Bill & Ted’s Excellent
Adventure
(MGM)
This 1989 stoner comedy helped
make a star of Keanu Reeves, even if his co-star Alex Winter is just as
responsible for this basically one-joke movie staying on its amusing course. In
addition to the title pair, there’s also a great sardonic turn by George Carlin
as their time-travel chaperone, and if the “historical” sequences (Billy the
Kid, Socrates, Lincoln) are rather limply presented, the movie is so
good-natured it’s easy to fall into its harmless groove. The Blu-ray image has natural
graininess.
(Eagle Vision)
One of the most underrated
American rock bands is profiled warts and all in a documentary that follows the
group from its roots rocker origins to Michael McDonald’s hit-laden blue-eyed
soul and, after the 1983 breakup, the many incarnations since. Interviews with
everyone from Jeff Baxter, Patrick Simmons and McDonald to producer Ted
Templeman distill a bumpy 40-plus years into an informative and—for real fans—enticing
bit of rock history. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras include 10 bonus live
performances, including “Black Water,” “Takin’ It to the Streets” and “China
Grove.”
The Dust Bowl
(PBS)
Ken Burns’ latest epic documentary
relates the little-understood story of how the Dust Bowl—which turned the Great
Plains into uninhabitable mounds of dirt during the Great Depression—was a man-made
disaster that could have been avoided. It’s done in the usual Burns way, with
Peter Coyote’s narration heard over indelible, brilliantly used photographs and
vintage era film footage. The Blu-ray image looks spectacular; extras include
additional scenes and interviews.
(Warner Bros)
Steven Spielberg’s 1987
adaptation of JG Ballard’s autobiographical novel is one of his best, least
appreciated films: with a minimum of his usual sentimentality, he explores the
difficult years of a young British boy (Christian Bale in his film debut) in
Shanghai, separated from his parents during the WWII Japanese occupation. Tom
Stoppard’s elegant script, Allen Daviau’s sparkling photography and John
Williams’ happily unbombastic score contribute to Spielberg’s epic vision. The
film looks magnificent on Blu-ray; extras include a 50-minute making-of
featurette narrated by Martin Sheen and a 45-minute special, Warner at War, narrated by Spielberg.
(LionsGate)
This yawn of an action yarn stars
a bunch of has-beens: so if you’ve missed the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger,
Van Demme, Lundgren, Willis and Jet Li, then this dopey adventure is for you. Despite
slam-bang sequences, nothing is memorable in the least; the token females (Charisma
Carpenter and Amanda Ooms) might as well be invisible with all the testosterone
on display. The Blu-ray image is impeccable; extras are commentary,
featurettes, deleted scenes, gag reel.
(Eagle Rock)
35 years after his biggest success,
Peter Frampton played the entire Frampton
Comes Alive! album live. His fluid fretwork and songwriting chops are on
display on hits “Show Me the Way” and “Baby, I Love Your Way” and progressive-rock
classics “Lines on My Face” and “Do You Feel Like We Do?” The rest of the
concert, with songs from a checkered career, is highlighted by his blistering
instrumental take on Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” and son Julian singing on “Road
to the Sun,” which they co-wrote. The hi-def image looks fine; lone extra is a
featurette about Frampton reuniting with his lost Gibson guitar.
(Eagle Vision)
On the band’s last tour in 1986,
Queen played a concert in Budapest for the first time; recorded by a Hungarian
crew, the show finally sees the light of day 26 years later. The world’s best
live band was on fire, as usual, from the opening “One Vision” to closing “We
Are the Champions.” Freddie Mercury’s unsurpassable showmanship made him the
ideal frontman, and Brian May’s unique guitar sound, Roger Taylor’s skillful drumming
and John Deacon’s tight bass round out the tightest, most disciplined rock
quartet. The Blu-ray image and surround sound are excellent; bonus featurette A Magic Year recaps the 12 months from
Live Aid to the final tour.
(Kino/Redemption)
Pete Walker, British purveyor of
low-budget exploitation, is represented here by four of his representative ‘70s
dramas, House of Whipcord (1974), Schizo (1976), Die Screaming, Marianne (1971) and The Comeback (1978). By far the most interesting is Die Screaming, mostly due to the superb
acting by toothsome beauty Susan George as an innocent woman targeted because
of her inheritance. The movies, while not campy, strain to distinguish
themselves as bizarre but dark-humored classics, which they are not. The hi-def
image is first-rate and grainy; extras include commentaries and Walker
interviews.
The Day He Arrives
(Cinema Guild)
Hong Sang-soo’s self-reflexive
movie about a director who returns home to strangely familiar experiences is
brief enough (79 minutes) to not wear out its welcome. Too bad he does little with
a played-out scenario that Fellini nailed in 8-1/2 but to which subsequent filmmakers have only added
diminishing returns. This fitfully inspired cross between Groundhog Day (déjà vu) and Stardust
Memories (B&W images) goes nowhere—which may be its lone point. Extras
include an hour-long conversation at the British Film Institute and a short
visual essay on the film.
(First Run)
In this excellent doc, director Jon
Shenk shows how the first democratically elected president of the Maldives—an Indian
Ocean island chain which will be underwater soon if sea levels continue to rise—convinces
other nations to sign a greenhouse gas protocol. President Nasheed does what he
can to ensure his country won’t literally be flooded before than the rest of
the world, and his crusade is shown in all its difficulty. That he was subsequently
ousted by a military coup sympathetic to the country’s previous dictator
answers a lot about the rightness of what he did. Extras include a Shenk
interview.
(Docurama)
This is cinematic advocacy at an urgent
clarion call that our water supply is finite, even in the economically rich
United States, where a city of a few million like Las Vegas is at the mercy of
Lake Mead drying up. Those sounding the alarm are soundly level-headed: activist
Erin Brockovich (immortalized in the eponymous movie with Oscar-winning Julia
Roberts) discusses how she helped the people of Midland, Texas, whose town is
being poisoned like the California town she made her name with. Extras include
a Brockovich interview and Jack Black commercial.
(Oscilloscope)
When Nicholas Ray made his 1973 experimental
feature We Can’t Go Home Again, his
career was already in eclipse (he’d die six years later). Now wife Susan Ray
has gotten it restored and seen again, even if it’s more a curiosity than a successful
film. But Susan succeeds in the new documentary, Don’t Expect Too Much, which straightforwardly explores Ray’s way of
working with students on the earlier film. Interviews with acolytes Jim Jarmusch
and Victor Erice give insight into Ray’s working methods. Extras include extended
interviews and Ray featurettes.
Lincoln
(Sony)
For Steven Spielberg’s reverential
but engrossing biopic of our beloved 16th president, John Williams
contributes one of his most restrained scores, which rarely sounds as out of
place and needlessly anticlimactic as most of his film scores do. Although it’s
too safe-sounding at times (there is Aaron Copland-esque Lincoln Portrait orchestration and traditional fiddle playing),
it’s gratifying to hear this veteran composer realize the value of underplaying
for the first time since an earlier important Spielberg epic, Schindler’s List. The Chicago Symphony
plays exquisitely under Williams’ baton.
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