S–A–N–T–A!
C–L–A–U–S!
Hooray for Santy Claus! You spell it
S–A–N–T–A!
CL–A–U–S!
Hooray for Santy Claus! Yah Yah for Santy Claus!
He’s fat and round, but jumpin’ jiminy,
He can climb down any chim-i-ney!
When we hear sleigh bells ring,
Our hearts go ding-a-ling!
Cause there’ll be presents under the tree!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Now all year long at the North Pole,
He’s busy making toys!
But he knows just what you’re doing,
So you better be good girls and boys!
Hang up that mistletoe!
Soon you’ll hear ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’
On Christmas Day you’ll wake up and you’ll say,
Hooray for Santy Claus!

Come on…it’s not that bad and you know it. Kino Classics has released public domain favorite, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: Special Edition, the 1964 Saturday matinee/TV Christmas cult classic from Joseph E. Levine’s Embassy Pictures, starring John Call, Leonard Hicks, Vincent Beck, Bill McCutcheon, and little Pia Zadora in her first of many horrible movies. A TV staple at Christmas time for years and years before it was suddenly “discovered” by MST3K, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has acquired genuine cult status as “one of the worst movies of all time,” a label that’s easy to lob at it…but one it doesn’t really deserve. Kino scores a pretty nice print of the movie here, adding in a fun bonus of archival movie theatre Christmas greetings, commercials, and Christmas-themed cartoons. A perfect stocking stuffer for the kids or someone you hate…or both.

 The North Pole, 1964. KID-TV reporter Andy Henderson (Ned Wertimer) is interviewing Santa Claus (John Call) on the status of this year’s Christmas schedule. Santa shows Andy a few new toys, including a Martian doll, drunkenly calls one of his reindeer “Nixon,” and introduces Mrs. Claus (Doris Rich), who squeals and runs off camera when she discovers she’s on TV. Meanwhile, on the cold, distant planet Mars, cool, calculating eyes watch this transmission from Earth TV and wonder. Children Bomar and Girmar (Chris Month and Pia Zadora) have no idea what a doll is, or what Santa means by giving the doll “tender loving care.” Their lives are strictly regimented; Electronic Teaching Machines are hooked up to the children’s brains at birth, with “play” and “fun” strictly forbidden. Their father, Chief Kimar (Leonard Hicks) blames feel-good Earth TV for “confusing” the children, affecting their sleeping and eating patterns, but he’s convinced by his wife Momar (Leila Martin) to go with the other fathers into the forest and seek out the “Ancient One of Mars,” Chochem (Carl Don). Chochem, sadly reminding them that he saw this coming hundreds of years ago, advises them to get the children a Santa―that’ll fix ’em up. So Kimar, Hargo (Charles Renn), Rigna (James Cahill), and evil Voldar (Vincent Beck) travel to Earth to kidnap Santa, first taking little Billy and Betty (Victor Stiles and Donna Conforti) to make sure they get the real Santa. Voldar wants no part of this plan; he fears contamination from the weak Earthlings, but Kimar prevails and takes Santa and the children to Mars. Luckily, Santa has an ally in lazy, stupid Martian Dropo (Bill McCutcheon), who loves Santa and Christmas, and who wants to help Santa return to Earth.

 No, I don’t think Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a great movie, or a “misunderstood classic” ignored by critics…but I don’t think it’s one of the 50 worst films of all time, either, as it was labeled by Harry and Michael Medved in their same-named book back in 1978 (I’ll bet Medved, whose books were the main catalyst for a whole sub-industry, gets pissed whenever he reads that MST3K somehow “discovered” celebrating horrible movies…). An easy (and now clichéd) target whenever bad movies are mentioned, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has traveled well beyond the bounds of movie criticism and into iconographic tokenism. Its very name stands for something now, just like Plan 9 From Outer Space, that’s entirely outside the reality of experiencing it firsthand. You don’t even have to find someone who’s actually watched it to get the standard reaction; as long as they’ve heard of the title, you can mention the name and people will laugh and snort, feeling included in on the joke. While lists of “worst films” compiled by authors like the Medveds, or lampooned and mocked by performers like the MST3K gang, are undeniably fun (I have all of their books, well-thumbed and worn, sitting right above my desk, while treasured VHS tapes of MST3K are neatly boxed up)…they’re about as useful as all those AFI “100 Best…” lists that drive movie lovers crazy. Sure, most viewers are going to agree on a handful of titles on both ends of the spectrum (who isn’t going to say Plan 9 and Gone With the Wind belong on those lists, respectively?), but movie criticism, despite what the semiotics dopes will tell you, is entirely subjective and about as scientific as phrenology. It really does come down to “I liked it,” and “I didn’t like it,” with the level of “seriousness” attributed to the criticism directly proportional to how “fancy” and intellectualized the argument is, or how cleverly written is the review. A lot of critics hate to hear that (especially the ones stupid enough to actually spend money studying it)…but it’s the truth.

 So when critics write that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is one of the worst movies ever made, I go back to when I was a kid, watching it religiously every Christmas…and I don’t remember it being so bad. Your worst movie pick or the Medveds’ worst movie pick, is someone else’s genuine pleasure, and if the argument in support of it is valid and intellectually and emotionally honest, well, then…your list means nothing. And vice versa. Of course, the time factor is another element that complicates evaluating it (viewing age then and now). Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a kids movie, after all. The filmmakers may or may not have intended that parents be entertained here, but clearly the focus is on satisfying children. And with any kids movie, you’re automatically compromised as an adult reviewer. How many times have you shown your kids a movie or TV show you loved when you were young, only to have them bail after five minutes…and vice versa, when they’re screaming in laughter at some Nick tween abomination, while you’re looking for the escape hatch? It’s all about viewer context.

 Watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians again, and this time not just bemusedly as a Christmas ritual, but with the intent of reviewing it, I found it quite…satisfying, strangely. If you want to get really silly, you can even make an argument that serious subtexts can be found in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (yeah…I wrote that). No one ever mentions that the movie’s director, Nicholas Webster, was no lightweight (very heavy stuff like ABC Close-Up! documentary series, East Side/West Side); it’s not impossible to think that Webster couldn’t have picked up a little on scriptwriter Paul L. Jacobson’s weirdly intertwined concerns: the affects of television on kids, and the Cold War. By 1964, there had been a lot of articles written about the deleterious effects of children watching too much TV; what parent back then didn’t pause as Kimar worriedly states that his kids don’t sleep or eat, and that “their only interest is watching meaningless Earth programs on the video” (Newton Minnow certainly would have agreed)? Have no fear, though, TV lovers; the broadcaster-as-American-patriot reasserts himself when you realize that those little Russian Commie bastards Martian children―cold, calculating, brainwashed, godless little savages who don’t even know how to love a doll for chrissakes―can be saved by a combination of mainstream American values reflected through network television “Earth programs” and a Jesus surrogate Santa Claus, whose laughter and love reaches across geopolitical and ideological boundaries planets.

 0See? I told you “film criticism” was horsesh*t. Anyway, as an adult, you don’t have to make a big deal over enjoying the movie for what it is: just a silly little Christmas movie for kids, no more or less annoying than most (have you ever seen Olive, the Other Reindeer or One Magic Christmas? No? You need to, then, to recalibrate your reading of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians). Most reviewers negatively comment on the movie’s spartan budget, but I find those wonderfully cramped, cheapjack sets fit right in with the movie’s deliberately comic book schematic. That one claustrophobic North Pole shot, and the Chochem forest scene, are actually quite well lit by future The Swimmer and Pretty Poison cinematographer, David L. Quaid; it helps here to see a better sourced print (the colors are fairly vibrant in this transfer, compared to most of the public domain sources I’ve seen that look blown-out and almost black and white, making the movie look even more chintzy…if that’s possible). I always find the solemn intensity of the Chochem scene quite strange in a Christmas movie (you can tell the director really means it), but that’s an anomaly in a movie whose tone is set by what appears to be one totally hammered Santa (I don’t know what’s funnier―John Call’s dirty, mean laugh, or his completely disinterested line reading when asked if Martians exist: “Well who knows,” he sighs, looking down at the floor). The special effects run the gamut from stock footage of U.S.A.F. maneuvers to one shot of Kimar’s rocket that looks like a strawberry burrito with a Bic® lighter stuck in it. It’s certainly fun to see mustachioed Vincent Beck assaulted by all those cool Marx® toys (the scene looks remarkably like all those Monkees episodes he would soon appear in). Best of all…who can resist that crack cocaine speedball of a theme song, from Hoop Dee Doo‘s Milton DeLugg, as it’s shouted in snotty off-key brio by (reportedly) Pia Zadora and some other brats? I read a lot of reviewers saying they can’t stand that insanely catchy theme song…but we know they’re fibbing, don’t we? It’s worth watching the movie just to hear that song, over and over and over again….

1 2The DVD:

The Video:
The full-screen, 1.33:1 transfer for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians looks about as good as I’ve ever seen it. Colors are pretty vivid, the image is sharp, and screen anomalies (scratches, splices, dirt), while heavy at times, aren’t distracting considering what you’re watching.

The Audio:
The English mono audio track is serviceable, with some pops and hiss, but nothing you wouldn’t expect. No subtitles or closed-captions.

The Extras:
Very, very cool. Shout! has gathered together various vintage Christmas-themed footage for Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival (they couldn’t call it Santa’s Cool Christmas Film Festival…because what other holiday does Santa link up to???). Included here are Shari Lewis and Lambchop delivering a seasonal message; America’s favorite family The Nelsons shilling for sponsor Eastman Kodak, Max Fleischer’s Christmas Comes But Once a Year and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer toons are included; a Castle Films Santa short subject from 1950 pops up; Abbott & Costello and driver Charles Laughton plead for Christmas seals; 1951’s Howdy Doody’s Christmas is here; along with various movie theatre Christmas greetings, in color and b&w, from the 50s and 60s. Terrific Christmas nostalgia.

Final Thoughts:
Yes, it’s goofy and bizarre and creepy and annoying at times…but it’s also a movie for kids, and since kids are goofy and bizarre and creepy and annoying at times, it’s a good fit for them this Christmas time. And you might enjoy it, too, if you forget all that jazz about it being one of the worst movies ever made―you can find far worse crap at the multiplexes right now…. I’m highly recommending Shout!’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: Special Edition.

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.

3 4

Somewhat unaccountably, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which spawned two spin-offs and the inspired countless other shows with its fuel-efficient production model and narrative structure, as well as its predominantly flashy and sardonic visual style, soldiers on 12-plus years and counting. I had an interesting conversation with television historian Stephen Bowie a couple of years back in which he rightly pegged CSI‘s similarly structured spin-offs, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY, as positively terrible in spite of their similarity to the original, while admiring CSI‘s longevity and how, despite numerous cast changes and an obvious straining for new story material, it has managed to remain entertaining.

The Twelfth Season is marked by more major cast changes. Laurence Fishburne, who replaced original series star William Petersen, is gone, having been replaced by Ted Danson. Even more significantly Marg Helgenberger, a major part of CSI from day one, leaves the series roughly halfway through this season, her role as CSI Asst. Night-Shift Supervisor taken over by Elizabeth Shue, an actress until now best known for Leaving Las Vegas.

In one of those increasingly frustrating marketing moves, while several years ago CBS/Paramount released CSI‘s first and ninth seasons to Blu-ray, as well as the Quentin Tarantino “Grave Digger” two-parter, no other Blu-rays have been forthcoming nor do they seem likely in the near future. Seasons ten, eleven, and now season twelve are on DVD only. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – The Twelfth Season (2011-12) is a compact, well-produced set offering good picture and audio, as far as DVD goes, and it includes loads of extra features, including six featurettes, deleted scenes, and two audio commentaries.

　

For the uninitiated, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a crime drama/mystery series set in Las Vegas, with most episodes divided between several concurrent, often bizarre fatal crime scenes, with their very strangeness often functioning as the sting in the pre-credits teaser. The work is divided among the CSI lab’s night shift personnel which, at the beginning of Season 12 includes new, eccentric night-shift supervisor D.B. Russell (Ted Danson). He replaces Dr. Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) after the latter goes off the deep end, viciously torturing and killing serial killer Nate Haskell (a recurring character since season 9) in the season 11 finale.

Other than minimal fallout impacting the rest of the CSI team, it’s pretty much business as usual for Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), the former exotic dancer and single-mom; Nick Stokes (George Eads), the thoughtful ex-frat boy and university baseball player; Sara Siddle (Jorja Fox), the veteran CSI who for a time left the team and married Gil Grissom (William Petersen, star of CSI‘s early seasons); and Capt. Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle), of the LVPD’s homicide division who acts as liaison to the CSIers. Also keeping busy are CSI Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda), the former DNA technician; pathologist Al Robbins, M.E. (Robert David Hall); trace technician David Hodges (Wallace Langham); assistant medical examiner Dr. David Phillips (David Berman); and new CSI Morgan Brody (Elisabeth Harnois), estranged daughter of Clark County under-sheriff Conrad Ecklie (Marc Vann)

Season twelve of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is pretty much the same series it’s been since season one: an entertaining popcorn show, slickly produced on an extravagant budget allowing for lots of glossy production value. There’s much location shooting, elaborate visual and makeup effects, good sets and music, and an extremely evocative photographic and editing style it practically owns. It is, however, showing its age and episodes run the gamut from excellent to poor.

As people once joked about Murder, She Wrote‘s Cabot Cove, after a dozen seasons of CSI, Las Vegas looks like the Bizarre Murder Capitol of the United States. In one episode the CSI team attends the grand opening of a mob museum where the former mayor of Las Vegas (played by Oscar B. Goodman, former mayor of Las Vegas) is himself shot, along with several others. In another a shooting victim responsible for a separate CSI team investigation kidnaps CSI Brody and a rescue helicopter crew. The chopper crashes spectacularly (spectacularly bad CGI) on Main Street of an abandoned Old West theme park, where crash survivors, gang members, and police shoot it out.

As these episode descriptions suggest, season 12 scripts more frequently put CSI‘s characters at the scene of the crime as it happens, and/or make them a participant/victim/witness to a crime-in-progress or an ongoing investigation, including Helgenberger’s two-episode departure. They also spend a lot more time away from crime scenes and the lab, doing police and investigation work real CSIs never get near, further contributing to what’s been termed “the CSI effect.”

Replacing William Petersen with Laurence Fishburne was an interesting, wise move, his character being almost exactly the opposite of Petersen’s. (Almost always a wise move, M*A*S*H being perhaps the first series to recognize the wisdom of this strategy.) Ted Danson, however, plays a wild eccentric whose bizarre behavior and seeming non-sequiturs make his character play like a second-string Gil Grissom (Petersen’s character). Where Grissom’s humanity was always visible through his eccentric behavior, on Danson, at least so far, it merely plays like an affectation.

Helgenberger’s departure is unfortunate as her character was singularly believable as a working-class, self-made local. Like those played by Eads and Fox, there was always the sense of a character with a life and relationships outside and independent of work, which was never the case on CSI‘s lame spin-offs. Shue is an interesting choice to replace her; time will tell.

I’m no fan of producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s movies (Top Gun, Armageddon, etc.) but his high-concept approach for once is a good match with creator Anthony E. Zuiker’s characters and situations. The Las Vegas setting provides a glamorous backdrop of bright neon in every direction, ostentatious hotel suites, and casinos buzzing with activity 24-7, which in turn facilitate an endless supply of chronic gamblers, crooked blackjack dealers, Mafioso types, drug addicts and the like with motives for murder to spare.

Video & Audio

　 Apparently still filmed in Super 35, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation looks terrific in this 16:9 presentation. The show’s signature visual style of bright primary colors, boosted film grain, desaturated (or heavily filtered) flashbacks, fluid camerawork, etc. are really an eyeful though I’d still prefer to see it on Blu-ray rather than DVD. The set packs four shows on the first five region 1 discs and two on the last, plus a lot of extra features located throughout. A hard-to-see episode guide is buried beneath Disc 1’s hub.

The equally impressive audio, up to the best contemporary television standards, includes English Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo Surround tracks, with optional English SDH subtitles.

Extra Features

Supplements include six featurettes: “A Crime a Dozen: Season 12 of ‘CSI,'” “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas,” “A Farewell to Marg,” “Putting on a Freak Show,” “A Family Affair,” and “Death, Trucks, and Rock n’ Roll.” Also included are deleted scenes on the first three discs, and audio commentaries by the cast and crew on Helgenberger’s two-part swan song.

Parting Thoughts

It’s not as good as it once was, but CSI: Crime Scene Investigation still entertains and, at its best, shows surprisingly sturdy legs after a dozen years and hundreds of oddball and vicious crimes. Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features. Visit Stuart’s Cine Blogarama here.

Hospitalite Review

Hospitalité is a difficult film to try and describe because of how unusual the whole movie is: part black comedy, part humanist drama, and part introspective zinger about the failings of people at times, Hospitalité is unlike anything else that I have reviewed over the past several months. The film is humorous, but never in a way that makes it seem like a laugh-out-loud experience. This film is sometimes dramatic at the core when you don’t expect it to be, and it manages to bring immigration issues facing Japan into the spotlight as a main element of the story. Hospitalité brings amazing storytelling to the screen in this acclaimed independent Japanese production brought to cinematic life by writer-director Koji Fukada.

The story begins with a missing bird, one of great important to the family’s young daughter. Wanting to please the child, the father and mother begin a search campaign to then find the missing bird and this is where the strange events begin to unfold.

Mikio Kobayashi (Kanji Furutachi) is the father of the daughter and he’s no longer with the woman who he had the daughter with, who ran out on him (but of course we only learn this information over the course of the story’s progression – at first we think that the wife passed away because of what Mikio says on that subject). This is one house full of misleading words.

Mikio is now married to a much younger wife, Natsuki (Kiki Sugino), and the surprising thing is both of them get along reasonably well but don’t seem to feel any more serious connection. This seems to appear obvious to the stranger who is soon to meet them and who approaches them as the son of the businessman who decided to invest in Mikio’s operations. At first, it appears the stranger is only there to inform them that he believes he spotted the missing bird, but before a full day has gone by the offbeat Kagawa (Kanji Furudachi) decides to ask for a job and for a room to stay in at the house and business. Surprisingly, Mikio is quick to oblige. Before long, Kagawa invites his “wife” (who isn’t actually his wife) into living with them, and by the end there’s an entire household of foreigners staying there with them. Things escalate into an odd home-life rather quickly.

One of the things that impressed me the most about the film is how its writer-director managed to bring out intelligent performances from all of the actors. Each performer excelled in bringing depth to these quietly damaged individuals.  You can recognize that this story is trying to share an important message about rediscovery and through the kindness we share with others. By the family letting in these strangers they were given a chance to reconnect with each other and with themselves too. They met some additional roadblocks along the way, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel for the couple who inhabits this most hospitable house. Kanji Furudachi was especially memorable as the offbeat stranger who places the family on a decidedly odd path.

These central characters witness the happiness of people who are strangers to them and strangers to the country of Japan. It’s all similar to the immigration issues facing America: those who are in support of anyone that wants to live a life in the country they admire most and those people who fervently oppose a higher number of foreigners entering a country, even in pursuit of an admirable dream for a better tomorrow.

On the surface, Hospitalité is a story about a family running a printing press while trying to juggle their day-to-day lives and it’s about the strange encounters they experience over the course of the film. Digging deeper into the film proves rewarding by unraveling a humane element about the lack of genuine fairness to immigrants wanting to live in Japan, and the exploration of a family that is on a troubled wavelength that needs to be fixed.

Hospitalité has a conclusion that is at least moderately hopeful despite a solemn and sad ending. The couple could recover. They just have to pick up the pieces. Hospitalité is ultimately about a strained relationship that needs mending and a group of immigrants who befriend a household in the strangest of ways. That’s my take on it, anyway. Fukada has crafted a beautiful and solemnly sad story worthy of exploration and admiration.

Video:

Hospitalité arrives on DVD in a 1:85:1 framed transfer which preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio. The transfer is a bit uneven: some moments are a tad soft and others are grainy because of the source material. The print quality itself is likely as good as the film elements would allow because of the independent, low-budget production aspects.

While it never manages to be a perfect looking presentation is watchable and enjoyable as a viewing experience. The colors never quite “pop” (even for DVD) but are appropriate as a subdued cinematography seems to be something that fits with the film’s storytelling style.

Hospitalité is presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

Audio:

The sound quality isn’t anything special: this is just a 2.0 Dolby Digital presentation, and one that is without much to do to make it stand out from the crowd. The dialogue is clear and clean sounding and is easy to understand and enjoy. This is a quiet movie that doesn’t have any need for a big sound design. Given the low-budget nature of the production the lack of dynamic audio doesn’t surprise much.

Extras:

Supplements on this release include: short biographies on cast members, trailers for other film movement releases, and the Monthly Short Film. Each month Film Movements present a new short film to accompany a feature-length film release. This month’s short film entry is Miyuki (from director Will McCord).

It’ a story about a Japanese girl who moved to America, has an obnoxious roommate, and who attempts to seek out friends in New York City but only finds herself meeting perverts who are looking for sex. Of course, she did place a Casual Encounters advertisement and that was the springboard for the weird encounters. She was hoping to make some friends this way but her limited English didn’t help her to understand.  The language barrier led to a cross-cultural scenario gone-wrong. Original, dcomedic, and well-acted: Miyuki actually makes a nice companion to Hospitalité even though these efforts are not directly related.

Final Thoughts:

One watches the storyline unfold with an offbeat rhythm that never does cease to end until the final moments. Hospitalité is an unusual film (to say the least). It’s quirky, comedic, sad, and dramatic. These elements often occur all at once. I’m not always used to experiencing a story told in such an unusual way, but here is an example of a recent film that managed to pull that task off well. It’s worth a look for any fans of Japanese independent cinema with its story of damaged and mending relationships and immigration issues relevant to Japan today.

Highly Recommended.

Neil Lumbard is a lifelong fan of cinema, and a student who aspires to make movies. He loves writing, and currently does in Texas.

Bonus fun for Kovacs addicts. Shout! Factory, the go-to place for vintage TV fare, is definitely the place you want to go if you’re ordering their latest Ernie Kovacs disc set: The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 (read that review here). With your order of that must-have collection, you’ll receive as a free bonus, Ernie Kovacs: Take a Good Look, a single disc gathering of seven more episodes of his hilarious 1959-1960 ABC panel game show, Take a Good Look (three episodes are featured on Volume 2). This bonus disc isn’t offered anywhere else, and supplies are limited according to Shout!’s page, so skip all those other sites and support Shout!’s vintage TV preservation efforts by ordering The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 today…and get yourself an extra helping of klassic kapusta Kovacs komedy.

The set-up for Take a Good Look is simple…only the clues are impossible. The jobs of the three celebrity panelists (semi-regulars over the two seasons included Hans Conried, Cesar Romero, Edie Adams, Ben Alexander, and Carl Reiner, along with other guest panelists), are to ask questions of the contestants, a la What’s My Line? and I’ve Got a Secret, to discover what that contestant did in real life to wind up in the newspapers (these bits of celebrity ranged from a man who chained himself to his wife to witness the birth of their child, to once-famous celebrities then out of the spotlight, such as fan dancer Sally Rand, or comedy icon, Mack Sennett). To “aid” the panelists, humorous filmed “clues” are shown that, buried somewhere in the jokes and visual gags, give just the tiniest hint of a nudge to whom the contestant might be (Ernie stars in each one, along with funny little Bobby Lauher and sexy-as-hell Peggy Connelly). The degree of obscurity of the clues is proportional to host/baiter Ernie’s delight and the panelists’ frustration, with the contestants almost always assured of the full $300 prize money for successfully stumping the panel.

 Quite a few writers and TV historians (unfairly) place Take a Good Look somewhere near the bottom of Kovacs’ television career in terms of what they deem “worthwhile” projects, singling out the inventive, funny Dutch Masters® sponsor commercials Ernie wrote and shot as the only noteworthy byproduct of the show. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Kovacs initiated Take a Good Look as a quick money fix for his growing troubles with the IRS (as well as a way to keep his television profile front and center), and as such, others have latched onto that old canard about “art versus commerce” that plays all-too-neatly into discussions of artists like Kovacs. Kovacs himself had complained about game and panel shows proliferating on television…while his own show was on the air (you can see that CBC interview on Shout!’s second volume), and it’s clear that no matter how much fun Kovacs was having doing this innocuous, silly panel show, he viewed it as a necessary evil to pursue his one-off video specials for ABC, as well as his big-screen acting career.

 Premiering in 1959 on the ABC network, Take a Good Look had one major plus in its column: a more-than-enviable timeslot immediately following Desilu’s The Untouchables, a monster hit for success-starved third runner ABC, and the harbinger of the “action/adventure” format that was soon to become a TV staple. On the downside, though, the quiz show scandals that were soon to explode put a taint on even peripherally connected panel series and “anti-game shows” like Take a Good Look, where no fixing was possible (the contestants did nothing to earn their money), and where, in Take a Good Look‘s instance, the concept of the show and the demeanor of the host conspired to eliminate most of the gaming elements of the contest, anyway. Add to that the late time slot (10:30pm, which aced out the kids―always a core element of Kovacs’ fan base), the then-chronic lack of station clearance for ABC, and the network concentrating its promotional resources on their burgeoning “action/adventure” and sports programming, and it’s not surprising that Take a Good Look limped along for two years before being quietly yanked.

 Despite its reputation, I find these Take a Good Look episodes absolutely hilarious, not only for the devilishly obscure, wonderfully silly “clues” that Kovacs filmed for his guests―all of them beautifully obtuse and indecipherable―but also for Kovacs’ complete, disdainful disregard for the game itself (in line with Kovacs’ treatment of TV’s conventions, right from the start of his career). The panel, unless they already know the guest, usually never get anywhere near guessing who the person is, as Kovacs has their timer bells ringing in faster and faster until the whole enterprise is finally taken for what it is: an elaborate spoof of the panel shows on the air at that time. It’s terrific to see Kovacs so loose and informal with his guests and panel, laughing and ad-libbing without a care since his “clue” spots are already in the can. All he has to do is sit back and bait his panelists, taunting them with their inability to read the clues, and laughing at their frustration, while peeks at the artistry Kovacs was bringing to his ABC specials can be seen in his wonderfully inventive (and frequently hilarious) filmed clues.

 Highlights for this exclusive Shout! Factory bonus disc of Ernie Kovacs’ Take a Good Look episodes include Ernie dubbing in a St. Bernard’s thoughts, including perfectly-timed slobbering, to the audience’s delight, in the opening December 17th, 1959 episode. Also quite funny is Ernie refusing to explain the game, despite a cue card demanding he do so, before he gets mock-peeved with his panelists for talking past their time buzzers (“Shall we observe the rules of the game as they were carefully explained?”). The December 31st, 1959 episode opens with sexy Jolene Brand offering a heartfelt New Year’s greeting before she’s bombed with a huge cake. Ernie has a triumphant moment when Edie, ticked-off at the obscurity of the clues for actress-turned-journalist Elaine Shephard, asks the sexy Shephard if the clues made sense. Miss Shephard tactfully says they were amusing, to which Ernie stands up and lets out singular “Ha Ha Ha!”s to the audience, completely vindicated. April 14th, 1960’s episode has one of Ernie’s best put-downs when quick, smart Ben Alexander bombs out: “Actually, you’re quite warm…you have people involved in all of those [questions], and he’s [the contestant] a person.” Returning semi-regular Cesar Romero (genuinely handsome and funny and well-spoken) offers, “I’m sorry I came back,” when Ernie ribs him mercilessly, and Edie is again (rightfully) annoyed at the clues’ indecipherability.

 0The May 19th, 1960 episode features Ernie’s Percy Dovetonsils in the filmed clues, briefly discussing the U.S. space program’s use of two monkeys per capsule (“Whatever do they do? They’re both named Sam?”) Ernie states he never knew Cesar worked a fan dance before (“You don’t know what you missed!” a game Cesar replies), before Ernie kills in one of his clues as a little girl falling over in a dead faint after eating a poisoned pizza with anchovies (not enough is written about how funny Kovacs was physically). Percy returns in the May 26th episode, rhapsodizing over the return of summer (“June is busting out all over pretty soon…I told her not to wear those tight toreador pants,”) before Ernie executes an elaborate full-scale gag with Luigi as a bell clapper (his A Star is Born filmed clue is a classic: Ernie in drag always scored). The December 1st, 1960 episode is probably the best one in this collection, from Hans Conried (very bright and cutting) marveling about Ernie (“From this he makes a living?”) to one of Ernie’s funniest bits as Budd Saturday Evening Post, peripatetic host of game show Beat Your Wristwatch! (check out the contestants, the Cosnowskis: he’s a housewife and she’s a sandhog). Percy returns to share a secret: he has his own cameraman at ABC (“He’s all mine!”), and Ernie, with obvious sincerity and quiet, deep feeling, announces the weekly destination of donated cigars from Dutch Masters®: “This week, Dutch Masters® is sending a case of Dutch Masters® panatelas to the patients at the Veterans Administration hospital in Tucson, Arizona. Good smoking, fellas.” Amen, Ernie. And finally, February 7th, 1960’s episode has Ernie fielding a call from General Sarnoff (“I told him I already worked at NBC,”) before a pre-crazy 17-year-old Bobby Fischer shows up, followed by Ernie as Zorro knock-off, El Stupido (“Enchiladas to you!”).

1 2The DVD:

The Video:
The full-frame, 1.33:1 black and white video transfers for Take a Good Look look quite good, considering, with a relatively sharp image, little noise, and the occasional, expected anomalies, like video roll (a few times, you can hear what sounds like Edie reacting to these rolls, so I wonder if they were present in the original materials?).

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio tracks are adequate, with slight fluctuations and clear dialogue. No subtitles or closed-captions.

The Extras:
This is an extra, you silly.

Final Thoughts:
Far from being minor Kovacs, Take a Good Look combines the loose, ad-lib fun of his early live TV appearances, with the inventive video artistry of his later masterworks for ABC. It’s a winner…but to get these bonus episodes you have to order The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 at the Shout! Factory website. So get going! I’m highly, highly recommending Ernie Kovacs: Take a Good Look.

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.

3 4

Tenchi Universe DVD Review

Tenchi Universe is the second anime incarnation within one of the art-forms most popular and enduring character-based franchises. The story begins in a quiet way, on a day-like-any-other, when a teenage Tenchi Masaki finds himself meeting the energetic and mysterious bombshell Ryoko.  Oh, what a beginning. Tenchi Universe remains an anime classic: the fantastic series features romance, comedy, adventure, and more amazing space-oddities and goofiness for all!

This series is typically labeled as a harem anime series, which is defined as being a sub-genre contained within the comedy and romance genres. It means there’s a central male character in some scenario where he is being surrounded by a group of gorgeous girls. Some even argue to state that Tenchi Universe represents the best to find in the genre. Myself? I don’t necessarily consider it that great of a genre in general (I’ve seen too many series labeled as such that lack any characterizations or depth), but Tenchi is something that somehow manages to avoid the pitfalls of the genre, and Tenchi Universe in particular handles all of this immensely well. It doesn’t feel like a series merely aimed at stupid teenage boys with hormones. Not at all: the enjoyable Tenchi Universe series is really made for anyone who likes top-quality television. Most importantly, the characters happen to make this quality show the audience favorite it’s always been remembered as.

What’s outstanding is how both guys and girls can find themselves watching the show and enjoying these characters equally and without reservation. The women on this show aren’t cookie-cutter sex-symbols. These characters feel real, and you grow to love them. Add in generous heaping’s of laughs, adventure, and sci-fi fun and that’s a winning combination.

While most of the so-called harem productions out there are ridiculous and lack in any genuine appreciation for women (and are more about having a teen guy around a decidedly teenage fantasy of being, well, surrounded by gorgeous women… usually in skimpy clothes) that absolutely isn’t the case here. Tenchi Universe excels for its drama, comedy, and human elements of pathos.

The series revolves around the crazy circumstances that surround the seventeen year old Tenchi as he becomes someone with a chaotic life beautiful, smart, and cool (and typically from space) women all around him and while he’s trying to attend school, manage his bizarre life, and avoid becoming part of a huge odyssey in an outer-space conflict with villainous baddies and while he has a destiny that he doesn’t even know about.

What’s a normal(ish) guy like Tenchi Masaki to do? Make friends with everyone, explore space, fight baddies, go to carnivals, and always try to be a normal guy who lives a normal life without all of the unusual scenarios he’s thrown into.  Good luck, Tenchi!

As for the girls: Ryoko looks like she’s still in her 20’s but she’s actually a space pirate who’s a woman over 5,000 years old. Ryoko is (arguably) the main female protagonist in the Tenchi series saga. Ryoko’s also someone madly in love with the goofball and kind-hearted Tenchi.

This leads to problems when arguing with Ayeka (part spoiled brat, part kind-hearted Princess from an intergalactic planet… sometimes!), who is also definitely madly in love with Tenchi. Then there’s the genius Washu with affections, time machines, and other odd experiments to boot. Of course, that’s not even considering Sasami, a younger girl, also one to crush on him. That of course doesn’t stop Tenchi from viewing Sasami as his younger sister, but it doesn’t change the fact that one girl after another seems to see something in Tenchi that they like.

Quite frankly, that’s all without mentioning the police duo: they are not in love with Tenchi but they certainly seem to be a part of the amazing team: Tenchi’s surrounded by the ditzy, lovable Mihoshi (who somehow always manages to get the job done where it counts) and kick-ass cool superhuman-like extraordinaire Kiyone.  Starting to sense a pattern here? Tenchi is surrounded by women 24/7 in his teenage life. So is this a harem series? Maybe it is. Yet it’s definitely not an average one.

What’s so wonderful about Tenchi Universe is how it manages to pay homage to the work done on the previously produced OVA series but in its unique retelling of the story and of all of these character journeys it actually morphs into something uniquely its own. Tenchi Universe may be somewhat short in the production areas by comparison: certainly, it’s not as well-animated as a OVA production.  However, this is undoubtedly due to budget and time constraints and the TV version of Tenchi holds up every bit as well and actually becomes even more successful in the storytelling department. While the OVA was not properly concluded, the TV series has a nice conclusion and epilogue in its final episode.

Tenchi Universe has nice animation, solid direction, fantastic writing, and a whole cast of great characters that make it an easy series to repeatedly re-watch over the years. If you look under a definition of classic anime series and expect to find examples I can imagine this one ranking as near the top of a theoretical list of that variety.  Tenchi Universe deserves a home in any serious anime collection for it has many great characters, laughs, and an eloquent sense of beauty inside and out. Even after all of these years following its creation, it’s one of the few series that always manages to surprise me with its amazing artistry.

Video:

Tenchi Universe just doesn’t impress in the video department much at all. It’s certainly not going to be as disappointing as it could have been given the age of the masters, though. These masters seem to have been used without changes to improve the picture quality. There’s no way around it: the image quality is dated. There are occasional compression issues (but these aren’t noticeable often), but the bigger issue is the lack of robust colors and print debris. Specks of dirt and minor damage are often seen, and while they are never so annoying as to be a major detriment to enjoying Tenchi Universe it’s disappointing to realize that Geneon improved the visual aspects of the presentations for the Tenchi OVAs & Tenchi: Theatrical Blu-ray releases (already available in Japan and to be released in North America in December, 2012), but did nothing to improve the image for this classic entry in the Tenchi canon.

Audio:

The audio doesn’t fare that much better than the video quality. Even so, it remains a decent audio presentation that features the series in 2.0 English and Japanese (as viewers can select either dub option). Personally, I was always a huge fan of the English dub for this series but either dub is a worthwhile one that most viewers will want to pick based upon preference (or prior experience). The dialogue is easy to understand even if the quality of the audio itself sometimes disappoints. Bass is weak.  This is a front-channel heavy mix that utilizes some dated source materials that seem to represent the time and budget of the series, and without any restoration or additional tinkering.

Extras:

The only supplements included in this collection are textless songs for the opening and ending credits to Tenchi Universe, a U.S. trailer produced by Funimation Entertainment and made to help promote this release, and trailers for other Funimation releases.

Final Thoughts:

Tenchi Universe is one of the best series to exist out of the Tenchi saga and it is one of the most essential anime productions ever made. The artwork isn’t truly on par with the earlier OVAs but the writing, comedy, and characters are some of the absolute best you will ever find in the genre. If you love character-based and original stories this is one show that manages to interweave both aspects, even despite the fact that it is an alternate-universe telling of the original Tenchi OVA’s storyline. Simply put, Tenchi Universe is outta this world, and a genuine must own DVD release (in one form or another) by all serious anime connoisseurs.

Owners of past editions of Tenchi Universe can rest-easy knowing that the set’s they already own aren’t inferior to this release but newcomers should be sure to consider this one an easy purchase of a classic anime.

Highly Recommended.

Neil Lumbard is a lifelong fan of cinema, and a student who aspires to make movies. He loves writing, and currently does in Texas.