Absolutely Fabulous: 20th Anniversary
Specials (2012/BBC DVD)/The Big Bang Theory: The
Complete Fifth Season (2011 – 2012/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD Set)/50’s TV Classics (Film Chest DVD Set)/Jim Gaffigan: Mr. Universe (Image DVD)/Salvation
Boulevard (2011/IFC/Sony DVD)/Sunny (2011/CJ Entertainment DVD)
Picture: C+/B-
& C+/C/C/C/C+ Sound: C+/B- &
C+/C/C+/C/B- Extras: C+/C+/D/D/D/C Main Programs: B-/B-/B-/C+/C-/C
Now for
some various comedy releases you might want to look into….
After
wrapping up their huge hit series many years ago, Jennifer Saunders and Joanna
Lumley are back for Absolutely Fabulous:
20th Anniversary Specials which has three all-new
episodes/specials of the show. Now shot
in HD, they make an easy transition with Edina
and Patsy still addicted to everything including trying to turn back the clock
on aging for themselves. These could
have been duds, but these are as amusing as the classic shows (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) and fans will be pleasantly surprised. I am not going to say much else because I do
not want to ruin any surprises, but this worked very well and the duo has as
much chemistry as they ever had.
Extras
include two featurettes on the Sports
Relief event, plus UltraViolet Copy is also available.
As big a
hit as ever, The Big Bang Theory: The
Complete Fifth Season permanently adds Melissa Rauch as Bernadette and
Mayim Bialik as Amy to the cast that did start out as an all-boys club. I think there are some big laughs this season
and have been a fan of the show before most discovered it, but I know the
producers are wondering where they’ll go next and some viewers and fans were
not as happy with this season. Why?
Well, the
show is repeating itself a little bit, plus new characters (no matter how
welcome and well integrated into the teleplays I might think they are) are
tough for viewers to sometimes handle and the show is coasting a bit on its
success. At least it is consistent. However, the show has become more sentimental
about them than it should at the expense of dealing with their states of pain
and loneliness by only laughing at those factors this time out instead of
talking a new look at them. Also, when a
story arc starts to peak, characters either get married or as in the 1960s,
someone might even get sent to outer space.
The writers of the show are still very smart, but adding new characters
is not the only solution.
Rauch is
funny, but Bialik is outright winning as their female opposite number in the
world of intellectual loners and is one of the biggest reasons I liked this
season more than most. Yet, some things
were desperate and the weekly TV grind has finally caught up with the
show. The series is bound to be on for
years to come, but before it backfires on itself, the makers are going to have
to find new ground to go or the series could wear thin fast the point of no
return.
The one
show this did remind me of was Daria
(also reviewed on this site), the underrated MTV animated series whose title
character was as isolated as any of the regulars here. The show was about her isolationism and the
writers handled that brilliantly, then she started to have a relationship,
which led to many viewers complaining that she should stay uninvolved and that
it was a betrayal of the show. You could
say that has happened to this series as well, ensemble cast
notwithstanding. They need to get that
sense of self-=reflection back and quickly, or the show will become a spoof of
itself and burn out like a supernova in terms of quality. With a cast this great, they need to do
better.
Extras
include UltraViolet Copy, three nice behind the scenes featurettes (Theory @ 100, Theory’s Law Of Reflection and Professors
Of Production) and another funny Gag Reel.
As a
throwback for fun, Film Chest has issued 50’s
TV Classics, a 3-DVD set with episodes of various comedy shows. DVD 1 has a 1957 Bob Hope Show where he is overseas entertaining troops with special
guest stars including Ann Miller, a 1950 Ed
Wynn Show with The Three Stooges, a 1950 children’s series The Paul Winchell & Jerry Mahoney Show (with
amusingly blatant Tootsie Roll sponsorship with talking mannequins) and
especially amusing 1957 Dinah Shore Show
(the 9th episode of the debut season) with Art Carney, Betty Hutton
in rare form and Boris Karloff in (in time for the holiday) a Halloween episode
that is one of the funniest, most amusing thing anyone here ever did. Charming and fun, this should be a holiday
classic. It is the highlight of this
set.
DVD 2 has
three episodes of the Western anthology series Death Valley Days from 1953, 1956 Lawrence Welk Show and 1956 Milton
Berle Show, while DVD 3 is a game show set including a 1950 Beat The Clock, two 1957 Who Do You Trust? Shows, 1953 Name That Tune and all is rounded out
with a 1954 Red Skelton Show.
A nice
sampler of a set, there are no extras, but these shows are worth a look for the
most part and make for a nice change of pace.
Our one
stand-up comedy entry is Jim Gaffigan:
Mr. Universe which may not be a laugh riot, but I was impressed by how amusing
some of his jokes were and especially how many he fit into this 77-minutes
act. He is talented and the material is
at least ambitious at the least. This is
one of the better releases of its kind of late and though there are no extras,
don’t be surprised if we see and hear more of this guy.
George
Ratliff’s Salvation Boulevard (2011)
wants to be a satire on the hypocrisy of mega-churches and be an off-beat caper
comedy at the same time, but it is not that good and even with a cast that
includes Pierce Brosnan (very strained as the phony preacher), Greg Kinnear
(who just made a similarly bad film), Jennifer Connelly (not as funny as she
could have been), Ed Harris as the atheist and Marisa Tomei still being sexy
all these years later. Unfortunately, it
is flat, the Coen Brothers have nothing to worry about and it is not being
risky enough on any subject it tackles.
See for yourself, but don’t be sleepy when you watch. There are no extras.
Finally
we have Kang Hyoung-Chul’s Sunny
(2011), a sometimes-entertaining young ladies comedy where the story of growing
up in the 1980s takes place in flashback (most of the film) with period music
(except where badly remade and not licensed) that has some fun and funny
moments (like when they are fighting or protesting or getting caught in someone
else’s more serious protests), but that eventually flattens out into a formula
melodrama that does not add up and you have seen too much of this before.
If you
can sit through the poorer parts, some of this is fun, but it is an overall
disappointment and does not capture the earlier period well enough. Nice try though. Extras include a Music Video, Trailers, four
making of featurettes and a piece on the soundtrack.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Absolutely,
Bang and anamorphically enhanced
2.35 X 1 image on Sunny are the best
of the DVD performers, but they all have their share of softness and even
motion blur at times. Good thing Bang also is here in 1080p 1.78 X 1
digital High Definition image Blu-rays which being the only Blu-ray on the list
is the best performer with a warmer look, better color range and more stable
picture. It can still be soft and
limited, though. The anamorphically
enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Salvation,
various 1.33 X 1 black and white prints on 50’s
and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Gaffigan are the poorest performers here, very soft and weak in
playback overall.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on all episodes of Bang may be somewhat towards the front
speakers, but it is the bets-sounding material on the list as expected, even
over the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on the DVD versions of the same
episodes. The same type of Dolby 5.1 on Sunny actually sounds better, but on Salvation is as limited. Lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Fabulous is next up in best recording
quality, followed by the same sounding lesser on Gaffigan and the 50’s
set has Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono that varies in quality, but sounds rough as
expected.
- Nicholas Sheffo