Author: Robert Greenberger

TNT’s Leverage returns to the schedule on Wednesday with six new episodes running weekly through February 17. The series, co-created by former Blue Beetle writer John Rogers, was one of the network’s bright spots when it debuted in December 2008.

As the second season opened this past summer, the Leverage team reunited in Boston to settle more scores against those who use power and wealth to victimize others.  The gang is led by former insurance investigator Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton), who first got into the racket after his former employer refused to pay for treatment that could have saved his son’s life.  His highly skilled team includes Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman), a grifter who uses her acting skills to corner her marks; Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), a “retrieval specialist” with bone-crunching fighting skills; Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge), a gadget and technology wizard who keeps the team informed; and Parker (Beth Riesgraf), a slightly off-center thief adept at rappelling off buildings or squeezing into tight places.

SPOILERS AHEAD if you haven’t seen the second season so far and don’t want to watch the marathon before Wednesday’s premiere…

By the end of summer, the Leverage team had scammed a hedge-fund manager who happened to be in the custody of U.S. Marshals; used Eliot’s martial arts skills to corner a corrupt fight promoter; and took over a private school to recover millions of dollars lost in a Ponzi scheme.  They also went head-to-head with an almost identical team of grifters to recover a painting that had been stolen by Nazis during World War II.

But for Sophie, something just wasn’t feeling right.  Her conflicted relationship with Nate left her questioning if she wanted to continue working with the team.  She decided to take some much-needed time away, but not before she arranged for a friend and fellow grifter, Tara Cole (Jeri Ryan), to fill in for her.  Tara immediately proved her worth by not only helping the team save a client’s estate from a corrupt lawyer, but also fooling everyone into thinking she was the client’s attorney. (Of course, Bellman is merely taking a maternity leave but they have written her out in a nicely dramatic fashion.)

Here’s a look at the upcoming episodes (SPOILER: with brief plot synopses) and we’ll have a review of the first two on Tuesday.

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The Blu-ray conversion process continued throughout the year and there’s something for everyone. As the hours dwindle towards Santa’s arrival, here’s a trio of family-friendly Blu-ray offerings that are perfect – as long as you don’t have these on standard DVD. Warner Home Video wisely released A Charlie Brown Christmas and Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas some weeks back, completing the hat trick with the Blu-ray debut of Horton Hears a Who!

These are basically the standard DVDs upgraded to Blu-ray so everything looks and sounds marvelous. All the standard DVD extras are still here so there’s little to compel you to upgrade, especially since the prices treat these like the full-length feature films when the reality is, these were thirty minute television specials.

None of the above robs the trio from their power to entertain. The Charlie Brown special, which has been collected in multiple DVD sets, remains the king of them all as it pokes fun at the commercialization of the holiday and Linus’ speech at the end refocuses attention to the spiritual side of the holiday. With Vince Guaraldi’s amazing jazz score, this remains the gold standard.

Also earning the gold is Chuck Jones, who brilliantly adapted Dr. Seuss Grinch. He buried his own art style in favor of bringing the book to life, adding all the right touches. Having Boris Karloff narrate was a stroke of genius and the original score and songs only added to the surreal qualities that we adore about Seuss.

This Horton is the 1970 version, which is a pretty fair adaptation. Also from Chuck Jones, it shows how cheap animation had gotten in the four years between his Grinch and Horton, as the cartoon looks more limited. The adaptation boasts the usual voice actors of the era including the wonderful Hans Conreid as Horton and the narrator; June Foray and Ravenscroft.

As Blu-rays, they all look pretty fine, notably The Grinch. The extras contain making of featurettes across the thee along with biographical notes on the cast and crew, and other bits and pieces. Best are the extra animated fare such as It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, the lesser known 1992 follow-up Peanuts Christmas special or the other animated Seuss tales Daisy-Head Mayzie and. Butter Battle Book. The Grinch has the annoying Phil Hartman history from TNT but makes up for it with a nice spotlight on singer Thurl Ravenscroft and composer Albert Hague. Horton also contains the 1994 special, In Search of Dr. Seuss, which is a loving portrait of the genius.

It should be noted that the specials come as combo sets complete with standard DVD and digital copy (Windows only). If you don’t own any version, this clearly is the one to get – just find the right sale.

MGM Home Video has offered up thirteen different star-centered CD packs, all conveniently priced at $24.95 but savvy shoppers can find them for as little as $14.95. Each box set features four films from the studio’s vast library and neatly packages them together.

What you pay for in convenience, though, you lose in the rich DVD experience that many aficionados want from their home video. The films come with commentary and maybe the trailer but little else. So, if your recipient is a major fan of the films and/or stars, be warned.

Having said that, two that were sent for review, are pretty nice. The Clint Eastwood Star Collection offers up A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, and Hang ‘Em High. That’s 721 minutes of Clint in his spaghetti western days and the birth of a film icon. Oddly, A Fistful of Dollars and Hang ‘Em High come with widescreen versions on one-side and fullscreen on the other while the remaining duo are in standard widescreen,

Consider 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars, which effectively launched the careers of Eastwood, director Sergio Leone, and composer Ennio Morricone. This also was the first in the Man with No Name trilogy, a legendary everyman figure who has endured way beyond the films and even stars in his own comic book. The film was also a turning point in how westerns were made, beginning a new chapter for the then-tired genre.

While effectively a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, this film set up the standards of good versus evil as viewed through the prism of 1960s filmmaking, which had fewer restrictions than in previous decades and allowed the bad to be truly wicked and violent. There’s little doubt Eastwood’s silent, squinting figure inspired many a film knockoff and even contributed to the character of Jonah Hex (start making your comparisons when the Hex film opens next June). He had come a long way from Rawhide’s Rowdy Yates.

Four films in five years established Eastwood as a major actor and kept the genre vital, while inspiring a new generation of filmmakers to try new approaches to older material. You can certainly see it in the works of Coppola and even Lucas.

An odder assortment is the Frank Sinatra Star Collection which offers us Guys And Dolls, A Hole in the Head, Manchurian Candidate, and Sergeant’s 3 which are in no way thematically linked, just using Old Blue Eyes as the common denominator. All four films come only in widescreen and again with minimal extras.

I will admit to a fondness for Guys And Dolls and think the movie, flaws and all, is a delight to watch. Marlon Brando isn’t much of a singer but makes for a fine guy and the movie does give us Stubby Kaye’s rousing “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat”.

During the 1950s, Sinatra was stretching his acting chops and his best work, Maggio in From Here to Eternity, is missing from this box set. Instead, we get the long-forgotten A Hole in the Head that asks us to accept Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson as brothers.

Based on the 1957 play of the same name, it does posit the notion of an Amusement Park in Florida with the wonderful Keenan Wynn as the Disney stand-in. The film, directed by Frank Capra, is amusing and has a nice cast, including a pre-Addams Carolyn Jones. It also gives us the Sinatra standard “High Hopes”.

By 1962 Sinatra was firmly gripped in the Rat Pack lifestyle and made numerous films with his buddies as embodied in Ocean’s 11. With Dean Martin and Peter Lawford, Sinatra also made the forgettable Sergeant’s 3, a lame remake of Gunga Din. The movie languished forgotten until it finally emerged on DVD just last year and is now slipped into this set.

Far more engaging is the same year’s Manchurian Candidate. The gripping drama is far superior to the recent remake and is a terrific Cold War tale with a strong cast including Angela Lansbury. For a time controversial, it is now one of the strongest Sinatra dramatic performances and a movie that holds up well despite the years and changing global politics.

Other sets of note to ComicMix fans include Gary Cooper, Jody Foster, Nicolas Cage, Robert Downey, Jr., and Sean Connery.