cops arresting the wrong people.  It’s always the police department who end up with egg on their face.  In fact, to add insult to injury, Perry Mason himself actually solves the crimes and finds the real killers!  The cops here have like a nine percent conviction rate. 

     If I was a baker, and I made tasty cakes NINE percent of the time, I would lose my job.  But these cops somehow keep their jobs, and leave Perry Mason to clean up after them.  I’m cool with it though.  After all, competent cops would make for a less interesting show, and I’m all about some Perry Mason.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Comedy, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Creator:  Mike Judge
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I laughed harder than I have in a long time while watching the new Beavis and Butthead DVD, out October 4^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  Mike Judge’s Most Wanted is a collection of classic Beavis and Butthead cartoons, to help promote the return of the show to MTV at the end of October.

     Now, when I say I laughed harder than I have in a long time, I don’t mean while watching the cartoons.  I find very little funny about the show itself, and the episodes about some chicks who take the idiots’ money at a movie theatre, and the one where they draw some terribly violent cartoons in film class, and so on and so forth, are boring to me. 

     I always liked Beavis and Butthead, but only when they commented on music videos.  And, when they started, MTV showed music videos.  Now, MTV is a reality show network with precious little musical content – which is actually perfect for Beavis and Butthead.  The belly laughs I got came from the special features, which offered a sneak preview of the upcoming show. 

     And watching them comment on Jersey Shore was one of the funniest things I have EVER seen. I killed myself laughing.  That’s why I put that bit up at the top of the review here on the video.  If you bust a gut laughing when Butthead says “that’s how she answers the phone”, you’re just like me.  Maybe you have to know a bit about Jersey Shore first.  Maybe not.  All I know is that this is the best laugh I’ve had in a while.

     The old stuff on this DVD doesn’t really appeal to me.  I just can’t get into frog baseball or two morons destroying a house trying to kill a fly.  But that one-minute preview of the upcoming season was absolutely perfect, and I will be looking forward to THAT in a big way.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Comedy, Stand-up
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jeff Dunham
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

                Jeff Dunham is coming to Ottawa October 23^rd.  He’ll be playing Scotiabank Place.  Seriously.  Scotiabank Place!  That’s Jerry Seinfeld territory!  But Dunham is THAT popular.  In fact, he’s currently the top-selling comedy act in North America, and probably the most successful ventriloquist ever!

     This makes me almost ashamed to admit – I don’t get it.  I just watched Dunham’s stand up special Controlled Chaos, out September 27^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I watched it, and I tried to find it funny, and I tried to laugh, but I just don’t get it. 

     He’s got these recognizable characters – Ahmed the dead terrorist.  The jalapeno on a stick.  And he makes them talk.  And he’s good at it.  Like, I can’t see his mouth moving at all.  So…that’s neat for a while.  But I’m not laughing.  And I’m bored.  And I don’t get it at all when the jalapeno says “on a stick” with a Mexican accent and the crowd goes WILD!  I’m confused.  Why is that funny?  That’s not a punchline, or a joke, or even a vaguely amusing observation.  It’s just a description of the puppet that I can already see. 

     I’ve got to say that Jeff Dunham isn’t the only comedian I just don’t get.  People love Dane Cook and Larry the Cable Guy and Robin Williams, but I just sit there in disbelief and scratch my head while I watch my friends roll in the aisles.  Am I the only one who realizes these people aren’t in ANY way funny, or am I the only one not sophisticated enough to grasp the humour?  I’m not sure.  All I know is I feel like I’m being left out of a joke when everyone starts splitting their sides.

     But the masses have spoken and they are not me, and Jeff Dunham is playing Scotiabank Place, and I most certainly am not.  And YOU can pick up Controlled Chaos on DVD and Blu-Ray.  And YOU can win tickets through CHEZ to go SEE him play Scotiabank Place in October.  But I most certainly will not.

Year:  1984
Genre:  Blu-Ray, Romance, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer, John Lithgow, Chris Penn, Dianne Wiest Notable bit parts:  Sarah Jessica Parker
Director:  Herbert Ross
Run time:  107 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Sometimes, a movie comes along that defines a generation.  And sometimes, that movie is later relegated to the dustbin of history, because that generation wasn’t really worth reflecting.  And sometimes, the Blu-Ray box of a movie SAYS that it was one of these generation-defining movies, and I stop and think, no.  That is just not true.  At least, I hope it isn’t true.

     Such is the case with the Blu-Ray issue of Footloose, out September 27^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  Really?  This movie defined a generation?  A generation, I suppose, where movies were painful and silly, featured long dance montages that drag out that pain, and women had big hair and irritating personalities.  That’s not a generation I want to remember. 

     On the other hand, it might be a movie that reflects a generation where Kevin Bacon was really young, where Chris Penn was thin and still alive, and Sarah Jessica Parker was a secondary character actress, and John Lithgow was the bad guy minister, and Lori Singer was super hot and slutty despite being awful.  Now THAT’s the kind of generation I like.

     There is a Footloose remake coming to big screens in a couple of weeks, which I guess prompted this Blu-Ray release.  Once again, it’s going to be about a small town somewhere in the U.S. where rock and roll and dancing have been outlawed.  I’m pretty sure it won’t define OUR generation any more than it defined 1984.  I’m not even sure Footloose would have defined a generation in 1950.

     My wife loves movies from the 80s, since she is of that generation.  She watches Grease and Dirty Dancing every time they are on TV, even though we already own both movies on VHS and DVD and Blu-Ray and in box sets and special editions and so forth.  She is clearly the target audience for Footloose, which is also about dancing and rebellious kids from out of town.  But she HATES Footloose.  Even with a terrific transfer onto Blu-Ray.  I can’t say that I disagree with her.

Years:  1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989
Genre:  Horror, Slasher, Garbage
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kevin Bacon, Betsy Palmer, Cory Feldman, Crispin Glover, Kane Hodder
Eye candy:  All kinds of dumb young naked (mostly horny) chicks with knives in them
Directors:  Sean S. Cunningham, Steve Miner, Danny Steinmann, Tom McLoughlin, John Carl Buechler, Rob Hedden
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     On October 4th, the horror box sets start appearing, beginning with the Friday the 13th Limited Edition Gift Set from Paramount Home Entertainment.  This 8-disc box contains the first eight Friday movies (as some purists would have it – the REAL 8 Friday movies).  If you want the ninth and tenth also (Freddy Vs. Jason and the bonkers slasher-in-space opus Jason X), they are available together on a bargain double feature DVD from Alliance Films the same day.

     The first eight movies are, of course, Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Part II, Friday the 13th Part III (in 3-D – the box set comes with the glasses), Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, and Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.  For individual reviews, click the above links.

     The thing is, all of these movies are genuinely terrible.  The Friday series has been one of the most consistently awful film series in history, and has become famous…why I don’t really know.  Maybe just volume.  But the fact remains that it HAS become famous, a weird cult thing for people with bad taste and those with a keenly developed sense of irony.  And for those people this box set is just about perfect.

     It comes with a mask – just in time for Hallowe’en!  The mask is decently made, but way too small for the average adult.  And of course the average Friday the 13th geek IS an adult.  In my house, the only person who could fit into the mask was my 11-year-old stepson, who is too young to watch Friday the 13th movies anyway.

     That being said, what makes this box set work is the geeky minutiae in the booklet.  Each movie has stats – number of kills (21 in Jason Takes Manhattan!) and weapons used.  How many sex scenes and stalled cars in Jason Lives?  Which is the one movie where a character other than Jason exhibits supernatural powers (telekenisis!)? 

     THIS is the sort of thing Friday buffs love.  I think most of the recognize the awfulness of the films, so they must care more about body count and spear-gun-vs.-hatchet than they do about really enjoying the films.  And that’s exactly what this box set does.  It caters to the audience for the movies, and I think that audience will be thrilled.