Kevin's Digital Week 14: Audrey and Adolf

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 22 February 2010 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-ray of the Week

Coco Before Chanel
(Sony)
Director Anne Fontaine’s conventionally enjoyable biopic — arecounting of the great French designer’s life before she became famous — is dominated by Audrey Tautou’s dazzling star turn, which gives the movie much of its style and panache. Although Tautou is far prettier than the real-life Coco Chanel, she shares a severe, dark beauty—and a pair of luminously piercing eyes—as she exudes the self-confident allure that made Coco irresistible to both men and women.

Even with the genre’s built-in limitations (a fatal accident seems like a screenwriter’s contrivance, even though it really happened), Coco Before Chanel is, thanks to Tautou’s grace and Fontaine’s adherence to the designer’s dictum that simplicity is best, exceptionally entertaining. On Blu-ray, Coco dazzles visually, Fontaine’s commentary is chatty and informative, and a behind-the-scenes documentary includes interviews with the director and her superstar.

DVD of the Week

Hitler’s Bodyguard
(Athena/Acorn Media)
This 13-part, 10-hour documentary looks at the Third Reich and Second World War era from a slightly different perspective. A thorough, endlessly fascinating historical account, this series is an absorbing overview of the thousands of men among various Nazi groups whose job was to safeguard the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, thanks to the constant possibility of his being an assassins’ target. Even though much of the information is not particularly new, the skillful presentation makes Hitler’s Bodyguard an important historical document.

Aside from the usual unnecessary recreations of events that mar many current non-fiction history programs—do we really need actors dressed as Nazis driving around in swastika-laden automobiles?—Hitler’s Bodyguard gives a suspenseful, exciting account of a glossed-over aspect of WWII study: who was responsible for watching over Hitler during a dozen years and more than 40 attempts on his life? There are no extras on any of the four discs—the lengthy series speaks for itself—although the set includes a short viewer’s guide.

Kevin's Digital Week 13: Studio Canal Trio, Majestic Zinn History

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 15 February 2010 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

The Studio Canal Collection—Contempt, The Ladykillers, Ran
(LionsGate)
For its first American Blu-ray releases, France’s Studio Canal has chosen three classics from three eras: Alexander Mackendrick’s blackly comic The Ladykillers (1955), Jean-Luc Godard’s bleakly comic Contempt (1963) and Akira Kurosawa’s black, bleak war drama Ran (1985). While the films themselves are superb—The Ladykillers features the incomparable Alec Guinness, Contempt grandiosely demonstrates Godard’s love-hate relationship with Hollywood, and Ran, among Kurosawa’s grandest epics, poetically shows man’s inhumanity—the Blu-ray releases are not a grand slam.

There are generally satisfactory transfers: although Ran and Contempt have less-than-stellar visuals, The Ladykillers has been superbly restored. Among the plentiful extras providing important contextual information about each film are a Daniel Day Lewis-narrated documentary about Ealing Studios, Forever Ealing, that’s the best Ladykillers bonus; One Upon a Time There Was...Contempt, which brilliantly explores Godard’s classic film; and several Kurosawa featurettes on Ran give a good overview of a remarkable career. A promising Blu-ray start from Studio Canal and LionsGate. 

DVD of the Week

The People Speak
(A&E)
This unlikely but triumphant dramatization of the late Howard Zinn’s popular A People’s History of the United States is a gripping account of how our country was shaped by ordinary people: those whose voices are ignored in most history books. Filmed at Boston’s historic Majestic Theater, The People Speak is narrated by Zinn (who recently died at age 87) and includes stars of stage, screen and music—from actors Kerry Washington, Kathleen Chalfant, Rosario Dawson, Josh Brolin, Danny Glover and Matt Damon to singers Bob Dylan, Eddie Vedder and Bruce Springsteen—all proclaiming the immortal words of dozens of unheralded patriots over the course of several centuries of American history. 

Of course, an event like this will generate more cries of “Hollywood elites/liberals rewriting history” — and there are moments of foolishness, such as Zinn disparaging Abraham Lincoln with an out-of-context comment about his wanting to save the union without freeing any slaves. Still, The People Speak is memorable viewing for anyone interested in American history. Extras comprise short backstage glimpses and interviews with Zinn, performers and audience members.

Traratino's "Inglourious Basterds" Draws Guilty Laughs and Massive Praise

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 12 February 2010 21:46

Written by Lloyd Carroll

Inglourious Basterds
directed by Quentin Tarantino
starring Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Bruhl, Diane Kruger

Like a lot of baby boomers, director/writer Quentin Tarantino grew up watching such World War II action flicks as Where Eagles Dare and The Dirty Dozen as well as lighter (and these days politically incorrect) fare about the great war on TV, such as McHale’s Navy and Hogan’s Heroes.

Tarantino has always enjoyed mixing over-the-top violence and guilty laughs and done so in the form of acts from a play. He gets to do all that in his latest screenwriting and directorial effort, Inglourious Basterds -- a movie whose title will drive those who write about it nuts because of the deliberate misspelling. (There's a '70s Italian war film with a name translated to The Inglorious Bastards which inspired this film but didn't serve as the source material).

Tarantino doesn’t hide the fact that his tale is complete fiction -- a total fantasy not based in any WWII facts. Inglorious Basterds is the nickname for a band of American guerrillas who kill Nazis in occupied France just before the D-Day invasion. Most of the “basterds” are American Jewish soldiers, who have a deeply emotional stake and are led by a suave, wisecracking commissioned officer from Tennessee, Aldo Raine (Pitt).

Pitt plays Aldo much the way the late Bob Crane played Col. Hogan, except that his character has an exaggerated “good ol’ boy” accent and a thirst for grisly violence and retribution which befits a Tarantino protagonist. When a Nazi is captured we watch Raine’s joy as he either cuts his scalp off, supposedly like an Apache warrior (the Germans refer to him as Aldo the Apache), or carves a swastika into the scalp of the few prisoners he lets survive.

As with other Tarantino films, there are several storylines in addition to the main one. The key secondary plot involves a Parisian movie theater owner, Emmanuelle Mimieux (Laurent) whose real name is Shosanna Dreyfus. Shosanna managed a miraculous escape from the French countryside years earlier when her family was massacred by a Gestapo unit led by the heinous Col. Hans Landa (Waltz). She wants to live in Paris without drawing needless attention to herself, but circumstances intervene when a dashing German war hero, Fredrick Zoller (Bruhl), falls in love with her.

Then there is Bridget von Hammersmark, a British spy modeled on Hitler’s love interest Marlene Dietrich and played by rising star Kruger. Her character obviously brings a bit of sex appeal to this war film, and it turns out that she is the glue that holds the disparate plot threads together.

The cast of Inglourious Basterds is superb, and Pitt reminds us why he is the top leading man in Hollywood today. Nonetheless, the best performance is turned in by Waltz, who puts you on the edge of your seat as the SS chief in France. Waltz’s Landa is sophisticated — he can speak five languages — urbane, charming and icily diabolical. He does for Inglourious Basterds what Ralph Fiennes did for Schindler’s List when he portrayed SS concentration camp commandant Amon Goethe.

It would have been an injustice if Waltz hadn't been nominated for a supporting actor Oscar, and even though the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are not usually Tarantino fans, he's likely to win and there are bets that this film -- nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture and Directing -- may be a spoiler in this year's race.