An early film starring the young John Cusack, the latest episodes in an excellent historical drama from Britain and two fresh takes on World War II are among the more intriguing recent DVD releases.
-"Better Off Dead" (CBS/Paramount Home Entertainment, $21.99 Blu-ray, rated PG): Unless you're gripped with an enduring nostalgia for the kind of hi jinx portrayed in '80s teen comedies, writer/director Savage Steve Holland's 1985 film (making its Blu-ray debut) starring the young John Cusack as a love-sick high school student may leave you colder than the ski slopes on which Cusack's character competes. The cliches run rampant and the plot, when it's not borrowing from Hal Ashby's "Harold and Maude," is predictable to anyone who's gotten within spitting distance of the genre. Example: The bad guy here, who steals Cusack's girlfriend, is blond, good-looking, egotistical, athletic and mean, his name is Roy Stalin (was Sam Hitler taken?) and he deserves the comeuppance we know he'll get in the end.
Still, Cusack, early in his career (he had just made "The Sure Thing"), is charmingly offbeat as the hapless Lane Meyer, who resorts to a variety of failed suicide schemes after getting dumped by Beth (Amanda Wyss). And amid the suburban stereotypes of the ineffectual dad (David Ogden Stiers), the mom (Kim Darby) whose cooking is run-away-from-the-table disgusting, the tech whiz of a younger brother (Scooter Stevens) and the goofy sidekick (Curtis Armstrong), there's a bunch of very funny, quirky scenes. My favorite features Vincent Schiavelli as a nerdy math teacher whose class is filled with adoring students who pay rapt attention to his complex geometry and algebra lesson, are passionate about their homework assignments and groan when the bell rings to end their class. Scenes like this and running gags like the paper boy obsessively trying to collect his bill ("I want my two dollars!") have helped make "Better Off Dead" a cult classic.
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/01/3050034/a-grab-bag-of-new-dvd-releases.html#ixzz1UGJTBOLx
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