Dean
Martin Celebrity Roasts: Hall Of Famers
+ Stingers & Zingers
(1973 - 1984/Star Vista DVDs)/He
Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
(2002/First Run DVD)/The
Voices (2014/Lionsgate
Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/C+/C+/B- Sound: C+/C+/C/B- Extras: C/B-/D/D Main
Programs: C+/B/C+/D
Here
are our latest comedy releases...
Dean
Martin Celebrity Roasts: Hall Of Famers
(a single DVD) and Stingers
& Zingers (an 8-DVD
set) are new smaller releases derived from the huge Complete
Collection DVD box of the
show we reviewed a while ago at this link where you can order all
versions of the show:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12411/The+Dean+Martin+Celebrity+Roasts:+The+Comple
The
first DVD is with all the major baseball stars Martin was able to get
on his show including Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Willie Mays, Hank
Arron and Joe Garagiola. Plus Evel Knievel, Milton Berle, Ruth
Buzzi, Foster Brooks, Nipsey Russell, Orson Welles, Red Buttons and
Don Rickles are among those who show up. The larger set has 24
roasts (almost designed to sell the larger box) as the press
announcement explains best...
'...including
Valerie Harper, Jack Klugman & Tony Randall, Michael Landon,
Carroll O'Connor, Sen. Hubert Humphrey, Wilt Chamberlain, Danny
Thomas, Ted Knight, Dan Haggerty, Mr. T, Jack Klugman, Ed McMahon,
Redd Foxx, Joe Garagiola, Evel Knievel, Hank Aaron, Peter Marshall,
Truman Capote, William Conrad, Monty Hall, Leo Durocher,Bobby Riggs,
and Joe Namath-twice! Appearing as roasters, throwing zingers at the
men and women of the hour, are Bob Hope, Ed Asner, Lucille Ball,
Georgia Engel, Milton Berle, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ruth Buzzi, Sid Caesar,
Foster Brooks, Charo, Howard Cosell, Angie Dickinson, Phyllis Diller,
Nipsey Russell, Rich Little, Red Buttons, Audrey Meadows, Bob
Newhart, Harvey Korman, Orson Welles, and many others.'
Needless
to say that means overlap with the baseball DVD, but it expands your
choices.
Extras
repeating from the box set on the Famers
includes about an
hour of bonus features such as comedy sketches from the The
Dean Martin Show
featuring Dean and Joey Bishop, as well as exclusive interviews with
Shirley Jones, Norm Crosby & Dan Haggerty.
Zingers
adds more
than three hours of bonus programming, with comedy sketches featuring
Dean, Ruth Buzzi, Dom DeLuise, Charo, Ernest Borgnine, and others;
two featurettes: "Primetime Ribbing: Roasting Small-Screen
Stars" and "Sports Stars: Hit 'Em Where It Hurts", as
well as exclusive interviews with Ed Asner, Norm Crosby, Rich Little,
Carol Burnett, Dan Haggerty, Tom Dreesen, Jimmie Walker, Tony Danza,
Shirley Jones, Rip Taylor and Jack Carter.
With
Comedy Central's revival of the roasts so successful, these releases
are more timely than ever, so check out how bold and funny the
originals could be and still are.
Laetitia
Colombani's He Loves Me,
He Loves Me Not (2002) is
a lesser-seen Audrey Tautou comedy where she acts nuts and we are
supposed to think it is funny because she is so cute-pretty so we
laugh and love her automatically. Here, she imagines she is in a
relationship with an unknowing doctor as she suffers from the
condition known as erotomania. Not that it is portrayed properly
here, but it is not a total insult either, but it is predictable
enough.
Running
just over 90 minutes, it has some good moments and looks good, but it
is not that great and is for Tautou fans only. The cast is a plus
and as for the DVD, there are no extras.
Last
and definitely least is Marjane Satrapi's The
Voices (2014), a missed
opportunity with Ryan Reynolds as a man with mental illness issues
who hears more than a few voices (including some animals) only in his
head and working at a bathtub factory. At first, this seems like a
promising set-up for 3 minutes, then it turns into a desperate,
unfunny disaster that is an insult to mental illness. Jacki Weaver,
Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick show up and cannot save this insult
to the intelligence of all that ultimately mocks mental illness in
the worst, most cynical ways.
They
should all said no to this insulting, ignorant dud.
Digital
HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices is
the only extra.
The
1.33 X 1 color videotaped images on the two Martin
DVDs are of the same expected quality that we found on the full DVD
box set with the usual NTSC limits and some aliasing errors with
other slight flaws throughout, while the
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Not
is a nice, often colorful 35mm shoot that comes through nicely
despite some soft spots and the limits of the older DVD format. The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Voices
is a digital shoot that has its share of limits and flaws, the best
performer here, but not by as much as you might think.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on
the two Martin
DVDs are of the same expected quality that we found on the full DVD
box set with sound being fine for everyone talking and joking there
way through every show, while the
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Not
sounds a little compressed and down about a generation with no real
palpable surrounds, but it will do. That leaves the DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Voices
not taking total advantage of the multi-channel possibilities and not
always well-recorded, but passable and the best sonic presentation
here by default.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
