Some Kind of Heaven On DVD, Both Essential and Disappointing

Ladies and gentlemen, and low lifes, there is a new superstar to keep your eye on in the field of documentaries.  Reminiscent of classic Errol Morris, with a touch of Urlich Seidl that'll have you questioning just how authentic some of these these seemingly too perfect moments can be, we have Lance Oppenheim.  2020's Some Kind Of Heaven is his feature film debut, following a series of intriguing short films and succeeded by the fantastic Spermworld and his more commercial but still gratifying venture, the recent Ren Faire miniseries for HBO.  This remains his best work, and unfortunately, still the only one available to own on disc in any capacity, via Magnolia Home Entertainment's 2021 DVD.

Produced by The New York Times and Darren Aronofsky (his best film!), Some Kind Of Heaven is set in The Villages, America's largest retirement community.  Located in Florida, This massive, heavily cultivated living experience is probably not how you imagine a retirement community to be.  It's wholly unique, if not straight up weird.  Similarly, if you go in expecting some quirky, light-hearted look at seniors living a slightly more active lifestyle than the stereotype, this movie will prove to be far more than you imagined as well.  It turns into a surprising exploration of the sometimes rather dark, and always impassioned personal lives of a handful of its residents.  From drug arrests and hustling to finding love while being financially trapped.  It's delicately told, funny and startlingly candid, without sliding into trashiness or exploitation.  And you definitely don't need to be predisposed to the subject of retirement villages to be moved by the experience.

2021 Magnolia DVD top; Youtube trailer (I'll explain) bottom.

Magnolia presents Some Kind Of Heaven in 1.33:1, which yes, is the correct aspect ratio.  It's a stylistic choice.  It also has a rather soft, fuzzy look, which presumably isn't a stylistic choice.  That's the bummer of only getting this on DVD, and a single-layer disc at that.  Still, I fired this up on Kanopy real quick, and yeah, it was a bit soft and fuzzy on streaming, too.  So maybe it actually is a stylistic choice, at least in part.  To settle it, I've downloaded the Youtube trailer in 1080p and compared it to the DVD...  Yeah, look how much clearer it is, with sharper detail and better color separation.  See how much more legible the letter on that guy's wings are?  Things would be at least that much easier on the eyes (probably even slightly better, with a proper encode) if we ever got this on blu.  C'est la vie.

At least this DVD offers the correct 5.1 mix in Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles.

To further the frustration, though, this disc is completely barebones, apart from a handful of bonus Magnolia trailers that auto-play on start-up - not even Heaven's.  Now, a barebones disc is always annoying, but it's especially so in this case, because there could easily have been some great stuff on here.  First of all, Oppenheim has a short film called called The Paradise Next Door, which is about the same place and comprised entirely of footage shot while making Some Kind Of Heaven.  It's a great, little companion piece... Oppenheim even refers to it as a "DVD-extra" on his Instagram page.  Come on, Magnolia; your filmmaker is laying them at your feet!  Another of his shorts, The Happiest Guy In the World, is also pretty great and shares a number of themes with Some Kind Of Heaven, so that could've been nice.  And Youtube is full of interviews with Oppenheim talking about Heaven, so he seems game to talk about it and has interesting things to say.  Even if maybe The New York Times was going to be difficult about licensing the shorts, surely Magnolia could've slapped a quick interview on here.  But not even the trailer?  That just makes this feel like a quick, "no care given" release.

Hopefully, if we're lucky, some boutique label will recognize Oppenheim's body of work and issue us a proper special edition collection, maybe overseas where there isn't already this preexisting DVD competitor in the market.  But unfortunately, documentary seems to be a tough genre to sell collectors on, so it'll probably be a very long wait.  So at least we have this.  And I'm eager to see what Lance will do next, even if I'll probably have to watch it on my computer.

Could That Be... Clockwatchers I See?

Wow, talk about "under the radar!"  1997's Clockwatchers has been one of my most-wanted titles on blu for years.  One: because it's a favorite film, and two: because it's one of the few remaining non-anamorphic discs in my collection.  I check disc announcements every day, but still had no idea Shout Factory was releasing this on BD until McBastard's Masoleum posted that it was already out and in hand.  I nearly fell out of my chair.  Shout Factory didn't even have it listed on their own site until a week after its release; it just popped up there like three days ago.  It's not on Amazon, or the usual boutique shops that carry Shout releases, like Diabolik or Grindhouse.  Weird.

Clockwatchers is the first and still the best film by the Sprecher sisters.  All three are worth watching, but this is their sole masterpiece.  It's a timeless examination of rudimentary working class life, both comic and tragic, similar in tone to, say, Friends With Money.  It probably has suffered somewhat for audiences going in expecting a more sitcom-level out and out comedy like Office Space.  But despite its scarcity on home video, it's maintained a consistent audience thanks largely to its stellar cast.  It's an important early role from Toni Collette, one of the signature, career defining performances by Parker Posey, and a rare mid-Friends co-lead by Lisa Kudrow.  Alanna Ubach is the final part of the quartet who didn't go on to such heights as the others, but she's just as good as the rest of them here.  And the supporting cast is just as strong, including Bob Balaban, Paul Dooley and yes, Jamie Kennedy.  I know, it's easy to think of his MTV rap career and grimace, but he excels in offbeat comic parts like this one.

Fox Lorber released Clockwatchers on DVD in early 2000.  So, as you might guess, it's non-anamorphic.  It was reissued by Wellspring in 2006, and there have been DVD editions in other parts of the world, but none of them are anamorphic either.  And until this month, that's all we've had, until Shout Factory surprised us with their new blu-ray.  Apparently it's a Made On Demand disc, which I guess counts for its limited release; but I'm happy to report that it is a properly pressed disc, not a BD-R.

2000 Fox Lorber DVD top; 2024 Shout Factory BD bottom.

So again, the biggest selling point is just jumping to 16x9 enhancement.  We've got it; we won.  But besides that, how is it?  Well for starters, the aspect ratio has shifted from 1.84:1 to 1.78:1, at the expense of some info on the left-hand side, but if that has to be the price of going from non to anamorphic, I'll take it.  You can see that there's been extensive color correction, too - look how much lighter Toni's hair is - which I'll take on faith is more accurate.  Going from SD to HD gives a cleaner, sharper look; but there's still little to no film grain visible on the blu.  I'm guessing this is an old master.  It's a big upgrade, but more because the only available DVD is so poor, not because the new blu is particularly impressive.

The DVD just has a clean Dolby Digital 5.1 remix, which Shout has replaced with a the original Dolby stereo mix in DTS-HD.  They also added HoH subtitles, which the DVD lacked.

The DVD only has the theatrical trailer, while Shout's blu doesn't even have that.  You'd think they could have at least ripped that off the DVD, but I guess being no frills is protocol for MOD releases.  Oh well.  I'm way too happy to complain.  😁

Controversial Blus: Anything But Anything Else's Botched Discs, Please

Alright, this post has been a long time coming.  I guess I kept holding off because I was waiting for a happy resolution to this story.  But at this point, it's safe to say that just isn't coming.  At least not in this decade.  So here swe go.  I'm talking about the not just controversial, but straight-up botched, blu-rays of Woody Allen's underrated 2003 comedy Anything Else.

Admittedly our romantic leads, Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci, aren't the most dynamic movie stars Allen's ever cast.  In fact, I'd put them near the bottom of the list.  But at least they're age appropriate.  And they're bolstered immeasurably by a smart script and a fantastic supporting cast, including Stockard Channing, Danny Devito, Fisher Stevens and Allen himself in one of his funniest roles.  Also look for a pre-Tonight Show Jimmy Fallon.  Anyway, the central romance is a little inert, though Ricci manages to make things somewhat interesting, but the story around goes to some surprisingly bitter and compelling places.  It's an honest film about failure, and I think it's one of his best from this period.  But  it tends to get overlooked because Dreamworks tried to market it to the American Pie crowd (Allen isn't even shown in the trailer), and this is definitely not what that audience was looking for.

Dreamworks Entertainment released Anything Else on DVD as a new release back in 2003.  It was barebones, naturally, but otherwise a pretty solid presentation.  And that's a good thing, because it languished in standard definition for years.  Eventually, in 2016, it came out in Germany, from Concorde Video.  It's unfortunate it was our only option, because as we're about to see, it had a problem.  More recently, it's been released in the US (more on that in a bit) and Spain, but it's all the same.  Let's take a look.

2003 Dreamworks DVD top; 2016 Concorde BD bottom.

So, hard to miss, the sides have been completely shorn off the picture.  It takes me back to the old days, as a teen, when I learned the Star Wars movies I saw on television didn't look like they originally did in theaters.  Here, we're going from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1.  And to be clear, this is not an open matte situation, where Concorde is just showing extra picture along the top and bottom that shjould've been cropped out.  This just fully chops off both sides of the image, neutering the cinematography of DP Darius Khondji (Se7en, Uncut Gems) and making this one of those rare cases where the DVD is better than the blu.  And that's a shame, because otherwise this is a decent HD upgrade with a much clearer and sharper image.  The little sign on the counter in front of Allen is unreadable mush on the DVD, but on the blu, we can read it plainly, "AMERICA, FLY OUR FLAG PROUDLY!"  And just to be clear, yes, the new American and Spanish blus use this same, cropped HD master.

When Quiver announced their big Woody Allen Collection blu-ray set in 2021, all of us fans were hoping we could finally replace our Anything Else discs, whether we had the Dreamworks or the Concorde.  We were even more excited by the inclusion of Sweet & Lowdown (or "Lockdown," as they spelled it on their cover mock-up there) and Deconstructing Harry, both making their worldwide blu-ray debuts.  Well, their 9 nlu-ray set turned into an 8 blu-ray set, with Sweet and Deconstructing nowhere to be found.  I think it's a safe assumption that's because they bought the rights and announced the set before they learned the reason why those two films had never been released on blu anywhere else in the world: there were no preexisting HD masters.  And I guess Quiver is too small/ under-equipped a company, or just not interested enough in these films, to commission them.  And that would also explain why they released the same European 1.78 master of Anything Else.  That's just what they were handed.  At one point, Quiver responded about it publicly on Twitter that, "we understand the frustration! We are reviewing this internally."  But that was in 2021, and they've yet to follow up on that, so I hope nobody's been holding their breath.

Anyway, both of the discs we're looking at here feature the original English mono in 2.0, in DTS-HD on the blu.  Dreamworks disc also includes optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, while Concorde's only has German, plus a German dub, also in DTS-HD.  One point you have to give to Quiver: their release does include optional English subtitles if you need 'em.  Neither disc has any extras, not even the trailer.  So I guess I'd just suggest grabbing whichever release is cheapest and easiest for you to acquire in the moment, even if that's still the DVD.  Definitely don't bother double-dipping.  None of these discs are worth recommending, but this film deserves a spot on any Allen fan's shelf regardless.

The Stepfather, From Shout To Scream

1987's The Stepfather is a taught little horror thriller that stands out just by virtue of being a little better in every department. It's got above average writing, thanks largely to a terrific idea taken from a shocking, true life story. There's this very traditional, middle-class, high family values kind of guy who seems completely innocuous and friendly. He's got a beautiful wife, nice kid; and everything's great as long as things are going his way. But if anything starts to go wrong, he'll murder his whole household rather than face their failure to live up to his idealistic fantasy of the perfect American family. And just like his real-life counterpart, instead of spending the rest of his life in jail, the titular stepfather simply changes his identity and moves in with a new family to try again. A family who has no idea that they'd better try their best live up to his fragile expectations, because their lives are on the line.

Update 2/12/16 - 9/12/24: Well, The Stepfather is no longer pre-Scream Factory, and it's also freshly restored in 4k, on UHD, with all new special features as a Collector's Edition.  And it's about time!

More than just the writing, though, it's an effective, well-directed little film with a subtly haunting score and most notably a defining role played by Terry O'Quinn. He delivers one of cinema's all-time memorable performances, as he turns from charming to chilling on a dime, to the point where it's taken him decades to go from being known simply as the stepfather to "that guy from Lost." He's crafted the perfect image of the very last guy you'd ever want to marry your mom and take over your home.

Not that the film's flawless. The plot flops around a bit in the middle, introducing and eventually just getting rid of a whole other lead character. A surviving member of a prior family is plodding along on the stepfather's trail while bickering with the local police, and it just never gets interesting or has any influence on the main characters. Really, everybody who gets between the audience and the main nuclear family, which is where all the drama is, just feel like they're padding the running time. But hey, you can't begrudge a horror film too much for tossing in a couple extra murders, and every time the camera focuses back on the leads, the film's back to firing on all cylinders again.

There's another potential issue that hangs over any issue of this film: is it uncut? The Stepfather's IMDB board is full of people looking for a television version with alternate scenes. And having grown up with a copy of this film taped off of cable TV, those scenes sound familiar to me, too. I'm pretty sure they're right.  They confirm it in the director's commentary, too, so we know Shout's aware of it.  But they're not included on any commercial release to date, either as part of the feature film or deleted scenes. Knowing Shout, I'm sure they tried.  So it's a nice dream, but unfortunately the standard R-rated cut is the only version on the table.

For the longest time, The Stepfather was conspicuously MIA on DVD, at least here in the US. There were a couple of generic, fullscreen VHS-sourced releases overseas. And in the mid-2000s, an alluring German DVD became the disc to try and import. It was anamorphic widescreen, and a must-have for US fans who didn't even have a domestic barebones disc. But finally, the 2009 Stepfather remake made the studio realize, hey, we don't even have the original out there. And so, there was no Scream Factory back then, but the parent label Shout Factory had dipped their toes slightly into the horror genre with their line of Roger Corman cult films and Miike's Audition. So they got this high profile title and made what is essentially the first Scream Factory Collector's Edition before there were Scream Factory Collector's Editions. At first this was a DVD-only title, released on its own in late 2009. But then they came back and issued a blu-ray version in 2010. And now, it's a full-blown, UHD/ BD 2-disc combopack Collector's Edition under the Scream Factory brand.

1) 2009 Shout DVD; 2) 2010 Shout BD; 3) 2024 Scream BD; 4) 2024 Scream UHD.

Both Shouts are full 16x9 widescreen at 1.78:1. The DVD has a very slight single letterbox bar going across the top that's lifted on the blu, giving the blu a very slim extra bit of image. Otherwise, these look very similar and are obviously struck from the same master. So naturally, the difference isn't terribly overwhelming, and that's less a compliment to the DVD than it is a mark against the blu. It's not bad, just kind of soft and light on detail. The grain looks kind of uneven and random on the blu; whereas it's almost entirely smoothed away on the DVD. So for sure the blu is better, with a clearer, slightly more distinct image.

But now we have a fancy, new 4k restoration for the modern era.  And it's not that the original footage has a vast wealth of detail hidden away that Shout had neglected to tap into, and they hadn't borked the color timing or added unwelcome edge enhancement or other tinkering, but things are still better all around.  For one thing, the image is now more properly framed at 1.85:1, and that's actually unveiling a little more along the sides rather than just matting the top and bottom.  Even just comparing the two 1080p blus, grain is much more thorough, edges are sharper, and colors are a little more muted (Terry's apron, for example, is noticeably darker in the newer shots).  It's almost like the initial step from DVD to BD repeated.  It's not a massive change, but it's another clear move ahead.  And then of course on the UHD, colors are richer and more vibrant, sort of restoring the stronger colors of the Shout BD, but now in a more natural, realistic palette... though it's all very subtle across each version. In a few key scenes, the colors really are more attractive in HDR, though.

All four discs have fairly basic but solid 2.0 stereo tracks with the initial blu presenting it in lossless LPCM, and the Screams in DTS-HD.  It's worth noting that neither Shout Factory release included subtitles, but the new Scream set does.

Extras-wise, it was a pretty unexciting double-dip from DVD to BD, but at least there was a difference. Most of the extras were the same. You have a pretty solid audio commentary with director Joseph Ruben, who's thankfully got Fangoria's Mike Gingold enthusiastically prompting him along. Even more engaging, I found, was the almost half-hour documentary The Stepfather Chronicles, which is a great portender for the excellent featurettes we'd find on Scream Factory's releases. It's made by Red Shirt Pictures and is very slickly edited, talking to almost all the key players, from writer Brian Garfield to fan favorite Jill Schoelen. The only one we really miss Terry O'Quinn, who apparently doesn't like to talk about this film? That's a shame, and so that's about it for the DVD. The only other features are the theatrical trailer and a fold-out insert with notes by Cliff MacMillan.

The Shout blu keeps the commentary, doc and trailer, but loses the insert. Instead, they added a couple additional trailers including a German one, a video store promo, and trailers for both of the sequels. A slight improvement, but nothing to break out the checkbook for.

And now we have the new Scream Factory set, which ostensibly adds a lot, but really not a lot of value.  All the old extras are here except, curiously, for the German trailer and the video store promo.  No great loss, but still an odd decision.  Instead, we get three, count 'em three, new audio commentaries, in addition to the original.  The first is with Jill Schoelen, which is fun.  She's a good sport and enthusiastic about the film, but unfortunately she's forgotten a lot and was never part of a lot of the big decisions in the first place.  So when she's asked how the writers were brought together, or what was in those deleted scenes, she doesn't know.  And the moderator isn't a great help.  He certainly has a challenge, which I appreciate.  Jill says she never watched the sequels, and he says, well there goes several of my questions.  But unfortunately, his solution is to just keep offering his opinions on everything.  Want to know if he liked Anthony Hopkins or Brian Cox as Hannibal Lector?  You'll find out!  It's like, if you're not asking Jill a question or prompting her to share something, stop pontificating.  Who even are you?

And that's a perfect set-up for the next two commentaries,  both of which are by, I guess, experts (the back of the case smartly doesn't designate them as anything).  And they both just constantly describe what's clearly happening on the screen: "she's now completely suspicious of him and seeking answers, and newspaper articles, so he's on the cusp of getting found out, which is driving up the tension, which we see because he's not handling it well."  Yeah, obviously, we're seeing the movie, too.  They're like audio descriptive tracks for the blind, not audio commentaries.  But I still prefer those parts to all the "I love that line," "I love this shot," "oh, this is perfect"s.  These three people spend hours giving us their opinions (and surprise, surprise, they all love the movie - we already knew their opinions before we started).  Why do they think we'd care?  It's one thing if the director tells us he never really cared for a certain detail, or has a surprising favorite scene.  But when Schoelen and Shelley Hack are having the leaf fight, we get some random soliloquizing, "how fun is that?  I don't know about you guys, but every Fall that is an activity that I would get into, is just crashing around, making a bigger mess with the leaves I had just raked.  But it's worth it, you know?  These are the kinds of things, seasonal activities, you have to do."  What?  I can't imagine why Scream Factory thinks we want to hear these people keep telling us about themselves.  But I'm sure the ideal is just that it looks like a big deal when they list three new audio commentaries in their specs.

Besides the commentaries, we get a new on-camera interview with Schoelen, which is nice, but between the audio commentary and her participation in the documentary, you know.  Do we really want to hear all her anecdotes in triplicate?  To be fair, she doesn't say all the same things in all three, but still, a lot is repeated.  The only other new stuff is a stills gallery and a slipcover.

No matter what, the new Scream Factory is the definitive release.  The best transfer, finally in 1.85:1, finally with subtitles for those who need 'em.  This is the way to go.  It's too bad the new extras didn't add much value; but just taking this release on its own, it looks and sounds terrific, and the older extras are still here, and they're pretty great.  I mean, part of the problem Scream had this time, is that apart from roping in O'Quinn or unearthing those deleted scenes, their package didn't really need much else.  They weren't lacking for features from the start; they just had to look like they were giving us more.  So highly recommended, just know that you don't have to waste your time sitting through all four commentaries.  Read a book or play a video game instead.

The Cinematic Catalog of Steven Wright

One thing I don't want to lose sight of here at DVDExotica is coverage of rare and unique discs.  It shouldn't just be the same handful of boutique labels represented over and over.  So, to that end, I thought I'd make another post similar to our Cinematic Catalog of Josh Kornbluth entry, though this one is a little smaller.  I'm talking about celebrated stand-up comedian... and filmmaker Steven Wright.  You might just know him as the man on the couch in Half Baked or Stan Spielberg in The Muse, but this man has an Academy Award.

He won that Best Short Film, Live Action award for his first film, 1989's The Appointments Of Dennis Jennings, which he wrote and starred in.  He didn't direct it - Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) did - but he went on to direct his next one.  But here he plays a waiter, unsure of his relationship with Laurie Metclaf, so he goes to see a psychiatrist for help.  That psychiatrist is played by Rowan Atkinson, though, so you can image how well that goes.  Naturally, having Wright talk to a psychiatrist is often just an excuse to unleash his deadpan humor.  I assume some of this stuff is straight from his stage act.  But the film takes the opportunity to invent cutaways and imagery to tell jokes he couldn't do through words alone.

And yes, a story does reveal itself.  I mean, you wouldn't waste Atkinson as just a straight man, nodding along to Wright's stand-up, no matter how creative it is.  Wright is revealed to be a paranoiac, and his paranoia is proven to be correct in the most absurdist ways.  Like a Zucker Brothers film, The Appointments is packed full of every kind of gag: in the foreground, in the background.  When he picks up a newspaper, the headline's a gag.  And while a few of them are a little creaky, Wright's humor tends to be timeless, so most of them still play.  And the story itself is clever in its own right.

2000ish DVD.

I've seen this DVD listed online as an HBO release, but I think that might just be because this is an HBO Movies film.  Their logo isn't on the case or anything, and though it has a proper UPC, this otherwise feels like an independent product.  If you're hoping for extras, that'd be great, but forget it.  There isn't even a DVD menu.  The film itself is presented in 1.31:1, which is fine.  I'm sure it was made fullframe to air on HBO at the time.  But the picture's fuzzy like the transfer came from a tape, and yep, it's interlaced.  The 2.0 mono track is very basic but fine, and of course there are no subtitle options.

Ten years later, Wright returned to the movie camera, this time not just to write and star in his second film, 1999's One Soldier, but to produce and direct it as well.  This used to play on IFC all the time.  I swear, though, they used One Soldier and Tex, The Passive-Aggressive Gunslinger to balance out their time slots every single day.  Fortunately, both are ingenious delights, so it never bothered me.

Anyway, One Soldier's a little artier than Appointments.  Both flicks are only about half an hour, but this one's in black and white with slow, static shots, wistful Ken Burns-style voice overs, a gentle score and just a generally slower, less gag-packed pace.  But it's still full of Wright's distinct humor.  It's a period piece, set immediately after the civil war, with Wright playing an accordion-playing soldier who's fallen into an existential funk.  It's not as crowd pleasingly comic as Appointments, but it's a more interesting, mature work.  A little bit anyway.  Wright certainly achieves a distinct, absorbing mood here that makes you wish he'd continued to pursue filmmaking.

2009ish DVD.

One Soldier looks to be another home brew disc with similar art layout.  Again, it's presented in 1.31:1, and though the source is 16mm, the image actually looks sharper and clearer than Appointments.  It's still interlaced, though, which is a bummer.  And once again, it just has the basic 2.0 mono track with no subtitles (except for a few that are burned into one scene), no menu and no special features.

misframed version

I ordered The Appointments Of Dennis Jennings off of Amazon back when they carried it, and I got One Soldier direct from Steven Wright's website, both back around 2000.  I've just checked and, surprisingly, both DVDs are still available on his site as of this writing.  It's worth noting that One Soldier is also included as an extra on the 2007 Image DVD of Wright's stand-up special When the Leaves Blow Away, but there the film is incorrectly framed at 1.75:1, matting off a good chunk of the top and bottom of the picture.  So you should really stick to the original disc.

I'd love to see both films get restored in HD on blu; they could really use it.  But I bet if a Vinegar Syndrome partner label or some such picked them and restored them as a double-feature, it'd sell.  Maybe they could get Gunslinger, too.  But I really don't see any of that happening anytime soon, so I'd grab those discs from Wright's site while you still can.