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Disc Four:
 Mirror,
Mirror - Perhaps the show's biggest directorial coup was
snagging Martin Scorsese (yes...that Martin Scorsese)
to helm this creepy tale of a popular horror novelist (Sam
Waterston) who begins to see a mysterious, hooded figure (an
unrecognizable Tim Robbins) in mirrors and other reflective
surfaces, lurking behind him, only to find nothing whenever
he turns around. At first, the figure has a knife. Then a
garrote wire. And he's getting closer each time the novelist
catches a glimpse of him. It's a stylish effort, slickly directed
and effectively eerie, but the denouement is strained and
silly, marring an otherwise first-rate episode. Shame. ***1/2
Secret Cinema - Paul Bartel wrote and directed this slight entry about a woman who becomes convinced that her life is being covertly filmed for the amusement of an unseen audience. It's an obvious precursor to The Truman Show, only lacking the pungent, scathing wit of Peter Weir's film. **
Hell Toupee - A living toupee runs amok, attaching itself to the heads of various lawyers and causing them to commit murder and other atrocities in this installment by director Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back). As silly as it sounds. *1/2
The Doll - John Lithgow won an Emmy for his touching performance as a desperately lonely middle-aged man who develops a strange fixation on an exquisitely detailed doll he finds in a local shop in this effort from frequent Twilight Zone scribe Richard Matheson and director Phil Joanou. Georges Delerue's lovely score buoys this moving ode to emotional isolation. ***1/2
One For The Books - Another Matheson teleplay is the basis for this mildly intriguing effort about an elderly janitor who begins to inexplicably soak up information from the books and classrooms in the university he works in like a sponge. Until the ending, it seems to be going somewhere interesting, but it stumbles in its final moments. Still, not bad. **1/2
 Grandpa's
Ghost - Turgid, pretentious effort from director and co-writer
Timothy Hutton about a young man (Andrew McCarthy) who tries
to comfort his grandmother after her husband passes away,
despite the fact the she still sees him lurking about. This
is just one ghost story too many for the season, with a puzzling
ending that doesn't make a lot of sense (granted, I was very
sleepy when I watched this episode, so take my grousing with
a grain of salt). *1/2
The DVD Presentation
Universal has presented the inaugural season of Amazing Stories with a series of solid, blemish-free transfers that nicely reproduce the original, full-screen presentations, although the decision to shoot most of the episodes with deliberately soft-focus, "old-timey" photography means that the image isn't exactly razor-sharp. Then again, for mid-‘80s network television, this looks pretty damn good, and there’s little visible print damage. The show's original stereo soundtracks have been mildly expanded into a 5.1 presentation that won't exactly rattle the cupboards (although Ghost Train and The Mission offer up some pretty good sound design), but gives a needed boost to the collection of exceptional music scores of the various episodes. Subtitles are presented in English and Spanish. The basic menus only offer static screenshots with the titles of the various episodes, accompanied by John Williams' series theme on an endless loop.
 And
The Extras Are?
Disappointingly slim. NBC lost a bundle on the show back in
the day ($44 million for two seasons of a half-hour show was
a big deal twenty years ago), so it's not surprising that
they didn't want to pony up some additional cash for extra
bells and whistles. Still, an interview with Spielberg discussing
recollections of the series would have been intriguing. What
we do get is a collection of approximately twenty minutes
of Deleted Scenes from various episodes, spread across
the four discs, presented in rough-looking work-prints. It's
easy to see why most of this stuff was removed, although Vanessa
In The Garden has some nice additional material featuring
Beau Bridges. Hey, it's better than nothing.
The Bottom Line
For all its faults, Amazing Stories is worth a look
for 80's nostalgia buffs and fans of Spielberg and the various
other directors involved in the project, although whether
it's worth a purchase is up to the consumer. I'd assume that
a Netflix rental of the best episodes will suffice for most.
Still, ugly cover art and all, it's worth the trip down memory
lane. I was 11 when the show premiered, and watching The
Mission for the first time remains one of my most vivid
childhood memories. Fun!
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