Lots of great stuff new on DVD today, including three must-haves:
1) The Maltese Falcon: John Huston's first film as director, Humphrey Bogart's first lead as a morally ambiguous antihero, the first real film noir, a definitive adaptation of a great American novel, oh, and also one of the most entertaining movies ever made, 1941's Falcon finally gets the release it deserves. In addition to a restored print (which showcases Arthur Edeson's gleaming camerawork to its full advantage), you get the two previous versions of Dashiell Hammett's novel that Warner Bros. had knocked out in the thirties, radio versions (one with the great Laird Cregar), audio commentary and more. Essential in every way--now if someone would just issue Huston's late career masterworks Wise Blood and The Dead on DVD...
2) The Little Mermaid: This 1989 effort from the Disney Empire has been on DVD before, but this is the first time it's been released with all the bells and whistles we've come to expect from even the most routine animated features. Mermaid, however, is far from routine: with a terrific Howard Ashman-Alan Menken score and superb animation by artists eager to prove what they could do, this was largely responsible for the rebirth of the animated feature in the nineties, a trend that today unfortunately continues with stories about poorly-CGI-animated animals making fart noises. Even at Disney, the burst of creativity it started soon turned into formula. But Mermaid remains an effortlessly entertaining evergreen, and a bittersweet reminder of a time when great things seemed possible, even from soulless corporations.
3) Body Double: Brian DePalma's wildly entertaining, deliberately trashy melodrama seemed like a throwaway in 1984, DePalma doing familiar tropes because his bid to be taken seriously as an artist (That would be Scarface!) was a box-office underperformer. These days it's obvious that DePalma is at his best when working in the shadows, that his cheap thrillers (Raising Cain) are so much more interesting than his bids for the mainstream (Bonfire Of The Vanities, Mission To Mars). Body Double absolutely wallows in sleaze, and its backdrop of the early eighties porno industry makes it a fascinating co-feature for Boogie Nights. It has been on DVD before, but again, a spiffed-up transfer and some interesting exras make all the difference.
There are actually a ton of other good things on DVD today, including some more Bogart (your best bet would be They Drive By Night), yet another reissue of DePalma's Scarface and Ganja And Hess, a movie about class divisions in the African-American community disguised as a vampire melodrama. For movie fans, most weeks are famine, so lets be grateful for a feast.
