Entertainment, Movies - Air Force Times

Good times and bad with ‘Nixon’

This week’s platinum picks:

‘Caged,’ 3.5 stars

1950, Warner, unrated, no extras, $15

Lack of gratuitous shower scenes may lose points with specialized viewer demographics, yet the grandma of women’s prison pictures is still the genre’s best. Prepare to experience a new dimension to the term “stick a fork in it.”

Back story: As has been widely opined elsewhere, Warner erred by releasing this cult toughie in a juicy new product line devoted to camp classics. Only sporadic tears from Eleanor Parker threaten to go over the top, and even those tears help set up her character’s chilling evolution from relatively innocent robbery accessory to hardened con. Parker got an Oscar nomination in one of the most competitive actress years, as did 6-foot-2 Hope Emerson in her supporting role as the sadistic matron who has clout at the statehouse. The final scene, one of the best ever, has lost nothing.

‘Nixon: A Presidency Revealed,’ 3.5 stars

2007, Newvideo, unrated, $25

A key point is raised more than once in this History Channel presentation that aired in February: Here was a guy who disliked being around people who then got into politics.

Back story: Familiar stuff, but it never fails to appall and amuse, especially when we get audibly crisp sound bites from “the tapes,” their bile quotient still torridly high.

Extras, extras: Though barely mentioned on the box, the bonus that makes this release is the 45-minute “Inside the Presidency: Eisenhower vs. Nixon.” This documentary material is rich: vast differential in president/vice president ages; Nixon the politician vs. above-the-fray Ike; Eisenhower’s resentment of Nixon’s 1952 “Checkers” mess. David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower are interviewed, providing the final word for perspective.

‘Zero Hour!’ 1.5 stars for content, 3.5 stars for camp

1957, Warner,unrated, $15 on extras

Only movie buffs know this one, and yet the masses know it more than they think. Fasten your seat belts for the clunky, played-straight original later adapted into 1980’s “Airplane!”

Back story: Former L.A. Rams receiver Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch plays the same part Peter Graves does in “Airplane!” minus Graves’ role as a pedophile, but Hirsch’s pilot is still entertaining a boy passenger. So does the flight attendant’s squeeze (Jerry Paris); imagine Patch Adams making stupid with a Seqor Wences-type hand puppet when the kid gets sick. Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell and Sterling Hayden star, and it’s Andrews who’s purging wartime memories to land the plane when the regular crew gets wiped out by the dinner’s poisoned fish. So in which cubbyhole do they stuff big-guy Crazylegs and his co-pilot? We never see them again.

Also in stores:

‘Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,’ 3 stars

1958, Warner, unrated, $15

A tasty “B” cheese ball and a rare example from the giant “whatever” genre that’s as much fun during its pre-rampage exposition. For its day a feminist tract about a ‘50s wife pushed around by doctors and a cheating spouse, “Woman” headlines Allison Hayes in a role that Daryl Hannah reprised in HBO’s 1993 remake. Portraying geographically barren luridness as capably as William Friedkin’s recent and undervalued “Bug,” “Woman” gets a boost from cult hottie Yvette Vickers, who is cast as the booze-joint companion of a straying hubby. (Vickers appears on the DVD commentary.) At just 66 minutes, the film never overplays its hand (although wait until you see Hayes’ overgrown hand). Inevitably, there was a 1994 porn variation: “Attack of the 50-Foot Hooker.”

‘The Spaghetti West,’ 3 stars

2005, Newvideo, unrated, $27

First, Italian Westerns put enough opera in “horse operas” to kill off Hollywood’s more traditional dusty street fare. Then they got political and then psycho-sexually twisted. In addition to several Italian filmmakers not named Sergio Leone, this Independent Film Channel hourlong documentary features Clint Eastwood and Franco Nero. As Lancelot in the disastrous screen version of “Camelot,” Nero launched Italy’s insanely ubiquitous Django Westerns. Most of interviewed filmmakers don’t cotton to the pejorative “spaghetti” handle. But apparently, Akira Kurosawa cottoned to all the lettuce he made off the Eastwood-Leone “For a Few Dollars More,” compensation for the movie ripping off his 1961 “Yojimbo.”

More highlights:

‘Baseball’s Most Unbreakable Feats,’ 3.5 stars

2007, Shout! Factory, unrated, $20

Nice concept, well executed — something akin to the younger screen generation discussing the AFI’s list of greatest movies on CBS a couple of weeks ago. Today’s major-leaguers and a few veterans discuss pitcher Cy Young’s 511 career wins (good luck breaking that one), Cal Ripken’s consecutive-game streak and many more. Buried in the DVD extras is a real killer: pitcher Johnny Vander Meer’s two consecutive no-hitters in 1938. As Pete Rose emphasizes, someone would have to pitch three in a row to beat it.

‘Trog,’ 1.5 stars

1970, Warner, PG, $15

The theatrical run of Joan Crawford’s swan song wasn’t nearly as long as her false eyelashes. Yet by casting the actress opposite a caveman, the movie’s camp classic status was assured. Crawford’s anthropologist uncovers a “missing link” troglodyte (Joe Cornelius in hairy latex that suggests, say, the uncle of those dudes in the Geico commercials). We see Crawford explain the color blue to Trog and roll balls to him in a park, testing his reflexes.

The only thing better would be seeing her picking up a football and yelling, “Hey, Trog, go out for a long one.”

Top rented movies

1. “Shooter”

2. “Ghost Rider”

3. “Black Snake Moan”

4. “Bridge to Terabithia”

5. “Dead Silence”

6. “Norbit”

7. “Breach”

8. “Pride”

9. “Reno 911: Miami The Movie”

10. “The Messengers”

Source: (c) Home Video Essentials, Rentrak Corp.