"Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give a Damn"- This Week in DVDs
Last week in This Week in DVDs we were taken to task for not mentioning the release of the 4-DVD Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2, something for which we humbly apologize. What doesn't call for the owning of a DVD player more than having every single great Warner Bros. cartoon available to watch 24/7? Is anyone going to say that about this week's "big" release, The Stepford Wives? We think not.
So in light of this week's being another crappy week in DVD releases (wait til next week! We're talking Buffy, Spike, Will Ferrell and David Brent -- could it BE any better?). We'd like to make amends by highlighting two classics now being released (or in one case "re-released"). Just how bad is it this week? We're talking the release of Starship Live. Yes, for those people looking to own a live performance of quite possibly the worst song in the history of music. But wait! There's more! We're also talking about DVD releases of live performances of Foghat, Grand Funk, and Iron Butterly. Well turn it up!
But first, let's mention the one new release worth taking a look at:
Before Sunset -- we really liked Before Sunrise, although we would have liked it better if the Ethan Hawke character didn't bug us so much (how could Julie Delpy fall for him? What about us?). We haven't seen this one, however, mainly because nothing says "rental" like a movie about two characters walking around talking all the time. Not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just that if we're gonna lay out 10 bucks to see some flick, we wanna see some blowin' up. Still, we hear this is a really good movie and we haven't had a good Gen-X angst flick in awhile. Also comes in a collection with Before Sunrise.
And now the big two after the jump --
The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection -- if you've never seen a Marx Brothers flick, get this. Now. That's an order.
This DVD features the movies the Brothers made with Paramount, films they made at the height of their power. This collection features some of the very best of the Marx Brothers, which means it's among the very best of anything you'll ever see. The five films featured include The Coconuts and Monkey Business, which are merely meh; Horse Feathers, which is slight but still hilarious; and the classics Animal Crackers ("Hooray for Capt. Spaulding") and Duck Soup ("Hail Freedonia!"). There are reasons people still know who the Marx Brothers are. How funny are these movies? Zeppo's in them and they're still hilarious.
Gone With the Wind Special Edition -- yep, it's all here: Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, the proverbial cast of thousands, and one fabulous set of drapes in one of the most famous movies ever made. The release of the special edition features a lot of those DVD goodies not found in the previous DVD release of GWTW, which goes to prove that if you don't buy a DVD of a movie, wait a year or two when another, "better" edition of it comes out. Included are several documentaries about the history of the film and bios of the two stars, Clark Gable (Rhett "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" Butler) and Vivian Leigh (Scarlett "I'll always have Tara" O'Hara). Also includes an interview with Olivia de Havilland (Melanie).
It goes without saying that Hollywood couldn't make a movie like this no matter how many computers they have spitting out CGI effects. In fact, we wonder what would happen if this movie were made today. Picture Gone With the Wind as a Jerry Bruckheimer movie starring Tom Cruise or Ben Affleck with lots of explosions and Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" playing in the background as Rhett carries Scarlett off to bed. Or picture it as a Mel Gibson movie starring Mel as Rhett and Danny Glover as his getting-too-old-for-this partner, Scarlett (like Mel is even interested in romance) in which the movie occasionally stops to show 10-minute sequences of Mel/Rhett being tortured. Or maybe picture it as a David Lynch flick in which Rhett and Ashleigh just might be the same person, or maybe Scarlett and Melanie are and if they are, what's up with their totally hot lesbian scene and the dancing midget? Quentin Tarantino? Uma Thurman plays Scarlett, some old tv actor from the '70s nobody remembers as Rhett, and Samuel L. as Pappy: Scarlett's lost Tara and she's pissed (features, of course, the coolest soundtrack of Civil War hits you've ever heard in your life). Steven Spielberg? To the swirling sounds of a John Williams' score, Scarlett realizes it's not Tara she longs for but just the love of her long lost father (or alien). Michael Moore? A controversial documentary raging against the corporate, industrial north’s war-mongering ways against the poor, rural, agrarian South. Wait til you see the soon-to-be-infamous Mathew Brady photo of Abe Lincoln looking stunned as he reads a children’s book right after hearing Fort Sumter was attacked.
Anyway, we kid -- Gone With the Wind is a great flick.