FILM FRENZY

Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers (Photo: Shout! Studios)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER (1959) / THE KILLER SHREWS (1959). Beyond the year of release and the theme of Nature Gone Wild, The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews share many attributes. Both were regional, low-budget pictures produced by Texas millionaire/radio broadcaster/theater owner/author/sports announcer/politician Gordon McLendon. Both were created with the purpose of accompanying each other as a double feature to show in movie theaters and drive-ins. Both were directed by Ray Kellogg, who created the special photographic effects for over 100 big-budget Hollywood films (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Robe, The King and I) but is probably best known for sharing directing duties with John Wayne on the awful 1968 Vietnam War yarn The Green Berets. Both were co-produced by Ken Curtis, later immortalized as Festus on the long-running TV series Gunsmoke. Both featured a European Miss Universe contestant as the leading lady (France’s Lisa Simone in Gila, Sweden’s Ingrid Goude in Shrews). And both were featured in Season Five of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Both are also best approached with low expectations and a high tolerance for not-so-special special effects. The titular behemoth in The Giant Gila Monster is actually played a plain ol’ lizard whose footage is interspersed with that of people screaming and running around. This critter has elected to terrorize a small town, and it’s up to a heroic car enthusiast (Don Sullivan) to save the day. More time is spent talking about automobiles than about missing teenagers or that gargantuan Gila monster, and the comic relief provided by Western veteran Shug Fisher is painful. Sullivan, however, has more screen presence than most of the teen dullards headlining this sort of creature feature.

A better bet is The Killer Shrews, even if its “effects” are dressing up ordinary dogs to play the oversized shrews and occasionally employing hand puppets! The setting is a remote island, where a team of scientists and a boat captain (James Best, later Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard) square off against the mole-like, mutt-sized mammals. McLendon himself plays the clumsy Dr. Baines, Curtis is the duplicitous Jerry, and Dr. Craigis is portrayed by Baruch Lumet, who I was surprised to learn is the father of 12 Angry Men / Dog Day Afternoon director Sidney Lumet. There’s a fair amount of interest in the story, although every time a “shrew” is shown, one expects it to sit, roll over, or extend its paw.

The newly restored double-feature Blu-ray offers each film in theatrical widescreen format or TV pan-and-scan format. Extras consist of podcaster audio commentary on The Giant Gila Monster; film scholar audio commentary on The Killer Shrews; a featurette on Kellogg; an archival interview with Sullivan; the trailer for The Giant Gila Monster; and radio spots for both films. A booklet is also included.

The Giant Gila Monster: ★½

The Killer Shrews: ★★

MOONAGE DAYDREAM (2022). Most documentaries focusing on famous artists proceed in linear fashion, moving through the individual’s life from A to Z. This nonfiction piece on David Bowie doesn’t even mess around with the alphabet — instead, it feels as if it’s being told via inscrutable hieroglyphics or complex mathematical formulations. This is perhaps unlike any biopic I’ve ever seen, as director Brett Morgen (the Robert Evans doc The Kid Stays in the Picture), with the blessing of the Bowie estate, has made a movie that functions as stream-of-consciousness cinema, using Bowie’s own voice (mainly from interviews) and countless snatches of film, video, concert footage, and other media methods to attempt to get inside the superstar’s head and heart. Very little is identified; even less is time-stamped. There are no talking heads. Footage from Bowie’s Broadway stint in The Elephant Man is featured; a few seconds appear from Labyrinth; Bowie discusses his artwork and his travels; Iman finally shows up; and music of course takes center stage. It’s more of a Vulcan mind meld than a motion picture, and I can only honestly recommend it to Bowie devotees and fans of avant-garde cinema. All others should proceed with caution.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Morgen; a Q&A session with Morgen, Bowie band member Mike Garson, and filmmaker Mark Romanek (director of the music videos for the Bowie songs “Black Tie White Noise” and “Jump They Say”); an interview with sound mixers David Giammarco and Paul Massey (both Emmy-nominated for their work on Moonage Daydream); and a previously unreleased 1974 live performance by Bowie of “Rock ’n’ Roll With Me.”

Movie: ★★★½

NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994). When placed next to Natural Born Killers, the furor and controversy that greeted Pulp Fiction in Fall 1994 seemed almost as staid and sentimental as that which greeted the family films Lassie and The Little Rascals during Summer 1994. Debuting in August of that year, writer-director Oliver Stone’s reworking of an original story by Quentin Tarantino (who despises the finished product) was covered almost as frequently on op-ed pages as in A&E sections, and it largely split the critical community into “love it” and “hate it” camps. As a visceral piece of moviemaking, it’s astonishing, with Stone employing every cinematic technique at his disposal (much like Francis Coppola had done with 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula) to relate the story of Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis), serial killers who murder 52 people in a relatively short period of time. Subtlety isn’t exactly this movie’s strong suit: Its message that mass murder begets fawning media coverage and vice versa was already becoming moldy in the mid-90s, and of course the movie’s ostensible good guys — a sleazy warden (Tommy Lee Jones), a psychotic detective (Tom Sizemore), and especially a TV tabloid reporter (Robert Downey Jr.) — are as awful as the killers. But the exaggerated acting proves to be effective (who knew Rodney Dangerfield could be so chilling as an incestuous father?), and there’s always something new to discover in the visuals. The song soundtrack is choice, bypassing the usual American Top 40 staples for the likes of Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, and L7.

The 4K + Blu-ray edition contains the R-rated theatrical version and the unrated Director’s Cut. Extras include audio commentary by Stone; discussions of the film’s themes; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★★

SCHOOL OF ROCK (2003). Best known for such indie and indie-minded efforts as Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, and the Before trilogy, director Richard Linklater scored major multiplex bucks with this disarming comedy that at $81 million remains by far the biggest mainstream hit of his career. Written by Mike White (The Good Girl, HBO’s The White Lotus), this stars Jack Black as Dewey Finn, a failed and financially strapped drummer who pretends to be his roommate, nebbishy substitute teacher Ned Schneebly (White), in order to land a temporary job at a posh private school. There, he tries to steer clear of the suspicious principal (Joan Cusack) while teaching his buttoned-down fifth-grade charges about the glories of rock & roll. It sounds like the sort of sanitized product that might have starred Eddie Murphy (Dokken Day Care?), yet what gives the movie any semblance of an edge is Black, whose relentless manic energy gets us to believe that here’s a slovenly yet soulful character who practices what he preaches. And the kids are alright, too — not overly precocious or sentimentalized, these young performers (including the brainy class leader played by singer and future iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove in her film debut) help Black sell the message that our learning institutions can only benefit from teaching classic rock right alongside classic lit.

School of Rock has been reissued for its 20th anniversary as a limited edition, Blu-ray Steelbook. Extras include audio commentary by Linklater and Black; audio “kids kommentary” by several of the youthful co-stars; a making-of featurette; Black’s actual video pitch to Led Zeppelin, begging them to allow the tune “Immigrant Song” to be used in the movie (it worked); and the School of Rock music video.

Movie: ★★★

SHREK THE THIRD (2007). Mike Myers may well be the star of the Shrek franchise, but he’s hardly the one whose character most vividly remains in the minds of moviegoers. For the 2001 original, Eddie Murphy earned the lion’s share of the positive notices for his vigorous vocal work as the obnoxious donkey sidekick (even if it was just a reworking of his vigorous vocal work as the obnoxious dragon sidekick in Mulan). And for the 2004 sequel, it was clearly Antonio Banderas as the debonair Puss In Boots who emerged as the cat’s meow, so much so that he landed his own franchise. In Shrek the Third, both the donkey and the kitty have largely been neutered, and the film’s makers didn’t bother to introduce any compelling new characters to pick up the slack (Justin Timberlake’s Arthur and Eric Idle’s Merlin certainly don’t cut it). Shrek (which somehow beat Monsters, Inc. for the first Best Animated Feature Oscar ever handed out) and Shrek 2 were amusing enough, although the impersonal style of animation, rapid succession of instantly dated pop culture references, and fondness for scatological humor always left me a little cold. Shrek the Third brings the exact same ingredients to the table, only what’s offered feels more like leftovers. The film’s most original conceit is turning Disney’s damsels in distress (Snow White, Cinderella, etc.) into feminist warriors; the rest is mild and mindless, the work of businessmen who measure success by Happy Meal sales and other commercial tie-ins.

Extras in the 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Code edition include making-of featurettes and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★

TENEBRAE (1982). Originally playing stateside in an edited version titled Unsane, writer-director Dario Argento’s Tenebrae (often Tenebre) was released two years after Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill and two years before De Palma’s Body Double, making one suspect these filmmakers were busy borrowing from each other’s works with frequent regularity. Like De Palma, Argento employs the camera as a prowling, restless voyeur, and that tendency is at its most pronounced in this thriller in which American author Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), stopping in Rome as part of a promotional tour for his latest horror novel, learns that his book is serving as a guide for a serial killer who seems to be moving in the same circles. The De Palma comparisons don’t end with the technical mastery behind the lens: Like his American counterpart, Argento not only has an eye for beautiful women (and a habit of keeping one alive to serve as, at best, the heroine and, at worst, a witness to the mayhem) but further delights in tripping up audiences with startling plot twists, thematically rich analyses, and bursts of extreme violence. Argento regular (and mother of Asia Argento) Daria Nicolodi co-stars as Peter’s assistant, John Saxon appears as his agent, and Guiliano Gemma and Carola Stagnaro are effective as a pair of sympathetic detectives.

The 4K UHD + Blu-ray edition offers the uncut original release, with the option of either the Italian or English track. Extras include audio commentary by author Maitland McDonagh (Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento); the 2016 feature-length documentary Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of the Giallo; archival interviews with Argento and Nicolodi; an alternate opening credits sequence; and the original end credits sequence for Unsane.

Movie: ★★★

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT (1974). The story goes that Clint Eastwood was so impressed with Michael Cimino’s work on the script for the 1973 Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force that he gave the up-and-comer the opportunity to both write and direct his next film. The result was Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a satisfying mix of buddy picture and heist yarn. Eastwood stars as a bank robber known as “The Thunderbolt,” who finds himself hooking up with a sidekick of sorts, a brash kid named Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges). The pair eventually cross paths with two of Thunderbolt’s former associates, the profane and volatile Red Leary (George Kennedy) and the sweet but dim-witted Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis), and it’s decided the quartet will attempt a bank job. But the wild card is Lightfoot: In addition to possibly being too green to pull off such an elaborate crime, his habit of ceaselessly annoying Red with his wisecracks adds uncomfortable tension to an already precarious situation. Bridges earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination for this film — he’s terrific, with his funny, freewheeling turn effectively loosening up Eastwood and allowing the superstar to appear more relaxed and less tight-lipped than usual. Kennedy is memorable as a raging bull, while Lewis makes Eddie wholly sympathetic despite the limitations of the part (Lewis would end up appearing in seven pictures with Eastwood). Following this film, Cimino made 1978’s The Deer Hunter, winning Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, and then for all intents and purposes ended his career with the infamous 1980 megabomb Heaven’s Gate.

Extras in the 4K UHD + Blu-ray edition include film critic audio commentary; an audio interview with Cimino; and the trailer.

Movie: ★★★

THE TRAIN (1964). This World War II drama uses an actual incident to ask the age-old question: Can Art-with-a-capital-A be worth as much as a human life? With meticulous direction by John Frankenheimer and a complex, Oscar-nominated script by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis (based on Rose Valland’s book Le front de l’art), this gripping film places that philosophical query in the context of a rousing action flick notable for its astounding use of real trains (no models or miniatures were employed) and a cunning clash of wills between two formidable adversaries. On one hand, there’s Colonel Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield), an erudite Nazi who plans to leave France with a huge shipment of artistic masterpieces (by fellows like Van Gogh, Picasso, Renoir, and Gauguin) before the Allies arrive. On the other, there’s Labiche (Burt Lancaster), a railway manager and French Resistance member who’s uninterested in risking lives for paintings until matters take a personal turn. Crisply filmed in black-and-white and sporting small but memorable turns by French icons Jeanne Moreau (as a pragmatic innkeeper) and Michel Simon (as a crusty conductor), the picture nicely delineates its central characters through grounded exposition before eventually taking off with the high-charged power of — what else? — a runaway train.

Extras in the 4K UHD + Blu-ray edition include archival audio commentary by Frankenheimer; film historian audio commentary; a vintage making-of featurette; an isolated track of Maurice Jarre’s score; a Trailers From Hell segment; a TV spot; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★½

Short and Sweet:

LONELY CASTLE IN THE MIRROR (2022). Based on the popular novel by Mizuki Tsujimura, this imaginative anime starts off in bonkers style, as several teenagers are brought to a mysterious castle by a little girl wearing a wolf mask. If it feels scattered at first, rest assured that the pieces will eventually come together and the movie will prove to be an affecting piece about — of all things — bullying.

Blu-ray extras consist of an art gallery and trailers.

Movie: ★★★

YOUNG GUNS (1988). A decent script that positions Billy the Kid (played by Emilio Estevez) as the slightly mad member of a group of outlaws/enforcers gets seriously undermined by Christopher Cain’s clumsy directorial style and too much pretty-boy posturing by several of its Brat Pack stars (among them Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Charlie Sheen).

Blu-ray extras consist of a piece on Billy the Kid and an advanced trivia track.

Movie: ★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

Turkey Pick: SAVAGES (2012). Here’s one Oliver Stone made long after his acclaimed career had died out. The voice-over narrator of this nitwit claptrap is Ophelia (Blake Lively), who long ago shortened her name to O to avoid comparisons to Shakespeare’s tragic heroine. Not coming across as particularly well-read, O doubtless didn’t realize that she now shared her name with the title character from Anne Desclos’ controversial Histoire d’O (The Story of O), the erotic tale about sadomasochism. This new designation makes more sense, however, since Savages‘ characters practice sadism in their dealings with one another while viewers have to be masochistic to sit through this torturous affair. Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson play Chon and Ben, two California dudes responsible for cultivating the best marijuana in the entire world (America, fuck yeah!). Their wacky weed is so awesome that a Mexican drug kingpin — uh, queenpin? — named Elena (Salma Hayek) insists on merging their operations, a proposal the boys shoot down. This displeases Elena, so she sends her top enforcer (Benicio Del Toro) to kidnap the boys’ shared lady love, O, in an effort to force them to cooperate. O no! What will they do? John Travolta’s also in this dud, as a cheerfully corrupt DEA agent playing both sides — he’s far more engaging than the three youthful leads, as are Hayek and Del Toro (even if the latter’s character comes off as a poor man’s Anton Chigurh). Savages is based on the novel by Don Winslow, who co-wrote the screenplay with Stone and Shane Salerno. Not having read Winslow’s novel, it’s difficult to ascertain who deserves the blame for not only the atrocious cop-out ending but also the ghastly dialogue that dogs the picture every time O feels the need to share her inner monologues. Viewer agony begins right near the start, as she describes her boffing sessions with the battle-scarred Chon: “I had orgasms; he had ‘wargasms.'” Yow. Haven’t Writers Guild of America memberships been revoked for less?

Movie: ★