Posted on Fri, May. 30, 2008

The Will Ferrell basketball comedy Semi-Pro was a box-office disappointment when it was released in February, leading many to wonder whether it was the R rating that cut into the film's audience or if Ferrell had simply gone to the Anchorman/Talladega Nights/Blades of Glory well once too often.

Catching up with the movie in its two-disc, ''Let's Get Sweaty'' unrated Blu-ray version (New Line Home Video, $40; also on DVD, $35; in stores Tuesday), I'd say it was the latter. There are some uproarious moments in this tale of a 1970s pop singer turned basketball team owner trying to get the last-place Flint (Michigan) Tropics into the NBA. But the dull spots overwhelm the funny stuff, and despite a supporting cast that includes Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin, Andy Richter, Maura Tierney and Will Arnett, the movie is too similar to Ferrell's previous sports-themed comedies to muster up prolonged comedic steam.

The Blu-ray disc certainly looks and sounds great, with a 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. The unrated version adds seven minutes of footage to the theatrical version, although it's not nearly as naughty as the disc's marketing slogan would have you believe. Extras are plentiful, including several making-of featurettes, some alternate versions of scenes and ad-libs that are funnier than anything in the film and a different opening and closing for the movie.

VISIONS OF HELL

Chapter 17 of the scene selection menu in the DVD of Deadbeat at Dawn is titled ''The Best Fight Scene Ever,'' and whoever came up with it wasn't lying. The last 10 minutes of Jim Vanbebber's 1988 no-budget revenge drama, about a gang leader (played by Vanbebber) seeking revenge on the rival gang members who killed his girlfriend, consist of one of the most outrageous fight scenes ever put on film, shot and edited with equal amounts of ineptitude and ferocity. The only thing the sequence leaves you craving is a chance to have watched it at a crowded theater during a midnight screening.

Deadbeat at Dawn, one of the rare straight-to-video movies that deserves its cult following, is one of two feature-length films collected in the four-disc box set Visions of Hell: The Films of Jim Vanbebber (Dark Sky Films, $40), which also includes the ghoulish 2003 horror show The Manson Family, several short films and a number of documentaries.

It is Deadbeat at Dawn, though, which is the star of the set. Rarely have I encountered a film with worse acting, shoddier production values (the entire budget was less than $10,000) or funnier fight choreography. Yet once it starts, just try to tear your eyes away. In a video interview included in the set, the smart and personable Vanbebber says the film is ''perfect for what it is: a simple revenge kung-fu movie,'' and he's right. There's something refreshing about encountering a B-picture that isn't trying to be something larger than life (for more on this, see Kill Bill).

Vanbebber, who shot the film in Dayton, Ohio (and uses the city, perhaps accidentally, to present deeply depressing panoramas of urban America), talks about his difficulty in getting the movie made: He shot the action-packed last 20 minutes first, then filmed the stuff leading up to it incrementally, depending on his resources. The director also addresses the film's unusual hero, who goes from being a healthy, nunchaku-wielding martial-arts whiz to a coke-sniffing, heroin-using loser in the course of a 60-second montage in the film.

''I wanted to do a film where some guy has these martial-art skills, but he does crank,'' Vanbebber explains. After seeing Deadbeat at Dawn, no one would argue his point.

The Manson Family, the second feature in the set, is an experimental, quasi-documentary look at the Tate/LaBianca murders. The film is exceptionally unsettling, horrifically violent and nowhere near as fun to watch as Deadbeat. But it, too, proves that just because Vanbebber makes his movies for pennies doesn't make him another Ed Wood.

OLD TV

The Invaders only lasted a season-and-a-half on ABC, starting in January 1967, but its effects proved lasting. The X-Files creator Chris Carter cited it as an influence on his '90s classic series and even hired Invaders star Roy Thinnes for a recurring role.

Sci-fi cultists will be thrilled to finally own The Invaders -- The First Season (CBS DVD; $36.98), and the studio earns points for taking the time to get its release on DVD mostly right.

Sure, completists will complain that episodes may be edited from their original broadcast (they seem pretty complete), but we also get the edited Beachhead premiere episode and its full 60-minute version as a bonus supplement on the fifth disc. Thinnes, 70, introduces each episode and sits for an on-camera interview.

CBS DVD has been doing right by its old series releases. The overdue Mannix -- The First Season ($49.99; out Tuesday) also boasts participation from its lead actors as Mike Connors (Mannix) and Joseph Campanella (the boss) share stories about filming. Look for a young Neil Diamond, playing himself in a bar scene, in the fourth episode of that 1967-68 season.

-- HOWARD COHEN

hcohen@MiamiHerald.com