Clockwise (Blu-ray) by Stuart Galbraith IV A slight but amusing comedy starring Monty Python's John Cleese, Clockwise (1986) is singularly British in some respects, particularly in how it contrasts Cleese's character, the fastidious headmaster of what Americans would call a public high school with the pompous private school headmasters he's so determined to impress. For this and other reasons the film was only moderately successful in the U.S., where its release was limited to the "art house" circuit. From this experience Cleese decided that his next film would carefully appeal to British and American audiences equally, the result being A Fish Called Wanda (1988), his most famous non-Python starring film. Written by playwright and novelist Michael Frayn (Noises Off), the story f...Read the entire review »

A Different Story (Blu-ray) by Jesse Skeen This film from 1977 starts out as a sort-of different story (the title is part of the theme song's lyrics) but quickly morphs into a more usual romantic comedy as it goes along. Perry King is Albert, a gay man from Belgium living as a non-citizen in Los Angeles with a famous conductor. That relationship soon ends and Albert finds himself with no place to live, so he spends the night in an empty house that's up for sale. He's awoken the next morning by realty agent Stella (Meg Foster), who lets him shack up in her dingy little house. She can't do a lot of the things stereotypical women of that era are expected to do, but Albert is a whiz at cooking and cleaning. Since he's gay he's not even threatening, and besides that it turns out Stella is a lesbian, revealed when the date she's been preparing for all day turns out to be a woman, supposedly shocking to audiences of that time.