New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 3/25/14

Martin Scorsese's THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is definitely the biggest new release on Blu ray and DVD today. Sadly, the terrifically excessive story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), is only packaged with one Special Feature: a 17 minute featurette entitled “The Wolf Pack.” I understand not including the 2-part, 4-hour cut that was mentioned in many interviews as it was a rough version never intended to be the final vision, but some deleted scenes from it would've been nice. Read my review from last December.

As WOLF was one of Scorsese's funniest films, it's fitting that his 1982 comic commentary on fame, THE KING OF COMEDY, is also hitting Blu ray today in a 30th Anniversary Edition (just two years late!). The film, starring Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis, is one of my all-time favorites, so I'm glad to see that, unlike WOLF, is outfitted with such bonus material as nearly 40 minutes of Deleted and Extended Scenes, the 30 minute featurette “Tribeca Film Festival: A Conversation with Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis,” the 19 minute mini-doc “A Shot at the Top: The Making of THE KING OF COMEDY,” and original Theatrical Trailer.

Another great 2013 film, Paolo Sorrentino's THE GREAT BEAUTY, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film earlier this month, also releases today courtesy of the Criterion Collection. As with all Deluxe Criterion Editions, there is a plethora of Extras including a 13 minute video interview with star Toni Servillo, a 38 minute conversation with Italian film scholar Antonio Monda and Director Sorrentino, a 12 minute interview with screenwriter Umberto Contarello, 6 minutes of Deleted Scenes, the Trailer, and an illustrated booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Lopate.

Criterion is also dropping two undeniable classics on the popular Blu ray format this week: Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor's 1925 Harold Lloyd comedy THE FRESHMAN, and Igmar Bergman's 1966 psychological drama PERSONA.

Also out today on Blu ray and DVD: Sini Anderson's documentary about “riot grrl” Kathleen Hanna, THE PUNK SINGER, Ken Scott's lame Vince Vaughn comedy DELIVERY MAN; Larry Fessenden's horror flick BENEATH, Joe Massot's 1968 curiosity WONDERWALL (featuring music by George Harrison), Abel Ferrara's 1981 thriller MS. 45, and Asghar Farhadi's fascinating follow-up to his excellent 2011 Oscar winner A SEPARATION, THE PAST (my review).

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THE PAST: The Film Babble Blog Review

Opening today in the Triangle at the Colony Theater in Raleigh, the Chelsea Theatre in Chapel Hill, and the Carolina Theatre in Durham:

THE PAST (Dir. Asghar Farhadi, 2013)

In his follow-up to the excellent Oscar-winning 2011 drama A SEPARATION, writer/director Asghar Farhadi again deals with divorce, Iranian style.

Ali Mosaffa plays a man who returns to a not so picturesque Paris from Iran to finalize his divorce to his French wife (Bérénice Bejo, best known for her Oscar nominated performance in THE ARTIST). 

Bejo, who has two daughters from a previous marriage, is now in a new relationship with an Arab man (Tahar Rahim, star of Jacques Audiard’s acclaimed 2009 prison drama A PROPHET). Rahim has a son (the cute scene-stealing Elyes Aguis) and a wife who has been in a coma for eight months. So yeah, things are complicated.

Bejo’s oldest daughter (the 16-year old Pauline Burlet) is suspicious of the situation with her mother’s new boyfriend, which calls for Mosaffa to investigate what happened while he was away. Turns out Rahim’s wife’s coma was caused by a suicide attempt, and he is still legally married to her. Other revelations, including the involvement of one of Rahim’s employees (Sabrina Ouazine) at his dry-cleaning business, come to light as Mosaffa gets closer to the truth.

What’s most pleasing is how THE PAST (French title: parcels out its plot points with leisurely precision. The use of spare dialogue, free of messy exposition, lightly layers the story, as Cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari’s carefully placed camerawork carries us from one emotionally meaty scene to another.

Despite having to wear a slightly ill-fiting hairpiece, Mosaffa excels as the conscious of the film in his measured acting. We can feel that the heat between he and Bejo, who as a woman caught between anxiety and anger shows much more range than before, hasn't completely faded.

Rahim appears so sullen and distant that it's hard to see how he and Bejo got together, but as the film goes on we get telling inklings of his true sensibility. These all feel like real people that we are eavesdropping in on.

THE PAST isn't as sharply powerful as A SEPARATION, but it's an immersive mixture of solid storytelling and flawless acting that's full of passion for the people it depicts. It's less a cultural statement than it is a meditation on how the hidden connections beneath a fractured family can be felt long before they are revealed. 

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