Interview: Eric Lichtenfeld Part 2 of 2
This is the second half of my talk with Eric Lichtenfeld, author of Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie. Please don’t forget to check out the first half of this interview or my original review of his book.
BOB ROSE: Do you enjoy action film satires such as True Lies, Shoot ‘Em Up, or Hot Fuzz?
ERIC LICHTENFELD: I like True Lies a lot.
BR: It’s definitely a satire, at least to some degree.
EL: Yes, a loving one. It’s one of those films that works both ways. I think Robocop is an even better example than True Lies, but both of them illustrate this well: it’s a satire that works as a movie even if you don’t get the satire. You don’t watch them and think that there is something you’re missing.
BR: Robocop is a movie that I don’t feel has been fully appreciated for what’s under its skin.
EL: I think the critical thinking concerning Robocop over the years has matured to the point where it has gotten its due. Obviously not in all corners–I’d be surprised if Michael Medved went for it, though he might; I honestly don’t know.
BR: Sequels have diluted the way it is remembered.
EL: The sequels really have very little to do with the original, and what made the original special.
BR: I agree, however, when people view a franchise as a whole they tend to have trouble separating the installments in their mind.
EL: Rocky and the Rambo franchise are great examples of that. You might be right about that with Robocop, but, I think anyone who spends any time thinking about this even remotely seriously would still look at Robocop as its own entity.
BR: Sure, I was just saying that, for instance, Robocop 2, which I admit to enjoying as an action film, made the “joke” of Robocop the point of the movie. It makes people forget.
EL: Yeah, you’re right.
BR: My life experience has been, when I tell people I’m interested in film and that Robocop is one of my favorite films”¦I get funny looks. You actually start your book with a quote from Robocop. Clarence Bodeker quipping “guns, guns, guns.”
EL: I was always a very big fan of Robocop. I remember a very close family friend, a friend of my parents, watched it on my recommendation and told me, “Your taste is up your ass.”
BR: [laughs]
EL: I thought, “ok, they just didn’t get it.” One of the clichés I really hate is when people talk about movies and say that some inanimate object was “like another character in the movie,” but in Robocop, violence really is like another character: it goes through a lot of changes and progression. Almost every major violent episode of Robocop has a distinctly different tone. Sometimes the violence is darkly comic, such as when ED209 kills the executive in the boardroom–
BR: Which is even longer and more violent in the unrated cut.
EL: Right, and even funnier. In the drug warehouse or the showdown at the steel mill, the violence is heroic. When the gang converges on Murphy it’s very tragic. So Verhoeven crafted a lot of violence in the movie, but always found a way to give it different emotional flavors, and that’s just one facet of how smart that movie is.
BR: Do you think that is affected by how Paul Verhoeven views the movie, as a form of Christ’s story? Murphy’s death is played so serious and sad, like as if it’s his crucifixion, even though it preceded by something as funny as ED209 malfunctioning.
EL: Well, Verhoeven has described himself as a Christ scholar. So, the short answer to your question is “sure.” I’m sure that how he treats Murphy is a reflection of his investment in the Christ story. At the same time I’m hesitant to make too big a deal about that because all action movies are Christ stories. Most hero stories involve the basic building blocks. Most heroes have–I’m saying this figuratively–an almost supernatural quality. Dirty Harry is set apart from other men. Martin Riggs is set apart from other men. An action hero is set apart from others, has special abilities, has a divine purpose (again, I’m speaking figuratively,) is forsaken by his community (that’s a really important point,) and rises again. So I think that Verhoeven’s fascination with Jesus is certainly informing that scene, but I think you would read the same thing into the movie even if that wasn’t a particular interest of his.
BR: Yeah, I would have never singled out Robocop specifically for that if he had not said “This is my version of the Christ story.”
EL: I’m certainly not disagreeing with Verhoeven on this, but that would have probably been in there to one extent or another, even if –
BR: He’d not been trying.
EL: Exactly, because it’s the nature of the genre. Cobra is a very similar thing. It depends on how “literal vs. figurative” you want to be with some of your language about martyrdom, and about being forsaken and so forth. But the building blocks of that story are present in most these stories.
BR: In keeping with the topic of the hero story, in your book you discuss the archetype of “the man that knows Indians.” The hero as the outsider.
EL: Yeah, he is one of us, except that he has a very intimate knowledge of “the other.”
BR: Like Travis Bickle?
EL: Travis Bickle is certainly based on that archetype as Taxi Driver is very much an inverted The Searchers. Rambo is a perfect example, he’s a guerilla fighter.
BR: Yet he fights for the norm of the people he doesn’t know.
EL: Not just the people he doesn’t know, he fights to protect a society that will not integrate him into it.
BR: What I like about your book is that it shows how Taxi Driver is part of the evolution of the action movie, even though it isn’t really part of the genre.
EL: It’s very interesting: when I would tell people that I was including Taxi Driver in the book, some people got kind of pissed.
BR: Because they thought you were diluting what Taxi Driver is?
EL: Exactly, like I was defacing Taxi Driver by including it in this un-scrubbed mass of movies.
BR: Which you weren’t at all.
EL: Thank you. Once again, that insult kind of goes to the standing of the action genre, in terms of how people validate it, or not. The fact that some people were annoyed that I put Taxi Driver in with this sort of un-washed, un-scrubbed genre says a lot about the standing that the genre enjoys.
BR: Especially now. I admit I don’t remember a lot of criticism from 20 years ago, but do you think that with what action has become, it is respected less?
EL: I think in terms of most critics, action has stayed pretty much where it’s always been, on one of the lower tiers, critically speaking. There are films that break out, and there are ones that over time can grow in stature. I think most critics would argue that Die Hard is one of the great action movies, but if you go back to 1988 and read the reviews, they were mixed.
BR: But, in hindsight, Die Hard can be looked back at as simply a great movie.
EL: I agree. Going back to Taxi Driver, people were very irritated. I wouldn’t reduce Taxi Driver to just an action movie; I think it is a lot more then just that.
BR: Sure, it’s a drama or a dark comedy much more then an action film.
EL: It’s a lot of things. It’s a modern day western. It’s a horror movie. Taxi Driver is one of those films that is such a complicated, but ultimately organic, constellation of genre elements, there are many different ways to parse it.
BR: It’s a film that could be analyzed till judgment day and still not be fully cracked.
EL: It’s made by cinephiles, by true cinephiles. What I tried to do was say that in addition to all the ways that Taxi Driver has been looked at up to this point, you can also look at it as this stepping stone in the evolution of the modern action movie. An important one especially in how it directly engages the idea of the vigilante. That is such an important part of the transition from westerns to modern day action films, and an important transition from basically everything that had come up to “˜70s, in terms of film history, to the “˜80s and what would become that classical period.
BR: Movies like Taxi Driver, and even say, Dirty Harry, compared to the action films of the present day almost feel like dramas.
EL: I would agree with you about Taxi Driver; Dirty Harry less so. I think what you’re probably picking up on is that idea you were discussing earlier that the movies have gotten so much bigger that when you look at Dirty Harry today it’s hard to know how to classify it, because it doesn’t look like the actions movies we’ve grown accustomed to.
BR: I hate to be one of the people that have grown accustomed to it, but we are bombarded so consistently how can you not?
EL: [Laughs] I’ll give you another good example of this idea. I was teaching my class, and that particular semester, our genre unit was on the action movie and we had a 35mm print of Lethal Weapon. Now I have seen Lethal Weapon numerous times, but I hadn’t seen it projected since 1987. So I was very excited to see it in 35mm again for the first time in about 20 years. Know what amazed me? That foot chase over Hollywood Blvd., It’s a great sequence, there isn’t a frame wrong with it. But I kept thinking about how conceptually small it is, and wondering how often you could get away with making it the big third-act sequence today.
BR: Compared to today, that is the action-equivalent of the first act of a movie.
EL: Very true. That made me sad; it made me lonesome for that time.
BR: Yes, but the subtext of that scene is big. The subtext of a mammoth action scene, let’s say of a movie like Transformers, is nil, where as the subtext of the action in Lethal Weapon’s climax is enormous.
EL: [Laughs] I wouldn’t call it subtext in that case, but I would call it intensity. You have characters you really care about, that you are really invested in. I mean, yes, the whole movie is kind of comic-book like, especially the third act, but the performances are real, the dynamic is real, you feel something for these people. I hate reducing the movie or the genre to this issue, but there’s something to it. Yes, the concept might be small, but it does allow for a much more visceral, kinetic experience. That’s why, throughout the book, I try to write so much about craftsmanship and this is the point I concluded on: that what I think is missing today is that physical investment in what’s happening on screen. When I look at something like the first Transformers, and I look at those action sequences, I don’t know what it is I’m suppose to be feeling.
BR: Or what it is you are even looking at”¦ [laughs]
EL: Sure, but one issue is more fundamental than the other. Yes, I don’t always know what I’m looking at, which is a problem, and that’s a big issue with not just Michael Bay, but other filmmakers.
BR: The action-geography influences the physical investment of the scene as well.
EL: Exactly. What I believe is that without a clear sense of geography there’s not a clear sense of jeopardy. So when I look at something like Transformers, and I see the action sequences, I don’t know what I am supposed to be feeling. Am I supposed to feel excited, the way you feel excited when you watch the foot chase in Lethal Weapon, or in First Blood? Or are you just supposed to feel kind of generally overwhelmed (which is a completely different feeling)? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I prefer to be excited over being bombarded.
BR: Overwhelmed is sort of the mantra of the Transformers franchise as well. The goal of the sequel seems to be, “How big can we go? How much can we throw at them, and how fast can we do it?” The movie doesn’t want you there for the characters; it wants you there for the experience.
EL: Yes, Lethal Weapon works in part because we care about the characters and that is all great, but as I was talking about before it was all about sheer craftsmanship. In his review of Lethal Weapon, I think, Roger Ebert said it absolutely beautifully that the pleasure of the action movie is in the choreography of bullets and bodies and all of these elements. There is an aesthetic pleasure that can be gotten from all that. Look at the first Die Hard. Also, and this is a movie that gets knocked around a lot, but I was watching Die Hard With A Vengeance yesterday, and there is some stuff in there that I think is just incredible. It’s all about basic film style and craftsmanship. That is one of the points that I concluded the book with. When it’s done right, the pleasure of the action movie is that it truly physically makes you feel alive. You sense these things on your flesh, you sense these things on your nerve endings and in your gut. Thinking about how filmmakers have the power to do that is really an extraordinary thing and it makes me sad that it’s so forsaken.
BR: It’s dying.
EL: Yeah, probably. I like to think that there are filmmakers that just aren’t on my radar right now, who are, frankly, on lots and lots of other people’s radars. I saw Star Trek and I saw glimmers of that alive in that film. I thought Star Trek was a really good movie. I remember when Waterworld came out, and not unlike Last Action Hero, Waterworld was a movie that had a lot of the story behind the movie dogging it and following it”¦
BR: The biggest budget ever.
EL: Right, and when the movie came out it wasn’t even it hype, it was like anti-hype.
BR: It was also part of the Kevin Costner backlash.
EL: At that point, yes. When it was released, Steven Spielberg was being interviewed about something else, and they asked him “have you seen Waterworld?’ and he said “yes” and they said “was it worth 300 million dollars?” and I loved his answer. His answer was “It doesn’t have to be worth 300 million dollars, it has to be worth seven dollars.” I thought that was just perfect. I thought so much about that after I saw Star Trek, because we can talk about this stuff all day long, but what does this all ultimately come down to? You went to a movie, you bought a ticket, you either had an experience or you didn’t. When I came out of Star Trek, I think we paid about $15 to see it, I said “You know, that was worth my money, I had an experience.”
BR: Flaws aside, I agree it worked as great entertainment.
EL: Yeah, and how often can that be said of these very impressive light shows? You know Transformers was a very impressive light show, but did I have an experience? If I had one, is it a worthwhile one?
BR: Was it worth $10?
EL: Was it even worth the time? I’d say no.
BR: There’s a reason we needed movies like District 9 and Inglourious Basterds this summer. People are all too often are going to films like Transformers, and saying “why did I just pay money for that? What did I just watch?” Seeing something like Basterds, or District 9, which is a light show plus more, at least gives you your money’s worth. I think it has a lot to do with passion. While all “big” movies are product, some movies, like Transformers, feel like only product. At least with Basterds or District 9, even if you didn’t like those movies you can still feel the passion behind them, and that in turn inflates the experience. It makes you say “that was worth my money.”
EL: Yeah, I think that’s a fair way to put it.
BR: This has been a very droll summer. Every film looks like G.I. Joe or Transformers, and while I didn’t see G.I. Joe, I think I can get a picture of what G.I. Joe would be.
EL: [Laughs] Like everyone else, I heard it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be.
BR: Is that ever really a compliment? [Laughs] One of the chapters of your book is titled “Terror and the Confined Area,” dealing with the sub-genre created by Die Hard. This decade we have sort of seen the confined area die. I guess we could blame the rise of fantasy and comic book films. Do you think audiences have forgotten that an action scene can take place in an elevator just as easily as a battlefield?
EL: [Laughs] Well, let’s start broad and narrow our focus. I would say that the last significant movie in that Die Hard vein was Air Force One.
BR: That long ago?
EL: Yeah. I don’t really even think Live Free Or Die Hard follows the format. When you talk about that state of all those movies coming out on top of each other in the “˜90s, it was because we had a few dominant trends and that was one of them. That cycle ended with Air Force One in July of 1997. That is a movie I really admire. We were talking about craftsmanship; that is a very finely crafted movie. I think the trend died out for two reasons, the rise of CG making other things possible as we talked about before, but also there was such a distinctive trend that had been going on for so long it had to stop. Genre is a funny thing. It’s about formula and variation and carefully controlling that balance between the familiar and the new. This is no fault of the concept, it happens all the time; the cycle just reached its end. I’m glad it went out with a movie that was so well-crafted in that it really got the idea of geography, which is what made the first Die Hard so effective.
BR: Ironically, the biggest criticism of Air Force One is the CG plane crash.
EL: Yeah, that sequence doesn’t work very well. The technology wasn’t that far along yet, they overshot their capability. Air Force One is not one of those widely-admired movies necessarily. I’m usually on the leading edge of its cheerleaders.
BR: Honestly, I was expecting you to be very negative toward it. I love the movie, but in my experience, it usually isn’t greeted with much welcome. [Laughs]
EL: Yeah, I think that’s really unfortunate. In fact, I’ll give you a great illustration of what I’m talking about. A few weeks before Air Force One came out, there was the summer’s other terrorists-take-over-a-plane-movie which was Con Air. I saw it with friends, and I said to them, “You know in the interior of the plane, there’s that cage where they keep the dangerous psychopath?”
BR: Danny Trejo, the rapist character, Johnny 23.
EL: I said, “Where was that cage in relationship to the seats?” and everybody had a different answer. Now how hard would it have been to very clearly map out the geography of the plane? If John McTiernan had directed that movie, one shot would have taken care of all of that. A stedi-cam shot. When the concept is absolutely dependent on your sense of geography, that kind of frenetic style ran roughshod over it. Go back and watch the dogfight where it’s Air Force One between the F-16s and Migs. Whenever they cut into a cockpit the pilots are always facing the direction their planes were facing. Screen direction is preserved there and really, really well. There’s a certain level of craftsmanship there, a lot to admire and learn from in Air Force One between [the director Wolfgang Petersen] and Michael Ballhaus’s cinematography. So that cycle had ended, and your question was about if we had forgotten that action can take place in an elevator or a confined space.
BR: We have such epic action now. I think if you said “action scene” to a 12-15 year old right now, they would think of a battlefield or a desert covered in billions of minions. There’s nothing wrong with that sometimes, but action scenes don’t always have to be a fully filmed war, or a CG equivalent of a classic Godzilla battle in fast motion.
EL: I think that is a fair observation. Again, I think it’s because of CG. It allows you to do things on such a grand scale without paying for it like you had to in the past.
[Both Laugh]
It allows these spectacles to happen, and filmmakers take advantage of it. Yes, there probably has been a loss of more intimate kinds of sequences, which is a pity because I think one of the things that filmmakers most often would tell you is that as much as they always want more time and more money, less time and less money is what often forces them into sharper, more innovative thinking.
BR: You get Jaws out of that.
EL: You get Die Hard.
BR: Do you consider the fantasy genre when you think about action? Lord of the Rings has plenty of action, but do you include it in the category?
EL: I don’t. My general way of looking at this is that since so many genres involve physical action, battles, combat or whatever you want to call it, if you were to talk about all the movies that have action in them as “action movies” the label would stop meaning anything. I talk a little bit about that in the introduction to the book. So, no I wouldn’t. If a movie with action more immediately belongs to another genre, and visually and in everyway you instinctively know it belongs to another genre”¦it probably belongs to that genre, or several genres. I don’t talk about Aliens very much in the book, even though it has a lot of the genre’s elements because Aliens is much more immediately a science fiction movie or a horror film.
BR: I agree. It’s confusing when Entertainment Weekly puts Aliens as the second greatest action film of all time on their list.
EL: Exactly, what does “action” mean then? I talk about science fiction and superhero movies in the book because over time the genre does expand to incorporate these other types of movies, especially with technology and so forth. But no, I don’t consider fantasy to be action movies. It doesn’t mean I dismiss them, and it doesn’t mean they are unrelated. Like I said, all these genres exist on sort of a family tree, some branches are further apart, some are much closer together.
BR: Your book talks about something I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never realized. That is the tendency of huge action films, specifically concentrating on Armageddon, to have a fear of intellectualism.
EL: An outright disdain for it. [Laughs]
BR: Yeah, you dissect Armageddon in your book, a movie I have seen many times, and you really, successfully, point out how the movie outright makes fun of science and scientists.
EL: In what is inherently a science-fiction scenario.
BR: From every vantage you look at the conflict in the movie it’s fully encapsulated by scientific knowledge.
EL: Remember the line that Bruce Willis says “You guys at NASA, aren’t you the guys who are thinking stuff up, and behind you there are guys thinking stuff up.” Well, we know what Michael Bay thinks about “guys who think stuff up.”
BR: Do you think that is a way of trying to pander to the audience? Not that the audience is inherently stupid, but everyone can’t be an astronomer or a physicist. I know I’m not.
EL: Yeah, and I think it’s committed by Michael Bay in particular. I think it is part of a very broad, very caustic, very noxious form of pandering. What [Bay] does in his movies, he also does in his interviews when discussing his movies and the critics, and he does it when talking about his past. There’s a theme running through all of that, which kind of separates the intellectual realm from “the people.” He positions himself as kind of the vanguard of the people, and of the people’s tastes. He “doesn’t make movies for the critics, he makes movies for the people,” as though critics aren’t people.
BR: I know he believes that quality should be based on financial success.
EL: Right, which is absurd. I wish I could take credit for this, but concerning the new Transformers movie someone wrote, “When people tell me to shut off my brain and have fun, I tell them I can’t because my brain is where I have fun.”
[Both Laugh]
BR: That should be on T-shirts.
EL: It should. I wish I could take credit for it, because it’s absolutely brilliant and perfect. I think what Michael Bay does is beyond pandering. It is consistent with the anti-intellectualism that has blighted our country cyclically for generations. I’m certainly not saying Michael Bay is to blame for all this, but if you look at what’s happening with the environment, economically, to the country, to the planet, this really isn’t a time when we want to be saying that intellectualism isn’t cool. When National Treasure came out, critics really savaged it, and I will say that it’s a pretty imperfect movie, but there was one aspect of it that I really, really liked, and wished more critics had picked up on and championed. This is a movie that made being smart cool. There are lots of critics who rightly dump on action movies because they’re so mindless, and mind-numbing. So when an action movie comes along, imperfections aside, that makes being smart cool, the intellectually honest thing to do is to call out the movie for that and champion at least that aspect of it. I really respected the first National Treasure for doing that. We are really at a point in our history when the smart people need to show up. People in general need to know that intellectualism is a good thing.
BR: In your book, you point to the much less successful movie The Core as almost the inverse of Armageddon, due to how it shows intellectuals in such a positive light.
EL: Yeah, the intellectuals solved the problem, and the writer of The Core, John Rogers, is a brilliant guy, a first class intellect. Yes, The Core is kind of a wonky movie, but he’s a good writer and he’s a physicist; he studied physics for crying out loud. The Core might be wonky, but give me that attitude over Armageddon’s any day.
BR: The entire point of Armageddon is almost saying: scientists can’t stop a giant asteroid from destroying the planet, but John McClane can.
EL: [Laughs] I don’t even mind the fact that “John McClane” is doing it, because these are action movies it’s the way science is portrayed. Why couldn’t science be portrayed in a healthier, more positive light? My problem is funny, because how do you reconcile being very passionate about anti-intellectualism, while being a scholar of action movies? It’s two things that shouldn’t exactly go together. Most people would argue that the action genre is inherently anti-intellectual, and to that my argument is “no,” action movies are not anti-intellectual, they are non-intellectual. They don’t care one way or the other about intellectualism, and that’s fine. What Bay does so often is refuse to sit on the sidelines, which Die Hard might, or Lethal Weapon might. He’s hostile toward intellectualism. In Armageddon, what bothers me is the scene where the scientists were pitching their other ideas. How hard would it have been to craft a scene where those ideas are introduced, and for logistical reasons, none of them are tenable, and then Bruce Willis and his team are the only option, as opposed to showing why all those ideas are ridiculous? It’s not that the movie can’t have a butch hero stopping the meteor; the problem is that you don’t need to make Bruce Willis look good by making the smart people look bad. It’s a very cynical view of the audience, and it’s a view of science and intellectualism that is full of contempt, but that’s what Michael Bay does when he talks about critics, or his education. Bay has made the point that critics don’t like him because he makes things like Armageddon and not Schindler’s List.
BR: Which isn’t true.
EL: That’s not true at all. They don’t like him because he makes bad “Armageddons.” Maybe the action movie is kind of handicapped critically, a weak drama is likely to do better critically than a good action movie, but a really good action film is still going to break through. One of the other charges leveled against Michael Bay is the racism in his movies, and I read about the robots with the gold teeth and such. Do I personally think he’s a racist? I have no idea, but I don’t think he is, I think he just has a corny, cynical sense of humor. What I thought was very interesting about the first Transformers was how that kind of hostility was still there, but some of it was sort of transferred over to adults. The kid’s parents were these big boobs, basically a strategy that Saturday morning television shows use. In shows like Saved By The Bell, and all those clones in the early “˜90s, they would display the adults in those situations as very “boobish” to kind of break children’s identification with adults and authority.
BR: Well, even though Transformers was a Saturday morning cartoon, in the sequel that is turned up to the maximum degree with the parents.
EL: A little comic relief is always a good thing, but when Michael Bay does it there’s a cynicism and a hostility pumping out of it. I will give him credit for one thing, the movies he makes are so enormous that getting a movie that big made, on time, on budget and on that release date is impressive. That doesn’t take a director, that takes a general, and he is that guy and I give him a lot of credit for that. I don’t think that’s an easy thing to do. A lot of people who might dismiss him in favor of directors of smaller, more personal dramas certainly might have a lot of grounds on which to do that, but he does have a very particular and very impressive skill set.
BR: In the last decade Judd Apatow has, in cinema, brought about the age of the Beta male, and even though he did it through comedy, do you think it reflects in action? We get a lot of action films starring “everymen” now, like Shia LaBeouf, which is ironic considering that Bruce Willis was once looked at as the “everyman” hero. In comparison to today’s action heroes, John McClane is a testosterone fueled muscle head.
EL: [Laughs] I think the function of the “everyman” in the action genre is safe. Their job now is to be the lens through which the audience looks at the real star of the show, which is the concept or special effects. With John McClane, and to a certain extent before him, Martin Riggs, going forward into the “˜90s, that trend of “everyman” was more pronounced because it was in contrast to the model of Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Chuck Norris.
BR: Who are, as you say in the book, almost like machines themselves.
EL: Machines and supermen. They were the supermen before the genre got all superhero- happy. I think the role of the “everyman” in the late “˜80s to mid “˜90s was much more about that fundamental everyman quality, it wasn’t about making room for the concept, or the technology.
BR: What is your take on what Jason Statham has recently become? He is almost the last pure action star we have, discounting the action stars who have lasted since the classical period.
EL: I’ve liked him well enough in what I’ve seen. Time will tell if he’s a great action star, one who is going to endure, and become iconic. To know that is hard to tell, you have to have a longer track record that he hasn’t had time to amass yet. Another point is that you can’t really tell that until you know what his era looked like. We don’t know what this time is going to look like five, ten, twenty years from now.
BR: This is going to sound like an insult, but it’s not, I personally believe he is going to be looked back on as the Van Damme or Seagal of this era.
EL: Maybe, I think his movies, or his fate would be better if he was in sort of bigger productions that were less obviously B-movie in nature. I look at him right now as he is a little bit like Vin Diesel, not just cause of the hair. It feels like his career is happening, but it also feels like it could just short out. Time will tell. Yeah, he is sort of the last action hero right now, but you know what? Vin Diesel was before him. If it doesn’t happen for Statham, then someone else will come along to fill in his shoes. Film history has shown that there is always an appetite for stars, there’s always an appetite for action, whether you call it an action movie or not, whether the genre has fully formed yet or not. The genre, as I defined in the book, doesn’t really come into existence until the “˜70s, yet there was action from the very first movie. There have been movies since 1895, so does that mean that there was no action for 75 years? There was always an appetite, different modes come along to address that appetite, and that’s true of action, and as long as that’s true of action, it will be true of action stars.
BR: With Statham in mind, how do you feel about The Expendables?
EL: I’m looking forward to The Expendables. I love these kinds of exercises in nostalgia. Whenever the last installment was ten or fifteen years ago, I get so excited. I was even excited about Basic Instinct 2.
BR: [Laughs]
EL: Because of the sheer audacity of doing it thirteen years later.
BR: It can work. Look at The Color of Money.
EL: Oh yeah, it can work, I think 2010 worked great. So, yeah I am very much looking forward to The Expendables.
BR: Stallone has admitted that it’s going to be a “1980s action film.”
EL: As a matter of fact this might be the tiebreaker in a way because I thought that Rocky Balboa was really, very, very good and Rambo was really, very disappointing.
BR: I remember reading on your blog that you thought Rambo 4 wasn’t “silly” enough, which I would agree with.
EL: My problem with Rambo 4 was this: it had been 19 years since Rambo III and except for some of the specifics of the geopolitics of the movie, there was no reason why Rambo 4 couldn’t have been made in 1992. What I mean by that is, the movie did not reward the audience for having waited 19 years. I just showed my nephew, who is 8 years old, The Empire Strikes Back and he was very frustrated with the ending, because he doesn’t know what happens to Han Solo. I’m going to show him Return of the Jedi at Thanksgiving. I said to him that when I first saw The Empire Strikes Back the wait to see what happens was three years long, and you should have seen his face. He was stricken at that idea. The new Rambo was 19 years coming and there was nothing inherent to it that necessitated that wait. Rocky Balboa was about the passage of time; the story needs time to have passed so the audience is rewarded for that wait. Rambo 4 does that to the barest degree possible, and yes, from what I remember it was also a little too over earnest. The fact that it starts with stock footage, I think was a big mistake. I’m sitting there watching the actual atrocity, feeling really guilty, feeling like I should be out volunteering instead of sitting in a theater watching escapist faire like a Rambo movie.
BR: Your review was one of the only ones that I agreed with, only because some of that movie just seemed to put this enormous guilt trip on the viewer. Do you think that a campy or silly nature usually increases with action sequels? Even more so, should it?
EL: No, not necessarily, I don’t think you have to keep getting bigger and more ridiculous. That’s how things tend to evolve, but I don’t think they have to. I think it’s ok to use the movie to reflect on what’s come before and be serious about the characters and their lives, that’s fine. My problem wasn’t with the tone of the whole of Rambo, if he wants to take it in a serious direction, that was actually probably appropriate, because how much more ridiculous than Rambo III do you want to be?
BR: Have you heard that he announced a Rambo 5?
EL: Yeah, apparently Rambo 5 has been greenlit.
BR: Considering it was Rambo 4, and Stallone’s current career, admittedly it was a success, all things considered. Do you think he’s pushing his luck with a fifth movie?
EL: I think it’s probably going to dull the instrument a little bit. When you have a 19 year hiatus, and then you bring the character back, that’s pretty powerful, regardless of how successful the movie is.
BR: We’ve seen it so much this decade, it’s starting to feel commonplace.
EL: Yeah, and even less then a decade. It’s more like 3-5 years. When you bring the character back again, when you follow that up with another one, that element is now diluted.
BR: The nostalgia is not playing a part anymore.
EL: It’s reduced, and then what’s special about the movie? I think what winds up happening is that you lose the curiosity, and nostalgia factors, so now the movie just has to deliver. [laughs]
BR: Are there any other action films on the horizon that you are looking forward too?
EL: I hate to be a downer, I can’t think of anything I’m particularly excited about. All of the characters, all of the “˜80s action characters who’ve been brought back and who were ever going to be brought back have been brought back. I don’t think there’s a Lethal Weapon 5 in the pipeline.
BR: I think Joel Silver is still trying”¦
EL: I can’t imagine that it would happen. You can always hear rumors with internet reports and this or that, but I tend to only believe things when the cameras roll, and sometimes not even then. What I’m curious about is the remake of Red Dawn.
BR: Especially considering your book goes into such depth about Red Dawn. I’ll say this, before I read Action Speaks Louder I thought Red Dawn was a cheesy “˜80s movie. After reading it, Red Dawn became a different movie in my mind, and I haven’t even had the chance to revisit it yet. You kind of rewrote the movie in my mind.
[Both Laugh]
BR: It went from being nostalgia to an important piece of cinema that I need to revisit. If I can praise your book real quick, any movie you discuss in it, I wanted to revisit.
EL: I really appreciate that. Of the compliments I’ve received on the book, that is always my favorite. “You made me want to see this again, or that again.” I’m always very happy to hear that.
BR: Your book does that amazingly well. I watched Lethal Weapon twice right after I started reading it. I just haven’t had the chance to revisit Red Dawn and many others, basically just because you talk about so many films in the book. I think the politics of [Red Dawn] is something I was too young to appreciate.
EL: I’m very interested to hear that, because I think Red Dawn is a very good movie. Its critics are usually a little reactionary, no pun intended. I think it is exquisitely crafted. [Red Dawn] is much more ambivalent than people give it credit for. In the book I try not to come out too strongly for a movie or against a movie, at least not very explicitly, but there were times where I was trying to imply my feelings. Red Dawn and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome are good examples of that.
BR: [laughs] It’s funny that you say that, because your assessment of Beyond Thunderdome was probably one of the biggest stand outs for me, next to Red Dawn. Like most people I never gave much attention to the movie, basically since The Road Warrior is always the one that gets the reverence, you put Mad Max 3 in an entirely new light in your book.
EL: My take on those two movies back to back is this: The Road Warrior is a perfectly made movie, but what it’s trying to do is not especially original, and not especially grand. It is a perfect execution of a pretty conventional vision. Thunderdome is a wildly imperfect movie, but what it’s trying to do is so much grander and so much more interesting, and so much more beautiful. They compliment each other. I wish Thunderdome was more perfect. I admire the vision that it had, and it’s just exquisitely made, it’s beautiful. I hope there is a really nice Bluray of it in the pipeline.
BR: George Miller put a lot into those films, and it shows.
EL: I was very excited about Mad Max 4 – especially when George Miller was going to be directing with Mel Gibson.
BR: While I agree it could be exciting, there is a lot of room for serious disappointment. I say that a lot these days though, post Indy 4.
EL: [Laughs]
BR: I’ll admit it, Indy 4 kind of soured me on the whole concept of bringing back these old franchises. I’ll still give them a chance. Rambo was fine, Die Hard 4 was fine”¦
EL: Well Die Hard 4 wasn’t a Die Hard movie. I thought Die Hard 4 could have been a lot worse, but I’ll tell you when I knew they were in trouble. It was when I saw the first picture of Bruce Willis with a shaved head. John McClane would not shave his head; Bruce Willis would. John McClane is proud, but he’s not vain. When I saw that I said to myself, “this isn’t about John McClane, this movie is about Bruce Willis in generic action star mode.” So, I was sort of preparing for the worst. That said, it was better then it could have been. What I liked best about it was its undercurrent of darkness. It was a pretty grim McClane, and I liked that.
BR: More grim then the alcoholic, smoking, pathetic, end of his rope John McClane of Die Hard 3?
EL: Yeah, I think in Die Hard 3 he is more of a burnout. This will sound strange, but I think in 3 there is sort of a more robust grimness. In 3 they put it front and center; I think they underplay it more in 4, which makes it a little bit more stirring.
BR: While I liked Live Free or Die Hard, I’ll admit it was kind of the John McClane I didn’t ask for. The character specifically. The one who got older, smarter, and cleaner. I prefer the one who is a mess, not the one who probably eats fiber every morning now. It’s just a personal preference.
EL: Well I think the problem was that in 1 and 3 he feels like John McClane, and in 4 he feels like Bruce Willis.
BR: Do you have plans to write another book? Would it involve film?
EL: Yes, I have a few projects down the line. I just actually finished writing an essay on the Rocky series for an academic anthology, which is not due out for quite a while unfortunately. That was a lot of fun. There are a few other ideas that I’m developing that are on the scale of Action Speaks Louder, but they’re in the embryonic stage right now. I’m not talking about them too much yet, I’m still trying to figure out exactly how the research would go, and even if they are doable. They are in a very similar vein of talking about film over time, but through a very specific lens.
That’s all folks. I want to thank Eric Lichtenfeld for his time and the interview. Thanks for reading!
Pixar. Listen. Why do you want to make me cry? You’re absolutely brutal with the feels, and you know exactly what buttons to push. And you push them all with Inside Out (Walt Disney, Rated PG, 3D Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP). From happy to sad and all the emotions in-between, which is rather fitting, as that’s what this film is all about, showing the interior emotional workings of 11-year-old Riley. And I’m not going to spoil any more of it, because if you haven’t seen it already, you should. Bonus materials include the Lava short, the brand new Riley’s First Date short, featurettes, and more.
As a new Pixar film hits theaters, that also means we get a brand new tome chronicling the artistic journey from concept to final picture with The Art Of The Good Dinosaur (Chronicle Books, $40 SRP), featuring loads of artwork and insight. And, in a first, a companion book has been crafted for the short subject that runs before the movie with The Art Of Sanjay’s Super Team (Chronicle Books, $24.95 SRP).
And because we’re not quite done with Pixar yet, they’ve helped to craft the perfect gift for budding filmmakers eager to have a journal in which to chart the progress of their own creative project’s journey with The Animator’s Sketchbook (Chronicle Books, $18.95 SRP), which contains discrete sections on Concept, Story, Color Script, Characters, and Worlds with plenty of room to doodle and design with helpful words of encouragement and visuals for inspiration along the way.
I’ll admit, I got swept up in the emotional wave of celebrating October 21, 2015 – the “future” date Marty and Doc (and Einstein & Jennifer) traveled to in order to do something about Marty & Jennifer’s kids. So, yes, bring on a brand new Back To The Future: 30th Anniversary Trilogy box set (Universal, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$49.98 SRP), which supplements all of the bonus materials from the last release with a brand new bonus disc featuring a Doc Brown short, a documentary on the restoration of the original DeLorean, 2015 commercials for Jaws 19 and hoverboards, and more.
The now-yearly specials are certainly building anticipation for a new feature-length adventure while managing to be fun-filled romps in their own right, and that’s certainly what last year’s Toy Story That Time Forgot (Walt Disney, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$14.99 SRP) is, as out heroes are deposited into an 80s action toy world full of delusional peril. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, the animated opening for the fictional cartoon Battlesaurs, featurettes, a karaoke video, deleted scenes, and more.
Whenever a new home theater technology arrives on the scene, there comes a home video release of a beloved property that’s meant to be the perfect showcase for said technology. With Dolby’s new Atmos sound technology, designed to make the viewer feel sonically immersed in the world they’re watching, the first television series to embrace it is HBO’s flagship show, Game Of Thrones. So what does that mean? That means we get brand new Atmos versions of Game Of Thrones: The Complete First Season and Game Of Thrones: The Complete Second Season (HBO, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$79.99 SRP each), packaged in lovely new steelbook cases featuring magnetic house sigils for the Starks and the Lannisters. Bonus features carry over from the previous releases.
While it seems this is the millionth release of the film on various media, you know in your heart of hearts that you’ll be purchasing Monty Python & The Holy Grail: 40th Anniversary Edition (Sony, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$19.99 SRP) because you have always, and will always, purchase another edition of this film whenever the design to lob another one at fans. Which is often. And you know it’s true, and you know they know it. So buck up, and fork over the cash for this new edition, which includes all of the bonus features from the last edition, plus an all-new 30-minute Q&A with the Pythons who aren’t yet dead, hosted by John Oliver.
You have a lot of gadgets, gear, and gizmos to be carting around with you as cold descends on the land, so why not face the elements with all of your stuff safely stowed about your person with the SCOTTeVEST Hoodie Microfleece (Thinkgeek, $44.99), a hoodie which packs 10 pockets and a whole lot of warmth.
As someone who owns the vintage Making Ghostbusters, which explored the production of the original film, I was waiting for the day when someone would come along and offer up an updated and expanded look at the creation of the franchise as a whole, incorporating both films, the animated series, comics, video games, and more. Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History (Insight Editions, $50 SRP) does just that, while also being one of those books that incorporated reproductions of actual ephemera, including Gozer temple plans, the Ghostbusters’ business card, VFX notes, a Stay-Puft Marshmallows sticker, and much more.
You’d think there’d few variations left to mine in going meta on the slasher flick genre, but The Final Girls (Sony, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$30.99 SRP) manages to do it with a wink and heart, as a group of teen friends are mysteriously transported into an 80s cult film, Camp Bloodbath, that starred the late mother of one of the kids. Once inside the film, they must try and survive all of the tropes. Bonus materials include an audio commentaries, alternate endings, deleted scenes, featurettes, and more.
Yeah, well, don’t try and make sense of the Terminator timeline. By the time we’ve reached Terminator: Genisys (Paramount, Rated PG-13, 3D Blu-Ray-$52.99 SRP), the continuity is just a confusing mess of who did what when and for why and how does that huh whatever. So, really, the way to approach the return of an elder Arnold Schwarzenegger to one of his most iconic roles is just to take it at face value and ask, “Is it an enjoyable flick on its own merits?” And it mostly is. In an odd, kitchen sink kind of way. But, that’s fine. Just don’t try to make too much sense of it all. Bonus materials include a batch of behind-the-scenes featurettes.
There are a lot of elaborate hoo-has on what is ultimately a straightforward straight shooter, which is ultimately the strength of Nerf’s N-Strike SharpFire Blaster (Nerf, $15.99 SRP) – it’s a Nerf dart pistol that shoots pretty darn accurately. And, when you’re locked in heated backyard conflict, sometimes that’s just what you need.
Oh, Jurassic World (Universal, Rated PG-13, 3D Blu-Ray-$49.98 SRP). You are such a goofball of excess. While Jurassic Park took the premise of resurrected dinosaurs somewhat seriously, World decides to go full meta B-movie with the whole affair, in the age of Sharknado. I mean, Chris Pratt has a raptor gang. Which is not to say this isn’t all enjoyable. It’s just that it’s pure popcorn, b-movie enjoyable. Bonus materials include deleted scenes and featurettes.
Didier Ghez is a brilliant illuminator of the often unexplored corners of the art and artists behind the Disney films, and he’s brought that the unique and wonderful skill to They Drew As They Pleased: The Hidden Art Of Disney’s Golden Age (Chronicle Books, $40 SRP), which explores the works of a quartet of Disney’s first concept artists as the company’s horizons broadened rapidly in the 1930s.
PBS’s In Their Own Words is a unique spin on the biodoc format, which as the title suggests relies heavily upon quotes from the subjects themselves to guide the narrative, through archive footage and extensive interviews with intimates. Give a trio of cultural luminaries a spin, with episodes focusing on Queen Elizabeth II, Muhammad Ali, and Jim Henson (PBS, Not Rated, DVD-$24.99 SRP each).
I suppose every comic actor should get their chance to stumble into a redeeming dramatic part, and Jason Segel gets his portraying author David Foster Wallace in The End Of The Tour (Lionsgate, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$24.99 SRP), about a road trip during which he’s interviewed by journalist David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg). Bonus materials include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, interviews, and featurettes.
It got a disastrous blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical release, which is a shame, because Aardman’s Shaun The Sheep Movie (Lionsgate, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$34.99 SRP) is a lovely, delightful little kid’s film that doesn’t feel like a kid’s film. It’s brill. Bonus materials include a flock of featurettes and more.
Sadly, it was our enjoyment of bombastic action flicks like Bad Boys 1 & II (Sony, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$26.99 SRP) that fueled the power and enduring pap of Michael Bay, as the seemingly innocuous purveyor of popcorn became the mad blowhard of endless awful pop culture bastardizations. But these two relics of a more innocent age are now packaged together in a 20th anniversary edition, loaded bonus features.
There’s nothing like the restoration of a pair of kitschy old-school genre films to make a cinephile go all warm and fuzzy, which is exactly the internal reaction generated by the restoration of the Vincent Price & Agnes Morehead thriller The Bat and Roger Corman’s A Bucket Of Blood (The Film Detective, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$14.99 SRP each).
Back when a pair of ideological rivals could have intellectual bareknuckle debates on the airwaves, the two greatest heavyweights were William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal. However intellectual it was, though, their verbal sparring, which began during ABC’s coverage of the 1968 Democratic and Republican Conventions, definitely laid the groundwork for the uncivil cesspit of television discourse we have today. To see exactly what I’m on about, check out the excellent documentary Best Of Enemies: Buckley Vs. Vidal (Magnolia, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$29.98 SRP).
I would probably have not given a tie-in book to the show Vikings the time of day if I hadn’t discovered it was written by author, historian, and all-around great bloke Justin Pollard, which automatically elevated The World Of Vikings (Chronicle Books, $35 SRP) into a book worth checking out, as it deftly weaves the historical truth behind the drama into its background on the production.
Very few sitcoms have gotten the high definition treatment, and particularly not one that goes back over 10 years, but now you can snag That 70s Show: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$149.98 SRP) looks pretty darn good, even more so because it’s presented in anamorphic widescreen. Certainly worth checking out, , as it’s also loaded with bonus materials, including new-to-Blu-Ray featurettes, in addition to the materials from the original DVD releases. Groovy.
A powerful look at an all-too-brief life, Matt Shepard Is A Friend Of Mine (Virgil Films, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP) is a documentary that revisits the events of the tragic hate crime that took his life, but more importantly uses photos and rare footage to celebrate his life.
Starting in a small Pudding Lane bakery and eventually engulfing the city of London, the disastrous events beginning September 2, 1666 are dramatized in The Great Fire (PBS, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$34.99 SRP), a star-studded affair that brings the events to life, from the actions and reactions of the common man right up to King Charles II.
The main problem with the modern quasi-sequel Vacation (Warner Bros., Rated R, Blu-Ray-$44.95 SRP) is that it has a mighty big family truckster to fill, and never quite manages to make enough of an impression that you’re not constantly thinking back fondly on the original, when Chevy Chase was at the height of his power and all of the creative powers behind the scenes were pure brilliance. So, yeah, while this is an affable trip down holiday road with Rusty Griswold and family, it just further reinforces how remarkable the original was. Bonus materials include featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel.
Listen to a rocking set as Martha Davis & The Motels celebrate the legendary LA club’s 50th anniversary with The Motels Live At The Whiskey A Go Go (Vesuvio, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$29.98 SRP), featuring almost 20 tunes plus a clutch of bonus features.
SwaySway and Buhdeuce fly their rocket van from their Nickelodeon animated series into brand new comic book adventures in Breadwinners #1: Journey to the Bottom of the Seats (Papercutz, $7.99 SRP), which is just as bonkers as the show itself.
This weekend’s turn off your brain and hop on the rollercoaster low-budget action flick is Operator (Alchemy, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$24.99 SRP), as a city devolves into chaos, sparked by the kidnapping of a 911 operator’s daughter and estranged police officer husband. And it also has Ving Rhames in it. Because Ving Rhames.
I’m sure I’m not the only Turtle fan baffled that we have yet to see a Blu-Ray release of the show’s first season, but Nick is pretty clockwork with their single-disc releases, the latest of which is 
In the pre-Star Wars days of 1975, director Alejandro Jodorowsky attempted to realize a ridiculously ambitious and deeply heady feature-film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic Dune, featuring the music of Pink Floyd and designed by the likes of H.R. Giger and Moebius. And it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. Now, the tale of this aborted film is presented in the brilliant documentary 
The banality of evil is certainly present in the smirking, small town bank president face of Donald Rumsfeld as he glibly defends his awful legacy in Errol Morris’s grimly compelling documentary 
It’s still not the equal of the beautifully executed Avatar, but there’s still plenty to recommend as its follow-up finds firm footing in 
New to high-def, there’s an old school charm to 1959’s 
It’s an overly-lavish spectacle that certainly befits its Vegas venue, but there’s no denying that 
Johnny Depp’s string of cinematic bad luck continues with the unfortunately inert sci-fi thriller 
The folks at Mill Creek should make a lot of guilty pleasure-seekers happy with their latest batch of Sony catalogue high definition releases, which brings to Blu 
Nickelodeon has a nifty little batch of releases sure to fill those seemingly endless summer days for the kids in your life, starting with a pair of releases from an old favorite – 
Far from an “Oh” face, much of Lars Von Trier’s 
When one of your chief blurbs comes from Telemundo, you know you’re in for a mindless bit of action fluff, and that’s exactly what the Arnold Schwarzenegger pic 
Michael McKean channels a bit of his Spinal Tap alter ego as a famous rocker helped in his search for a new band by Elmo and Abby in 
This week’s soundtrack round-up brings Michael Giacchino’s score for 
Although the second season had its rough spot in the middle, the third season of 
Definitely near the top of the eagerly-awaited list, Disney has finally unveiled their high definition restoration of 
Just because the 50th anniversary has wrapped doesn’t mean that fans aren’t still getting treated to goodies from the vaults, as another Patrick Troughton 2nd Doctor adventure gets a special edition release in 
To say 
The House of York and the House of Lancaster vie for the throne of England in the historical miniseries 
While it’s not quite up to Pixar or even Dreamworks standards, 
While we’re marking time until the next full season Blu-Ray release, catch the next 16 episodes in 
The folks at Mill Creek continue to keep budget-conscious cinephiles in their thoughts with another batch of multi-film collections and television show re-releases, the latest of which include 
Most fear to tread in the footsteps of Hitchcock, but that didn’t stop to the BBC from making an enjoyable take on the tale of trainboard mystery, 
It’s been a few years, so evidently we’re due for a special Diamond Edition re-release of the musical 
It’s a shame that WB’s latest animated tale from the DC Comics universe, 
Best to forget the Lindsey Lohan of it all when you can instead see Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West as 
When a security expert is deceived and wrongfully imprisoned in the world’s foremost high security prison, he must recruit a fellow inmate in order to attempt a daring escape in, errr… 
Enjoy Shirley’s swan song, as the penultimate seventh season of 
Never would I have believed that Mike Tyson would one day do a one-man show on Broadway, but that’s exactly what 
That 
The second season of the modern relaunch of 
How about a soundtrack round up for this week? Certainly! You’ve got Patrick Doyle’s score to 
Two things to ponder – 
While not in an accurate 1/4-scale, it’s still nice to be able to add NECA’s 
A few years back, we were gifted with the first batch of high definition releases from the fine folks at Studio Ghibli. And then? A long, long, terribly long, wait. But rejoice! Two of director Hayao Miyazaki’s best are finally here – 
Mel Brooks is an institution. And he also happens to be an institution in the midst of a well-deserved renaissance that includes the brilliant American Masters documentary 
The brilliant Ben Kingsley is not just on the big screen with Iron Man this week, but also starring in the taught thriller 
So far, all of the LEGO movies have been fun, but with 
For more years than I can recall, the amiable scholars at Twomorrows have been publishing a wide range of magazine and books chronicling every nook and cranny of the comics, creators, characters, and companies fans know and love. A few months back, they took that love and scholarly approach to the next logical step, by launching a must-have document of four-color history in the 
Oh, and while you’re at it, be sure to pick up another new magazine from the folks at Twomorrows – 
Events have escalated in 
Get all high and mighty with 
I’ll say this for Steven Soderbergh’s thriller 
Granted, it’s no sophomore effort like Jason Bateman’s, but the complete second season of MTV’s 
For the show’s sixth season, they decided to move 
This week’s indie cinema spotlight falls on a pair of dramas – the pitch black comedy 
If you’re ready for another quirky procedural, try the complete first season of 
Hey hey, film music fans! It’s another soundtrack round-up, this week featuring Eric Neveux’s score to 
How the mighty have fallen. Were you even aware that Arnold Schwarzenegger releases a new film? You wouldn’t be the only one that didn’t know about 
If you’d asked a fan a few years back if they’d ever see the notorious Sandy Frank episodes – episodes which Frank supposedly loathed – on DVD, they probably would have sighed and said “No. Probably not.” Well, never say never, because the Sandy Frank films begin their roll out in 
How can you not like the simple, straightforward 
It’s not a great film, but the thing I love so much about 
As it’s Olympics time, it should come as no surprise that Warners has chosen this moment to release the long-awaited high definition debut of 
While the 80’s were loaded with high school comedies, the 90’s seemed to roll out the high school reunion comedies, and while it’s no classic, I remember enjoying the straightforward fun of 
Journey back to a much simpler time when the late Whitney Houston could star in a wholesome flick like 
And leapfrogging ahead, the BBC recently produced a story from the 1948 London games in 
When five juvenile delinquents doing community service are caught in a freak electrical storm and develop superpowers, you get 
There’s definitely some Whedonverse DNA evident in 
The Schwarzenegger 
Even more so than the godawful live action Cat In The Hat, you can’t get a more wrong-headed take on the brilliance of Dr. Seuss than the crass adaptation of 
It’s been a few years, so it should come as no surprise that another new edition of Mel Brooks’ 
While HBO is loaded with classy shows like Game Of Thrones and Veep, Cinemax gets to have a knock-down, dragout action series like 
After a pair of, to be blunt, piss-poor films from Michael Bay, the Transformers franchise has finally been beautifully redeemed in video game form with 
It was only a matter of time, really, before we got a 3-D webcam, allowing you to stream in red/blue anaglyph, as well as take still photos. And guess what? The 
As much as it’s been talked up, I had high expectations for 
Comics fans will delight in the rare and rarely seen artifacts to be found in 
Interested in how the planet we’re living on came to be? Sure you are! Find out more via 
I’m sure fans have been eagerly awaiting the release of 
The main reason for watching 
The new film is right around the corner, but let’s travel back to the days of Arnie fighting an alien deep in the jungle with the high-definition arrival of 
The wonderful parts don’t quite make for a transcendent whole, but there’s plenty of fun to be had in 
War may be hell, but sometimes war is just tedium. So what do you do when that tedium takes place on a distant world, and it’s not even real? You use the animation of the game Halo and create the online viral sitcom 
I’m sure the books are a cracking good read and the concept of a teenager who learns he’s the son of the Greek god Poseidon is fun, but director Chris Columbus manages to bring his flat direction and visual style to 
If you’ve ever been interested in how the planet we live on has shaped human events, look no further than the documentary 
SyFy series fans will have a pair of new sets to pick up – the complete first season of 
It’s not quite as consistent as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but I certainly enjoyed 
Want to protect your oh-so-precious eyes from evil green lasers, all the while looking ridiculously stylish? Well, look no further than the 
Fans of the great Orson Welles will delight in this newly-restored edition of Omnibus, a television showcase featuring the arts, which in 1953 televised a production of 
Many have called the Coen Brothers’ 
History nerds (like me) will probably want to dive right in to 
After a massive wait, fans can finally wrap up the second season of 
Take a life-spanning love-affair and complicate it with a time-hopping lover who doesn’t know when he’ll disappear and when in his own timeline he’ll reappear, and you’ve got the unique relationship featured in 
Now that the full series has made its way to DVD, the single-disc themed releases are the focus, with 
Fox has bungled up the X-Men nicely, and Heroes has lost its way, but both can take a page from the series 
Featuring dozens of actors and musicians, 
He’s become a slab of a man, but you still get exactly what you expect from a Steven Seagal action flick in 
How about some catalogue titles coming to high-def this week? Fox and MGM back up the truck with a trio of modern classics – 
And since you’re always looking to upgrade those catalogue titles with spiffy new high-definition versions all shiny and bright, hitting Blu-Ray this week are the Richard Dawson classic 
One day, I’m sure a fascinating film about the life of landmark aviator Amelia Earhart will be made, Sadly, 
If you never got a chance to pick up the box sets a few years ago, your only chance to get their classic cartoons are though the single disc 
It’s one of the few recent successes in hour-long drama, and 
Just when the Sci-Fi Channel (I refuse to call it that other… thing) was getting too far up their own… yeah… they go and launch a new Stargate that manages to evoke the engaging fun of the original with 
I’ve been a fan of his going back to Action, but I’ve yet to find the same kind of pleasure in Jay Mohr’s formulaic sitcom 
Of course, you can never have too many adaptations of Jane Austen’s 
Ignore all of the pale-wannabes and unfortunate attempts to adapt it for other markets, and stick with the original UK edition of Top Gear, hosted by the madman trinity of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. If you don’t like cars, don’t worry – I could care less about cars, but love this show something fierce, and it all comes down to the energy, likeability, and humor of the presenters. Don’t believe me? Check out the newly-released 
Tongs? Who wants use tongs when you’re cooking hot food! Heck, if you use tongs, you probably use oven mitts, too! Well, join the future and start on your journey to become more machine than man by getting a pair of 
Jumping ahead of about 7 unreleased seasons, Springfield’s first family celebrates two decades on the air with the release of 
I don’t know how much work he actually did on it besides lending it his name (or if he’s even read it), but 
If you’re not yet aware of the work being done by the fine folks at La-La Land Records, let this be your wake-up call. They’ve been quietly releasing a whole slew of limited edition, much-requested soundtracks to classic flicks, and the latest to get their treatment is 
I’m always game when someone shakes up the chat show format with a unique take – made all the better when it’s hosted by someone that you actually want to spend time with. Such is the case with Elvis Costello’s 
Combine an anniversary of an evergreen title with rather unfortunate recent events, and you get a 10th anniversary special edition of the Shakespeare in high school 
In the late 80’s when it made its debut, 
It’s often overlooked as the odd period between Cheers and his recent renaissance on Damages and Bored To Death, but 
From the editors of McSweeney’s comes 
You can feel the creak beginning to set in as we enter the 12th season of 
Bring the classic run of the series to a close before the lackluster post-movie, set-in-the-future episodes with the release of 
Don’t let the often cornball series keep you from seeing the original feature 
They’ve become cable classics over the years, despite their last-gasp, 80’s style over-the-top action cheese, but my do 
Lionsgate is releasing handful of their music & musician-centric feature films in a series their calling “Music Makers”, all of which come packed with a sampler CD featuring a track each from the musicians highlighted in the films (with an additional cut from Bobby Darin). The films in question are the Darin biopic 
Maybe it’s in films like 
I never really cottoned to the BBC’s recent slick & shiny take on 
I’ve known of Russell Brand – his stand-up and celebrity in the UK – for years, so it was with great delight that I greeted his first US stand-up special, which is now available on DVD in an expanded form. 
As someone who’s stressed himself inordinately trying to reach around corners and through tiny crevices to get to unreachable screws – wither putting them in or taking them out – the 
While Cars, Ratatouille, and Wall-E have all been available on Blu-Ray, 
For all of the drama that surrounded its filming and reception, 
Oh, 
Another pair of classic Bond flicks make their way into spiffy high-definition with the release of both the Moore-era 
Paramount’s prestige Centennial Collection continues with another pair of 2-disc, fully restored special editions – 
Warner Bros. has an immense catalogue of titles. Thousands and thousands of them. And even with their aggressive DVD release schedule, there’s no way they can get to all of them – and, economically, some of the titles have such a small appeal that it’s just not viable to do a wide release on them. Those who thought their chances of picking up some of those obscure titles were nil can rejoice in the continuation of Warner’s Archive Collection – www.warnerarchive.com. Essentially, it’s DVDs on demand, allowing you to purchase either a physical DVD-R copy (for a flat $19.95) or an instantly downloadable digital copy (for $14.95) of an ever-increasingly library of titles from the Warner vaults. I’ve had a chance to look at a pair of new additions – Sidney Lumet’s 
You know how, every once in awhile, you want a simple comedy whose only goal is to give you a chuckle and a smile? 
Paramount kicks out another clutch of brand-new-to-Blu-Ray catalogue titles, leaving other studios in the dust after a slow start (backing HD-DVD). With some very nice high definition transfers and bonus features identical to their standard edition cousins, the new titles are 
Neither rain, nor sleet, nor diversions ordered by a court of law would keep Jack Bauer from eventually getting 
A legendary album gets a fantastic live performance in 
Fox has dropped a pair of catalogue transfers to high definition, bringing both 
Almost 300 years after his reign of terror ended with his capture and beheading, a group of marine archeologists have recovered the remains of Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, in 
Ridiculously over-the-top, 
I don’t know about you, but any movie with a title like 
Anyone familiar with Mystery Science Theater 3000 will remember with glee the cringe-inducing Hercules Against The Moon Men. Well, now you can get that flick – plus 4 other muscle-y kitsch classics – in the 
Schwarzenegger fans hoping to pass the weekend on the cheap should pick up the 
I’m sure the makers of 
If Twilight seemed too tween for you and the Buffyverse was too nerd – and you like your soap drama – then HBO’s 
It’s difficult to sell the 3-D gimmick with the limitations of home theaters, when you’re stuck using rinky-dink red-green glasses. That’s what makes seeing