FILM FRENZY

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (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.)

AFRICA SCREAMS (1949). As someone who has forever flat-out refused to watch black-and-white movies that have been colorized, imagine my disappointment to insert the new Leomark Studios Blu-ray release of the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy Africa Screams and be assaulted with unsightly bleeding colors all over my screen. It’s not that I failed to read the outer case text — nowhere on the packaging of this Manufactured On Demand (MOD) title does it state that it’s the colorized version. Even if it had been in black-and-white, it was apparent that it would still look pretty bad, given that this is one of the few A&C titles not made for Universal and thus had long fallen into the public domain. Being able to take only a few minutes of the muddy images, I ejected the disc and found a clean — and black-and-white — copy on YouTube. Which brings us to the movie itself — how does it compare to other A&C outings? Answer: It’s not among the boys’ best, but it’s still a sure bet for those who enjoy their antics. Bud and Lou are Buzz Johnson and Stanley Livington, department store clerks who convince the members of an upcoming African expedition that Stanley is a great hunter with much experience. They join the outfit, only to learn that the others are unscrupulous fortune seekers in search of a deposit of diamonds. The laughs are moderate but consistent, and it’s interesting to note that the supporting cast includes two members of The Three Stooges: Shemp Howard (who took over after Curly Howard died) and Joe Besser (who took over after Shemp died).

Naturally, there are no extras in this edition.

Movie: ★★½

This Edition: ★

50 FIRST DATES (2004) / CLICK (2006). Not counting the atypical Adam Sandler movies mainly handled by others (e.g. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems), 50 First Dates and Click register as two of the comedian’s better mass-audience flicks. One is rather sweet while the other is rather poignant; unfortunately, Sandler can never get out of his own way, meaning both are slathered with the type of witless frat-boy humor he always includes to satisfy the open-mouth breathers that make up his base. Both films are individually making their 4K Ultra HD debuts.

Even folks who don’t like Sandler (and they are legion) generally concede that The Wedding Singer is decent, with the performer largely subverting his obnoxiousness in pursuit of a sweet romance with Drew Barrymore. 50 First Dates features an even more intense love story between the pair, yet this winning hand is repeatedly set down in order to make more room for the aforementioned sort of juvenile antics that will remind Sandler bashers why they hate him in the first place. Meshing Groundhog Day with Memento, this Hawaii-set comedy casts Sandler as Henry Roth, an aquarium vet whose habit of dating only tourists comes to a halt when he meets local teacher Lucy Whitmore (Barrymore). But Henry soon learns that a car accident has left Lucy with short-term memory loss, meaning that, since she can’t remember him day-to-day, he has to start wooing her from scratch every time he sees her. Barrymore and Sandler again strike sparks together, and their chemistry is enough to turn this into an agreeable love story further enhanced by an unexpected ending. But perhaps mindful that the gushy stuff doesn’t exactly appeal to Sandler’s core audience, director Peter Segal and writer George Wing cater to the lowbrow by contributing gags about enormous walrus dicks, a perpetually horny character who may or may not be a woman (nobody can tell for sure), and waaay too much screen time for the utterly reprehensible and spectacularly unfunny Rob Schneider as Sandler’s vulgar best bud — although we do get to see him savagely beaten with a baseball bat, a small consolation. The picture still charms, but it has to work overtime to do so.

Click, meanwhile, finds Sandler playing Michael Newman, a workaholic who spends more time sucking up to his unctuous boss (David Hasselhoff) than bonding with his wife Donna (Kate Beckinsale) and kids. In fact, Michael is so distracted that he can’t even keep track of the household remotes — he points the clicker at his TV and the garage door opens. Heading to Bed, Bath & Beyond and venturing into its “Beyond” section (a clever gag), he stumbles upon eccentric employee Morty (Christopher Walken), who gives him a universal remote that allows him to program his life as well as his TV set. He can mute the dog’s barking, fast-forward through foreplay (but why?), and even listen to James Earl Jones providing the audio commentary on past events in his life. For the first half of the picture, this concept yields some genuine laughs but more often gets buried under the sort of adolescent humor that long ago became the actor’s calling card (how many times do we have to watch the family dog hump a stuffed animal?). Then the movie shifts course dramatically: Morphing into an update of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, it chronicles how the remainder of Michael’s life turns tragic once he’s unable to stop the remote from fast-forwarding through the years. The unexpected changes — he allows his loving dad (Henry Winkler) to drift out of his life, he becomes grotesquely overweight, and Donna ends up divorcing him — ultimately leave him with bitter memories and numerous regrets. The comedy isn’t as pointed as desired and the drama isn’t as maudlin as expected, yielding decidedly mixed results. Still, it’s an acceptable home watch on 4K, although it’s a mystery why upon its original DVD release they didn’t get James Earl Jones for the audio commentary. This earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup Design; I believe that makes it the only movie with Sandler in the cast (major role, supporting part or cameo) that has earned any sort of Oscar recognition.

Extras on 50 First Dates include audio commentary by Barrymore and Segal; a making-of piece; an HBO “First Look” segment; deleted scenes; music videos for Wayne Wonder’s “Hold Me Now” and 311’s “Love Song”; and a blooper reel. Extras on Click include audio commentary by Sandler, director Frank Coraci, writer Steve Koren, and executive producer Tim Herlihy; deleted scenes; pieces on the visual effects, production design, and makeup design; and more footage of Sandler in his fat suit.

50 First Dates: ★★½

Click: ★★½

HANG ‘EM HIGH (1968). After achieving stardom by heading overseas to star in a fistful of classic Spaghetti Westerns, Clint Eastwood headed back to the U.S. to make what in some respects was an American attempt at a Spaghetti Western. Clint plays Jed Cooper, a former lawman who’s captured by nine vigilantes who wrongly believe him to be a cattle thief and murderer. He’s hanged, but after the ennead leave the scene of their crime, a marshal (Ben Johnson) cuts down the barely breathing Cooper and takes him to a nearby town, where he’s found innocent of the charges and offered a job as a deputy marshal by the no-nonsense Judge Adam Fenton (Pat Hingle). Cooper accepts the gig, and the stage is set for a cathartic good time as he seeks revenge on the nine men who strung him up. But the plot proves to be more complex than Clint merely blowing away varmints one by one. Instead, it deals in degrees of law and justice, with Cooper seeing some opportunities for grace and forgiveness while Fenton believes in hanging, well, practically everyone who passes through his court. Dennis Hopper feels out of place in his small role as a dusty street prophet, but the other actors contribute to the piece’s true grit: Ed Begley as the leader of the vigilantes, Bruce Dern and L.Q. Jones as two of its slimiest members, and Bob Steele, a Western fixture since the silent era, as its solitary voice of reason.

Extras in the 4K UHD + Blu-ray edition consist of a pair of film historian audio commentaries; the theatrical trailer; TV spots; a radio spot; and trailers for other movies offered on the Kino label.

Movie: ★★★

SLITHER (2006). While this horror yarn from writer-director James Gunn offers gore by the bucketful, it’s also in the spirit of those enjoyable, us-against-them monster yarns that ran rampant from the 1950s straight through to the mid-1980s. Starting out as an “invader from outer space” opus (think The Blob) before switching gears to become a quasi-zombie flick (think Night of the Living Dead), the film involves a gelatinous E.T. that turns hicksville businessman Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) into its agent of evil on Earth. The master plan eventually involves a mass assault by hundreds of slugs that take over humans’ bodies by entering through the mouths; naturally, the entire planet is doomed unless double-Grant’s wife (Elizabeth Banks) and an amiable sheriff (Nathan Fillion) can figure out a way to shut the otherworldly operation down. Slither takes its time getting started, but once it does, it never lets up, throwing blood, slime, and one-liners (some woeful, most of them witty) at viewers with feverish abandon. Banks is particularly touching as the wife who doesn’t comprehend why her husband has morphed into a human squid. The worst part of the picture is the unnecessary coda tacked on after the closing credits have run their course, so be sure to turn off your player before then.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray Limited Edition Steelbook include two audio commentaries by Gunn and Fillion, one also featuring Rooker; a making-of featurette; interviews with Gunn, cast member Gregg Henry, and director of photography Gregory Middleton; deleted scenes; a piece on the visual effects; and a gag reel.

Movie: ★★★

STRAY DOG (1949). Akira Kurosawa was one year away from being acknowledged as a world-class filmmaker with Rashomon (see From Screen To Stream below), but this early effort shows that his skills had already been honed to razor-sharp perfection. A youthful Toshiro Mifune, already as intense an actor as in his later works with Kurosawa, plays a greenhorn detective whose gun is lifted by a pickpocket on a crowded bus. Burdened with guilt and driven to distraction over the fact that his weapon will now be used to commit crimes, he sets off on a frenzied quest to track down the revolver, scouring the underworld and, with the invaluable aid of a veteran cop (Takashi Shimura), piecing together the clues that will lead him to the disgruntled man wielding it. Stray Dog is commendable enough as a straightforward thriller (the phone booth sequence alone is incredibly suspenseful), but its atmospherics — the film is set during a blistering summer, and you can almost see the sweat pouring off your TV set — as well as its probing look at post-war Japan trying to get back on its feet make it a welcome companion piece to the riveting film noir flicks Hollywood was producing at the time.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition consist of audio commentary by author Stephen Prince (The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa) and a half-hour piece on Stray Dog from the 2002 documentary series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create.

Movie: ★★★★

THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE (2026). In covering 2023’s neither-here-nor-there The Super Mario Bros. Movie, I noted that it’s “a must-see for present fans of the video game, for nostalgists with fond memories of endless playing, and for small children, three factions certain to award it four stars without hesitation.” Somehow, that sentiment manages to be even more truthful when it comes to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, a sequel that has more valleys and (a few) more peaks than its predecessor but ultimately is just as disposable. The plot this time finds plumber siblings Mario and Luigi (voiced by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) attempting to rescue Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) from the clutches of Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), the bratty son of Koopas king and Mario bros nemesis Bowser (Jack Black). Those who aren’t game devotees might find the opening act cacophonous, cluttered, and nigh unwatchable, with the added annoyance of a new character in the amiable dinosaur Yoshi (Donald Glover). Thankfully, the movie improves as it goes along, but not enough to appease anyone who isn’t already hostage to its fan fawning and brand stamping.

Blu-ray extras include a making-of featurette; a piece on the principal characters; an exploration of the galactic setting; a chat with composer Brian Taylor as he discusses integrating the game music into the proceedings (and into his score); and, for the hardcore fans, a look at the power-ups featured in the movie as well as hints from the filmmakers on where to find some of the hidden Easter eggs.

Movie: ★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

JULIA (1977). How curious that in a movie titled Julia, the least interesting character would be … Julia. That’s not the fault of Vanessa Redgrave, who plays the part — it’s just that, as presented, her Julia is a symbol rather than a person, providing a hollow core to an otherwise rich and literate film. The leading figure is actually Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda), who reminisces about her experiences with her longtime friend. (The movie is based on a chapter from Hellman’s book Pentimento, but although the author maintained that Julia was a real person, it’s pretty much been established she was a fabrication.) Besties since childhood, Hellman has grown up to become a writer, working to finish her play while shacked up with famed novelist Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards). Julia, meanwhile, has been fighting fascism in Europe, and once the Nazis come to power, she enlists the now-successful playwright to carry out a dangerous mission on her behalf. The sequences between Lillian and Dashiell are among the film’s best; same goes for the moments between Lillian and a soft-spoken member of Julia’s underground outfit (Maximilian Schell). As for dramatic tension, director Fred Zinnemann offers little aside from a lengthy segment, set aboard and around a train, that’s beautifully orchestrated. Look for Meryl Streep in a small role; this marked her film debut. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actress for Fonda, and Supporting Actor for Schell, this won three: Best Supporting Actor (Robards, winning consecutive Oscars following the previous year’s All the President’s Men), Best Supporting Actress (Redgrave, who was picketed at the ceremony by the right-wing hate group the Jewish Defense League for her pro-Palestine stance), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Alvin Sargent).

Movie: ★★★

MR. DEEDS (2002) / GROWN UPS (2010) / HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA (2012). For your amusement — or not — here are three more Adam Sandler showcases.

Mr. Deeds is a remake of 1936’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the Frank Capra heartwarmer starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. It’s also a comedy so lowbrow, it removes much of the wit and pointed social commentary of the original and replaces it with gags involving wayward tennis balls and pizzas made out of Oreo cookies. And yet, while Mr. Deeds rates merely as a mediocrity, that’s certainly a step up from Sandler’s previous two pictures, the I-wouldn’t-wish-them-upon-my-worst-enemy pair of Big Daddy and Little Nicky. Sandler’s in easy-going Wedding Singer mode here, playing a scruffy doofus who inherits $40 billion yet retains his small-town appeal as he goes up against unfeeling New York sharks. Winona Ryder is far too talented to be slumming in the slender role of the hard-hearted journalist who falls for Deeds, and the movie features a plethora of pointless cameos by the likes of John McEnroe and Al Sharpton. Yet if this disposable tissue has one wild card, it’s John Turturro, who’s ab fab as a Spanish butler with a foot fetish; you may find yourself wishing there had been a sequel if only to watch him reprise his role.

Sandler’s worst movie? Little Nicky and Jack and Jill are among the contenders, and so is Grown Ups, the umpteenth collaboration between the comedian and director Dennis Dugan. Dugan is to screen comedy what the atomic bomb was to Nagasaki, and with this film, he and the ostensible writers (Sandler and Fred Wolf) serve up a mirthless affair in which the only people laughing are the ones on screen. In fact, that’s basically the plot: As five school chums reunite 30 years later to honor the passing of their former coach, Lenny (Sandler) makes a bad joke and the others laugh. Then Eric (Kevin James) makes a bad joke and the others laugh. And so on through Kurt (Chris Rock), Marcus (David Spade), and Rob (Rob Schneider). As they’re laughing, many viewers will be cringing, whether it’s because of the scene in which Eric pisses on Marcus’ back, or because Marcus lands face-first (twice!) into a pile of fecal matter, or because Marcus thinks he might have had drunken intercourse with a dog, or because Rob’s wife (Joyce Van Patten) is an elderly woman who enjoys sex (the film forcefully pushes the notion that old people and ugly people are only put on this planet for the amusement of past-their-prime comedians). Salma Hayek and Maria Bello are wasted in their roles as the wives of Sandler and James, respectively (in arrested-development movies like this, nerdy schlubs always have hot wives). It’s just godawful, so naturally this box office smash was followed by a sequel that was just as successful.

An animated feature with Adam Sandler providing the voice of Dracula sounds like strength-sapping kryptonite to anyone with a modicum of taste, but Hotel Transylvania turns out to be a fairly pleasant surprise. Admittedly, it works in spite of Sandler, not because of him, but coming after eight straight turkeys dating back to 2007, let’s cut him some slack here, shall we? Sandler’s Count, who doesn’t drink human blood because it’s too fatty, wants nothing so much except to keep his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) away from scary humans bent on destroying all monsters. To that end, he builds a remote hotel designed to offer safety not only to Mavis but to creatures the world over, all of whom enjoy visiting the expansive establishment. Whether he’s addressing the Frankenstein monster (Kevin James), Wayne the werewolf (Steve Buscemi), Murray the mummy (CeeLo Green) or one of myriad other monsters, Dracula can confidently tell them that no human will ever be able to reach his hotel that’s hidden in the middle of nowhere. But that promise gets shattered with the arrival of Johnny (Andy Samberg), a Bill-and-Ted-type backpacker who has managed to locate the castle and thinks he’s found the coolest costume party ever. The movie quickly shies away from the usual gross-out gags and instead manages to deliver some solid laughs. I especially liked Dracula’s reply to Johnny’s query about whether a stake through the heart really can kill a vampire: “Who wouldn’t that kill?”

Mr. Deeds: ★★

Grown Ups: ★

Hotel Transylvania: ★★½

RASHOMON (1950). Akira Kurosawa was hardly a novice when he directed Rashomon — he had been working in various capacities in the business since 1936, and had already helmed 11 pictures since 1943 (including Stray Dog, reviewed above) — but it wasn’t until this cinematic masterpiece nabbed the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (and, subsequently, an honorary Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film) that he became an internationally renowned filmmaker, a prominent standing that allowed the entire Japanese film industry to finally enjoy the global spotlight. In many ways as groundbreaking and daring as Citizen Kane in its thematic content and technical achievements, this treatise on the malleability of truth stars (who else?) Toshiro Mifune as a bandit who encounters a married couple (Machiko Kyo and Masayuki Mori) while traveling through a dense forest. In time, the husband is dead, the wife has possibly been raped, and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) might have witnessed the event. The incident is recounted by four different people — the bandit, the wife, the woodcutter, and even the ghost of the slain husband — yet which, if any, of the conflicting versions is the right one? Rashomon led to a direct remake — 1964’s indifferently received The Outrage, with Paul Newman as the (now-Mexican) bandit — but its influence of course extends far beyond that, with the unique flashback structure since employed in countless films, the technical innovations (among other things, this was reportedly the first film to shoot the sun straight on) borrowed just as much, and even the title itself entering the lexicon (the psychology term “the Rashomon effect”).

Movie: ★★★★

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968). Stanley Kubrick had already created such classics as Dr. Strangelove and Paths of Glory by the time he made 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it’s that landmark science fiction epic that’s widely regarded as the finest achievement of his generally brilliant career. Ambitious and intelligent, it explores some of Kubrick’s favorite themes — most notably the dehumanization of man, his intrinsic need to foster violence, and his foolish dependence on (and subservience to) the rules established by omniscient authoritarian figures — as it begins with our ape-like ancestors during the “Dawn of Man” and culminates with our evolutionary advancement in outer space. The computer HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain) is a memorable — and unique — heavy (“Open the pod bay doors, HAL”), while the visual switch from falling bone to orbiting spaceship earns my vote as one of the greatest of all cinematic jump cuts, second only to Peter O’Toole blowing out that match and instantly being transported to the desert in Lawrence of Arabia. Adapting Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel,” Kubrick (who co-wrote the script with Clarke) crafted a visionary tale that continues to be controversial, influential, and open to multiple interpretations. An Oscar winner for Best Visual Effects (controversially, only Kubrick received a statue, with the names of Douglas Trumbull and the rest of the actual effects team not submitted on the ballot), it also earned nominations for Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Art Direction — but, given the conservative nature of Academy members during those changing times, not one for Best Picture (that prize ended up going to the far safer Oliver!).

Movie: ★★★★

ZARDOZ (1974). “The gun is good. The penis is evil.” While this might sound like the campaign platform of one of today’s sex-fearing, NRA-loving Republican politicians, it’s actually the mantra of the voice emanating from the oversized stone head floating through the skies in the futuristic oddity Zardoz. Made by director John Boorman soon after the smashing success of 1972’s Deliverance (and after his plans to bring Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to the screen fell through), this is a maddeningly inconsistent movie, one which perhaps inevitably emerged as a popular cult film and midnight movie staple. Boorman himself wrote the script, in which the world of tomorrow (2293, to be exact) is divided into the Eternals, sexless, immortal intellectuals living inside the sterile surroundings of the Vortex, and the Brutals, ordinary, earthy folks whose population is controlled by a special class of Brutals known as the Exterminators. One such Exterminator, Zed (Sean Connery), gains more knowledge than the rest (by reading books rather than eating an apple) and eventually sneaks into the Vortex, whereupon his virility and lustiness shake things up. Made for a mere million dollars, Zardoz looks fabulous for its cost, due largely to Anthony Pratt’s production design and cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001: A Space Odyssey, Tess). But the visuals don’t always compensate for the narrative, which remains interesting when pushing the notion of the sweet release of death over the allure of immortality but grows muddled and even risible when attempting to explore other facets of this futureworld — the sequences set around the Eternals’ Arthurian round table are especially laughable.

Movie: ★★½