New DVDs: 'Baron Munchausen,' 'Dewey Cox'

Baron Munchausen will never get far on "hot air and fantasy," the villain hisses as our adventurer ascends in a balloon. Fooey. Never bet against the Baron.

Those of us enchanted with Terry Gilliam's wonderful yet storm-struck film can celebrate Sony's rousing rerelease of the title on Blu-ray and standard DVD. Both are "20th Anniversary Editions" with nearly identical new extra features.

The "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" Blu-ray is something special, unspooling mostly superb visuals. Some scenes have a distracting amount of grain, a sharp contast to the nearly flawless imagery seen on most of the high-def disc. (This grain has been present throughout the film's home video history, notably on Sony's 1999 release.)

The high definition betrays a few of the "Munchausen" sets and visual effects, though, as modern viewers see a bit more than the filmmakers intended. Whatever. The old parlor tricks are part of the charm. And it's a good thing to view Dante Ferretti's production work in such detail. Gilliam is all about strange whimsy and startling visuals.

The Blu-ray also features handsome animated menus, while the DVD version's interfaces are flat. The pop-up trivia track, more active than most, also is exclusive to the BR. (The pop-ups repeat a lot of info from the other extras.)

What's quite clear from these extras is that ex-Monty Python member Gilliam remains plenty pissed over the treatment of this film after 20 years.

Almost all of the making-of docu is dedicated to Gilliam and the other production veterans fussing and fighting over how the project became such a nightmare.

If the names Dawn Steel and David Puttman don't mean anything to you, this could be too much Hollywood inside ball. The grousing continues in the feature-length commentary, from Gilliam and his co-writer Charles McKeown ("Brazil").

You wonder if the director even appreciates how marvelously the fantasy has held up over the years. To me, this is by far the best of the fantasies in the loose trilogy that Gilliam and McKeown built during the 1980s.

The film stars John Neville as the legendary bullshitter Baron Munchausen. Neville and his supporting players -- such as Robin Williams, Sarah Polley, Peter Jeffries and Eric Idle -- all are delightfully in tune with the outrageous tales and Gilliams' fever-dream visions.

The other films, "Brazil" and "Time Bandits," always felt technically and visually successful at the expense of any heart.

"Munchausen" "was quite sentimental for Terry," says ex-Python mate Eric Idle, who plays a speedster servant. "Often his films lack emotions. He doesn't trust himself with emotions."

Idle, who says the shooting was the worst experience of his professional life, goes on to bag on Gilliam for his offputting way of creating movies.

"Terry's approach to filmmaking is always a battle. The metaphor of a battle isn't really a useful one (in that business)." Idle does proclaim Gilliam "an artistic genius."

Gilliam says the film's reputation as an out of control production "is an extraordinary lie," despite it being $2 million over budget before a frame was shot. The director says the blame falls on the film's producer, Thomas Schühly, who defends his honor in the extras: "I had to play the German, the Nazi, that was my part," he sighs. (Schühly went on to produce another legendarily messy film, "Alexander.")

Yeech. Learn all about about this headache-inducing story on the disc, if you happen to care. I'd rather spend more time with this delightful film.

More extras: A handful of deleted scenes that don't add up to anything, as well as a storyboard animation of scenes that were never shot, hosted by Gilliam and McKeown.

Munchausen was a real guy, the king of the liars. I'm reading the famous book about his exploits, which is great fun.

Sony Home Entertainment also unleashes the good-time bogus bio "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," starring John C. Reilly. Great fun, and an overdue send-up of all those music-business bios we've sat through in the past decade.

The movie comes in several versions, notably the double-disc unrated "Walk Hard" Blu-ray. There's also the standard double-disc DVD version and a bare-bones theatrical edition.

I wish "Walk Hard" hadn't been quite so broad a comedy, but that's just quibbling. Reilly, ever the second banana, carries the movie with ease. He's part Elvis, Johnny Cash and Tony Orlando. Cool.

The movie looks and sounds great on Blu-ray and SD. The all-original music, some of it pretty good, streams out with grace and power.

If that "Walk Hard" song seems a good bit better than the rest, that's because it comes from Marshall Crenshaw, one of the great pop singer-songwriters. The song and the rest of the movie's music is covered in a fairly straight-forward, informative extra that'll be of interest to pretty much everybody.

The other extras continue the Cox joke: "The Real Dewey Cox" has actors and musicians talking about how they met the man and how he influenced them. "The Last Word," from Comedy Central, is a fully produced talk show that reviews Cox's life as he's about to croak. Anyone who's lived in the South will get a kick out of the "Cox Sausage Commercial" and its outtakes.

Extended and deleted scenes are every bit as good as what's in the movie, especially the goofy Beatles sequence. The gang commentary comes from Reilly, director Jake Kasdan, and producers Judd Apatow and Lew Morton.

Also circling the DVD blog's players this week are Warner Home Video's "Classic Musicals From the Dream Factory, Vol. 3"; "Fortysomething," the 2003 British TV series that featured Hugh Laurie; and Paramount's choice "Perry Mason 50th Anniversary" set.

Pick of the week: Baron Munchausen
Dog of the week: No woofer, sorry

New and notable:
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Sony)
The Bette Davis Collection (Fox)
Classic Musicals From the Dream Factory, Vol. 3 (Warner)
The 11th Hour (Warner)
Fog City Mavericks: The Filmmakers of San Francisco (Anchor Bay)
Fortysomething (Acorn Media)
Lions for Lambs (UA/MGM)
Matlock (Paramount)
P2 (Summit Entertainment)
Perry Mason 50th Anniversary (Paramount)
Resurrecting the Champ (Fox)
Sense and Sensibility (Warner)
There Will Be Blood (Paramount)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Sony)
War/Dance (ThinkFilm)
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Sony)

From April 1
The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3 (Warner)
Sweeney Todd (Paramount)
Three films by the Taviani brothers (Fox Lorber)
The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder: John, Paul, Tom, Ringo (Shout! Factory)

Complete list of today's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

Comments

[L.A. Observer]

I loved this movie when it came out and, not having much inside info on the film biz at the time, always wondered why it never got a wide release. I remember thinking it was a cerebral version of Indiana Jones, with wild humor and fantasy elements. One of the latter, was my onscreen introduction to Uma Thurman, who as I recall (and how could I not?), had a topless scene. Talk about startling visuals!