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New DVDs: '101 Dalmatians,' 'The Munsters,' 'Mister Roberts'

Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 10:22

"101 DALMATIANS." (1996. RATED G. WALT DISNEY VIDEO. $29.99.)Jeff Daniels can be so charming as a leading man. Joely Richardson has the Redgrave family genes. Hugh Laurie is wonderful as a nitwit henchman. And Glenn Close is so delicious when she's evil that "101 Dalmatians" is that rare achievement: a movie attractive to adults and children. This rereleased "special edition" is not the animated 1961 original, but the version with live actors, including lots of dogs who don't talk but express themselves so well that you believe they are in control of the story. Yet it's Close's daring take on Cruella De Vil that closes the deal for the movie. She plays it over the top -- for grown-ups, she's hysterical; for the kiddies, she's scary, but not in a nightmarish way. Forget about the absurdity of one couple taking on dozens of dogs and just enjoy an evening that the whole family (even cat lovers) will savor.-- Leba Hertz"THE MUNSTERS: THE COMPLETE SERIES." (1964-66. NOT RATED. UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. $69.98. 12 DISCS.)The Munsters saw themselves as a regular American family, except that the dad was a knockoff of Frankenstein's monster, the mom and grandfather were vampires and the little boy was a werewolf. (There was also a "normal" character, the niece, who was pitied by the other family members.) Running during the same years as the similarly themed "Addams Family," this show employed silly humor with a ghoulish twist. One of the main reasons for the program's popularity was the amiably goofy performance by the talented Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster. Just a working guy (a gravedigger), Herman has a taste for bad jokes and Pat Boone records. Gwynne clearly enjoyed the role, and he got nice comic support from Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily, and Al Lewis as Grandpa. (Lewis had worked previously with Gwynne on another daffy sitcom, "Car 54, Where Are You?") After "The Munsters," Gwynne, who had experience on Broadway and on TV drama anthologies such as "Studio One," returned to the stage and, in 1974, won applause for his portrayal of Big Daddy in a revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." In the following decade, he played some notable character roles in movies such as "Ironweed." Extras in this 12-disc set include two feature-length Munster movies and featurettes about Gwynne, De Carlo and Lewis.-- Walter Addiego"MISTER ROBERTS." (1984. NOT RATED. ACORN MEDIA. $24.99.)Television likes to pat itself on the back whenever it films live theater. While there's no doubt that the process captures an ephemeral cultural moment, for the most part, the filmed plays look like filmed plays. We never fully suspend disbelief because the stage set, which we accept as real when we're in the theater, looks like a stage set when we see it crammed into our 56-inch flat-screen TV. Still, the 1984 filmed version of "Mister Roberts," the 1948 Joshua Logan-Thomas Heggen Broadway hit that became a successful film, has its charms, chiefly, the presence of Charles Durning as the petty, tyrannical captain of a supply boat during World War II; Robert Hays as the noble title character, who realizes too late that he has traded away his responsibility to his crew for personal advancement; and Kevin Bacon as the bratty Ensign Pulver. The actors keep the production aloft but, overall, it doesn't work well as TV because the pacing of film acting is necessarily quicker than what you're used to seeing onstage. That means the dialogue is often stilted and not entirely believable. The 1955 film version, with James Cagney as the captain, Henry Fonda as Roberts and Jack Lemmon as Pulver, remains a very high water mark, but it's nice to see what competent stage actors Hays, Howard Hesseman (as Doc) and Bacon are. Durning, of course, is an acting god.-- David Wiegand"THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS." (2004. NOT RATED. KINO INTERNATIONAL. $29.95.)Here's a 2004 English-language film that has never been distributed in the United States. Written and directed by Lech Majewski, it's about two scholars, an art historian and a boating engineer, who meet and fall in love with Venice. Because the man has a new camera and is obsessed with videotaping everything, the film is told almost entirely through his home movies, though occasionally we look over his shoulder as he chooses which video to play on his monitor. At times, this is a near-great film. The love affair, between two adults in their late 30s, is mature, erotic and grounded in recognizable emotion, and the setting couldn't be better -- emphasizing both the timelessness and temporal nature of what they're going through. British actress Claudine Spiteri, in her only starring role, is moving and absolutely convincing as a passionate woman determined to leave a mark on the world. The movie's weakness, which is what I suspect kept it out of distribution, is that it is light -- very light -- on story. Also, the guy-filming-everything gimmick has two drawbacks: It renders a couple of scenes absurd (they wouldn't play that way on camera), and it renders the character of the guy something of a creep. That said, I've seen a lot of movies this year, but I don't think I'll forget this one. It has a strange, longing beauty about it.-- Mick LaSalle(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)