December '11 Digital Week IV

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 26 December 2011 01:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week
The Birth of a Nation and Way Down East (Kino)
These D.W. Griffith classics are more historically than artistically admirable, especially 1915’s Nation, with its rampagingly racist view of the Ku Klux Klan; 1920’s East, by contrast, is a relatively sober melodrama. Griffith was a master of composition and editing, if not depth or complexity; his films are large-scale curios important beyond their shortcomings.

Kino’s restored hi-def transfers (East comes courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art) are excellent if not as stunning as its Buster Keaton entries. Nation’s two discs of extras include a making-of and the full 1993 restoration; East includes a short ice-floe sequence from a 1903 film of Uncle Tom’s Cabin which inspired Griffith.

Blackthorn (Magnolia)
A grizzled, bearded Sam Shepard plays a retired Butch Cassidy whiling away the remainder of his days in Bolivia in director Mateo Gil’s laidback western. Lovely photography that makes terrific use of the widescreen format is its calling card.

But despite Shepard’s authoritative presence, Butch comes across as a cipher, not good in a film ostensibly about him. The Blu-ray transfer is glorious; extras include interviews, featurettes and 22 minutes’ worth of deleted scenes.

Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter (Criterion)
Seijun Suzuki’s remarkably brash thrillers are among the most entertaining of their time (1967 and 1966, respectively): these beguiling mash-ups of gangster movie, romance and musical--shot in splendid B&W and color--introduce a series of appealingly nutty characters whom Suzuki’s stylishness makes endlessly fascinating.

The Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray editions give these films a shocking visual jolt that’s unmatched; extras include new and vintage interviews with Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu and an interview with Branded star Joe Shishido.

Catch .44 (Anchor Bay)
I had a crushing sense of déjà vu while watching Aaron Harvey‘s second-rate thriller: its insistence on following various characters through story threads that collide with and converge on one another--some even die then return in flashbacks--is solely Quentin Tarantino’s fault, since he made it acceptable for anyone with a script and camera to make a slick but empty flick.

Though the actors can do little with their stereotypes, Bruce Willis, Nikki Reed and Forrest Whitaker look like they’re having fun, and Malin Akerman--bless her--very nearly makes the heroine sympathetic. The film looks quite good on Blu-ray; lone extra is a Harvey commentary.

Colombiana (Sony)
If there’s any justice in Hollywood--which, as we know, there isn’t--Zoe Saldana would be a superstar: she’s a compelling, charismatic actress who can do drama, comedy, action, whatever. Instead we’re stuck with the likes of overrated, one trick ponies Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johannsen, Kate Hudson and Kristen Bell.

Rant over: Saldana makes this forgettable action flick fly furiously, even making us feel for a young woman--trained as an assassin after her parents are brutally murdered--who’s calmly killing dozens of people. The Blu-ray image is first-rate; extras include several featurettes.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Vivendi)
Director Tsui Hark’s incomprehensible costume fantasy-drama has its share of amazing visuals, but the story’s incoherence and the characters’ distance from the viewer--even the title sleuth and his princess--keeps this ultra-stylish diversion at arm’s length.

On Blu-ray, the movie literally blasts off the screen, and for many fans of this type of movie, that will definitely be enough: all others have been warned. Extras include on-set featurettes.

Dolphin Tale (Warners)
This heartfelt, inspirational story chronicles an injured dolphin’s battle to survive without a tail and the two young children who are there to help. Sentimental and syrupy for sure--but when it’s done so guilelessly, the result is a sweet family film without many annoying diversionary tactics.

On Blu-ray, the movie looks best in the many underwater sequences; extras include a deleted scene, gag reel and behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Intruder (Synapse)
Not all vintage splatter movies are classics: case in point is1989’s Intruder, which is only partly intentionally inept. Despite a willing cast, director Scott Spiegel just doesn’t have fellow director Sam Raimi’s style and pacing, and the movie degenerates into repetitious and boring gore scenes once the killer has established himself in the local grocery store.

Even the cheesy special effects aren’t especially memorable. The movie looks as good as it’s going to look on hi-def; extras comprise new cast and crew interviews, screen tests and bonus scenes.

Margin Call (Lionsgate)
This tense look at the 2008 financial meltdown through the eyes of traders and bosses--all trying to figure out how to weather what they know will be a damaging storm once the bottom drops out--arrives courtesy of debut writer-director J. C. Chandor, who obviously knows the milieu (his dad worked for an investment firm).

The characters, from the firm’s CEO to the young trader who deciphers complex numbers to arrive at the foregone (and ominous) conclusion, are enacted with precision and even sympathy by Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Stanley Tucci and Zachary Quinto. The movie looks sharp on Blu-ray; extras include deleted scenes with commentary, director/producer commentary and on-set featurettes.

Seven Chances (Kino)
This inspired and classic piece of Buster Keaton lunacy crams more awesome hilarity and stuntwork into 52 minutes than movies twice as long. As always, Keaton builds the rollicking humor to a thrilling crescendo, in this case a most dazzling chase scene as Keaton tries to outrace rolling rocks and boulders in an enervating finale.

Another in Kino’s superb series of hi-def Keaton releases, Seven Chances looks clean and spotless; extras include a Three Stooges short based on this movie’s plot, a 1904 short that inspired Keaton’s final chase and a location featurette.

Stars and Stripes Forever (Fox)
Named after John Philip Sousa’s most famous march--inspired titling, that!--this standard 1952 biopic is a nice if undistinguished overview of the “march king’s” career from his army band to his composing “Stars and Stripes Forever” after the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War.

Clifton Webb is a stiff Sousa, but Ruth Hussey (wife), Robert Wagner (protégée) and Debra Paget (protégé’s wife) enliven things a little, as does lots of Sousa’s irresistible music. The restored film has a vibrancy on Blu-ray that helps elevate the lagging dramatics; extras include featurettes on the film and Sousa’s music.

DVDs of the Week
Burke & Hare (IFC)
John  Landis’ first feature since 1998’s double disaster of Susan’s Plan and Blues Brothers 2000 is another crude comic effort that’s doubly disheartening since it’s based on a true story of grave robbers who must keep a fresh supply of cadavers for a dissecting doctor.

A top-notch British cast is led by Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Ilsa Fischer and Tom Wilkinson, and an appropriately dark Sweeney Todd mood envelopes the proceedings, but Landis’ farcical instincts fail him: a firmer, subtler guiding hand is needed. Extras include interviews, outtakes and deleted scenes.

The Overcoat (Raro Video)Alberto Lattuada’s 1952 adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s short story is one of the underrated Italian director’s best films. Famed for collaborating on Fellini’s debut feature Variety Lights, Lattuada had a sardonic comic sense all his own that’s found in spades in this satire of bureaucracy and fascism centered around a beautifully modulated performance by Renato Rascel as a lowly clerk who longs for a new overcoat…and unfortunately gets what he wished for.

The film has gotten a sparkling restoration; extras are commentary by two Italian film historians, an interview with director Angelo Pasquini and deleted scenes.

CD of the Week
Natasha Paremski, Brahms/Kahane/Prokofiev (Arioso Classics)
This scintillating 25-year-old Russian pianist--who won the 2010 Young Artist of the Year award from the Classical Recording Foundation--daringly pairs three composers on her debut recital disc: Johannes Brahms, Sergei Prokofiev and Gabriel Kahane, whose 2009 Piano Sonata was commissioned for Paremski, who makes short work of its imposing passages.

She plays Brahms’ Piano Sonata No. 2 with warmth and sensitivity, and Prokofiev’s technically and emotionally demanding Piano Sonata No. 7 finds her in her element, thrillingly tracking the composer’s unique blend of playfulness and tragedy.

Tough Broads on Film

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 23 December 2011 10:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Directed by David Fincher
Opened December 20, 2011

Two steely women -- one real, one fake -- are hitting our holiday screens: Margaret Thatcher, first female prime minister of Great Britain, and Lisbeth Salander, computer hacker extraordinaire.

Salander has become one of recent fiction’s most recognizable characters thanks to Stieg Larsson’s trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Interestingly, Dragon Tattoo’s original Swedish title, Men Who Hate Women, shows that Larsson’s interest lay as much in the society that shunned Salander and embraced misogyny as the young woman herself: putting Salander front and center was a shrewd move by the trilogy’s English-language publishers.

An unqualified success is Meryl Streep’s tour de force as Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, a Cliff Notes summary of the prime minister’s career as the most polarizing politician of her time.

December '11 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 18 December 2011 15:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week
City of Life and Death (Kino Lorber)
Atrocities committed by the Japanese occupiers during 1937’s Rape of Nanking, recreated in director Lu Chuan’s startlingly matter-of-fact docudrama, are given a horrible immediacy. Shot in exquisite black and white--which looks extremely impressive on Blu-ray--the film, which only rarely falls into sentimentality, is a tough, unblinking study of inhumanity…and humanity.

The lone extra is The Making of Life and Death, an absorbing, nearly two-hour documentary chronicling how director Lu Chuan created such an emotional experience.
 
Colin Quinn: Long Story Short (VSC)
Comic Colin Quinn’s one-man Broadway show is a funny world history overview that, in a mere 75 minutes, chronicles a long line of bad guys from ancient times to Jersey Shore.

Slickly directed by Jerry Seinfeld, the performance epitomizes Quinn’s gruff comedic outlook that takes equal shots at Julius Caesar and Snooki, with everyone in between. The hi-def image is sharp; extras include Quinn and Seinfeld’s commentary and a short making-of.

Die Liebe der Danae and La Traviata (Arthaus Musik)
Two of opera’s most demanding title roles are on display. Verdi’s La Traviata is enacted by the wondrous Swedish soprano Marlis Petersen, who brings appropriate dramatic color to this pinpoint sharp 2011 staging from Graz, Austria.

German soprano Manuela Uhl, tackling the torturous title role of Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, has a shimmering tone in this fantastical new staging from Berlin. The visuals and audio for both operas are spectacular; each contains a short backstage bonus featurette.

Fright Night (Dreamworks)
For those for whom the Twilight series is too sappy, this tongue-in-cheek scarefest stars Colin Farrell as the new neighbor next door who happens to be a vampire. It’s as dopey as it sounds, even with some cleverness early as the teens figure out what’s going on while adults stay blissfully ignorant until it’s too late.

Still, despite lots of blood and would-be stylishness, the movie has nothing on vintage splatter movies of the late 70s/early 80s. There’s a first-rate Blu-ray image throughout; extras include deleted/extended scenes, bloopers, music video and featurettes.

Meet Me in St. Louis (Warners)
Judy Garland shines in this timeless tale of family ties, directed by her future husband Vicente Minnelli with a light touch he rarely was capable of. Although considered a holiday film--hence its mid-December Blu-ray release--it takes place during all four seasons; a wonderful song list comprises the title song, “The Trolley Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which has become a seasonal perennial.

The original’s dazzling colors have been recaptured on Blu-ray; Warner’s typically stuffed hi-def release features a 40-page book, a CD sampler with Garland’s four soundtrack tunes, Liza Minnelli intro and audio commentary.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Fox)
A mugging Jim Carrey stars in this plodding, occasionally amusing fantasy based on a charming 1938 children’s book about a businessman whose present of six penguins sends his life in an upper-crust Park Avenue apartment into upheaval.

The penguins--real but looking digitized--are adorable and there’s nice use of Manhattan locations like Tavern on the Green and Central Park, but too much Carrey cutesiness makes for predictable comedy. The movie looks good in hi-def; extras include an animated short, gag reel, deleted scenes and making-of featurettes.

Portlandia: Season One (MVD)
Another entry in the “not as clever as it think it is” category, this series shows a bunch of stereotyped green liberals in Portland: too bad creators Fred Armisten and Carrie Brownstein are too wooden to portray so many different characters.

There are fun cameos by Aimee Mann, Sarah MacLachlan and Gus van Sant, and there are passing funny glances at tree-huggers but not enough to sustain each episode. The show looks decent on Blu-ray; extras include bloopers, extended/deleted scenes, and Armisten and Brownstein’s commentary.

Rapt and The Robber (Kino Lorber)
These thrillers come from opposite angles: Lucas Belvaux’s Rapt follows the kidnapping of a Parisian millionaire who must adjust to life after he’s freed, while Benjamin Heisenberg’s The Robber follows a just-released prisoner who returns to bank heists with ultimately tragic results.

Both films have moments of excitement, but there are large plot holes, especially in The Robber, where the Viennese police are the most inept organization ever. Both films look terrific on Blu-ray; unfortunately, there are no extras.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Fox)
This fancy reboot of the Apes franchise is an unhappy dud, despite earnest performances by James Franco as the human hero and Frieda Pinto as his beautiful sidekick. The problem is that the apes were more real with simple makeup in the original five films: now, even with amazing trickery and wizardly special effects, we get digitized but fake-looking apes, despite Andy Serkis’ effective emoting.

The script is ridiculously overwrought, and the digital effects--which this film abounds in--look unreal on Blu-ray, thanks to its improved sharpness and clarity. Extras include director/writers’ audio commentary, 11 deleted scenes and features about the film’s making, effects and music.

The Rocketeer (Disney)
Joe Johnston’s action-adventure flopped in theaters in 1990, and this 20th anniversary release shows that it has not improved with age. Bill Campbell has zero charisma as the hero, Jennifer Connelly is merely a gorgeous decoration, the insipid story involves Nazis amongst Hollywood’s elite, and the jet-pack effects are not much to write home about.

The movie looks a little too soft on Blu-ray; interestingly--and unfortunately--there are no extras on what should have been a special edition.

The Simpsons: Season 14 (Fox)
The 22 episodes from the 2002-3 season are an incredibly uneven lot, starting with the  annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode, which careens wildly from black-comic hilarity to wincingly awful jokes. There’s the usual plethora of guest voices, too (including musicians Tom Petty, Tony Bennett, Blink 182 and even Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), which always helps.

The show looks far better on Blu-ray than it does in syndicated reruns, of course; the creators’ commentary on each episode is a must-listen, and other extras include 300th episode featurette, Matt Groening intro, deleted scenes and bonus “Treehouse” episodes.

Tanner Hall (Anchor Bay)
This is an ungainly, sometimes unpleasant hybrid of school-shenanigan comedy and coming-of-age tale that’s neither fish nor fowl--it tries to be farcical, then gently satirical, then serious, and ends up being not much of anything.

A decent cast is highlighted by Amy Sedaris’ too-brief appearance. The movie looks OK on Blu-ray; the lone extra is a commentary by writers-directors Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Furstenberg.

DVDs of the Week
The Black Power Mix Tape 1967-1975 (IFC)
This fascinating compendium of footage shot by Swedish television journalist crews during the Black Power movement of the late 60s/early 70s has been meticulously constructed by writer-director Goran Hugo Olsson, displaying a powerful dramatic and narrative arc that references many of the era’s famous events, from Martin Luther King’s murder to the Attica prison riots.

The valuable testimonies of people from Stokely Carmichael to Angela Davis are included in this historically important document; extras include interviews with Davis, Shirley Chisholm and others, and featurettes.

Daddy Longlegs (Zeitgeist)
This alternately fascinating and stultifying study of a divorced dad with two young boys whose staggering immaturity is supposedly mitigated by his unique way of looking at the world has moments of insight, but not enough to watch him for 95 minutes.

Ronald Bronstein is excellent as the father, but after awhile he begins to feel inauthentic, despite the fact that he’s based on writers-directors Josh and Benny Safdie’s own dad. Extras include deleted scenes, a making-of featurette and a rehearsal test film.

Steve Jobs: One Last Thing (PBS)This 60-minute PBS special about the late Apple founder takes the measure of the man as a visionary, colleague and competitor, not skimping on his less attractive side, such as his feud with Bill Gates (who comes off fairly well here) and petty egotism when it came to movie studio Pixar’s success.

But there is also a sense of admiration and awe for Jobs, who transformed the computer age into familiar and useable for everyone, for better or worse. It would have interesting to hear more about his indebtedness to the Beatles beyond simply him quoting a McCartney lyric while sharing a stage with Gates, though.

CDs of the Week
Diana Damrau, Liszt Songs and Veronique Gens, Tragediennes 3 (Virgin Classics)
These tremendous singers give impressive vocal performances, as German soprano Damrau sings German and Italian songs of Franz Liszt with expressiveness and intelligence, while French soprano Gens--on her third disc of tragic opera heroines--skillfully uses her dramatic range in excerpts from French operas from the 18th century (Mehul, Gluck) and  19th century (Berlioz, Meyerbeer).

Gens throws some rarities in for good measure: Saint-Saens’ Henry VIII and Verdi’s French-language version of Don Carlos.

Rautavaara, Music for Children’s Choir (Ondine)
One of the two great living Finnish composers--Aulis Sallinen is the other--Einojuhani Rautavaara has written substantive works in genres ranging from opera to chamber music, so that it’s no surprise that he’s also a master at works for children’s choir as well.

Included in this superb release are an imposing one-act opera, Marjatta, The Lowly Maiden; an electrifying Children’s Mass; and several shorter but far from shallow pieces like Suite de Lorca, based on texts by Garcia Lorca. Singing beautifully throughout is the Tapiola Choir, accompanied by conductor Pasi Hyokki and the Tapiola Youth Symphony Orchestra in the Mass.