Movies: DVD Reviews

'Indecision' is one decision you can safely make

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Indecision 2004"
(Paramount Home Video, $39.99)
(movie)
(DVD format and extras)

2004 was the year when Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" graduated from an amusing skewering of politics and media to a full-blown cultural force that some said could influence the course of the 2004 presidential election.

Whether it did is still up for debate. It certainly didn't bring about the election of John Kerry despite Stewart's voice in favor of the Democratic nominee, but comedically speaking, what Stewart and his band of writers and correspondents did was historic.

In a year that also saw the crew's "America: The Book" top the best-seller lists for months, "The Daily Show" consistently ripped politicians and TV journalists on a nightly basis, never more skillfully than in its coverage of the primaries, the Democratic and Republican national conventions, the presidential debates and election night.

What works for "The Daily Show" (and even on its funny mix of DVD extras) is a sense of smarts (hanging fatuous members of Congress by their own on-the-record past statements is a specialty of the show) mixed with off-the-wall silliness.

Stewart, and especially correspondent Stephen Colbert (soon to star in his own Comedy Central spinoff), are never funnier than when they're deadpanning a bad pun or an irreverent interview question.

The DVD has some amusing disc introductions from Stewart and Colbert as well as some snappily written (and obviously scripted) commentary tracks from Samantha Bee, Ed Helms and Rob Corddry. There are also some of the better news segments (now without bleeps for profanity) from each correspondent, an animated "Schoolhouse Rock" parody and more.

So, do any of us really want to relive the bizarre and seemingly never-ending 2004 campaign all over again? This three-disc set makes the ordeal worth reliving.
— Omar L. Gallaga

"Sam Kinison: Outlaws of Comedy"
(Universal, $12.98)
Zero stars (movie)
Zero stars (DVD format and extras)

This is not a review, but a warning. Do not even consider buying this 45-minute concert DVD, which finds Kinison not in his genius "Outlaws Of Comedy" period, but as rock 'n' roll comic cliché, dumbing down and playing up to misogynistic losers in layer cuts and mustaches. This is Kinison in caricature; shame on the graverobbers who put it out nearly 15 years after Screamin' Sam was killed by a drunken driver.

At his creative peak, when his sets were more than just stops between strip clubs, Kinison was the bravest, most original, funniest comedian on the circuit. But success and excess turned him into Andrew Dice Clay with a do-rag. The only funny things here are the DVD "extras" -- a press kit bio and photos of Kinison's various comb-over hairstyles.

On the plus side, the lame material almost makes the poor sound quality a moot point.

Never before has Kinison's trademark scream sounded so much like knee-jerk shtick, his sexual commentary so schoolboy. He does five minutes on gerbils and rants about how much he dislikes condoms; has he been dead that long? Even his usually insightful biblical material, which elevated him into a class with Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, wanders aimlessly. The classic "Bring Me the Phone" set closer, meanwhile, is mired in embarrassing technical difficulties.

"Never before seen on video!" the cover of this rip-off screams, less a come-on than a disclaimer.
— Michael Corcoran

"Warlock"
(20th Century Fox, $14.98)
(movie)
(DVD format and extras)

Lawlessness and civilization are at odds in most great Westerns, but 1959's "Warlock" adds a few intriguing shades of gray. Here, cowardly townsfolk who can't recruit a legitimate lawman shell out serious cash to hire Henry Fonda, a self-styled "marshal" with a questionable past and a devoted companion who's even shadier. Midway through Fonda's cleaning-up campaign, though, one of the town's borderline-bad men goes straight and becomes a deputy sheriff. Opposing visions of law and order clash, testing familial and romantic loyalties.

The plot's overlapping conflicts are complex and involving, and director Edward Dmytryk has some nice moves up his sleeve: One early scene depicts a cold-blooded shooting quite graphically without showing a drop of blood. Fonda is a puzzle, straddling the fence between his familiar upright persona and the villainy of "Once Upon a Time in the West," while Richard Widmark is believably conflicted as the lawman stuck between a mercenary and a gang leader.

The DVD's wide-screen transfer looks good, even if Fox hasn't added bonus features of any substance. Instead of producing a special edition, the studio has released two bare-bones Fonda DVDs at once; the other, also a budget-priced title, is John Ford's "Drums Along the Mohawk."
— John DeFore