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 Rachel McAdams, left, Diane Keaton and Sarah Jessica Parker have a laugh in the holiday dramedy The Family Stone. |
It's Christmas in the spring. The Family Stone is coming to DVD tomorrow.
Normally, I find it weird when studios bring holiday-themed movies out on DVD a few months later, out of kilter with the season. But, in the case of writer-director Thomas Bezucha's tragi-comic family drama, it doesn't matter.
While the primary setting is Christmas, the plot dynamics and character development are timeless. This saga could take place during any holiday or even on a regular weekend when families congregate.
The story chronicles the chaos, angst and comic confusion that erupts when Dermot Mulroney brings home a prissy new girlfriend, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, to meet the eccentric Stones, a matriarchal clan under Diane Keaton. The Stones all hate Parker, with one exception. Craig T. Nelson plays dad, Rachel McAdams and Luke Wilson are among the offspring and Clare Danes is Parker's sexy sister, the wild card in a romantic upheaval. The film mixes genres. There are extremes from slapstick to tragedy.
The DVD, available in separate full and widescreen editions, is strong. The bonus materials include a joint commentary by Parker and Mulroney and a second one with Bezucha and three key crew members. There are six deleted scenes, with optional commentaries, a gag reel and a silly recipe for that hideous dish that Parker will eventually wear in a mishap.
The highlights are found in the featurettes, including one that demonstrates how difficult it is to make a movie like this -- real human behaviour presented with intelligence -- made in cautious Hollywood.
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Casting was crucial. "I've never seen a happier set," Parker enthuses. "We loved this job, we loved this script and we loved this filmmaker. It was our collective desire to make his dream come true." As for her character, uptight Meredith, Parker says she was "a wonderful wreck of a human being."
BACK IN THE BILKING BUSINESS: This is a slow week for major Hollywood releases, so that gives me the freedom to return to childhood. In this case, I'm referring to a nostalgic reverie inspired by the three-disc box set Sgt. Bilko: The Phil Silvers Show, 50th Anniversary Edition. It is a week away -- the release date is May 9.
The late funnyman Silvers was a TV superstar in the 1950s. He played a gold-bricking yet essentially charming rapscallion who turned the U.S. Army into comedy central. While hardcore fans wish Paramount had started with full-season sets, this initial box set selects 18 "classic episodes" from the debut of creator Nat Hiken's sitcom on Sept. 20, 1955, through the Weekend Colonel episode, June 17, 1959.
This may be a smart strategy, given that it is an education process to convince those who are not hip to Silvers' brilliance that he is still funny today. And he is, partly because the exaggerated situations are simple to understand, because Silvers' pace is electric with few lags even with the laugh tracks, and because people should be laughing again at and with the U.S. military today. It's healthier.
The show, which debuted under the dual title, The Phil Silvers Show and You'll Never Get Rich, soon became known under its star's name only, and nicknamed Bilko.
As the Sgt. schemed to win money at cards, dice or horses and mocked discipline and figured out ways to avoid his duties and his duty to God and country, Silvers cleverly made him a lovable goof, too. That quick pace was a trademark.
"I'm a very impatient comedian," Silvers tells interviewer Sonny Fox in 1985 in his last TV interview, "and I feel the audience is as impatient as I am."
The box set is amazingly well appointed with extras, especially for a show this old. They include intros by Silvers' sidekick Allan Melvin (Cpl. Henshaw), as well as that Silvers interview, a 1955 Bogie roast, a 1959 Pontiac commercial and a priceless skit on The Ed Sullivan Show that introduced the Bilko character nine days before the series debuted.
YES, SIR!: If the U.S. military gets royally skewered in Sgt. Bilko, it is given its dignity in a sterling box set called American Heroes Collection. The box set, coming May 9, is comprised of In Harm's Way, Otto Preminger's 1965 version of the Pearl Harbor tragedy with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas; Hell Is For Heroes, Don Siegel's 1962 WWII drama with Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Bobby Darin; and The Bridges At Toko-Ri, Mark Robson's 1955 version of the James A. Michener WWII novel starring William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March and Mickey Rooney (it is the only fullscreen film here). For fans of war movies, this set is a must, although only In Harm's Way has significant extras.