FILM FRENZY

Elvis Presley and Dolores Hart in a promotional shot for King Creole (Photo: Kino)

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.)

DEADLY BLESSING (1981). This horror yarn from Wes Craven finds Martha Schmidt (Maren Jensen) living in wedded bliss with her husband Jim (Douglas Barr, who three months later would begin his long-running stint on the hit TV series The Fall Guy) on their farm. Their neighbors on one side consist of a community of crazy Hittites while the other adjacent property houses a mom (Lois Nettleton) and her grown daughter (Lisa Hartman). After Jim is mysteriously killed by his own tractor, Martha’s best friends Lana and Vicky (Sharon Stone and Susan Buckner) pay her a visit; while there, Lana is tortured by nightmares involving spiders, Vicky flirts with a shy Hittite lad (Jeff East), and the head of that religious cult (Ernest Borgnine) rants about the presence of an incubus among them. The red herrings do little to distract from the obviousness of the mystery, but never mind: What’s important to note is that Craven (working as director and co-scripter) manages to drum up a reasonable amount of suspense during the first half. Unfortunately, the movie utterly collapses toward the end, and the daft conclusion is then followed by an especially idiotic gotcha moment. Craven’s misogyny, which established itself right from the start in his debut picture The Last House on the Left, is largely kept in check here but does peek through toward the end. As for the actors, it’s interesting to see Stone this early in her career, while Borgnine delivers a typically hammy, Razzie Award-nominated performance as a fire-and-brimstone sort prone to making declarations like “You are a stench in the nostrils of God!”

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition include archival audio commentary by Craven; film historian audio commentary; and interviews with Buckner and supporting actor Michael Berryman.

Movie: ★★

DIFFICULT PEOPLE: THE COMPLETE SERIES (2015-2017). If the title is meant to describe the two central characters and not the multitudes who bother them (and vice versa), Difficult People was an accurate title for this Hulu series; others would have been Awful People, Obnoxious People, and Oddly Endearing People. Created by Julie Klausner, this is a bilious, biting, and offtimes very funny show about Julie Kessler (Klausner) and Billy Epstein (Billy Eichner), two struggling comedians in NYC who despise seemingly everyone else on the entire planet except each other. Kessler lives with wimpy boyfriend Arthur Tack (James Urbaniak) and has to contend with a constantly kvetching mother (Andrea Martin); Billy is a gay man who works at a café and prefers meaningless sex since he avoids serious relationships in the name of self-preservation. Perpetually waiting for their big breaks, they spend much of their time engaging in public bad behavior, whether it’s Julie awkwardly accosting celebrities in person, Billy constantly berating his twink coworker Matthew (Cole Escola), or both using foul language in front of small children. The series had absolutely no difficulty landing big-name stars for guest appearances: Among the approximately 50 celebrities lending their talents to the caustic cause were Julianne Moore, Kate McKinnon, John Mulaney, Patton Oswalt, Blondie’s Deborah Harry, John Waters regular Mink Stole, and, as themselves, Tina Fey, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ken Burns, Martin Short, The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz, and The B-52s’ Kate Pierson.

The Blu-ray edition offers all three seasons and 28 episodes. Extras consist of audio commentary on three episodes by Klausner and Eichner, and a 2015 panel discussion with Klausner, Eichner, and executive producer Amy Poehler.

Series: ★★★

I LOVE LUCY: THE COMPLETE SERIES (1951-1957). How to even begin to describe I Love Lucy’s impact on television, on culture, on American history itself? One of the pioneering TV series in the early years of the medium, this sitcom immediately rewrote the rules on how shows were staged, filmed, and marketed. But beyond its influence and innovations, the program endures simply because it’s one of the funniest series ever produced, with the stars and their characters — Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo, Desi Arnaz as her husband Ricky, and Vivian Vance and William Frawley as their best friends Ethel and Fred Mertz — all becoming household names. The number of classic episodes is an unwieldy one, and everyone has their own personal faves: Lucy hawking “Vitameatavegamin” on TV; the birth of Little Ricky (still one of the most watched TV episodes of all time); Lucy stomping grapes in Italy; Lucy and Ethel working at a candy factory; John Wayne (nuff said); Lucy and Superman; and on and on and on. I Love Lucy was a colossal success, ranking #1 in the Nielsen ratings for four of its six seasons (it was #2 and #3 in the remaining two). It won two Emmy Awards for Best Situation Comedy, one for Ball as Best Actress, and one for Vance as Best Supporting Actress. And of course it’s routinely at or near the top whenever some publication offers its list of the greatest TV shows of all time — as but two examples, Variety ranked it #1 while TV Guide placed it #2, under Seinfeld (gimme a break…).

Extras in the 75th Anniversary Blu-ray set include all 13 episodes of the subsequent The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960); audio commentaries on select episodes; the original pilot episode; select episodes of Ball’s radio show My Favorite Husband (which led to the creation of I Love Lucy); flubs; vintage sponsor spots; and more.

Movie: ★★★★

KING CREOLE (1958). Elvis Presley’s fourth film ranks as one of his best, and leave it to seasoned director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood) to bring out one of the singing superstar’s finest acting at-bats. This features Elvis’ favorite of his own performances — certainly, it’s proof that the King possessed some measure of thespian talent, at least until his finer instincts got smothered by too many formula flicks. Adapted from the Harold Robbins novel A Stone for Danny Fisher, this finds him playing a high school dropout living in New Orleans with his widowed father (Dean Jagger) and older sister (Jan Shepard). His problems begin when he meets Ronnie (Carolyn Jones), the kept woman of club owner and all-around thug Maxie Fields (Walter Matthau), and Shark (Vic Morrow), a hoodlum who works for Maxie. Once word of his formidable singing ability gets out, he rejects Maxie’s offer to work at his joint and accepts a gig at the King Creole, a rival club owned by the kindly Charlie LeGrand (Paul Stewart). This doesn’t sit well with Maxie, who’s used to always getting his way — complicating matters even more for Danny is that he finds himself attracted to both the older and experienced Ronnie and a squeaky-clean girl named Nellie (played by squeaky-clean Dolores Hart, who at the age of 24 gave up her Hollywood career and became a nun; she’s now 87 and at the same Connecticut Abbey for the past 63 years). This is grittier than most of the Presley pics that followed, and while the story is sturdy enough to stand on its own, the handful of tunes belted out by Elvis serve as the multiple cherries on top. The soundtrack produced a Billboard #1 single in “Hard Headed Woman,” with the album peaking at #2. This was the final movie Presley made before his two-year stint in the U.S. Army.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include film historian audio commentary; and a discussion of the film by critic Leonard Maltin.

Movie: ★★★

MORTAL KOMBAT II (2026). This follow-up to 2021’s live-action Mortal Kombat reboot is superior to its predecessor, and while that’s hardly a high bar to conquer, it’s nevertheless worth noting that this sequel sports a soupçon of actual entertainment value. The plot is more of the same: Master baddie Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) seeks to take over Earthrealm via a tournament that pits his bad guys against our good guys. Among those returning to fight for our right to survive are Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), and Cole Young (Lewis Tan), with a wild card in new addition Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), a has-been action star who reluctantly joins the skirmish. Among those seeking to divide and conquer are Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), Kano (Josh Lawson), and the assassin formerly known as Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) — however, one of them is actually in cahoots with our heroes and working as a double agent of sorts. Most video-game adaptations are pretty sanitized, but like Mortal Kombat ’21, this one is rated R, resulting in a surprising amount of gore and grotesqueness. The carnage ensures that this never gets boring, and the presence of Urban is another plus, even if the scripters give him far too many lame wisecracks. This bests the earlier installment mainly because the intrigue runs deeper and the fights are more visually interesting and eye-popping, but it’s still mainly recommended for gamers, gorehounds, and others more interested in flashy visuals than anything else.

Blu-ray extras include a making-of featurette; a look at the creation of the realms seen in the film; a piece on the franchise’s history through games, comics, and movies; and a peek at the stuntwork behind the fight scenes.

Movie: ★★½

START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME (1970). In the year before All in the Family helped turn him into a TV legend, Norman Lear served as executive producer on Start the Revolution Without Me, a period farce directed by his longtime creative partner Bud Yorkin. The sort of broad comedy that can best be described as “zany,” the picture has many bright moments but ultimately never delivers the hearty laughter one would want from a send-up of the French Revolution (it would take Mel Brooks and his History of the World: Part I to do it just right). It begins with the tried and true “switched at birth” angle, as two sets of twins, one the product of an aristocratic family and the other of a pair of peasants, are mismatched, with each parental unit given one of each. The aristocratic tots grow up to become the easily agitated Phillipe (Gene Wilder) and the fey Pierre DeSisi (Donald Sutherland); the other turn out to be dunderheaded commoners Claude and Charles Coupe (Wilder and Sutherland respectively). When a plot is hatched to involve the DeSisis in overthrowing the scattered King Louis XVI (an amusing Hugh Griffith), it’s the other brothers who are accidentally dragged into the scheme. Starting off the film with Orson Welles serving as the on-screen narrator was a clever idea, but his material grows more thin and repetitive as the movie unspools. Wilder is in his patented manic mode, Sutherland nicely underplays at key moments, and I liked the Brooks-worthy character name of Duke d’Escargot (played by Victor Spinetti). But the comedy only works in spurts and the ending is desperate.

Blu-ray extras consist of audio commentary by Yorkin, Wilder, and Sutherland; the 1950 Daffy Duck cartoon The Scarlet Pumpernickel; the 1956 Bugs Bunny cartoon Napoleon Bunny-Part; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★½

THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO (1944). Dalton Trumbo’s most acclaimed screenplays (Roman Holiday, Spartacus, and more) came either during or after his HUAC blacklisting — of the films he penned before this unfortunate turn of events, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo stands as his most recognizable effort. The fourth top-grossing picture of 1944 (indeed, seven of the year’s top 10 moneymakers involved World War II), this has consistently been praised for being more factual and less fanciful than most of the period’s war flicks, relating in methodical fashion the bombing raid that the United States launched as a morale booster shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Orchestrated by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle (Spencer Tracy), the operation involved airplanes launching from aircraft carriers in order to bomb several Japanese locales. The film follows the preparation, the attack, and the efforts of the raiders to make it to China (and safety) without being caught. One of the men involved in the operation is Captain Ted Lawson (Van Johnson), upon whose novel the movie is based — many of the best scenes find Lawson and his crew being helped by Chinese villagers. In his second year in film, Robert Mitchum earned eighth billing for his role as one of the raiders — after he became a star, subsequent reissues, and even on the case credits for this Warner Archive Collection release, bumped him to above-the-title billing alongside Tracy and Johnson. The superb special effects (plenty of convincing miniature work) earned an Academy Award, with the film picking up an additional nomination for Best Black-and-White Cinematography.

Blu-ray extras consist of the 1943 musical short Ode to Victory; the 1944 live-action short A Lady Fights Back; the Oscar-winning 1944 Tom & Jerry cartoon Mouse Trouble; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

THE BRONZE (2016). Hollywood has presented viewers with far too many movies in which the protagonist is a petulant man-child, so it’s only fair that here’s one in which the lead is a bratty woman-child. But did the film have to be this bad? Melissa Rauch, sharing scripting duties with hubby Winston Rauch, stars as Hope Ann Greggory, who, as a teenage gymnast, placed third in the Olympics but has done nothing with her life in the decade-plus since that shining moment. For purely mercenary reasons too convoluted to explain here, she eventually agrees to coach a fellow Amherst, Ohio, resident, a perky teen gymnast named Maggie Townsend (Haley Lu Richardson), all the while worried that if Maggie achieves greater success, then her own modicum of fame within the Amherst city limits will completely dissipate. It’s certainly a workable premise for a comedy — more so if tackled as a satire on this nation’s obsession with those precious 15 minutes of fame — but The Bronze is myopic in its execution, opting for a petty and mean-spirited approach devoid of the acerbic wit and acute insight necessary to transform it into a worthy black comedy. In addition to Hope being such an obnoxious character, she’s simply not interesting, and Rauch is woefully unfunny in the role. Of course, Hope softens over the course of the film, but it’s not a believable thaw, and the film ends up becoming yet another example of this country’s current craze with championing mediocrity. Its only saving graces are the performances by Richardson as the bubbly teen athlete and Thomas Middleditch as Hope’s assistant coach and unlikely love interest. Their work deserves an 8.0 from the judges, but no one else involved with this tarnished Bronze should be allowed anywhere near the winners’ circle.

Movie: ★½

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973). There’s sharp dialogue to spare in Paul Monash’s script for The Friends of Eddie Coyle, yet the best line involving the movie appeared in a 1973 Rolling Stone article. “You know what the 2001 theme is?” asked Coyle co-star Peter Boyle. “That’s the sound of Mitchum waking up.” Certainly, Robert Mitchum’s status as a tough guy — both on-screen and off — reached legendary proportion over three-quarters of a century ago, and even decades after his death, it shows no signs of wavering. (Although my all-time favorite Mitchum quote is a self-effacing one that came from the man himself: “People think I have an interesting walk. Hell, I’m just trying to hold my gut in.”) What’s notable about this movie (based on George V. Higgins’ novel) is that Mitchum manages to retain his rough-n-tumble persona while playing one of life’s losers: a small-time criminal who just maybe isn’t smart enough to survive in such a hostile environment as the Boston underworld of the 1970s. Mitchum’s cast as Eddie Coyle, an ex-con who’s facing the prospect of being sent up the river yet again. Worried for the well-being of his family as well as himself, he has to decide whether it’s in his best interest to serve as a stool pigeon for a smooth-talking detective (Richard Jordan), a decision that would put him at odds with various members of the criminal community — including ones played by Boyle, Alex Rocco and, most memorably, Steven Keats as guns dealer Jackie Brown (and now you know where Tarantino “borrowed” that name). Gritty, minimalist, and fatalistic as only ’70s flicks can be, this solid drama revolves squarely around Mitchum’s perceptive performance as a weary, wary man caught in an impossible situation.

Movie: ★★★

MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937). As brutal in its own way as any gangster or slasher flick, Make Way for Tomorrow is a powerful drama that absolutely refuses to pull its punches or take any prisoners. Adapted from both a novel and a play but bombing with audiences (though not critics) as a film, this is still relevant today, with its piercing look at the manner in which this country handles its elderly population. Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi star as Barkley and Lucy Cooper, an aged couple who lose their house because they can’t keep up the payments and then discover that their five grown children are all unable or unwilling to allow them to move permanently into their own respective homes. As a temporary solution, Barkley resides with his detestable daughter Cora (Elisabeth Risdon) while Lucy is shuttled off to board with (by default) the most sympathetic offspring, George (Thomas Mitchell), and his wife Anita (Fay Bainter). Barkley can at least enjoy the occasional company of a friendly shopkeeper (Maurice Moscovitch), but Lucy is all alone and quickly gets on the nerves of her host family. The first hour of the picture is raw, realistic, and uncompromising, but before the shattering ending (bring a hankie or two to the couch), there’s a wonderful half-hour interlude that’s remarkably romantic, with the elderly couple expressing their love for and devotion to each other while basking in the kindness of strangers. Moore will prove to be a revelation to anyone who only knows him as Fred Astaire’s whiny sidekick in Swing Time, while Bondi, perhaps most recognizable as James Stewart’s mom in It’s a Wonderful Life, delivers a tremendous performance as the silently suffering matriarch. Leo McCarey deservedly won the Best Director Oscar for the same year’s screwball classic The Awful Truth, although he went on record to declare that Make Way for Tomorrow is his favorite of all his own films.

Movie: ★★★★

THE SHINING (1980). A Stanley Kubrick film for people who don’t especially care for Stanley Kubrick films, The Shining is the writer-director’s most accessible film, which explains why it’s more beloved among the masses than many of his greater works. Co-scripting with Diane Johnson, Kubrick basically takes the novel by Stephen King and molds it to his own liking, only keeping the central thrust intact: Hotel caretaker Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) slowly goes bonkers and tries to kill his family while stationed at a snowbound Colorado resort named the Overlook Hotel. Earning negative reviews from most of the major critics (including Kael, Maslin, Maltin, Siskel, and Ebert) at the time of its initial release, The Shining has since been reevaluated to such a massive degree that it’s now considered one of the all-time great horror flicks, a status that seems a tad generous. Nicholson’s at his most gonzo, but it works — this is despite the fact that, because of who inhabits the role, the character’s slowly developing mental breakdown isn’t remotely surprising but instead wholly expected. Overlook chef Dick Hallorann is practically the hero of the novel, so it’s a shame that Kubrick wastes the casting of Scatman Crothers in what’s now a tiny (and expendable) role. Crippling the overall film is a miscast Shelley Duvall, who’s so irksome as Torrance’s wife that it shifts the character dynamics to a startling degree (it was revealed decades after the fact that Kubrick basically terrorized her on the set, which explains the poor woman’s obvious discomfort). Still, the cinematography by John Alcott (who won an Oscar for Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon) is excellent, Kubrick maintains claustrophobic tension throughout, and the picture is malleable enough to have allowed multiple interpretations over the decades (including the specter of the slaughter of Native Americans in the country’s past).

Movie: ★★★