Breaker! Breaker! (1977/American International/Orion/MGM/Olive Blu-ray)/Clean Slate (1994/MGM/Olive Blu-ray)/Girls: The Complete Fourth Season (2015/HBO Blu-ray Set)/Jinxed (1982/MGM/Olive Blu-ray)/Sisters (2015/Universal Blu-ray w/DVD)

Picture: B-/B-/B/B-/B & C Sound: B-/B-/B/B-/B & C+ Extras: C-/C-/C+/C-/C+ Main Programs: C/C/C+/C/C

Here's a new set of comedies, where at least a few laughs come through and other amusing items come from unintentionally funny moments.

Included are a few older, interesting films that were attempts to turn their lead talents into stars when films were more ambitious. Only known for some martial arts at the time and good at it, Chuck Norris was looking for a vehicle to launch him as a star. American International Pictures was trying to expand, so they signed him on for Don Hulette's Breaker! Breaker! (1977), a sub-cycle of the bandit/chase film cycle of the 1970s that involved CB radios and formulaic scripts as Norris' innocent brother lands up being arrested (and worse) for just driving into a town up to no good.

Norris is as peace-loving as Billy Jack, but kidnapping his brother makes him really mad, so he goes to find him and finds that usual world of trouble. George Murdoch is just fine as the boo-hiss villain judge making all the bad things happen, but of course, even Norris' karate (and kung-fu, et al) kicking ways will not be enough, so its going to take a convoy to straighten all this out. The film is not good, but has some fairly good moments and is obviously a curio for an actor who moved on to a so-so TV show after a cycle of reactionary 1980s revenge-action films that make this film look thoughtful. The other problem here is how unambitious this all is an that means many opportunities were missed, delaying Norris from being a star. A time capsule at best, you'll find how bored you are when you keep thinking ''wow, look how young he was'' too much. Needless to say this is not a 10-4... buddy!

An original theatrical trailer is the only extra.

Mick Jackson's Clean Slate (1994) was one of several attempts to take the hilarious Dana Carvey and get him into a hit feature film that would take advantage of his immense talents, but the screenplays were always too restrictive and the attempts at comedy were nowhere nearly as funny as the man himself when he was not restricted by bad writing. Like Groundhog Day, his private eye character wakes up not remembering anything, then has to relearn who he is quickly as crime most foul is on the way.

Valeria Golino (Rain Man) is a sexy, mysterious woman who keeps making him forget other things and the crime case is pretty dull and contrived, with not even Michael Gambon, James Earl Jones, Kevin Pollack and Michael Murphy able to make this better. At 107 minutes, it seems longer and nothing has become funnier since it was originally released unfortunately. I wish Carvey had more than the Wayne's World films as hits, but the studios were still hoping he might break out on his own. If you can be patient, this is worth seeing once just for the moments by Carvey that work, but that's all.

An original theatrical trailer is the only extra.

Lena Dunham's Girls: The Complete Fourth Season (2015) is an HBO show that is starting to show signs of wear, including the opening episode being too similar to its pilot, but the big surprise is that Adam Driver (who was making the new Star Wars film) was able to appear as often on the show as he does. Still, her Hannah character goes to a new college and becomes uncomfortable quickly, which as you know if you've watched the show, means she'll start saying anything that comes to mind no matter who she offends (we're always supposed to find this funny) even if she shouldn't and that epitomizes the stillborn nature of the character development the show was suffering a bit of last season. It worse here, making many scenes throw-away, contrived and the opposite of how fresh the show began.

We have all the regulars, plus some name actors show up to freshen things in later episodes, but that does not help. The 10 episodes are at least competent and consistent, but I was more disappointed than expected and maybe if Driver was not there as much, they would have had to do something more fun and surprising. A subplot about his involvement with another woman while Hannah is away does not ring too true either.

Extras include 7 audio commentary tracks, Inside The Episode segments, Gag Reel, Deleted & Extended Scenes, a few Behind The Scenes clips and Digital Copy.

Don Siegel's Jinxed (1982) had the longtime Clint Eastwood director (Dirty Harry, The Beguiled, Escape From Alcatraz) trying a major project on his own after a fallout with Eastwood that was never resolved. Riding on the success of her music career, off-screen comedy persona and The Rose, this star vehicle for Bette Midler has her unhappy with her marriage with her so-so husband (Rip Torn as an unsympathetic goof) plotting his murder with her new casino-employed boyfriend (Ken Wahl) so they can be together. Taking place in Reno, Nevada, There are musical numbers thrown in (her character is a singer/dancer), but the script is flat, all over the place and this never adds up to the fun intended.

However, looking at this, you can see how Touchstone/Disney used it as a rough draft to launch their newly-minted live-action division and build the longtime (and at one time, endangered by sharks who wanted to buy the company and sell it off into bits and pieces!) and sign Midler to be their first-ever contract star, albeit a cleaned-up Bette.

There are some nice moments here and her and Wahl have some interesting chemistry, but the film is never able to make that (pardon the pun) pay off, so that leaves this one yet another curio that also deserves a Blu-ray release. Some shots look like they are out of Coppola's One From The Heart (issued the same year, reviewed elsewhere on this site) in a good way, but not much stays with one after seeing it. Even the underrated, late, great music producer Snuff Garrett designed the biggest musical number, but this is far from any kind of backstage musical you could imagine, especially with murder in mind. For fan only. Val Avery also stars.

An original theatrical trailer is the only extra.

Lastly we have Jason Moore's Sisters (2015), not a remake of the brilliant Brian De Palma thriller (see more on that elsewhere on this site as well), but a comedy about two wild and crazy siblings (Tina Fey and Amy Poehler) who get together who reunite as their family home is about to be sold after many decades of ownership. Though no deep character study was expected, what we get is very hit and miss (more miss, unfortunately) trying to coast on the very real talents of the co-stars and be funny. But just them two showing up is not sufficient for a feature film, here in an uncut 123 minutes and theatrical 118 minutes that make no difference.

Maya Rudolph shows up and is so good, they should have made her a third sister, then this would have been something. Something funny, different, smart and challenging. As it stands, it disappoints, even with the addition of John Leguizamo and John Cena trying to be funny. That makes this for fans only, but I was hoping to be surprised. Too bad its a dud.

Extras include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other cyber iTunes capable devices, while both disc format versions offer a Gag Reel, Deleted Scenes, Extended Scenes, The Improvorama and a feature length audio commentary track by the director, two co-stars and Writer Paula Pell. Blu-ray exclusives include seven Behind The Scenes/Making Of featurettes.

All the Blu-rays perform well enough if nothing of stunning demo quality with the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Sisters being a competent comedy digital HD shoot (the anamorphically enhanced DVD is the weakest performer on the list as expected, but it is too soft for the format) and the 1080p 1.78 X 1 High Definition image transfer on all the Girls episode being just a tad better, warmer ands richer, tying for first place as the best performers on the list.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Breaker, Slate and Jinxed can show the age of the materials used, but are all far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film (when they've actually happened) and all have nice shots of how good they would have looked in their original theatrical releases. The HD masters are likely a bit older, but not bad, so fans won't be too disappointed.

Sound is much the same story with the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on the Girls episodes and Sisters being solid, competent, modern surround mixes you'd expect for most current comedies, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 lossless mixes on Breaker, Jinxed (both from their original theatrical mono) and Slate (originally issued in older analog Dolby-A type theatrical Stereo surround) are about even with each other, tying for second place. They are all likely not to sound better than they all do here.

The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Sisters DVD is actually the weakest playback performer here.

- Nicholas Sheffo