FILM FRENZY

Renée Zellweger and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Photo: Universal & Focus)

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.)

BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY (2025). In terms of quality, this has been a consistent series, with only the second entry proving to be a dud. Yes, I’ve made this declaration in my reviews of the Mission: Impossible movies (the latest covered here), but it struck me that it applies to this franchise as well. Yet what makes this series stand out is the length of time between the entries. On average, there’s been an M:I flick every four years, but after the normal three-year span between 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, it was 12 years before 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby and then another nine years before this new installment. These delays actually make this series feel like it was inspired by Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, where nine years passed between each movie. As there, it’s worth the wait, as Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) has always been interesting enough as a character that it’s only natural to see how she’s coping in each stage of her life. At the start of this fourth chapter, she’s in rough shape. Her husband Mark Darcy died a few years ago while on a humanitarian mission (Colin Firth nevertheless returns in spectral form), and she’s left alone raising two kids. Her ex-boyfriend Daniel (Hugh Grant) remains in her life as a platonic friend, while her other chums urge her to start dating again. That she does, unexpectedly snagging a 29-year-old hunk (Leo Woodall). Bridget does worry about their age difference — she’d probably be more compatible with her son’s scientist teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) were it not for the fact that they’re always arguing. Not every scene works in Mad About the Boy — sometimes daftness gets the upper hand — but the ones that do work beautifully, turning this into a pleasant visit with old pals.

Blu-ray extras include a making-of featurette and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★★

FATAL BEAUTY (1987). Until 1990’s Ghost came along and nabbed her an Oscar, Whoopi Goldberg’s successful career looked like a one-and-done, as she followed her Oscar-nominated turn in 1985’s The Color Purple with a string of critical and commercial underachievers and out-and-out bombs: 1987’s Burglar, 1988’s The Telephone, 1989’s Homer & Eddie, and more. Fatal Beauty was one more for the rubbish bin, a lackluster action-comedy that was planned as a vehicle for Cher until she elected to do Moonstruck instead (good call!). With Whoopi assuming the part, the movie suddenly looked like a Beverly Hills Cop wannabe, as a sassy black detective again tries to bust up a cocaine ring run by a white, wealthy, and respected Los Angeles entrepreneur. The “fatal beauty” of the title refers to a poorly cut supply of coke that causes instant insanity and death to its users; Detective Rita Rizzoli (Goldberg), who in the movie’s strongest scene describes her own tragic history with drugs, is determined to nail the kingpin (Harris Yulin) responsible for its presence on the streets, but first she has to deal with his various underlings. In a role that makes little sense, Sam Elliott plays the kingpin’s personal bodyguard, who is ordered to follow Rita around — they bicker, flirt, fight each other, fight others, and even have sex. But you have to read between the lines on that last action: This R-rated movie was initially threatened with an X designation, not because of the gratuitous, over-the-top, all-American violence, of course, but because of the love scene between the black woman and the white man (the gore remained; the sex scene was removed). The dialogue is particularly witless, with Rita and a pair of misogynistic cops trading vulgar wisecracks, comebacks, and burns that even a fifth-grade boy would be embarrassed to utter.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★½

JURASSIC PARK (1993). The year 1993 was an exceptional one for Steven Spielberg, as he scored critical and commercial kudos with both this summer blockbuster and his year-end awards contender Schindler’s List. The hype surrounding the dinosaur film upon its original release was deafening, yet the movie largely managed to meet expectations. Based on Michael Crichton’s bestseller, it centers on the efforts of various characters — including scientists charismatically played by Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum — to escape from a theme-park island that’s crawling with genetically recreated dinosaurs. Spielberg treats us much as he does his characters, leading us into a strange land and then expecting us to make it out with all our faculties intact; it’s a tall order, given the heart-stopping, bloodcurdling, limbs-numbing excitement packed into the second hour. The effects work is astonishing — then again, when the team members’ credits include the likes of Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and the original Star Wars trilogy, that’s to be expected. While Schindler’s List was sweeping most of the Oscars, Jurassic Park went 3-for-3 in its technical bids, winning for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing. Even more impressive was its phenomenal box office: Its stateside gross placed it #2 on the all-time list (under Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), while its international take snagged it the #1 slot globally (it was surpassed on both lists by 1997’s Titanic). This was followed by two direct sequels — 1997’s ugly The Lost World: Jurassic Park (★★) and 2001’s threadbare  Jurassic Park III (★½) — as well as various cash-grab reboots.

By my count, this marks the 15th time the film has been released on Blu-ray, although it’s possible I missed a reissue or 20. Extras include making-of featurettes and pieces on the visual effects.

Movie: ★★★½

THE NAKED WITCH (1969). If you look online for The Naked Witch, you likely will find info on 1961’s The Naked Witch, cowritten and codirected by Larry Buchanan (later known for such premium cheeses as Zontar: The Thing From Venus and Mars Needs Women). Do a little more digging and you’ll stumble across 1967’s The Naked Witch, cowritten and directed by Andy Milligan (renowned for The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! and the gay porn flick Dragula). Only then will you find 1969’s The Naked Witch, probably bringing up the search-engine rear since it’s better known under its original title The Witchmaker and only tagged The Naked Witch for a ‘70s rerelease (it has also made the rounds as The Witchmaster, Witchkill, and The Legend of Witch Hollow). Like the other two films with the same title, this is low-budget all the way, but it’s atmospheric enough to warrant a peek. This follows psychic researcher Ralph Hayes (Alvy Moore) as he, his team, and a journalist (Anthony Eisley) travel to the Louisiana swamps to investigate a series of ritualistic killings. He hopes to use a “sensitive” (Thordis Brandt) to help him solve the mystery, but the warlock responsible for the slayings, Luther the Berserk (John Lodge), senses her extraordinary extrasensory powers and hopes to convert her into a witch. Despite the presence of some familiar faces — this includes Moore, who spent six years playing Hank Kimball on Green Acres — most of the performances lean heavily toward the amateurish side. But the somber setting gooses the proceedings, writer-director William O. Brown offers some surprisingly weighty dialogue at key moments, and the satanic orgy is certainly unique.

Blu-ray extras consist of film buff audio commentary and a poster gallery of various other horror flicks from the 1960s.

Movie: ★★½

TUNNEL VISION (1976). For reasons unknown even to the universe, the mid-1970s witnessed the release of a string of unrelated movies that all employed the skit format to satirize television. I haven’t seen 1974’s The Groove Tube but understand it to be slightly above average; I haven’t seen 1977’s Prime Time but understand it to be mediocre; I have seen 1977’s The Kentucky Fried Movie and know it to be hilarious (read the review here); and I have just seen Tunnel Vision and believe it to be no Kentucky Fried Movie. The framework is set in 1985, when a Senator (Howard Hesseman) holds a Congressional hearing to determine if a radical TV station known as TunnelVision should be shut down. The politicians then spend time watching a typical day of programming, with these various skits making up the bulk of the running time. There are spoofs of game shows, children’s shows (with Henry Kissinger, played by Roger Bowen, as a guest), news shows, and sitcoms. I chuckled at the commercial for Vitabrain Capsulised [sic] Library (instead of reading an entire classic novel, just pop a pill et voila!), but most of the material is lame — a commercial shows kids loving a fast-food joint called Broccoli City, there’s a trailer for a movie called The Pregnant Man, a sitcom called Ramon and Sonja focuses on a gypsy clan whose idea of family values includes incest, and so on. Many soon-to-be stars appear in the various skits: Chevy Chase, John Candy, Al Franken, Laraine Newman, the spectacularly unfunny Ron Silver, Betty Thomas, and many more.

Blu-ray extras include cult film historian audio commentary; an interview with cowriter and codirector Neal Israel and film distributor Stuart S. Shapiro (whose International Harmony released the picture); and a pair of photo galleries. Also included in the release is a collectible mini-poster.

Movie: ★½

THE WOMAN IN THE YARD (2025). Another horror yarn off the Blumhouse lot, The Woman in the Yard presents a compelling mystery and then proceeds to dilute it with obvious metaphors and clumsy staging. Till’s Danielle Deadwyler stars as Ramona, a widow struggling with her grief following the loss of her husband David (Russell Hornsby) in an automobile accident. Her little girl Annie (Estella Kahiha) is good-natured and obeys her mama, but her teenage son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) challenges her at every turn. When a shrouded figure (Okwui Okpokwasili) appears on the front lawn of their isolated farmhouse, all three are taken aback. And as the Woman keeps getting closer to their front door, nerves become especially frayed and a dark secret spills out. The Woman in the Yard attempts to be a psychological study of depression even as it remains beholden to the horror genre, but director Jaume Collet-Serra and scripter Sam Stefanek are never able to quite make the two approaches dovetail, with an initially intriguing setup first giving way to the repetitive nature of the domestic dramatics and then collapsing completely with some poorly orchestrated moments of terror and a symbolic twist that doubtless looked good on paper but actually plays out in a desultory manner. In the central role, Deadwyler delivers a highly charged performance that calls on her to rant, rage, and reflect — a lesser actor would have seasoned the scenery with plenty of ham before chewing, but Deadwyler is note-perfect, keeping every movement, every utterance, and every emotion raw and real.

Blu-ray extras consist of a making-of featurette and a piece on the titular character.

Movie: ★★

FILM CLIPS

LIFE STINKS (1991). Even comic geniuses are allowed an off day — or off movie, as the case may be — and Mel Brooks strikes out with this sizable flop that edges out 1995’s Dracula: Dead and Loving It as the auteur’s worst. Brooks stars as the filthy rich Goddard Bolt, who bets a rival developer (Jeffrey Tambor) that he can live on the streets of an LA slum area for 30 days without any access to his vast fortune. It’s a grueling experience, but Goddard learns some empathy as he hangs out with the likable hobos Sailor (Howard Morris) and Fumes (47-year-old Teddy Wilson, who passed away following a stroke just four days before the film’s release) and falls for the bag lady Molly (Leslie Ann Warren). Attempts at creating a social satire a la Sullivan’s Travels fall flat, and the absence of such invaluable Brooks regulars like Madeline Kahn and Dom DeLuise really hurts.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★½

MONKEY SHINES (1988). Writer-director George Romero’s adaptation of Michael Stewart’s novel casts Jason Beghe as Allan, an athlete who ends up a quadriplegic after an unfortunate accident. Paralyzed from the neck down, Allan bonds with Ella, the trained capuchin monkey given to him by his scientist pal Geoffrey (an excellent John Pankow) to cater to all his needs. What Allan doesn’t know is that Geoffrey had been conducting tests on Ella, lab experiments that allow the critter to tap into Allan’s thoughts and carry out his darker impulses. One of Romero’s best non-zombie flicks, this intelligent, absorbing watch includes early roles for Stanley Tucci as a self-satisfied surgeon and Stephen Root as a heartless scientist.

4K + Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Romero; a retrospective making-of feature; deleted scenes; a terrible alternate ending; and behind-the-scenes footage.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

AMERICAN DREAMER (1984). Would American Dreamer have fared better with critics and audiences had it not been released a mere seven months after the delightful action-comedy Romancing the Stone? Probably not, but arriving in the wake of that beloved box office hit certainly did it no favors. Whereas Romancing the Stone found Kathleen Turner playing an established author whose sheltered life is turned upside down after she’s thrust into a series of madcap adventures on another continent, American Dreamer finds JoBeth Williams playing a would-be author whose sheltered life is turned upside down after she’s thrust into a series of madcap adventures on another continent. The chief difference is that Williams’ character of Cathy Palmer, a frustrated housewife who earns a trip to Paris after placing first in an amateur writing contest, suffers a bump on the noggin that leads her to believe she’s Rebecca Ryan, the heroine of a series of books by her favorite author, Margaret McMann (Coral Browne). Believing Margaret’s son Alan (Tom Conti) to be her sleuthing sidekick, Cathy/Rebecca drags him along as she attempts to foil an assassination she believes will be carried out against an important dignitary (Giancarlo Giannini). Williams has been just fine in co-starring roles (Poltergeist, Endangered Species) or as part of ensembles (The Big Chill, Teachers), but she struggles mightily to carry this heavy-handed comedy on her shoulders; still, she’s better than Conti, whose miscasting as her confidante/love interest is a perpetual distraction. It’s hard to believe this was shot by ace cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno (Fellini’s Amarcord, Fosse’s All That Jazz), as there’s little visual flair on display at any time.

Movie: ★★

THE COMMITMENTS (1991). It’s hard to picture the director of Midnight Express and Mississippi Burning as a more modern answer to Vincente Minnelli, yet Alan Parker (who passed away in 2020) had helmed more English-language musicals (including Fame and Evita) than any other filmmaker over the past 50 years. The Commitments, an immeasurably entertaining look at a Dublin soul band, is not only the best of Parker’s output, it’s also one of the best rock & roll movies, period. The central figure is young Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), a self-styled manager determined to carry on the legacy of James Brown and Otis Redding in his own struggling Irish community. He manages to cobble together a motley outfit that ends up exceeding his expectations, but the band members’ clashing temperaments ultimately threaten to squash the whole project. The Commitments may simply be a cover band, but they’re phenomenal beyond belief (it helps that Parker mostly cast real musicians), and their renditions of classics like “Try a Little Tenderness,” “In the Midnight Hour,” and “Mustang Sally” (all included on the hit soundtracks), combined with the film’s finely etched characterizations and wicked sense of humor (love the salty dialogue!), make this film pure pleasure on every level. Colm Meaney is delightful as Jimmy’s Elvis-worshipping dad; the actor would later appear in the screen adaptations of the other two books in author Roddy Doyle’s “Barrytown Trilogy,” 1993’s The Snapper and 1996’s The Van. And if the character Outspan looks familiar, that’s because he’s played by Glen Hansard, who would later star in 2007’s Once and win an Oscar for co-writing that film’s popular song “Falling Slowly.” Gerry Hambling earned a Best Film Editing Oscar nomination for The Commitments, the film’s solitary nod.

Movie: ★★★★

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (1997). John Berendt’s nonfiction book was such a mammoth hit (four years on the bestseller list) that releasing Clint Eastwood’s screen version in November 1997 — near the start of both the award season and the holiday box office season — seemed like a no-brainer. Instead, it was a critical and commercial bust, one of Eastwood’s biggest blots as a director. I was one of its few proponents upon its original release, but the picture didn’t hold up as well upon a pair of revisits in later years, leading me to realize that what I had initially thought was appropriate eccentricity on Eastwood’s part was actually his incomprehension at such a strange tale. John Cusack plays John Kelso, a New York writer who travels to Savannah to cover a famed Christmas party thrown annually by the wealthy Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey). But Kelso gets a bigger story than anticipated after Williams is placed on trial for fatally shooting his lover, a volatile male stud (Jude Law). Backed by a song score featuring tunes from Savannah native Johnny Mercer, the picture has a smoky, laid-back style that suits it during quieter moments yet feels out of place when the piece’s more spiritually tinged escapades (such as a late-night saunter to the local cemetery) are front and center. Kelso’s relationship with a character not in the book, the sweet Mandy Nicholls (dryly played by Clint’s real-life daughter, Alison Eastwood), periodically grinds the film to a stop, but other bits are better handled, and there are solid turns by Spacey, Jack Thompson as lawyer Sonny Seiler, and The Lady Chablis, a Savannah drag queen cast as herself.

Movie: ★★½

THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (1984). This important, informative documentary tells the story of Harvey Milk, who became the first openly gay person elected to public office. Working under San Francisco mayor George Moscone on a city supervisory board headed by Dianne Feinstein, Milk spoke out not only for gay rights but for the rights of all people; he was a natural leader whose progressive views touched many citizens, but within a year of his election, he and Mayor Moscone were assassinated by supervisor Dan White, the board’s most conservative member. An Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, The Times of Harvey Milk is a richly detailed film that takes the story beyond White to create a vivid impression of a specific time and place, as well as analyzing the sorrow that followed Milk’s death (the footage of the candlelight vigil held in his honor is especially powerful) and the rage that erupted because of the imbecilic jury verdict — the 12 dolts decided that the murders weren’t premeditated even though White snuck into the federal building through a window while carrying a loaded weapon and extra ammo! Although this is available to stream, it’s worth dropping a few dollars on the DVD thanks to the extra features. They include a short piece on White (who eventually committed suicide), footage from the 1985 Academy Awards ceremony where the film picked up its Oscar, and a 25th anniversary panel discussion with White’s attorneys, the sort of smug, soulless SOBs who remind many people why they hate lawyers in the first place. (For a review of 2008’s Milk, starring an Oscar-winning Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, go here.)

Movie: ★★★½

VILLA RIDES! (1968) / MR. MAJESTYK (1974) / CABOBLANCO (1980). The long, varied career of Charles Bronson (born Charles Buchinsky) can basically be divided into three chapters: The Supporting Actor in the 1950s and 60s, The Leading Man in the 1970s, and The Fading Star in the 1980s and 90s. Here are examples of all three.

Many of Bronson’s best performances were in those earlier pictures in which he wasn’t the star (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen, etc.). Unfortunately, even he can’t do much for Villa Rides!, a disappointing drama starring Yul Brynner (complete with toupee) as the Mexican revolutionary. Despite being written by The Wild Bunch’s Sam Peckinpah and rewritten by Chinatown’s Robert Towne, there’s little of substance here: It’s worthless as history and generic as an epic action tale. Robert Mitchum co-stars as an American gunrunner who gets involved with the cause, while Bronson appears as Villa’s trigger-happy right-hand man.

Opening one week before Death Wish transformed Bronson from movie star to superstar, Mr. Majestyk finds the actor working from a script penned by no less than Elmore Leonard. Bronson plays Vince Majestyk, an amiable but no-nonsense farmer trying to get his watermelons picked. But corrupt rubes arrange it so that no one will help out, leaving Vince to depend on a handful of Mexican immigrants to get the work done. Matters only get worse, though, when Vince irks a Mafia hitman (Al Lettieri) who has just escaped from prison; this leads to the unique scene in which gun-wielding thugs shoot a barn full of watermelons to death. Leonard’s brusque dialogue, Bronson’s stabilizing presence, and director Richard Fleischer’s able handling of action set-pieces combine to make this a breezy watch. It’s also nice to see, given today’s grotesque political climate under a xenophobic regime, a movie that treats undocumented immigrants with sympathy and respect.

Remaking a unique classic like Casablanca would be an act of sheer folly, so here we have Caboblanco, a movie that kinda-sorta-maybe-vaguely can be called a remake of that beloved Best Picture Oscar winner. There’s an American bar owner (Charles Bronson) living in a foreign country (in this case, Peru); there’s a cheerfully corrupt police chief (Fernando Rey); there’s a nasty Nazi (Jason Robards); and there’s a soft-spoken woman (Dominique Sanda) who arrives on the scene and immediately commands everyone’s attention. The letters of transit are here replaced with sunken treasure, but there’s nothing to replace the original’s charm, intrigue, or tangible chemistry between its players. Even without comparisons, this one’s a snoozer.

Villa Rides!: ★★

Mr. Majestyk: ★★★

Caboblanco: ★½