The Duke's Picks - Region 1
Not a terrible lot of quality stuff on offer this week, but what there is is worth twenty quid of anyone's money, is the fact of the matter. As ever, the picks and a couple extra can be bought via the Amazon links underneath the article, and the Region 2 one is linked to Amazon.co.uk on account of The Duke is a filthy whore. Here goes, folks.
Jersey Girl
Some folks hated this flick about Ben Affleck is a dad but has to learn lessons on account of he's all self-obsessed and so on. Kevin Smith fans puked their lungs up on account of the absence of jokes about "try not to suck any dicks on the way to the parking lot!" Well, The Duke is a Kevin Smith fan of some repute, and let me be the first to announce that Jersey Girl is a classic, is what. Like the drunken uncle who used to make you cry, it's funny, entertaining, but also touches you when you least expect it. There's a special edition lined up for the near-future, but this has plenty of features in the mean time, including another one of Smith's brilliant commentaries.
THX-1138 - George Lucas Directors Cut
There are two versions of this available, but don't be fooled. Neither one has the original, untinkered-with flick, with it simply being a case of lots of extras or just the film. Still, by all accounts the CGI fiddlings actually do nothing to detract from the eerie, minimalist feel of the affair, and actually, (whisper it) improve proceedings to some extent.
Re-Animator - Millennium Edition
This classic bout of tongue-in-cheek gore-flinging is still unavailable Uncut in the UK. I couldn't for a second think why, even if I could be bothered pondering it. This version here, though, this is just about wonderful. No less than 6 commentaries, is what, and also a whole bunch of deleted stuff and interviews and so on. Exceptional.
Hardcore
Morally dubious Paul Schrader's flick may be, what with its yackings about how normal pornography ain't that far removed from the child variety and so on, but this is still a hard-hitting couple hours. George C Scott is the fella looking for his missing daughter, only to find she's gone and got involved in the seedy world of sexing cinema. Kids, man. What the fuck.
Region 2 Pick Of The Week
This is out about a fortnight now, but since I forgot to tell you all about it, this here is the belated plug. Also, although this is a PAL release, it's Region 0, so it'll play anywhere. It's a much-less restrained affair than the hardly-subtle first instalment, but a lot clumsier with the satire, too. What it's about, is that the kids and the adults of the world are engaged in a massive war, meaning the flick gets to parody Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now and, a bit sensitive this one, open with two skyscrapers crumbling to the ground. Oh, and the terrorists are the heroes. Unlikely to be up for an American remake, is what.
Article comments
1 - Chris Kent
I am glad to see one of Schrader's most disturbing (and most underrated) films Hardcore has finally made it to DVD. This film has always given me the creeps, but George C. Scott gives just about the best fucking performance one is most likely to see anywhere. I still have never been able to get the snuff-film scene out of my mind. 8mm was certainly inspired by this film, and was perhaps a shallow remake of it in some ways.
But Hardcore is the real thing, a parent's nightmare come to life. I have only seen this film twice, and find it very difficult to sit through, but it is still a great work.
2 - Jim Carruthers
I've got to continue to disagree with you, Duke, about the Denis Leary, yes, he's no Bill Hicks, but aside from a couple of jokes about ciggy butts, they diverge a lot. For one, "No Cure for Cancer" isn't standup, it is a monologue with a beginning, middle and end. Something Bill Hicks never accomplished without extensive editing.
More Eric Bogosian than Hicks (and while I never got to see Hicks live, I have seen both Leary and Bogosian on stage, and have a couple of Hicks tapes, so I think I know what the hell I'm talking about), theatre and characters.
The core of "No Cure For Cancer" is masculinity and mortality, topics which Hicks didn't really deal with that much (well, except for his bit about his mom finding his porn stache after his sudden death). Bill Hicks was almost completely a stand-up comedian who reworked the genre, while Denis Leary is an actor who has dabbled in stand-up, but that is a minor part of his career.
Sort of like faulting Billy Connelly for not being as good an actor as Stephen Fry (or some other strained comparison).
3 - Tom Johnson
I highly recommend Andy Goldsworthy - Rivers and Tides: Working With Time for those with an eye for artistic thingies. It features not only the man but also the truly amazing sculptures he creates out of everything he sees around him. And then it all gets destroyed by nature herself. Check out my review for more stuff about the film.
4 - Matt Paprocki
How can you people be posting right now? Scooby Doo 2 is on DVD! Why aren't you watching????
Oh, it sucks?
Good reason.
5 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
thanks for the the input folks. Sorry it seems a bit rushed this week. This were a bit hectic in mondo towers and i didn't want this to be any later. back to regular over-achieving status next week, promise.
Chris, it is indeed good to see Hardcore back on the shelves. i agree with your thoughts on 8mm. I thought it was an incredibly shallow film, laughable even.
Jim, you put a convincing argument for mr leary, well done man. Made me think twice for a second there. Still, i have to go with my assumptions. I think Leary is a very charismatic actor, and he seems a nice fella despite the cynical routine. Asshole, also, is a fine tune. But i can't get past the blatant recycling of Hicks routines in No Cure... especially, even if it IS a sort of monologue deal.
Tom, thanks for the info, as ever. That fella sounds interesting as all hell.
And Matt, i ain't seen Scooby 2 yet, but i heard it wasn't actually all that awful. i took my neices to see the first one and actually thought it wasn't too abysmal.
Thanks folks
6 - Eric Olsen
"seedy world of sexing cinema" - classic line
I sense no underachievement here
I like Leary-the-comedian quite well myself, although as stated before I know little to nothing of Hicks so I can't make the lowdown-fuckwad-ripoff comparison
7 - visualsimplicity
"Like the drunken uncle who used to make you cry, it's funny, entertaining, but also touches you when you least expect it."
Oh boy, I almost laughed out loud in my cubicle at work thanks to that line. Boy would I have seemed weird to the new girl in the next cubicle.
Anyway, what's Simpsons Gone Wild suppose to be?
And 7th Heaven - The Complete First Season? I'm there.
8 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
heh. thanks VisSim!
Simpsons Gone Wild is another one of those 4 loosely connected episode type deals. I didn't give it any yacking on account of the box sets are really the only way to go. Mind you, sometimes i can't help it and ifnd myself buying those comilation deals too. The Gone Wild one has the following episodes;
Homers Night Out - The one where homer gets photographed with the belly dancer.
The Mansion Family - The one where the family get put in charge of Burns mansion for a while.
Sunday, Cruddy Sunday - The one where Homer organizes a bus trip to the superbowl.
Homer The Moe - The one where Homer stands in for Moe whilst he goes to learn all about bartending skills and so on.
The episodes are all great, but probably best to wait for the rest of the season sets, is what i would suggest.
9 - Jim Carruthers
regarding "Battle Royale II", I have a region-free Apex player (which has the admonition "you should not be here" when you access the secret menu), but I don't know about the PAL deal, since I don't have a multi-scan monitor. Though most of that is moot, since my local branch of Queen St. Video has the sequel. While I was somewhat underwhealmed by BR I, it was interesting enough to pique my interest in the second. However, having seen the first ep of "Spaced", if I ran across the reg. 2 version, I might want to know what to do.
But I've been mostly busy this week watching Angel Season 4 on DVD - watching an entire season of 22 eps plus commentaries and extras, wow, it takes some time.
10 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
jim, if you follow that link to my region 2 picks for september, you'll see that a definitive 3-disc special edition of spaced is about to be released (next week i think), featuring both series' plus an hour-and-a-half doc. If you play DVD's on a PC or whatever, the drive is region-free (but some lock after 5 changes, so be careful). I got my player chipped to play multi-region. The chip cost about 25 quid, but a hell of a lot of players can be hacked with the remote control to play all regions. As to the telly situation, i think its a matter of changing options on the DVD players menu. i know when i changed to multi-region, the disc played black-and-white (i didn't notice much was wrong for a time, considering the disc in question was clerks), but it took two seconds to sort. Something to do with the interlace options or something. i dont know. but it was easy to sort. if you're going to purchase something in region 2 or whatever, my advice would be to make sure first, though.
And, of course, if you're gonna pick up that spaced set, you could make the duke all happy and grab it via that link in the BR-II section above ;)
To be honest, im conflicted as hell about BR-II. i dont know if its a really intelligent piss-take or a really shitty flick. Either way, the action sequences are fantastic, and its gotta lotta balls, for sure.
Hope this was some help.
11 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
sorry, just noticed you said the player was multi-region. still, the PAL thingy still applies.
12 - visualsimplicity
Thanks for the additional information. It seems rather a useless dvd, no? I guess die-hard fans don't care.
13 - Jim Carruthers
As far as I know DVD region codes and TV sync are two different things. There is NTSC, PAL, and a thrid acronym I can't remember which has to do with the lines per inch on the screen and the interlace frequency (teevees are interlaced, computer monitors aren't).
Then you have the various regions on DVDs. So I know I have a multi-region DVD, but I also know I have an NTSC teevee set, though I do have a multisync computer monitor (but have no way at hand to hook the DVD to the computer).
So in other words, I guess I'll have to do like "Father Ted" and wait for CBC to broadcast "Spaced" or BBC America to put it out on NTSC DVD.
Or download all of it from the internet via bittorrent, but that would be wrong.
By the way, I think you'd really like Canadian show called "Puppets Who Kill", the first series is out on DVD.
14 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Thank Jim, i'll keep an eye out for that.
15 - Vic
Duke, I sure hope you have some automated system in place for generating those listings... looks like a helluva lot of work.
Appreciate it, dude!
Re-Animator... heh.
Vic
16 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
thanks vic. alas, no automated system. its all manual labour round The Duke's way, is what.
17 - Vic
Duke, contact me via Yahoo group with your sources and I might be able to help set up something to remove some of the manual labor.
Vic
18 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Vic, thank you. i'll sort that out in the next day or so.
19 - Matt Wardlaw
good to see about the Eric Bogosian DVD coming out - hit up EricBogosian.com for more info!
I'll have to surf over there myself and see what I have been missing! Hadn't thought about Eric in a while.
Also, it's amazing that there are now 5 seasons of Sanford and Son out on DVD.....if I could have 1 big birthday present, it would be a bunch of TV DVDs, whether it is Dukes Of Hazzard, Diff'rent Strokes, or Sanford and Son, or even The A-Team..