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KEYS TO THE HOUSE
I stand up on my hind legs and cheer for this Italian movie and think you will too. I picked it off a DVD rental store by chance and discovered not only one of the best movies of the year, but two of the best performances. Kim Rossi- Stuart, a new star discovery, plays a man whose wife dies in giving birth to an autistic son. Kim can’t cope, so he lets his brother and sister-in-law raise his boy. When his son is 15, Kim decides he wants to see him, to test the waters as to whether he could bear to have the boy in his life. I won’t tell more, except that Kim reminds my master of a young Montgomery Clift, in being that handsome and also in the sensitivity he brings to a difficult role. Andrea Rossi plays the boy to such perfection, you’d think he really was autistic. Look out, Dustin Hoffman, Rossi did it even better than you did in “RAIN MAN.” The film won prizes at the Venice Film Festival and was Italy’s official selection for best foreign film in last year’s Oscars. It should have won. See this one. It will move you like no Hollywood movie has in years. In Italian with English subtitles (don’t let that turn you off) from Lions Gate.
Max’s rating: Two paws up very high and so many “Woo’s woos!” you might want to call the cops. Er, polizia.

RIPPING YARNS
Every British schoolboy grew up reading derring-do adventure stories about Brits who did brave deeds in the four corners of the world. Two of the Monty Python comic geniuses, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, spoofed the stories in a laugh-a-minute television series they co-wrote called “RIPPING YARNS.” Now it’s on DVD in a two-disc boxed set containing nine half-hour comedies. Palin stars in each episode, with Jones supporting in several, and fellow Pythons John Cleese and Eric Idle in cameo appearances. “Tomkinson’s Schooldays,” about the proverbial private school and its resident bully; “Murder at Moorstones Manor,” and “Across the Andes by Frog” are some of my favorites, but you’ll have more, I’m sure. Jolly good show, this set, from Acorn Media.

Also recommended this month:


THE STORY OF MARIE AND JULIEN
Julien, a young clock-maker who moonlights as a blackmailer, can’t forget Marie, a beautiful young woman he met only briefly at a party. He sees her a year later and soon they live together. But Julien discovers there is mystery behind Marie’s beauty. You will too, in this outstanding French film directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Emmanuelle Bart and Jeerzy Radziwilowicz. From Koch Vision.

 

A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN
Marco, a Parisian driving instructor, learns from his doctor that he is four months pregnant. His fiancée doesn’t quite get it. Neither will you in this delightful French comedy starring the incomparable Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, directed by Jacques Demy in 1973. It would spoil the fun to tell you any more. From Koch Vision.

FOREVER LULU
This quirky, light-hearted comedy follows a struggling female novelist who gets tangled up with a pack of gangsters. Hanna Schygulla stars as a toilet seat company temp worker who aspires to write novels. With music superstar Deborah Harry and, in his movie debut, Alec Baldwin as a handsome cop (who could play it better?)
From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

 

From TV to DVD

POIROT
The entire 36-episodes of the mysteries of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s Belgian sleuth with the funny mustache and white spats, perfectly played by David Suchet, and seen on PBS’ Mystery! is now in a handsome boxed set on 12 DVDs. Each hour-long mystery is also available individually, but doesn’t your DVD shelf almost cry to have them in this new form? From Acorn Media.

 

CLARISSA
Sean Bean, handsome and taller than you’d think, plays Lovelace, a dashing young rake obsessed with seducing the beautiful and virginal Clarissa Harlowe in the novel Samuel Richardson wrote in 1747 and which became one of the most famous in English literature. It’s all here… rich people in wigs and satin finery doing nasty, naughty things in their quest for more riches and more nastiness and naughtiness.
Bodice-ripping? We won’t tell, but it is grand adventure and romance. First broadcast on Masterpiece Theater, it is in a DVD boxed set from Acorn Media, one of my favorite sources for the best in British movies and television.

 

THE MAIGRET COLLECTION

By now you must know I am partial to British mysteries. When they star Michael Gambon, they’re about as close to the top, or over it, as the genre gets. Gambon plays Georges Simenon’s legendary detective, Chief Inspector Maigret, in 12 mysteries taking him from Paris’ Montmartre to the remote French countryside as he encounters the dark side of the human mind, always concerned more with “why” than “who” in a mystery. The 12 mysteries are on 4 discs in a handsome boxed set that any true mystery lover will… yes, love. From Koch Vision.

 

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S ROMANTIC DETECTIVES
Mix romance with mayhem and you get an ideal formula for some of Agatha Christie’s diversionary mysteries. More than 17 hours of the combination is packaged in a 7-DVD boxed set that includes four discs of “Tommy and Tuppence: Partners in Crime;” “Seven Dials Mystery;” and “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” Stars include John Gielgud, Francesca Annis, James Warwick, and Cheryl Campbell. This is a terrific package of mysteries with a romantic touch from the grande dame of British mysteries. From Acorn Media.

 

WIRE IN THE BLOOD
Robson Green, one of my favorite British actors, stars as an eccentric clinical psychologist teamed with a woman detective (Hermione Norris) tracking down vicious killers in northern England. Few do it better than these two fine actors, in two boxed DVD sets of Seasons One and Two of the very popular Brit television series. From Koch Vision.

 

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE Season 8
Few television series have been as popular and long-running as the adventures of the Ingalls and Wilders from Laura Ingall Wilder’s novels. The series debuted in 1974, and Season 8 aired in the 1981-82 television season, continuing the story with familiar faces moving into and out of Walnut Grove. This boxed set is available now as well as a special collector’s edition with the previous seven seasons. Season 8 includes interviews with Dean Butler who played Almanzo Wilder, and Dabbs Greer who played Reverend Alden, and for diehard fans, a quiz to test your knowledge of the 8th season. Excellent family entertainment from NBC and Ed Friendly.
Max’s rating: Two paws up and lots of tail wags.

 

TOUR OF DUTY
Militarists say the Vietnam War was really like this critically acclaimed television series, on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. In the third and final season of the series, young American combat soldiers in Southeast Asia face enemy troops and their own fears while back home the country is in the throes of a massive anti-war movement. Too bad that isn’t the case today.

 

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY
The 1982 television miniseries that Newsweek called “hauntingly beautiful” brought the Civil War to life in a nearly seven-hour-long drama. A new abridged version cuts the story down to four and a half hours on two DVDs, but it’s just as compelling. The star cast includes Gregory Peck as Abraham Lincoln, with Lloyd Bridges, Paul Winfield, Rip Torn, Stacy Keach, Geraldine Page, Robert Vaughn, and Colleen Dewhurst. Highly recommended, from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

 

BEULAH LAND
Another Civil War epic, this originally aired as a five-hour television miniseries in 1980. Now on DVD, stars Lesley Ann Warren as a Georgia plantation owner married to a lazy cad who takes them to the brink of ruin before, during, and after the war. We won’t tell what happens to her as General Sherman marches through the state. With Meredith Baxter Birney, Eddie Albert, Hope Lange, and Don Johnson. Also from Sony.

 

HETTY WAINTHROPP INVESTIGATES
Patricia Routledge returns in the second series of the Brit television series, playing northern England’s and maybe the world’s shrewdest, nosiest, and most unlikely private detective. The six new adventures take the housewife-turned-detective and her devoted husband and teenage friend Geoffrey face-to-face with some very unsavory characters who do all kinds of unlawful things, including murder. From Acorn Media.

COLD FEET
Three young Brit couples are not sure at all how to get their acts together in this smart, funny, very popular television series seen on Bravo and BBC America. The complete third series is out now in a 3-disc boxed set from Acorn Media. The series has won more than 20 international awards in its five seasons on TV. If you haven’t spent some time with it, you can jump in with the 3rd series and I’ll bet you’ll want to see the earlier two.

 

SIMPLY MING
Chef Ming Tsai, one of the most popular chefs on television, comes to your kitchen via DVD in 18 episodes from his mouth-watering PBS television programs. The recipes he shows you how to prepare come from his best-selling East-West cookbook of the same name. Ming specializes in offering easy-to-prepare Chinese dishes, so go get this boxed set and start revving up your wok and chopsticks. From WGBH Boston Video.

Best Documentary of the Month

 

INDECISION 2004
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the rest of The Daily Show, to my mind the funniest show on television (and maybe the ONLY funny show, because sit-coms bore and don’t make me laugh) gets politics all together in this three-disc DVD set poking caustic fun at both Democrats but mostly Republicans at their 2004 conventions (and who would you rather poke?). From Comedy Central. Entertainment Weekly rated it A-. I wonder what the minus was for? Must be a Bushman somewhere on their staff.

Classics on DVD

 

THE THIN MAN Series
No married couple in movies was ever like Nick and Nora Charles, until William Powell played Nick and Myrna Loy portrayed Nora, married sleuths from the pen of master detective writer Dashiell Hammett, in this 1934 classic. It’s almost impossible to describe their breezy marriage, so I won’t try. Myrna Loy became known as “the perfect wife,” although she said in real life she was far from it, having married four times. Originally made by MGM, the movie is released on DVD by Warners in a terrific remastered edition, the flagship of a series of all six of the Thin Man movies. Co-starring is a dog named Asta, a wire-haired terrier whose real name was Skippy. Myrna Loy said, “He was highly-trained to do all of his tricks for a little squeaky mouse and a biscuit. He’d do anything for that reward. He set off a national craze for the breed.” Asta became the best-known dog in America in the 1930s, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottish Terrier, Fala, as a close second.
Max’s rating: Two paws up and lots of tail wags, especially for the dog.

Can't get enough of Powell and Loy (and Asta)? Visit The William Powell Pages.

JOHN WAYNE UP, UP, AND AWAY

They’re finally on DVD - two of John Wayne’s most asked-for flicks, “THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY” and “ISLAND IN THE SKY.”
The first one is much the better of the two, considered the granddaddy of all airborne disaster films, but both are grand entertainment if you don’t watch them while flying somewhere. Extras include interviews with “High” director William Wellman, who always made a terrific movie, and Robert Stack, one of the Duke’s co-stars who was pretty but made of concrete. Go make the Duke’s day, get ‘em from Paramount.

For Kids and Puppies

 

WIND IN THE WILLOWS  Second Series
Kenneth Grahame’s enchanting world with Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad comes alive again in this 2-DVD set from A&E Home Video. The characters are animated figures moving in award-winning stop-motion action, taking young viewers on adventures that are both fun and educational, filled with tea, jam, music, and song. Highly recommended for children and the whole family.

THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES
Improbable, but hey, anything goes with Moe, Larry, and Curly, even though the parts are played by only one of the original zany trio. This one is a satire on the Italian Hercules films that were popular in theaters when this was made in 1961. The boys hop in a time machine that takes them to ancient Greece in sandals and togas. Lots of fun from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

TIKKI TIKKI TEMBO
This delightful Chinese folktale, adapted as a children’s picture book by Arlene Mosel, is one of the National Educational Association’s Top 100 Books for Children. Now it’s one of seven picture books transformed onto DVD from Scholastic Video. They also offer “THE DAY JIMMY’S BOA ATE THE WASH” and five other delightful children’s books on DVD. If you haven’t seen this exciting new DVD series from Scholastic Video, treat your kids and yourself to this new way of visual story-telling.

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