Circles Of Deceit (1993 – 1995/Acorn DVD Set) + Smokin’
– Classic Cigarette Commercials (S’More DVD) + Takedown (2010/E1 DVD) + Those
Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies/Houdini (1969 & 1953/Tony
Curtis Double Feature/Legend Blu-ray) +
Winning Season (2009/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture: C/C/C/C+
& B-/C Sound: C+ (Smokin’: C-) Extras: C-/D/C-/D/C- Main Programs: C+/C+/C/B-/B-
And now
for a mix of interesting titles that are more interesting than most of the
fluff we have been suffering through lately.
First up
is a set for four spy telefilms called Circles
Of Deceit with Dennis Waterman from The
Sweeney and Minder as a down and out secret agent called in to fix some
dirty jobs that are often a mix of unfinished Cold War business, rising terrorism
and other dark matters he seems most suited to fix. It wants to be a combination of Callan and Man In A Suitcase (see both elsewhere on this site), but tends to
drag too much in an effort to be more realistic, instead being boring as slow
does not always mean smart.
Produced
and broadcast between 1993 – 1995, the spy genre was in flux and had not
recovered from the fall of the U.S.S.R., but I give the makers credit for
making a bold attempt to contribute to the genre and with guest stars like Leo
McKern (The Prisoner), Derek Jacobi,
John Hannah, Susan Jameson, Corin Redgrave, Kate Buffery, Claire Higgins and
the ever great Peter Vaughn, it is a show all serious spy fans should see
once. The four telefilms here are not in
their original broadcast order for some odd reason, but Acorn has included
notes to that effect and included a few cast filmographies as bonus material. The episodes in original order are the
self-named telefilm, Dark Secret, Kalon and Sleeping
Dogs.
When I
saw that the compilation Smokin’ –
Classic Cigarette Commercials was being issued by S’More Entertainment, I
wondered if they could come up with ads that were not on the exceptional 1001 Classic Commercials set from Mill
Creek, which you can read more about here:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8976/1001+Classic+Commercials+(Mill+Cree
Remarkably,
there are dozens not on the other set and are among those I have never seen
before. This includes one add that dares
to try to imitate Resnais’ Last Year At
Marienbad (!!!) and one about telephones of the future (including Bell Picturephone
knock-offs, but all of which have wires) and another brand also being of the
future. The more you know about the underhanded
promotion of these products, the more sinister the ads come across and they
found more Spanish variants. Though the
slendercase says this runs 70 minutes, this is actually two hours with some
overlap between the 90 minutes and 30 minutes sections. There are no extras.
Lou
Diamond Phillips is a more viable action star than he ever got respect for and
in Raul Sanchez Inglis’ Takedown
(2010), he plays a security guard involved with more sinister happenings than
people in his profession usually encounter, affecting him personally as he
tries to help out a young, somewhat innocent gal smuggled from Serbia for
exploitative reasons. He is good in the
role, but the script never exceeds the usual genre trappings (this one involves
the Russian Mob), though Phillips is joined by Estella Warren, Deborah Kara
Unger and a decent supporting cast. I
was hoping this might get better, but it had a few good moments. Too bad its potential was not realized. A trailer is the only extra.
This is
the third time we are covering two of Tony Curtis’ big Paramount Pictures
productions. Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies/Houdini (1969 &
1953) have been on DVD as singles and as a double feature, but here they are
now on Blu-ray from Legend Films. You
can read about the films starting with this link for the double feature DVD:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10761/Abbott+&+Costello+%E2%80%93+Th
Here are
the singles:
Houdini
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7242/Houdini+(1953/Legend+DVD/Paramoun
Those Daring Young Men In Their
Jaunting Jalopies
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7274/Legend+Films+DVDs+(Baby+It%E2%8
We get no
extras again, the same Dolby Digital soundtracks, but the 1080p digital High
Definition image on both films are improvements over the color of the DVDs,
though Houdini (at 1.33 X 1)
benefits more in definition as well. Jalopies (at 2.35 X 1) still has color
issues in its live-action film source, but the animation at the beginning and end
credits are superior to the DVD with better color and gives one an idea how
nice this must have looked in first release.
Finally
we have another sports drama in James C. Strouse’s Winning Season (2009) with the underrated Sam Rockwell as a down
and out minimum wage worker who has the chance to coach a female high school
basketball team. What could have been
another dumb Rocky-formula story is
an interesting drama about the lives of the players and deals with poverty,
anger, education, sexuality and other honest issues.
Rooney
Mara and Emma Roberts are among the cast of the team and Rob Corddry and Margot
Martindale help make up the rest of the solid cast. This unexpectedly delivered in ways I had
hoped Takedown might by stretching
expectations and having some ambition.
This is the kind of film that may be discovered over the next few years
and people will wonder why it did not have a larger audience to begin
with. A trailer is the only extra.
The 1.33
X 1 image on Deceit and Smokin’ are older transfers of filmed
materials, but can look good, with Smokin’
a tad weaker on average, but the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 DVDs of Takedown and Winning have more detail issues, motion blur and general softness
that may be holding back what looks like better shoots than their respective
disc represent.
Deceit offers Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
that is not bad, but offers no serious surrounds, while Smokin’ is credited as the same, but the first 90 minutes section
has awful sound as if an attempt at stereo backfired. The last 30 minutes section is better, but
beware of volume switching and levels of playback. Note all the original ads are
monophonic. Takedown and Winning
have Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes, but their low budgets limit the sonics in these
cases, though I wondered if either would have sounded better in lossless
soundtracks.
- Nicholas Sheffo
