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!

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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.

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Years:  1987, 1989
Genre:  TV series, Action
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Richard Dean Anderson, Dana Elcar, Michael Des Barres
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     MacGyver remains one of my favorite shows of all time.  Not so much because of the quality of the show which, in retrospect, was seriously deficient.  For me, it’s more of a nostalgia thing, from the days when I was a little kid and didn’t know any better and thought MacGyver was the coolest guy I could even imagine.

     So the Fan Favorites DVD of MacGyver, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, was exciting for me.  No Cuba Gooding Jr., no Teri Hatcher, no Mayim Bialik, three of the most famous recurring actors on the series.  But three of the five episodes are some of my best childhood memories, like the one where MacGyver and his grandfather get trapped in the Phoenix foundation by international terrorists. 

     The only episodes I didn’t really like are the Legend of the Holy Rose episodes, a two-part show where MacGyver is essentially re-imagined as Indiana Jones.  Even when I was six, that was a little too silly for me.  But the highlights of this best-of set have to be the episodes that involve MacGyver’s unkillable nemesis, Murdoc. 

     There’s an episode where Murdoc is chasing MacGyver through the mountains and appears to fall to his death.  But of course he lives, somehow.  And the greatest episode of them all, the utterly silly, totally bonkers episode where MacGyver and Murdoc team up to save Murdoc’s sister from this shadowy, evil and totally insane assassin’s club. 

     They have to crawl through a supposedly unbeatable obstacle course where they are shot at with automatic weapons and left to die.  It’s staggeringly cheesy, utterly implausible and totally awesome.  It’s MacGyver.

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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.

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Years:  1995, 1997, 1999, 2001
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, Jane Leeves
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Frasier was always a great show, and eight of the best episodes are now packaged together on the Frasier Fan Favorites DVD out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I was kind of hoping for a bunch of episodes that reunited Frasier with his old friends from Cheers, like the one where Diane comes to Seattle wither her new play.

     But I guess that since the Cheers Fan Favorites is being released on the same day, there’s not really much point in bringing all those characters back.  Instead, we get what feels like eight randomly chosen episodes –

     Frasier gets sick and Niles fills in for him at the radio station, which makes Frasier paranoid that Niles could take his job.  Frasier gets caught in Daphne’s room a couple of times and they fight.  There’s a radio play, a bunch of episodes where Niles lusts after Daphne, and a huge amount of romantic misunderstandings. 

     Had I not been a Frasier fan for years, I would think that the show was nothing but romantic misunderstandings and people chasing other people.  Actually, I guess it kind of was.

     But it was a great show about chasing women and then misunderstanding them.  The only problem with a DVD featuring eight of the fan favorite episodes is that it leaves me wanting more.  In addition to wanting the Cheers related episodes, I wanted some with Lilith, which I always thought were funniest.  Then again, the Cheers Fan Favorites covers all the Lilith bases as well!

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Years:  1982, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1992
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Woody Harrelson, Rhea Perlman, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Kirstie Alley, Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth, Nicholas Colasanto
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

                So, there’s a facebook poll to choose the episodes of Cheers that are the “Fan Favorites”.  And fans vote, and the eight top episodes are put onto a DVD called Fan Favorites, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  Eight episodes of Cheers (well, nine if you count the two-part episode about Woody and Kelly’s wedding).  And there is only ONE episode with Rebecca Howe. 

                I guess fans really liked Shelley Long as Diane, much more than Kirstie Alley as Rebecca.  I get that, I much preferred Diane too.  What’s funny here though, is that while there is just one episode with Rebecca in it, there are TWO that centre around Frasier’s relationship with Lilith.  The one where she and Frasier get together after a TV appearance together, and the one where they move in with each other and invite Sam and Diane over for dinner.  Then there’s the pilot episode, the Thanksgiving episode at Carla’s house, the one where Sam fixes Diane up on a date with a murderer, and the one where Harry the con man helps Coach get back some money that was scammed from him.

                It’s all great, of course, because Cheers is great.  But TWO episodes about Lilith, who was a tertiary character at best, and only one featuring Rebecca, who was on the show for more than half its run?  Take that, Kirstie Alley!  Facebook doesn’t like YOU at all!

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Year:  2011
Genre:  Remake, Drama, Garbage
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell, Miles Teller
Eye candy:  Hough, Ziah Colon, Kim Dickens
Director:  Craig Brewer
Run time:  113 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I’m not sure that Footloose was any good in 1984.  And I know that today, it just hasn’t held up well over time, and is as dated as any movie has ever been.  So it would seem like a good idea to do a remake for today’s audiences, who watch Kevin Bacon doing a tractor race and roll their eyes and smirk when watching the original.

     The problem with doing a remake though, is that the idea was a pretty cheesy, bad one to begin with.  And the 2011 version of Footloose does absolutely nothing to change any of the things that made the original lame.  Oh, it’s different alright.  See now, in 2011, instead of a tractor race it’s a race in schoolbusses.  And instead of listening to Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head” on his car’s tape deck, Ren McCormack now listens to…Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head”.  On an iPod. 

     The premise is still exactly the same – new kid comes to a town where they have outlawed dancing and fun and have imposed a curfew.  He piques the interest of the minister’s daughter and changes the town and blah blah blah. 

     The only bright spot in this remake, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, is the ludicrously hot Julianne Hough, who wears totally hot slutty clothes through the whole movie so that Ren can change her into the good girl she’s supposed to be and get her into like a turtleneck or something at the end.

     Everything that was lame and dated about the original Footloose remains intact in the remake.  The same music.  The same small town jerks and small town cool guys.  Ren’s best friend is played by Miles Teller, who seems to have been cast based solely on his remarkable resemblance to Peyton Manning. 

     The worst thing in the movie though has to be the finale.  Of course, the kids finally break out and dance to assert their freedom!  Which is as I expected.  But dude, it’s 2011.  And what are they dancing to?  What music makes them move?  Is it Cee-Lo, or Deadmouse?  No.  These kids celebrate their modern independence and throwing off the shackles of their oppressive parents by kickin it to…Footloose.  A (very slightly) amped up version, admittedly, as done by Blake Shelton.  But it’s still Footloose, and it still sucks.

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Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer
Director:  Martin Scorcese
Run time:  126 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

                Martin Scorcese has done something that I never thought Martin Scorcese could do.  I knew he could make amazing gangster movies, great rock and roll documentaries, and intense thrillers.  But he’s made a kids movie with no murders at all, and it’s GREAT!

                Hugo is an incredible film, visually stunning and thoroughly charming.  It’s about a little boy named Hugo who lives in a massive railway station in Paris in the early 30s.  His parents are dead, his uncle has vanished, and Hugo runs around the inner workings of the clocks in the station, winding them and making them all run on time.  Hugo is trying to put together a puzzle left for him by his father, he’s running away from the station inspector, and he’s tentatively making friends with Isabelle, the god-daughter of the station’s toy store owner. 

               Together, Hugo and Isabelle set out to solve the mystery that connects his dead father with her god father.  The actors are wonderful, especially Chloe Grace Moretz as Isabelle and Ben Kingsley as her guardian Georges.  But what makes Hugo such a charming and wonderful fantasy is Scorcese’s palpable and infectious love of movies.

                Hugo is, in many ways, as much of a tribute to the silent movie era and film pioneers as is The Artist.  And coming to DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment on February 28th, two days after both movies tied with five Oscars apiece, is perfect timing.  Go out and get this movie.   Hugo is magnificent, and it’s for more than just kids.

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Year:  2011
Genre:  Romance, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Alex Kingston
Director:  Drake Doremus
Run time:  90 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

                There was a commercial once, I think for jeans, that you might remember.  Two people, a hot young guy and a hot young woman, get on an elevator together.  They look at each other and this entire life together flashes in front of them.  They fall in love and get married have a kid get all blissful.  Then the elevator doors open and they go their separate ways.  I found it, here it is:

                I kept thinking about that commercial while watching Like Crazy, which comes to DVD March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that this movie was just that commercial, stretched out from thirty seconds to ninety minutes.  It stars Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones as a young couple who fall in love.  There is a montage to show us they are in love.  Music plays and they run on the beach and take a bike ride and sit and talk under trees. 

               Then she has to move back to England and there are problems with her immigration status and they are kept apart by circumstances beyond their control.  When they DO see each other, their relationship is strained by the distance between them.  We learn this through another long musical montage as they sit apart from each other under…a tree.  And mope about sadly on…a beach.

                There is (a bit of) a surprise ending and some very good performances in Like Crazy.  Yelchin is good, and Felicity Jones and Jennifer Lawrence are both exceptional.  But I just couldn’t get into the film, because these constant long montages made it feel like it was taking an hour and a half to tell me a two minute story.

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Year:   2010  
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Director:  Tim Wolff
Featuring:  New Orleans drag queens
Run time:  75 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

                Sons of Tennessee Williams, on DVD now from First Run Features, is a glittering documentary about glittering drag queens in glittering parades in glittering New Orleans.  It’s very shiny.  But it’s also quite deep, as interspersed with the joyous celebration of gay Mardi Gras is a considerable amount of sober reflection on civil rights. 

                The history of the gay Mardi Gras, the civil rights battles and the gay clubs in New Orleans is what really fascinated me about the documentary.  I mean, yes, the drag queens and their parade and their exuberance is fun, but when put in context it’s a far more interesting event.  The inclusion of archival footage goes a long way to putting today’s celebrations in context.  And the coolest characters in the movie are the old men – sometimes VERY old men – who were there when the whole thing started.

                Sons of Tennessee Williams is more than just a voyeuristic look into the world of drag queens and gay Mardi Gras.  Although it is that also.  It’s also a thought-provoking civil rights documentary that works on many levels.  I highly recommend it.

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Year:   2011  
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Directors:  Vanessa Roth, Brian McGinn
Featuring:  American teachers
Narrator:  Matt Damon
Run time:  80 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

                American Teacher, on DVD now from First Run Features, is a documentary, narrated by Matt Damon, that looks at the teaching profession in America.  As its title would suggest.  And that’s about it.  There’s not much here that looks deeper at the education problems in the States, or presents solutions.  It just profiles a bunch of teachers.  For me, that’s more than enough.

                It’s amazing what it takes to be a teacher in the States.  Most of the teachers in the movie have second jobs.  We meet a football coach who works in a warehouse during his time away from school so he can provide for his family.  A woman who must work all the way through her pregnancy, and come back right after having her baby, because she gets so little maternity leave.  A great teacher who leaves teaching for a career in real estate because there’s just not enough money in the profession. 

                In the end, that’s the message we get from all the teachers in the movie.  There is NO money in it.  There’s a teacher in the film who, toward the end of the documentary, gets a job paying six figures in an experimental school.  The experiment is paying good teachers good money.  The point is made that almost none of the best graduates go into teaching, for the same reason.  Again, there’s no money in it.

                American Teacher is full of fascinating people and interesting stories.  And for that reason, I really enjoyed it.  But if you’re watching it more for a message, I can boil it down for you right here.  American teachers make no money.  That’s it.

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Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Tom McGrath, Jeff Glen Bennett, John DiMaggio, Danny Jacobs, James Patrick Stewart, Andy Richter, Mary Scheer, Tara Strong, Nicole Sullivan
Director:  Bret Haaland
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     There’s another Penguins of Madagascar DVD coming out February 14th, from Paramount Home Entertainment, this one called Operation Get Ducky.  See, there’s this egg that Marlene finds, and she brings it to the penguins because they’re birds and ought to know what to do with it.  Apparently, these aren’t the penguins from March of the Penguins, where the males nurture the eggs until they hatch.

     No, these are the Madagascar penguins, who somehow manage to train the egg to be a super-commando before it hatches into a little computer animated baby duck.  The second episode is also about the duck, who comes back to the zoo as a fully-formed little ninja baby, and decides to beat up everyone in the place.  Including the elephants.  Because that’s what you would do, if you were a ninja commando duckling. 

     Of course, after that, the theme of the duck disappears entirely so the DVD can be filled out with six more episodes that have nothing to do with a vicious little duckling.  King Julien gets introduced to April Fool’s Day, Marlene goes outside the zoo for a while and becomes a feral otter, the crocodile comes to live in the penguins’ enclosure for a time, and some hornets keep showing up and threatening to sting everyone’s face. 

     Penguins of Madagascar is as entertaining as ever, and Operation Get Ducky is pretty much the same as every other DVD they’ve put out.  A few tangentially related episodes and a bunch of filler.  The way I figure it, you either like it or you don’t.  And nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like the gift of a children’s animated DVD!

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

     Beavis And Butthead Volume Four hits DVD February 21^st from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I’ve always thought the funniest thing about Beavis and Butthead was their commentary on music videos.  But today, there are precious few music videos for them to skewer.  You can watch MTV for an entire day now, and see no music videos at all.

     But then, MTV has an awful lot of shows.  And if there was one reason to bring back Beavis and Butthead (and I will say that I am still not sure there WAS any good reason to bring them back), it’s Jersey Shore.  Oh, sure, it’s funny when they watch Teen Cribs or True Life, or comment on 16 and Pregnant.  But it’s Jersey Shore that really brings out the comic genius in Beavis and Butthead. 

     Even the seemingly innocuous clips from the show, like J-Wow talking about how cool it is that she gets to make pizza in Florence Italy, become absolutely hilarious when seen through the eyes of two high school losers.  Sure, there are still some music videos.  Apparently, MTV still does that.  Sometimes. 

     And there are of course Beavis and Butthead episodes, with plots and everything, like the one where the boys discover that they still get paid while taking bathroom breaks so they spend their entire shift in the bathroom.  But the only really funny stuff comes from Jersey Shore.

     It makes me wish, in a way, the Beavis and Butthead revival had happened a few years earlier, during the time of The Hills and A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila.  The thing is, they don’t watch Jersey Shore every episode.  Sometimes they watch The Ultimate Fighter instead.  Which is fine, but not nearly as good.  So I don’t know if I would recommend sitting through the entire two disc collection.  I can get just as much of a belly laugh from the reality show commentary on The Soup.

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Year:  2011
Genre:  Drama, Crime, Dark
Country:  United States
Language:   English
Starring:  Sam Worthington, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jessica Chastain, Annabeth Gish
Director:  Ami Canaan Mann
Run time:  105 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     I remember a few years ago, when the movie Kick-Ass came out, and everyone was ranting and raving about Chloe Grace Moretz and her performance as Hit-Girl.  Well, some were ranting and some were raving.  Such a young girl playing such an adult role!  She’ll be screwed up for life!  It’s totally inappropriate!  Also, she’s incredibly GOOD!

     I’m surprised that those offended by Kick-Ass haven’t said a thing about Texas Killing Fields, where Chloe Moretz plays a much, much darker and more horrific role than anything one could have imagined in Kick-Ass.  She plays a little girl whose drunken disgusting mother keeps kicking her out of the house so she can prostitute herself to the locals. There is a constant undercurrent of menace there too, like this unfortunate little girl could be abused at any time, or worse.  And there are much worse things going on in Texas Killing Fields. A serial killer is abducting, raping and murdering women, then dumping their bodies in the middle of nowhere in an oil field.  Sam Worthington and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are the small town cops hunting down the killer and dealing with creepy locals.

     The one film I can compare this one to (for those still interested in watching a dark, freaky, gut-wrenching movie) is Winter’s Bone.  It’s similarly bleak, it’s just as creepy and dangerous a small town, but instead of crystal meth labs it’s underage prostitution rings.  Still want to see it?  Good, you should see it.  Texas Killing Fields may be bleak and harsh and dark but it’s VERY good, and it’s on DVD today from Alliance Films.

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Year:  1970
Genre:  Blu-Ray, Romance, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Ali McGraw, Ryan O’Neal, Ray Milland, John Marley
Notable bit part:  Tommy Lee Jones
Director:  Arthur Hiller
Run time:  99 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Movies don’t get more chick flicky than Love Story.  Ali McGraw, Ryan O’Neal, two kids in love and defying the odds in this crazy world.  Parents that just don’t understand, the failed attempts to start a family, the sudden diagnosis of a horrible disease, and the bizarre decision to keep that diagnosis from the person it affects most.  And of course, it’s all about “love means never having to say you’re sorry” and the huge tear-jerker ending.

     Now, that being said, here’s the thing about Love Story.  It’s good.  Like, actually, geninuely GOOD.  Love Story is what chick flicks should be – it’s entertaining enough and the characters are likeable and genuine enough that I can stomach the maudlin boo-hoo business that closes out the film.  I actually LIKE Love Story.  It’s deservedly a classic, although sadly a classic that spawned a whole lot of inferior and putrid movies from the same template…Sandra Bullock, Hugh Grant and Katherine Heigl, I’m looking at your careers…

     Now Love Story is on Blu-Ray for the first time, February 7^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  It’s a good transfer, and the movie holds up well without feeling dated.  I would, however, just throw in a word of caution here. This is NOT a good way to suck up to your wife or girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. Not only can YOUR love never measure up to this one in any way, but you will also spend most of the rest of the evening wiping away tears and not getting laid.  Just sayin’.

     One more thing.  There is a small chance that you, too, will cry while watching Love Story.  If this happens, there is a good chance that your wife will notice, and an even better chance that she will bring it up at dinner parties for years to come.  So, watch this.  Cause it’s good.  But maybe do it alone, to preserve whatever masculinity you might have!

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