New on DVD: ‘Good Hair,’ ‘Hunger,’ ‘Contempt’ and more …

15 Feb, 2010 By: Mike Clark

Last week, in talking about the new-to-DVD 1966 TV version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, I alluded to the 1933 oddball movie version of Alice in Wonderland. Now, it turns out that Universal is releasing it Mar 2 to cash in on the new Tim Burton Alice. The movie has a rep as a misfire, and I haven’t seen it since the early 1960s. But my curiosity is up due to the supporting cast: Cary Grant (Mock Turtle), Gary Cooper (White Knight) and W.C. Fields (Humpty Dumpty).

Now on to this week’s picks:

Good Hair

Street 2/16
Lionsgate, Documentary, B.O. $4.2 million, $27.98 DVD, ‘PG-13’ for some language including sex and drug references, and brief partial nudity.
Stars Chris Rock.
2009. Comic Chris Rock tries to do for African-American cosmetology what Bill Maher did for God in Religulous — embarking on an odyssey to educate himself on the big-business aspect of hair and all the sub-categories this entails.
Extras: Commentary by Rock and producer Nelson George.
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Hunger

Street 2/16
Criterion, Drama, B.O. $0.2 million, $39.95 DVD or Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham.
2008. Brit video artist Steve McQueen’s justly acclaimed political prison drama focuses on the 1981 Maze Prison hunger strike masterminded by real-life Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands (Fassbender) amid his weakened final days.
Extras: McQueen recalls how the strike, which he says was vastly underreported by the Brit press, affected him during his youth; interviews with the cast and writer Enda Walsh and others; the BBC’s 1981 look at the strike; and an essay by critic Chris Darke.
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Contempt (Le Mepris)

Street 2/16
Lionsgate, Drama, $39.99 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang.
1963. Studio Canal appears to be challenging industry-standard Criterion to a game of HORSE when it comes to making arthouse classics look like opening night. Contempt is among the most gorgeous-looking European films of the era.
Extras: Jammed: an intro by film professor/historian Colin MacCabe, which packs an amazing amount of historical info into five minutes; and scads of look-backs clocking in at various length — some done at the time, some more recent.
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The Music Man

Warner, Musical, $28.99 Blu-ray, ‘G.’
Stars Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddie Hackett, Ron Howard.
1962. Warner Home Entertainment didn’t pull many muscles serving up the paltry extras on its Blu-ray of The Music Man, but this best picture Oscar nominee was shot in pristine Technirama, which means that, visually speaking, even lesser renderings invariably start a few gallops out of the gate.
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The Perfect Furlough

Available Now via Amazon.com CreateSpace
Universal, Genre, $19.98 DVD, NR.
Stars Tony Curtis, Linda Cristal, Janet Leigh.
1958. The art of director Blake Edwards ceases to exist without letterboxing. Even fluff such as The Perfect Furlough needs the widescreen treatment. Tony Curtis plays a corporal given a Paris furlough with an Argentine actress (Linda Cristal) to boost the morale of his unit. Once the story gets out of confined spaces, and Edwards gets to the countryside, the movie is a pleasant diversion.
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Bad Girls of Film Noir Vol. 2

Sony Pictures, Drama, $24.96 DVD, NR.
Stars Janis Carter, Cleo Moore, Ida Lupino
1946-56. Vol. 1’s companion amounts to a Cleo Moore film festival, though the one movie here the late buxom blonde isn’t in is best of the bunch. The set includes, in order of preference, Night Editor (1946), Over-Exposed (1956), Women's Prison (1955) and One Girl's Confession (1953).
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