DVDs The Nanny The Fugitive Macgyver A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy

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12/16/2015DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy! | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b11df543-46d3-40f8-b273-23b1c3fcde28&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/7DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" --It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy!DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed SetFeeding Frenzy!TV fans should be in hog heaven. Major studios have realized the era of people building libraries of BluRays andDVDs is fading fast now that more and more TV is available for streaming, more TV than anyone could everwatch. But I still love having a library of my favorite books and movies and albums and TV shows. Happily,studios are finally giving us inexpensive no-frills boxed sets of our favorite shows. So dig in with a round-up ofsome recent TV sets, as well as the best of all the other current releases.THE NANNY: THE COMPLETE SERIES THE FUGITIVE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION RAWHIDE: THE COMPLETE SERIES ($162.99 DVD; Paramount) CHEERS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION THE SAINT: THE COMPLETE SERIES ($199.98 DVD; Timeless Media) MACGYVER: THE COMPLETE COLLECTIONWALKER, TEXAS RANGER: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION ($119.98 DVD; Paramount) THE COLBYS: THE COMPLETE SERIES ($119 DVD; Shout Factory)The Nanny is the choice boxed set of the bunch, in part because it's presented with care and in part because it'snot just repackaged and at a lower price like so many of the fine shows below, but the first complete boxed setof the show. Fran Drescher's sitcom is thoroughly familiar -- brassy nanny wakes up the stuffy rich folk and withcommon sense and a Queens accent. She teaches them to enjoy life in an Auntie Mame sort of way, if AuntieMame fell for her boss, that is. Despite a so-so setup and some dated elements, it's enlivened by a sly wit thatpops up every now and then, mostly due to channeling Drescher's smart sensibility. The Nanny also has a reallove of Broadway and the occasional cameos from theatrical stars are a real treat. It would be nothing withoutDrescher though the rest of the cast is amiable too and gets better as it goes along. Shout has presented theshow with care and the usual extras. I haven't watched the making-of documentary -- which is substantial inlength -- because I want to watch the series in order first. And I really don't care about extras, what I want is theoriginal series, which they've done here, offering up the full-length original broadcast episodes. Nonetheless,Drescher's audio commentary was disappointingly dull. Fran, darling, next time call me and we'll drink BloodyMarys and I'll prompt you with questions and the commentary will be hilarious! Your fans deserve no less.With so many shows getting repackaged and sold at a lower price, you might be wondering why so many othershows are NOT on DVD or BluRay in complete sets. Blame the music. So often, the music rights proveinsurmountable, which I blame completely on the idiocy of music rights' companies and the unions. No oneanticipated selling shows like this, so they should have made reasonable accommodations when the opportunityfor a new revenue stream popped up. They didn't and so many TV shows are unavailable or only in bastardizedform, like WKRP in Cincinnati for so many years (that's finally been fixed, mostly) and Northern Exposure (kindof, but not really). What makes The Fugitive unusual is that this iconic series has been tripped up not bypreexisting songs used in the show's soundtrack but by the original score. For some legal reason, whole chunksof the show have to be overlaid with a new synthesized score rather than the original one, rightly infuriating fans.That problem has not been fixed here, even though it was finally dealt with on an earlier boxed set. Go figure!12/16/2015DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy! | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b11df543-46d3-40f8-b273-23b1c3fcde28&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/7So buyer beware. This is no way to binge watch the adventures of the fugitive as he tracks down the one-armedman.Rawhide is even worse, in ways. This show has become iconic because it turned Clint Eastwood into a star. Orat least a name who then went to Italy, made some silly films and unexpectedly became a superstar. He was theco-star in this Western which ran for eight seasons and was the fifth longest running Western in US TV history.That means it has more than 200 episodes of this hour long drama. And THAT means that the cost of doing atop-notch job of remastering has proven overwhelming, with Season Four for some reason bearing the brunt ofthe issue. It's noticeably inferior to the others. If you can ignore that, this is a solid western, combining season-long arcs with stand-alone episodes in a way one doesn't expect from a show of this era. And it's easy to seewhy Eastwood became a star and he was featured more and more prominently as the series progressed.Cheers is one of the great sitcoms of all time, though it would have been even greater if they'd called it a daywhen Shelley Long called it a day after five seasons. It was made for personal reasons but no sitcom got betterafter five seasons and only The Mary Tyler Moore Show maintained its excellence for seven. Cheers might havegone seven and indeed Kirstie Alley was a fun new foil for Ted Danson. Nonetheless, it invariably becamerepetitive -- a real problem for sitcoms since they typically offer variations on a theme unlike dramas which moreoften progress and change. And it benefited from Long's departure and the addition of Woody Harrelson as adim-witted bartender. Bringing in new characters successfully is one of the hardest things a sitcom can do andwhen they do it well, a show really has greatness in its grasp. But eleven seasons? That's a lot of foreplay.Happily, the quality is off the charts good for five or so years and acceptable after that. You get it all here andwhile maybe you can binge watch it online, isn't a classic show like this worth displaying on your shelf?Roger Moore was the perfect Saint, an even better fit for this droll character than James Bond. True, hisperformance as Simon Templar is often seen as an audition for playing Ian Fleming's iconic role, but I'd sayMoore was at his peak here, especially in the black and white episodes early on, when the show was stilldrawing on the droll novels by Leslie Charteris. In later years, as The Saint became more Bond-like, the serieslost its distinctive edge. Mind you, the Broccolis would have been fools NOT to cast Moore as Bond. But ifyou've never seen Moore in this show, you've never seen Moore at his best.Has a TV show ever been more easily encapsulated than MacGyver? Mention the name to anyone and theyimmediately offer up some variation on, "All I need is bubble gum and a paper clip and I can crack that safe!"Our can-do hero with a practical knowledge of science that would make Bill Nye proud, MacGyver was likablefor relying on his smarts rather than his brawn. That puts him in a long line of TV heroes like Jim Rockford andthe Mission: Impossible team (who were always out-smarting their foes rather than out-punching them). It's notall gussied up (like most of the shows here, this is a no-frills repackaging of a previously available set) but youget the series and the TV movies and a whole lot of ideas for your high school science fair project.Chuck Norris looks to be in great shape. His iconic TV show Walker Texas Ranger? Not so much. To be fair, itwasn't much to begin with, featuring Norris in low-key hero mode until he was forced to martial arts his way outof a jam, something that happened dependably early and late in each episode. Annoyingly, this set does notcontain the more recent TV movie (which ended with a cliffhanger) or the spin-off series that lasted only sixepisodes. Surely no one else in the world would care but fans willing to buy the entire Walker Texas Rangeroeuvre? Can't Conan O'Brien do something about this?And then there is The Colbys. I don't mind that The Colbys is available on DVD as a complete set, even thoughit only lasted two seasons and was pilloried by critics I think EVERYTHING should be available in completeboxed sets at a low price. And for sheer ludicrous, 1980s cheese courtesy Aaron Spelling, it doesn't get anysillier than this spin-off/Xerox of Dynasty. And yet, the price is off-setting. (You can find it discounted but this isstill crazy expensive.) And the fact that this is the final credit for the legendary Barbara Stanwyck is depressingand hilarious and funny all at the same time. (I can laugh only because Stanwyck was a pistol right up to the12/16/2015DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy! | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b11df543-46d3-40f8-b273-23b1c3fcde28&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/7end, quitting after one season and telling anyone and everyone it was the worst piece of junk she ever made.)And the hair! The hair on the cover displayed by the female cast is almost frightening in its immensity. This isEXACTLY what Empire will look like in 20 years.But good, bad or indifferent as I may be for each individual show, I am delighted these are collected in boxedsets for their fans. But there are so many shows I'm dying to see, dying to put on my shelf and say, "See? Thisis what I love!" Shows like:I'LL FLY AWAY ST. ELSEWHERE TATTINGERS THE MUPPET SHOW (the entire run in one boxed set, compactly and cheaply priced) DOCTOR WHO (complete sets for each Doctor, please) thirtysomething THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD THE TRACEY ULLMAN SHOW (fat chance since variety shows are a bear to get clearances on) THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW (his morning show, the entire run, seriously) HOLOCAUST (the complete original broadcast miniseries, not the trimmed cut out now on DVD) AMERIKA (the 1987 miniseries) AMERICAN DREAMS (complete series, all the original songs needless to say) AN AMERICAN FAMILY (the entire documentary series, not highlights for pete's sake) THE PAPER CHASEAnd I'm sure I'm missing a ton of your favorites. Where or where are they?LEVIATHAN ($34.98 BluRay; Sony) STILL ALICE ($34.99 BluRay; Sony Pictures Classics) CYMBELINE ($19.99 BluRay; Lionsgate) AMERICAN SNIPER ($44.95 BluRay; Warner Bros.) THE COBBLER ($34.97 BluRay; Image Entertainment) THE ADMIRAL: ROARING CURRENTS ($29.98 BluRay; CJ Entertainment) MR TURNER ($34.99 BluRay; Sony)Leviathan was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2014, thanks to world class director AndreyZvyagintseve, who has made a string of good to great films like The Return, Elena, and The Banishment. Thismovie is a deeply caustic look at Putin's Russia, made with the director's usual hypnotic control of every elementof cinema; you're reminded of Cronenberg and Egoyan at their best. Somehow, it was Russia's pick for theOscars and even got nominated though how that happened remains a mystery. You'd think it would be the lastfilm Russia would submit but they did. My guess was the chance to win Russia's first Oscar was worthswallowing its pride over submitting a film that thumbed its nose at the regime in power. It didn't work buthopefully people will give the film a shot.Julianne Moore did win the Oscar for Still Alice and her technically accomplished, career peak performance as alinguistics professor fighting early onset Alzheimer's. It's a performance that is far superior to the film itself andyet of course it wouldn't exist if the film wasn't there to provide the showcase. Moore's work is worthy of a better,stronger-minded movie but still one worth watching.Ethan Hawke continues his eccentric, deeply satisfying career, veering from Boyhood to smarter than youraverage bear horror films to keep his box office mojo to Cymbeline, his second adaptation of Shakespeare withdirector Michael Almereyda. While not the triumph that was their Hamlet, it's fun and offbeat and worth a look forfans familiar with the idea of setting Shakespeare's plays in different contexts. Toss in some theater and his12/16/2015DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy! | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b11df543-46d3-40f8-b273-23b1c3fcde28&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&4/7solid journalism and Hawke continues to grow and challenge himself and craft a satisfying body of work.American Sniper is disturbing, disturbing for how it smooths out and ignores the jagged darkness at the heart ofChris Kyle's life as depicted by Kyle himself in his sometimes unintentionally revealing book to the bizarre lies hemade late in life (like claiming to have picked off looters from the roof of the Superdome during the aftermath ofKatrina or punching out Jesse Ventura at a funeral for dissing America and the Seals) to the tragic way he died.A great and challenging film could have been made from his life but director Clint Eastwood was not interestedin that. The fact that it's been so successful and that people embrace his book rather than being challenged intheir assumptions about him by it is I suppose not surprising. But it is sad. Kyle himself laid out the fact that hewas no Sergeant York, however brilliant at his job of sniper, but people don't want complexity, they want tocheer.Adam Sandler has always mixed in ambitious projects amidst his comedies, sometimes to great effect, such asthe offbeat gem Punch Drunk Love, sometimes to not so great effect like Spanglish. The Cobbler is a misfire,though clearly one made with the best of intentions to mine an old-fashioned, old Hollywood, off beat sensibility.It begins whimsically, with Sandler as a cobbler who uses the mysterious old machine in the basement of hisshop to mend the shoes of a gangster...only to discover that doing so allows Sandler to take the place of theperson whose shoes he is fixing. He gets to be a gangster and his father among others and of course learns tobe a better man. Mixed in is a murder AND a subplot about gentrification and an evil landlord and it firmly andcompletely loses its way though Sandler is not at fault. Director Tom McCarthy is an odd one. I liked The StationAgent (though found it over-praised) but I really didn't like The Visitor, which I found offensive in that way thatonly truly liberal, heart on their sleeve well-intentioned films can be. But then I liked Win Win (a sweet little moviewith Paul Giamatti at his best and with high school wrestling as its backdrop). And now The Cobbler is a mess.Maybe I should only watch every other movie he makes? Which means I'm really looking forward to Spotlightwith Mark Ruffalo, about the uncovering of the Boston child molestation coverup by the Catholic Church.South Korea has been on fire at the box office, turning out terrific films that dominate the Asian market andshould cross over in the US more and more. The Admiral: Roaring Currents is a prime example. Not sinceRussell Crowe's Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World has a major film reveled in period navalheroics so completely. This film set in the 16th century tells of an epic sea battle between a tiny 12 ship navy ofSouth Korea facing and somehow defeating a 300 ship invading force from Japan. Every Korean knows thestory but you don't need any history to appreciate the scope and excitement of the battle scenes here. If ErrolFlynn popped up, the sense of seeing an old Hollywood gem would be complete. Good fun.Finally, there's Mike Leigh's ode to the painter Mr. Turner. Unlike his exuberant, life-affirming masterpieceTopsy-Turvy, this is a darker, more eccentric beast. Turner grunts and growls throughout the film, glowering ashe stamps into a home and glowering as he stamps out. We suss out his life -- a tiresome wife and children,idiotic hangers-on in the art world, a few rare folk he admires and respects, the maid that provides some sexualrelief and imagines herself more important to him than she is - but only in bits and pieces. Still, it's a fascinatingand compelling movie thanks to Timothy Spall's central performance. He commands attention, even as hewishes everyone would just go away and let him get back to painting. Another gem in Leigh's impressive careerand a rare film about painters that doesn't immediately seem over-heated or just absurd.MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW ($39.95 BluRay; Criterion) GOODFELLAS ($34.99 BluRay; Warner Bros.) MIAMI BLUES ($24.97 BluRay; Shout Factory)Three films that don't really belong together except that they're all very good.Make Way For Tomorrow (1937) isn't just good, it's a classic, albeit one over-looked for many years. DirectorLeo McCarey won an Oscar for directing The Awful Truth the same year it came out, he thanked the Academy12/16/2015DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy! | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b11df543-46d3-40f8-b273-23b1c3fcde28&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&5/7but said they gave it to him for the wrong movie. He was right. Essentially, Make Way For Tomorrow shows twoold people who simply can't afford to live on their own anymore. (This was in the era before Social Securitycame into its own, when the poverty and even homeless rate for elderly people -- who had worked hard all theirlives -- was shockingly high.) Our couple is lucky: they have kids willing to take them in. But none of them arewilling to take both in, so they must split up and go to separate homes. It's cruel and amusing and awful to seethem both feel so in the way and deeply touching to see how in love they still are. The couple are given one daytogether and it feels like the last time they'll ever see each other, so it becomes a special one to them. They goout to dinner and walk the streets and unlike their children the entire city seems to respect and appreciate theirdeep love and goes out of its way to make everything perfect for them. The entire time they spend together islike a dream this one final day and the heartbreaking finality of their goodbye when it's over makes thepreceding charm all the more bittersweet. It's a simple, beautifully acted tear-jerker, though even that seemssmall compliment for such a remarkable achievement. Criterion presents it with care, including discerningcommentary from Peter Bogdanovich and others. Any serious film buff needs to see it pronto.Everyone knows GoodFellas is a masterpiece, right? Director Martin Scorsese made Raging Bull in 1980 andGoodFellas in 1990. I was really really excited to see what he had up his sleeve for 2000 but unfortunately hedidn't direct a film that year and in 2010 it was just Shutter Island. Oh well. Raging Bull lost Best Picture toOrdinary People and GoodFellas lost to Dances With Wolves. Both winners are actually good films and hardlyOscar travesties, but yeah, I wish GoodFellas had won. It's such a FUN movie (unlike Raging Bull which is greatbut a hard movie to love). Scorsese pulls out all the stops, using freeze frames and slow motion and dramaticpop songs but always in service of the story. I don't understand how anyone could think this or The Godfatherglorifies organized crime. These guys seem like lunatics and the last think I'd do after seeing it is wonder where Icould go to take my pledge of omerta. But it does make me want to go make movies.And I doubt you've heard of Miami Blues, even though it stars Alec Baldwin as a just-out-of-prison nut ready togo on a crime spree. It's a B movie in the best sense of the word, an offbeat flick with Jennifer Jason Leighwonderfully odd as his gal and Fred Ward as the weary cop who has to bring them down. It's the crowningachievement of journeyman director George Armitage and based on the terrific novel by Charles Willeford. If youlike Elmore Leonard at his best, check out Willeford. It's the sort of movie you caught on cable back and thought,"Hey, that was really good!"LOONEY TUNES MUSICAL MASTERPIECES ($19.97 DVD; Warner Bros.) THE BEST OF THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW ($59.95 DVD; StarVista/Time Life Entertainment)The Looney Tunes cartoon shorts have been packaged and repackaged eight ways to Sunday. If you're really afan, you should jump on one of their more definitive boxed sets, which are very well done. Here you'll find arandom collection of shorts tossed together for their strong link to music. Grouping shorts by director orcharacter makes sense, but "theme" collections like romance or war or mom or music are pretty random.HOWEVER. However, music is hugely important to some of the all-time great Looney Tune shorts. They werethe first exposure a lot of kids got to classical music and opera. (Make that practically the ONLY exposure a lotof kids got to opera.) So while the theme may be random and the repackaging of shorts available elsewherepretty pointless to hardcore buffs, if you don't own any Looney Tunes collections, this is a pretty good place tostart. "Rabbit Of Seville," "One Froggy Evening" and of course that masterpiece of masterpieces "What's Opera,Doc?" guarantee this is worth repeating numerous times. And the bench is pretty strong, too, thanks to someother lesser known gems. Nonetheless, what they've always avoided is that one killer collection of the absolutegreatest hits that simply everyone should own. The best of the best is always spread out over two or three setswith very good (but not absolute classics) mixed in. What are they waiting for?The Best Of The Ed Sullivan Show is a disappointment and you can blame our old friend music clearance.Getting the rights to show complete performances becomes both a logistical nightmare and wildly expensive, so12/16/2015DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy! | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b11df543-46d3-40f8-b273-23b1c3fcde28&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&6/7no one even tries. The actual classic performances you could put in a boxed set taken from Ed Sullivan's varietyshows would be remarkable. Instead, what we get here are TV specials, filled with bits and pieces of variousgreat performances (by and large). As if that weren't bad enough, entire discs devoted to balancing acts andanimal acts are surely of interest only to those who find America's Funniest Home Videos the height ofentertainment. So what you get are glimpses of the performances you'd LIKE to see in full if only they wereavailable. But they're not.AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM ($29.99 BluRay; PBS) MAGICIAN: THE ASTONISHING LIFE AND WORK OF ORSON WELLES ($34.98 BluRay; Cohen MediaGroup)Here's another mixed bag. Last Days In Vietnam is one of those documentaries that is a credit to the great workof PBS and shows like American Experience that are the lifeblood of documentary filmmakers looking to doserious work. The theatrical version that was nominated for an Oscar is here. But you also get the extended andpreferable version shown on TV. It's justly acclaimed as one of the best films of 2014.Magician on the other hand is a pleasant if perfunctory look at the career of Orson Welles. He did have anextraordinary career and director Chuck Workman (a famed editor) is of course a fan, as is any sane lover ofcinema. Welles was a prodigy in everything he did, from Shakespeare to radio to cinema. But he's also beencovered and written about and immortalized in countless ways and nothing Workman offers up is remotely newor insightful. I suppose if you were utterly ignorant of his life this might be fine, but for anyone better informed,there's nothing to see here that hasn't been seen before. Workman does include footage from various projectsthat were stillborn or little seen but again, even casual fans have seen most of it before.CALL THE MIDWIFE SEASON FOUR ($44.98 BluRay; BBC Home Entertainment) ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK SEASON TWO ($39.97 BluRay; Lionsgate) BROADCHURCH: SEASON TWO ($39.98 DVD; Entertainment One)I must admit I stopped watching Call The Midwife. I really didn't care for the star Jessica Raine, though I was asucker for most everything else about this soapy series. Then my favorite character -- Chummy, of course --disappeared and I was sunk. Happily Raine has gone on to greener pastures and SPOILER ALERT at the endof this season Chummy has returned. So all in all a promising season four with season five hopefully evenbetter. Besides, I really can't resist the plummy narration of Vanessa Redgrave (even though it's a little trippy tohave the series narrated by a character who's not on it anymore). Mind you, it's not a great show, but it isdiverting fun. Who doesn't enjoy a good delivery of a bouncing baby every episode or so? My mother wouldn'tmiss it for the world.Season Two of Orange Is The New Black lost its way or proved ambitious, depending on your point of view. Itseemed to forget about the central character as it explored the prison world and the large cast they'dassembled. Some felt this was bold. I'd say it was foolish but we'll wait and see whether this new approachbears fruit in Season Three. This is another show I felt people went bonkers for all out of proportion to itscreative success. But it is a terrific cast so at least there's that.The British edition of Broadchurch was a highly acclaimed miniseries. What it wasn't was a premise for an on-going TV drama. But the enormous critical and commercial success of this crime drama starring David Tennantmeant they couldn't leave well enough alone. So here we have the very unnecessary season two ofBroadchurch and it's exactly what you'd expect: just like Broadchurch Season One but less so.MOMMY ($19.98 DVD; Lionsgate)HIs career has only just begun but writer, director and actor Xavier Dolan has proven he's the real deal incountless ways. If you care about cinema at all, you need to see his movies. If you haven't heard of him yet, you12/16/2015DVDs: "The Nanny," "The Fugitive," "MacGyver" -- It's A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy! | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b11df543-46d3-40f8-b273-23b1c3fcde28&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&7/7will. Think Fassbinder in his wide-ranging interests and eclectic dramas. Think Godard in his playful approach tofilmmaking. Think Dolan since someday his name will typify an electric style of directing that seemed to havedisappeared along with the new wave. Dolan burst into prominence with his masterful I Killed My Mother. Hefollowed it up with the drunk on Wong Kar-Wai menage a trois film Heartbeats. That was trumped by his dramaLaurence Anyways, which is messy and Fellini-esque at points and sprawling and epic and sweet and funny. Ihaven't even seen Tom At The Farm because it didn't get a proper release. (Despite massive acclaim and arising international reputation, Dolan must fight and scrape to get his work made.) He's filming It's Only The EndOf The World with a starry cast that includes Marion Cotillard and Lea Seydoux. And just out on DVD is hisengrossing film Mommy. It's a family portrait of codependency, an out of control son and his almost out ofcontrol mother and their dance of death, taunting and teasing and dominating each other with their endless needfor love and attention. It's shot almost obsessively in a very restricted format, not that you need to care aboutthat. But it's deeply intense as they argue and bicker and laugh and make up and fight again, one scene oftenderness exploding into another of rage and confusion. It stars Antoine-Olivier Pilon in a remarkableperformance as Steve, the explosively unhappy kid of his widowed mom Diane (played with brilliance by Dolan'smuse Anne Dorval). Steve is out of control. He's funny and sharp and sarcastic and scene after scene showshim maintaining his cool, maintaining his cool and then losing it in ways you can see coming a mile away buthave no idea how to derail. It's frightening. You want to blame his mother but she needs as much help as hedoes. They try desperately to maintain some semblance of sanity, with a neighbor ready to tutor Steve and helphim get back on track at high school. It might just work though Steve is such a live wire you fear such a thingisn't really possible. But maybe it is and it's working, sort of, and sure he loses his temper but he's a good kid,you can see that. And then it doesn't work. And then it does again. And back and forth until you're exhaustedemotionally and have no idea which one of them needs help more. The film has two visual flourishes that maybe lost watching it at home unless you have a really big TV. But it may in fact play better at home with theintense focus on these two people as riveting as it gets. Dolan angers and upsets you here, raising your hopeseven when you know you shouldn't hope to much. Dorval is of course great and Pilon is either a genuine find oris simply captured at just the right moment by Dolan to give this performance in this film, the sort of child actorperformance French directors often handled so brilliantly. (Dolan is Canadian, by the way.) Mommy is asabsorbing and tough minded and good as any film you're likely to see in 2015 and sure to be on my best of theyear list. Don't miss it.Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder of BookFilter, a book lover's best friend. Looking for the nextgreat book to read? Head to BookFilter! Need a smart and easy gift? Head to BookFilter! Wondering what newtitles just hit the store in your favorite categories, like cookbooks and mystery and more? Head to BookFilter! It'sa website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensiveinfo on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every stepof the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week in every category. He's also thecohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment newsof the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available for free on iTunes. VisitMichael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.Note: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of DVDs and Blu-rays with the understanding that he would beconsidering them for review. Generally, he does not guarantee to review and he receives far more titles than hecan cover.

DVDs The Nanny The Fugitive Macgyver A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy

📄 DVDs The Nanny The Fugitive Macgyver A Boxed Set Feeding Frenzy

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