The Angriest Man In Brooklyn (2014/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/At War With The Army (1940/Film Chest DVD)/Born Yesterday (1950/Columbia/Sony)/Brannigan (1975/United Artists/MGM)/Radio Days (1987/Orion/MGM)/Save Your Legs! (2012/Madman Entertainment/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-rays)/Wet Behind The Ears (2014/Cinema Libre DVD)

Picture: B-/C+/B/B/B/B-/C Sound: B-/C/C+/B-/B-/B-/C Extras: C-/D/C+/B-/C/B-/D Films: C/C+/B/C+/B-/C+/C

PLEASE NOTE: The Born Yesterday, Brannigan, Radio Days and Save Your Legs! Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, are limited editions for which only 3,000 copies of each will be made and all of them (and much more) can be ordered from the link below.

Comedy is not easy, but the following films try and most succeed....

Phil Alden Robinson's The Angriest Man In Brooklyn (2014) is a remake of an Israeli comedy that has been transplanted to the famous New York city with Robin Williams as a usually angry married businessman whose bitterness is made worse by getting a Doctor (Mila Kunis) to lie to him that a brain aneurism will give him 90 hours to live. He goes on a freak-out, he is mean to her without her doing anything to him and she spends time trying to find him and tell him the information was inaccurate. Instead, he stays unknowingly one step ahead of her going on a rampage, finding out his wife (Melissa Leo) is cheating on him and more, even when the med gal has the help of his brother (Peter Dinklage).

This should have been funny, especially in the pairing of Kunis and Williams, but everyone yells and talks AT each other, the dialogue is often contrived and this is shrill for most of the time. Even turns by James Earl Jones, Richard Kind and the underrated Hamish Linklater cannot save this from banality, so you get a messy curio with a long line of missed opportunities. Too bad.

Extras in both formats include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices, while the disc adds a Gag Reel and Angriest Man In Brooklyn: Behind The Rage featurette.

Reviewed as part of a DVD set a long time ago, here is a new release of the film that brought Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis together on the big screen. As noted in that older review, the Military Comedy At War With The Army (1940) was made at their longtime cinematic home of Paramount Pictures. It has its following, but is not that great a film, though the Coca Cola gag with Lewis, where the machine will not stop pumping out 6 oz. bottles, was forever shattered by the darker response in Stanley Kubrick's 1965 masterpiece Dr. Strangelove (reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site). The film is still a key picture of its kind, but just has not aged well. Looking at it again, you can see the duo just getting warmed up. This copy has no extras either.

George Cukor's Born Yesterday (1950) is a very funny comedy that holds up very well, based on the hit play with Broderick Crawford as a rich man who made his fortune on trash collection and takes up with a sexy gal (Judy Holliday in a pitch-perfect performance she originated on stage) and live a comfortable life, but it is void of excitement, is boring and even banal. He decides he needs her to seem more refined and smart, so he hires a newspaper man (William Holden) to correct the situation, but he lands up falling for the kept woman and vice versa. So what will happen next?

Cukor was in great form when he made this film and it remains one of his best, the actors are great, Holiday steals every scene she is in (why was she not a bigger movie star aside from her early death due to poor health?) and once again, Columbia showed it could go at it with the major studios, one of which it was about to soon become. Though some parts of this are obvious, so much works that it is amazing how well this one holds up. And yes, it is funny!

Extras include the usual solid, illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc adds an isolated music score track and two Original Theatrical Trailers.

With Westerns dying and trends changing, John Wayne had been such a big box office draw that the major studios tried to recast him in a Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry mode with mixed results. Following McQ at Warner Bros., United Artists gave it a shot with Douglas Hickox's Brannigan (1975), an unintentional howler that has him as the tough Chicago detective title character, but in a weird twist, a elusive villain (John Vernon from Dirty Harry) has run off to England and guess who flies to help Scotland Yard track him down?

The fish-out-of-water ploy does not work since Wayne is already way out of his element with bad one-liners worthy of bad 1980s actioners, though having the great Judy Geeson as his female Detective counterpart is a plus, but this film is all over the place despite the best efforts of the makers and a fine cast that also includes Richard Attenborough, Mel Ferrer, Lesley-Anne Down, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Brian Glover, Ralph Meeker, Anthony Booth, Del Henney, Barry Dennen and James Booth. The British did their best to help make this one work, but the results are mixed, but still worth a look and a few laughs.

Extras include the usual solid, illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc adds an isolated Dominic Frontiere music score track, feature length audio commentary track by film scholar Nick Redmond & star Judy Geeson, Geeson's silent home movie footage on the set of the film and the Original Theatrical Trailer.

Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987) is a semi-autobiographical look at growing up Jewish in 1940s New York complete with a young boy (Seth Green) fascinated by pop culture and radio programs as we see the world around him, adults in their affairs and many funny, amusing moments throughout made more real by terrific attention to details of the period and otherwise. Michael Tucker and Julie Kavner are the parents, joined by a strong cast that includes Diane Weist, Diane Keaton, Sydney A. Blake, Wallace Shawn, Josh Mostel, Tony Roberts, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Mia Farrow, Don Pardo, the voice of Larry David and more than a few underrated actors makes this an Allen comedy that holds up well.

It has its political moments, personal moments and was well-received in its time, but as the actual age of radio comedies and dramas move further away from us in the cyber age, that and nostalgia for New York (et al) keeps this an enduring work. I love the moments in high society and how they play in contrast to being at the radio studio, which makes me wish this were a bit longer. Allen was in full control of his mise-en-scene at this point and then some at a very supportive and welcoming Orion Studios. Catch it, especially if you've never seen it before.

Extras include the usual solid, illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc adds an isolated music score & sound effects track and the Original Theatrical Trailer.

Boyd Hicklyn's Save Your Legs! (2012/aka Knocked For Six) is an Australian comedy about the game of cricket and how a not-so-great Australian team has a chance at winning big if they can get to India and beat a big team there. Like The Firm (2009, despite the criminal drama in it) and Fever Pitch (1997, both also issued as limited edition Blu-rays from Twilight Time and reviewed elsewhere on this site), this film celebrates sports in an offbeat way (like Bull Durham for that matter) with sometimes crude humor and sometimes references only fans of the given sport would understand.

The film is not bad, but it was ultimately uneven for me despite some good performances, good scenes and consistent humor. That does not make it for fans-only either, but it is also not for everybody, though U.S. sports fans should give it a try just the same. Stephen Curry, Brendan Cowell and Damon Gameau star.

Extras include the usual solid, illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc adds an isolated music score track, feature length audio commentary track by the director, two co-producers and three of the main cast, Save Your Legs!: The Documentary, the Original Theatrical Trailer and a comedy featurette Bonus 4 India with Ted & Col.

Last but not totally least is Sloan Copeland's Wet Behind The Ears (2014) with Margaret Keane Williams as Samantha, a college grad who cannot find a job, so she lands up working at an ice cream shop and gets regular putdowns as a result to add insult to not finding the big jobs she hoped to qualify for. Jessica Piervincenti is her friend Victoria, who has a job, but maybe it could pay better. Sam tries to get her to go for a crazy scheme to make their lives better, but it is fraught with troubles and could make both of their lives worse forever if it does not succeed.

Like Brooklyn above, people talk at each other more than too each other in dialogue I never fully bought, though this is not as angry or shrill, it is just full and forgettable. The actors are trying, but the title may refer to the director's camera talents. I was hoping it would get better, but it gets stuck early, never recovers and has no big laughs either.

A trailer is the only extras.

The five Blu-rays here deliver image quality as good as it is going to get for the format with the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Brooklyn being a little uneven, sometimes with detail issues and obviously shot in HD, while the 1080p black and white 1.33 X 1 image on Born, 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Brannigan and 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Radio hardly show the age of the materials used in each case and are as good as these films have ever looked outside of a solid film print. I was very pleasantly surprised how well they played back and when films look this good, they become involving even when scenes might not work. That leaves the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Legs with some of the same flaws as Brooklyn, but also having its share of good color and quality shots like that one.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Ears should be better than the black and white 1.33 X 1 image on Army, but it is much softer and Army looks a little better than the rough DVD transfers that have been circulating for a while. Both could benefit from HD upgrades for Blu-ray release.

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on the Brooklyn and Legs should be the outright sonic champs here, but the multi-channel possibilities are not always used to best advantage and there is much talking, joking dialogue, so the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 lossless Mono mixes on Brannigan and Radio can compete more than expected and turn out to be very smart mono tracks for their time, well recorded and edited. Allen was the last major filmmaker to stick with monophonic sound and this sounds just fine. However, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 lossless Mono mix on Born is older and shows its age, but you can still here all the jokes and the like.

The DVDs have lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono for Army that is a little rougher than other copies we have hear, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Ears is softer than expected and has more sonic issues (like location audio) than it should.

To order the Born Yesterday, Brannigan, Radio Days and Save Your Legs! limited edition Blu-rays, buy them while supplies last among a growing catalog of great tittles at this link:

www.screenarchives.com

- Nicholas Sheffo