Max’s Best DVD and Blu-ray Picks – February, 2012
Hi, I’m Max. best friend of Walt Oleksy (waltmax@comcast.net), and I review new DVD and Blu-ray releases each month. We don’t care for most of the new stuff out of Hollywood. We’ve seen more than enough thrillers, car chases, men and women in their birthday suits, and comedies the critics say are “hilarious” but which just aren’t funny unless you’re two years old (I’m nine and my master admits to being “over thirty-nine.” We don’t watch anything with vampires in it, except the original “Dracula.” We like movies that tell a good story and maybe we learn something from it. We figure you can read about the new so-called blockbuster films everywhere else, so we look for flicks that are worth seeing but get little publicity and are not seen in most mall theaters.
Everyone’s so busy these days, I keep my recommendations brief. Here goes for what I think you’ll like on DVD this month.
Best Pick of the Month
DOWNTON ABBEY, SEASON 2
No question about it, the second series is as good a bone to chew on or even better than the first, which knocked a lot of socks off for its wit, drama, intelligence, and just plain great entertainment. Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Dan Stevens, Michelle Dockery, Brendan Coyle, and the rest of the terrific cast returns with some new members including longtime favorites of mine, Ian Glen and David Robb, to keep the plot pot boiling over as the “upstairs, downstairs” families get deeper into World War I and domestic action centering around the decline of the system of class and privilege in England. My master and I have been watching it Sunday nights on PBS Television’s Masterpiece series, and he just got it all on Blu-ray which is a special treat for sharpness. Extras on both the Blu-ray and DVD formats include short documentaries about the fashions and uniforms of the war period, Romance in the Time of War, about romantic relationships in the mansion, and how it was converted into a hospital during wartime. Season One won an Emmy as best television miniseries and the new season could well win another. It’s available now on both Blu-ray and DVD, nine hours of great entertainment on three discs from PBS Distribution. My tail is still wagging after watching it all and I can hardly wait for the third season which is already in production. There’s also a lot of cliff-hanging romance in the series, so since February is the month of Valentine’s Day, both season one and two on Blu-ray or DVD would make a great gift for your loved one. My master and I find that watching it on disc helps us to catch stuff we missed watching it on television. Will Lady Mary win back Matthew? Will Bates and the ladies’ maid escape the claws of his scheming wife? Will the Daisy the kitchen helper continue to encourage the soldier? DOWNTON ABBEY always keeps us guessing.
Max’s rating: Two paws up and lots of “woo! Woo’s!”
Also recommended this month:
BEGINNERS
A father (Christopher Plummer) comes out to his son (Ewan McGregor) before dying and we are taken on a very personal journey into their distant relationship. It’s a strong movie from writer-director Mike Mills that is well worth watching, not only for the story but the two lead performances (Plummer was nominated for a supporting actor Academy Award and is my favorite to win). Often stealing scenes is a Jack Russell terrier called Arthur in the film. I’d like to play with him, but since he lives in California and I near Chicago, that’s unlikely. So I’ll keep playing with Lucie, a chocolate brown Lab next door, and my new playmate, Lola, a Golden Retriever up the block. Sorry for digressing. The movie is on DVD and Blu-ray from Focus Features.
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
This is an old-fashioned romantic melodrama going back to the 1930s that my master and I enjoyed this month. Robert Patterson took his teeth out of girls’ necks as a vampire long enough to star in this film as a would-be veterinarian who works at a traveling circus. He falls in love with the wife (Reese Witherspoon) of the circus owner (Christopher Waltz) while tending to the health needs of an abused elephant. Waltz, last year’s winner of an Oscar for best supporting actor in the war film INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, steals this show as a slightly off-kilter and very jealous husband. Talk about a temper! My only objection to the film is some violence against animals and people. The DVD and Blu-ray is from Fox Searchlight.
ZATT
This horror film was so bad it is now considered good, (sometimes this happens with dogs, too), a cult classic that took ten years to be released, in 1982. Now it was been restored and in high definition in a special DVD/Blu-ray combo pack from Film Chest on the Cultra and HD Cinema Classics labels. The story is about a man who drinks some bad water and turns into a human-sized walking catfish. He goes after anyone who laughs at him and also tries to get some women to drink the same bad water so he has a female catfish companion. Also called BLOOD WATERS OF DOTOR Z, it is not for everyone (not everyone likes fish, either), but if you’re looking for some midwinter madness, this could more than fill your plate.
THE JAZZ SINGER
You may never have known (I didn’t), that comedian Jerry Lewis also starred in a version of the 1927 classic Al Jolson film that first brought sound to the movies. In celebration of Lewis’s 80 years in show business, this rare television broadcast of Lewis as the cantor’s son who prefers to sing pop songs, is now on DVD from Inception Media Group. It was originally a 1959 special for NBC’s Lincoln-Mercury Startime television series and was never rebroadcast or distributed in any home format since it was first aired.
Documentaries
EYES ON THE PRIZE
The 25th anniversary of the definitive Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary report on the civil rights movement, now on DVD from PBS Distribution. The 6-hour special first aired on PBS Television in 1987 and was called by the New York Times “the most ambitious documentary undertaken by black filmmakers and one of the largest television series ever undertaken,” while the Chicago Sun-Times said “This is not just superb television, it is a journey into the soul of America,” as it recounts the fight to end decades of discrimination and segregation. My master and I watched the three disc DVD set just after seeing the new film, THE HELP, on DVD, and it added greatly to our understanding of the civil rights movement. And if you haven’t seen THE HELP yes, I highly recommend it as one of the best movies of last year and a strong contender for the best picture Academy Award and its star, Viola Davis, who could be named best actress.
DEFENDING THE REALM
Honoring the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, this documentary recounts the summer of 1940 when Royal Air Force pilots saved London during intensive bombing by the Nazis before America entered World War II. It was the heroic action of the RAF that summer that Prime Minister Winston Churchill said “Never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few.” The exciting documentary is on DVD from ITV Studios Ltd. and BFS Entertainment. Must-viewing for most of us.
FRONTLINE: “A PERFECT TERRORIST,” and “DIGITAL MEDIA: NEW LEARNERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY”
Two excellent documentaries from PBS Television. The terrorist documentary from the award-winning Frontline series reports on the mysterious events that led David Coleman Headley to escalate from heroin dealer and U.S. government informant to the master plotter of the 2008 attack on Mumbai, India. The attack by a Pakistani militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the most spectacular terror attack since 9/11, left 166 dead. The other documentary tells how digital media such as smart phones and other hand-held communications gadgets for playing electronic games, social networking, texting, and blogging, is impacting the lives of American children and influencing how they learn. The hour-long documentary attempts to answer questions of parents and educators about what young people are doing with these technologies as a social and educational revolution. Both documentaries are on DVD from PBS Distribution.
NOVA: Bombing Hitler’s Dams and 3D Spies of World War II, Destroying Hitler’s Top-Secret Rockets
The award-winning PBS Television series focuses on how experts have re-created the heroic World War II events during 1943 in which British pilots bombed Nazi dams, the most audacious raids in history. The bombs destroyed two huge dams in Germany’s industrial heartland. The two-hour documentary is on DVD from PBS Distribution. The spy documentary tells how British pilots flew over Germany early in World War II to take 3-dimensional photographs of sites which housed Hitler’s top secret rocket facilities. Air photo intelligence teams in a country house near London then studied the millions of photos using 3D graphics to enable Allied pilots to bomb Hitler’s hidden rocket sites. The raids were crucial setbacks to the German rocket program and helped ensure the success of the D-Day landings and bring about an earlier end to the war. The hour-long DVD is also from PBS Distribution.
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Custer’s Last Stand and Underground Railroad: The William Still Story
Two more excellent documentaries in the award-winning PBS Television series. In the Custer documentary, historians report on the June 26, 1876 massacre of U.S. Cavalry Gen. George Armstrong Custer and his men at the Little Big Horn River in Montana Territory by a large army of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. Researchers present both sides of the unsolved historical argument of whether Custer was a hero or a glory-bent military leader who intentionally sacrificed his life and those of his troops. The two-hour documentary, as exciting as any movie, is from PBS Distribution. The other documentary profiles the heroic efforts of William Still, a free-born African-American Pennsylvania abolitionist and historian, who helped slaves cross the U.S. border into Canada via the so-called Underground Railroad. It also explores the major role Canada played in the secret missions in which tens of thousands of men, women, and children, were delivered from bondage to freedom before and during the American Civil War. The hour-long DVD is also from PBS Distribution.
FRONTLINE: THE INTERRUPTERS
This exciting documentary reports on how three people known as “violence interrupters” bravely worked to protect their Chicago neighborhoods from violence they once had used themselves. The New York Times says the film “has put a face to a raging epidemic and an unforgivable American tragedy” – the violence in our cities. The three Chicagoans are shown attempting to intervene in situations in which two brothers threaten to shoot each other, an angry teenage girl just home from prison, and a young man headed toward an act of dangerous revenge. The award-winning two-hour documentary from producer-director Steve James (HOOP DREAMS) and author-producer Alex Kotlowitz (THERE ARE NO CHILDREN) is on both DVD and Blu-Ray from PBS Distribution.
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: William Jefferson Clinton
Continuing its fascinating series of in-depth biographies of famous Americans including its former Presidents, this documentary focuses on former President Clinton. From draft-dodger to admired President whose administration was one of prosperity and a balanced budget, with a scandal along the way, we learn more about the man and official than we may well never have known. The portrait is of one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted public figures. The three-hour DVD is on both DVD and Blu-ray from PBS Distribution.
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: The Amish
The PBS Television series focuses on a year in contemporary Amish faith and life of the insular religious community that holds strict to their 300-yar-old traditions of living modestly and old-fashioned in modern America. The two-hour documentary, the first to deeply penetrate and explore is values and where the Amish may be headed, is on both DVD and Blu-ray from PBS Distribution.
FRONTLINE: The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela
An intimate portrait of one of the 20th Century’s greatest leaders. The documentary probes into the South African leader’s character, leadership, and life’s method through interviews with friends and political allies and adversaries. Also interviewed are fellow prisoners and jailors where he spent 18 of his 27 prison years on Robben island off Cape Town, Africa, transforming from radical into mature leader and statesman. The two-hour documentary is on DVD from PBS Distribution.
ROUGH CUT – Woodworking with Tommy Mac: Season 2
Four new episodes of how to build furniture from the series that was nominated for a daytime Emmy its first season. Thirteen new projects range from a drop-leaf Shaker-like table to a turned floor lamp and veneered coffee table, all shown in half-hour how-to episodes by young woodworking expert Tommy MacDonald. Ladies, if you’re not into woodworking, you might just enjoy looking at Tommy, a blond All-American Boy from Boston who looks great in a black t-shirt. Each project is on a separate DVD which includes fold-out instructions. From PBS Distribution.
THAT SHOW WITH JOAN RIVERS, Vols. 1-3
Long before the show she hosted in the early 1990s, the comedienne’s first talk show was televised from 1968-69 on NBC. Guest stars included Johnny Carson, Carol Lawrence, Jerry Louis, Dick Cavett, and many more. Her many fans can how see this top-rated show on DVD from Film Chest.
LAWRENCE WELK
The popular band leader and accordionist, and his bouncy music and bubble machine are back in a DVD, Lawrence Welk Classic Episodes, Vo. 1-4, from Film Chest. His show, first broadcast in 1951, and which continued for 27 years, remains the longest-running American musical/variety show on television. Featured in this four-disc set are the fifth anniversary show, the “Gypsy” show, a salute to America’s military veterans, and a Mardi Gras celebration.
That’s all for February. See you here again at the same fire hydrant next month.
