Blu-rays of the Week
The Following—Complete 1st
Season
(Warners)
Kevin Williamson’s taut new
series about FBI agents, led by unconventional Ryan Hardy (a properly grim-faced
Kevin Bacon), who are tracking serial killer Joe Carroll, a man with acolytes a
la Charles Manson, is filled with more grisly violence than warranted, which mitigates
its dramatic effectiveness. Still, superior acting and precise directing helps
smooth over the writing’s deficiency throughout the 15 episodes. The hi-def image
is very good; extras include commentaries, featurettes and deleted scenes.
Fruitvale Station
(Weinstein Co)
Based on a tragic true story,
writer-director Ryan Coogler’s drama recounts the final day in the life of Oscar
Grant, a young black man killed by police in an Oakland rapid transit station
on New Year’s Day 2009. With a maximum of insightful detail and minimal use of
a soapbox, Coogler devastatingly shows how even a normal life takes on
larger-than-life dimensions due to tragedy. Michael B. Jordan makes an
unforgettable ordinary man, while Melonie Diaz and Octavia Spencer are both
powerhouses as his girlfriend and mother. Even a coda of actual footage
celebrating Grant’s life is tearful but never sentimental. The Blu-ray image looks
fine; extras include interviews and Q&A.
Good Ol’ Freda
(Magnolia)
Ryan White’s documentary about
Freda Kelly, a Liverpool teenager who became an unsung but invaluable member of
the Beatles’ entourage—their fan club manager—might not be scintillating, but it
will satisfy the eternal hunger of Fab Four fans for more scraps of info (no
matter how trivial) about their heroes. Freda herself is a no-nonsense
presence, living up to her rep as a necessarily calm backbone for the “lads,”
as she still calls them. The Blu-ray looks decent; extras include a White and
Kelly commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes and Q&A.
(Weinstein Co)
This is History Writ Large with a
Sledgehammer, but even with its unsubtlety and willingness to look at the big
picture through eyes welled up with tears, it’s done with such a big heart that
it’s difficult—but not impossible—to not be touched by the true story of a
black Forrest Gump who served presidents for 34 years, and who witnessed Obama’s
election. Lee Daniels’ direction is, at best, undistinguished, but his cast—led
by Forrest Whittaker in the title role and a granite-solid Oprah Winfrey as his
wife—more than makes up for it. The hi-def transfer looks immaculate; extras
include deleted scenes, featurettes, music video and gag reel.
Nightmare City
(Raro Video)
Umberto Lenzi’s 1980 zombie movie
owes less to George Romero and more to the Italian horror genre, Giallo, that was
so prevalent at the time; watching it now is an often risible exercise in
unabashed silliness, as bad postsynching, often ludicrous acting and bloody
makeup and even more dreadful plotting take center stage over real thrills.
Still, unfinicky undead fans will want to give this a look. The Blu-ray image
is OK; lone extra is a Lenzi interview.
(Cohen Media)
Emanuele Crialese’s occasionally
touching fable tackles a controversial theme (immigration) through the actions
of a fishing family that helps two helpless victims out of the sea and becomes
criminal abettors. Although there’s the beauty of the waters around Sicily, the
loveliest images are of that remarkable actress Donatella Finacchiaro’s
eternally sad eyes, which speak volumes; Finacchiaro herself makes a formidable
but gentle matriarch. The Blu-ray image looks luminous; lone extra is a
making-of featurette.
20 Feet from Stardom
(Anchor Bay)
Unsung rock’n’roll backup singers
are the subjects of Morgan Neville’s documentary that’s as soulful and moving
as these artists (mostly women) sound when belting out a tune. Interviews with
many (but not all—this could easily have been three hours long instead of 90
minutes) of the subjects, including Darlene Love and Lisa Fischer, give a sense
of how stardom might or might not be their ultimate but unrealized goal, while
comments by the likes of Springsteen, Sting and Mick Jagger come off as
superfluous. The Blu-ray looks excellent; extras include several deleted scenes,
interviews, Q&A.
The Happy House
(First Run)
This eye-rolling attempt at an
unnerving horror film demonstrates writer-director D.W. Young’s inability to conjure
thrills that are not cheap or tawdry: his eponymous bed and breakfast is
populated by characters not worth caring about or having any interest in. I don’t
know who’s the least likely inhabitant of this B&B—the dumb young couple,
the goofy butterfly hunter, the wingnut inn owner or her dimwitted son. Either
way, you’d be better off passing this up. Extras comprise deleted scenes and a
Young short.
Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey
Secrets of Ancient Egypt
(Athena)
Athena documentaries’ combination
of scholarship and engaging style make dry subject matter come alive, like actress
Joanna Lumley’s lively travelogue Odyssey,
where—in four fascinating episodes—she travels throughout Greece to not
only show off obvious tourist sites (Acropolis, Parthenon, Oracle at Delphi) but
also finds time for off-the-beaten-path places like a village where inhabitants
whistle to one another as a recognized language. The three-part Egypt explores how the remnants of those
ancient civilizations are providing, millennia later, exceptional areas for
study by archeologists and other scientists; Egypt also includes a bonus program, Realm of the Dead.
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