Published: December 31, 2007 11:49 am      

MGM Dacades Collection definite winners

Everyone needs to own each of the disks of this fantastic MGM Decades Collection.

MGM is releasing three classics from each decade, the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Each Decades Collection DVD features a collectible booklet created by Life magazine and a compact disc of eight hit songs from each 10 year period.

The selection of movies is fantastic. The hit songs are great. The Life magazine booklet, although photographically excellent, has a liberal slant I don’t care for because of the inaccuracies. Using the Mad Max release for an example: the booklet talks about the American citizen and embassy evacuation in April 1975 — years after the U.S. troops had pulled out — “The humiliating retreat was the bitter finale of the long U.S. presence in Vietnam ... It was clear the U.S. had been badly beaten in Vietnam.”

What angers me is that the Paris Peace Agreement of 1973 which officially ended open hostilities between the United States and North Vietnam. After the signing of the treaty the U.S. was to provide only military aid in the form of money and equipment. In 1975, a Democratic majority Congress voted to end the aid to South Vietnam. Then the South Vietnam government fell.

Despite that — Vietnam conflict is a personal issue of mine — these are great releases with great hit songs, and the pictures in the booklets are often one-of-a-kind.

I’m going to review one movie from each decade, but I had seen all the movies but Mad Max — I watched both Road Warrior and Thunderdrome — so I can honestly say that those I didn’t review are great selections with good acting and storyline and should be considered classic.

SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)

Don’t go into shock with this release. It’s in black and white with enhanced surround sound monaural.

This Marilyn Monroe vehicle directed by Billy Wilder also stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. This selection, too, is a classic. I’ve seen it dozens of times on TV plus I also have watched it at home when nothing is on either broadcast or cable television — It’s amazing I pay for 250 channels and frequently there’s nothing I want to watch, that’s when I resort to the DVDs and in some cases videos.

This movie is a gem from start to finish. All the actors, both headline and minor, are superb in their roles. Lemmon steals the movie here, though, in my opinion. He invests Daphne with such enthusiasm that we can understand why he’s falling for Osgood. He’s having way too much fun and it’s great to watch him. This is a true classic from start to finish.

With its Marx Brothers-like farce, the mistaken identities, burlesque-styled antics and the madcap chase finale it’s not surprising the movie is considered a classic. There’s something for everyone.

The release’s comic wit, timing, inventiveness and double-entendre it’s a classic that will have many of the current youth wondering why it’s considered a comedy. This is not in your face comedy. It’s comedy the viewer has to be alert to catch.

Rating ****

MPAA Rated: G

Running time: 122 minutes



CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG (1968)

This movie was one which I took my kids to see in the mid-seventies or we watched on TV. Despite the catchy music and non-child-like plot, I considered this a children’s movie.

This G-Rated family film is packed with adventure, comedy, great songs and fun.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a film that appeals to kids and keeps adults interested at the same time. Let your kids watch it, watch it with them, or just watch it yourself when you're in the mood for some pure, escapist fun.

Rather than a child’s movie, I would say this is a family film for anyone who has or can remember or recover the child in themselves.

The sheer imagination of this film is similar to the concept of Peter Pan. This film is a celebration of childhood and fantasy.

The dancing, the songs, the genius and humor showcase the best of musicals and of childhood.

This is truly an unsung classic.

Rating ****

MPAA Rated: G

Running time: 145 minutes



MAD MAX (1979)

When I first got the opportunity of watching this Mel Gibson film, I was really surprised. I only remembered the Mad Max sequels, Mad Max 2: Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdrome.

If you’ve only seen the sequels, you should be warned going in that Mad Max is a somewhat mellower film — a little more reflective, a little less campy than you might be expecting. There’s no Feral Kid, no Master Blaster. There’s no “two men enter, one man leaves,” but there is a line about a hacksaw that comes close.

Shoot, for most of this release Max isn’t even mad yet. But he will be by the end of the film, raising the question of whether or not the coming apocalypse happened on an international level, or just in Max’s own mind.

If you’ve only seen the dubbed version of Mad Max on video or television — yeah, that’s right, they dubbed Australian — this re-release is worth seeking out. You can hear Mel Gibson speak his own dialogue and he is good.

Despite its low budget, or perhaps as a result of it, Mad Max has a visual style, pace and vitality that distinguishes it from all action films of that era. As a result of this, Mad Max took more at the box office in Australia than Star Wars (1977) and found a place in the Guinness Book of Records as having obtained the highest cost-to-profit ratio of any feature film. According to the Internet Movie Database, an initial investment of $350,000 earned more than $100 million at the box office as of 1982.

The film’s concept is almost simplistic: a man, thrown onto his own strength, faces a barbarian enemy with no moral scruples. It made Gibson a star. He certainly looks the part, and the action sequences are breathtakingly intense, particularly the opening chase.

Personally I really liked the ending of this first Mel Gibson film.

Rating ****

MPAA Rated: R

Running time: 94 minutes



MOONSTRUCK (1987)

The film, first released in 1987, is a primer in the romantic comedy genre. At it’s heart is Cher’s Oscar-winning performance as Loretta Castorini, a young, independent-minded Italian-American widowed bookkeeper who’s agrees to a marriage of convenience to an older man (Danny Aiello)

I enjoyed Moonstruck because of the simple and lighthearted way it approached relationships.

There are romantic films that are almost all fluff; relationships are dealt with as the pinnacle of modern existence, if you’re not in a relationship you should feel like a failure. Then there are romantic films that are on the opposite end of the spectrum which, while well-written and acted, can occasionally come over as melodramatic and sappy.

Moonstruck is not only an excellent romantic comedy and good date movie, but is an enchanting study of love and passion among regular people. The ending runs the gamut of emotionals.

As one critic wrote in 1987, the movie shows, “the family situation going beyond the momentary complications to cement it in tradition going back to the days of immigrants, and is one that elevates this movie from being just another feel-good movie to a classic.”

Great movie to watch with your wife, girl friend or significant other.

Rating ****

MPAA Rated PG

Running time: 102 minutes

* * *

Synopsis — (Courtesy of MGM Home Entertainment) MGM offers a bit of nostalgia this holiday season with the MGM Decades Collection, available on DVD December 4. With a never-ending catalog of classic cinema, MGM has selected three notable films from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s and packaged each disc with a collectible booklet by LIFE Magazine highlighting historical events from that particular decade along with a compact disc featuring the classic music that defined each generation.

1950s Synopses:

12 Angry Men

Eleven jurors are convinced that the defendant is guilty of murder. The twelfth has no doubt of his innocence. How can this one man steer the others toward the same conclusion? It’s a case of seemingly overwhelming evidence against a teenager accused of killing his father in “one of the best pictures ever made” (The Hollywood Reporter).

Guys & Dolls

Hollywood legends Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jean Simmons and Vivian Blain (from the original Broadway cast) are dazzling in this Frank Loesser (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) masterpiece, unleashing a “spectacular, song-and-dance show that’s loaded with entertainment” (New York Journal-American). Featuring hits like “Luck Be a Lady” and “A Woman in Love,” this smash film version of one of Broadway’s most popular musicals is guaranteed, rip-roaring “four-star entertainment” (New York Daily News). The slickest big-time New York City gamblers, Sky Masterson (Brando) and Nathan Detroit (Sinatra), can’t resist making or taking a bet on anything. So when a pretty missionary (Simmons) sets up shop in the neighborhood, Nathan stakes a grand that Sky can’t seduce her. But all bets are off when Sky falls madly in love in this romantic musical spectacular that sets the Big Apple afire with excitement!

Some Like It Hot

When Chicago musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) accidentally witness a gangland shooting, they quickly board a southbound train to Florida, disguised as Josephine and Daphne, the two newest and homeliest members of an all-girl jazz band. Their cover is perfect ... until a lovelorn singer (Marilyn Monroe) falls for Josephine, an ancient playboy (Joe E. Brown) falls for Daphne, and a mob boss (George Raft) refuses to fall for their hoax! Nominated for 6 Academy Awards, Some Like It Hot is the quintessential madcap farce and one of the greatest of all film comedies (The Motion Picture Guide).

1960s Synopses:

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls start your engines. You’re about to take an incredible ride with one of the most wonderful family films of all time! Now celebrating its 30th anniversary, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has never looked or sounded better. Dick Van Dyke stars as eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts, who creates an extraordinary car called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It not only drives but also flies and floats as it leads him, his two children and his beautiful lady friend, Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), into a magical world of pirates, castles and endless adventure.

The Graduate

Nominated for seven Academy Awards and winner for Best Director, this ground breaking and “wildly hilarious” (The Boston Globe) social satire launched the career of two-time Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman and cemented the reputation of acclaimed director Mike Nichols. Pulsating with the rebellious spirit of the ‘60s and a haunting score sung by Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate is truly a “landmark film” (Leonard Maltin). Shy Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) returns home from college with an uncertain future. Then the wife of his father’s business partner, the sexy Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), seduces him, and the affair only deepens his confusion. That is, until he meets the girl of his dreams (Katharine Ross). But there’s one problem: she’s Mrs. Robinson’s daughter!

West Side Story

This brilliant (The New Republic) film sets the ageless story of Romeo and Juliet against a backdrop of gang warfare in 1950s New York. Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins and scripted by Ernest Lehman, the film combines Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s unforgettable score ( Maria, America, ‘somewhere, ‘tonight ) with Robbins own exuberant choreography to achieve an exhilarating work of art (Saturday Review). A love affair is fated for tragedy amidst the vicious rivalry of two street gangs the Jets and the Sharks. When Jets member Tony (Richard Beymer) falls for Maria (Natalie Wood), the sister of the Sharks leader, it’s more than these two warring gangs can handle. And as mounting tensions rise, a battle to the death ensues, and innocent blood is shed in a heartbreaking finale.

1970s Synopses:

Carrie

Based on the best-selling Stephen King novel, Carrie “catches the mind, shakes it and refuses to let it go” (Time)! Starring Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie (in Oscar®-nominated performances), John Travolta and Amy Irving, this ultimate revenge fantasy is “absolutely spellbinding” (Roger Ebert), “outrageously witty” (Los Angeles Times) and one of the all-time great horror classics! At the center of the terror is Carrie (Spacek), a tortured high-school misfit with no confidence, no friends ... and no idea about the extent of her secret powers of telekinesis. But when her psychotic mother and sadistic classmates finally go too far, the once-shy teen becomes an unrestrained, vengeance-seeking powerhouse who, with the help of her ‘special gift,’ causes all hell to break loose in a famed cinematic frenzy of blood, fire and brimstone!

Fiddler On The Roof

Tevye (Topol) is a poor milkman in Czarist Russia, where he provides for five unmarried daughters and a sharp-tongued wife. Faced with mounting financial strain and growing anti-Semitism, Tevye strives -- like a fiddler on a roof -- to maintain balance despite the precarious nature of his situation. Directed by Norman Jewison (Moonstruck), conducted by John Williams and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, this )triumphant and satisfying experience” (Los Angeles Times) weaves a “tapestry of beauty and excitement” (Rex Reed)!

Mad Max

Setting Mel Gibson on a sure path to super-stardom, this highly acclaimed “crazy collide-o-scope” (Newsweek) of highway mayhem “cinematically defined the post-apocalyptic landscape” (TV Guide). Featuring eye-popping stunts that are “electrifying and very convincing” (Variety) and “an authentically nihilistic spirit” (The Village Voice), Mad Max is “pure cinematic poetry” (Time). In the ravaged near future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them. But they underestimate one officer: Max Rockatansky (Gibson). And when the bikers brutalize Max’s best friend and family, they send him into a mad frenzy that leaves him with only one thing left in the world to live for revenge!

1980s Synopses:

Moonstruck

Fall under the delightful spell of Moonstruck, the mesmerizing romantic comedy from director Norman Jewison (Fiddler on the Roof) and Oscar winner John Patrick Shanley. Academy Award winners Cher, Nicolas Cage and Olympia Dukakis excel in this explosively funny tale which also features flawless performances by Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia and Frasier’s John Mahoney. Cher is “devastatingly funny, sinuous and beautiful” (Pauline Kael) as Loretta, an unlucky in love Italian widow who finds romance through the intervention of the Manhattan moon. With her wedding to a close friend just weeks away, she meets and falls hopelessly in love with his younger brother (Cage)! Her dilemma and her equally passionate and hilariously eccentric family make for an unforgettable film you’ll find “beguiling” (Time), “enchanting” (Newsweek) and “irresistible” (”Today Show”).

The Sure Thing

John Cusack (Grosse Pointe Blank, High Fidelity), Daphne Zuniga (Spaceballs) and Nicollette Sheridan (”Desperate Housewives”) star in this charming tale of true love that’s at once “intelligent, fun, a bit devilish [and] delightful, frisky and perceptively funny” (The Hollywood Reporter)! College freshman Walter “Gib” Gibson (Cusack) has a “sure thing” going, a date with a very hot and very sex-craved blonde (Sheridan) across the country in LA. Crossed by fate and the ride-share bulletin board Gib makes the trip with a studious and abrasive coed (Zuniga). But as they mount every obstacle from show tune-singing simpletons and bad weather to leering truck drivers and worse luck, their temperaments change and Gib realizes that the only sure thing is that losing the real thing would be the worst thing of all!

When Harry Met Sally

“Brimming over with style, intelligence and flashing wit” (Rolling Stone), this “splendid and irresistible” (Los Angeles Times) film from director Rob Reiner(American President is one of the best-loved romantic comedies of all time. Featuring dazzling performances from Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby, exceptional music from Harry Connick Jr., and an Oscar-nominated screenplay by Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally is an “explosively funny” commentary on friendship, courtships - and other hardships - of the modern age (Newsweek)! Will sex ruin a perfect relationship between a man and a woman? that’s what Harry (Crystal) and Sally (Ryan) debate during their travels from Chicago to New York. And eleven years and later, they’re still no closer to finding the answer. Will these two best friends ever accept that they’re meant for each other ... or will they continue to deny the attraction that’s existed since the first moment When Harry Met Sally?