“Jackie Gleason Television Treasures” (MPI DVD)
Image via MPI DVD
Jackie Gleason's Television Treasures
Jackie Gleason is remembered mostly for his role as Ralph Cramden, the frustrated bus driver and fulminating husband from “The Honeymooners.” But as the new DVD reminds us, he was a man of many talents. The two-disc set includes nearly six-hours of representative episodes from his long-running “Jackie Gleason Show” (“The Honeymooners were a regular show within the show).
The debut episode (1953) is fascinating, opening with an overhead take on a song-and-dance routine (think Busby Berkeley on a tight schedule) as well as Peggy Lee singing a dreamy ballad and Gleason’s stand-up comic routine. His timing and delivery are masterful. The show even goes “meta” when a supposed CBS programming director intrudes with ridiculous instructions for presenting music on television. Gleason looks on with mock contempt.
“The Honeymooners” is already present in episode one. Ralph and his wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) live in the shabby urban antithesis of the middle-class households of ‘50s television shows. They are childless, scraping by financially in a two-room flat with a view of the tenement across the alley. Ralph is a blustering big mouth—who puts his foot in often as not. No shrinking wallflower, Alice gives as good as she gets. They are always sparring but somehow love will keep them together. (David Luhrssen)
The Police Around the World (Mercury Studios Blu-ray/CD; DVD/CD)
“It’s time for the Number One band of the 1980s—The Police!” shouts the MC at the band’s Tokyo show. For a time, his boast held true as Police singles climbed the charts, and their albums went platinum.
The Police Around the World, documenting their 1979-1980 world tour, is a rock-star tourist home movie and a rock concert film. Interspersed with performance footage are such visual diversions as snippets of fan interviews in Australia and France, scenes of the band wandering crowded streets in Hong Kong and Bombay, visiting a Buddhist shrine in Japan and checking out the ruins in Greece. The Cairo gig turned out fine despite problems with getting their sound and lights through customs. The trio even performed together (credibly) on Indian instruments. One suspects they were trying at moments for a madcap Hard Day’s Night impact.
Back in the day, The Police Around the World was released on VHS and that visually brilliant but commercially failed format, the laserdisc. This first home release in many years is packaged with a CD of live recordings of the band’s early hits. (David Luhrssen)
Presagio (IndiePix DVD)
The psychiatrist listens impassively as Camilo relates his obsessive compulsions, his disturbing dreams—but he insists that some of those “dreams” are real, frighteningly real. Argentine director Matias Salins works inventively within the psychological horror genre with Presagio (2015). Camilo is a novelist with writer’s block—and while that’s not the only hint of The Shining, Salins pays his debt to Kubrick by entirely recontextualizing the mad author in his own compelling story. Camilo lost his wife in an accident, he says, and repeatedly replays her final voice message. His dreams are bad enough, but who is the barefoot figure in black, face hidden by an open umbrella, who stalks him? Is it the shadow cast by guilt and bitterness? Or …? (David Luhrssen)
White Elephant (Limited Theatrical Release and Streaming on AppleTV, June 3)
Bruce Willis portrays Arnold, a ruthless crime boss who orders a cop killed because she witnessed a mob assassination. Michael Rooker appears as Gabriel, an ex-marine hired by Arnold as his enforcer. Olga Kurylenko is cast as the cop Rooker is sent to kill, but he protects her instead, causing all Hell to break loose. John Malkovich shows up as a rival seeking to capitalize on Arnold’s situation.
Jesse V. Johnson co-wrote and directed this action yarn, one of Willis’s last films. Johnson, once a stuntman who has previously worked with Willis, told the Los Angeles Times that Willis had to be fed his lines through an earpiece and that the actor appeared confused. Soon afterwards, Willis retired due to his diagnosis of aphasia. (Lisa Miller)
Wolf Hound (Limited Theatrical and Streaming on VUDU, Jun 3)
For this fictionalized World War II actioner, director Michael B. Chait conceived a cat-and-mouse game behind Nazi lines. While flying recon over Nazi-occupied France, pilot David Holden (James Maslow) is shot down in a B-17 bomber. He parachutes to safety and locates an airfield, only to discover a diabolical German plan involving a U.S.-marked aircraft and a superbomb. With little more than a gun and his wits, Holden must evade a vengeful Nazi officer and skilled search patrols, to rescue a captured American flight crew and stop the doomsday plot. Chait wrangled actual period aircraft including P-51 Mustang, Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters, a B-25 Mitchell bomber and an ME 109 fighter. He avoided CGI, using scale models when the script required airplane destruction. You can see this instead of going to the aerial museum. (Lisa Miller)
