Along with Chaplin's "Gold Rush", Keaton's "The General", and Woody Allen's "Manhattan cycle: Annie Hall/Broadway Danny Rose, Manhattan, etc.", Elaine May's "A New Leaf is one of the greatest comedies of the 20th century, and the only one that has not been released on Laser or DVD formats. Hopefully someone like Criterion will get to restore it to Ms. May's original cut.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Go
(1999)
Retraction of Comment # 51 (under you index)
4 October 1999
Please note that I would like to retract (and retire) the comment I posted last August regarding a flawed Dolby 5.1 DVD transfer for "Go". The problem as it turned out, was with my own installation and I have just corrected it. I did get a call from a Mr. Jeff Schwartz from Dolby and he indirectly help me fix my problem. Your forum is great! Thanks.
Go
(1999)
Great film, but flawed Dolby 5.1 transfer on to DVD
21 August 1999
I just watched the DVD of this movie (with Dolby 5.1) for the 2nd time on my home-theater and with some friends, one of who was seeing it for the 3rd time (the first two at the local new AMC theater). Several times he complained that some of the music, as he remembered, just "wasn't there". We replayed a few selected scenes and switched the sound to Dolby analog (Surround Theater-1), and sure enough, he was right. On the scene where the bouncer at the Crazy Horse lounge gets shot, the sound of the gun going off is never even heard, but on the analog is clear and loud. Also, on the "macarena" dancing scene at the supermarket, the macarena music is barely audible on Dolby 5.1, but improves a lot on Dolby Analog. The same goes for many other scenes that involve music. It seems as thought the sound engineer doing the transfer on to Dolby 5.1 fell asleep on the wheel and lost (or improperly mixed) a goodly chunk of the sound track and the producers of this DVD did not exercise any quality control! This a flawed first edition of one of the great movies of the late 90's.
Teorema
(1968)
Pasolini's Best
3 January 1999
Based on Pasolini's own epic poem, TEOREMA is a masterpiece of a tragic-comedy and his most powerful and best executed movie ever.
Terence Stamp plays a guest (presumably foreign) at the house of a wealthy upper-class family (in Milan, Italy), each of whom fall in love with him, including the house maid. After the guest's unexpected departure, all members of the family despairingly resort to various ways to resolve their grief. In one scene, the maid, whom the guest had previously saved from an attempted suicide (by having sex with her), ends up levitating 30 feet above ground, in sight of her whole town. Decked in early Gucci, Silvana Mangano plays the mother who, to console herself for the loss of her lover, picks up hustlers to drive down to some ditches in the outskirts of town.
Terence Stamp plays a guest (presumably foreign) at the house of a wealthy upper-class family (in Milan, Italy), each of whom fall in love with him, including the house maid. After the guest's unexpected departure, all members of the family despairingly resort to various ways to resolve their grief. In one scene, the maid, whom the guest had previously saved from an attempted suicide (by having sex with her), ends up levitating 30 feet above ground, in sight of her whole town. Decked in early Gucci, Silvana Mangano plays the mother who, to console herself for the loss of her lover, picks up hustlers to drive down to some ditches in the outskirts of town.
Madame's Place
(1982–1983)
One of the funniest TV-series from the 1980's
22 December 1998
Though Madame's Place was a only one-season series (and for a good reason), the first 5 or 6 shows were the funniest TV shows since Spike Jones and Groucho Marx in the 50s. The show had a "host" corner (ala early Johnny Carson) that once had Phyllis Diller as the celebrity guest in an incredible rapid-exchange of dubious cumpliments with her host that culminate when Phyllis reminds Madame that "...and your vanity table is a Decker & Decker!!" On another show Madame had Tab Hunter as the guest and she kept confusing him with other teeny boppers' hearthrobs of 50s ( Madame: "I always like you with Annette (Funicello) in all those beach movies!! Tab: "Madame!, that was Frankie Avalon.."). The show had other corners that sometimes (and increasingly) did not work so well. Only the portions over which Wayland Flowers had complete control (namely Madame) were always on target. I still enjoy my old video tapes from the original broadcast, but the are getting a little washed down, so hopefully whoever owns the rights knows what a treasure these shows are.
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