Year:  1985
Genre:  Comedy, Cult, Classic
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull, Lesley Ann Warren, Eileen Brennan, Madeline Kahn 
Director:  Jonathan Lynn
Run time:  94 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I hear a lot of people bitching about how Hollywood has run out of ideas, and now makes nothing but sequels and prequels and remakes and reboots and movies made from TV shows and video games and comic books and Disney theme park rides and whatever Twilight is.  Sometimes, I hear people bitching about that in MY voice!

     But the sad thing is, it has always been this way. It was like this in 1956 when Cecil B. DeMille remade the Ten Commandments and in 1959 when William Wyler remade Ben-Hur for the third time. It was like this in 1993 when the ninth and final Friday the 13^th movie was made, and in 2009 when the 12^th Friday the 13^th movie came out. 

     And it was like this way back in 1985, when Jonathan Lynn made Clue, a movie based on a board game starring Tim Curry, Michael McKean and Christopher Lloyd.  In the intervening years, Clue has become a small-time cult classic, thanks mostly to some campy humour, a truly fantastic comedy cast, and the three different endings that were a part of it when it was originally released.

     Now, Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing the 1985 movie on Blu-Ray, August 7^th.  It remains quirky and funny and one of the better movies made from a board game (lol). And of course, in keeping with the theme of this review, it makes for some great viewing in the lead up to the summer of 2013, when you will be able to go out to the big screens for the Clue remake! Not joking.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Drama, Comedy, Romance, Silent
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle
Director:  Michel Hazanavicius
Run time:  100 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     I think that if the Oscars are ever going to retire, now is the time.  The Artist has given the Oscars the perfect out.  The movie awards are now perfectly bookended.  The silent movie Wings, a vapid but expensive action flick, won the first ever Best Picture Oscar in 1927.  The second silent movie to win Best Picture – The Artist, a deep and powerful low-budget movie about the end of the silent film era.

     In the 84 years of the Oscars, we’ve gone from a German actor, Emil Jannings, winning Best Actor, to France’s Jean Dujardin winning this year for The Artist.  We’ve gone from Americans of Austrian Hungarian and Russian descent to a French Lithuanian (Michel Hazanavicius) as Best Director, when The Artist took that one as well.

     So now, the Oscars have covered pretty much every country in the world, they’ve gone from silent films to talkies and back to silent films, they still love their black and white movies, and they still love artsy dramatic indie romance movies far more than blockbusters.

     And so I suggest to the Academy that NOW is the time to shut it down.  Before the Oscars become the Grammys.  Before the box office results of a movie makes it an automatic contender. Before The Avengers and The Hunger Games and the new Transformers battle it out for Best Picture the way Adele and Usher and Beyonce do every year for Best Album.  The Artist, on DVD and Blu-Ray June 26^th from Alliance Films, is not the best movie ever to win an Oscar. But it’s the best opportunity for the whole ceremony to walk away while it’s still at the top of its game.

Year:  2012
Genre:  Drama, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Armie Hammer, Lily Collins, Julia Roberts, Nathan Lane, Jordan Prentice, Mare Winningham, Sean Bean
Director:  Tarsem Singh
Run time:  106 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Mirror Mirror is a movie that’s all about beauty.  It is gorgeous film making, every scene wonderfully crafted and shiny and lovely and breathtaking.  Julia Roberts is stunningly beautiful as the evil queen, and young star Lily Collins has a sort of Audrey Hepburn hotness as Snow White.

     The problem with Mirror Mirror is that it is all about the sort of beauty you see in…well, a mirror.  The two-dimensional kind of beauty.  There is zero depth in this Snow White adaptation, and it’s as disappointing as it is lovely.  Oh, it hits all the bases – there are seven dwarves and there is a prince and the queen is evil and talks to a mirror and wields horrible magic and the townspeople suffer and so forth. 

     But really it’s just going through the motions, and there is no sense of wonder or foreboding or mystery or…substance.  At times it feels like the movie is trying to be a parody, with twinkling teeth and lines about focus groups.  But again, it’s just going through those motions as well.

     Another problem with Mirror Mirror is that Julia Roberts IS the hottest woman in the world. Still. And even doing a great Audrey Hepburn impression, Lily Collins is still not quite the fairest of them all. I realize, of course, that this is subjective, and it’s my own lust for Julia Roberts colouring my judgement. I just find it hard to let go of Julia Roberts, who has been the star of my prostitute fantasy since 1990.  But ultimately, whether you agree with that assessment or not, the movie is less Julia Roberts and more Kim Kardashian. Lovely to look at, but you’re REALLY a lot better off not paying attention to it.  Mirror Mirror comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray June 26^th from Alliance Films.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Comedy, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Daniel Tosh
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     On June 12^th, Paramount Home Entertainment releases a DVD set of episodes of Tosh.O called Hoodies.  I’m not sure if this is just a collection of random episodes, or if it’s the first season of the show, or what, exactly, Hoodies means.  I do know that I like it.

     It seems like a pretty easy concept and a great way to make a TV show without a whole lot of effort.  Take whatever’s trending on youtube, play the videos, and make jokes about the dummies who hurt themselves or the dog that caused an explosion or the fat lady singing Skynyrd tunes.  Like a dirtier, meaner America’s Funniest Videos.  The great thing about Tosh.O, though, is that it’s exactly that. A really mean, VERY funny comedy show centered around internet memes. 

     I think the absolute best, most inspired segment on the show is the Web Redemption segment.  Daniel Tosh finds someone who has embarrassed themselves in a youtube video, and gives them a chance at redemption. The drunk guy who slammed into the garbage cans trying a slam dunk. The girl who fell off her table singing. The man who got himself stuck inside a balloon.

     These people get interviewed, they get put on TV, and they get another chance to do the thing at which they failed so badly the first time. It’s a fantastic segment and funny as hell. Well, except for the one featuring Chris Crocker, the “Leave Britney Alone” guy. That wasn’t funny so much as horrific. I advise you to skip that decidedly uncomfortable and creepy bit. The rest of Hoodies, though, I highly recommend.

Year:  2011, 2012
Genre:  Comedy, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Matt LeBlanc, Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, John Pankow, Mircea Monroe, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Richard Griffiths
Creators:  David Crane (Friends), Jeffrey Klarik (Mad About You)
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Episodes is a smart show from smart writers about smart people who once wrote a smart show and now have to write a dumb show for dumb people.  It stars Matt LeBlanc as himself, the guy who used to play Joey on Friends, trying to get away from his Joey character while playing a character who is almost exactly like Joey.

     Got that?  Alright, here’s a more concise version – Episodes is good.  It’s smart.  And Matt LeBlanc, playing himself, is very good at spoofing his own image while the show spoofs the whole television industry.  Season One of Episodes hits DVD June 12^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, and it’s well worth checking out if you haven’t yet seen it on Showtime. 

     A couple of British writers are recruited by a maniac TV executive to bring their successful show Lyman’s Boys over to America. Once in the States, the network makes change after change, turning a smart and successful British show starring the great Richard Griffiths into a stupid, painful pile of garbage starring Matt LeBlanc.

     Over the course of the first season Sean and Beverly, the British writers, have to come to grips with life in LA, they have to deal with stupid producers and stupider Matt LeBlanc, and their relationship comes unraveled as their show goes down the tubes. At the end of the season it appears the show will get dropped by the network because it’s terrible. But this is TV and that doesn’t seem to matter, because like 2 Broke Girls and Whitney, it gets picked up.

     Of course, that happens so that we’ll get a second season of Episodes. Which remains a very good, very funny show. So, by all logic, that means it should be canceled pretty soon. And if that happened, I don’t know if it would be disappointing, ironic, or absolutely perfect.

Year:  2011, 2012
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 guest appearances by Clint Howard and Nicky Whelan
Creators:  Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine, Anders Holm, Kyle Newacheck
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     A couple of Workaholics releases June 5^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  The second season comes out on DVD, and also a Blu-Ray combo package of Seasons One and Two.  The second season of the Comedy Central show is as good as the first, and had me busting a gut over and over.  And I was totally sober when I watched it!

     The second season starts out with a stolen dragon statue, the subsequent RE-stealing of that same dragon statue, and a very funny undercover operation at the local high school.  Then they try to go sober, moon over a new smoking hot co-worker, Anders goes through a midlife crisis at the age of 25, and the guys hide out in sewers like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It sounds pretty formulaic and easy when I say it like that, but I can’t convey the insanity or stupidity or sheer fun of watching Workaholics, even without a giant bong in the middle of the room.

     Of course, people who know the show likely have season one already.  And you’ll just go out and buy season two whether I recommend it or not because you know it’s great.  For the rest of you, get the combo package.  Season one and two together.  It’s like getting the munchies with a giant bag of popcorn in front of you.  I bet you watch the whole thing in a day.

Year:  1995
Genre:  Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:   English
Starring:   Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Donald Faison, Elisa Donovan, Breckin Meyer, Wallace Shawn, Jeremy Sisto, Dan Hedaya
Director:  Amy Heckerling
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Clueless until I saw the Blu-Ray release, out May 1^st from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I had even forgotten that Alicia Silverstone was once really hot and a pretty decent actress.  Although I will say that putting out a video of her spitting chewed up food into her baby’s mouth was a pretty poor way to get her back into the public eye, and a weak promotional idea for the Clueless Blu-Ray.  I think a Playboy spread or something might have generated more interest and less cringing.  Just a thought, remember that when Excess Baggage gets the Blu-Ray upgrade.

     I had also forgotten that Brittany Murphy and Paul Rudd co-starred in Clueless before they went on to bigger and better things.  (Or – in Murphy’s case – sadder and more tragic things.)  The weirdest thing about the movie though, is that the REASON I couldn’t remember liking it in 1995 was that I didn’t really remember anything at all about the movie.  Because it isn’t memorable. 

     It’s vapid, and empty, (and that’s the point), and it is genuinely a LOT of fun.  But the empty kind of fun, like eating a whole tub of cookie dough ice cream or spending two hours and three hundred bucks at a strip club.  You come out of it knowing you had a good time, but four hours later you can’t for the life of you put your finger on exactly why.

Years:  1992, 1993
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bob Newhart, Carlene Watkins, Cynthia Stevenson, Jere Burns
Guest appearances:  Lisa Kudrow, Betty White, Dick Martin, Tom Poston  
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Did you know that after Newhart, Bob Newhart had another show, cleverly named Bob?  It’s true, he did – I just saw it!  It ran in 1993 for 33 episodes, all of which are on the Complete Series DVD out April 10th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

      Newhart plays Bob McKay, a cartoonist who works on a comic book called Mad Dog.  He has a wife and a daughter and a bunch of very. Quirky. Co-workers.  Now, I LOVE Newhart.  And I think Bob Newhart is one of the funniest people of all time.  But watching him in Bob is like watching Terrell Owens struggling to make the cut in the Indoor Football League.  It’s depressing. 

     See, this is how it works.  Bob will make a long speech about how his daughter is the calmest, most rational human being he has ever known and that nothing can make her freak out.  And THEN, the elevator door opens right behind him, where his daughter is FREAKING OUT!  Which makes his previous speech hilarious because of its proximity to Trisha’s meltdown!

     And that’s it.  Some of the Newhart gang make appearances here and there.  A very young Lisa Kudrow guest stars as a very boring girl very reminiscent of Phoebe on Friends.  And the omnipresent Betty White shows up for the second season as Bob’s boss.  Actually, a whole new cast shows up around Bob Newhart for the second season.  It just didn’t help.  Maybe replacing all the writers would have worked much better than replacing all the actors.  Cause Bob, sadly, for all 33 episodes, really and truly sucked.

     P.S. Here’s a great way to tell that a series is dated, from the pre-internet days. When it has a title that is clearly not google-conscious. In order to get any information at all about Bob, the series starring Bob Newhart about the comic book and then the greeting card company from the early 90s, you pretty much have to type ALL of that in google, and then it’s still the ninth search result.  If only they had seen google coming!  If only they had seen their cancellation coming!

Years:  1979, 1980
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams, Michael McKean, David L. Lander
Guest appearances:  Henry Winkler, Ron Howard
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Happy Days was famous for many things, one of which being the phrase “jumping the shark”.  A 1977 episode where Fonzie jumped over a shark in the water on skis was the definitive moment in the series, where it became abundantly clear that they were out of ideas and that the show would suck forever more.  Now.  The fifth season of Laverne & Shirley comes to DVD April 10^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  It opens with a special feature, a Happy Days crossover episode where Fonzie and Richie have to marry Laverne and Shirley at the point of a farmer’s shotgun.

     See, the Happy Days episode is one big, long, tired farmer’s daughter joke.  Fonzie and Richie have disguised themselves in one of those two-person cow costumes where Fonzie is the head and Richie is the ass.  They sneak onto a farm in the cow costume so they can have sex with two super hot daughters whose father is a gun wielding homicidal maniac.  And they get busted and Laverne and Shirley have to get them out of their predicament.  Now, by the time this crossover episode aired, it had been two full years since Happy Days had jumped the shark.  This crossover episode with the farmer’s daughter and the cow might be the moment they took Laverne and Shirley down with them.

     From then on, throughout the fifth season, Laverne and Shirley is a series of dream sequences, talent shows, joining the army, flashbacks and every other cliché that was already tired in 1979.  They were simply out of ideas, and the decline appears to be as abrupt and precipitous as that of their parent show Happy Days.  It might be worth picking up though, if you have a morbid curiosity about the sudden decline of a decent show, and to see the exact moment where Laverne and Shirley “married the cow”.

     JB Smoove is a comedian who will be most recognizable to most people as Leon Black from the magnificent Curb Your Enthusiasm.  And if you’re familiar with Larry David’s incredibly funny TV show, and the character of Leon, you might believe that JB Smoove will be equally funny when performing stand-up comedy.

     If this is what you believe, you would be wrong.  Oh, there are a few funny moments in his new stand-up DVD, That’s How I Dooz It, out April 3^rd from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I thought his bit about cops running with a bunch of stuff on their belts was very good.  But most of his act is physical humour that goes on way too long.  In the whole 60 minutes, there appear to be only seven actual jokes, each one beaten to death by an overly long physical demonstration of the joke itself.  There’s a chair on stage, but he never sits down, instead using the chair to represent his girlfriend when he describes their sexual intercourse.  He uses the mic cable to represent his sperm, which is actually a lot LESS funny than it sounds.

     During the whole DVD, I laughed for about two minutes.  And two minutes out of sixty is a three percent success rate.  So I am giving JB Smoove That’s How I Dooz It a three percent recommendation (even though at one star, it LOOKS like ten percent).  If you only buy 98 stand-up comedy special DVDs this year, this ought to be one of them!

     On April 3^rd, Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing a stand-up DVD called Lights Out, featuring Filipino stand-up comic Jo Koy.  It’s Koy’s second stand-up special DVD after Don’t Make Him Angry, which came out three years ago, in 2009.  At that time, I predicted that Jo Koy would not be remembered very long, and would be off our radar by 2011.  I was clearly wrong.

     I said that then because I didn’t like Don’t Make Him Angry.  It was all ethnic jokes about being Filipino, and lame attempts at edginess with reference to his kid.  Lights Out is a lot of the same stuff, but it IS (marginally) better.  This time, he riffs on his mother a lot, and some of the edgy stuff is good in that he no longer seems to be trying too hard.  His bit about his mom grabbing his wiener when he was a kid feels real, and a bit about her standing at the foot of his bed monitoring his sleep patterns is very funny.

     I’m still not a big Jo Koy fan.  The really funny bits in this particular routine were few and far between.  And I still find him more tepid than terrific.  But Lights Out is better than Don’t Make Him Angry, so I feel like three years from NOW, I might actually find that Jo Koy has become decent.

Years:  1965, 1971  
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bob Crane, Richard Dawson, Werner Klemperer, John Banner
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Until I got the Fan Favorites DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment, out March 6^th, I had never seen an episode of Hogan’s Heroes.  I always thought it was a sort of comedic army show, like Sgt. Bilko, and that everyone would be sort of cartoonish.

     And I was (sort of) right.  Everyone IS sort of cartoonish, except for Hogan himself.  Ben Crane played Hogan as a serious, faintly bemused prisoner of war in the centre of a bonkers world.  HE is pretty well normal.  Colonel Klink is a cartoon, the pompous, vain and stupid overseer of the Nazi war camp.  Even more of a cartoon is Sgt. Schulz, the totally moronic captain of the guard who has very little to offer outside his catchphrase, “I see nothing!”

     What really surprised me, though, is that (at least in the eight episodes chosen for this DVD) the prisoners were actually DOING stuff.  Smuggling a high value spy out of the country.  Helping distract the German high command on the eve of the D-Day invasion.  And in one episode, they actually KILL a whole bunch of Nazis themselves when they replace their fake ammunition with live stuff for their war games.

     At its heart though, Hogan’s Heroes is really another cartoonish war sitcom, showcasing the hilarious side of being captured and kept prisoner by the Nazis.  And after all, if you can`t laugh about a camp set up by Nazis, then what CAN you find funny!

Years:  1955, 1956  
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney, Joyce Randolph
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I have seen only a handful of episodes of The Honeymooners in my life.  You know, when it comes on TV in reruns and I happen across it.  And I’m pretty sure that the only five episodes I have ever seen are included on the Honeymooners Fan Favorites DVD out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment. 

     There’s one where Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton share a TV set and hilarity ensues.  Another where Ralph finds a suitcase full of money on the bus, the one where Norton keeps sleepwalking, a show where Ralph and Ed make an infomercial to sell a do-it-all kitchen gadget, and the one where Ralph goes on a game show and embarrasses himself.  Now, apparently, the fans who voted for their favorite episodes on facebook have seen all the same episodes I have.  In fact, I’m starting to think that there ARE only eight or ten episodes that show up in re-runs.

     It’s neat though to see Ralph Kramden’s progression from the beginning of the show to a few episodes after the beginning of the show.  At first, he threatens Alice with a punch that will send her right to the moon.  By the end, he’s just using hand gestures to show her how quickly she will get there.  What a character arc he had, that Kramden!

Years:  1972, 1973, 1974 
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jack Klugman, Tony Randall, Betty White
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I love the old Odd Couple TV show.  It’s a little dated now, since we’ve seen so many TV shows based on the same basic premise since then.  Frasier and Two and a Half Men and countless other shows owe a big debt to Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.  Their chemistry was fantastic, and it’s showcased admirably in the new DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment, The Odd Couple Fan Favorites, out March 6th.

     There are eight great episodes on the best-of DVD, my favorite being the one where Oscar and Felix team up to go on the game show Password.  Which I guess was pretty big in the 70s.  The show was hosted by Alan Ludden, who guest stars on the episode with his wife at the time, Betty White. 

     What I found hilarious was that they made fun of Betty White’s age.  Her AGE!  Haha, she’s an old woman!  Remember, this episode was from 1972!  That’s right, Betty White was hilariously old FORTY years ago.  Ah, some things never change!

     There are some other guest appearances on the disc, including Bubba Smith who was playing for the Raiders at the time.  The best thing about the Fan Favorites DVD set though, is that at eight episodes, it is all the Odd Couple that you need.

Years:  1974, 1975
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Henry Winkler, Ron Howard, Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Erin Moran, Anson Williams, Donny Most
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I was really hoping that the Happy Days Fan Favorites DVD, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, would include the jumping the shark episode.  But it doesn’t.  One of the most iconic moments in television history, and just because it was STUPID, and it RUINED THE SHOW, they left it off the best of list.

     Then again, there was an awful lot of stuff left off that list.  Like, the final eight seasons of the show.  All eight episodes are from the first two seasons, when Fonzie was a secondary character and Ralph Malph and Potsie had a lot of screen time. 

     The first episode on the disc is the first ever episode of the show, where Richie Cunningham gets a date with a girl who has the reputation of putting out.  But then she doesn’t.  There’s a Hallowe’en episode involving a party at a haunted house, and a Christmas episode where Fonzie pretends he’s going to his aunt’s house out of town but the Cunninghams know he is going to be alone and conspire to get him over to their house for Christmas dinner.

     This is all fine, they’re good episodes and I like Happy Days, but are these really the fan favorites?  The pilot, the Hallowe’en episode, the Christmas episode?  It feels like this is a best-of chosen by a focus group rather than actual fans.  Maybe that’s because the fan poll was taken on facebook, and there are only nine people on all of facebook who actually remember the original run of Happy Days.