Author: William Bibbiani

I am an Italian-American, and yet somehow Italian cinema is a blind spot of mine. That’s an embarrassing thing to admit – especially for a film critic – considering the geyser of culture that’s been spewing from Europe’s favorite phallus since the dawn of the Roman Empire. Yup, orgies and vomitoriums led to The Bicycle Thief and La Strada. It almost seems like a stretch when you put it that way. It’s a little easier to swallow the load of genre flicks Italy has dropped on the world from the likes of Dario Argento and Mario Bava, who are well known in the states for their various genre films. But Fernando Di Leo? Who the heck is he?

Independent distributor Raro Video is making a concerted effort to answer that question with their latest release, The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection. The boxed set includes four of Di Leo’s crime films, including Caliber 9, The Italian Collection and The Boss, which make up his ‘Milieu Trilogy’ – a thematically connected series of films about organized Italian crime. Also tacked onto the set is Rulers of the City, a similar but less melodramatic caper starring Jack Palance. Are these movies the classics that America needs to finally recognize the genius of Fernando Di Leo, or are they just a bunch of neat Italian crime flicks? Let’s find out together, shall we…?

Caliber 9 (aka Milan calibro 9)

The first film in Di Leo’s Milieu Trilogy stars Italian actor Gaston Moschin (The Godfather, Part II) as Ugo Piazza, a big lug of a guy who gets out of prison and into even deeper trouble. It seems that everyone in Italy thinks Ugo stole $300,000 from the mob and got himself thrown in prison to escape suspicion. If so, it didn’t work… because he’s still the prime suspect. But did Ugo do it? He spends the entire film insisting otherwise to an angry mob (double-meaning, there) but it’s not until the remarkable final act that all is revealed. The film that precedes it is a little less than remarkable, at least in my eyes. 

Caliber 9 is a very serious film, full of ponderous talking in rooms and speeches about how the Italian government is responsible for its own problems with crime. It almost feels like an episode of The Wire – in fact, Gaston Moschin looks a hell of a lot like The Wire’s Domenick Lambardozzi, if you’re as distracted by that kind of thing as I am – but it would be a rather slow episode, and the cultural commentary feels less relevant in this day, age and time zone. In Italy, Caliber 9 is apparently regarded as one of Di Leo’s best works… in America, Di Leo’s serious insights into the inner workings of mob and police tactics don’t hit as hard. Without the cultural context necessary to truly grasp the intricacies of Caliber 9, audiences are left with a fairly dry crime thriller that almost wouldn’t be worth watching were it not for, again, a humdinger of a finale. Surprises galore and unexpected character developments make Caliber 9 a satisfying cinematic experience in the end, but for neophytes it won’t be the highlight of this box set.

The Italian Connection (aka La mala ordina)

If you’re looking for the highlight of the Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection, this might be it. Mario Adorf graduates from a supporting role in Caliber 9 to the bona fide star of The Italian Connection, or as my friend Michelle calls it, Let’s Kill Luca Carnali. Adorf plays Carnali, a small time pimp and part-time father who gets framed for stealing a million dollars worth of heroin from the American mafia. The Americans send two hitmen to Italy to rub him out and the Italian mob plays along: before the movie’s halfway over, the entire country is out to get Carnali, a poor mope with only luck and a supercharged head butt in his arsenal. They never explain that supercharged head butt, but it’s a recurring theme. He uses his forehead to destroy telephones and break through windshields, and nobody ever gives it a second thought. I guess it’s just Luca Carnali’s ‘thing.’

Adorf owns this movie. He’s lovable but still plausible as a professional criminal, and he resists the urge to transform over the course of the film into an action hero. He’s just a poor, overweight bastard, and for most of the film he doesn’t even know why everyone wants to kill him. That’s what upsets him the most, honestly… that the whole world turned without sending him the memo. That’s not to say that The Italian Connection is a whiny affair: after a first act that for no particular reason focuses entirely on the American hitmen (played by Henry Silva and Woody Strode), the action picks up considerably as soon as Carnali takes center stage. The highlight of the film is one of the most breathless car chases I’ve ever witnessed, and I’m a professional witnesser of car chases over here. The Italian Connection is an excellent, entertaining film, and highly recommended.

The Boss (aka Il Boss, aka Wipeout!)

Di Leo’s Milieu Trilogy concludes with The Boss, the most action-oriented of the series. Like Adorf before him, Henry Silva goes from supporting character to leading man here. He plays Nick Lanzetta, a Sicilian mobster who at the start of the film kills an entire rival mafia family with a bazooka while they’re in a movie theater watching porn. That’s a hell of a way to start a film. The Boss slows down a bit after that, focusing on the retaliation for Nick’s crazy stunt. Nick’s boss’s daughter is kidnapped and Nick’s responsible for getting her back. The problem is that she doesn’t want to go back… she’s been gangbanging her captors nonstop since they nabbed her.

Aw yeah… The Boss ain’t a subtle film, but it moves like a freight train loaded with nitroglycerin and that’s not a bad thing. The film is a series of retaliations, one after the other: Nick kills rival mobsters, rival mobsters kidnap his boss’s daughter, Nick kills a bunch of people to get her back, they retaliate again, and so on. Miraculously this sequence of events never feels repetitive. The film slows down every so often, occasionally to its detriment, but overall the domino effect is exhilarating. The sequence of events is equally unexpected and inevitable, and Silva gives the best performance I’ve ever seen from the actor (whom you may recognize from the original Manchurian Candidate and Above the Law). It’s a tricky thing, being a complete bastard but also a likable protagonist, and Silva never attempts to appeal to the audience’s sympathies. He earns our respect, not our love, and that’s enough for us to want him to succeed even when he acts like a total douchebag. The Boss is a fantastic film, less emotionally involving than The Italian Connection, but just as highly recommended.

Rulers of the City (aka Mr. Scarface, aka I pardoni della citta)

More scattershot than the other films in this set, and only tangentially related, is Rulers of the City, better known in America as Mr. Scarface. The film stars Harry Baer as Tony, the spindliest loan collector ever hired by the mafia. He makes up for it in an early scene when he proves his craftiness by kickboxing the crap out of a much bigger guy during the course of his daily rounds. Unfortunately, Tony’s experience with crap earns him the crappiest assignment imaginable when he’s asked to collect on a bad check from the feared mobster ‘Mr. Scarface,’ played by future Academy Award-winner Jack Palance (City Slickers). Tony and his cohort Rick (Al Cliver) manage to con Mr. Scarface out of three times the amount of money he owes and then they pocket the change, but when their plot is discovered they have to take on both crime families using only their wits against two whole armies of guns and muscle.

It’s a great idea for a movie, but Rulers of the City never quite mounts its throne. It takes a long time to set up the storyline, and it’s difficult to determine who exactly is the star of the film after a confusing prologue about one of the protagonists as a young boy. When the film cuts directly to an adult years later, the audience naturally assumes that it must be the same kid from the flashback, but that’s not necessarily the case making it hard to latch onto exactly what’s happening and how it connects to the first scene, and not in a good ‘Hmm… How Interesting’ kind of way. Tony and Rick’s plots to take on the mob are indeed clever, or at least gutsy as hell, but the climactic shootout loses steam quickly. They dispatch their main antagonist at the start of the action sequence and then spend what feels like fifteen minutes dispatching a horde of nameless underlings. It’s thrillingly choreographed, with motorcycle chases, explosions and cleverly staged gunfights, but all of our emotional investment is spent before it gets going. Rulers of the City isn’t a great film, but as a bonus feature to the superior Milieu Trilogy it’s a nice addition to the set.

Bonus Features on films like these are often scarce, but each film comes with a fairly in-depth documentary about the production. These docs are all Italian and subtitled, but full of interesting and occasionally even unwanted information. (Harry Baer had hemorrhoids while shooting Rulers of the City, which puts his elaborate stuntwork into unnecessary perspective.) The set also comes with a classy, Criterion-style booklet containing a brief essay on Di Leo’s work and a thorough interview with the director about his many projects. It’s a Must-Read if you liked any of the films in this set. Di Leo is an honest man, and amusingly self-aggrandizing. (He says he’s a better director than Don Siegel. That’s a stretch if you ask me.)

The picture and sound presentation is excellent throughout the set, particularly given the usual lack of love for films of this ilk. English Language and Italian tracks are both available, which is damned respectful of Raro Video. But The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection is not without problems: there’s a brief but severe attack of image instability in Il Boss, as well as a curious bit in that same film where the English language track turns Italian for a couple minutes for no discernable reason. Worst of all is the fact that Rulers of the City has a non-anamorphic transfer. It looks just fine when blown up to full size using your HDTV’s ‘Zoom’ function, but considering that the rest of the films are given the full anamorphic treatment it’s a perplexing issue.

Is The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection a revelation? That’s a stretch, but it’s an illuminating look at the work of a talented genre director who doesn’t get much love across the Atlantic. Quentin Tarantino sure seems to like him – the American hitmen from The Italian Connection are clear inspirations for John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s hitmen from Pulp Fiction – but don’t approach this box set for some kind of creative epiphany. These are just excellent pulpy diversions, The Italian Connection and The Boss in particular, and worth buying for any B-Movie, Italian Cinema, Action or Grindhouse enthusiasts. 

There are two things that Jonathan London and I seem to talk about more than anything these days: How I could possibly like Tron Legacy when I criticize it so much, and how I could possibly like Machete when Jonathan London criticizes it so much. They’re both flawed films but I see the good in them. Also, Jonathan’s a dick. Machete just came out on Blu-Ray from Fox Home Entertainment last week, and I would have reviewed it then but Jonathan, Brian Walton and Georg and I were out in Vegas covering CES and AEE for all you lovely people. So now I’m playing catch up. If it’s any consolation I didn’t have that much fun.

Well, okay… except…

Well, okay… I had fun.

Anyhoo, in my original review of Machete for The California Literary Review, I wrote that “it’s a pleasant surprise to find that this supposedly brainless piece of mainstream entertainment has something on its mind other than Lindsay Lohan’s breasts, Jessica Alba’s ass and Michelle Rodriguez’s abdominal muscles.” Rewatching it confirms that Machete is perhaps Rodriguez’s most ambitious film, reinventing the 1980’s male power fantasy by placing it in new contexts, politically and sociologically. Say what you will about movies like Commando, Cobra and Out For Justice, but they were generally about white experiences, or at least subcultures that are often considered “white” like Italian-Americans. They too had topical issues on their minds but things like CIA conspiracies, drug trafficking and Cold War paranoia are a little old hat now. And frankly these plot points usually weren’t so much “themes” as excuses for the action. With a few exceptions from the likes of Paul Verhoeven and John McTiernan, the 80’s action mold didn’t usually present many unique notions nor did they tend to examine familiar ones in much depth. Machete’s different. Maybe not entirely successful, but impressively different.

Danny Trejo stars as Machete, an ex-Federale now living as a daylaborer in Texas. He’s the world’s biggest badass, but somehow the world beat him down. (Steven Seagal was involved. ‘Nuff said.) It takes a clandestine offer from Jeff Fahey – with his best material in God only knows how long – to give him the adversity needed to once again rise to greatness. Machete is offered $150,000 to assassinate Senator McLaughlin, an anti-immigration zealot who spends his free time with a vigilante group, personally killing illegal immigrants as they cross the border. Machete accepts the job with no intention of fully carrying it out, but soon becomes a patsy: the assassination was a set-up to turn McLaughlin into a martyr, and now Machete is Public Enemy #1.

Machete doesn’t break new ground for Rodriguez: his “You Can’t Look Trashy Till You Spend A Lot Of Money” filmmaking style returns with a vengeance, with intentional continuity errors and cheesy special effects dominating many scenes. He also indulges in his cloying habit of cluttering movies with supporting characters, many of which are merely glorified cameos for Rodriguez regulars like Daryl Sabara and “The Babysitter Twins” Electra and Elise Avellan. This kind of thing backfired considerably in the messy Once Upon A Time In Mexico, but here he manages to remain focused throughout most of the film. Perhaps having an actual point – blunt though it may be (immigrants are people too, etc.) – gave these roles a sense of purpose. They all revolve around the story rather than merely pad it. (Sabara plays an adopted chollo in an amusing marriage of “how do I give him a part in this film” and genuine ethnic inclusiveness.) Or maybe co-directing with his editor Ethan Maniquis was simply good for him. This was Maniquis’s first credited directorial effort so it’s difficult to determine what exactly he brought to the film, but whatever it is apparently worked like gangbusters.

Machete makes no effort to solve any of the problems it addresses. This isn’t Salt of the Earth. This is a cathartic piece of outlandish ultraviolence in which the people who piss off the target audience – no longer the Russians or corrupt politicians of the 1980’s but the conservatives and… well, the corrupt politicians of the 2000’s – are punished for the sins. Preferably explosively, and if possible with on the nose irony. It’s a very fun film. It deserves credit for having a little narrative ambition. I called it The Most Kick-Ass Movie of 2010 and even name-checked it as one of the Best Films of 2010, albeit in a tie for 10th place with a host of other B-Movies that elevated their game while the A-Movies for the most part phoned the rest of the year in. I highly recommend it.

The Blu-Ray, in contrast, is a little disappointing. Rodriguez was one of the directors who originally embraced the Special Features market on DVD, filling his discs to the brim with added content like how to make your own movies, commentary tracks, documentaries and more. Machete doesn’t get nearly as much love. The film looks and sounds great, but the added content is limited to some deleted scenes and an “Audience Reaction Track.” The deleted scenes are actually really interesting, I have to admit. Many deleted scenes these days are merely longer versions of ones that actually made it into the film, or character and plot moments that seemed redundant after production was finished. Machete’s deleted scenes included a variety of characters and one whole subplot that was cut from the finished product. An extra bounty hunter played by Rose McGowan and a slutty twin sister played by Jessica Alba were both excised completely. It’s easy to see why: they contributed nothing to the film. But it’s enough content to be of interest to anyone who even somewhat enjoyed the movie.

The Audience Reaction Track, however, is genuinely insulting. It’s exactly what it sounds like: You watch the movie and listen to a large audience hooting and hollering throughout the experience. It has the same effect as a Laugh Track, telling you when to enjoy what you’re watching. Machete is good enough to make this sort of thing clear on its own, but apparently somebody in charge thinks the movie sucks in the home environment. They think that without a gaggle of idiots reacting annoyingly to the jokes, sexuality and violence on display you won’t be able to enjoy it by yourself. A well-made movie – like Machete, incidentally – actually inspires you to make those noises yourself. This Special Feature is a declaration of “No Confidence” in their own film and deserves to die as horribly as any of the most bastardly characters within this film.

The Machete Blu-Ray also promises some Behind The Scenes content on BD-Live, but I’m a pretty tech-savvy guy and I couldn’t get the update to download properly. My Blu-Ray player itself is 100% up-to-date, but I guess Machete is just so badass that it deserves its own specific update… which doesn’t work. Oh well.

Machete is an excellent film, no matter what Jonathan says. It may not be one for the ages (or maybe it is) but fans of action cinema should see it for themselves to determine if it’s just plain fun or actually worthwhile as an artistic expression. I lean towards the latter. Machete is on Blu-Ray now and while the movie itself is strongly recommended, the actual Blu-Ray squeaks by with a “B-.”

Let me ask you a question… Do you blink? Because if so, then you probably missed James Mangold’s Knight and Day in theaters this summer. This poor little action comedy (or rather, this poor-yet-extremely-expensive action comedy) got swallowed whole in the tumult of all the Twilights and Toy Story 3’s and The A-Teams that came out this year. Like most of you I ignored it in theaters in favor of what appeared to be more scintillating entertainment. But this week the Blu-Ray edition of Knight and Day arrived at Geekscape Central, and upon viewing it I can say, truthfully, that I actually kind of screwed up. Knight and Day is a great action comedy. One of the best in years. How did that happen?

Knight and Day stars Tom Cruise as Roy Miller, a secret agent who’s gone rogue to protect – or possibly steal – a MacGuffin called “The Zephyr.” I’d tell you what it was, but it’s called a MacGuffin for a reason so let’s move on. Along the way he picks up one of those annoying “Bond”-type girls who have nothing to do with the plot and spend most of their time unconscious, scantily clad or kidnapped. The twist is that in Knight and Day, the girl isn’t an afterthought… she’s the star. This isn’t a story about a superspy who’s stuck with a normal (albeit very attractive) woman in the middle of an international crisis. It’s the story of a normal (albeit very attractive) woman who’s stuck with a superspy in the middle of an international crisis. That’s pretty clever stuff, and director James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line) handles it with aplomb thanks to a very witty script by Patrick O’Neill.

Mangold isn’t really considered a “genre” director but the shoe fits. He’s directed everything from serial killer thrillers to Oscar-winning biographies, but his last comedy, the Meg Ryan/Hugh Jackman rom-com Kate and Leopold, wasn’t really a thigh-slapper. He’s got a stronger cast here – Tom Cruise is never better than when he gets to be dashing – and a much funnier script. Most of the film is told from the perspective of our heroine June Havens (Cameron Diaz, better than she’s been in a long time), and in Mangold’s hands it becomes a very sharp recurring joke. She’s repeatedly knocked unconscious while Roy gets to shoot the bad guys and make his dramatic escapes, which might have been exciting to see but is a hell of a lot funnier when it’s left off-screen. Never fear though: Mangold pulls off some really thrilling action sequences anyway – including an excellent high-speed freeway chase and a motorcycle chase during the famed running of the bulls. Even these are told from June’s P.O.V., leading to some hilarious sight gags throughout. I realize that it’s never funny to explain a joke, but Knight and Day is a very smart joke that deserves some additional analysis.

The plot is incidental, like the plot in most spy thrillers these days, but never hard to follow, unlike most spy thrillers these days. The real point is the relationship between June and Roy, which rarely feels as contrived as it could be. Her reactions to the madness that is Roy’s life are an appropriate mixture of excitement and terror, empowerment and paranoia, while Roy’s borderline-saintly patience with June works because we genuinely understand why he’d fall for a normal – albeit extraordinary – woman. Cruise and Diaz have real chemistry on-screen, and it elevates what could have been a merely clever film to borderline greatness. The finished product may be flightier than its price tag can justify, but it’s one of the most polished gems of the year. Very well made, very entertaining, and entirely worth your time.

The Blu-Ray edition of Knight and Day also includes DVD and Digital Copies of the film, in case you want to watch it more than once or something. It’s a newer film, so the transfer is pretty damned impressive. Detail is striking, colors are bright. It might not boast the eye-popping clarity of Alien or even The Sound of Music, but videophiles will find nothing worth complaining about, and the sound is pretty spot-on too. There are lots of Special Features but none of them are very substantial: a few short, self-congratulatory “Making Of” documentaries, a music video and some trailers comprise the bulk of the additional material. There are also a couple of cute, and extremely brief “viral” videos showing Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz doing amusing things behind the scenes. They couldn’t be more staged, but they’re pretty funny anyway and are probably the only thing in this set worth watching other than the movie. No commentary tracks to be found, which is a shame because a movie this solid really deserves one.

Knight and Day arrives on Blu-Ray this week and comes highly recommended from Geekscape. We’re just as surprised as you are.

“I’m The Doctor. Basically… run.”

It’s nothing short of miraculous that Doctor Who, arguably the most capable fictional character ever conceived, remains a television mainstay after almost 50 years. He has an uncanny ability to bluff, filibuster or at least deus ex machina his way out of any situation, no matter how improbable. Earth’s going to be destroyed in 20 minutes and all the Doctor has to stop it is a cellular phone? No problem. Vincent Van Gogh is fighting an alien mercenary that only impressionist painters can see? No problem. The loss of producer Russell T. Davies and fan-favorite star David Tennant? Well… Maybe that’s a little impossible.

The latest season of “Doctor Who” (or “series,” as the BBC insists on calling it), arrives on DVD and it’s a little bit of a disappointment. Not that “Doctor Who” fans have entirely rejected newcomer Matt Smith in the role of The Doctor, or even Steven Moffat, now the executive producer of a series to which he regularly contributed some of the finest episodes ever written. (“Blink” may in fact be one of the best episodes of television. Period.) But both Smith and Moffatt appear beholden to the Tennant/Davies run on the series, or at least hesitant to reinvent the wheel. As a result, this latest season of “Doctor Who” feels consistent with seasons past without ever standing out of their shadow. It’s fine entertainment, but it’s a little wibbly-wobby. Or at least timey-wimey. 

At the start of this season (which is what we’re calling it, okay?), The Doctor and the Tardis, each recently destroyed, land in a little girl’s backyard. They’re both newer, fresher versions of their former selves – The Doctor recast, the Tardis redesigned – and they’re not quite working properly yet. The Doctor’s body isn’t entirely working properly yet, and for the first time in over 900 years he has a craving. While he desperately struggles to figure out what he likes to eat (one hilarious montage later it turns out to be fish sticks and custard) he also agrees to help a little girl solve the issue of a crack in her wall through which a dangerous criminal has escaped. But then the Tardis is about to break down and he promises the girl – Amelia Pond – to return in five minutes. 20 years later (broken Tardis, remember?) he returns to discover that Amelia is now grown up, ridiculously attractive, and living in the same house as a psychic alien eel monster. Like you do.

Before long (for us, at any rate… that broken Tardis is really quite an issue this season), The Doctor and Amelia are off pursuing one wacky adventure after another. Highlights include a squadron of WWII spitfires fighting off a Dalek invasion and a delightful comic relief episode in which The Doctor finds himself renting and apartment and forced by circumstance to act “normal.” Not all episodes are created equal however, with a fairly disappointing two-parter about preventing a war with an alien civilization living at the Earth’s core and a rather forgettable take of vampire fish aliens taking over medieval Venice failing to make much of an impression. 

There are as always highlights in even the weakest episodes of this series – apparently the Tardis makes that whirring noise because The Doctor drives it with the brakes on – but there just isn’t much driving Season Five forward. Amy Pond is an attractive and plucky companion, but rarely has much to contribute to any given storyline. The arc of the season, about a crack in reality and the opening of the mythical Pandorica, is clever enough but after four seasons of Davies’ increasingly show-stopping finales the conclusion never quite hits the right crescendos to remain memorable, and indeed few of these thirteen initial episodes are likely to make any list of favorite installments in this classic series. 

Matt Smith, looking for all the world like the ill-gotten lovechild of Anthony Perkins and Dolph Lundgren, gets the goofiness of The Doctor down pat, as well as his world-weary sympathetic nature, but call me crazy… he just didn’t differentiate himself enough from Tennant’s iconic take on the character. Smith’s gravelly voice and bowtie (which is, damn it, very cool) does a better job of conveying the incongruity between The Doctor’s physical appearance and his actual age better than the writing ever does. His youthful vitality never quite gels with series’ insistence that he’s too world-weary be anything other than a father figure to Amy Pond. That incongruity has famously been touted as Smith’s take on the character. Great idea, but not exceptionally realized yet. Maybe future seasons will define this version of the Doctor more effectively. It’s a decent enough start, but again, Smith follows Tennant here, and Tennant’s first episode was a better introduction to a new Doctor than all of Season Five put together.

But that’s praising with faint damnation: “Doctor Who” remains one of the wittiest and most entertaining series on television. You just can’t keep getting better and better without slipping once in a while. And Season Five never feels like a mistake… more like a slight miscalculation. This is the creative equivalent of forgetting to carry the one, and as a result the Geekscape Review can be summed up as: “Close enough.” It’s a fine series and a fine DVD set, brimming with commentaries and of course the ubiquitous “Doctor Who Confidential” special feature. It’s worth any geek’s time. It’s just got a little crack in it.

Editor’s Note: If you’d like to read what other Geekscapists thought of the individual episodes, including “The Eleventh Doctor” You can find the reviews here:

First Impressions of The New Doctor Who (Ep. 1 Review)

Doctor Who “The Beast Below” (Season 5 Ep. 2) Review

Doctor Who Episode Review: Victory of the Daleks

Doctor Who The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone (Series 5 Ep. 4 & 5) Review

Every film critic – I don’t care who they are – has at least one film they haven’t seen, but know they should have. The younger the critic, the more gaps you’re likely to find in their viewing experience. It doesn’t make them bad critics, necessarily – it’s time consuming work, after all, watching all of these movies – but it does mean that every once in a while I have to eat crow and admit that, damn it, I just haven’t seen The Sound of Music.

In my defense, my parents are to blame. My mother hates this damned movie, and my father claims to have seen it only once, in Korea, where they cut out all of the musical numbers. Depending on the day he tells the story, the overall film was anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes long. I believe either of those estimates. After finally watching The Sound of Music on this ridiculously pretty Blu-Ray transfer, I can say without any hesitation that at least the title is accurate. There’s a lot of music in this movie, but there just isn’t a lot of movie in this music. It’s better than my parents said, but I’m not a fan.

The odds are, of course, that you are a fan, since everyone and their Mom (except for me and my Mom) loves this film. If you adjust for inflation, this musical about the nun who became a governess, the governess who became a wife, and the wife who defied an empire made more money than James Cameron’s Avatar. That’s still pretty impressive. The Sound of Music was directed by Robert Wise, who gets a free pass in my book after directing such brilliant films as The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Haunting and West Side Story. It’s gorgeously shot and many of the musical numbers are difficult to get out of your head, be it the incomparably shot gazebo dance number in the middle of a torrential downpour (one of the best gazebo sequences of all time, in my humble opinion) or the horrifying marionette number which I am really trying, and failing, to scrub from my memory altogether.

For those who like myself have yet to see The Sound of Music, either because we’re too damned masculine or because we just haven’t gotten around to it yet, here’s the rundown: Julie Andrews, hot off the success of Mary Poppins, plays Maria, a nun in training. She doesn’t quite belong in the convent, so the Mother Superior decides to solve a problem like Maria by sending her away to be a governess for the war hero Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer, who hates this movie as much as my Mom does). He has a small army of children who are essentially holy terrors, sending many a previous governess running for the hills (which are alive, incidentally, so… you know… yikes). Will Maria manage to bring these children in line, and repair their relationship with their dictatorial – and very much available – father?

Yes. Each problem takes about a day a piece.

Yeah, that part weirds me out. The first 2/3’s of the movie are a relatively plotless affair, as challenges are placed in front of Maria and generally solved promptly by a little good-natured good-naturing, which (naturally) is good, just not particularly compelling. The actual plot of the film, in which Captain Von Trapp flees the country to avoid being drafted into the Nazi war effort, is completely relegated to the last third of the film. It’s a bizarre inconsistency, with a saccharine beginning and a melodramatic end, and it results in two underwhelming films where one spectacular film keeps threatening to emerge. All the character work is done before the Nazis arrive, all the plot takes a backseat until they actually get there.

And most frustrating of all, the musical itself is more-or-less abandoned by the intermission too. There aren’t any original songs to speak of in the last act, which instead is cluttered with reprisals of earlier tunes whether or not they make any sense in context to the current storyline. It holds your attention but it doesn’t captivate you. Or rather, it doesn’t captivate me. There are plenty who find nothing but value in this epic musical movie for the ages, but I’m not sure which Kool-Aid they are drinking, exactly. To my credit, I really, really want a cup.

The astounding transfer of this almost 50 year old film is joined in this set by many special features, including audio commentaries by the likes of Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and Robert Wise, screen tests, behind the scenes footage, sing-along options and more. If you actually like The Sound of Music you have no reason not to get this set. If you think you’ll hate The Sound of Music sight-unseen, well, after living in fear of this thing for a couple decades now I can honestly say it’s not that bad. If watching this movie is the only thing standing in the way of you and a placated boyfriend or girlfriend then it’s totally worth the effort.

As for the Alien Anthology, well, it’s The Alien Quadrilogy only in high-definition and without the stupid name. I’m actually really pissed that they renamed it. I had just started to embrace the idiotic turn of phrase “Quadrilogy” as some sort of ironic statement about… something or other… when they released this new set. But whatever. That’s literally my only complaint. What the Alien Quadrilogy was to DVD – that is to say, the “Must Buy” box set of them all – the Alien Anthology is to Blu-Ray. The transfers are strong – and the original Alien in particular is one of the most pristine I’ve ever seen – and all the special features are ported over from the original set. New material includes isolated musical scores and “Making Of’s” for the “Making Ofs,” featuring extended interviews and such. Frankly, there’s so much material that it would take weeks just to cover it all, but since it’s such an overwhelming “Thumbs Up” it’s entirely unnecessary. Buy this set for yourself – or someone you love – and just enjoy it. If this set is not for you, well… there’s always The Sound of Music.

So get this: Back in World War II, Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming were both British spies living in America assigned to make valuable contacts and drum up support for the European front (which America had yet to officially give a crap about). Many years later, Fleming would use many of his experiences to create the James Bond series, a badass bunch of books and later films about one extremely manly man saving the world from Communists, assholes and Communist Assholes. Dahl, in contrast, would become famous for inventing a world of magical chocolate factories. Later on, Fleming would write Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a book about a magical car that gangsters want to use to rob a chocolate factory (or something like that), and Dahl would write the screenplay for the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice. So everything came full circle eventually.

Roald Dahl also wrote the screenplay for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a film very, very loosely based on Fleming’s novel. The movie starred Dick Van Dyke, featured songs by The Sherman Brothers (who also composed songs for The Sword in the Stone, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Summer Magic and Mary Poppins), and yet somehow it was not made by Disney. No, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang may be a contemporary of the great fantastical Disney musicals everyone loves but it was produced by United Artists, and perhaps coincidentally (or perhaps not) it’s something of a lesser film. But it’s still a childhood favorite of many and it makes its high-definition debut this week with the mostly-excellent Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Blu-Ray.

For those who managed to get through their childhoods without sitting through this mostly saccharine flight of fancy, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stars Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts, whose name sounds like “Crackpot” if you say it real fast (and wrong). He’s an inventor living with his two cherubic children (Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall) and a father (Lionel Jeffries) who apparently suffers from dementia, something which was apparently really funny back then. The Potts children don’t go to school, and instead spend most of their time playing in an old beat-up racecar in their neighbor’s backyard. When the junkman offers to buy it, Caractacus only has a few days to put together the whopping 30 shillings necessary to save the car and, essentially, buy his childrens’ love. There’s a supposedly sweet scene in which the children offer Caractacus some of their priceless treasures – mostly junk that looks vaguely valuable – to solve the family’s financial problems, but your heart doesn’t warm quite so much when you remember that they’re only doing this so they can acquire an even more desirable product.

“Buying Your Children’s Love: The Movie!”

Caractacus spends the first half of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang bouncing from one “Get Rich Quick” scheme to another. There’s an outlandish musical number as he tries to sell edible sugary flutes – called “Toot Sweets” – to a local candy magnate, but it goes awry when the factory is swarmed by dogs attracted to the high pitched notes they make. He goes to a fair and sets up shop with a homemade haircutting machine, with predictably hilarious results. Eventually he accidentally makes all the money he needs by being a song-and-dance man. The number in question – “Me Ol’ Bamboo” – is arguably the highlight of the film, so the plot development makes sense, but it’s hardly thematically appropriate. 

Caractacus buys the car, now named ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,’ and takes his kids on a joyride with his underwritten love interest Truly Scrumptious (Sally Anne Howes, aka ‘The Julie Andrews You Get When You Can’t Get Julie Andrews’). Soon, the kids get bored and ask Caractacus to tell them a story. This story – about the country of Vulgaria trying to steal Chitty Chity Bang Bang – takes up the second half of the film and contains such childhood nightmare fuel as the villainous “Child Catcher” (Robert Helpmann of The Red Shoes) and a creepy showstopping number featuring Truly Scrumptious as a living music box and Caractacus as a human marionette.

When they were making Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dick Van Dyke reportedly boasted that it would “Out-Disney Disney.” That was wishful thinking. All the pieces are here – some wonderful musical numbers and damned fine casting for the most part (the kids don’t make much of an impression, that’s for sure) – but the movie is a bit of a mess. Lots of movies make a point of being stories within stories. The Princess Bride, for example, gets a pass. But Chitty Chitty Bang Bang asks the audience to get invested in half a movie’s worth of actual events before sweeping them to the side and just making stuff up for an hour or so. The events are entertaining to a point, but mean nothing. There’s also not a whole lot propelling the plot most of the time: The Potts children are much more invested in the well-being of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang than the audience is, Caractacus and Truly aren’t convincing bickerers so their love story feels like a foregone conclusion, and with the possible exception of The Child Catcher all of the antagonists are incompetent boobs who don’t pose much of a threat. It’s diverting and some of the songs are great, but Chitty Chitty Bang Bang couldn’t “out-Disney” if it had pictures of Walt dressed as Cinderella.

The Blu-Ray, however, is a wonder unto itself. The picture quality is nothing short of astounding. I picked up on a bit of edge-enhancement here and there, but nothing shameful. They lovingly restored this film to the point where even the otherwise dated special effects come out smelling like roses. It’s an extremely pretty film. The disc also comes with a fair number of Special Features, though it’s hardly the Alien Anthology. There are the prerequisite production stills and vintage advertising, a kid’s game called “Chitty Chitty’s Bang Bang” (ahem) and a nice albeit obviously repurposed short documentary called Rememering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick Van Dyke. Dyke has a lot of family-friendly memories about the shoot, including some very interesting anecdotes that are absolutely worth watching, but the documentary isn’t anamorphic so you’ll have to adjust your screen settings when you watch it or it will just look weird.

I know this is going to sound freaky, but I find Anna Quayle’s performance as Baroness Bomburst kind of hot. Plus, she hates children almost as much as I do!

The highlight of the Special Features are the Sherman Brothers Demos, in which The Sherman Brothers sing their way through most of the songs in the film. Many of their performances are better than those in the actual movie, although the presentation leaves a little something to desired: Each song plays under a single shot of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on a hill. Could they not have thrown together a montage of production stills for us? It’s a minor quibble for a Special Feature wonderful enough to warrant its own paragraph.

I didn’t grow up with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang myself (we were a Summer Magic family, thank you very much), but this Blu-Ray is a definite treat for anyone who did. Though a weird, jumbled film there’s no denying that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is an entertaining musical that’ll keep your kids distracted for hours and only traumatize them a teensy weensy bit in return. The set is very lovingly presented and the transfer is gorgeous. If you’re a fan this is definitely worth your time. If you’ve never seen it before you owe it to yourself to at least rent this thing, which must be seen to be believed.

This week we celebrate the 35th anniversary of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show with a special edition Blu-Ray. Ah… the 35th Anniversary. Historically the most important anniversary of all, because the number 35 is… Wait, why are we celebrating the 35th Anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show again? If you answered “because they’re not going to wait fifteen years to make money off of the Blu-Ray market” then you’re one smart cookie. And really, there’s no point in bitching over something with such an enormous upside: the anniversary itself may be nothing special, but the new Rocky Horror Blu-Ray release is one of the best home video presentations of the year. Loaded with special features and boasting a fabulous transfer by any standard, there’s no reason why even the most casual of Rocky fans shouldn’t own this movie right fucking now.

For those of you who currently reside under a rock (yet still have access to the internet, curiously), The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a musical send-up of classic science fiction pictures, loaded with catchy tunes and astute commentary on the repressed sexuality in both “polite society” and those Production Code-era movies that clearly inspired it. There are many movies in which a mad scientist plays God by creating life. In Rocky Horror that mad scientist creates life solely so that they can have sex with it, although that’s not to say that they’re not already having sex with everyone else.

The film is marked with camp sensibilities, naïve charm and bizarre pacing choices that allow plenty of room for audience reaction, and of course audience reaction was powerful indeed. The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains a midnight staple at movie theaters throughout the world, where legions of fans unite every single weekend to relive the experience and enjoy a rebellious (and often sexually adventurous) social atmosphere that can be hard to find anywhere else. Moreover, these midnight screenings have over the years become inseparable with “Shadowcasts” in which live performers mimic the actions on-screen, sometimes with impeccable accuracy and sometimes with giant cardboard penises to stick in the mouths of the movie stars Susan Sarandon, Tim Curry and Barry Bostwick. It depends on the Shadowcast, really.

It’s easy to forget in the(se) midnight dens of depravity that Rocky Horror isn’t actually a ‘bad’ movie. It’s exactly what it’s trying to be and people have responded to it in a manner rarely equaled in any art form. In this respect The Rocky Horror Picture Show may be one of the greatest movies ever made, but even in all the other respects it’s actually rather intelligent filmmaking. Many say that the home video releases of Rocky Horror deprive an audience of the live experience, but that viewpoint is so dominant now that, in a way, these kinds of home video experiences are actually protecting this movie from being overshadowed by its own Shadowcasts. Rocky Horror still exists in its early, arguably incomplete form, but it’s this film that inspired the cultural (r)evolution that is now the Rocky Horror live shows. It’s actually pretty ironic that biggest fans of this movie never seem to want to actually watch it. Maybe that feels too much like following the rules?

The highlight of the special features is The Search for the 35th Anniversary Shadowcast, an hour-long documentary in the “American Idol” tradition that’s mostly a competition between various Rocky Horror Shadowcast members from across the globe auditioning for the lead roles in the other special feature highlight, a special Shadowcast recorded just for this release. At its best it’s a lovely bit of filmmaking that exalts the Rocky Horror live experience, illustrates the different forms of this movement from across the globe, and allows the biggest fans of the film to demonstrate what this movie classic really means to them. At worst, you can always ogle the hot chicks in fetish outfits. Watching the documentary before the Shadowcast is surprisingly illuminating, making what could have been just a cute special feature into an uplifting, though not necessarily powerful experience. You can tell these people are happy to be here, and you revel in their successes throughout the entire Shadowcast.

Many of the final Shadowcast members prove themselves remarkable entertainers. (Max “Riff-Raff” Mayhem in particular seems destined for a “Rolling Stone” cover at some point.) But I of course am legally obligated to prefer the various Sins O’ The Flesh cast members from Los Angeles’s Nuart Theater who landed roles in the Blu-Ray Shadowcast. Really it’s an excellent production, if a little too straightforward for its own good, copying the actions on film carefully but without many surprises. Yet what it lacks in extempore it makes up for with superb casting and strong choreography, so it remains one of the more remarkable DVD special features in recent memory. Other special features include digital Rocky Horror props, an audio track full of classic Rocky Horror audience participation gags, karaoke numbers and most if not all of the special features from the old (and still excellent) DVD release of the film, like a solid commentary track by writer/director/star Richard O’Brien and actress Patricia Quinn. This is a loaded set, making the superlative video quality of the film all the more impressive due to memory constraints on the disc.

Rocky lives, that’s for damned sure, and Rocky will live on and on theatrically even without the aid of a Blu-Ray release, which is why it’s so nice that these home video presentations of Richard O’Brien’s masterpiece are always treated with so much love and affection that they rival even the best Criterion releases in quality. The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The 35th Anniversary Edition is no exception. You should buy it. I can already see you quiver with antici…

I’ll admit it. I used to be a Dollhouse apologist. After all the brilliant or at least unusually clever work Joss Whedon has done over the years, coming to terms with the fact that his newest television series just wasn’t very good was particularly hard for me. Throughout the first, deeply troubled season there were moments of excitement, hilarity and occasionally even inspired creativity that hardcore Whedonites could latch onto, but the problems were unmistakable. The protagonist had no personality – literally – and the somewhat intriguing conspiracy story constantly took a back seat to uninspired standalone episodes that rarely drove the plot or characters forward in any real way. I quit watching the series shortly after the beginning of Season 2, and never looked back until this week, because Dollhouse: Season 2 is out on DVD. Now that I’ve finally watched the whole thing I can officially say, without a doubt, that Dollhouse actually kicked righteous amounts of ass. At least, Season 2 did.

For the uninitiated, Dollhouse tells the story of Echo, a woman who has had her personality erased to create a blank slate on which any thoughts, memories or talents can be imprinted. She and all the other “dolls” at the Rossum Corporation are then rented out at ridiculous prices to sate the needs of their rich clients. Often these are merely sexual encounters, but some of the cleverer episodes found Echo imprinted with all the skills necessary to complete a complex heist, or imprinted with the memories of a dead woman who wanted to solve her own murder, and so on. The first season depended too much on these kinds of gimmicks, which were so inherent to the premise that unless the episode was particularly well-written, as indeed a few of them were, that they were unable to keep the series aloft on their own. Cue the conspiracy.

Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett plays Paul Ballard, an FBI agent who spent the bulk of Season One trying to uncover the conspiracy of the Dollhouse and save Echo from their clutches. There were many interesting twists with his character, who often had no idea when he was talking to a real person or not, but his motivations were muddy. He had no relationship to Echo before she became a doll, so his obsession with finding her seemed flimsy at best. So the plot could only be held up by the grander themes of the science fiction concept: mind control, is there a difference between the mind and the soul, that sort of thing. There was also the promise that the actual Dollhouse was not the intended purpose of the technology, and was in fact the tiniest tip of a horrifying iceberg that could only lead to world domination. But instead of focusing on these tantalizing possibilities, the first season of Dollhouse and indeed the first few episodes of the second seemed content to screw around for a while and leave these subplots, subtexts and foreshadowings to our imaginations. What’s more, and what’s ironic if not outright sad, was that this series was clearly designed as an acting showcase for Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Eliza Dushku, who was constantly overshadowed by the uncannily pitch-perfect performances of her fellow doll co-stars Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj.

But then something happened. Dollhouse was cancelled. But not just taken off the air: It’s cancellation was announced early, allowing Joss Whedon & Company a rare opportunity to a series the way they actually wanted to, albeit much, much faster. The bulk of Dollhouse: Season 2 is a freight train of plotting, character development and clever twists that sometimes feel rushed, but so much is actually happening that it’s impossible to complain. Echo finally develops a personality of her own which is strong but flawed, even broken, and her relationship with Ballard is finally defined in such a way that their concern for each other is justified. The evil machinations of the Rossum Corporation are gradually revealed in compelling ways and escalate into apocalyptic madness before you can say “Jack Robinson” a few thousand times (still pretty fast by TV standards). Season 2 of Dollhouse finally reaches a point where the series can stop coasting on charm, nostalgia or the fantastic performances of its supporting cast, and start coming into its own as a unique television series worth watching. Let’s hope that Joss Whedon and his team of writers learned some valuable lessons here about the difference between a viable episodic television series and what should probably have always been a two season wonder, driven by exciting concepts and momentous plot points.

The DVD set released this Tuesday by Fox is a strong offering. The presentation is a clear step down from the Blu-Ray of Dollhouse: Season One, but for DVD the colors are strong and detail is just fine. (The Blu-Ray version was not made available for review, unfortunately.) Several of the discs have trailers that play automatically, which always feels like a cheat after the first disc in the set, but they come with some fine special features including selected audio commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes and some behind the scenes features. My favorite bonus is easily the comic book that comes in the set by series writers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, which sheds a little light on the ten years that take place between the second to last episode of the series and the very last episode of the series. Specifically, how the fit finally hit the epic shan.

If you, like me, started watching Dollhouse and gave up after a while, the DVD set of Dollhouse: Season 2 is well worth your time, and if you’ve never seen the series you should know that the series starts slow but gets really, really good in the second half, and just might be worth your time if you’re a science fiction fan. And if you have seen the whole series then you’ve probably bought it already (seriously, why are you even reading this?). Dollhouse is one of those rare television series that got dramatically better as it went on, which normally would make its cancellation disappointing, but in this case that supposed tragedy was just the shot in the arm Whedon & Company needed to finally bring their “A” game.

Dollhouse: Season 2 comes highly recommended from Geekscape.

Next Tuesday brings the release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Blu-Ray to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the movie that pretty much invented midnight screenings as we know them today. If you’ve never seen Rocky Horror live you’ve never seen Rocky Horror, since performances by theatrical companies like Sins O’ The Flesh at The Nuart in Los Angeles, California bring the movie to literal life. These lively performances take place in front of the screen as the movie plays, sometimes merely mimicking the actors on-screen and at other times actively engaging with the events on screen. It’s an exciting and often very, very tawdry theatrical experience that has never been adequately captured on home video… until, perhaps, now.

Geekscape presents this EXCLUSIVE clip from The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Blu-Ray, which takes a look at the highly competitive audition process to be part of the “Live” Shadowcast that will be immortalized forever in high-definition next week. Who will be the “official” Rocky, Janet, Brad, Criminologist and more? Find out next week when Geekscape reviews the eagerly awaited Blu-Ray! Until then… Come up to the lab, and see what’s on the slab!

The Human Centipede has a power most films cannot imagine. It’s not a particularly well-made film (although it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds), and it doesn’t really have much to say about the human condition, unless of course that condition is being a centipede. The Human Centipede’s power is in its concept, which in this era of remakes, retreads and reimaginings is disturbingly original: a mad scientist somehow gets it in his head to conjoin three separate people via surgery, connecting them from the anus to mouth in a straight line. He calls the result a “human centipede.” Most people would just call it nauseating and try never to think of something so very, very unpleasant ever again. But once visualized this unsettling notion takes hold of the mind, forcing individuals to either see the film out of morbid curiosity or avoid it forever out of mental self-preservation. Either way the very idea behind the film has taken hold, forcing audiences to react on a primal level before they’ve seen even a single frame of the finished product. You can love it or you can hate it, but it can’t be ignored.

The Human Centipede (con)joins Standing Ovation as one of the unexpected midnight cult successes emerging from the otherwise lackluster movie-going year of 2010. Horror fiends and gore hounds and presumably entomologists flocked in droves to support the bizarre and original concept, and certainly the film works better in a theatrical, preferably crowded environment in which everyone’s gut reactions can cascade into a giant ball of nervous titters and sheer distaste. To quote Geekscape’s Brian Gilmore, The Human Centipede is “like Halo; shitty single-player but the multiplayer will knock your socks off.” He’s exaggerating a bit, since The Human Centipede’s single-player is actually halfway decent, but the gist is clear: watch The Human Centipede with a very open-minded friend, and don’t worry about preparing any snacks beforehand.

About that plot: Lindsey (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) are vacationing in Europe and get lost on the way to a nightclub, winding up deep in the woods, completely lost and then thoroughly relieved when they stumble into the home of Dr. Heiter (the awesomely-named Dieter Laser), who promptly drugs them. The girls wake up in a laboratory, where Dr. Heiter explains his plan to create a human centipede from the girls and a mysterious Japanese man (Akihiro Kitamura) who can speak neither German nor English and presumably has no idea what the hell is going on. They repeatedly try to escape but eventually Dr. Heiter realizes his dream, and the protagonists find themselves in an unspeakably horrifying reality as some kind of perverse pet whom Heiter tries to train to do things like bring him his newspaper.

Heiter’s first attempt at a centipede creature combined his three dogs, presumably now dead, and seems incapable of interacting with any other human being unless it’s a master/slave relationship. He admits to having a problem with people, which I suppose motivates his melodramatic (and really quite mad) attempts to literally dehumanize everyone else in the film. But really his motivations aren’t the point here. The very notion of The Human Centipede revolves around a “Will They Or Won’t They” kind of suspense, and once it becomes abundantly clear that writer/director Tom Six will, the day-to-day creepiness of being a human centipede becomes the focus of the film, for better or worse.

The Human Centipede works, I suppose. It’s certainly an unpleasant viewing experience, which seems to be Mr. Six’s intention, but it’s also not nearly as shocking or vile as one might imagine. Really, that’s rather the problem. The conceit is so distinctive that it brings vivid images to the mind of audiences everywhere, and the film either meets those expectations or worse… doesn’t quite go far enough. It’s probably scarier to simply hear about the film than actually watch it, especially once you start really thinking about the plotline. Exactly how long does Dr. Heiter think this creation can live (especially the people in the back)? How long does he think he can get away with this, since it becomes painfully clear as the film winds down that he’s hardly a criminal mastermind?

The Human Centipede crawls its way onto Blu-Ray with a high-definition transfer, and since the film was only shot in 720p it should be pretty obvious that you’re not in store for a particularly impressive visual treat. Of course, given the subject matter that’s probably a good thing. The film has a very digital look and detail is often very impressive in close-ups, but on the whole this won’t replace Speed Racer or Wall-E as your demo disc of choice. Sound quality is only fair, but it’s not a particularly rich movie from an audio perspective anyway so it’s difficult to mark it down for that.

The DVD also boasts a fair number of extras, but you’ll be able to breeze through most of them in less than half an hour. There’s a short interview with director Tom Six, who to his credit seems like a nice enough guy. He even manages to explain the genesis of the film without sounding too creepy, confessing that the horrifying scenario of the human centipede was originally dreamt up as a punishment for child molesters. Mr. Six also contributes a full-length feature commentary track, which is really for fans only. There’s a short Behind the Scenes featurette which has some cute moments and proves that the movie had a normal production process (as opposed to feeling like an elaborate snuff film), but it’s sort of slapped together and you’ll probably fast forward through most of it. There’s a weird featurette on the foley design, in which German guys in grainy home video footage show off all the creepy pieces of meat they’re going to mutilate, and also casting sessions with the two female leads. Rounding out the set are some alternate posters for the film and a trailer. Most of these extras a pretty ho-hum affairs, but they do the job. The Blu-Ray also suffers from some of my bigger pet peeves: trailers that can’t be skipped by hitting the “Top Menu” button, and a commentary track that’s hidden in the “Set-Up” menu instead of given its proper place in the “Extras” section.

The Human Centipede is a movie, that’s for damned sure, and it does exactly what it sets out to do without making you turn it off in absolute disgust, so I guess it also qualifies as a “good” movie. But whether it’s a “Must See” or a “Must Evade” kind of picture comes down to personal taste. If you have any interest whatsoever in so wretched a conceit you simply have to seek out this bizarre cinematic curio, and you’ll probably be a little impressed by how not-particularly-terrible it is. But if this whole thing disgusts you, you’re probably well within your rights to tell The Human Centipede to “eat shit and die.” If nothing else, it would certainly be thematically appropriate.