Blu-rays of the Week
(Eagle Vision)
Accompanying the massive new boxed set celebrating John Lennon’s seminal Imagine album (1971), this release contains John and Yoko’s film Imagine, which intersperses performances like the classic white-piano version of the title song with footage of the couple in New York and London, joining protests and frolicking on the beach. It’s a mixture of self-parody and self-indulgence that’s at times dated but still provides a valuable insight into Lennon as an artist, along with his famous friends like Jack Palance, Dick Cavett and Fred Astaire. Also included is Gimme Some Truth, an insightful hour-long documentary of the making of the Imagine album, with glimpses of producer Phil Spector and former Beatle George Harrison in the studio with John. Both films have been painstakingly restored in hi-def, and look (and sound) as good as possible; extras are studio outtakes of the songs “Imagine,” “How?” and “Gimme Some Truth,” and a glimpse at a David Bailey photo shoot.
Looker
(Warner Archive)
In Michael Crichton’s 1981 futuristic thriller, early computer-generated effects play a big role in this convoluted story of a plastic surgeon looking into the murders of the beautiful models who were his patients: although Albert Finney, James Coburn, Susan Dey and Leigh Taylor-Young look embarrassed at times speaking the borderline risible dialogue, there’s a certain prescience in Crichton’s cautionary tale of malevolent technology. The film has an adequate hi-def transfer; extras are writer-director Crichton’s intro and commentary and an eight-minute sequence added to the network television version.
Queen of Outer Space
This 1958 campfest, shot on the sets of other sci-fi movies of its era like Forbidden Planet and World Without End, follows its male astronauts to Venus, which is exclusively populated by females, but since this is a 1958 campfest not much happens except for some wink wink nudge nudging and innocent embraces and kisses. Among the women are Zsa Zsa Gabor and Laurie Mitchell, who plays the masked queen of Venus hiding her deformed face; the men are much less interesting. There’s a solid hi-def transfer and a commentary featuring Mitchell.
Rodin
(Cohen Media)
Vincent Lindon has made his name playing ordinary people living quotidian lives, but he gets his teeth into the larger-than-life figure of French sculptor Auguste Rodin in Jacques Doillon’s warts-and-all biopic that concentrates on his volatile relationship with fellow sculptor (and protégé) Camille Claudel—played with equal intensity by French pop singer Izïa Higelin. Doillon, like fellow Frenchman Maurice Pialat in Van Gogh, strips the master’s life story to its essentials, mostly eschewing music and melodrama to create this engrossing portrait of the artist. The hi-def transfer is exceptional; lone extra is a 30-minute making-of.
The Swarm
When disaster-movie maven Irwin Allen made this hokey thriller in 1978, killer bees were all the rage, so there was a scientific basis to the premise, but the script is chockful of holes, there are many howlers in the dialogue and the clichéd characters are lazily embodied by an all-star cast of Michael Caine, Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Katharine Ross, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Richard Chamberlain and, in a bizarre scene, Slim Pickens. A few bee-killing scenes are effective, but at 2-1/2 hours—more than 30 minutes was added to the original theatrical release—The Swarm simply goes on and on and on. The hi-def transfer is excellent.
DVD of the Week
Mister Rogers—It’s You I Like
(PBS)
This lovely valentine to Fred Rogers, whose decency and goodness shone on his beloved children’s show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, is an OK overview of his legacy and how much he affected people, families, children and adults. Host Michael Keaton guides us through interviews with celebrities and people associated with the show, and clips of Rogers on the show remind us how slyly subversive this conservative Republican was on our TV screens for decades. This PBS program can be seen as an adjunct to the feature documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, which covers the same material. Extras are an additional 30 minutes of footage.
CD of the Week
(Chandos)
British composer Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) finished writing his dramatic and sweeping Cello Concerto about a year before his untimely death of Hodgkin’s at age 55—the concerto actually had its premiere the night before he died. The first movement’s storminess no doubt alludes to his disease, the quieter middle movement is a loving portrait of the composer’s wife and the upbeat finale makes for a most satisfying resolution. Cellist Paul Watkins plays the solo part with thrilling artistry, and Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra provide notable accompaniment. This superb disc is rounded out by two attractive piano and orchestra works, Eclogue and Grand Fantasia and Toccata—with Louis Lortie impressively handling the solo parts—and the moody orchestral work, Nocturne (New Year Music).
No comments:
Post a Comment