New DVDs

Above: Hunter Thompson under duress

Best watched at two in the morning, Edward Dmytryk’s potential cult item Mirage (1965) finally arrives on DVD via The Gregory Peck Film Collection. Faux Hitchcock, even fauxer Stanley Donen (in the Charade mode), Mad Ave Exec Peck has amnesia — Spellbound meets The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. The attending psychiatrist in this Woolrichian morass (did Greg kill someone?) is played by Robert H. Harris (the deranged makeup artist in How to Make a Monster), George Kennedy (as ‘Willard’) wants to beat him up, private eye Walter Matthau unlocks the secret of Unidyne, and everyone’s under the thumb of The Major, even ‘Boobie baby’ Kevin McCarthy swilling drinkie-poos in the land of Joe Turtle. Made back when Manhattan had to contend with frequent blackouts (those damned UFOs), it’s mindlessly enthralling. Co-starring Diane Baker, Jack Weston and former Mr. Frances Farmer Leif Erickson. (To order from Amazon, click here.)

It’s been less than twelve hours since I saw WALL-E (2008), an animated film directed by Andrew Stanton, though fans of this sort of thing generally point to Pixar as the auteur. Fifty years ago a lot of people did the same thing with MGM, but even that renowned studio had its share of clunkers. Twelve hours and I’m hard pressed to remember anything other than the calculatedly cute title robot (a trash compactor) and a future society of sedentary fatsos resembling Walmart on Black Friday. According to IMDb the budget was a whopping $180 million but it grossed $223 million, an apparent failure in the eyes of industry bigwigs. I assume one needs to bring up budgets and corporate auteurship, because there’s really nothing to talk about beyond that. (To order from Amazon, click here.)

As a follower of Raoul Duke since the 1970s, I was looking forward to Alex Gibney’s Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008). Safe, well constructed and ultimately mainstream (need I say I was occasionally bored?), it works as a one-sided introduction to the author (widow Anita Thompson nearly gets the bum’s rush) while missing the essence of Gonzo. There are respectable interviews and good film clips, and two moments I found highly entertaining: all-too-brief footage of Thompson on To Tell the Truth in 1967 (you haven’t lived until you hear Kitty Carlisle ask about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters), and Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner holding back crocodile tears over Hunter’s suicide. If you took all the bullshit out of Wenner, you could bury him in a cigar box. (To order from Amazon, click here.)