The
Best Of The Original Evening At The Improv
(1982 - 1983/Somerville House DVD Set)/The
Big Bus
(1976/Paramount/Warner Archive DVD)/Sex
Kittens Go To College
(1960/Allied Artists/Warner Archive DVD)/This
Is The End (2013/Sony
Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/C+/B- & C Sound: C+/C+/C+/B & B- Extras:
C/D/C-/C- Main Programs: B/C-/C/C-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Big Bus
and Sex
Kittens Go To College!
DVDs are only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are the latest comedy releases...
The
Best Of The Original Evening At The Improv
(1982 - 1983) is a 4-DVD set that takes 12 hours of highlights from
the original 52 hours of the historic show and the list of people
featured are a who's who of the business in peak form. You have
guest hosts, all doing comedy, including John Byner, Sally Kellerman,
Leslie Nielsen, James Coco, Ed McMahon, Phil Foster (from Laverne
& Shirley),
Don Novello in character as Father Guido Sarducci, Billy Crystal (who
does a great routine himself), Milton Berle, Shields & Yarnell,
Fred Willard, Daniel J. Travanti, John Bauman, Patrick Macnee, Tony
Curtis, Steve Allen, Tom Bosley, MacLean Stevenson, Lorne Greene,
Christopher Lee, Harvey Korman, Robert Guillaume, William Shatner,
Phyllis Diller, Avery Schreiber, Jackie Mason, Shelley Berman, Dick
Shawn, Andy Kaufmann, Shelley Winters, Morgan Fairchild and Don
Adams.
Then
you have the then -new comic talents including Jerry Seinfeld,
Michael Keaton, Howie Mandell, Paul Reiser, Jim Carrey, Bob Townsend,
Elayne Boosler, Robert Wuhl, Arsenio Hall, Steven Wright, Sandra
Bernhardt, Bill Maher, Richard Lewis, Fred Willard (again), Harry
Anderson, Rich Hall, Kevin Nealon, Charles Fleischer, Marsha
Warfield, Bob Saget, George Wallace and Mark Halloran among others.
Because
they are a surprise, we'll count the musical guest clips as extras,
eight in all, including a very plain-clothed Alabama, The Nylons, The
Bellamy Brothers and Nicolette Larson, but they all should have been
identified somewhere. Not enough records exist on this key show, so
it is nice to have such a set in print. It is the best release on
this list.
James
Frawley's The
Big Bus
(1976) is a comedy that can also boast an amazing list of comic
talents including Stockard Channing, Joseph Bologna, Ned Beatty, Jose
Ferrer, Rene Auberjonois, Harold Gould, Ruth Gordon, Larry Hagman,
Sally Kellerman, Richard Mulligan, Lynn Redgrave, Stuart Margolin,
Richard B. Scull, Vic Tayback, Howard Hessman, Vito Scotti, Selma
Archerd and Joe Brooks. This spoof of disaster films (a cycle still
going on when it arrived and bombed in theaters) is about the terror
that is about to happen when a nuclear-powered luxury bus is the
target of a terrorist plot.
Ferrer
is the vengeful man in an iron lung plotting against everyone in the
kind of turn he might have done for Mel Brooks in sets that look like
a Flint
film and now, an Austin Powers film. The bus is elaborately made,
especially since this is pre-digitial effects and that is amusing in
its own way, but the screenplay is weak and the film has not aged
well. You might smile a few times, but don't look for any big
laughs. Of course, Paramount issued Airplane!
a few years later and that hit big.
There
are no extras.
Albert
Zugsmith's Sex
Kittens Go To College
(1960) was an attempt by Allied Artists to get some more money out of
B-movie fare to expand into a bigger company and the results here
mixed and interesting enough to give it a look and it will be a curio
for some, but it is not a great film by any standard. However, we
get Mamie Van Doren (as a doctor a campus computer has decided should
be hired to run the science department; must have blown a fuse!) at
her early peak with a young Tuesday Weld and Mijanou Bardot (Brigid's
younger sister) causing all kinds of relationship shenanigans, sex
jokes (some politically incorrect) and a subplot about race hoses and
criminals has this one with a script that tries everything.
Not
that it always works, but it is actually fun when it does not and
that says something about the energy and unusual casting that also
includes Mickey Shaughnessy, Martin Miller, Jackie Coogan, Pamela
Mason, Louis Nye, John Carradine, Charles Chaplin Jr., Allan Drake,
Elektro (The Westinghouse Robot in another role here), Etta Toodle as
Vampira (not the original actress who created the role, by the way)
and Conway Twitty (!) as himself singing and performing!
Yes,
you have to see this one to believe it and despite being mixed and
average, it deserves to be in print on DVD. A trailer is the only
extra.
There
has been a new cycle of the played-out stuck-in-a film and the Evan
Goldberg/Seth Rogen version is This
Is The End
(2013), where friends get together for a party, only to discover a
disaster is upon them that could mean
the end of the world. This made some money, but is a very lazy,
dumb, cynical contract-filler that is highly uninspired and not as
good as the better, highly similar and still-problematic Todd Berger
film It's
A Disaster,
also from earlier in 2013 (reviewed elsewhere on this site).
This
version has a cast of known actors and stars playing themselves
including the co-directors, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera,
Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson, Kevin Hart,
David Krumholtz, Paul Rudd, Channing Tatum and singer Rihanna. There
is definitely some talent here, but not comparable to the above lists
of comedy talent (some here are not comic talent either, even if they
are stars and performers with talent) and when you add the horrid
script, it is the nadir of just about everyone involved and a sad
statement on how lame Hollywood has become that this would ever get
made. Not even a good curio, see it at your own risk. Wow, what a
dud!
Extras
include Digital
HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices, a
Line-O-Rama clip, Meta-Apocalypse
segment, Party
Time,
The
Cannibal King,
Let's
Get Technical,
& faux Making
of Pineapple Express 2
clips, Original short that inspired this mess called 'Jay & Seth
& The Apocalypse', Deleted Scenes and Gag Reel, plus Blu-ray
exclusive feature length audio commentary track with Rogen &
Goldberg and two
featurettes: Directing
Your Friends
and This
Is The Marketing.
The
1.33 X 1 color image on the Improv
set has disclaimers on all four discs because the NTSC tapings show
their age in softness, detail issues and even some ghosting,
staircasing and aliasing. However, they are not horrible and easy
enough to handle considering the semi-dark club.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on End
is an HD shot and it can look it at times, but by default, this is
the best performer on the list, though it is flat, dull and
forgettable. The anamorphically enhanced DVD included is much softer
and ties Improv as the visual loser on the list.
Sharing
the middle ground on performance are the two filmed works here, the
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Bus
and anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 black and white image on Sex,
which might be slightly older transfers, but held up well enough and
have some of the nicest shots on the list.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on End
is a big surprise here in that it is well recorded, mixed
and presented with a constant soundfield that obviously helped it at
the box office. I was surprised, but this is the default highlight
of the release, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the DVD
version outdoes the other DVDs on the list. The
PCM 2.0 Stereo sound on Improv
is a bit aged at times, but sounds good otherwise and along with the
mixed, lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Bus
(apparently upgraded from only theatrical mono) and lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono in Sex
tie for last place, but all sound just fine for what we get, though
the feature films could probably sound better if released lossless
from original soundmaster materials.
To
order The
Big Bus
and Sex
Kittens Go To College!
DVDs, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
