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Home (Re)Viewing: Inhale ‘Hairspray’
Today brings the DVD releases of a vibrantly subversive musical, and a cacophony of the latest explosions and crashes surrounding John McClane.
Hairspray: The success of this musical seemed to take a lot of people by surprise - except for those who knew the appeal of the 1988 John Waters movie and the Broadway show that followed. A terrific cast makes the movie great fun to watch, especially a vampy Michelle Pfeiffer, a hilarious Amanda Bynes, and most of all, the utterly endearing Nikki Blonsky making an ace debut. And yes, John Travolta in drag is endearing in his own way. Full review GRADE: A-
Live Free or Die Hard: For my money, this, not Transformers, was the Big, Dumb Movie of the summer. Although the ending smacks a bit too much of True Lies, overall, the idea of placing an analog cop in a digital world works very well - and it was a considerable upgrade over the disappointing Die Hard with a Vengeance. Full review. GRADE: B
Rescue Dawn: Christian Bale and Steve Zahn bring their very unique and very different brands of intensity to Werner Herzog’s POW drama, which is of a piece with the director’s work - and that’s to say it’s quite riveting. GRADE: B+
From the catalog
The Lady Vanishes: One of Alfred Hitchcock’s best early British thrillers gets a new DVD from Criterion, with the story of a woman who mysteriously disappears from a train - and then people claim never to have seen her at all. To find out how to botch this idea, see Jodie Foster’s Flightplan - or better yet, don’t. GRADE: A
The Life of Brian: This isn’t the funniest of the Monty Python films (that’s Holy Grail), but this story of a man mistaken for the Messiah is certainly their most pointed and sharpest satire. The DVD set has a new batch of extras, which are always especially welcome from the Pythons. And just in time for the Christmas shopping season to boot! GRADE: A
Also out today
Hudson Hawk: 15th Anniversary Edition: Uhh … and the reason to commemorate this is what, exactly?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: On Video/DVD
Comments
By SRCputt
November 20, 2007 9:43 AM | Link to this
Travolta’s performance is interesting as he chose to underplay the role and found an emotion to the role Divine did not in the original. The performances were universally great. But you forgot to mention the charismatic Elijah Kelley as Seaweed. His scenes with Bynes were my favorite in the film. The soundtrack has got a lot of play in my house. Too bad the film’s director didn’t know what to do with the camera, which kept this very good film from the land of the great.