TV on DVD: Tracey Takes on... (The Complete Final Seasons)

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View Video Clips of Ullman's State of the Union

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Since Kay Clark-- the British bank teller who moved to California in order to become the caretaker of her invalid mother-- was acknowledged legally and due to copyright reasons as the only character wholeheartedly created by the show's star, it's Kay who made the lonely leap from FOX Network's The Tracey Ullman Show to HBO's eight time Emmy award winning smash Tracey Takes on...for its four season run.

Rounding out the rest of the series, the talented, diverse comical actress, singer, dancer, and chameleon-like force of nature that is Tracey Ullman-- along with her gifted writers-- crafted a roster comprised of eighteen primary and countless secondary main characters and this time without the limits of censorship and free from corporate sponsors, they relished in the freedom to go to the extreme in some truly daring sketches.

While E.R. was widely praised as the first narrative and solidly structured show that successfully juggled several plotlines in any given episode to make it suitable for those of the channel changer generation-- Tracey Takes On... essentially worked the same way.

However, unlike Saturday Night Live which kind of stayed current and then dumped a skit to run with whatever was next, Ullman revisited not just frumpy caregiver Kay Clark-- who teams up with Cheech Marin to experiment with marijuana to try and give her mom some pain relief only to test it out herself first-- but other characters' storylines that didn't always end with a comedic zing but an internal chuckle, picking up the narrative thread she dropped later on in the strangest of ways when her many characters found their lives colliding. Sometimes the humor is abandoned completely in favor of pathos or melancholy or getting a point across that she'll use later (for the sake of wit) down the road as the shows meander (mostly) in and around the two coasts of the United States.

Often inspired by those she's come into contact with working in La La Land like one of her early Hollywood agents blended together with the Menendez Brothers lawyer for the downright hideous character of attorney Sydney Kross who can bully death row inmates into doing what she wants or a real life cab driver named Chic-- Tracey Takes on... is loosely strung together by a given topic from "Loss," to "Agents" to "Dating," which she manages to skewer in the most intriguing of ways.

She does so by first opening with an interview styled confessional anecdote as Tracey Ullman herself-- in person and out of makeup, wigs, and fake teeth-- shares a story about each one before she tackles the subjects and all the possible meanings they could incorporate which definitely goes beyond what most of us would probably first come up with in an average game of Password, Scattergories or Taboo.

Although, watching this show just months after viewing the much more recent and vastly superior first season of Showtime's Tracey Ullman's State of the Union Season One (also released by Eagle Rock Entertainment) makes Tracey Takes on... seem noticeably dated and also far less vital than the comedy from State of the Union since in between her impressions of Dina Lohan and Helen Mirren on the latter, she managed to address some of the issues facing our globe but this aside, Tracey Takes on... is still impressive.

While unfortunately, I do have to admit that more than half of her characters were unlikable in this particular show and her impression of the Asian-American character Mrs. Noh Nang Ning struck me on the same cringe-worthy level as Mickey Rooney's in Breakfast at Tiffany's--and I do wonder if she would've made this decision today-- it's still a solid work of entertainment.

And this is mostly due to the extraordinary gifts of our leading lady for not just her incredible versatility but also the way she's able to move right into the demands of any given skit from portraying an Australian stunt woman whose dwarf husband had died, taking part in a rigorous Fosse like dance routine, singing her heart out, and then reenacting the finale of Titanic with Psych's Corbin Bernsen.

Although when it comes to Ullman, I'm still going to tune into her particular State of the Union far more often than Tracey Takes on... despite some great guest work and funny turns by a game Jennifer Jason Leigh and Helen Mirren just to name two-- it's enjoyable for fans of the comical actress who (much like this reviewer) have also relished her turns in the movies of Woody Allen and her willingness to take risks in offbeat projects like Nancy Savoca's Household Saints and Lawrence Kasdan's masterful I Love You to Death as well.

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Blu-ray Review: Indecent Proposal (1993)

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Much like Adrian Lyne's previous films Fatal Attraction, Jacob's Ladder, 9 1/2 Weeks and Flashdance-- Indecent Proposal was one of those movies that provided endless conversational fodder for viewers.

And without a strong visual shocker like Michael Douglas and Glenn Close's nearly violent sex scene over the kitchen sink or the boiling of the bunny rabbit in Fatal Attraction to bring it all back into my mind--when I began the Blu-ray for Proposal, I realized that although I'd seen it before roughly fifteen or sixteen years earlier, the only thing I remembered about it was just how much audiences couldn't stop talking about the "indecent proposal" posed by billionaire John Gage (Robert Redford) in the film.

In a conversation that one initially assumes is hypothetical-- like one of those casual "what would you take on a desert island" or "if you had to sleep with person a or b who would it be," games people play, Gage turns serious. In doing so, he shifts his attention from shooting pool to his real joy of playing with people instead by offering the financially desperate yet desperately in love couple Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson's Diana and David Murphy a million dollar opportunity.

Of course, instead of betting them a corner pocket shot on the billiard table-- Gage decides to use money as the pool cue to fire a ball straight at the heart of their very relationship.

You see, after Diana caught Gage's eye in Las Vegas while stuffing chocolates in her knapsack in a couture boutique in the hotel lobby, Gage became instantly smitten. And although it's hard to blame his interest in Moore's natural loveliness when she slips the hanger of a gorgeous dress over her head to explore the difference from her blue collar attire in the mirror, Gage seems especially hooked because of the events that follow. For unlike the dress-- he wasn't able to manage to discover Diana's invisible price-tag with a tired form of gold card seduction.

Making a predictably cocky and grand gesture to try and buy her the dress (a la Pretty Woman or Shopgirl), Diana sees through the gesture immediately, confidently noting that yes-- although the dress is for sale-- the woman in the dress would never be.

Of course, Gage refuses to accept defeat and won't let a small thing like a wedding ring, vows, or basic human decency get in his way by adhering to his strict belief that-- since the world has never proven this cynical belief wrong before-- every single thing on this planet and especially its inhabitants are for sale.

Therefore, he lays his plans out casually over pool before getting into specifics, offering to give the Murphy couple-- who'd foolishly journeyed to Sin City in the hopes of turning David's five thousand dollar loan into the fifty thousand dollars they need to save their home and credit rating-- one million dollars if they agree to prostitute Mrs. Murphy out for one night of "just sex." Of course, Redford being smoldering Redford-- he never says sex or even prostitute but it's all implied when he aims his checkbook at the Murphys via the line, "a million dollars for one night with your wife."

The most revealing thing about the film so far and Redford's utter conviction in his performance is in the way the three participants in the conversation react. Obviously Diana is the one who quickly raises to anger, Harrelson's David is curiously stunned but intriguingly silent, and Redford continues to ask them to seriously consider it, despite his sexist posing of the question to David's use of "his wife" and Diana's assertion that David would tell him to go to hell.

Still, having been hit hard by the recession-- the two young lovers who've been together since high school spend a sleepless night tossing and turning as they try to psychologically guess what the other one is thinking-- neither one wanting to come right out and make the proposition as coolly as Gage had. At long last, ultimately Diana--perhaps in response to her husband's quiet reply to the offer-- tells him that she would go through with it to solve their financial mess.

Although some critics once again charged this film like some of Lyne's others with anti-feminism or ill treatment of female characters (and given the fetishistic Flashdance-- to just name one-- they have a point)-- with Demi Moore's brilliant bravery and restraint against playing Diana as a victim or a temptress, unexpectedly she becomes the only logical individual in the film.

I found it utterly fascinating that she had to be the one to put the men's true thoughts and wishes into action since they were too gutless to do it themselves. For we sense right from the start that Diana is much stronger than her husband and moreover far more intelligent and clear-headed than both men put together despite some early over-the-top scenes of temper tantrums in her marriage to David the slob.

Additionally and aside from sadly putting his needs ahead of hers by taking a real estate position to support him while he finished architectural school, taking out an enormous loan so that he can build his dream place, and in fact going along with him on the mindless scheme to win back the money in Vegas-- she knows right away instinctively and intuitively that David is afraid to ask her to agree to Gage's offer but it's what he is precisely hoping she'd do.

And Moore plays these levels beautifully-- balancing the disappointment in her spineless husband with her love for him-- in one of her earliest and strongest roles. Furthermore, her performance-- along with a surprisingly poignant portrayal by Woody Harrelson who must go through the entire spectrum of emotions opposite a woman who (as we saw in Ghost) can seemingly cry in two seconds flat, keeps us engrossed even when we disagree with the characters or the contrived plot-line.

Likewise although we may have a hard time accepting the melodramatic and only-in-the-movies proposal seriously-- nonetheless, the screenplay from Mystic Pizza's Amy Holden Jones (based on Jack Engelhard's novel) ensures you're able to empathize with every main character throughout even when inevitably we realize that despite the fact the Diana and David vow never to discuss in-depth the "solution" to their financial crisis, their money problems have been replaced with far more serious ones concerning their relationship with each other.

While Lyne imbues it with a classic Douglas Sirk-like '50s style romanticism-- there's no mistaking Indecent Proposal for anything but a contemporary tale and one that makes its Blu-ray release stir conversation once again given our current economic recession, despite a few clunks in logic and an over-reliance on cutesy "Did I Ever Tell You I Love You?" dialogue repetitions among the husband and wife who keep calling each other "D."

For, in its way, Indecent Proposal is a much more honest yet deeply unsettling and cynical re-imagining of Pretty Woman blended of course with its most obvious comparison via the Nicolas Cage and Sarah Jessica Parker comedy Honeymoon in Vegas.

Obviously, Pretty Woman is definitely the more entertaining and enjoyable romantic comedy since Proposal's flaws can't be hidden and it's not exactly the ideal set-up for a romance despite a few breathtakingly gorgeous shots like the cliched auction in the rain near-finale.

However, unlike Woman which I've always found far more anti-feminist than Lyne's films despite my appreciation for its humor, Proposal actually gets bonus points for a much needed reality check in the development of a budding romantic relationship between Diana and John.

For, since it never lets you forget that although Diana and John Gage may spark just like Richard Gere's "Prince Charming" and Julia Roberts' "Cinderella," it's smart and noble enough to know that in the real world any relationship that began with the exchange of money for sex is doomed from the start and you can't hide prostitution for what it is, no matter how much you try and distract the senses with shots of Rodeo Drive and a pop music soundtrack.



The Blu-ray transfer of the film is above average with only a few slightly grainy close-ups most notably in scenes with low lighting as in the aforementioned auction in the rain and final reunion of the lovers in the fog it appears to look as beautiful as it did back in its '93 theatrical release.

Yet in the same turn, my sole technical complaint for the presentation is the sound which seems to be a continual challenge for Paramount in finding a good balance between dialogue, music, and background noise as my remote climbed anywhere from forty to seventy in numerous sequences.

With the bonus of Adrian Lyne's quiet and contemplative commentary serving as the sole extra doesn't make the expense of the Blu-ray an enticing enough proposal for buyers-- for those who haven't seen it in years or at least back since it was a hot water cooler topic of discussion, it's well worth the rental as I was surprised to discover that it was much better than I remembered.

Blu-ray Review: The Boondock Saints (2000)

In the Name of the Father:
Troy Duffy's Cult Crime Favorite
Applies for Blu-ray Sainthood

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A few years ago, I was chatting about '60s and '70s cinematic antiheroes with one of my favorite film professors. And while we both shared a love of the ambiguity and ironic endings of what could very well be the two most influential decades of filmmaking around the globe-- we also noted the way some of the most prominent characters, plot-lines, and sub-genres have been recycled again and again over the decades.

Our conversation ran the gamut and included first Quentin Tarantino's cinematic mix-tape movies like Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction which made a wild cocktail consisting of elements of French New Wave, American revenge thrillers, and '70s blaxploitation movies by also impressively weaving in some elements of vintage film noir (of the '40s and '50s). Then we moved onto other works that borrowed heavily from the forefathers of the Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, De Palma, Bogdanovich, and Friedkin era.

Sure enough, some of these films broke the mold and became instant '90s classics as -- (in addition to the aforementioned Tarantino works)-- we were faced with Luc Besson's The Professional, Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects, and Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Filled with impressive camera trickery, antiheroes, a little of the old Kubrickian ultra-violence and an over-usage of the "f-bomb," these films were repeated again and again and by the time we reached Ritchie's Lock, Stock-- the fingerprints of Tarantino and those who'd come before him were evident from the start.

Blending all of these elements together into a wicked formula-- you can essentially break down The Boondock Saints into recipe form as follows:

1) A seasoning of Tarantino for trying to hang with the cool kids.

2) Two parts Coppola for the mixture of Catholicism and violence.

3) One part Scorsese: Imagine if Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle had gone to the seminary instead of the adult movie theatre.

4) A generous helping of Besson, since Gary Oldman's character from The Professional as well as the "no women, no kids" line of dialogue is basically implanted directly into the script.

5) One part Ritchie as visually it's like four video games being played simultaneously by a hyper kid on Ritalin.

Nonetheless, Troy Duffy gets points for ambition. Furthermore, there's two exceedingly inventive scenes that were so cinematically audacious that they found my breath catch (more on that later). Yet ultimately we're faced with yet another stylish and hyper aware work of gunplay and revenge that would've made Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson in Death Wish call out for merciful asylum.

Earning the type of Donnie Darko-like cult status which my former professor noted found at least one student bringing in Duffy's film to show portions of in a Contemporary Cinema presentation each and every semester-- the making of The Boondock Saints is actually so fascinating in its own right that it garnered a documentary on the topic.

To give you the Cliffs Notes version, the volatile Duffy blew a generous deal with Miramax and then went through independent channels to ensure ultimate control (even so much that his band would be included in the film). The result was that eventually it crept into a minimal theatrical run following the horror of the Columbine Massacre before-- as Duffy has argued-- Blockbuster saved his film from the waste pile by making it one of their "Exclusive" titles and a phenomenon was born.

Reuniting every cast member except for Willem Dafoe-- who is being replaced by Julie Benz-- for a forthcoming 2010 theatrical sequel by 20th Century Fox, The Boondock Saints which has been served up in a multitude of DVD formats is finally being given the Blu-ray treatment no doubt to help increase momentum for the sequel.



Set in South Boston and opening on St. Patrick's Day, the film centers on two twin brothers who begin to question their life working at a scuzzy meatpacking plant after they engage in a bar fight that leads into the death of Russian mobsters in self-defense.



However, instead of being thrown in jail, Connor and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) are dubbed saints by the local press. The crime and the young men catch the interest of the organized crime expert and FBI agent Paul Smecker played by Willem Dafoe in an overly hammy performance as a flamboyantly gay investigator who-- much like Gary Oldman in The Professional-- appreciates classical music with opera replacing Beethoven.

Believing their first foray into crime was a sign that God's law is higher than that of man, the two launch into a career as full time vigilantes, describing themselves as operating much like 7-11 in that even when they're not doing business, they're always open or in this case, looking for more sinners to kill. After going shopping for the deadliest of supplies in a way that takes a fetishistic look at weaponry the way that Sex and the City did for Carrie Bradshaw's beloved shoe addiction, the brothers decide to take on murderers, mobsters, and Boston's most notorious villains.

Uniting with a lower level Italian mobster David Della Rocco a.k.a "The Funnyman," they become a trio of gun-blazing Charles Bronsons in a series of escalating crimes so filled with bullets and blood that soon mobsters realize they must bust the ruthless hitman "Il Duce" (Billy Connolly) out of prison to take on the Boondock Saints.



Heavy on the gore and somehow managing to persuade Willem Dafoe to don drag for an excruciatingly embarrassing finale for the Oscar nominee-- the film tries to dress up its thrill kill nature with biblical overtones. To this end, Boondock Saints is infused with endless prayers and Catholic dogma throughout as the boys find themselves tattooed with "Aequitas" (justice) and "Veritas" (truth) in exacting brutal revenge since they believe that-- much like their monsignor, the worst crime is apathy as referenced in an opening monologue citing the notorious case of Kitty Genovese who was murdered in plain sight in front of countless witnesses.

Yet, no matter how much Duffy wants to recall the same mixture of blood and religion and the dual nature of good and evil that Coppola used throughout The Godfather trilogy, in the end, it's all just an excuse to see some action and on that front Boondock Saints delivers, especially with the full force of Blu-ray sound behind it as we can hear every bullet fired and casing hit the ground.

To its benefit, the film features some extraordinary camerawork by cinematographer Adam Kane who also filmed the first episode of Heroes; Chapter One: Genesis before the show jumped the shark. And in the running time, the film separates itself from the pack of Tarantino and Ritchie rip-offs in two over-the-top but remarkable sequences worthy of study for those interested in the art of filmmaking.

The first finds Duffy adhering to Hitchcock's oft-discussed belief of holding off on showing something for as long as one possibly can to increase suspense. This occurs when the brothers turn themselves in for their initial crime in self-defense and in explaining the circumstances to Dafoe, we're shown a bravura work of incredible action choreography as Flannery finds himself handcuffed to a toilet, only to break free and figure out how to save his brother from death at the hands of mobsters. While definitely his jump from the fifth floor of a building seems a bit too Crouching Tiger to be believed-- the craftsmanship is first rate with all departments firing on all cylinders.

In the earlier scene, it's the editing and camerawork that jumps out at you in yet later on, it's the bravery of Duffy to mess with traditional narration that transforms yet another routine orgy of violence hit by the MacManus brothers into a work of art. Avoiding the need to show something twice or do so traditionally, we watch in awe as the crime scene master Dafoe is able to walk the rest of the Boston officers through an entire complicated crime scene to direct the action that is shown.



However, instead of simply intercutting his narration with back and forth edits, Duffy goes for something original to perhaps illustrate the way our FBI man is beginning to side with the crooks by having him explain the entire incident as it happens, walking with the trio of vigilantes, pretending to shoot, dropping down to the ground, identifying how things went down in a way that makes the entire scene fresh. Admittedly, this technique of calling attention to itself as a film is far from original as it was used when Ray Liotta's Henry Hill climbed off the witness stand in a courtroom at the end of Goodfellas to speak directly to the camera and lead us into the epilogue. Yet, when Duffy dares to try something different instead of borrowing so pointedly from other films that we're able to call them out as we watch as if it was an interactive game for movie buffs, that's when Boondock Saints truly seems worthy of its loyal and rabid fanbase.

With a bullet filled menu as each selection rings out in the sound of a gunshot-- you're able to choose from the original theatrical cut (which was trimmed due to sensitivity regarding the Columbine attacks) and Duffy's extended cut along with commentary on the theatrical cut from either Duffy or actor Billy Connolly. Also sharing outtakes and deleted scenes-- two of the cooler features for Boondock fans and action junkies is Fox's D-Box Motion Control option to get you right into the action as well as an opportunity to explore Duffy's screenplay.

Following some previews for similar Fox titles like Babylon A.D. and Max Payne-- viewers are able to jump directly into the menu for the version they wish to watch (original or extended). However, I did find there was a bit of a hiccup with the disc as it didn't offer the ability to bookmark and the menus took extraordinarily long to load even on a new Sony Blu-ray player so much so that I had to restart the film a few times just to reach the main menu. My advice to avoid the wasted time and repetition is to recommend you either watch it straight through, ensure your firmware is up-to-date (as I did right away and learned it was), and go in aware that it could take a few minutes to find the menu ready to explode before your eyes in a mixture of veritas and violence.