In January it was a collection of films from the 1960s with the DVD release of Through the Decades: 1960s Film Collection, which featured comedy, action and dramas ranging from Genghis Khan to Under the Yum Yum Tree and The Chase.
The same month, Mill Creek Entertainment also served-up Through the Decades: 1970s Film Collection, showcasing such film fare as The Owl and the Pussycat, The Anderson Tapes and The Stone Killer.
So popular were these two DVD collections that Mill Creek Entertainment announced last week that Apr. 12 would see a ten priced-to-collect group of films served-up in the DVD set titled Through the Decades: 1980s Film Collection. From comedy — Like Father, Like Son, Vice Versa and Roxanne — to the action and courtroom suspense of Blue Thunder, Little Nikita and Suspect.
Continuing with this theme, Mill Creek was back this week with news that Apr. 12 would also be the street date for another 10-film collection on DVD, Through the Decades: 1990s Film Collection.
There are some real gems here, so let’s get to it. How about we start with Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin teaming up in director Frank Oz’s 1992 comedy, HouseSitter. What fun this was.
Steve Martin plays an architect by the name of Newton Davis who was in love with Becky (Dana Delany), so much so that he designed and built a dreamhouse. She broke his heart, and the house remains empty.
While on a business trip he meets a woman, who speaks not a word of English and tells her of his broken heart, knowing full well that she doesn’t understand a word he is saying. Wrong, the lovely Gwen (Goldie Hawn) is a scam artist — actually, more of a compulsive liar — and turns Newton’s tale of woe into some comfortable new digs — if he’s not going to move, then she will!!
Normally, this type of story could be kind of creepy, but HouseSitter is a romantic comedy and when Newton finds out what Gwen has been up to, his initial fury is tamed when he discovers that she’s smoothed things over with his parents, and has made friends with none other than Becky. Ah ha! An agreement is made, help him win Becky back and all will be forgiven … of course, it just doesn’t exactly turn out as planned.
Also on the romantic comedy front is director Mark Joffe’s 1997 film release of The Matchmaker, starring Janeane Garofalo as Marcy, a member of Massachusetts’ Senator John McGlory (Jay O. Sanders — The Day After Tomorrow, Along Came a Spider, Revolutionary Road), who is sent on a fool’s errand to Ireland by the Senator’s chief-of-staff (Denis Leary) to do some research on McGlory’s Irish roots.
Of course, it is a comedy of errors, Marcy finds romance from an unlikely source, the Senator ends up with an Irish woman as a fiancée (which helps him win the close election) and his father gives a twist to the whole affair with the secret about the family’s true heritage.
On the action front, there’s director Mike Newell’s 1997 biopic tale, Donnie Brasco, teaming Johnny Depp — as the title character — with the likes of Al Pacino, Michael Madsen and Anne Heche, in the true story of an FBI agent who goes undercover and infiltrates a New York City mob family.
Another “mob” movie in the Through the Decades: 1990s Film Collection is writer/director Andrew Bergman’s 1990 “organized crime” comedy, The Freshman, co-starring Matthew Broderick — as a film school student — with Marlon Brando, who looks exactly like the godfather from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. He is? Or, is he just another mobster? The fun is finding out.
Other films included in this collection are: I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Deep End of the Ocean, One True Thing, White Place and Jennifer Lopez’s Amazon adventure, Anaconda.
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