by Scott Wallace Brown
Scott Wallace Brown, of Baltimore's award-winning and acclaimed Video Americain, compiled a list of his top 10 favorite DVD events of 2008. (In no particular order...)
THE ATOMIC CAFÉ: THE COLLECTOR’S EDITION (Docurama)
How many times have you sat through a screening of the 1982 documentary The Atomic Café and said to yourself, “Gee, if only I could watch the full-length versions of these vintage civil-defense and cold-war-paranoia films, rather than the short excerpts presented here”?
You haven’t?
Well, I guess that means I’m the only person you know who’ll be acquiring the collector’s edition of this epochal film. The second disc contains the complete versions of ten of these classic shorts. Of course the full-length (nine-minute) version of Duck and Cover (starring Bert the Turtle) is the highlight.
A COLBERT CHRISTMAS: THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL! (Comedy Central/Paramount)
Most of you have surely seen this special already, but the DVD extras make the purchase worthwhile: the bizarre alternate endings, the surreal “advent calendar,” and the video Yule log of burning books, which, although only running 20 minutes, will play indefinitely… so far. An eternal flame indeed.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS (Rhino)
You probably haven’t seen Stains since you saw it on Night Flight back in the 80s. Well, it’s as good as you remember—maybe even better. In case you haven’t encountered this near-classic, it concerns the then-extremely young Diane Lane and Laura Dern forming an all-girl punk band and going on a strange tour with a glam band AND a punk band. Other cast members include a young Ray Winstone as the singer of the punk band (backed by Paul Simonon, Steve Jones and Paul Cook) and Fee Waybill (of the Tubes) as the leader of the has-been glam rockers. Time to throw out your hazy old VHS bootleg! (Unless it has one of the possibly-apocryphal alternate endings, none of which are included on this DVD.)
VAMPYR (Criterion)
I tried to limit myself to one Criterion title, since one could easily compile a Top Ten list of Criterion DVDs released this year. About ten years ago, a restored print of this epochal early-sound horror film finally appeared (finally replacing the hazy prints some of us were lucky enough to see at film societies and in school). But this double-disc set brings us the newly-restored English-language version as well, plus Criterion’s usual lavish packaging and extensive exclusive bonus content. Expensive, but worth it.
THE DELIRIOUS FICTIONS OF WILLIAM KLEIN (Eclipse)
(Okay, l cheated a bit; Eclipse is a sublabel of Criterion.)
American expatriate photographer Klein popped off two winners in a row with his first two feature film projects: Who Are You, Polly Maggoo, an incisive satire of the fashion industry of the 1960s (with an insider’s perspective), and Mister Freedom, a superhero lampoon-cum-critique of American imperialism. None of the films in this collection (which also includes Klein’s 1970s film A Model Couple) have been seen widely in the US since their release, so this is, in a sense, a homecoming for William Klein.
GET SMART: SEASON 1 (HBO)
Now, instead of being forced to purchase the pricey mail-order-only box set of the complete series of Get Smart, you can begin to acquire the seasons individually. (A free-standing set of the second season will be released in the spring.) Though it doesn’t have the special-features bonus disc included in the lavish TimeLife box, two-dozen-plus episodes at a reasonable price make up for that. (As my thrifty pal Dave Cawley would say, “That works out to about a dollar per episode!”)
FOX HORROR CLASSICS COLLECTION, VOLUME 2 (20th Century Fox)
Included here primarily for the nicely-restored version of the little-known Dr. Renault’s Secret, an extremely unsettling and unheralded mad-scientist shocker from 1942. George Zucco plays (surprise) the nutty doctor, and a sympathetic J. Carrol Naish is his half-man, half-ape experiment. Also in this set: a young Vincent Price in Dragonwyck, and the feature-film version of the Bela Lugosi serial Chandu the Magician.
DARK SHADOWS: THE BEGINNING, VOLUME 6 (MPI)
MPI finishes its meticulous re-release of the early pre-Barnabas Collins episodes (1966-67) of the goth soap opera with this four-disc set, which concludes with the introduction of Barnabas. I’ve always felt that the shoddy production values of Dark Shadows, combined with the primitive, ultra-cheap black-and-white videography, make the early episodes of this show quite creepy indeed.
THE JOHNNY CASH CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 1979 (Shout! Factory)
This is the fourth of Johnny’s annual down-home Yule celebrations to be released on DVD by Shout! Factory (virtually everything this company releases is worthwhile, by the way). While they’re all a bit spotty in a 1970s-variety-special kinda way, the presence of Tom T. Hall and Andy Kaufman on the same stage gives this an edge over its predecessors.
TOUCH OF EVIL: 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Universal)
Let the nerds continue their online debate regarding the correct aspect ratios; what’s most important is that this edition of Touch of Evil gives you, the home viewer, the opportunity (if you so desire) to peruse the entire history of this mangled and maligned classic. While there is certainly more material here than the average viewer requires (who but the supergeeks will really watch all three versions of the film?), most everyone with any interest in Welles will enjoy leafing through all the content (literally so, in the case of the exact reproduction of Orson’s infamous 58-page memo to Universal regarding the butchering of the film).
For years, buffs have debated whether Touch of Evil is actually Welles’ true masterpiece, superior even to Kane and Ambersons; the point is moot, since this discussion obscures the fact that Touch is actually a masterpiece of pulp noir, both belying and proudly showing its origins in a hack paperback potboiler called Badge of Evil. Like The Night of the Hunter, it’s one of the best examples of a mediocre novel being transformed into a great movie.
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Over the next several weeks, we will be regularly posting Year End Wrap Up lists from our friends, readers, and regular Shank contributors. So please stay tuned...
I can't believe I forgot Stains! Great work!
Posted by: Mike White | January 15, 2009 at 12:26 PM