This Week in DVD

Just to recap from my previous DVD post: Spider-Man 3 is an awful movie, and I don't care if the DVD actually includes webshooters, don't buy it. If you're one of the few dozen who didn't suffer through it in theaters, trust my Sucky Sense on this one.

Now on to brighter news, and that's this week's DVD releases. I feel good already looking over the release schedule for this week.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry: And just like that, the dark clouds return. However, since I didn't actually see this one, I'm not gonna rip it. But come on. We all know.

Ratatouille: Hey, here we go, a movie we can all be proud of, something that will surely be in my top 10 even if half the movies coming soon turn out to be as good as I hope they will be. It's a wonderful Pixar animated feature--no surprise there--but, Disney, what's up with the extras? With this and "Cars," one is tempted to think you're holding back for Blu-Ray or Special Edition double-dips. Hmm...

Seinfeld Ninth Season: For a while, my perception has been that the show got increasingly self-indulgent as it went on, with this final season without Larry David the clear bottom rung of the series. But now, this DVD set comes out, and I'm looking at the list of episodes, and I see quite a few that make me say, "Hey, I wouldn't mind seeing that again," even if it's just for one scene or for one line. Fans don't need me to make up their minds for them on this one, though.

Wings Fifth Season: For a while, my perception has been that the show was OK at best and a pleasant enough diversion, but never more than a poor man's "Cheers." But now, this DVD set comes out, and I'm looking at the list of episodes, and...yeah, I pretty much feel the same.

Chinatown Special Edition: I have to at least mention this classic neo-noir because a lot of people have been waiting for it. Trustworthy DVD reviewer DVD Savant endorses this edition as a big upgrade on the previous disc. Me, I've never liked this one as much as I feel I should, but this new release might be a good excuse for me to check it out again.

Cultureshark Remembers Fabulous Moolah

You have to hand it to the Fabulous Moolah, who passed away last week at 84, for being so successful for so long in such a male-dominated realm as professional wrestling. She may have used some cutthroat tactics to do so, and as a performer she was a notorious villain, but in her ripe old age, she hit a late career stride doing comedy segments on WWF television. It was often surreal seeing the inappropriate and tasteless situations her and fellow retiree Mae Young would be placed in on "Raw" each Monday, but then, her whole career was pretty surreal to me.

As a child of the 1980s, I grew up on the rise of the WWF as Vince McMahon brought showbiz and professional production values to his wrestling promotion and took it national on the strength of superstars like Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, and...well, Moolah, sort of. Somehow, the Fabulous Moolah, who was already in her early 60s at this point, was STILL the face of women's wrestling as the WWF went national, then global in the middle of the decade.

Oh, she had a rival for a while in Wendi Richter, a young woman with a real "eighties" look who seemed destined for a push as the female equivalent of the Hulkster, but she never panned out. Besides, Richter's foil (and the foil of her temporary "manager" Cyndi Lauper) was Moolah.

The fact is, at a time when Vince McMahon was pushing young musclebound stallions to the moon on the men's side, the face of his women's division had more wrinkles than an episode of Lost. Moolah was not one of those freakishly fit seniors you see hawking vitamins or exercise equipment, either. The announcers would hype the fact (which wasn't) that she had held the title for umpteen straight years, and maybe that gave her credibility with some folks, but in fact, she looked like she couldn't beat anything stronger than a parking ticket. She didn't exactly have "Rock N' Wrestling" charisma, either. It was hard to imagine her dancing anything hipper than the Charleston.

I still don't know exactly why Moolah was given the keys to women's wrestling for so many years, but I know she's one reason I never cottoned to the ladies' division. Even years later when I saw the athletic, superior work of Japanese women, something had been ruined for me, and I think it was the ridiculousness of the legend of the Fabulous Moolah. I like "technical wrestling" as much as the next fanboy, butMoolah wasn't wrestling, she was RASSLIN'. She was hair pulls and stall holds and the kind of low-impact stuff I associate with clips from the 1950s and 1960s--no wonder considering she WAS in her 50s and 60s. I just couldn't suspend disbelief as I could with the men (and I could just barely do so there in the 1980s WWF).

Still, Moolah had a hell of a run. Years later, when the WWF began just giving up on teaching wrestlers to be entertaining female personalities and started teaching centerfolds to wrestle, Lillian Ellison, bless her geriatric, possibly mechanically enhanced (as opposed to chemically enhanced) heart, was stealing the show on national television just by being old. If she didn't redeem women's wrestling for me, she at least made me feel good that there is still a place for senior citizens in even the most youth-baiting of professions.

So the news of her death is a shocker to me, as when I was young and getting into wrestling, she was already ancient. Who knew she was mortal? When Keith Richards finally goes, I'll be less stunned than I was last week...but not as stunned as I was in 1985 when the Spider Lady beat Wendi Richter for the championship. Spider Lady then took off her mask to reveal herself as the Fabulous Moolah. I still don't get it, but then some things are just not meant for us TO get.

Last Week in DVD

OK cut me some slack because I have important DVD news I just can't withhold due to some technicality, like the fact it's no longer last week this week.

The big DVD news is: Fans, it's safe to buy Three Stooges DVDs! Finally! After years of half-assed, double-priced collections from Sony, the studio has apparently decided to do right by the comedy team and release their shorts unedited, restored, and in chronological order. Volume One contains 18 shorts from 1934-1936, and they look great. There are no extras this time, but word has it future sets will have some cool supplements. So, fans, buy 'em up so we get more. I know Sony has attempted to hoodwink you before with ripoffs, colorized travesties, and other time wasters, but this is the real deal.

See why I couldn't just pass that over?

Oh, another reason I have to talk about last week's DVD releases is that I just have to take the opportunity to bash Spider-Man 3. Yeah, yeah, it made a lot of dough this summer, and maybe the video is flying off shelves, but I stand by my opinion that it's franchise killer. At least, it should have been. I am totally sick of the Sam Raimi-Tobey Maguire connection, and their third effort eliminates the good things about the previous two while amping up the bad things, like unlikable characterizations and nonsenical scripting. And all this while paying homage, intentionally or not, to Superman II, The Mask, The Nutty Professor, and maybe even Saturday Night Fever. Why? Why? Each of these crappy superhero movies (this one is even worse than Superman Returns) makes what Christopher Nolan is doing with Batman seem even more brilliant.

Please, folks, don't buy this DVD and encourage someone to back up the armored truck and empty a pile of cash onto Sam Raimi's porch to do a fourth one. He's done enough to the character.

There WAS some other good stuff last week, though. For example, Warner Brothers released yet another Looney Tunes box. Each year, a beautiful package of classic cartoons with tons of supplements comes out, and though I'm still behind on the other Looney Tunes sets I own, I don't want to take this for granted. Kudos again to WB.

Now back to the crap: License to Wed. Seriously. License to Wed?

There was also a Barbara Stanwyck collection and the promising Talk to Me with Don Cheadle, but the main message for last week: Stooges good, Looney Tunes good, Spider-Man 3 terrible.

First Impulse: Green Lantern Movie

It's First Impulse, where I give you my early thoughts on a new project or development.

Last week, a Green Lantern movie, featuring the Hal Jordan version of the character, was announced as a go. In some comic book fandom circles, any kind of comic-to-movie announcement brings much rejoicing, but as you can tell from my last post (in which I bashed Spider-Man 3), I'm getting kind of tired of being let down by weak superhero flicks. I'm a little more skeptical.

Certainly the news that the head honcho on this Green Lantern film is Greg Berlanti does nothing for me. The guy's been working on Brothers and Sisters, Everwood, and Dawson's Creek--not the kind of resume that inspires confidence. Some may say, well, Fox tabbed Tim Story from Barbershop to do the Fantastic Four movies. And I would say, yeah, and those movies are lame. One could also point out the apparently unconventional choice of Wedding Crashers David Dobkin to do the proposed Flash movie. To that, I say, here's a bonus First Impulse: That idea stinks.

Back to Berlanti, though--and, hey, that sounds like the title of Jean Claude Van Damme direct-to-video. Nothing against Everwood or Brothers and Sisters (plenty against Dawson's Creek, but that's not a battle for today), but they just aren't pluses for me.

So I can't say I expect great things from this, even at this early stage. However, I do think this movie could fill a real niche if it goes in a certain direction, and that is a cosmic one. These superhero movies of the recent boom period have been earthbound and not all that spectacular. Even the Silver Surfer came down to Earth to meet the Fantastic Four, not the other way around.

Green Lantern spends a lot of time flying around in space and doing cool hero stuff on other planets. If the movie pulls that off with any semblance of credibility, it will give it real distinction in the now-commonplace world of comic book adaptations. GL's power ring creating funky shapes and doing wild stuff might look great on screen with some decent effects, but if Hal Jordan spends all his time on Earth, it could be a missed opportunity to do something special and take this genre to the next level.

Should You Watch: Back to You

I didn't think too highly of most of this fall's new TV shows, and that was even before I saw them. But I had at least middling hopes Fox's Wednesday sitcom "Back to You" would be worthwhile. I like Kelsey Grammer, I like Fred Willard, and I don't lose control of my faculties when Patricia Heaton comes on the screen. Plus, the whole package was put together and executed by a group of seasoned old pros like director James Burrowes.

But maybe everyone was involved too seasoned, because Back to You played out to me like just another tired TV show. I know many people are so starved for sitcoms nowadays they rejoice at the sight of any traditional kind of TV comedy, but really, folks, we can't give a pass to stuff like this just because it's not a reality show.

I laughed a few times during the pilot and thought Grammer's character--an arrogant news anchor coming back to the "small market" of Pittsburgh to co-host the local newscast--had potential. Then at the end of the episode came a maudlin plot twist involving the daughter he never knew he had, a child who, by the way, belongs to his former colleague and current co-anchor. Oooookay, that's contrived enough, but the sappy way this was handled really worried me, and not just because it was totally out of place with the ribald 20-some minutes that preceded it. No, it looked like Back to You was already straining not just to entertain us, not just to be funny, but--and this can be trouble, folks--to have heart.

With reservations, I came back for the second episode. That sentimental streak was gone, but it was replaced by a terrible plot. See, Kelsey's anchor wanted to prove to Heaton's character that he was now responsible enough to take care of a child. So he wound up making a big show of petsitting a goldfish and--see this one coming?--the goldfish died, so hijinks ensued as he tried to hide that from her.

Seriously, wasn't that plot done before in...every single TV show with a regular character under 15? And "Back to You" didn't mine laughs out of the hoary premise by emphasizing how silly it was that an adult was in this situation. It just gave us a silly situation. That was enough for me, and I haven't come Back to It.

But maybe there's something in it for you. You should watch "Back to You" if:

*You love so-called traditional sitcoms. You've never actually seen any of them, so you won't mind seeing them all rehashed, but you just know you love 'em.
*You love seeing Patricia Heaton exchange risque barbs and then calling her a hypocrite because of her well-known conservative politics.
*You've been around the country and relocated several times, but you've never found any city quite as warm and charming as Pittsburgh.
(*The fact that the show says it's in Pittsburgh is enough local flavor for you.)
*You'll watch Fred Willard in anything, even if he's only 4% of the whole thing.
*You feel Mary Tyler Moore left a lot of unanswered comic questions in its portrayal of local news.
*You treasure your complete run of Comedy Central's Man Bites Dog that you transferred to DVD this summer.

Cultureshark Remembers Robert Goulet

I feel sort of embarrassed for saying this, but I won't remember Robert Goulet as the Camelot star and singer. No, I will remember the later Robert Goulet, the eternal Special Guest Star who was always good for a comic turn, often at his own expense. I was jarred recently to see the young Goulet as heelish evangelist Brother Love in a "Big Valley" rerun. He was quite entertaining, so much that he even stole the show from fellow guest star Gavin McLeod.

OK, I'm being facetious, but it was a good episode, and there was more to Goulet than standards and show tunes, and that's what stands out for me.

The classic Goulet cameo was his spot on "The Simpsons." Many celebrities had their classic cameos on that show, but who can forget "$pringfield (available on the Season 5 DVD), with Goulet, game and suave even in Simpsons animated form, singing in Bart's treehouse casino?

"Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..."

Then he accidentally hits Milhouse as he swings the microphone, and the way he says, "I'm sorry, kid," cracks me up every time.

My all-time favorite Robert Goulet is another example of his poking fun at that slick image. When he and Leslie Nielsen faced off in The Naked Gun 2 1/2, it was two seasoned pros going at it like Ali-Frazier, or like some other tired boxing analogy that isn't used as much, only it inspired you to laugh instead of writing rapturous prose about The Sweet Science.

Nielsen's Drebin crashes Goulet's Hapsburg's swank soiree, leading to a hilarious deadpan battle of wits. Goulet's reactions to Nielsen's nonsense are outstanding. In fact, R.G. makes a great comic villain throughout the movie.

"Lieutenant, I don't recall seeing your name on the guest list."
"It's nothing to be embarrassed about. I sometimes go by my maiden name."

"Que sera sera. You do speak French?"
"Unfortunately, no...but I do kiss that way."

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that Goulet was such an entertaining actor. The man starred in one of the lost acclaimed TV shows of the 1960s: Blue Light, an espionage series featuring Goulet as an American pretending to work for the Nazis. I've read several times what a great show this was, and it seems like a forgotten gem. A movie made up of several episodes, "I Deal in Danger," was released on DVD earlier this year. I think in tribute to Mr. Goulet, I'll try to get my hands on that one. In the meantime, I can think of no finer tribute than to enjoy his stunning work as Quentin Hapsburg.