Taking Lives (2004) [Widescreen Edition – Unrated Director’s Cut] – DVD|[Extended Cut] – Blu-ray Disc + Gia (1998) [Unrated] – DVD

March 19, 2004Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Television, Thriller

TAKING LIVES
***/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A- Extras C+
BD – Image B+ Sound A Extras C+
starring Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Gena Rowlands
screenplay by Jon Bokenkamp, based on the novel by Michael Pye
directed by D.J. Caruso

by Walter Chaw The more cynical among us would note that the title might also refer to the time that movies exactly like Taking Lives have stolen from hapless audiences, but the fact of it is that if not for our mortal curiosity, we might have missed genuinely good mad-dog killer flicks like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Manhunter, The Untold Story, and Se7en. On a reptile level, I think it behooves the herd to slow down at the scene of a gory end, the flock imprinting another’s messy mortal lesson as an explanation for our fascination with train wrecks and splatter flicks. But where a film like The Silence of the Lambs perversely reassures its captive audience that no matter the procreative ingenuity of a predator’s unslakeable bloodlust, there’s always a corn-fed, buttermilk-scrubbed farm girl there to put him away (and Taking Lives falls into this camp), there are films like granddaddy In Cold Blood (and great-grandpappy Psycho) that disdain the easy treatment of societal cancers. The one is appeasement and equivocation-bordering-on-exploitation, the other is always disquieting and sometimes even thought-provoking.

David Cronenberg Re-examines David Cronenberg: A Retrospective Interview

March 9, 2003Posted in1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Blu-ray Disc, Canada, Directors: David Cronenberg, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Horror, Interviews, Sci-Fi

Cronenberg Re-Examines Cronenberg

March 9, 2003 | Offered the opportunity to visit with David Cronenberg a second time recently, I sat down with the legendary director the morning after moderating a post-screening Q&A with him at Denver’s Landmark Mayan Theater (where a sell-out crowd of over 450 was enthusiastically in attendance for a sneak of Spider) to discuss his work from student films Stereo and Crimes of the Future all the way through to what is arguably his best–certainly his most mature–film, the oft-delayed Spider. Dressed in casual cool as is the director’s habit, Mr. Cronenberg exudes supreme confidence; gracious in the extreme and unfailingly polite, not given to displays of false modesty or overly interested in compliments, his speech is pleasant and carefully modulated–a sort of intellectual detachment that has marked even his earliest, “tax shelter” work. It seemed clear to me that Mr. Cronenberg was not generally accustomed to talking of his earlier work on the junket circuit. Speaking only for myself, it was a wonderful break from the usual stump.–Walter Chaw