Saturday Night Live: Kings of Comedy Collection 2 (4 Discs)
Hands down, this is the best movie (and was one of the first) to come out of the seemingly endless cycle of disaster movies that dominated box offices during the 1970s. It could even be argued that Titanic owes some of its success to the precedent set by this 1972 blockbuster starring Gene Hackman as a priest who leads a small group of survivors to safety from the bowels of a capsized luxury liner. From its stellar cast to its cheesy, Oscar-winning theme song, The Morning After, the movie has all the ingredients of a popular classic, beginning with a New Year's Eve celebration aboard the ill-fated Poseidon and ending as a pop allegory when the Hackman character becomes a Christ-like martyr. Filmed on spectacular sets where everything down is up and the ship's thick hull points in the direction of salvation, this is "a waterlogged Grand Hotel" (in the words of New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael) that is as entertaining as it is unabashedly brainless. The Poseidon Adventure is filled with performances that rise above the limits of the screenplay. It's also the only movie--unless you count her underwater corpse in Night of the Hunter--that lets Shelley Winters strut her stuff as an aquatic heroine. Who could ask for anything more? --Jeff Shannon
The expansive Baker clan return and find themselves in competition with a rival family.
Film-makers often remark that it's just so hard to make a bad picture that few would take on the challenge if they weren't so naive. Steve Martin's Bobby Bowfinger is cut from that pattern, one of those sweet, indomitable operators of Hollywood who seem to be descended directly from Ed Wood (of Plan 9 from Outer Space infamy). To resurrect his ramshackle existence, Bowfinger opts to film his accountant's sci-fi spectacular,Chubby Rain, about aliens invading in raindrops. The snag is he needs to attach action megastar Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), an actor so paranoid he counts the occurrences of the letter "k" in scripts to uncover possible Ku Klux Klan influences. When his effort fails, Bowfinger hits on an ingenious scheme to film Ramsey without his knowledge, throwing his actors at the hapless star whenever he appears in public. Only Kit begins to believe he's being hounded by aliens for real, and runs hysterically to his guru (Terence Stamp) at a Scientology-clone group called MindHead, where people walk around in fine suits wearing white pyramids on their heads. Deprived of his star, yet not to be undone, Bowfinger hires a look-alike, Jiff (also Eddie Murphy), to fill in. The tone of the picture is sometimes flat, rather than deadpan, but that's nitpicking. The farce is quick and engrossing, and populated with terrific performances, especially by Eddie Murphy, whose dual role as Kit and Jiff showcases his character-building gift, and by Martin, whose Bowfinger, part con man and part would-be visionary, manages to capture your sympathies. Heather Graham's would-be actress cheerfully sleeps her way to the top like she knows she's supposed to, and Christine Baranski plays her shopworn method actor with myopic self-absorption. --Jim Gay, Amazon.com
Roger Cobb (Steve Martin) is a swinging bachelor who is a lawyer but would rather be a jazz musician. Edwina Cutwaters (Lily Tomlin) is an ailing spinster who is given a second chance at life given her soul can be 'transported' into that of another woman - specifically the beautiful daughter of her stable hand. Unfortunately the guru-in-charge goofs and Edwina's soul winds up taking over the entire right side of Roger who now must learn to cope with being half the man he was.
In 1987, almost 100 years after its first production, the romantic story of Cyrano de Bergerac found new life in a winsome film written by Steve Martin. Roxanne updates the tale with a smart 80s' spin, yet writer-star Martin stays close to the old-fashioned heart of the matter. He plays a small-town fireman named CD Bales, whose otherwise unremarkable existence is crowned by an amazingly long nose. He falls for the world's most beautiful astronomer (Daryl Hannah), but he is embarrassed by the size of his proboscis and prefers to stay on the sidelines. Like Cyrano, the shy CD instead helps a handsome friend (Rick Rossovich) woo the fair lady by providing flowery sentiments and soulful poetry. Not only does the story still work, but director Fred Schepisi captures a dreamy grace in his visual design for the film (some of which will be lost without the widescreen format). Set in Washington State, but filmed in the hilly ski resort of Nelson, British Columbia, the location seems like a fairy-tale town, nearly as unreal as Steve Martin's nose. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
Cheaper By The Dozen (Dir. Shawn Levy 2003): Tom Baker (Steve Martin) and his wife Kate (Bonnie Hunt) lead a suprisingly idyllic life but when they get the chance to pursue their dream jobs and move the super-sized clan to the big city. The zany chaos begins as the dozen siblings revolt turning house and home upside down! Cheaper By The Dozen 2 (Dir. Adam Shankman 2005): Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt return as heads of the Baker family who while on holiday find them
This collection includes all four films featuring Dean Martin as Matt Helm, a sharp-shooting, swingin' secret agent. The soundtrack features numerous Dean Martin tunes such as If You Knew Susie, On the Sunny Side of the Street, South of the Border, and The Glory of Love.
FantasiaGroundbreaking on several counts, not the least of which was an innovative use of animation and stereophonic sound, this ambitious Disney feature has lost nothing to time since its release in 1940. Classical music was interpreted by Disney animators, resulting in surreal fantasy and playful escapism. Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra provided the music for eight segments by the composers Tchaikovsky, Moussorgsky, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Ponchielli, Bach, Dukas and Schubert. Not all the sequences were created equally, but a few are simply glorious, such as "Night on Bald Mountain", "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "The Nutcracker Suite". The animation ranges from subtly delicate to fiercely bold. The screen bursts with colour and action as creatures transmute and convention is thrust aside. The painstaking detail and saturated hues are unique to this film, unmatched even by more advanced technology. --Rochelle O'GormanFantasia 2000More ambitious in scope than any of its other animated films (before or to come), Disney's 1940 feature Fantasia was a dizzying, magical and highly enjoyable marriage of classical music and animated images. Fantasia 2000, originally made for the IMAX large-screen format, features some breathtaking animation and storytelling, and in a few spots soars to wonderful high points, but it still more often than not has the feel of walking in its predecessor's footsteps as opposed to creating its own path. A family of whales swimming and soaring to Respighi's The Pines of Rome is magical to watch, but ends all too soon; a forest sprite's dance of life, death and rebirth to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring too clearly echoes the original Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria sequence. But when it's on target, Fantasia 2000 is glorious enough to make you giddy. Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is a perfect narrative set to Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2, and Donald Duck's guest appearance as the assistant to Noah (of the Ark fame) set to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches is a welcome companion piece (though not an equal) to The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the one original Fantasia piece included here. The high point of Fantasia 2000, though, is a fantastic day-in-the-life sequence of 1930s New York City set to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and animated in the style of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld; it's a perfect melding of music, story and animation style. --Mark Englehart
Nearly every biblical film is ambitious, creating pictures to go with some of the most famous and sacred stories in the Western world. DreamWorks' first animated film, The Prince of Egypt was the vision of executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg after his ugly split from Disney, where he had been acknowledged as a key architect in that studio's rebirth (The Little Mermaid, etc.). His first film for the company he helped create was a huge, challenging project without a single toy or merchandising tie-in, the backbone du jour of family entertainment in the 1990s. Three directors and 16 writers succeed in carrying out much of Katzenberg's vision. The linear story of Moses is crisply told, and the look of the film is stunning; indeed, no animated film has looked so ready to be placed in the Louvre since Fantasia. Here is an Egypt alive with energetic bustle and pristine buildings. Born a slave and set adrift in the river, Moses (voiced by Val Kilmer) is raised as the son of Pharaoh Seti (Patrick Stewart) and is a fitting rival for his stepbrother Rameses (Ralph Fiennes). When he learns of his roots--in a knockout sequence in which hieroglyphics come alive--he flees to the desert, where he finds his roots and heeds God's calling to free the slaves from Egypt. Katzenberg and his artists are careful to tread lightly on religious boundaries. The film stops at the parting of the Red Sea, only showing the Ten Commandments--without commentary--as the film's coda. Music is a big part (there were three CDs released) and Hans Zimmer's score and Stephen Schwartz's songs work well--in fact the pop-ready, Oscar-winning "When You Believe" is one of the weakest songs. Kids ages 5 and up should be able to handle the referenced violence; the film doesn't shy away from what Egyptians did to their slaves. Perhaps Katzenberg could have aimed lower and made a more successful animated film, but then again, what's a heaven for? --Doug Thomas
More ambitious in scope than any of its other animated films (before or to come), Disney's 1940 Fantasia was a dizzying, magical and highly enjoyable marriage of classical music and animated images. Fantasia 2000, originally made for the IMAX large-screen format, features some breathtaking animation and storytelling, and in a few spots soars to wonderful high points, but it still more often than not has the feel of walking in its predecessor's footsteps as opposed to creating its own path. A family of whales swimming and soaring to Respighi's The Pines of Rome is magical to watch, but ends all too soon; a forest sprite's dance of life, death and rebirth to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring too clearly echoes the original Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria sequence. But when it's on target, Fantasia 2000 is glorious enough to make you giddy. Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is a perfect narrative set to Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2, and Donald Duck's guest appearance as the assistant to Noah (of the Ark fame) set to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches is a welcome companion piece (though not an equal) to The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the one original Fantasia piece included here. The high point of Fantasia 2000, though, is a fantastic day-in-the-life sequence of 1930s New York City set to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and animated in the style of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld; it's a perfect melding of music, story and animation style. Let's hope future Fantasias (reportedly in the works) take a cue from the best of this compilation. The music is provided by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Levine, interspersed with negligible intros by Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Itzhak Perlman, James Earl Jones and others. --Mark Englehart
In 1987, almost 100 years after its first production, the romantic story of Cyrano de Bergerac found new life in a winsome film written by Steve Martin. Roxanne updates the tale with a smart 80s' spin, yet writer-star Martin stays close to the old-fashioned heart of the matter. He plays a small-town fireman named CD Bales, whose otherwise unremarkable existence is crowned by an amazingly long nose. He falls for the world's most beautiful astronomer (Daryl Hannah), but he is embarrassed by the size of his proboscis and prefers to stay on the sidelines. Like Cyrano, the shy CD instead helps a handsome friend (Rick Rossovich) woo the fair lady by providing flowery sentiments and soulful poetry. Not only does the story still work, but director Fred Schepisi captures a dreamy grace in his visual design for the film (some of which will be lost without the widescreen format). Set in Washington State, but filmed in the hilly ski resort of Nelson, British Columbia, the location seems like a fairy-tale town, nearly as unreal as Steve Martin's nose. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
In the days of silent film serials one of the noblest trios to grace the screen and get the bad guys was the Three Amigos: Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase) Lucky Day (Steve Martin) and Ned Nederlander (Martin Short). But when their Hollywood glory days wane they receive a letter from a desperate community in Mexico that thinks their heroic characters are for real: they want the Three Amigos to come to their tiny Mexican village and defeat the notorious bandit El Guapo (Alfonso Arau).
Available for the first time on DVD! With Christmas only a few hours away Philip (Steve Martin) and his dedicated suicide hotline staff based in Venice California are about to go a little crazy. Philip is about to be dumped by his fiancee his hotline service will be evicted he will dance with a lonely cross-dresser and he'll have a run in with a gun-toting Santa Claus. Philip's Lifesavers is a place where the rescuers need help. 'Mixed Nuts' finds the funny side of life death
It's 1992 and the miners of Grimley Colliery are facing uncertainty. Not only is their pit under threat but the Grimley Colliery Band is on the verge of breaking up - that is until Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald) arrives. As the only female member of the band she somehow manages to rekindle their enthusiasm for the forthcoming National Championship as well as rekindling a childhood romance with Andy (Ewan McGregor).
After Rocky and its sequels, Sylvester Stallone cast about for another character that would bring him the same kind of box-office hit--and found it in disillusioned Vietnam vet John Rambo in First Blood, a solid little action thriller. So when all else failed, Stallone went back to the same well in hopes of recapturing the same commercial success. Which this film did. But where First Blood was a no-nonsense thriller that pitted Stallone against a worthy (and not necessarily bad) Brian Dennehy, this one is a sadistic chest-thumper in which Rambo gets to go back to Vietnam: ostensibly, he is there to rescue missing POWs, but in fact the movie was a lame excuse for him to refight the Vietnam War--and win. Audiences ate up the cruel Vietcong (and their Russian manipulators) and Stallone's bogus heroics, but it was strictly by-the-numbers action. --Marshall FineThe Rambo trilogy is also available on DVD as a complete set.
Arthur Bishop (Bronson) is a mob hit man who operates in a world of his own an uncompromising world where conventional rules of morality don't apply and where one wrong move could cost him his life! He's always worked alone but as age catches up with him Bishop takes on a competent and ruthless apprentice (Jan-Michael Vincent) and teaches him everything he knows. Together they become an unmatchable team of globetrotting killers until the pupil's ruthlessness puts him on a colli
Never get between a birder and a Pink-footed Goose. As we learn from The Big Year, the intensity of birders (the term birdwatcher is dismissed here as insufficiently committed) is not to be taken lightly, and their quest of rare species creates the gentle comedy of this film, which is based on a real phenomenon. In the world of birders, there's a goal set each calendar year, and based on the honour system: who can spot the most varieties of our feathered friends? All-time champ Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) is a legendary name in the birding game, and this year he's trying to beat his own record--but retired CEO Stu Preissler (Steve Martin) and slovenly upstart Brad Harris (Jack Black) are determined to topple the colourful and ruthless Bostick from his, er, perch. The movie's at its best when charting the movements of these obsessed enthusiasts in the wild, as they scramble from Alaska to Arizona to New Jersey in pursuit of their goal; it's less successful at trying to create human interest in the home lives of these guys. And despite the comedic talents of the main threesome, nobody really stands out; each plays to his usual persona without adding a new wrinkle. Director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) has a weirdly overqualified supporting cast on his hands, but except for Rosamund Pike as Bostick's neglected wife and Rashida Jones as a geeky birder, most of these folks flit by with little to do: Brian Dennehy and Dianne Wiest as Brad's parents, Anjelica Huston as a salty sea captain, Tim Blake Nelson as an awestruck birder. It's easy enough to enjoy this film for its offbeat subject and mild-mannered tone, even if there isn't anything terribly distinctive about it. --Robert Horton
That wild and crazy guy Steve Martin makes his acting debut in this wild and crazy comedy hit The Jerk. Steve portrays Navin Johnson adopted son of a poor black sharecropper family whose crazy inventions lead him from rags to riches and right back to rags. Along the way he's smitten with a lady motorcycle racer survives a series of screwball attacks by a deranged killer becomes a millionaire by inventing the ""opti-grab"" handle for eyeglasses - and shows why he's the hottest comic performer in America today.
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