Ring-A-Ding Rhythm (Sony Pictures Choice Collection) is a 1962 British music performance film originally titled “It’s a Trad, Dad” (you can see why they retitled for the U.S.). The first feature by American-born but British-based Richard Lester (who went on to redefine the rock movie with “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help”) is basically a succession of performances connected by the thinnest of plots: a couple of teenagers defy a ban on jazz by recruiting bands for a big concert. And by jazz, I mean the traditional Dixieland style that had a big youth following in Britain in the early sixties: modern sixties youth listening to music that was new during prohibition. Can you believe those starchy adults and parents are still horrified? Dropped in with the dozens of trad jazz acts (including Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen and the funky Temperance Seven) are a handful of pop and rock performances by the likes of Chubby Checker, Del Shannon, Gary U.S. Bonds, Gene Vincent, and Britain’s Helen Shapiro, who also plays one of the leads.

This is a prime example of a director making something out of nothing. Handed a script that does little more than stitch together a succession of musical performances, Lester doodles in the margins, dropping oddball, surreal gags between the numbers and sometimes during the performances. The script is credited to producer Milton Subotsky but the cheeky asides and slapstick flourishes are clearly from the mind of Lester, who came to the film from a series of collaborations with Peter Sellers. It’s not that Lester makes anything particularly memorable from it all, but that his light touch and whimsical attitude keeps it buoyant and bouncy and far more engaging than you have any right to expect.

Also from Britain is Just For Fun (Sony Pictures Choice Collection), another Subotsky production with a nominal plot stitching together performances by a more familiar line-up of pop performers, including Bobby Vee (singing “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”), The Crickets, Freddy Cannon, The Tremeloes, The Tornados, and a batch of other British acts. Both of these, by the way, are the Amicus, before the company redefined itself as Britain’s trashier, second-tier house of horror.

More music-oriented manufactured-on-demand titles at Videodrone

X: The Unheard Music (MVD) is one of the great rock docs of all time. Shot over a period of five years or so by W.T. Morgan, it is a lively, playfully-directed portrait of the defining L.A. punk band of the eighties, filled with interviews, stirred through with tongue-in-cheek archival clips and highlighted by a wealth of live performance footage shot specifically for the film, including footage of the band in the studio recording “White Girl” for their second album, “Wild Gift.” In the era of early MTV, they were the real deal, and even the proto-videos created by Morgan for the film have a down-and-dirty authenticity and a sense of humor that honors the band’s aesthetic. John Doe and Exene Cervenka articulate themselves well, Billy Zoom is a smiling charmer and D.J. Bonebrake’s time signature demonstration is a wonder. But it’s not simply a band bio, it’s a survey of the music industry of the day and the struggle for independent music in the corporate mindset, which Morgan puts on display next to their story.

Debuts on both DVD and Blu-ray for the film’s 25th Anniversary, with new interviews with John Doe and Exene Cervenka, a bonus outtake from a live performance and a behind-the-scenes featurette shot in 1983 among with supplements. And remember, this is a film best enjoyed by following the directions given in the opening credits: “Play this movie loud.”

For more releases, see Videodrone’s Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs and Blu-rays for January 3

Meet Me in St. Louis (Warner), Vincent Minelli’s first Technicolor film, is the ultimate in Hollywood Americana and a masterful musical that turned Judy Garland into a true leading lady.

A celebration of old fashioned values in song, dance, and family melodrama in turn-of-the-century St. Louis, the glowingly nostalgic tale follows a year in the life of a family as they reluctantly prepare to move to New York for Father’s (Leon Ames) new job, just as the excitement for the coming St. Louis World’s Fair sets the entire family to singing the title song. It’s a film for all seasons and holidays, including one of the most bittersweet Christmas scenes of all time: little Margaret O’Brien commits symbolic parricide on an innocent snowman family after Judy Garland sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” (see clip below, after the jump)

O’Brien brings a feisty spunk to the family as the youngest sister and Lucille Bremer provides the maturity as the oldest, but the film belongs to Garland as the teenage daughter on the verge of womanhood, chastely romanced by the boy next door (Tom Drake). The scene where they extinguish the home’s gas lamps together and the hush of shadow covers them is one of the most beautiful and tender moments of understated intimacy in film history. Other song highlights include “The Boy Next Door,” “You and I,” and “The Trolley Song.” Mary Astor, Marjorie Main, and June Lockhart co-star.

The film was previously available on a DVD two-disc special edition and the Blu-ray only carries most of the supplements. There’s commentary by Garland biographer John Fricke with Margaret O’Brien, screenwriter Irving Brecher, songwriter Hugh Martin and daughter of producer Arthur Freed, Barbara Freed-Saltzman and an introduction by Liza Minnelli (daughter of director Vincent Minnelli and star Judy Garland), plus a music-only audio track (without vocals).

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Okay boots, starts walking

When Aki Kaurismaki, Finland’s deadpan farceur of minimalist slapstick, absurdist comedy and bruised romanticism, teamed up with the aggressively eccentric rock and roll cover band Leningrad Cowboys, a mix of bar band performance, punk attitude and polka flourishes, to make the surreal rock and roll road movie Leningrad Cowboys Go America, who knew it would be the beginning of a surreal collaborative friendship?

Actually it wasn’t the beginning — he had already directed a couple of music videos for the band — and Aki Kaurismäki’s Leningrad Cowboys: Eclipse Series 29 (Criterion) includes all five of their music video collaborations along with their three feature films. In Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989) they push their own image as a bizarre bar band from the wilds of Northern Europe to extremes tht have to be seen to be believed. Clad in matching black boots and gravity-defying hairdos that both jut out into a spindly point, they navigate the backroads of America one bar at a time, recognizing long-lost relations through the DNA of their fashion statements and love of blues-based American rock songs. Who else but Jim Jarmusch would make a cameo: the blond reverse image of these mock-Soviet rock soldiers?

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Minnelli and Astaire

Yolanda and the Thief (Warner Archive)

Every Hollywood studio made musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, but MGM made musicals big and glorious and, more often than not, classy. Vincente Minnelli was MGM’s resident master of grace under rhythm, a stylist of the highest order who used dance and song to define character while creating some of the greatest set pieces in musical history. Yolanda and the Thief (1945), a whimsical fantasy set in a fictional Latin American kingdom with Fred Astaire as a cynical con man working on a naïve young princess (Lucille Bremer), is built on one of the weakest scripts and lackluster scores of Minnelli’s career, but it’s not without its pleasures, notably a pair of extended musical sequences that take over the film. Astaire’s guilt-driven nightmare is a modern ballet in a twisted dreamscape of anxieties, while a bright carnival celebration segues into the film’s most joyous number, “Coffee Time,” where Minnelli’s color design adds dynamic splashes to the choreography and elegant camerawork.

More musicals at MSN Videodrone

Bob Dylan turns 70 in May and the home video industry is ready to celebrate with releases that recall his legacy, including the Blu-ray debut of two Dylan essentials.

“The Other Side Of The Mirror – Bob Dylan Live At The Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965” (Columbia/Legacy), originally made for the BBC by producer/director Murray Lerner (who was there as a young filmmaker shooting the original performances with his own camera crew), arrived on DVD in 2007. It debuts on Blu-ray this week.

This is neither documentary nor concert film proper. Think of it as a video album of live tracks of essential Dylan performances. After a prologue performance of “All I Really Want to Do” from 1965 the production goes year by year, though not necessarily in strict chronological performance order.

Dylan is in political protest folk singer mode in his first festival appearance in 1963, performing “North County Blues,” “Who Killed Davey Moore” and “Talkin’ World War III Blues,” dueting with Joan Baez on “With God on Our Side” and joining Baez, The Freedom Singers and Peter, Paul and Mary to close out the show with the sixties folk anthem “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The four songs from 1964—”Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Chimes of Freedom,” and two duets with Baez, “It Ain’t Me, Babe” and “With God on Our Side”—are filled out with a chorus of Johnny Cash singing “Don’t Think Twice” and Baez goofing a verse of “Mary Hamilton” in a parody of Dylan. The landmark 1965 appearance opens with two acoustic numbers at his July 24 afternoon workshop before it jumps to the evening set of his electric debut. The boos do indeed follow “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone” yet Dylan is coaxed back for an acoustic encore and the cheers suggest all is forgiven.

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I can’t believe that I let Toy Story 3 (Disney) get by me in the theaters. I caught up with it on Blu-ray (no 3D experience here, but the Pixar brand of CGI has a such a great sense of space and perspective that I don’t feel I missed anything) and it was a delight. I laughed, I cried, and often did both simultaneously. I even liked Tim Allen in a film, possibly for the first time in the last ten years. I review the DVD (with the marvelous animated short “Day & Night”) and Blu-ray (with great featurettes that remind us of the creativity behind the film) releases on MSN. Also competing for the child within is The Goonies: 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Warner), with nothing new on the disc but a whole bunch of oddball collectibles tossed into the package, reviewed on MSN here. My pick for the week is Frank Sinatra: Concert Collection (Shout! Factory), a collection of TV specials that transcend format, and for cult movie fans is a new special edition of John Carpenter’s feature debut: Dark Star: The Hyperdrive Edition (VCI). And for the rest…

Jack Rebney, ever the professional, keeps the anger in check

Winnebago Man (Kino) – Jack Rebney is the star of the original viral video, a montage of invective-laced outtakes from a Winnebago sales video that were passed around on VHS tapes before YouTube made him a phenomenon. Ben Steinbauer’s portrait of the man and the phenomenon begins as a documentary cliché (“Who was this guy and where did he come from? I decided to find out.”) and his efforts to find Rebney (who has covered his tracks pretty well, according to a private detective) have the obligatory feel of a filmmaker falling back on the familiar tropes of a documentary detective story.

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Frank Sinatra: Concert Collection (Shout! Factory)

Frank Sinatra had sung on TV and even hosted variety specials and series, but when he strutted through the empty hallways of NBC studios, took a stool next to a lonely microphone and belted out the opening lines to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” it was a television revelation. Here was the mature, confident, at times even swaggering saloon singer and balladeer in a solo showcase. Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music (1965) is just that: No comedy skits or tired banter, not even any guest stars, just the singer and his songs.

Sinatra swings for the TV audience

The mix of classic tunes (“I Get a Kick Out of You,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “Witchcraft”), key songs from his 1950s reinvention (“Come Fly With Me,” “You Make Me Feel So Young”) and recent recordings (“My Kind of Town,” “This Is All I Ask”) is mirrored in an effective medley anchored in “It Was a Very Good Year,” giving us a brief tour of career from the bobby-soxer heartthrob crooning hopeful ditties (“Young at Heart”) to the reflective maturity of the present day (the melancholy “Last Night When We Were Young”). Vocally Sinatra is in excellent form – clear and bold, with the dexterity of his 1950s recordings now colored by phrasing at once thoughtful and seemingly spontaneous – and the combination of top-notch arrangements and impeccably chosen material makes this 1965 special Sinatra’s finest televised hour. It was an event and the beginning of a great tradition that this essential (at least for Sinatraphiles) box set celebrates by collecting all ten of his signature network specials, from the sixties through the eighties, along with two non-network rarities. More on those later.

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Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time (Disney) and Letters to Juliet (Summit) are both covered by fellow MSN critics, while I review Princess Kaiulani (Lionsgate) at MSN and Starcrash, the 1978 Italian Star Wars knock-off, on my blog here. That covers the big ticket releases and the cult item of the week. As for the rest…

Sit down, my son, my son

My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done (First Look / Absurda) – “David Lynch Presents a Werner Herzog Film,” reads the credits of this weirdly deadpan drama, based on the real-life matricide perpetrated by an unstable actor who reenacts a Greek tragedy in his own life and played out as a surreal police procedural. It’s hard to tell if Herzog adopted some of Lynch’s sensibility along with some of his acting company, or if the juxtaposition merely makes their compatibility more apparent, and honestly, I’m not sure I get the film, but it burrowed into me nonetheless.

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I’ve been traveling a lot lately and posting less—paying assignments get top priority for my time at home—so I’m a little behind. And this week at my MSN column I left the Hollywood new releases to the blue-star panel of MSN film critics (you can find their reviews quoted in my coverage of Date Night (Fox), Death at a Funeral (Sony) and The Joneses (Fox)) and gave cursory coverage to the painfully self-indulgent self-produced comedy of midlife crisis and career ennui Multiple Sarcasms (Image). I finally caught up with the newly restored Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Kino) and put down a few words on the recent box set releases spotlighting directors Sacha Guitry and Akira Kurosawa, stars Errol Flynn and Kim Novak, and the King himself, Elvis Presley.

The Gondry clan watches Michel's documentary about them

What does that leave for this column? How about Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart (Oscilloscope), an intimate portrait of his Aunt Suzette Gondry, the strong-willed patriarch of the Gondry family, and her thorny relationship with her son Jean-Yves.

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What a couple of weeks for DVD collections. They’re usually paced through the year until the Christmas rush, when the emphasis is on the new, the familiar and the cult. Well, Christmas came early this year for fans of classic cinema, and of course it hit while I’ve been traveling and have had less time than usual to explore them. So I’ve sampled my way through each of these sets, seeing two or three films from each collection and dipping my toe into the supplements (which is a moot point for some of them). I wish I’d had more time to view and more time to reflect and write, but as I’ve got a single weekend before I’m off again, I’m going to get through these before they are completely outdated. I present them chronologically: oldest films to most recent.

Presenting Sacha Guitry (Eclipse Series 22) (Criterion)

The Story of a Cheat

How did the reputation of actor, playwright and filmmaker Sacha Guitry, once the toast of French theater and cinema and popular culture, so slip into obscurity over the years? In the United States, at the very least, he is barely a footnote and his films all but impossible to see. This box set of four comedies from the thirties, written and directed by leading man and defining personality Guitry, goes a long way to correcting both oversights. The Story of a Cheat (1936) takes the idea of narration to a new level in a comic memoir of a reluctant scoundrel (“What have I done to the Lord that people constantly solicit me to engage in crime?”) recounting his life in snappy flashbacks with running commentary. The visual credits sequence alone (which surely inspired Orson Welles’ visionary trailer to Citizen Kane) is a treat. The Pearls of the Crown is even an even more intricately cut bauble of a lark, a tale that bounds through history (and multiple languages) and over the globe to trace the journeys of seven perfect pearls, and once again teases the audience with its tongue-in-cheek storytelling and droll self-awareness when it comes to actors playing multiple roles.

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I shine a light on two ends of the artistic spectrum on DVD and Blu-ray in spotlight pieces on my blog this week—the cinematic glories of Powell and Pressberger’s The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus and the exploitation creativity of the Roger Corman-produced drive-in knock-offs Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World. Here’s what else has been released.

Meet the Runaways

The Runaways (Sony) – The Runaways may have been more phenomenon than phenomenal but the hard-rocking quintet of teenage girls made their mark on the music world with a blast of grrrl power and teen rebellion. They were tossed into the culture in 1976 as a gimmick—the original all-girl rock band (and I do mean “girl” – they were all under eighteen when they released their first single)—and they delivered a mix of punk attitude and sexual tease. More importantly, they were inspiration to aspiring female rockers all over. The promotion was largely exploitation but the music—their music—was their voice of frustration and empowerment in a male-dominated world.

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