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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Spy > Mystery > British TV > Commercials > Compilation > TV > Thriller > Gangster > Comedy > Biopic > Il > Circles Of Deceit (1993 – 1995/Acorn DVD Set) + Smokin’ – Classic Cigarette Commercials (S’More DVD) + Takedown (2010/E1 DVD) + Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies/Houdini (1969 & 1953/Ton

Circles Of Deceit (1993 – 1995/Acorn DVD Set) + Smokin’ – Classic Cigarette Commercials (S’More DVD) + Takedown (2010/E1 DVD) + Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies/Houdini (1969 & 1953/Tony Curtis Double Feature/Legend Blu-ray) + Winning Season (2009/Lionsgate DVD)

 

Picture: C/C/C/C+ & B-/C     Sound: C+ (Smokin’: C-)     Extras: C-/D/C-/D/C-     Main Programs: C+/C+/C/B-/B-

 

 

And now for a mix of interesting titles that are more interesting than most of the fluff we have been suffering through lately.

 

First up is a set for four spy telefilms called Circles Of Deceit with Dennis Waterman from The Sweeney and Minder as a down and out secret agent called in to fix some dirty jobs that are often a mix of unfinished Cold War business, rising terrorism and other dark matters he seems most suited to fix.  It wants to be a combination of Callan and Man In A Suitcase (see both elsewhere on this site), but tends to drag too much in an effort to be more realistic, instead being boring as slow does not always mean smart.

 

Produced and broadcast between 1993 – 1995, the spy genre was in flux and had not recovered from the fall of the U.S.S.R., but I give the makers credit for making a bold attempt to contribute to the genre and with guest stars like Leo McKern (The Prisoner), Derek Jacobi, John Hannah, Susan Jameson, Corin Redgrave, Kate Buffery, Claire Higgins and the ever great Peter Vaughn, it is a show all serious spy fans should see once.  The four telefilms here are not in their original broadcast order for some odd reason, but Acorn has included notes to that effect and included a few cast filmographies as bonus material.  The episodes in original order are the self-named telefilm, Dark Secret, Kalon and Sleeping Dogs.

 

 

When I saw that the compilation Smokin’ – Classic Cigarette Commercials was being issued by S’More Entertainment, I wondered if they could come up with ads that were not on the exceptional 1001 Classic Commercials set from Mill Creek, which you can read more about here:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8976/1001+Classic+Commercials+(Mill+Cree

 

 

Remarkably, there are dozens not on the other set and are among those I have never seen before.  This includes one add that dares to try to imitate Resnais’ Last Year At Marienbad (!!!) and one about telephones of the future (including Bell Picturephone knock-offs, but all of which have wires) and another brand also being of the future.  The more you know about the underhanded promotion of these products, the more sinister the ads come across and they found more Spanish variants.  Though the slendercase says this runs 70 minutes, this is actually two hours with some overlap between the 90 minutes and 30 minutes sections.  There are no extras.

 

Lou Diamond Phillips is a more viable action star than he ever got respect for and in Raul Sanchez Inglis’ Takedown (2010), he plays a security guard involved with more sinister happenings than people in his profession usually encounter, affecting him personally as he tries to help out a young, somewhat innocent gal smuggled from Serbia for exploitative reasons.  He is good in the role, but the script never exceeds the usual genre trappings (this one involves the Russian Mob), though Phillips is joined by Estella Warren, Deborah Kara Unger and a decent supporting cast.  I was hoping this might get better, but it had a few good moments.  Too bad its potential was not realized.  A trailer is the only extra.

 

This is the third time we are covering two of Tony Curtis’ big Paramount Pictures productions.  Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies/Houdini (1969 & 1953) have been on DVD as singles and as a double feature, but here they are now on Blu-ray from Legend Films.  You can read about the films starting with this link for the double feature DVD:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10761/Abbott+&+Costello+%E2%80%93+Th

 

Here are the singles:

 

Houdini

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7242/Houdini+(1953/Legend+DVD/Paramoun

 

Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunting Jalopies

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7274/Legend+Films+DVDs+(Baby+It%E2%8

 

 

We get no extras again, the same Dolby Digital soundtracks, but the 1080p digital High Definition image on both films are improvements over the color of the DVDs, though Houdini (at 1.33 X 1) benefits more in definition as well.  Jalopies (at 2.35 X 1) still has color issues in its live-action film source, but the animation at the beginning and end credits are superior to the DVD with better color and gives one an idea how nice this must have looked in first release.

 

Finally we have another sports drama in James C. Strouse’s Winning Season (2009) with the underrated Sam Rockwell as a down and out minimum wage worker who has the chance to coach a female high school basketball team.  What could have been another dumb Rocky-formula story is an interesting drama about the lives of the players and deals with poverty, anger, education, sexuality and other honest issues.

 

Rooney Mara and Emma Roberts are among the cast of the team and Rob Corddry and Margot Martindale help make up the rest of the solid cast.  This unexpectedly delivered in ways I had hoped Takedown might by stretching expectations and having some ambition.  This is the kind of film that may be discovered over the next few years and people will wonder why it did not have a larger audience to begin with.  A trailer is the only extra.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image on Deceit and Smokin’ are older transfers of filmed materials, but can look good, with Smokin’ a tad weaker on average, but the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 DVDs of Takedown and Winning have more detail issues, motion blur and general softness that may be holding back what looks like better shoots than their respective disc represent.

 

Deceit offers Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that is not bad, but offers no serious surrounds, while Smokin’ is credited as the same, but the first 90 minutes section has awful sound as if an attempt at stereo backfired.  The last 30 minutes section is better, but beware of volume switching and levels of playback.  Note all the original ads are monophonic.  Takedown and Winning have Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes, but their low budgets limit the sonics in these cases, though I wondered if either would have sounded better in lossless soundtracks.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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