FILM FRENZY

Paul Dano in Dumb Money (Photo: Columbia)

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 APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (1974). A poor Jewish kid growing up in Montreal decides he’s going to be a success no matter what — this attitude serves him well in some situations but also ends up costing him the love and support of those he holds dearest. Duddy is the sort of guy who can always find justification for his less savory actions, and the caffeinated performance by Richard Dreyfuss captures not so much the snake-oil-salesman seediness of such a character but, more crucially, the eager-beaver earnestness that attracts others. Denholm Elliott is hilarious as an experimental British director who tackles Bar Mitzvah home movies like a cut-rate Antonioni or Maya Deren. This earned Mordecai Richler (who adapted his own novel) and Lionel Chetwynd an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The only Blu-ray extra is film historian audio commentary, although the release does come with an essay booklet.

Movie: ★★★

BIKINI BEACH (1964). The third in AIP’s seven-flick “beach party” franchise that blasted off with 1963’s Beach Party, included 1965’s Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and died with 1966’s Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, this one finds Frankie and Dee Dee (series stars Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello) experiencing romantic turbulence with the arrival of a mop-topped British superstar known as “The Potato Bug” (Avalon again, satirizing The Beatles in general and John Lennon in particular). The formula remains intact in this lively entry: surf and sand and sex appeal; a few musical numbers (check out “Little” Stevie Wonder); Harvey Lembeck as biker-Brando spoof Eric Von Zipper; and a handful of old-timers (Keenan Wynn, Don Rickles, Boris Karloff). You also get a Famous Monsters of Filmland contest winner as a werewolf and Timothy Carey as the anti-Minnesota Fats, “South Dakota Slim.”

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★★½

DUMB MONEY (2023). A cousin to 2015’s The Big Short, Dumb Money may not be as accomplished but still burns with the same degree of righteous fury. Based on Ben Mezrich’s The Antisocial Network, it focuses on the 2021 incident wherein ordinary folks, brought together by online blogger Keith Gill (Paul Dano), invested heavily in GameStop stock, thereby elevating their own worth but damaging the bottom lines of fat-cats who thrive on other people’s failures. Naturally, the rich (played by Nick Offerman, Seth Rogen, and Sebastian Stan, among others) protect each other while the little people (including ones portrayed by America Ferrera and Anthony Ramos) are left flailing. A complicated subject is handled in breezy fashion by director Craig Gillespie and scripters Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Blum and Angelo; a making-of featurette; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★★

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER (2023). A sizable measure of cinematic sacrilege is on display in this needless sequel to the 1973 classic. Writer-director David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride, the duo responsible for that dismal Halloween reboot trilogy, team with scripter Scott Teems (who shared writing duties on their wretched Halloween Kills and also penned that awful new Firestarter) for a terror tale that’s short on scares, suspense, and innovation. Like Amy Irving’s Sue Snell in The Rage: Carrie 2, Ellen Burstyn finds her character of Chris MacNeil brought back solely for the sake of humiliation — the lead this time is Leslie Odom Jr., cast as a dad whose teenage daughter (Lidya Jewett) is one of two girls simultaneously experiencing demonic possession. A solid cast is the only asset to this dull and dry melodrama.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray + Digital edition include audio commentary by Green and others, and a making-of piece.

Movie: ★½

OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES (2006) / OSS 117: LOST IN RIO (2009). Five years before writer-director Michel Hazanavicius and actors Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo pooled their talents for the international sensation and Best Picture Oscar winner The Artist, they collaborated on a spy spoof that was so popular, a sequel (sans Bejo) followed two years later. Yet the appeal of the OSS 117 twofer is largely lost on me.

A parody of a series of 258(!) novels written by Jean Bruce and family, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies finds 50s-era French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (Dujardin) assigned to travel to Egypt to discover who murdered his former partner. Unlike a certain Double-Oh agent, Hubert is a complete imbecile … or at least until those occasions when the script requires him to do something smart to extricate himself from a sticky situation (by comparison, Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau was always a clod and only survived death due to sheer luck, which always raised the comedic stakes). Hazanavicius captures the look and style of vintage spy flicks, but the attempts at humor are repeatedly lame — even the ample non-PC material is too labored to be either amusing or offensive.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio is superior to its predecessor, and we’ll take our blessings where we can find them. This time, Hubert is sent to Brazil to tangle with Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, but he spends as much time insulting his Mossad peers with anti-Semitic ramblings and offending women with his misogynistic worldview. Visually, the film is a marvel — look for split screens, rear projection, and other vintage tricks of the trade — and while actual laughs are still largely MIA, at least the foundations for these jokes are cleverly constructed. Another film appeared in 2021 — OSS 117: From Africa With Love — with Dujardin returning to the role but no Hazanavicius behind the camera (that movie is not included here).

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio are being offered on Blu-ray in a double-feature set billed as OSS 117: The Pride of French Intelligence. Extras for each movie include audio commentary by Hazanavicius and Dujardin; a making-of featurette; deleted scenes; a blooper reel; and a photo gallery.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies: ★★

OSS 117: Lost in Rio: ★★½

THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955). Adapted from a hit BBC serial by Nigel Kneale, The Quatermass Xperiment (retitled The Creeping Unknown for U.S. release) was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, putting Hammer Films on the map and paving the way for the studio’s run as a premier producer of horror films. Director and co-scripter Val Guest maintains the proper level of sober suspense for this intelligent tale in which Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) leads the search for an astronaut (Richard Wordsworth) who’s returned from space infected by an alien entity. This was followed by two worthy sequels: 1957’s Quatermass II (Enemy from Space in the U.S.), with Donlevy again playing the intrepid scientist, and 1967’s Quatermass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth in the U.S.), with Andrew Keir taking over the role.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Guest; an interview with Guest; and a comparison between the British and U.S edits.

Movie: ★★★

RUNNING SCARED (1986). While the 1980s were frequently a safe haven for such disastrous, what-were-they-thinking? screen teams as Pat Morita and Jay Leno (Collision Course), Ted Danson and Howie Mandel (A Fine Mess), and John Larroquette and Bronson Pinchot (Second Sight), Running Scared offered a “buddy comedy” pairing that actually worked. Indeed, it’s the ingratiating interplay between Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal that elevates what for the most part is a standard cop flick. The two play risk-taking Chicago lawmen whose vacation to Key West has them thinking of early retirement and relocation. But it’s when they start playing it safe in their last weeks on the job that they put themselves in danger, especially since they’re tangling with a major drug dealer (Jimmy Smits). A subplot involving rival cops goes nowhere, but the stars remain focused and funny even when the movie meanders.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Peter Hyams; a vintage making-of featurette; and outtakes of Crystal.

Movie: ★★★

SCHOOL DAZE (1988). While Spike Lee’s 1986 debut She’s Gotta Have It was an intimate affair, this sophomore effort is a far more ambitious outing, with the filmmaker biting off more than he can chew. At a black college, the usual “snobs vs. slobs” feud is reconfigured as “wannabes vs. jigaboos,” with the former group comprised of upper-class, light-skinned blacks and the latter made up of working-class, dark-skinned blacks. Colorism is just one of the many heavy subjects tackled in this often insightful, often amateurish comedy-drama-musical in which a radical student (Laurence Fishburne) clashes with an elitist frat president (Giancarlo Esposito). Lee plays a pledge called “Half-Pint” in a movie that’s interesting yet unfocused, meaningful yet mean-spirited. Thankfully, Do the Right Thing was just around the corner.

4K extras include audio commentary by Lee; a new Q&A session with Lee and select cast members; and music videos for E.U.’s “Da Butt,” Phyllis Hyman’s “Be One,” and the Rays’ “Be Alone Tonight.”

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

WHO IS KILLING THE GREAT CHEFS OF EUROPE? (1978). This fast-paced delight, from director Ted Kotcheff (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, reviewed above), finds ace scripter Peter Stone (Charade) adapting Nan and Ivan Lyons’ novel Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe. Portly Robert Morley plays a British gourmand who discovers that his favorite culinary masters from around the continent are being methodically dispatched in inventive ways. His favorite dessert chef (Jacqueline Bisset) might be next, but not if her brash ex-husband (George Segal) can solve the mystery in time … or is he the killer? Everyone’s a plausible suspect in this entertaining confection featuring a performance by Morley that’s so terrific, he earned Best Supporting Actor honors from both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics (alas, the Academy gave him the cold shoulder).

Movie: ★★★