Another Not-on-DVD Update!

Okay, I had to get on here real quick and post this because, kids, this one is a shocker.

Many of you already know my love for the hard-to-find movies (NO!) and how thrilled I am to find one and know that I am one of the chosen few who actually owns it on DVD o VHS or whatever.

Well, there is a certain statute for some movies, I guess, when the company who originally released it decides that, yes, the public-at-large has waited long enough indeed and reaches the conclusion to throw us a bone and allow us our little victory and give us what we want.

For some of these, I get a little sad because it means that now I won't be one of the few who owns it - I'll be one of the hundreds of thousands who ALSO owns it.

But for others, I say - it's about flippin' time they got off their collective white-collar tuckuses and did this.

THIS is one of those "flippin' time" times.

The date will be September 28, 2010.

The company will be VCI Entertainment.

The sound of a little girl's squeal of excitement will be coming from you.

And the event will be the release of this:

Yes. That's right. You read me.

Amazon backs me up.

And so does VCI Entertainment themselves.
As hard as it is to believe, one of the greatest scarecrow-based horror movies ever made is FINALLY getting an official release. You may now do your happy Snoopy dance in front of your PC. I know I did one.

And why is this such a monumental occasion? because Dark Night of the Scarecrow has all the atmosphere, all the fright, all the heart-stopping, pillow-grabbing shocks and scares that good old-fashioned scary stories should have. It even features Charles Durning in all-out creep mode.
Trust me: even if you haven't heard of this movie before, you'll WANT to get this one.

If I already didn't have a great copy of this my own self, I'd be grabbing this new one up! But that's a collector for you.

Just to whet your now-quivering appetite for more, I leave you with the clip of the beginning of this classic horror...which is about to become a classic again.



Start saving your nickels and dimes, kids; and remember - my birthday's in a couple of months!

BUBBA LIKE!

Dope out.

-TGWD

Is It Too Much To Ask...? (MST3K Edition)

Since I tried (and failed) to get the attention of no less than Jerry Lewis with my previous posting in this vein, I thought it might be a good idea to take a moment and think about what went wrong....

Then it came to me: Jer's a busy man and he probably doesn't have the time to surf the Web and check out the postings of every good Samaritan who comes along and wants to help him preserve his comedic and filmic genius.

Like me.

And you know what? Fair enough. It's not like I'm redacting my previous post and denying my aid to him. Far from it - Mister Lewis, you're still out there and have read my post offering my services, please consider my offering.

But in the meantime, I will offer a like service to some other comedic geniuses.

The minds behind my favorite television show of all time, "Mystery Science Theater 3000".

Briefly for the uninitiated, MST3K (for brevity) was a show that featured the semi-evil Dr. Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and his experimentation on both Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson) and Mike Nelson (Mike Nelson), separately, in forcing them to watch the worst films ever made. Both men make the best of the situation by riffing on every films shown. But they have the help of man-made robots Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy), Crow T. Robot (Trace Beaulieu or Bill Corbett, depending on which season you see) and Gypsy (Jim Mallon or Patrick Brantseg, again, depending on the season).

Every episode was worth watching, worth laughing out loud with and, for 198 episodes, fans all over the world did just that, whether it was on the Comedy Network, Comedy Chanel or Sci Fi Channel.

Any MSTie fan worth their weight has seen each and every episode ever made. All of them, that is, except for two or three.

You see, besides the ten nationally televised seasons of this classic series, there is also a season known as "Season 0". This was broadcast on local Minneapolis TV station KTMA and consisted of 21 episodes of funny stuff and bad movies. The titles consisted of such "classics" as these:

K04 Gamera vs. Barugon
An egg yields a mutant lizard named Barugon which fights the giant turtle Gamera.

K05 Gamera
A nuclear explosion awakens a giant turtle, which goes on a rampage but is befriended by a boy.

K06 Gamera vs. Gyaos
Gamera fights the pterodactyl-like Gyaos.

K07 Gamera vs. Zigra
Gamera fights a shark-like alien named Zigra.

K08 Gamera vs. Guiron
Gamera saves two boys from brain-eating aliens and the monster Guiron.

K09 Phase IV
Weird cosmological phenomena cause ants in Arizona to go on a rampage.

K10 Cosmic Princess
A re-edit of two Space: 1999 episodes, "The Metamorph" and "Space Warp". Moonbase Alpha encounters an evil scientist with phenomenal destructive powers and his shapeshifting daughter, who joins the Moonbase crew but later proves to be a danger to them.

K11 Humanoid Woman
Astronauts probing an abandoned spaceship find a female clone whose planet is threatened by pollution and a dictatorship.

K12 Fugitive Alien
Starwolf Ken casts his lot with the Earthling crew of Bacchus 3. See 310 Fugitive Alien for details.

K13 SST: Death Flight
A transatlantic SST has inflight problems thanks to "repairs" by a disgruntled engineer, and the plane is not allowed to make an emergency landing because of a flu virus carton that's been blown open. This 1977 made-for-TV disaster movie features an all-star cast.

K14 Mighty Jack
Dubbed Japanese adventure show about top-secret organization "Mighty Jack" and their identically-named flying submarine.

K15 Superdome
A terrorist threatens the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Stars Tom Selleck, David Janssen, Van Johnson, Donna Mills, Clifton Davis, Edie Adams, and a few ex-football stars.

K16 City on Fire
Disaster film centered on a hospital as an oil refinery explosion ignites an entire town. An all-star cast includes Henry Fonda, Ava Gardner, Shelley Winters, and Leslie Nielsen.

K17 Time of the Apes
Dubbed Japanese movie about a woman and two kids taking refuge in cryogenic capsules, only to awake in a world populated by apes. See 306 Time of the Apes for details.

K18 The Million Eyes of Sumuru
A female villain plans to take over the world. Stars Frankie Avalon and Shirley Eaton.

K19 Hangar 18
A Space shuttle experiment accidentally kills an astronaut and downs a UFO, which is captured by the military and transferred to a hangar in West Texas for analysis. Eager to win re-election, the President keeps the UFO secret and casts blame at the surviving astronauts, who go on a quest to blow the lid on the coverup.

K20 The Last Chase
In a Mad Max-type future, America has no gas and an ex-racecar driver makes his way to California. Stars Lee Majors and Burgess Meredith.

K21 Legend of the Dinosaurs
Seismic activity around Mount Fuji awakens hibernating dinosaurs, who go on a rampage.

...now, the astute among you will have noticed that, while this list indeed ends with the number "21", there are only eighteen episodes listed. And right you are; of the 21 episodes made, only 18 have ever been...well, let's just say "made available".

The first three episodes of Season 0 are these:

K01 Invaders from the Deep
Movie version of Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation puppet series Stingray, about the eponymous super-submarine operated by the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASPs), fighting aquatic creatures who attempt to take over the planet.

K02 Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars
Movie version of Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation puppet series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a space adventure about an international intelligence agency trying to save the earth from destruction by aliens.

K03 Star Force: Fugitive Alien 2
Starwolf Ken and the Bacchus 3 crew are on a mission to destroy a secret weapon.

Apparently the other episodes are only available because some enterprising TV viewers in the Minneapolis area had their VCRs at the ready and recorded the episodes we (MSTies) know and love. These first three, however, seem to have escaped most peoples' recorders and/or radar.

Which means that the only ones who have these episodes would, logically, be the original producers of the KTMA season of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" - in this case, Joel Hodgson and Jim Mallon.

And so, to these fine gentlemen, I offer this proposal:

Dear Mr. Hodgson and/or Mr. Mallon:

I know that both of you have plenty on your respective plates, what with individual projects and maintaining your busy lives of comedic and professional fulfillment. I also know that in order to keep tabs on the voluminous original masters of the many episodes of this classic show that you have created, the most precious of your collection would be the as-yet-unseen-by-modern-viewers KTMA episodes K01 through K03.

My proposal is that, with these particular episodes, entrust them to me and I will be more than happy to recopy them onto my own supply of DVD stock so that, not only do these original masters lose none o their original luster, but in case (God forbid) any of the originals get irreparably damaged, you will know someone who will have copies that are just as good and as unharmed as when they were first produced.

If this is an idea that appeals to you and would be agreeable to putting your minds at ease as to these irreplaceable classic episodes' safety, please contact me through this site and I will send you my mailing address and postage-paid envelopes to send your originals to me, after which, I will be able to hold up my end of the bargain.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me as soon as you are able.

Now, if the boys are agreeable, I can then get the nerve necessary to contact the White House about safekeeping those pesky audio tapes they seem to have trouble guarding around the Nixon era. They have enough to worry about in Washington anymore.

Dope out.

- TGWD

A (NSFW) Not-On-DVD Update!

Hey kids:

Remember several dozen posts ago when I posted a little item on what movies weren't on DVD yet?

And one of them was quite a little jaw-dropper by the name of The African Queen?

Remember how surprised I was by the fact that such a classic of American cinema had not yet seen the light of a DVD pressing factory?

Remember that?

Well, guess what?

THIS:

Barnes and Noble

Wal-Mart

Amazon

FYE

Best Buy

Target

Deep Discount

Overstock.com

CD Universe

Blockbuster

DVDs.com


Yes, and it's about ding-danged time, too!

YARSH, what does it take for studios to realize there's a demand for movies this good to be out for public consumption? As the past owners of a particular Iowa farm land-turned baseball field observed, "if you build it, they will come". Well, Paramount made the DVD, and the public has grabbed it up. Point made.

Of course, before THIS little beauty came to be, the world had to make due with little bootlegs from less-than-reputable companies...not like this kind of thing is an everyday occurrence naturally. Heavens forbid.

Not like this was available beforehand:
























And your eyes aren't deceiving you: those ARE Asian symbols just below the actors' names. And no, you've probably never heard of The Castaways DVD company before. Apparently, they're a little company that comes out of the UK that specializes in skimming things like this juuuust under the radar. And since it's an all-regions disc, it can wiggle past the whole Region 1/Region 2/ Region 3 debate.

Thing is, since this was foreign DVD work done on a US movie, when it came to closed-captioning it for other countries, something (even a FEW things) got lost in the translation. Since people apparently worked on this for whom English was, let's just say, not their first language, a few scenes got a little...different.

Take for example the scene near the end of the movie where Bogie and Kate are dressing up the ship to attack a German ship, and they begin to argue about who should be the one to pilot the ship out. Kate rightly asks "Who do you think you are to order me around?" And Bogie, cigar clamped tight in his jaw, storms right up to her and growls, "I'm the Captain, that's who, and I won't take you along!"

Good scene, right? How could they mis-caption that?

Well, I guess Bogie does kind of mumble around his stogie and part of his sentence is hard to understand to the cheap labor they have over at The Castaways, so his semi-classic line instead becomes a line for the ages:


























BOGIE!

Do you kiss Lauren Bacall with that mouth???!

Calling poor Kate Hepburn names, shame on you.

I have yet to see the new pressing for African Queen, so I don't know if they did any better with the captioning or not. Maybe one of my regulars can inform me. I would hope so, seeing as how it just tries to PG-13 the joint up. Maybe they did it on purpose, to appeal to a larger audience who expects some of the Seven Words You Can't Say On Television in every movie they watch nowadays.

Myself, I just hope The Castaways never gets hold of The Sound Of Music; I don't necessarily want to read Julie Andrews cussing out Christopher Plummer.

Dope out.

- TGWD

North (1994)

This is the movie your mother warned you about.

This is the movie that topped every Worst list of 1994.

This is the movie that made movie projectors the world over fear electricity.

This is the movie that made Roger Ebert use the word "hated" more than in any other review he'd done before or since.

This is the movie that forced Rob Reiner to return all the awards he won for directing Misery and The Princess Bride (okay, maybe that one needs some verification, but anyway...).

And you know what...?

I liked it. A lot.

In fact, this one is probably my favorite Elijah Wood movie.

Popular opinion (and box office receipts) be damned, North is a funny, sustained comedy that keeps its momentum from beginning to end. In fact, it holds up better than a lot of other so-called comedies that have come out in recent years.

Then why no love from the rest of humanity?

Before I get too far ahead of myself, North was adapted from a book (believe it or not) written by Alan Zweibel, who also adapted the screenplay; not to mention the fact that Zweibel was the writer behind such works as 1987's Dragnet, plus many episodes of "It's Garry Shandling's Show", "Saturday Night Live" and all five episodes of NBC's long-forgotten "The New Show". Hey, can't bat a thousand all the time.

The story is one that is probably already known by you since, after all, you're reading a site like mine as it is. But regardless: North (Elijah Wood) is a perfect young boy who gets good grades in school, does great in sports, acts and sings well in all school productions - it's the kind of thing where parents the world over use North as the barometer by which their own children should measure their own success as children. Thing is, not all is perfect in North's world since he feels that his parents (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander) pay more attention to the irritations and demands in their own lives than they do to him.

Every kid's dilemma: not enough appreciation from your parents who seem to take you for granted.

A schoolmate of North's named Winchell (Matthew McCurley), seemingly named and modeled after the self-same story-hungry reporter, convinces North that what he needs is new parents. Warming to this idea, North is quickly befriended by over-reaching lawyer Arthur Belt (Jon Lovitz), who guides North through the legal system and, once his emancipation is won, North is on a quest to find new and more attentive parents.

His travels take him from Texas to Hawaii to Alaska to Africa to France to Amish country to all other points in-between...but will he find new parents before he must become a ward of the state? And what is Winchell's stake in all of this?

One thing that immediately warmed me to this movie was the presence of Wood. He was, without a doubt, one of the most engaging, talented and charming of the child actors of his day. He certainly acted rings around the likes of Macaulay Culkin and proved his chops in films like Paradise, Forever Young and The Adventures of Huck Finn. Of course, his career since then speaks for itself, but in North, Elijah has a self-aware sensibility to his acting and facial expressions that cannot be beaten, and is effortlessly charming in every scene.

But what about his co-stars? I already mentioned Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander and Lovitz, but there are also parts, big and small, for actors the likes of Alan Arkin (as a court judge who specializes in family cases and one-liners), Dan Aykroyd and Reba McEntire (as two big and loud Texan parents), Graham Greene, Kathy Bates, Abe Vigoda and Richard Belzer (as your average Alaskans), Ben Stein (as a monotone - surprise! - museum guide), Alexander Godunov and Kelly McGillis (as soft-spoken Amish parents), Faith Ford, John Ritter and a very young Scarlett Johansson (as a typical perfect American family). This is a big-name cast for a movie in 1994, and all of them do well, I thought.

But the biggest recurring character is Bruce Willis, who plays more parts in this movie than he has in any other movie. He's kind of a guardian angel of North's who pops up in various guises as an Easter Bunny, a ranch hand, a beach comber, a sleigh driver, a lounge comedian, and a Federal Express driver who's probably the best form of advertisement the company's had in a decade. North seems to get the same message from each incarnation of Willis each time he sees him: every kid needs his parents. There's worse messages for a movie to have, and it at least works for a kid-oriented comedy like this one.

I can see where a lot of people would think that North was a bad movie. After all, it takes the idea of kids separating from their parents even more lightly than 1984's Irreconcilable Differences, in which Drew Barrymore divorced from parents Ryan O'Neal and Shelley Long. Of course, for a movie as purely spun from fantasy as this one, keeping things real is the last thing on Reiner's and Zweibel's minds.

Comedy is the main course being served at this dinner and everyone feasts on it as if they were starving. Practically every line in North is a setup for a one-liner, sight gag or double-take. There's as much visual humor here as your average Marx Brothers movie contains. As a matter of fact, every time I watch North I find myself repeating lines like "There's no place like home...with the possible exception of Vegas when Sinatra's in town." This movie is full of dialogue that brings a laugh, chuckle, appreciative giggle or even an outright guffaw.

Like I said, I enjoy North a lot. In spite of all the good things and positive influence of humor, this still earned only $7 million on a $40 million budget. It's a shame, really; this doesn't even have a legitimate DVD release, and I think I have one of the few VHS copies left of North (grabbed for $2 - a steal from what I've found online), so anyone who wants to see this movie is going to have to search long and hard for it. Like any treasure worth having, North is going to be a tough one to dig for.

Again, though, I have to ask why it is that no one else seems to like this film. Insulting stereotypes is the main thing I keep hearing, but nothing here is any more nor less stereotypical than what you'd see in a normal 1940s cartoon. I didn't find them all that insulting, though. It's not like Reiner and company are intentionally setting out to insult anyone - it's like Bugs Bunny putting on a kilt and doing his Scottish brogue: it's all kind of unaffected by criticism.

In the end, North is Elijah Wood's film and he runs with it. This is a fun film and has some funny moments.

Of course, with a review like this, I feel like the only cheerleader for a team who's never won a game.

Am I, though?

Is this the only positive review for North to be found anywhere? I wouldn't think so but then again there are people who think the world of The Underground Comedy Movie.

Am I the only one in the world (besides Rob Reiner) who finds any entertainment value in this film? There would have to be more people than that who have a sense of humor that isn't so easily influenced by the ACLU that it would work only in the realms of Nickelodeon or The Disney Channel.

Does Elijah Wood lie awake at night worrying more about this movie than he does Radio Flyer? I doubt that any movie in the world is worse than Radio Flyer. And believe me - I've looked....

In any event, the worst damage that can be done by a movie like North is to make a kid look at his parents with as much disdain as if they were Jason Alexander.

And with that, as far as I'm concerned....


















....so there.

Wired (1989)

For better or for worse, John Belushi's comedic career is oft times overshadowed by his life-ending excesses.

Too much booze, too many drugs, too many women...and from all the stories and legends circulating about life behind the scenes on TV's "Saturday Night Live", this was indicative of most of the first few seasons' cast and crew, leave alone Belushi. Pot and weed, cocaine and blow, alcohol and booze - it was all there, times two.

But shhh...they all deny it now: a decades-old chestnut like "SNL" has a standard it must uphold and in spite of its disheveled and scandalous past, its legacy lives on. Besides, surely none of that stuff goes on now. Surely.

As far as Belushi goes, having passed on in 1982 from a combined injection of cocaine and heroin, his own personal legend persists as a funny guy who overdid everything then died young. Too young...a philosophy that latter day "SNL" alumnus Chris Farley not only would have attested to but lived and died by.

This was only helped (if 'helped' can be the right word) by Robert Woodward's book "Wired", which purported to chronicle Belushi's tumultuous life, right up to his last hours. And with interviews from "eyewitnesses" and "people in the know", it not only threw fuel on the fire of Belushi's life of over-indulgences but helped "Wired" (the book) skyrocket to the top of the charts and end up on every well-read scandal-monger's coffee table.

Belushi's family and friends would protest the book's "facts", naturally, but whaddyagonnado?

Then...it happened.

Like with every big book that came before, talks went under way to turn "Wired" (the book) into a big-time movie. And in doing so, also chronicle John Belushi's existence and abuses on the big screen and in Technicolor.

And so came to be Wired, written by Earl Mac Rauch (who to his credit also wrote Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Fifth Dimension) from the best-selling book by Robert Woodward and directed by Larry Peerce (who to his DIS-credit directed every other lousy movie of the Seventies, plus a whole glut of TV movies).

Now wait a minute, I can hear you protest. If Wired was such a big deal and dealt with the life of John Belushi and is such a cultural stepping-stone, then why haven't I heard of it before NOW???

You're about to find out.

I shouldn't have to explain what the plot is again, but there is a marked difference between book and movie in this case. A very marked difference. I'll tell you what that is in a moment, but right now let's get to some of the fundamentals of why Wired failed harder than the 1980-81 season of "SNL".

First of all, there's the fact that this movie was released only seven years after Belushi's death! Seven! It's not like this hasn't happened before; I mean, a TV movie based on Freddie Prinze's life and death came out only TWO YEARS after Freddie's suicide!! But come on - if the book was sensationalism, then the movie is pure opportunism, seeing as it's cashing in on someone's death AND a popular book at the same time. That's two cash-ins at once! Even a movie based on Rudolph Valentino's life came out after Rudy was dead 41 years. It still bombed but at least they gave a respectable cushion between mourning and cash-in.

Next item: the role of John Belushi was handed to an unknown; an actor who had to deal with the fact that his first big role was in a movie where he would forever be haunted with comparisons and brow-beatings. That unknown was Michael Chiklis, who is now best known as The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies, Detective Mackey from TV's "The Shield" and The Commish from...well, "The Commish".

In Wired, however, Chiklis is saddled with not so much playing John Belushi but being someone who doesn't look like John Belushi imitating John Belushi in turn imitating Marlon Brando, Jake Blues and Joe Cocker. At no moment does Chiklis convince us he is a funny yet tortured soul. He's just Michael Chiklis imitating someone everyone knows...and doing it broadly and badly. That's okay at a dinner party, not so much in a major motion picture.

A third thing - and this is a biggie - is that "Wired" (the book) tells a story of an addicted man who just happened to be famous, gave details of his life - past and at the moment - and dropped names of many famous friends, comedians, fellow actors and so forth who watched Belushi slowly implode.

In Wired, however, the difference is that neither writer Raush or director Peerce could get any real or realistic details shoehorned in about Belushi's developmental years with all the other business they have going on (I'm getting to that, hold on...) and neither could they rate getting any of those same famous names in their dinky little money-maker. Instead, many characters stand in as composite characters who are "based on actual people". You know, like in those Bigfoot documentary movies where they have fake people standing in for the "eyewitnesses".

That kinda thing.

They couldn't even use any of the actual skits from "SNL" or re-enact any scenes from his movies - you know, rights and all...and I'm sure Lorne Michaels, Universal Pictures nor anyone else wanted to be part of a cheap-jack movie based on a contentious-at-best book. So they had to do Belushi's Samurai character in a baseball skit that never existed (and isn't even funny), suggest Jake and Elwood Blues doing a fake "SNL" intro and show Belushi in his trailer where The Blues Brothers was being filmed rather than any scenes therein.

In fact, the only real people who are actually represented are Belushi's best pal Dan Aykroyd (Gary Groomes), Cathy Smith (Patti D'Arbanville), Judy Belushi (Lucinda Jenney), John's coroner the night of his death - Thomas Noguchi (Clyde Kusatsu), John Landis (Jon Snyder) and, of course, Robert Woodward (J.T. Walsh). And of this group the one who comes closest to performing realistically is Groomes, who pretty much IS Dan Aykroyd in voice, mannerisms and attitude. At least Groomes gives us a glance as to what Wired could have been with a better cast.

And for as much as everyone tries (and D'Arbanville does a good job also), they are all saddled by one of the most stupid stupid STUPID artistic conceits ever employed on film since Wicked, Wicked split the screen in two to show both killer and victim's daily lives throughout the whole movie.

...get ready; this is the marked difference I was telling you about earlier...

Whereas "Wired" (the book) pretty much told its story in a straightforward manner, Wired starts with Belushi already dead, a la Hollywood Boulevard, and running like an idiot out of the morgue, where he is promptly picked up by a gypsy cab driver named Angel Velasquez (Ray Sharkey)....who is actually the Angel of Death, who takes Belushi on a trip back through his life while Woodward interviews people and digs up bits and pieces concerning Belushi's death.

Which Woodward feels might make a good book someday. I'm sure he didn't think it would be turned into this movie.

It even wraps up with Angel telling Belushi that he can live again...if he wins at a pinball game they come across. Three guesses as to whether Belushi wins. Not exactly The Seventh Seal territory here.

What a cheat - they even advertised this movie as a feel-good comedy, insisting it was a light-hearted look at a funny guy for whom "Every Night Was Saturday Night!" - HA! See that, Lorne Michaels? We said "Saturday Night"! HA! You can't sue us for saying "Saturday Night"; you ain't got no copyright on a night of the week, do ya??! HA!

And something else; for a movie that was supposed to show Belushi's addictions, it over-explained every aspect of why he did cocaine, took pills and guzzled booze - the pain of stardom, the loneliness, the fact that no one else understood him, the buzz of creativity which could only be attained with drugs, and so on. The fact of the matter was that John Belushi did drugs because he was addicted to them. He couldn't stop because his body told him to keep going. The more he had, the more he wanted, in spite of the fact that he was killing himself with it.

I'm probably the millionth person to quote this but as someone once stated, "What does cocaine make you feel like? It makes you feel like having some more cocaine".

So what happened with Wired? Was it doomed from the start? Pretty much; before its release, it was condemned big time by no less than Dan Aykroyd, widow Judy Belushi, brother Jim Belushi and many of John's past friends and acquaintances.

This more than guaranteed that in its opening weekend it earned $681,054.

On 745 screens.

And earned juuuuust over $1 million once all was said and done.

AND to date has still never made it to DVD. Oh, to be sure, if anyone ever tries, Dan Aykroyd and company will be waiting with sledgehammers for the first ones to roll off the conveyor belt.

Who can blame them, though. Wired is a film that should never have been. The people who made this movie didn't care about John Belushi. Not that Robert Woodward did either - he was just a reporter looking for a story like when he broke Watergate. But at least he followed through on a story. In "Wired" (the book) there were no Angels of Death driving cabs, overacting Belushi imitators, under-compensating supporting players, half-baked non-reenactments or stupid plot devices; Rauch, Peerce and Chiklis had that covered.

Wired is an example of a bad idea made worse by a lack of resources and poor plotting, culminating in something that even Belushi himself wouldn't be caught dead in.

Sorry.

Still for as tasteless as that was, it's probably the funniest thing ever associated with this movie.

Not to mention the most accurate thing.

At Long Last Love (1975)

All right, kids; it's time to say a fond "hello" to your friend and mine: the OOP movie.

OOP, as any regular reader will tell you, stands for Out Of Print, as in out-of-print movie, which means any film that has yet to have a studio release on VHS or DVD, or sometimes both. And many times, it's for good reason.

You see, there are different determinants for every OOP movie: sometimes it's a matter of securing rights with studios and/or producers, other times an actor or director will be deceased and their estates won't release those particular films, other times still it's simply a matter of the movie being so bad, so embarrassing and so without merit that no one connected with said project ever wants it to see the light of day.

Which brings me to Peter Bogdanovich.

In the early Seventies, Peter was riding a wave of critical and audience acclaim. He started the decade on the success of The Last Picture Show and wrote and/or directed such well-received offerings as Paper Moon and What's Up, Doc?, both of which were beloved by critics, raked in money and earned Bogdanovich a reputation for taking old styles of film-making and turning them into crowd-pleasing money earners that gave their studio (20th Century Fox in this case) reason to believe in their director and his creative genius.

Just like United Artists did with Michael Cimino. remember?

Anyway, Bogdanovich continued to play his "paying-homage-to-classic-Hollywood" card when he directed/wrote and produced what was to be his first (and to date his ONLY) movie musical.

Nothing wrong with that; musicals were nothing unusual at that time. Thing was, movie musicals already had their day around the same time The Sound of Music had its time in the sun - and yes, that was in the mid-to-late Sixties. Since then, such bad examples trying to ride on TSOM's coat tails came about as Finian's Rainbow, Camelot, Star!, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Man of La Mancha, Song of Norway, Mame and Lisztomania.

It's not Bogdnovich's fault that At Long Last Love came out in the middle of this big plop of opportunism; but it didn't help matters that rather than being an exception, this movie was part of the problem.

Before I get into that, though: the movie takes place in the 1930s with millionaire Michael Oliver Pritchard III (Burt Reynolds) meeting and falling in love with singer Kitty O'Kelly (Madeline Kahn). At the same time, stubborn socialite Brooke Carter (Cybill Shepherd) meets Italian gambler Johnny Spanish (Duilio Del Prete) and they also fall in love. Both couples then meet and become fast friends. Eventually, Brooke's sassy maid Elizabeth (Eileen Brennan) falls in love with Michael's valet Rodney James (John Hillerman). After all this is set up, then things take a decidedly soap opera-ish turn as Michael and Brooke fall in love, Kitty and Johnny fall in love, everyone fights, everyone makes up, there is romantic tension all over the place...

And did I mention the Cole Porter songs?

Yes, this story is just a framework on which to hang 16 Cole Porter songs for the four main stars to sing and dance to. You heard me. Singing and dancing. Two things that no one in their right mind would equate with Cybill Shepherd OR Burt Reynolds OR Madeline Kahn OR Duilio Del Prete...

Okay, I had to stop a minute and look this guy up for the benefit of myself and anyone else who would ask, WHO IN THE HELL IS DUILIO DEL PRETE??? Well, aside from being a successful actor in his native Italy, he had parts in two other non-Italian movies besides this one: one was - surprise - Peter Bogdanovich's adaptation of Daisy Miller (starring Cybill Shepherd again) and Joseph Losey's The Assassination of Trotsky. This triptych accounts for Del Prete never stepping foot out of Italy again for the rest of his career. And to his credit, he didn't try singing again either.

Back to At Long Last Love: speaking of the 1930s, Bogdanovich tried something else in this movie that had not been attempted since the days of musical film-making from the 1930s...he filmed all of the singing scenes live. Live, as in recorded without any post-production dubbing or lip-syncing or masking of the fact that not a one of these people have any singing talent whatsoever.

That was only ONE bad idea, though, especially seeing that there are also dancing scenes wherein no choreographer was in evidence. But when you combine the two ideas, you get this:

Cybill gets tangled up in curtains as she sings "I Get a Kick Out of You", Burt stumbles around the edge of a moving limousine while singing "Poor Young Millionaire", Madeline Kahn wiggles around on a stage full of guys in caveman makeup as she sings "Find Me a Primitive Man" and Duilio simply walks around, wrapping his thick Italian accent around songs like "Tomorrow" and "From Alpha To Omega". Then there are more cluttered, clumsy scenes with the stars struggling their way around other Cole Porter classics as "You're the Top", "Well Did Ya Evah?", "Let's Misbehave", "Friendship" and "It's De-Lovely".

You may notice that one of these songs is NOT a Cole Porter song, even though this is supposed to be a Cole Porter-influenced movie. Seems that Bogdanovich, auteur that he was, couldn't resist creating a new song just for the movie itself, with the help of music supervisor for the film Artie Butler. Which one? Oh no; if you're a Cole Porter fan, you already know. I've said too much about the music already....

So this was a bad movie idea. And a bad musical idea. And even worse still that Bogdanovich populated the cast with comic talent and not singing-and-dancing talent. Oh, there are plenty of funny moments in this movie; Bogdanovich was always good at being funny, no question. And there are a lot of small moments throughout this film that are very good as far as laughs go. And Burt and Madeline have proven themselves as past masters at making audiences laugh.

Cybill...well, to tell the truth, she got her start in movies by being the paramour (that's girlfriend, for anyone who's familiar with William F. Buckley-speak) of Bogdanovich, and he at least cast her in some good films...for the most part. Here, she just seems to be distracted and annoyed most of time, like she can't wait to get off-screen.

And did you know she recorded an album full of Cole Porter songs prior to this movie's attack...I mean, release? What; you didn't know she had an album because you didn't know she could sing? Well, she did...though she couldn't...and she can't. In album form OR movie form.

In fact, the best performances belong to Hillerman and Brennan, as the respective personal aides of the piece - they certainly provide the most dependable humor in At Long Last Love and even do moderately well in terms of singing. Their contributions to "Friendship" and "But In The Morning, No" are palpable to their extended talent. Not to mention the fact that the screen brightens immeasurably when they share time together on it.

Oh yeah; Mildred Natwick's in this thing, too. Yeah, Mildred Natwick. Why, you may ask? For all I can gather...she was available.

The look of At Long Last Love is impeccable; and why not - seeing as how the cinematographer was none other than the legendary Laszlo Kovacs, a man who had worked with Bogdanovich in the past and had an enviable career despite having provided a sleek, professional sheen to films like The Last Movie and the Sylvester Stallone ego trip Paradise Alley (another review for another time...).

As far as everything else goes, however.... This film did so badly that it barely earned back less than a third of its $6 million budget, garnered scathing reviews by every living reviewer in 1975 and prompted Bogdanovich to release a nation-wide newspaper apology to reviewers, movie-goers and the world in general. I mean, when Ethel Merman bad-mouths your film, maybe you should have gone back and paid the extra money for real singers.

In the end, almost everybody got out of At Long Last Love alive; Burt had a successful career, Cybill left Bogdanovich and went on to triumphs big and small, Madeline spent most of her career associated with Mel Brooks and fared far better for it, Duilio stayed in Italy and enjoyed a prosperous career, Hillerman and Brennan enjoyed extended careers in small roles in movies and television.... In fact, the only one who really suffered the most for At Long Last Love was Peter Bogdanovich himself.

Never again would he have a financially-successful movie, nor a movie as heavily-promoted as this one - most of his work lately has been regulated to TV movies and an episode of "The Sopranos". Even a sequel to The Last Picture Show (Texasville) came and went with only moderate fanfare and is now largely forgotten, a far cry from his heyday when a Peter Bogdanovich film was a major event in Hollywood.

See what one bad film can do to you?

As far as my opinion on the film; At Long Last Love was cute, the badly-sung songs had a kind of charm like a bunch of rich socialites getting drunk on karaoke night and doing foolish things they won't remember the next morning.

The whole movie ends up like a really expensive goof on Thirties musicals put on by people who THOUGHT they could sing and dance but really can't - a lot like watching the first round of eliminations on "Dancing With The Stars", only the stars didn't have a chance to train first.

That probably wasn't the kind of reaction Bogdanovich and company were looking for but hey, Pete - take what you can get, man.

Cybill sure did.

The Dope's NOT On DVD Roundup Returns!

Back at it again - as long as we have a few more movies that should (conceivably) never see the laser light of a DVD player, there will be lists like my brand-new one.

For those who don't know, this is a list of 10-or-so marginally well-known movies that are, as of this publishing, not on Region 1 U.S. DVD.

Let's start with some obvious ones here, then move on to some pretty obscure choices....





10) Buddy Buddy (1981)

As hard as it is to believe, Billy Wilder's last movie isn't yet on DVD here in the States (it does have an Italian release that is pretty dark and badly framed, but anyway...). Not without its faults, this re-teaming of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon is a re-do of Francis Veber's play and later movie L'Emmerdeur (A Pain in the A** - yes, I edited for you - you're welcome) and it has funny moments as any pairing of Lemmon and Matthau would. While Wilder has films like Sunset Boulevard, Love in the Afternoon, Stalag 17 and The Lost Weekend on DVD, his swan song is not? Come on, suits: get on the ball....





9) Superdad (1974)

I remember back in the day when the local theater was still up-and-running, they showed live-action Disney films every week, it seemed. This was one of the 800 billion Disney released in the '70s, and one of the several that starred Bob "He Was In KIDDIE Movies?!!" Crane. Herein, he was an over-protective dad who, rather than watch his cherished daughter waste her life hanging out with her loser beach bum friends (and boyfriend Kurt Russell!) gets as involved in her life as (uncomfortably) possible. Sure, Disney has the gall to put The Million Dollar Duck on DVD, but don't expect this one at your local Disney Store. Maybe Walt caught wind of Crane's home movies?



8) I Come In Peace (1990)

Odd as it is to believe, even Dolph Lundgren makes a movie that is so ungainly that it never sees life outside of a video tape. This Predator ripoff has an alien hunting humans with his fancy disc gun in beautiful downtown Houston, Texas - but not if loose cannon cop Lundgren has anything to say about it. Which he will, believe me. They even care enough about the cliches of such movies to saddle him with a by-the-book schnook government agent, but not to make anything else in the movie work any better. I mean, this is not better nor worse than any other Lundgren effort like Red Scorpion, Universal Soldier or Showdown in Little Tokyo, so what gives?




7) Neighbors (1981)

Anyone who's followed the career of John Belushi is familiar with what would end up being his final filmic effort, with longtime comedy partner-in-crime Dan Aykroyd. Based on a novel by Thomas Berger, with a screenplay written by Larry ("M*A*S*H") Gelbart (and re-written on the fly by several others) and directed by John G. (Rocky) Avildsen, everyone fought with everybody else and the troubled enterprise only made money because it was released so heavily during the holidays. Still, there is the allure of John Belushi. At least it wasn't as bad as if Belushi had survived long enough to be cast wearing a diaper in 1983's The Joy of Sex. Thank god.




6) Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)

You remember the movie where the robotic guy gets his robot arm ripped off and hydraulic fluid spurts at the screen in slow motion? THIS is that film!

This one makes no sense to me, not being on DVD, since its companion piece in '83 (Spacehunter: Adventures in the Fiorbidden Zone) already had its day on the disc, so to speak. But here we have a made-to-order film for the 3-D era of film-making (as was Spacehunter): items are thrust at the viewer on a regular basis, people and spaceships float in the center of the screen (pretty badly blue-screened, but anyway...) and science fiction is pretty much the perfect venue for this kind of film, admittedly. And not only is Kelly Preston (Mrs. John Travolta) part of the cast but so is Richard (Bull from "Night Court") Moll - now if those aren't drawing cards - not to mention great reasons to put them on DVD - I don't know what is!


5) Sincerely Yours (1955)

For anyone who's ever read that indispensable reference "The Hollywood Hall of Shame" from Harry and Michael Medved, this is a familiar title. It is, in fact, a dramatic film written by no less than Irving Wallace and is a remake of the chestnut The Man Who Played God, wherein a famed concert pianist battles a debilitating loss of hearing and a need to help the needy around him. Of course, this version had the added benefit (?) of having Liberace as their romantic star. Hmm. It did badly, lost money and Liberace was never the leading man in another film after this. But many other films committed greater sins and have had multiple pressings to plastic. Should that make it any less of a choice for pressing into the DVD fold? I think not.


4) Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982)

Wow. This one, directed by writer/director/auteur Steven Paul, based on a novel by the inestimable Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and starring such comic luminaries as Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn not only failed but crashed and burned bad enough to harm future generations. It was the next-to-last film for Marty Feldman, took two years to re-edit and re-release and was so badly-staged and poorly performed that not even Orson Welles' cameo as an alien voice could save things. However, things as bad as this are not always regulated to the land of obscurity; just look at the general output of Doris Wishman. Not the same realm as Kurt Vonnegut, true, but the principle is still the same.




3) The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper (1981)

Talk about a troubled production - multiple director changes, multiple screenplay changes, a story pieced together more or less from hearsay and third-person recollections, Treat Williams doing his best to play a character that practically no one knew anything about (and if they did they weren't telling) and more continuity problems than credibility. There's probably more than one reason D.B. Cooper hasn't been put on DVD (let alone barely seen on VHS) but if continuity and crew problems were a factor, then Hollywood would have little to no output. Come on, Universal; give us a DVD, already!






2) Treasure Island (1990)

This isn't the original Disney one with Robert Newton or even the '72 remake with Orson Welles as Long John Silver. THIS one was made for TV, directed by Fraser Clarke Heston and stars his dad - the legendary Charlton Heston - as Long John Silver. But also featured Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins, Christopher Lee as Blind Pew and Oliver Reed as Billy Bones! Yeah! That's right! Impressive cast, huge scale and as impressive as any other of Fraser Clarke's and Charlton's writing and/or directing collaborations (The Mountain Men, Mother Lode, Alaska)...so why no DVD release? It's hard to say; could be that either Fraser or Turner Home Entertainment are waiting for the right time to turn a profit on the whole enterprise. It's all money, you know. But we're a patient lot, we collectors are. We can wait....





1) Ben (1972)

And here we are at a sequel, of all things. Of a killer rat movie, to boot. When Willard came out in 1971, who knew it would be successful enough to warrant a sequel the very next year? The producers, that's who, and a sequel they produced, with child actor Lee Harcourt Montgomery as the sickly boy (named David Garrison, little trivia for you) who takes in refugee killing rat Ben as a friend/pet. The '70s were good to Montgomery, who got a lot of work as the put-upon little boy in movies like Pete 'N Tillie, Burnt Offerings and The Savage is Loose, but he really came into his own here - too bad he was upstaged by Michael Jackson's end theme of love to...the rat. Yep. A love song to a rat. And this was before he turned into Wacko Jacko. Still, this is far weirder and sicker than even Willard was. So, there is enough cheese to feed all the rats here (sorry; cheap rodent joke there). DVD, where are you?

So there you have a good selection of movies that should be on disc, ones that probably never will be and some that were even more surprisingly put on VHS.

Dope ou....

OH! I almost forgot one!

Ready?

...


1a) The Extraordinary Seaman (1969)

And no, it's not a porno.

It's a World War II comedy from John Frankenheimer (yes, that John Frankenheimer) about misfits, disgraced captains, spirits and more stock footage than Myra Breckenridge that asked us to "Laugh away...love away...fun away...with Dunaway!" - and that was Faye Dunaway. She starred in this one along with David Niven, Mickey Rooney, Alan Alda and Jack Carter in a comedy that wasn't funny, action that had no activity and drama that was less than dramatic in a film that was less than film-able. This kind of puts one in the same mind as when Otto Preminger made Skidoo a year before; there was just something missing - that something was competence... all the way around. But incompetence is nothing that's kept a movie off of DVD before. It may have been held back to wait and pay for all the rights to all the stock footage they used to pad out the running time of The Extraordinary Seaman to 80 minutes. Mmm-hmm; even less time than your average Police Academy movie, just to put that in perspective.

So NOW you have a vast selection of non-disc films to put on your want list. Gotta wonder what's in the heads of some of these studio suits; no DVD release for these films, while *Dunston Checks In gets a 2-Disc Millennium Platinum Director-Autographed release. Grrr...

Dope out.

-TGWD

* = okay, I may have exaggerated about Dunston Checks In, but you knew what I was getting at. Just clarifying.

I Hate It When DVDs Happen...

I know I've written about this before but DAMN if it hasn't happened again.

Many of you already (or should already) know that I am a hunter and collector of hard-to-find movies. The rarer, the better and the sweeter the find. That way, I know I am one of a select few who goes to the trouble of finding the rarest of the rare, claiming it, copying onto DVD-R for security's sake and watching that DVD over and over and over (and yes, over) again to relish my victory. Then repeat.

So. Anyway.

A few years ago, I found this little beauty:






















Holocaust 2000 (1977)

A ripoff of The Omen, only with Kirk Douglas and nuclear power as the featured stars. It was certainly a bad movie (hence more of a reason for me to seek it out) and has been spoken of "fondly" by more than just me. At least two other people, anyway.

So yes; I found it, squealed for joy (as I am wont to do), bought it (for really cheap), took it home, went through all the above rituals and happily settled on my throne of purchased relics, pleased with my treasures.

Then, last week, I found this at my local destroyer of dreams, Wally World:






















Rain of Fire (1977)

See that?!! They didn't even have the nerve to release it with the same title! Cowards.

I wouldn't have even been concerned had I not recognized the co-stars, the ominously familiar-sounding tag at the bottom of the case and the sense that I had seen this particular-looking Kirk Douglas once before.

Then I picked up the case, read the back, saw the pic grabs from the movie on it....

The sound I then heard soon after doing this was the sickening crash of my soul falling to the floor and shattering into a billion pieces. Again.

Why do I even bother going to Wally World anymore? All they ever do is hurt me.

So there you have it; my once-unique acquisition has been shown again to not be so unique. It's enough to make me wonder why I even bother doing this anymore.

Oh yes, the thrill of the hunt.

That's it.

Sense of purpose restored. Soul renewed. Ready to go out and keep searching again.

The moral of this story? It takes more than a pristine DVD studio release of a long-forgotten movie to make the hardened-collector give up the grainy, static-streaked, in-and-out audio version they fought so long and hard to attain and cherish so dearly.

Hang in there, ye seekers of Terror in the Aisles.

Dope out.

-TGWD

Under The Rainbow (1981)

Contrary to what some people may believe, you can NOT go home again.

And nowhere is that more true than in the world of movies.

Take, for example, the mythology behind the classic film The Wizard of Oz. Surely there are those of us who have heard all the stories about a disgruntled munchkin committing suicide while the cameras were rolling in one scene, another story concerning Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album synching almost perfectly with the first moments of the film, another about the wild orgies the munchkins had at the hotel they stayed at, Buddy Ebsen's allergy to the Tin Wodsman makeup that forced him out of the role so that....

What's that?

You didn't KNOW about the munchkin orgies? Come on, it's the stuff of legend! Why do you think Judy Garland turned to heavy drugs later in life?

Okay, maybe there isn't a lot of validity to the orgy stories, but someone must have believed in it for that particular urban legend to stick around as long as it has. So much so that it was even the basis of a movie. And not just any movie, but the very movie I'm about to lay into.

Before I do, though, remember what I said about not being able to go home again? Once upon a long time ago (late '82), HBO played the heck out of the movies they got hold of - two, maybe three times a day at the very least, just to wring every entertainment dollar out of their purchase. How else could they get to where they are today - a huge movie channel that shows the same thing two, maybe three times a day?

Which brings us back to Under The Rainbow, one of HBO's acquisitions they played the ever-living bejebus out of in its run on the network. Being a mere sprat of a teenager when it first was out, the ads I saw for it were kind of funny in an immature kind of way and it seemed to play up the kind of nostalgic all-out farce that Steven Spielberg's 1941 aimed so low for. After all, 1981 was the year that celebrated the low-brow. After all, this was also the year that Stripes, Going Ape!, S.O.B. and Zorro The Gay Blade came to be, adding just as much if not more locker room fodder for all the immature adolescents of the land.

But Under The Rainbow was even more than a mere adolescent romp through cliches, stereotypes and offensive jokes; this was a history lesson.

The movie is set in 1938. It is the Depression - a time of famine and financial desolation across the face of America. Still, everyone had big dreams, even a person of diminutive size like Rollo Sweet (Cork Hubbert); he knew there was more to his life than being in the middle of nowhere. And as he was so fond of saying (even though he only says it maybe two times in the whole 90+ minutes of this film), "There's no dream too big, and no dreamer too small". So he determines to go find his fame and fortune in Hollywood, one way or another.

There are other things in his way, however: a Nazi plot to sabotage the homeland defense (formulated by no less than Hitler himself), a ruler of a foreign land marked for assassination by a mad Italian killer and the descent of 150 little people into Hollywood and their subsequent destruction of a single hotel within 24 hours of their arrival. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that there are not only the deaths of several Japanese businessmen, but also of a handful of dogs - all for the sake of comedy go they.

The last time I saw Under The Rainbow was in 1983 at a friend's house and, sure enough, I was at the right age (TEENage) to find the jokes funny and the people in it as master farceurs. This was, in my estimation, the best movie. Ever.

And now, having watched it again after such a long time, I realize what a stupid young man I was.

Chevy Chase plays a government agent tagged to protect the visiting Austrian dignitary (Joseph Maher - the evil doctor from Charles Bronson's forgettable The Evil that Men Do) and his wife (Eve Arden - yes, Our Miss Brooks) from attack, mainly from a sinister yet bad luck-prone assassin (Robert Donner - remember Exidor from "Mork and Mindy"?). And even though Chevy's film work was heavy and often in the early '80s, it was more often in thin, unfunny drivel like this and Modern Problems, Oh Heavenly Dog!, Deal of the Century and such. He doesn't even do anything typically "Chevy" herein; just kind of acts like a bland straight man. It was just a year before, you may recall, he was in the vastly underrated Neil Simon comedy Seems Like Old Times. Now, THAT was a comedy. In Rainbow, Chevy just kind of stands there, tired and disinterested.

Carrie Fisher co-stars as a Hollywood lower-level type who must wrangle the newly-arrived dwarves and midgets until filming commences. In one of her first few post-Star Wars roles, Carrie is actually sunny and charming in her role. So much so, you almost kind of ignore that fact that she and "romantic interest" Chevy have no chemistry together whatsoever. But no wonder; he doesn't display that much personality here. Back to Carrie: her main contribution to the movie (and anyone of the right age who's seen Rainbow will tell you the same) is that she spends several minutes of screen time in a bra and panties. A prepubescent dream to those of us who missed her gold bikini appearance on "Saturday Night Live" a couple of years prior to this film. And besides her character being otherwise underwritten other than "sprite" or "perky", Carrie didn't have a whole lot to work with, or against, or alongside...you get the idea.

Pity poor Billy Barty, who plays a diminutive Nazi spy out to set the nefarious anti-American plot into motion. Talking like a Katzenjammer kid and overplaying broadly (and entertainingly) like he does, he is still the victim of several "short" jokes (more on that in detail later). This from the man who not only founded The Little People of America Inc. - a foundation for the greater public knowledge and social acceptance of dwarfs - but was also a tireless promoter of a positive image of small people in general: herein fodder for the kind of jokes he was striving to not make acceptable. Under The Rainbow was not the film to help him promote his cause; it was more like an opiate for the masses.

Oh, but short people aren't the only minorities to be given the short shrift. The Japanese stereotypes run almost as rampant, what with a busload of vacationing Japanese men dropped off in the middle of things, taking pictures and replacing their "L"s with "R"s when convenient to the humor necessities of the plot. Even respected Japanese actor Mako, as a Japanese spy, doesn't get to do much more than follow along and be as insulted and insulting as everybody else.

Then there are more than any movie's share of insulting jokes towards women, Italians, black people, tall people, rich people, drunk people and sheep-molesters. The only thing that's been missed is jokes about homosexuals, but they're probably saving that footage for the extras on the never-to-be DVD release.

I mentioned Cork Hubbert earlier - in reality, this is supposed to be his story; the kid from the small town trying to make his way in Hollywood and be the star he knew he could be. And to his credit, Cork really gave it his all and, in the first few minutes, actually did create a character that was more or less believable, sympathetic and respectable. Alas, this is a comedy and certain things must be sacrificed at the Altar of Laffs. And one of them was the hard work that Cork went to to make his character. In the end, he is just another funny little person looking cute and trying to do "big" things like drive a horse carriage, duel Barty in a sword fight and run around. A lot.

Which brings me to the main contribution of ALL the little people in Under The Rainbow. They are basically seen as a mob; they march onto the screen, devatstate, act lewd when called on by the script (which is often), run around wildly then repeat the cycle for the next scene. Only Cork and Barty stand out from the crowd, but only because they had the most face time in what amounts to a miniature cattle call.

Like I said, when I was younger, Under The Rainbow was a very very funny movie. After I discovered "sophistication" and was ushered into the school of "political-correctness", I looked back and re-evaluated much of what I found humorous in my youth. This movie turned out to be a casualty and was then more or less purged from my memory - for the moment.

Now having seen it again, I can honestly say that, memories notwithstanding, there were a few amusing moments here and there that didn't completely insult my sensibilities or make me feel guilty for laughing. Still, the uncomfortable moments are there, both in terms of comedy as well as acting in general. I guess Under The Rainbow isn't out on DVD for a reason.

As impossible as it is to go home again, at least there is consolation in the fact that in watching a movie as irresponsible as this, you'll be enticed to move forward than look back. In anger, in this case.

...or maybe more appropriately in short temper.

The Dope's NOT On DVD Roundup!

New feature time today, kids.

I figured this is something that a few of you out there will appreciate, if you're anything like me (if so, one strike against you). Anyway; if you are a hunter and collector of DVDs as I am, you're always wondering what is out there and what there is available to get your grubby little mitts on.

This being said, this is one Dope that is never on top of things like what is coming out and what is ready to be bought - I'm never up on just-released DVDs - SURPRISE! - but if there is one thing that I AM up on, it's the UNavailable discs.

SO.

I shall now present to you my top 10 choices of movies that, for whatever reason, licensing or whatever, are NOT available as Region 1 US DVDs commercially. PLEASE note the usage of the last five words in the previous sentence: those are crucial to the list, so don't come complaining to me that you can bootleg this or download a decent dub of that - I don't know about you, but I certainly do not condone such abhorrent activity and likewise suggest that you do not do so as well.

(and now that THAT'S over with...)

On with the list!

10. The African Queen (1951)

Okay, pick your jaw up off of the ground, I'm just as surpised with this one as you. A classic, yes. Humphrey Bogart, yes. Katherine Hepburn, yes. Directed by John Huston, yes. But as of this writing, not available on DVD. Why is anyone's guess, but I did manage to capture this quote from Wikipedia:

The film has been released in the United States on VHS video, but not region 1 DVD as of the present. However, a region 1 DVD is available and distributed by The Castaways Pictures and has English and Chinese subtitles available with no other features. It is not clear if this is authorized or not. While Granada International holds international rights, the underlying U.S. rights are held by CBS (whose Viacom predecessor acquired the rights from copyright holder Horizon Film Management in the 1970s, and for a time in the 1980s, 20th Century Fox had the U.S. rights until Viacom re-acquired the film in 1997).

Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures (acting on behalf of CBS, the former parent - and later a subsidiary - of Viacom) currently handles U.S. theatrical distribution rights. It can often be found on either Turner Classic Movies or pay-per-view.

Paramount has since confirmed that restoration work for region 1 is underway for future`DVD issue.

Take that for what it's worth, I guess.


9. Brewster McCloud (1970)

A shocker, this: I simply took for granted that all of Robert Altman's films were on DVD. He certainly had quite the repertoire (M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player, Gosford Park) and more than his share of both hits and flops, but for a film as intensely different and stunning as this one (young boy lives in the Houston Astrodome, believes he is a bird and tries to fly, leading to an amazing denouement) to not be on DVD is hard to believe. We're talking film history here, people. And Brewster McCloud isn't the ONLY film by Altman not to be on DVD. Stay tuned....





8. Let It Be (1970)

A group as influential and as volatile as The Beatles certainly makes its own history, and leaves behind a certain legacy. Some of it even filmic. This was a documentary dealing with the recording of what would be their last album together as a group. That in itself was historic. So, why no DVD release? Hard to say; could have something to do with the group members/survivors/lawyers/producers/etc. not being able to agree on distribution rights, royalties and so forth.

Me, I blame Yoko.



7. Crimewave (1985)

Sam Raimi is cool. I paid attention to him as far back as before The Evil Dead caught on and happened to catch this one on Cinemax one night. I was enthralled; it's a very bizarre comic tale of two grotesque criminals on a murder and mayhem spree and all the twists and turns therein. This was Raimi's first experience with a big studio and their interference on this film almost resulted in the thing never being finished and/or distributed. Somehow, it got a DVD release in Europe and other regions, just not here. Boo, studio suits. Boo.





6. Godzilla 1985 (1984)

Yeah, I know: a Godzilla movie that isn't on DVD in the States! What's the deal with that? For one thing, for as bad as the movie itself was (and it WAS bad, trust me on that), it was much better in its original, Japanese, non Raymond-Burr version, as many will attest the original 1954 Gojira was. Whatever the case, this is one DVD that is readily available everywhere else BUT here. Unless you got your VHS tape of it way back when, you may have to bum that streaky, static-laced, wrinkled-in-spots tape off a Godzilla-happy pal of yours to see Big Green raid again.




5. The Man Who Wasn't There (1983)

What's this? What is a stupid 3-D slapstick comedy doing lumped in with the likes of Robert Altman, John Huston and Godzilla? Well, just like them, this is one of the many films that never again saw the light of day after its initial release. This sappy Canadian excuse for a tax-shelter dodge not only had questionable comedy but also the likes of a boxer-wearing Steve Guttenberg (a year before Police Academy rescued his career, so to speak), a Russian-accented Jeffrey Tambor and several recognizable Canadian character actors in tow, complete with a climactic wedding where the invisible bride and groom suddenly turn visible and slink off to their limo starkers while the wedding assemblage laughs and applauds.

They were the only ones, brother. But still, if Shark Boy and Lava Girl can get a DVD....


4. North (1994)

Another baddie, and by Rob Reiner, of all people. Yeah, he made good films like When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, Sleepless in Seattle and Misery, but also this treacly tripe of a perfect young boy (the usually perfect Elijah Wood) who divorces his parents and goes on a world-wide, star-studded search for new parents. And Bruce Willis appears several times throughout to offer sage advice. Not a winning combination for a good movie, and it did very bad business and got even worse word-of-mouth. But that doesn't always negate a pressing to DVD; just look at your lineup at the local video store. Some will just get the DVD to see if it really is that bad. And I can't say I'd blame them.


3. Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989)

Yes, that Penn and Teller. Directed by Arthur Penn (no relation to Penn Jillette). This is one oddball of a movie, but also one that I can very much see The Bad Boys of Magic having a great time writing, filming and starring in. And also the first time many of you will get to hear Teller speak! Right there is a good reason to put in on DVD! It is weird, be warned, and does follow through on the initial premise set forth by its title, but it is also something you have to see to believe. Is that a recommendation for anyone out there? Hmmm....





2. So Fine (1981)

Many of you my age (40s) will recognize that title if you saw any of the movie channels. It played almost daily in a loop from HBO to Cinemax to The Movie Channel to Showtime and back again. Starring Ryan O'Neal (who's never been finnier since), Jack Warden and Richard Kiel (!) in a comedy about jeans with a transparent seat, this was Andrew Bergman's debut directing turn and worth every laugh (he wrote, too) and it's criminal this never got a release on DVD! Ever! I know; you don't have to tell me! Sheesh!!





1. Vibes (1988)

Another oddball, not only was this written by Ron Howard film stalwarts Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, it also starred Jeff Goldblum and was the feature debut of Cyndi Lauper - they play psychics who are recruited by a shady character (played by no less than Peter Falk!) to find a lost city of gold in South America. It's all-out comedy, but one that never clicked, onscreen or with its audience. Everyone seems to be off somewhat, but that's not the worse thing a comedy can do - it certainly commits no other worse crimes than that - and STILL has not been seen outside of its initial release on VHS. Maybe Goldblum paid someone off...?


And so there you go: ten of 'em. 10. Five plus five.

Are any of them worth putting on DVD? One or two, maybe - but all of them? Probably not, but look at all the copies of White Chicks and Assault of the Killer Bimbos littering the shelves out there. Is it asking too much to see at least ONE copy of The African Queen?

I think not.

My public service for the day is done. If this goes well and gets a good response, I may do this every so often. We'll see, you know how I am about these things.

Dope out.

-TGWD