The TV Series:

Tales of the City takes viewers back to a simpler time when music was funky, sex was free-flowing, and people weren’t so uptight – the early ’90s. Acorn Media’s 20th Anniversary edition of this acclaimed boob tube miniseries doesn’t offer much of anything new, but seeing it again is like getting a surprise visit from some cherished old friends.

Immediately upon its original airings – on the UK’s Channel 4 in 1993, then the following January on PBS – the six-part Tales of the City gained an appreciative following. The fun and frothy ’70s flashback was a pitch-perfect recreation of Armistead Maupin’s best-selling novels. In depicting a diverse group of San Franciscans coping with life in the Gerald Ford/Jimmy Carter era, the production got the period trappings right (down to the vintage Oui and Playgirl magazines strewn about in one character’s pad), along with a positive commitment to translating the heart and soul in Maupin’s stories. The show was also subject to a lot of controversy in its day, which now seems quaint.

Hollywood’s efforts to bring Maupin’s popular novels to the screen never amounted to much, until Great Britain’s Channel 4 came to the rescue and financed this particular production (despite what many zealot Republicans of the day said, PBS had zero financial participation in this). With Maupin’s active participation, a cast of mostly theater-groomed American actors, and filming in a combination of famous San Francisco locales and well-designed studio settings, the resulting series is about as perfect as a literature-to-screen transition can be. While it seems surprising that something so lightweight and fun could be a lightning rod for controversy, it did ruffle some feathers due to the series’ playful and realistic gay and lesbian pairings, along with a few completely natural instances of nudity (male and female), non-judgmental drug use, and coarse language. Nudity on PBS Hard to believe, but there it was. Tales‘ American broadcast got record ratings, but the threat of funding cuts from Uncle Sam forced PBS to hand over broadcast rights to the sequels to Showtime. That’s progress for you.

Tales‘ screenplay, co-written by Maupin and Richard Kramer, sustains the casual, laid-back vibe of the books with a host of human, subtly written characters. Rather than go into the details of the plot, let’s get to know each major character:

• Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) – prim, blonde, Midwestern girl eager for adventure in the Big City. While Mary Ann goes to great lengths to prove she isn’t all that naive (like having an affair with her married co-worker), she has a lot to learn over the course of this saga.
• Michael “Mouse” Tolliver (Marcus D’Amico) – like Mary Ann, another young transplant to San Francisco (by way of Orlando, Florida). Michael is well-versed in the ways of the local gay scene, but he’s a hopeless romantic and sweet country boy at heart.
• Mona Ramsey (Chloe Webb) – Michael’s sardonic best friend, Mona freely dispenses both clever quips and hard drugs. Her hippie-ish demeanour is similar to her landlady (below), but the two share a lot more than Mona initially realizes.
• Mrs. Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis) – free-spirited, joint-dispensing landlady and mother hen to the denizens at 28 Barbary Lane. Mrs. Madrigal’s generous exterior shields what is a wounded woman with a complicated past.
• Edgar Halcyon (Donald Moffatt) – business leader and part of San Francisco’s Old Money, Edgar heads the advertising agency where Mona and Mary Ann work. His affair with Mrs. Madrigal helps him cope with the “straight” life and a devastating medical diagnosis – which is kept from his bewildered wife, Frannie (Nina Foch).
• Beauchamp Day (Thomas Gibson) – Edgar’s rakish son-in-law, who carries on not-so-discreet affairs behind his wife’s back.
• Dee Dee Halcyon Day (Barbara Garrick) – Beauchamp’s repressed wife, a tightly coiled woman yearning to escape high society and go guerilla (think Patty Hearst). A visit with her gynecologist (Billy Campbell) brings life-altering news.
• Brian Hawkins (Paul Gross) – handsome bachelor neighbor at Barbary Lane, perfectly in tune with the city’s casual vibe. Brian helps himself to the all-you-can-eat buffet of available single women in S.F., including Mary Anne’s dippy friend Carrie (Parker Posey). His promiscuous ways would soon come to an end, however.
• Norman Neal Williams (Stanley DeSantis) – The least sociable 20 Barbary Lane resident, the outsider status of older, bespectacled Norman brings out the empathy in Mary Ann, who slowly befriends him. An unsavory side of Norman is revealed when he uncovers Mrs. Madrigal’s secret past.

Watching Tales when it originally aired as a barely closeted 25 year-old, I remember it as being something of an event. I was a huge fan of the books, and I wasn’t let down. Laura Linney embodied that certain vulnerable yet stable quality that the fictional Mary Anne had (what a fantastic performance!), and Marcus D’Amico nailed Michael’s adventurous spirit and boy-next-door appeal. Both totally epitomized their characters. The show was also notable for having a passionate, realistic romance between two older characters, Mrs. Madrigal and Edgar – how often does that happen The Showtime sequels More Tales of the City (1998) and Further Tales of the City (2001) were just as faithful to the source novels, but they weren’t nearly as endearing as the originals. While Laura Linney still rocks it as Mary Ann, several other key roles were re-cast, and since Maupin’s books got progressively more silly over time it just wasn’t as intriguing. As with the Star Wars saga, the monumental original proved to be a tough act to follow.

The DVD:

Acorn Media’s 20th Anniversary Edition of Tales in the City is an update on the now out-of-print 2003 edition put out by the same company. With this release, you do get an updated menu and package design with the two discs housed in a not as bulky slip-covered, standard-width amaray case. While there were complaints relating to dubbed-over dialogue with the earlier edition, this release appears to be an uncensored duplicate of the American broadcast – with the original K-Tel-riffic music left intact.

Video

Disappointingly, it appears that this edition uses the same soft-focus, grainy transfer from the 2003 set. The 4:3 picture’s shoddy second-hand look (film transferred to video), especially noticeable during dark scenes, places the quality several steps below the 1994 broadcast version. Even the VHS release from the ’90s looked nicer. Not helping matters is the increased video compression (the earlier set alotted two hour-long episodes to a disc; this one has three), giving the image a pixelated texture.

Audio

The stereo soundtrack is a serviceable listen with a somewhat flat feel (especially the scenes backed with period pop music), but the dialogue is clear and pristine with no outstanding flaws. English SDH subtitles are supplied on every episode.

Extras

Most of the extras from the 2003 set are retained here, including the Audio Commentaries on three episodes from Maupin, Dukakis, Linney, Garrick and director Alastair Reed. These are recorded separately and are generally not scene-specific, but contain a host of interesting tidbits on the production. Some production background is supplied on 36 minutes’ worth of behind-the-scenes location and rehearsal footage. Finally, an 8-page fold-out booklet contains an introduction by Maupin, notes by producer Alan Poul, and liner notes on the series’ various San Francisco locales.

Final Thoughts:

As portrayed in the six-hour Tales of the City miniseries, Armistead Maupin’s joyous, fairy tale rendition of 1970s San Francisco is so fabulous, one could almost forgive Acorn for the crappy image and calculated recycling in their 2-disc 20th Anniversary Edition. Along with Twin Peaks and The X-Files, it’s a highlight of edgy ’90s television. Those who already own Acorn’s 2003 release have no need to double-dip with the downgraded 2-disc 20th Anniversary Edition, however. Recommended.

Matt Hinrichs is a designer, artist and sometime writer who lives in sunny (and usually too hot) Phoenix, Arizona. Among his loves are oranges, going barefoot and blonde 1930s movie comedienne Joyce Compton. Since 2000, he has been scribbling away at Pop Culture weblog Scrubbles.net. One can also follow him on Twitter @4colorcowboy.

A vacation from fun, more like it. 20th Century-Fox’s Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Holiday for Lovers, the 1959 comedy romance from Fox, based on the Broadway play by Ronald Alexander, and starring Clifton Webb (sadly diminished), Jane Wyman (fugue state), Jill St. John (pneumatically clueless), Carol Lynley (unattractively strident), Paul Henreid (self-parody), Gary Crosby (jesus christ…), Nico Minardos (charmless), Wally Brown and Henny Backus (fingers on a chalkboard), and Jose Greco (the only one who knows what the hell he’s doing here). Distressingly flat and unfunny, Holiday for Lovers mixes a few minutes of semi-interesting CinemaScope vistas of South America in with a whole lot of static studio work in this tired story of one father’s efforts to reign in his amorous daughters–ho boy I wonder how that’s going to turn out, huh! Fox’s Cinema Archives has taken a lot of flak lately–from me, in particular–for putting out old panned-and-scanned transfers of widescreen movies. Holiday for Lovers is presented here in anamorphic widescreen, to Fox’s credit…but that wide, wide image only helps point out how small Holiday for Lovers plays. No extras for this only-okay transfer.

Boston consulting psychologist Dr. Robert Dean (Clifton Webb), along with his wife, Mary (Jane Wyman), and his irritable teenager, Betsy (Carol Lynley), wave-off eldest daughter Meg (Jill St. John), who’s off on a four-week South American tour prior to returning to Boston to enter college. After a stream of perfunctory post cards, Robert is rattled when word comes from Meg that she’s left the tour with the intent of staying in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to study under (yep) “the greatest human being,” architect Eduardo Barroso (Paul Henreid). Normally in-control Robert almost flips out, and hurriedly rushes his family to the airport to chase his eldest daughter. Once the family meets up with the wayward daughter, they learn she now wants to stay one year in Brazil, studying with Eduardo…while hoping to marry his son, “nonconformist” sculptor, Carlos Barroso (Nico Minardos), a “beatnik” who absolutely hates Meg’s materialistic American family before he actually meets them. To compound this horror, young Betsy falls immediately in love with pudgy Air Force hipster, Technical Sergeant Paul Gattling (Gary Crosby), who wrangles a 30-day vacation to chase Betsy all over South America. Will Robert be able to talk his daughters out of making the biggest mistakes of their lives…and no, I don’t mean signing on to star in this movie

Apparently nooooobody wanted in on Holiday for Lovers, which was based on another one of those middling Broadway shows (just a 100 performances for a few months in 1957, with Don Ameche starring) which Hollywood in the 1950s inexplicably liked to snap up for movie inspirations. According to a couple of on-line sources, Fox wanted Gene Tierney to headline here (um…can you imagine one of the most corrosively erotic women ever to appear on screen swooning to Clifton Webb); however, one of her frequent periods of unstable mental health cropped up, with Joan Fontaine then stepping in (it). She also eventually wised up, and Jane Wyman was finally tagged–she must have owed Fox a picture and figured, “Let’s just get it over with and where’s my paycheck” because the Oscar-winner looks alternately depressed or bored out of her mind here with a truly nothing role (she fared much better when Disney cast her in a somewhat similar outing, Bon Voyage!, two years later). As for Meg’s part, the gorgeous (and talented) Suzy Parker was cast, only to quit (smart cookie), with Peyton Place smash Diane Varsi then assigned. Apparently, Varsi took one look at Holiday for Lovers‘ script and not only quit the picture but her entire Fox contract (a bonehead move she’d later come to regret when she tried for a comeback–Hollywood never forgets). Talented and beautiful Diane Baker was next mentioned for the role, but she wisely backed out, with the part eventually played by Jill St. John, who’s always gorgeous…but hit-and-miss on the talented end (she delivers every line here as if she’s announcing to a party who’s at the front door). As for Webb, the combined disasters of this movie and the same year’s excrementitious The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker would make him go to ground for three years, before one last supporting role in the silly Satan Never Sleeps finished off his big-screen career for good.

There are only three elements to Holiday for Lovers that, if they don’t work, you don’t have a movie: the comedy of the situations; Webb’s performance (it’s central, so it has to work); and the scenic glories of CinemaScope (all the travelogue makes it apparent the moviemakers thought it crucial to the movie). Let’s take them in reverse order. CinemaScope was six years old by the time Holiday for Lovers came around, and its drawing power as merely a travelogue enhancer had already waned by this point. Promising to show the delights of far-off places wasn’t enough to get people away from their TV sets in ’59, if there wasn’t a decent story tacked on for good measure. As it stands, the location shooting here is interesting like it’s interesting to flip through some post cards, with it all obviously shot second unit, the actors briefly inserted via poor rear projection…and not at all integrated (or even integral) to the storyline (it worked a lot better in Webb’s earlier hit, Three Coins in the Fountain). Strike one. Webb’s weak, tired performance here isn’t particularly stuffy, or snotty. Or controlling. Or dismissive. Or brusque or waspish. Or fey, or any of the other euphemisms that were routinely trotted out by contemporary critics for a Webb turn. When he’s asked to do a creaky rumba here, or get belted in the face by a tough, it doesn’t elicit laughs but stony silence at the sight of a once-supremely gifted actor, reduced to poorly-staged baggy-pants humor. Strike two.

And that leaves all the funny little moments that should be here. I’ve never seen or read the source play, but if it opens the way this movie opens, no wonder it only ran three months on Broadway. When already-dispirited Webb trades mild barbs with a patient, only to emphasize for the audience with sledgehammer subtly that (get ready for it…) NO ONE CAN LIVE SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE, well, gee…I wonder where Holiday for Lovers is gonna wind up And if you already know in the first five minutes how the movie is going to resolve itself, that leaves almost 100 minutes of the “getting there,” and brother believe me, it ain’t worth the trip (director Henry Levin would subsequently soar far higher with CinemasScope travelogue classics Where the Boys Are and Come Fly with Me). Clumsy, arbitrary bits of exposition from scripter Luther Davis (everything from The Hucksters to Across 110th Street) are dropped on us like lead balloons, such as Bostonian Webb’s seemingly incongruous love of bullfights (gee…I wonder if we’re gonna see a bullfight here!), inbetween all the blah, cliched wheezes about commie beatniks and materialistic Americans. Scenes that should have some kind of comedic payoff don’t (the embarrassing “strip search” scene that makes no sense coming or going, because the smuggling couple, played gratingly by Brown and Backus, are so obviously unconnected with anything else here), while long-promised scenes, such as Webb’s bullfight, end on pathetic notes: Webb, sickened by the sight of blood, gathers up his garters and sniffs, “I’m going to write to Mr. Ernest Hemingway quite a letter! Quite a letter!” (someone please pick me up off the floor from that knee-slapper).

Plugs for Brazil and all points south are inserted every few minutes or so (in exchange, no doubt, for all that fee location shooting) while we ponder just what the hell is going on with St. John and Lynley. I could see deer-in-the-headlights St. John being attracted to Henreid’s old smoothie, as the movie at first would try to trick us into thinking…but grumpy, lumpy, charmless Minardos As for pinched, whining, disagreeable teen Lynley (a real blow to me, since she’s always been a fav), even she doesn’t deserve the hydrocephalic charms of giant baby-head Crosby. Looking over my review notes, I noticed I scribbled for his “seduction” scene with Lynley, “No wonder beaten with hair brush by paterfamilias Der Bingle,” a sick, cruel joke, I’ll admit…but a necessary one when witnessing the supposed Hollywood manufacture of a “young romantic lead” with this singularly grotesque miscalculation (hey, ladies: wait till you see blubbery Gary–channeling burbling Pops, perhaps–violently spank Lynley for refusing his marriage proposal…a bizarrely staged sequence that elicits approving smiles from mother Wyman). With creeps like these along for this desultory, tedious haul of a trip, no wonder people canceled their Holiday for Lovers reservations and stayed home to watch Ed Sullivan.

The DVD:

The Video:
Seriously: do they know what “letterboxed” means over at Fox Because if you put on the back of the disc case “letterboxed” after you put 16:9, it’s a contradiction in terms for DVD transfers. You’d think with all the bad P.R. they’re having, they’d at least get this detail right to help sales. Holiday for Lovers is presented in an anamorphically-enhanced, 2.35: 1 transfer. It is also dark at times, and grainy, with some scratches and dirt. Not the best…but at least the ratio is correct.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track ain’t the original four-track stereo, which is too bad because composer Leigh Harline’s score (the best thing in the movie) is bouncy and fun. Hiss is minimal, and no subtitles or closed-captions.

The Extras:
No extras for Holiday for Lovers.

Final Thoughts:
Dreary, worn-out shenanigans from pros who should have known better. Have you ever been stuck on a hot, stinky bus going cross-country with some obnoxious slob sitting next to you, chewing your ear off for hours on end Well, Holiday for Lovers isn’t like that at all…but the effect is the same: a bad trip. Skip Holiday for Lovers.

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

Anybody who calls themselves an anime fan has watched or at the VERY least heard about Dragon Ball Z, which is undoubtedly one of the most popular anime of all time….I personally grew up on DBZ, everybody I knew would rush home & tune into Toonami to watch our weekly dose of nothing but power ups.

I’m a massive Dragon Ball junkie, I’ve collected everything over the years, I own the series on 3 different versions, I still have books & books of the trading cards…Suffice it to say, I was pretty excited when this release was announced. I was finally able to throw on my nostalgia goggles & get to hear the dub I grew up on!

Content
Plot: In case you been living under a rock for the past 15 years, the story of Dragon Ball Z is a simple one. It follows Goku, & his friends protecting the earth against super villains who come to find the Dragon Balls, 7 mystical orbs when collected, will grant you any wish.

Included in this box set are the 1st 53 edited episodes of the series & the 1st 3 movie specials that were originally dubbed by the Ocean group before the current FUNi dub took over.

The 53 episodes cover The Saiyan Saga(1-26), which features some of the best episodes & fights of the series. The Saiyan saga introduces fan favorite villain Vegeta, along with his 2 comrades Nappa & Raditz, coming to earth to find not only the Dragon Balls, but to find Goku himself.

The Namek saga(27-47), where Gohan & Krillin travel to a distant planet to locate the dragon balls to bring their dead friends back to life, only to find out Vegeta is hot on their trails & a ruthless tyrant named Frieza has already beaten them there. The saga is quite dull until the introduction of Frieza(around episode 35.)

The episodes concludes with the first few episodes of the Ginyu saga(48-53) where after being bested by Vegeta, Frieza calls upon a special team of fighters to deal with him, Gohan & Krillin. We also have the 3 movies: Dead Zone, which features Garlic Jr trying to take over the position of Guardian of Earth, & Goku/Piccolo/Kami teaming up to stop him. The World’s Strongest, where an evil Dr. Dr. Kochin gathers the Dragon Balls to wish back his mentor, Dr. Wheelo in an effort to take over the world & the Tree of Might, where a group of aliens, led by a surviving Saiyan come to Earth to plant the Tree Of Might, which will sap the life force from the Earth. All 3 are a good watch, i personally enjoyed Tree Of Might the most of the 3, due to solid action scenes & a great villain.

The Dub cast: Ok, this is my problem with the release. Yes it was fun to relive my youth, watching the episodes/dub that got me into Dragon Ball Z, but WOW, it is atrocious. There were only a few cast members I felt did a good job, Scott McNeil gets special mention here, in a completely forgettable dub cast, he stood out from the pack with an awesome performance as Piccolo, that actually makes me wish he could have kept the role, he was terrific. While I’m used to hearing Sabat in the role of Vegeta, Brian Drummond grew on me as time rolled on. Saffron Henderson did a good job as Gohan & Ian Cortlett (episodes 1-37) & Peter Kelamis(38 +) were both OK as Goku. Pauline Newstone also did a good job with what i heard of her Frieza. Of the main cast, a truly bad performance comes from Terry Klassen who plays Krillin. His voice was completely over the top, hamming it up with every line of dialogue & combined that with poor acting. I didn’t bother to look up the names for the others, but the voice actors for Tien, Yamcha, & Chiaotzu were all very poor. Regardless of the my opinion, the dub may not be perfect, but it will always have a place in my heart as the dub i grew up with. It was really fun to hear them again.

The Positives: If you were a fan of Dragon Ball Z back in the mid 90’s like me, you will go nuts for this set, the great limited edition packaging & nostalgia factors alone will hook you into buying this release. On top of that, you get a lot of bang for your buck. Oh & the Rock The Dragon theme song! Haven’t heard it in a decade & it brought a smile to my face!

The Negatives: For me personally, The Dub cast, not much more I can say about it that I haven’t said above. The kid friendly edits were kind of a bummer as well, but it’s always fun hearing “I’m going to kill you” turn into “I’m gonna send you to the next dimension!”

VIDEO
The video quality is not that impressive. There is alot of grain, & it’s noticeable but it didn’t really bother me, it’s to be expected with something this old. Its a 1:33:1 aspect ratio release.

AUDIO
You only get one option here for the language track, & that is the Ocean dub in Dolby Digital Stereo. No Japanese track to be seen.

EXTRA’S
The 9 disc set comes housed in a 48 page gorgeous hard cover book featuring nice action shots of Goku on the front & Vegeta on the back, the book includes character information, a DBZ timeline from 1996-2013, a little bit of info about the meme’s that have spread worldwide(It’s over 9000)& the censorship of the dub(like HFIL instead of HELL.) It also includes the lyrics to the Rock The Dragon theme song. Standard trailers are also included. It’s a very nice presentation.

OVERALL
If you were a fan of DBZ back in the 90’s you will absolutely love this set, it’s also a set that will satisfy the Ocean dub purists. With 53 episodes, 3 movies, & the gorgeous book. This one is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

After a dry spell, Paramount has finished off the DVD release of “Family Ties” with Season 6 earlier this year and now the last one, from the 1988-89 TV season. To recap, “Family Ties” was a videotaped sitcom that began in 1982, taking place in Columbus, Ohio, dealing with Steven (Michael Gross) and Elyse (Meredith Baxter, when she was still Baxter-Birney) Keaton, a “hippie” couple who met and married in the 1960s and are now adjusting to life in the 1980s with four children: Alex (Michael J. Fox), Mallory (Justine Bateman), Jennifer (Tina Yothers) and the youngest addition Andy (Brian Bonsall), born during the show’s 1984-85 season. Alex quickly became the starring character, with humor coming from his having opposing political and social views than those of his parents. While Steven and Elyse have outgrown their hippie pasts they are still all for the whole peace and freedom ideals, while Alex is conservative, with money and wealth the main thing on his mind as he looks up to then-President Ronald Reagan and even holds Richard Nixon (who was still alive then) in high regard. In this season we see a photo of Nixon kept near Alex’s bed, and he refers to him in one episode as one of the greatest presidents of all time. Alex is about to graduate college in this season and head out into the business world while continuing his relationship with Lauren (Courteney Cox) that began in the previous season, although things get rocky for the two this time. Mallory isn’t very smart, with her being the butt of many jokes, and is still seeing her artist boyfriend named Nick (played by Scott Valentine) who is even more of a dimwit. Jennifer is more in the middle, smarter than Mallory but seeing Alex as mostly full of himself. Andy starts first grade in this season and as in the previous one Alex grooms him to be a smaller version of himself, educating him on matters of money and the Republican party.

I had watched the show in its initial run from roughly 1985 through 1988; by the time this season aired I had already “cancelled” it from my regular viewing as I had less free time and preferred to watch more movies than TV shows, being jaded with the squeaky-clean atmosphere of most shows and developing a low tolerance for laugh tracks and commercials. Of course had I known how bad TV would get in the future, I might have been a bit more forgiving. Regardless, “Family Ties” had a big decline in its ratings this year and it was decided to make this the final one, with a memorable final episode that I wish I had caught in its first airing.

The 1988 presidential election is worked into the first few episodes, with Steven and Elyse supporting Dukakis and Alex supporting Bush (the first one). A prologue is added to the episode that aired after the election with Alex gloating about Bush’s victory. An episode later in the season addresses the still timely topic of global warming, with Jennifer almost going insane worrying about it. Frequently visiting neighbor Skippy (Marc Price) tries joining the army, and later gets taken on a double-date with Alex and Lauren only to embarrass the girl he’s paired with and fall for Lauren instead. Alex finally questions the cutthroat ways of the business world after he finds out his high-paying job at an investment firm came at the expense of his friend’s employment there. A rather insignificant episode but one that’s among my favorites from this season is one where Jennifer ends up working at a fast-food place with nerdy classmate Simon (Jason Naylor, who also appeared in one episode in the previous season).

There are a number of extended and multi-part episodes here as well: the epic 3-part “Heartstrings” has Steven suffer a heart attack and undergo surgery, during which he has some flashbacks (including some to the time he first met Elyse with the two played by younger actors) while the family worries in the meantime- like many previous episodes, it conveys the right amount of concern without getting overly dramatic and still providing many needed laughs. A running joke throughout this one is Alex being unable to listen to the doctors’ graphic descriptions without fainting, but Andy being very into it and picking up the terminology. Philip Baker Hall plays the head doctor here. Two-parter “All in the Neighborhood” brings the subject of racism into the picture when an African-American family moves into the mostly-white neighborhood and starts receiving anonymous threats to move out.

“They Can’t Take That Away From Me” threatens Alex and Lauren’s relationship when a new girl (Jane Adams) catches Alex’s affections. The hour-long “Wrap Around the Clock” is a bit of a waste, especially given that it is the third from final episode, in that it’s a “clip show” centered around putting together a time capsule with flashbacks to previous episodes, some from this very season itself although it does make me want to check out the earlier seasons. Finally, there’s the series finale “Alex Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”, which must have aired in an odd time slot given that it runs one hour and one minute on disc with no commercials. Here, Alex has graduated from college and is hired by a firm on Wall Street in New York, and moves out of the house. His sisters are mostly glad in that he won’t be around to annoy them anymore and they make plans for his room, but his mother is rather distressed at the thought of him leaving. This comes to a head in a powerful confrontation between the two, and the episode ends with the cast doing a curtain call for the studio audience and some special “goodbye” messages from the cast and crew over the end credits.

Other notable guest stars in this season include Dan Hedaya as Nick’s scheming car-salesman father, Stephen Baldwin at a couples’ therapy session, and an early appearance by Hank Azaria behind the scenes at a fashion show.

While I didn’t notice any obvious edits or music changes within any episodes (and there are many uses of copyrighted songs in this season), there is a note on the back cover stating: “Some episodes may be edited from their original network versions. Music has been changed for this home entertainment version.” It may just be standard practice for Paramount to include this note nowadays, but it’s worth pointing out for the obsessive folks whatever the case. The only alteration that did stand out was the replacement of the closing “Paramount Television” logo at the end with a newer “CBS Television Distribution” tag, with music noticeably louder than the rest of the show as it was on the previous season set.

Picture:

As with the sixth season set that I reviewed, I found the encoding of the 4×3 standard-definition video to be very good here, with no obvious compression artifacts that I have seen on some other TV show releases. The source material itself won’t look perfect in the HD era, as the resolution is limited and there is some dot crawl, but it still looks about as good as it possibly can here. (In case you’re wondering why you should buy this DVD set when these episodes are already available on Netflix, just know that the picture is presented here at the proper 30 frames per second rate, while on Netflix they are at a more film-like frame rate closer to 24 frames per second. As of this writing I have never seen online video able to display at 30 frames per second, even through the Netflix apps on my TV and Blu-Ray player.)

Sound:

Audio is in 2-channel Dolby Digital. While “Family Ties” was among the first network shows to be produced in stereo beginning in 1985, the separation isn’t used as effectively here as it was in the previous season. While the sound from the studio audience’s laughter is spread out on some episodes, on others it remains centered with the only hint of stereo being music used in the show. A few episodes seem to give the dialogue a wider soundstage however, staying centered but allowed to echo into the left and right.

As with the previous season, player-generated subtitles are included for hearing-impaired support instead of traditional TV-decoded closed captions. No extras are included on this release. The four discs (with Paramount’s usual plain grey labeling) are packaged in a clear single-sized keepcase, with episodes listed on the reverse side of the cover sheet, with synopses and original air dates.

Final Thoughts:

Having missed this last season of “Family Ties” in its initial run, I was glad to finally see how the series ended. While I may have been a little bored of it back then, watching it on disc now shows that it still had a lot of freshness left. Seeing how the Keatons handled the 1990s would have been interesting, but it was good to see the show go out on a high note rather than wear itself out.

DVD Talk has previously reviewed the First, Second and Sixth seasons of “Family Ties.” A Complete Series set with an exclusive bonus disc has been announced for release on November 5th.

THE FILM:
The Soviet Union and its followers believed in a utopian ideal of forced equality. Under its government controlled and mandated share and share alike policy, everyone would work, everyone would have the same opportunities, and no one would be more powerful or prominent than anyone else. Yes, there would have to be those in charge, making sure these core conceits were enforced, but for the most part, the factory drone or the long suffering farmer would be no more or less important than the suited man sitting in the Parliament. Of course, none of that was true. The minute any individual or group of individuals seized power in a place like Russia, Romania, or Poland, they would immediately set themselves up as the bourgeoisie that Marxism rallied against, their elaborate lifestyles often in direct contradiction to the value they were spewing in speeches and proclamations. When he was overthrown by his own people in 1989, Romanian General Secretary of the Communist Party, Nicolae Ceausescu was considered such a monster, responsible for unthinkable genocide and internal horrors that warranted a speedy trial and execution. He also lived like a king in a realm populated by paupers. Even today, many of his most disturbing acts are just being uncovered.

So it’s with great interest that one walks into the documentary entitled The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, a fascinating compilation of State-sponsored footage from the tyrant’s 24 years in power. Indeed, from 1965 to his death in ’89, the more or less dictator of Romania made it a point of polishing up his country’s image. The result was an almost obsessive filming of his professional life and routine. When the National Archives were finally opened to the public, director Andrei Ujică saw an opportunity to expose the blatant hypocrisy in Ceausescu’s regime and used his kangaroo court trial as a bookend to more haunting, happier times. Following his life in office, we see a man melded with the pro-Red pomp and circumstance ordered by his Soviet overseers as well as someone with his own agenda within the international arena. After walking through most of this initial rise, we see Ceausescu entertaining a succession of world leaders. Everyone from de Gaulle to Nixon show up, as do many members of the Iron Curtain crew. Ceausescu even travels to North Korea to witness one of those eye popping human displays that only a marginalized people under a suppressed regime can promote without criticism.

The visions here are stunning, if slightly inert. We see the man obsessing over building and construction, huge dioramas of a future Romania spread out like presents for a child at Christmas. Ceausescu even tours works in progress, looking over the outsized opulence like a proud papa. One thing the Soviet style countries could handle was the sterile, featureless look of a post-modern, post-Capitalism society. All the edifices are gray or white, glass and metal making up for any real architectural personality. These were the future vistas, the way in which the Communists saw their countries against the decadence of the West. On the other hand, they are also a massive drain on the country’s economy, so much so that Ceausescu had to borrow from around the world to fulfill his vision. This resulted in an indebtedness that occasionally cost the people their place. In order to try and solve this dilemma, Ceausescu exported most of the country’s resources to try and balance the books. Such shortages and restrictions laid the seeds for his eventual overthrow.

Yet The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu suffers from a lack of outrage. Since this is the State-sponsored resource of information on the man, there’s no hints of his horrible genocide, no inkling of the workhouses and orphanages were enemies of the country were housed in horrific conditions. There are no signs of the secret police who murdered millions. The opening has the leader accused of orchestrating a mass murder in a Romanian village of Timisoara, but we never see any sign of this. Hunting wildlife is one thing. Seeing people slaughtered in the name of politics is another. As the aged man and his harried wife deny each and every accusation, we wait for the counterbalance, to see the actual images that both are so vehemently speaking against. But Ujică never offers it. In fact, to do so would go against his desire to stay within the parameters of the archive. One imagines a more devastating film with the various investigative news sources and post-execution material edited in. What we end up with is indeed eye-opening, but it’s not shattering. Without your own knowledge of the subject, the extravagance on display is rather empty.

THE DVD:
When you consider that the filmmakers had to pour through hours of archival footage, that they were mixing and matching formats (videos, newsreels, state-sponsored shoots, and other visual documentation) as well as dealing with age issues and an overall need to focus the approach, the tech spec results are fairly impressive. The 1.78:1 anamorphic image is colorful, sharp, and almost pristine in places. We get a real sense of the pageantry and the pathetic grasp for attention surrounding much of this material. The sound situation is a bit different. Sure, the old aural science leaves a lot to be desired, especially in a backwards Soviet Bloc situation, but the mix has been cleaned up a bit so that there are few scratches, pops, or moments of distortion. The subtitles are not removable, by the way, so if you don’t like having to read along with your movie, you’re stuck (of course, you’d have to be able to speak Romanian as well…). As for added content, there is a trailer and DVD-Rom access to information on the various political players on display. That’s it. Frankly, the film could use some context, explaining the importance of the sometimes silent events playing out in front of us.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu is one of those powerful films that make you eager for more: more information on the man’s specific crimes; more of a counterbalance between the propaganda offered by the State and the truth captured by other cameras; more insight into the leader’s personal problems and provocations. As it stands, it’s an incomplete picture, a Recommended experience but one that only provides a portion of the real story. Sometimes, the party line explains it all. In the case of The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, it’s only a small fraction of the truth.

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