Bogdanovich classics return as DVD picture show
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
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| "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," starring Hilary Duff, is among the recent theatrical releases now available on DVD.
Walt Disney Pictures |
His first was 1968's "Targets," a low-budget, expertly made tribute to American International's horror films and to Boris Karloff, who starred.
He followed that with a bona fide great movie, 1971's "The Last Picture Show," and seemed to be off to the races.
Bogdanovich's great screwball comedy "What's Up, Doc?" (1972) was released last month on DVD, and now Paramount has released "Targets," 1973's "Paper Moon" and 1974's "Daisy Miller."
Shot, like "Picture Show," in gorgeous black and white, "Paper Moon" brings back "Doc's" Ryan O'Neal. He plays a Bible-sales con man in Depression-era Kansas who gets talked into delivering the daughter (Tatum O'Neal) of a late girlfriend to an aunt in Missouri; Madeline Kahn, who almost stole the show in "Doc," comes along for part of the ride.
With Ryan's daughter Tatum, who was 9, becoming the youngest actor ever to win an Academy Award (for supporting actress), Bogdanovich seemed to be cut from the same cloth as Hawks, apparently able to get a good performance from anybody he put on screen.
He put that to the test with his next movie, "Daisy Miller," a handsome adaptation of a Henry James novel in which he cast his unprepared girlfriend Cybill Shepherd in the critical title role. It was a decision that sank the picture — and, in that fickle era, his career. He still makes the occasional mediocre movie, but he's best known as the shrink's shrink on "The Sopranos."
Bogdanovich, a born raconteur, provides commentary on all three discs, but the only extras of any significance, three making-of featurettes, are appropriately appended to "Paper Moon."
Recently unimpressive
None of the week's recent theatrical releases appear headed for the home library.
"The Lizzie McGuire Movie" (Walt Disney) sends Hilary Duff, star of the cable TV series, on an Italian adventure; "The Hunted" sends super-tracker Tommy Lee Jones into the wilderness to hunt for military assassin gone mad Benicio Del Toro.
"Cradle 2 the Grave" (Warner) sends kung-fu master Jet Li and hip-hop heist man DMX to the United States to bring a bad guy to justice. And "Head of State" (DreamWorks) sends Chris Rock to the White House to clean up that mess.
All contain filler masquerading as extras.
Best of Jet Li
If you really want to see Jet Li in his element, check out "Once Upon a Time in China Trilogy" (Columbia TriStar), which collects the best of the six-part Hong Kong martial arts-fantasy series.
"Once Upon a Time in China," from 1991, introduces Li as a 19th-century Chinese healer and folk hero who is recruited to assemble a kind of SWAT team to protect Canton from the encroaching American, British and French invaders.
The amazing finale pits him against a former teacher (Yan Yee Kwan) in one of those jaw-dropping, brilliantly choreographed fights that hooked North American audiences.
The 1992 "China II" and the 1993 "China III," like the original, are directed by Tsui Hark; neither has the compelling story line and audacity of the original, but the action is outstanding.
Moose and squirrel
A classic of a different sort gets celebrated in the four-disc boxed set "Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Complete Season 1" (Classic Media/Sony Wonder). It compiles, in chronological order, all 26 episodes of the Cold War adventures of
Bullwinkle Moose (voiced by creator Jay Ward's partner Bill Scott) and Rocket J. Squirrel (the great June Foray).
The cliff-hangers are interrupted by messages from the much-mocked sponsors and by hilarious segments such as "Fractured Fairy Tales," "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties" and "Mr. Peabody," the erudite canine inventor who traveled blithely through time in his Way-Back Machine to correct historical errors with help from his pet boy, Sherman.
It probably should be noted for historical accuracy that these episodes were originally aired in prime time as "The Bullwinkle Show" in 1961-62. They were preceded by an afternoon show called "Rocky and His Friends," for which some of these segments were originally made, until someone at ABC realized this was probably the hippest, most adult comedy on the network.
