Yet a year later an equally religious and conservative film producer released the first part of C. S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles to overwhelming acceptance and about $700 million dollars worldwide, and with nary a peep from those so exercised by Gibson's film.

I didn't see it on the big screen, but as a DVD I notice that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Special Two Disc Collector's Edition (Disney, 2005, 139 minutes, color, PG, 2.20:1 enhanced, DD and DTS 5.1 in English, French, and Spanish, with subtitles in French and Spanish, animated musical menu with 24 chapter scene selection, eight page insert with menu contents, two postcard sized concept art, two discs, $34.95, keep case in a flip top box, Tuesday, April 4, 2006, also in UMD, pan and scan, widescreen, and with a CD) has all the essential components of a modern screen tale of the imagination. There's the romantic pan flute music. There are soaring camera movements that sweep the viewer across a lush landscape. Hyper masculine heroes (in this case Liam Neeson voicing the lion Aslan, which by the way means lion in Turkish) speak in short declarative sentences such as "Enough" and "It is done."

Narnia shares a lot with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Both were written by Oxford dons who were friends and competitors. Both are fairy tales in series form with thinly disguised Christian themes and reflections of war time experiences. Both sets of books are bestsellers, and each has been filmed at least once before (Narnia several times). And both films were shot primarily in New Zealand, though Narnia took excursions to Poland, the Czech Republic, and the United States. Rings, however, was made by Tolkien fanatic Peter Jackson, while Narnia was shot by Andrew Adamson, who'd just come off Shrek. I think he was hired because of his name. Throughout Narnia male human beings are referred to as "sons of Adam" (given the story's quick disregard of parental figures, however, Miyazaki might also have been a good choice).

Unlike Rings, however, Narnia was made by a cartel of rich Christian guys who sold the distribution rights to Disney. Officially the film is produced by Walden Media (named after Thoreau's residence), a company dedicated to making positive Christian films such as Holes which the company did previously for Disney. Walden is owned by Philip Anschutz, a Denver based billionaire whose land, petroleum, and railroad holdings inspired Fortune magazine to dub him the world's "greediest executive." Unlike Gibson, however, Anschutz has kept a low profile and the Christian proselytizing of the film and its core makers is relatively anonymous. Also, Walden Media appears to be much more movie savvy. Unlike those old Billy Graham films from the 1960s or the current four-wall apocalyptic Christian extravaganzas, Narnia has a hip cast and is relatively realistic about cursing and violence.

Perhaps that was because they were realistic about the nature of the text they were dealing with. Narnia is a hash of influences. In a way it can't really be called Christian because there are lots of false idols in it. Like a theological Tarantino, Lewis swiped from everyone, including Hans Christian Andersen (maybe the name fooled him), E. Nesbit, Beatrix Potter, Aesop, and various Nordic and English folk tales. Father fucking Christmas even shows up at one point for Christ's sake.

But at least the narrative is clear, in the first book, of seven, anyway. The story is easily adaptable and has the added advantage of featuring a time warp, in which all the lifetimes of adventures in Narnia don't apply to real time back on Earth. You return to the same time you left. This is something kids like.

Also unlike the Billy Graham films and the four wallers, production values for Narnia are high, affirming again that in the movie biz if you want to make money, i.e., $700 million worldwide, you've got to spend money (in this case, $180 million). Adamson is a conventional director, knowing all the notes in the fantasy movie score (that soaring camera, etc.), with the added fillip of his addiction to overhead shots, of which there is an unusual abundance in Narnia. Personally, for me the best thing about Narnia is that it inspired that Saturday Night Live mock rap song "Lazy Sunday."

Narnia comes in several versions. The one under review is the two-disc widescreen special edition. It's nice of Disney to release them all at once, rather than squeeze more money out of the public by spacing them over time, like the Rings movies.

The first disc has the film, in a fine transfer, with the addition of two audio commentary tracks, plus a bloopers reel, and the option of some Narnia fun facts in pop up form. The first audio track is with director Andrew Adamson and the unruly cast members William Moseley, Anna Oppplewell, Skandar Keynes and George Henley. The kids tell rather lame punchline free stories and in general act up. The second track is with the Adamson, production designer Roger Ford (by 'phone), and producer Mark Johnson. This is much more informed but I have to say right now I can't remember anything they said.

The meat of the extras is on disc two, which features two large scale groups of supplements, the first called "Creating Narnia, the second called "Creatures, Lands & Legends." The first section contains "Chronicles of a Director," which explains how Adamson came to make the film, "The Children's Magical Journey," about the casting of the thing, and "Evolution of an Epic," with the subsets "From One Man's Mind," a four minute bio of Lewis, and "Cinematic Storytellers," which features interviews with Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop, Howard Berger of Knb Creature Shop, Isis Mussenden on costumes, Ford again, DP Don McAlpine, editor Sim Evan-Jones, composer Harry Gregson-Williams and producer Johnson (but not with the make up people, who won the film's sole Oscar). There is also a lengthy section on "Creating Creatures," and an "Anatomy of a Scene: The Melting River." Creatures, Lands and Legends gives profiles of the creation of the White Witch, Aslan, Tumnus, and eight others, while in "Explore Narnia" one visits via a map the Lantern Waste, the White Witch's Castle, the Battlefield, The Stone Table, and Cair Paravel. In "Legends in Time" you get a timeline of the whole Narnia series.

One of my favorite action films from the 1980s is Blue Thunder: Special Edition (Sony [Columbia], 1983, 109 minutes, color, R, 2.35:1 enhanced, DD 5.1 in English, DD Surround in French and Portuguese, with English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles, animated musical menu with 28-chapter scene selection, one-page insert with ads, keep case, one disc, $19.95, released on Tuesday, April 4, 2006). Perhaps it is a tad slim on meat, but it is still effective and the helicopter footage, presumably impossible to do now, is still terrific. I saw it at a time when I wasn't watching movies at all, but staying at home reading Proust. The only other film I saw in the theater around this time was Tootsie.

Blue Thunder is a minor entry in the "cinema of paranoia," and to anyone who says that 1980s films were apolitical, I merely point to this film, Under Fire, Salvador, and a host of others. The premise is that cop chopper pilot Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) has been picked to test fly a sleek black new $5 million dollar helicopter by a shady government agency.

One of those in charge is Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), his old nemesis from Vietnam. With his new partner Lymangood (Daniel Stern), Murphy learns that the project is a part of a larger conspiracy to effect crowd control. When Lymangood is killed, Murphy goes rogue and enlists his plucky girlfriend (Candy Clark) to deliver a crucial videotape to a local TV station. The film ends with a lengthy duel between Murphy and his foe over the rooftops of downtown Los Angeles.

Written by Dan O'Bannon, surfing on the success of Alien and Don Jakoby (with uncredited dialogue polish by Dean Riesner), Blue Thunder avoids certain clichés of the genre. For one thing, in a typical thriller the girlfriend is usually an argumentative shrew who takes the side of the villains (see Christine Lahti in And Justice For All, or Hope Davis, who seems to specialize in such roles, in Arlington Road), a mellow bruiser whose lack of support for the hero turns the audience against her. Here Clark is a game girl who is dedicated to Murphy despite his demons and doesn't bat an eye before taking on the assignment of fetching the tape and driving across town to the television station with the cops in pursuit.

Further, when she gets to the station a government shill tries to sweet talk her out of the tape. In a typical action film, she would have buckled at this point and handed over the evidence. But Clark remains plucky, and doesn't believe the guy, obeying her orders to put the tape only in the hands of the newsman. This is gratifying.

The photography by the late John Alonzo, the human Steadicam, who also did Chinatown, is spectacular. Also nice is that one sees a few locations that later turn up in the films of those L.A.-centric directors Michael Mann and William Friedkin.

This disc of Blue Thunder supersedes an earlier disc from back in 1998. This one is packed with supplements.

First off is a commentary track by director John Badham, with editor Frank Morriss (who doesn't contribute much), and later on special effects guy Hoyt Yeatman. We learn a number of things about the film from this track. For one, Bryan Brown was originally going to be Cochrane, but when he dropped out due to a commitment to make a friend's low budget feature, McDowell stepped in. As it happened, McDowell was terrified of flying, and was sick most of the time he was up in the air. Badham also acknowledges that Reisner, who was one of those guys who made a living off of script doctoring, wrote some of the dialogue, and that he wrote one scene himself, which he hates (between McDowell and Scheider in the parking garage). Badham also points out that Scheider was a regular George Hamilton, spending his free time nurturing his tan. In the famous rain of BBQed chickens scene, Badham says they used real chickens because they were cheaper ($2 dollars at Ralph's as opposed to 20 per rubber chicken). Badham sounds a bit like a fuddy duddy, just like Corman sounds on his yak tracks, and you wonder how such nice guys can command huge sets, but maybe there are more nice people in Hollywood than one assumes.

In addition, there is a featurette about the making of the Blue Thunder chopper, a 1983 promotional featurette, three storyboard galleries, the trailer, trailers for The Patriot and The Fog and a 40-minute featurette, "Ride with the Angels: The Making of Blue Thunder. " In this one, we learn that O'Bannon and Jakoby originally were writing a take off on Taxi Driver with a psychotic chopper pilot. We also learn that O'Bannon came down with Crone's disease at the time, which solves some mysteries about his mysterious career arc.

John Badham also directed Saturday Night Fever which sparked the whole disco craze, but coming late to the trend was Robert Klane's Thank God It's Friday (Sony [Columbia], 1978, 89 minutes, color, PG, 1.85:1 enhanced, DD 5.1 in English, with English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles, 12-chapter scene selection, keep case, one disc, $14.95, released on Tuesday, April 4, 2006), written by Barry Bernstein and produced by Rob Cohen (xXx) for Casablanca Records, which used the project as a showcase for the Commodores and Donna Summer.

Thank God It's Friday is the equivalent of an anthology film in which the stories of about 10 people are told as they intersect one night at the Zoo, a hot disco in, apparently both New York and Los Angeles. I get the impression that it is suppose to be NY, based on the horrific accents of some of the characters, but the radio station in the film has a K call letter, and the locales are obviously LA. On the other hand, one of the characters is obviously based on Drew Barrymore's mother, who was an habitué of Studio 54, and who plays herself in that role in The Last Days of Disco.

Some of those gathered for the night include two nerdy but horny boys driving a VW, the type of characters soon to become all too familiar from a thousand teen comedies. There are also two high school girls (one is Terri Nunn) hitchhiking so they can enter the dance contest and win enough to buy some tickets to a KISS concert. Another is a stuffy accountant and his blonde wife out on their anniversary. She is seduced by the club's owner (Jeff Goldblum), who is hyper-concerned about his car.

An Hispanic guy is looking for a dance partner, and a short bully is looking for his computer match blind date. Donna Summer is a young singer wanting to sing before the Commodores take the stage, to prove she has talent. Debra Winger is Jennifer, a nerdy girl who comes with a friend out for a good time who has numerous rules about picking up guys, all of which she breaks, leaving Jennifer behind.

Starting off with its cartoon animation of the Columbia maiden doing a dance turn, this film is thin nostalgic nonsense. There is too much talking land not enough music, and the screeching human voices do a lot of overlapping to the point of insanity on the part of the listener. It's a shrill, over-bright, chaotic movie.

The disc contains no extras.

Letters

From Seymour Grant:

"Maybe I'm wrong. I didn't actually believe that in Basic Instinct 2 Dr. Glass committed the murders. I thought the ending was a nod to the original, where it sort of left it open to interpretation, until the very last shot of the ice pick under the bed. I got that there were three possibilities. She did it, the cop did it, or Glass did it. I took Glass's smile at the end as an indication that he wasn't insane and being a psychologist had gotten away with getting himself locked up in the loony bin instead of going to jail. Catherine called him on it right before she left, but I never really believed that Catherine hadn't done it all. I thought she was just mindfucking him, in case he really was crazy. If your interpretation is correct, that Glass really did it, I'd find myself annoyed. Catherine Tramell has sort of become a supervillain on a Vader or Hannibal level. Making an entire movie where she doesn't really kill anyone is sort of absurd. There is a kind of inspired quality to it, but at the end of the day, we like her because she is a villain. Prettying her up as you put it is a ridiculous idea. Ambiguity is good, but at the end, I guess I just really want to believe it all was she. I actually was surprised I liked the movie as much as I did. It did feel it was a retread of the first movies plot with an analyst instead of a cop, but that didn't bother me as much. I agree that it was lacking the excess of the first one. I wished that had been in here but I was overly disappointed. I'm sure some of it will show up on an unrated DVD soon enough. I remember the leaked Internet footage showing a three way but that was nowhere to be found in the movie. I think the vulgarity would have greatly enhanced the movie. I am interested in seeing what other people think about it. If Glass did do it, then your point about him discovering the body of his ex-wife if correct. It makes no sense."

And incidentally, if you are interested in KILL BILL, you might find my new book, KILL BILL: AN UNOFFICIAL CASEBOOK useful. It is now available in fine bookstores everywhere, or from Amazon.

Not only that, I've got a new book out on an aspect of film noir I call film soleil, titled simply FILM SOLEIL. It is sure to alter film criticism as we know it to its very core. Order it now!

And if you are interested in what I sound like, I can be heard on KBOO radio (90.7 FM) the second and the fourth Wednesday of the month, at 9 AM in the morning (Pacific Standard Time) on Ed Goldberg's show MOVIE TALK along with Dawn Taylor. It's available via streaming audio (in 20 Kbps Stereo). The next broadcast is Wednesday, April 12, at 9 AM, with the critics' ten best lists.

COMING SOON: Oscar winners on DVD, a package of Hitchcock movies and TV shows, Val Lewton, REMINGTON STEEL and other TV mystery shows, many STAR TREKS, the third annual DVD Tray of Horror, and more!

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