DVD Review: How Bruce Lee Changed the World
Jim Carnes - Sacramento Bee
Aug 28, 2009
Here's a topic you may not have given a lot of thought to: How Bruce Lee changed the world. A martial-arts actor who made only four films (and only one of them in Hollywood) - how much impact could he have had?
A DVD being released Tuesday may just enlighten you.
The History Channel biography goes a long way toward revealing the real man behind those furious fists and feet. Lee was born in San Francisco and lived only to the age of 32 - his mysterious death, some say, was the result of a curse. He died three weeks before the release of his only U.S. film, "Enter the Dragon."
Though his film output was slim, he made a huge impact on our culture, popularizing Chinese martial arts and influencing such actors and filmmakers as Jackie Chan, John Woo, Chuck Norris and Quentin Tarantino. Rare home movies and seldom-seen interviews from some of those he influenced create a fascinating intimate portrait of the man. "How Bruce Lee Changed the World" has a list price of $19.95 and is not rated.
A television series that had a similarly huge impact on popular culture - "thirtysomething" - is making its debut on DVD this week, too. The complete first season of 21 original episodes, which aired in 1987-88, is packaged in a six-disc collectible box that includes a commemorative booklet.
Part of the show's impact was its realistic portrayal of the baby boom generation facing "grown-up" life. Part of its impact was that lowercase title thing that now ties right in with the way people type and tweet and twitter and do all that Internet stuff.
Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick are the director- writer-producer team responsible for the series, along with writer- director Paul Haggis. Its ensemble cast included Timothy Busfield, Polly Draper, Mel Harris, Peter Horton, Melanie Mayron, Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig.
The series helped advance the careers of a lot of those actors, not the least of whom is Busfield, who got enough coin from the series to co-found, with his brother Buck, the B Street Theatre Company in Sacramento, Calif.
Not rated, "thirtysomething" lists for $59.99.
Shop for the DVD at Military.com
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