Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

April 25, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Mystery, UK

***½/**** Image B- Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter
screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling
directed by David Yates

by Walter Chaw David Yates's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (hereafter Harry Potter 7a) is a coda for the end of a dark decade in film–a war journal, a diary of the apocalypse–and good enough to be this constant, niggling reminder that had J.K. Rowling the courage to do what it appears she intends to do at first, her Harry Potter series could have been nigh canonical instead of just pretty good. Alas, that's for the second part of this two-parter. For now, it's easy to see Harry sacrificed on the cross of his Chosen One eminence. With Yates back for his third go-round and Steve Kloves again adapting, it's a pair of newcomers to the franchise–DP Eduardo Serra and composer Alexandre Desplat (his work on Birth and Lust, Caution: tremendous)–who contribute most to the minimal, blasted feeling of Harry Potter 7a. It's empty, bleak, and stately for long stretches as our core triumvirate of Ron (Rupert Grint), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) search a Tennysonian wilderness for some essential part of themselves valuable enough to offer up for the sake of the world. When it opens with Hermione mournfully erasing the memory of her from her "muggle" parents, the film announces itself as a triumphant return to the broken wasteland promised by The Order of the Phoenix. This Harry Potter intends to do harm.

The Incredibles (2004) – [2-Disc Collector’s Edition – Widescreen] DVD + 2-Disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

April 5, 2011Posted in****/****, 2000s, 2011, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, DVD, Espionage, Family, FFC Must-Own, Pixar, Superhero

****/****
DVD – Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A+
BD – Image A Sound A Extras A+
written and directed by Brad Bird

Incrediblescap

by Walter Chaw The first hint that there's something at work in The Incredibles far beyond the pale is the casting of Sarah Vowell as the voice of wilting Violet, the wallflower older sister in the Incredibles' nuclear family. Vowell herself is a brilliant satirist, a gifted writer, and in her heart o' hearts, a bona fide autobiographical anthropologist. She mines the tragedies of her life for insight into the thinness of the onionskin separating our ability to function with the iron undertow of self-doubt and disappointment that comprises all of our paralyzed yesterdays. The Incredibles does a lot of things well–a lot of the same things, as it happens, that Sarah Vowell does well. Through two Toy Story films and last year's fantastically topical Finding Nemo, Pixar has provided the new gold standard in children's entertainment, and it has consistently done so by injecting an amazing amount of insight and depth into the foundation of its bells and whistles.

Moonstruck (1987) [Deluxe Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

March 24, 2011Posted in1980s, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Nicolas Cage, Romance

**/****
DVD – Image B Sound B+ Extras B+
BD – Image B- Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis
screenplay by John Patrick Shanley
directed by Norman Jewison

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. If you were to make a film about African-Americans in which everyone is shiftless, ignorant, and constantly eating watermelon or fried chicken and acting lascivious, you'd be rightly vilified for your inherent racism. But if you were to make a film about Italian-Americans in which everyone is loud, hilarious, and constantly eating pasta and acting lascivious, apparently you'd be rewarded with the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. That, at least, is the conclusion one draws from watching the stereotype cavalcade that is Moonstruck, which, however affectionate, creates a tedious minstrel show out of those wacky Eye-talians while minimizing their pain. There's plenty of talk about the chaos of love and the torment of attraction, but who are they kidding? That everything works out in the end for problems that would normally rip a family apart is par for the course in a Norman Jewison film, meaning baked ziti for all and true drama for none.

In Treatment: Season Two (2009) – DVD

March 22, 2011Posted in2000s, 2011, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Television

Image B Sound B

by Walter Chaw Where the first season ended with at least lip-service to ambiguity and frustration, the second runs a disturbingly cheery course of happy horseshit and the worst kinds of Dr. Phil-isms while canonizing our Sainted Paul (Gabriel Byrne) on the cross of other peoples' problems. Taking up where the series left off, we find Paul divorced, relocated to New York, and in the process of being sued by the cartoonishly belligerent father (Glynn Turman) of a patient from Season 1 who killed himself. This 35-episode batch follows sessions with Mia (Hope Davis), a lawyer and former patient who owns the insult of the term "hysterical"; April (Alison Pill), a college student with a saviour complex and a nasty cancer; Oliver (Aaron Grady Shaw), a chubby adolescent enduring his parents' divorce; and Walter (John Mahoney), a powerful CEO on the brink of a fall. Then there's Paul, of course, who's dealing with single parenthood, the possibility of losing his practice, and another woman patient who wants to jump his analytical Irish bones.

All-Star Superman (2011) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

March 14, 2011Posted in2011, Action, Animation, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Sci-Fi, Superhero

**½/**** Image A- Sound B Extras A-
screenplay by Dwayne McDuffie, based on the comic book series by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
directed by Sam Liu

by Jefferson Robbins It's an adaptation so infatuated with its admirable source material that it fails to leap the gap between the two media. Anyone who glanced at the first page of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's "All-Star Superman" when it was published in 2005 knew it was special–a book that intended to crystallize the Superman legend and then refract the character to his logical/mythological extremes. That's been one of Morrison's most alluring talents as a comics scriptor. This is the guy, after all, who had "New X-Men"'s Beast evolving into a giant blue cat-man and shitting in a litterbox. So his Superman is a guy who can read your genetic code with a glance and temper a chunk of dwarf star into a housekey; someone whose goodness is so acute he can shame superhuman tyrants into working for the commonweal, all while he's knocking on death's door. In fact, in this twelve-issue interpretation, Superman is not only the saviour of his world, but also the creator of our own. It demands repeat visits–unlike its Blu-ray spin-off. The DC Universe direct-to-video films, from the shop of producer Bruce Timm, almost all share one common element: seen once, they never need to be seen again.

Hereafter (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

March 13, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Clint Eastwood, Documentary, Drama, DVD, Fantasy, Romance, Spielberg

½*/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+
starring Matt Damon, Cécile De France, Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard
screenplay by Peter Morgan
directed by Clint Eastwood

by Ian Pugh It's an age-old problem: how do you make a movie (or write a book, or stage a play) about the broad and ultimately philosophical subject of death? Not like this, that's for sure. Looking and feeling like it was shot from inside an aquarium, Clint Eastwood's Hereafter is a failure of staggering proportions. Three stories intertwine to form a bland whole: George (Matt Damon) is an honest-to-gosh psychic who's trying and failing to stay out of the racket; Marie (Cécile De France) is a French TV presenter who recalls visions of the afterlife after being caught in the Indian Ocean tsunami; and Marcus (Frankie McLaren) is a young lad who seeks answers when his twin brother dies in a traffic accident. Rest assured their paths will cross in profoundly obvious ways as they wrap their heads around the very concept of death and what comes next. I'm certainly not the first person to compare Hereafter to Babel, but Eastwood offers little alternative. Hereafter approaches the various perceptions of death in the same way that Alejandro González Iñárritu approached "life," and the end result is equally bloated and condescending.

Bambi (1942) [Diamond Edition] – Blu-ray + DVD

March 9, 2011Posted in1940s, 2011, Animation, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Disney, DVD, Family

Bambicapredux

***/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras A-
story direction Perce Pearce and story adaptation Larry Morey, from the story by Felix Salten
supervising director David D. Hand

by Bryant Frazer Bambi is just 70 minutes long, but it’s one of the more versatile features in the Disney canon. It’s a cute circle-of-life story, sure, populated by talking rabbits, nominally sweet-smelling skunks, and wise old owls (not to mention the adorable chipmunks that the owl, for some reason, hasn’t preyed upon). But look what else is going on in this slice-of-wildlife film: an attempt at an animated nature documentary; a tract in opposition to sport hunting; and the impetus for generations of children to weep in terror at the prospect of losing their mothers.

The Romantics (2010) – DVD

March 8, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image C Sound B Extras D
starring Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel, Anna Paquin, Elijah Wood
screenplay by Galt Niederhoffer, based on her novel
directed by Galt Niederhoffer

by Walter Chaw Though technically correct, I much prefer the term “Romanticists” to “Romantics,” but that’s a fussy kind of neither here nor there in a film, hyphenate Galt Neiderhoffer’s The Romantics, that suffers from nothing like precision, elegance, or, crucially, poetry. It’s a nightmare–a handheld, artfully ugly mash-up of Rachel Getting Married and Dead Poets Society that starts with credits in Wes Anderson’s favourite font and slogs on through with Lilith Fair/coffee-shop folk and a character played by Katie Holmes who’s jealous of a character played by Anna Paquin’s boobs. Let’s call it a draw, ladies, and discuss instead this variety of faux-prestige romcom, which hijacks Lloyd Dobler’s holding of a boombox blaring Peter Gabriel over his head by having frickin’ Josh Duhamel hoist an iPhone with Keats’s “To a Nightingale” on its screen. It features idiots like dollar-store Cameron Diaz Malin Akerman and an increasingly Gollum-esque Elijah Wood in awkward supporting roles; allows scenarios like the nightmare rehearsal-dinner toast montage; and tasks Candace Bergen’s team of handlers and feeders to drag her out to yet again fulfill the role of Tyrannosaurus Reaction Shot. Good job, Ms. Neiderhoffer, for not only mistaking Catch & Release for Noah Baumbach or Lars Von Trier, for not only setting your indie emoti-fest in the Dan in Real Life bizarre-verse, but for borrowing a bad burlesque from the lame 27 Dresses, too.

The American (2010) – Combo Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

March 3, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, Drama, DVD, Thriller, UK

***½/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras B-
starring George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli
screenplay by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel A Very Private Gentlman by Martin Booth
directed by Anton Corbijn

by Walter Chaw Though nothing more than a well-made Jean-Pierre Melville shrine at first glance, Anton Corbijn's lovely The American leaves a surprising amount of aftertaste in a year of film that will probably be remembered for the number of "growers" among its roster of resonant pictures. An unusual take on the monotony of any profession (be it prostitution or engineering to-order weapons for assassins), it's more evidence that George Clooney, with this tribute to Melville, his Kaufman-scripted Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and his Tarkovsky redux Solaris, is quietly becoming a visible, above-the-line champion for smart American genre flicks–fomenting his own little underground Nouvelle Vague with movies that audiences, for the most part, are anxious to dismiss. The American is provocatively self-conscious in the way of its best French antecedents; aware of the shoulders upon which it stands (everything from Le Samourai to Breathless to later stuff like the homegrown Eye of the Needle), it also has the gumption to title itself after the original title for Citizen Kane. In so doing, it announces itself as something like a commentary on how the passionate, bloody carnality at the foundation of the United States has aged into an almost bored functionality in the first decade post-9/11.

Vampire Circus (1972) – Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack

February 28, 2011Posted in1970s, 2011, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Horror, UK, Vampire

***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Adrienne Corri, Laurence Payne, Thorley Walters, Anthony Corlan
screenplay by Judson Kinberg
directed by Robert Young

by Jefferson Robbins I’m risking all kinds of things here, not least the prospect of becoming That Guy At FFC Who Finds Too Much Depth In Hammer Horror Movies, but this is my take: Vampire Circus is about the plight of the Jews in Christian Europe. I rubbed my eyes and swabbed my ears at first, but attentive viewing didn’t dispel this impression. And looking at Hammer’s entire output in the fright genre, it seems like a logical consequence. The British studio always made shockers that grappled with subtext, but by 1972, Hammer was fighting for life. Its bread-and-butter franchises had been comedically pricked five years earlier by Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, which threatened to bleed gothic horror of its frights just as Blazing Saddles would soon gutshoot the Western. As Hammer’s market power waned and it threw open the doors to more explicit sex and more visceral gore, some larger story ideas were bound to creep in.

One Swayze Summer: A DVD Tribute to Patrick Swayze

February 24, 2011Posted in****/****, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2011, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, France, Japan, Romance, Sports, Thriller, Tom Cruise, UK
Swayzedvdstitle

“Good-looking people turn me off. Myself included.”
–Patrick Wayne Swayze

RED DAWN (1984) [COLLECTOR’S EDITION] – DVD
**½/**** Image B Sound C+ Extras N/A
starring Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Powers Boothe
screenplay by Kevin Reynolds and John Milius
directed by John Milius

THE OUTSIDERS (THE COMPLETE NOVEL) (1983) [TWO-DISC SPECIAL EDITION] – DVD
****/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras A+
starring C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Leif Garrett
screenplay by Kathleen Knutsen Rowell, based on the novel by S.E. Hinton
directed by Francis Ford Coppola

YOUNGBLOOD (1986) [TOTALLY AWESOME 80s DOUBLE FEATURE] – DVD
ZERO STARS/**** Image D+ Sound C-
starring Rob Lowe, Cynthia Gibb, Ed Lauter, Patrick Swayze, Jim Youngs
written and directed by Peter Markle

POINT BREAK (1991) [PURE ADRENALINE EDITION] – DVD + [WARNER REISSUE] – BLU-RAY DISC
***/****
DVD – Image B- Sound A Extras C
BD – Image B- Sound B+ Extras C
starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey, Lori Petty
screenplay by W. Peter Iliff, based on the novel by Rick King
directed by Kathryn Bigelow

DIRTY DANCING (1987) [TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY] – DVD
½*/**** Image B Sound A Extras B
starring Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach, Steven Reuther
screenplay by Eleanor Bergstein
directed by Emile Ardolino

GHOST (1990) [SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION] – DVD + BLU-RAY DISC
*/****
DVD – Image A- Sound B Extras B
BD – Image A Sound B+ Extras B
starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn
screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin
directed by Jerry Zucker

KEEPING MUM (2006) – DVD
½*/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras B
starring Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Patrick Swayze
screenplay by Richard Russo and Niall Johnson
directed by Niall Johnson

by Walter Chaw Early on in the stupidest/smartest movie of 1984, a band of high-schoolers, having just witnessed a few planeloads of Cuban paratroopers land in their football field and machine gun their history teacher (“Education this!”), stock up for a stay in forest exile by cleaning out a gas-n-sip. Sleeping bags, canned goods, and the last thing off the shelf? That’s right: a football. I spent the rest of Red Dawn trying to figure out if the football played some role in the eventual fighting prowess of our carbuncular guerrillas or if it was merely a big “fuck you” to the rest of the world that thinks “football” is soccer. The jury’s still out, because while there’s an awful lot of grenade-chucking in the last hour of the picture, none of it looks particularly football-like (or athletic come to think of it) despite the deadly accuracy of each toss aimed at the hapless commie combatants. (So clueless are they about modern-day conventional warfare that they’re repeatedly ambushed by this untrained makeshift militia; they’re the Washington Generals to our Harlem Globetrotters.) It’s just one puzzle in an altogether puzzling film–one that has Patrick Swayze playing Charlie Sheen’s older brother (and Jennifer Grey the sister of Lea Thompson in an even greater genetic stretch) and C. Thomas Howell as a remorseless, psychopathic nihilist who takes his dose of glory by Rambo’ing up against a Russian attack helicopter. Maybe his transformation from ’80s-wallpaper milquetoast to tough-guy killing machine had something to do with being forced by the brothers Swayze-Sheen to drink fresh deer blood from a tin cup.

Alice in Wonderland [The Masterpiece Edition] (1951) + The Lion King 1½ (2004) – DVDs|Alice in Wonderland – Blu-ray + DVD

February 1, 2011Posted in1950s, 2000s, Adventure, Animation, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Esoterica, Family, Fantasy, Musical

ALICE IN WONDERLAND
**/****
DVD – Image A Sound B+ Extras A
BD – Image A- Sound A- Extras A+
story by Winston Hibler, Ted Sears, Bill Peet, Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Milt Banta, Bill Cottrell, Dick Kelsey, Joe Grant, Dick Huemer, Del Connell, Tom Oreb, John Walbridge, based on Lewis Carroll's The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass
directed by Clyde Geronimi & Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske

THE LION KING 1½
The Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata
*/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+
screenplay by Tom Rogers, Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi and Bill Steinkeller and Evan Spiliotopoulos
directed by Bradley Raymond

by Bill Chambers It's not like Alice in Wonderland is necessary and The Lion King 1½ isn't–they're both unnecessary. The two latest animated Disney films to hit DVD, they have little in common formally save that they're jointly inessential; and yet, because of their proximate release windows, parents are likely to pick them up as a pair, and kids are likely to associate them as such. Bright, sophisticated children may arrive at the hypothesis that this is the day that animation died.

Inception (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

January 19, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Christopher Nolan, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine
written and directed by Christopher Nolan

by Walter Chaw I dunno, the wordiness of The Dark Knight didn't bother me that much. I suppose it has something to do with it being a comic-book movie and plot-driving pronouncements seeming the order of the day. I find it impossible now to think of The Dark Knight without seeing it as a corollary to No Country For Old Men: the one composed of broad, garish strokes, the other of grace notes you hesitate to call delicate, but that's just what they are. With Inception, Christopher Nolan's correlative piece is Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, NY, and the comparison in this instance doesn't prove mutually evocative so much as devastating to Nolan's film, exposing his shtick as reams of deadening exposition interrupted by the occasional virtuoso set-piece. It is, in other words, aggressively nothing-special, save for a few astonishing zero-g sequences. As it happens, saying the best part of Inception is its weightlessness is a pretty pithy criticism of the whole damned enterprise. For a film about dreams, it's distinctly light on possibility: Armed with the power to shape reality, our erstwhile dream-weavers fold a city in half in a dorm-room Escher shout-out but decline to, you know, fly and stuff. More, Inception doesn't confront archetypes of any kind, instead retreating into some basic stuff about projections and the architecture of the unconscious being a freight elevator while relying overmuch on the built-in gravitas of father and dead-wife issues. And in case you miss any of that, Nolan crams it into the dialogue like one crams elephants into elevators. Rule of thumb: if a movie uses the word "deep" as much as this one does, it probably isn't.

The Color Purple (1985) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD | Blu-ray Disc (DigiBook) + Eve’s Bayou (1997) [Lions Gate Signature Series] – DVD

January 16, 2011Posted in1980s, 1990s, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Coming of Age, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Spielberg

THE COLOR PURPLE
***/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A- Extras A-
BLU-RAY – Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Adolph Caesar, Margaret Avery
screenplay by Menno Meyjes, based on the novel by Alice Walker
directed by Steven Spielberg

EVE'S BAYOU
**½/**** Image B Sound B Extras B+
starring Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Vondie Curtis-Hall
written and directed by Kasi Lemmons

by Bill Chambers In the prologue to Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, black sisters Celie (Desreta Jackson) and Nettie (Akosua Busia) play patty-cake in a field of blue-pink flowers. Celie, the ugly duckling, is pregnant with her second illegitimate child, and when she has the baby, her father (Leonard Jackson) cruelly whisks it away to a new home, as he did her firstborn. Later, her father disposes of Celie, too, betrothing her to Albert, a.k.a. "Mister" (Danny Glover), a vicious stranger on horseback seeking Nettie's hand in marriage. Concerned with more than just lonely Celie (Whoopi Goldberg as an adult) summoning the confidence to defy Albert (less through her own sexual awakening, as in The Color Purple's source material, than through a cultivated sisterhood with the women in her orbit), the picture examines a generation of emancipated African-American men who, poisoned by the slave mentality, treat their women like Cinderella in a misguided salvo to independence. Shit rolls downhill, in other words.

Trash Humpers (2010) – DVD

January 10, 2011Posted in****/****, 2010, 2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, DVD, Esoterica, FFC Must-Own

****/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A
starring Paul Booker, Dave Cloud, Chris Cofton, Rachel Korine
written and directed by Harmony Korine

"To me, there is only one form of human depravity–the man without a purpose."-Ayn Rand

Mustownby Alex Jackson My last job was as direct-support staff in a group home for adults with autism and severe mental retardation. The grave and morning staff, I was basically responsible for getting them bathed, dressed, and fed for the day. In one of our training sessions, the instructor told us that all behaviour has some kind of payoff or reward. Of course, I had to challenge this. "What about pica?" I asked. More precisely, I wanted to know why one of our clients ate his own shit. The instructor politely scratched his chin and replied, "The behaviour must be rewarding unto itself."

Fantasia (1941)/Fantasia 2000 (2000) [4-Disc Special Edition] – Blu-ray + DVD

December 28, 2010Posted in1940s, 2000s, 2010, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Disney, DVD

Fantasiacap

FANTASIA
***/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B+
story direction by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer
directed by James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe, Norm Ferguson, Jim Handley, Thornton Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, and Paul Satterfield

FANTASIA 2000
*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B+
directed by Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas, Gaetan Brizzi, Paul Brizzi, and Don Hahn

by Bryant Frazer More than twenty years ago, I sat in Stan Brakhage’s office at the University of Colorado, handling original frames of 65mm IMAX film stock that the avant-garde filmmaker had hand-painted with swirling layers of colour. He explained that IMAX had commissioned him to create an abstract film specifically for presentation on the huge screens of their theatres. It was a great idea, and I wondered when the film had screened. Never, Brakhage told me. The IMAX people eventually lost interest in the idea, and “Night Music” was shown instead in 16mm prints, drastically reduced from the large-gauge film stock. Although IMAX were bold enough to approach Brakhage in the first place, the company got cold feet when it came time to actually exhibit non-narrative cinema–even for only 30 seconds!–for a paying audience.

The Town (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

December 20, 2010Posted in2000s, 2010, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, Drama, DVD, Romance, Thriller

***½/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B
starring Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Chris Cooper
screenplay by Peter Craig and Ben Affleck & Aaron Stockard, based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan
directed by Ben Affleck

by Walter Chaw If I'm still not entirely sold on Ben Affleck as an actor of depth, I'm completely sold on him as a director of depth. A director good enough, as it happens, to identify and avoid the actor's own weaknesses and augment his strengths, and to guide Affleck the actor to his best performance in a picture, The Town, that would be something like a revelation were Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, not so exceptional. Absolutely filthy with its story of place, count The Town as a tough-love love letter to Boston suburb Charlestown, a place established in the film as a breeding ground for bank robbers. Affleck plays Doug MacCray, the head of one such crew that also includes childhood buddy Jimmy (Jeremy Renner, excellent again) in an echo of the macho/familial dynamic established in the Aussie bank robber drama Animal Kingdom. More about the ties that bind men to a place and an idea of manhood than about the crimes themselves, The Town compensates for what it lacks in originality with its patience and its bracing trust in its screenplay and cast. Monologues that could be didactic are laced with what feels like genuine yearning; a moment in which Doug tells new girlfriend Claire (Rebecca Hall) about his childhood could have (should have) been embarrassing, but comes off under Affleck's surprising wisdom as heartfelt, even resonant.

TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Hammer Horror – DVD

December 14, 2010Posted in1950s, 1960s, 2010, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Drama, DVD, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK, Vampire

HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)
***/**** Image B- Sound B-
starring Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Christopher Lee
screenplay by Jimmy Sangster
directed by Terence Fisher

DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968)
***/**** Image B+ Sound B
starring Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barry Andrews
screenplay by John Elder
directed by Freddie Francis

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
***½/**** Image C- Sound B
starring Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee
screenplay by Jimmy Sangster
directed by Terence Fisher

FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969)
***/**** Image B Sound C+
starring Peter Cushing, Veronica Carlson, Freddie Jones, Simon Ward
screenplay by Bert Batt
directed by Terence Fisher

Frankensteindestroyedcapby Jefferson Robbins As one of the twin stars of the original Hammer Films horror canon, the precise and skilful Peter Cushing had the task of portraying both villain (Dr. Frankenstein) and vanquisher (Dr. Van Helsing). His co-star Christopher Lee, on the other hand, seldom got to be the good guy: when he wasn’t baring plastic fangs or crusted over with dried-prune makeup, he usually embodied a more human evil. Lee’s unmasked performances were assertions of will–his Dracula, for instance, overwhelms with force of presence and a hungry smoulder in his eyes. Cushing could not disguise his native gentility and bladed intelligence, but he could turn those qualities towards sinister or humanitarian ends as needed.

Party Down: Season Two (2010) – DVD

December 8, 2010Posted in2000s, 2010, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, DVD, Television

Image A- Sound A- Extras D+
"Jackal Onassis Backstage Party," "Precious Lights Preschool Auction," "Nick DiCintio's Orgy Night," "James Ellison Funeral," "Steve Guttenberg's Birthday," "Not On Your Wife Opening Night," "Party Down Company Picnic," "Joel Munt's Big Deal Party," "Cole Landry's Draft Day Party," "Constance Carmell Wedding"

by Jefferson Robbins Hitting its sophomore stride just in time to meet the axe, the Starz sitcom "Party Down" tries its damnedest to make an arc out of its concept: catering staff with frustrated dreams of fame passes out shrimp rolls to the Hollywood elite. Off-putting and cruel in its first season, the ensemble comedy hits its rhythm this time around, even managing to develop a theme beyond "workaday despair."

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD + One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (’08 release + ’10 reissue) – Blu-ray Discs

December 7, 2010Posted in****/****, 1970s, 2010, Authors: Bill Chambers, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Blu-ray Disc, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Jack Nicholson

****/****
DVD – Image A Sound B+ Extras B+
'08 BD – Image A- Sound A- Extras B+
'10 BD – Image A- Sound A- Extras A+
starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Will Sampson
screenplay by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, based on the novel by Ken Kesey
directed by Milos Forman

Oneflewoverthecuckoosnestdvdcap

by Bill Chambers Philosophically sound, motivational, inspirational, Czech director Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of a small number of Best Picture winners to actually deserve the statuette. Arriving at the crest of a European-influenced period of filmmaking, before "brats" Spielberg and Lucas hijacked Hollywood once and for good, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is not popularly considered a seminal movie of its cinematically lauded decade, though it did change the tenor of Jack Nicholson's career (he'd always played loose cannons, but of a squarer breed) and became the first film since 1934's It Happened One Night to sweep the five major Oscar categories: Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay.