New Airplane! DVD marks 25th anniversary
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By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
A comedy classic and a "lost" movie are this week's DVDs.
Airplane!: "Don't call me Shirley" Edition
Just in time for its 25th anniversary, paramount has released a new DVD edition of one of the funniest films ever produced. Airplane! was a radical film for its time. It had a fast-moving gaga-stuffed structure that was also a very clever send-up of Hollywood B movie cliches.
A re-make of a serious film called Zero Hour, Airplane! told the story of how a frightened pilot (Robert Hays) is able to regain his self-esteem and the love of his life (Julie Hagerty) when he is able to successfully fly and land a passenger jet filled with a slice of life assortment of passengers.
What was also significant about the film was its casting. Directors and writers Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker populated their film with performers known for their dramatic, rather than comedic abilities. Up until this film, who would have guessed that Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Peter Graves could pull off a gag?
The DVD features a "long haul" version, which stops the film to switch to a contemporary interview segments with the directors, producer, and cast and crewmembers. Although this plays havoc with the pacing of the film, the segments are quite enlightening.
Peter Graves, for instance, expressed how he had very deep concerns about the film. He didn't like the script, didn't want to do the film and felt very uncomfortable in his role of the pilot who asked the 12 year-old boy if he had ever seen a grown man naked.
Abrahams, Zucker and Zucker recount how carefully they crafted the film after Zero Hour and how veteran producer Howard Koch helped them create what must have been the most unconventional movie in his career.
This is one DVD that you will watch over and over.
For more information, log onto www.paramount.com/
homeentertainment
Good to See You Alice Cooper
Shot in 1973 when the iconic rocker was performing his "Billion Dollar Babies Tour," Good to See You Alice Cooper was supposed to be a midnight movie in the traditions of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pink Flamingos.
It proved not to have that kind of appeal to audiences as those films and, after a drastic re-editing, the film dropped from sight until Shout Factory has resurrected it.
The result is a DVD package that will be sure to please serious Cooper fans.
The film itself is remarkably lame. A framing sequence involving a film director bent on revenge after Cooper and his band walked out of his movie is the support for concert footage. The framing sequence appears to have been aiming for a Monkees kind of feel silly and improvised.
While that might have been the intent, it comes off as just amateurish and boring. Even Cooper on the commentary track knocks the film.
What makes the entire affair even odder was the promotional materials that tried to make the PG rating provocative by claiming it stood for "pretty gross." The film is quite mild compared to other midnight offerings.
What is good about the film is the concert footage that can be viewed without the narrative footage. Cooper's commentary during the concert is particularly interesting in how he talks about the Alice character and what he was doing was performance art.
There are some great tunes in this collection and that's what Cooper fans will enjoy.
For more information, long onto www.shoutfactory.com.
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