THE BEST OF HARVEY KORMAN -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/25/17

 

A lot of people these days only know Harvey Korman from his Mel Brooks movies ("That's Hedley!"), but there was a time before that when his star shone brightly as the Emmy-winning second banana on TV's legendary "The Carol Burnett Show."

Time-Life's DVD release THE BEST OF HARVEY KORMAN assembles four complete (more or less) nostalgia-heavy episodes from 1969-71, three of which haven't been seen in 40 years, and they serve as a real time machine back to the way variety shows looked in those days.

Watching them now, the show's comedy is as incredibly corny as it can be, with paper-thin writing and forced punchlines, but also with a laidback informality (the performers break character often to either ad-lib or crack up at each other) that continues to appeal.

Production-wise, it often looks almost like a local TV production even though it was a top-rated show on a major network.  Strangely enough, this also adds to the show's charm--it didn't need a big budget with such likable performers to keep audiences happy.

Chief among these of course was Carol, that lovable, rubber-faced genius of physical and verbal comedy who always came across as the superstar next door.  She was a bundle of sparkling personality, especially during the celebrated Q & A segments with the studio audience.

Korman was second only to her in versatility, playing everything from henpecked husbands to weaselly lotharios (as in the lengthy and tedious Latin lover sketch) and everything in between. 

Rounding out the cast was cartoonishly handsome Lyle Waggoner, forever goodnaturedly spoofing his own manly image, while a sweetly callow Vicki Lawrence was the perennial "kid sister" before her eventual breakthrough as "Mama."

Comedy skits alternate with often cringe-inducing song and/or dance numbers, with the first episode in the set giving Lyle and Vicki solo songs that are less than memorable. Even veteran performers such as Bernadette Peters, Nancy Wilson, and Diahann Carroll can't do much with the tacky arrangements they're given. (A pre-"Jeffersons" Isabel Sanford appears briefly as a housekeeper in one segment.)

As for Korman, his appearances in the set are sporadic--the episodes seem pretty much picked at random and don't really showcase his best work at all.  The fact that he's in them seems enough to qualify them for inclusion here.

A skit in which he appears in drag seems to be the collection's highlight. Other points of interest are "The Old Folks" (Harvey and Carol as a doddering elderly couple), a solo comedy song emphasizing Harvey's vanity, Harvey as Richard Nixon, and a guest appearance by future castmember Tim Conway who would become Harvey's most frequent comedy foil. 

While not exactly THE BEST OF HARVEY KORMAN as the title suggests, it's fun to watch these episodes again after all this time and relive those decades-old memories.  Still, viewers who aren't seeing these creaky old skits and corny musical numbers through a golden haze of nostalgia might wonder what all the fuss is about.


PROGRAM INFORMATION
Format: DVD/Single
Running Time: 178 minutes
Genre:  TV DVD/Comedy
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audio: Stereo

THE BEST OF HARVEY KORMAN -- DVD Review by Porfle

TAPOUT: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/1/10

 

I was never interested in mixed martial arts, or "extreme fighting", because I always had the impression that it was simply an excuse for people to watch a couple of bozos in a cage beat each other to a bloody pulp.  Why should I be interested in that?  TAPOUT: THE COMPLETE SERIES (2007-2008) is an entertaining and informative answer to that question.

"Tapout" is what an opponent does when he's had enough and must submit by literally tapping the canvas.  It's also the name of the line of sports clothing and gear founded in 1997 by Charles Lewis, known as "Mask" because of his penchant for decorating his face with camo paint.  After a humble beginning that saw Mask selling his wares from the back of a car at local fighting events, the company grew to include his friends Dan "Punkass" Caldwell and Tim "SkySkrape" Katz and went on to make millions. 

The 20 episodes in this 5-disc set document the adventures of Mask, Punkass, and SkySkrape as they travel the country in their RV looking for up-and-coming fighters to sponsor in their first major MMA event.  Each episode follows his training and preparation as we and the Tapout crew get to know him and learn what makes him tick.  Then comes the climactic fight which rarely fails to be suspenseful and exciting.  With a mix of traditional boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and whatever else , the action is non-stop and the outcomes unpredictable.  And, contrary to my preconceptions, the violence hardly ever exceeds that of a regular boxing match (not by all that much, anyway).
 

 

That isn't to say that you won't find yourself getting a little squeamish on occasion.  Blood does flow, and there are times when a fighter is pummeled like a human punching bag.  You'll see guys getting elbow-bashed repeatedly in the face, and in the first episode one fighter's arm gets bent the wrong way, which had me cringing.  Aside from these instances, though, I found myself gradually appreciating the skills and strategy that each fighter brought into the ring--some specializing in the "stand up" (traditional boxing and kickboxing) and others concentrating on their "ground game" where wrestling and jiu-jitsu come into play.  Those who are equally adept at both usually come out on top.  (More often than not, surprisingly, the ground game is the deciding factor.)

The fighters are a diverse bunch of characters.  Some are troubled kids who would otherwise be headed down a path of gang violence and crime.  Others are struggling to better the lives of themselves and their families.  There's a SWAT cop, a cowboy from down on the farm, a guy who's getting back into the game after having his colon removed, and a mama's boy who wants to be a superhero. 

In one segment, the guys decide to sponsor their first female, Julie Kedzie, after being impressed by her workout in the gym.  In another, they must contend with a hostile young fighter who's at war with the world and everyone in it.  Little if any of the show seems staged, and there's none of the forced drama that infests most "reality" shows because none is needed--these characters and their stories are interesting enough as they are.

Speaking of characters, the Tapout boys are continually fun to watch as they travel the country and get into mischief at every turn.  Mask, whose hyena-like laugh is heard throughout each episode, is a loud, boisterous, and very likable bundle of energy with a childlike fascination with the world around him.  Highly outgoing, he uses his unorthodox social skills to make connections and help the fighters through any physical or emotional troubles they may have. 

At 6'7", SkySkrape is a strange sight in his big-hair wigs and novelty glasses, and serves as Tapout's main comedy relief.  In stark contrast is the diminutive Punkass, a strong, silent type who handles most of the company business and maintains a bemused deadpan during his companions' prankish antics.
 

 

It's fun watching these guys hang out at the various gyms and scout new fighters to sponsor, or simply take advantage of all the fun that can be had in each new location that they find themselves in.  This may include autograph-signing events, appearances on radio shows, or auditioning sexy bikini babes for their promotional photos.  On the flip side, we also see them staking a homeless fighter to three months' rent on an apartment (followed by three more if he keeps up his training), and generally going the extra mile for those less fortunate.  Behind all the clowning, they seem to be truly stand-up guys.

It all leads up to the big fight that usually takes up the last ten or fifteen minutes of each episode.  After each bout, Mask, SkySkrape, and Punkass offer their play-by-play analysis along with slow-motion highlights of the best moments.  The slam-bang action and the suspense of seeing if Tapout's chosen competitor is going to win each time are addictive, and I found myself watching all 20 episodes of this thoroughly entertaining series in just a few marathon sessions.  Needless to say, I now have a new appreciation for mixed martial arts and the athletes who participate in it.

The 5-disc collection from Image Entertainment is in full-screen with Dolby Digital stereo.  There are no subtitles and no extras.  The discs are stacked in a clamp-like device that I don't think I've encountered before, but after some careful thought I devised a clever method of getting the discs in and out without much trouble.

About halfway through viewing TAPOUT: THE COMPLETE SERIES, I discovered that Charles "Mask" Lewis was killed on March 11, 2009, in an auto accident involving a drunk driver.  In addition to being a major bringdown, the fact that I knew he didn't have long to live really forced me to watch the rest of the series in a whole new light.  Whether cutting up with SkySkrape in the back of their Tapout RV with the unflappable Punkass at the wheel, or mixing it up with old and new friends all along the way, Mask seemed to be having a ball living his life every minute of the day.  I guess this series is as good a way as any to remember him.

TAPOUT: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE KILLER -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/24/10

 

I wasn't that impressed with THE KILLER (1989) the first time I saw it back in the 90s. Then again, I was watching a choppy pan-and-scan VHS copy that was badly-dubbed and looked awful. Plus, I'd just been blown away by HARD BOILED (still my favorite John Woo film), and THE KILLER seemed rather tame in comparison with that insanely action-packed epic. But with the new 2-disc Ultimate Edition of THE KILLER on the Dragon Dynasty label, I'm finally getting to see it in all its uncut pictorial glory and appreciate it as one of the finest action films ever made.

I think it was an episode of the great TV series "The Incredibly Strange Film Show" that first got me interested in the films of John Woo, Tsui Hark, and other hot Hong Kong directors. I found the innovative and extremely rapid-fire editing in the film clips to be a new and exhilarating visual experience. Just as the Beatles interpreted American rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues and played it back to us in exciting new ways, Hong Kong cinema was assimilating the methods of Sam Peckinpah and others and using this as a starting point for creating a super-charged cinematic style that would, in turn, have an overwhelming effect on the future of American action cinema.

Woo himself credits many influences, among them French director Jean-Pierre Melville, certain Japanese films, and classical American cinema. Unsurprisingly, Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorcese are key figures in the development of his film style, in addition to the old Hollywood musicals. Woo calls THE KILLER an "action-musical", and it's easy to see how his shoot-em-up sequences are often inspired by the spirit of that genre's more dazzling and dynamic production numbers. (I'm guessing Woo is an admirer of Gene Kelly and films such as SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and ON THE TOWN.)


There's even a little bit of Charlie Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS, I think, in the relationship between ace hitman Ah Jong (the great Chow Yun-Fat) and Jennie (Sally Yeh), the pretty young cabaret singer who was blinded during one of his hits. The guilt-ridden Ah Jong befriends Jennie with the hope of helping her regain her eyesight with a cornea transplant, but to pay for the operation he will have to postpone his plans to retire and perform one last hit. Complicating matters is the fact that the evil Triad boss for whom he works has just put out the order for Ah Jong himself to be eliminated.

Meanwhile, Inspector Li Ying (Danny Lee), a renegade cop who has the same "hate-hate" relationship with his boss as countless other renegade cops before him, is hot on Ah Jong's trail and has traced him to Jennie. In a strange turn of events, cop and hitman become grudging allies as Li Ying sympathizes with Ah Jong's desire to help Jennie and decides to back him up when the Triad kill squad comes a-callin'. This leads to a blazing shoot-out in a church with the fate of our unlikely heroes in the balance.

Unlike the usual stoic, repressed action figure, Chow Yun Fat's character is a man of deep feelings whose code of killing only bad guys is compromised not only by Jennie's injury but by the shooting of a little girl during an exciting escape from the police. Ah Jong risks his freedom to race the girl to a hospital, where he and Li Ying have one of many Mexican standoffs (Woo really loves these) just a few feet away from where doctors are struggling to save the girl's life.

Here, and in Ah Jong's scenes with Jennie, Woo's penchant for melodrama and sentimentality come to the fore. Such unrestrained romanticism may be off-putting to more hardcore action fans who prefer their mayhem untainted by mush. Although it gets a little thick at times, I think this gives an interesting added dimension to Woo's passages of gun-blazing carnage, as does the underlying religious tone (Woo describes himself as a Christian) which makes Ah Jong such a conflicted character seeking redemption.


Also interesting is the fact that Li Ying begins to identify with and even admire him for his honorable qualities--Woo points out their similarities in a nice parallel-image sequence--as their mutual concern for Jennie has them pretending to be and eventually becoming friends. Woo's humor comes to the fore when they initially hold each other at gunpoint while assuring the blind Jenny that all is well, even giving each other affectionate nicknames "Small B" and "Shrimp Head" (or "Mickey Mouse" and "Dumbo" in the English dub). By the end of the movie, they're as close as brothers and willing to die for each other.

More than anything else, however, THE KILLER is a feast for action connoisseurs as Woo stages one astounding shoot-out after another. His trademarks are all here, from the rapid-fire two-gun approach (his heroes never seem to run out of bullets) which has since been adopted by, well, everybody, to the sliding-backward-on-the-floor-while firing method, to everything else in-between. Innovations abound, with Woo's distinctive use of slow-motion and freeze-frames mixed with the regular action as his artistic sensibility sees fit, all creatively edited into a barrage of explosive images that bombard the viewer in waves of kinetic visual sensation.

Some of the action borders on the surreal, with scores of bad guys swarming non-stop into the line of fire only to be mowed down in twisting, jerking, blood-spewing (yet strangely balletic) death throes. Echoes of the famous shoot-outs from Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH pervade the climactic battle in the church, while the melodrama of the story weaves its way through the hail of bullets and fiery explosions toward a starkly emotional conclusion. It bears noting that Woo improvised much of the story and dialogue on-set, shooting from a treatment rather than a finished script, yet considers this to be one of his most "complete" films.


The Dragon Dynasty DVD is in the original widescreen with Dolby Digital sound. Languages are Cantonese and dubbed English, both mono, with English and Spanish subtitles. The second disc includes an intimate interview with John Woo, two audience Q & A's with Woo which accompanied screenings of THE KILLER and HARD BOILED, a look at the locations of THE KILLER then and now, and a John Woo trailer gallery. Missing in action is a commentary track.

Whether you're a long-time fan or just seeing it for the first time, Dragon Dynasty's Ultimate Edition of THE KILLER is a great way to experience this dazzling Hong Kong action classic.

THE KILLER -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/3/09

 

Val Kilmer continues to turn up in the darndest things these days. This time, he's playing a psychotic bundle of nervous tics named Jimmy Pettis, who shows up at a newspaper office in Grand Rapids, Michigan one day and calmly informs the editor-in-chief that he's just locked six people in a steambath in order to demonstrate the social chaos that will occur all over the world in 2012 because of global warming. Read that sentence again if you want--I'll wait.

During THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT, aka "The Steam Experiment" (2009), we see the inconvenient truth of how quickly societal constraints and civility break down and sheer self-centered panic takes over when you trap a group of strangers in a room and turn the heat way up. Especially when most of those people aren't very well-balanced in the first place.  

Eric Roberts, who recently had a plum role as a mob boss in THE DARK KNIGHT, plays former pro football player Grant, who must not be doing very well these days seeing that he fell for Pettis' online dating service scam. The same goes for dweeby Christopher (STARSHIP TROOPERS' Patrick Muldoon) and hotheaded Italian stallion Frank (Quinn Duffy). The three ladies involved are the gorgeous but hostile Jessie (Eve Mauro), the dangerously neurotic Margaret (Cordelia Reynolds), and a diminutive blond named Catherine (Megan Brown).

After a round of introductions, director Philippe Martinez does all the heterosexual males in the audience a huge favor by having Jessie remove her bikini top, strut across the room in slow motion, and recline invitingly on a tiled bench, all to the strains of Ravel's "Bolero." For me, the movie will never get quite that good again. Soon after, someone discovers that the door has been locked from the outside and the steam is rising. In no time a claustrophobic Frank, who's blood is already up from Jessie's teasing performance and mocking derision, goes bonkers and gets violent, and must be dealt with.

In quick succession each of the other prisoners starts to lose it big time. The weird thing about this is that we never get the impression that very much time has passed at all, or that the rising heat is particularly life-threatening. So the fact that all of these people just freak out in no time flat seems a bit extreme. I'd hate to see what would happen if they got stuck in an elevator--they'd probably start eating each other.

A couple of their escape attempts are pretty cool, especially when Grant manages to break the little window in the door and Jessie pokes her head out to see what's what. Mainly, though, the chaos erupts too soon and escalates at an unbelievable rate until we have people killing each other like wild animals or committing suicide in utter despair after what only seems to us like a couple of hours in the steamroom. Martinez has designed all of these scenes to have a washed-out yellowish hue and uses lots of slow-motion, dissolves, montages, and other effects to distance us from what's going on, as though we're watching somebody's hazy fever dream.

Meanwhile, awesomely cool method actor Armand Assante arrives at the newspaper office as Detective Mancini and makes the movie somewhat more enjoyable for us Armand Assante fans. Mancini hauls the uncooperative Pettis into the interrogation room down at the station and they face each other across a table for much of the rest of the movie. Their conversation is mostly a shaggy-dog story intercut with scenes of the unfortunate hostages, giving Assante a chance to be cool and Kilmer a chance to audition for the role of the Joker in the next Batman movie. I'll eat my terrycloth bathrobe if his performance here isn't influenced by Heath Ledger's in THE DARK KNIGHT, only without the crazed laughter or any of that demented brilliance. I like Kilmer a lot when he's being Doc Holliday, Inish Scull, the guy from HEAT, or even, yes, Batman, but in this movie he just isn't on.

The DVD is letterboxed with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. There are no extras.

THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT is an okay time-waster that isn't horrible but, aside from that rather stimulating "Bolero" scene, isn't particularly good, either. The presence of three of my favorite actors--Assante, Roberts, and Kilmer--is a definite plus, although even they can't do much to liven up this unbelievable and often dull story. A last-minute attempt at a twist ending sends the movie off with a groan.

THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT -- DVD Review by Porfle

STREETS OF BLOOD -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/30/09

 

"Are we even cops anymore?"
"We're past that, brother."

Val Kilmer's character, Det. Andy Devereaux, is referring to the fact that he and his fellow cops in STREETS OF BLOOD (2009) have ventured far beyond the bounds of acceptable police procedure in their quest to stem the rising tide of drug-related crime in the hurricane-ravaged Big Easy. 

 But seeing that Kilmer, Sharon Stone, and Michael Biehn are appearing in this tacky, low-grade potboiler, the question he's answering might as well have been "Are we even movie stars anymore?"

Somehow, though, once I got past the possibility that this was going to be a classy, top-notch movie and lowered my expectations accordingly, I actually started to enjoy it. It's fast-moving, action-packed, and rather colorful in its depiction of the dark underbelly of New Orleans, with plenty of sleazy sex and violence to give it that neo-grindhouse appeal. Big names aside, it's not all that different from the cheap, direct-to-video action flicks I used to rent from hole-in-the-wall video stores back in the 80s.

Val Kilmer is an actor I like in just about anything, so I cut him some slack here even though he isn't all that successful at making me think he's from anywhere near Louisiana. As Andy Devereaux, a hardboiled narc trying to live up to his hero-cop father's legacy, he's a true blue cop even though he'll bend the hell out of the rules to make a bust.  

Curtis "Fifty Cent" Jackson plays his partner, Stan, a family man having trouble making ends meet and feeling the temptation to pocket some of the stacks of drug money they come across. Jackson seems more comfortable playing gangstas than cops, but he does a pretty good job here even though he could still use a few more acting lessons.

Andy and Stan often butt heads with Pepe (Jose Pablo Cantillo) and Barney (Brian Presley), two really out-of-control cops who like to kill bad guys, take their cash, do their drugs, and screw their girlfriends. But the two disparate duos find themselves working together when FBI agent Brown (Michael Biehn) launches an investigation that threatens to bring them all down just as they're starting to close in on the biggest drug gang in the city, the Latin Kings, run by a stone cold killer named Chamorro (Luis Rolon).

While all this is going on, a police psychologist named Nina (Sharon Stone) is conducting interviews with the main cops in order to find out why they have such a penchant for extreme violence, including Andy's four lethal shootings in three years ("I'm a good shot," he tells her). Stone comes off like a cross between Daisy Duke on 'ludes and a slow-drawlin' Mae West, with one of the worst southern accents in film history--I live about sixty miles from where this was filmed, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who talks like her. What, did she base her entire performance on a "Deputy Dawg" cartoon she saw when she was a kid? Anyway, she's just plain awful here, but it's kinda funny so that might actually be a plus.

The action scenes are somewhat artlessly staged, the photography looks like the cameramen were hopping around barefoot on a hot sidewalk, and the editing is less than exquisite. Those minor quibbles aside, however, the movie still manages to be exciting and fun to watch. Some scenes even generate a certain raw power, such as Kilmer's blow-up during an interrogation scene with Biehn and a trigger-happy exchange between Pepe and Barney and a pimpin' lowlife named Ray Delacroix (Davi Jay) who turns out to be working with the DEA. Several of the snappy dialogue scenes crackle with tension. Jose Pablo Cantillo is a standout as Pepe, and Biehn, as usual, turns in a solid performance. The post-Katrina flood sequence is atmospheric, while good use is made of locations in and around the city of Shreveport.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is bonus-less except for the film's trailer and English subtitles for the hard-of-hearing. The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image and Dolby Surround 5.1 are good.

Technically, STREETS OF BLOOD is a pretty slapdash affair, but that didn't keep me from enjoying it. I even watched it again and liked it better the second time because I knew what to expect and what not to expect. Even when the surprise ending was entirely unbelievable, I just accepted it as part of the film's cheapo charm. And when it was over, I almost felt like I needed to rewind the tape, pop it out of the VCR, and get it back to the mom-and-pop video store where I rented it in time to avoid a late fee. After dubbing a copy, of course.

STREETS OF BLOOD -- DVD Review by Porfle

Scary Monster Transformation Scenes (video)

Scary Monster Transformation Scenes

Mad Monster (1942)
Return of the Vampire (1944)
The Neanderthal Man (1953)
The Werewolf (1956)
The Vampire (1957)
I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)
Fury of the Wolfman (1972)

Read our reviews of "Return of the Vampire" , "The Vampire", and "Neanderthal Man" 


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Scary Monster Transformation Scenes (video)