Shout! Factory's specialty Shout! Select imprint has been knocking it out of the park lately with their upgraded reissues of classics from the last 40 years and these latest bundle is no different.
Today we'll look at five selections from Shout! Select and one regular Shout! Factory Blu-ray release that I thought deserved a bit of a push. First up a pair of new Steelbook reissues for Walter Hill's Streets of Fire and Peter Hewitt's Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, then a trio of classic comedies in Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally, Ron Underwood's City Slickers, and Frank Oz's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and last up, an HD edition of Richard Donner's after-school special, Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic. Check out the details below
I was a latecomer to the greatness of Walter Hill's cult classic rock & roll fable, Streets of Fire, but it immediately found on home on my list of favorite films. A hard-boiled combination of film noir, '70s hoodlum action, and feisty rock musical, Streets of Fire is a unique experience that features some of the most incredible sequences ever committed to celluloid.
When local rock heroine Ellen Aim, portrayed by a very young Diane Lane, is kidnapped in the middle of her opening song by a leather clad biker gang led by a superbly menacing Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe in one of his wildest roles), it's up to her ex-boyfriend Tom (Michael Paré) to save her. Along for the ride is a butch mechanic named McCoy (Amy Madigan) and Ellen's manager, a wily Billy Fish (Rick Moranis, playing against type), who end up pitching in on the rescue mission more than one might expect. The trio punches and kicks their way through the underground, having crazy encounters with all and sundry on their way to an explosive finale by way of a one-on-one street fight between the harried Tom and a patent-leather hip-wadered Raven.
The film is essentially one long chase sequence, with the action only ever stopping briefly so the audience can catch its breath while a bit of plot is explained here and there. There is an energy emanating from Streets of Fire that is hard to beat, helped along immensely by the relentless pacing of the opening kidnap sequence that is among the most exciting ten minutes of cinema I've ever witnessed. If you've never seen Streets of Fire, there's no better time than now to give it a chance, just be ready to surrender to it, though, because you'll never be the same after.
The Disc:
Shout! Factory released Streets of Fire several years ago as an early release in the Shout Select line, giving the film a brand new gorgeous transfer and a boatload of special features, including a brand new feature length making-of documentary on a separate disc. With this Steelbook reissue, they could've gotten away with simply repackaging that disc as they have in several other instances, however, they made one significant improvement that will have owners of the previous disc consider the upgrade.
The original Streets of Fire Blu-ray features a wonderful DTS-HD 5.1 surround track to supplement the DTS-HD 2.0 stereo track from the original elements. Both tracks sound great, and with a film this dependent on music and action, the audio is a crucial element. With the Steelbook re-release, Shout! have added yet another audio option, a 4 channel surround track transferred directly from the 70mm theatrical version of the film. Now, to my ears, the additional bass supplied by the 5.1 track is preferable, however, completists will want to have as many choices as possible, making this disc the current champion for fans.
I have very fond memories of seeing Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure for the first time at a cinema bound birthday party when I was nine years old. It occupies a very special place in my heart, so when the sequel was released in 1991, I was incredibly excited to jump back into that world, but as a 12-year-old, I was nowhere near ready to appreciate what a magical and bizarre trip it would be.
Following their graduation from San Dimas High, Bill S. Preston, Esq (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves) find themselves still trying to get their band, Wyld Stallyns off the ground. They soon meet up with their old time traveling pal Rufus (George Carlin), and told that their music is the key to the future's peace and harmony, but they are in danger to missing their opportunity. The evil Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) has created a pair of robot doppelgängers and sent them back in time to knock-off Bill & Ted in order to reshape the future, unfortunately for the Stallyns, it works and they find themselves attempting to get back on track from the underworld.
This is where it gets really weird.
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey features scene after scene of bizarre set pieces as they attempt to rejoin the living by outsmarting the Devil, escaping Hell, and challenging Death (a brilliant William Sadler in his best Seventh Seal drag) to game after game of skill and chance in order to win their freedom. It's hard to believe that this film was written by the same pair, Chris Matheson adn Ed Solomon, as teh first film. However, it does follow the era's tendency to go for broke with sequels that far out-weird their already weird antecedents (see: Gremlins 2: The New Batch). Throw in a crazy-ass battle of the bands, a giant wookiee/bigfoot-esque alien genius (Station!), ZZ-Top bearded Bill & Ted, and a surprise appearance from Primus in the final reel, and you've got a recipe for one of the weirdest studio films of the early '90s, and I dig it.
The Disc:
Unlike Streets of Fire, Bogus Journey is just a repackage of Shout!'s previous release packaged as a pair with the first film on Blu-ray a few years back. However, Excellent Adventure was released as a standalone Steelbook, so it only made sense that Bogus Journey was next. The disc does include a pair of keen audio commentaries with Actor Alex Winter and producer Kroopf, and a second with writers Matheson and Solomon, and a fifty minute making-of doc, so it's well worth the purchase if you're into Steelbooks and you haven't already purchased the set.
When Harry Met Sally... might be the least anarchic film I've ever written about on these pages, but you know what, the movie is damn good, so I'm not even sorry. Directed by comedy legend Rob Reiner (This is Spinal Tap) and written by the inimitable Nora Ephron in her first feature writing credit, When Harry Met Sally... is a keenly observed romantic comedy that feels just a fresh and rings just as true today as it did thirty years ago when it was first released.
In the film, the title characters meet when they are hooked up by their Chicago friends to make a long drive to New York as college students in the '70s. On the journey they discover that they have very different views of love and sex, most famously, Harry's assertion that men and women cannot be friends because sex always gets in the way. This idea irks the young Sally, and when the journey ends, they are barely speaking and happy to be going their separate ways. In the subsequent years, they bump into each other from time to time, each time making an indelible - if not always positive - impression on one another, until the time comes that they fall into bed together, complicating both of their lives forever.
The confluence of sharp comedic and observational minds on the film makes for one hell of a fun ride. With Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in the leads and strong supporting performances from the late Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher, When Harry Met Sally... has plenty of very capable vessels for its incredible writing. Ephron's script is magnificent, never going more than a few minutes without a laugh or something to emotionally connect with the audience. Far from a gag fest, the film manages to extract comedy from the everyday realities and challenges of romance and the hunt for lasting love. Everyone can see themselves somewhere in this script, and often in more than one character, even across genders from time to time.
I first saw When Harry Met Sally... when the film hit VHS in the late '80s. I was maybe ten years old, and was nowhere near mature enough to appreciate most of it, but having rewatched it again for the first time in at least twenty five years, I'm reminded why Hollywood filmmaking can be such a powerful cultural force. It can, in the best of circumstances, point a mirror at its audience and remind us of how silly we look and maybe, in rare cases, inspire us to empathy, even in the simplest of interactions.
The Disc
When Harry Met Sally... is one of those films that has been widely recognized as a classic and as such, previous home video editions, including those on Blu-ray, have included numerous reminiscences and documentaries. Shout! Factory includes all significant previously available material in their new 30th anniversary collector's edition, including a documentary, How Harry Met Sally directed by Jeffrey Schwarz (I Am Divine), audio commentaries, deleted scenes, and other vintage materials. However, the real winner here, apart from the new 4K transfer, is a forty five minute conversation between Reiner and Crystal about the film and its genesis and production. It's clear that the pair are close friends and have not only a fond memory of the film, but they also have plenty of positive thoughts of the others who made the magic happen. it's a great addition to an already great package that definitely makes this one worth the upgrade for fans of the film who already own the regular Blu-ray version.
Following along with another big hit from Billy Crystal, Shout! Factory's new collector's edition of Ron Underwood's City Slickers is a relatively minor upgrade of an early '90s classic.
In City Slickers, Crystal plays Mitch Robbins, a thirty-something New Yorker gripped with ennui over his boring, safe existence in New York. Leave it to his buddies Phil and Ed (Daniel Stern and, once again, Bruno Kirby) to come up with a cure, a weekend warrior style cattle drive across the old west. The trio of city boys make the trek out to New Mexico to drive a herd across the southwest, led by a crusty old-timer named Curly (Jack Palance in a role that won him an Oscar) who isn't interested in taking any of their shit as he has a job to do.
When things go south, the three men are left to their own devices to deliver the herd to the end of the line, but only if they can manage to stay alive.
A frequently hilarious meditation on aging, City Slickers was written by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel (Splash) and directed by Ron Underwood (Tremors). By the time City Slickers came out, Billy Crystal, who cut his teeth in stand-up and TV comedy, had become a major box office comedy star following When Harry Met Sally..., and his comedic talents were in full bloom as he delivers his dialogue with gusto and makes us feel for this character who - let's be honest - is pretty much a whiny baby for most of the film.
Still, the film is really funny, and Palance putting the younger men in their place over and over again is definitely worth watching.
The Disc:
This might be the least special of all of Shout!'s special editions. This new Blu-ray release ports over a bunch of previously available materials, often recycling footage between featurettes and interviews with the writers and director. While the material itself is solid, the only addition to appeal to fans is the new 4K transfer, which is quite nice considering the general mediocre quality of '80s/'90s film stock.
There is something magical about the team of Michael Caine and Steve Martin in Frank Oz's 1988 comedy, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. They have the kind of witty repartee and chemistry that brings to mind the classic screwball comedies of the '40s, trading barbs and working their asses off to out screw each other. It's a pairing that perhaps shouldn't even work, they are so far on opposite ends of the personality spectrum that the idea of making them a duo must've seemed like either pure folly or genius. Thankfully, time has revealed that it was the latter, and this film remains one of my favorite comedies of the '80s.
Lawrence (Caine) and Freddy (Martin) are both hustlers working the southern coast of France. The former a well-heeled confidence man who enjoys a massive fortune gleaned from his elaborate schemes seducing the richest women in Europe, the latter, a hack-y American goofball working more obvious, smalltime hustles and scraping to get by on the kindness of naive strangers. A competition brews and in their eagerness to be rid of one another, they rope in Janet (Glenne Headly), and decide to use her as their trophy. Whoever can milk her for $50,000 first, wins, and the other has to leave France forever, little do they know that Janet is far cleverer than she seems.
I really adore this film, as a child there was a ton of innuendo and clever writing that just zoomed right over my head, but with Steve Martin on board, there were plenty of broad gags to keep me interested. As an adult I'm able to better appreciate the writing, sexual tension, and complex head games being played by both Lawrence and Freddy, while still managing to laugh my butt off at the sight of a man shitting his own pants at the dinner table. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a hilarious film that captures Martin in his post-The Jerk prime, gives Caine a meaty role to work with, and gave Headly the role of a lifetime.
The Disc:
Shout! presents Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on collector's edition Blu-ray with a new, beautiful 2K scan and with a new interview with producer/writer Dale Launer. The interview is wide ranging and goes into a lot of detail regarding the long road that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels took to the big screen, including discussion of alternate casting choices and the decision to hire Frank Oz on his first non-puppet feature film. Oz also provides an audio commentary for the film that is definitely worth listening to for those who want a deeper dive. There's also a vintage featurette on the disc ported over from previous special editions. This is definitely the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels disc to own at the present time, and I definitely give it a hearty recommendation.
While it definitely isn’t the first TV movie to make the jump to Blu-ray, Richard Donner's afterschool special Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, might be among the weirdest. Not that the film is particularly odd, in fact, it's played very straight, but I don't know of another afterschool special that's been treated with such care.
Sarah (Linda Blair) is a 15-year-old girl with a booze habit. An addiction that isn't helped by the fact that her mother and stepfather are constantly sipping on a rocks glass full of brown, no matter what's going on around them. Before long, Sarah learns that alcohol can help her to care less about the things that stress her out, and she begins to spiral out of control. In an effort to help her get in with the good crowd, Sarah's mother (Verna Bloom) sets her up with a local high school stud named Ken (a pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill) who initially feels sorry for her, but after seeing her open up after getting lit at a high school party, decides she might be the one. The two start hanging out a lot, and before long, a real relationship develops, but then the booze gets in the way again, and things get bad. Really bad. Can Sarah get out of this mess without stomping on everyone she cares about? Everyone around her sure hopes so.
In the immediate aftermath of the smash success of The Exorcist, Linda Blair was looking for another project when this one came up. It was the right project at the right time, and serves as an odd waypoint on her way back to the big screen after Airport 1975. This was my first time seeing this film, and what shocked me the most was the amazing cast that featured not only those mentioned here already, but also Larry Hagman as Sarah's alcoholic father and Michael Lerner as the shrink determined to help her help herself. It's well made and pretty effective for what it is: a star-studded over-the-top cautionary tale. I dig it.
The Disc:
One thing is for sure, Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic has never looked as good as it does on this Blu-ray sourced from a new 2K scan of the original film elements. Back in the day the audience would've been subjected to this on a 13" CRT screen in the best of circumstances, to think that it looks as good today as if it had been projected on a big screen is a wild thought. The transfer is quite good, and this is undoubtedly the best it's every looked. The disc also includes a genial interview with Blair, who looks back on the film with fondness and discusses her transition from child star to proper adult actor, as well as the mentoring she got on this set from Hamill, and a second conversation with Donner and producer David Levinson which is fascinating to watch as the pair reminisce about their history working together, and Donner talks about his final TV movie before making the jump to the big screen with the massively successful The Omen. It's a great set for an oddity that definitely rewards those who would take a chance on it. I recommend it.