A bounty of cool stuff on DVD today, some of it new to the format, some recycled.
Essential titles never previously available include Bedazzled, a brilliant Faustian satire from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, snappily directed by Stanley Donen, and Royal Flash, an ultra-stylish swashbuckler directed by Richard lester, very much in the vein of his Three Musketeers, and showcasing an awesome cast including Malcolm McDowell, Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, Bob Hoskins and the incomparable Alistair Sim. Great stuff, both of these.
Partially recycled is Mothra Vs. Godzilla, one of the Big G's best showcases. It's long been available in the U.S. in dubbed, pan-and-scan versions, but the good folks at Sony have answered the prayers of fanboys everywhere by finally seeing fit to issue the original Japanese-language version, gorgeously remastered and stuffed full o' extras. If you like giant monsters beating each other senseless, this is as good as it gets.
The Mario Bava Collection gathers four films from the great Italian fantasist, all previously available but newly remastered. Titles range from the seminal Black Sunday and the gorgeously Technicolor-saturated Black Sabbath to the lighthearted Girl Who Knew Too Much to the largely uninteresting Viking saga Knives Of The Avenger. There was some initial disappointment among fans that Black Sabbath appears here minus the U.S. dub tracks, which means you don't get to hear Boris Karloff speaking with his own voice, but the quality of the film, and the useful commentary from Video Watchdog editor and Bava know-it-all Tim Lucas, makes up for that.
Finally, we have something called the "Music Edition" of Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. Near as I can tell, all this means is you get a second disc of the soundtrack. Jazz was issued on DVD a few years ago, to cash in on the Fosse-mania surrounding Chicago, and the transfer wasn't all it could have been. I doubt this new version is much of an upgrade, but if it gets someone to pick up a copy of this brilliantly choreographed, edited and photographed kinda sorta musical, I'm all for it.
