What ‘Howard’ proves so disarmingly and so exquisitely is that some people are born with a destiny and it’s up to Fate, Ambition, Luck and Perseverance to see if it’s realized. Howard Ashman, the late lyricist and playwright whose Greatest Hits include the off-Broadway musical ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ and the animated Disney musicals ‘The Little Mermaid,’ ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and parts of ‘Aladdin,’ began writing lyrics at FOUR. ‘Howard’ director Don Hahn, who produced ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ has had access to home movies, audio interviews, behind the scenes, TV appearances and the extensive Disney archive to tell Ashman’s life story which ended so regrettably early — he was just 40 — with AIDS. Charismatic, humorous and confident, Ashman never veered from his life’s destination: Telling stories with lyrics and music in a new way. We meet Howard’s first love who was in so many ways his opposite, a self-destructive alcoholic, doomed by lack of ambition for anything other than good times. He was among the first gay wave to be carried off by AIDS. Ashman soon found a soulmate and life partner in an architect and a musical partner in Alan Menken. Hahn often lets us read Ashman’s clever, heartfelt lyrics on the screen as we hear them performed. Once he was finishing ‘Mermaid’ with its titanic struggles against Disney animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ashman was diagnosed with HIV. He instantly knew it was a death sentence and he also knew that all he wanted to do with whatever time he had left was to continue writing and working. He submitted to Disney an elaborate, ready-made outline for ‘Aladdin,’ but the studio opted to do ‘Beauty and the Beast.’
NEW DVDs:
BACK BUT NOT BATTY: ‘Batwoman: The Complete First Season’ (Blu-ray + Digital Code, 20 episodes, 5 discs, WB, Not Rated) continues DC overlord Greg Berlanti’s hit streak with the female cousin of three years missing (but who’s counting!) Bruce Wayne/Batman taking center stage.
This Batwoman aka Kate Kane (Ruby Rose of ‘Orange is the New Black’) is an out and proud lesbian, as was decreed back in 2006. Now her ex Sophie Moore (Meagan Tandy), a high ranking chief of Gotham’s private security force the Crows, has been kidnapped. She must somehow battle the powerful, scary Alice in Wonderland gang. That’s just the starting point for the ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ series that as part of the Arrowverse also includes the 5 DC crossover episodes bursting with multiple DC stars. Bonus: Best of DC TV’s Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2019. Plus deleted scenes.
SIRK! STANWYCK! SIRK! If you’re curious about why Barbara Stanwyck is revered as one of Hollywood’s all-time best, watch these 2 collaborations between the star and director Douglas Sirk: ‘All I Desire’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) from 1953 and 1955’s ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated). Bittersweet and low-key, they were categorized and downgraded at the time as mere ‘women’s pictures’ when in reality they are wistful if harsh considerations of women’s roles and limited choices. In the Chekovian ‘Desire,’ set in the early 20th century, Stanwyck is a stage actress returning a decade later to the small Wisconsin town and family she was forced to abandon by a scandal. Sirk suggests you never really can go home again. Audio commentary by Sara Smith. 
In ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ with its starry co-stars Fred MacMurray (a reunion following ‘Double Indemnity’!) and Joan Bennett (a noir icon), MacMurray’s restless, ignored husband finds a soulmate in Stanwyck’s divorcee, a successful businesswoman. As always with Sirk, the visuals with their mirrors and light and dark contrasts (which are courtesy of Oscar winner Russell Metty of ‘Touch of Evil,’ ‘Written on the Wind,’ ‘All That Heaven Allows,’ ‘Bringing Up Baby’) tell a story all by themselves. Audio commentary by Samm Deighan. Both films are Ross Hunter productions.
SIN! & SIN AGAIN! ONLY THEN REPENT : Cecil B. DeMille practically patented the Hollywood formula of raunch followed by reverence. With ‘The Sign of the Cross’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated), his 1932 hit about pagan Roman Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton a few years before his Oscar-winning ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’) and his persecution of the Christians, DeMille followed his formula we might say religiously to score a giant hit. This pre-Code demented, decadently entertaining movie has Nero’s nearly naked boy toy slave (Georges Bruggeman), an unabashed lesbian two-step, a grisly catalogue of the carnage of gladiatorial combat, Nero’s blatantly unfaithful Empress Poppaea (Claudette Colbert) who is set on seducing Rome’s greatest soldier Marcus (Frederic March) who (of course! ) loves a Christian (Elissa Landi). Colbert wiggles and slinks as a rare villain; the role made her a star. Two years later she took a bath in ass’s milk to entrance the world as DeMille’s Cleopatra.
During WWII ‘Cross’ was reissued with an uplifting prologue – and a censor’s cuts of just too much sex and sadism!! Gone was the lesbian dance, missing was Nero’s willing slave. Universal restored the footage, happily enough, in 1993. DeMille first began making movies in 1914 with Paramount’s very first picture ‘The Squaw Man’ and continued to churn out epic-size hits – ‘The King of Kings,’ ‘The Crusades,’ ‘Union Pacific,’ ‘Samson and Delilah,’ ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ – until he died in 1959. His most enduring spectacle remains the 1956 ‘The Ten Commandments.’
Bonus: Terrific audio commentary by historian Mark A. Vieira whose book about pre-Code [before 1934] movies ‘Sin in Soft Focus’ (Abrams) details what exactly in this picture prompted Joseph Breen, Hollywood’s top censor and guardian of community standards, to call ‘Cross’ ‘vile and nauseating.’
OUR GREATEST LIVING PAINTER Both a time capsule and an exhilarating demonstration of an artist making art, the 1974 ‘A Bigger Splash’ (Blu-ray, Metrograph Pictures, Not Rated), now lovingly restored, is about David Hockney painting what has since been acknowledged as his masterwork, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures). Certainly it was the gay British painter’s most celebrated, with its record-setting $90 million Christie’s auction sale in 2018. ‘A Bigger Splash’ was filmed by director Jack Hazan between 1971-73 and chronicles not only Hockney painting his definitive Southern California painting but the end of his relationship with his muse, the younger American artist Peter Schlesinger.
It ranks as a forerunner of gay cinema for its simple, straightforward look at what was then a despised minority. (Not to be confused with the Tilda Swinton-Ralph Fiennes 2013 fiction film of the same name.) The Blue-ray has director Hazan’s audio commentary, a booklet essay by critic Nick Pinkerton, the 1972 ‘Portrait of David Hockney’ and another short, ‘Love’s Presentation’ from 1966. For discerning fans, a must-see.
A CONTROVERSIAL SEASON Freddie Highmore has grown up before our very eyes as he now stars in the winning hospital drama ‘The Good Doctor Season 3’ (DVD, Sony, Not Rated). Highmore was a successful English child actor (‘Finding Neverland,’ ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’) who made the transition to older roles when at 21 he scored as young Norman Bates in TV’s ‘Bates Motel.’ With ‘Doctor’ in 2017, Highmore has won plaudits as an autistic doctor with savant syndrome recruited to the surgical unit of a prestigious hospital. This third season has become quite controversial over the decision to eliminate, as in ‘Have them die, be killed off and thus never be able to return,’ two major characters. Some fans simply stopped watching. Others wondered: Why? The DVD has deleted scenes, a blooper reel and, from ABC, the promise of a 4th season.
A GLOWING-RED RED James Spader has made Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington, the ex-Navy turned master criminal turned FBI informant to capture and kill the world’s most dangerous criminals his own. An informant who demands an FBI profiler (Megan Boone) as his exclusive partner. The series was inspired by Boston’s late, hardly lamented FBI informant Whitey Bulger. Spader routinely receives raves for this NBC thriller series and ‘The Blacklist Season 7’ (Blu-ray, Sony, Not Rated) is a prime example of how good he is. The season begins as Red is abducted by Katarina Rostova (Laila Robbins).
Among the guest stars Tom Wopat, a Duke of Hazzard, and weatherman Al Roker. As the pandemic took its toll and filming was locked down, the producers of the New York City-based crew came up with a novel way to finish the 19th episode: 20 minutes of noir-style animation!! Blu-ray Exclusives: ‘Uncharted Territory: A Season Cut Short,’ deleted scenes, blooper reel, a Brian Dennehy tribute and, on various episodes, cast and crew commentaries.
SINISTER SEX, SINISTER VENICE : Paul Schrader’s 1990 ‘The Comfort of Strangers’ (Blu-ray, Criterion Collection, R) is a prestige creepshow all the way. A Harold Pinter adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel (McEwan would achieve great renown with ‘Atonement’ in 2007) ‘Comfort’ has a pervasively sinister tone, perfectly realized by the ‘Taxi Driver’-‘American Gigolo’ auteur as two couples intersect with tragic results.
The soon to be preyed upon duo are Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson, their kinky destroyers Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren. I visited the set in Rome where Schrader spoke of the troubles filming in Venice. Everyone would be ready, cameras and cast in place — and then a resident would open a window and start airing a rug. Surprisingly, the only way to get them to close the window was with a gratuity! This went on continuously. Everett was not there – he’d gone back to London since he wasn’t filming — but Richardson, so funny and sweet, was and we sat and talked in her dressing room. She and Schrader had just made the controversial biopic about the kidnapped heiress ‘Patty Hearst.’ This Criterion Collection Blu-ray has brand new interviews about ‘Comfort of Strangers’ with Schrader, Walken (now 77), cinematographer Dante Spinotti and editor Bill Pankow. Also, 1981 and 2001 interviews with McEwan and Richardson (who died after a skiing accident in 2009). Also, an essay by critic Maitland McDonagh.
MAY-DECEMBER ROMANCE: It’s a familiar story, the middle-aged divorced guy with a midlife crisis and the decades younger hippie chick finding common ground. What makes the 1973 ‘Breezy’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, R) special is that Clint Eastwood is in the director’s chair with a story that obviously has great personal meaning as in some ways it parallels his own.
William Holden stars, a prime example of Old Hollywood with Billy Wilder’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and ‘Stalag 17,’ ‘Picnic,’ ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai,’ ‘The World of Susie Wong’ among his credits. In this era when society was being rebuilt and movies were reflecting that change Kay Lenz is an apt Breezy. It’s scripted by Jo Heims who the previous year wrote Eastwood’s ‘Play Misty for Me,’ his directing debut, and breezes along with a lovely Michel Legrand (‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,’ ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’) score. Bonus: An audio commentary
BEN’S FIRST COMEBACK For Ben Affleck playing Hollywood actor George Reeves, best known as the star of 1950s TV ‘Superman,’ was merely the first time he stepped into the tights of a DC Comics superhero. Affleck’s vehicle, the 2006 speculative drama about a very real Hollywood murder mystery ‘Hollywoodland’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, R), was inspired by Reeves’ mysterious death in 1959: Shot and killed by a single bullet in his Beverly Hills home while a party was in progress. Specifically, was it a suicide as the police decided? Or a murder that was covered up?
Playing Clark Kent/Superman from 1951 through ’58 had left Reeves typecast and depressed. He was in the midst of a very public affair with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane) whose tolerant husband (Bob Hoskins) may not have been as tolerant as everyone thought. Adrien Brody is the film’s star as the detective Reeves’ mother hires to find out the truth about her son’s death. Director Allen Coulter won praise here; he remains best known for his extensive work on 2 landmark TV series: ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Boardwalk Empire.’ Affleck was Golden Globe nominated as Best Supporting Actor for the critically praised picture. There are 2 audio commentaries: director Coulter’s and entertainment journalist Bryan Reesman’s. Also featurettes, ‘Behind the Headlines,’ ‘Hollywood Then and Now’ and ‘Re-creating Old Hollywood,’ as well as deleted scenes.
"Hollywood" - Google News
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Stephen Schaefer’s Hollywood & Mine - Boston Herald
"Hollywood" - Google News
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