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Insights from home entertainment industry experts. Home Media blogs give you the inside scoop on entertainment news, DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases, and the happenings at key studios and entertainment retailers. TK's Take analyzes and comments on home entertainment industry news and trends, Agent DVD Insider talks comic adaptations, and IndieFile delivers independent film news.

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November 17, 2009
Film Movement Expands Into Canadian Market

Canadian film buffs, take note: Independent and foreign film distributor Film Movement is launching a DVD subscription service in Canada.

As it does in the United States, the distribution company will offer Canadian users membership to a sneak preview DVD-of-the-month club at its new Canadian Web site, www.filmmovementcanada.com. Users can purchase 3, 6 or 12 month subscriptions to receive a new DVD each month as the film is opening in theaters, and months they hit retail and rental.

All film movement DVDs contain a feature film as well as a short film by a different director.

“Over the last seven years, Film Movement has grown enormously as a company, consistently exploring new distribution channels and revenue streams,” said Film Movement’s president, Adley Gartenstein. “Opening our DVD subscription service to Canadian consumers is the next logical step for Film Movement as we continue to expand the reach of the company and our ability to share the best in art-house cinema with film lovers across North America.”

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November 16, 2009
James Toback’s ‘Two Girls and a Guy’ Features ‘Best’ Downey Performance

Two Girls and a Guy

Writer-director James Toback’s Two Girls and a Guy is one of the lost great movies of the 1990s. What might appear as a “Friends”-era sterile romantic comedy is actually as far removed from that as possible, full of nasty acts of duplicity and retribution and a faked suicide and an ‘NC-17’-worthy love scene (which really looks SO tame by today’s standards). But it’s still being very much of that era, exploring those “Sex in the ’90s” sexual mores like bisexuality and polyamorous relationships similarly explored in movies like Threesome while retaining the talkiness and headiness of films like Before Sunrise.

But likely the reason people will seek Two Girls and a Guy on Blu-ray Disc, recently released by Fox, is Robert Downey Jr.

“It was increasingly frustrating to me, given the absurd nature of the network of distribution and dissemination of movies today, that a movie that contained by far the best performance of an actor who is generally considered as good as any actor working today, to say nothing of the fact that the movie had all kind of acclaim over the years, that the film was largely unavailable,” Toback said of releasing the film on Blu-ray.

Toback approached 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn about releasing the film, and he was on board for releasing it on Blu-ray.

“I think anyone who’s seen Blu-ray will never again be able to look at DVD the same way again,” Toback said. “It is as big an improvement over DVD as HD television is over regular television and as big an advance as DVD was over VHS. We’re talking about an exponential leap in quality of sound, richness of color, precision of image … it’s impossible not to feel that there’s been a great discovery achieved.”

The Blu-ray Disc has a new conversation with Toback about the film in which he reveals the degree of improvisation he employed in the film, in particular with some of Downey’s more intense scenes. This is a chance to see Downey away from the respectable, post-addiction, Iron Man suit wearing (but still great) Downey of today and back when he was unhinged and ad libbing on set in weird, scary ways.

“It was very clear to me from the time he did that movie … that his skills are capable of full fruition and display in a movie only if you allow him to try what he wants to try and if you give him stuff that’s challenging and interesting,” Toback said. “When you give him stuff that excites him, he will be absolutely dazzling.

“Right now he’s in the franchise business, and that’s another racket and he’s carrying it off about as well as anyone’s carrying it off in the world. The Downey I worked with in Two Girls and a Guy is not the Downey that’s around today. He’s a different character.

“… I think he’s [now] doing what he wants to do and he’s getting extremely rich and extremely famous and … after being humiliated in an awful way in prison … I think he’s enjoying his success and his fame and his money and his marriage, and I say go with it.”

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November 11, 2009
Metromix Picks Top 50 Movies of the Decade

Mulholland Dr.

Like any good film fan with mild OCD, I love lists. So I was excited to see for the first time a list of the best films of the decade thus far with Metromix's top 50 movies of the decade. Metromix is unveiling the list in groups of 10 over the next five weeks. Its first 10 already have two of my favorites — Mulholland Dr. and Before Sunset — as well as the most talked about movie in theaters right now. See if any your favorites made the list, and check back every week to see updates.

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October 29, 2009
Charlyne Yi Makes Us a ‘Paper Heart’

The sudden popularity of Charlyne Yi is one of those things that makes 2009 a great time for entertainment. The actress and comedian has become famous not only from her memorable bit roles in films like Knocked Up, in which she played one of Seth Rogen’s goofy stoner friends, but for her awesomely awkward YouTube videos, like “Face,” which is just her using one of those built-in webcam effects to distort her face and create characters based on how she looks.

Paper Heart, which comes out on DVD and Blu-ray Dec. 1, is a different story. The film, which Yi co-wrote and stars in, still has her trademark goofiness, but it’s also more cerebral, as Yi, along with director and co-writer Nicholas Jasenovec, tackles the great question of love and what it means to different people, from a Nashville divorcé with a deer’s head mounted on his wall, to a gay couple in New York, to bikers in a biker bar, to a divorce court judge and family lawyer who are married to each other. The film is interspersed with interludes of Yi telling stories using crude paper puppets as well as a fictional love story between Yi, playing a version of herself, and actor Michael Cera. Also Jasenovec is in the film, but he’s played by actor Jake Johnson. It’s a lot less confusing when you actually see it.

HM: Have you seen Paper Heart since it came out?

Yi: No, I haven’t. I watched it throughout the whole editing process, so I watched it maybe 200 times, maybe 150 times. So I’m kind of sick of it. It’s hard to pay attention to it cause you’re numb to it.

HM: Is any of it painful for you to watch?

Yi: Every time where I’m onscreen is painful for me. The things I enjoy most is when the documentary subjects are talking.

HM: Where did the idea for the movie come from?

Yi: It originally was going to start out as a documentary. It was mainly because when I was around 19, I was performing around comedy venues, and I found myself hanging out with 40-year-old comedians who are single and I said, “Wow, I don’t really hang out with anyone my own age.” And I turned on the TV and “elimiDATE” was on, where one guy has like three girls in the Jacuzzi, and it’s really gross, and I was like, “Is this what’s hip, what people my age do?” And I was questioning, how am I gonna meet people? I’m not really socializing because I’m always working. So I went into a mini nervous thing where I was like, I want to meet someone …

People would surprisingly open up to me about their love stories. It was like the thing where I was the bartender but it was only me. This guy who went home and saw an old picture of before he met his wife, and he had this photo where they were posing in a photograph but they hadn’t met until like five years later. And he hadn’t seen this photo until after the marriage and it was like this shock, like, she was always there. I realized how exciting it was to have stories about love. … So I came to my friend Nick with the idea and he was like, “you know ideally if we have enough time we should shoot you falling in love so you can learn what falling in love is firsthand.” I wasn’t comfortable exposing my life like that and I think it’s impossible to capture that. … So that kind of inspired the idea of keeping it in the realm of real and fabricating a thru line.

HM: As far as the special features go, does the making-of featurette go into all that, and is Michael Cera involved?

Yi: I think Michael was shooting at that time. So I think he was supposed to be a part of that where it was like combined shooting for the Year One DVD, but that fell through. But we do have behind-the-scenes footage and interviews intertwined with me and Nick and Jake Johnson. And then there’s footage that didn’t make it in.

HM: I was sort of surprised that the interviews with the other actors and comedians were so short compared with the interviews with the regular folk. Are the extra comedian interviews taken from those same interviews or are they with other people that didn’t make it in the film?

Yi: The comedians that got trimmed down, they were our friends, and we realized one, it didn’t feel right putting their stories next to the strangers stories, it felt almost false, so we just used them as a way to kind of set up who my character — who I am. I get confused. And also like, no offense, but their stories were just kinda … it felt weird.

HM: What is going on at the part of the film during a montage where it looks like you’re in a play?

Yi: That was a play and we really did film that. It’s so confusing, I know. There was this bit where we did a dating game with audience members, and there’s a bachelor, and we go on a date and we’re eating dinner and we’re dancing to the Beach Boys, and at one point his crazy ex-girlfriend comes out (it’s a man with a wig) and I’m like, you didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend. And that’s what that whole part was, me fighting with the crazy ex-girlfriend.

We wanted to put that on the DVD, but we couldn’t get rights to the music to “The Dating Game” and when I’m swinging on the rope it was the “Indiana Jones” music, so unfortunately we couldn’t get the rights to that.

HM: My boyfriend is obsessed with you and wants to know what your favorite Web page is and who your favorite YouTube person is.

Yi: I don’t know! It’s not even like someone famous, it’s this little kid who covers songs. I was amazed because he covered this song and I thought he wrote it. And I was like, that’s such a good song, you’re so good little boy! And I found out he didn’t write it. I don’t know who he is. And my favorite Web page, I guess it’s YouTube ’cause that’s the only thing that entertains me.

HM: Of all your YouTube videos, I really loved “Face,” but I thought “The Music Scientist” was a really cool idea (Yi writes songs and sends them to musician friends, who cover the songs). Is that something you would do more with down the line?

Yi: I want to keep doing that. I write songs like all the time, but a lot of them are bad. I already have a few people on the list that said they would do it, but I don’t want to waste their turn by giving them bad songs. I did give some bad songs to people and they made them into gems I was like wow, you’re a genius.

HM: What are you working on now? Will there be a Paper Heart 2?

Yi: No, there will not be a Paper Heart 2, unfortunately, or fortunately. I’m writing something [for a major cable network] with Nick and Jay, who plays Nick. We’re not allowed to talk about the project, so we’re just waiting on that. Me and my friend Paul Rust (who is in Paper Heart and is the lead in I Love You, Beth Cooper), him and me are writing something for Judd Apatow. Those are just projects that have been around since before Paper Heart. I feel like everything takes forever to see if it can be made or not.

HM: I also loved your bit on the “Rotten Tomatoes” show about your top five movies and how The Beautician and the Beast was No. 1. Do you have any recent favorites or kind of recent cheesy movies you’re into?

Yi: I totally love 17 Again (laughs). It’s like an ’80s movie, you know? It’s totally cheesy and romantic. That was pretty well done for those types of movies. It felt like the movie Big, it was good.

 

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October 27, 2009
Fred Dekker Talks ‘Night of the Creeps’

Night of the Creeps

Night of the Creeps isn’t a horror film, or an ’80s teen comedy, or an alien sci-fi film — it’s all of those things. It’s no wonder the film never really made it to the same echelon as movies like Evil Dead or Nightmare on Elm Street, despite sharing similar qualities, as the movie unsettlingly hops from genre to genre. What other movie starts with a claymation alien invasion, moves to a Revenge of the Nerds style frat comedy and ends up in monster movie territory?

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray Disc today, in a director’s cut that includes Fred Dekker’s original ending. The discs also include such special features as commentary with Dekker, commentary with the cast, deleted scenes and making-of featurettes. We spoke with Dekker about his long-unreleased film.

IndieFile: This DVD has the ending you originally intended. Were you urged to change it?

Dekker: It was very much a compromise, a disagreement between myself and the studio that arose because the [intended] graveyard ending required a CG shot. I made the mistake of showing it to the audience in an unfinished form, and it was confusing to them and the studios. So they said, let’s change the ending. It gave it that Friday the 13th style cheap scare at the end. I’ve always hated that ending. So when Sony asked, “What you want to do?” I said, “I want to put the ending back on.”

IndieFile: It does tie it back to the beginning of film.

Dekker: It closes the circle. I’m a big fan of that in movies.

IndieFile: What were some of your inspirations making this film?

Dekker: I think they’re pretty apparent in the film. Obviously Night of the Living Dead, the Romero trilogy as I think of it. Day of the Dead, which is my favorite. Alien was obviously an influence in terms of the space critter that gestates inside the body. There was a huge — strangely enough, I only realized this since his death — but john Hughes was a huge influence as well. And then there were those cheesy ’50s movies like The Blob and It Came from Outer Space that informed it.

It just occurred to me that I just watched [REC], which I really liked a lot, and as I was watching I was thinking, “OK, they’re starting with a Blair Witch approach, then it starts to get scary and we’re getting into Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later territory, then there’s a little Exorcist in there,” and I was thinking, “Oh! This is a mashup.” And I was thinking of how there are these things on the Internet where they take two movies that are completely different and mash them together and I realized what I was doing was a mashup. This is a John Hughes comedy with Romero zombie movies and a dollup of It Came From Outer Space and Alien. But I think it’s important that it works without knowing that.

IndieFile: We had [another Dekker film] The Monster Squad come out on DVD two years ago and now Night of the Creeps. Has it been exciting to finally have your films come to DVD?

Dekker: Oh yeah, and even more so, because of the interest, is the chance to get to see it on big screens. I’ve shown it in Toronto, in Texas, in Scotland. These movies play very, very well with a theatrical audience, so it’s always fun to get the laughs and the cheers and all that stuff.

IndieFile: Can you walk us through some of the special features on this disc?

Dekker: There are two commentaries. One is myself and producer Michael Felsher. He’s a big fan of the movie and knows it well. I admit I sometimes drive in the car and say, “Hello, welcome to the director’s commentary for Night of the Creeps.” It’s a fun commentary. Michael and I were talking a mile a minute. The other is with the cast. Then there’s a documentary that Michael Felsher produced and directed. It’s really wonderful, walking us through the making of the film, the release and its resurrection recently.

IndieFile: Was it fun to get the old cast and crew back together?

Dekker: It was great. If you have friends you haven’t seen in a long time but you were very close, it’s like no time passed at all. We just got right back into the groove. It got me excited about working together with them again in some way.

IndieFile: I wanted to ask you about the line “Thrill me,” spoken by Detective Cameron (played by Tom Atkins) repeatedly throughout the movie. In a special feature, you say that’s the first thing that came to you. Where did that come from?

Dekker: I don’t know. It just seemed that it spoke volumes about the attitude of someone. I thought it was a great way to introduce a character. In two words it just says that this guy is tired and weary and really needs a reason to get out of his char.

IndieFile: What would you tell the uninitiated watching Night of the Creeps for the first time?

Dekker: I would tell them that my staff and I and our hair and makeup and wardrobe departments went to a great deal of trouble to recreate the mid-1980s and you would never know that we just made the movie last year. I would say forgive its ’80s-ness, forgive it its analog sound effects, and just enjoy it.

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