SHAKES THE CLOWN (1991) (Mill Creek Blu-ray Review)

SHAKES THE CLOWN (1991)

Label: Mill Creek Entertainment 
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 87 Minutes 
Audio: English LPCM 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Cast: Bobcat Goldthwait, Julie Brown, Kathy Griffin, Paul Dooley, Adam Sandler, Robin Williams, Sydney Lassick, LaWanda Page, Tim Kazurinsky 

Shakes The Clown (1991), written, directed and starring Bobcat Goldthwait exploits of an alcoholic clown named Shakes (Goldthwait), which is an appropriate name for a  beer-soaked clown, right? The film opens with him waking up the morning after a one-night stand with a clown groupie (played by Florence Henderson, TV's Brady Bunch), he's passed out on the floor in front of the toilet when the woman's kid takes a leak, missing the bowl, and pissing straight onto Shakes head, waking him from his drunken slumber. This sad scene pretty much sets the pace and tone for the movie, the down and out life of a burned-out clown with a taste for booze. His long suffering, an amusingly lispy, girlfriend Judy (Julie Brown, Bloody Birthday) has had just about enough of his boozing a cheating ways, bolstered by her girlfriend, played by comedienne Kathy Griffin (Pulp Fiction), who insists Judy needs to dump his drunk clown-faced ass. 

It's not just his personal life that's suffering because of his chronic drinking, his clown-career suffers, too, when his agent Mr. Cheese (Paul Dooley, Sixteen Candles) finds it hard to book him new gigs at kids parties, because he rummages through their parent's cupboards looking for liquor. He has a pair of friends, Dink, played by Adam Sandler (The Wedding Singer)in his first movie role, and Stenchy, played by Blake Clark (the voice of slinky the dog in the Toy Story films) who join him on his adventures around Palukaville, USA. 

Shakes is up for the job as the host of a kiddie TV show, as the current host Peppy the Clown (Sydney Lassick, The Unseen) is retiring, but his rival Binky (a pre-Spongebob Squarepants Tom Kenny) is also up for the role, and Tom Kenny steals every scene he's in as the coke-snorting, ball-punching evil clown of the movie, his voice is instantly recognizable. The main gist of the movie involves Shakes being framed for the murder of his agent Mr. Cheese, by Binky, and there's not a whole lot more to it than that. The movie is simplistic but good, sarcastic fun, and I dig the way the characters don't really acknowledge that their in clown make-up, it's just their way of life. The clowns also have rivalries with mimes, and rodeo clowns, so we have a Warriors type gang thing going on in the background, and sometimes in the fore.  

The movie is loaded with cameos, aside from everyone I've already mentioned we have the late-great Robin Williams (World's Greatest Dad) as a mime instructor, and LaWanda Page (Mausoleum) as a foul-mouthed barfly clown, cracking dirty jokes, like this little nugget, "I got one of them peanut butter pussies: it's brown, smooth and easy to spread". My second favorite quote is Dooley as Mr. Cheese who walks in on Binky and friends snorting lines of coke, screaming "You clowns are on dope!", good stuff. The movie lags a bit from time to time, it can be slow, but it's just so demented and sarcastic, it just makes me laugh. I often hear this compared to Bad Santa and in tone that's not too far off the mark.  

Audio/Video: Shakes the Clown (1991) arrives on Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment in 1080p HD, framed in 1.78:1 widescreen - looking solid but not perfect. There's a nice looking grain field, but at times it looks noisy in certain scenes, blacks aren't the deepest, but colors look nicely bright and saturated, the clown make-up and costumes look great in HD. There's not a lot of depth but the clarity is nice and the fine detail is plentiful. Audio wise we get an uncompressed English LPCM 2.0 stereo track, it does the job, well-balanced and clean, dialogue is crisp, and the tasty music cues from Muddy Waters, NRBQ, and composer Thomas Wright Scott (of The Blues Brothers) sounds very good. Optional English subtitles are provided. 

There's only one extras but as Mill Creek are not known for having new extras in their releases it's worth pointing out, we have a brand new audio commentary with Bobcat Goldthwait, Julie Brown, and Tom Kenny, which is a lot of fun. The trio reminisce about the making of the movie, working with the various cast, with Bobcat speaking about working with the Brady Bunch's Florence Henderson, who was apparently fond of blue humor, chitlin circuit comedienne LaWanda Page, Adam Sandler in in his first role, and the fallout Bobcat received from clowns following the scathing film, which he says was more an indictment of stand-up comics at the time, also pointing out that Milton Berle does not actually appear in one of the opening scenes, despite the familiar face, it's actually his friend Martin Charles Warner. It's a fun track and fans of the film should have a blast joining the trio for their memories about making the movie. 

This release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork, pretty standard release from Mill Creek, but this time around they go a step beyond and offer up an O-ring (slipcase) with pretty much the same artwork but with a white background instead of yellow. That they've also included a new audio commentary with stars Bobcat Goldthwait, Julie Brown, and Tom Kenny is something special. Mill Creek have a vast and varied catalog of titles, everything from b-movie schlock to Hollywood blockbusters, I would absolutely love to see them go above and beyond and actually create and/or license new extras for their genre titles, it really does make them more desirable. They've also announced their first Steelbook with the upcoming Blu-ray release of 90's supernatural thriller Flatliners (1990)- keep it up Mill Creek!   

Special Features: 
- New Audio Commentary with Bobcat Goldthwait, Julie Brown, and Tom Kenny.

Shakes the Clown (1991) gets  fun Blu-ray release from Mill Creek, I am pleased they sprung for the commentary track and the slipcase, otherwise it's bare-bones, but hopefully they're starting off small and we see more newly-produced extras from them in the future. This is a fun, sarcastic, drunk-clown movie, and one deserving of some space in your movie collection, if you enjoy the other movies that Bobcat directed, or Bad Santa, there's a good chance you're gonna love this slice of black humored clown comedy. 

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (1982)

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (1982) 

Label: Warner Archive 
Region Code: A 
Rating: R
Duration: 136 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: George Roy Hill
Cast: Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, Glenn Close, John Lithgow, H, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Swoosie Kurtz, James Mccall, Peter Michael Goetz, George Ede, Mark Soper

T.S. Garp (Robin Williams) is the bastard-son of feminist author Jenny Fields (Glenn Close) and this is his story, from the beginning of his life until maybe the end, we follow the youthful exploits of him as an inquisitive young boy, a horny teenager and as a frustrated and horny married man. It has been and probably always will be my favorite performance from the late Robin Williams, a movie that has always touched me, through laughter and through tears in remains a poignant and sweetly dark movie loaded with both saccharine and salt, and it only gets better the older I get.

Garp as a young man is an aspiring writer of sad stories, his writings spur his mother to write about her own life in an autobiographical book she titles 'Sexual Suspect', which finds a home with a small publisher and it unexpectedly becomes an overnight sensation, becoming a feminist manifesto, which attracts all sorts of women, creating a cult around the author, from battered-wife refugees to the transsexual Roberta Muldoon (John Lithgow, Blow Up), a former NFL footballer turned woman, plus a radical cult of women who have cut off their own tongues to protest the rape of a young woman named Ellen James, who was kidnapped and raped, her captors having cut out her tongue so she could not speak their names and identify them. Hearing the story horrifies Garp, that these women would disfigure themselves in such a way deeply disturbs him,and the encounter fuels his next book, which angers his other's supporters, receiving numerous death threats against him. 

In Garp's own life he has married his teen-crush Helen Holm (Mary Beth Hurt) and has fathered two loving sons Walt and Duncan, he has his own career as an author but is frustrated that his own career has been overshadowed by his that of his mother, he is commonly identified as "the bastard son of Jenny Field". His marriage faces difficulties, his own wandering eye for the horny babysitter and his wife's attraction to a persistent young graduate student she teaches among them.

There's a wonderful symmetry to the movie, events that happen during Garp's formative years come around again in various ways, during an adolescent semi-sexual encounter with a neighbor girl Garp is bit on the ear by her father's dog, years later Garp takes a chunk out of the same dog's ear, this sort of life-symmetry happens throughout in a myriad of way with a sense of sometimes tragic poetry, such as an early assassination attempt on his mother by an anti-feminist, which is thwarted, but comes back around. There's underlying sense of doom and dread throughout, a scene of Garp's son Walt standing into the ocean mirrors an earlier scene of Garp as a boy, and then there are numerous references by Walt about Death and dying, scenes I hadn't noticed in my youth but which sent shivers down my spine this time around

I do believe this was the feature film debut of actress Glenn Close who turns in a brilliant performance as the feminist writer Jenny Fields, her matter-of-fact approach to feminism and child rearing is odd, her approach to sex is clinical and detached, the story of how she came to be pregnant with Garp is quite a story, one she reveals to a shocked older gentleman as she explaining how she cam to be preggers without the baggage of having to be a married woman, by raping a near comatose patient during WWII, one with a handy hard-on which made mounting easy.

Garp as portrayed by Robin Williams is so damn relateable, he cuts to the center of the everyman in a way that Williams was so very good at, he could always find human-center of any character, through his acting told a truth and never more so than as the bastard son of Jenny Field. His character loves being a father and wears his worry for their well being of his on his sleeve, which I can now appreciate as a father, when I first saw it these scenes as a kid they were touching but didn't resonate with me that way they do now. I certainly shed a few tears watching it this time around, i is still deeply affecting. 

Eagle eyed viewers might recognize actor Brandon Maggart from the cult-classic Christmas Evil (1980) as Helen's father, the wrestling coach, and he also happens to be the father of singer Fiona Apple.  Lithgow's performance as an transsexual former star athlete seems so prescient watching it now in the era of Bruce Jenner turned Caitlyn Jenner, that the sensationalism of it at the time n the early was so downplayed here also seems so progressive, it also serves to heighten the humor of the line, "I mean, I had mine removed surgically under general anesthesia. But to have it bitten off in a Buick..." with the character referencing the unfortunate outcome of a poorly timed blow-job, in a rather tragic scene. 

Audio/Video: The World according to Garp (1982)looks superb on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive. Colors are nicely saturated, there's a layer of film grain, black levels are deep and the skin tones look accurate. The English language DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo soundtrack exports audio nicely, dialogue, score and sound effects are crisp and clean without any distortion, optional English subtitles are provided. There are no extras on the disc which is pretty standard for the Warner Archive MOD titles.

This is not a film I can approach on a genuine clinical level, I saw it in my youth at a very formative time, I found it deeply affecting then, at a time I could not fully appreciate the more sophisticated and adult-oriented subject matter, and I only appreciate it more now with each passing year as the themes become more poignant and personal, and that is the mark of not just a good movie, but a truly great movie, it becomes more meaningful with age. Another great title comes to Blu-ray from Warner Archive, a movie that seems all the more poignant as I grow older and with the passing of it's star Robin Williams, highly recomended. 4.5/5

DVD Review: World's Greatest Dad (2009)

 WORLD’S GREATEST DAD (2009)

“Lance Clayton Is About To Get Everything He Deserves”


RATED: R
RUNNING TIME: 99 Min.
DIRECTOR: Bobcat Goldthwait
CAST: Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, Alexie Gilmore, Henry Simmons


ANECDOTAL: Robin Williams, the man is a comedic genius, his stand-up still kills me, however, it is easy to forget that he once starred in amazing films, for much like Eddie Murphy; I do not believe that he’s ever turned a role down. If you only recall Williams for eye-rolling comedies like RV (2006) and FLUBBER (1997), treat yourself to his darker, more dramatic roles, fine examples being THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (1982). THE BEST OF TIMES (1986), DEAD POET SOCIETY (1989), THE FISHER KING (1991), and the chilling ONE HOUR PHOTO (2002).

SYNOPSIS: Robins Williams portrays school teacher Lance Clayton, a single father and aspiring writer. He loves his douche-nozzle son Kyle (Daryl Sabara (SPY KIDS) despite the fact that his son is a cold, sexist loser, until one day Kyle dies while jerkin’ it. Rather than suffer the indignity of the nature of his son’s death he stages a suicide, types a note, and then must endure the fallout stemming from his actions.

“Come on now, Kyle, you must be passionate about something.” – Lance Clayton/Robin Williams

“You wanna know what I like? I like looking at vaginas.” - Kyle Clayton/Daryl Sabara

THE FILM: Robin Williams’ Lance wants a relationship with his teenage son, Kyle, a chronic masturbator slash loser of a child whom shows little regard for his father’s need for a meaningful relationship. He’s prone to misogynist/sexist statements like “that pussy’s not gonna eat itself”, his only friend, Andrew (Evan Martin), whom he treats like shit, but there’s an awkward trusting relationship there that filters through, somehow. It’s pretty obvious that Andrew is being neglected to some degree at home and Kyle is sensitive to this on some level. Kyles father is an aspiring, unpublished writer, he’s teaches poetry at Kyle’s school, were he’s in a secretive relationship with a younger, fellow educator Claire (Alexie Gilmore), whom Kyle describes as a TILF, “a teacher I’d like to fuck”. Kyle is portrayed quite well by Daryl Sabra, whom you may recall as “Juni” from the SPY KIDS franchise. Williams gives an amazing performance as his befuddled and frustrated father, probably his best work to date. After a night out Lance returns home to find that Kyle has accidentally died while performing autoerotic asphyxiation. Having loved his son despite his shortcomings he stages a suicide in an effort to provide a more dignified death. He types a suicide note to bolster the scenario. When the note is published in the school paper a post-death Cult of Kyle springs fort. In a plotline not dissimilar from the late-80’s classic HEATHERS (1989), the faculty and student body regard Kyle, a person universally reviled before his death, as a deep, and misunderstood individual. For the 1st time Lance is receiving praise for his writing under the guise of his son’s suicide note, craving more recognition, and perhaps wanting to rewrite his sons tarnished image, he pens a fictional diary in his departed son’s name, it becomes a sensation. Williams character comes across sympathetically, and the fraud perpetrated feels more a way of dealing with loss than the need to receive recognition for his own writings, but it’s borderline, and the line is crossed several times throughout as he strives to fulfill his own needs. The comedy is dark and sardonic, bitterly humorous and at times poignantly touching. Many kudos to director Bobcat Glodthwait whom has directed several other films; SHAKES THE CLOWN (1991), SLEEPING DOGS LIE (2006), and WINDY CITY HEAT (2003) – none of which I’ve seen, but are on my shortlist of films to see, now. The finale is satisfying, though not as dark as one would assume, I think.

“You guys didn't like Kyle. That's okay. I didn't either. I loved him. He was my son. But he was also a douchebag.” – Lance Clayton/Robin Williams

DVD: WORLD’S GREATEST DAD is released by Magnolia Pictures. The DVD sports a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, 5.1 surround audio. Special features include a commentary from writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait, Behind the Scenes featurette, Outtakes & Deleted Scenes, HDNET: A Look at World’s Greatest Dad, and a Deadly Syndrome music video. Pretty well-stocked package, indeed.

VERDICT: I highly recommend WORLD’S GREATEST DAD, what an introduction to the writer/director prowess of Bobcat Goldthwait, whom you probably recall as Cadet Zed from the POLICE ACADEMY films, who woulda thunkit? You also get a terrific dramatic performance from Robin Williams. This is savage, darkly funny comedy along the lines of Alexander Payne’s ABOUT SCHMIDT (2002) or Todd Solondz’s STORYTELLING (2001), pretty amazing stuff. ****1/2 (4.5 out of 5 stars)