Cynical Cinema

That’s it, people. You can stop buying movies for the rest of your life. Because the ultimate movie item is now on sale. As of yesterday, September 23rd, DVDs have reached perfection, when Paramount Home Entertainment released The Godfather Trilogy on Blu-Ray. The greatest movie trilogy of all time is now available in the greatest Hi-Definition format of all time. And while you may not think at first that The Godfather movies are the kind that require Blu-Ray technology, you would be wrong. There are certain classic movies where Blu-Ray is an obvious improvement over the original transfers. Dark City, or Blade Runner. Movies that started out dark and require that crisp, clear picture.

But The Godfather really does change as well. These are three movies that I have seen dozens upon dozens of times, and yet watching them in Blu-Ray was a whole new experience. When you watch the scene where James Caan gets riddled with bullets, it’s like you’re one of the guys holding a machine gun. When Luca Brasi is rehearsing his speech outside Don Corleone’s office, you feel like he’s talking directly to you, the movie watcher, about this, the day of your daughter’s wedding. And when Michael takes Fredo out for a boat ride…well. You’ll just have to see to understand. And then you will agree. DVD movies have attained perfection with the release of The Godfather Trilogy on Blu-Ray. Throw out the rest of your collection. It is ALL now obsolete.

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing Criminal Minds: Season Three on DVD tomorrow, September 16th. As I have said many times before, most recently in my review of NCIS, these shows are a dime a dozen on TV. And I like almost all of them. Criminal Minds is one of the better ones, and the third season is my favourite to date. Nothing against Mandy Patinkin, who I like, but I am a big fan of Joe Mantegna. Both in the movies and on this show. This is the season where Patinkin left (although he does appear in the first episode), and Mantegna took his place. He adds a certain amount of credibility to the cast, which was already quite good. (Although I still find Thomas Gibson fairly irritating. Call it the curse of Dharma And Greg.)

This isn’t one of those series that delves deep into forensics, like CSI or NCIS. Instead, Criminal Minds deals with, well, criminal minds. Which stands to reason. It’s well-written, well acted, and the plot of each show is compelling. Which is especially true in the third season. Kidnapping, stalking, and murder. It’s worth checking out.

There is an absolutely phenomenal box set being released on August 26th. Woody Allen has been one of the greatest American directors for many years, and while he is mostly remembered for his all-time classics, Manhattan and Annie Hall, every one of his films is worth watching for one reason or another. With his latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona in theatres, Alliance Films decided to release Woody Allen: The Collection today, August 26th. Every movie in this box is good, some are great. And while six of the discs have been readily available before this on DVD, the seventh is the bonus.

Wild Man Blues, a 1997 documentary film about Woody Allen, has been a hard-to-find item for some time. Not a film about Allen the film maker, but a film about Woody Allen the jazz musician. Allen, when not making films, plays jazz clarinet at a New York club. This film, directed by Barbara Kopple, follows Allen around as he takes the jazz ensemble on the road. The documentary was made right around the time when the public image of Allen was at it’s lowest. He had just left Mia Farrow for their stepdaughter Soon Yi Previn, and people were beginning to look on him as some kind of sexual predator. This film was accused of apple-polishing by some critics upon it’s release. As though it were some kind of brown-nosing attempt by Kopple to repair Allen’s tarnished image, and the movie was quickly forgotten. But in watching it now, it is merely a window into the man’s private life, his relationship with Soon-Yi, which really does appear to be pretty normal, and his relationship with his parents, which is eye-opening.

The other films in the set are all second-rate Woody Allen films, which would be first-rate films by almost anyone else. Mighty Aphrodite, the film for which Mira Sorvino won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, is a pretty fluffy film that works best as a reminder that Mira Sorvino CAN actually act. Bullets Over Broadway is a brilliantly funny comedy about gangsterism and the roaring twenties, featuring terrific performances by Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest. Everyone Says I Love You is a musical comedy that is absolutely jammed with star power, and as such is one of the only Julia Roberts movies, AND one of the only Drew Barrymore movies, that I actually enjoy. Deconstructing Harry is a very dark comedy that is equally star-studded, with Robin Williams, Demi Moore, Billy Crystal and dozens of others in perhaps Woody Allen’s most under-rated movie. Celebrity is also jammed with big names, but isn’t one of Allen’s best efforts. And Scoop is likely the low point of the box set, with Scarlett Johanssen turning in a surprisingly mediocre performance and Hugh Jackman being a little more irritating than necessary. Not a horrible movie, but weak by Woody Allen standards.

Woody Allen: The Collection is a must for fans of his work, with Wild Man Blues being the icing on the cake. Get this box set, then pick up Annie Hall, Manhattan and Crimes And Misdemeanors, and you have all the Woody Allen you’ll ever need.

The cover of the DVD “Cougar Club” certainly seems to indicate toplessness. As does the banner splashed across the jacket, “topless menus!” And it delivers! There are indeed topless girls in the menus. Possibly cougars, but likely a little too young to truly be actual cougars. So…if you click around on the menus, you will see boobs. If you watch the film all the way to the end, you will see boobs there as well, in a monatage of boobs over the closing credits. In between, during the movie itself, there are not many boobs. But a few boobs. In short, the only thing this movie has going for it is boobs, but there are not enough boobs to make this boob of a movie any less of a boob. The dialogue in the film is just about as clever as my own in the first part of this paragraph. An altogether painful experience, Cougar Club.

I know what you are thinking. If you knew it was just going to be one of those stupid teenagers-have-sex-with-people movies, why did you rent it? Good question. The main reason was the cast. I saw the DVD case and moved on. But on a second pass, I saw the name Faye Dunaway! And I took a look at it. I then saw Carrie Fisher, Joe Mantegna, and Izabella Scorupco. I thought, there is no chance all these fairly significant actors (or, in the case of Dunaway, legendary actors) would all have made a terrible error at the same time, would they? But it appears that yes, they would. And there is a big problem with a movie that’s only premise is the promise of boobs. The problem is that people will rent the movie based on their desire to see the boobs of the actresses whose names appear on the cover of the film. When neither Fisher, nor Dunaway, nor Scorupco, and not even the wrestler Chyna (who gets big billing as well) doff their tops, even though they all have gratuitous sex scenes, it clearly undermines the rest of the boobs, which belong to nameless girls and are so gratuitous as to be comical.

The basic premise of Cougar Club is that two young guys go to work for a law firm, and discover that they can easily have sex with their bosses’ wives. So the wives recruit other cougars, the young guys recruit other young guys, membership fees are charged, and a brothel of inter-generation trysts is created. This all gets wrapped up nicely in one of the worst courtroom scenes in history, and definitely the most offensive back-of-a-courtroom scene of all time. I have spent a long time enjoying cougars myself, but…I have spent way too much time dissecting a movie that really shouldn’t ever even be discussed. This ends now.