Kevin's August '11 Digital Week I

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 09 August 2011 03:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Exporting Raymond (Sony)

Creator of the hit sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, Phil Rosenthal traveled to Russia to work on the Russian television of the show, and this amusing documentary recounts the arduous process involved. The movie's laughs stem from the obvious cultural chasms between America and Russia: different senses of humor and attitudes towards relationships and masculinity, all shown with a jaundiced eye and raised eyebrow.

Still, it's a fun ride, even if you don't know Russia: you can still appreciate the difficulty of turning Raymond into Kostya. The movie doesn't gain much visually on Blu-ray; extras include episodes of both shows for comparison, Rosenthal's commentary, deleted scenes.

Life During Wartime (Criterion)

Todd Solondz's dysfunctional characters, as in his 1998 film Happiness—to which this is a sequel of sorts—behave in supposed "shocking" ways. A flaky white woman's troubled black husband can't control his violent impulses toward women, so they separate in a final attempt to save their marriage: but when she calls him, he's on the floor, suicide handgun next to him. A young Jewish boy worries about pedophiles and homosexual rape because his father was jailed for it; his mom tells him that if a man ever touches him, he should scream—so (of course!) when her new beau innocently does just that, her son's scream ends her budding relationship.

There's unfunny and unincisive dialogue and derivative effects like baroque arias. For all its topicality, the movie plays like a Jerry Springer episode. Criterion's transfer is top-notch, as always, and the extras (director's audio Q&A, cinematographer interviews, making-of documentary) contextualize the film.

The Name of the Rose (Warners)

Umberto Eco's unlikely best-seller was adapted by adventurous French director Jean-Jacques Annaud in 1986, and if the movie isn't up to Eco's erudite, absorbing monastery murder mystery, Annaud's visual style—muted colors and many dark sequences that are reproduced acceptably if not perfectly on Blu-ray—keeps one interested for two slow hours.

Sean Connery and a young Christian Slater are an intriguingly odd sleuthing team and good actors like William Hickey, Michael Lonsdale and F. Murray Abraham fill out pivotal roles as monks. Extras include Annaud's French and English commentary, vintage making-of featurette, and Annaud's narrated photo gallery.

Rio (Fox)

If you've wondered what that huge statue of Christ above Rio de Janeiro looks like animated, then this is your movie. Although there's fun in this romantic comedy about two macaws who find each other in the world's biggest carnival town, there's also a sense that the creators are more interested in recreating one of the world's great wonders: Rio and its astonishing harbor, rain forests and mountainous areas.

I'd prefer to see the real thing, but I'm finicky; there are amusing voice turns by Anne Hathaway and Jesse Eisenberg, among others. Rio's bright colors pop off the TV screen on Blu-ray; extras include music videos, making-of and voice talent featurettes.

Sleepers (Warners)

Barry Levinson's gripping but overwrought 1996 revenge drama features a bevy of stars: Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, et al. But telling this multi-generational story of vengeance shouldn't take 2-½ hours, and Levinson loses his grip on his story's substance and the characterizations by dawdling over details to ensure that is able to "get" all the connections.

The Blu-ray image is an improvement over the DVD but is not eye-popping; there are surprisingly no extras.

Source Code (Summit)

Think of this nail-biting but nonsensical thriller as the sci-fi Groundhog Day: Jake Gyllenhaal gamely goes the Bill Murray route of reliving the same situation over and over, hoping to use knowledge he gains incrementally to eventually stop a terrorist attack.

Director Duncan Jones smartly keeps the action moving and the running time short so nagging questions about the ultimate silliness of it all don't pop up until the movie's over. The solid hi-def transfer gets a thumbs-up; there's a writer/director/star commentary and Access Source Code, an interactive feature that can be played during the movie.

Stargate Atlantis: The Complete Series (Fox)

This popular sci-fi television series arrives on Blu-ray in a humongous 20-disc set that comprises five seasons' worth of 100 episodes, as this inventive sequel picks up where the original Stargate: SG-1 left off.

On Blu-ray, the extravagant imagery and special effects have never looked better, which is reason itself for all Stargate Atlantis fans to upgrade to hi-def. Plentiful extras include commentaries with cast and crew on most episodes, deleted scenes and on-set and off-set featurettes.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Strand)

Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul unfathomably won the Cannes Palme d'Or for this diffuse, lackluster film about ghosts, reincarnation and nature. An early sequence with a cow is absolutely glorious, but once the title character (dying of liver disease) sees his long-dead wife return as a ghost and his long-away son return as part of a group of forest monkeys with red lasers for eyes, the movie becomes much less magical.

The final scenes are truly inscrutable, as is the entire movie, except to those who find profound meaning in the solace of benevolent ghosts. The Blu-ray image is crisp and clear, but the subtitles that won't turn off are a real turn-off, hindering studiers of Weerasethakul's imagery; extras are a director interview, deleted scenes and a short film.

DVDs of the Week

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man and La Rabbia/The Anger (Raro)

Raro Video continues releasing obscure Italian films on DVD, like these dramatically and politically charged dramas. 1976's Live Like a Cop begins with a stunning motorcycle chase through the busy streets of Rome, and amazingly, Ruggero Deodato's crime drama keeps up the breakneck pace for the next 90 minutes, as two rogue cops clean up the streets by spilling blood.

1963's La Rabbia/The Anger is an historically important snapshot of the Italian left and right by, respectively, directors Pier Paolo Pasolini and Giovannino Guareschi. Cop extras include a 42-minute making-of documentary; Anger extras include a Pasolini short and a 68-minute making-of documentary.

Robert Schumann—A Portrait (EuroArts)

This splendid two-part portrait of the great German composer (who died prematurely, as so many artists do, in 1856 at age 46) mixes contemporary accounts of Robert Schumann and his art with compelling performances of his wonderful music by conductor Leonard Bernstein, the Vienna Philharmonic and pianist Andras Schiff.

Using the voices of two actors, Michael Tregor and Sophie von Kessel, as Schumann and his beloved wife/fellow composer Clara, Michael Fuehr's warmly affecting biography displays a master composer whose artistry was eclipsed by ill health and inadequate medicine.

CDs of the Week

Britten—Songs, Volume 1 (Onyx)

This two-disc collection of Benjamin Britten's finest (and rarest) songs and song cycles was recorded at the 2009 Aldeburgh Festival, which was founded by the composer 61 years earlier. As a celebration of Britten's unique facility for setting poetry in English (and German in a few instances), these performances by several enthusiastic young vocalists and veteran pianist Malcolm Martineau can't be beat.

In addition to classic cycles The Holy Sonnets of John Donne and Winter Words, there are five previously unrecorded songs, under two minutes each, which are of special interest to Britten completists.

Previn—Brief Encounter (Deutsche Grammophon)

Based on David Lean and Noel Coward's classic 1942 film romance, Andre Previn's opera—which premiered in Houston in 2009—is a solid, workmanlike but uninspired adaptation that's best heard as a vehicle for two outstanding American singers: soprano Elizabeth Futral and baritone Nathan Gunn, who wrap Previn's melodic movie music in their lustrous voices to nearly make it sound substantial, accompanied by Patrick Summers leading the excellent Houston Grand Opera Orchestra.

But, since both Futral and Gunn are as good at acting as at singing, it's a missed opportunity to not also release this on DVD.

Cinefantastique Spotlight Podcast: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 08 August 2011 01:31

Written by Daniel Persons

Startling the studios, startling the critics, and startling its delighted audiences, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has arrived to prove that a reboot -- in the hands of a skilled director and inspired writers, actors and effects artists -- does not necessarily need to serve as Exhibit One in the case for the film industry's creative bankruptcy. Join theofantastique.com's John W. Morehead and Cinefantastique Online's Lawrence French and Dan Persons as they explore how the latest retooling of a moribund franchise has become the most bracing film of the summer, discuss some emotional nuances director Rupert Wyatt uses to bring depth to the fantasy, celebrate Andy Serkis' work as our new simian overlord, and sift over some notable glitches in the scenario.

Also: Some thoughts on the revelation that Steven Sodherbergh is directing second unit sequences for The Hunger Games; and what's coming to theaters and home video.

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Kevin's July '11 Digital Week V

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 31 July 2011 20:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Four Weddings and a Funeral and Be Cool (MGM)

A new line of mid-price MGM Blu-rays includes Four Weddings and a Funeral, the sleeper hit comedy of 1994 that thrust Hugh Grant into stardom (and didn't do too badly by Kristin Scott Thomas and Andie McDowell either), and Be Cool, the sleepy 2005 sequel to Get Shorty, with John Travolta reprising his gangster turned Hollywood mogul to lesser effect, although Christina Milian was a real find as his sexy singing (and swinging) sidekick.

The movies receive good if not overly impressive hi-def transfers; Be Cool extras include gag reel, music videos, cast interviews, deleted scenes and making-of featurette; Weddings extras include filmmakers' commentary, deleted scenes, on-set featurettes and making-of documentary.

High and Low (Criterion)

One of Akira Kurosawa's towering masterpieces is this nailbiting 1963 thriller pitting the haves versus the have-nots in a tense game of cat and mouse. Approaching true Shakespearean pathos by its end, this lengthy but always absorbing and never dull crime drama features uniformly excellent performances (especially by Toshiro Mifune in the lead), the razor-sharp B&W photography and editing and Kurosawa's inspired direction combine for a truly unique film.

Criterion's Blu-ray, as good as advertised, makes a great film look even greater; extras include Kurosawa expert Stephen Prince commentary, vintage Mifune interview and a making-of documentary that's part of Kurosawa's It's Wonderful to Create series.

Leon Morin, Priest (Criterion)

Although a young, dashing Jean Paul Belmondo plays the title character in Jean Pierre Melville's 1961 chamber drama set in Nazi-occupied France, the movie is stolen by an always riveting Emmanuelle Riva, best known for Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour.

A young woman of loose morals finds herself irresistibly drawn to a handsome priest, and Melville shows their relationship as a strange, forbidding but platonic courtship that is climaxed by his most honestly downbeat ending. The clean and sharp Blu-ray image is another Criterion winner; extras include vintage Melville and Belmondo interviews, deleted scenes and selected-scene commentary by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau.

Monamour (Cult Epics)

Italian soft-core auteur Tinto Brass could never be accused of modesty, and this 2006 adventure for an unhappily married couple featuring extramarital sex, including simulated fellatio sequences, is one of his most recent titillating provocations. On a second disc is Kick the Cock or The New Maid, a 15-minute short starring the stunning Angelita Franco, the latest Brass discovery, in an amusing tease that shows Brass himself furiously masturbating to Franco's gorgeous (and naked) figure.

This supremely monomaniacal silliness, on Blu-ray at least, has clear imagery that provides fun to some in the audience. Extras include a making-of featurette for each film.

Priest of Love and The Romantic Englishwoman (Kino Lorber)

These nearly forgotten British films arrive on DVD/Blu-ray for the first time. 1981's Priest of Love, a standard D.H. Lawrence biopic, stars Ian McKellen in one of his first major roles and Janet Suzman as his wife Frieda. 1975's Romantic Englishwoman, one of Joseph Losey's weakest melodramas, has Glenda Jackson and Michael Caine as an unhappily married couple and Helmut Berger as a poet with whom she may be having an affair.

Although both movies are basically unmemorable they register strongly on Blu-ray, thanks to appropriately grainy transfers. No Englishwoman extras; Priest extras comprise a making-of documentary, interviews and deleted scenes with director Christopher Miles' commentary.

Shark Week (Discovery Channel)

Discovery Channel's biggest annual ratings blockbuster is Shark Week, and this two-disc set collects six programs chronicling the ocean's most perfect killing machine, from a recent spate of shark attacks to an amazing airborne fish that's been nicknamed "Air Jaws."

The photography (both on land and underwater) is crystal-clear and looks vivid and vibrantly stunning on Blu-ray; the extras comprise three additional programs: Sharks: Are They Hunting Us?; Man vs. Fish: Tiger Shark; and Man vs. Fish: Mako Shark.

Take Me Home Tonight (Fox)

This nearly laughless comedy sat on the shelf for awhile, which may be why it's surprising to see Anna Faris in a muted role as the sister of hero Topher Grace, who finds little humor as a video-store loser who pretends to be a stockbroker to impress (and bed down) the girl on whom he had a crush in high school.

There are foolish, unfunny sequences of characters acting like idiots, and even if that stuff clicked with audiences in The Hangover and Bridesmaids, moviegoers ignored this, which means all hope is not lost. The Blu-ray image is decent; the extras include deleted scenes and a music video.

DVDs of the Week

The Conqueror (e one)

Legendary Ukrainian warrior Taras Bulba, born in the great novella by Nikolai Gogol, was also the subject of an opera, a Janacek orchestral work and films. But this 2009 adaptation by Ukrainian director Vladimir Bortko returns one of Russian literature's most celebrated historical characters to the screen with an undoubtedly huge budget that was paid for by the Russian Ministry of Culture.

The result is an epically-scaled adventure with gory, rousing and prolonged battle scenes interspersed with reflective and romantic moments. The result is fun but superficial, thanks to unsubtle acting and Bortko's recycled effects, particularly close-up bludgeoning that gets stale fast.

Dumbstruck (Magnolia)

Director Mark Goffman takes a subject which could have been turned into a freak show by a less sympathetic director and fashions an entertaining and heartening study of several talented ventriloquists.

The director's obvious affection for these people shows in how he burrows into their personal and professional lives without condescension and, along with the usual white male subjects, Goffman shows the community's diversity by including a white teenage boy (with a black dummy!) and a young woman. Extras include Goffman and crew members' commentary, deleted scenes and additional interviews.

Selma Jezková (Dacapo)

Danish composer Poul Ruders' latest opera distills the drama of Lars von Trier's relentlessly downbeat film, Dancer in the Dark, starring Bjork, who also composed trite songs, into 70 taut, excruciating minutes. Ruders shrewdly omits her tunes, supplying his own thorny soundtrack instead, and smartly focusing on Selma, sung by the amazing soprano Tiva Kihlberg in a fully committed portrayal.

Copenhagen's stark staging does von Trier one better, and Ruders' music is formidably played by the Danish Opera Orchestra under Michael Schonwandt's baton. A 45-minute making-of featurette includes interviews with Ruders and Kihlberg.

CDs of the Week

Delius, Ibert, Milhaud (EMI)

This trio of two-disc sets, part of EMI's 20th Century Classics series of releases, is a superb way to discover three of the most unsung but inventive classical composers in affordable editions that contain first-class performances. The Frederick Delius set smartly programs all of the Britisher's atmospheric and brilliantly orchestrated tone poems (such as Sleigh Ride, Brigg Fair and Florida Suite) in versions are led by conductor Thomas Beecham, Delius' most visible advocate.

The Jacques Ibert set includes the Frenchman's wonderful Flute Concerto with Emmanuel Pahud as soloist, and the Darius Milhaud set features the Frenchman's Flute Sonata, also played by Pahud, and the underrated First Cello Concerto, performed by the legendary Jonas Starker.