The Corner Penthouse

Jury Duty arrives on Blu-ray as part of Mill Creek Entertainment's Retro VHS Look Series, part of a growing trend of physical media releases with packaging designed to look like the VHS videocassettes of the 1980s and 1990s. I have reviewed several other titles in the series here on The Corner Penthouse.


Jury Duty (1995) is the story of Tommy Collins (Pauly Shore), a failed male stripper whose mother (Shelley Winters) elopes with her boyfriend Jed (Charles Napier) to Las Vegas with the family mobile home, their principal residence. Jobless, homeless and well-nigh useless, Tommy discovers that sequestered jurors earn free room and board as well as $5 a day, so he gets himself assigned to a jury in a murder trial. But the case is open-and-shut, and Tommy is in no hurry to leave his new, luxurious digs. So he does everything he can to prolong the trial and deliberations and make the sequestration more comfortable for himself. This is not popular, however, with the other jurors, including the beautiful Monica (Tia Carrere). The lone holdout, Tommy is in more danger than the defendant of being on the receiving end of the jury's wrath.


I'll state it right now up front: I hate Pauly Shore. I've never liked him. I never found his shtick funny. He's as much of an annoying pest as Adam Sandler, only worse because I like a couple of Sandler's 1990's films. So, it's a bit of a surprise to me that Jury Duty was not as bad as I was expecting it to be. There were actually a few funny moments. Not a lot, mind you, but I think I laughed more while watching this film than I did Ghostbusters (2016).


Jury Duty felt a lot like The Naked Gun of courtroom dramas, with Pauly's "Tommy" in place of Leslie Nielsen's "Frank Drebin". I know that it seems like heresy to compare a Pauly Shore film with the parodies of the Zucker brothers, but that was the vibe I got a few times while watching the film.


Where the film shines brightest is in the excellent supporting cast that surrounds Pauly Shore. First and foremost is the always lovely and awesome Tia Carrere, aka "the Waynes World babe"; though I always liked her best as the titular Relic Hunter, Sydney Fox, in the 1999-2002 syndicated series. Ghostbusters fans may be interested in seeing a hirsute Brian Doyle Murray (the psychiatrist in Ghostbusters II and the voice of the mayor in The Video Game) and Mark L. Taylor (a guest voice in the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Till Death Do Us Start") as jurors. Nick Bakay (the voice of Salem in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the Stunt Granny-lovin' narrator of Exposed! Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets (on VHS), and the voice of Norbert in The Angry Beavers) as reporter Richard Hurtz. Yes, that's a pun on "dick hurts", just to give you an idea as to the level of humor in the film. Also in the cast are character actors Stanley Tucci, Abe Vigoda, Charles Napier, Richard Riehle, Jack McGee, Shelley Winters, Billie Bird, Siobhan Fallon, Sean Whalen, a pre-Napoleon Dynamite Efren Ramirez, and comedians Andrew Dice Clay and Rick Ducommun in uncredited roles. Like I said, the supporting cast is amazing.


Jury Duty is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with a runtime of 1:27:50. On the audio side, there is only an English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Subtitles are available in English only. As is the case with most Mill Creek Entertainment releases, there are no special features - just like the original videocassette!


The real "bonus feature" here is the vintage-looking VHS-inspired slipsleeve, with faux wear and tear, and fake "rental stickers" on it, while giving the appearance of a videocassette being pulled out from the right side (though the original VHS may have been in a bottom-loading box), complete with tape label side on the right spine. This particular release is part of the "I Heart 90s" subset, which has a banner in the top left corner and at the top of the spine labeling it as such. This subset also features colored VHS tapes on the slipsleeve, which was something that was somewhat prevalent in the 1990s, though this title may not have had a colored VHS release. Here's a complete look at this special slipsleeve. Click on it to get a better look.


The front artwork is based on the original U.S. VHS box art, as seen below. The back of the slipsleeve bears a similarity to the original VHS box art, using the same photos, but in a different orientation.


The case artwork underneath is of a modern style, which means that the VHS-style slipsleeve may only be available for a limited time. In the photo below, the slipsleeve cover is on the left and the case artwork underneath is on the right. This is one instance where I prefer the case art, and not the retro slipsleeve because there are two nice photos of Tia Carrere on the artwork (one on the front and one on the back), but she's pretty much missing from the sleeve (aside from a group shot on the back).


If you're not already aware of Mill Creek Entertainment, they are a budget company, which results in their products having a lower cost than the big studios. Right now, Jury Duty is listed on Amazon for less than $10.


The "Retro VHS Look Series" includes the following Blu-ray releases, which are being listed in chronological movie order, and not the order they are being released onto Blu-ray. Some titles below may not have been released yet.



Images used come from the Internet Movie Database gallery of the film. The Blu-ray has been provided by Mill Creek Entertainment for review on this site.