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In Good Company
My Pick of the Month, this is a rare movie about corporate greed and power and their effects on employees. Dennis Quaid is outstanding as a family man and top sales rep for a sports magazine which is taken over by a mega corporation. He has to train a much younger man with no experience who is given his job. Topher Grace is hard to like as the job usurper, but he does a very good job in the role. I won’t tell how it all ends, but it’s a story worth following. See if you don’t recognize yourself or someone you know in any number of the corporate jobs that fly out the window because of mergers and acquisitions that result in downsizing, a condition more commonly known as “You’re fired!” From Universal Studios. Some reviewers didn’t like the ending, but my master and I did.

Max’s rating: Two paws up and several loud “woo woo’s!”

 

The Irishman
If the first five years of the 21st century aren’t going your way, consider stepping back into the 1920s. Not in the US of A, but down under in Australia. Elizabeth O’Connor’s award-winning novel about a family trying to cope with the changing world of the second decade of the 20th century becomes an engrossing movie on DVD. An Irish-Australian teamster clings to tradition and the past as motorization threatens to replace his horse-drawn carts. His youngest son goes along with him, while the eldest rebels and leaves to make his own way in the modern world. Go along for fine family drama in this excellent Aussie movie, from BFS Video.




Donkey Skin
Beautiful, fascinating Catherine Deneuve plays a princess who escapes an unwelcome suitor by hiding on a neighboring estate as a scullery maid wearing a donkey skin. Okay, kind of far-fetched, but totally enjoyable fantasy from the pen of 17th century author Charles Perault who is better known for writing Cinderella. The great French actor Jacques Marais co-stars in this beautifully filmed and acted treasure directed by Jacques Demy, from Koch Lorber Films.

 

From TV to DVD

 

Rosemary & Thyme
Combining mystery and gardening, this Brit television series stars Felicity Kendal as Rosemary, a plant biologist, and Pam Ferris as Laura Thyme, a gardening enthusiast and former policewoman. They team up to open a gardening business but always seem to dig up some mystery to solve and, of course, the settings are always in some of England’s most beautiful gardens. One of the six mysteries involves a “tree of death” on which a man is impaled by an arrow. It’s fascinating stuff, as might be expected from the producer of Agatha Christie’s Poirot television movies. Series One is available now, from Acorn Media.


Little House on the Prairie – Season 8
The stories keep coming from the series that began in 1974, made television history, and is now out on DVD from its 1981-1982 season. In this set of six DVDs with 19 episodes running about 18 hours, the Ingalls and the Wilders are snowed-in at Christmas, some friends move away, a daredevil comes to Walnut Grove, a child custody battle rages, and James is shot. Enough cliffhangers to keep you glued to your TV for many nights. The NBC series is in a handsome boxed set with many special features including a documentary about the places where the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and wrote about.

Kavanagh Q.C.
British courtroom drama of the highest order is in the two new DVD sets from BFS. John Thaw stars as the white-wigged, black-robbed barrister who pursues the guilty and protects the innocent. “Brilliant… a resounding thumbs up” said one British critic.

Degrassi Junior High, the landmark PBS television series takes on teen concerns from a teen’s-eye-view of life in his 3-DVD boxed set of Season Two. The Los Angeles Times called the series “One of the gutsiest shows on television” in the late 1980s and early 1990s for taking on controversial subjects affecting the lives of teenagers including abuse, alcohol, and depression. Highly recommended for the family to view with their teenagers. From WGBH Boston Video.

Two’s Company
Elaine Stritch and Sir Donald Sinden are an hilarious team in the complete third season of this very popular Brit TV series. Stritch plays a brash, three-times divorced American mystery writer living in London who hires a very proper British butler, played by Sinden. Sparks fly between modern feminist Stritch and old-school conservative Sinden.

All eight episodes are on one DVD. Other critics call it “part culture war, part battle of the sexes, and a total comedy classic.” I agree that it’s lots of fun. From Granada and Acorn Media.

Documentaries of the Month

 

The lives and careers of three famous men are explored in three 2-disc DVDs from Koch Vision. “Kennedy” stars Martin Sheen as JFK in a five-hour feature film that focuses mainly on the years from his election as President in 1960 to his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. Special bonus features include his inaugural address, a documentary on the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the last 19 minutes of his life.
“Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years 1929-1939” dramatizes the British leader who inspired his countrymen in World War II to “Never give in… never, never, never give in.” The Masterpiece Theatre drama stars amazing Robert Hardy as Churchill, with an all-star cast including Nigel Havers, Eric Porter, and Sian Phillips. This is spectacular viewing. “Hemingway” stars Stacy Keach as the legendary author-adventurer, focusing mainly on his tender and stormy relationships with his four wives (not at the same time, of course).

Brothers in Arms is from the Military Network, true stories of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division in World War II and Vietnam. Just one of “The Screaming Eagles’” amazing assignments was when Captain Frank Lillyman, a paratrooper pathfinder, leaped into the dark night sky over Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944 and lit the way for the Normandy Invasion. High historical drama from American Home Treasures.

Visions of England
An aerial view of England, shot in high-definition from a helicopter-mounted camera makes for a very exciting travelogue. You’ll get a new view of the White Cliffs of Dover and historic sites such as Hadrian’s Wall and Stonehenge, plus literary landmarks including Jane Austen country and Shakespeare’s Stratford Upon Avon in this exciting the beautiful 75-minute DVD travelogue. It also has 19 minutes of bonus footage not seen on the public television broadcast. From Acorn Media.

 

Oldies but Goodies

 

 

Some terrific classic movies are out on DVD this month. My best picks are John Ford’s “Drums Along the Mohawk” with Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda as newlyweds adventuring into the wilderness during the American Revolutionary War,

Joel McCrea as “Buffalo Bill,” and Doris Day and James Cagney in the 1920s musical “Love Me or Leave Me.”

 

For Kids and Puppies

Pooh’s Heffalump Movie
I can never get enough of Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, so this new entry on DVD is most welcome. It’s fun-scary as Roo encounters a mysterious big pink creature and tries to tame it.
Max’s rating: two paws up.

Bones to Pick

 

Nicholas Cage’s new Indiana Jones rip-off “National Treasure” is supposed to be the hit movie of the month on DVD, but I turned it off after the first 10 minutes because I got tired of his constant scowl. Is it the character scowling, or Cage scowling? I wondered, then just didn’t care to see it anymore. And on top of the scowl, Cage still, as always, looks like he needs a shave and shower. Besides, he solves the riddle in the first few minutes of the movie much too fast. That part is just unbelievable, even if Cage looked smart enough to figure it out, which he doesn’t.

Second bone: Why have some actors with great-looking hair chosen to become skinheads? Hey, Brad Pitt… you shaved your great-looking blond locks off for “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” but an almost bald head does nothing for you. The round top only accentuates your huge jowls.

Third bone: “The Aviator” didn’t fly for me. Talk about a miscast movie! Perpetual teenager Leonardo di Caprio was totally unconvincing as Howard Hughes, an adult male womanizer. Hollywood badly needs new actors who look older than 16 and who have had some life experience to draw upon when they portray mature men. And Shirley Temple at age six would have done a better impersonation of Katharine Hepburn than Cate Blanchett.

Fourth bone: James Dean’s trilogy of movies are now out on DVD. They’re all good films… “Rebel Without a Cause,” “East of Eden,” and “Giant,” but my master and I are just not fans of the pouty pretty-boy that Warner Bros. marketing people made into a cult star. Extras on the discs about the actor himself don’t clue us in to what my master learned from researching a biography he wrote about him. He found him to be an unprincipled phony who just copied Marlon Brando’s acting style and put a teenage spin on it. And Dean was a menace behind the wheel, running a family with little kids off the highway on a wild ride just after being stopped by a traffic officer for speeding and reckless driving only shortly before the fatal crash that killed him. The boy was self-destructive, but he should have been careful not to take any innocent people with him. Seems they’ll put anyone’s picture on a postage stamp these days, so long as they’re made a name for themselves, one way or another. Okay, Dean fans, bring on the hate mail. But first, learn what he was really like.

 

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