Our Picks Reviews - Page 46

Charlie Daniels threw a party and the guests lined up down the hall to sing with their “Long Haired Country Boy” host. At least that’s what it sounds like on this fun-and-festive, all-star cover-song collaboration. Country acts Brad Paisley, Travis Tritt, Dolly Parton, Gretchen Wilson Brooks & Dunn, Marty Stuart, Vince Gill, Brenda Lee and Montgomery Gentry, bluegrass titans Del McCoury and Earl Scruggs, blues belter Bonnie Bramlett, and Hootie and The Blowfish’s Darius Rucker help put a distinctively CDB spin on “Let It Be Me,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “What’d I Say” and eight other familiar tunes—including a couple of Daniels’ own—that sample the celebrated country rocker’s deliciously diverse palette of musical influences.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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A hilariously spot-on “survival guide” based on the many clichés of horror movies from the dawn of cinema to the present, this handy little helper will alert you to the things you should do if you find yourself stalked by a werewolf, seduced by a vampire, chased by zombies, trapped in a haunted house or confronted by any of hundreds of other scary, frightfully formulaic scenarios.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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An orphaned boy inventor builds a time machine to travel backward and find his real mom. But he detours into the future first, meeting new friends and learning valuable lessons. This latest computer-animated adventure from Disney-Pixar hop-skips along a pop-cultural path already well-worn by Back to the Future, Jimmy Newton: Boy Genius and a host of Disney classics. But kids will love its fast pace, colorful characters and wild twists, and grownups will enjoy spotting its inside-joke nods to The Wizard of Oz and 2001: A Space Odyssey and hearing the voices of Tom Selleck, Angela Bassett and Adam “Batman” West. (Rated G)
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Director Stanley Kubrick made only a handful of films—10 movies from 1957 until his death in 1999. But almost each one is a classic, a masterpiece of technique, storytelling and Kubrick’s unique cinematic vision. Packed with extras, this lavish collection contains six of his best-known works—2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, Lolita and Barry Lyndon—plus an enlightening 2001 documentary that illuminates the little-known, publicity-shunning man behind some of the most impactive film achievements of the 20th century. It’s a film-festival-in-a-box reminder of the things that great movies, and a great moviemaker, can do—shock, awe, amuse, frighten, stimulate, repulse and entertain. And with Kubrick, it was frequently all in the same film. (Rated PG/R)
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Just in time for Halloween, the late scream king Vincent Price is elegantly evil in seven vintage fright flicks from the late 1960s and early ‘70s. The Abdominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Theater of Blood, Madhouse, Tales of Terror, Twice Told Tales and Witchfinder General are moderately shock-y, but mostly schlocky—good, old-fashioned, gruesomely campy, ham-it-up scares, perfect for a retro night of midnight-movie madness. Bonus features include a disc of documentaries on the soft-spoken St. Louis native who grew up to become a titan of terror. (Rated PG/R)
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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The hit FOX-TV series about forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and her partner in crime-solving, FBI Special Agent Seely Booth (David Boreanaz), really found its rhythm in the second season, which ended last spring. As the duo worked to solve baffling murders based on the evidence left behind, “Bones” treated viewers to smart, engaging storylines and two opposites-attract characters that made you want to watch where their evolving relationship would lead.
Neil Pond, American Profile

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You might not think the mournful Depression-era song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” James Brown’s punchy 1968 “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” and Alan Jackson’s sobering 2001 hit “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” have much in common. But they’re all songs that address a significant moment in American history. In this collection, these classics join 47 other songs that tell the sweeping story of America, all re-interpreted by contemporary artists from various musical genres, including John Mellencamp, The Del McCoury Band and Janis Ian. In this tuneful, tasteful timeline of our national experience, history rarely has sounded so good.
Neil Pond, American Profile

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Available for the first time on DVD, this 1981 TV movie based on the hit Kenny Rogers song tells the story of an avowed pacifist pushed over the edge when his young bride-to-be is ravaged by the town bullies. It’s “made for television” all the way, with low production values, a paint-by-numbers plot and enough ham among the actors—including Rogers, who plays a pivotal role as the small-town preacher—to make a mile-long hoagie. But it’s worth the price just to watch the singing superstar at the top of his multimedia game, breezing along in this custom-made star vehicle with rarely a silver hair out of place—even in the climatic, over-the-top fistfight scene, which turns a tavern into toothpicks.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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One of Hollywood’s most beloved pairs of the 1940s, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland sang, danced, clowned and cooed their way through 10 hit Hollywood musical extravaganzas. The four in this collection, presented on DVD for the first time, are considered the cream of their “Let’s put on a show!” crop: Babes in Arms, Babes on Broadway, Strike Up The Band and Girl Crazy. Extras include newly recorded intros to each movie by Rooney, now 88, a 1996 Turner Classic Movies special spotlighting him and a collection of 21 Judy Garland musical numbers spanning her career from 1936 to 1954.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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At the close of the 1800s, former militia officer Lee Moorehouse began to photograph the Umatilla, Walla Walla and Cayuse Indians of the interior Pacific Northwest, rounded up and confined by the U.S. government onto a single reservation. Several years later, he had produced more than 9,000 glass-plate negatives. This collection of 80 of his striking black-and-white images, the first major examination of Moorehouse and his work, is a haunting, frozen-in-time snapshot of a proud people holding onto the tatters of a vanishing way of life.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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