December 2006
	by Max (with Walt Oleksy)	view previous issues here

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THE PREMIERE FRANK CAPRA COLLECTION

Sony Pictures does the great director justice in its handsome new 6-DVD boxed set of five classic movies. “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “You Can’t Take It With You” were released earlier on DVD, but it’s very nice to have them in this set. It also includes a fifth film, Capra’s 1932 social-political drama “American Madness” with Walter Huston and Pat O’Brien that contains themes he later used in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” A bonus disc holds archival Capra film footage, rare photographs, new interviews, a documentary hosted by Ron Howard, and a 96-page collectible movie scrapbook about these five and other Capra films. A great Christmas gift for anyone who appreciates the best of Hollywood’s past.

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

Also recommended:

SUPERMAN RETURNS

Christopher Reeve lookalike Brandon Routh dons the Man of Steel’s crusader’s cape in this new action adventure. The first Reeve film remains the best of the franchise, but this new installment in the series is pretty good. It’s less than a comic book movie and more of a movie. The movie is two and a half hours long and I lost interest after two hours. Also, it was almost eerie seeing Routh look, talk, and speak so much like Reeve did, especially in the first film. The two-disc special edition contains the movie and lots of extras, from Warner. Warner also has released SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT which restores footage the director shot before he was taken off the film. They could have left well enough alone.

MRS. PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT

The always watchable Joan Plowright stars in this fine new British film as an elderly woman who takes up residence in a London hotel so she won’t become a burden to her only daughter. She soon meets a much younger resident, played amiably by Rupert Friend, and the two strike up a friendship as she takes him on an exploration of her mind and past. It’s a charming, intelligent, poignant film for adults and the family except the very youngest who wouldn’t know what was going on. From Westlake.

WAH-WAH

Writer-director-actor Richard E. Grant has made an excellent movie of his youthful years living with his parents in the British colony of Swaziland before it was granted its independence in the late 1960s. His father (Gabriel Byrne) is a minister of education who drinks too much, and his mother(Miranda Richardson) goes off with another man, leaving him in a boarding school. Later, his father remarries but still drinks too much. It’s a movie as much about relationships between the British colonizers and the natives. The stepmother (Emily Watson) gives the movie its title. To her, the natives’ speech only reaches her ears as “Wah-wah-wah-wah.” From Sony.

MOZART AND THE WHALE

Josh Hartnett is still trying to grow up, and in this film plays an autistic young man who falls in love with a young woman (Radha Mitchell) with the same malady in a support group. Yes, Hollywood, running low on plots, finally got around to that one, although it had earlier been done much better in DAVID AND LISA, IN 1962. In this new story, problems arise when the lovers begin living together. From Sony.

SHADES OF DARKNESS

Mystery fans will like this 2 DVD set of six mysterious tales of the paranormal that are based on frightening stories by Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Bowen, and others. Hugh Grant, Miranda Richardson, Francesca Annis, Robert Hardy, and Eileen Atkins star in the supernatural ghost stories. Excellent British storytelling from Granada and Koch Vision.

Several supposed comedies about Christmas have been released this season and have been given lots of hype, but I preferred some others that were lower on budget and higher on sentiment:

MR. CHRISTMAS is a heartwarming family film in which a little girl yearns for a new bicycle but the family is on hard times and can’t afford it. There’s a nice surprise ending that provides some holiday cheer. A Beth Brickell movie from Luminous Films.

THE CHRISTMAS SHOES stars eternally young Rob Lowe (he must have a painting of himself in his attic) as a workaholic attorney whose meeting with a boy on Christmas Eve leads him to discover the true meaning of love, life, and the holiday season. Inspired by the popular song and book, it’s from GT Media and Fremantle Media.

JOYEUX NOEL is a dramatization of the historic Christmas Eve cease-fire along the Western front during World War I that became known as the Christmas Truce. French and Scottish soldiers leave the trenches and exchange food and drink and sing carols with German soldiers, then celebrate a Catholic Mass. On Christmas Day, the troops play soccer. But the guns of war start up again after the truce, compounding the irony and madness of war. It seems to be good for business and is always popular, if someone else loses their limbs or does the dying. From Sony.

THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY

The award-winning Scholastic Video Collection scores high holiday points for its collection of five holiday stories and songs adapted from classic children’s picture books, for ages 3-7. The DVD’s title story from the book by Ezra Jack Keats contains joyful drumming and music and vocals by John Jennings. Four other yuletide stories feature a Christmas visit from outer space, a boy who spends his “lucky money” wisely for the holiday, a troll that comforts some farm animals at Christmas, and a delightful extra, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” >From Weston Woods Studios and New Video.

Two other children’s Christmas DVDs I recommend this season are:

TOOT & PUDDLE: I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, based on the Holly Hobbie books, from National Geographic Kids’ Entertainment, in which Toot visits Scotland for Christmas. CHRISTMAS TOONS DVD AND CD, sing-along Christmas songs for ages 2-5 from ThingamaKid. Each disc is 30 minutes and good entertainment for kids at home or in the car on a holiday trip.

The media reported last month that motormouth Tom Cruise has bought United Artists studios and will make new movies from there. UA, formed in the early years of films by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford, produced many classic films, but we somehow doubt that Cruise will continue that tradition, since his most recent and mindless films have been so focused on pushing the envelope on violence (“The War of the Worlds” and “Mission Impossible III” which has a warning before the DVD starts that it contains “intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace.”) Cruise knows that’s the stuff that sells tickets, and his salary has been close to $20 million per picture. I guess he still needs, or at least wants, more. It reminds me of what Humphrey Bogart said to gangster Edward G. Robinson in “Key Largo”: “You’ve got everything! What is it you want?” Robinson replies: “More!”

Second bone: THE DA VINCI CODE tells a preposterous story as if it is true (that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and she is the true Holy Grail). That money-making idea created a best-seller that has almost out-sold the Bible. The movie’s plot is so convoluted that despite all the action and intrigue, I fell asleep after half an hour. To me it was all just much ado about very little. Tom Hanks, with a very bad bushy hairdo, must also have felt nappy because he virtually sleep-walks though the film. It only comes awake when gamin-like French actress Audrey Tautou appears.

I wonder what the next over-hyped book and movie will be, but I’m pretty sure I’ll pass on both.

Happy holidays to you all, and your doggies, kitties, and other family pets.

See you next month at the same fire hydrant.