Click on small photos for larger views

Being Julia
A thoroughly delightful movie. I would have given the best actress Oscar to Annette Benning for her multi-layered performance as a stage star in 1920s London who has it all but is unhappy with it, so she puts her marriage to Jeremy Irons on hold and takes up with a handsome years-younger American. Her friends think her pretty toy boy is probably a gold-digger, but we’re not totally sure. Based on a novel by master story-teller Somerset Maugham, it keeps you guessing about everything and, despite some high drama, it ends happily and hilariously. From Sony Pictures Classics.

Max’s rating: Two paws up and tail wags.

Also recommended:

Spanglish
Never hire a secretary more beautiful than your wife. Adam Sandler plays a Los Angeles family man with a flair for cooking who disobeys this tried-and-true rule for domestic bliss by hiring a beautiful new Hispanic housekeeper for his wife and family at their Malibu summer home. It’s by James L. Brooks who directed “As Good as It Gets,” and it’s good, but not quite as. Among the extras on the DVD is a recipe featurette on “How to Make the World’s Greatest Sandwich.” From Columbia Pictures.
Max’s rating: Two paws up.

From TV to DVD

The Student Prince
No, not the wonderful Sigmund Romberg operetta, but a delightful present-day romantic comedy that pokes fun at British royalty and has a solution for it. Robson Green plays a tough cop assigned to protect the queen’s youngest son who enrolls as a new college student at Cambridge. Being a bodyguard for a pampered prince (appealingly played by Rupert Penry-Jones) isn’t easy work, Green soon discovers. To complicate matters, he and the prince begin wagging their tails for the same beautiful woman, an American exchange student played by lovely Tara Fitzgerald. Does the prince survive school bullies and exams? Who gets Tara? And who pinches the royal jewels? It’s light entertainment and fun all the way. From BBC Television and Acorn Media.

Agatha Christie’s Poirot - Set 12

David Suchet dons gray spats and up-tilted mustache to again portray the great mystery writer’s Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot, in three new hour-long episodes from the popular TV series. This concludes the entire series of 36 episodes on 12 sets, from Acorn Media which plans to release them all in a DVD complete collection late this summer. Acorn also has released nine feature-length Poirot movies on DVD.

Midsomer Murders - Set 5
Five more episodes of the popular British TV series from the mystery novels of Caroline Graham. They are darkly humorous, modern-day takes on the classic English village mystery, starring John Nettles as Detective Tom Barnaby, with Daniel Casey as his young sergeant partner.

For students of the series, a DVD extra is a Midsomer map of what’s where and a biography of the author. These are always engrossing, entertaining mysteries with the British touch, which is more on who and why dunnit than on the mayhem itself. From Acorn Media.

The Irish R.M., Series 2
More Brit mystery, this time farther north as Peter Bowles mixes comedy with sleuthing as Resident Magistrate for the West of Ireland. It’s always a delight to follow the distinguished retired English army officer as he tries to bring justice to good (and some bad) country people whose ways are completely foreign to him. There are three almost hour-long mysteries on each of two DVDs in this boxed set from Acorn media.

Hetty Wainthrop in Missing Persons
For lighter sleuthing, this is the pilot episode of the popular British PBS Mystery! series with delightful stage and screen star Patricia Routledge as a middle-class, middle-aged matron who becomes a private investigator of country crime. The pilot was shown on British TV six years before the start of the BBC series and is available for the first time to North American audiences. If you’re a fan of Brit TV, as my master and I are, you’ll recognize Ms. Routledge from two other hit series, “Keeping Up Appearances” and “To Sir, With Love.” From Acorn media.

Documentaries of the Month

 

Hermitage Masterpieces
This 3-DVD boxed set takes us on an over 8-hour journey through the world’s most exclusive art collection, at the incomparable State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The museum occupies six magnificent buildings originally constructed in 1754 for Empress Catherine II. Now it is home to 3 million masterpieces of paintings, sculpture, and other artworks collected over two and a half centuries from every major school of art, from ancient Greece and Rome to DaVinci and the Renaissance, to the Impressionists of the 19th Century and Picasso, Matisse, and other 20th century masters. Originally an 18-part television series, the work has been digitally re-mastered on DVD.
A rare treat from Koch Vision.

Rameses: Wrath of God or Man?
Some of the best Discovery Channel documentaries are making it onto DVD thanks to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. First showing is this fascinating study of the Egyptian king who tangled with Moses and the Jews in the Old Testament as it attempts to sort out fact from myth.
We follow Egyptologist Kent Weeks into the Valley of the Kings where he uncovers what may be the skull of Rameses II’s eldest son and tries to discover if the young prince was murdered. The documentary re-creates the Biblical times through re-enactments of events and visits today to the ancient sites. I could watch every Discovery Channel documentary and not miss 99 percent of new movies every month.
Max’s rating: Two paws up and some “Woo woo’s!”

The Alexandrov Red Army Choir
The world-renowned choir is joined by full orchestra and dance ensemble in a 2-hour DVD special featuring classic Russian songs and music from the concert hall and opera house. The DVD was made from a live performance in Paris. From Silva Screen and Koch Vision.

America’s Scenic Rail Journeys
The popular PBS television series takes us on spectacular train journeys in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Each of two discs takes us on three trips. The journeys include two in Alaska, the Canadian Rockies from Wyoming to the coast of British Columbia, Northwest Mexico through the Copper Canyon, the Adirondacks from New York to Montreal, and the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle. No tickets, no waiting, you get the best seats on the train, and the extras include trip profiles, route map insert, Alaska archival rail gallery, and tour information for each journey. What are you waiting for? Nearly six hours of great vacationing from American Program Service and Acorn media.

 

Oldies but Goodies

 

Stand By Me
Few movies evoke childhood as well as this 1986 film by Rob Reiner. The classic has been digitally restored for DVD in a deluxe edition with lots of extras about the production, cast, and music. Based on Stephen King’s novel, The Body, it follows a group of boys in rural America as they search the countryside for a missing teenager’s body. The boys were played by River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell, and Corey Feldman. “Absolutely wonderful… a film I may never forget,” said critic Jeffrey Lyons. From Sony Pictures

W.C. Fields Extravaganza
The one-and-only William Claude Dukinfield is back, in a 3-DVD boxed set to remind us of how uniquely funny he was. Disc 1 contains three of his greatest short comedies: “The Fatal Glass of Beer,” “The Golf Specialist,” and “The Dentist” (Ouch!) Disc 2 contains “Sally of the Sawdust,” Fields’ first starring role in a feature film, made in 1925 and based on his Broadway stage hit, “Poppy.” The third disc holds Fields’ 1916 movie debut, “Pool Sharks,” a 1965 television tribute, a cartoon featuring Fields, and a collection of trailers and film clips from Fields’ biggest movie hits including “The Bank Dick” and “My Little Chickadee.” Fun all the way, from Passport Video.

The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Collection Vol. 2

The hit comedy team of 1950s television stars again in this 5-disc DVD set of their best from the Colgate Comedy Hour. Dean’s songs and the pair’s antics are accompanied by guests including Eddie Cantor, Marilyn Maxwell, Tony Martin, Burt Lancaster, and boxing legend Joe Louis. Over 7 hours of top entertainment from Passport Video.

For Puppies and Kids

 

The Wind in the Willows
On DVD for the first time, the award-winning complete 13-episode first television series of the Kenneth Grahame classic adventure. Not animation, but stop-motion character renditions of Mole and his friends at Mole End, Toad Hall, and the Wild Wood, in beautifully detailed sets. A very special treat for kids and the whole family, from Talkback Thames, A&E, and New Video. I recommend this highly.

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and two other children’s picture books are the subjects of a delightful DVD from Scholastic Video Collection.

Swimmy and four other picture books are on a second DVD. These are a good new way to get kids into reading more.

Gators & Dragons and Other Wild Beasts is a DVD in the Popular Mechanic for Kids series, showing what it takes to work at some of the world’s coolest zoos and go on a safari in the Florida Everglades.

Paws, Claws, Feathers, and Fins is a DVD to help kids learn to take care of their pets.

Let’s Get a Move On is a kids’ guide to moving.  Piggy Banks to Money Markets tells kids about finance, although Republican kids probably already know all about it.  All from Goldhil Home Media.

 

Bones to Pick

 

What’s happened to music today? My master and I can’t tell any Disney movie song from another - they all sound like they were written by a computer -- but this hasn’t kept at least one of them from being Oscar-nominated each year.  Not only Disney songs, but just about every new song today sounds the same to my ears.  If there are lyrics, they’re just a few words the singer moans, groans, or whines, repeating them endlessly.   But mostly it’s just mindless loud noise with a spine-destroying two-note “boom boom” bass beat.  Each "boom" sounds like a cannon blast in my ears.  Haven’t they ever heard of the intelligent lyrics and beautiful melodies of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, or for that matter, classical music of Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, or Beethoven?   A young neighbor insists on sharing his “boom boom” noise with us.  We’re tempted to share Chinese opera with him, which sounds like someone pulling the hair out of the butts of a hundred angry cats at the same time.  Sorry, Chinese readers. I guess your classical opera is an acquired taste.  My master and I are unable to develop an acquired taste for modern "boom boom" music.

I bet you didn't know, but besides reviewing movies, I sing opera. Click here to see and hear me rehearsing the Barcarolle from "Tales of Hoffman."

Maybe you would like to visit my master's web site with highlights of his huge collection of old movie magazines, Bijou Follies
Two more web sites I recommend are: Errol Flynn and Jeffrey Hunter