Some essential stuff today.
The TV highlight of the week is definitely the third, short and final season of the lamented Arrested Development, destined to be one of the great sitcoms of all time. If you haven’t worked your way through the series yet, now you can.
Also of note is the appearance of the brilliant cartoon series The Tick (as opposed to the short-lived live-action series based on the same character, also available on DVD). Sadly, apparently some episodes are missing due to rights issues.
Meanwhile, there’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 Set 10 (Godzilla vs. Megalon, Swamp Women, Teen-Age Strangler, and The Giant Spider Invasion)
Other TV shows this week:
[‘S’ = Season; ‘TCS’ = The Complete Series]Andy Griffith Show S7; Astro Boy Set 2; Blackstar: TCS; Desperate Housewives S2; Ellen S4; Nip/Tuck S3; Stephen King’s Desperation; The Tick 10th Anniversary Edition; Will & Grace S5
In movies, this week sees one of the major releases of the year as all-time Jabootu favorite The Brainiac (El Baron del Terror) hits DVD via the exceedingly fine folks at CasaNegra, a new line releasing eye-poppingly remastered Spanish horror films in their original language. The company’s two previously releases also included the hilarious K. Gordon Murray English dubs, and I can only fervently hope that’s the case here too. In any case, there is a commentary track and other goodies. Seriously, at around $13, you can’t afford not to own this disc.
CasaNegra also releases The Black Pit of Dr. M today.
Lot’s of stuff for ’80s nostalgia freaks today, including special editions of Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink. (What, no Breakfast Club?) Meanwhile, the “dancers escape from the Soviet Union” action / dance flick White Nights gets a SE too, and features some great moves by stars Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The Wizard is a video game movie about, uh, two young kids traveling cross country to play at a Nitendo video game contest. (Yes, really.) Stars Fred Savage, Beau Bridges and Christian Slater. They don’t make ’em like that, anymore. Also out is the Betty Russell skin flick / romantic comedy Tomboy, fondly remembered by many guys from this period. You can add that to the recently released My Tutor and My Chauffer.
Anonymous Rex is a TV adapation of a book series featuring surviving human-sized dinosaurs in hiding from us humans via holographic projectors and disguises (really), merged with noir-ish private detective stories. Stars Daniel Baldwin, Faye Dunaway (We’ve come a long way from Chinatown, huh, Faye?) and Isaac Hayes.
Chuck Norris Collection (Delta Force 1 & 2, Missing in Action 1, Missing in Action 2&3)
Crypt of Terror: Night of the Bloody Apes/Curse of the Doll People Nice transfers of two Mexican horror flicks, the first as reviewed at Jabootu.
Double Indemnity SE: The Noir classic.
Galaxina: The last film of the murdered playmate Dorothy “Star 80” Stratten, a sci-fi comedy co-starring Avery Schreiber.
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is a well-regarded ’70s suspenser.
Maximum Action: 9 Deaths of the Ninja/Killpoint Budget double bill of two memorably cheesy flicks.
Savage Cinema from Down Under (Marauders; Defenceless; Sensitive New Age Killer): Supposedly for the strong of stomach, three intense Australian thrillers.
Shock: ’40s suspense stuff starring Vincent Price, and thus worth seeing.
Starlite Drive-In Theater: Malibu High/The Virgin Queen of St. Francis High BCI, a DVD company with a reputation for bad-looking DVDs, seems to be recasting itself. They are releasing tons of old movies with better transfers, and have started several lines of budget double bills to do so. The Crypt of Terror and Maximum Action lines noted above are also theirs. From the IMDB description, Malibu High really sounds like something.
This Island Earth: Fun ’50s sci-fi extravaganza, that introduced “The Mutant,” a favorite amongst fans of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.
