STRAIGHT TIME (1978) - THE WINDOW (1949) - NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935) - THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021) - DC LEGENDS OF TOMORROW: THE COMPLETE SIXTH SEASON (2021)
STRAIGHT TIME (1978)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 114 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:)
Director: Ulysses Gosbard
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Busey, Theresa Russell, M. Emmet Walsh, Kathy Bates
In the parolee character study Straight Time (1975) Dustin Hoffman (Marathon Man) plays Max Dembo, a recently paroled felon who has just served a six-year stint for burglary. He seems to be trying to get his life back on the right track in Los Angeles, but after rubbing his probation officer Earl (M. Emmet Walsh, Blood Simple) the wrong way he finds himself running in his old circles again and re-committing himself to a life of crime. After a no turning back encounter with Earl he embarks on a series of increasingly brazen robberies with with his former crime pals, this includes dope addict Willy (Gary Busey, Silver Bullet) and Jerry (Harry Dean Stanton, Alien), a former burglar unhappy with his new domesticated suburban life. Along the way he picks up a new girlfriend by way of Jenny (Theresa Russell, Kafka) who doesn't agree with his lifestyle but says she will stick it out till she can't. Also be on the lookout for young Kathy Bates (Misery) and a very young Jake Busey (The Frighteners) as Willy's family. Hoffman's unreformed burglar is likable enough but he can't seem to make going straight work, and it certainly didn't help that his hard-nosed prick of a P.O. puts the screws to Hoffman to the point that he just gives up on going straight all together. There's a scene early on when Max is taking a typing test at the unemployment office, which is where he meets Jenny. It's a timed test and he keeps typing past his allotted time, and that idea is revisited several times throughout the film, until it finally catches up with him and his partners, it's just a cool through line that I appreciated. Straight Time is top-notch parolee flick with a fantastic cast, a definite gem in the Hoffman filmography. The Blu-ray from Warner Archive features a superlative transfer that captures the gritty 70's L.A. vibe and locations. The only extras are an archival commentary with the director and Hoffman, plus a 2-minute trailer for the film.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Director Ulu Grosbard and Actor Dustin Hoffman
Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
THE WINDOW (1949)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region Free
Rating: R
Duration: 73 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.37:1)
Director: Ted Tetzlaff
Cast: Starring, Barbara Hale, Bobby Driscoll, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman
Set in the overcrowded New York City tenements of the 40's The Window features a pair of working class parents
(Barbara Hale, The Giant Spider Invasion and Arthur Kennedy, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie) who are at their wit's end with their imaginative (read: compulsive liar) son Tommy (doomed Disney star Bobbie Driscoll, Song of the South) who regularly spins wild tales around the neighborhood - the latest of which almost gets them evicted! One hot night the stifling apartment is too hot to sleep in so the kid goes out on the fire escape with his pillow to sleep in the open air, which is where he spies his upstairs neighbors the Kellersons (Paul Stewart, Inner Sanctum and Ruth Roman, The Baby) murder a man in cold blood. Shocked and scared he tells his parents about the murderers living upstairs, but the kid has cried wolf once too many times for them to believe him. What ensues is a cat and mouse game with the murderous Kellersons out to kill the kid before he can spill the beans and send them to the electric chair. The frenzied finale is a tense nail-biter with the Kellersons pursuing the kid across the rooftops and into a condemned tenement building that is literally falling down around them! Based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich, the same one that also inspired Hitchcock's similar Rear Window a few years later and the 80's kid-in-peril classic Cloak and Dagger, this is a brisk and well-made noir thriller starring a kid as it's protaganist. Of everything featured in this week's column this was easily my favorite watch of the bunch. The restoration from Warner Archive is fantastic with spot-on black levels and contrast that highlight the scrappy RKO Pictures produced flick's production strengths. Sadly no extras on the disc, not even a trailer, just a terrific transfer for a knockout thriller.
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region Free
Rating: R
Duration: 92 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.37:1)
Director: Sam Wood
Cast: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, Walter Woolf King
In my heart I am more of an Abbot & Costello and The Three Stooges sort of guy (low brow?), but I grew up with an appreciation for the humorous stylings of The Marx Bros. in their various line-ups, though I am far less versed in their filmography. I have seen A Night At the Opera before, but I have never seen it look so good, so right from that start I give big kudos to WAC for the outstanding transfer! While I prefer the more madcap styling of the Marx Bros. earlier Universal stuff this mid-period Opera romp is still ripe with boisterous slapstick humor and plenty of the Groucho's patented one-liners. The new scan from Warner Archive is quite wonderful, and the archival extras are pretty plentiful, we get an audio commentary from Leonard Maltin, a half hour featurette with interviews celebrating the legacy of Groucho Marx, a handful of shorts and travelogues, a trailer and 60s-era interview with Marx. It's great to see WB bringing this golden-age comedy classic to Blu-ray; I had such a good time revisiting this I just ordered the 5-films The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection (The Cocoanuts / Animal Crackers / Monkey Business / Horse Feathers / Duck Soup) Universal Blu-ray collection so that I can throw myself into more of their shenanigans, and I hope WB continue to restore their Marx Bros. catalog and give them proper disc releases.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with film critic Leonard
- Remarks on Marx (34 min)
- Groucho Marx on the Hy Gardner Show (5 min)
- Vintage Shorts: How to Sleep (11 min), Sunday Night at the Trocadero (20 min), Los Angeles: Wonder City of the West (9 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021)
Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 132 Minutes
Audio: Dolby Atmos, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 21600p UHD Widescreen, 1080p HD Widescreen (1.90:1)
Director: James Gunn
Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Viola Davis, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Michael Rooker, Jai Courtney, Peter Capaldi, Alice Braga, Pete Davidson
When Disney temporarily canned director James Gunn over some dusty old tweets fans of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise were alarmed; but DC saw an opportunity and swooped in and recruited the former Troma scribe for a sequel to their somewhat disappointing Suicide Squad and reaped the rewards. Things kick off with a fantastic and brutal opening scene that fiorst sets up a new team and then dispatches a whole cast of character, including Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy) as Savant and Boomerang from the first film. The gory and laugh-out-loud opening scenario instantly put me in the right frame of mind and sets up what to expect, which is anarchic anti-hero shenanigans both bloody and foul-mouthed. When the dust and blood settle our realized team ends up being Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), King Shark (Voiced by Sylvester Stallone), Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), Harley Quinn (Margo Robbie) and field-leader Col. Flag (Joel Kinnaman). For their newest mission Waller (Viola Davis) sends the team into the jungles of Corta Maltese to dispatch a rogue anti-American regime, but they end up battling a giant extraterrestrial starfish kaiju straight from the pages of DC's JLA! Gunn did for DC what he did for Marvel, he turned a c-grade comic series into a pot of fried gold, and I had a blast with it. John Cena threatens to steal every scene with his ultra-patriotic Peacemaker, he's a man who will eat a whole beach full of dicks if necassary for the American way, and I think it's something quite special what they did with z-grade villain Polka Dot Man and his mommy-issue arc. The new 4K UHD from WBHE is a demo-worthy feast that will dazzle your eyes and tickle your ears with crisp vibrant imagery and a bombastic and immersive Dolby Atmos upgrade - even the accompanying Blu-ray gets the Atmos audio, which I thought was a classy touch, plus we get some solid extras and a digital UHD copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Gag Reel (10 min)
- Gotta Love the Squad (12 min)
- The Way of The Gunn (8 min)
- It’s a Suicide Mission Scene Breakdown
- My Guns Bigger Than Yours Scene (6 min) Breakdown (6 min)
- Harley’s Great Escape Scene Breakdown (7 min)
- The Fall of Jotunheim Scene Breakdown (6 min)
- Starro: It’s a Freakin Kaiju! (6 min)
- Bringing King Shark To Life (6 min)
- War Movie Retro Trailer
- Horror Movie Retro Trailer
- Buddy-Cop Retro Trailer
- Directors Audio Commentary by Director/Writer James Gunn
- Deleted & Extended Scenes (17 min)
- Digital Copy of the film
DC'S LEGEND OF TOMORROW: THE COMPLETE SIXTH SEASON (2021)
Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 640 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Cast: Lisseth Chavez, Caity Lotz, Tala Ashe, Jes Macallan, Olivia Swann, Adam Tsekhman, Shayan Sobhian, Amy Louise Pemberton, Nick Zano, , Dominic Purcell, Matt Ryan
In the sixth season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow the time-travelling heroes must now save history from a new foe - space aliens! Now to be upfront and honest this has always been my least favorite of the CW/DC properties, initially I sort of dug the goofy time-travelling adventures of DC superheroes, it gave me a Quantum Leap/Sliders vibe, but with a super-powered slant but it was always more of a 'if nothing else is on I'll watch it' sort of thing, and I was never glued to the TV and would often go weeks without watching it. I didn't even watch the sixth season till the Blu-ray showed up for review, and I am still not that enthralled by it, and even worse, the two characters I liked the most seem to be gone coming into the 7th season - those being John Constantine and Rory/Heatwave. I was a big fan of the now cancelled Constantine series and when he jumped over into DC's Legend it renewed by interest in the show, but my interest has waned yet again. I know the show has a fanbase, I mean c'mon, it's currently in it's seventh season, but it's just not for me, and that's OK, I'm old! The sixth season arrives on Blu-ray from WBHD on a 3-disc set with over an hour's worth of extras. All the episodes are handsomely produced and look great in 1080p HD with uncompressed DTS-HD MA audio, arriving with a slipcase and a digital copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Gag Reel (Exclusive to Blu-ray and DVD)
- Deleted Scenes (Exclusive to Blu-ray and DVD)
- Never Alone: Heroes and Allies
- VFX Creature Feature
- Animation Split Screen
- Actors Split Screen
