PRINT | E-MAIL 

Column
'Superbad' Mottola, TV’s 'Bourne' and 'Heidi' on DVD and Elvis
by Scott Holleran

Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in Superbad

August 24, 2007

Burbank, California—Superbad director Greg Mottola gives an interesting, revealing interview to Joshuah Bearman at L.A. Weekly, in which Mottola discusses the week's number one picture and its increasingly popular brand of humor. Though he admits trying to infuse the thin story of adolescent male friendship with emotion strictly in order to tell jokes, Mottola provides a thorough explanation of the latest crude comedy with a supposedly emotional factor.

Mottola jokes about 13-year-olds sneaking into the R-rated movie, how funny he thought it would be to turn cops into "retards," and he muses that Sony executives would break down and cry when they realize what kind of movie they released. This type of movie—There's Something About Mary, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up—is an undeniable moneymaker and Mottola offers more than a glance at what may be Hollywood's dominant form of comedy.

Home Entertainment

The 1988 television movie version of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity, which starred Richard Chamberlain (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry) and Jaclyn Smith, (Charlie's Angels), starts out great—better to some extent than the Matt Damon movie—and goes downhill from there. The plot's closer to the original novel, and Chamberlain's Jason Bourne is less robotic, but the action stalls halfway into the 188-minute movie and poor Anthony Quayle, a fine actor in dozens of movies, including Anne of the Thousand Days and Lawrence of Arabia, overacts as a French general. For less than $10 on Amazon, the DVD is a contrast to the recent movies.

Also on DVD is writer Earl Hamner's TV movie, Heidi (1968), starring Jean Simmons (Elmer Gantry), Maximilian Schell (Deep Impact), Walter Slezak (Lifeboat), Michael Redgrave (The Browning Version) and Jennifer Edwards (director Blake's daughter) in the title role. Though remembered for its original airing, which infamously interrupted a pro football playoff game, the family-friendly classic is a well-acted drama based on Johanna Spyri's novel about an orphan girl torn between two relatives—a hermit grandfather (Redgrave) in the Alps and a widowed relative (Schell) in the city—who yearns to be loved. For parents that allow their kids to watch a popular DVD on the condition that they also watch a classic on DVD; Heidi, presently also less than $10 on Amazon, is a good candidate—especially for children of divorce.

Buy on CD

Music

A re-release of the movie's soundtrack is overdue, but RCA's 16-track Elvis: Viva Las Vegas, which includes the Viva Las Vegas title cut but has nothing to do with the movie (it's based on an upcoming ABC special) fully captures Elvis Presley's talent.

Using remastered songs recorded live during Vegas shows, the compact disc (a format that turns 25 this month) is packaged with extensive liner notes—featuring recording dates and locations—and there's no mistaking that distinctive voice, with Elvis talking to the audience, bellowing country, rock and gospel and signing off with his famous "thank you very much." Here, he says it as a gentle, modest afterthought, not in that overly deep bravado performed by Elvis impersonators.

Songs include "The Wonder of You," his first live hit, "The Impossible Dream," and a warm, confident cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Tragically, he died one August night 30 years ago and, whatever one's judgment of his music and movies, it's truly sad that no one was able to reach the addicted star, who died at 46, with a call to recovery. He was talking to Barbra Streisand in Vegas about a role in her remake of A Star Is Born as late as 1974—but Elvis died three years later.

"Walking in Memphis," the hit single from Marc Cohn's self-titled 1991 Atlantic Records album, still stands as a tribute to Elvis: "put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded a plane/touched down in the land of the Delta blues, in the middle of the pouring rain." The 11-song album, notably the nostalgic "Silver Thunderbird," the haunting "Strangers in a Car" and the solemn "True Companion," represent the higher caliber of popular rock music that Elvis Presley made possible.

$

RELATED ARTICLES
• 8/3/07 - Scott Holleran: 'Viva Las Vegas' Deluxe DVD and Vegas Travel Notes
• Scott Holleran Column Index

RELATED ROCK MUSIC COLUMNS
• 'Rent,' Neil Diamond, 'Brokeback'
• 'Hottest State,' The Fray
• Andrea Bocelli, Roberta Flack
• Bob Seger, Pat Benatar, Lulu
• Interview with Earl Hamner (2006)

RELATED LINKS
• L.A. Weekly's Interview with 'Superbad' Director Mottola
• Elvis Presley
• Sony's Official Elvis Presley Web Site
• Elvis Week 2007
• DVD: The Bourne Identity (TV Miniseries)
• DVD: Heidi
• CD: Elvis: Viva Las Vegas