FILM FRENZY

Tom Hardy in Venom: The Last Dance (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.)

APRIL FOOL’S DAY (1986). April Fool’s Day is basically a Brat Pack slasher flick, and while familiar faces abound — Biff from Back to the Future! The original Valley Girl! The heroine from Friday the 13th Part II! — how intriguing would it have been to see the more famous likes of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and Judd Nelson participating in this endeavor? At any rate, the film’s influences go further back than Halloween — it owes so much to Agatha Christie that one of the characters even makes a reference to her. Young heiress Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman) invites eight of her well-to-do friends to spend a weekend at her family’s remote island estate, intent on playing a series of practical jokes on the gathered. Instead, in Ten Little Indians fashion, the guests are murdered one by one. Despite its R rating, this showcases far less gore and sex than the usual slasher outing while also managing to add a bit more color to the standard assemblage of ‘80s teen-flick stereotypes: the strong-willed heroine (Amy Steel), the jock (Ken Olandt), the nerd (Jay Baker), the promiscuous girl (Deborah Goodrich), the wise guy (Clayton Rohner), and so on. The plotting is more rocky, driven occasionally by absurd coincidences and hampered by undeveloped story strands. As for the climactic twist, it will be up to each individual viewer to determine whether it’s inspired or inane.

Blu-ray extras include film historian audio commentary; interviews with Goodrich, Rohner, and director Fred Walton; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★½

CHERRY 2000 (1988). It was filmed in 1985, scheduled for release in Summer 1986, postponed until Spring 1987, and then postponed again until Fall 1987. At this rate, it seemed as if Cherry 2000 wouldn’t actually get released until 2000, but it finally hit a couple of theaters in February 1988, grossed a paltry $14,000 (against a $10 million budget), and then began its shelf life on VHS, then DVD, and finally Blu-ray. In the post-apocalyptic U.S. of 2017, relationships between men and women have become little more than business transactions, leading guys like Sam Treadwell (dull David Andrews) to instead marry female androids. Sam’s mate (Pamela Gidley) is a Cherry 2000 model, programmed to serve as the perfect housewife and even more perfect sex partner. After Cherry blows a fuse, Sam hires tracker E. Johnson (Melanie Griffith in a disappointing performance) to journey through the dangerous wastelands in order to procure another Cherry 2000 into which Sam can insert his wife’s memory chip before inserting, uh, something else. This Mad Max wannabe is low on thrills and devoid of any interesting characters, even with such actors as Ben Johnson, Laurence Fishburne, and Brion James on hand.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Steve De Jarnatt and film critic Walter Chaw; a feature-length making-of documentary; deleted scenes; a gag reel; and De Jarnatt’s 1979 short film Tarzana.

Movie: ★½

THE GRIFTERS (1990). One of Hollywood’s finest examples of a neo-noir that actually works — as opposed to countless attempts that feel like the celluloid equivalent of little kids playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes — this finds one master of crime fiction, Donald E. Westlake, adapting a novel by another genre king, Jim Thompson, to startling effect. Co-produced by Martin Scorsese (whose own GoodFellas was also released that year) and helmed by British director Stephen Frears (The Queen), this focuses on the overlapping experiences of three con artists with varying degrees of expertise. Roy Dillon (John Cusack) is the one caught in the middle, being pulled on one side by his shrewd mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston), a veteran who works the racetrack bets for ruthless mobster Bobo Justus (Pat Hingle), and on the other by his opportunistic girlfriend Myra Langtry (Annette Bening), who wants Roy to stop wasting his time with petty cons and team up with her for a long con. This is smart, sassy filmmaking, and it’s blessed with rich characterizations, trenchant dialogue, and a startling conclusion. This nabbed four major Academy Award nominations: Best Actress (Huston), Supporting Actress (Bening), Director, and Adapted Screenplay.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by Cusack, Huston, Frears, and Westlake; a pair of archival making-of pieces; and a new interview with Bening.

Movie: ★★★½

MR. LUCKY (1943). It’s been two weeks, and I’m still fuming over a review written by one of the fanboy critics at a major home-entertainment website. In tackling a 1942 Best Picture Oscar nominee starring Cary Grant, this clueless guy not only spent much of the review condescending toward older movies — “Its greatest vice is pacing and prattling from another era”; “those with more modern tastes and sensibilities will be left wondering what all the fuss is about”; “I’m sure it was all hilarious in 1942” — but also absurdly wrote that “I’m not very convinced that good ol’ Cary G was born with the gift of gab, or comedy for that matter.” Wait, the man who starred in Arsenic and Old Lace, The Awful Truth, His Girl Friday, and The Philadelphia Story wasn’t very good with words or humor? (And this was the cherry on top: “It’s hard to transport oneself to a time when sensibilities and cinematic exposure were so dramatically different.” I’m sorry, but if you’re unable to do so, you have absolutely no business being a critic.) Even in a lesser picture like Mr. Lucky, Grant’s mastery of lingo and nyuks is evident. He plays Joe Adams, a gambler who decides to help raise funds for the local War Relief outfit in order to then steal them; naturally, this plan meets resistance once he falls for the socialite (Laraine Day) spearheading the fundraiser. It makes for breezy entertainment, even with that apparently talentless hack Cary Grant at the helm.

Blu-ray extras consist of two radio adaptations (1943 and 1950) of the film, both starring Grant, and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

MURDER BY DECREE (1979). Jack the Ripper proved to be quite busy in 1979, matching wits against H.G. Wells in the sprightly Time After Time (reviewed here) and squaring off against Sherlock Holmes in this more somber undertaking. Holmes (here played by Christopher Plummer) and Dr. Watson (James Mason) are baffled by the mystery surrounding the murders of several Whitechapel prostitutes until they connect the dots that lead them into the arenas of doctors, politicians, and royals. Sporting the same conspiracy theories that would later be showcased in the vastly underrated 2001 screen adaptation of From Hell, Murder by Decree is a handsomely mounted thriller that’s only let down by a deflated ending. Plummer had earlier portrayed Holmes in an unrelated British-Canadian TV movie, 1977’s Silver Blaze; he’s solid here, while Mason proves delightful as his learned sidekick. Those in the supporting ranks include John Gielgud, Geneviève Bujold, and David Hemmings; meanwhile, Donald Sutherland is an interesting casting choice as the real-life character of psychic Robert Lees, buried under large L’Oreal curls, a bushy mustache, and eye-accentuating makeup.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition consist of audio commentary by the film’s director, the late Bob Clark; film historian audio commentary; the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other titles offered by Kino.

Movie: ★★★

REINDEER GAMES (2000). The final feature credit for John Frankenheimer finds the director far from the giddy heights of The Manchurian Candidate and The Train, although it’s not as bad as slumming on Dr. Moreau’s island alongside Brando. Writer Ehren Kruger (best known for penning three lousy Transformers sequels) applies double-crosses, triple-crosses, and perhaps even quadruple-crosses to goose this relentlessly preposterous thriller. Ben Affleck stars as Rudy Duncan, an incarcerated car thief whose cellmate Nick (James Frain) has established a long-distance romance with his lovely pen pal Ashley (Charlize Theron). Nick ends up dead behind bars, so when Rudy gets released, he passes himself off as Nick to Ashley and they enjoy much sack time — at least until he’s shanghaied by Ashley’s brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise), a sadistic trucker who requires Nick’s aid to rip off a casino and remains nonplussed when Rudy insists he’s not Nick. “[My past boyfriends] didn’t want to know the me inside; they just wanted to get inside,” explains Ashley in but one example of the dodo dialogue that snakes through this film, which at least has a sense of humor and some reliables (Dennis Farina, Clarence Williams III, Danny Trejo) in the supporting cast. Sinise is only partially successful as a baddie so menacing that his nickname is “Monster,” while Affleck and Theron are simply too soft and pretty for their hardboiled roles.

The 4K + Blu-ray edition contains the theatrical version as well as a director’s cut. Extras include audio commentary on both cuts by Frankenheimer and a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Movie: ★★

THE TALL TARGET (1951). A plot synopsis for The Tall Target might make it sound like pure science fiction: “John Kennedy tries to prevent an assassination attempt on the life of Abraham Lincoln.” A time travel flick in which JFK meets Lincoln? That sounds even more gnarly than that time when Bill and Ted met both Honest Abe and Socrates! Dick Powell does indeed play John Kennedy in The Tall Target, but, alas, it’s not that John Kennedy. Instead, he’s a detective from Lincoln’s own time period, and the film itself has nary a whiff of H.G. Wells. No matter: This is an intelligent and exciting film on its own terms, taking as its starting point the Baltimore Plot that called for Lincoln to be murdered as he traveled by train from New York through Baltimore and into Washington, D.C., for his inauguration. Real-life scholars continue to argue over whether there really was a conspiracy or if it was merely hearsay (nevertheless, Lincoln’s team took every precaution), but in this picture, there’s no doubt that the Great Emancipator’s life is in danger. Kennedy tries frantically to identify the assassins from a large selection of passengers, some of them slave-owning Southerners outwardly hostile toward the Prez. The train setting is imaginatively employed by director Anthony Mann, who gets a lot of mileage (no pun intended) out of its long corridors and cramped quarters.

Blu-ray extras include a 1949 episode of the radio series Mr. President (one devoted to Lincoln) and two 1951 Tom & Jerry cartoons, Slicked-Up Pup and the Oscar-nominated Jerry’s Cousin.

Movie: ★★★

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE (2024). The third and final entry in what has proven to be among the junkiest of all Marvel movie franchises, Venom: The Last Dance finds Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his symbiote BFF Venom pursued by soldiers, scientists, the law, and a murderous monstrosity known as a Xenophage (not to be confused with the way cooler Xenomorph). When reviewing 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, I wrote that it was “a sliver (maybe half a sliver) superior to its woeful 2018 predecessor.” Having been beaten into a comatose state by the entirety of this loud and idiotic franchise, I can’t say for sure how this rates when it comes to those slivers. I do know that I appreciated the addition of a hippie family whose members befriend Eddie, since their warm presence at least breaks the rigid formula of Venom’s terrible wisecracks followed by Eddie’s “woe is me” expressions followed by laborious expositoral blather followed by an impersonal CG assault. Perhaps the most interesting development regarding this film is that its makers seem to have partially poached Ted Lasso for cast members — after seeing Juno Temple/Keely Jones as a scientist and Cristo Fernández/Dani Rojas as a bartender, I half-expected Brett Goldstein/Roy Kent to turn up as a grouchy copper or something.

Blu-ray extras include a featurette on the action sequences and stunt work; a piece on Hardy; deleted and extended scenes; and outtakes and bloopers.

Movie: ★½

YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM IT (1956). Frank Capra’s 1934 screwball comedy It Happened One Night is remembered for (among other reasons) being the first film to capture all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay), later joined by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Silence of the Lambs. You Can’t Run Away From It isn’t remembered for anything, except maybe being a needless musical remake of It Happened One Night. It wasn’t even the first musical rehash, as 1945’s equally ill-advised Eve Knew Her Apples arrived 11 years after the original and 11 years before this version. In the same year that he was directing the nuclear-tinged and -singed John Wayne vehicle The Conqueror (for details, see The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout, reviewed here), former actor Dick Powell (see The Tall Target, above) also shepherded this forgettable romp starring June Allyson and Jack Lemmon in the original’s Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable roles. Allyson is the heiress who runs away from her father (Charles Bickford) after he seeks to have her marriage to a gold digger (Jacques Scott) annulled, while Lemmon (coming off a Best Supporting Actor Oscar win for the previous year’s Mister Roberts) is the reporter who tags along with her in the hopes of breaking a big story. The stars are game, but the laughs are minimal and the songs unmemorable.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★★

FILM CLIPS

THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH (1974). In late 1950s Brooklyn, the four members of a greaser gang called the Lords divide their time between annoying their teachers, getting into fistfights, playing pool, and flirting with girls. But complications arise when one of the boys has to consider marriage following his sweetheart’s unexpected pregnancy. Too muted and underdeveloped to gain any traction, this is of interest simply for its up-and-coming cast: Sylvester Stallone (Stanley) two years before Rocky, Henry Winkler (Butchey) in the same year that Happy Days debuted, and Perry King (Chico) before sustained success in television. (Only Paul Mace, as Wimpy, failed to launch following this film, and he tragically died in an automobile accident in 1983, age 33.)

The only Blu-ray extra is the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★

NORA PRENTISS (1947). Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this film noir is that the expected femme fatale isn’t one. Ann Sheridan plays the title character, a nightclub singer who enters into a relationship with married doctor Richard Talbot (Kent Smith). The affair all but destroys Talbot’s personal and professional lives, and when he balks at permanently leaving his wife (Rosemary DeCamp) and kids, it’s reasonable for noir aficionados to assume Nora will have murder on her mind. But it’s actually the obsessed Talbot who takes radical steps to ensure his future happiness, with Nora only guilty of falling for the wrong man. The proceedings become increasingly far-fetched, but that clever ending makes it all worthwhile.

Blu-ray extras consist of the 1946 Bugs Bunny cartoon The Big Snooze; the 1946 live-action short So You Think You’re a Nervous Wreck; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

GENERAL IDI AMIN DADA: A SELF-PORTRAIT (1974). As a teenager, I was fascinated with the particulars surrounding Operation Thunderbolt, which meant I also became absorbed with the life of Idi Amin, the brutal Ugandan dictator who allowed Palestinian and German terrorists to hold their Jewish hostages (eventually rescued by Israeli commandos in the aforementioned operation) at Entebbe Airport in the summer of 1976. This documentary from Swiss director Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune) was released two years before that international incident, yet it prophetically includes a moment when Amin states that he would gladly welcome any anti-Semitic terrorists into his country with open arms. Despite ample ceremonial footage (much of it apparently at Amin’s insistence) that grows tedious, this is nevertheless an effective peek into the mind of the eccentric president whose reign (1971-1979) resulted in the destruction of his country’s economy and, horrifyingly, the slaughter of up to a half-million people. Opening up for the camera, Amin comes across as alternately shrewd, imbecilic, charismatic, and off-putting. And in a frightening modern context that brings to mind our own country’s past — and, unfortunately, also present — leader, he further comes across as soulless, narcissistic, infantile, and very, very dangerous.

Movie: ★★★

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940). Having just been labeled “box office poison,” Katharine Hepburn set about searching for the perfect project — and found it in The Philadelphia Story. After wowing them on Broadway in the role of wealthy Tracy Lord, Hepburn brought the property to Hollywood and ended up with a gargantuan hit on her hands. Relying less on physical comedy and more on immaculately delivered zingers (including the immortal quip “The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges”), this irresistible classic, guided by director George Cukor’s steady hand, finds Hepburn’s frosty socialite set to marry bland businessman George Kittredge (John Howard) while ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) and tabloid reporter Macauley Connor (James Stewart) hover around the edges. The fact that all three men have feelings for the bride-to-be is only one of the many complications that work their way into this witty, wordy masterpiece. James Stewart earned the Best Actor Academy Award for his sharp portrayal of the jaded newspaperman (Donald Ogden Stewart’s adapted screenplay also landed an Oscar), but really, this is a prime example of three major stars working beautifully in tandem. In addition to the victories by the two Stewarts, this earned four additional nominations in the categories of Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Hussey), and Best Director — as usual, the Academy took Grant for granted and denied him a much-deserved nod.

Movie: ★★★★

TWIN PEAKS (1990-1991). Basically prime-time television for people who don’t like prime-time television, this unique undertaking by David Lynch (who passed away last week at 78) was one of the most heavily hyped shows of its decade (of all time?), and, for the first season, it lived up to the advance buzz. Not since “Who shot J.R.?” had TV asked a question as compelling as “Who killed Laura Palmer?” This startling series brought big-screen innovation (and the director’s patented eccentricities) to the boob tube with a murder-mystery that found FBI Agent Dale Cooper (an excellent Kyle MacLachlan) sleuthing in the title town, a place as notable for its oddball citizenry as its killer cherry pie. The first season was far more focused than the second, which meandered after Laura’s murderer was IDed; as a result of plummeting ratings, the show was abruptly canceled with countless plotlines still unresolved. But rather than doing the right thing for the fans by providing a two-hour flick (either theatrical or TV) to wrap up the show, Lynch elected to film the ungainly and unnecessary prequel, 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Answers appeared to be forthcoming with 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return, but, despite some scattered moments of greatness on display, that proved to be a major disappointment, particularly in its proclivity to dawdle on meaningless asides and additions. The ’90 season was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards but won only two technical prizes; MacLachlan, Piper Laurie (as Catherine Martell), and Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne) were the only actors receiving noms, although other cast standouts include Richard Beymer (Ben Horne) and Ray Wise (Leland Palmer).

Series (1990-1991 only): ★★★½

WITHOUT A CLUE (1988). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant sleuth, which makes the concept behind Without a Clue so much fun. Here, the razor-sharp mind belongs to John Watson (Ben Kingsley), a doctor and mystery writer who had hired a dense out-of-work actor named Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine) to front as his fictional creation Sherlock Holmes. But once Holmes’ reputation reaches the stratosphere and Kincaid starts to believe his own press, Watson fires the thickheaded thespian and seeks to establish himself as The Crime Doctor, a tactic that fails spectacularly. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard’s Inspector Lestrade (Jeffrey Jones), as much of a dimwit as Kincaid, has his hands full with a case that eventually proves to be the work of criminal mastermind Moriarty (Paul Freeman, Raiders of the Lost Ark‘s Belloq). The role reversal proves to be an irresistible hook for a comedy, and, for the most part, Without a Clue delivers on this idea, with wonderful performances by Kingsley and Caine and crackling banter by scripters Gary Murphy and Larry Strawther (Holmes: “You mean Moriarty’s not trying to kill me?” Watson: “Of course not. He knows you’re an idiot.” Holmes: “Oh, thank God!”). After a delightful first half, the film becomes weighed down during the second part by the machinations of the routine plot thread involving Moriarty’s scheme, yet it never loses its mirthful spirit. Trivia aside: Peter Cook, who plays The Strand Magazine editor Norman Greenhough, once played Sherlock Holmes (to Dudley Moore’s Dr. Watson) in the 1978 spoof The Hound of the Baskervilles, a calamity which remains the worst Holmes movie ever made.

Movie: ★★★