The DVD Report #100: March 31, 2009
Warner Bros. had already decided to release Slumdog Millionaire straight to DVD in the U.S. when Fox Searchlight picked up the distribution rights last fall and released the film to U.S. theatres instead. The result was a word-of-mouth hit and an eventual worldwide awards winner. Among its haul of awards - 8 Oscars out of 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Director (Danny Boyle) and Song (“Jai Ho”). It was the right film at the right time. A real life terrorist attack in Mumbai, where the film, is set drew attention to it. Its story of orphaned Indian children struggling to find a way out of their poverty certainly resonated in a worsening worldwide economy. The set piece of the TV show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” with its familiar format brought a universal appeal to audiences who just a few years ago sat transfixed watching the same show play out in their living rooms. Although the film is a tribute to the human spirit it travels a long, dark road before it gets to its inevitable happy ending. Given that, its R rating may seems kind of harsh for such an inspirational film. Slumdog Millionaire is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. Warner Bros. and Fox continue to be the only two Hollywood studios that regularly restore and release its classic films on Blu-ray and standard DVD. With its superb picture and glorious sound, Blu-ray is a natural venue for movie musicals, yet few of them have been released in this format. Both Warner Bros. and Fox are rectifying that with the release of three classic musicals this week. Set to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the original Broadway production, as well as the 50th anniversary of the general release of the film version, Fox’s presentation of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific now looks and sounds better than it ever has. Director Joshua Logan’s fanciful use of color filters during many of the production numbers is still an unnecessary distraction, but not enough to overwhelm them, and when the filters are lifted we are amazed anew at Leon Shamroy’s breathtaking cinematography. The Blu-ray, as well as the previously released standard DVD, includes two versions of the film, the general release version and the road show version which is 15 minutes longer. Other extras include a sing-along and the ability to play only the film’s musicals numbers. Warner Bros. is guilty of double dipping, i.e. causing consumers who must have the most pristine version of a treasured film to buy the same film on disc more than once, with its upgraded versions ofVincente Minnelli’s Oscar winners Gigi (1958) and An American in Paris (1951) as well as the recently released non-musical Quo Vadis (also 1951). All three films were available for release on Blu-ray at the same time as their standard DVDs last autumn, and were in fact released in Japan, but held back for U.S. releases until now. All three, of course, look and sound even more marvelous on Blu-ray, but include the same extras as the standard DVD versions. Extras on Gigi include the original 1948 non-musical French version of the film based on Colette’s novella while extras on An American in Paris include the excellent 2002 documentary, American Masters - Anatomy of a Dancer. Extras on Quo Vadis include a documentary on the genesis of the Biblical epic. If Quo Vadis brought renewed interest in Biblical epics to Hollywood, Fox’s 1953 epic The Robe cemented that interest. The Robe was planned and begun as the first film in the Cinemascope firnat, but How to Marry a Millionaire, which began filming after The Robe,was completed first, giving rise to the legend that Millionaire, which was released later,was the first film to employ that process. This is just one of the many facts you’ll pick up while watching one of the many extras included with the meticulously restored production simultaneously released on Blu-ray and standard DVD. No double dipping from Fox. The film, which has had previous, rather blah releases on home video has been restored to its original brilliance. Audiences of the day were only somewhat impressed by the story of a Roman Centurion (Oscar-nominated Richard Burton) in charge of Christ’s crucifixion and his eventual conversion to Christianity, others who had read the best-selling novel were annoyed that they would have to wait another year for the sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators, to get the remainder of the story that had been contained in a single novel. Everyone, however, was impressed with the look of the film which won 2 out of the 5 Oscars it had been nominated for. Now, those who have never experienced the film theatrically can finally appreciate what the shouting was all about. The film looks marvelous, though Jay Robinson as the mad emperor Caligula outshines the once-vaunted Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature and everyone else in the film. The restored edition of The Robe is available on standard DVD as well as Blu-ray. Another film that looks better than ever is Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. Easily the least effective, dramatically, of all of Hitchcock’s major films, the shimmering beauty of the French Riviera was its selling point but you’d never know it from previous video releases, all of which suffered from washed-out colors. Paramount’s latest DVD release, its third, rectifies that and you can, at the very least, appreciate why the film won an Oscar for Best Cinematography and nominations for its art direction and costume design. Warner Bros. has released Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume Three in its on-going efforts to bring pre-Code films to DVD. This set is comprised entirely of films by the prolific William A. Wellman. It includes one from 1931, Other Men's Women, one from 1932, The Purchase Price, and four from 1933, Frisco Jenny, Midnight Mary, Heroes for Sale and Wild Boys of the Road. The first two films, Other Men's Women with Grant Withers, Regis Toomey, Mary Astor, James Cagney and Joan Blondell, and The Purchase Price with Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent, are potboilers. Withers and Toomey fight over Astor, who is married to Toomey, in the former. Stanwyck is a mail order bride with a past in the latter. Both are highly watchable. Ruth Chatterton, who won an Oscar nomination for Madame X, plays a variation on that role in Frisco Jenny in which her fiancé James Murray is killed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the pregnant woman is left to fend for herself. She eventually becomes a notorious madam and must give up her son to a respectable couple in order to stay two steps ahead of the child protection society. Years later, the son, now the San Francisco D.A., must prosecute Chatterton for murdering mobster Louis Calhern without knowing that she is his mother. Wellman directs with his customary verve. The special effects used to convey the earthquake are especially well done for the era. Loretta Young is remembered nowadays as the virtuous Oscar and Emmy winning star of The Farmer's Daughter, The Bishop's Wife and TV’s Letter to Loretta, but the actress who began her career at the age of four and became a star at 14 opposite Lon Chaney in Laugh, Clown, Laugh, had a dual nature to her personality that was best displayed in her pre-Code films, of which Midnight Mary is one of the best. Lovely and angelic opposite good guy Franchot Tone one minute and as vulgar and fast as any of her contemporaries opposite bad guy Ricardo Cortez the next, Young is in her element. Seen in flashbacks as a nine-year-old in pig-tails and later as a sophisticated 27-year-old on trial for murder, Young is believable in every incarnation. It’s hard to believe she was only 19 at the time, already married and divorced from Grant Withers. It’s no wonder she considered this one of her favorite films unlike other actresses of the day who demurely disowned their pre-Code movies. Heroes for Sale and Wild Boys of the Road are two of Wellman’s best films. Both capture the heartache and despair of the Great Depression like few other films. In Heroes for Sale, Richard Barthelmess is a World War I hero who suffers from morphine addiction, later spends five years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit and eventually ends up as a “forgotten man”. Loretta Young is lovely as his wife although she doesn’t have much to do. Aline MacMahon is much more memorable in the film’s principal character role as their friend. The film’s ending offers no easy solution. An even bleaker world view is presented in Wild Boys of the Road which chronicles the true story of adolescents of the depression who live the lives of hoboes when their parents can no longer afford to feed them. Frankie Darro, Edwin Phillips and Dorothy (Dottie) Coonan have the principal roles and they are all excellent. Coonan married Wellman after completion of the film and bore him seven children including William Wellman Jr. who does commentary on the film. Dottie Coonan is still going strong at 93. Two excellent documentaries on the life of “Wild Bill” Wellman round out the package. Although Warner Bros. remains the studio most likely to release its classic films on DVD, its releases have slowed down considerably in the last year. Fortunately, they have not been asleep at the wheel, but rather planning to launch a direct purchase arm of their store called The Warner Bros. Archives where you can download one of an initial 150 films for $15 or order a specially made DVD complete with box cover art for $20. The service, which launched on March 23, is presently only available to U.S. residents but Warners is working to clear worldwide distribution rights to such titles as Sunrise at Campobello, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, All Fall Down, Ah, Wilderness!, The Magnificent Yankee, Invitation, Emma, The Citadel, The Big House, The Actress and other long-requested titles. Another 150 titles are expected to be added to the initial list by year’s end with more to come from their library of more than 5,000 classic MGM, Warner Bros. and RKO films. -Peter J. Patrick (March 31, 2009) |
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The DVD Report #99: March 24, 2009
Here are some new DVD releases and a few recent ones that may have slipped through the cracks: Daniel Craig is back for a second go at James Bond in Quantum of Solace. With a screenplay co-written by Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash) and direction by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, The Kite Runner), this outing for the superspy is heavier on plot than most of its predecessors but contains enough requisite action scenes to keep anyone awake. Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko seems miscast as a Bolivian secret agent and Mathieu Almaric a bit scrawny for the master villain but the rest of the cast is spot on, though it helps to remember the plot of Casino Royale and to know who the characters Giancarlo Giannini and Jeffrey Wright are supposed to be. Craig himself is quite good as is, of course, Judi Dench, wryer than ever as M. Quantum of Solace is available on both standard DVD and Blu-ray. An Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature, Disney’s Bolt is in essence a nice little movie about a faithful dog that traverses the country to return home to his mistress. What’s different about this variation on Lassie Come Home is that the dog and his little girl are TV stars, and to add to it, the dog thinks the TV show he stars in is his real. Nice CGI effects, adorable characters including the dog’s cat and rodent companions and a pleasant score including the Golden Globe-nominated song, “I thought I Lost You” combine to make it a painless way to spend an hour and a half or so. John Travolta, Miley Cyrus and Malcolm McDowell are among those supplying voices. Bolt is available on both standard DVD and Blu-ray. The Blu-ray edition includes a copy of the standard DVD. Silly, stupid, with something to offend everyone, Adam McKay’s Step Brothers is the latest gross-out comedy from Will Ferrell, teamed this time with John C. Reilly as two middle-aged jackasses who become step-brothers when their parents marry on the cusp of their retirement. Somehow Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen as the parents manage to escape with their dignity. I don’t understand why they keep making garbage like this, why people pay good money to see them and most of all why I, too, wasted time and money on this tripe. Step Brothers is available on both standard DVD and Blu-ray. Another raunchy comedy, but one with a lot of heart, is David Wain’s Role Models co-written by Wain and star Paul Rudd. Rudd and Sean William Scott play energy drink salesmen who freak out and cause an accident involving school property damage for which they are sentenced to thirty days of community service working with troubled kids. Elizabeth Banks as Rudd’s lawyer girlfriend and Jane Lynch as the proprietress of a boys and girls club co-star along with Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb’e J. Thompson as the kids assigned to Scott and Rudd respectively. The film’s one sour note is that the parents of Mintz-Plasse’s nerdy character only come to love him after the kid becomes the hero of the film’s climactic faux medieval jousting tournament. God forbid they should have loved him anyway. Role Models is available on both standard DVD and Blu-ray. I started out liking writer Charlie Kaufman’s quirky style employed to good effect in the TV series Ned and Stacy and in his first film, Being John Malkovich, for which he won an Oscar nomination for his screenplay. By the time of the self-indulgent Adaptation. for which he won another Oscar nod, I was sick of him. I couldn’t at all understand the popularity of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for which he actually won an Oscar. Given all that baggage I was prepared to hate his latest effort and the first one he directed himself with the unlikely title Synecdoche, New York. Imagine my surprise when I at first found I didn’t hate it that much and finally actually found myself liking it. The film is about a theatre director who recreates the story of his life on stage, eventually reaching a point where he can’t tell the difference between his stage life and his real one. Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor whose work I usually find decent enough, but not great, really outdoes himself here, truly earning his Independent Spirit Award nomination. The complex character suits Hoffman perfectly. It also helps that he is supported by an excellent cast that includes Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson and Dianne Wiest. Synecdoche, New York is available on both standard DVD and Blu-ray. The Swedish horror film Let the Right One In,directed by Tomas Alfredson, has won international acclaim and has been picked up as a looming Hollywood remake so far be it from me to disparage it. Unlike most gore heavy American horror films of recent years, it relies more on character development, and the little boy and girl who are its leads are quite effective but it all doesn’t add up to very much in my estimation and when the author of the book claims the story is based on his own experiences in the 1980s I have to wonder what the hell he’s talking about. Let the Right One In is available on both standard DVD and Blu-ray. An almost genteel Holocaust film that plays like a hybrid of The Mortal Storm and Life Is Beautiful, Mark Herman’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a film that’s hard to forget. It’s early in the war and the horrors of Auschwitz aren’t generally known yet, not even to the wife of the commandant and certainly not to her impressionable eight-year-old son. Asa Butterfield is a find as the kid who develops an unlikely friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the fence. David Thewlis is the commandant and Vera Famiga is his wife. Rupert Friend is the menacing young Nazi officer who doubles as the family’s chauffer. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is available on standard DVD only. The luminous Sissy Spacek hits yet another career high with her performance in Hunter Hill and Perry Moore’s Lake City. How this one slipped by without even Independent Spirit Award recognition for first time writer-directors Hill and Moore, and Spacek is beyond me. Our little Carrie is playing grandmothers now with the same mix of vulnerability and determination she brought to her signature roles of the 70s and 80s, yet aside from In the Bedroom a few years back, no one seems to notice. Her character is a mix of woman with a haunted past a la Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long and fiercely protective mother/grandmother a la Melissa Leo in Frozen River. Filmed on a shoestring in and around Richmond, Virginia, the eclectic cast includes Troy Garity, Colin Ford, Rebecca Romijn, Keith Carradine, Dave Matthews and Drea de Matteo. Spacek and Garity are a perfect fit as mother and son, though he is of course the real life son of another Oscar winning actress, Jane Fonda, whose late screen career hasn't been nearly as impressive as Spacek’s. Lake Cityis available on standard DVD only. Set in post-Katrina Louisiana bayou country, legendary French director Bertrand Tavernier’s first American film, In the Electric Mist, went straight to DVD in the U.S. Such a fate would tend to make one think the film wasn’t any good when in fact it’s a nicely plotted, and effectively acted thriller about a string of grizzly murders taking place in and around a movie shoot. Tommy Lee Jones gives another of his strong late career performances as the detective who must solve the murders and a related one that took place forty years earlier. He is supported by a marvelous group of players that includes John Goodman, Peter Saarsgard, Mary Steenburgen, Kelly Macdonald, Ned Beatty, John Sayles, Levon Helm and Pruitt Taylor Vance. In the Electric Mist is available on standard DVD only. Nicholas Meyer, who adapted Philip Roth’s previous snooze fest, The Human Stain, for the screen, has repeated the exercise with Elegy, an endless wallow in self-pity by a famed, but emotionally shallow professor and cultural critic played by the always-interesting Ben Kingsley. Directed by the hopelessly angst ridden Isabel Coixet (The Secret Life of Words), the film is well acted by Kingsley as well as Penelope Cruz as the grad student he becomes obsessed with, Dennis Hopper as his friend and Deborah Harry as Hopper’s wife. Alas, the usually reliable Peter Sargaard as Kingsley’s middle-aged doctor is a bit of a bore and Patricia Clarkson as his occasional bedmate remains hopelessly morose throughout. Elegy is available on standard DVD only. No doubt the sudden, shocking death of Natasha Richardson will spur interest in her films on DVD. My recommendation would be John Irvin’s delicious 1994 comedy Widows' Peak, a combination costume drama, comedy and mystery set in turn-of-the-last-century Ireland. Richardson stars as the young widow with a secret. She, Joan Plowright and Mia Farrow are at their peak. Then listen to the 1998 Broadway cast recording of the revival of Cabaret for which Natasha won a much deserved Tony Award. -Peter J. Patrick (March 24, 2009) |
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The DVD Report #98: March 17, 2009
It’s St. Patrick’s Day, what better time to talk about my favorite Irish films? Here then my chronological evaluation of a baker’s dozen. Ten are available on DVD, and three that aren’t, but should be. No one made more films about the Irish than John Ford whose characters seemed to be Irish even when they were supposed to be Welsh or Norwegian. Fittingly, Ford won the first of his record four directing Oscars for 1935’s The Infomer. Small in scope, The Infomer is ostensibly about the Irish “troubles” in the long-fought war between the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and the oppressive Brits who control Northern Ireland. What it really is, though, is a Judas story in which simpleton Victor McLaglen betrays his friend, Wallace Ford, for forty pieces of silver. The narrative of the story follows McLaglen’s temptation, collusion and the pangs of conscience that bring the story to its inevitable conclusion. Highly atmospheric, the fog-enshrouded scenes are mainly due to Ford’s having to cover up the obviously cheap sets at RKO. In addition to McLaglen, who also won an Oscar for the film, there are standout performances by Ford, Margot Grahame as a prostitute, and the usually boisterous Una O’Connor as Wally Ford’s quietly suffering mother. Dudley Nichols’ screenplay and Max Steiner’s score were also awarded Oscars, making it a haul of four out of its six nominations, which also included those for Best Picture and Editing. There isn’t a lot to Lloyd Bacon’s The Irish in Us (1935) beyond the casting, but it’s the casting that makes it memorable. James Cagney (the fight promoter), Pat O’Brien (the cop) and Frank McHugh (the fireman) are the battling brothers while wonderful Mary Gordon is their long-suffering mother. Enter Olivia de Havilland as the girl who comes between Cagney and O’Brien and Allen Jenkins as Cagney’s pugilist and there you have it. This was Mary Gordon’s largest screen role. The diminutive Scottish actress made close to 300 films from 1925 to 1950 but many of her appearances were uncredited walk-ons or films in which she only had a line or two. She is best remembered as Mrs. Hudson, the housekeeper to Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce’s Dr. Watson, in the series of films they made from 1939 to 1946 beginning with The Hound of the Baskervilles. The Irish in Us is oddly enough not on DVD, even though most Cagney/O’Brien pairings are. Rousing entertainment that suited its World War II audiences to a fare-thee-well, Michael Curtiz’s Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) gave us the great Irish-American showman of the mid-20th Century, James Cagney, as the great Irish-American showman of the early part of the century, George M. Cohan. Cohan, who was actually born on the 3rd, not the 4th, of July as he proclaimed, was a star from childhood to his death five months after the film opened. His songs were a mix of the patriotic and the sentimental, all put over with verve and style. Cagney, who began as a song and dance man before becoming a star in gangster roles, astonished audiences with his musical prowess as the actor-singer-composer-producer. He is wonderfully supported by Joan Leslie as a composite of his two wives, Rosemary DeCamp as his mother, and especially Walter Huston as his father. The film won three Oscars including one for Cagney and was nominated for another five including Best Picture, Director and Supporting Actor (Huston). Even more successful as the war raged on, Leo McCarey’s Going My Way (1944) gave us not one, not two, but three Irish-American priests: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald and Frank McHugh. Crosby, at the height of his popularity, is totally believable singing while saving souls and irascible Fitzgerald became the only actor nominated for Oscars for the same performance in both lead and supporting actor categories. Both won, as did the film, and as did McCarey, accounting for four of the film’s seven Oscars out of its ten nominations. The Irish “troubles” were back in Carol Reed’s somber but engrossing Odd Man Out (1947) in which an Irish rebel leader in an unnamed city (obviously Belfast) hides from the Brits. Will he be caught? Will he be betrayed? It’s all handled with a mastery of suspense by its brilliant director with a mesmerizing performance by James Mason as the man on the run, supported by a sturdy cast that includes Kathleen Ryan, Robert Newton, Cyril Cusack, F.J. McCormack, Fay Compton and Dan O’Herlihy. Alas, its sole Oscar nomination was for editing. Location filming was rare in the early 1950s when John Ford took his cameras to Ireland to film The Quiet Man (1952), his long time dream project with John Wayne as a retired boxer and Maureen O’Hara as the Irish lass he sets his cap for. Beautifully filmed in vibrant colors, Ford’s film is filled with colorful characters not the least of which are Victor McLaglen as O’Hara’s boisterous brother, Mildred Natwick as the widow who loves him, Ward Bond as the local priest, and Barry Fitzgerald as, well, Barry Fitzgerald. The film was nominated for seven Oscars and won two, for Ford’s direction and its fantastic cinematography. Ford won a DGA (Directors Guild of America) nomination for The Long Gray Line (1955) but failed to receive an Oscar nod for this sentimental biography of Marty Maher, the Irish immigrant who had many jobs at West Point during the course of his long career there. Tyrone Power has one of his best roles as Maher and Maureen O’Hara is every bit his match as his feisty wife. Her death scene in its brilliant simplicity provides a master class in acting all by itself. As with all Ford films, there is a large and vibrant supporting cast including Donald Crisp, Sean McClory, Ward Bond, Robert Francis, William Leslie, Betsy Palmer, Patrick Wayne, and Harry Carey Jr. as Dwight D. Eisenhower. This is truly one of the unsung gems of Ford’s career. Although he would go on to make nine more films over the next eight years, Ford was feeling his age at 64 when he made 1958’s The Last Hurrah, an “old man’s movie” if there ever was one. Based on Edwin O’Connor’s novel about a long time Irish-American mayor of a major New England city (obviously Boston), the film is full of nostalgia for a time gone by. Spencer Tracy, in one of his great performances, is Frank Skeffington, the old-style mayor running what he knows will be his last re-election campaign against a well-oiled TV advertising campaign by the supporters of his vacuous smiling young opponent. Jeffrey Hunter is Tracy’s reporter nephew brought in as an observer to the campaign while a gallery of legendary supporting players is each given a chance to shine. Among them are Pat O’Brien, James Gleason, Donald Crisp, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Jane Darwell, Anna Lee, Edward Brophy and Ricardo Cortez. Tracy and Ford won National Board of Review awards for their efforts but neither received an Oscar nod though Tracy was nominated for The Old Man and the Sea instead. One of the best films yet made about the Irish “troubles”, Michael Anderson’s Shake Hands With the Devil (1959) provided James Cagney with one his best late-career roles as a Dublin professor by day, and an IRA leader by night. Cagney’s character here is about as close as he came to reprising his hate-filled maniac in White Heat, a brilliant characterization of a man torn between saving lives during the light day and taking them in the dark of night. Don Murray is the film’s conscience as one of Cagney’s students and Dana Wynter, Glynis Johns, Michael Redgrave, Sybil Thorndike, Cyril Cusack and Richard Harris all provide memorable support. Shake Hands With the Devil is criminally missing on DVD. John Ford’s penultimate film, 1965’s Young Cassidy, is based on the autobiography of Irish playwright Sean O’Casey, inexplicably re-named Johnny Cassidy for the film. Ford became ill during the filming and had to be replaced by Jack Cardiff but the production is so seamless it’s impossible to tell who directed which scenes. Rod Taylor has one of his best roles as the initially-misunderstood writer and manages to hold his own against some of the greatest actors and actresses of the 20th Century at the peak of their prowess. Maggie Smith is particularly memorable in a BAFTA-nominated performance as O’Casey’s lost love, but right behind her are Flora Robson in a late career triumph as his dying mother, a glowing Julie Christie as a rich man’s mistress with whom he has a brief dalliance, Edith Evans as the Abbey Theatre’s Lady Gregory, and Michael Redgrave as Yeats. Also effective are Sian Phillips, Jack MacGowran and T.P. McKenna as O’Casey’s siblings, and Donal Donnelly as a particularly nasty hearse driver. Young Cassidy is shamefully among the missing on DVD. One of the greatest of Broadway musicals, Burton Lane and E.Y. “Yip” Harburg’s Finian's Rainbow waited more than twenty years to be filmed. By 1968 its once savagely potent take on American patriotism, racism, fear of sex and Irish blarney had become more than a little tame. Worse, the production was “updated” to the sixties where it was decidedly out of place. Francis Ford Coppola’s heavy handed direction makes the non-musical sections move at a deadly pace, but fortunately there’s still the wondrous score and Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Tommy Steele and others to do it full justice. Harburg, who was also the lyricist for The Wizard of Oz, was at his peak with such songs as “How Are Things in Glocca Moora”, “Look to the Rainbow”, “That Old Devil Moon”, “When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love (I Love the Girl I’m Near)”, “Necessity”, “When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich” and “The Begat” - “when the begat got to get under par, they brought in the daughters of the D.A.R.” Finian's Rainbow did well at the Golden Globes winning nominations for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy, Actor (Astaire), Actress (Clark), Supporting Actress (Barbara Hancock) and Newcomer (Hancock again), but was nominated for only two Oscars for its adapted score and for its overall sound. Sumptuously filmed on the Irish coast and on the beaches of Cape Town, South Africa, David Lean’s Ryan's Daughter (1970) was unfairly lambasted by critics expecting a larger than life story befitting its grand scale. Alas, it is not that but a simple story of a gentle Irish schoolmaster played by Robert Mitchum and of the bigotry endemic to small town life the world over where if you’re different you are ostracized. Such is the case with Mitchum’s wife Rosy (Sarah Miles), the restless daughter of Ryan, the town’s pub owner (Leo McKern). Set at the time of the Irish “troubles”, Rosy is found out to have had a fling with a British officer (Christopher Jones) resulting in her being tarred and feathered and dragged through the streets. Audiences were somewhat taken aback by Mitchum’s low-keyed portrayal of the cuckolded husband, not the role one would expect to see him play, but he was fine, holding his own against a stalwart cast that also included an outstanding Trevor Howard as the village priest and John Mills as the village idiot. The film did well at the BAFTAs, winning ten nominations including Best Film, Actress (Miles), Supporting Actor (Mills) and Director but failed to win any of them. It did win Mills the Supporting Actor award at the Golden Globes where Miles and Howard were also nominated. It then received four Oscar nominations including Best Actress and Sound. Mills repeated his Golden Globe win and Freddie Young also won for his amazing Cinematography, but that was it. Kirk Jones’ hilarious 1998 comedy Waking Ned Devine was not filmed in Ireland, but on the British Isle of Man which has been standing in for Ireland at least as far back as 1946’s I See a Dark Stranger. The devilish tale of a lottery winner who dies of shock before he can collect his fortune, the film, like all of those mentioned here, is worth a look any day of the year, not just on St. Patrick’s Day. Ian Bannen, David Kelly and Fionnula Flanagan star. -Peter J. Patrick (March 17, 2009) |
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The DVD Report #97: March 10, 2009
Now that the Oscars are over, last year’s major award winners and contenders are being released on DVD and Blu-ray. The first Best Picture nominee to hit home video is Gus Van Sant’s Milk,nominated for eight Academy Awards and winner of two for Sean Penn’s portrayal of California’s first openly gay elected official and for Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay. The film is a fairly conventional biopic in that it follows the standard “this happened, then that happened” narrative structure of such films but is unconventional in its subject matter. Penn is mesmerizing from start to finish as he, somewhat reluctantly at first, becomes the major spokesperson for gay rights in the 1970s, leading the opposition to State Proposition 6 which would have mandated the firing of gay schoolteachers and any public school officials who supported gay rights. The film’s meticulous art direction, set design and costumes make it look like it was filmed in the midst of the 70s. Archival footage is seamlessly integrated into the story. As good as Penn is, he is surrounded by a powerhouse cast that matches him every step of the way. Josh Brolin as fellow San Francisco Supervisor Dan White, who ultimately becomes his assassin, does wonders with a sketchily written role and received a richly deserved Supporting Actor nod. Almost as good are James Franco as Harvey’s longtime lover Scott Smith and Emile Hirsch as bad boy-turned-activist Cleve Jones. Others of note include Diego Luna as the tragic Jack Lira, Alison Pill as Anne Kronenberg and Victor Garber as Mayor Moscone. Extras include the documentaries Remembering Harvey: The Man Known as Milk; Hollywood Comes to San Francsico and Marching for Equality. Supporting winners Heath Ledger’s and Penelope Cruz’s performances in The Dark Knight and Vicky Cristina Barcelona respectively have been available on home video for a while. Kate Winslet’s Oscar-winning performance in The Reader will be released at the end of April or early May. Two of her competitor’s films, Angelina Jolie’s Changeling and Melissa Leo’s Frozen River, were released last month. Meryl Streep’s Doubt will be released April 7th. In the meantime three others in that highly competitive race are now available. Anne Hathaway gives an intense performance as a recovering drug addict in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married. Let out of rehab to attend the Connecticut wedding of her sister to a Hawaii-based musician, Hathaway’s Kym quickly stirs the pot in her family circle consisting of sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), father (Bill Irwin), stepmother (Anna Devere Smith) and estranged mother (Debra Winger) as well as Rachel and groom Sidney’s circle of friends. There isn’t much to the slice-of-life drama that takes place before everyone hugs and kisses in the end. The film’s cinema-vérité style is a matter of taste and the hand-held camera movements have a dizzying effect that makes it a chore to sit through. The interminable speeches at the rehearsal dinner are enough to drive the most patient viewer crazy. The script, by first time writer Jenny Lumet, Sidney’s daughter and Lena Horne’s grand-daughter, refreshingly blends two mixed race marriages so matter-of-factly that you hardly notice the color difference, but that and Hathaway’s Oscar nominated performance are the only real positives in this otherwise disappointing exercise in tedium. Similar in theme but completely different in execution, Philippe Claudel’s I've Loved You So Long is another story about a woman reunited with her estranged family after a long separation. In this case, the separation is fifteen years and the woman has been in prison all that time. Kristin Scott Thomas was an early Oscar contender for her powerful portrayal of the woman, a former doctor. She started the season well with Golden Globe, Satellite and BAFTA nominations, but aside from the London Critics Award and a few others didn’t take home much gold. The story unfolds like a novel in which layers and layers are uncovered until we learn the complete truth of her crime. Scott Thomas, always a good actress even in tripe, excels here as the lonely outcast slowly getting her life back together. Elsa Sylberstein as her sister is almost as good. Both the Blu-ray and the standard DVD provide both the original French soundtrack with English subtitles and the English dubbed version in which only Scott Thomas dubs herself. She’s great in whichever version you choose. Sally Hawkins was also an early Oscar contender, something of a sure thing in fact after having won the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics awards as well as the Golden Globe and Satellite awards,for Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, but the sure thing seemed to be in trouble when she failed to be nominated for either a SAG award of her home turf BAFTA. When the nominations were announced only Leigh’s screenplay made the cut. Hawkins’ character, Poppy, is an unusually upbeat individual who is slow to anger and quick to calm back down. Her Little Miss Sunshine character will either charm you or grate on you. Her only major conflict is with her driving lesson instructor Eddie Marsan, an ill-tempered hothead who becomes a possessive jerk before she tells him to bug off. The character driven story meanders to a close without much else happening. Happy-Go-Lucky is the only film reviewed this week that is not available on Blu-ray. Beyoncé Knowles was another early contender for her supporting role in Darnell Martin’s Cadillac Records, but aside from a Satellite nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for best song, “Once in a Lifetime”, which she co-wrote with Amanda Ghost, she and the film came up empty. The film is a fairly standard biopic, albeit essentially about two men, Leonard Chess, the founder of Chess Records, played by Adrien Brody, and his first contract singer, Muddy Waters, played by Jeffrey Wright. Mos Def plays Chuck Berry while Beyoncé plays Etta James. They’re all good but the film’s outstanding performance is that of newcomer Columbus Short as Little Walter, Muddy’s harmonica player who was constantly in trouble and came to an early end at the age of 37. Gabrielle Union is fine as Muddy’s common law wife, Geneva Wade and Eamonn Walker makes a chilling Howlin’ Wolf. Cedric the Entertainer, as Muddy’s lyricist, narrates. This week’s new-to-Blu-ray films include three award-winning films from earlier years. Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain was nominated for eight 2005 Oscars and won three for directing, writing and scoring. Three of its four stars, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams, were nominated for their performances. The film’s fourth star, Anne Hathaway, has now of course become an Oscar nominee herself. The film won an impressive 146 international awards and nominations overall. The Blu-ray includes the same extras as were on the second standard DVD release of two years ago. Gregory Hoblit’s Primal Fear has an impressive cast that included Richard Gere, Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Alfre Woodward, Frances McDormand and Steven Bauer, but the one you remember is Edward Norton in his 1996 Oscar-nominated turn as the former altar boy accused of murdering a priest. The film has been restored for both Blu-ray and standard DVD with tons of extras. Walt Disney’s beloved Pinocchio won two 1940 Oscars for scoring and song, the unforgettable “When You Wish Upon a Star”. The classic about a puppet who wanted to be a real boy has been beautifully restored on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. The advertised extras of “never-before-seen deleted scenes and a never-before-seen alternate ending” turn out to be just storyboards. The Blu-ray two-disc set includes, on a third disc, the standard DVD pressing of the film as well. -Peter J. Patrick (March 10, 2009) |
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The DVD Report #96: March 3, 2009
Buz Luhrmann’s long-in-gestation epic Australia, about life in that country’s northern cattle country at the outset of World War II was one of last year’s most anticipated films. Lackluster reviews and tepid box office have culminated in an earlier-than-anticipated DVD release. Given the mostly negative reviews, I found the film better than I would have expected, featuring an absorbing story filled with colorful characters. Hugh Jackman, the supporting cast and the production values are fine but Nicole Kidman throws it off a bit. She simply doesn't have the acting chops of a Vivien Leigh or Deborah Kerr to bring off her "great lady" role. Kidman plays Lady Ashley, a British aristocrat who travels to Australia in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II to check up on her husband who she feels has been there too long looking after their cattle business. She arrives to find he has been murdered. Jackman is the drover hired to bring their cattle to market. Brandon Walters is the half-caste aborigine boy who is hiding on Kidman’s ranch from the authorities who want to take him to the missions where he would be trained to enter Australian white society. Walters is a delight, as was David Gulpill, unforgettable as the boy in Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 film, Walkabout. Gulpill, who has been acting ever since, plays the boy’s grandfather here. David Wenham and Bryan Brown are the film’s villains and an almost unrecognizable Jack Thompson has the part of the lovable old drunk that might have been played by Thomas Mitchell or Walter Brennan in an old Hollywood film. Available on Blu-ray and standard DVD, extras are sparse but ironically include the trailer for Slumdog Millionaire, the film that came out of nowhere to win all the Oscars once predicted for Australia. Six years after Diane Lane won an Oscar nomination opposite Richard Gere in Unfaithful, the two are reunited in Nights in Rodanthe from the novel by Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook. Gere plays a surgeon on his way to visit his doctor son (James Franco) at his clinic in Ecuador who stops at an inn out of season on a remote island off the coast of North Carolina. He’s there to meet with Scott Glenn, the man whose wife died on his operating table a year earlier. Lane is the woman running the inn for her friend Viola Davis for the week. Lane’s children are spending the week with her estranged husband Chris Meloni who wants back in the marriage after breaking up with his girlfriend. The film was directed by TV director George C. Wolfe. If it sounds like something that belongs on Lifetime or the Hallmark Channel, it’s because it probably does, but Gere and Lane bring such real old-fashioned star power to their characterizations that they make the film worth sitting through. Glenn and Franco are also outstanding in their brief appearances, but Davis is wasted in the throwaway and Meloni is such a pathetic jerk that there is no doubt Lane will not be taking him back even without Gere in the picture. The film is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. Nine years after making a name for himself as director of the indie hit Tumbleweeds, director Gavin O’Connor was finally given the opportunity to direct a mainstream film, Pride and Glory, about a family of New York City cops which he co-wrote with Joe Carnahan (Narc). The family drama involves Edward Norton as an investigating detective, Colin Farrell as his police squad leader brother-in-law, Noah Emmerich as his police captain brother, Jon Voight as his top brass dad and Jennifer Ehle as Emmerich’s wife dying of cancer. The police action involves drug dealings, ambushed cops and murdered innocents. Norton will get to the bottom of it even if the dirty cops involved lead back to his family. The setting in Manhattan’s Washington Heights gives the cinematographers something new to shoot and the outcome is not what you’d expect making it a cut above the myriad bad cop movies of the last thirty or forty years. Norton, Farrell, Emerrich and Voight are all fine and Ehle is something more than that. The film is also available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. A rock musician is being followed. One day he turns the tables on his stalker and follows him into a theatre where the man pulls a knife on him. There is a struggle and the man is killed.So begins 1971’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Dario Argento’s third thriller following The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and The Cat O' Nine Tails. Already a talented young writer (Once Upon a Time in the West) and director, Argento was establishing a unique style in which his protagonist/heroes were foreigners in Italy, usually American or British and always of some artistic persuasion. Michael Brandon (Lovers and Other Strangers) fills that role here. Mimsy Farmer (More) plays his Italian wife. Mostly a psychological mystery, the gore doesn’t start coming until well into the film with the most horrific acts saved for the last half-hour. The title stems from a picture taken of one of the victim’s eyeballs whose retina has retained the last image she saw. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden was one of the great novels of the 20th Century. The character of Cathy (later Kate) is often referred to as the single greatest female character in American literature. Jo Van Fleet won an Oscar playing that character in the 1955 film version, but she only got to play her as an old lady because the film only covered the last third of Steinbeck’s novel. It took the 1981 miniseries to tell the whole story in which the character’s evil nature is fully explored. Jane Seymour, in arguably her greatest role, won a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination for her mesmerizing performance. Timothy Bottoms (in the Raymond Massey role), Bruce Boxleitner, Hart Bochner (in the James Dean role), Sam Bottoms (in the Richard Davalos role), Karen Allen (in the Julie Harris role) and Soon-Tek Oh co-star while Warren Oates, Lloyd Bridges, Anne Baxter and Howard Duff appear briefly but brilliantly. The package is short on extras, but does include a fourteen-minute interview with Seymour who talks about her career and the place of East of Eden in it. New to Blu-ray this week is the 1991 Oscar winner The Silence of the Lambs in at least its fourth DVD incarnation. Extras pretty much mirror those on the Special Edition DVD released in 2007. -Peter J. Patrick (March 13, 2009) |
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