Chariots of Fire
(Warner Brothers)
The surprise 1981 Best Picture Oscar winner—beating out
Warren Beatty’s romantic epic Reds—is,
despite its pedigree (British, respectable, conventional), surprisingly upbeat
if historically problematic. Despite director Hugh Hudson pouring on slow
motion, crowd-pleasing sequences and Vangelis’ dated electronic score, the
movie holds up well enough. The muted hi-def image looks comparable to the
original theatrical release; extras include a Hudson commentary and interview,
screen tests, deleted scenes, featurettes including interviews with Hudson,
producer David Puttnam, writer Colin Welland and photographer David Watkin, and
a CD sampler of four Vangelis tunes.
(Eagle Vision)
The synth-pop British hitmakjers reunited last year (nostalgia
being what it is, who doesn’t nowadays?), as witness this savvy performance in
front of an energetic, mostly female crowd. Simon LeBon and two of the three
Taylor brothers are joined by assorted backup musicians and singers for a romp
through their three-decade career, with an obvious leaning toward the early smash
hits (“Rio,” “The Reflex,” “Hungry Like the Wolf”) that longtime fans will
enjoy. The hi-def cameras provide crisp visuals; extras include two bonus songs
(including “Is There Something I Should Know”) and band member interviews.
(Lionsgate)
The well-documented atrocities against the Chinese when Japan
invaded Manchuria in 1936 have been dramatized in several movies;
unfortunately, acclaimed veteran director Zhang Timou comes a cropper with his shallow
take on such a tricky subject. As a Westerner posing as a priest who tries to
save an improbable group of courtesans and young students, Christian Bale looks
confused and embarrassed, while Zhang—whose technical control remains unabated—allows
sentimentality to seep in at every turn. On Blu-ray, Zhang’s splendid compositions
leave the weak script behind; the lone extra is a behind the scenes featurette.
(IFC)
Abel Ferrara’s latest unhinged rant explores the final hours
for Manhattan residents as the countdown to Armageddon begins. There are
interesting moments—particularly when protagonist Willem Dafoe screams from a rooftop
at people still wandering the streets—but Ferrara never develops anything
coherently. The relationship between Dafoe and a wooden Shanyn Leigh as his
wife never gives us any reason to care about the impending demise of such non-entities.
The Blu-ray image is first-rate.
(Touchstone)
In 1998, Nicholas Evans’ novel was made into a pictorially
lovely, dramatically distaff drama by director/star Robert Redford, who smartly
cast Kristin Scott Thomas to play the mother of a teenager (Scarlett Johansson)
whose accident while on her beloved horse is the catalyst for nearly three
hours of intermittently powerful drama. The movie looks much better than on
DVD, but there’s a softness to some scenes—particularly shots of the expansive
Montana visitas—that mute the exquisite visuals; extras include three very brief
interviews with Redford and real “horse whisperer” Buck Brannaman.
Margaret
(Fox)
Kenneth Lonergan made this illuminating study of a Manhattan
teenager who witnesses a gruesome bus accident back in 2005; it sat on the
shelf until edited by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker down to 2-½ hours.
Like You Can Count on Me, Lonergan’s excellent 2000 debut, this movie is
less concerned with plot than character and dialogue; its textures are of real-life
people interacting in ways completely antithetical to typical Hollywood movies.
Crammed with scenes of the girl at school, at home or dealing with the accident’s
aftermath, Margaret has unyielding empathy
for its characters. Anna Paquin (teen) and J. Smith-Cameron (mom) are great;
Lonergan, Josh Hamilton, Matthew Broderick, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon and
Allison Janney provide smart support. The movie looks excellent on Blu-ray; the
lone extra is the original, 186-minute cut on DVD: it’s an entirely different
movie than the released version, though whether it’s better—it has the same
strengths and weaknesses in greater abundance—will be debated for awhile.
(Kino)
A Buster Keaton silent feature that he did not direct (Herbert
Blache did the honors)—based on a play, The
New Henrietta, by Victor Mapes and Winchell Smith—this is not as memorable
as his many comedic classics already out on Blu-ray, though there are enough moments
for Keaton fans to savor. The 1920 color-tinted movie looks fairly worn, but on
Blu-ray it’s the best it will look—along with an alternate version that comprises
alternate takes and camera angles. Other extras are a featurette comparing the
two versions and a 1962 audio recording Keaton regaling a party with youthful songs
and memories.
(Mill Creek)
This quartet of programs, featuring breathtaking underwater footage,
shows the lives of several kinds of sharks (and manta rays!), and how humans—especially
scientists and tourists in search of more dangerous escapades—try to co-exist with
them. The four episodes—Shark Divers,
Shark Business, Whale Sharks: Gentle Giants and Giants of San Benedicto—have spectacular hi-def camerawork in
spades; there are no extras, but who cares when there are over three hours of
stunning journeys to go on?
(Synapse)
This delightfully twisted 1971 Hammer horror flick, with Peter
Cushing as the leader of pious witch hunters who meet his match when a local
count transforms one of his sexyl twin nieces into a vampire, is a real hoot. Blood
and breasts are equally on display, and the finale is ludicrously over the top,
even for such a flamboyant film. With its dark shadows and red gore, the movie looks
quite good in hi-def, with film-like grain; extras include The Flesh and the Fury, a thorough 85-minute documentary of the
film’s history; The Props that Hammer
Built, a 25-minute featurette; and a deleted scene.
Jesus Henry Christ
(e one)
If quirkiness were all, then writer-director Dennis Lee’s
exploration of a boy’s search for his real father would be a triumph. But
quirkiness aside, Lee’s movie is skin-crawlingly obnoxious, as this most
bizarre of bizarre families comes off uninteresting and dull after so many similar
movies and TV sitcoms: why can’t we see normal people for a change? If everyone’s
offbeat, then no one is offbeat; Michael Sheen, Toni Collette and Jason Spevack
(as the boy) can’t change that. Extras include interviews with Lee and his
cast.
(Kimstim/Zeitgeist)
Christoph Honore’s bland family relations drama pales next
to better French films on the subject, with Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours and Arnaud Desplechin’s flawed
but interesting A Christmas Tale the
most recent. Unlike bull’s-eye acting in Summer
(Juliette Binoche) and Christmas
(Catherine Deneuve), Honore is stuck with Chiara Mastroianni, movie
royalty—daughter of Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni—but a mediocre actress who
can’t breathe life into a multi-dimensional heroine juggling young kids,
annoying brother and sister, new boyfriend, former husband and overbearing
parents.
(New Yorker)
The final film in writer-director Leon Ichaso’s Cuban
trilogy—following El Super and Bitter Sugar—is his personal take on a
rarely mentioned issue: how newly arrived Cuban immigrants see their American “promised
land” if the promises of a better life don’t happen. What begins as an inchoate
character study morphs into a romance and finally into a strange kind of
thriller, its heartfelt honesty trumping loose ends in plotting and
characterization. Extras include an Ichaso interview, Benjamin Bratt
introduction and Ichaso’s short about poet Justo Rodriguez Santos, J.R.S.
(Film Movement)
Omri Givon’s provocative Jerusalem-set drama follows a
survivor a year after a terrorist bombing on a bus which killed her boyfriend:
she can’t remember what led to the tragedy, but therapy and an anonymous gift
help her make sense of what happened and her future. Givon artfully shows the
wounds, both physical and psychic, on a survivor of such an attack and, in
Reymonde Amsellem’s beautifully modulated performance, brings this woman to
life. The lone extra is a Brazilian short, Grandmothers.
Jeffrey Khaner: Czech
Flute Music
(Avie)
For this well-programmed CD of music from the former Czechoslovakia,
talented American flutist Jeffrey Khaner plays pieces by three towering 19th
and 20th century masters and a contemporary Czech composer. First is
Erwin Schulhoff’s jazz-inflected 1927 Sonana, followed by Jindrich Feld’s melodic
but distinctly modern-sounding Sonata (from 1957). Bohuslav Martinu’s Sonata
No. 1, written in America in 1945, is expressive and lilting, the composer at
his considerable best; finally, there’s a reworking of Antonin Dvorak’s 1893 Violin
Sonatina transcribed for flute. Khaner performs with flair, suppleness and musical
sense; pianist Charles Abramovic provides sturdy support.
No comments:
Post a Comment