Blu-rays of
the Week
(Warner Bros)
Guy Ritchie’s turgid version of the Excalibur legend
favors the supernatural elements—witches, monsters, the Demon Knight—over the
battling humans, with the unfortunate result that this spectacle is more
enervating than entertaining. And, despite solid work by a cast that actually looks
right—Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Eric Bana, Djimon Hounsou and Annabelle Wallis,
for starters—Ritchie unsurprisingly slathers CGI over everything, allowing several
rousing battle sequences to overwhelm the characters that are at the center of
this timeless story. The film looks great on Blu-ray; extras are several
featurettes.
Beyond the Darkness
Bag Boy Lover Boy
(Severin)
Lovers of gory flicks will be in heaven with these new
releases, starting with Beyond the
Darkness, Italian director Joe D’Amato’s pulverizingly nasty 1979 thriller
that features incest, necrophilia, dismemberment and other fun things to keep its
target audiences reasonably entertained, especially a sequence that includes a
post-mortem eye operation. Bag Boy, conversely,
is a shoddy mess that tells the tale of a slow-witted Manhattan hot-dog vendor who
moonlights as a fetish model, enabling him to lure several of the most
unsuspecting to their deaths. Both films look fine in hi-def; Darkness extras are a D’Amato
documentary, location updates and interviews, while Bag extras are a commentary and short films.
Jane’s Addiction—Ritual de lo Habitual Alive at Twenty-Five
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of
its seminal album Ritual de lo Habitual
(even though it was released in 1990), Jane’s Addiction—fronted by
singer/songwriter Perry Ferrell—tears through a superbly-paced 85-minute set at
this 2016 concert at Southern California’s Irving Meadows Amphitheatre. The
incredibly tight band comprises guitarist Dave Navarro, bassist Chris Chaney
and drummer Steven Perkins, and Ferrell is in top vocal shape throughout, with
standouts being the opener “Stop!” and audience favorite “Been Caught Stealing.”
The hi-def image and especially audio are top-notch; the three-disc set also
includes the concert on DVD and CD.
Re-Animator
(Arrow)
Steve Gordon’s tongue-in-cheek 1985 horror flick is
loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft novella, but blood, guts and the ick factor
are ramped up to eleven. There’s an amusing schadenfreude watching various characters
meet their deaths, only to be brought back to life as zombies that are quite
unlike George Romero’s. Despite the lunacy, there’s a healthy sense of dark humor,
a no-brainer when you’re dealing with a reanimated doctor who carries around his
own decapitated head. Standing out in a game cast is Barbara Crampton as our
hero’s beautiful fiancée. Arrow’s thorough set includes two cuts of the film,
audio commentaries and featurettes, all encased in an attractive box that even
has a selection of postcards.
DVDs of the
Week
Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman
(Icarus)
He’s been a critics’ and film festival darling for
decades, but French director Phillippe Garrel makes films that strike me as
amateurish, half-baked explorations of relationships, and his latest In the Shadow of Women continues his
string of stiffly-acted, superficial dramas. Leading man Stanislas Merhar is less
talented than the director’s mediocre son Louis, whose merely dull presence is
sorely missed. In Chantal Akerman by
Chantal Akerman, the late Belgian director’s 1997 self-portrait, she begins
by reading from a text about her problems making this film, then shows clips
from her best-known film, Jeanne Dielman,
along with several others. Non-fans will find it self-indulgent, but your
mileage may vary if you’re an admirer.
Wolves
(IFC Films)
A star Manhattan high school basketball player juggles a
pregnant girlfriend, a gambling dad, a clueless mom and his own college prep in
Bart Freundlich’s one-note melodrama which reaches its nadir in a contrived
one-on-one game between father and son that pales next to a similar scene scene
in The Great Santini. What Freundlich
lacks in expressive writing he compensates for in casting and location scouting:
Michael Shannon (dad), Taylor John Smith (son), Carla Gugino (mom) and Zazie
Beetz (girlfriend) are all admirable, and the famed Greenwich Village basketball
courts provide vital atmosphere.
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