Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox is an almost hallucinogenic trip into the weird and wonderful world of director Wes Anderson. Based on a book by Ronald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), it’s the story of a fox who is forced to give up his wild chicken-stealing ways when he finds out his mate is expecting a cub. He settles down, gets a regular job – as a newspaper columnist -- and moves his new family out of their burrow and into a better house. But try as he might, he just can’t seem to keep his wilder side at bay, and his need to feed on stolen chicken soon creeps back into his life.

Freebie and the Bean

Filled with tons of gratuitous violence and more car crashes than The Blues Brothers, this 1974 comedy is also one of the funniest cop/buddy movies you will ever see, thanks to the great chemistry between stars Alan Arkin and James Caan. The pair plays a couple of San Francisco detectives who are out to build a case against the local numbers runner. They’re good cops, but everything they touch turns to crap: witnesses die, leads turn violent and ugly and, more likely than not, they crash their car halfway to their next clue. The idea that violence can be funny may be politically incorrect these days, but Freebie and the Bean (a nickname for Arkin’s character that refers to his Mexican heritage – how’s that for political incorrectness!) are throwbacks to the old Keystone Cops films rather than the descendants of 1971’s Dirty Harry. If you can’t see the comedy in a car crash, don’t watch it. Or better yet, watch it with the remote in your hand so you can fast-forward through the accidents (which means you should fast forward just about every time they get into a car) and enjoy the acrobatic banter between two great actors at the top of their game.

MST3K XVII

Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have been salivating over the release of this set for a long time now, primarily because it features The Crawling Eye, the first MST3K episode released to the world at large (and not just local KTMA viewers in Minnesota). While it’s interesting to see the debut, truth be told (as host Joel Hodgson explains in the bonus opening credits to The Crawling Eye) the episode is interesting more as a starting point than as a stand-alone fun fest. Thankfully, the three other movies in the set – The Beatnicks, The Blood Waters of Dr. Z and the awesome The Final Sacrifice -- are among the series’ best.

Ripley’s Believe it Or Not

The unusual items and facts featured in this series of theatrical shorts – be it the world’s smallest book or a man with horns growing out of his head – are fun to watch, but what makes this series work is the host himself. Robert L. Ripley is about as unlikely a series host as you can imagine -- his prominent overbite wouldn’t even be allowed on screens these days – but his enthusiasm for revealing the wonders of the world to an often incredulous audience is infectious. (Available exclusively at the Warner Archive: http://bit.ly/WAC_Ripley)

The Real Wolfman

While solving the crime of a mysterious beast that viciously attacked and killed 102 villagers in the French village of Gevaudan in the mid 1700s is a perfect topic for a History Channel show, it’s the Odd Couple teaming of cryptozoologist Ken Gerhardt and veteran criminal profiler George Deuchar that makes this DVD so much fun to watch. They may never be friends – in fact, one gets the feeling that there are plenty of outtakes left off the DVD of the pair going at each other pretty intensely – it’s fascinating to see how this dysfunctional duo put their personal feelings about each other aside to try and get to the truth about who – or what – killed all those people.

Service

The Pineda family goes through more drama in a single day than most families go through in generations. The fact that all their family laundry gets aired in their place of business – a rundown porno house in the Philippines – only adds to the trials they face. In less talented hands this could have been a maudlin tale, but director Brillante Mendoza fills the seedy story with the spice of life that can only be found among families who truly love each other no matter what.

Fix

Fresh out of the county jail, Leo (Shawn Andrews) has less than 24 hours to get to a court mandated rehab facility or face going to prison for a long time, so he cons his brother and his girlfriend to drive him there. What starts out as a mission of brotherly mercy soon turns into a wild road trip when Leo decides to say goodbye to everyone he knows along the way. Will he make it on time? Will he scrape up the five thousand he needs to get in to the center? Find out for yourself. Sit back and enjoy the ride.