FILM FRENZY

Lee Marvin in Point Blank (Photo: Criterion)

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.)

DIE MY LOVE (2025). There have seemingly been more movies about doofus mall cops than there have been about women with postpartum depression, but here’s one to help the balance sheet. In this adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 book, Jennifer Lawrence delivers a phenomenal performance as Grace, who moves from New York to rural Montana with her boyfriend Jackson (Robert Pattinson). She soon gives birth to a son, but despite seemingly having the best of everything, she grows more depressed, more manic, and possibly more dangerous. Directed and co-written by Lynne Ramsey (We Need to Talk About Kevin; see From Screen To Stream below) and produced by Martin Scorsese (who first suggested the novel to Lawrence), Die My Love makes for an extremely uncomfortable watch, which is precisely the point. While Grace’s depression is central, it’s also a stepping stone into general preconceived notions of what a woman is always expected to feel and how a woman is always supposed to act. Those who seek a challenging double feature on the couch should pair this with mother! (see From Screen To Stream below), another unsettling watch and also with Lawrence as a harried woman contending with a newborn baby, a clueless husband, and societal expectations.

The 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition contains no extras.

Movie: ★★★

GROOVE (2000). Twenty-six years ago, the rave scene was accorded its own motion picture, but clearly, it was nothing to rave about. Written, directed, and edited by Greg Harrison, this fictional piece centers on a group of nondescript friends who decide to hold a party in an abandoned warehouse for the sake of other, equally nondescript folks. The soundtrack is bitchin’, but the movie itself is DOA — populated with complete dullards, trapped in its own repetitive loop, and naively pushing the theory that the drug Ecstasy is no more harmful than a bag of marshmallows. At the time of the film’s release, the press material compared Groove to American Graffiti, which would be like comparing Mars Needs Women to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Extras in the 4K + Digital edition include audio commentary by Harrison, producer Danielle Renfrew, and cinematographer Matt Irving; behind-the-scenes footage; extended and deleted scenes; casting auditions; and the music video for Bedrock’s “Heaven Sent.” (Purchase this title here.)

Movie: ★½

THE MAID (2009). The Maid sports the sort of terse, career-oriented title that often suggests a viewer can expect to either see a slapstick comedy (The Valet, The Bellboy) or a psychological thriller (The Nanny, The Driver). But while it’s clear from the outset that pratfalls will be noticeably missing from this Chilean import, it isn’t until late in the game that audiences will be able to determine the extent of the picture’s darker undertones. In a formidable performance, Catalina Saavedra plays Raquel, who for 23 years has served as the live-in maid for the Valdez clan. Considering herself one of the family, Raquel is fiercely territorial, and when her failing health forces mousy matriarch Pilar Valdez (Claudia Celedón) to hire additional help, Raquel does whatever she can to scare off those she views as intruders. The script by director Sebastián Silva is masterful, setting up all manner of interesting dynamics not only between Raquel and the members of the household but also between Raquel and the succession of domestics who run afoul of her tyrannical ways.

There are no Blu-ray extras. (Purchase this title here.)

Movie: ★★★½

 THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1941). Bette Davis appears as one of her most ingratiating characters in The Man Who Came to Dinner, although, despite top billing, she’s clearly playing second fiddle to Monty Woolley. Reprising his Broadway role, Woolley is hilarious as Sheridan Whiteside, a curmudgeonly radio personality who finds himself stranded in an Ohio family’s modest home over the Christmas holidays and proceeds to make everybody miserable with his constant demands and insults. Davis co-stars as his patient secretary while Ann Sheridan vamps it up as a gold-digging actress. And just when it seems that this can’t get any funnier, along comes Jimmy Durante (playing a character based on Harpo Marx) to up the ante even more.

Blu-ray extras include a retrospective making-of featurette; the 1942 Bugs Bunny cartoon The Wabbit Who Came to Supper; the 1942 live-action short Glen Gray and His Casa Loma Orchestra; a 1949 radio broadcast starring Jack Benny, Rosalind Russell, Gregory Peck, Gene Kelly, and Henry Fonda; and a 1950 radio broadcast starring Clifton Webb and Lucille Ball. (Purchase this title here.)

Movie: ★★★½

MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (2025). A rare flop for Stephen Sondheim, the 1981 stage musical Merrily We Roll Along has been revived here and there over the years, finally and fully breaking through in a 2023 Broadway hit starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez. As with Hamilton, someone decided the production should be saved for posterity, so this Blu-ray release is a filming of that stage show, not a movie in the accepted sense of the term. (An actual film version starring Paul Mescal and directed by Boyhood’s Richard Linklater is currently being made, with a release date of, no kidding, 2040.) Moving chronologically back in time (like Memento, Betrayal, and Irreversible), the story begins (ends?) in 1976, when the friendship between composer Frank (Groff), lyricist Charley (Radcliffe), and theater critic Mary (Mendez) is irrevocably damaged, and journeys back through the years, finally resting in 1957 at the moment the three first became friends. It goes without saying that this filmization of a stage piece isn’t as kinetic or as dynamic as Hamilton, but a unique structure, some decent songs, and solid performances (Radcliffe is particularly excellent) make it worth the screen capture.

The only Blu-ray extra is the theatrical trailer. (Purchase this title here.)

Movie: ★★★

MONSTER MAYHEM COLLECTION (1957-1958). Are any of the four low-budget fantasy flicks included in this Blu-ray compilation any good? No, not really. Would I nevertheless recommend this set? Absolutely — at least to those film buffs who can find the entertainment value in financially undernourished genre flicks sporting dubious premises. And of the quartet presented here, none offers a premise as loopy as that of The Brain From Planet Arous (1957). Horror and sci-fi stalwart John Agar (Tarantula, The Mole People, Women of the Prehistoric Planet) plays Steve March, a scientist who discovers an evil floating brain hiding out in a cave. Named Gor, this otherworldly brain with eyeballs takes over Steve’s body with plans to conquer the world — first, though, he puts the moves on Steve’s girlfriend Sally (Joyce Meadows), as this alien invader clearly has a yen for Earth women. Not to fear, as another brain shows up, this one going by the name Vol. As Vol helpfully explains, he’s a good alien pursuing the bad alien Gor, and he decides to inhabit the body of Sally’s dog in order to vanquish his nemesis. Hilarious.

Animals, insects, and arachnids all had a lot of growing up to do during the 1950s. The Universal era of vampires, mummies, and other monsters had winded down, and the horror film began mating with the science fiction film, resulting in numerous movies in which humans (usually scientists) foolishly create giant killing machines. Monster From Green Hell (1957) is one such picture. Its visual effects are terrible, yet a laughable monster isn’t the problem with this film — heck, that’s often part of its charm. Instead, the death blow is caused by the scenes that do not feature a creature, and they are legion. Two scientists (Jim Davis and Robert Griffin) shoot various critters into outer space, and their experiment includes a rocket containing wasps. After it’s been exposed to radiation up yonder, that rocket suffers a glitch and ends up crash-landing in a remote area of Africa — the scientists head there after they hear reports of something pretty big terrorizing the locals. There are countless scenes in which the characters do a lot of walking, talking, balking, and stalking. Every once in a while, a giant wasp turns up.

Had Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) not included one of the staples of this type of fare — excruciating musical numbers performed waterside (pool or ocean) by a hip-to-be-square band while adults playing teenagers shimmy and shammy shamelessly — I might have considered going up to two stars. But it does, so I’m not. Donald Murphy delivers a suitably sleazy performance as Dr. Frank, a descendant of you-know-who who’s as interested in bedding the teenage Trudy (Sandra Knight) as he is in creating human life. After a test run during which he periodically turns Trudy into a beast with bushy eyebrows and big teeth, he kills her friend Suzie (Sally Todd) and makes her the first female Franken-monster. The notorious behind-the-scenes boo-boo is that nobody bothered to tell makeup artist Harry Thomas that the fiend was a woman, so he designed a male creature (played by Harry Wilson) and then applied some lipstick after the fact! Aside from John Ashley as Trudy’s patronizing boyfriend and Harold Lloyd Jr. as his dorky buddy, the acting isn’t bad, but this rarely escapes from its Z-movie zone.

The big news regarding the low-budget effort Giant From the Unknown (1958) is the participation of Jack Pierce. Arguably the greatest makeup artist Hollywood ever produced (I say arguably because cases can be made for Rick Baker and Lon Chaney), Pierce worked at Universal for decades, where he created the iconic monsters seen in such classics as 1931’s Frankenstein, 1932’s The Mummy, and 1941’s The Wolf Man. Pierce was eventually let go by the studio, and he spent the remainder of his years plying his trade on indie cheapies and television series, winding down his career as the staff makeup artist for TV’s Mister Ed. Giant From the Unknown finds him designing the look of the titular behemoth, a hulking Spanish conquistador who emerges from a 500-year stint in suspended animation and begins terrorizing a rural California town. Boxer Buddy Baer plays the awakened brute, veteran Western star Bob Steele co-stars as the doubting sheriff, and Gary Crutcher appears as a nerdy kid named Charlie Brown. This one is average rather than incompetent, with decent performances but a pedestrian storyline.

Extras include film historian audio commentaries on all four films; a piece on The Brain From Planet Arous director Nathan Juran; a look at the career of Monster From Green Hell star Jim Davis, including a mention of his starring role as part of the ensemble on TV’s Dallas; an archival interview with Frankenstein’s Daughter director Richard E. Cunha; and archival audio commentary by Giant From the Unknown co-star Gary Crutcher. A booklet is also included.

The Brain From Planet Arous: ★★

Monster From Green Hell: ★½

Frankenstein’s Daughter: ★½

Giant From the Unknown: ★★

POINT BLANK (1967). For a Hollywood picture, this adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s The Hunter sure feels like an international production, with British director John Boorman heading to Los Angeles and San Francisco to shoot a neo-noir that borrows liberally from the French New Wave. Lee Marvin, generally the epitome of cool anyway, takes the temperature down even further with his portrayal of Walker, who’s betrayed by his buddy (John Vernon) and his own wife (Sharon Acker) after the men successfully pull off a heist on Alcatraz Island (this was the first film shot at the prison, which had closed in 1963). Left for dead, Walker instead becomes a man with a mission, determined to find his partner and collect his half of the stolen loot. Full of flashbacks, fragmented images, and surreal sequences, Point Blank is an existential odyssey that smartly places an old-school hood in a newfangled world — the film’s best gag is that Walker has trouble collecting his money because none of the bigwigs in the crime syndicate deal with cash anymore, doing all business through banks. Angie Dickinson co-stars as the sister of Walker’s wife while a pre-Archie Bunker Carroll O’Connor appears as one of the mob bosses.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray set include audio commentary by Boorman and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh; an interview with Boorman; and the 1967 promotional piece The Rock.

Movie: ★★★½

RESIDENT ALIEN: THE COMPLETE SERIES (2021-2025). You know a show is doing something right when legions of MAGA morons rush to their keyboards to whine about how there are too many strong female characters and too many progressive (read: sensible) ideals and not enough manly men doing manly stuff. Still, I have to agree that this adaptation of the Dark Horse comic book is a tad overrated, albeit not for these idiotic reasons. Alan Tudyk stars as an extraterrestrial who, while trying to destroy Earth, crash-lands near a Colorado town and is forced to assume a human identity — Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle — while he figures out how to complete his mission and return home. But once he becomes friends with many of the townspeople, including the doctor’s assistant (Sara Tomko), a bar owner and former Olympic skier (Alice Wetterlund, stealing most episodes), and a young boy (Judah Prehn) who can see him in his alien form, he develops feelings and is reluctant to kill everyone. This is a show of extremes, with hilarious bits offset by daft ones, fascinating plotlines offset by lackluster ones, and interesting characters offset by off-putting ones.

The Blu-ray edition of the Syfy series includes all four seasons and 44 episodes. The only extras are a handful of deleted scenes. (Purchase this title here.)

Series: ★★½

SALEM’S LOT (1979). Salem’s Lot finds an early (and excellent) Stephen King novel receiving the TV-movie treatment, with director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) hired to ensure the mood was sustained even during the original broadcast breaks for cereal and soft drink commercials. Running 183 minutes (there’s also a 110-minute cut that was released in theaters internationally), it’s an impressive undertaking, with author Ben Mears (David Soul) returning to his childhood home of Salem’s Lot at the same time the distinguished Mr. Straker (James Mason) and his mysterious partner Mr. Barlow are opening an antique shop in the quiet town. Small-screen restrictions require the bloodletting be kept to a minimum (although the death-by-antler scene is still pretty eye-catching), but Hooper and scripter Paul Monash still manage to construct a first-rate chiller out of King’s fertile source material. Reggie Nalder is an effective vampire in the Nosferatu tradition, and noir buffs should note the presence of Marie Windsor and Elisha Cook Jr., who 23 years earlier had played an ill-fated couple in Kubrick’s The Killing.

The 4K + Blu-ray edition offers both cuts of the film. Extras include audio commentary by Hooper and alternate TV footage.

Movie: ★★★½

SCOOBY’S ALL STAR LAFF-A-LYMPICS (1977-1978). Program blocks were quite popular on Saturday mornings during the 1960s and ‘70s, with like-minded animated series all booked together for the kids to more easily consume. Scooby’s All Star Laff-A-Lympics was no exception to the practice, as its first season found it filling a two-hour slot on ABC alongside The Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, and two other Scooby shows. Running 24 episodes over two seasons, the Laff-A-Lympics segments were clearly inspired by both the 1976 Olympics and ABC’s own Battle of the Network Stars. Each episode would feature competitions between three teams — the Scooby Doobies, the Yogi Yahooeys, and the Really Rottens — and would unfold in two locations (e.g. “Acapulco and England,” “South America and Transylvania”). Dozens of Hanna-Barbera characters would take part in the sporty shenanigans, and, given the title, it’s no surprise which team won the most competitions over the two-season run.

The Blu-ray includes all 24 episodes of Laff-A-Lympics. The only extra is the 2012 animated short Scooby-Doo! Spooky Games. (Purchase this title here.)

Series: ★★½

SLEEPERS (1996). After a childish prank turns disastrous, four likable boys living in Hell’s Kitchen are shipped off to a juvenile detention center, where the head guard (Kevin Bacon) and his cronies sexually and psychologically abuse them for the length of their stay. Over a decade later, two of the now grown kids (Ron Eldard and Billy Crudup) are arrested after exacting their revenge, thereby leaving it to the remaining pair — a journalist (Jason Patric) and an assistant district attorney (Brad Pitt) — to expose long-buried secrets and get their friends off the hook. The first half of this slick adaptation of Lorenzo Carcaterra’s controversial novel, which focuses exclusively on the kids, is by far stronger than the second part, which loses momentum when it becomes clear that the courtroom material will proceed down a preordained path without any obstacles thrown in its path. All of the performances are strong, with Dustin Hoffman appearing as a boozy defense lawyer and Robert De Niro particularly effective as a street-smart priest.

The only extras in the 4K + Digital edition are a pair of conversations with writer-director Barry Levinson.

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

THE GREAT SCOUT AND CATHOUSE THURSDAY (1976). Little Matthew Brunson first saw The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday at the age of 13 — it premiered in Portugal, where I was living at the time, two full years after its U.S. theatrical bow (there, it was called Turmoil in the Wild West). Coupled with her role in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (which appeared around the same time), the picture led to my teenage crush on Kay Lenz; it also featured British actor Oliver Reed as a Harvard-educated Native American with a master plan to spread the clap among the white man, the sort of casting-and-character-combo one doesn’t forget over the ensuing decades. Finally revisiting the film after a handful of viewings during my teens, I can’t say that the picture is a success, but fans of bawdy comedies will appreciate at least some of its choices. Lee Marvin hams it up as the great scout of the title, seeking revenge on the slimy politician (Robert Culp) who betrayed him years earlier; Lenz sweetly plays Thursday, a teen prostitute who falls for Marvin’s grizzled old coot; and Strother Martin portrays another in his long line of unkempt eccentrics, here handed most of the script’s insults — for instance, when informed that a presidential candidate plans to give women the right to vote, he snorts, “He might as well give them the right to pee standing up; they still won’t know what to do with it.”

Movie: ★★½

MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006). Writer-director Sofia Coppola’s first film after her magnificent 2003 release Lost In Translation is recommended, but with reservations. In much the manner of A Knight’s Tale, Coppola has added a sprinkling of contemporary trappings to her luxuriant period piece. Thus, a shopping spree with the girls is backed by Bow Wow Wow’s ‘80s hit “I Want Candy,” and anachronisms can frequently be found within the dialogue. Coppola’s intention was to create a teenager for our times, a girl who just wants to have fun even though her position in the French royal court demands so much more. It’s an interesting idea that’s only partially successful, largely because Coppola doesn’t go far enough with her outré approach. Coppola should have rolled the dice without hesitancy; instead, she too often hedges her bets. Where Marie Antoinette fares best is in its examination of the royal life as a treadmill of constantly winding boredom; the scenes in which Marie, winningly played by Kirsten Dunst, is forced to succumb to the nonsensical rules and rituals of etiquette are poignant because they deny a child, that most impulsive of all creatures, the chance to experience life for herself. Marie does slowly manage to reclaim some semblance of her own existence, but by then, the peasants are starting to grumble, and matters quickly come to a head. This earned an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, the third of four career wins for Milena Canonero (Barry Lyndon, The Grand Budapest Hotel).

Movie: ★★½

MOTHER! (2017). On the critical compilation site Rotten Tomatoes, where mother! enjoys a 68% Fresh rating, the consensus blurb reads in part that the film “may be too unwieldy for mainstream tastes.” That’s putting it mildly, to say the least. (Apparently, it’s also too unwieldy for Rex Reed, whose hysterical — in both senses of the word — blurb on the site states that it might be “the worst movie of the century.”) Upon its theatrical release, mother! became only the 19th film to ever receive an F grade from CinemaScore opening-day audiences — even keeping in mind that these folks routinely give A grades to Alvin and the Chipmunks entries, that registers as incomprehensible overkill. Writer-director Darren Aronofsky, responsible for such dazzling if downbeat achievements as Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, is behind this one-of-a-kind oddity in which an earthy woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who’s happily married to an often aloof poet (Javier Bardem) finds her life disrupted by the arrival of a pair of guests (Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris). Counting Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, and 1960s-era Polanski among its apparent influences, mother! is ugly, disturbing, and not for everyone — it’s also fascinating, thought-provoking, and rich with religious allegories. As fearless an actress as Nicole Kidman, Lawrence is superb in a difficult role, ably assisted by Bardem and the other players.

Movie: ★★★½

SNAKES ON A PLANE (2006). For a while, it seemed like the greatest marketing ploy since The Blair Witch Project. Come up with a catchy title, cast a way-cool actor, build the buzz over the Internet far in advance of the opening, let the online fanboys think they have a hand in actually shaping the finished product via their suggestions, refuse to hold critics’ screenings, and then settle back as the record-breaking grosses pour in. Well, it all worked out except for that final point — the film’s lackluster box office take was no disgrace, but it was also nothing special. As for the picture itself, it doesn’t quite deliver on its thrill-a-minute premise — even star Samuel L. Jackson’s highly publicized quip about the “motherfuckin’ snakes” registers as much ado about nothing (besides, most of the truly classic movie lines arrive honestly rather than being carefully test-marketed, packaged, and pre-sold). Jackson stars as an FBI agent assigned to protect an eyewitness (Nathan Phillips) to a mob slaying; once the villains ascertain which flight they’ll be taking to make that important court date, they manage to fill the aircraft with rattlesnakes, cobras, boa constrictors, vipers, pythons — indeed, the only snake missing seems to be Snake Plissken. Director David Ellis and his three scripters have the title terrors chomp down on lips, eyes, breasts, and even a penis, but given the overall lack of creativity invested in this project, it ultimately feels as rote and joyless as a typical slasher flick.

Movie: ★★

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (2011). Tilda Swinton’s best performance can arguably be found in this chilling drama — it’s a subtle turn in a muted movie, but the low-simmer setting of the project is precisely why it stays with you. Although based on a novel by Lionel Shriver, it seems to be a direct descendant of The Bad Seed, the 1956 thriller with Patty McCormack as a murderous moppet. Here, the bad seed is the titular boy, son of Eva (Swinton) and Franklin (John C. Reilly) and older brother to sweet Celia (Ashley Gerasimovich). From the moment he popped out of his mother’s womb, Kevin’s been an absolute terror. But it’s when he becomes a teenager (played at this point by Ezra Miller) that he becomes especially surly — and dangerous. None of this is related in chronological order, as part of the film’s power rests in the fragmented manner in which writer-director Lynne Ramsay (co-adapting with Rory Kinnear) presents her story, dropping us into the narrative stream whenever and wherever she sees fit. And because of this structure, she scatters the thematic seeds (bad seeds?) all over the premise, challenging us to decide whether Kevin was born evil, whether he’s the victim of a pampered lifestyle (the Scottish Ramsay doesn’t appear to find much of interest in American suburbia), whether Eva and Franklin are rotten parents, or, most intriguingly, whether Kevin is merely a mirror image of his chilly and distant mother. I won’t reveal whether the movie answers the question or merely checks off “None of the Above,” but regardless, We Need to Talk About Kevin is one motion picture that invites post-film conversation.

Movie: ★★★