Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9408200005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo
DATELINE: LAS VEGAS LENGTH: Long
Representatives of any enterprise that can be considered -in any possible way - to be part of ``home video'' gather in Las Vegas to show their stuff. They're all here from ice cream to insurance to miniature flowers (Mickey's Mini Flora Express of St. Louis, Mo. The catalog listing reads: ``We offer a full line of miniature self-watering plants. Great gift and/or give-away item.'')
It's such a diverse, free-wheeling industry that it's often contradictory. Consider:
Among the smaller specialty organizations with booths on the floor were the Dove Foundation, which takes the naughty bits out of movies to make them suitable for ``family viewing,'' and B.R.I., which puts the naughty bits back into movies that have been edited for broadcast on the USA network.
Four of the most heavily touted celebrities in attendance were two sets of twins: the ever-so-cute Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and the ever-so-bizarre Shane and Sia Barbi. The little girls from the ``Full House'' TV series have just been signed to a multimillion dollar deal for a series of ``musical mystery'' kid-vids. The big girls, known for their swimsuit calendars and appearances in ``Playboy'' magazine, have their first video on the way. (The trade paper ads said, ``You've seen them on glossy pages ... Now see them move!'')
The Warner Bros. cocktail party was a traditional Western affair with barbecued ribs, guacamole, sawdust on the floors and disco dancers in gold lame bras. The montage of clips from films and videos that were displayed on dozens of monitors managed to bring together Walter Brennan and Madonna.
Is this a great business or what?
Actually, the convention proved something much simpler that is often overlooked: home video has become a key part of American life. The business is changing in some unpredictable ways, and change has made some retailers uneasy. Lower priced ``sell-through'' tapes are competing with overnight rentals. (This autumn will be the busiest ever with ``Jurassic Park,'' ``Snow White'' and ``The Flintstones'' priced for sell-through.) And there is still some talk of ``video on demand,'' essentially any movie any time on cable. But that's still a distant and unlikely development. For the immediate, practical future, the local video store is going to remain a convenient source of entertainment and information for a large number of people.
Of more concern to conventioneers were the long lines they found when they tried to check in. Because of changes in the physical layout of the floor plan, there were only two places to distribute I.D. badges. People who'd mailed in their registrations weeks before has to wait for hours to collect the credentials that would let them into the hall. Once they got inside, they found more lines for celebrity photos and autographs. On Sunday and Monday, the most popular seemed to be Steven Seagal and Lassie.
Lassie, accompanied by his trainer Robert Weatherwax, was a big hit. The new film certainly had something to do with the dog's popularity and so does a new set of dog training tapes that Weatherwax has made. But the fact is that people love the character of Lassie. They respond to her the same way they respond to Mickey Mouse or Nancy Drew. That's the enduring power of some fictional creations.
Lassie wasn't the only ``rediscovery'' in evidence. Though the focus of the business and of the convention was on new products, three older titles are about to make welcome appearances on tape.
Frank Capra Jr. was on hand to talk about one story that his father filmed twice - ``Broadway Bill,'' made 60 years ago, and then redone as the musical ``Riding High'' with Bing Crosby in 1950. Capra admitted that they weren't his father's best work They shouldn't be compared with ``It's a Wonderful Life'' or ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.''
But these two films, he said, reflected his father's concerns with optimism and ``family values.'' And when he was asked if his father would have been able to tell his kind of story in today's action-oriented climate, Capra Jr. quickly (and rightly) answered that ``Forrest Gump'' could have been a Frank Capra film.
Michael Wayne takes a similar protective interest in his father's work. He has been working with MPI video on the restoration of one of John Wayne's best, ``Hondo.'' The 1953 Western, based on a Louis L'Amour story, won an Oscar nomination for co-star Geraldine Page and also featured Lassie (from an earlier generation).
It's a film that Wayne's fans have been anticipating for years. As many of them know, it was made in 3-D, though it received a brief, extremely limited theatrical release in that format. The tape version, due in stores on Sept. 20, will be in 2-D, though the eventual laserdisk version may restore the third dimension.
In any case, the care that's being taken with older films like these three shows that beneath the silliness, hype and poor taste that so often characterize this convention, a lot of good work is being done.
Next week: Up close and personal with the sexiest, smartest and most outspoken women in home video!
New releases
Major League II **
Starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Bob Uecker. Directed by David Ward. Warner Home Video. 101 min. Rated PG for a little rough language.
This is an uninspired sequel to a really funny baseball movie. The original was fairly successful in theaters in 1989, but found its real audience on home video. To be fair, this film does tell a timely story about the ways in which success on the field carries the seeds of its own destruction. But watching a bunch of jocks slowly realizing that their newly found respectability won't win games just isn't very funny. The ensemble cast does a good job with a weak script.
The Chase **
Starring Charlie Sheen, Kristy Swanson. Written and directed by Adam Rivkin. FoxVideo. 90 min. Rated PG-13 for subject matter, strong language, violence, preposterous sexual content.
This live-action Road-runner cartoon is a high-speed comedy that doesn't make a lick of sense. It's a silly story about an innocent bank-robber on the run from cops and TV news helicopters. He's in a stolen BMW with a lovely hostage. Lots of flashy stunts and poor-taste humor (involving a truckload of cadavers at one point) and no surprises. Featherweight entertainment that ought to do well on tape."
by CNB