"Grindhouse" (***, Genius, $29.99) is now available in the extended, unrated version that played in Europe as a stand-alone film. (A longer cut of "Planet Terror" is to appear in October.
) In the new version, Corman's influence is even more obvious. Kurt Russell takes the role that might have once been played by Tarantino favorite David Carradine, as a Hollywood stunt driver who's gone around the bend. In "Death Proof" he spends the first half-hour terrorizing a group of women out on the town, but the tables are turned when he subsequently stalks far savvier -- and better driving -- prey.
It is a better movie than the cut in "Grindhouse," fleshed out and with more action to balance the endless patented Tarantino gab. What hasn't been changed is the female dialogue; it still has the characters sounding like tough babes who have seen too many Tarantino movies. If you want to make the comparison yourself, it's made easy with the new "Roger Corman Collection" (MGM, $39.
98) that collects eight Corman-produced movies on four 2-sided discs. New to DVD is Corman-directed "Bloody Mama," (***) his 1970 attempt to cash in on the "Bonnie and Clyde" phenomenon, with Shelley Winters playing Depression era gangster Kate (Ma) Barker, planner of the crimes executed by her devoted sons, played by Robert Walden, Clint Kimbrough, Don Stroud and, in one of his first screen appearances, Robert De Niro. Also new to disc is 1963's "Young Racers" (**) about the competition between two young drivers on the European racing circuit.
The soundman on this shoot was another legend-to-be, Francis Ford Coppola. Everything else here was released before. But you're missing some of the best of the B's if you don't have the archetypal biker movie, "Wild Angels" (***) from 1966, with a hell-on-wheels Bruce Dern and Peter Fonda; 1967's "The Trip," (**) written by Jack Nicholson, and starring Fonda seeking nirvana under the guidance of guru Dern, and 1970's "Gas-s-s-s" (***) a crazed comedy about a biological weapon that kills everybody over 25.
Left alive are Cindy Williams, Ben Vereen and Tally Coppola, soon to be known as Talia Shire in "Rocky." Corman also produced a string of loose Edgar Allan Poe adaptations of which, "Premature Burial" (***), starring Ray Milland, is included here, as is "X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes," (***) in which Milland is a scientist who invents a serum that allows him to see through solid objects, a gift he is naturally tempted to misuse.
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