I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) + I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (2010) - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - Superb Anchor Bay Entertainment Blu-Ray (in spite of the utterly vile content of these two rape-revenge exploitation items).

Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada has released one of the best Blu-Rays in years - easily on a par with the best work from Criterion, Kino-Lorber and Arrow Films. That said, the films are both utterly vile. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE - the grotesque rape-revenge thriller spawned two - count 'em - TWO versions thirty years apart. Before examining the virtues, or lack thereof, with respect to the films themselves, a few words are in order to describe the added value features on this magnificently produced home entertainment offering.

The features on the disc containing Meir Zarchi's 1978 version are first-rate. I'd go so far as saying it has elements (mostly thanks to director Zarchi), which provide the kind of superbly detailed information that come very close to a mini film course in how a low budget exploitation movie is made.

Though there's a decent interview short entitled "The Values of Vengeance: Meir Zarchi Remembers I Spit On Your Grave", the real treat on this disc is director Meir Zarchi's commentary track. It's intelligent, erudite and insanely detailed (he even discusses what specific lenses were used for some shots). This is worth its weight in gold for any aspiring filmmakers on the verge of making their own first feature films with no money. (I speak from experience as one of Canada's most prolific producers of no-to-low-budget feature films that there isn't anything of a practical nature in this commentary track I wouldn't advise myself.)

Zarchi clearly took the time to prepare this commentary track which most filmmakers NEVER do on these things. In spite of the film's Grade-B roots, I'd place Meir Zarchi's commentary track on the same pedestal as those delivered by Martin Scorsese and Norman Jewison.

There's a second audio commentary track available by the always entertaining Drive-In Movie Critic Joe Bob Briggs wherein the happy Texan offers plenty of tidbits about the making and exploitation of the film, but he also delivers a knee-slappingly funny critical assessment of the film which I can't disagree with, but happily, as funny as it often is, it doesn't have that smarmy, stupid, holier-than-thou tone of MST3K. One doesn't get the sense he's making fun of the film or the filmmaking, but just making amusing observations which I'd reckon Zarchi himself would get a few chuckles over.

The funniest thing about Joe Bob's commentary is his "investigatory" approach to the film which is to try and answer the question: "Is this a feminist film, a female empowerment film or is it just plain misogynistic?" Damned if his observations aren't astute (twixt the laughs he gets, of course).

In addition to the aforementioned delights, the disc is packed with a ridiculous amount of period promo material and the transfer is gorgeous enough to say that the movie has probably never looked this good (and some might argue, it shouldn't look this good).

There are a bevy of extras on the I Spit On Your Grave 2010 disc including a director commentary, making of doc, deleted scenes and promo materials which will possibly tantalize those who like the remake.

The I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE 1978 + 2010 Double Feature Blu-Ray is available from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada. My rating for the BLU-RAY ONLY is ***** 5-Stars.

And now, separate reviews of each film:

I Spit On Your Grave (1978)
Dir. Meir Zarchi
Starring: Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor,
Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols, Gunter Kleemann

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Preface: A Note To Roger Ebert

"A vile bag of garbage named I Spit on Your Grave is . . . so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it's playing in respectable theaters. Attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life . . . This is a film without a shred of artistic distinction. It lacks even simple craftsmanship. There is no possible motive for exhibiting it, other than the totally cynical hope that it might make money . . . It is a geek show." - Roger Ebert, 1980

Give it a rest, Roger. Yes, it's vile beyond belief and yes, it's replete with creative elements of dubious merit, but I suppose what you could not have possibly realized back then was the film's impact and place in the history of American genre filmmaking and how prescient it was in terms of the even more reprehensible torture-porn garbage generated during the new millennium. Astonishingly, your review of its 2010 remake seems almost charitable. Yes, you still found it reprehensible, but for what it's worth, you grudgingly allowed it a few points within the realm of craft. Here's the deal though, Roger, I'd argue that there are artistic elements in the 1978 version which, in spite of its lack of polish are surprisingly powerful and far less exploitative than the bigger budgeted remake.

The bottom line is that until I recently re-watched the 1978 version, I pretty much felt the same way you did. That said, my memories of it were relegated to an early 80s screening on a crappy VHS transfer and if I don't mind admitting, I've actually changed my mind about it. I'm not saying I think it's an exceptional work, BUT it is not without merit and I suspect you might also come to a similar conclusion.

Ah, but what am I talking to you about it for? You're dead.

I wish you weren't.

I wish we could have had a chance to discuss both the original and the remake of I Spit On Your Grave and to do so within the context of the genuinely great work of Russ Meyer, whom you wrote a great screenplay for, whom you ghost-wrote a lot of other cool stuff for and who, by your own admission was a filmmaker that presented lurid depictions of violence against women, but always within a context which rose far above the exploitative nature of the work. This is something I've never forgotten - that kind gesture you paid a tubby nerd from Winnipeg over 25 years ago when you took me for a coffee and donut so we could talk strictly about Russ Meyer. You said to me when we parted company, "Never, ever be ashamed to admit how much you love Russ Meyer."

And you know what, Roger? I'm not saying the 1978 I Spit On Your Grave is even a pubic hair's worthy of comparison to Russ Meyer, but I do believe it's worth a rethink and definitely a conversation over a donut and coffee.

Maybe we'll do that when I get to the other side.

The Review:

The famous poster for I Spit On Your Grave reads as follows:

This woman has just cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition... but no jury in America would ever convict her!

It lies. No man is "burned" during the film, but most notably, four men, not five are "cut, chopped [and] broken." I am sure you're grateful to me for pointing out that minor discrepancy. However, four or five men, burned or not, the fact remains that the poster tells you pretty much everything you need to know.

The picture is 100 minutes long. The first 20 minutes is some excruciatingly boring exposition which could have taken five minutes. It reveals that Jennifer (Camille Keaton, who starred in a number of notable Italian exploitation films prior to this one) is a writer from New York who rents a country home in Connecticut to write a novel. Four scumbag layabouts from town (Eron Tabor, Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols, Gunter Kleemann) discuss women in a crude fashion and assume the gal in town will have sex with them because she's from New York and all women from New York want to do is, uh, fuck. Then we get 30 minutes of the four men graphically gang-raping her, 20 boring minutes of our gal recovering and then, the cherry on the sundae comes by way of 30 lip-smacking minutes of graphically violent revenge.

There you go. That's about it.

The levels of incompetence and padding in this movie are at a Grade-Z level. One of the most moronic moments occurs when our lads leave the lady alone in the house, walk down to the river, come close to boarding their boat and then decide she needs to be murdered. So, what do they do? They insist the mentally retarded grocery delivery boy go back to the house and kill her. This particular fellow has proven to be completely unreliable in all things, so why in the name of God are the inbreds sending him to do it? Why are these inbreds just standing around by the river as the retard, with clear trepidation, goes all the way back to the house? Why, after the retard can't bring himself to kill her and smears the tiniest bit of her blood on the blade, do the inbreds take this as proof he's committed the murder? I think I've answered these questions by repeatedly using the word "inbreds" to describe the characters.

So, you're probably wondering how I could possibly have had a change of heart about this movie, no matter how small this shift might be. Here's the deal:

1. The level of savagery during the rape scenes is so horrendous because of the manner in which Zarchi chooses to shoot them. Most of the time these attacks are clearly portrayed as vicious acts of violence and often from Jennifer's POV. There's nothing "sexy" here. She's bruised, battered, cut, bleeding, covered in mud while a lot of emphasis is placed on the mens' grotesque leers there's an even more inordinately sickening number of wide shots allowing us seemingly endless views of hairy, pock-marked buttocks as they pound away viciously. This goes for all the sequences involving Jennifer's attempts to escape in the woods and swamps around the location; the pain and discomfort seems real and palpable and there's an almost vérité approach to all the aforementioned sequences. There's nothing slick about the approach - so much so that if you didn't know you were watching a narrative feature drama, you might think you were seeing the real thing. Some might rightfully question the necessity of this, but there's no denying that Zarchi is doing this with the "best" intentions - to sicken and horrify. Are there sick-fucks out there who'd get off on it? Sure, but there are sick-fucks who get off on a lot of things. I can't imagine any sane individual finding this less than sheer horror.

2. Though there is camera work of either dubious quality or of a perfunctory nature, there are an equal number of shots in the film which suggests a real filmmaker is behind the lens (the odd rear-view crotch-shots in the boat are especially insane/brilliant).

3. The location sound is often dreadful, though I think the "naturalistic" use of it plays into a lot of the film's vérité shooting style. Most notably, there is no musical score. Nothing save for the "naturalistic" sounds are used. A score would have, in fact, heightened the exploitative potential of the film, in particular the rape scenes. Zarchi focuses upon the true horror of the "action" without musical enhancement. The only music I recall hearing in the whole movie is the horrendous MUZAK in the local grocery store.

4. Camille Keaton's performance is genuinely a great one. It's brave, raw and so often achieves emotion with both her physicality and her alternately large and subtle responses/reactions. The camera loves her and she is very obviously a gifted actress. No matter what anyone might say to the contrary, I actually can't help but think that her very real and vulnerable work here might have been the very thing to keep her from moving forward in much bigger, more deserving ways. If there's anything dreadful about this movie's existence, this might actually be it.

One could successfully argue that Zarchi has front-loaded the film with sickening sexual depravity so he could dramatically justify an audience's cheers when Jennifer exacts her revenge upon the rapists. On top of this, Jennifer uses her sexuality to bait each of the men into vulnerable positions for her to kill them. The level of savagery and violence she employs once she's entrapped them is jaw-dropping. One is hanged, another axed, another butchered with the blades of an outboard motor and perhaps most gruelling of all, a graphic bloody castration followed by a slow agonizing death in a bathtub. Again, there's potential to argue how sick-minded this all is, but I think it's more than possible to make a convincing case that Jennifer turning the tables on her attackers by exploiting their boneheaded single-minded sexist/misogynistic stupidity is not only thought-provoking, but I daresay an attempt at intelligent storytelling.

Provocation, however, is probably the most notable keyword to describe every aspect of the film.

Whichever way one looks at it, the fact remains that it's a film of real power in exposing the baser instincts of men and mankind. This is the true horror. The picture is no mere incompetent rape/revenge snuff film. It has a filmmaker with a voice (albeit tainted by the very budget-challenged nature of the production). In fact, Zarchi's background in corporate filmmaking no doubt allowed him to approach this material with a very clear vision to its vérité elements. He might not be a good screenwriter (given some of the more ludicrous holes, motivations and dialogue we're forced to stumble over), but he is not a director to be dismissed.

Ebert might have been right in calling it a "geek show" though. There's simply no denying that watching I Spit On Your Grave is as sickening as seeing a circus geek (often mentally challenged and/or an alcoholic) chasing after live chickens, only to eventually bite the head off of one of them for the edification of a sideshow mob. The act of watching is as vile as what we are watching. In this sense, the movie is imbued with a certain purity, if you will, in its 100 minutes of unremitting brutality.

THE FILM CORNER RATING:
*** 3-Stars, with obvious caveats as outlined above

I Spit On Your Grave (2010)
Dir. Steven R. Monroe
Starring: Sarah Butler, Daniel Franzese, Jeff Branson,
Rodney Eastman, Tracey Walter, Andrew Howard and Chad Lindberg

Review By Greg Klymkiw

During the question and answer session following the 2010 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival screening of his remake of Meir Zarchi's somewhat inept 1978 scumbag movie of the same name, director Steven R. Monroe responded to queries from the moderator and audience with a degree of humility and sensitivity that one wouldn't expect from a filmmaker who had just served up an extremely well-crafted 107 minutes of gang rape followed by torture-porn styled revenge.

Given the controversial nature of the picture he was asked if there were any crew members who walked off the film due to the extreme subject matter. He then referred to some "idiot" on the local Shreveport, Louisiana crew with a "drinking problem" who up and disappeared, but that nobody else abandoned the proceedings and certainly not due to the graphic recreation of various indignities perpetrated against virtually every character in the movie.

Monroe, for some reason, was bemused to relate this story about the "idiot" and perhaps it was because he thought it was funny or infused with irony. All it was infused with, frankly, was considerable insensitivity towards a fellow human being who might well be an alcoholic and as such, is/was suffering from a horrible, debilitating disease that should inspire empathy at the very least and certainly not derision.

I honestly couldn't figure out why Monroe chose to relate this anecdote with a goofy grin accompanied by a bit of nervous laughter, but it came close to tempering my response to the movie - which was already not all that positive to begin with. I girded my loins prior to writing this piece and tossed it off as perhaps nervousness and/or being thrown by the question.

Ultimately though, it reminded me what a danger it is to art when an artist comes across one way while publicly discussing their work and then foolishly and/or mistakenly throws something out that contradicts his initial feelings towards the work he's created. All of Monroe's attempts to deflect the notion that he was exploiting sexual violence for the edification of scumbags became so much dust in the wind.

So, does the film exploit sexual violence? Of course it does. In all fairness, however, all movies - to varying degrees - are exploitation. One manipulates and exploits in order to derive an audience response, so I'm not going to level any ill will towards the notion of exploitation in the movies, since this is the job of filmmakers - every last one of them (whether they want to believe and/or admit it or not).

That said, I did wonder, just as I wondered when I first saw Meir Zarchi's original 1978 rendering of this tale what, exactly, was the point of this movie? At the time I thought Zarchi's picture was so dreadful, one could barely consider it anything other than a disgusting pile of crap thrown together to give a bunch of sick fucks their jollies. BUT, whatever you want to say about the 1978 version, Meir Zarchi's movie IS what it IS.

Monroe's is a bit more problematic - especially because it is very well made. In spite of Monroe's craft and that of his key creatives and actors, I still am not sure why the movie exists other than to make a buck off of revelling in the suffering of its characters.

That, I suppose, is the only point. One can try to justify it on a moral or political level - but that's all it would be, justification. I say, let's just call a spade a spade without condemnation. The movie is there simply to shock and titillate. End of story.

And, speaking of story, such as it is, the movie (for those who've been on Mars) is about a woman who seeks solace in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, gets gang-raped and then gets the most gruesome, satisfying revenge. There you have it. There not much more to it than that.

Does it do its job well?

Extremely.

There really isn't a single bad performance in the movie. Each actor playing the rapists is suitably and believably vile and reprehensible. The performance of Sarah Butler as the female victim is certainly brave and delivered with complete professionalism. I will admit, though, it was hard to buy her as a professional novelist since she carried herself with the air of a young freelance magazine journalist trying her hand at writing a novel. That might have been more "realistic", but the filmmakers chose a more implausible role for its heroine.

I will not even begin to suggest that the gang-rape is handled with any sort of sensitivity, but it is definitely presented in the most horrific, graphic fashion and seldom does the extended sequence resort to inspiring (or even attempting to inspire) hard-ons amongst the fellas in the audience (thank Heaven for tender mercies). Monroe shoots the rape in a way that pretty much forces an audience to react as it did - with cheers and hoots of approval when the rape victim eventually gets back at her violators in the most grotesque, nasty, painful ways. I should, perhaps also mention that just because the gang-rape is not shot with the intent to titillate, chances are good that with certain segments of the audience, it will.

So, if you've a desire to see:

(a) a man forced to watch a video monitor with fish hooks keeping his eyelids open whilst fresh fish guts, thrown in his open mutilated eyes, inspire crows to peck his eyeballs out;

(b) a man drowned in a tub full of lye until his head and face are rendered to a pulpy mass;

(c) a man castrated and forced to choke to death on his own testicles and penis;

(d) a man repeatedly sodomized with a shot gun which then goes off, the bullet plunging through his anus, out his mouth and hitting yet another rapist in the head;

then this, ladies and gentlemen, is the movie for you.

In a weird way, though, the movie's high level of craft makes it far more egregious than Meir Zarchi's 1978 version. Zarchi came by his nadir of motion picture exploitation with a perverse honesty. This film, however, is all gussied up and as such, seems far more reprehensible.

F.I.S.T. - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Potential of Jewison/Eszterhas Union Epic Muted By Sly

F.I.S.T. (1978)
Dir. Norman Jewison
Scr. Joe Eszterhas & Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Rod Steiger, Peter Boyle, Melinda Dillon,
Cassie Yates, David Huffman, Kevin Conway, Tony Lo Bianco, Brian Dennehy

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Jimmy Hoffa still remains one of the most important and complex figures in the history of the labour movement in the United States. That he is also equally regarded as a thug merely adds to his legendary status. There have been a number of attempts in both feature films and television to tackle the story of Hoffa. Given the complexity of Hoffa's place in history, F.I.S.T. is still probably the best fictional representation of the former leader of the Teamster's Union in spite of being one of the most severely compromised.

With a story and screenplay by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct), F.I.S.T. had substantial buzz around it, not the least of which being its A-list class-act director Norman Jewison (In The Heat Of The Night). When Sylvester Stallone agreed to take on the lead role as his first major picture after the success of Rocky, excitement for the property shot up even higher.

Alas, Stallone, also a writer, decided he needed to Stallone-ify his role further and the Eszterhas screenplay was completely reworked by Sly - mostly in terms of giving him more Hell's Kitchen-like dialogue to mumble and drool through. Perhaps Stallone's most annoying contributions included beefing up the courtship and romance scenes with a level of cuteness involving wifey-to-be (Melinda Dillon) that bordered on intolerable.

Worse yet, the final third of the film is a lopsided mess with Stallone's thinly-disguised rendering of Hoffa wavering between heroic and villainous (makes sense, but it's not given enough time and balance) as well as racing to a fairly abrupt and unsatisfying ending. This inconclusive messiness has all the hallmarks of its star meddling with the screenplay to downplay the character's villainy and hence, muting the film's complexity.

This is too bad, because much of the picture, especially the sumptuous period detail, the astonishing cinematography of László Kovács, the terrific cutting of Graeme Clifford (when he's not having to battle the more lacklustre script elements delivered by Stallone), Bill Conti's rousing traditional score, a magnificent supporting cast (most notably Peter Boyle and Rod Steiger), Jewison's first-rate direction and even aspects of Stallone's performance are all indeed fine.

Closely following the Hoffa story, the film introduces us to Sly as Johnny Kovak a working stiff in a major Cleveland distribution warehouse where the working conditions are becoming increasingly egregious. Upon being duped by the company ownership, he begins to organize the men and a series of violent encounters rear their ugly head. Eventually Stallone is offered a job rustling up new members for the Teamster-like "Federation of Interstate Truckers" (hence the F.I.S.T. acronym) and he begins to rise up through the ranks quickly and powerfully, butting heads with deadwood in the upper echelons of the Union and finally, cutting deals with the Mob to solidify the power of the union. Along the way, his youthful ideals go out the window and he finds himself being investigated by various powers-that-be.

So much of this is stirring, compelling stuff that it's a shame we have to put up with a weird combination of Rocky-like cutesy-pie nonsense and an unsatisfying need to put far more emphasis on the "heroic" aspects of the Johnny Kovack character in the final third as opposed to creating a genuinely super-charged, almost schizophrenic quality to his personality and actions. Instead of a satisfying Godfather-like denouement, we're handed an emotional and dramatic mishmash.

In spite of these open wounds, F.I.S.T. remains - partially by default and partially because it earns it - the best film about the Hoffa phenomenon to date.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

F.I.S.T. is available on Kino-Lorber Blu-Ray with and excellent short documentary about the making of the film entitled "The Fight For F.I.S.T." which focuses upon the rivalry between screenwriter Joe Eszterhas and Stallone's insistence that he rewrite a great script to "Balboa-ize" it. Includes interviews with Jewison and Eszterhas.

GREASE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Iconic 70s Homage to the 50s from Hit Play an Exercise in Futility.

Do you detect the aroma of our love?

Grease (1978) dir. Randall Kleiser **
Starring: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Didi Conn

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I hate this movie. I have always hated this movie. I will always hate this movie. In fact, the only reason I feel compelled to give it a two-star rating is that virtually everyone else in the world seems to think it’s worthy of slavish devotion. (I’m tempted to say “hopeless devotion”, but refuse, ultimately, to succumb for fear of morphing into Gene Shalit or worse, Peter Travers.)

So why, you might ask, is this innocuous tuft of powder puff worthy of my hatred? First and foremost, it paints a bone-headedly sun-dappled portrait of 50s America – a period so rich in contradiction and darkness just below the thin surface of light, that I find it impossible to stomach the pure nostalgic fakery. Call it curmudgeonly, but even upon its first release, I responded to the picture with the same kind of jaded contempt that (at the time) made me cringe when I first saw Star Wars a year earlier. In retrospect and with the benefit of several helpings since that time, including the new Blu-Ray release, Grease, like Star Wars, sits there in cinema history – a perfect Easter Island-like moai of how, by whom, where, when and why movies started to go seriously awry and led to a decade (the 80s) that was replete with some of the most mind-numbingly empty movies of all time. Even ace film critic Pauline Kael abandoned the lively sexually-charged titles of her book collections of reviews and collectively titled her pieces during the early 80s as “State of the Art” – reflecting the soul-bereft technical proficiency and machine-tooled quality of the work during that period.

In tandem with the aforementioned, the second most important piece of ammunition for my derision is the simple fact that Grease is not especially well made. It’s definitely machine-tooled, but not in any aesthetically pleasing way.

While many of the songs are not without the melodic qualities that popular music needs, the delivery of said pieces vocally and visually is either insipidly competent at best and at worst, downright dull. Olivia Newton-John, while suitably Sandra-Dee-like in her performance as the blonde goody-two-shoes who falls for the greasy bad-boy played by John Travolta, delivers all her vocals with the same lifeless range that vaulted her to the top of the A.M. charts during one of the most tunefully-challenged periods of mainstream music. Travolta’s singing is marginally better in that he attempts to infuse his clumsy warbling with something resembling pizzazz. The supporting cast is in better voice – notably Stockard Channing who delivers (in spite of her obvious over-age and flabby thighs), a musical performance that has EXACTLY what a musical needs in terms of vocal delivery – she has a great voice and lots of character.

Worse yet are the dance numbers. Newton-John simply can’t dance and Travolta, who can, never really gets a chance to cut loose as in Saturday Night Fever and, in later years, Pulp Fiction. This is not necessarily ALWAYS the fault of the performers. Patricia Birch’s choreography is pretty run of the mill, but worse yet, Kleiser simply has no idea where to put his camera during these scenes. I normally have no problem with proscenium-styled theatrical choreography where the camera lets the performers do most of the work, however with Grease, many of the shots are really uninspiring and/or just plain slapdash and while the idiotic over-cutting that pastes them sloppily together is not quite as awful as in most contemporary musicals, it does signal the shape of things to come such as cutting to the beat and/or constantly punching in for unnecessary close-ups. (An excellent example of proscenium styled choreography that’s handled deliciously can be experienced in the Blu-ray release of Joshua Logan’s gorgeous and stunning South Pacific.)

At the end of the day, I have no problem with fluff if it’s first-rate, but Grease – after several viewings over the years – seems (at least to my eyes) lacking the kind of style and oomph one normally equates with great movie musicals. There’s also something vaguely detestable about the “Happy Days” quality to the nostalgia. George Lucas went back to 1962 with the brilliant American Graffiti, but the movie captures a time of change so that the fun and frolics have a true bittersweet quality to them. Grease captures not much of anything, save for some poorly shot, cut and choreographed musicals numbers purporting to capture a period that doesn’t seem to exist in any world save for the one belched up by Kleiser and his factory workers.

The Blu-Ray release of Grease is also a bit of a disappointment, too. Part of the problem is the source material since the movie is not especially well shot, but there also seems to be something not quite right about the transfer. After my considerable disappointment with the look of this Blu-Ray release, I compared the virtually identical DVD version. Surprisingly, the Blu-Ray disc doesn’t look much better than the up-rez that occurs when I play the DVD on the Blu-Ray player itself.

The extra features are the usual grab bag of fan-aimed nonsense. The “documentary” elements of the extras are not much more than publicity-styled puff pieces, the deleted scenes are only of use to die-hard fans and the sing-a-long feature feels oddly out of synch. (My little girl, who loves the movie and the music, switched off the sing-a-long feature and did her thing without it because the karaoke effect was just confusing.)

The real surprise and best thing about the Blu-Ray release is the excellent commentary track by Kleiser and Birch. For a bad movie, a dreadful director and an unexciting choreographer, they actually sound like intelligent people and some of the insights into the production are informative and entertaining – not enough, alas, to change my mind about the picture itself, though. Ah, the hell with it. Call me a wet blanket and enjoy!

Grease is available via Paramount Home Entertainment on Blu-Ray & DVD in a package titled “The Rockin’ Rydell Edition”.

PARAMOUNT GAME NIGHT COLLECTION - Baseball Films Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw: FEAR STRIKES OUT & Original BAD NEWS BEARS Homeruns, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY & MAJOR LEAGUE Ball Fours, HARD BALL, BAD NEWS BEARS sequels & remake all Strikeout.

It's the middle of a cold, dark winter.

Hockey is in full swing.

Baseball is a dim memory.

It seems as good an excuse as any to haul out the old Paramount Home Video nine-movie DVD box set entitled the Game Night Collection as a cinematic post-coital cigarette and pillow talk to the main event which occurred, it seems, so long ago.

Rating of Collection: **1/2
Ratings of Individual Films:
Fear Strikes Out (1957) dir. Robert Mulligan ****
Major League (1989) dir. David S. Ward **1/2
Hardball (2001) dir. Brian Robbins *
Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) dir. John D. Hancock **
Bad News Bears (1976) dir. Michael Ritchie ***1/2
Bad News Bears (2005) dir. Richard Linklater *1/2
Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) dir. Michael Pressman *
Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978) dir. John Berry *1/2

Review by Greg Klymkiw

As someone who has virtually no interest in sports I'm still a sucker for great American sports pictures since the addition of story, character, mise en scene and on occasion, pure big-screen hokum become a perfect substitute for watching the thing itself. It's a genre that can delve into that one area of sports I actually find fascinating - the WORLD of sports – that is, everything about and around the sport rather than the sport itself.

American cinema is, of course, overflowing with sporting activities as a backdrop, but it's probably safe to say that baseball and football are – by far – the most popular activities to Uncle Sam's worshippers. In the movies, if football is analogous to war as it so often is (think Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday as a great example), baseball occupies a somewhat loftier, though gentler metaphorical position than football – that of LIFE itself. Winning is nice, but how you play the game is just as, if not MORE important.

When this box set presented itself to me a few years ago, I was pretty excited since I had seen many of these films when I was a child and had fond memories of them. I was also looking forward to catching up with a few of the newer titles I had heretofore missed and to take a new look at a couple of the more recent offerings. Ploughing through the whole box, my initial hopes weren’t necessarily dashed, but the collection turned out to be a pretty mixed bag.

Happily, in all such sets, there’s usually one Crown Jewel in the mix and this box is no exception.

While I’ve always had happy halcyonic thoughts about Fear Strikes Out, this most recent viewing yielded one of those rare experiences wherein the benefits of age (mine and the film’s) allowed for a whole new appreciation of this masterpiece of the 1950s. The inspiring true story of Jimmy Piersall (Anthony Perkins), a star hitter, shortstop and outfielder for the Boston Red Sox who made it to the top with his insanely demanding, driven father (Karl Malden) goading him on, resulted in a highly public nervous breakdown. It's the stuff movies are made of and Fear Strikes Out delivers big-time.

The relationship between father and son often provides highly-charged drama, but as portrayed in this extraordinary movie, it chills to the bone with its portrait of a father pushing his son out of both love and selfishness to dizzying heights of fame on the surface, while deep-down, shoving his son into a deep, dark closet mired in fear and intimidation.

Karl Malden as Dad and Anthony Perkins as Jimmy electrify the screen with their searing, staggering performances. As horrendous as Dad is, Malden still infuses the character with a warmth and humanity that makes the character all the more recognizable to anyone who has experienced that special love-hate tug with their own father. Perkins, in a role pre-dating his turn as the nut-job in Hitchcock’s Psycho is equally extraordinary – careening wildly from the shy romantic young man with a dream to the psychologically battered and drained vegetable in a straight-jacket.

Fear Strikes Out is also noteworthy as one of seven terrific pictures from one of the great producer-director relationships in American cinema. As a team, Producer Alan J. Pakula and director Robert Mulligan always dared to take us on journeys few mainstream pictures were willing to take in the late 1950s to early 1960s. They tackled a wide variety of important social issues with taste, intelligence and most importantly, a fabulous sense of showmanship. The pictures they made together were as supremely entertaining as they were thought-provoking. If the team had only made Fear Strikes Out and their timeless adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, that would surely have been enough to secure them a place in motion picture history, but they kept on delivering.

It’s also interesting to mention how this creative relationship really points to the importance of producers with vision. Once this team split up, Mulligan kept directing pictures, but they were all a pale imitation of his collaborations with Pakula. Pakula, on the other hand began directing his own pictures during Mulligan’s decline. Pakula kept delivering and continued the legacy of creating masterworks (Klute, The Parallax View and All The President’s Men to name just a few) while Mulligan barfed up such celluloid chunks as Summer of ‘42, The Other, Same Time Next Year and sadly, those pieces of crap were his “watchable” pictures – try sitting through Mulligan's coat-hanger abortion upon Jason Miller's The Nickel Ride sometime. Sadly, the Fear Strikes Out DVD has absolutely no extra features, but it’s a solid transfer of a gorgeous-looking black and white picture and happily enhanced anamorphically. It's a movie worth owning and within the context of this box set, it shares (thankfully on a separate disc) a slim-line case with Bang The Drum Slowly.

The latter title, directed by the painfully bland John Hancock, is rendered TV-movie-style (visually) and the muted drama pretty much makes mincemeat out of Mark Harris’s lovely novel and screenplay. A young Robert DeNiro as a doomed simpleton ball player works hard to charm and touch us whilst Michael Moriarty as the pal who takes pity on him is equally moving.

Both actors make the film worth seeing, but the picture moves lugubriously, looks ugly, has little feel for capturing the joy of the ball fields, dugouts and dressing rooms and is saddled with a grating musical score.

There are no extras with Bang The Drum Slowly, but none are really required. As a point of comparison though, this set might have benefitted from including the live television adaptation from the 50s wherein scriptwriter Arnold (Tucker: The Man and His Dream) Schulman and director Daniel (A Raisin in the Sun, Fort Apache – The Bronx) Petrie blended the techniques of radio drama with live theatre and cinema (along with those of live television itself), thus rendering a perfect example of cusp-period artistic expression during the dawn of television as a medium that was worth extending far longer than it lived. Their challenge was to translate a tale that spanned two baseball seasons, numerous locations (including dugout action) and a huge cast during one live hour of drama. Ultimately, it’s handled with the kind of originality and efficiency that Hancock's 70s film version can't even begin to hold a candle to.

The other piece of bad news in this box set is a double-trouble double-header. Two separate discs sharing another slim line case are a pair of what might be the worst baseball pictures ever made: Hardball, a bile-inducing story of loser Keanu Reeves finding his inner-self while coaching a ragtag group of deprived inner-city kids to little league victory and Talent for the Dame, a dull-as-dishwater picture directed by the once talented (Alambrista, Short Eyes) Robert M. Young, who turned-into-no-talent-sell-out-hack. Starring an earnest ('nuff said) Edward James Olmos (‘nuff said) as a baseball scout who turns a small town simpleton ('nuff said) into a major leaguer ('nuff said), it's virtually unwatchable. Lorraine Bracco ('nuff said) is in it too. Christ, she has an annoying voice. Watching her in this picture, I’m absolutely stumped how Scorsese turned her into the beyond-palatable Henry Hill moll in Goodfellas. Here, she sounds like a frog with a firecracker going off in its butt. Talent For The Game, as it should be, has no extra features, but Hardball is inexplicably jam-packed with extra features including a pretty useless commentary track with the purported writer-director and a mess of glorified EPK junk.

Getting its own slimline case, the single disc of writer-director David S. Ward’s Major League, dubbed the “Wild Thing Edition”, is loaded with a variety of extra features including an okay commentary with Ward. If you liked George Roy Hill’s Slap Shot (and I most certainly do), you’ll probably manage to enjoy this raucous baseball version sans Hill’s directorial panache and Nancy Dowd’s brilliant dialogue. That said, Major League made me laugh quite a bit when I first saw it and coming back to the picture was like putting on a comfy old pair of slippers, managing quite ably to deliver the well-worn goods.

Rounding out the set are four different titles with the Bad News Bears. Sharing one slim-line case are two separate discs of the original Michael Ritchie comedy classic and the recent Richard Linklater remake. Ritchie’s picture from Bill Lancaster’s terrific script holds up so marvelously that one wonders why the remake was necessary – especially since it really doesn’t try to move into new territory like some good remakes actually can. (I like citing the first three versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers as an example of how this can work beautifully.) Ritchie’s original, stars the inimitable hang-dog schlub Walter Matthau as the drunken foul-mouthed lout who manages to coach an equally foul-mouthed group of kids to ball-diamond glory with the help of a foul-mouthed tweener, pitcher Tatum O’Neal and foul-mouthed little criminal on a motorcycle, a very young Jackie Earle Haley. It’s a wonderful picture – both funny and moving. Linklater’s remake is not only necessary, but thanks to Lancaster’s script (which remains largely intact) and Billy Bob Thornton who is surprisingly good in Matthau’s role, it’s kind of watchable, but why bother when the original rocks big time and in its own way, hasn't really dated. Sadly, Ritchie’s classic has zero extras and Linklater’s ho-hum remake is jam-packed with extras.

The final offerings in this box are the 70s sequels to Ritchie’s original. On two separate discs in the same slim-line plastic case, you'll first find Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, a horrendously unfunny followup with few of the original cast on board and an utterly unappetizing William Devane making a poor replacement for Matthau. The other sequel, Bad News Bears Go To Japan, has a few laughs as the misfits find themselves in the land of the rising sun. Paramount wisely secured Bill Lancaster to write the script and they cast a very entertaining Tony Curtis in the coach role. Is it good? Not exactly, but it’s an okay time-waster and has a good number of ludicrous American-styled Japanophobic gags.

If you don’t own Fear Strikes Out, Major League and the original Bad News Bears and want to own all three of them, then it’s probably your best bet economically to pick up the box set. That said, I do hope Paramount Home Video gets its act together and issues some extras-loaded Blu-Rays of Fear Strikes Out and Ritchie’s Bad News Bears. That would be manna from Heaven.

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