The DVD Report #43: February 26, 2008
Every year we thrill at certain Oscar winners, scoff at others. Here are a few thoughts on some winners for which the thrill remains. Six Best Picture Winners In only its third year in 1930, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave its award to what is still one of the great films of all time. Erich Maria Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, adapted for the screen by Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott and Del Andrews, wasn't the first anti-war epic to command the public's attention, but this tale of seven German university students who enlist in World War I, and become, one by one, disillusioned by it quickly took on a resonance that has never faded. In addition to its Best Picture Oscar, it won for its direction by Lewis Milestone and was nominated as well for its screenplay and cinematography. Long available in a shoddy DVD transfer, Universal's Special Edition of last year gives it the sheen it deserves. Lew Ayres as the film's protagonist was so taken with the film's message that he famously became a conscientious objector and served admirably in World War II as a medic under fire in the South Pacific. Its Best Picture win dimmed in some eyes because it dared to beat critics' darling Citizen Kane, John Ford's 1941 epic, How Green Was My Valley is every bit the masterpiece Citizen Kane is, and then some. Its central theme of family love and devotion despite the family's being spread out over three continents, only grows deeper with time, as does its theme, that of the plight of coal miners who risk their lives every time they go to work. The film won a total of five Oscars including those for John Ford's magnificent direction, Donald Crisp's supporting performance as the family patriarch, Arthur C. Miller's haunting cinematography and for its one of a kind art direction and set design. It was also nominated for Philip Dunne's brilliant adaptation of the first half of Richard Llewellyn's novel, its editing, sound recording and Best Supporting Actress Sara Allgood whose portrayal of the family matriarch is easily the equal of Crisp's. It's a shame the two didn't win in tandem. It's a shame, too, that Roddy McDowall's didn't win one of those special awards given child actors at the time for his heart-rending portrayal of twelve year old Huw whose character narrates the tale in middle age. If All Quiet on the Western Front was one of the first talking films to deal with the harsh realities of war, William Wyler's1946 masterpiece, The Best Years of Our Lives, was one of the first to deal with the problems of returning soldiers after a war, in this case World War II. Nominated for eight Oscars, the film won seven including those for Wyler's direction, Robert E. Sherwood's rich screenplay (from MacKinlay Kantor's novel), actor (Fredric March), supporting Actor (Harold Russell), editing and score. Russell, a real life sailor who lost both hands in the war, was also given an honorary award for his work in the film, the only performer ever to win two Oscars for the same portrayal. Oddly enough Gregg Toland's deep focus cinematography that is a key component of the film wasn't even nominated, nor were the remarkable performances of Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright or Dana Andrews. The MGM DVD release is a marked improvement over the HBO DVD, which spread the film over two sides of a single disc. Long regarded as the best film ever made about show business, Joseph L. Mankiewicz'1950 film, All About Eve,is a backstage comedy-drama about an aspiring actress who not only steals her idol's parts, but her friends and lovers as well. Bette Davis as the iconoclastic Broadway star gives the performance of her career and she is brilliantly supported by Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter, all of whom, along with Davis, won Oscar nominations for their performances, Sanders winning. The film, in fact, won a total of six Oscars out of a record-setting fourteen nominations. Its wins, in addition to Best Picture, included those for direction (Joseph L. Mankiewicz), screenplay (Mankiewicz again), costume design and sound recording. Its other eight nominations, in addition to the four acting nods already mentioned, included art direction, cinematography, editing and score. Mankiewicz had won the same double honor the previous year for his direction and writing of A Letter to Three Wives. Arguably the best film Billy Wilder ever made,1960's The Apartment has lost none of its sparkle and none of its bite over the years. Boldly stretching the boundaries of the Production Code, this matter-of-fact comedy-drama about an office clerk who rises to the top by lending his apartment to the company bosses for their extra-marital trysts, propelled the careers of both Jack Lemon and Shirley MacLaine. Lemmon proved he could play pathos as well as broad comedy as the lovable schlemiel who wises up after he witnesses the mistreatment of elevator girl MacLaine at the hands of duplicitous boss Fred MacMurray. MacLaine was every bit as brilliant as his equally slow-to-learn female counterpart. The film won a total of five Oscars and was nominated for five more. Its wins, in addition to Best Picture, included those for direction (Wilder), screenplay (Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond), art direction and editing. The other nominations were for actor (Lemmon), actress (MacLaine), supporting actor (Jack Kruschen), cinematography and sound. It took an outsider, British director John Schlesinger, to see the beauty in the squalor of the underbelly of New York City in1969's Midnight Cowboy, the first and only X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar. The X rating was, of course, ridiculous and later changed to R, but there's no denying that the film's impact on the portrayal of sexual mores on screen. At its heart, though, it's a character study about a Southern charmer with dreams of making it big as a male prostitute and the con artist who tries to fleece him before becoming his friend. The performances of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman remain two of the greatest of all time. Voight's poignant naiveté and Hoffman's tough vulnerability complement each other throughout the film. Hoffman, who had become an overnight sensation two years earlier in The Graduate proved his versatility in a completely different kind of role and Voight became a star of equal magnitude here. The film also won Oscars for Schlesinger's direction and Waldo Salt's screenplay. Both Hoffman and Voight were nominated for Best Actor and the film was also nominated for supporting actress (Sylvia Miles) and editing. Shockingly, John Barry's provocative score, which is a key component of the film, was not nominated. Three Best Actor Winners Fredric March had already provn his versatility in both comedy and drama when he won his second nomination and first Oscar for adding horror to his resume in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Effortlessly moving back and forth between the good doctor and evil monster, March even gets to transform into the beast while the camera stays focused on his face, a masterful special effect that still leaves us in awe today. The 1931 film, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, was pre-code and doesn't suffer at all from the stodginess that damned the 1941 version. Miriam Hopkins is unforgettable as well as the sexy prostitute, Ivy, who captivates the beast. Robert Donat had proven adept at playing characters at various stages of life in films before, most notably 1934's The Count of Monte Cristo and 1938's The Citadel, for which he won his first nomination, but it's his portrayal of the beloved schoolteacher in 1939's Goodbye, Mr. Chips where he gives the performance of his career. Going from shy young schoolmaster to authoritative temporary headmaster during World War I, Donat is brilliant at every turn, especially in the end when the 34-year-old actor is portraying a very old man with a lifetime of memories. Greer Garson, in her first American film, is perfectly cast as Mrs. Chipping, the character's actual name, Chips being an affectionate nickname. Donat famously and deservedly won the Oscar over James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind. Fifty years after Donat's stunning turn as Mr. Chips, Daniel Day-Lewis gave an equally compelling portrait of a man who ages during the course of his film, albeit one whose span of life in the film was hardly as expansive as Donat's. The Irish actor played the real-life Christy Brown, a man struck with cerebral palsy as a child, who despite his affliction, became an acclaimed poet in My Left Foot. Like Donat, Day-Lewis had the benefit of a brilliant co-star, in this case Brenda Fricker, who won a much-deserved Oscar as his never-say-never mother. Like Donat, he famously and deservedly won the Oscar over two highly acclaimed performances, those of Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July and Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy. Three Best Actress Winners Twelve years after winning her first Oscar for playing Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, Vivien Leigh won her second for playing faded Southern belle Blanche DuBois in Elia Kazan's 1951 film version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. The performances play like flip sides of the same coin, the first strong and resourceful, the second sad and teetering on the brink of madness. Despite the dynamic performance of Marlon Brando as Leigh's brute of a brother-in-law, it is Leigh's transcendent performance that supplies the film's indelible sense of time and place. Thirty-five years after winning her first, but only a year after winning her second, Katharine Hepburn won the third of her still-record four acting Oscars for her sly, conniving Eleanor of Aquitaine opposite Peter O'Toole's wily Henry II in 1968's The Lion in Winter. Though I personally prefer the Hepburn of Little Women, The Philadelphia Story, Summertime and Long Day's Journey Into Night, this is easily the best of her Oscar-winning performances. Whether sparring with O'Toole or attempting to secure the future reign of son Richard the Lionhearted (Anthony Hopkins), Hepburn is amazing at every turn. As someone said at the time, if Davis and Crawford are the queens of the movies, Hepburn is the empress. The complete opposite of the endearing Mr. Chips and all those wonderful, kindly schoolteachers that followed, Maggie Smith is a self-indulgent, self-deluded grotesque Scottish schoolteacher in 1969's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, even succeeding in sending one of her worshipping female students off to fight and die in the Spanish Civil War on the wrong side. It is one of many rich characterizations Dame Maggie has given over her now-fifty-year-long film career and one that deservedly won her the first of her two Oscars to date over Hollywood favorites Jane Fonda and Liza Minnelli. Three Best Supporting Actor Winners Walter Huston was one of the great star character actors who won his only Oscar late in life as the happy-go-lucky, toothless old prospector in son John Huston's 1948 classic, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Equally brilliant in Dodsworth, The Devil and Daniel Webster and his last, The Furies, we still have that indelible image of him a-hootin' and a-hollerin' about fools' gold in his Oscar winning turn. Melvyn Douglas was best known for playing the debonair leading man to most the Golden Era's great actresses before turning almost exclusively to stage work in the 1950s. When he returned to the screen in 1962's Billy Budd it was quite a shock to see that he had become a grizzled old man, a persona that fit him like a glove. It benefit him well in his Oscar-winning role as Paul Newman's father, and the film's moral compass, in 1963's contemporary western Hud, for which he won the first of his two Oscars. Jason Robards was best known for interpreting the works of Eugene O'Neill on stage, screen and television, before becoming a dependable character actor. He was at his best as Washington Post editor Ben Bradley in the first of his back-to-back Oscar wins for All the President's Men. The film would still have been good without his wonderful performance, but he makes it seem somehow even more real whenever he's on screen. Three Best Supporting Actress Winners Jane Darwell was the embodiment of Ma Joad in John Ford's landmark 1940 film of what is often regarded as the great American novel,John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The longtime Fox contract player was previously best known for playing minor roles in Shirley Temple films of the 1930s. Her roles didn't improve much after her Oscar win, but there were a few memorable turns in such films as The Ox-Bow Incident, The Last Hurrah and her last, Mary Poppins. Ruth Gordon was an acclaimed stage actress who was best known in Hollywood as a three-time, Oscar-nominated writer and one-time nominated supporting actress when she donned an immaculately coiffed white wig to portray the witch next door in Rosemary's Baby, thus attaining screen immortality at the age of 72. More popular than ever, she remained a star to death, achieving her greatest triumph as the star of the cult classic Harold and Maude three years later. Peggy Ashcroft was best known as a British stage star with only sporadic appearances in films, when she was given the role of a lifetime, that of the enigmatic Mrs. Moore in David Lean's 1984 film A Passage to India at the age of 75. When it came to that year's Oscars, the only question was whether she'd be nominated in the lead or supporting category. It was a foregone conclusion that she'd win in whichever category she was placed for her laudatory performance. Three Honorary Winners Poor Rosalind Russell, always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Even when they finally got around to giving her an honorary award at the 1973 Oscars, it was for her humanitarian work, and not her marvelous performances encompassing such classics as The Women, His Girl Friday, Picnic and her glorious Auntie Mame. Many may have benefitted from her charitable works, but we're all better off for her having been one of the screen's most versatile actresses for more than four decades. Barbara Stanwyck had once been the highest paid woman in the world when she reigned supreme at the box office in such triumphs as Stella Dallas, The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire and Double Indemnity, but her glory days were long behind her when they finally got around to awarding her an honorary Oscar at the 1981 awards. Alas, she proved to still have a trick or two up her sleeve when she gave the performance of her career in her great Emmy award-winning role in the following year's epic mini-series, The Thorn Birds. Deborah Kerr long held the record for the most lead actress nominations, six, without a win when she was finally given an honorary Oscar at the 1993 awards. Many of her films, including Black Narcissus, From Here to Eternity, The King and I, An Affair to Remember, The Sundowenrs and The Night of the Iguana remain as popular today as when they were first shown. We still smile when we think about her many great performances, remembering as she invoked John Kerr in Tea and Sympahty, "when you talk about this, and you will, be kind." -Peter J. Patrick (February 26, 2008) |
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The DVD Report #42: February 19, 2008
Just in time for this Sunday's presentation of the 80th Annual Academy Awards, DVD companies have released some of the year's major contenders. They include Michael Clayton,nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay; In the Valley of Elah nominated for Best Actor; Elizabeth: The Golden Age, nominated for Best Actress, Gone Baby Gone and American Gangster, both nominated for Best Supporting Actress; and if you have access to Region 2 releases, Atonement, nominated for Best Picture and Supporting Actress as well as several other awards. These join the previously released Away From Her, nominated for Best Actress and Adapted Screenplay; La Vie en Rose nominated for Best Actress; Eastern Promises nominated for Best Actor; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford nominated for Best Supporting Actor; and Sicko and No End in Sight, both nominated for Best Documentary Feature. The only film to earn more than one acting nomination this year, Michael Clayton is a taut legal thriller that marks the directorial debut of longtime screenwriter Tony Gilroy. It provides Best Actor nominee George Clooney with his meatiest role to date as the fix-it guy of a high-priced law firm. Equally memorable are the performances of his co-nominees, Tom Wilkinson as a manic depressive litigator who goes off his meds and sees the light, and Tilda Swinton as the in-house counsel of a corporation embroiled in a class action suit. The unusually strong supporting cast includes Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe, Ken Howard and David Lansbury in key roles. Tommy Lee Jones gives the performance of his career in his Oscar-nominated role in Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah. Playing the father of a missing soldier home from Iraq, Jones' world-weary demeanor, slow, deliberate gait, and craggy, weather-beaten face are perfect attributes for the role of the man piecing together a puzzle he wishes he never had to solve. Charlize Theron as an intrepid policewoman, Jason Patric as her military counterpart and Susan Sarandon as Jones' wife lend quiet authority to their supporting turns and James Franco, Josh Brolin, Barry Corbin and Frances Fisher among others offer interesting cameos, but it is Jones' heartbreaking performance that you will long remember in this film based on a real life incident. Not to be confused with the similarly themed TV mini-series of 2006, Elizabeth I,Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth: The Golden Age suffers by its close proximity to that landmark work. Whereas Elizabeth I had a colorful script, a brilliant lead performance by Helen Mirren and excellent supporting performances, Elizabeth: The Golden Age has a dull script and a tired looking cast supporting its Oscar-nominated star, Cate Blanchett. Blanchett herself is quite good reprising the role she played in Kapur's 1998 film, Elizabeth,about the early life of the Virgin Queen, but she is given little to sink her teeth into. The Oscar-nominated costumes are quite stunning, however. Actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter Ben Affleck made his directorial debut with Gone Baby Gone, a terrific atmospheric thriller about the kidnapping of a little girl in Boston. Ben's brother Casey gives his most assured performance as a private investigator brought into the case to augment the police by the missing child's aunt. Bridget Moynihan is his partner in business as well as life, Morgan Freeman a police chief and Ed Harris a police detective. Amy Madigan is the aunt. All of them are terrific, but the standout is little known Amy Ryan, Oscar nominated for her portrayal of the missing girl's distraught mother. The on location filming in Boston with numerous locals in small parts is an asset. Based on the true story of a Harlem crime lord and the corrupt NYC drug enforcement division of the late 1960s and '70s, Ridley Scott's American Gangster is an epic film featuring charismatic performances from Denzel Washington as the entrepreneurial crime lord and Russell Crowe as the honest cop who goes after his empire. As commanding as the drug and crime scenes may be, the best part of the film are the domestic scenes, especially those involving Oscar nominee Ruby Dee as Washington's mother. There may not be much to her part, but as the saying goes, what's there is choice. The year's most eagerly awaited literary adaptation, Joe Wright's film of Ian McEwan's Atonement, provides audiences with smash reconstructions of the novel's three main sections, but fails to provide any transition between the sections making character motivation difficult to fathom. What we're left to marvel at, though, are gorgeous scenery, knockout costumes, a killer four-minute tracking shot and a handful of memorable performances. James McAvoy and Keira Knightley are star-crossed lovers and three actresses play Knightley's younger sister Briony, the film's "villain", at three different stages of her life. They are Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan who plays her as an adolescent in the 1930s. Romola Garai, who plays her as a young woman during World War II. And Vanessa Redgrave, who plays her as an old lady in the present. In addition to the Oscar nominees, some of last year's other high profile films have just been released on DVD as well. Having the misfortune of being released in theatres a week after Gone Baby Gone, and on DVD at the same time,James Gray's We Own the Night suffers in comparison, but is a gripping police thriller in its own right. Joaquin Phoenix gives another of his, by now, trademark portrayals of a good man in a lousy situation. He plays the son and brother of the local police chief and captain, played by Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg respectively. His relation is in spirit only as he has professionally changed his name to his mother's maiden, in order to avoid conflict in his career as the manager of a nightclub controlled by the Russian Mafia. The film's highlight is a killer rainstorm car chase. Just about everything you need to know about Gavin Hood's Rendition can be gleaned from the trailer which shows a nine-month pregnant Reese Witherspoon searching for answers to the disappearance of her Egyptian-born husband, Omar Metwally. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the out-of-his-depth American operative in an undisclosed Arab country while Peter Sargaard, Alan Arkin and Meryl Streep play politicians of varying degrees of sliminess. A sub-plot about a suicide bombing is compelling to a point, but the plot and sub-plot fail to connect in a cohesive manner. An annoying film about annoying people, Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding is about the reunion of sisters Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the days leading up to Leigh's planned wedding to wastrel Jack Black. The sisters despise each other and it doesn't take long for us to loathe them and the insufferable Mr. Black as well. Nothing in this film works on any level beyond its ability to disgust at every turn. More worthy of our time and money are three newly released sets: The Stanley Kramer Collection, the Charlie Chan Collecgtion, Vol. 4., and The Robert Donat Collection. The Kramer collection consists of five films from the prolific producer-director. Four are re-issued with new introductions and commentaries and one is new to DVD. The signature piece is Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 40th Anniversary Edition, the only of the five films being released separately. It's a two-disc presentation including two documentaries on the making of film and several pieces on Kramer himself. The highlight of the collection, though, is the DVD premiere of 1952's The Member of the Wedding directed by Fred Zinnemann. Julie Harris, then in her late twenties, won an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of an awkward 12-year-old, but for my money Ethel Waters as Harris' maid, cook and surrogate mother, and Brandon de Wilde as her ten-year-old cousin are the film's real acting treasures. Also included in the collection are 1953's The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, a Doctor Seuss-inspired children's classic directed by Roy Rowland; the 1953 Marlon Brando motorcycle drama, The Wild One, directed by Laszlo Benedek; and the Kramer-directed 1965 Oscar nominee Ship of Fools featuring Oscar-nominated performances by Oskar Werner, Simone Signoret and Michael Dunn, as well as the last screen appearance of two-time Oscar winner Vivien Leigh. That year's Best Actor (for Cat Ballou), Lee Marvin, also had a prominent role. Having exhausted the extant twelve Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, Fox has released a set of the first four films starring his replacement, Sidney Toler. While the Swedish Oland was a character star with extensive knowledge of Chinese history and imbued the role with a great deal of warmth and charm, Toler who won the role after considerable searching upon Oland's death in 1938, was a minor character actor whose warmth and charm were slow to build. He is a bit awkward in his first outing as Chan in Charlie Chan in Honolulu, but by his second outing in Charlie Chan in Rio he is fully in command of the role. Others included in the set are Charlie Chan at Treasure Island and Chalrie Chan in City of Darkness. One of the special features included is a reconstruction of a lost Chan film, Charlie Chan's Courage. Sen Young as Charlie's number two son replaces Keye Luke as Charlie's number one son. Luke, who initially refused to work with any actor in the role other than Oland came back to work with Young and Roland Winters, who replaced Toler after his death in 1947, in the series' last two films. Released without fanfare, The Robert Donat Collection from Movieology, gives us three of Donat's early starring vehicles: The Count of Monte Cristo, The 39 Steps and The Ghost Goes West as well as PDF books of both The Count of Monte Cristo and The 39 Steps and radio presentations of all three works. The definitive DVD release of The 39 Steps remains the Criterion Edition of the film, but this is an excellent transfer of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, not one of those shoddy public domain presentations. While Rene Clair's The Ghost Goes West had been previously available on VHS, this is the first time it has been made available on commercial DVD. The pièce de résistance here, though, is the first-ever commercial home video presentation of Rowland Lee's The Count of Monte Cristo. Restored to its original length of 113 minutes and featuring Donat in one of his most acclaimed roles in what is still the definitive version of the Alexandre Dumont classic. The film is about the falsely accused prisoner of the Chateau d'If who escapes after 13 years and eventually returns to his home village unrecognized as thenow-wealthy count seeking vengeance on those who framed him. Until next time, happy viewing and may at least one of your favorites win an Oscar on Sunday. -Peter J. Patrick (February 19, 2008) |
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The DVD Report #41: February 12, 2008
Jane Austen (1775-1817) is an author whose time has come again. Since the 1990s, films and handsome TV productions of her handful of novels published between 1810 and 1818, have been made, remade and reinterpreted numerous times. Where once only Pride and Prejudice was widely known as a cinematic work, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and her last and most romantic work, Persuasion, are just as apt to turn up nowadays at the local multiplex or on Masterpiece Theatre. Austen's appeal to contemporary audiences lies primarily within the irony of her characters. All of her novels are about young women seeking to marry or not marry as the case may be, the only option open to genteel young women of her day seeking to continue to live in the luxury to which they had been brought up. They are all different, yet much the same and ever fascinating, evergreen. Delving into Jane Austen's world are the members of The Jane Austen Book Club, a fascinating new film that is superior to most of today's so-called "chick flicks". The six members of the club, who read and discuss a different Austen novel each month, include five women (Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Amy Brenneman and Maggie Grace) and a guy (Hugh Dancy) who take on the characteristics and foibles of Austen's characters of two centuries ago. Having recently sat through Evening, one of the worst "chick flicks", indeed one of the worst films, of all time, I was not in any rush to see another ensemble film in the genre, which made the pleasant surprise of this one all the more refreshing. Dancy (TV's Daniel Deronda, Elizabeth I), who had a small part in Evening, has the best big screen role of his career thus far. Bello (The Cooler, A History of Violence) and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada), two of today's most interesting performers, both add memorably to their resumes while Baker, Brenneman, Grace, Jimmy Smits, Marc Blucas and Kevin Zegers all turn in fine performances as well, in this richly observed comedy of manners. Austen herself is the subject of Becoming Jane, another fine film that slipped a bit under the radar on its U.S. release. I reviewed the film back in October when it was released on DVD in Region 2. Now available in Region 1, it is well worth catching, and serves as a fine companion piece to The Jane Austen Book Club and any of the filmed versions of Austen's works. Here's what I said back in October: "Becoming Jane is a lush romantic drama that is better than its reputation would have you believe. Scorned by Jane Austen purists who will tell you it flat out never happened, as well as audiences with no patience for its leisurely pace, it is the story of a love affair between the country girl who became the beloved author and the poor law student who became Chief Justice of Ireland. While the affair is undocumented, the film makes a very plausible case for it. Tom Lefroy did have relatives who lived near the Austen family and he did name his eldest daughter Jane. Beyond that all is speculation, but Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy are letter perfect as the star-crossed lovers. The supporting cast includes Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Ian Richardson and Maggie Smith, who adds to her repertoire of Edna May Oliver impersonations, following those in David Copperfield and Gosfield Park. A veritable how-to guide to the dying process, Two Weeks is a tough film to sit through. Released on DVD last fall after a short run in theatres, the film has garnered new interest because of Sally Field's Best Actress nomination by the AARP. They gave their award, like almost every other organization this year, to Julie Christie as the Alzheimer's patient in Away From Her, but Field's agonizing portrayal of a woman dying of stomach cancer was a close runner-up. She's terrific as usual, despite the off-putting nature of her portrayal, and there are strong supporting performances by Ben Chaplin, Tom Cavanagh, Julianne Nicholson and others. It's definitely not a popcorn movie. Another film that managed to slip under the radar is King of California in which Michael Douglas plays a man recently released from a mental institution who convinces his teenage daughter, Evan Rachel Wood, to help him hunt for buried treasure beneath their local Costco. It's a diverting character study with an unresolved ending, but worth seeing especially for Wood who is developing into one of our best young actresses. Ernst Lubitsch was a master of sophisticated romantic comedy. Renowned for such masterworks as Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to Be, all of which have long been available on DVD, his entre into talkies was as director of several saucy pre-code musical comedies. Criterion has released a set of the first four of these under its Eclipse Series banner. Called, aptly enough, Eclipse Series 8 - Lubitsch Musicals, the set features The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, The Smiling Lieutenant and One Hour With You. Pairing Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald together for the first time, 1929's The Love Parade features MacDonald as the queen of a mythical country and Chevalier as her new husband. Chevalier, whose background is that of a freewheeling philanderer, finds his new position as consort quite constraining. Featuring chanteuse Lillian Roth and comedian Lupino Lane in memorable supporting turns, the film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Actor, Director, Cinematography, Art Direction and Sound. Substituting Jack Buchanan for Chevalier, MacDonald stars as a status rich and cash poor countess in 1930's Monte Carlo, the weakest of the four. MacDonald falls in love with a nobleman masquerading as a hairdresser, but plans to marry a wealthy member of the gentry to improve her desperate financial position. ZaSu Pitts steals the film as MacDonald's maid. Chevalier is back in the title role in 1931's The Smiling Lieutenant. His charming smile, meant for girlfriend Claudette Colbert, is intercepted by naïve princess Miriam Hopkins with whom he is forced into marriage. With a wink and a nod, Colbert shows Hopkins how to win her Chevalier's love. Superbly acted by the three leads, as well as the inimitable Charlie Ruggles, the film was oddly nominated for a Best Picture Oscar without receiving a single other nomination. Chevalier and MacDonald are reunited in 1932's One Hour With You in which Chevalier, happily married to MacDonald, is romantically pursued by MacDonald's friend, Genevieve Tobin. Featuring deft supporting turns by Roland Young and Charlie Ruggles, this film, like The Smiling Lieutenant, was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar without receiving a single other nomination in the Oscar year of 1931/32. It's a remake of Lubitsch's 1924 silent classic, The Marriage Circle which featured Adolphe Menjou in Chevalier's role. Warner Bros. has released The Joan Crawford Collection - Vol. 2 featuring five more of the legendary star's films made over a twenty-year period from 1934 to 1953. First up is 1934's Sadie McKee, directed by Clarence Brown, featuring Crawford at the height of her rags-to-riches phase. She is given no less than three leading men, Edward Arnold, Gene Raymond and her real life future husband Franchot Tone. Arnold fares the best as Crawford's husband, an older man who knows she married him for his money and doesn't care. Crawford, who had made several films with Clark Gable in the early thirties, was reunited with him for 1940's Strange Cargo, directed by Frank Borzage. Gable plays one of several prisoners who have escaped from Devil's Island and Crawford is a saloon girl, a forties euphemism for prostitute, in this melancholy mood piece. Ian Hunter is the Christ-like spiritual figure who influences the escapees, including Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre, both quite memorable. In her last good role at MGM, Crawford gives one of her best performances in 1941's A Woman's Face, directed by George Cukor. The film is an early noir in which Crawford plays a scarred female blackmailer who changes her ways after plastic surgery provides her with a new lease on life. Melvyn Douglas is the compassionate plastic surgeon and the film's villains include Conrad Veidt at his most despicable, Marjorie Main and Osa Massen. Crawford was a little long in the tooth to be playing a carnival hoochy-coochy in the opening scenes of 1949's Flamingo Road, directed by Michael Curtiz, but she does fine playing the character as an older, wiser broad in the film's later scenes. Her Mildred Pierce co-star, Zachary Scott, is her weak-willed lover and Sydney Greenstreet has one of his best roles as a sleazy town boss. The supporting cast includes David Brian and Gladys George. Returning to MGM for the first time in ten years and singing and dancing for the first time since 1933's Dancing Lady, the nearly-50-year-old Crawford is at her most garish in her Technicolor debut in 1953's Torch Song, directed by Charles Walters. Playing a tough cookie who can still do a high kick with the best of them, Crawford's co-star is Michael Wilding, Mr. Elizabeth Taylor at the time, playing a blind pianist, the only man who can tolerate her. Marjorie Rambeau won an Oscar nomination as Crawford's boozy, plainspoken Ma. I'll be back next week with reviews of the Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 4 as well as some new films including Gone Baby Gone and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Until then, happy viewing! -Peter J. Patrick (February 12, 2008) |
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The DVD Report #40: February 5, 2008
A long, but ultimately rewarding film, Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is informed by its gorgeous cinematography by ace Roger Deakins and the score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Hailed as a revisionist take on a time-tested story, the film really doesn't add much to the legend filmed numerous times by such master directors as Henry King (1939's Jesse James), Samuel Fuller (1949's I Shot Jesse James) or Nicholas Ray (1957's The True Story of Jesse James). However, it does add a new element in suggesting that Jesse James may not have been the mythical hero legend made him out to be nor Robert Ford the coward history has long held him to be. The film's slow pace isn't helped by the lethargic performances of Brad Pitt as Jesse James, Mary-Louise Parker as his wife, and several members of the supporting cast, but it is more than made up for by the virtuoso performances of Casey Affleck as Robert Ford and Sam Rockwell as his brother Charlie. Much has been made of Affleck's awards recognition, including his Oscar nomination, in the supporting category when he is really the co-lead of the film. Hollywood politics aside, the character can be considered either a lead or supporting one in my estimation as he is off the screen for large chunks of time. In either case it is undeniably one of 2007's best performances. With media attention focused on the Broadway-to-Hollywood adaptations of Hairspray and Sweeney Todd, the year's best movie musical, Across the Universe, pretty much fell under the radar. Directed by Julie Taymor (Titus, Frida), this tribute to the anti-war movement of the 1960s played out against Beatles music was fairly dismissed by critics who ridiculed it as being the bastard son of Hair and Moulin Rouge! While its sets may evoke the latter, its sentiments are clearly with the former. The narrative follows a young Liverpool lad named Jude (Jim Sturgess) who treks to America in search of the father who abandoned him and meets and falls in love with student radical Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). The Beatles music perfectly suits the storyline and the sets pieces of "Let It Be", "Hey Jude", "All You Need Is Love" and others are exceptionally well done. The credits sequence at the end of the film is nicely played out against a psychedelic rendering of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds". The film is nominated for a Costume Design Oscar and was a Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy. An engrossing, if highly implausible vigilante melodrama, The Brave One benefits from the strong performances of Jodie Foster as a woman wronged and Terrence Howard as the cop she plays cat and mouse with. Ultimately, however, it's just another dumb retread of Death Wish despite the Class A production under Neil Jordan's assured direction. The Weinstein Company has released El Cid, the first of the Samuel Bronstein epics it holds the rights to. The Fall of the Roman Empire, 55 Days at Peking and Circus World won't be far behind. Previously available in sub-par Region 2 and region-free versions, this is a glorious transfer of the Anthony Mann directed epic about the 11th Century Spanish hero, complete with loads of extras. You will never view the film in the same way again after you learn that Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren refused to look at one another in their scenes together. Heston despised Loren for her then-record $1,000,000 salary and for refusing to age appropriately during the span of the film. There's no telling what Loren disliked about Heston. Perhaps it was his wooden acting. The Limited Collectors Edition Gift Set also includes a written introduction from Martin Scorsese, reproductions ofthe original 1961 souvenir program and an El Cid comic book and six color production stills. Universal is re-issuing the double disc set of Imitation of Life (1934 and 1959 versions) complete with commentaries missing from the previous release. Though both films have their admirers, most film historians give the edge to Douglas Sirk's 1959 version, but the jury's still out on whether the 1934 Claudette Colbert-Louise Beavers-Fredi Washington version or the 1959 Lana Turner-Juanita Moore-Susan Kohner version is the better acted. Moore and Kohner won Oscar nominations for their performances, but to be fair the supporting actress category wasn't established until 1936 so Beavers and Washington had no chance of being so honored. Universal is also releasing a double disc of two other Lana Turner films, Portrait in Black and Madame X, as well as a triple film set of the three best Tammy films: Tammy and the Bachelor, Tammy Tell Me True and Tammy and the Doctor. A sleazy melodrama, 1960's Portrait in Black seems better now than it did back then because of its once in a lifetime cast of Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Lloyd Nolan, Ray Walston and Anna May Wong, as eclectic a cast as you'll find in any Hollywood film. The perennial soap opera Madame X was done better in both its 1929 and 1937 incarnations, the former winning Ruth Chatterton an Oscar nomination, the latter providing a rare starring opportunity for character actress Gladys George, but the Turner version is worth a look. John Forsythe, Keir Dullea and Constance Bennett, who died before the film's release, co-star. The first of the Tammy films, 1957's Tammy and the Bachelor was a surprise box-office hit and still holds up thanks to the charm of its cast headed by Debbie Reynolds, Leslie Nielson, Walter Brennan, Mala Powers, Sidney Blackmer, Mildred Natwick, Fay Wray and Louise Beavers. Sandra Dee took over for Reynolds in 1961's Tammy Tell Me True and 1963's Tammy and the Doctor. If Dee is a bit too sugary sweet and her leading men, John Gavin in the former and Peter Fonda in the latter, too bland, they are more than compensated for by the superlative work of Beulah Bondi as a feisty old lady paired with Cecil Kellaway in the former and Reginald Owen in the latter. Back in a brand new Collector's Edition, the 1960 Oscar winning The Apartment trumps the previous bare bones DVD release on all counts. A feature length commentary, two documentaries and a sparkling new transfer all for under $15 make this one well worth the double dip. The film itself ages quite well, thanks to Billy Wilder and I.A.L. diamond's peerless dialogue, Wilder's spot-on direction, and the performances of the entire cast starting with Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray at their absolute best. Sony, which purchased both Columbia and Tri-Star Pictures, as usual, has been busy releasing updated anniversary editions of some of its biggest hits. Out today are the 30th Anniversary Edition of Midnight Express, the 25th Anniversary Edition of Tootsie and the Special 15th Anniversary Edition of Groundhog Day. Of the three, Midnight Express is the most comprehensively updated. Released ten years ago in a 20th Anniversary Edition with just a featurette, the 30th Anniversary Edition includes commentary by Billy Hayes whose early life story it portrays, among others, and three brand new featurettes. It also includes a written memoir by director Alan Parker who reveals some interesting casting tidbits. Tootsie offers a new feaurette but no commentary. Groundhog Day adds two new featurettes to the one available on the previous release and retains director Harold Ramis' commentary. Among the most recent Criterion releases are three gems, Alf Sjoberg's Miss Julie (1951), Lindsay Anderson's This Sporting Life (1963) and Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966). A Grand Prix winner at the Cannes Film Festival, and ridiculously censored in its initial U.S. showings, Miss Julie is a visually haunting version of the Strindberg play sparked by Anita Bjork's fiery performance in the title role. The extras include a 2006 TV documentary about Strindberg and the play. Previously released in a bare bones DVD, This Sporting Life has been given deluxe treatment in the Criterion release. The classic kitchen sink drama about a poor rugby player and his landlady features a commentary by David Story, original author and screenwriter of the film and Paul Ryan, an expert on Lindsay Anderson. Extras for the film, which won well deserved Oscar nominations for Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts, include a documentary on Anderson as well as three of his films. Those films are his first, the 1948 documentary Meet the Pioneers about a mining engineering firm, the 1952 documentary Wakefield Express about the town where This Sporting Life was later filmed, and his final film, the autobiographical Is That All There Is? Actor/director Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey is a terrifying tale of a man hunted like an animal in primitive Africa. Praised for its vivid widescreen camera work and unflinching depiction of savagery, the film marked a pinnacle in Wilde's career. Extras include commentary by film scholar Stephen Prince and a reading by actor Paul Giamatti of "John Colter's Escape" a 1913 account of the trapper's flight from Blackfoot Indians which was the inspiration for the film. Also included is a 1970 interview with Cornel Wilde. Happy viewing! -Peter J. Patrick (February 5, 2008) |
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