GREENER GRASS (2019) (Shout! Factory Blu-ray Review)

GREENER GRASS (2019) 

Label: Shout! Factory/IFC Midnight
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 96 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 & 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe
Cast: Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe, Julian Hilliard, Neil Casey, Asher Miles, Lauren Adams

Describing Greener Grass (2019) is a difficult proposition, it's an oddball sort of film that doesn't necessarily have a coherent plot, but I can say for sure that this is some sort of pastel-colored suburban nightmare that digs into themes of community-conformity and suburban unease. At the heart of it all is a pair of demented soccer moms, Jill (Jocelyn DeBoer, Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead) and Lisa (Dawn Luebbe), who are best-friends but at the same are seemingly always trying to one-up each other to prove who is the biggest conformist to the ideals of suburban life.  

Their husbands are just as weird, played by SNL's Beck Bennett and Neil Casey (Ghostbusters), both are equally weird suburban conformists, but with a long list of eccentricities, such as Bennet's character's obsession with drinking pool water, and both are a bit too fond of pastel-colored short-pants and deck shoes for my tastes.

The main ideas here are conformity and the surreality of the suburban experience. It's short on plot but we get plenty of strange, humorous happenings, like when during the opening soccer match Jill just up and up and gives her newborn infant to Lisa when she sees her admiring it, or later when Jill's son Julian (Julian Hilliard, Color Out of Space) transforms into a dog ... and no one seems to bat an eyelash at this, they still take him to school and carry-on like normal, although they do decide he doesn't need to be enrolled "rocket math" classes, because it now seems fairly unlikely that he will ever be an accountant.

It's such an odd film, coming off as The Stepford Wives (1974) by way of David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) with just a bit of Tim Burton's suburban fairy-tale Edward Scissorhands sprinkled in. Greener Grass is a surreal, sometimes non-sequitur, satire of suburban life, and while I like it it does feel more like a series of comedy sketches than a cohesive film, but I sort of love that about it too.

Back to the strange stuff that make this such an odd but interesting film, there's the neon-colors of the houses in the neighborhood, everyone drives a golf-cart, Lisa giving birth to a soccer ball and no one is bothered by it, everyone wears teeth-straightening braces, and everyone looks so similar that the husbands accidentally lock-lips with the wrong wives, laughing at their mistake. Perhaps the most maddening things about the film is that it seems to be strange for the sake of being strange, and that's not a formula that;s gonna work for the casual viewer. My teen son walked-in and tried to watch it with about half-way through and said he just couldn't do it, that it felt like Leave It To Beaver on acid, and that's about as apt a description as could come up with. 

Audio/Video: Greener Grass (2019) arrives on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory frame in the original theatrical exhibition ratio. The Easter-eggs colors are robust, but the film does have a slightly overblown softness about it, giving the film a bit of a unreal half-remembered dream quality about it. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1 with optional English subtitles.  

This release is a bit slim on the extras, but we do get the 15-min original Greener Grass short film, 9-min of deleted scenes, 6-min of TV interstitials and a 2-min trailer for the film. I would have loved a commentary from directors Jocelyn DeBoer, and Dawn Luebbe, or a behind-the-scenes featurette about creating this suburban wacky world. 

The 2-disc DVD and Blu-ray arrives in a standard keepcase with a sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster and a scene from the film displayed landscape on the reverse side of the wrap, each of the discs inside features an image from the film. 

Special Features:

- Original Greener Grass Short Film (15 min)
- Deleted Scenes (9 min)
- TV Interstitials (6 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 

If you're into quirky satire and surreal suburban strangeness I can promise plenty of both with Greener Grass (2019). What I cannot promise a coherent plot or traditional storytelling, but I found this strange brew delightful in it's exaggerated absurdness.  

WILD AT HEART (1990) (Collector's Edition Blu-ray Review)

WILD AT HEART (1990) 

Label: Shout Select
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 124 Minutes
Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HD MA Stereo, 5.1 DTS-HD MA Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.40:1) 
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Crispin Glover, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton

David Lynch's Southern Gothic road trip into Hell 'Wild At Heart' (1990) stars Nicolas Cage (Valley Girl) and Laura Dern (Blue Velvet) as incendiary young lovers Lulu and Sailor who are separated when he is imprisoned for manslaughter after a failed attempt on his life, an event ignited by Lulu's demented mom Marietta (Dern's real-mom Diane Ladd, Chinatown) who despises Sailor for reasons not yet known. He serves his time and few years later is released, with Lulu waiting outside to pick him up, right away the two embark on a Southern road trip that takes them through a nightmare south land where they catch a thrash metal show, run across a ominous car accident and wind-up Big Tuna, TX at a dead-end motel running on fumes, a seedy flea-pit populated by low-rent big-titty porn productions and hired assassins. The film has a heightened sense of reality that and is intercut with some strange Wizard of Oz-ish visuals including a visit from the Good Witch who compels Sailor to "don't turn away from love" when the chips are down. 

This is the film that introduced me to the real David Lynch, I had seen Dune and The Elephant Man but did not connect the dots that the same man made them, but this nightmare road trip made a mark, it scarred me a little, I'd never seen anything quite like it. At the time the closest thing I could compare it to from my own cinema experience was Tobe Hooper's black comedy TCM2, a comparison I think is still valid, both have this strange Southern nightmare aesthetic punctuated by moments of extreme violence and over-the-top performances. I love Nicolas Cage playing a Southern Gothic version of Elvis, his character decked out in a snakeskin leather jacket , which he more than once declares is "a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom", with an Elvis drawl and a somewhat dorky bravado that drips right off the screen. His and Lulu's love is red-hot, they're inseparable, it's an them versus everyone else sort of love story with a decidedly Lynch-ian skew.

As they travel deeper into the dark heart of the American south Lulu's mother sends two men in search of her daughter; her on again/off again suitor/private eye Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton, Repo Man) and her former lover/gangster Marcello Santos (J. E. Freeman, Miller's Crossing) who is more sinister, and who wants to do poor Farragut in. Were also introduced to a cast of strange characters that could only exist in a David Lynch film (with respect to novelist Barry Gifford), we have Mr. Reindeer (W. Morgan Sheppard, Needful Things) as the head of an assassin's guild who we see squatting on a toilet sipping espresso while a nude woman dances for his pleasure, or the bleach blond nightmares that are killers Perdita Durango (Isabella Rossellini, Blue Velvet) and her frightening sister Juana (Grace Zabriskie, Twin Peaks), also be on the lookout for Twin Peaks alum Sherilyn Fenn, Sheryl Lee and Jack Nance (Eraserhead). However, all other dark characters pale in comparison to the film's ultimate evil, Willem Dafoe as the greasy killer Bobby Peru, maybe one of the creepiest characters to ever leave a stain on the big screen, this is the film I saw him in first, completely ruining my image of him as anything but a low-life with those god awful rotten, worn-down teeth of his and devilish smirk that makes my skin crawl, gros. When he pulls a stocking over his head right before a doomed robbery attempt it's an image that will forever haunt by nightmares.

Audio/Video: Wild At Heart (1990) arrives on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory imprint Shout Select in 1080p HD 2.35:1 widescreen, I was comparing this to the now OOP 2014 Blu-ray from Twilight Time and they look identical right down to the grain structure with no notable difference in color timing or sharpness. The grain is nicely managed and colors look solid, skin tones are a bit warm but natural looking, and blacks are decent but grainy in spots. This is at least a five year old HD master, it would have been nice to have a new scan of the negative, but knowing Scream Factory there should be a Steelbook with a new scan in a year or two (wink-wink). 

The audio on the disc comes by way of 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD MA mixes, the surround track is decent, not a show-stopper, but there's some use of the surrounds that make it a viable option, I just prefer the more straight ahead stereo track, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Onto the extras is where we get new stuff that make this edition worth upgrading for, but first let's lay out the vintage 
e carry-over extras, we get MGM produced extras made for the special edition DVD, a 30-min making of doc with director David Lynch and stars Laura Dern, Nic Cage and Willem Dafoe, plus others, and about 21-min of extended interviews with the same bunch. Along the same lines we get a 7-min appreciation of the director by the cast of the film and David Lynch talking about the post-production of the film including color-timing, including minting a brand new scan from the OCN for the special edition DVD. Shout also include the 7-min vintage EPK, TV spots, trailer, and an image gallery for the film.

Onto the new goodies we get a brand new interview with Novelist Barry Gifford that runs about a half-hour, discussing the liberties Lynch took with the novel in adapting it for the screen, he seems to enjoy what Lynch did with the story and were it went, pointing out key differences and giving some back story to the origins of the novel he wrote. Not exactly new but new to Blu-ray are 76-min of extended and deleted scenes that were previously included on the pricey David Lynch: The Lime Green Set - it's great to have them here on an affordable stand alone release. We also get the unaltered Bobby Peru death scene minus the flash-bang and smoke that the director used to obscure the gore to secure the film's Rating.

Something you can find on the Twilight Time release not found here is an isolated music and effects audio track and the the 8-page booklet with notes on the film from TT staff writer Julio Kirgo, but in all other respects this Shout Select release renders that OOP TT release irrelevant in my opinion. The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork with a new illustration from artists Antonio Stella on one side and what looks to be a variation on one of the original movie posters, very similar to the TT release but cropped with a different logo.   

Special Features: 
- NEW Interview With Novelist Barry Gifford (30 min) 
- Extended And Deleted Scenes (76 min)
- Unaltered Bobby Peru Death Scene (1 min) 
- Love, Death, Elvis And Oz: The Making Of Wild At Heart (30 min) 
- Dell's Lunch Counter: Extended Interviews (21 min) 
- Specific Spontaneity: Focus On David Lynch (7 min) 
- Lynch On The DVD Process (3 min) 
- Original 1990 Making Of EPK (7 min) 
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 
- TV Spots (1 min) 
- Image Gallery (2 min) 

Lynch's Wilds At Heart (1990) is still one of my favorites from his venerable catalog, a Southern Gothic nightmare with two young lovers at the center of it all, surrounded by devils and killers with dark hearts. The new Blu-ray from Shout Select doesn't really improve on the A/V we saw with the Twilight Time release, but they do come through with some nifty new extras, those deleted scenes are worth the purchase price all by themselves. 

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MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN (1992) (Scream Factory Blu-ray Review)

MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN (1992) 

Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 99 Minutes 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 
Director: John Carpenter 
Cast: Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah, Sam Neill, Michael McKean, Stephen Tobolowsky

When this 90's take on the invisible man originally went to the cinema I was already a huge of director John Carpenter (Prince of Darkness) and the comedies of Chevy Chase (Spies Like Us), so I was primed for what these two had in store for me when I bought my ticket at the local cineplex. Now, that was a long time ago (25 years!) but I remember being rather disappointed by what I saw at the time, it lacked the edge I expected from the director of The Thing, but it also was largely absent the comedy stylings I was expecting from the star, so as a fan of both it was not a great time at the movies for teenage me. I've seen it a few times on home video in the years since and have warmed to it slightly, but my initial assessment is still valid.

Of course now I know that Carpenter was a director for hire on this one, which I didn't know then, stepping in for Ivan Reitman  (Ghostbusters) who left the film due to disagreements with star Chevy Chase, whom from what I've read is a nightmare to work with, but I still love his movies. I could absolutely see Ivan Reitman directing a funnier version of this movie, and I am assuming the problems he and Chevy encountered had to do with the star wanting to play the role more serious and not his usual pratfall self, and that's where I a bit let down by this one, either this had to have more of a dark edge or more broad comedy, and that's where the Carpenter/Chase team-up is a bit puzzling for me. 

Here we have stock analyst Nick Halloway (Chevy Chase) whom while runs into an old friend named George (Michael McKean, Spinal Tap) who introduces Nick to his visiting friend, knockout single-lady Alice (Daryl Hannah, Blade Runner), the two hit it off over and dinner and drinks, and even get some make-out time, but when Nick pushes in for more she rebuffs him, so he drinks-up the rest of the night and is severly hung-over in the morning. He winds up at a lab where he is sitting in on a shareholder's meeting, but finds he too hungover to be useful, so he finds a quiet place in the building for a quick nap, unwittingly triggering a lab accident along the way, with the end result being that he is caught up in a strange meltdown/accident that turns the entire building and himself invisible! 

A shady CIA spook named Jenkins (Sam Neil, Possession) arrives on the scene and soon discovers Nick's condition, realizing what a valuable spy/assassin asset he would be the spook sets about capturing him, but Nick wants no part of it, he just want to be himself again.  

Chevy Chase is going for a more serious tone her with some moments of humor, but no straight-up comedy, I didn't hate his performance, I just think the dual-tonality of the film makes for a somewhat unsatisfying watch overall. Something that always irks me is the voice-over narration from Chase, probably meant to give this a noir-feel, but it always makes me think of the Fletch films and takes me right out of the story. It doesn't help that he and Daryl Hannah have zero chemistry together onscreen, which makes it hard to believe in their whirlwind romance, the whole affair is given such short shrift it feels like it should have been left on the cutting room floor altogether in my opinion. More interesting is villainous CIA spook Jenkins played by Sam Neil, the sinister government operative attempting tracking down the invisible man, he plays bag guys so well, and Carpenter must have liked him a lot as he brought him back a few years later for the starring role In The Mouth Of Madness (1995).

There's a lot of side characters that show up for fun and games in bit roles, we have Michael KcKean as Nick's frenemy, his gossipy wife (Patricia Heaton), a droll wanna-be love interest for Alice (Gregory Paul Martin) and the always fun Stephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog's Day) as Jenkin's CIA supervisor who doesn't seem quit e a cutthroat as his subordinate, though it becomes clear who really has the power in that working relationship early on.

As an invisible man movie we get plenty of special effects throughout, we were at an early stage for digital special effects at the time, and some of them don't hold up all that well with optical effects that seem pretty dated, but there's also some decent practical effects and some digital ones that are cool. If you've ever wondered what it would look like to see an invisible man digest food, hurl and smokes a cigarette this movie answers all those questions for you. Scenes of the invisible man in the rain and running through water don't hold-up all that well, but a few scenes of him being made-up with make-up and the problems that arise from that aren't too bad. There's some fun footage of all the stuff Chase had to do to achieve some of the effects in the film, it's interesting stuff, it just doesn't translate tot he screen twenty five years later with a lot of success in my opinion, not awful, just dated.

Audio/Video: Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) arrives on Blu-ray with a new 2K scan of an archival interpositive performed by Warner Bros., the new transfer looks good, offering more detail and brighter colors than the previous Warner DVD, black levels look solid and grain levels are nicely managed. Fine detail is decent offering some deepened facial features and clothing textures, some of the optical effects don't fare so well, but overall this is a solid HD presentation. 

Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 track, it's well-balanced and sounds good without any hiss or distortion, optional English subtitles are provided. No Carpenter score on this one, but we do get one from Shirley Walker (the Willard remake), it sounds good though I didn't find any it particularly memorable. 

Scream Factory offer no new extras for this non Collector's Edition release, but they do port over what looks to be all the extras from the previous DVD version, this being some behind-the-scenes footage, outtakes, a brief F/X featurette and vintage EPK interviews.

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a s20sided sleeve of artwork, the main sleeve featuring the familiar key art used on the DVD with the the title and tagline moved around - note that I couldn't find an image of the new cover art, what's pictured above the review is an older promotional image. The reverse side isn't an artwork option, just an image from the film and what looks to be a promotional shot of Daryl Hannah and Chevy Chase with information about the transfer. The disc itself features the same key art as the sleeve. 

Special Features: 
- NEW 2K scan of the original film elements
- How to Become Invisible: The Dawn of Digital F/X (4 min) 
- Vintage interviews with director John Carpenter, actors Chevy Chase and Daryl Hannah (5 min) 
- Behind the Scenes footage (5 min) 
- Outtakes (3 min) 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 
- TV Spots (4 min) 

As both a fan of the comedies of Chevy Chase and films of John Carpenter I am very pleased to have this slice of 90's sci-fi on Blu-ray, but I do wish we would had gotten some new extras, there's gotta be some great stories about the making of this one. The film get a bad rap, I like it, I don't love it, but it's an interesting take on the invisible man mythos, and it's cool that Carpenter got a chance to do an invisible man movie.