October 13, 2003
October 14, 2003

It's hot here tonight ... but I have four new reviews to round out the week:

Error Correction: I've amended the Prizzi's Honor review, in which I got the specs for the disc wrong and probably misled a bunch of buyers. The disc does NOT have a 16:9 encoded version, only a pan-scan and a flat letterbox transfer. Readers wrote me asking for clarification, and I repeated my wrong information to at least one of them .... many apologies, and a promise to be more careful. GE

Columbia TriStar's Men With Guns is the keeper this week. John Sayles' journey into the lost reaches of the countryside is social comment on the Latin American holocaust combined with great artful storytelling. A doctor goes in search of his student medics, only to find that they've been killed along with untold numbers of Indians and campesinos ... an invisible genocide.

Pioneer's The Kids are Alright is a great revival/restoration/5.1 blowout version of the 1979 compiliation performance film. The Who are here in all their instrument-busting, earsplitting glory, and the picture and sound are far better than they were in the theater.

Home Vision surprises us with the fanciful Carol Reed A Kid for Two Farthings, a strange ensemble piece in a London market street written by Wolf Mankowitz. A boy takes a weakling goat with one horn as a Unicorn, and is convinced it will grant wishes to his needy friends. With Celia Johnson and Diana Dors.

Columbia TriStar is back again with a Fred Astaire/Rita Hayworth musical, You'll Never Get Rich. The story's dopey but the stars carry it like pros, and there's never too long to wait before a superior dance number to a Cole Porter song.

Savant is doubling back to get discs I should have reviewed weeks ago, but I also won't be forgetting expected zowie titles like the 3 Warners monster discs, Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Posted by DVD Savant at October 13, 2003 09:28 PM