The Movie:

Directed by Dominic Burns (who recently popped up as an actor in Strippers Vs. Werewolves), 2012’s Airborne will instantly be of interest to some simply because it features Mark Hamill in a live action role. Those who have followed Luke Skywalker’s career post Return Of The Jedi will tell you that he hasn’t done much in front of the camera since then, but he has been incredibly prolific and successful as a voice actor.

At any rate, the film finds Hammill playing an air traffic controller named Malcolm who is toiling away at his job just as he has every other day. Fast approaching his retirement, he sends one last plane to the runway for takeoff so that it can get on its way before a large storm sweeps into the area. Things seem alright at first but soon enough the plane starts running into problems. When Malcolm loses contact with the plane, which is supposed to be on its way from London to New York City, things go from bad to worse and before you know it, the passengers are starting to die. What exactly is causing all of this remains a mystery, but it seems to stem back to an antique vase brought on board by one of he travelers…

Airborne starts off rather well, though understandably it is going to draw some comparisons to The Twilight Zone as it really does go for that sort of oddball mystery feel, but unfortunately starts to bog down in the latter half. The set up isn’t particularly original but it is effective enough to get our attention – we meet a few of the different passengers on the plane, there’s some decent foreshadowing here and there and the impending storm serves as a believable device for adding tension to the plot. Most of these early scenes are very heavy on the dialogue but it’s written with enough snap and personality that it’s easy enough to take in.

Once the plane is off the ground and things start to get chaotic, however, the movie begins to show some cracks. While there are some creative kill scenes here and a few decent scenes of carnage and gore, it quickly becomes apparent that the setup was there not to give us interesting characters but to basically just get a bunch of people into an airplane to be murdered. The violence is there, sure, but it lacks much in the way of impact or substance and this definitely hurts the film. You can probably blame the script for this problem more so than anything else, as on a technical level the film is rather well put together, it just doesn’t have a whole lot of meat on its bones.

So what about the cast? Luke Skywalker is in this, damn it – does he do anything awesome? Well it’d be unrealistic to expect any lightsaber duals so there’s none of that but he’s fine in the role, the main issue, however, is that he’s not really in the movie all that much. He’s top billed, presumably for commercial reasons, but it’s more of a supporting role than a starring one. The rest of the cast, made up of some fairly recognizable British actors including Craig Conway and Billy Murray, seems to be overdoing it here and there and many of the performances border very closely to or head straight on into hammy territory. The fact that there are some serious logic gaps in the storyline don’t help much either.

The cinematography is fine, the set design believable enough and the editing fairly decent but there’s really just not a whole lot here to make this one stand out. By the time that the end credits hit the screen it’s all turned out to be pretty unremarkable.

The DVD:

Video:

Airborne arrives on DVD in a nice looking 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. The image is clean and clear and free of any obvious defects. There are no issues with print damage nor are there any edge enhancement problems. Some minor compression artifacts are evident in a few of the darker scenes but otherwise, things look just fine. Color reproduction is good, skin tones look lifelike and accurate and detail is about average for a modestly budgeted straight to video feature.

Sound:

The only audio option on the disc is an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track. It gets the job done without any issues, spreading the score and the effects around rather well. Levels are properly balanced, there are no issues with any hiss or distortion and there’s good depth to a few of the more action oriented scenes. No alternate language options or subtitles are provided.

Extras:

There are no extras on this disc, just a menu and chapter selection.

Final Thoughts:

Airborne starts off reasonably well, working in some effective elements of mystery and suspense, but tends to lose focus in its last half resulting in a conclusion that isn’t particularly satisfying or original. Image’s DVD looks and sounds fine but doesn’t offer up any extras. This is one you can safely skip – hardcore Mark Hammill fans may find it enough of a curiosity item to warrant a rental but should be warned that he’s not really in it all that much.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop! and has contributed to AV Maniacs. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.

What a massive bummer: it’s not trash, goddammit, it’s a romance. Yeech. Usually cool Scorpion Entertainment, for some unknown reason, has released Baby Sister (original title: Tainted Love), a 1983 made-for-TV movie starring Phoebe Cates, Ted Wass, Pamela Bellwood, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr, that originally aired on the ABC network in 1983. Within the first ten minutes of Baby Sister, all signs pointed to a TV-safe but enjoyably pulpy little romp…before it went all pear-shaped and turned distressingly serious and moony and even clean-minded, for god’s sake. Pity, considering sexy Cates never looked naughtier. The re-title (and an ITC logo at the head) might explain a potential shorter running time here―is this possibly an overseas theatrical print? No extras for this okay-looking transfer.

Just-turned 19 (I’m going to faint…) Annie Burroughs (Phoebe Cates) has dropped out of college and is headed to L.A. to stay with her older sister, Marsha (Pamela Bellwood). Marsha, the distracted, harried owner of a soon-to-open art gallery, has a long-term (but no ring) relationship with David Mitchell (Ted Wass), a doctor who says he wants to go into private practice, but who really wants to stay at his rundown barrio clinic. Apparently owning the only luxury seaside apartment in Santa Monica that has no air conditioning, perfectly glowing Annie arrives at sweating-like-a-pig Marsha’s apartment and meets shirtless David…and that’s everyone’s tummy starts feeling funny. Soon, David is giving baby sister a job at his clinic, and running on the beach with her, and hanging out at her crappy, rundown rented house, and going to the opera with her, while Marsha finds more excuses to keep busy at the gallery while not letting David get busy with her. You know what happens next.

 I’m not going to spend a lot of time on Baby Sister…because there’s not a lot of things worth discussing in it. Hey, look; I’m sure the people involved in Baby Sister or Tainted Love or whatever meant well and were sincere in making this little TV romance. It’s all perfectly respectful and quiet and tasteful and palatable to even the most prudish viewer. The acting is appropriately dialed-back, while the story, as old as the hills, is predictably plotted and worked out, with everyone making nice at the end as they act noblely and unselfishly to make sure no one’s feelings get hurt. Stiff-upper lips are stiffen as bridges are crossed, misunderstandings cleared, and old hurts healed. Fine. It’s a perfectly ordinary romance, conventional and bland as all get-out, with zero surprises but with no major missteps, either. Great.

 And that’s why I despise it. Okay, now…maybe everything I’m looking for in Baby Sister and can’t find is in those (possibly?) missing 10 minutes or so, according to the other run times I’ve seen for Tainted Love. If that’s the case, chalk up my anger to a bad post edit job. If not…I really hate Baby Sister because it’s a knowing little tease with zero payoff. I don’t like getting my chain jerked (you can take that anyway you want…). If you’ve got a TV movie from 1983, I know there are going to be limits as to what you can show; I know Phoebe Cates isn’t going topless here (if she did, Baby Sister would get our highest ranking here at DVDTalk). I’m not talking about nudity or simulated humping. What I’m talking about is filth. Salacious garbage. Tittering innuendo and smarmy-but-G-rated sexploitation. Don’t give me a movie featuring Phoebe Cates in all her 20-year-old glory, putting her in shorts and tube tops, turning off the air conditioning so that in every scene there’s a delicious sheen of sweat on her perfectly tanned limbs…and then have her be a “good girl,” of all things. What the hell is wrong with you?

 The screenwriters, Jo Lynne Michael, Paul Haggard Jr., and Susan Title, and director Steven Hilliard Stern (some big-screen misfires like Running and The Devil and Max Devlin, but a lot of good TV, like The Ghost of Flight 401, Portrait of a Showgirl, Mazes and Monsters), know exactly what they’re doing to us (and what they’re promising) when they repeatedly linger lovingly over Cates’ form (at one point, Stern gives us a helpful pan up the entire length of Cates’ backside; he can’t even resist a bouncy no-bra highlight when she wears a choking high-collar Holly Hobby dress). And they know what they’re teasing us with when they start the story slow, building up our expectations for a blow-out when wuss Wass finally makes a move on Cates. This isn’t your basic Waltons storyline. After all, it was called Tainted Love for chrissakes. And I want that “love” tainted (well…actually “love” isn’t necessary). You’ve got this perfectly-cast little sexpot Cates; you dress her down in provocative clothing; you oil her up so she actually shimmers in every scene; you set up the can’t-miss dirty story so she’s stealing her sister’s man…and then you say, “screw you” to the viewers; we’re not going to give you what we teased and promised…here’s a cheapjack love story that June Allyson would have been proud of? What in god’s name for? That is criminal negligence.

 The DVD:

The Video:
Since DVDTalk was sent a screener check disc for Baby Sister, no video or audio ratings will be given until we receive a final shelf product.

The Audio:
Ditto the audio.

The Extras:
No extras.

Final Thoughts:
A bland and ultimately tiresome cheat. Don’t tease me with the luscious Phoebe Cates set to steal her sister’s man…and then give me a sweet, tender, boring love story. Unless you’re a Cates completist…skip Baby Sister.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

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Good luck being beat today…. Shout! Factory has released What Happened to Kerouac?, a new two-disc collector’s edition of the well-received 1986 documentary on the iconic Beat author, now supplemented with over two hours of bonus material. In addition to vintage television and audio performances by Jack Kerouac reading his own work, What Happened to Kerouac? features interviews with Beat main players like Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, Michael McClure, and John Clellon Holmes, with Gary Snyder, Carolyn Cassady, and Steve Allen among others offering their takes on Kerouac, as well. While What Happened to Kerouac? deliberately stays neutral (…or deliberately vague?) in coming up with its own thoughts on Kerouac, the ideas and theories and remembrances expressed in the many interviews by those who knew Kerouac first-hand, are fascinating, and best of all, the poetic prose of Kerouac, as read by Kerouac, is mesmerizing. All is forgiven when the beat gets laid down. As an added bonus, the filmmakers have included over two hours of additional clips from their original interviews, giving us more insight into Kerouac…or at least insight into those talking about Kerouac.

I originally saw What Happened to Kerouac? back in 1986, when it played at a little art cinema I used to frequent, and while I didn’t remember too many specifics prior to this DVD showing up, a few moments of the interviews in What Happened to Kerouac? stayed with me, in particular, the video and audio clips of Kerouac performing his work (that being the first time I had heard or seen him “live,” if you will). It’s not the purpose of this review to give a history lesson on the Beat Generation (after all, if you’re reading this review, you already know about it), nor will I burden anyone with yet another trite, clichéd account of a young college kid coming to Kerouac and finding him uniquely touching and meaningful. Suffice it to say, when I discovered Kerouac back in school, I read everything by him. I haven’t gone back to him since, but I suspect I might find the experience a bittersweet one, delighting again in the sound and sheer beauty of the way Kerouac rhapsodized…but also becoming sufficiently bummed in the knowledge that, unlike a college kid, I’d have little chance today to be able to experience, the way he did, the America he described―an America that was already long gone 25 years ago when I read Kerouac, anyway. After all, how does one “get lost” in their search for God and kicks, as Jack and Neal did, in the forgotten corners of a shrinking, frightened America that has every sidewalk and road covered by CCTV cameras, where hedonistic pleasure is as instantaneously available as clicking a mouse or getting a prescription med refilled, and where even the most beaten-down of the beat can briefly amuse themselves playing games on their free Obamaphones?

 As for What Happened to Kerouac?, at first glance, one might be tempted to give the filmmakers credit for not taking a side when it comes to explaining Kerouac’s evolution (or devolution) as a writer and unwilling celebrity once he published On the Road. Directors Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams let the interviewees speak for themselves when it comes to exposing the various facets of Kerouac’s personality and art. Of course, viewpoint in a documentary comes from omission as much as inclusion (obviously, there is no such thing as an “objective” documentary), so Lerner and MacAdams ignoring any reputable critics of Kerouac’s work leaves What Happened to Kerouac? decidedly one-sided when it comes to evaluating his impact (tellingly, the inclusion of Jack’s notorious drunken appearance on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line is the closest the doc comes to critical confrontation of Kerouac himself―not his work―and even then justifications, not evaluations, seem to dominate the interviewees’ interpretation of the event). Still, as oral history, What Happened to Kerouac? is spot-on; we get to hear the actual people involved in the Beat Generation and in Kerouac’s life tell us in their own words their feelings and thoughts on the man and the movement. However, as documentary, What Happened to Kerouac? plays it exceedingly safe (and perhaps a tad too reverential), content to just let the cameras role, letting the interviewees do all the heavy lifting.

 That’s why the new bonus “doc,” if you will, The Beat Goes On, is a much more honest piece precisely because it’s not really a documentary at all. It’s merely a compendium of extra, leftover footage from those original interviews, offering more random but fascinating insight into Kerouac’s life and work. It doesn’t have What Happened to Kerouac?‘s brief title biographical cards that weakly try to frame the interview snippets, nor What Happened to Kerouac?‘s limply cobbled-together time line that leave us wondering about big chunks of Kerouac’s life (we never get an exact picture of Jack’s trips with Neal that inspired On the Road, nor do we get much mention of Jack’s activities inbetween finishing On the Road in 1951 and its publication in 1957). While I could have done without the opening segment from the Naropa Institute in 1982, where the “political fallout of the Beat Generation” is discussed by the likes of Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and Abbie Hoffman (jesus how did that obnoxious, self-satisfied blowhard fool so many people?), the rest of the snippets are great (particularly from myth-busting realists like Carolyn Cassady, Gregory Corso, and Herbert Huncke). The only thing missing from this bonus disc is obvious: more Kerouac. It’s a shame the filmmakers couldn’t include more audio and video of Kerouac laying down his beat; after all, that’s why all the other people are talking here.

 The DVD:

The Video:
The full-screen, 1.33:1 video transfer for What Happened to Kerouac? looks okay, with a sharpish picture, average color, and no anomalies I could spot.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track is average, as well: relatively clean, with little hiss. No subtitles or closed-captions available.

The Extras:
See above.

Final Thoughts:
With so many different takes on Kerouac’s makeup from the assembled interviewees here, it’s probably impossible to definitively say what, exactly, happened to Jack Kerouac once he achieved his unwanted/wanted fame. Ultimately, though, are those facts, whatever they may be, as important as his work? Kerouac might have said they’re equally important, so…. If What Happened to Kerouac? makes you want to seek out Kerouac’s work, it succeeds, then, as a doc (on a doc’s most basic level). I’m recommending What Happened to Kerouac?.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.