Home

THE BRADY BUNCH: COMPLETE SERIES (DVD)

April 13, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, G rated, TV Comedy , 1 Comment

BradyBunchcoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes
1969-74, 2,980 min. (117 episodes), Color
Not rated (would be G)
CBS/Paramount
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Includes: 20 discs in sturdy plastic case w/cardboard slipcase
Bonus features: C+
Amazon link

The Brady Bunch was one of the very last squeaky-clean family sitcoms in the old ’50s mold, airing as an anachronism of sorts during the Vietnam War years amid the chaos of Civil Rights, women’s rights, and anti-war protests. But in the Brady household, father Mike, a working architect, was still king of the castle with a den all his own, while his wife, Carol, was a stay-at-home mom who had the luxury of a servant. The children got into all sorts of minor conflicts and mischief, but none of the storylines tackled serious parental concerns of the day. Everything was sibling rivalry and innocent mix-ups.

There were conflicts over clubhouses, shared things and spaces, class elections, invented boyfriends, broken things that had to be replaced, and even talent shows. Drugs? Not here. Peer pressure to smoke? Only briefly. Teen pregnancy? Please! While other teens from the time were raiding their parents’ liquor cabinets, this group was content to raid the cookie jar. No one got into really serious trouble, and there was usually a lesson to be learned . . . from dad. When he wasn’t around, there was always mom or Alice, the housekeeper/cook (Ann B. Davis), to help them find their way.

First telecast on Sept 26, 1969, the show was a surprise hit, no doubt because it felt like comfort food to Americans who snuggled together during a turbulent era to watch and relive happier, more uncomplicated times. Divorce was becoming a widespread phenomenon for the first time, and the show about BradyBunchscreen1second-chance family life probably struck a chord with broken families. The range of the Brady children’s ages (7 through 14, when the show began) was broad enough for most youngsters to identify with. Airing on Friday nights, the show connected especially with children too young to have a social life, or, like the Bradys, too awkward and introverted. The Brady Bunch never finished in the Nielsen Top-30 and never won any Emmys, yet the show has become a cultural icon, lampooned in two feature films and held up as an example of one of the last wholesome family sitcoms to be telecast . . . before TV sitcom families would start spouting one-liners and zapping each other with zingers, before families (or rather, writers) got “hip.”   More

WITHOUT A CLUE (Blu-ray)

April 3, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Entire Family, Mystery, PG rated , , Leave a comment

WithoutaCluecoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes . . . but
1988, 107 min., Color
Rated PG for some violence, smoking, and drinking
Olive Films
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1 (says the box, but it looks more like 1.85:1)
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Bonus features: D (trailer only)
Trailer/Amazon link

From 1982-1987 Stephanie Zimbalist starred as the assistant to private detective Remington Steele, whom she had invented because no client would trust a female detective. He got the credit, but she was the sleuth. TV writers Gary Murphy and Larry Strawther took that concept and applied it to the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. And TV veteran Thom Eberhardt made the leap with them to direct the 1988 PG-rated crime comedy-mystery Without a Clue.

It’s a PG-rated light comedy that tries for slapstick at times and satire other times and often gets caught in-between. The result is a kind of tongue in cheek (or maybe bubble-pipe in mouth) parody that has a warm, tea cozy feel to it.

Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine make a good pair as Dr. Watson and the third-rate actor he hired to play the part of Sherlock Holmes so that he could be free to practice medicine and deduce all he wanted, without criticism or scrutiny. Of course, when you hire a bad actor it should come as no surprise that he turns out to be a ham who hogs the spotlight and has any number of habits that annoy the real detective—including drinking too much and clumsy attempts at womanizing.

By film’s end, of course, they’ll end up becoming a real team, but the fun comes from watching them get there. Without a Clue is a light mystery that features famed Holmes nemesis Professor Moriarty (Paul Freeman, who played Indiana Jones’ nemesis René Belloq) masterminding a plot to flood the market with counterfeit British money and cause the collapse of the British economy. The £5 printing plates have disappeared, and so has the printing supervisor. Scotland Yard’s Inspector Lestrade (Jeffrey Jones, who was the principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) is jealous of Holmes and competes with him to solve the case, standing in the wings every time adoring reporters surround Holmes.

WithoutaCluescreenThere’s a kidnapping and several skirmishes, all of which are handled with the same light touch as elsewhere in the film. Any potential trauma from the kidnapping, for example, is muted by a comic sequence that has Holmes pinned behind the door so that all we can see is his scrunched face as he threatens to pounce on the ruffians and urges a woman to keep a stiff upper lip. A few gunfights and an explosion are the only exceptions. Otherwise, moments of tension are defused by similar humorous devices, so that there’s never much in the way of serious peril—only comic danger. There’s no language, and the only sexuality comes from the unmasking of a transvestite and a little keyhole peeping in which a woman is seen taking off stockings. Overall, it’s a relatively wholesome film that relies on some familiar, but softened elements from private detective mysteries—including a woman in distress (Lysette Anthony) and a housekeeper (Pat Keen) who sees more than anyone thinks.   More

ISLAND OF LEMURS: MADAGASCAR (Blu-ray combo)

March 21, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Documentary, Entire Family, G rated, Nature Leave a comment

IslandofLemurscoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes
2014, 39 min., Color
Rated G
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray version, DVD, Digital HD
Bonus features: B-
Trailer/Amazon link

Island of Lemurs: Madagascar is a nature film made for IMAX theaters, not for a PBS viewership—meaning it’s geared for a popular audience rather than one looking to learn every detail they can about animals and their environment.

IMAX movies are typically experiences—movies shot in higher definition on 70mm film that can then be shown on screens way larger than anything you’d see in a standard movie theater, and with no loss of detail if you sit in the front rows. Shots have tended toward the dramatic—aerial panoramas, whales breeching, fires blazing out of control, and wilderness adventures—with early short films including The Eruption of Mount St. Helens!, Fires of Kuwait, and Alaska: Spirit of the Wild. So it’s somewhat of a deviation for a less naturally dramatic nature film like Island of Lemurs: Madagascar to get the IMAX treatment.

Featured primatologist Patricia Wright worked tirelessly to establish a 107,000-acre national park on the island of Madagascar to protect the 12 species of lemurs that live there. Maybe she has connections (or fans) in high places, because there isn’t a better way to raise awareness of a cause than with a 3D IMAX movie.

Wright and her work are showcased in Island of Lemurs, but the stars are, of course, the lemurs themselves. Lemurs tend to hop and jump a lot, using their strong hind legs, and there’s amazing footage of Sifakas, who naturally hop sideways so that it looks like they’re dancing, hopping across a beach. We also see Brown Mouse Lemurs, a little tinier and pudgier than the others, fearlessly flinging themselves from tree to tree. And we watch Indriids and their peculiar way they have of “singing.” You can look up information on these and find that their calls can be heard more than a mile away, but you won’t get that kind of specific information here. IMAX is a celebration of exotic places and phenomena, and the emphasis here is on these amazing creatures themselves.   More

THE REWRITE (Blu-ray)

March 14, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, PG-13 rated, Romantic Comedy 1 Comment

RewritecoverGrade: B-
Entire family: Yes, but . . . .
2014, 107 min., Color
RLJ/Image Entertainment
Not rated (would be PG-13 for drinking and adult situations)
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Hugh Grant is known for his boyish good looks, casual charm, and dry sense of humor. Writer-director Marc Lawrence is known for casting him.

Thus far Grant has starred in four of Lawrence’s lightweight PG-13 comedies, and while Music and Lyrics remains the best of the bunch—partly because of the chemistry that Grant had with co-star Drew Barrymore—The Rewrite is better than Two Weeks Notice and Did You Hear About the Morgans?

There are some genuinely funny moments in this comedy about an Oscar-winning writer who can’t find work and quickly manages to upset the apple cart after arriving at SUNY-Binghamton to teach a screenwriting course as a visiting writer-in-residence.

Keith Michaels, a one-hit wonder known only for penning Paradise Misplaced, violates teaching ethics by bedding the “apple polisher” that flirts with him his very first night in upstate New York. He drinks too much at the classic wine-and-cheese faculty reception and insults their Jane Austen scholar (Allison Janney). He becomes the talk of the campus after selecting his students on the basis of their attractiveness rather than the strength of their screenplays. And he all but forces an easygoing department chair (J.K. Simmons) to reprimand him after he meets with his students for a total of five minutes and tells them to come back after a month, when they’ve written a complete screenplay.

Michaels isn’t quite at rock bottom, but he still needs to travel a pretty long character arc to reach a point of redemption. And that’s what screenplays are all about.   More

THE ROAD TO HONG KONG (Blu-ray)

March 6, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

RoadtoHongKongcoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes, but young ones may not “bite”
1962, 91 min., black and white
Olive Films
Not Rated (would be G)
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1 widescreen
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0
Bonus features: None
Trailer

In May 1962, theatergoers saw two movies about the space race and secret organizations intent on world domination. One was the first James Bond film (Dr. No), and the other was The Road to Hong Kong, the last “Road picture” with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour.

Ironically, Hong Kong, the first of the Road pics to make it onto Blu-ray, is also the weakest. My 17-year-old son watched this black-and-white comedy with me and was surprised to hear that. He gave it a solid B. “It had some stupid parts,” he said, pointing a finger at the ending, especially, “but it was also pretty funny.”

He’s right. While Road to Singapore (1940), Road to Zanzibar (1941), Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1945), Road to Rio (1947), and Road to Bali (1952—the only one in color) are all better, The Road to Hong Kong is still entertaining.

Comedian Bob Hope and crooner Bing Crosby struck gold in the ‘40s playing a pair of vaudevillians slash con artists who somehow got involved in dangerous situations, with Crosby always duping Hope and the two of them always running into the singing siren Dorothy Lamour along the way. In each installment there were corny song-and-dance numbers, plenty of jokes and one-liners, at least one opportunity for Crosby to sing, and running gags about how Crosby always gets the girl and the best of his partner.

Hong Kong was the equivalent of a reunion show, and Crosby and Hope have clearly lost a little of their comic edge. In fact, a younger Peter Sellers doing a cameo as an Indian doctor reminds us that the two stars used to be much faster and glibber with their banter. Yet, they weren’t that old. Crosby and Hope were 59 at the time the movie was made, so it’s more likely that the 10-year-hiatus since they last worked together was responsible for the jokes not being as rapid-fire as usual. And while previous Road pictures were largely ad-libbed, this one felt mostly scripted.

Is that bad? No . . . unless you’re Dorothy Lamour, who was relegated to a cameo nightclub scene. Instead, then-hot Joan Collins was given the female lead. She does a decent job, but the chemistry just isn’t the same as it was when Lamour heated up the screen . . . and both of her co-stars.

RoadtoHongKongscreenIn Hong Kong, which spoofs ‘60s spy films before many of them had even been made, Hope and Crosby play a couple of cons selling “do-it-yourself interplanetary flight kits” that ends up giving Hope’s character amnesia. They go to a monastery for a cure, but along the way they end up mistakenly picking up a suitcase from a Third Echelon agent and are mistaken for the spies who are to give them a Russian rocket fuel formula. The plot thickens when Hope’s character receives a memory boost at the monastery and he can rattle off the entire formula from pages that his partner sticks in front of him as a test. The result is that they soon become entangled with a Third Echelon agent (Collins) and end up at the secret underwater base where the Third Echelon leader (Robert Morley) and his chief scientist Zorbb (Walter Gotell) are preparing to launch a rocket into space carrying chimps. But what better way to dispose of an “inconvenience” than by substituting them for the apes?

A space gag about forced feeding of the apes goes on a bit too long (which will make it the only funny part for very young viewers), and yes, if you don’t know the history of the Road pictures and how they break the fourth wall with almost every ending, the finale can seem hokey. But as a spy spoof and a Road reunion, The Road to Hong Kong does a pretty decent job.

And Olive Films, which has been producing a nice catalog of oldies on Blu-ray, did a very nice job on the transfer. They’ve quickly become a name you can trust for old movies on HD.

TINKER BELL AND THE LEGEND OF THE NEVERBEAST (Blu-ray combo)

March 3, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, Entire Family, G rated 1 Comment

neverbeastcoverGrade: B+/A-
Entire family:  Yes, but older boys may resist
2015, 76 min., Color
DisneyToon Studios
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Bonus features: C
Extended Sneak Peek

Disney has always gone after broad audiences, so it’s no surprise that their Pixie Hollow Fairies movies have moved steadily in the direction of more action in an attempt to attract boys to this little girls-only club.

In 2014, Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy folded the usual fairy fare into a rousing prequel to Peter Pan—a recipe for adventure that included more extended scenes of peril via pirates, swashbuckling, and that famous crocodile. Now, Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast introduces a “monster” to Pixie Hollow in what can best be described as a fairy misadventure that borrows liberally from Aesop’s fable of “Androcles and the Lion” and Disney’s own Beauty and the Beast— with a third act that reminds you a little of Ghostbusters.

“Not enough,” my teenage son says, explaining that as long as nobody gets destroyed it won’t appeal to boys, because boys don’t think the same way that girls do. They don’t want stories about following your heart versus following the rules of the community, or about a monster that’s really just misunderstood. They want real monsters and real battles. Body counts.

I’m not so sure. I think if we had put on NeverBeast when our son was younger, it would have held his interest. He was into animals at the time, and there are plenty of them in NeverBeast. One of the Blu-ray bonus features even highlights animal wrangler Jeff Corwin. Although the characters are all female fairies, Tinker Bell takes a back seat this time and animal fairy Fawn (Ginnifer Goodwin) gets the spotlight. She’s frankly easier for boys to like, if not identify with. If boys liked the slightly spacy younger sister from Frozen, they should like Fawn, who is animated, full of excuses, and determined to confront dangerous animals just to help them.   More

BIG HERO 6 (Blu-ray combo)

February 15, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Animation, Entire Family, PG rated 1 Comment

BigHero6coverGrade: A
Entire family: Yes
2014, 102 min., Color
Disney
Rated PG for action and peril, some rude humor, and thematic elements
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 widescreen
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Bonus features: B
Trailer

“Different, but as good as Frozen,” my wife pronounced it. “Four stars,” both teens said. And Big Hero 6 was easily my pick for Best Animated Feature of 2014. We all loved it, though I have to admit the poster didn’t sell me, nor did my hearing that the story was about a main character named Hiro (Hero?) and his brother Tadashi. How in the world would Disney be able to deliver a robotics story involving Japanese-named characters without being locked into an anime style?

Well, if you’re Disney, you confidently (and I might add, audaciously) create a future city named San Fransokyo, which, we learn in one of the bonus features, combines a geological mapping of San Francisco with the visual and cultural look of Tokyo—a hybrid that allows them to do pretty much anything, visually. That invented city, which was rendered using a new method called “Hyperion,” is so infused with vibrancy that you’re almost blown away by some of the cityscape scenes.

That’s not surprising, given the fact that it’s Disney and they’re all about originality and heart. Both of those traits drive Big Hero 6, which takes its name and spirit (and a few characters) from an obscure Marvel comic book.

Big Hero 6 tells the story of a 14-year-old robotics prodigy named Hiro (Ryan Potter) who’s already graduated from high school and hopes to be accepted into the nerdy robotics school his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) attends. He visits the school and meets some of the other students, a quirky group that includes a tough bicycle-loving woman named GoGo (Jamie Chung), the neurotic and overly self-protective Wasabi (Damon Wayans, Jr.), and a fast-talking hyperexuberant chemistry wiz named Honey Lemon (Génesis Rodríguez).

It’s an origin story, really, about how this group of brainy misfits comes together to form a superhero group called Big Hero 6, but it’s also every bit as much of a relationship story between a boy and robot as a film like The Iron Giant. The plot is set in motion when Hiro’s project on microrobotics blows away the competition at a big school science fair, and Professor Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell) hands Hiro a letter of acceptance after warning him not to sell his idea to billionaire businessman Alistair Krei (Alan Tudyk).

BigHero6screen1As one of the animators says in a bonus feature, Disney has never shied away from the issue of loss, having traumatized one generation with Bambi and Old Yeller and another with The Lion King. A new generation will vicariously learn to deal with loss through this film, which begins with two already orphaned boys living with their aunt (Maya Rudolph) and introduces three situations where a loved one may have been killed. That’s as much as I can say without getting into spoiler territory, except to add that Big Hero 6 is full of emotion. It’s also full of humor, with the soft vinyl robot Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit) sharing the comedic duties with all the nerdy characters and a rich wannabe superhero friend named Fred (T. J. Miller).

More

ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE . . . DAY (Blu-ray)

February 4, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Entire Family, PG rated, Uncategorized Leave a comment

AlexandercoverGrade: B-/B
Entire family:  Yes
2014, 81 min., Color
Rated PG for rude humor, including some reckless behavior and language
Disney
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: C
Trailer

Ever have the feeling that when your day starts off on the wrong foot, it’s going to be one stumble after the next, until you can go to bed and get a fresh start the following morning?

That’s what happens to 11-year-old Alexander, a doom-and-gloom youngster who tries to warn his family that anything they attempt is bound to turn out badly—all because his own day begins with a wad of gum stuck in his hair and then slides quickly into a vat of bubbling disasters, both small and large. What’s worse, it’s the day before his 12th birthday.

The rule of thumb for most movies told from the point of view of a child is that they tend to appeal to audiences who are the same age or younger than the star. That would make Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day aimed at elementary schoolers. But because Walt Disney Studios tried to broaden the appeal by bringing in more extreme situations and having the bad luck extend to every single family member, my guess is that it may also appeal to families with pre-teen children. It features an unlikely Date Night sequence of events and a motor vehicle that ultimately, as with the family from Little Miss Sunshine, brings them closer together.   More

101 DALMATIANS (Blu-ray combo)

January 31, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Animation, Entire Family, G rated 1 Comment

101DalmatianscoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes
1961, 79 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (with a border option)
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

Kids who love Frozen owe a big thank-you to the Disney staffers who made 101 Dalmatians. Animation had grown to be such an expensive proposition that it took 600 people to bring the previous film, Sleeping Beauty, to the big screen in 1959. And so the folks who worked on 101 Dalmatians were told that they had to find a way to make an animated picture that didn’t cost so much, or Walt Disney would reluctantly pull the plug on all future animated projects. The animation staff had already been trimmed to 300, but that still wasn’t enough. What saved animation for Disney was the discovery that you could eliminate the step of “inking” the drawings by Xeroxing them directly onto acetate sheets and save one tedious and expensive step in the animation process.

That’s the backstory, but what everyone knew in 1961 was that Disney had come up with another winning animated feature that included one of the most memorable Disney villains to date: Cruella De Vil, a devil of a woman who even had her own catchy theme song. She couldn’t change herself into a dragon, like Maleficent, but her driving was frightful and her obsession—to turn cute little Dalmatian puppies into a fur coat—was as evil and monstrous as any scheme that young viewers could comprehend. Even her henchmen were memorable because they combined comic relief and true menace.

101 Dalmatians turned out to be the ninth highest grossing film of 1961, and while it didn’t do as well as two Disney live-action features (The Absent-Minded Professor and The Parent Trap), it kept Disney animation alive for future projects and future generations of viewers.

101Dalmatiansscreen1The late Roger Ebert called it “an uneven film, with moments of inspiration in a fairly conventional tale of kidnapping and rescue,” and it’s hard to dispute that. But I do take exception with Ebert’s assessment that it’s only “passable fun.” 101 Dalmatians is more than that, especially for dog lovers and families with pets—and according to the Humane Society, that’s 47 percent of all American households. The puppies are cute as the Dickens and drawn, in typical Disney fashion, from live models so that they’re incredibly realistic in their movement.   More

ARTHUR’S FOUNTAIN ABBEY (DVD)

January 28, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

ArthursFountainAbbeycoverGrade: B+/A-
Entire family:  No
2014, 56 min., Color
Not rated (would be G)
PBS Kids
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (full screen)
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Bonus features: C
Teaser

Arthur will probably never catch its PBS cousin Sesame Street, which, at 44 seasons, is the longest running children’s show in America. But at 18 seasons it still holds the distinction of being the longest running animated children’s show in America.

Based on the books by Marc Brown, the series star is Arthur Read (the last name is deliberate, since the series encourages reading), an eight-year-old anthropomorphic aardvark who lives in a world of animals that walk, talk, dress, and face the same problems as their human counterparts. He’s a responsible kid who comes from a good family, and the series shifts back and forth between friends and family life with parents David (a chef/caterer) and Jane (an accountant who also works at home), and Arthur’s two younger sisters—the often annoying preschooler D.W. (short for Dora Winifred) and the infant Kate.

Arthur is a third-grade student at Lakewood Elementary, a likable brainy kid who isn’t marginalized the way some studious or brilliant kids are, and is made more “average” here because one of his friends is called “Brain.” He’s also friends with an exuberant rabbit named Buster and a not-so-bright burly dog named Binky. The emphasis is often on problem-solving, and reading sometimes provides a means of getting to that end. But Arthur is also good about addressing serious issues in a soft-but-firm way, or crafting episodes that are rooted in the headlines and popular culture.

Maybe that’s why the show has become popular with young adults who connect now via nostalgia but also those satirical episodes. Call it a kinder, gentler version of The Simpsons, because the writers have taken to incorporating parodies of movies and other TV shows, including the title episode on this four-episode DVD, “Fountain Abbey.”   More

Older Entries Newer Entries