Fackham
Hall (2026/Bleecker
Street Blu-ray)/Lookin'
Italian (1994/MVD/Severin
Blu-ray)/Loopy De Loop:
The Complete Collection
(1959-65*/**)/The New
Adventures Of Fred & Barney:
The Complete Series
(1979/*both Hanna Barbera**)/San
Antonio (1945/**all
Warner Archive Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: B-/B-/C+/B-/C+ Extras: C/C/D/D/C Main Programs:
C/C/C+/C+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Loopy
De Loop,
New
Adventures Of Fred & Barney
and San
Antonio
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can all be ordered from the link below.
Now
for an odd mix of comedies...
Jim
O'Hanlan's Fackham
Hall
(2026) is an often (necessarily?) crude send-up of the snobby Downton
Abbey franchise
and by association, the creator's equally revisionist Gilded
Age.
Some may feel the humor here is too obvious and overboard, but for
those who really find those two annoying and more, might feel they
have not gone far enough.
The
cast of unknowns are good here, but I just wish the screenplay had a
different and bolder approach to bashing those franchises, yet
there's always another film to make. Even if you agree with me that
it is not as funny as it could have been, you'll still be happy they
went bonkers the way they did to bash what they bash. Now you can
try it out for yourself.
Extras
include Deleted Scenes.
Guy
Magar's Lookin'
Italian
(1994) is an indie-produced curio that was meant to be some kind of
Scorsese tribute of some kind, but has too much comedy (intended and
not) to be exactly that (think Married
To The Mob
or Moonstruck,
more or less) and is mostly a curio because this is the film Matt
LeBlanc made before landing his huge hit TV series Friends.
He
plays the nephew of a Mafia guy (Jay Acovone) who has retired from
that life after a disastrous incident, but is not happy the nephew is
getting involved with street gangs. So he goes 'uncle' to help him
out, leading to other fiascos. Denise Richards makes her brief
feature film debut, the great singer Lou Rawls steals scenes in his
dramatic work here and all involved are trying to make this work.
Too bad its ambition and trying to do too much backfires, but its
interesting to see them try. Now this curio is restored and you can
see for yourself.
Extras
include
Directin'
Italian
- Interview With Writer/Producer/Director Guy Magar
Archival
Interview With Writer/Producer/Director Guy Magar
Archival
Interview With Actor Jay Acovone
Archival
Interview With Actor Matt LeBlanc
Archival
Interview With Actress Stephanie Richards
Archival
Interview With Actor Lou Rawls
Archival
Interview With Actor John LaMotta
Q&A
With Writer/Producer/Director Guy Magar And Actors Jay Acovone, Matt
LeBlanc, Stephanie Richards And Ralph Manza From The 1994 Palm
Springs International Film Festival
Inside
Edition Exclusive Look
Behind
The Scenes
Gag
Reel
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
To
go with their wave of HD upgrades to all their Hanna Barbera
holdings, Warner Archive has decided to issue Loopy
De Loop: The Complete Collection
(1959-65) on Blu-ray after an apparently successful DVD release a few
years ago. As I explained in the DVD review...
They
have released ''every animated short cartoon Hanna Barbera made with
their Big Good Wolf character they invented after leaving their home
of MGM, where they made a name for themselves on Tom & Jerry.
They cut a deal similar to what Disney had with Columbia Pictures
that they would make, fund and own the shorts and Columbia would
merely distribute them for a fee. It worked and the series ran for 6
years and 48 shorts. Loopy speaks French and is trying to establish
wolves as fun-loving animals and not the predators they are portrayed
as. This never works, to his sometimes cartoon-violent detriment.
The
shorts can be repetitive and amusing, but never outright hilarious...
Though not a great series, it is a key transitional one and as good
as many of the much harsher, sillier, poorer shows of its ilk made
today, so it is recommended for mostly young viewers.''
I
stick by that, but add that seeing them much more clearly makes them
more fun and pleasant to watch, which will especially apply to
younger viewers. That makes this upgrade worth it.
There
are no extras.
Hard
to believe, but after 1966, there were no new episodes of any show
about The Flintstones or The Rubbles despite endless syndication of
the hit original series, TV specials and appearances of the
characters in other TV shows (and not counting TV ads, et al) so the
arrival of The
New Adventures Of Fred & Barney: The Complete Series
(1979) is all the more interesting. Ignoring the teen Pebbles &
Bamm Bamm show, it tries to pick up were the classic original show
left off. You can read more about it on Blu-ray at this link:
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15800/Flintstones:+The+Complete+Series+(1960+-+1966*)/
We
get 17 episodes over what was actually two seasons, with Henry Corden
the new voice of Fred Flintstone and Gay Autterson voicing Betty
Rubble, you can feel a slight difference and the new show cannot
imitate the older style of the original show, too late to do the
simpler approach and even color or film stocks. The shows are good
for what they are, but add nothing new to the world of Bedrock, so
you can see why they pulled the plug early.
Additionally,
they had also done a very belated Jetsons
season and that was somehow closer to the first series and its
seasons, but this is not as close. Either way, the characters
continue to show up in new projects all the time and fans (and
children) will want to give this at least one look. Mel Blanc, Jean
Vander Pyl, Janet Waldo, Don Messick and Barney Phillips add to the
voicing fun.
There
are sadly no extras.
Last
but not least (exactly) is David Butler's San
Antonio
(1945) has Errol Flynn defending his cattle, et al, against thievery
and more, in a comedy with action, a little romance and Technicolor
luster where applicable. Alexis Smith is his co-star, Florence Bates
and Tom Tyler are among the supporting cast, there is some money in
the film and it is worth a look. It has far more comedy than I would
have liked to the point it undermines the while thing, resulting in a
film with too many missed opportunities. Its not Blazing
Saddles
either, but mostly plays like a one-off they tried once and never
again.
Now
you can judge for yourself, but Western fans are more likely to enjoy
it than Comedy fans, the appeal of the starts notwithstanding. I
also just found it not that memorable and little has changed in my
mind about since I last saw it eons ago. I did appreciate how they
restored it, which comes from the original nitrate 35mm three-strip
negatives.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer, Warner live-action short
Frontier
Days
and Warner animated short Trap
Happy Porky.
Now
for playback performance, with all the images looking as good as they
could possibly look in the format. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High
Definition image on Fackham
Hall
is not bad throughout and does a good job of looking like and mocking
all the stuffy British productions it is out to insult. Could look a
bit better in 4K maybe, but the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is slightly lacking, a
little quiet and inconsistent, but as good as anything here.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Lookin'
Italian
can show its age, but has a surprise advantage by being shot entirely
on Agfa 35mm full color negative movie film, which is a rarity and
the company does not make movie film anymore, sadly. That gives it a
different look versus any HD digital shoot, plus color negative from
Fuji or Kodak. It will still seem a little familiar to Friends
fans as fellow 'must see TV' hit Seinfeld
had its first few seasons shot on the same color stock. The PCM 2.0
Stereo has Pro Logic-like surrounds, but was not a Dolby theatrical
release, but mastered and issued in the inferior Dolby imitator Ultra
Stereo. It plays back well enough, but expect subtle sonic limits,
et al. It and the film will very likely never sound better than it
does here.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image color transfers on the
two animated sets looks really good, with Loopy
a very notable improvement over its DVD edition from years ago.
Unlike the original Flintstones
Blu-ray set, Fred
& Barney
has lossless sound, but more on that below.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on
San
Antonio
rarely shows the age of the materials used, originally issued on 35mm
dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor film prints that took advantage of the format
and looks fine throughout. All three Warner
Archive releases feature
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes, with Loopy
and
San
Antonio
having weaker sound than one would have liked. However, Fred
& Barney
sounds pretty good lossless and that will make fans of the original
show madder that its Blu-ray set was not with lossless sound. Fred
& Barney
will never sound better.
To
order the
Loopy
De Loop,
New
Adventures Of Fred & Barney
and/or San
Antonio
Warner Archive Blu-rays,
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
