'12 Angry Men' still relevant
Some recent DVD releases:"12 Angry Men: 50th Anniversary Edition" (MGM, 2007, b/w, $19.98). In its third DVD incarnation, this classic film includes illuminating bonus featurettes that have interviews with surviving cast member Jack Klugman and director Sidney Lumet (who is still making movies today).
Henry Fonda made his debut as a producer and developed the film as a project for himself. First-time filmmaker Lumet — with help from a first-rate cast (including Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley and Jack Warden) — makes the 95-minute picture riveting, despite its being largely set in one room with 12 guys talking.
What is most amazing is that everything talked about here is still relevant, with thorough profiles of 12 very different people and how they perceive the world, touching on violence, prejudice and general social attitudes (including immigration!). The result is a superb achievement that remains every bit as potent in the 21st century as it was 50 years ago.
Extras: widescreen, featurettes, trailers
The weakest is the Dean Martin-Kim Novak sex farce "Kiss Me, Stupid," but the others make up for it: "The Fortune Cookie," a sharp satire that won Walter Matthau the supporting-actor Oscar for a scene-stealing role (his first teaming with Jack Lemmon); "The Apartment," the recent "Collector's Edition"; and "Some Like it Hot," but it's not the recent two-disc "Collector's Edition."
Extras: widescreen, audio commentary (on "The Apartment"), featurettes, trailers
"I Could Never Be Your Woman" (Weinstein/Genius, 2008, PG-13, $24.95). This comedy by writer-director Amy Heckerling ("Clueless," "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") is another far-too-crass sex farce disguised as a cute screwball comedy. Michelle Pfeiffer is the writer-producer of a prime-time teen-comedy TV show. She's divorced from womanizer Jon Lovitz (yeah, that's believable), is raising a precocious pre-teen daughter and falls in love with a comic actor (Paul Rudd) who is a decade her junior. And Tracey Ullman shows up occasionally as a fantasy figure, Mother Nature, who scoffs at Pfeiffer while offering advice ... sort of.
The casting is good; Pfeiffer is charming and Rudd really throws himself into the physicality of his Jim Carrey-like character. But everything just seems off; nothing's funny, nothing's believable and nothing's worth wasting 97 minutes of your life for.
Extras: widescreen, audio commentary, deleted scenes, trailer
E-mail: hicks@desnews.com
Recent comments
Saw this film 8 years ago when I was 18 and loved it, its still one…
Furiously Angry Man | March 17, 2008 at 12:35 p.m.
Great movie! I am only 32 and this film ranks among the greatest…
Jury Duty | March 17, 2008 at 10:27 a.m.
