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…

Hey Kids - Funtime Oscar Picks 2013!

As I’ve said before, the 85th Academy Awards, airing Sunday night on ABC, is looking like one of the most unpredictable Oscars ever. So I bet I get more wrong this time than usual. But it's all in fun so what the Hell!

Here are my picks:

1. BEST PICTURE: ARGO 

Yep, I'm going with the theory that the Academy will make up for not nominating Ben Affleck for Best Director and give him the gold for his film, which I think deserves to win. LINCOLN looks pretty possible too, and I could see SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK being an upset, but I'm still going with ARGO.

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg for LINCOLN

3. BEST ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis for LINCOLN

4. BEST ACTRESS: Jennifer Lawrence for SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Robert De Niro for SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway for LES MISÉRABLES

And the rest:

7. PRODUCTION DESIGN: LES MISÉRABLES (Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson)

8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: LIFE OF PI (Claudio Miranda)

9. COSTUME DESIGN: ANNA KARENINA (Jacqueline Durran)

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: OPEN HEART (Kief Davidson, Cori Shepherd Stern)

12. FILM EDITING: ARGO (William Goldenberg)

13. MAKEUP: THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Peter King, Rick Findlater, Tami Lane)

14. VISUAL EFFECTS: LIFE OF PI (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik De Boer, Donald Elliott)

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: LIFE OF PI (Mychael Danna)

16. ORIGINAL SONG: “Skyfall” (Adele, Paul Epworth)

17. ANIMATED SHORT: PAPERMAN (John Kahrs)

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: CURFEW (Shawn Christensen)

19. SOUND EDITING: ZERO DARK THIRTY (Paul N.J. Ottosson)

20. SOUND MIXING: LES MISÉRABLES (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, Simon Hayes)

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: DJANGO UNCHAINED (Quentin Tarantino)

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: LINCOLN (Tony Kushner)

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: BRAVE (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman) What I want to win: WRECK-IT RALPH.

24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: AMOUR (Dir. Michael Haneke)

Check back Monday morning to see how many I got wrong.

Also, I should again plug my appearance on postmodcast in which I discuss the Oscars with host Kevin Brewer.

More later...

The Hunt For Osama Bin Laden Is Intensely Told In ZERO DARK THIRTY

Opening today in the Triangle area:

ZERO DARK THIRTY (Dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)

The buzz surrounding Kathryn Bigelow’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning THE HURT LOCKER is mixed with criticism of its supposed pro torture stance, but these protests (mainly from folks who haven’t seen it) are really small minded when considering the big complex picture of ZERO DARK THIRTY.

I never felt like Bigelow’s film, written by THE HURT LOCKER’s Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Boal, was celebrating torture; I felt like the film was a challenging depiction of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden that had to go to some very dark places to tell its story.

But let’s start at the beginning.

After a dark screen accompanies a collage of sound bites related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the film proper opens two years after 2001 at a C.I.A. “black site” with a few torture scenes that will make you as uncomfortable as Jessica Chastain is as an intelligence operative watching as a fellow officer (Jason Clarke) roughly interrogates an al Qaeda detainee (Reda Kateb).

This can be hard to watch, excruciating even, especially when Clarke, who repeatedly says “If you lie to me, I hurt you,” brings on the water boarding.

This intense torture results in one of the first clues in tracking down Bin Laden: the alias of the terrorist mastermind’s personal courier. Despite this lead, years pass (the film is inconsistent in telling us what year it is - after 2008, it seems, they assume we can figure it out), and Chastain comes up against resistance from her superiors (mainly Kyle Chandler as CIA Islamabad Station Chief), who want her to concentrate more on Homeland Security.

Speaking of Homeland, there are stretches of this movie that recall the Showtime series. Like Claire Danes’ character on that show, Chastain has no life except her job (or obsession) of hunting down terrorists. The characters are different, as here we get no background of mental instability, and Chastain would never sleep with the enemy.

As in THE HURT LOCKER, every explosion has a strong emotional impact. Particularly the 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing which violently interrupts a meal Chastain is having with the closest she has to an actual friend in the movie - N.C. native Jennifer Ehle as a fellow analyst.

I don’t recall ex-president George W. Bush’s name being spoken in the film, and the shift of administrations is only reflected on a background T.V. broadcasting an interview by 60 Minutes’ journalist Steve Croft with Barack Obama, in which the president states “The United States does not torture.” So there’s no White House situation room point of view here.

Chastain and company’s initial lead finally pays off, when they follow Bin Laden’s suspected courier (Tushaar Mehra) to a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden can’t be proven to be hiding at the compound, so nothing can be done immediately. 

After more surveillance, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (James Gandofini) asks Chastain and co. how certain they are of Bin Laden’s presence at the location, the others say around 70%, but Chastain replies: “100 percent, he's there. OK, 95 because I know certainty freaks you guys out. But it's 100.”

Unless you really aren’t informed of world events the last few years, it’s obvious that the movie’s climax will be the raid by Navy SEALs on the compound. One of the SEALs, Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt is skeptical of the mission, but the Squadron leader (Joel Edgerton) has more faith in Chastain’s confidence.

The raid, largely seen through the glowing green of the Seals’ night-vision goggles, ups the thriller quotient of the film, even when you know the intricate details of how it all ends.

The long, but not too long, ZERO DARK THIRTY was just nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture, but since Bigelow wasn’t nominated for Best Director it’s very doubtful that it will take home the big prize (I could see Chastain possibly winning though). That doesn’t take anything away from this film’s immersive plotting, excellent performances, and intense power. So don’t let the politics of the torture argument talk you out of seeing one of the year’s best films.

More later...