The
April Fools
(1969/National General/Jalem/CBS DVD)/Balls
To The Wall
(2011/Inception DVD)/The
Knot (2011/Cinedigm
DVD)/Laughing To The Bank
(2012/RLJ DVD)
Picture:
C+/C+/C+/C Sound: C+ Extras: D/C-/D/D Films: C+/D/C/D
Here
are four comedies with some drama to know about...
Stuart
Rosenberg's The April Fools
(1969) is a comedy where a married businessman (Jack Lemmon) is at a
party and feels out of place on top of already being unhappy when he
sees a beautiful woman (Catherine Deneuve) reminding him how happy he
still could be. Though not a great comedy, it is often funny, smart,
mature and has sadly got lost in the shuffle of back catalog titles.
Fortunately, here it is and it also boasts a great supporting cast in
Kenneth Mars, Peter Lawford, Myrna Loy, Charles Boyer, Melinda
Dillon, Harvey Korman, Sally Kellerman and David Doyle. The result
is a nice atmosphere and Rosenberg (Cool
Hand Luke) turns in one
of his better films.
Another
plus is a nice music score by the late Marvin Hamlisch with a title
song (only in the end credits) by Burt Bacharach & Hal David sung
by Dionne Warwick in one of their last collaborations (along with
Paper Mache)
before that landmark collaboration broke up. The writing duo would
split by 1973 after their musical version of The
Lost Horizon (see the
limited edition Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) bombed, though it is
now a cult classic.
National
General released this film and reminds us of how many interesting
films they produced in their time. No trick... The
April Fools is a film
everyone who likes smart motion pictures should see once.
Penelope
Spheeris' Balls To The
Wall (2011) is yet
another dud from the once promising director that suffers from all
kinds of problems and issues too numerous to go into here. The tale
here is about a man named Ben (Joe Hursley) who lands up becoming a
stripper despite hardly being in shape for it. He first learns of
this as a child (in a scene with a joke that sexualizes the child in
one of the worst of many moments here; Spheeris has had issues like
this before sexualizing Alfalfa in her Little
Rascals movie) and after
that early scene, this never recovers.
What
follows are gay stereotypes, more stereotypes of dumb women, jokes
that are never funny and a film that is too self-impressed and tries
way too hard to work. Antonio Sabato Jr., Jenna Dewan, Coleen Camp,
Christopher McDonald and even Mimi Rogers show up to no avail.
Stripping movies hardly ever work and this one might be worse than
Showgirls!
Jesse
Lawrence's The Knot
(2011) wants to be a comedy about marriage (the brief stripping here
is more convincing than all of Wall)
but this mess starts out with the tired, played out confessional
scenario than moves on to give us every cliché around. There are
actually a few amusing moments and I had a few laughs, but the makers
clearly do not know what is and is not funny and create one knot they
cannot get out of. Mena Suvari is a likable plus, but the grosser
jokes are the dumbest ones and show desperation on the makers' part.
If
they had not tired so hard and concentrated, this could have maybe
worked, but it is all over the place and quickly forgotten. Too bad.
Brian
Hooks' Laughing To The
Bank (2012) is a comedy
that wants to string along a bunch of would-be funny ideas (ala
Kentucky Fried Movie)
with Hooks among the allegedly funny cast. However, this is tired,
formulaic, predictable and worst of all, unfunny. Though it
allegedly came out a few years ago, a joke about the long defunct UPN
Network makes it seem more like it is 5 years late upon arrival. It
was stale to begin with and is one bank no one should bail out. Skip
it!
All
four DVDs have anamorphically enhanced presentations, but different
aspect ratios (April in 2.35 X 1, Wall in 1.85 X 1,
Knot at 2 X 1 and Bank at 1.78 X 1), though the results
are about the same, recent digital shoot Bank is the poorest
performer here by being just too soft and problematic. April
is the best-looking release here, shot in real 35mm anamorphic
Panavision by Director of Photography Michel Hugo (Ode To Billy
Joe, Bug, Trouble Man, Night Stalker (1972,
reviewed elsewhere on this site), The Monkees' film Head
(1968, reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site)) and issued in
three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor prints. It looks great, cannot
be seen on large enough a screen and holds up well. Wall was
also shot on 35mm film as well and does not look bad. They all tie
in sound, with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on April sounding
better than expected, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the rest
are undistinguished and lacking in consistent soundfields.
Except
for a brief Behind The Scenes featurette on Wall,
these releases are basic and have absolutely no extras.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
