DVD reviews

George Carlin unleashed

George Carlin Commemorative Collection MPI Home Video, $99.98

As we remember George Carlin on the twelfth anniversary of his passing (June 22, 2008), it will come as a great joy to fans to be able to celebrate George’s talent with a new 10-disc multiformat set, George Carlin DVD Commemorative Collection. TALK The set incorporates all fourteen of JUSTIN George’s standREMER up specials for HBO, several hours of additional television appearances and interviews, the recent posthumous CD I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die, and HD versions of his final two specials. It’s the definitive George Carlin video collection.

Fans of stand-up comedy already know that George Carlin is often mentioned as one of the top two or three stand-ups of all time. (If George isn’t number one, then maybe we give it to the visionary storyteller Richard Pryor, or maybe the anti-establishment soothsayer Lenny Bruce.)

Fans also probably know that George’s stand-up has gone through many phases. The first phase, from his start in the late ‘50s to some time in the late ‘60s, was, in essence, his “entertainer” phase. He would goof on popular culture, do funny voices, and attempt impressions of famous people. George never necessarily stopped doing this kind of stuff entirely, but as the counterculture grew in prominence, and the ‘60s became the ‘70s, George’s focus shifted from the funny things people say on television to the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.”

In the next phase, George’s material became more autobiographical, more observational, more poetic and more philosophical. The first two impulses are strong in the nostalgic bits from his 1972 Class Clown album (from which the famed “Seven Words” routine originates), while the latter two are obvious in the title track of his 1973 follow-up, Occupation: Foole.

That’s the space where we find George during his first HBO special, On Location with George Carlin (1977). The show, recorded in front of a college crowd at the University of Southern California, is looser than most folks would expect a TV stand-up special to be.

After a disclaimer about the profanity contained within the special, George is interviewed about his comedy influences. Then when he takes the stage, he riffs for a good two or three minutes before attempting any material. Later, a stagehand comes up and swaps out a faulty microphone, forcing George to dig himself out of the hole created by that energetic lag.

Considering the powerhouse that HBO would become in the world of stand-up specials, it’s interesting to see both George and the company just casually trying things out in this first effort together.

George does a version of the “Seven Words” routine in On Location, and he continues to do variations on it for the next few specials, redacting and expanding the list with new selections.

It makes sense that someone who “thinks up goofy shit,” as George claims he does in his second special George Carlin: Again! (1978), would never be satisfied boiling down humanity’s complex relationship to language into one 10-minute routine in 1972. Although, by reprising the bit and getting the guaranteed laughs, there is also the vague sense of George resting on his laurels. The choice to shoot the Again special in the round, with the audience on all sides, also feels like a gimmick to goose some extra juice from material that a large chunk of the audience might already know by heart. But... it’s arguably a gimmick that works.

George’s mid-’80s specials blur together for me, but I always remember this one for its look and energy.

Speaking of those specials, Carlin at Carnegie (1983), was taped after Carlin’s second heart attack. The long hippie hair is gone, and a new hardness is visible in George’s eyes. His material is still pretty whimsical here, but one catches a whiff of future anger in bits like his argument with his Rice Krispies: “Snap, Crackle, Fuck Him.”

Carlin on Campus (1984) opens with George combining phrases from the Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance into a prayer for the separation of church and state.

Arguably, it’s an early version of the poetic word games that George would often use to kick off future sets and an indicator that his mild disillusionment with his Catholic upbringing was starting to change into something more intense. This special is essential, if only because it contains great performances of two of George’s best-known routines: the materialism critique “A Place for My Stuff” (“Have you ever noticed that other people’s stuff is ‘shit,’ and your shit is ‘stuff?’”) and “Baseball and Football,” in which George illustrates how the first sport is calm and the second is war-like.

The 1986 special Playin’ with Your Head is sometimes characterized as the creative nadir before Carlin rebounded with his “cranky old man” phase. Sure, the special is a little short (padded out by a fake noir short film featuring Vic Tayback that has nothing to do with anything), and thematically, it’s kind of scattershot, but George is so damn good at what he does that this one can’t be categorized as a miss. There are just too many laughs.

In fact, I’ve read quite a few online rankings of George’s specials (including one from my DVD Talk colleague, Oktay Ege Kozak), and I realized that even the specials that were getting dissed by these other writers I’ve watched multiple times in my life. The weakest George Carlin hour is still better than most comics’ best. Not that Playin’ with Your Head is my personal least favorite. That one is still to come (and, if you’re a Carlin fan, it’s probably not the one you’re suspecting).

With 1989’s What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, George’s philosopherpoet persona morphs into something angrier and more aggressive. The energy he once put fully into analyzing the minutiae of everyday interactions he now focuses upon dissecting the hypocrisies of those in power and those who seek power. The Reagan administration and Christian fundamentalists are among the ripe targets he tackles with vicious aplomb.

There’s still some everyday stuff in there, like a long chunk on driving, but

the tone has already changed.

As its title implies, 1990’s Doin’ It Again might as well just be What Am I Doing in New Jersey? part two (it was even taped in Jersey, although in a different city this time).

He continues to rail against the Republicans, but follows up by bashing political correctness and feminists too. There’s something to offend and infuriate everyone, which is pretty much true for all of George’s specials from here on out.

But his analyses of the way language is used to disconnect people from meaning – such as the way “shell shock” mutates over time into “posttraumatic stress disorder” – is some of his sharpest, most thoughtful and most memorable material.

Originally broadcast live in 1992, Jammin’ in New York is already widely known as George’s favorite of his own specials. It’s easy to see why.

Angry George is firing on all cylinders, taking aim at the first Gulf War and the military industrial complex, carving up the ill-gotten gains of the rich and powerful and offering it to the homeless (in his imagination, at least), and reframing the intentions of smug do-gooders who want to “save the Earth” by rebutting, “The planet is fine. The people are fucked. ... The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are!”

He even incorporates some of his old relatable observational humor, but with the explicit purpose of bringing his listeners together, to combat those in power who try to drive us apart. Wow.

Back in Town (1996) was another live broadcast, and the way George whips around the stage, this might be his most energetic special. Once again, he tackles the corrupt political system, elitist hypocrisy, and the cartoonish excessiveness of American culture.

At one point, he dismisses the “sanctity of life,” and as if to prove that point, he later envisions a dystopic prison farm, where criminals are allowed to kill each other for the amusement of a national TV audience.

The tenth special in the set is a hybrid of sorts. George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (1997) is part career retrospective, part interview, and part regular stand-up show. Hosted by Jon Stewart, each of these three elements of the special go off without a hitch, and the stand-up chunk in the middle is surprisingly generous (roughly a half-hour, much of it unique to this special).

George closed out the ‘90s with You Are All Diseased (1999), a vitriolic attack on American BS in its various forms: corporate perversions of the counterculture, like Harley Davidson and the House of Blues; advertising and the lies it sells on behalf of corporate greed; and, maybe most viciously, religion and its overwhelming, brainwashing power.

Many of these bits hit home, but the long opening chunk about the frustrations and ineffectiveness of airport security acts as a weird pre-9/11 time capsule now; most of George’s complaints are irrelevant, now that the TSA demands more and stranger concessions from flyers.

Speaking of 9/11, now we come to my personal least favorite special in the set, Complaints and Grievances (2001). Recorded a little more than two months after the terrorist attack on New York City, this set bears the evidence of last-minute changes. The special was originally going to be called I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die, a sentiment that would not have worked at the time, but which might have given this special a more coherent focus.

Instead, we get scattered rants about the vapidness of American culture. Not bad – as I already said, nothing in this set is – but little of the special rises to the level of George’s closing bit, where he trims the fat from the Ten Commandments and leaves us with the few solid ones worth following.

George’s penultimate special, Life Is Worth Losing (2005), might be his most infamous. Devoted almost entirely to ruminations upon death, the special can almost seem too dark to laugh at. Many viewers didn’t.

To these eyes, the special has aged well, with George’s perceptiveness and craft really shining through. It’s certainly one of his best constructed hours. Inevitably, there has to be something to offend everyone, and I don’t particularly dig the bit about donating genitals from the supple dead to be used by lonely horny people. It’s still pretty icky. At least when Louis CK came up with a similar bit, he offered up his own corpse to be used for gratification. (But I digress.)

George’s final special, It’s Bad For Ya (2008), returns to his pet theme of BS. (His oft-repeated refrain during this hour, shortened for the title, is: “It’s bullshit, and it’s bad for ya.”)

George becomes the anti-Mister Rogers during an extended bit on parenting, in which he hypothesizes that children are not special and they are not our future. He spits venom at the concept of patriotism. As always, he attacks the way we misuse and abuse the English language. But the finest chunk concerns the self-delusion that goes into believing dead people are in heaven, smiling down on us.

Well, it’s been 12 years since we lost George. And if he’s anywhere, I’m sure he’s scowling up at us.

The George Carlin Commemorative Collection is a 10-disc set, packaged in a five-tray Digipak-style case inside a box, along with a folded collectible poster of the cover art and a booklet with program information, photos, and a liner note essay by Patton Oswalt.

The 14 main specials are presented on five DVDs. The bonuses are presented on the next three DVDs, a CD, and a Blu-ray (region A).

Considering the differing vintages of these TV specials, they pretty much look and sound how you would expect.

The first 12 specials are presented in standard 1.33:1, while the final two specials are widescreen 1.78:1. Most of them look suitable for their age; not crystal clear, but you can make out what’s happening (i.e., it’s a guy on a stage).

You Are All Diseased looks a little more washed-out than one might expect, but it’s not a deal-breaker. All of the programs are presented in Dolby 2.0 stereo, and they sound fine. You can always hear the jokes A-OK. All of the specials offer English subtitles. The first four specials also offer Spanish subtitles.

What an extraordinary set. Not only do we get all 14 of George Carlin’s HBO stand-up specials in one place, but there are also hours and hours of excellent bonus material, including: • Carlin on CBS Talent Scouts (6:16): A black-and-white clip from 1962, in which George does a number of impressions. That’s right! Impressions! • Carlin on The Hollywood Palace (October 1966) (6:01): Adam West introduces George, complete with Bat puns. George reimagines Cowboy & Indian movies. • Carlin on The Hollywood Palace (December 1966) (6:44): Jimmy Durante introduces, complete with excessive sincerity. George does a “Wonderful WINO Radio” bit. • Carlin on The Jackie Gleason Show (8:00): A clip from 1969, it features George making jokes about television culture and the FBI’s 10 most wanted. • The Real George Carlin (50:38): From 1973, this is George’s first TV special. He performs a lot of material included on the Class Clown and Occupation: Foole albums. He also has three musical guests: Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, and B.B. King. What a find! • Apt. 2-C (30:08): An unaired pilot for an HBO series that George wrote and starred in, in 1984. He plays a freelance writer, constantly harangued by his neighbors, played by a bunch of comics, s and George’s own daughter, Kelly Carlin. • George Carlin’s Personal Favorites (59:50): A 1996 compilation of various memorable moments from the specials, plus the 1986 Comic Relief version of “A Place for My Stuff” and a 1990 redux of “Baseball and Football.”

Carlin at the Comedy Store (1999) (1:05:11) - A video recording of George doing final tweaks to the hour that would become You Are All Diseased. It’s interesting to see him reading some of the jokes off a collection of pages, as he tries to memorize them.

For Carlin fans, there is no question that this is a must-own collection.

Criterion updates classic comedy by Preston Sturges

The Lady Eve: Criterion Collection fat mark for Jean and her card sharp Blu-ray, 39.95 papa, known as the Colonel (Charles Coburn). Stanwyck is perfectly in

One of Preston Sturges’s best-loved her element, savvy and sexy in Edith films, the 1941 screwball comedy The Head’s flattering gowns. Fonda, though Lady Eve gets the Blu-ray upgrade from better known for drama, is a marvelous the Criterion Collection, comic milquetoast who who first put the movie on DVD in 2001. (It also DVD finds himself constantly tripped-up – often quite appeared in a Universal box set of Sturges films.) TALK literally – by his female co-star.

The film stars Barbara For Jean, the idea is Stanwyck as con woman Jean Harrington, who sets her sights on snake scientist and heir to an JUSTIN REMER to make Charles fall in love with her _ which happens quite easily. The complication comes when ale fortune, Charles Pike Jean realizes she’s falling (Henry Fonda). for Charles just as hard.

Pike is handsome and booksmart When it comes time for the Colonel but totally naive, making him a big to fleece the shnook for all he’s worth,

Fun, artsy fashions that make you happy!

Downtown Duluth & Miller Hill Mall

Shop online: artinthealley.com #rightupyouralley • (218) 348-5009

Jean steps in and saves her oblivious suitor. However, when Charles learns the truth about Jean – thanks to the snooping of his streetwise pal Muggsy (Sturges’s regular secret weapon, William Demarest) – their brief courtship ends in acrimony.

For the second half of the film, the embittered Jean decides to make good on that con she fouled up by being a lovestruck sucker. She poses as visiting British nobility, the Lady Eve Sidwich, and seduces Charles all over again. When “Eve” shows up at the Pike mansion for a party, Muggsy argues with Charles that Eve is clearly Jean.

“Positively the same dame,” becomes the sidekick’s mantra. Charles retorts that Eve looks too much like Jean to actually be her. His gut tells him that if this was Jean trying to pull a fast one, she would be more clandestine about it.

Leaning on that kind of pretzel logic, Charles’s comeuppance is almost completely assured.

The Lady Eve is a lightning-in-a-bottle production where the chemistry of the cast converges with the wit and economy of the material to make magic. And while the chemistry of our leads is almost miraculous – as evidenced in an oft-referenced longtake two-shot, where Stanwyck and Fonda’s faces are smushed side by side, with her playing with his hair as they talk about love – every single part is filled by a memorable character actor who seems tailor-made for their role. Demarest as Muggsy. Coburn as the world-weary and wise Colonel. Eugene Pallette as Charles’s bulldog of a dad. Eric Blore as a cheeky British con man whose noble racket gives Jean her inspiration for Eve. And on and on.

While The Lady Eve is not my favorite Sturges – that honor belongs to The Palm Beach Story – it’s hard to deny that this film features some of his best dialogue and best scenes. It’s just flawlessly executed.

The Lady Eve comes packaged with a booklet that includes an essay by Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1946 LIFE magazine profile of Preston Sturges by Noel F. Busch.

This isn’t sourced from the original negative, so it’s not startlingly crisp. But there is noticeably more fine detail than the old SD version. And the image is stable and clean, with good contrast.

Special Features: • Audio commentary by scholar Marian Keane: Originally featured on the 2001 Criterion DVD. A wellprepared and nicely polished dissection of the film as it unspools. • Peter Bogdanovich Introduction: Brought over from the 2001 DVD, Bogdanovich talks about the film

and Sturges’s career, highlighting the sharpness of the dialogue in his films. • Tom Sturges and Friends: I think I’ve seen a bonus feature conducted over Skype before, but this is the first Zoom call bonus I’ve seen on disc. Welcome to 2020. Preston Sturges’s son Tom talks to filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich, James L. Brooks, Ron Shelton; historian Susan King; and critics Leonard Maltin and Kenneth Turan about the film. Everyone pitches in with thoughtful analysis and history. Sturges also offers some fairly interesting bits of gossip about his dad as well. • The Lady Deceives: A suitably snappy video essay on the film from David Cairns. • Edith Head’s Costume Designs: Written excerpts from the book Edith Head’s Hollywood are counterpointed with sketches and clips to show off the famous designer’s striking work for Barbara Stanwyck in the film. • Lux Radio Theatre (44:46): The radio adaptation of the film, featuring Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland and Charles Coburn.

“Up the Amazon”: An audio recording of the proposed opening number to a musical theater adaptation of The Lady Eve. Written by Rick Chertoff and David J. Forman, performed by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks.

Criterion does a great job updating their DVD edition of The Lady Eve, with a great-looking main feature and some thoughtful new extras. The film itself is a must-own anyway, so this edition is an easy inclusion in the DVD Talk Collector Series.

Clueless turns a quarter-century old

Clueless: Anniversary Limited Edition Steelbook Blu-ray and digital, $14.99

It is hard to believe that Clueless is now old enough to rent a car, or at least can rent one whenever DVD travel restrictions TALK are eased a little more. But yeah, I RYAN remember when I was KEEFER skeptical that the girl in the Aerosmith videos, who was seemingly playing a California girl to the nth degree could pull it off. But she did and she had help with a lot of people in the film, and it was one that I am more than willing to eat my hat on.

Written and directed by Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), the film is inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma, and that person in this film is Cher (Alicia Silverstone, The Crush), the daughter to a lawyer workaholic father who dotes on his daughter to keep them together after her Mom died.

Cher is going through life with Dionne (Stacey Dash, View From The Top) and helps people for personal gain, until she seems to realize there is nobody’s life left to enhance but her own.

What was immediately endearing for me about Clueless then as it is now is that Heckerling makes sure that Silverstone (and everyone else in the ensemble) own those roles, to the point where the story can be told.

Cher and Dionne are named after famous people, which should speak for itself, but there is an obliviousness that each own for various reasons, and it is something that they use to the benefit of the story.

Cher and Dionne are admittedly kind of selfish, but they are not dumb. Dumb people could not get teachers to fall in love, or get Tai (Brittany Murphy, 8 Mile) to agree to a makeover and still be friends with her despite her interest in a lite Jeff Spicoli in Travis (Breckin Meyer). They may look dumb to people but they are smart in their own ways, and their “stupidity” is done in the film for the sake of laughs.

Silverstone helps sell Cher so well with these attributes too; she is the girl that people like a lot but they dismiss for many of the reasons I mentioned above. But she is smarter than people would give her credit for. She plays the scenes with her Dad (Dan Hedaya) and stepbrother (hey, that’s Paul Rudd!) so well that it can’t be something of a fluke.

Cher, Dionne and the other kids at Beverly Hills High are smart, but they just are not smart to other people, and getting the peek into the former is what makes the latter work so well.

Paramount has been revisiting their catalog over the last few months and remarkably Clueless is one that works in a variety of ways; the backdrop is entertaining and the quest of the protagonist is carried on enough that you do not forget about it as the film goes on, and the work of the cast is such that when the end does happen and you are happy that some mild incest occurs, it is sort of cute!

Such as it is, Clueless is funny, charming and all of that, despite what your better judgment may tell you.

Not having seen the 2012 blu-ray, I will make the leap and say that Paramount used the same transfer for this, and on its own it looks good. Film grain is present and the image appears natural; the darker moments of the film stand out a little sharper than I thought they would.

Colors are vivid and look good as do flesh tones, and the film is done justice on high-definition.

DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless to go with this one, and it is also good. The film’s ample musical score is given a lot of justice and sounds broad and dynamic, with bass sounding clear and robust to go with horns and guitars, be it Mighty Mighty Bosstones in the party sequence or what have you.

Dialogue is a winner here as it is clear and well-balanced through the film, and channel panning (such as when Cher walks through the quad) is just as effective. Nice work by Paramount.

So it looks like the extras that were on the 2012 blu-ray are back for this anniversary edition, nothing more nothing else (unless a digital code counts).

There is a trivia track (titled ‘Clue or False’) followed by the “Class of ‘95” (18:31), where some of the cast recall things about the film for the 10th anniversary, and is mixed up with vintage video. The older cast talk about the younger ones and how impressed

they were by them, and some test footage and bloopers are included too. A nice piece, too short though.

“Fashion 101” (10:46) gets into the challenge of dressing the kids at the time, and the retrospective angle shares their thoughts on the clothes then and how it helped them since. Like the first piece, a little short, but slightly intriguing.

“Language Arts” (8:09) get into the various dialogue and Hecklerling’s adjustments to the cast for it, while “Suck ‘N Blow: A Tutorial: (2:47) is self-explanatory. “Driver’s Ed” (3:49) examines the kids as they talk about driving on camera, while “We’re History” (8:52) focuses on the legacy and history of the film. There are also a teaser and full trailer to boot in this steelbook.

It boils down to what camp you are in, really; if you have the previous release of the Blu-ray, then the cost hinges on the steelbook and maybe a digital copy of the film If you don’t, well, it is not that strong of a title on its own merits.

No commentary track, a fine but not great transfer and soundtrack, and an Alicia Silverstone-sized hole in the bonus features of this thing. So hopefully that makes the decision on buying (or re-buying it) easier, but it still holds up well after 25 years.