Blu-rays of the Week
America’s National Parks: An
Eagle’s View
(Mill Creek)
This “greatest hits” program of
gorgeously shot segments from several America’s
National Parks specials runs from coast to coast: beginning at Maine’s Acadia
and ending where it all began, our first national park, Yellowstone. In
between, there are glorious looks at the natural glories of the Great Smoky
Mountains, Everglades, Badlands, Glacier, Yosemite and Death Valley. This
satisfying Blu-ray transfer makes this a valuable souvenir for those who have
(or haven’t yet) visited any of these parks.
Band of Outsiders
(Criterion)
Fifty years on, Jean-Luc Godard’s
1964 gangster spoof comes off as a lazy exercise in self-aggrandizing, with literary
and movie “quotes” showing off his erudition. There’s also Anna Karina—Godard’s
first muse—whose charm is somehow lost on me; in compensation, there’s great
freedom of movement and splendid cinematography by the great Raoul Coutard
(whose first film, the shattering Vietnam drama Hoa Binh, would make a terrific Criterion Collection addition). The
Blu-ray image looks immaculate; extras include a vintage interviews with Godard
and ones from 2002 with Karina and Coutard, along with an Agnes Varda short
featuring then-lovers Godard and Karina.
The Bletchley Circle
(PBS)
A group of
women who worked together during WWII in top-secret code-breaking jobs reunite years
later to solve a series of murders baffling the police in this tautly enjoyable
thriller. The quartet of actresses—Anna Maxwell Martin, Rachael Stirling, Sophie
Rundle, Julie Graham—is an accomplished team that butts heads with the old boys’
networks in their lives, both at home and at the police station. Such a well-made,
straightforward crime drama is fun to watch. On Blu-ray, it looks superb;
extras include cast and crew interviews.
The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine
(Redemption/Kino)
A pair of cheesy early 70s horror
films get the hi-def treatment. Cold Eyes
of Fear, directed by Enzo G. Castellari (the original Inglorious Bastards), opens startlingly with a sexual assault—or
does it? Then it turns into a solid thriller about a home invasion and
kidnaping. Sergio Grieco’s Sinful Nuns,
which is obviously indebted to Ken Russell’s outlandish The Devils, has nudity and lesbianism aplenty, likely to keep many
viewers watching. The Blu-ray transfers are good and grainy enough.
The Days of the Commune
(Slought Foundation)
The Occupy Wall Street movement
was ridiculed by right-wingers as being run by fear-mongering elitists who
targeted defenseless bankers. But this fascinating documentary about a
multi-locale staging of Brecht’s play The
Days of the Commune—in 1871 Paris, the working class rose up against the
government—shows that OWS was also daring and fluid political theater. On Manhattan
locales from Zuccotti Park (where the Occupy movement began) to Lincoln Center
and Central Park, several mainly amateur performers act out Brecht’s clarion
call of words and music. It’s a pretty wooden drama, but as living history,
it’s memorable. And it looks good on Blu-ray.
(e one)
Told in a fleet 80 minutes, this tale
of an orphaned 19-year-old being tracked down by a roving band of murderers who
murdered her family is excitingly done. Set in 1363 after the Black Death, the
movie gains much from being gorgeously shot on stupendous Scandinavian
landscapes, and for cleverly pacing its action. The Blu-ray transfer is excellent;
extras include bloopers, deleted scenes and a visual effects overview.
The Last Stand
(Lionsgate)
Why did Arnold Schwarzenegger
pick this rote shoot ‘em up for his big screen return (following 2003’s Terminator
3)? Probably because of Korean director Kim Jee-Woon, whose explosive set
pieces are indeed impressive. But they’re silly too—the big car chase that pits
Midwestern sheriff Arnie and the bad guy who escaped the inept feds in a corn
field is ridiculous. Still, the explosions and bad one-liners might be enough
for undiscriminating fans. The Blu-ray looks fine; extras are featurettes and
interviews.
(RLJ Entertainment)
Watching Steven Dorff again as a
brooding loner, I feel like I’ve seen this movie a dozen times before. Here, he
plays a just-released con who gets mixed up with another deadly crime and ends
up with a beautiful young woman whom he improbably meets on a local bus. Dorff
shows off his pecs and tats again, Michelle Monaghan acts up a storm as his new
paramour, and Willem Dafoe is as creepy a villain as usual—but the movie is
bland and ordinary. The Blu-ray transfer is very good.
DVDs of the Week
Blood of the Vine—Seasons 1 &
2
(MHZ Networks)
Only the French could dream up
such a TV detective program: a wine expert becomes a sleuth after the police
call him in to help solve a series of vine-related murders. Although the
plotting is pedestrian, the novelty of a wine expert figuring out how vineyards
and vintages figure in killings is delicious, and of course Pierre
Arditi—veteran of many Alain Resnais films—is perfect as our hero. The two
volumes comprise eight 90-minute stories which are dramatically padded but feature
the glories of French wine country.
(Warner Archive)
Howard Hawks’s campily entertaining
1955 sandals-and-swords epic about an Egyptian ruler who has slaves build a
pyramid for him, which will also serve as his tomb, works despite its essential
cheesiness. Although shot in Panavision with vibrant color shades, the most
amazing-looking visuals are Joan Collins (queen) and Luisa Boni (slave). The
lone extra is a Peter Bogdanovich commentary.
Laure/Vanessa/Felicity: Naughty! Naughty! Naughty!
(Severin)
This boxed set comprises a trio
of late ‘70s soft-core “classics” which all deal with a familiar plot of innocence
debauched. Despite exotic locations—Laure takes place in tropical Manila, Vanessa and Felicity in Hong Kong—the movies are interchangeable; still, the naked
charms of their leading ladies are certainly worthy of comment. Extras include
a commentary on Felicity, behind-the-scenes
interviews on Vanessa and Laure.
(Eagle Vision)
Queen’s 1982 funk-disco hybrid
album Hot Space was below par—especially
after the worldwide smash album The Game—but
the live show was, as always, incendiary (I saw them in Toronto that summer for
the third and final time with Freddie Mercury). This two-disc set shows off
Queen at its hard-rocking best, 90 minutes of pure rock’n’roll. Combining Hot Space tunes with older favorites and
classic singles, this is another major Queen concert event. The bonus disc
includes additional performances and interviews.
Women in Love
(BBC Home Entertainment)
D.H. Lawrence’s novels Women in Love and The Rainbow—both turned into movies by Ken Russell in 1969 and 1989,
respectively—have been morphed into a two-part, three-hour BBC film that revels
in the explicitness that shocked Lawrence’s readers when the books came out
nearly a century ago. Although fusing the books adds unnecessary strain to the
plotting and characters, it’s been so elegantly directed by Miranda Bowen and so
skillfully acted by Rosamund Pike, Rachel Stirling, Saskia Reeves, Rory Kinnear
and Ben Daniels, it approximates the emotional depth of Lawrence’s classic
works.
Duke Ellington—Black, Brown and Beige
(Naxos)
The Buffalo Philharmonic
Orchestra—which just played a triumphant Carnegie Hall concert—has, under music
director Joann Falletta, become a big-league ensemble that can even swing, as
this enjoyable disc of big-band works by Duke Ellington shows. From the free-wheeling opener, Harlem, to a snazzy arrangement of Take the A Train, the orchestra,
Falletta and guest soloists Sal Andolina (sax), Amy Licata (violin) and Tony
DiLorenzo (trumpet)—also blast through the Black,
Brown and Beige and The River
suites and Ellington’s unfinished ballet Three
Black Kings.
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