The premise will be familiar to many from the everpresent trailers on television: Ashton Kutcher stars as Jack Fuller, a less-than-polished single Manhattanite whose most favored pastimes consist of kinky sex games with his girlfriend, such as “I’ll play the big, strong fireman, and you play the desperate mother with the baby in the burning building.” As the film opens, Jack is deservedly and unceremoniously fired from the furniture business by his well-grounded father (Treat Williams). Cameron Diaz co-stars as Joy McNally, a (less-grating) single Manhattanite publicly embarrassed when her yuppie fiancé (30 Rock’s Jason Sudeikis) dumps her seconds before she springs a surprise birthday party on him. Each down-and-outer decides to cut his/her losses by high-tailing it to Vegas, where they bump into each other by chance, and take a drunken, headfirst plunge into a long night on the town together. When Joy comes to, the next morning, she sports a ring on her finger – and is horrified to glimpse a sign from Jack referring to her as “wifey.” The twist (if one can call it that) occurs when Fuller accidentally hits a $3 million jackpot - and the bickering couple, in an attempt to claim the full share of the money, falls prey to a conservative judge (Dennis Miller) who refuses to grant a divorce and forces the pair to “try out” married life in order to give it an honest chance, freezing all of the monetary assets in the interim.

Mirthless, obnoxious and insufferable, this film may well be immune to any sort of normal criticism – so immune that any review threatens to turn into a laundry list of excoriations. First of all, the film operates on an obscenely loud level. The first third of Dana Fox’s awful script features scene, after scene, after scene, of characters screaming their lungs out at one another, sprinting around manically, throwing objects at walls and engaging in truly painful, unfunny comic violence – from repeated slugs in the crotch, to sprays of breath freshener in the eye, to the destruction of anything and everything on the screen. A tenth of this would have been fine – instead, we are bombarded with a maelstrom of sound and fury that raises the proverbial “idiot’s tale” to a whole new plane. Tonally, both characters repulse from the word go – but particularly the scuzzball Jack, with his sleazy sex games and his irresponsibility at work; Fox and Vaughan not only fail to give us an adequate reason to truly care about either partner – they venture to the other extreme. (Perhaps the best that one can say about this couple – an effect presumably unintended by Fox or Vaughan – is this: each partner reaches a level of such obnoxiousness that, in the final analysis, they deserve each other in the worst way). On a comedic level, the film never once scores a bulls-eye or earns a genuine laugh – its so-called ‘comedic high points’ reek of desperation. Consider, for example, Fox’s decision to name Diaz’s boss (Dennis Farina) “Dick Banger” (a line repeated on several occasions to wring the most blood out of it) or to name Miller’s judge “The Honorable R.D. Whopper.” Even more troublingly, Fox’s humor rests almost exclusively on watching characters physically and psychologically attempt to wield damage against one another – not simply the leads, but everyone onscreen.

In more sensitive hands, this could ostensibly work (consider Elaine May’s original Heartbreak Kid, for example) but here, we sense no soft edge, no warm center underneath that imparts the characters with even the least iota of compassion or empathy.

Obscene humor is difficult to pull off smoothly and deftly; Mel Brooks has a knack for it, and so did the early Working Title films, such as The Tall Guy and Four Weddings & A Funeral. Even Wedding Crashers hit the mark to some degree. Not so for this ugly romp, which bombards the audience with stale and hideous double-entendres that make it feel cheap, tacky and vulgar.

On a logical level as well, the film’s basic setup proves almost impossible to swallow – Fox hands the audience one implausible twist after another, purely designed to drive the central narrative mechanism forward – from the unlikely “computer mix-up” at the hotel that throws strangers Fuller and McNally into adjoining rooms, to the “convenient” win at the slots that turns Jack into an instantaneous millionaire, to Judge Whopper’s absurd ultimatums regarding a trial marriage.

Watching What Happens in Vegas is pure misery. How miserable, exactly? One knows that one is in trouble when, halfway through the film, one begins reminiscing about screenings of Peter Chelsom’s Town & Country, and then hoping that Dane Cook turns up to drive Kutcher out of the picture.

That must certainly represent a new low.

1. Young Man with Ideas (Mitchell Leisen, USA, 1952) This well-wrought, low-key comedy-drama, directed by Hollywood mainstay (and onetime Preston Sturges collaborator) Leisen, stars Glenn Ford as a naïve and slightly idealistic Montana attorney who decides to start over in life by moving with his wife and children to Southern California, where he will study for the state bar. Unfortunately, he’s beset by all manner of complications and gets in way over his head with an illegal bookie ring. An immensely enjoyable postwar fable that has gone almost completely overlooked. Airs on Turner Classic Movies, 5/1 at 9:30am.

2. Age of Consent (Michael Powell, Australia, 1969) – Nathan’s #1 Pick of the Month. Contrary to what one may have heard, the release of Peeping Tom didn’t quite end celebrated Briton Powell’s directorial career, though it did damn him in the eyes of the public and the British Film Industry when it bowed in the spring of 1960, and caused quite a local scandal. Powell made four additional feature films (and one short-subject narrative) in the years that followed, including Age of Consent. This erotic drama with a droll subplot and overtones weaves the tale of a painter (James Mason), who attempts to reignite his creative flame by leaving New York and moving to an island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. In that locale, he promptly strikes up a relationship with a svelte young woman (Helen Mirren) and asks her to pose nude for him; he also runs headfirst into a bevy of eccentric and offbeat locals who provide much needed comic relief. Scriptwriter Peter Yeldham adapted a novel by “bohemian” artist Norman Lindsay, an outré Aussie figure on whose life the story is loosely based – and who, in turn, inspired John Duigan’s whimsical sex comedy Sirens in 1994. Though hugely entertaining, Age of Consent was all but buried by the annals of time. Airs on Turner Classic Movies, May 5th at 2:15am.

3. Eve and the Fire Horse (Julia Kwan, Canada, 2005) – Kwan’s gentle coming-of-age seriocomedy examines with great tenderness and restraint the spiritual changes wrought on a Buddhist household, when its two daughters, Karena (Hollie Lo) and Eve (Phoebe Jojo Kut), undergo a series of potentially debilitating family tragedies. As a coping mechanism, the girls instinctively turn to religion, opting for two very different approaches and interpretations. The older of the two, Karena, chooses straightforward, traditional Catholicism, while the younger and more imaginative, Eve, manages to cope by blending elements of Catholicism and Buddhism into a belief system utterly her own. This sweet-natured slice-of-lifer won a Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and deservedly received a plethora of Genie nominations. Airs on The Sundance Channel, 5/1 at 3:15pm and 5/6 at 3:45pm.

4. Summer of the Serpent (Kimi Takesue, USA, 2004) Japanese-American director Takesue’s 27-minute court-metrage represents one of the finest evocations of childhood outside of Dorota Kedzierzawska’s Crows and Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive. The tale concerns an eight-year-old girl named Juliette who forges a most unlikely rapport with a Japanese visitor during a day at the pool, and subsequently hearkens off on an imaginative journey. Screens on The Sundance Channel, 5/3 at 11:30am, 5/6 at 11:30am, 5/9 at 11:30pm, 5/18 at 1:30pm and 5/29 at 6:30pm.

5. 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep (Ben Hopkins, Turkey/UK, 2006) Documentarist Hopkins created this visually and stylistically inventive look at the Pamir Kirghiz, a nomadic tribe rejected from nearly every Asian country given their staunch opposition to Communism. The group received two options for citizenship – one in Eastern Turkey and one in Alaska – and decided to go the Turkish route. In the film, Hopkins and Pamir Kirghiz artist Ekber Kutlu plunge into the heart of the tribe for a warm, finely-observed and frequently humorous ethnological/sociological portrait of its members; the director intercuts direct cinema footage of the group’s day to day and dramatically constructed sequences that play out events from Kirghiz history, shot in a myriad of styles. Screens on The Sundance Channel, 5/5 at 5:30am and again at 5:30pm.

6. Kill Gil, Vol. I (Gil Rossellini, Italy/Switzerland, 2005) – In a biographical saga which, on more than one level, recalls the plight of onetime Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Gil Rossellini suffered from an instantaneous physical trauma in late 2004 that scarred his world forever. As the son of Roberto Rossellini and brother of Isabella Rossellini, Gil carried show business in his blood and was in the midst of embarking on an immensely successful production career, when everything changed overnight. Upon checking into a Stockholm hotel for a festival screening, Rossellini suddenly fell into a three-week coma, the victim of a freak bacterial infection. Three weeks later, he awoke in a hospital – paralyzed, with enormous, gaping wounds covering his body. Never one to be daunted, Rossellini determined to work his way back to partially-functional, paraplegic health, and decided to capture his own remarkable rebound on a hand-held video camera, in “diary” form. As created by Rossellini and associates the resultant film serves as an unbridled tribute to the power of human courage and resilience. Screens on the Sundance Channel, 5/28 at 5am.

7. Andrew Jenks, Room 335 (Andrew Jenks, USA, 2006) – Nathan’s #2 Pick of the Month. Here’s my prediction: a decade or two from now, documentarist Andrew Jenks will have gone down as one of the legends in his field, on par with Errol Morris and D.A. Pennebaker. In the summer of 2005, the 19-year-old Jenks opted to spend a month and a half in a Florida assisted-living facility, while two college friends filmed the experience; over the following weeks, Jenks spent his days with a number of senior citizens and witnessed, firsthand, life on the “other end of the age spectrum.” Not only did Jenks create an intimate portrait of the difficulties that afflict those Americans in their golden years (such as Alzheimer’s, physically debilitating illness, and impending death) but he developed an almost instinctive level of emotional commitment to those around him that made it impossible for him to stay detached – we witness him breaking down and sobbing upon leaving his newfound friends behind. Among other accomplishments, the film creates a series of small, winning character studies of Floridian nursing home residents and fully underscores the idea that some of the most special and meaningful friendships are cross-generational ones. HBO and Cinemax picked up the broadcast rights to this documentary; it still hasn’t officially received commercial distribution (hence the inclusion on this list), though Jenks is now selling copies of the title on his website. Room 335 is a small masterpiece that somehow slipped-by mainstream labels and announces the arrival of a major new talent in the arena of documentary. Don’t miss this one! Screens on Cinemax, 5/5 at 9:30am on MAX East, 5/9 at 8am on More MAX East, 5/9 at 11am on More MAX West, and 5/24 at 4:05am on MAX East.

8. Belle Starr (Irving Cummings, USA, 1941) – Alluring Gene Tierney (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) landed one of her most intriguing and offbeat roles as the 19th century title character – the well-to-do daughter of a southern aristocrat who sheds her glossies, marries a Confederate guerilla fighter, and hits the Old West as an outlaw. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 5/1 at 6am.

9. You Can’t Have Everything (Norman Taurog, USA, 1937) Here’s the bottom line: forget the skimpy plot. This Darryl Zanuck-produced opus provides the opportunity (one of several) to witness one of the most popular musical pairings of the late ’30s, Don Ameche and Alice Faye, in action; it also boasts some of the most hilarious scenes ever filmed with a brilliant but now-forgotten comedy troupe, The Ritz Brothers, who earned frequent comparisons with the Marxes but distinguished themselves via a shtick that involved acting identically and in unison. Gypsy Rose Lee also contributes a fine supporting role. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 5/23 at 6am.

10. Man Hunt (Fritz Lang, USA, 1941) – German import Lang turned out one of his finest American thrillers with this exciting tale of a physically imposing marksman (Walter Pidgeon) who just misses an attempt to assassinate Hitler during a European big game hunting expedition and finds himself relentlessly pursued by the Nazis – through forests and swamps, across various national borders, and eventually, back to England, where Gestapo militia prowl the streets, combing the town for him – and where he falls for a comely prostitute (Joan Bennett). Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, May 15th at 6am.

HELD OVER
The following titles, which appeared in this feature in prior months, are still screening throughout May, and highly recommended. (All, by sheer coincidence, are appearing on the same network).

Luna – Fox Movie Channel, 5/19 at 12:30am
Shock Treatment – Fox Movie Channel, 5/24 at 12pm
Kid Blue – Fox Movie Channel, 5/6 at 2pm
Down to the Sea in Ships – Fox Movie Channel, 5/29 at 11am

1. Luna (1979) (Nathan’s #1 Pick of the Month). Bernardo Bertolucci’s deeply eccentric and disturbing drama – the tale of a widowed American opera diva and her son who relocate to Italy and lapse into sordid incest, while the son falls into the pit of heroin addiction – represents a most unusual attempt to place the extremist classical tragedy of opera in a contemporary context. I last saw it about six years ago, and while I’ll be the first to admit that something about it doesn’t quite work, neither can I shake any of the images or the lead performance by Jill Clayburgh from my mind. Several aspects of this film render it extremely compelling and haunting, from the lunar imagery of the opening credit sequence and the epilogue, to the operatic lyricism of the overall narrative and the scenes in which the lead character and her son push the edge of the envelope into dangerous psychosexual territory. It is most entertaining after reading Dr. Claretta Tonetti’s wonderful analytic tome on Bertolucci, in which she devotes a chapter to this movie. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/4 at 3:30am.

2. Actuality: The Life and Art of Allan King (2006). (Nathan’s #2 Pick of the Month). Visionary Allan King is one of the two or three most brilliant “unknown” filmmakers around; ask any American about him, and those who claim to recognize the moniker will invariably mix him up with the comic Alan King, of Inside the Comedy Mind fame. A clarification may be necessary here: this King is in fact a Canadian filmmaker who redefines the word “fearless.” He made his mark in the ’60s with two efforts: the shockingly raw juvenile delinquency documentary Warrendale, and A Married Couple – that notorious cinema direct free-fall into the familial dysfunction of a Canadian family, Antoinette, Billy, and Bogart Edwards, in which we’re helplessly exposed to the terror of a marriage bursting at the seams. (If one wants to see the granddaddy of all contemporary “reality” television, and even the point of inspiration for its predecessor, An American Family, this is it – and it makes anything on current television – yes, even Breaking Bonaduce - look like baby food by comparison). King went on to chalk up a resume of equally daring, provocative and compelling films even through recent years (and, at 78 years old, he’s still active). This documentary provides a nearly perfect point-of-entry to his entire body of work. Screens on the Sundance Channel: 4/7 at 5:30pm, 4/12 at 10am, 4/17 at 5am.

3. Down to the Sea in Ships (1949) – The most unusual aspect of this seemingly straightforward maritime drama (about a young tyke and his grandfather who hit the waves together in a New Bedford whaling vessel) is the years-ahead-of-its time Freudian psychodrama that takes up the better part of two hours. It may defy audience expectation throughout, and falter at times, but it never ceases to intrigue. It sports three stellar lead performances by Lionel Barrymore (doing a variation on his nasty Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life), a twelve year old Dean Stockwell, and the late Richard Widmark, whom we recently lost. Director Henry Hathaway also tosses in a handful of terribly exciting adventure sequences. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/4 at 11:30am.

4. Dragonwyck (1948) – You’ll recognize, in this period chiller, one of the antecedents of decades of wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing psychological thrillers, from the sublime to the horrendously exploitative. Rarely was it done with as much grace, or as deft of a hand, as it is here. And who better to pull it off than Mr. Poe himself, Vincent Price? He stars as Nicholas Van Ryn, a feudal Dutch landowner in the 1840s who collects dues from local residents, and detests and resents his wife for her inability to give him an heir; his only offspring is one daughter, which does him little good. Along comes lovely, fetching Miranda Wells (Gene Tierney), hired as an au pair to care for Nicholas’s daughter. Sensing his opportunity, Nicholas promptly decides to off the missus, and court and marry Miranda – thereby giving himself a new carrier for a male heir. Of course the heroine’s safety falls into the clutches of this monomaniacal bastard, and of course she has absolutely no idea. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/3 at 8am and 4/25 at 9:30am.

5. Heartsounds (1984) – Glenn Jordan helmed one of the finest telemovies of the last thirty years with this delicately-handled yet emotionally charged docudrama about the difficult experiences of Martha Weinman Lear, when her husband, Harold, suffers an ongoing series of heart attacks. As the leads, Mary Tyler Moore and James Garner are nothing short of perfection. Working with Jordan, from a script by Fay Kanin (adapted from Weinman’s bestselling memoir) the two actors bring to fruition a series of moments dazzlingly poignant and authentic; seldom has a film struck so many real and deeply resonant chords, mirroring the tensions and emotional contradictions of real life experience. Screens on the Encore Love Stories Channel, 4/1 at 5:45am, 4/5 at 9:10am, 4/15 at 9:30am, 4/25 at 7:15am.

6. Kid Blue (1973) – Dennis Hopper stars in this comic western that veers wildly into the offbeat; he plays the title character, an inept turn-of-the-century train robber making a series of unsuccessful attempts to go straight in the tiny Texan village of Dime Box. Most critics who initially dismissed this film completely overlooked its satirical elements – among other things, it subtly and knowingly satirizes the conventions of the western genre and skewers the old west per se while excoriating work in an anti-establishment vein. The script was co-authored by none other than Crazy Like a Fox star John Rubinstein; he, co-scenarist Edwin “Bud” Shrake and director James Frawley add lots of nice little touches, such as a hilarious role for Peter Boyle (who plays a phony minister, Preacher Bob) and a subplot involving a bizarre flying contraption. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/25 at 2:30am.

7. Thanks a Million (1935)–As produced by Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox, this clever little political satire-cum-musical comedy has Dick Powell persuaded by his conniving manager (Fred Allen) to run for governor of Pennsylvania. He becomes immediately disillusioned by the corruption surrounding him, and speaks out against it – which of course makes him even more popular with the public. The humor here is consistently on target, the satire deft and knowing, and the soundtrack a sheer delight – it includes such numbers as “Happy Days Are Here Again” (a song original to this film), “I’ve Got a Pocketful of Sunshine,” “Sugar Plum,” and the title tune. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/10 at 7:30am.

8. The File on Thelma Jordon (1949) – The legendary Robert Siodmak (The Killers) helmed this tough and bitter film noir outing, in which a district attorney (Wendell Corey) becomes unwisely involved with the title character (Barbara Stanwyck), a shady femme fatale on trial for murder. The picture offers innumerable satisfying twists and turns, a complex and semi-empathetic lead character in Jordon (an element unusual for a noir), and – on a tonal level – intriguing erotic threads that run throughout. George Barnes’s stunning black and white cinematography also provides a strong asset. Screens on Turner Classic Movies, 4/13 at 10am.

9. The Maltese Bippy (1969) – I’ve consciously avoided including potboilers and misfires on this monthly list, but (like Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love, which also crops up on cable from time to time), this is one of those titles that everyone seems to reference amid discussions of awful yet “unseen” disasters. A theatrically-released spinoff of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In that unceremoniously bombed at the box office, its nearly incoherent premise has Dan Rowan and Dick Martin playing two directors of cheesecake films who end up kvetching around inside of an old house, where one develops a delusion that he’s turning into a werewolf. Working together with journeyman director Norman Panama (Not With My Wife, You Don’t!), the two never manage to stir up a single laugh, but they do plunge headfirst into garish kitsch, and enlist the support of a truly bizarre vintage cast that includes Robert Reed, Julie Newmar and Fritz Weaver. This one has to be seen to be believed; a concept movie in which the concept doesn’t work, it belongs in the category of such late ’60s/early ’70s bombs as Skidoo and The Phynx. (And it is rated G!) Screens on Turner Classic Movies, 4/21 at 6:15am.

10. Get the Picture (short) – The extraordinary Brian Cox headlines this short drama that excoriates photojournalistic opportunism. Screens on The Sundance Channel, 4/15 at 6:45am.

At a time when the zombie trend once again seems to have run its course (Day of the Dead remake, anyone?), perhaps this melancholy little short is a fitting epitaph for the lurching sub-genre.

& Teller

Add to My Profile | More Videos

For this editor, Bob Newhart will ere retain his footing as a national icon (his genial, bone-dry cynicism and one-sided telephone shtick make him infinitely more charming and engaging than, say, George Burns or the insufferable, shameless Bob Hope). You’ll never hear a negative word out of me about Newhart himself – not after listening repeatedly to his brilliant recording The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, award winner for Best Album at the 1961 Grammys, and watching beloved episodes of the first Bob Newhart Show. But the comic’s sophomore series, in its debut season (October 1982 – April 1983), feels in retrospect fairly pedestrian, and at times downright somnambulistic – a fossil from the Stone Age. Avid television viewers will invariably remember this as the season that introduced us to the Stratford Inn, innkeepers Dick and Joanna Loudon (Newhart and the late Mary Frann), Minuteman Café proprietor Kirk Devane (Steven Kampmann), co-ed maid Leslie Vanderkellen (Jennifer Holmes) and dimwitted albeit loveable handyman George Utley (Poston).

As The Office, 30 Rock and animated sitcoms such as The Family Guy have since proven, American audiences are indeed intelligent enough to latch onto humor sans the advantage of live or canned laughter. One cannot blame Newhart for failing to break the mold (the absence of a laugh track wouldn’t have flown back in 1982); even so, the studio audience reactions here feel overmodulated and a little jarring. But more striking is the degree to which this sitcom clings aggressively to ancient formula humor. Consider, if you will, the wide array of options presented us: 1) Character A delivers a sincere, heartfelt line; Character B undercuts it with a wise-ass remark. 2) Character A delivers a sincere, heartfelt line and then undercuts it himself or herself with a wise-ass remark. 3) Character A delivers a sincere, heartfelt line; Character B undercuts it with a wise-ass facial expression (an option used ad infinitum for Newhart himself). Equally striking is the way in which the series breaks most consistent narrative threads from episode to episode. For example: in one episode, travel-writer Dick speaks at length of beginning authorship on a book entitled Captivating Kansas; two episodes later, he’s already finished researching and writing that tome and is neck-deep in the middle of The Many Moods of Minnesota. In one episode, George Utley runs into his “old flame” (Rue McClanahan, fresh from Maude stardom) and she’s never heard from or spoken of again.

A program like The Office is refreshing for eking out the opposite strategy in every area: it sustains, develops, and hones its narrative threads, even generating a little bit of suspense (will Jim and Pam ever become a couple?) to anchor the drama – so that watching the episodes a-chronologically threatens to ruin the effect of character and narrative development. With a program such as Newhart (or, for that matter, Three’s Company, The Facts of Life, or any other early-1980s sitcom), one could drift in and out at any random point without missing a beat. Such was the convention of the time: cook up a one-sentence plot, weave a series of one liners around it, then resolve everything and start from scratch with the next episode. Every episode is self-contained. Looking at these old episodes, I could never quite get used to that. I also missed the tendency of recent sitcoms (such as The Office) to interweave subtle, deadpan humor and comic bits pulled from way out of left field, each of which (as one of my AMG colleagues has observed) is used not simply to set up and deliver a gag but to give us some glistening level of revelatory insight into a character – so that we believe we’re being led into an actual world with three-dimensional characters in lieu of miked cardboard cutouts used to deliver ancient one-liners.

Above all else, though, I felt incredulous – watching Newhart – about how fundamentally unlikeable one of the main characters is. As Kirk, a pathological liar with more than a passing yen for Holmes’s adorable Leslie, Kampmann aggressively grates on one’s nerves. Obviously series creator Barry Kemp wanted to trade off of the kind of quirky psychopathology that made Bob’s patients on The Bob Newhart Show (Elliot Carlin, et, al.) so popular. But Devane really takes the cake; he quickly grows so pushy and so obnoxious, with his tactless and unrequited romantic come-ons, that I kept hoping for Leslie (or one of the other characters) to punch him in the mouth. It says a great deal that in recent years, sitcoms can produce characters with behavior as rude and appalling as George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and Dwight ‘Beet Farm’ Schrute (each of whom really knocks Kirk out of the water with sheer insensitivity) and still make us, on some level, look forward to seeing them; exactly how they pull it off is another matter.

It is a sad comment indeed when the content of a program can never quite top its gorgeous and lyrical opening credits. Still, even watching it 25 years later, Newhart has its share of peerless moments. It arguably scores highest in its rare beats without laughter, when it gives its characters ample time and opportunity to show love and compassion to one another (consider, for example, the touching moment when Dick assists Leslie with a kind of paternal reassurance after a ski accident that he inadvertently caused). The series feels equally memorable on the occasions when Kemp and his scenarists really cut loose and up the irreverence quotient ten fold, traveling way out into hyperspace with supporting characters and situations so offbeat and outrageous that they consistently defy all expectations; it goes without saying that Larry, Darryl, and Darryl did much to redeem the series as a 2/3 silent, grungeball update of the Three Stooges (they appeared as early as episode two, “Mrs. Newton’s Body Lies a Mould’ring in the Grave“); a Season One subplot that finds the boys temporarily taking over The Minuteman Café (in which William Sanderson’s Larry offers to serve up a weasel that Darryl “clubbed on the way over”) earns a bigger laugh from that one line than almost anything else in the season. (Yes, it probably helped that I was watching it at 3am, and yes, I felt vindicated at the conclusion of the episode, when the weasel in the bag is eventually handed to an unwitting Kirk). One could make the argument, of course, that the most offbeat and eccentric characters of more recent sitcoms – such as Cosmo Kramer, for example, or Creed Bratton – owe much to Newhart for this reason, but bear in mind the inclusion of the sitcom “local eccentric” is a tradition as old as the format itself - one that pre-dates Larry, Darryl, and Darryl and Taxi’s Reverend Jim Ignatowski by several decades, and can even be traced back to Ed Norton of The Honeymooners.

In successive seasons, the program would travel further down the road of the offbeat, with unusual outings such as the wonderful “fantasy” episode in which Larry dreams that he’s subbing for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and George takes flight after eating a stack of hotcakes. But in Season One, this sitcom opted to play it safe and stick to the rules, which made it, at best, only fitfully funny and successful. In the final analysis, Newhart may still be watchable, but its season one incarnation hasn’t aged well. It lacked the courage to really push it over the edge from mildly affable to downright brilliant. Maybe that’s where Peter Scolari came in?

1. Big-Hearted Herbert (1934) – Guy Kibbee headlines this long-forgotten farce as the title character, a working-class plumber who scores his big break when he moves into manufacturing bathroom fixtures – and finds himself wealthy for the first time. He comes to prefer the welcome company of a bunch of slightly arrogant misers who feel and behave exactly as he does, only to have his priorities dramatically challenged when his wife needs surgery. At a breezy 60 minutes, this winsome slice-of-life comedy is packed with a surprising number of real laughs. Runs on Turner Classic Movies, Thursday 3/6/08 at 7:15am

2. The Great Sinner (1949) – Loosely adapted from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler, this unusual and offbeat drama from legendary director Robert Siodmak (The Killers) stars Gregory Peck – then in the throes of early celebrity thanks to Spellbound and Twelve O’Clock High – as Fedja, a Russian man who falls in love with the alluring Pauline Ostrovsky (Ava Gardner) only to learn that she and her father (Walter Huston) have become enslaved by debt to the wicked gambling lord Armand de Glasse (Melvyn Douglas). Appalled by this situation, Fedja determines to gamble on their behalf at one of de Glasse’s “gaming tables,” thus pulling them out of debt and redeeming their honor. But little can he foresee the complications that will arise. Runs on Turner Classic Movies, Friday 3/7 at 10:45 am.

3. The Beast of the City (1932) Walter Huston stars in this pre-code police detective drama with a surprising onslaught of gritty violence for 1932. He plays Captain Jim Fitzpatrick, a sort of forerunner of Dirty Harry Callahan and Frank Serpico who turns against the inherent corruption of the police department and the violent gangs who are tearing the city asunder – determined to wipe the streets of wrongdoing. Studio mogul Louis B. Mayer reportedly grew so distraught over the rawness on display here (and so concerned that it would ruin his reputation as a purveyor of “family” entertainment) that he insisted on burying the film as the second feature on double bills. Runs on Turner Classic Movies, Friday 3/14 at 7am.

4. Charlie Bubbles (1968) – Nathan’s Pick #1 of Month. Albert Finney’s unusual directorial debut was slated to run at Cannes in 1968 (the year they shut the festival down in light of the Paris riots), and has never fully received its due. The tale of a wealthy, self-made celebrity writer (Finney) battling feelings of intense alienation and ennui, it sports a complex and unusual aesthetic (courtesy of Eastern Promises cinematographer Peter Suschitzky) that visually “flattens” the reality Charlie perceives – a distortion meant to convey, in the words of Pauline Kael, “the world with some vital dimension omitted.” The film’s strengths lie in its five-star performances by Finney and co-star Liza Minnelli, making her screen bow, and in screenwriter Shelagh Delaney’s sharp dialogue. Runs on the Encore Love Stories channel, Tuesday 3/4 at 2:30am.

5. Shock Treatment (1964) – Nathan’s Pick #2 of Month. This hugely underrated movie suffered (and continues to suffer) from being inappropriately tagged by critics who see fit to peg it as a melodrama. That’s certainly worth arguing about; many of the situations are so hilariously over-the-top and outrageous that surely it must have been intended as a black comedy. Either way, it qualifies as one of the most concurrently hilarious and suspenseful movies of its era – a B-movie that’s a guilty pleasure to end all. Stuart Whitman stars as Dale Nelson, a second-rate actor hired to feign psychosis and worm his way into a mental institution. He’s been appointed in a scheme to win the confidence of a nutty gardener (Roddy McDowall) with a nasty penchant for wielding hedge-clippers. Inside the institution, Whitman falls under the thumb of a diabolical psychiatrist played by no less than Lauren Bacall. The initial scene in which Whitman fakes insanity (on a public street, in front of cops) is a real gut-buster – odds are you’ve never seen anything quite like it. And the film is filled with memorable dialogue, from “Call the sheriff’s office! Tell ‘em we got a candidate for county psycho!,” to “Well, let me tell YOU something, Mister…” Runs on the Fox Movie Channel, Tue. 3/11 at 11:30am.

6. The October Man (1948) – In the face of a brutal murder, how does a mentally unstable man set about proving his own innocence to others – when even he isn’t sure of the truth? That’s the question posed by this feature that functions more effectively as an intense and disturbing psychological drama than as a whodunit or a taut thriller. Sir John Mills stars as Jim Ackland, a chemist whose life takes an upsetting turn when he’s involved in an accident that leaves him with a severe brain injury. In the process, a friend’s child is killed; guilt and culpability plague Ackland, and he teeters on the edge of sanity, ultimately moving into a shabby suburban hotel and tentatively resuming his lab work. In the new residence, the path of this miserable and broken man criss-crosses with that of a gorgeous fashion model who promptly turns up dead – and Ackland, tagged as a suspect by the authorities, cannot even say with 100% certainty that he wasn’t responsible. The picture is notable for its willingness to subvert the conventions of the thriller genre and to probe deeply into the recesses of a distraught mind crippled by fear. Rich with period atmosphere, thoughtful performances and mature themes, it marks an outing unique for its era. The director, Roy Ward Baker, previously worked as an assistant to Hitchcock, and it shows. Runs on Turner Classic Movies, Thursday 3/27 at 4:45am.

7. Swimmers (2005) – Tyro Doug Sadler’s sophomore outing ran at Sundance, then appeared and disappeared from view after receiving an undeservedly mediocre write-up from Variety. Understated, melancholic and wistful, this slice-of-lifer deserves a second chance. It observes the coming of age of a 12-year-old girl (Sarah Paulson) from a working-class family of crabbers on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. The narrative developments are beside the point: few U.S. directors have captured preadolescent emotional journeys – or the day-to-day atmosphere of working-class life in the southeastern United States – with the elegance, poignancy and intelligence on display here. Comprised entirely of a cast of unknowns, the film almost certainly would have drawn hearty praise with a couple of marquee names in the ensemble – a sad reflection on the priorities of the film community. This is a small treasure just awaiting re-discovery. Screens on the Sundance Channel –Friday 3/7 at 2pm, Thursday 3/13 at 12pm, Wednesday 3/19 at 2pm and Tuesday 3/25 5am.

8. Mother/Country (2003) Persian director Tina Gharavi’s self-reflexive documentary portrait finds the filmmaker returning to her native Iran for the first occasion since the age of six, where she attempts to work through an array of deeply personal issues including the reasons for her initial exile and the emotional and psychological ramifications of a lengthy estrangement from her mother. Eminently complex – with numerous unresolved issues coming to the forefront – this marks one of the most intimate and revealing documentaries of recent years. Screens on the Sundance Channel, Tuesday 3/4 at 3:30am and Friday 3/7 at 6am.

9. Gelato: An Endless Passion (2005) – Gelato (Italian ice cream) may seem a frivolous and inconsequential subject for an hour-long documentary, so it feels surprising and delightful that director Susan Gray manages to work in so many fun, colorful and entertaining variations on her central topic - from her riffs on the taboo of ice-cream licking in the 19th century to the mysterious and indefinite ethnic origins of ice cream. (Editor’s note: this would make a great double bill with Les Blank’s Yum, Yum, Yum!). Screens on the Sundance Channel, Wednesday 3/5 at 10am.

10. Blind Alley (1939) – In a thrilling melodrama that earns frequent comparisons to Wyler’s The Desperate Hours and to Lewis Allen’s Suddenly, Chester Morris stars as Hal Wilson, an escaped psychopath who seeks refuge and holes up in the home of psychoanalyst Dr. Shelby (Ralph Bellamy), taking the poor man’s entire family hostage. In an attempt to defuse this “human time bomb,” Shelby talks Wilson into undergoing hypnosis, then probes the criminal’s past to search for the origins of his psychotic behavior. Anticipating Hitchcock’s collaborations with Dali in Spellbound, the film works in a number of surrealistic, visually striking dream sequences to give Wilson’s anguished mental state palpability. Airs on Turner Classic Movies, Tuesday 3/25 at 11pm.

* Beginning 03/08 this will become a monthly feature in lieu of a weekly one.

Upon purchasing their first ticket, moviegoers are given a special card that will be stamped at each screening. Should the cardholder manage the daunting task of collecting six stamps by the end of the series, they’ll be eligible to win a free trip for two to the Los Angeles premiere of The Forbidden Kingdom – the eagerly anticipated martial arts adventure that marks the first ever feature collaboration between screen legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

What about the flicks themselves, you may ask? Well, despite the fact that I’m an enormous fan of Asian cinema, I make no claims of being an authority in the area of martial arts films in particular, and can only offer an opinion that springs straight from my lifelong love of weirdo cinema.

That said, this is my take on the series so far…

Shaolin Temple:

The flick that started out the series features everything we love about old school kung-fu flicks: Hilarious dubbing, lightning fast fights, and a super simple plot that somehow gets completely garbled in translation. It’s loads of fun when viewed with the right crowd – just be careful not to get it mixed up with that other Shaolin Temple flick starring some guy named Jet Li.

Bronx Executioner:

This was the first indicator that the programmers over at National Amusements were willing to have a little fun with the series. Bronx Executioner has more in common with such cheesy post-apocalyptic actioners as Enzo G. Castellari’s 1990: The Bronx Warriors than such traditional kung fu fare as Shaolin Temple, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less entertaining. This flick is a mess of epic proportions, but it does feature a weathered Woody Strode throwing some powerhouse punches – which should at least count for something! Add to that a dim-witted, muscle-bound hero and sets that look like they may fall apart if shot a sideways glance and you’ve got all the fixings for a goofy good time.

Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave:

I’m not sure what – if anything – this particular flick had to do with Bruce Lee, but that doesn’t stop me from declaring it one of my favorite entries in the series thus far. Opening with a completely nonsensical shot of a Lee look-a-like erupting from his grave and featuring a motley crew of villains that feel as if they were pulled from the strangest comic book never published, this one sports weirdness by the ton. How can you not love a flick in which a thuggish taxi driver mugs his passenger at knifepoint, takes him out of the car, roughs him up, does a few donuts, gets kicked in the head right through the window, and then makes sure to drop him off safely at his intended destination. Not only that, but it has what have to be the strangest guttural kung-fu sounds ever uttered on film, and audience members at our particular screening compared it to both The Big Lebowski and No Country for Old Men.

Fearless Hyena:
I gotta admit, this late-1970s Jackie Chan flick just didn’t do very much for me. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I was still coming down off of the goofy high of Bruce Lee Fights Back from The Grave, but by fifteen minutes in I was already growing weary of that old Jacky shtick. By the time it ended, I was completely exhausted – and not as much out of exuberance as for the fact that it was all so repetitive it felt like one giant gag fight stretched out to 400 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I like Jackie quite a bit – and when it’s “on” he’s truly a sight to behold – but this time around I just wasn’t feeling it.

Fantasy Mission Force:
Wheeler had warned me that this was one of the strangest kung fu flicks ever made, but even that wasn’t enough to prepare me for the madness of this bizarro take on The Dirty Dozen. From the appearance of Abraham Lincoln as a World War II general to a gang of Mad Max-inspired Nazis and musical cues stolen from It’s Alive, Tourist Trap (complete with mannequin sighs!), and Once Upon a Time in the West, this jaw dropping stew of insanity must be seen to be believed. Almost a week later I’m still not sure what to make of it, but the fact that Wheeler has been watching it for a decade and is still just as confused as I at least tells me it’s not for lack of trying.

The Chinatown Kid:
I’m sorry to say that I had to duck out on the Chinatown Kid so I can’t offer a full report, but I plan on making up for that by hitting all ten of the remaining flicks - wish me luck!

More to follow as the series progresses…
Until then, be sure to hop on the official National Amusements website to find out if the King Fu Flicks series is playing at a theater near you!

1. The Green Years (1946). Turner Classic Movies. Screening Mon. 2/4 at 5:45am.

This gentle, humorous and finely-observed coming-of-age drama marked one of several well-crafted vehicles for the young Dean Stockwell, alongside The Boy with Green Hair and Down to the Sea in Ships. He plays Robert Shannon, a youth buckling beneath the weight of an über-strict Scottish family, but drawn out of his shell by a loveable yet curmudgeonly old grandfather (Charles Coburn) with a taste for spinning some real whoppers.

2. Five Star Final (1931). Turner Classic Movies. Screening Wed. 2/6 at 7am.

Mervyn Le Roy’s pre-code melodrama (and is it ever pre-code) features one of Edward G. Robinson’s sleaziest characterizations. He plays Joseph Randall, the utterly guileless, sociopathic publisher of a tabloid newspaper, who grows so hungry for sensationalistic headlines that he digs up an age-old murder case and enlists a slimy photographer (Boris Karloff at his peak) to pose as a priest and single-handedly destroy the fortunes of an affluent and well-adjusted family. Eat your hearts out, J.J. Hunsecker and Lucy Spiller.

3. When Ladies Meet (1933). Turner Classic Movies. Screening Wed. 2/6 at 10:15am.

This loquacious, witty romantic comedy stars Myrna Loy and Ann Harding as two women unwittingly involved with the same book publisher (played by The Wizard of Oz himself, Frank Morgan) who run into each other by virtue of a mutual friend (Robert Montgomery) and discover the extent of the philanderer’s deceptions. This is the case of standard material elevated to an elegant level by virtue of the sharp dialogue and the stellar performances from a first rate cast – particularly Alice Brady, who walks away with the picture as a wisecracking hostess.

4. This Above All (1942). The Fox Movie Channel. Screening Thurs. 2/7 at 9am.

Hollywood legend Anatole Litvak directed this patriotic WWII ensemble drama on a big budget at 20th Century Fox. A U.S.-produced equivalent to the British masterpiece Way to the Stars (though it predated that film by three years), it stars Tyrone Power as a conscientious objector who withdraws from wartime service because he doesn’t believe in supporting the evils of British class structure. He then opts instead to do his part by rescuing air raid victims. Joan Fontaine, Thomas Mitchell and Nigel Bruce co-star.

5. Before the Music Dies (2006). Independent Film Channel. Screening Sun. 2/3 at 12pm.

This film marks a rarity: a documentary that qualifies as both a deeply personal, intimate journey and a revealing commentary on mass culture. Shortly before musician John Shapter died, he confided to his brother Andrew his convictions about the dire state of American popular music – particularly the notion that the current music industry has abandoned the interests of both fans and musicians. Andrew then embarked on a cross-country journey to investigate this idea, camera-in-tow – interviewing musical performers, listeners, music journalists and executive players in the record industry. Thus, this ambitious film both creates a tapestry-like exploration of the history of American music, charts the decline of American popular music, and speculates on the potentially dire future of the music industry; it features candid and extensive discussion with such luminaries as Eric Clapton, Les Paul, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Matthews and Erykah Badu.

6. Who Are You, Polly Magoo? (1966) NATHAN’S PICK OF THE WEEK. Sundance Channel. Screening Mon. 2/4 at 7:15am and Sat. 2/9 at 8:00pm.

Onetime fashion photographer William Klein (Broadway by Light) was, and is still, a cornerstone of American underground filmmaking. Klein made one of his few narrative features with this comedy, the tale of a model (Dorothy McGowan) who describes her life to a cadre of television reporters – waxing at length on her problems fending off the advances of innumerable men and settling down with Mr. Right. Lest this make the film sound trite or clichéd, the fascination lies in the execution, rife with a slick and glossy “mod” aesthetic and visual effects that presaged Mike Sarne’s Joanna and Jacques Demy’s Model Shop by several years – plus a smart satirical edge that sharply comments on European society in the mid-60s.

7. Lurch (2005). Sundance Channel. Screening Tues. 2/5 at 11:35am, Fri. 2/8 at 3:30pm.

Boris Hars-Tschachotin’s creepy and horrifyingly funny, live action short subject etches out a character study of Kuno Nieff (Chajim Koeningshofen), a worker at the Berlin Museum of Natural History whose job involves filling the institute’s animal specimen jars with preservative alcohol.

8. Karl Lagerfeld is Never Happy Anyway (2000). Sundance Channel. Screening Wed. 2/6 at 7:30pm.

At once eccentric and unquestionably brilliant, fashion designer Lagerfeld set the trends for haute-couture during the ’80s and ’90s, and continues to rewrite the rules of the industry, while pursuing his overarching goal of “intellectually sexy” apparel. A colorful and magnetic personality, Lagerfeld stands at the center of this incisive documentary profile by German director Gero von Boehm. The film is most astonishing for its ability to reach beyond the confines of its subject and provide a window into the creative process per se – an accomplishment that makes it not only a rarity but a must-see.

9. Unfolding Florence (2006). Sundance Channel. Screening Fri. 2/8 at 7:30pm.

Gillian Armstrong of Starstruck and Mrs. Soffel fame mounted this biographical profile of an extraordinary character – the late Aussie interior designer Florence Broadhurst. Broadhurst was a gifted fabricator who spun a series of fantastic yet baseless identities for herself including those of seasoned cabaret performer and European blueblood – until everything caught up with her and she was shockingly murdered. In accordance with Broadhurst’s various permutations, Armstrong stylistically fractures her film, employing a whole bag of tricks – from animation to dramatic reenactments to newsreel footage – to fully evoke Florence’s life and times.

10. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005). Sundance Channel. Screening Sat. 2/9 at 7:00am.

This critically-worshipped animated short from Australian director Anthony Lucas reflects the imagination and influence of 19th century fantasist Jules Verne by transporting the audience on a fanciful journey through a world full of steel airships and steam-driven inventions. The story concerns a pilot rebounding from failure who is given one last chance to succeed.

The story concerns children’s book illustrator Claire Cooper (Annette Bening) a woman who moves to a farmhouse near a local reservoir with her young daughter Rebecca (Katie Sagona) and airline pilot husband Paul (Aidan Quinn). Although Claire has been plagued with inexplicable psychic visions all her life, she now suffers from one recurring nightmare, where she finds herself inhabiting the body of a grungy adult man, and holds the hand of an abducted local girl as they stroll together through an ominous apple orchard. The man, it turns out, is a seriously disturbed local named Vivian Thompson ((longhaired Robert Downey, Jr., in a skin-crawling performance), who survived a grotesque onslaught of child abuse as a youngster (and a potentially lethal flood) and lurks on the outskirts of the community. Now a sociopath with a penchant for kidnapping and butchering young girls, Vivian also harbors the telepathic ability to enter Claire’s dreams, but soon extends his control over her waking life by abducting Rebecca after a school play. Emotionally shattered and racked with terror, Claire informs her husband that she holds the psychic connection to the kidnapper’s whereabouts through her dream life, but both Paul and a local psychiatrist (Stephen Rea) question her sanity and threaten to have her institutionalized. Indeed, Claire undergoes tremendous mental and emotional strain and begins to crack as twisted images and nursery rhymes from Vivian’s past increasingly flood her thoughts. But ironically, these clues may be Claire’s only hope of helping the authorities close in on the maniac and find her daughter, dead or alive.

Few American or European directors have visualized onscreen nightmare as deftly as Neil Jordan in this sadly overlooked effort from early 1999. Passed up by the director who first planned to helm it, Steven Spielberg, and unfairly relegated to the post-Christmas January landfill of mediocre A-budget dreck, In Dreams received almost unanimously devastating reviews in the US and opened and closed practically overnight, leading one to wonder if its critical castigation and box office failure weren’t more attributable to sheer unpleasantness than to narrative flaws and gaps. Indeed, the film qualifies as one of the most intrinsically disturbing and upsetting horror films to have emerged from Hollywood since Friedkin’s original Exorcist (1973), simply by virtue of its approach.

Director and co-screenwriter Jordan punctuates the onscreen action with grotesque, bizarre acts of violence (such as the moment when Aidan Quinn’s character is stabbed through the eye) and builds his narrative progression on a gradual deterioration of logic that ultimately fuses with the insanity of its antagonist, sociopathic child murderer Thompson. Jordan beckons the audience to accompany his heroine come hither, as she rides the arc from the rational to the psychotic. He’s treading that hair-thin rail between absurdity and discovery — traveling the path of David Lynch, by making only occasionally successful yet consistently laudable attempts to break through the logical boundaries of the medium, striving for that surrealistic plane of dream fabric where anything is possible. The incredulity, the laughs from some viewers, are the price Jordan pays. What emerges is an onscreen realm where terrifying coincidences are not only commonplace, but inevitable and fated, where suffocation and heat-soaked, claustrophobic paralysis hang thick in the onscreen atmosphere. Unfortunately, the central narrative also suffers from the deliberate lapses in logic – becoming so hopelessly confused during the second and third acts that many viewers will leave feeling dismayed. It also lurches into the ridiculous a bit too often, such as the infamous sequence where Bening’s garbage disposal violently regurgitates apples. Nevertheless, the picture’s strengths partially compensate for these drawbacks. Jordan’s method of evoking horror is extremely impressive and original here: he interpolates a series of simple, childlike motifs (apples, nursery rhymes, swing sets) reiterated dozens of times until the images gain satanic connotations. And as some critics noted, In Dreams boasts a four-barreled, revelatory performance from Bening that should have redefined her career to the extent that American Beauty did, later that same year. In the end, the film remains uneven but truly fascinating. And those with strong stomachs, who are willing to go along for the ride and accept whatever twists it hands them, may well discover one of the only recent American films to return to the roots of horror by making viewers sick with fear.

In a word: Predictable.

With the rare exception of midnight screenings of Serenity or Super Troopers, even The Michigan’s sister-theater The State has fallen victim to this tiresome trend – often relying on leftovers tossed aside by its lavish older sibling. Yet just when it seemed as if all hope for having a little fun at the movies in Tree Town had been permanently sapped, leave it to our old friends at National Amusements to pick up the ball dropped when the Michigan and the State stopped worrying about being creative with their programming schedule, and decided to go on art-house auto-pilot. For eight straight weeks beginning on Wednesday, January 23, 2007, Showcase Cinemas will be screening a double feature bill of old school kung-fu flicks for the paltry ticket price of five dollars (for a list of other Showcase Cinema locations taking part in the program, click here). That’s right, for just five measly bones you too can get a full three hours of the kind of rock ‘em, sock ‘em entertainment that just doesn’t fly anymore at the highbrow local art-houses. After all, who wants to read subtitles when you’ve got the kind of hilariously awful dub jobs that magically transport you back to the golden days of Kung Fu Theater?

So for anyone who likes their kung fu served up Shaw Brothers style, why not drop by Showcase Cinemas on Wednesday nights for a double feature dose of martial arts mayhem? I know I plan on going, and I hope to see you there!

Here’s the full schedule, collected from the official National Amusements website:

January 23rd
Shaolin Temple
and
Bronx Executioner

January 30th
Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave
and
Fearless Hyena

February 6th
Fantasy Mission Force
and
The Chinatown Kid

February 13th
Deadly Duo
and
The Legend of Bruce Lee

February 20th
The Master With Cracked Fingers
and
The Master

February 27th
The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge
and
Return of the Street Fighter

March 5th
Sister Street Fighter
and
Snake & Crane Secret

March 12th
The Real Bruce Lee
and
Spirits of Bruce Lee