New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 3/19/13

ZERO DARK THIRTY wasn’t completely shunned by the Academy last month, it won one Oscar (for Best Sound Editing), but Kathryn Bigelow’s thriller about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden still seemed to get a chilly reception. You know, because of the whole torture thing. Folks who missed it in its theatrical run can make up their own minds about its supposed political stance today as it releases on Blu Ray and DVD.

The film is highly recommended (it’s #10 on The Film Babble Blog Top 10 Movies of 2012), but if you’re looking to purchase it, I’d wait for a different edition as there are no Special Features to speak of in the standard Blu-ray/DVD Combo + UltraViolet Digital Copy package. Surely, a deluxe version with commentary, featurettes, etc. will come out later. So just rent it for now.

A beautiful movie that was completely shunned by the Academy, but still got its share of awards season love, also arrives today on Blu ray/DVD: Jacques Audiard’s RUST AND BONE (read my review). Special features: a commentary with Audiard and screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, “Making RUST AND BONE: A Film by Antonin Peretkatko,” a batch of deleted scenes, and a few featurettes.

A divisive musical epic if there ever was one, LES MISÉRABLES is out today (2-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet/1 Disc DVD) with a bevy of Special Features, including Commentary with director Tom Hooper, a few featurettes, and a mini-documentary entitled “The Original Masterwork: Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.”

Another release today that fans may want to skip over for a better future edition is THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (3-Disc Blu-ray, DVD, UltraViolet Digital Copy). Peter Jackson’s epic, ridiculously the first of a new trilogy, is outfitted with a fair amount of extra fluff: game trailers, video blogs, and the featurette “New Zealand: Home of Middle Earth.” None of this stuff looks very essential, so yeah, wait a few years for the grand box of all three HOBBIT monstrosities.

For those who thought Judd Apatow’s THIS IS 40 wasn't long enough at it 141 minutes, its new Blu ray (2-Disc, Digital Copy, etc.) has hours more of that Apatow family fun. The extensive Special Features: the unrated edition, deleted scenes (extended and alternate as well), “Bodies by Jason” commercial, and eight featurettes: “The Making of THIS IS 40,” “This is Albert Brooks (At Work),” “Graham Parker & the Rumour: Long Emotional Ride,” “Brooks-O-Rama,” “Biking with Barry,” “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog,” “Kids on the Loose 3” and a “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” segment. Whew!

On the re-mastered re-issue front there’s the new Criterion Collection edition of Terrence Malick’s 1973 classic BADLANDS. Malick’s impressive debut, which concerned Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as a young outlaw couple on the run in Dakota, is now decked out with a New 4K digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack), “Charles Starkweather” (a 1993 episode of Great Crimes and Trials), Making BADLANDS (a new 42-minute documentary featuring the actors), new interview with editor Billy Weber, new interview with producer Edward Pressman, and booklet featuring an essay by filmmaker Michael Almereyda. Now, that looks like an essential package!

Also out today as part of the Criterion Collection is Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1943 classic THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP. This is one I definitely have to check out as it features a commentary with the late Powell (1905-1990) and Martin Scorsese.

More later…

Jacques Audiard's RUST AND BONE Out Today On Blu Ray & DVD

Releasing today on Blu ray and DVD:

RUST AND BONE 

(Dir. Jacques Audiard, 2012)

Jacques Audiard pulls off a distinctly different sense of tone and timing from his last two acclaimed award-winning films, A PROPHET and THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED in this raw love story between Matthias Schoenaerts as a directionless single father, who makes money by competing in illegal boxing matches, and Marion Cotillard as a killer whale trainer, who loses her legs in an “on the job” accident.

It’s definitely not a “meet cute” when Schoenaerts’ Alain first encounters Cotillard’s Stéphanie (pre-accident) at a night club in Antibes in southern France. Alain (“Ali” to his friends and family) is on his first night as a bouncer at the club when a fight breaks out and Stéphanie, dolled up for a night on the town, gets caught in the middle of it.

Acting the gentleman, Ali insists on driving the roughed up Stéphanie home to her apartment, only to find that she has a controlling abusive boyfriend waiting for her there. Nevertheless, Ali gives her his phone number - “if you need it” - before exiting.

Not long after that, the vividly scary spectacle of a large Sea World-type stage collapsing during an Orca show (to the tune of Katy Perry’s “Firework,” mind you) leaves Stéphanie without legs below her knees, via seamless CGI that shows us how far such special effects have come since Gary Sinise’s similar predicament in “Forrest Gump.”

In the midst of her painful recuperation, Stéphanie decides to call Ali, who’s by then working as a guard at a security firm. The stoic strongman begins taking care of the legless lady, and in a sweet scene set at the beach, he carries her into the ocean and she appears to have a cathartic experience wading in the sundrenched waves. 

Stéphanie gets close enough to Ali that she even accompanies him on his street fighting ring runs, but has to stay in the car as women aren’t allowed. Ever so casually, while cleaning up after a meal, Ali asks Stéphanie if she wants to have sex. Embarrassed by the bluntness of the proposal, yet intrigued, Stéphanie agrees and afterwards she appears regenerated, on her way to feeling whole again. An immersive shot in her empowering post coitus sequence shows Stéphanie, now outfitted with prosthetic legs, visiting her old workplace and re-connecting through body language with the enormous whale that caused her accident through a giant glass partition.

Unfortunately, Ali continues to see other women, and his relationship with Stéphanie suffers. What also suffers, albeit only slightly, is the movie’s focus in its second half as its storyline gets messier than it needs to be. Especially when Ali’s sister (Corinne Masiero), who is taking care of his 5-year old son (Armand Verdure), loses her job due to video surveillance set up by Ali’s company. This causes Ali to leave town, leaving everything up in the air with Stéphanie. 

The brooding Schoenaerts, previously best known for his leading role in Michael R. Roskam’s 2010 crime drama BULLHEAD, has such a dry cold demeanor that his character can be hard to relate to, but edges of humanity come through at crucial moments, particularly when he realizes late in the game his feelings for Cotillard’s Stéphanie.

Cotillard, displaying comparable poise and power to her incredible Oscar-winning portrayal of Édith Piaf in LA VIE EN ROSE, owns the heart of RUST AND BONE. She wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award this time around (and she lost the Golden Globe for the part to Jessica Chastain for ZERO DARK THIRTY) but she’s taken home a few well deserved awards for the performance (at the BFI, Cabourg, and Telluride Film Festivals).

Audiard’s A PROPHET cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine captures the couple, and the sunny scenery surrounding them in a visual style that’s often poetic. Based on a short story collection by Canadian author Craig Davidson, Audiard’s screenplay, co-written with Thomas Bidegain, keeps the dialogue spare and simple, which helps it stay clear of clichés.

In this random romance, in which tough times tinged with tragedy can bring disparate damaged people together, Schoenaerts’ thick-headedness and lack of sentiment can numb one’s heart, but Cotillard’s longing and belief in love will melt it.

Special Features: Commentary from director Jacques Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain, deleted scenes, and a few featurettes including “Making RUST AND BONE: A Film by Antonin Peretkatko.”

* This review originally appeared in the Jan. 17th, 2013 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.

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