DVD Pick of the Week - Labyrinth: The Anniversary Edition
Labyrinth: The Anniversary Edition
I can’t stress enough how much David Bowie made the needle on my burgeoning sexuality spin haywire when I was 12. Resplendent in his jewel-encrusted long coats, the eye shadow he’d been saving from his Diamond Dogs tour makeup kit for a rainy day, the towering fringe he’d borrowed from Tina Turner and the kind of package that might have earned the film a PG-13 if it’d landed on camera for a few seconds longer, Bowie’s Jareth the Goblin King did more for androgynous sex appeal in my youth than Adam Ant and the whole of Duran Duran combined. Which is just as well seeing as how Bowie had already done exactly the same for the generation before me; bless Jim Henson and his team for using it to expert fantasy-romp effect in Labyrinth, which has finally gotten a proper special edition DVD release for its 20th anniversary.
Sarah (a then-very young but still impossibly beautiful Jennifer Connelly) is a teenage dreamer who stifles her frustrations with responsibility and an attention-hogging infant brother by inventing storybook fantasies she thinks are her own creation, until one stormy night when big bad sexy…er, villainous Jareth enters the real world and steals away baby Toby to be his heir. With the help of a motley crew of memorable Henson puppet characters – cranky gnome Hoggle, lovable monster Ludo, noble puppydog-knight Sir Didymus and others – Sarah must traverse the king’s treacherous labyrinth and enter his castle to rescue her baby brother, all the while resisting Jareth’s desire to make her his queen. (Willful little lady, that Jen – I would have given over to the Thin White Duke in a heartbeat.) Whimsical, funny and packed with corny yet catchy 80’s Bowie diddies, Labyrinth arrives on disc with a great new transfer; audio commentary by conceptual designer Brian Froud (the man behind The Dark Crystal, also out in a new anniversary edtion this week); several making-of documentaries, galleries and more.
Also recommended this week: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters For DVD; Back To School: SE; The Dark Crystal; Drunken Monkey; The Executioner’s Song; The Fugitive: Season 1 Vol. 1; Inland Empire; Kids In The Hall: Pilot; The Shakespeare Collection; Taxi Driver: Deluxe Edition.
— Nicole Campos
