New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 8/6/13

 

The biggest new release out today on Blu ray and DVD is Joseph Kosinski’s OBLIVION, starring Tom Cruise as one of the last men on Earth in yet another sci-fi thriller set in a dystopian future. It’s a visually stunning ride, but a bit confusing at times as I wrote when the film was released theatrically last April (read my review here). The immaculately CGI-ed spectacle is available in a 2-disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet edition, and a single disc DVD version.

Special features: Audio commentary with Kosinski and Cruise, a 48-minute featurette “Promise of a New World,” 4 minutes of deleted scenes, and the isolated M83 score, presented in 24-bit/96kHz Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround. It’s Definitely one to consider over seeing ELYSIUM this coming weekend.
 

Next up, Derek Cianfrance’s crime drama THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, is out in 2-disc Blu ray (+DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet), and 1-disc DVD editions. The film which consists of two stellar acts, and one so-so one as you can read here, comes packaged with such Special Features as a Director’s commentary with Cianfrance, 10 minutes of deleted and extended scenes, and a 5 minute featurette: “Going to THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES.”

A indie that came out around the same time that I enjoyed quite a bit more is also now available on home video this week: Jeff Nichols’ MUD, starring Matthew McConaughey as a little less confident than usual yet still somewhat slick fugitive outlaw who befriends a couple of kids (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) on an island in the middle of Arkansas’ Lower White River. Special Features; Director’s commentary with Nichols, and four short featurettes (“A Personal Tale,” “The Arkansas Ensemble,” “Southern Authenticity,” and “The Snake Pit”).

Walter Salles’ not very well received 2012 adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s classic 1957 novel ON THE ROAD, starring Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley, and Kristen Stweart drops today in both single disc Blu ray and DVD editions, as does Terrance Malick’s TO THE WONDER, also a film that got mixed reviews, starring Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko (she’s also in OBLIVION btw), and Wayne Blair’s much better reviewed ‘60s soul-singing girl group comedy drama THE SAPPHIRES, starring Chris Dowd, hits the shelves in a 2-disc Blu ray set, and 1-disc DVD edition (read my review of the tuneful charmer here).

A documentary that’s gotten it’s fair share of acclaim, Amy J. Berg’s WEST OF MEMPHIS, which concerns the case of the West Memphis Three in a different light than that seen in the PARADISE LOST docs, is now available on Blu ray and DVD in single disc sets with a bunch of Special Features including nearly an hour and a half of deleted scenes, a commentary (with writer/director Berg, Damien Echols, and Producer Lorri Davis), Toronto International Film Festival Q & A and Press conference footage, a brief featurette entitled “Damien's Past (Re-Creations),” and the theatrical trailer.

 

Older titles out today for the first time on Blu ray: Arthur Hiller’s 1976 Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor thriller comedy SILVER STREAK, Wes Craven’s 1983 cult classic SWAMP THING, David Setzer’s 1986 teen favorite LUCAS, and James Toback’s 1987 rom com THE PICK-UP ARTIST, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Molly Ringwald. 

Also on the vintage front, Disney has out a 50th Anniversary Edition of SWORD IN THE STONE, a 40th Anniversary Edition of ROBIN HOOD, and a 25th Anniversary Edition of OLIVER & COMPANY. All 3 animated titles are new to Blu ray. 

TV season sets now available include Strike Back: The Complete Second Season, Duck Dynasty: Season 3, Community: The Complete Fourth Season, The Borgias: The Third Season, Smash: Season 2, and a “Best of” box of the short-lived SNL rip-off Fridays (1980-1982), that launched the careers of Seinfeld’s Larry David and Michael Richards.

For a more complete list of what’s out this week visit Amazon’s lengthy list at their New Releases department.

More later…

Catching Up With The Classics: Akira Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW (1963)

Since I took July off from babbling ‘bout film to work on a book project (and go on vacation with my wife in Virginia), I thought instead of writing about some big new movie at the multiplex, I’d jump back into the blogosphere with a post about a classic I just caught up with. A black and white Foreign one at that.

I’ve seen a bunch of the films of the late great Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) over the years, but somehow never got around to seeing his 1963 thriller of sorts HIGH AND LOW until now. 

A co-worker spoke of re-watching it recently and I made the mental note to put it in my Netflix queue. So glad that I did because it had me from the get go with Toshirô Mifune’s intense performance as an executive for a shoe manufacturing company trying to fight off his colleagues attempts to cut costs and quality in a starkly shot opening scene.

With 16 films under the director, Mifune was to Kurosawa what Humphrey Bogart was to John Huston, or Robert DeNiro to Martin Scorsese, but the duo are more known for their Samurai movies than their modern day dramas like this one that they made together between 1948-1965.

The Hitchcockian HIGH AND LOW (aka “Heaven and Hell”) can be broken down into 3 acts. The first is set mostly in the interior of Mifune’s luxurious mansion overlooking the city of Yokohama and concerns the tycoon dealing with the kidnapping of his chauffeur’s son. The kidnappers meant to abduct Mifune’s son, but the kids who were playing “Cowboys and Indians,” or more accurately “Sheriffs and Outlaws,” had switched outfits.

In long unbroken widescreen shots a stressed-out Mifune wrestles with whether or not to pay the huge ransom (30 million yen). Paying it would ruin him as he just mortgaged his house in order to gain more control of his company, but not paying could destroy his reputation and his business could suffer greatly.

The Chauffer (Yutaka Sada), and Mifune’s wife (Kyōko Kagawa) beg Mifune to pay the ransom, while a dapper police detective (Tatsuya Nakadai) suavely oversees the situation. Mifune gives in and arranges to make the exchange for the child. Turns out the kidnapper has cleverly planned to have Mifune throw the money in 2 suitcases out of the window of a moving train, with the boy being released near the next stop. “Damn clever” Nakadai says.

The train sequence, which heightens the tension of the movie greatly, begins the second act. The film’s police procedural p.o.v. intensifies with the investigation into the kidnapping leaving no stone unturned. The cop that the Dude in THE BIG LEBOWSKI asks about leads may have joked sarcastically about detectives working in shifts at the crime lab, but here the police are definitely putting in overtime studying films, photos, and even the kid’s crayon drawings to close this kidnapping case.

The third act consists of the kidnapper (Tsutomu Yamazaki) being identified by the police and getting caught in their trap involving a heroin deal. I recently read a rant by a filmmaker about how framing something or somebody dead center is boring, but Kurosawa’s cameras, manned by cinematographers Asakazu Nakai and Takao Saito, keep Yamazaki in the middle of many shots as he makes his way through the dark streets, and it’s never not visually interesting.

In one shot a mirrored wall in a crowded club is shown, seemingly at an angle, but as the camera pans across the room we see that the wall itself was slanted, and Yamazaki in a strikingly bright white collared shirt and shades again enters in the center. 1995's SIN CITY (Dirs. Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino) featured a nod to this imagery via Elijah Wood's psychopathic character, Kevin.

During this sequence, the policemen following him are demoted to supporting players in the shadows, with the antagonist eerily commanding all of our attention.

These scenes also show how Westernized Japan had become in the early ‘60s. The sight of drunk patrons dancing to surf guitar music blaring from a jukeboxes in noisy bistros isn’t that far removed from background fodder in a MGM Elvis movie from the same era.

HIGH AND LOW is a multi-layered story told straight with little in the way of artistic flourishes and it’s all the better for it. The non-flashy clarity of the screenplay by Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Ryûzô Kikushima, and Eijirô Hisaita (based on the 1959 novel “King’s Ransom” by Ed McBain) makes for a very satisfying watch.

As densely detailed as it is, HIGH AND LOW ultimately boils down to a concept as simple as its title. “The kidnapper is right,” says one of the investigators looking at Mifune’s mansion from the poverty stricken streets below.

“The house gets to you…as if it’s looking down on you.” This view is confirmed by Yamazaki meeting face to face with Mifune in the final scene.

“Why should you and I hate each other?” Mifune asks. “My room was so cold in winter, and so hot in summer I couldn’t sleep. Your house looked like heaven to me, high up there,” Yamazaki explains. “That’s how I began to hate you. That gave me a purpose in life. It’s interesting to make fortunate men unfortunate.”

Unsurprisingly, there has been talk of remaking this film. Scorsese, Mike Nichols, and Chris Rock (!) have expressed interest in taking it on, but if you haven’t seen it, don’t wait for that to happen. Folks with aversions to old black and white subtitled films should get over it and queue this one up (or purchase the fancy Criterion Collection edition). It’s another in a long line of classic Kurosawa keepers.

More later...

Summing Up The 2013 Summer Movies Season So Far

I’ve decided to take most of July off from writing about movies to finish a book project, largely because my mind has been over cluttered with debris from all the ginormous destruction on the big screen I’ve experienced so far this summer. 

But I’ve seen much worse summer fare in seasons past so I’m not going to go on a rant about the money-making mechanisms of Hollywood or the glut of superhero comic book movies. No, I’m just gonna clean out my notebook by summing up some films in current release, including a certain cowboy and indian centered blockbuster wannabe that just opened, so I can move on. So here goes:

THE LONE RANGER
(Dir. Gore Verbinski)

The majority of critics are bashing Verbinski’s update of the iconic Western character (it’s at 23% on the Rotten Tomatometer), and it’s already been deemed a flop, but I actually thought it was a not bad blockbuster wannabe. It’s way too long, and Johnny Depp as Tonto too often dominates the screen with his typical shifty eyed mannerisms (sometimes under pancakes of unconvincing old man make-up), but Armie Hammer does a decent job as a gallant doofus of a hero, and the story winds back on itself in a very entertaining way. It's Verbinski’s expected over-the-top action thrill-ride all the way, but I went along with it, perhaps just because it wasn’t another PIRATES movie, and it wasn’t in 3D, but either way I don’t mind being in the minority.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 
(Dir. Joss Whedon)

Considered the antithesis of his superhero smash last summer, THE AVENGERS, Whedon’s small budget black and white modern day Shakespeare adaptation is a breezy delight that my wife and I quite enjoyed one recent evening at the Colony Theater in Raleigh. The exquisitely fluffy film is basically a filmed party at Whedon’s house in Los Angeles over 12 days, with veterans of the directors TV shows such as Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Reed Diamond, and Clark Gregg spouting out the original text of Shakespeare’s 16th century play. If you can get into the rhythms of the old timey language, it’s a fun time, if not, then maybe the Bard isn’t for you.

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY 
(Dir. Dan Scanlon) 

This Pixar prequel, #1 at the box office right now, is fun, and just funny enough to make it not matter that it’s a pretty unnecessary project. Billy Crystal and John Goodman return to voice the one-eyed green monster Mike, and his big blue furry friend Sully in this charming coming-of-age story about their days at the School For Scaring. Amusing plot similarities to the recent Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson comedy THE INTERNSHIP are noted by friend and fellow film writer, Will Fonvielle, who attended the screening with me, in his dead on review which you should read here at his movie blog, Filmvielle.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT 
(Dir. Richard Linklater) 

The best film of the summer has no CGI, no explosions, no high octane action at all. It just mostly features married couple (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) walking and talking through Greecian ruins as they take stock of their relationship. It’s the third in Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy’s sweet series about love, life, and talking these subjects to death. Read my review here.

THIS IS THE END 
(Dirs. Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg)

The most hilarious film of the summer has a crew of graduates from Apatow Academy finding the funny in facing the apocalypse which hits Los Angeles during a wild party at James Franco’s house. Rogen and Franco along with Jay Barachel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride, all playing exaggerated versions of themselves, litter the extremely crude, profane, and insanely graphic (there’s a 60-foot Satan with a swinging penis, you see) with wall-to-fall big laughs. Read my review.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN 
(Dir. Roland Emmerich) 

I had more with this than I did with THE LONE RANGER, but audiences seem to be rejecting this because of its all too familiar DIE HARD formula. Which is understandable, what with OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, you know? But I enjoyed seeing Channing Tatum, of course in a wife-beater, and Jamie Foxx as an Obama-ish President tackle White House action set-pieces with great gusto, and it made me laugh more than the cop comedy that's been out-grossing it, in more ways than one, since it opened. I'm talking about:

THE HEAT (Dir. Paul Feig)

Some film folks have called attention to the fact that this is the one of the few female fronted major releases this summer, and that it may be the first female buddy cop movie ever (I guess the Cagney and Lacey TV movie doesn't count), but it's a mediocre movie barely worth a matinee price.

There can't help but be some big laughs provided by the immense comic energy of Melissa McCarthy, but Sandra Bollock is bland, many scenes are clunky - especially when it comes to the silly underwritten sitcom fodder or McCarthy's bickering family, which includes Michael Rappaport and Jane Curtain - and a great number of lines fall flat. However, since it seems to be striking a chord with movie-goers (it's #2 at the box office at the time of this writing), maybe I'm too burned out by blockbuster bombardment to recognize its brilliance.

And the rest:

MAN OF STEEL (Dir. Zack Snyder) Read my underwhelmed review of the new Superman reboot here.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (Dir. J.J. Abrams) Likewise.

WORLD WAR Z (Dir. Marc Forster) Ditto.

THE INTERNSHIP (Dir. Shawn Levy) Uh huh.

Okay, so that's my summer so far sum-up.. Like I said before I’m taking some time off from reviewing movies this month and will be skipping some upcoming screenings in the weeks ahead, so there will be fewer posts, and the weekly feature New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD will be on hold until August.

More later…