FILM FRENZY

Better Man (Photo: Paramount)

By Matt Brunson

(For a review of the new 4K UHD + Blu-ray release of Re-Animator, go here.)

(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.)

BETTER MAN (2024). I suppose this might be an example of the adage, “The operation was a success but the patient died.” When it came to this biopic about British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams, both Williams and director Michael Gracey wanted to do something to make it stand out in the overcrowded field of films centered on real-life music stars. Since Williams often described himself as a performing monkey, it was decided that he would be represented throughout the movie by a CGI chimpanzee. From a marketing angle, it worked beautifully, with practically everyone aware of the film with the monkey. But awareness isn’t the same as attendance, and this $110 million production ended with a worldwide gross of $22 million, marking it as one of 2024’s biggest bombs. While the film wasn’t expected to do well in the U.S., where most people don’t know Robbie Williams from Robbie the Robot, the shock was that it also tanked in the U.K. and Australia, where Williams is a record-breaking demigod. It’s possible the chimp gimmick created too much distance between the central character and audience members, or it could be viewers are simply tired of musical biopics — either way, this deserved a somewhat better fate. True, Williams comes across (both in the film and in real life) as a Jekyll-Hyde figure, sometimes a decent bloke but mostly a narcissistic “twat” (his own word), and the picture’s pull as a vanity piece makes the more sentimental, poor-me moments particularly cringe-worthy. But the cheeky attitude helps immeasurably, and Gracey shows more imagination in his staging here than he did at any point throughout his lumbering hit The Greatest Showman. The CGI chimp did earn this an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition consist of a making-of featurette and a piece on the visual effects.

Movie: ★★½

CLEAN AND SOBER (1988). Michael Keaton was known strictly as a comic actor when he was approached to tackle the lead role in a drama about drug addiction. Clean and Sober proved to be a box office flop, but it was nevertheless a good call by Keaton as it fattened his resume by earning him the Best Actor Award from the National Society of Film Critics (shared with his work in the same year’s Beetlejuice) and fattened his wallet by landing him Batman. Keaton is Daryl Pointer, a real-estate broker hopelessly addicted to both alcohol and cocaine. He has “borrowed” $92,000 from his company’s escrow account to feed his habit, one which eventually finds him waking up next to a one-night stand who has ODed on coke. Fearing arrest on two fronts, he decides to hide out in a drug rehabilitation clinic, which is where he meets two important individuals: Craig (Morgan Freeman), the head counselor and himself a former user, and Charlie (Kathy Baker), a fellow patient. Freeman and Baker had co-starred opposite Christopher Reeve in the previous year’s Street Smart, respectively playing a vicious pimp and a vulnerable prostitute (Freeman deservedly earned an Oscar nomination; Baker unfortunately did not share his luck) — they’re both terrific here as well, as is M. Emmet Walsh as Daryl’s AA sponsor. And while some of the patented Keaton cockiness does break through, his is still a powerhouse performance that’s never pandering nor patronizing. While the film isn’t quite as emotionally devastating as other addiction flicks like Days of Wine and Roses and Requiem for a Dream — any fault rests with Glenn Gordon Caron’s occasionally timid direction, not Tod Carroll’s perceptive script — it’s still one of the finer films to focus on the personal responsibility involved in conquering one’s demons.

The only Blu-ray extras is the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★½

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967). That 1967 marked a turning point in motion picture history can be evidenced by merely glancing at the five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. On one hand, there was The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, two electrifying gems that signaled a bold new direction in American cinema; on the other, there was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Doctor Dolittle, two dated efforts that tried to retain Old Hollywood charm in a changing world (Dinner at least has some modest charm; Dolittle is utterly charmless). In hindsight, it’s not surprising that the winner turned out to be In the Heat of the Night, which expertly straddled the line by relating an old-fashioned murder-mystery in a jazzy and progressive style. Sidney Poitier stars in his most iconic role as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective who reluctantly agrees to help redneck sheriff Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) solve a crime in the racist town of Sparta, Mississippi. Despite constant threats to his well-being, Tibbs rarely loses his cool, navigating his way through a complicated case while suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous good ole boys. For his part, Gillespie begins to respect the Northern big-city cop, although director Norman Jewison and scripter Stirling Silliphant never betray any of the character’s ingrained prejudices by having unseemly traits vanish into thin air. Warren Oates (as a deputy) and Lee Grant (as the victim’s wife) are among those contributing indelible portrayals, while Quincy Jones provides a score that perfectly complements the flavorful atmosphere. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Director, it won five: the aforementioned Best Picture, Actor (Steiger), Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Sound.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include interviews with Jewison, Steiger, and Grant; a making-of piece; and a featurette on Jones.

Movie: ★★★½

LILI (1953). “You’ll Fall In Love With Lili,” read the original ad copy for this MGM release, and I suppose that’s as true now as it was back in the day. It was a modest box office hit and continues to garner good reviews, which places me in the minority with my querulous critique. Leslie Caron stars as the title naif, a 16-year-old girl who ends up working at a traveling carnival. She immediately falls in love with a magician known as Marcus the Magnificent (Jean-Pierre Aumont), not realizing that Paul (Mel Ferrer), the gimpy puppeteer she dismisses as a cruel man, is smitten with her. Her best friends end up being the puppets that Paul operates, and her rapport with them leads to the carnival’s latest hit show. The picture’s widespread popularity is amusing when one considers that it’s basically a story about jailbait caught between a shallow, 42-year-old womanizer and a self-pitying, 36-year-old grouch, with the latter even smacking the hell out of Lili at one point. What others find charming I find cloying, and the picture isn’t particularly witty, funny or even magical. Until it’s definitively noted near the end of the film, I was never even certain whether Lili’s close relationship with the puppets, treating them as real people, was because she enjoyed the fantasy or because she was mentally disabled. Aumont is charming but just as superficial as his character, while Ferrer is a complete bore (as was generally the case with this somnambular actor). Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actress (with Caron losing out to an even more beloved gamine, Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday), Director (Charles Walters), and Screenplay (Helen Deutsch), this won Bronislau Kaper the award for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Blu-ray extras include two Tom & Jerry cartoons, 1954’s Puppy Tale and 1955’s Pecos Pest, and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★

MICKEY 17 (2025). Oh Mickey, you’re so fine … just not as fine as most previous pics from writer-director Bong Joon Ho. Marking Bong’s first feature since 2019’s Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture Academy Award, Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson as Mickey Barnes, a hapless human struggling to survive in the not too distant future. After he and his irresponsible friend Timo (Steven Yeun) find themselves pursued by murderous mobsters, they decide to join a space crew seeking to colonize the planet Niflheim. Timo is lucky enough to get hired as a pilot, but Mickey finds himself an “Expendable,” a person who’s assigned all the dangerous tasks and who after getting killed is brought back as a clone via a process called reprinting. Mickey dies again and again, with only his girlfriend, security officer Nasha (Naomi Ackie), caring about his fate(s). The 17th version of Mickey expects to be killed by planet dwellers dubbed “Creepers”; instead, they save him, setting into motion a chain of events that begins with the creation of the aggressive Mickey 18. The first half is by far the stronger stretch, with Bong not only taking a darkly humous approach to Mickey 17’s travails but also commenting on the class structures that permit humans to be treated like recycled trash. The second part is far more unwieldy, with several competing storylines involving Mickey 18, the Creepers, a conflicted security officer (Anamaria Vartolomei), and the colonists’ fascistic leader (Mark Ruffalo) and his opportunistic wife (Toni Collette). All these plot strands coalesce in clumsy (and surprisingly predictable) fashion, but Pattinson’s woe-is-me performance and Bong’s strong visuals keep this percolating throughout.

Blu-ray extras consist of a trio of making-of featurettes and theatrical trailers.

Movie: ★★★

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (2024). An Academy Award nominee for Best International Feature Film as well as the winner of an impressive five awards at the Cannes Film Festival, this German-Iranian-French coproduction was one of the finest pictures of 2024 and would have made my 10 Best had it not turned into The Shining during its final stretch (go here for the complete 10 Best of 2024 list). The movie centers on a family that’s torn apart once the patriarch, a conscientious man named Iman (Missagh Zareh), is appointed as an investigating judge in Tehran. Iman’s basic decency is at odds with the brutal realities of the job — he’s expected to sign off on death sentences without even hearing the particulars of the cases — and his intense paranoia begins to affect his home life with his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), college-age daughter Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami), and high school-age daughter Sana (Setareh Maleki). After his work-issued handgun disappears, he becomes increasingly unhinged as he demands to know which family member took it. This is the sort of sociopolitical piece that easily travels across borders with its messages — in today’s US of A, it’s affecting not only in its look at how politics can fracture a family but also as a warning of what happens when a tyrannical government targets such actions as peaceful protests and freedom of speech. It’s all too believable, or at least until it grows improbable during its final act, with an over-the-top antagonist, furious foot chases, and a convenient demise. Iranian writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof had to shoot this in secret, and once it became known that it would play Cannes, the Iranian government sentenced the filmmaker to eight years in prison — luckily, he managed to flee the country and now lives in exile in Europe.

Blu-ray extras consist of a making-of featurette and the trailer.

Movie: ★★★½

THREE THE HARD WAY (1974). With Super Fly director Gordon Parks Jr. at the helm, the titanic team of Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Jim Kelly in front of the camera, and a premise promising plenty of opportunities for righteous fury, Three the Hard Way should have been one of the best of all blaxploitation flicks; instead, it’s one of the lamest. Jay Robinson, probably best known to film fans for portraying Caligula in 1953’s The Robe and 1954’s Demetrius and the Gladiators and to TV fans for a Season Three episode of Star Trek, gives a terrible — and terribly campy — peformance as Monroe Feather, a neo-Nazi who plots to release a toxin into America’s water supply that won’t harm whites but will kill every black person in the country (no word on whether he then plans to invite white South Africans into the country to fortify those Caucasian roots). Monroe decides to release the deadly fluids in L.A., D.C., and Detroit — luckily, a record producer (Brown), a businessman (Williamson), and a martial arts instructor (Kelly) learn of the plan, and all three know how to kick ass. This is Amateur Hour in virtually every regard, with poorly choreographed fights, relentlessly repetitious gun battles, excruciating banter between the heroes, and sequences that seem to be inserted simply because (e.g. the three biker chicks who torture a redneck underling while topless; the endless recording session). Brown, Williamson, and Kelly would reunite one year later for the Western Take a Hard Ride and eight years later for the action yarn One Down, Two to Go (the latter adding Richard Roundtree to the lineup).

The only Blu-ray extra is the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★½

VICE SQUAD (1982). Notorious for portraying the Los Angeles nightlife in all its despairing seediness, Vice Squad is even more renowned for featuring an unforgettable villain for the ages. That would be Ramrod, played with acidic intensity by Wings Hauser. (Hauser also sings the movie’s godawful theme song, “Neon Slime,” but the less said about that, the better.) A pimp by trade, Ramrod (usually sporting a voluminous cowboy hat) begins the film by beating a prostitute named Ginger (Nina Blackwood, one of the original MTV VJs)  to death with a Joan Crawford-approved wire hanger. This naturally upsets Ginger’s friend (Season Hubley), a single mom who works the streets under the name Princess, so she reluctantly teams up with detective Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) to help apprehend Ramrod. But the incompetence of Walsh’s colleagues means that Ramrod has no trouble escaping from custody, and he makes it his mission to find and eliminate Princess. Hubley’s good and Hauser’s great, but Swanson provides a colorless character, further saddled with most of the clumsiest dialogue whipped up by scripters Sandy Howard, Kenneth Peters, and Robert Vincent O’Neil. Critics back in the day lambasted the film for its unrelenting sleaze, although, given the milieu, that proved to be the proper shade to apply to the project. That sleaze factor aside, though, there’s little to distinguish this from a standard episode of, say, Kojak or T.J. Hooker — the latter actually employing this exact plot for the “Sweet 16 or Dead” episode.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by director Gary A. Sherman and producer Brian Frankish; audio commentary by Steve Mitchell, writer-director of the upcoming Wings Hauser: Working Class Actor; interviews with Sherman, Frankish, and Swanson; and a look at the filming locations.

Movie: ★★½

FILM CLIPS

CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965). Seeking to use the geothermal energy trapped deep within the Earth for the benefit of humankind, scientist Stephen Sorensen (Dana Andrews), backed by a team that includes his much younger wife Maggie (Janette Scott), plans to set off a nuclear device to facilitate its removal. He’s opposed by his right-hand man — and Maggie’s former boyfriend — Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), who doesn’t believe it’s worth the risk. Once the device is exploded, it’s Ted who’s proven right, as the blast creates a crack that will destroy the planet if it can’t be stopped from spreading. Featuring decent special effects as well as a few tense scenarios, this one’s not bad, but for a superior picture with a similar premise, check out 1961’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire (reviewed here).

Blu-ray extras consist of film historian audio commentary; a film historian sidebar discussion; and trailers for other films on the Kino label.

Movie: ★★½

SIDE STREET (1949). One year after co-starring in Nicholas Ray’s excellent film noir offering They Live by Night (reviewed here), Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell again are cast as young lovers caught up in an impossible situation in Anthony Mann’s Side Street. Granger plays a postal worker who steals $30,000 from some crooked characters and immediately regrets it; he tries to return the money, unaware that he’s now involved himself in a scheme involving extortion and murder. O’Donnell is his pregnant wife, who would rather live in poverty than see her husband get involved in criminal activities. In addition to its twisty plot, this also offers a scenic tour of notable NYC locations and further benefits from a strong supporting cast.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by film critic Richard Schickel; a retrospective featurette; and the 1947 Oscar-nominated live-action short The Luckiest Guy in the World.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

CITY HEAT (1984). For most of the 1970s and into the 80s, Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds were the country’s biggest movie stars, appearing in countless hits and appearing on Quigley’s list of the top 10 moneymaking stars more than any other performers during that stretch. Their connection actually began decades earlier, when both were fired by Universal on the same day, dismissed because Reynolds couldn’t act and Eastwood’s Adam’s apple was too big (leading Burt to quip, “You’re in trouble, Clint. I can take acting lessons, but you can’t get a new Adam’s apple.”). A teaming of the two was a given, and had they made this picture circa 1977, it might have been a smash. But by 1984, Reynolds had already begun his swift slide into cinematic irrelevance (aided along by atrocities like Stroker Ace and Cannonball Run II), and while the film performed OK ($38 million, the same as other ’84 entries like Breakin’, Red Dawn, and The Terminator), it was largely dismissed and quickly forgotten. Watching it again, the film is still a great disappointment but nevertheless offers a modicum of charm. At the time of its release, Reynolds was savaged by reviewers for his comedic shtick while Eastwood was praised for offering a sly parody of his Dirty Harry persona; in truth, both actors come off well, playing good guys (Clint’s a cop, Burt’s a private eye) who tangle with various gangsters during the Prohibition era. Blake Edwards was the original writer-director until he left after tangling with the two stars — he was replaced by Richard Benjamin, a good actor but a bland director — and his script was changed to the point that he had his screen credit switched to Sam O. Brown (S.O.B.). Bottom line: Good roles for the stars, nice production values, and an impressive supporting cast (Madeline Kahn, Rip Torn, Richard Roundtree, and more), but no thrills and only minor laughs.

Movie: ★★

101 DALMATIANS (1961). Here’s an interesting statistic: In terms of domestic grosses adjusted for inflation — the list that rightfully has Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, and The Sound of Music as the three most successful films in history rather than the industry-standard, inflation-ignoring list that houses two Avatar movies and four Marvel flicks in the Top 10 — 101 Dalmatians ranks a remarkable #12, with only one other animated feature (#10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) having earned more over its lifetime. Yet for all its success at the box office over the course of its numerous reissues, the movie is rarely mentioned as residing in the upper echelons of the “Disney classics,” quickly falling by the wayside as such titles as Snow White and Bambi are repeatedly referenced. Pshaw; for my money, this is flat-out one of the studio’s finest achievements, because puppies. Set in London, the story follows the Dalmatians Pongo and Perdita as they initially meet in the park (when their human “pets” literally stumble over each other and soon thereafter get married), produce a litter of 15 puppies, and set out on a search-and-rescue mission after said pups are kidnapped by Cruella De Vil, an evil diva intent on making a fur coat out of the pelts of the 99 puppies she’s rounded up. Cruella De Vil is one of cinema’s most outrageous villainesses, yet all of the characters are brought to vibrant life, from Pongo’s owner Roger to Cruella’s bumbling henchmen Jasper and Horace to a courageous cat who helps the distraught canine parents locate their missing brood. In addition to all the expected kid-friendly concessions, the movie also sports a funky beat that allows extra resonance for the adults — these include a hilarious visual gag noting the similarities between humans and their dogs as well as a great sequence in which Jasper and Horace watch a spoof of the classic TV show What’s My Line?, this one called What’s My Crime?

Movie: ★★★★

PLACES IN THE HEART (1984). Even in a year that included the formidable likes of Amadeus, Stop Making Sense, and The Terminator, this quiet masterwork from writer-director Robert Benton earns my vote as the best picture of 1984. The most successful of the year’s three so-called “save the farm” films — the others were the solid Country, starring Jessica Lange, and the so-so The River, with Sissy Spacek — this somewhat autobiographical tale finds Benton reflecting on growing up in Waxahachie, Texas, during the Great Depression. Sally Field stars as Edna Spalding, who’s in danger of losing her children (Gennie James and Yankton Hatten) and her home after her husband (Ray Baker) is accidentally killed. Her loving sister (Lindsay Crouse) and brother-in-law (Ed Harris) can only offer limited assistance, so she enlists the aid of a blind war veteran (John Malkovich) and a black laborer (Danny Glover) in a last-ditch effort to save everything that matters to her. This is the sort of special movie one doesn’t want to end, blessed with superlative performances (especially by Glover and Malkovich, the latter making his dynamic film debut), an intelligent screenplay, and a genuine sense of time and place (Nestor Almendros’ cinematography is astounding). And then there’s that miraculous ending, certainly one of the best denouements I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness over my many decades of movie-watching. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, and supporting bids for Malkovich and Crouse, this won Best Actress for Field (her second, after 1979’s Norma Rae) and Best Original Screenplay for Benton. Benton, incidentally, passed away last weekend at the age of 92; other credits included writing and directing 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer (and winning Oscars in both capacities) and co-writing 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde and 1978’s Superman.

Movie: ★★★★

TONY ROME (1967) / LADY IN CEMENT (1968) / THE DETECTIVE (1968). Not too long ago, I was arguing with some idiot who stated that Ice Cube doesn’t qualify as an actor because he was a singer first. As I replied, “Ice Cube has been making movies for 34 years. If we can’t call him an actor, then we also cannot call Frank Sinatra or Barbra Streisand or Mark Wahlberg actors.” And just anyone try to deny Ol’ Blue Eyes his hard-earned status as a thespian of the first order. Included among the approximately 60 films he made over the decades, three from a two-year span in the 1960s found him playing tough private eyes under the watchful eye of journeyman director Gordon Douglas. Here be those three.

For two of his private dick flicks of the period, Sinatra essayed the part of Tony Rome in adaptations of a pair of Marvin H. Albert novels. Tony Rome (based on Albert’s Miami Mayhem) features the sort of winding plotline and tough-guy characterizations familiar to fans of ’40s film noir, those down-and-dirty classics that usually found someone like Humphrey Bogart smacking around someone like Elisha Cook Jr. while still finding time to flirt with dames. Sinatra’s Rome is a shamus who’s tackling a couple of mysteries involving the members of the wealthy Kosterman family: dad Rudy (Simon Oakland), stepmom Rita (Gena Rowlands) and daughter Diana (Sue Lyon, Kubrick’s Lolita). As he tries to keep pace with the copious clues, he still finds time to flirt with socialite Ann Archer (Jill St. John) and aggravate his friend on the police force, Lt. Santini (Richard Conte).

Aside from Sinatra, Conte is the only cast member returning for Lady in Cement, which isn’t quite as polished as its predecessor yet offers enough of merit to make it a mildly diverting watch. This one opens with Rome discovering the titular corpse at the ocean bottom; only later, when he’s hired by a physically imposing bruiser named Gronski (Dan Blocker) to locate a missing woman, does he begin to note a possible connection. Raquel Welch is (as was often the case) a washout as Rome’s new romantic interest/possible suspect; the most ingratiating turn comes from Blocker (Hoss on TV’s Bonanza) in a rare big-screen appearance.

The Detective, an adaptation of the 1966 novel by Roderick Thorp, casts Sinatra as Joe Leland, an NYC cop who comes to the realization that two of his cases are inextricably bound. Some of the content involving homosexuality now seems dated — and Tony Musante is awful as a gay guy who becomes a leading murder suspect — but as a police procedural, it’s a worthwhile watch, and the large cast also includes Lee Remick as Leland’s insatiable (and unfaithful) wife, Robert Duvall as the most hateful of his fellow detectives, and Jack Klugman as his friend and colleague. In 1979, Thorp penned Nothing Lasts Forever, a follow-up novel also featuring the character of Joe Leland. For the 1988 film version, the character’s name was changed to John McClane, the role was played by Bruce Willis (Sinatra had turned it down in a previous incarnation), the movie was titled Die Hard, and the rest is cinematic history.

Tony Rome: ★★★

Lady in Cement: ★★½

The Detective: ★★★