'Shane,' 'The Great Gatsby,' 'Ishtar' on Blu-ray

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on August 30, 2013 at 8:01 AM, updated August 30, 2013 at 1:41 PM

$19.98 (Blu-ray), Paramount


George Stevens' "Shane" (1953) is a thoughtful treatise on what it means to be a man — in the guise of a thrilling western.

Alan Ladd stars as Shane, a drifter who takes up the fight of his newfound friends: a group of homesteaders defending their turf against a land-grabbing cattle baron whose intimidation techniques escalate to murder.

Shane, just a stranger passing through, is hired as a farmhand by the homesteaders' de facto leader. Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) is a hardworking farmer providing for his wife (Jean Arthur) and son (Brandon De Wilde). Little Joey, feeling the first pangs of approaching manhood, is intrigued by Shane's guns.

"Could you whip him, Pa? Could you whip Shane?" Joey asks his father.


"Oh, maybe," Joe Starrett says. "No call for that, though, Joey. Shane's on our side."

Joey may be a wide-eyed innocent, but he is quite aware of the danger the homesteaders face from Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer) and his gang.

Jack Palance is the devil incarnate as a shootist who wears one black glove and provokes his prey into drawing first by whispering, "Prove it."

When he zeroes in on Elisha Cook Jr. as an alcoholic Southerner nicknamed "Stonewall," the result will break your heart.

Ben Johnson is at his menacing best as a Ryker enforcer. Be on the lookout for some TV folks: Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan), Miss Hathaway (Nancy Kulp) and Grandma Walton (Ellen Corby).

Stevens has an eclectic filmography. He also directed the Astaire-Rogers "Swing Time" (1936), "Gunga Din" (1939), "Giant" (1956) and "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959).

Need you be told that De Wilde crying "Shane! Come back!" became one of the quotables of American cinema? De Wilde was nominated for a best-supporting Oscar — in fact, so was Palance. (Neither actor won.)

The Blu-ray conversion is a brilliant showcase for Wyoming's Teton Mountains. Extras include commentary by the director's son, George Stevens Jr., and "Shane" associate producer Ivan Moffat, who died in 2002.

The Great Gatsby
$35.99 (Blu-ray/DVD), Warner Home Video


"The Great Gatsby" is about excess.

Not the excess of the 1920s "flapper" era.

It's about the excessive use of CGI backgrounds in modern cinema.

"Gatsby" is a green-screen nightmare. You can't believe a thing you're looking at.

And since it's a 3-D film, the CG effects are constantly in your face. Each shot is relentless. "Gatsby" rarely slows down. It's a movie that downs 16-ounce Red Bulls by the 12-pack.

The acting, alas, ain't much better. Leonardo DiCaprio as (who else?) Gatsby is a veritable mannequin. DiCaprio wears three facial expressions in "The Great Gatsby": suave, perplexed and deceased.

Tobey Maguire plays struggling writer Nick Carraway (considered a surrogate for "Gatsby" author F. Scott Fitzgerald), who tells the story of the enigmatic millionaire in flashback. Maguire really did himself a disservice by making those three "Spider-Man" movies. His inherent goofiness in those films made such an impression that, in "Gatsby," Maguire is only playing Peter Parker in a straw hat.

Carey Mulligan seems out of her depth as Nick's cousin Daisy, Gatsby's long-lost love, since married to Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), a control-freak millionaire. Tom's not-so-secret trysts with a married woman (Isla Fisher) have tragic ramifications.

In a making-of doc, director Baz Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge!") says his goal was to bring internalized material in Fitzgerald's novel to the screen. Another special feature has Maguire "hosting" the backstage madness.

$19.99 (Blu-ray), Sony


Does "Ishtar" deserve its reputation as an infamous comedy bomb, scraping the barrel-bottom alongside "Gigli," "Jack and Jill," "Norbit" and any movie starring Pauly Shore?

"Ishtar" is godawful, fer sher, but it's not much worse than any number of comedies from 1987, the year that brought us "Beverly Hills Cop II," "Police Academy 4" and "Leonard Part 6."

Plot: Desperate wanna-be lounge singers Lyle (Dustin Hoffman) and Chuck (Warren Beatty) accept a booking in Morocco. There, they find bewitching rebel Shirra (Isabelle Adjani), who has only to turn on the tears — or lift her shirt — to put the boys under her spell. Their interaction with Shirra is noted by a weasely federal agent (Charles Grodin).

When Grodin is on screen, "Ishtar" is actually funny. In Grodin's subplot, U.S. operatives do bad things, like firing from helicopters at Lyle and Chuck in the desert. It's surprisingly cynical for such a supposedly insipid movie. In a hilarious scene, Grodin works several phones in rapid succession following a botched international incident, giving each party a different rap, including the president.

But "Ishtar" sometimes has a behind-the-times feel, as if writer-director Elaine May, then 55, was stubbornly concocting scenarios that would have been side-splitting when she was a comedy newbie.

Headbands on men must have been the hot look of '87. Hoffman can't get enough of 'em. When Hoffman and Beatty wear matching headbands onstage, it looks like they're playing Wham! or Kajagoogoo.

There are no extra features.

Mark Voger can be reached HERE.