Athena (1954/MGM*)/Beate (2017/Corinth DVD)/Shoplifters Of The World (2018/RLJ Blu-ray)/There Was A Crooked Man... (1970/*both Warner Archive Blu-rays)/Watching TV With The Red Chinese (2012/DVD)/Who Is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him) (2010/Blu-ray/both MVD)

Picture: B/C+/B-/B/C+/B Sound: C+/C/B-/C+/C+/B- Extras: C/D/C/C/D/B- Main Programs: C+/D/C/C+/C+/B

PLEASE NOTE: The Athena and There Was A Crooked Man... Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

The following releases are all of a quirky nature, good or bad, and worth noting no matter what...

We start with Richard Thorpe's Athena (1954) delivering an awkward musical that shows why the genre started to go into decline at this point. Oddly, some parts of this MGM release it involves a group of mostly women who believe in exercise and very healthy foods decades before our current craze for them and even a few years before hippies started to promote such food. This was apparently at the time such talk and ideas started.

Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell are two of the women involved and get involved in the not-as-healthy Edmund Purdom (in a role Roger Moore might have also played at the time, a British guy with money and class, despite being a sometimes bore) and singer Vic Damone, with supporting work by Louis Calhern, Linda Christian, Evelyn Varden, Ray Collins and a pre-Hercules Steve Reeves joined by other period bodybuilders. Yes, it is that odd.

However, it is the mixed and not very memorable music score by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine that just does not click. I did not remember any of the songs when this was over, though some of the dancing is not bad and the songs never gel into a larger narrative. However, MGM put some money out for it, so it is a mixed disappointment and a curio fans might want to check out.

Extras include an Original Theatrical Trailer and three outtake musical numbers.

Samad Zarmandili's Beate (2017) starts out at a business that makes ladies under-apparel and it is played for some lite humor, but soon, the Italian production starts going all over the place, as some of the ladies at the factory they work at start their own competing business. They also 'borrow' some things from their former employer, then nuns get involved and so do odd politics, but then it veers towards backstabbing, humiliation and gets lost its own mess it wallows in.

Anything politically intended gets lost in all this and the result is one of the poorest 94 minutes I have suffered through of late. The actors are trying, but they are trapped in this mess and it starts going bad early. See at your own peril.

There are no extras.

Stephen Kijak's Shoplifters Of The World (2018) is one of those films that stars out decently, then does not know where to go in its second half. The band The Smiths suddenly breaks up (this is set a few decades ago before Morrissey went on his infamous solo path) and we meet a group of fans who do not respond to all of this too well. I bought much of this at first with the mostly unknown cast, but the script fails to build on this, be a character study or detail more deeply about the music and why they get so upset.

Co-producer Joe Manganiello play a hard rock DJ forced at gunpoint to stop playing his genre of music acts and start playing Smiths hits, which he is not too happy to do. It reminds us of less violent things used to be.

Fans of the band might get a kick out of it and you may want to see it for its better moments, but it also has plenty of missed opportunities, so see it for yourself if you are curious.

Two behind the scenes clips are the extras.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz's There Was A Crooked Man... (1970) is the famous writer/director's Western/Heist film with much dark comedy, politically incorrect language, in-jokes, attacks on racism (though some might consider it a little racist depending) and has a strong cast that includes Kirk Douglas in the lead, Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates, Burgess Meredith, Lee Grant, Arthur O'Connell, John Randolph, Alan Hale, Martin Gabel, Michael Blodgett, Claudia McNeil, Henry Fonda and even Victor French.

Mankiewicz has a David Newman/Robert Benton screenplay that he can run with and you can see why so many known names signed on to this film. It was not a huge hit, but has a cult following involving the promise of the recovery of a stolen fortune and prisoners and almost everyone in a go-for-broke situation. I never loved this film, but now, I can see how much more ambitious it was then when I first saw it so many years ago. It is worth a look for those interested, especially for those who might like the humor of the Maverick TV series.

Extras include an On Location vintage featurette on the making of the film and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

In a place with endless possibilities, three Chinese exchange students came to study in NY in the 1980s, Tze, Wa and Chen. They make friends with their next-door neighbor Dexter who helps teach them English, American culture and lingo, but little do they know things are going to get complicated when Chen starts dating American girl Suzanne, who is also sleeping with Dexter. Soon, their friendship is tested and become rapidly tainted and what once a cultural exchange turns into prejudice and tragedy in Shimon Dotan's Watching TV With The Red Chinese (2012).

Tzu, Wa and Chen just came to United States to study, the first thing they do is make friends with their neighbor Dexter and become friends. Afterwards the school film major wants to make a documentary on how Chinese view American TV and culture, but things turn sour when Chen started dating an American girl, little did he know the girl was sleeping with both Dexter and the film director. Once the director found out she was dating Chen, he starts bullying and harassing Chen, making prank phone calls and calling him a spy. Chen is then beat up and mugged by African Americans and he is then harassed daily by the black kids who live below him. Chen then becomes paranoid and buys a gun, added on the girl Suzanne breaks off with all the guys whenever they become serious, Chen falls into a deep depression and his life ends in tragedy.

This film is like almost a cultural representation of the culture clash between American and Chinese cultures. All the character played the stereotypes of what people think the minority culture is. One wonders if this movie would have been any different if characters had been other minorities (or even gender), African, Middle Eastern, etc... In the face of a world pandemic, people need to rise above fear and prejudices, and instead of blaming others, act responsibly. Extras include a trailer.

Finally we have John Scheinfeld's Who Is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him) (2010) for which I would immediately answer is one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time. Unfortunately, addictive behavior and too much partying held him back, but he still managed to be prolific and this is the amazing story of his rise to fame and all the twists and turns until his untimely death.

Early on, the best talent in the business knew he was something special with The Beatles immediately recognizing him and Davy Jones of The Monkees cutting two of his songs certain either could be a huge hit, but he then landed work making songs of the TV version of The Courtship Of Eddie's Father (the Bill Bixby hit series is not really covered here anywhere at all in the only major gap here) and then comes John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Nilsson is permanently on the map.

Interviewees are prominent and many, including Producer Richard Perry, Yoko Ono, Micky Dolenz, Ray Cooper, Eric Idle, Randy Newman, The Smothers Brothers, Ringo Starr, Paul Williams, Jimmy Webb, Van Dyke Parks, Terry Gilliam, Brian Wilson, Robin Williams and other friends and family. It is also an unintended glimpse into one of the most vital and priceless periods in music and entertainment history by the talents that made it happen. This is a must-see documentary.

Extras include extensive interview clips and additional footage that would not fit into the documentary, Deleted Scenes, the ''Loneliness'' Music Video with a Yoko Ono introduction and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Now for playback performance. The 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image on Athena does a pretty good job of capturing the original three-strip Technicolor presentation of the film and the 35mm vault materials were apparently in really nice shape. The digitally-shot 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Shoplifters is also surprisingly good and that helps make it more watchable and the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Man shot in real anamorphic Panavision on 35mm film was also issued in dye-transfer three-strip Technicolor, though in a grittier way considering it is a Western. These three tie for the best-looking presentations on the list.

The 1080i 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Nilsson is an upscale from a well-produced, late low-def digital production that upscales as good as one can expect. I should add that the film clips were transferred pretty well too.

Both DVDs are in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 presentations and are passable for the format, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound in each case can be limited, especially with Beate, weaker than it ought to be and the poorest here.

As for the rest of the sound on the Blu-ray discs, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Shoplifters has some sound field issues at times, but along with the PCM 2.0 Stereo on Nilsson, has the best sound on the list. That leaves the two Warner Archive releases, Athena (Stereo) and Man (Mono) with DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 lossless mixes that sound as good as they ever will, but both show their age unavoidably.

To order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, Athena and There Was A Crooked Man..., go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo and Ricky Chiang (TV)