FILM FRENZY

Mahershala Ali and the mutated D. Rex (“distortus rex”) in Jurassic World: Rebirth (Photo: Universal)

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.)

BETTER OFF DEAD (1985). It was a box office flop and star John Cusack told director Savage Steve Holland that it was the worst movie he had ever seen, but time — and the VHS rental market — was apparently kind to Better Off Dead. It’s easy to see why it has survived: While many of the era’s teen flicks were merely brain-dead T&A romps that exhibited more skin than imagination, this one wallows in its quirkiness and offbeat approach. High school kid Lane Myer (Cusack) is obsessed with his girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss), so when she dumps him for the obnoxious captain (Aaron Dozier) of the ski team, he falls into a deep depression and contemplates suicide. His attempts all fail miserably, which is a good thing since his continued existence allows him to get to know Monique (Diane Franklin), the French exchange student staying with his annoying neighbors. If this movie has any sort of claim to fame, it’s because of that determined newspaper boy (“Two dollars!”), but there are many inspired set-pieces (including a clay-animated stop-motion sequence) as well as a startling number of choice lines and exchanges (“Man, now that’s a real shame when folks be throwin’ away a perfectly good white boy like that.” is a great one, although I also like the simplicity of “You look pretty stupid to me.” “Thank you.”). As two of the grown-ups involved with these kids, David Ogden Stiers (as Lane’s perpetually perplexed dad) and Vincent Schiavelli (as a popular teacher) both amuse, and winsome ‘80s fixture Elizabeth Daily (aka E.G. Daily) appears long enough to belt out a couple of tunes.

The only extra in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code edition is the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

FRANKENSTEIN’S BLOODY TERROR (1968). The protagonist is a werewolf and the key supporting players are vampires, so it figures that the title mentions the one major monster not found anywhere on the screen. There’s a reason, of course… Titled The Mark of the Wolfman in its native Spain and tagged Hell’s Creatures and The Vampire of Dr. Dracula in other markets, this was brought to the U.S. by a distributor who had promised to deliver a Frankenstein double feature to theaters (the other film in the package was Dracula vs. Frankenstein, which did indeed showcase both fiends). No problem! He merely removed the opening chunk of the film and replaced it with a newly animated sequence that explained how a branch of the Frankenstein family suffered from lycanthropy and therefore elected to rename itself Wolfstein! The movie is historically important for being the first of 11 features (not 12 as usually reported) starring Paul Naschy as Count Waldemar Daninsky / El Hombre Lobo — it’s also a fairly decent creature feature in which Daninsky trusts a doctor (Julian Ugart) and his wife (Aurora de Alba) who claim they can cure him of his lycanthropy, only to discover that they’re actually vampires who want to involve him in their Satanic dabbling. It doesn’t quite evoke Universal and it doesn’t quite evoke Hammer, but it’s clearly of a piece with the other ragged yet atmospheric horror yarns that were busting out of Europe.

Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror is offered in 2-D, Blu-ray 3-D, and anaglyphic 3-D versions (a pair of 3-D glasses is included). Extras include audio commentary by critic Tim Lucas; a discussion with Lucas about the 3-D restoration; and deleted scenes (including that lopped-off opening).

Movie: ★★½

JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH (2025). As B.B. King would put it, the thrill is gone. Just as the humans in the previous Jurassic Park installment (Jurassic World: Dominion) became so used to seeing dinosaurs strolling around that they no longer inspired fear or awe, so too have audiences gotten accustomed to plenty of dino-might in their filmic diet. Jurassic World: Rebirth seeks to quicken the pulse with the addition of new dinosaurs, but there’s little here that surprises or delights, and there’s even less to suggest that the franchise will progress in any imaginative fashion. The plot involves the discovery that some dinosaurs on an island that once housed a research facility hold the key to eradicating heart disease in their DNA. An oily pharmaceutical rep (Rupert Friend) assembles a team to journey to the isle to retrieve samples — among those taking part are two hot-shot mercenaries (Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali) and a nerdy paleontologist (Jonathan Bailey, his Wicked hotness deliberately dialed down). They rescue four stranded strangers — a doofus dad (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) taking the most ill-advised pleasure cruise since the S.S. Minnow and his daughters (Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda) and a random boyfriend (David Iacono) — and proceed to the island, where dinosaurs (including some mutated monstrosities) try to eat them at regular intervals. The movie swipes from Spielberg (these adventurers need a bigger boat) as well as Lucas (a cute baby dinosaur that might as well be a Ewok or a porg), and some of the CGI shots fail to convince. And despite her standing as one of our best action stars, Johansson is curiously ineffective — she’s far too perky, as if she had just cashed a paycheck containing at least six zeroes.

Blu-ray extras include two audio commentaries by director Gareth Edwards and select crew personnel; a making-of featurette; deleted scenes; and a gag reel.

Movie: ★★

THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE (1983). After ably supporting Richard Gere in 1982’s An Officer and a Gentleman, David Keith landed his first leading role in this adaptation of Pat Conroy’s novel. He’s very good in the film, so much so that it’s a shame he wasn’t handed more starring roles throughout his career. As for the movie, it was a soft critical and commercial performer and remains undervalued today. Set in 1964, it stars Keith as Will McLean, a senior cadet at the fictional Carolina Military Institute. When the academy admits its first black cadet, Tom Pearce (Mark Breland), McLean is ordered by his mentor, Lieutenant Colonel “Bear” Berrineau (Robert Prosky), to keep him safe. The assignment inadvertently makes McLean aware of the presence of “The Ten,” high-ranking cadets who use threats, intimidation, and even torture to force those they deem unworthy to quit the institute — naturally, that would include Pearce. McLean turns to his roommates (Rick Rossovich, John Lavachielli, and Mitchell Lichtenstein) for help, but the four friends soon find themselves targeted by this secret society. The film’s examination of covert fascism masked as red-blooded patriotism resonates more strongly than ever in Trump’s AmeriKKKa, but simply from the standpoint of a crackling good thriller, this one delivers. Michael Biehn plays the leader of The Ten, while Bill Paxton (billed as “Wild” Bill Paxton) is one of his flunkies — both men would of course play fellow grunts Hicks and Hudson three years later in James Cameron’s Aliens (and Biehn, Paxton, and Rossovich would all appear one year after this film in Cameron’s The Terminator).

Extras in the 4K UHD + Blu-ray edition include film historian audio commentary and interviews with Keith and director Franc Roddam.

Movie: ★★★

NEGATIVES (1968) / THE ODD JOB (1978) / THE GHOST OF PETER SELLERS (2018). Three movies from director Peter Medak are being released individually by Severin Films, with one of the Blu-rays also offering as a bonus an earlier picture on which he served as assistant director.

Medak made his directorial debut with Negatives, the sort of picture that likely would be called envelope-pushing by its supporters and pretentious by its detractors. Adapted from Peter Everett’s novel by the author and Roger Lowry, this casts Peter McEnery and Glenda Jackson as Theo and Vivien, a couple whose relationship is largely based around their role-playing — he as real-life wife-killer Dr. Hawley Crippen and she alternating between Crippen’s murdered spouse and his mistress. Into their orbit wanders Reingard (Diane Cilento), a German photographer who creates a strain between the pair when she talks Theo into abandoning his Crippen cosplay and instead taking on the role of Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen (aka The Red Baron who always gave Snoopy so much trouble). Kinky role-playing is a fascinating subject for a story, but Negatives’ opaque approach, further burdened by stilted dialogue, adds an unnecessary wall, and the characters are ultimately too dreary to draw us in by themselves.

The two-disc release for Negatives also offers 1963’s Sparrows Can’t Sing, the only film directed by theater legend Joan Littlewood and with Medak serving as assistant director. A “kitchen sink” comedy (as opposed to the more common “kitchen sink” drama), this finds Barbara Windsor delivering a wonderful performance as Maggie, a busty blonde whose husband Charlie (James Booth) has been out at sea for two years. She’s now living with a married bus driver (George Sewell) and, given their past blowouts, insists that she’s through with Charlie. But when her tempestuous hubby returns to town looking for her, it throws everyone in their circle into a tizzy. This one’s full of flavor, be it in the zesty chatter, the bustling characters or the working-class ambience of the town.

Comedies in which a depressed man asks a stranger to help him commit suicide aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, yet 1978 witnessed the releases of two titles brandishing this plot. The Burt Reynolds box office hit The End was one such film; Medak’s comparatively little-seen The Odd Job was the other. The latter is the more consistently funny film, with Monty Python member Graham Chapman cast as Arthur Harris, who loves his wife Fiona (Diana Quick) and is shocked when she leaves him. Depressed, he decides to kill himself — he’s not having much luck, so when a stranger (David Jason in a role initially earmarked for The Who’s Keith Moon) shows up at his door looking for odd jobs, Arthur enlists his aid (payment after the task is completed: Arthur’s television set). When Fiona decides to return to Arthur and all seems well, the harried husband realizes that his amateur assassin still plans to follow through on the hit no matter what. The Odd Job loses a step in the late going, but it’s overall an amusing farce with fine comic performances by Chapman, Jason, and, stealing his scenes as a peculiar head waiter, Joe Melia.

Like Burden of Dreams, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, and Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, The Ghost of Peter Sellers is yet another fascinating documentary about the making, and sometimes undoing, of a difficult production. Fresh off the success of 1972’s The Ruling Class, Medak was thrilled with the opportunity to work with Peter Sellers in Cyprus on a pirate comedy called Ghost in the Noonday Sun. But the shoot was a calamitous one right from the start — the reasons were many (including an unfinished script), but the primary one was the inexcusable behavior of the notoriously unpredictable Sellers. Already reeling from his recent breakup with Liza Minnelli, Sellers wielded his clout like a battle-axe, fighting with Medak, firing producers, feigning illness so he could jet back to England to party, frequently showing up late to the set, and other behavior that made everyone want to strangle him. When the film was finally completed, it was deemed too terrible to release theatrically. Medak himself is the driving force behind this doc, seeking some measure of closure since this experience has haunted him for decades. As a nonfiction feature, it’s fascinating. As a primer on the difficulties of moviemaking, it’s instructive. And as a window into a man’s damaged psyche, it’s incredibly moving.

Blu-ray extras on Negatives include audio commentary by critic Tim Lucas; an audio interview with Medak; an interview with McEnery; a video essay on Jackson; and a look at Medak’s production albums from Negatives and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. Extras on Sparrows Can’t Sing include audio commentary by filmmaker Daniel Kremer, with contributions from Medak; a Q&A with Windsor and supporting player Murray Melvin; and a fascinating then-and-now location featurette. Extras on The Odd Job include an introduction by Medak; an audio interview with Medak; and a Zoom reunion between Medak and Jason. Extras on The Ghost of Peter Sellers include an audio interview with Medak and a look at Medak’s production albums from The Ruling Class through Zorro, the Gay Blade.

Negatives: ★★

Sparrows Can’t Sing: ★★★

The Odd Job: ★★★

The Ghost of Peter Sellers: ★★★½

UNDISPUTED (2002). Before his career as a writer-director went cold somewhere in the 1990s, Walter Hill made a number of impressive movies that managed to center on macho men and their personal codes of conduct without ever pandering to jockish mind sets. Instead, his works (including The Warriors, The Long Riders, and two titles covered in From Screen To Stream below) often explored existential anti-heroes trying to carve out their own niche in a brutal world. The best of the mere four theatrical flicks Hill has helmed since the turn of the century, Undisputed largely falls into that camp, with its two steely protagonists refusing to be defined by their flaws and failures. George “The Iceman” Chambers (Ving Rhames) is the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, but after he’s accused of raping a fan (the movie never reveals whether he’s guilty as charged), he’s sent to a maximum-security prison. There, he learns that the penitentiary holds its own boxing bouts, and that the undefeated champ among the incarcerated is Monroe Hutchen (Wesley Snipes), who’s serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend’s lover. Another inmate, a former yet still influential mob boss (a sly turn by Peter Falk) who loves boxing, massages the situation in order to ensure that Chambers and Hutchen will end up squaring off. Despite its setting, the movie admirably stays away from the usual stereotypes found in practically every prison flick — for example, there’s no mousy guy with a mouse for a friend (although Fisher Stevens plays one of the inmates, and he looks like the type who would do nothing but hang out with a mouse all day) — and it even manages to keep boxing-film clichés to a minimum.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include film historian audio commentary and interviews with Hill, Snipes, and Rhames.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

THE CHANGELING (1980). Although this Canadian production was embraced in its homeland — it won a total of eight Genies (aka that country’s Oscars), including Best Motion Picture — it was only moderately received stateside. Yet like many a fine film, its stature only grew over the ensuing years, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to state that it’s now considered a minor classic of the “haunted house” genre — even Martin Scorsese included it on his much publicized list of his 11 favorite scary movies (clearly, Marty responds to ghosts, as over half of his picks involved malevolent spirits). Much of the credit goes to director Peter Medak, who opts for exposition and atmosphere over jump-scares and other cheap dramatic devices. After a somber opening that finds New York-based composer John Russell (George C. Scott) losing his wife and daughter in a horrible vehicular mishap, the film turns its attention to John’s new place of residence: a Victorian-era mansion located in Seattle. John soon discovers that the property is haunted, but as he investigates further with the assistance of a realtor (Trish Van Devere, Scott’s real-life wife) and the hindrance of a powerful senator (Melvyn Douglas), he realizes that he’s perhaps wrong about the identity and the intent of the specter. Even stripped of the spooky elements, The Changeling would have made for a compelling murder-mystery, but the supernatural sheen only adds to its power and unexpected poignancy.

Movie: ★★★½

THE DILEMMA (2011). Love him or hate him, director Ron Howard at least makes movies that can generally be described as classy projects (A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon, etc.). So what on earth possessed him to get attached to this frat-boy comedy that would have been better suited to the low-brow filmographies of The Hangover’s Todd Phillips or Grown Ups‘ Dennis Dugan? Vince Vaughn stars as Ronny, who idolizes the seemingly perfect marriage of Nick (Kevin James) and Geneva (Winona Ryder) and is trying to decide whether it’s time to pop the question to his own girlfriend, Beth (Jennifer Connelly). But after Ronny spots Geneva making out with a young hunk (Channing Tatum), he has to decide whether to inform his best friend about his wife’s infidelity or keep it to himself. The film presents the sorts of problems that would easily be remedied by any open-minded folks partial to Dan Savage’s Savage Love column, but Ronny and Nick are presented as such unenlightened chowderheads that the surprisingly misogynistic screenplay actually plays along by attempting to ennoble their dubious actions (apparently, it’s no big deal that Nick ignores his wife in favor of “happy endings” from a teenage Asian masseuse). There’s a dull subplot involving the men’s business venture (designing cars that are manly and not, as Ronny puts it, “gay”), but it serves only to lengthen this misguided effort past the breaking point. Here’s an idea, Hollywood: Why not make a movie in which Connelly and Ryder are the leads and relegate James and Vaughn to subservient roles?

Movie: ★½

THE GREAT SANTINI (1980). The Great Santini is one of those films that many folks back in the day initially caught on cable television or as the in-flight movie — watching it repeatedly on HBO was my introduction to it. But what was unusual about its release pattern was that it played these ancillary markets (usually under the title The Ace) without first having a proper theatrical run — it was only after New York critics caught up with it and blessed it with rave reviews that it earned its rightful place in the nation’s movie houses. If it isn’t quite as perfect as I remember it, it still comes damn close, with writer-director Lewis John Carlino sensitively adapting Pat Conroy’s semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in the 1960s with a hard-nosed military man for a father. Robert Duvall, whose performance runs neck-and-neck with his Lonesome Dove turn as his career best, is Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meechum, whose peacetime assignment — training young recruits — leads to a move to Beaufort, SC, with his family in tow. Bull’s wife Lillian (Blythe Danner) largely supports her husband’s decisions while his four children simply follow his commands. But familial strife takes hold once oldest child Ben (Michael O’Keefe) approaches the age of 18 — a thoughtful, tender-hearted boy, he’s the one most at odds with his dictatorial dad. This is one of those special films that moves effortlessly between tension, tears, and laughs; among the many outstanding bits are the one-on-one basketball game between Bull and Ben, the raucous “canned soup” gag, and the friendship between Ben and the sweet-natured Toomer (Stan Shaw), a stuttering Black man who loves his dogs even more than he hates the redneck (The Lords of Discipline’s David Keith) who’s constantly provoking him. Duvall’s exceptional performance earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination; ditto O’Keefe with a Best Supporting Actor slot.

★★★½

HARD TIMES (1975) / THE DRIVER (1978). While probably best known for The Warriors and 48 Hrs., Walter Hill began his career as writer-director with two under-the-radar gems worth catching.

Hill had already penned a few screenplays before he landed his first job as director on Hard Times, a richly atmospheric drama set in Depression-era New Orleans. Scripting with Bryan Gindoff and Bruce Henstell, he patiently tracks a quiet man named Chaney (Charles Bronson), a hardscrabble drifter who wanders into the world of illegal street-fighting. Chaney selects a motormouth promoter appropriately nicknamed Speed (James Coburn) to manage him, and with Speed’s opium-addicted friend Poe (Strother Martin) along as cut man, the three hope to clean up on the considerable force of Chaney’s powerhouse punches. With its abundance of still moments and a refusal to make anything look glamorous or exciting (the fights are shot down and dirty, with no Rocky flourishes), the film stylistically plays it close to the vest, and its two stars — Bronson as the taciturn loner, Coburn as the grinning whirligig — are beautifully cast to their strengths. Also noteworthy is the superb score by Barry De Vorzon, a smoky theme that perfectly captures the milieu. That’s Bronson’s real-life wife, Jill Ireland, as the downtrodden woman who catches his eye, and Crispin Glover’s dad, Bruce Glover, as the enforcer Doty.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s critical darling from 2011, the Ryan Gosling vehicle Drive, was hardly the first film to function as an existential study of a laconic loner who’s second to none when it comes to climbing behind the wheel — The Driver had already been there, done that back in 1978. If Drive benefits from more peaks while also suffering from more valleys, The Driver has the inside lane on maintaining the proper speed from flag to finish. Ryan O’Neal plays the title character, who’s the criminal underworld’s top choice when it comes to procuring a getaway driver for risky bank robberies. He’s feverishly pursued by The Detective (Bruce Dern), an eccentric lawman who’s not above bending the rules, and assisted by The Player (Isabelle Adjani, ethereally beautiful), a young woman who gets more involved than she initially anticipated. (And yes, every character is tagged with an identity rather than a name: Teeth, The Kid, The Connection, etc.) The vehicular chases are shot for maximum effect, although it’s amusing to note that in a film packed with auto-action, the most exciting sequence is set on a train. Dern, merely one of the best actors of the 1970s, is in his element here as an arrogant cop with a Cheshire-cat grin.

Hard Times: ★★★

The Driver: ★★★

MAX (2003). A terrific premise receives only so-so treatment in this fictional yarn that details the strained relationship between a young Adolph Hitler and a Jewish art dealer. John Cusack stars as Max Rothman, a one-armed World War I vet running a successful art gallery in Munich right after the close of the war. Max makes the acquaintance of Adolph Hitler (Noah Taylor), a nerd with no family and no friends who wants to become an artist. Max attempts to befriend and encourage this temperamental loner even as the young Adolph begins to realize he has a special skill as an orator, delivering explosive political diatribes. Claims at the time of the film’s release that Max should be banned because it dares to show Hitler as human were ludicrous, not only because the movie hardly presents the future dictator in a sympathetic light but also because Hitler was human and the picture makes the relevant contention that the evil that men do hardly springs full-formed from birth but is instead cultivated by the choices made and directions taken in one’s life. But for all the food for thought offered by the film, its overall success is diminished by the fact that there’s too much Max and not enough Hitler; indeed, the scenes focusing on Max’s strained home life, his flirtations with a mistress (Leelee Sobieski), and his business dealings can’t begin to match the sequences that concentrate on his touchy affiliation with the budding Führer. And a final plot twist that would be more at home in a dopey Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy doesn’t help, either.

Movie: ★★½

THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964). Peter Sellers receives top billing in this coming-of-age yarn directed by future Oscar winner George Roy Hill (The Sting), but his is really a supporting turn, with the focus on a pair of precocious 14-year-old girls in NYC. Both lacking in friends, Marian “Gil” Gilbert (Merrie Spaeth) and Valerie “Val” Boyd (Tippy Walker) become instant BFFs, and their madcap flights of fancy result in them repeatedly bumping into Henry Orient (Sellers), a dedicated pianist and even more dedicated womanizer. Their presence unnerves Henry, who’s attempting to jump-start an affair with a married woman (Paula Prentiss); also roped into the girls’ shenanigans are Gil’s patient mom (Phyllis Thaxter, perhaps best known as Ma Kent in 1978’s Superman) and Val’s parents, the self-centered Isabel and the more understanding Frank (Angela Lansbury and Tom Bosley, years before they worked together on TV’s Murder, She Wrote). Working in tandem with her father, the veteran screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath, The Dirty Dozen), Nora Johnson turns her own novel into a memorable picture in which youthful exuberance believably gives way to the bracing pain of parental betrayal and dashed expectations. Neither young girl stuck with acting for long, and it’s a shame in both cases — with Walker, because she delivers an incandescent performance as Val, and with Spaeth, because she would eventually become a Republican p.r. flunkie known for coaching the vile Ken Starr in his Clinton witch hunt and, worse, advising the reprehensible Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in their vilification of John Kerry’s war record.

Movie: ★★★