Blu-rays of the Week
The Big Picture
(MPI)
In this at times absorbing drama,
the excellent Roman Duris is a husband and father escaping his current life after
a horrible mistake occurs when he confronts a friend over his wife’s infidelity.
Too bad that, once director Eric Lartigau’s effective set-up yields to the plot,
the movie becomes much less significant; after the protagonist’s new identity
is solidified, it all evaporates from memory. Intelligently made and
persuasively acted on well-chosen locations, the whole is less than its parts.
The Blu-ray image is good.
(Image)
Continuing the sad decline of once
formidable director Jean-Jacques Annaud—maker of Black and White in Color, Quest for Fire and The Bear—this epic Arabian adventure, while slickly made, nicely
shot, acted and edited, is disappointingly routine. It’s always great to see
Freida Pinto—one of our most beautiful actresses—at work, but the visual
richness only masks the script’s thinness, despite being based on real events.
The hi-def image looks spectacular; extras include making-of featurettes.
Killing Them Softly
(Anchor Bay)
Andrew Dominik’s follow-up to his
masterly The Assassination of Jesse James
by the Coward Robert Ford is the antithesis of that magnificently slow-burning
accumulation of tiny details: a quick-moving, brutal look at modern America
through the prism of small-time criminals during the last economic meltdown.
Framed by the 2008 election, Killing
might not resonate like the earlier film, but Dominik’s stylish eye makes this
one of 2012’s most memorable films: the perfect ensemble features Brad Pitt,
James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta. The hi-def transfer is terrific; extras are
deleted scenes and a featurette.
(Criterion)
In their 1943 epic—also their
biggest and splashiest production—directors Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger created an indelible dissection of the British imperial state of
mind. Roger Livesey’s robust portrayal of the patriotic military man who
parallels the history of England’s colonial empire and 20-year-old Deborah Kerr’s
captivating trio of women in his life are unforgettable. The Criterion
Collection’s exquisite hi-def transfer returns glorious color to this classic;
extras include a Martin Scorsese intro, Scorsese and Powell commentary, Thelma
Schoonmaker (Powell’s widow) interview and featurettes.
Marvin’s Room and
The Shipping News
(Echo Bridge)
Adapting onstage and on-page hits
are problematic, as these films demonstrate. From Scott McPherson’s play, 1996’s
Marvin’s Room moves from comedy to
tragedy without ever becoming compelling, for which we must blame director James
Lapine, who wastes good actors like Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Leonardo
DiCaprio. Lasse Hallstrom similarly does a disservice to E. Annie Proulx’s
best-selling The Shipping News with
his scattershot 2001 version featuring by-the-numbers acting by Kevin Spacey,
Julianne Moore and Judi Dench. The Blu-ray image isn’t bad.
(Mill Creek)
Two veteran directors in their
decline made these middling films. Stanley Kramer’s Ship of Fools (1965) is a well-intentioned but lumbering drama that
allegorizes Nazi Germany by an array of passengers in a ship bound for Germany
in the 1930s. Robert Rossen’s melodramatic Lilith
stars Jean Seberg and Warren Beatty, who struggle through a psychologically
damaging love affair. As two-fers go, this might fill gaps in the collections
of Kramer and Rossen’s fans. The Blu-ray image is OK.
Waiting for Lightning
(First Run)
I have no interest in
skateboarding, so I’m not the target audience for Jacob Rosenberg’s documentary
about daredevil Danny Way, who attempts to skateboard off the Great Wall of
China. But I was wrong: this is a riveting study of a unique performer discussed
with awe even by the likes of Tony Hawk. The footage of Way’s breathtaking stunts,
culminating with his Great Wall attempt, is ridiculously entertaining. The
hi-def image is first-rate; extras include additional interviews and deleted
scenes.
(MGM/Fox)
I had forgotten about this
fantasy collaboration between director Ron Howard and producer-writer George
Lucas until this Blu-ray reminded me why it disappeared from everyone’s radar. This
visually striking but empty film—which fails to create a brave new world—has uninspired
creatures and special effects alongside forgettable performances. At least Val
Kilmer (hero) and Joanne Whaley (villainess turned heroine) got married. (It
didn’t last.) The movie looks fine on Blu-ray; extras include deleted scenes
with Howard’s remarks, and new and vintage featurettes.
DVDs of the Week
All Together
(Kino Lorber)
In this agreeably ramshackle
comic drama, Jane Fonda shines in her first French-language role in nearly 40
years (since Godard’s Tout va bien)
as the American wife of a Frenchman who join their aging friends to live
together instead of at assisted living facilities. It’s small potatoes, but delightful
performances by Claude Rich, Pierre Richard, Geraldine Chaplin, Guy Beros and
Fonda compensate, as does writer-director’s Stephane Robelin’s refusal to get
sentimental til the end—when it works and all is forgiven.
(Anchor Bay)
Daniel Espinosa’s ingenious thriller
follows a student who gets in way over his head when he starts working for organized
crime, whose members are involved in drug dealing. For awhile, the movie speeds
along, cleverly hiding its narrative holes, but its ending asks us to swallow
too much, even for a genre that thrives on implausibility. Still, it’s stylish
fun—and two sequels will follow, along with the inevitable American remake.
Fatherland
(First Run)
Nicolas Prividera’s unorthodox
documentary looks at Buenos Aries’ La Recoleta cemetery, which has as much
history and stunning architecture as Pere Lachaise in Paris. Individuals read
from letters and books from different eras of Argentine history as they sit
among mausoleums, sculptures and other cemetery markers, while ordinary people
who live nearby go about their daily lives. This is a highly individual and
anything but whitewashed study of a country whose volatile existence can be
traced through those luminaries buried in this, their final resting place.
(e one)
This adaptation of Dickens’
famous novel stars George C. Scott as a relatively restrained Fagin—at least when
compared to this outsized personality’s usual onscreen bluster—alongside who
may be the most cherubic Oliver ever, Richard Charles. James Goldman’s script
is faithful but skimpy, and Richard Donner’s direction is merely functional: but
the material remains powerful, and the supporting cast, including Michael Hordern,
Tim Curry and Cherie Lunghi, props up the familiar tale.
Scavenger Hunt
(Cinema Libre)
The near-extinct California
condor is the subject of Matthew Podolsky and Eddie Chung’s informative documentary
about how usually opposing groups, the NRA and EPA, agree to help these amazing
birds survive in the wild when it’s discovered that they’re getting lead
poisoning by eating deer carcasses that are filled with lead bullets. Extras
are deleted scenes and outtakes.
(PBS)
This sextet of programs covering Shakespeare’s
artistic and humanistic greatness invites actors and directors to give their personal thoughts
on the Bard’s genius. With Ethan Hawke discussing his dream acting job, Macbeth, Joely Richardson talking about Twelfth Night and As You Like It, and Trevor Nunn dissecting The Tempest, and so on, the series provides new insights for
Shakespeare veterans as well as an accessible way in for those who find him too
daunting to deal with.
CD of the Week
Holmboe—Chamber Music (II)
(Dacapo)
The gifted Danish composer Vagn
Holmboe (1909-96) wrote music in all genres, although mainly orchestral
(symphonies and concertos) and chamber music, of which this disc is a representative
sample. Never tied down by one format, his intimate works run the gamut on this
disc from a solo cello sonata to a sextet for flute, clarinet, bassoon, violin,
viola and cello, all showing off Holmboe’s effortless amalgam of modernism,
classical structure and folk idioms. The five pieces on this disc are dazzlingly
played by members of Ensemble MidtVest.
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