I think I see your problem. You have this list. It’s a list of people you need/want to buy a Christmas gift for. The trouble is that they’re into home theatre, and you don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars. You couldn’t tell a Wolf Man from a Wolverine. And you always thought that Paranormal Activity was something too kinky to talk about. Fortunately, Upcomingdiscs has come to the rescue every Christmas with our Gift Guide Spotlights. Keep checking back to see more recommendations for your holiday shopping. These gift guides ARE NOT paid advertisements. We take no money to publish them. For Black Friday we turn our attention to Warner Brothers, who are giving us some nice choices on UHD Blu-ray just in time for the holidays.
First up we have two classic films and a second season of House Of The Dragon that are coming UHD for the first time.
North By Northwest (1959)
Now you listen to me; I’m an advertising man, not a red herring. I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives, and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don’t intend to disappoint them all by getting myself “slightly” killed.
He has been called the Master of Suspense, and for good reason. Alfred Hitchcock had them jumping in their seats long before any of the modern horror films. He invented the political thriller and the slasher film. In a day and age when censors limited much of what you could and could not show on film, and often in black & white, Alfred Hitchcock knew how to reach those baser instincts and keep theatre-goers on the edge of their seats. Can you imagine that at one time it was forbidden to show a toilet on screen? Hitch did it for the first time ever in Psycho. Today that kind of thing seems silly to all of us. It’s the kind of restricted world in which Hitch had to work, but he made it work and has been the inspiration for many of the filmmakers who you admire today like Martin Scorsese and even John Landis. Watching a Hitchcock film is like taking a master class in filmmaking itself. When he had dominated the large screen, he even tackled our television screens and became the first of the celebrity filmmakers by hosting a weekly suspenseful half hour or hour show for several years. His show would use some of the best writers, from Winnie The Pooh’s A. A. Milne to sci-fi great Ray Bradbury. His jovial form and gallows humor became a staple both on television and the movie houses across the world. Today iconic filmmakers are discovering television and the potential it has always had. Heck, Hitch was bringing big screen cinematography and storytelling to the little screen since the 1950’s. That large frame has left behind even larger footprints for others to follow. Just in time for the holidays, North By Northwest is out on UHD, and it’s considered one of Hitch’s best films.
Hitchcock got together with writer Otis Guernsy for a treatment that ran about 65 pages. He liked many of the ideas, and the overall story was a perfect fit for the director who had specialized in the kind of thrillers where a man is wrongly identified as a bad guy and ends up on the run trying to either stay alive or prove his innocence, usually both. You’ll find the same kind of plot in Hitchcock’s 39 Steps, Young And Innocent, and Saboteur, and 20 years later he was still attracted to the theme. After the treatments Hitchcock hired Ernest Lehman, who would become the writer of record, and somehow Hitch talked Guernsy into giving up any connection to the finished film. Hitchcock originally planned to cast his old standby Jimmy Stewart in the role of Thornhill, the man mistaken for a spy. Later he decided that Stewart might be too serious in his style to make it work. He thought of Cary Grant, who was more the whimsical personality the part called for. But Hitch was loyal to his friends. Instead of just dropping Stewart, he postponed the production while Stewart ended up having to bow out to work on Anatomy Of A Murder. It was a perfect solution for everyone.
For the film’s leading lady, he went to Eva Marie Saint, who had made a huge impression opposite Marlin Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. It would prove to be one of those things Hitch was a master of. He knew how to cast just the right leads. He always found chemistry in his romantic leads, and those kinds of relationships add so much more credibility to everything else going on. When Townsend and Kendall meet for the first time on a train, he’s running from the law, accused of a murder he didn’t commit. And it’s absolutely ridiculous the seductive scenes that play out from those meetings. Thornhill is smart enough to know you can’t trust anyone by now, and Kendall might be hiding a killer in her bed. But it’s the chemistry that makes us all forget any plot holes that might be unraveling. Hitch knew how to direct our attentions, and he always knew the right tool to use in that misdirection.
The film was shot on location in New York City, Chicago, and North Dakota. The opening sequence at the UN Hitch stole. He was forbidden to shoot the exterior of the United Nations Building, so he stuffed his camera into a van and shot the pieces without permit or permission. He’s run into the same kind of government resistance with the climax at Mount Rushmore. The Department of the Interior refused to allow violent scenes to be filmed anywhere near the monument. That’s the real monument in the long shots, but Hitchcock’s crew made a miniature. Originally the characters were going to slide down Lincoln’s nose, but the Interior Department went crazy. A joke title the film shot under was The Man On Lincoln’s Nose. Other working titles were A Northwesterly Direction, The CIA Story, Breathless, and In A Northwest Direction. The final title was perfect.
Hitch scored on every cast member he signed. Grant and Marie Saint ended up perfect. James Mason was a wonderful bad guy who really has little to say. Martin Landau played his assistant, Leonard, who tripped so many MPAA wires by making his character look and sound as if he were gay. Landau admitted having fun with the arc, and it was not scripted. But Hitch defended the performance choice, and little was changed. Hitch’s people knew he would fight for them, and that’s why they worked so hard for him.
If you’re a James Bond fan, you owe this film a great debt. Not only was Cary Grant earlier admitted to be one of Ian Fleming’s role models for his famous spy, but a lot of the elements that ended up in Bond films come directly from this movie. The traveling and wonderful action scenes couldn’t have been better with Bond himself. The crop-duster chase and eventual explosion into a fuel truck could have easily been from any Bond film. During the 60’s and 70’s, many called North By Northwest the first James Bond film.
There are some wonderfully iconic moments in the film. Grant’s performance was so nuanced that he brought the character to life. For example, his expression when the bad guys pour a bottle of bourbon in a glass. It’s to get him drunk and deliver him to an “accident” where he escapes, but bombed on a winding coastal cliff road. His performance with the cops as a drunk all get brought back to us when Thornhill needs to escape again, this time sober and from an auction. He turns into the guy we saw drunk and spars with the auctioneer, and it’s all sheer magic. With Hitchcock it’s all a big lie, and he lands you hook, line, and sinker. “In the world of advertising, there’s no such thing as a lie. There’s only expedient exaggeration.”
Blazing Saddles (1974)
“Go do that voodoo that you do so well.”
Can you believe it? Mel Brooks is 98 years old and still going strong. He has become one of the most iconic comedy writers/directors/producers is the history of the industry. He started out by writing for Carl Reiner and his Your Show Of Shows from 1950 to 1954. Before that he wrote sketches here and there going back into the 1940’s. He went on to write for such television greats as Sid Ceasar and Dick Emory. American audiences were laughing at his material for decades, but no one really knew his name. He hit upon a television series idea, and the rest, as they say, is history. That television idea was Get Smart, and it made both Mel Brooks and star Don Adams household names. That James Bond spoof series ran for five years from 1965-1970. It was then that he decided to try his hands at the silver screen. In 1974 he made his mark with a bang with the release of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein in a one-two combination heard around the world. How many people start out by making two quick films and find both of them classic cinema 50 years later? I only know one name on that list, and it’s Mel Brooks. The hits kept coming, and for the 1970’s Brooks ruled the comedy box office. There was High Anxiety. Then he set out to dominate the 1980’s with The History Of The World Part 1, Spaceballs, and The Producers. The 1990’s saw Dracula Dead And Loving It along with Robin Hood: Men In Tights. In the meantime he found the time to lend his talents to such television shows as Curb Your Enthusiasm and South Park. Genius is a word often casually abused, but with Mel Brooks it’s an understatement.
“Men, you are about to embark on a great crusade to stamp out runaway decency in the west. Now you men will only be risking your lives, whilst I will be risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.”
Blazing Saddles tells the story of Black Bart, played by Cleavon Little. Bart is a black man in a racist town of Rock Ridge. The town is controlled by a large family of Johnsons. All of the businesses bear the name, including a Howard Johnson’s. The governor is a witless kind of a man played by Brooks in one of two cameos in the film. His right-hand man is Hedley Lamar, played by another comic genius, Harvey Korman. Yes, the name recalls that silent screen star Hedy Lamar ,and she actually sued the film for the misuse of her name. Brooks talked the studio into settling because he figured she’d earned the right to the money, and she ended up with about 10 grand for the trouble.
When the townspeople demand law and order, Lamar decides to throw a bomb into the mix by giving the job to Bart. His introduction into the city is one of the funniest moments in film history, when he literally takes himself hostage to escape the angry mob. He ends up meeting an old fast gun named Jim, whose friends call him … Jim. Gene Wilder is the newfound deputy, and this is one of his quietest and most nuanced roles. He doesn’t say or do much, but his presence is felt in the film. When Bart manages to calm down a loco named Mongo, played by Alex Karras, the townsfolk warm up to him, and that spoils Lamar’s plans. He sends in the local saloon girl Lili Von Strupp to seduce and then dump Bart. But she kind of falls for the guy. The result leads to an all-out war between Lamar’s dudes and the town.
Here Brooks founded the meta movement found in so many films these days. The fight breaks into nearby soundstages where an MGM big musical is being filmed and out into the Warner Brothers lot where Lamar escapes via taxi to the Chinese Theatre, were he’s clued in to the whereabouts of the mob by watching Blazing Saddles on the screen. It’s all a hoot, and it’s all been copied so many times that you might be a little jaded. As you watch, remember this is where most of these concepts started. Cleavon Little should have seen his career launched with the film. It was originally Richard Pryor’s, but a “lost weekend” when he didn’t show up for work scared the studio over his well-publicized drug addiction, and Little took the part. He never really followed up on the film, and he died at the young age of 53.
The film just couldn’t be made today. It’s too easy to offend people, and this film offends everyone. The N word is dropped more times than Herschel Walker’s dropped footballs. I was pleased there was no disclaimer at the beginning of the film. There shouldn’t be. If you’re offended, fine. Easy solution. Don’t watch it. Let the rest of us be entertained, while understanding it’s all in good humor, and leave it at that. This film also offers some “authentic western gibberish dialog”.
House Of The Dragon Season 2 (2024)
“Duty is sacrifice. It eclipses all things; even blood. All men of honor must pay its price. The North owes a great duty to the Seven Kingdoms. One older than any oath. Since the days of the First Men, we have stood as guardians against the cold and the dark. Through its long tradition, the Night’s Watch cultivated its strength from doomed men who had their life as their only possession. But my ancestor, Torrhen Stark, began a tradition by making an offering at the onset of winter: one in 10 men from our household was to be chosen to fortify the Watch. This is not a sentence, but an honor. A duty embraced by all who serve the North. Even by mine own kin. The North must stand ready. Winter is coming.”
Game Of Thrones was a huge hit for both the writer of the books George RR Martin and HBO, which aired the series to rising ratings. When it was finished, there were a ton of sequels and prequels planned. One promised the continuing story of John Snow, while others would explore other lands and times in Martin’s universe. A lot of these plans fell through or were postponed to a future time. The finale of Game Of Thrones left many fans disappointed but hoping for more to come. It took a few years, but a new series did rise from the ashes of the old. The first season of House Of The Dragon introduced us to the Kingdom of King Viserys Targaryen (Considine) and the long centuries ago when the Targaryen line ruled the Seven Kingdoms. It’s a setup for Thrones’ story of a Targaryen who brought it all to an end.. The king has died, and the second season sees a repeat of something we saw in the earlier series. There’s a conspiracy to name a king, in this case Aegon II. But this is really the story of two queens. On the Green team you have Queen Alicent Hightower (Cooke), the mother of the new king, who heard the king “change his mind” at the last moment of his life to name her son king. The Black team is led by Queen Rhaenyra (D’Arcy), who was proclaimed the heir through the king’s reign. Now they’ve gone to their perspective corners, and let the new games begin.
There are so many great actors on this show that you have to love the performances. The two queens both add a ton of gravitas to the show, but it is the two “princes” that reveal true performance power. Matt Smith is on the black side, and it’s often hard to tell if he’s raising armies for himself or his wife. The former Doctor Who expands his resume here, and with gut-wrenching style. On the other side there is Ewan Mitchell, who delivers just as much power as Smith in the opposing Aemond. The queens hold the power, but these actors eat up every scene.
Of course, the true star has to be the dragons. Here dragons are a reality of life, not something resurrected for the first time in centuries. I love the way the series likens the use of these dragons to that of a nuclear war. The aftermath of these attacks can’t help but draw a parallel to the pictures we saw from Japan after the two atomic bomb uses. Both of the leads understand that the use of dragons is an escalation that in the end leaves no real winner. By the end of the eighth episode and season finale we see a chance of peace brokered between the leads, but has the war machines on both sides been put so far in motion that they can no longer be withdrawn? It’s a sober piece of a cliffhanger and leaves me wanting to see where this leads, but we’ll all have to wait for that to happen.
The production values are very strong here, and Warner Brothers brings it all to us in stunning UHD Blu-ray in 4K. This is some of the best looking television I have seen. We’re lightyears above what we saw on Thrones, and that was pretty impressive, to be sure. The discs are loaded with extras, and only two episodes a disc allow the bandwidth to deliver these stunning images. If you’re a Thrones fan who has been in need of a fix, you likely have already found the new series by now. I’m sure you already appreciate the image presentation. If you have a Thrones fan on your list who hasn’t discovered this stuff? “You’re about to be a hero.”
