Home Media Magazine - March 30 - April 5, 2008 - (Page 24)

REVIEWS I FATHER KNOWS BEST: SEASON ONE Street 4/1 Shout! Factory, Comedy, $34.99 four-DVD set, NR. Stars Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue, Bill Gray, Lauren Chapin. www.homemediamagazine.com I TILT: THE BATTLE TO SAVE PINBALL Street 4/8 C3 Images, Documentary, $29.95 two-DVD set, NR. L et’s step into the way-back machine, all the way to the year 1954. Eisenhower was president, the cold war was in full swing and the American family couldn’t be simpler. Men worked, women cooked, and children were well-behaved and ready to implement the profound wisdom of their parents. OK, so maybe it wasn’t that simple, and shows like “Father Knows Best” present an idealized portrait of the American utopia. But as far as nostalgia trips go, “Father Knows Best” is probably one of the better ones. This DVD set of the first season has a lot going for it, be it as a time capsule or for its pure entertainment value. Modern audiences raised on “Married … With Children” might find it a bit old-fashioned. But there are also a great many television fans who prefer the older stuff, and some didn’t even grow up back then. There are still relevant lessons to be learned, and for that alone the episodes exude a certain timelessness. This DVD would make a perfect Father’s Day gift for older fathers and grandfathers. Those who have followed the series in syndication will delight in the presentation of the original version of “The Promised Playhouse,” which for years had been thought lost. A version culled from a fifth-season flashback had been slated for the DVD release until a collector read this news in Home Media Magazine and realized he had a copy, which he gladly donated to the studio. Shout! Factory has managed to round up some nice extras to appeal to the show’s devoted followers, including new interviews with Donahue and Chapin, the two daughters on the show. And Bill Proffitt, grandson of series star Robert Young, guides viewers through home videos taken on the set and from Young’s private life. Interestingly enough, the private videos seem as staged as a sitcom. The best extra is the bonus unaired episode “24 Hours in Tyrantland,” which was produced by the U.S. government in 1959 to promote savings bonds. While the message comes off a little strong, it’s actually a decent episode, peppered with ideas about freedom and liberty we would do well to remember today. – John Latchem I I FOG CITY MAVERICKS: THE FILMMAKERS OF SAN FRANCISCO Street 4/8 Anchor Bay, Documentary, $19.97 DVD, NR. F og City Mavericks is an enlightening look into the work of several key filmmakers, although it spends quite a bit more time on the filmmakers than it does the city of San Francisco. The film moves from the work of Eadweard Muybridge, a British photographer who laid the groundwork for filmmaking by creating the zoopraxiscope, a device for capturing a succession of still photos, while in San Francisco, to the success of Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. Along the way, the film spends time with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, kindred spirits in their fiercely independent filmmaking styles, as Coppola founded American Zoetrope in 1969 in San Francisco as a haven for filmmaking apart from the studio system of Hollywood. It is here that the film has its best moments, with a gawky and cute Lucas taking cues from Coppola and going on to make such great films as … well, you know them all. Some of these interviews are gems, with Steven Spielberg calling Lucas’ first film, THX-1138, “one of the greatest science-fiction films [he’d] ever seen,” and Lucas saying he wanted to go to film school simply because he “thought that would be fun.” Also intriguing are interviews with their San Francisco brethren and followers such as Milos Forman, (Amadeus), Coppola’s daughter Sofia (Lost in Translation) and Bruce Conner (an experimental filmmaker who helped invent the music video, and inspired Lucas). It is also interesting to see how San Francisco has maintained its relevance into the new millennium with Pixar and Apple (native San Franciscan Steve Jobs helped found both Northern California companies). We hear a lot of talk about the freewheeling attitude of San Francisco, but the film could have done more to help us feel it. As nice as it is to have a retrospective on these select directors, I would have liked to see more on the underground filmmakers that inspired people like Coppola and Lucas, and what made the Fog City so appealing to these like-minded filmmakers. The best explanation we get is a line from John Lasseter (Cars) about filmmakers enjoying some of the simpler pleasures of Northern California: “clean air, good food and great wine.” – Billy Gil n the late 1990s, pinball’s once-robust business was plummeting, and Williams, then the world’s largest pinball manufacturer, set to change that by creating Pinball 2000, a sleek design with eyecatching visuals that was hailed as revolutionary. Not even a year into Pinball 2000’s debut, Williams closed its pinball division for good. This documentary offers a timeline of pinball-related events that led to Pinball 2000. (Fun facts: flippers weren’t introduced until the 1940s; the 1980s brought the rise of narrative-driven games.) Director Greg Maletic talks to numerous Williams employees who detail the laborious creative process behind the idea, the peculiarities of dealing with George Lucas (the last game built using Pinball 2000 was based on Star Wars: Episode I), and their theories for the pinball division’s sudden closing. In his commentary, first-time director Maletic says he strove to create the pinball version of The Kid Stays in the Picture, the documentary about film producer Robert Evans. Though Maletic doesn’t reach the transcendent levels of that excellent movie, his effort is smart and fun while never making us think that we’re wasting our time on a niche subject. His enthusiasm for the story and the people involved is infectious, and it’s impossible not to stay interested. The 60-minute running time also helps. There are plenty of extras on the two-disc set that pinball devotees will love, including extended interviews with key Williams’ personnel, and a look at some lost games. Maletic’s enlightening and substantial commentary, in which he covers his filmmaking techniques and the challenges of working with limited footage, should suffice for everyone else. – Pete Croatto 24 Home Media Magazine March 30–April 5, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - March 30 - April 5, 2008

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