Alan Rapp

So I went to pick up my copy of Million Dollar Baby on DVD and just sitting there was the Special Edition DVD of Rocky.  What’s a guy to do?  So I ended up spending a night with two boxing films that took home the Oscar for Best Picture.  So let’s get ready for some boxin’!  In this corner we have the champion of boxing movies, the eternal underdog who makes good on his one shot, the Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa.  And in the other corner we have the challenger, a woman from humble trailer park beginnings, trained by Dirty Harry, Mo Cuishle, Maggie Fitzgerald.  So which is the better DVD, it’s a close call, and sure to go the distance.  Read on dear viewer, read on.

Rocky and Million Dollar Baby
4 & 1/2 Stars

So I went to pick up my copy of Million Dollar Baby on DVD and just sitting there was the Special Edition DVD of Rocky.  What’s a guy to do?  So I ended up spending a night with two boxing films that took home the Oscar for Best Picture.  So let’s get ready for some boxin’!  In this corner we have the champion of boxing movies, the eternal underdog who makes good on his one shot, the Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa.  And in the other corner we have the challenger, a woman from humble trailer park beginnings, trained by Dirty Harry, Mo Cuishle, Maggie Fitzgerald.  So which is the better DVD, it’s a close call, and sure to go the distance.  Read on dear viewer, read on.

Always protect yourself

Million Dollar Baby
Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) was one of the best cut men in the boxing game.  Now he owns a gym with the help of his old-time friend Scrap (Morgan Freeman).  Frankie’s life is not a happy one.  He has an estranged daughter who he writes every week, but whose letters are always returned unopened.  He attends Catholic mass every day without fail as he is haunted by some past sin.  And he has lost his boxer to another manager who can guarantee him a title shot.  Into his life walks a thirty-one year old woman named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank) who wants Frankie to train her and won’t take no for an answer.  Frankie isn’t interested in training a girl, but Maggie slowly starts to wear down his resolve.  Finally Frankie agrees and Maggie starts to live her dream in the ring. 

The movie is never about what you think its about.  It travels a winding road of subtle and abrupt turns, much like life.  This was by far the best of theatrical releases of 2004.  Besides Best Picture it won Eastwood a Best Director Oscar, Swank a Best Actress Oscar, and Freeman a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.  The films performances are just unbelievable, and Eastwood’s direction shows a style that doesn’t mind not showing or telling the audience everything, something I wish other current directors would learn from.  The world of Frankie and Maggie is filled with many odd and interesting stories that would be cut out of a lesser film.  The best of these are Danger (Jay Baruchel), a young man with absolutely no boxing talent who punches air around the gym and is constantly yelling out a challenge to fight Thomas “Hitman” Hearns, and Father Horvak (Brian F. O’Byrne) a preacher who Frankie torments on a daily basis with questions like “So is Jesus a Demigod?”  The films many plot turns and multiple stories are held together by Freeman’s low key narration which tells us as much about our characters as the sport of boxing.  Freeman effortlessly finds just the right notes for each scene and brings us fully into this world.

The two disc collection ($29.95) has some nice extras.  We are given two different documentaries, one on the producers and the production aspect of the film and a second documentary on the making of the film.  Both are well done.  The other extra is a short interview with Eastwood, Swank, and Freeman talking with James Lipton.  I have to admit being disappointed with this extra.  Lipton spends most of the interview plugging his own show and shamelessly kissing up to the actors; not much new stuff here especially if you have already seen Lipton interview these actors separately.  The movie’s trailer is also included.  The glaring oversight here is the lack of even a single commentary track, especially for a movie of this caliber in terms of acting, action sequences, and how the film is lit and shot.

Yo, Adrian!

Rocky
Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a man with few positives in his life.  His boxing career is going nowhere, he’s got a dead-end job as a leg breaker for a small time mobster, his best friend Paulie (Burt Young) is a loudmouthed drunk whose sister Adrian (Talia Shire) won’t give him the time of day, and he’s just lost his locker at the local gym run by Mickey (Burgess Meredith).  Rocky is given his one shot at greatness when the opponent for the heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) backs out only five weeks before the fight leaving an opening for a no-name contender.  Rocky accepts Mickey as his manager, tries to win Adrian’s heart,  and trains for what will be his one chance to prove himself that he is more than just a bum.

The movie is less a story about a man’s chance at greatness than about a man proving his worth to himself.  Rocky never really considers he has a chance to win.  For him the victory is the chance to finish the fight still standing, to do what no one has been able to do and take Creed the distance.  Although there are several wonderful pieces here (directing, acting, cinema photography, score, fight sequences) this is Stallone’s shining moment.  The fact that he wrote this screenplay and held onto it until a studio was willing to let him play the lead role is a great Hollywood story.  The supporting cast is just terrific, and the fight sequences are as well filmed as anything you would see today.  You also get a strong feel for the town of Philadelphia which would be played on further in the sequels.

The Special Edition ($14.95) is chocked full of goodies.  First, we get a commentary track that includes director John G Avildsen, producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, and actors Talia Shire, Burt Young, and Carl Weathers.  The only one missing here is Stallone himself.  There is also a short “video commentary” with Stallone that is really more of an interview with intercut scenes, but is still very good.  Aside from the commentary we get a short documentary from the director which goes into detail of how the fight scenes were shot and actually takes a look at some of the original 8mm footage that was used, trailers and television spots, a short tribute to Burgess Meredith, and a short tribute to the cinema photographer James Crabe.  Really stocked full of great stuff here for just a one disc DVD.

No knockout here folks, so we have to go to the ref’s scorecards for the decision.  I think both of these are worthy DVDs to add to any collection, but if you had to pick one only….well that’s a tough one.  For half the cost and more extras including commentary I’m inclined to go with Rocky rather than Million Dollar Baby, although I honestly don’t think you could go wrong either way.  Both are boxing movies, but neither is solely about boxing.  The main characters in each are searching for their place in the world and in the ring, and they both are given a shot late in the life of their careers to succeed when no one thinks they can.  These are stories about people whose lives have threatened to pass them by and are given one chance to prove that they can succeed and prove their worth.

Great horror movies keep an audience on the edge of their seat, engaged, wondering what could possibly happen next.  Good horror movies keep you interested through bizarre plot twists, gruesome death scenes, and lots of blood.  This movie made me want to pee.

Dark Water
1 & 1/2 Stars

Great horror movies keep an audience on the edge of their seat, engaged, wondering what could possibly happen next.  Good horror movies keep you interested through bizarre plot twists, gruesome death scenes, and lots of blood.  This movie made me want to pee.  Dark Water is the latest Japanese horror movie to be remade by Hollywood.  I have never seen the original Honogurai mizu no soko kara, but I will assume it was better than this.  It’s really quite a shame considering how much this movie had going for it that the end result is a tangled ball of missed opportunities.

In the midst of a messy divorce and custody battle, Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) moves with her daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade) to a rather strange apartment building owned by Mr. Murray (John C. Reilly).  The building appears relatively old and rundown, and the caretaker of the place Veek (Pete Postlethwaite) tries to keep everything working while blaming any accidents on a pair of kids who live on the tenth floor.  There’s also a strange stain in the corner of the bedroom ceiling that seems to fascinate Ceci.  Immediately after moving in odd occurences start to happen.  The numbered buttons for the elevator are burnt off and the elevator that often has a small wet spot in the corner likes to move to the top floor all on its own.  Dahlia’s ceiling begins to leak, Ceci begins to be talking to an imaginary friend with the same name as the girl who once lived in the upstairs apartment and makes her do bad things.  Dahlia ‘s life quickly begins to fray as she can’t get anyone to take care of the leak in the apartment, which is caused by all the faucets in the room above hers being turned on, her husband is suing her and citing examples of her unfitness as a parent, and Ceci starting to have episodes at school.

Sounds kinda’ interesting,right?  Well, it’s sad because it really could have been.  All the elements are here for a very tight intriguing psychological drama, but the movie decides early on that it would prefer to be your standard run of the mill Hollywood ghost story.  Very early we see Ceci talking to our ghost and we hear the ghost talking back.  This really takes the wind out of the sails as they keep playing the “is she crazy” storyline even though they have already told us there is a ghost.  The problem is the psychological parts work far better than the ghost scenes.  If you are going to do a ghost movie in the horror realm, which this movie claims to do, then you have to have a scary ghost.  A little girl who starts water leaks around the building isn’t too scary to me.  Nothing that happens justifies the effect it has on Dahlia so they had to write in a back story halfway through the film about her being abused and abandoned by her parents.  I guess this is supposed to explain why all these inconveniences scare her when they wouldn’t scare a four year-old child, but I’m sorry I couldn’t buy it.  Water just isn’t scary.  The big special effects sequences are far from impressive.  We get water running down floors, water dripping, water shooting through pipes, water shooting out of sinks and toilets, and water running down walls.  I’ve seen effects on Sesame Street that are scarier, and more impressive.  An odd note, most of the water is a very dark color almost like blood which is a nice touch, but is wasted because no one in the movie, even though it is everywhere, seems to notice or comment.

So they abandon the suspense angle early on, the horror angle never pans out, is there anything that works in this movie?  Well yes, it does have some nice performances.  Reilly is very good as the apartment owner/slum lord who resembles more of a used car salesman.  There are good performances by the Ariel Gade as the child and Tim Roth, who has a very interesting turn as Dahlia’s lawyer who works out of his SUV.  Connelly is very good in the opening quarter of the movie, but her performance becomes strictly one note as the odd occurences begin, which isn’t helped by the script calling for her to self medicate herself continuously through the end of the movie.  Postlethwaite’s character never really is defined.  He’s either the mean and creepy old guy who lives in the basement, or he’s a nice guy who fixes problems for the tenants, depending on the scene.  Dougray Scott is fine as the ex-husband, though he’s a little too nice and concerned for us to understand Dahlia’s anger at him.  Camyrn Manheim has a nice role as Ceci’s teacher, but there’s really not much for her to do in the movie other then tell Dahlia something might be wrong with her daughter.  The apartment building is very strange, but never really scary.  The director never takes advantage of play on the oddness of the surroundings.  In addition, it does seem rather empty.  We only see three other tenants from the building throughout the entire movie, Veek’s two michievious teenagers who could have been much creepier, and a man Dahlia meets on the elevator.  Considering the huge building and Murray’s need to sell apartments fast, fast, fast this doesn’t seem to make much sense.  The director might have been going for a ghost town feel, but we are told and shown that this is a thriving town with one of the best schools in the nation.  Maybe the studio ran out of money and couldn’t hire any more extras.

This movie just doesn’t work.  I could see what the director and the writer were going for in different scenes, but the choices they make never pan out.  To give you an example, without explaining too much, the last scenes in the movie are supposed to be moving.  I laughed out loud.  The ending doesn’t seem to translate well, while it might work well in the Japanese version, here it just looks contrived.  The opening sequence with Dahlia as a little girl, which we see again and again in flashbacks, does nothing to add weight to the character or the storyline.  The movie is beset with countless boneheaded decisions are made simply because of the need to advance another ghost scene in the plot.  The movie wastes a great cast and a very intriguing set up for a psychological drama for what amounts to a pretty lame ghost movie.  If you want to see a good suspenseful movie about a kid that talks to dead people I’d recommend you go out and rent M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, unless water scares you.

The style and writing of this wonderful show seamlessly blend the screwball comedy and detective movies of the 40’s and 50’s while creating a show that would break all the rules of network television and create something truly unique.

Moonlighting
4 & 1/2 Stars

Memory is a fickle thing.  Going back and watching television shows I enjoyed during my youth can run the gamut of disaster (Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazard) to a renewed appreciation (M.A.S.H.).  So with more than a little pessimism I sat down to spend some time with the first and second seasons of Moonlighting.  I remember enjoying the show as a kid, but a funny thing happened as I started watching.  Not only did I rediscover what I liked as a kid, but I found a new appreciation for the style and writing of this wonderful show that seamlessly blends the screwball comedy and detective movies of the 40’s and 50’s while creating a show that would break all the rules of network television and create something truly unique .  In the words of Agnes DiPesto it’s simply “Great, Great!”

Retired Blue Moon Shampoo model Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) wakes up one day to find out that her accountant has stolen all her money and fled the country.  With no real options she begins to try and sell off her few business interests which were all bought for tax write-off purposes.  One of these happens to be a small detective agency headed by David Addison (Bruce Willis) with the help of secretary Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) who always answers the phone in rhyme and a host of faceless assistants who do little more than sit and there desks waiting for David to call for the next limbo contest.  When a man is murdered and the mystery drops right into Maddie’s lap (literally) the show takes off.  David eventually talks Maddie into keeping the agency, solve the mystery, and they become partners trying to make a profitable business out of the now renamed Blue Moon Detective Agency.  The two go on to bumble their way to solving many mysteries, argue and fight continuously, slam doors, wink at the camera, yell, scream, and provide us with hours of entertainment.

Turn your way back machines to the year 1985 Sherman.  After some success on working on Remington Steele, Glen Gordon Caron was asked to create a pilot for a new man/woman partner detective show.  Not a big fan of the genre, but given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, he created a show that was more comedy than suspense, more about the relationships between men and women than about detective and suspect, and a show that would break many of televisions rules.  To begin with the show was an hour long comedy, an extreme rarity today much less in 1985.  The characters would occasionally talk to the viewers or make comments about this week’s episode or belonging on cable.  In the Christmas episode (the entire episode written as an allegory) the characters actually step off set onto the soundstage to be serenaded by the crew and their friends and family signing Noel, Noel. 

They also pushed the boundaries for what could be done in an hour of television.  The black and white episode was shot on old film stock with the black and white cameras that were tracked down.  Not only that, but each of the two black and white sequences were shot in different styles, paying homage to both the old MGM movies and the “Marloweske” detective films.  The studio being very anxious about showing a black and white episode asked for an explanation at the beginning (thinking people wouldn’t understand why their televisions lost all color twelve minutes in).  So who do they get to do it?  Orson—freakin’—Welles!  Exactly one week before his death.  In many ways the show was well ahead of its time and television creators who have taken chances (a certain vampire slayer bursting into song comes to mind) owe quite a bit to this little niche cult television show that somehow, to the surprise of all involved, became a huge phenomenon and ABC’s #1 show in the late 80’s. 

Other great episodes include two Agnes DiPesto episodes, Next Stop Murder, a different take on Murder on the Orient Express, and North by North DiPesto, which if I have to tell you what it’s spoofing you won’t get the joke.  Great suspenseful plot twist abound in The Lady in the Iron Mask which has a hilarious chase sequence and The Bride of Tupperman where a man offers our detectives $25,000 to find his perfect mate.  What can you say about a series that has one episode that includes a food fight, The Murder’s in the Mail, and another that deals seriously with both sides of the euthanasia debate, Witness For the Execution?

You get your money’s worth (list price $49.98) here for 6 discs packed with 24 episodes and full of extras.  Commentary tracks for five different episodes including the pilot and the black and white episode The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice feature the creator, different writers and directors and both Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd do commentary for one episode each.  The commentary is surprising good, especially for Dream Sequence, discussing the Orson Welles cameo and the process of making the black and white episode.  Also included are 3 different documentaries and a collection of old promos that aired for the show.  The menus are easily accessible, and the episodes can be viewed individually or you can select the play all option that will show all the disc’s episodes consecutively (I can’t tell you how much nicer this is than constantly going back to the main menu to play the next episode).  My only real complaint is the housing of the discs.  It’s well made, but usually with this type of container there is a sleeve to slide the single holder into, since there isn’t one provided here the sides tend to push out and allow dust inside relatively easily, with no way to keep the case closed.

Aside from the disappointment for the case, I was extremely pleased with this package.  The documentaries are interesting, the commentaries are informative and entertaining, and the show works as well today as it did 20 years ago when it aired.  I’d recommend this to anyone who remembers the show, or anyone who enjoys screwball slapstick comedy and/or pretty good mystery stories.  Also look for many familiar faces making guest appearances (Tim Robbins, Whoopi Goldberg, Dana Delany, Mark Linn-Baker, Eve Marie Saint, Paul Rudd, and Richard Belzer just being a few).