Another week, and another 2014 Oscar hopeful that ended up empty-handed has made it home to Blu-ray and DVD.
Tim Burtonโs Big Eyes, a biographical drama about artist Margaret Keane (born 1927) and her husband, Walter, was expected to be one of the major year-end releases and a serious Oscar contender for Best Actress for five-time nominee Amy Adams. Alas, the only major awards recognition it got was a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song (โBig Eyesโ) and a win for Adams as Best Actress โ Musical or Comedy.
The main problem is that the film is not a comedy. Itโs very nearly a tragedy with a few comic moments thrown in to relieve the unrelenting horror of the poor womanโs life. An artist since childhood, she, or rather her husband, became famous when he presented her sad, big-eyed portraits of children as his own. In order to sustain the illusion that he, and not she, is the painter, she must paint behind locked doors and lie to everyone including her daughter from her first marriage that she no longer paints herself. Finally when he almost burns down their Woodside, California home, she and her daughter escape to Hawaii where she finally finds the gumption to reveal the truth and sue him for slander.
Adams gives one of her best performances, one that is better in fact than several of her Oscar-nominated turns. It is also Burtonโs best film since Ed Wood twenty years earlier, made with the same writing team, Scot Alexander and Larry Karaslewski, who also collaborated on The People vs. Larry Flynt and other films. The filmโs one sour note is Christoph Waltzโs over-the-top portrayal of Walter Keane. He is tolerable throughout most of the film, but his theatrics in the courtroom scene are way too much even if the writers claim the real trial was even more outlandish.
One of the best reviewed horror films of recent years, Jennifer Kentโs The Babadook provides an acting tour-de-force for Australian actress Essie Davis who received numerous accolades for her portrayal of the widowed mother whose troubled son may not live past his eighth birthday. Noah Wiseman as the boy who first sees the babadook, a handmade graphic novel character come to life, is equally impressive. Will the mother kill the dog as in the graphic novel? Will she kill the boy who was born after his father was decapitated on the way to the hospital where he was delivered eight years earlier? Will she kill herself? Well, the horror itself is supposed to be a metaphor for grief, so let your imagination work it out.
Wiseman was deservedly nominated for a Broadcast Film Critics Award for his performance while Davisโ haul included a nomination from the London Film Critics Circle.
Good news for Davis fans, her hit Australian TV series, Miss Fisherโs Murder Mysteries, which seemed to disappear after its second season two years ago, is back with a third season this year.
The Babadook is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.
Kino Lorber has released Late for Dinner for the first time on Blu-ray. The 1991 film was one of only two films directed thus far by writer-producer W.D. Richter (Brubaker). Peter Berg and Brian Wimmer star as two young men on the lam from the police for a crime they didnโt commit in 1972. They are cryogenically frozen by a mad scientist and wake up in 1991. Marcia Gay Harden is Bergโs sister, Wimmerโs wife, who has aged while the two men wake up the same age they were when they went to sleep. Itโs a diverting film with several amusing bits and good performances, especially by Harden.
Also new to Blu-ray from Kino Lorber are two 1960s films showcasing Gina Lollobrigida, one a light comedy, the other a suspense-filled drama.
The premise of Melvin Frankโs 1968 film Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell was later co-opted for Mamma Mia!. A middle-aged Italian woman (Lollobrigida) is about to be visited by three former suitors (Phil Silvers, Telly Savalas, Peter Lawford) she met during the American occupation, one of whom is the father of college age daughter (Janet Margolin). She just doesnโt know which one. Shelley Winters, Lee Grant and Marian McCargo (then known as Marian Moses) are the menโs wives. Done with wit and charm, itโs a very easy film to like even if you canโt picture Lollobrigida with any of her three leading men. Donโt worry, she doesnโt end up with any of them with handsome Philippe Leroy waiting in the wings.
Lollobrigida is a nurse hired by Sean Connery to care for his billionaire uncle (Ralph Richardson) in 1964โs Woman of Straw, a suspense thriller that will keep you guessing. Is Lollobrigidaโs after the nasty old goatโs money or is Connery, who has nefarious plans up his sleeves? The three leads are all quite good as are Alexander Knox as a savvy police investigator and Johnny Sekka as a very observant butler. It was directed by Basil Dearden (Sapphire, Victim).
Criterion has provided two of the best remembered films of the 1940s with stunning new Blu-ray upgrades, each with a bevy of extras.
One of the great British films of the post-World War II era, Carol Reedโs 1947 classic Odd Man Out takes on the Irish troubles from a Belfast perspective for the first time. James Mason has one of his signature roles as the IRA leader who becomes the subject of a manhunt after he kills a man in an armed robbery gone wrong. Kathleen Ryan is the woman he helps him, while Robert Newton, Cyril Cusack, Dan OโHerlihy, and others have importing supporting roles. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Editing. Reed would soon earn Oscar nominations of his own for The Fallen Idol and The Third Man and eventually the Oscar itself for Oliver!
Preston Sturgesโ late 1942 film The Palm Beach Story became the acclaimed directorโs first film released on Blu-ray in the U.S. earlier this year. Sullivanโs Travels, his earlier 1942 release, generally regarded as his best, stars Joel McCrea as a director of escapist films who goes on the road as a hobo to learn about life and has a rude awakening. Veronica Lake is the gorgeous tramp who becomes his travel partner. Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Porter Hall, Byron Foulger, Robert Grieg and Eric Blore are among the many familiar faces who show up along the way. Grieg and Blore are especially memorable as McCreaโs servants.
This weekโs new releases include A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and the Blu-ray release of 42nd Street.
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