As I wrote in my review last summer, I found Roland Emerich’s WHITE HOUSE DOWN, to be bigger, dumber, and a lot more fun than Antoine Fuqua’s like-minded OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN from earlier in the year. But guess which one was more successful and is getting a sequel? That’s right, not the one I liked. Oh well, maybe Emerich’s Jamie Foxx/Channing Tatum vehicle can pick up more of an audience when it releases on home video today in a Two Disc Combo (Blu-ray / DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy) package and a single DVD editon (+UltraViolet Digital Copy).
WHITE HOUSE DOWN’s Special Features include a Gag Reel, a bunch of featurettes with interviews, behind-the-scenes breakdowns, and an examination of the contributions of Cinematographer Anna J. Foerster equaling around an hour.
A summer hit that I proudly missed, Dennis Dugan’s GROWN UPS 2, the second go around with Adam Sandler and his buddies ( Kevin James, Chris Rock, and David Spade, but this time not Rob Schneider), also drops today on 2-disc Blu ray combo, and 1 disc DVD editions. Special Features on the film that grossed over $240 million despite having only a 7% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes include Deleted Scenes equaling only a few minutes, and less than 10 minutes of featurettes. Surprising, as I thought they’d really load this sucker up with much more crap, but in this case, less is definitely more.
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, Peter Landesman’s PARKLAND, which takes its name from the hospital where Kennedy was taken after being shot, comes out this week also in 2-disc Blu ray and single disc DVD editions. Zac Efron, Ron Livingston, Billy Bob Thornton, Gil Bellows, Colin Hanks, and Paul Giamatti star in this depiction of the world-changing events in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 through the next few days after. Special Features: Director's commentary with Landesman, and Deleted Scenes.
Peter Jackson's THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012) gets its inevitable Extended Edition box this week, with a new commentary by Filmmaker Peter Jackson and co-writer Philippa Boyens and a ton of featurettes, on 3D Blu ray and DVD, alongside TWILIGHT FOREVER: The Complete Saga Box Set, which captures all the TWILIGHT films together with bonus material aplenty on 10 Blu ray discs, and 12 DVDs.
Also out today: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's Kristen Wiig vehicle GIRL MOST LIKELY, James Franco's William Faulkner adaptation AS I LAY DYING, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedmans' LOVELACE (starring Amanda Seyfried as '70s porn star Linda Lovelace), Edward Burn's comedy drama THE FITZGERALD FAMILY CHRISTMAS, Greg Mattola's Larry David HBO telefilm CLEAR HISTORY, Gilles Bourdo's French biopic RENOIR, and Aram Rappaport's marketing comedy SYRUP.
On the older films front there's the 30th Anniversary Edition of Philip Kaufman's THE RIGHT STUFF, ELF: 10TH Anniversary, Bob Clark's comedy classic A CHRISTMAS STORY: 30th Anniversary, Burny Mattinson's MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL: 30the Anniversary Special Edition, and Richard Donner's SCROOGED: 25th Anniversary Edition.
The A & E reality series Duck Dynasty celebrates the upcoming season with their DVD-only release I'm Dreaming of a Redneck Christmas, which repackages the finale for season 2 finale as a stand alone holiday release. This appears to be a greedy move as one can get the entire season for just a few dollars more so buyer beware.
Other TV season sets releasing today include Mad Men: Season 6, Law & Order: The Thirteenth Year, Magic City: The Complete Second Season, Saved By The Bell: The Complete Collection, Ice Road Truckers: Season 7, Boy Meets World: Complete Collection and the entire run of the popular BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous aptly named Absolutely All Of It.
More later...
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (Dir. Sam Mendes, 2008)
The set-up is surefire and swift - boy (Leoanardo DiCaprio) meets girl (Kate Winslet) at an hip apartment party in the late 40’s with the backdrop of bright lights, big city. Before you know it they are married and living in Connecticut with 2 kids and the cookie cutter conformity of the mid ‘50s is in full bloom.
Winslet as April Wheeler, dreams of being an actress but after a particularly bad off-off-off-Broadway performance her husband Frank has discouraging words. “I guess it wasn’t exactly a triumph or anything, was it?” he says in a severely misguided attempt to comfort her. A vicious verbal fight results on the way home, one of many that make up this film, with raging resentments busting out into the cold open air.
DiCaprio as a bored cog working the same job (salesman at a computer company) his father did for life draining decades longs for much more as well, and a afternoon quickie with a young secretary (Zoe Kazan) does little to remedy his situation. Winslet upon his return home that guilty day, though is seemingly rejuvenated. She has come to what she sees as a revelation – they should pack up and move to Paris, while they’re still young, and that will surely rekindle the fading spark in their relationship.
At first, DiCaprio is skeptical but he slowly takes to the idea. His co-workers (including Dylan Baker and Max Casella) and their close friend neighbors (David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn) think the idea is immature but our determined protagonists stick to their guns, that is, until a possible job advancement and an unplanned pregnancy come knockin.’
Though it’s exquisitely made and acted, REVOULTIONARY ROAD suffers from being well trodden ground. Many times before have we seen a “little boy lost in a big man’s shirt” (as Elvis Costello would say) having to blend in with the other suits and ties on a train platform on their way to work in the city.
The oppressive endless clusters of cubicles surrounding DiCaprio in his workplace contrasted with the lined up trash cans in the bland ‘burbs that are crushing Winslet’s spirit unfortunately come off as overdone clichés.
The same thematic elements are handled infinitely better on any given episode of Mad Men – the AMC produced show about advertising executives in the early 60’s that IMHO is one of the best shows of the last decade. Surprisingly Creator Matthew Wiener revealed to an interviewer that he hadn’t read the 1961 Richard Yates book “Revolutionary Road” the movie was obviously based on before embarking on Mad Men but tellingly he stated: “If I had read this book before I wrote the show, I never would have written the show.”
Despite the undeniable chemistry between DiCaprio and Winslet, the scenes that really ignite the screen involve Michael Shannon as the son of real estate agent (an uncharacteristically subdued Kathy Bates who was also in TITANIC with Dicaprio and Winslet, by the way).
Bates wants her son to meet the young seemingly stable couple as means to inspire him when he’s on a pass from mental institution. He sums them up immediately: “You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don’t like.
Anyone comes along and asks “Whaddya do it for?’ he’s probably on a four-hour pass from the State funny farm.”
Shannon, though bereft of charm and equipped with an exceedingly sharp creepy edge, is the character who is the most free and the most bluntly honest - therefore a solid spot of comic relief.
He has no need for politeness or disposable small talk, so when DiCaprio speaks of running away from the “hopeless emptiness” of their life there, Shannon is the only one who understands and even encourages them. Sadly, too much of the films pace plods and the energy of Shannon’s scenes is swamped aside by too many painful argument set pieces. “Wasn’t exactly a triumph”, indeed.
More later...
On the older films front there's the 30th Anniversary Edition of Philip Kaufman's THE RIGHT STUFF, ELF: 10TH Anniversary, Bob Clark's comedy classic A CHRISTMAS STORY: 30th Anniversary, Burny Mattinson's MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL: 30the Anniversary Special Edition, and Richard Donner's SCROOGED: 25th Anniversary Edition.
Other TV season sets releasing today include Mad Men: Season 6, Law & Order: The Thirteenth Year, Magic City: The Complete Second Season, Saved By The Bell: The Complete Collection, Ice Road Truckers: Season 7, Boy Meets World: Complete Collection and the entire run of the popular BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous aptly named Absolutely All Of It.
