Home Media Magazine - September 16-22, 2007 - (Page 20)

The new name in breakthrough films Available 9-25-07 REVIEWS Edited by John Latchem Endearing, hysterical and charming You’d have to be absolutely crazy to let a loser like Joe Barring take care of your kids. But when Joe’s ex-girlfriend dies, Joe is entrusted with the lives of his three children. So can a guy like Joe Barring—who drinks too much, fights too much and dates too many women—rise to the demands of fatherhood? Well…Maybe! Bonus Features: Director’s intro, trailer, premiere documentary and bloopers. I THE JUNGLE BOOK: PLATINUM EDITION Street 10/2 Disney, Animated, $29.99 two-DVD set, ‘G’. Voices of Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, George Sanders, Sterling Holloway, J. Pat O’Malley, Bruce Reitherman. Hilarious, amazingly natural and brilliant mockumentary! The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah is the mock documentary story of a man who thinks he is a messiah. Not the messiah, but rather a local, regionally-selected messiah for his own hometown. He’s on a quest, desperately trying to raise money for a town-wide rally where he hopes to announce his deity – and to determine his true, Godgiven “special purpose” in life. Bonus Features: Making of the documentary (1 hour) and deleted scenes (40 min). ith its “Platinum Edition” DVDs, Disney has become adept at presenting extensive behindthe-scenes documentaries that really drive home why the studio’s animated masterpieces are so entertaining. The Jungle Book is another winner. The DVD mixes just the right balance of retrospective commentary and archival footage to give viewers a nearly complete picture of how the 1967 film came to be. It’s especially fascinating to see the current crop of animators offering not only historical context, but anecdotes from the day, like some oral tradition passed down through the ages among the members of an exclusive brotherhood. Many of the current animators talk about how influential The Jungle Book was on them. The character designs inspired the look of the animals in The Lion King nearly 30 years later. The Jungle Book marked an important transition for the Disney animation studio, as it was the last film personally overseen by Walt before he died. The Sword and the Stone faltered when Walt’s attentions were turned else- W where, and he wasn’t willing to let The Jungle Book suffer the same fate. Walt’s death kicked off a 20-year decline for the animation studio, until The Little Mermaid in 1989 (with all due respect to The Rescuers and The Fox and the Hound). The genius of Walt’s storytelling ability is on full display in the bonus features, which relate how Walt whittled down Rudyard Kipling’s original stories into a simple, audience-friendly narrative. The structure is deceptively simple. After years raised by wolves in the jungles of India, the man-cub Mowgli must return to human society. Along the way to the village, he encounters a series of animal characters, each with a different song to sing (including the classic “Bare Necessities”). The final film barely resembles Kipling’s tales, yet Disney’s versions of Baloo, Louie and Shere Khan became iconic and were later revamped into their own TV show, the fondly remembered “Tailspin.” This DVD doesn’t discuss “Tailspin,” the 2003 animated sequel Jungle Book 2, or any of the studio’s other projects based on Kipling’s original works. Other featurettes focus on the tremendous voice cast, the deleted character Rocky the Rhino, and the life of Reitherman, the voice of Mowgli, who embarked on a successful career as a nature photographer. — John Latchem I TEKKONKINKREET Street 9/25 $ 14.98 MSRP Call: (866) 410-9000 gangsters and gumshoe cops. This begrudging harmony — tied togethSony Pictures, Anime, $26.96 DVD $38.96 Blu-ray, er by a love of the town — is upset $26.96 UMD, ‘R’ for some violent and disturbing im- when an evil developer with superages, and brief sexuality. human henchmen comes to clean up Treasure Town and build an ekkonkinkreet is a beautiful, amusement park, even if he must sometimes jarringly violent, kill some children to succeed. love letter to a city, as well as Violent, powerful Black protects a screed against gentrification. innocent White, a not-quite-there Black and White, orphans with su- 11-year-old who falls suddenly into perhero-like powers of movement, vivid daydreams, feels bad omens premonitions to “be happy.” But rule Treasure Town in unwilling inside his chest and must remind White also protects Black from his concert alongside old-school Yakuza himself in the face of these psychic own inner darkness. When the two T 20 Home Media Magazine September 16–22, 2007

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Contents News Commentary TV DVD Reviews Pipeline Research Top 20 DVD Sellers Top 20 Rentals and Top 10 Charts Just Announced Christian Entertainment Review

Home Media Magazine - September 16-22, 2007

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