Showbits

TVShowsonDVD.com has the news that the Sci-Fi Channel's recent original mini-series, Tin Man, will come to home video in a two-DVD set on March 11th. This modern adaptation of The Wizard of Oz stars Zooey Deschanel, who I've not yet seen enough of to offer judgment. She played Lady Larken in 2005's direct-to-DVD release of Once Upon a Mattress, a musical comedy version of the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea — though I was so fascinated by the performance of Tom Smothers that no one else left an impression. I do remember not being overwhelmed by Ms. Deschanel's performance in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though, and a friend's review of her acting in Tin Man was equally unfavorable.

The greater draw for me is the show's plot. Tin Man premiered on the closing night of a local community theater group's production of The Wizard of Oz, which I was not drawn to see; it and Annie are probably my two least favorite musicals. (In either, take away the kids and the dogs, and what's left?) Compared to that saccharine origin, the Sci-Fi Channel's darker retelling holds stronger appeal, and the review on Showbits reader GeneD's blog has me eager for the home video release.

Mystery Science Theater 3000, the television series that for ten years lampooned terrible B-films, will see its twelfth DVD collection released this October, reports TVShowsOnDVD.com.

Since I was a latecomer to the series, the three Comedy Central-era episodes in this set are unknown to me. More appealing is the inclusion of episode 811. When I was taking a college course on bioethics that steered one day toward cloning, I offered to lend the professor a film about cloning. I didn't warn him it was the MST3K version of Parts: The Clonus Horror. My thoughtfulness was acknowledged the next day when I was late to class and Prof. Shannon stopped his lecture to address my classmates: "I would like to thank Mr. Gagne for lending me what is very possibly the worst film I have ever seen."

Years later, when I first read the plot description for the 2005 film The Island, I was sure it was a remake of Clonus (which is a pretty bad idea for a movie; shouldn't you rip off the greats, not the awfuls?). A few months later, I wasn't the only one to think so: the producer of Clonus (interviewed for a bonus feature on the above DVD set) filed a lawsuit against The Island's producers, claiming copyright infringement. The case was settled out-of-court a year later for a seven-figure sum.

I'd ask for a RiffTrax version of The Island — but that would just seem redundant.