Who’s Minding the Store: 29 May, 2007

By
/ 28 May 2007

Ouch! It’s a bad week for first run DVD product. Wanna know just how awful it is? After sifting through several lists, SE&L had to suggest two titles on the current Tuesday breakdown that it knows, for sure, are absolute cinematic dogs. Naturally, they’re both half-baked horror movies, one of which purports to explain how a certain cannibalistic doctor became a flesh feasting madman. Right, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning successfully did the same thing for some guy in a skin mask. In truth, there are a couple of tantalizing choices here – a chopsocky epic based on an idea from kung fu icon Bruce Lee, a double dose of Asian adolescent atrocities, and an insightful look at one of the UK’s most infamous artists. But with summer officially starting and the local Cineplex rocking with popcorn possibilities, home theater has no hope of keeping up – not as long as they keep their release schedule as underwhelming as the one for 29 May:

Hannibal Rising

Let’s settle this once and for all – prequels DO NOT WORK! Ask Butch and Sundance. Ask Leatherface and his brood. Heck, ask the king of craptacular prologues, George Lucas. There is just something inherently impossible about matching a previously well known character’s present persona with the manner in which it was formulated. Now Thomas Harris destroys all lingering literary prestige (what little he had) with this undeniably awful Lecter illogic. Helmed with a lack of filmmaking flair by Peter Webber, we learn early on that this will not be our standard slasher endeavor. Trying desperately to make young Hannibal’s lot mirror the devastation of Europe at the hands of the Nazis, this self-important slop can’t decide if it’s a character study or a craven carve up. The answer is obvious. It’s neither. It’s the continued milking of an already tapped out horror movie franchise. How this concept went from Oscar to ungodly stands as a clear case of Hollywood hubris.

Other Titles of Interest

Battle Royale I & II

No other nation expresses its inner fears and sense of social confusion better than the Japanese. Here, out of control teens are placed on a deserted island and given a simple mandate – kill each other via any means necessary. Bloody, brave and quite brash, this clear commentary on the death of tradition stands as one of Kinji Fukasaka’s best cinematic statements.

Circle of Iron

Before his untimely death at age 33, Bruce Lee dreamed of bringing this epic meditation on Zen and the Art of Butt Kicking to the big screen. Five years posthumous, friends and well wishers more or less realized his goals. Those used to the lightning fast concepts of post-Matrix wire-fu may be unimpressed by the martial artistry on display, but there is more to this movie than flying fists and roundhouse kicks.

Heavy Petting: Special Edition

Back before DVD made such items of interest available to the general public, comic compilations like these brought the world of weird educational films to wistful film fans everywhere. The focus this time is on sex and personal hygiene, elements that go together to confuse and corrupt the youth of a nation. With guest commentators like ex-Talking Head David Byrne and musician/performance artist Laurie Anderson. div>

The Katharine Hepburn Collection

Not exactly the greatest compilation of this actresses’ fine work, you’ll still find a couple of concrete gems (Morning Glory, Sylvia Scarlett) amongst the other unknown entities present. The real rarity, however, is Ms. Hepburn’s 1979 TV turn as a determined teacher in The Corn is Green. It argued for the voracious viability of this legend’s terrific talent, even some 60 years after her initial start in show business

The Naked Civil Servant

John Hurt is Quentin Crisp, the famed gay writer and ebullient bon vivant in this, the author’s own eccentric autobiography. Though never fully appreciated in his lifetime, the elder statesman of British homosexuality consistently challenged convention as he tried to navigate his way through a world filled with prejudice and intolerance. This is a funny, sad, and very moving film.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Drive Thru

Fast Food may indeed be the work of the Devil, but once you’ve sat through Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn’s ode to refusing fries with that, you’ll definitely reconsider your trans-fat tendencies. Apparently, the owner of a local California snack shack franchise known as Hella-Burger has a problem on his hands – his goofball mascot, something called “Horny the Clown”, has turned into a sinister serial killer. Oddly enough, he is targeting the offspring of the ‘70s teens who accidentally murdered his son. Sound familiar? That’s because our filmmakers shot their wad on making Horny into something truly terrifying. As a result, they had to borrow plot points from better movie macabre. This makes everything else here seem redundant and ridiculous. Unless you need to experience every variation on the slice and dice genre ever conceived, your best bet is to skip this unhappy meal.