Electric Shadow

Natural, Simple Elegance

Barry Levinson's The Natural is one of the finest movies about baseball (or any sport for that matter). I watched it for the first time on VHS or cable (I forget which) at a friend's house as a kid. We played on the same team. Until I got to college, I didn't re-watch it, but once I grabbed the DVD secondhand, I watched it every couple of months for a year, alternating with Field of Dreams. That classic rounding of the bases is how reflecting on the best memories feels.

Roberts Redford and Duvall are both wonderful, as is the rest of the cast. Sony's new Blu-ray from a few weeks ago is the typical bang-up AV transfer. The only thing missing from previous DVD editions is the director's cut, which this release borrows its cover art from (rather confusingly). The big pile of featurettes are nice and all, but the movie is all I really feel like I need here. This reminded me of how I have no need for commentary tracks on Spielberg flicks (and tons of other movies, honestly). Redford was recently quoted saying he doesn't care about extras at all, and even though I wouldn't go that far...I get where he's coming from. If I could have a gorgeous transfer of the movie, the theatrical trailer (missing here...what gives, Sony?), and no forced ads or trailers, I'd start happy. Not everything needs a "disc two". On the merit of the transfer alone, I've added this to my list as one of the best discs of the year thus far. I'll be serving up a Discs of the Year 2010 Thus Far piece as soon as I've got it solid (likely just in time for the weekend).
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The Sooth of Tooth

It's astounding that The Tooth Fairy manages to so precisely feel like a late-80's, early-90's Schwarzenegger concept comedy down to the line readings. I should mention that star Dwayne Johnson is many times more likable and believable than Das Governor would have been at any age.

I found enjoyment in the amount of practical effects they employed (an endangered species!), and for most viewers, the movie is exactly as good or bad as the trailer indicates. You might hate it for being crassly commercial and elementary, or love it for this. There is no deeper hidden meaning, unless, perhaps, you watch it as half-inebriated as I was yesterday. If you think about it, the storyline encourages the myths of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus constructs on the surface, but is more directly reinforcing theological belief systems. That's a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are, but it's the kind of thing that didn't wear age well relative to movies I enjoyed as a kid. The movie is dated, and the script seems largely unchanged from when it was pitched as a Schwarzenegger vehicle. The casual sexism inherent in the girlfriend character (Ashley Judd) is 90's chick stereotyping at its best. She endures no end of betrayals of trust and plenty of evidence of cheating, but she always sticks by her man like a good victim! Likewise, her kids are the un-complex, easy to please kids that were how all children were homogenized in the 90's. Only the use of the word "emo" dates one kid as post-millenial. Substitute a pager for a Blackberry and poof, instant 90's. The extras include behind the scenes featurettes that are surprisingly informative and not snore-inducing. It's been a while since one of these broad audience, kid-friendly movies has managed something like this, and I have a feeling it's thanks to director Michael Lembeck's insistence that they show off the solid effects work. Yes, Lembeck directed both Santa Clause sequels and Connie & Carla, but the supplemental stuff adds a layer of respectability to the guy. The Gag Reel is basically a waste with the exception of a bit with Johson and Stephen Merchant oogling a blurred-out nude centerfold of Ashley Judd, which made me laugh so hard I coughed up a lung. Tooth Fairy hit the street this past Tuesday.
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Merlin Begins

NBC has recently started airing the BBC's Merlin, which tells the story of the mythic legend from the point he arrived in the kingdom of King-to-be Arthur's dad Uther Pendragon's kingdom. I'm not terribly fond of the semi-modern schoolyard bullies and nerds take, but it's better than US TV, which features barely any fantasy adventure content at all. The major standout among the cast is Anthony Head as Uther. The pace does pick up as the first season goes on, but it didn't pick up nearly as fast as the three-year-old Robin Hood show did, but such is the nature of what they're going for here.

The first season hit DVD in a five-disc set. The fifth disc contains all of the extras save the audio commentary, which is spread across the rest of the set. The two-part Behind the Magic (two half hours) is rather thorough. The video diaries and the 15-minute Black Knight episode featurette are nothing particularly special. Amazon's got it for $34.99.
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Son of Edison, Son of Tesla

This is one of those reviews that I intentionally hold until day of release since I know my posting it won't wield any sort of influence on whether anyone sees the movie or not. What I'm interested in is the conversation that has developed since people started seeing it. Iron Man 2, much like its protagonist, is put-upon with the responsibility of catering to a larger world and much higher expectations than its freshman go.

The audience from the Fan Screening in Austin last week.
The movie's pace shifts into lower gear in the middle of the movie under the burden of fleshing out new characters and developing more storylines than the first film had to deal with. After the sequence in Monaco, we suddenly jump from a fast-burning to a slow-buring fuse. Once the third act ignition kicks in, however, we burn yet faster than before. The movie opens with Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko caring for his ailing father while watching Tony Stark on TV declaring that he is Iron Man. The fathers of Vanko and Stark are set up with a Thomas Edison-Nikola Tesla rivalry dynamic, and Ivan emerges as a morally justified post-Cold War villain. As same-same as superhero movies have become, the texturing that Favreau insists upon in the Iron Man movies deserves a great deal of credit. The methodical pace of the middle of the picture mirrors the journey and process of Vanko, the villain (or is he? is it instead Howard Stark?). Vanko patiently hones his blade of attack on his own schedule. Tony isn't aware of him for a significant amount of the movie's running time. Tony focuses on the doom brewing in his chest rather than the slow-cooking hell waiting for the right moment to burst open. The movie primarily deals with variations on the theme of being overwhelmed by one's own potential. Those leveling the expectations, tone, and nature of other franchises on this followup are committing the same error of judgment as anyone who holds a new sci-fi sequel up against The Empire Strikes Back. It's a comparative analysis inherently flawed by the odds being stacked impossibly against the movie in question. There's no good reason that Iron Man 2 should try to or pretend to be the "Dark Knight" of Iron Man movies, in nature or impact. The only mission IM2 is beholden to is continuing the story begun in the first film and remaining engaging, something I found it did quite well in spite of the abrupt change in pacing. Those who have already complained that this is "more of the same" should ask themselves if The Dark Knight suffers from being "more of the same" as compared to Batman Begins. What do these people want, Iron Man on Roller Skates? Iron Man in King Arthur's Court? Iron Man Trains a Dragon in 3D? I smell various sites inventing stories out of how Iron Man 2 "underperforms" in various ways come Monday. Shy of the movie making five bucks, there's no way in hell this movie will "underperform". The fat that could have been trimmed, according to others, lies in riffing that only truly wore out its welcome for me a couple of times. According to Favreau, Downey's style of acting is such that he hates repeating take after take". To wholesale throw it all out would eliminate the tone they established in the first film, which had its share of off-the-cuff takes too. If you get rid of all the marbling in a cut of meat, you're ditching the flavor. All these reviews that talk about whole scenes dedicated to Thor and Captain America references are inaccurate. I counted three. Yes, it runs long in places, and we feel it. The reason we do is that expectations have been raised so high that God himself couldn't surmount them. The gigantic pleasant surprise that was the first movie couldn't hope to be duplicated in emotion or sense of elevation. Where Iron Man 2 succeeds is in being a coherent, faithful next step in expanding the universe of the first film. The movie's primary storyline is firmly entrenched in how the U.S. government goes about checking and balancing Iron Man, the most advanced weapon in the world. The scenes that involve government agents (Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and others) are in service of this. Are there reference to The Avengers? Yes, of course there are, but they're minor at best to anyone outside of fans of the comic and aren't gratuitous since they're there in service of the story. To say they're irrelevant is to say "if I wrote my version of this script, it would go thus and so and include this superhero they should have used". The fanboy question that has been asked to death since the synopsis of the movie got out is "why didn't they do the Demon in a Bottle story from the comics?" For those who have no idea what that is, Demon was a story run of Iron Man that dealt with Stark's alcoholism, and it went really dark. It went darker-than-Dark Knight dark. It's considered the quintessential Iron Man storyline of any era. In interviews, Jon Favreau has referred to it as "Leaving Las Vegas territory". A guy wearing an Iron Man t-shirt asked Favreau at the Austin Fan Screening post-show Q&A why they didn't do "Demon in a Bottle". The funny thing is, they did incorporate a lot of "Demon", including a mix of booze and the suit with Stark in a public setting. The biggest roadblock Paramount set in their own path was cutting a trailer that touches on the best moments in every single action sequence. This sets people up to expect "boom, BOom, BOOM!" for the entire running time. Were audiences going in expecting more talkiness, I think the popular response wouldn't be peppered with the sigh-prefaced "it was o-k" that's started spreading.
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Greenlight Impossible: Oil Spill! directed by "Irwin Allen"

On Twitter today, I responded to a tweet from Indiewire's Eric Kohn, wherein he noted that today is the birthday of the following people: Orson Welles, George Clooney, Gabby Sidibe, Max Ophuls, and Sigmund Freud. I proposed the idea of these individuals possibly making up the best cast that could be imagined for an Irwin Allen-style 70's disaster movie (complete with exclamation mark). Thanks to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I have a perfect plot to be ripped from the headlines. I decided to waste some time writing about how I would envision Oil Spill! as made today. The expected major impediment to using all the listed people is, of course, that Welles, Freud, and Ophuls are long-dead. I've figured out a creative way around that that doesn't strain credibility any more than the idea for this piece (and potential series). Here's my spoiler-heavy summary of this will-never-be movie: Crisis hits the U.S. Gulf Coast region when a British Petroleum oil rig sinks and spills hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil. A luxury ocean liner based out of Cancun is stranded in the middle of the spill, with the world's great scientific minds onboard for a conference on renewable energy. Among a couple of thousand people are wunderkind chemical engineer/single mom Sandy Nichols (Gabby Sidibe) and Richard "Dick" McLanahan (George Clooney), the "drill baby drill" former oil man who is now President of the United States. The President was due to give a keynote speech on the viability of fossil fuels just minutes after the oil rig goes down. Making things worse, the oil around them ignites, creating a giant ring of flames. Further crisis strikes when food poisoning levels all the most brilliant minds in the world along with most of the crew. Among the few who didn't eat the fish at lunch are Sandy, President McLanahan, Michael Bay (playing himself and onboard for no apparent reason), and the expressionist filmmaker husband of the German chancellor (Inglourious Basterds' Sylvester Groth, who would look like Max Ophuls if bald). While searching the ship for a means of escape, they find a Colombian smuggler named Paco (Luis Guzman) watching over a cryogenic chamber in the cargo hold. Inside is none other than Sigmund Freud (Christian McKay as Orson Welles as Freud). During a very forced conversation full of questionable science, we discover that the oil spill can be contained through a controlled series of explosions. Bay interjects with "so what you're saying is...we've got to blow up the Gulf of Mexico. [pause] Mr. President, yes we Mexi-can." The problem is, they don't have the necessary explosives or air support to deliver the boom-boom in time to save everyone on the ship. Bay makes an offhanded reference to The President having been a former National Guardsman who flew a helicopter during the invasion of Panama (Clooney wears age makeup and plays older, roll with me here), but that's of no use until... They discover that there are both a massive smuggled shipment of C4 and a helicopter on the ship. President McLanahan starts having a panic attack. He hasn't flown since Panama due to his daughter and wife dying in a private jet crash. They have no choice but to unfreeze Freud, who is the only one who can get The President's head right in time to save everyone. Freud goes through a "so this is the future" discovery/awakening montage as they move the C4 from the bottom of the ship to the top. In a freak accident, Paco and Michael Bay are blown up when Bay rests a lighted cigarette too close to their bundle of C4 just as he says "fuck Titanic" while arguing with Paco about James Cameron's talent relative to Bay's. The resulting explosion blows a hole in the side of the ship, which begins to capsize and break in half at the same time. "Fuck Titanic" indeed. It's a race against physics for The President, Sandy, the German filmmaker, and Freud to get to the chopper in time. They finally get to the helipad, narrowly escaping electrical fires and the Bengal Tigers that Bay brought on board with him. It's a two-person chopper. The Germans sacrifice themselves valiantly at the last minute by pushing the helicopter off its moorings and staying on the ship. Insert gigantic megaton explosion and fish fry joke. After saving...not much of anyone but himself and the female lead, The President marries Sandy, symbolizing post-racial, post-body image America in one fell swoop. We close at a press conference with the Prime Minister of Great Britain (Stephen Fry) denouncing the President for blowing up/killing the greatest scientific minds of the world, since a rescue was on the way. The President declares war on Great Britain, citing a needed regime change. Cut to black, roll credits against AC/DC's "T.N.T.", with the first being a pseudonymous "An Irwin Allen II Film" credit for Roland Emmerich. This whole thing has been cooked up in less than an hour, but how much more ridiculous is it than sending oil drillers into space to save us from an asteroid?
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Flicka the Fifth

Flicka 2, which hits Walmart shelves exclusively today (4 May), is actually the fifth movie in the Flicka series, so I think a little recounting of that history should come first. The urge to groan about this being a DTV sequel to the remake of a 60+ year-old movie needs to be mitigated a bit. This is not remotely as bizarre an idea for a DVD-only sequel as is Marley and Me: The Terrible Twos (which is coming out soon).

Country legend Clint Black (l.) and Patrick Warburton (r.) in Flicka 2
The original My Friend Flicka, from 1943, featured a young boy with an out-of-place English accent (played by Roddy McDowell), whereas the do-over starred a post-adolescent, sassy young woman played by Alison Lohman. In both films, the spirit of a wild mustang inspires a young person to find focus and purpose in life. It's a theme often handled (badly) by The Hallmark Channel. I've always loved westerns, but since marrying an honest-to-goodness, barrel-racing cowgirl, I've watched enough plain ol' "horse people movies" to make most people sick. The original and the remake are tolerable and actually quite touching in places if you've ever had a connection to companion animal of any sort. The Flicka series was into sequels and rebooting over a half century before the 2006 remake happened. My Friend Flicka did very well financially, and two years later was followed by Thunderhead - Son of Flicka (1945). The sequel picked up with the same boy (again played by McDowell), now training the foal of his beloved Flicka to be a champion racehorse. It was shot in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah (a beauty to behold), and is notable for being the first American film shot completely on color 35mm negative. Three years later, Green Grass of Wyoming was cobbled together with a different actor playing the McDowell role in the same continuity. Thunderhead [COURTESY SPOILER ALERT] is causing headaches for ranchers by leading their brood mares off to join his mustang herd in the wild [END SPOILER]. GGoW was nominated for the Oscar for Best Color Cinematography, but didn't win. Fox released a three-movie slimpack set of the original Flicka trilogy a few years ago, which is now available from Amazon for $26.99. Ashley and I watched the three of them a couple of years ago, and they don't age so well as you go through them, but they're worth it if you dig Cinema du Cheval (Cinema of the Horse in my version of French). So, sequelization and brand exploitation are nothing new to the world of Flicka. Frankly, I'd rather the studios revive 60-year-old horse franchises than invent franchises out of board games. That doesn't change the fact that Flicka 2 is no better than the very best of cable TV movies. It isn't particularly compelling, nor is it horrible like the Zac Efron-starring The Derby Stallion. It simply "is" in a bland, inoffensive, and uncontroversial way. Flicka 2 takes place in the same continuity as the 2006 movie, but with a completely new cast of characters. Tammin Sursok (The Young and the Restless) plays Carrie, the skateboarding city girl cousin of the first movie's heroine. Her mom ditched Hank (Patrick Warburton) 17 years ago and high-tailed it for Pittsburgh when he got her pregnant. Carrie has been living with her grandmother since her mom died, and when grandma goes senile, Carrie is sent off to her dad's horse ranch in Wyoming. Carrie is captivated by the same mustang named Flicka, who now lives on Hank's ranch since the girl from the first movie went off to veterinary school. It bears mentioning that Flicka, who is supposed to be a mustang, is played in the film by an Arabian horse. With the exception of some dodgy digital photography here and there, the movie looks good. Sursok spent a couple of weeks learning to ride, according to one of the featurettes, and she is believable only in that her character isn't supposed to be a very proficient rider in the first place. She continues the tradition of 27-year-olds playing teenagers with aplomb. Warburton is the real standout here, getting to do something other than situation comedy for once (not that he doesn't earn a few laughs). When I caught his name on the press release I said, "why hasn't anyone used this guy in a western yet?" He's built and born for it. Warburton gets whatever "there" there is to be gotten here. The emotional undercurrent is all his, and without him, the movie would be just another husk. I wish we got to see him do work that really took advantage of his full range. Clint Black is in here as an incentive to buy for the target audience, but he's actually pretty damn agreeable. The supporting cast are mostly forgettable, especially the "cowboy" Carrie falls for. He's country-as-can-be until he gets a guitar in his hand and starts singing in John Mayer mode. Michael Damian (yes, the soap actor and singer) makes this his second "horse movie" after the Don Johnson-starring Moondance Alexander. He even sings on the soundtrack. I'm really sorry that his name immediately brings two things to mind: a Patton Oswalt comedy routine and his less-than-stellar turn in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He's got a solid gig going here, and I can say his horsey flicks are much better than the sea of others in the same vein. Regardless, I wish people were making good movies involving horses. I miss The West.
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I Have No Time, But I Must Screen (Vol. 3): In Spaaace


Ah, Apollo 13. The picture and audio are substantive upgrades over DVD, with minor edge enhancement and noise in places. There aren't any new extras to speak of, with the exception of some "U-Control" bits. If you love the movie, it's a very worthy upgrade ($16.99 at Amazon). Screencap from DVD Beaver's piece.

As much-praised as Apollo 13 is (and rightfully so, I think), to be honest, I'll probably end up re-watching Armageddon more often. Screencaps taken from DVD Beaver's as-always wonderful writeup. Am I ashamed that I don't hate Armageddon with every fiber of my being? No, not at all. I relish the ridiculousness of the whole thing. I do actively dislike Michael Bay for his portrayal of modern-day Cuba as not unlike the capitalist paradise of Miami in Bad Boys II. I hate Leni Riefenstahl and D.W. Griffith, but I still marvel at the craft of their propaganda. Bay's thrust as a progangadist is rooted in the commercial sheen of, as Trey Parker and Matt Stone put it, "America, FUCK YEAH". Watching this in light of the recent catastrophic (and getting worse) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is rather off-putting, not unlike the 2012 DVD hitting rather close to the Chilean earthquake. Where are our miracle genius oil drillers?

The Armageddon transfer is absolutely stellar, and it should be, since they had to create a new negative from other existing elements since the original was apparently destroyed in a fire (no loss to most). The Criterion 2-disc DVD edition is the one with all the goodies, so hang on to it. Disney would have been wise to license everything for use on this release (a bit much at $19.99 on Amazon).
When I need to convey some thoughts about a few DVD or Blu-ray releases but don't have time nor you the need of 1000 words of filler, I compile thoughts in these entries. The title of I Have No Time, But I Must Screen is shamelessly adapted from the great Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, a wonderful collection of fiction that I consider one of my favorites. Amazon offers it in Analog Paper format for just under $11.
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Preach

Warner Premiere's Preacher's Kid (this Tuesday, 4 May) is an interesting look inside gospel theater and African American churchgoing culture for those unfamiliar with either. Unlike most faith-based features, it eschews an overly-simplistic, reverent-to-a-fault tone toward "the church life". This is despite the fact that the movie was clearly heavily-influenced by the parable of the Prodigal Son. I'm not certain the behind the scenes story of gospel theater has been told at all until now, and PK does it quite well indeed.

PK stars LeToya Luckett as Angie, the titular 21-year-old Preacher's Kid who lives at home to take care of her preacher dad after her mother's death. She has the voice of an angel and is devoted to her religion, but the Great Temptation of show business draws her away from the safety of home. Luckett was one of the original members of Destiny's Child who was unceremoniously dumped from the group by Beyonce's dad-manager. A touring gospel theater show called Daddy Can I Come Back Home? comes to town and the bad boy star gets his hooks into her. The name of and nature of the show-within-the-show is a bit on the nose, but if anything, the movie stands fine on its own for its primary audience (black gospel churchgoers) just as much as it is an accessible look at this culture to outsiders. Then again, who knows if white folk will dare pick this up in the video store, preferring instead to queue it through the anonymity of Netflix.

I'm not black, nor was I a regular churchgoer in my youth, but I had a lot of exposure to this world when I was younger. I don't share the abject hatred of Tyler Perry films like the sea of pale-skinned male movie bloggers that overwhelm the press sections at screenings across the country. The corrupted-by-showbiz story in movies is as old as talkies, and this is a really solid reworking of the theme. What will probably surprise white people more than the sheer number of black people on screen is the amount of physical and psychological violence perpetrated on the heroine by the man who injects a healthy amount of Stockholm Syndrome into his relationship with Angie.

I was glad to find Gregalan Williams in PK as Angie's preacher pop and likewise Ella Joyce as the enthusiastic church patron with more than a passing romantic interest in the widower preacher. Williams does a great deal of TV work and appeared briefly in Olver Stone's W. as an evangelical preacher. Joyce is best remembered by the geek set as the Nurse with the cream in Bubba Ho-Tep. She's a woefully under-used actress with loads of talent, and like Williams, I wish we got to see more of her.

The entire supporting cast is very strong and convincing. It's not often that someone credited as a character named "Biscuit" steals the show, but Carlos Davis really knocks it out of the park as the bus driver who takes on the role of a Madea-alike auntie in the show. He really makes the most of every minute he's given. In all seriousness, I would gladly watch an 85-minute feature about the long-suffering Biscuit the Bus Driver. I would watch this guy headline anything, he's overfull with charisma. The sense of exaggeration and intentional self-parody found in gospel theater only extends to the drama of the movie in a limited sense, with respect to the show-within-the-show echoing Angie's journey. Of course, jumping to the other side of the racial divide, how much did that hurt Moulin Rouge? Even with a plot template that has been re-used more than the Hero With a Thousand Faces "warrior-quest" story theorized by Joseph Campbell, Preacher's Kid manages to stand out. The energy and sense of jubilation existent in black churches is quite simply unparalleled, and PK taps this energy effectively and accessibly. If you aren't into this kind of story, then you're not into what this movie has to offer, plain and simple. Racial identification and religious similarity aren't required, I should note. The protagonist is who she is, but people with other beliefs and motivations are judged by the filmmaker only in their selfish versus selfless interests. The Blu-ray includes four featurettes and some additional footage, with a DVD/Digital Copy disc as well. The DVD-only edition has the additional footage and that's it. The Blu-ray is a bit steep at $26.99 over on Amazon.
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"Send More Chuck Berry"

I took a chance on an email I got from a publicist and asked for a review copy of a music doc called The Heart is a Drum Machine sight-unseen. I did this on the credit of the participation of Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips), Elijah Wood, Kurt Loder, and George Clinton, among various others.

The movie is a talking head meditation on the nature of music: what it is, where it comes from, and where it's going. It's really well-edited in context with what it's going for, but it's not for everyone. You get into people expounding philosophically about the work of Carl Sagan. You have to be able to get the vibe and just let its 73 minutes roll. It's pretty goddamned groovy, honestly. No, you don't have to be high to dig it (I wasn't), but I'm sure there are some who would say you do. Hell, some of the people who appear probably were high, who knows. A gigantic bonus is Tea Party wingnut Victoria Jackson singing a song about how she was worried that going to see a movie with Weird Al Yankovic during the filming of UHF would be a sin (she was married at the time). A cover of "Rocket Man" done by The Flaming Lips' Steven Drozd (who did the doc's score) and Tool's Maynard James Keenan runs over the credits. I wish it were available for purchase. It's available for order from Amazon for $16.99. Extras include a 25-minute interview with John Frusciante, who is best known as the guitarist for The Red Hot Chili Peppers on their biggest studio records.
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I Have No Time, But I Must Screen (Volume 2)

The below screencaps are all taken from the DVD flipside of the recent Blu/DVD combo versions of these films.

Out of Africa: Streep, Redford, and Pollack. Even having never seen this projected, I'm still not impressed. This looks like another rush-job. The movie itself doesn't bore me, but I have more patience than most. Extras include Pollack commentary, feature doc, deleted scenes and assorted other things. $17.99 at Amazon...yikes. A burn in every sense!

Today on "Keep Your Criterion DVD", we have Steven Soderbergh's Traffic. The transfer is hard to objectively pin as great or "could be better" due to the highly-stylized color palette used in different segments. To my eye, it's solid, properly grainy (low DNR), and uniformly improves on the detail present in Criterion's DVD edition, which has all the extras missing from Universal's new Blu-ray. They should have licensed everything like they did on Do the Right Thing. They did include 24 deleted scenes and the Inside Traffic featurette. Also $17.99 at Amazon currently. Yikes 2: The Revenge.

The Jackal, from Bruce Willis' Funny Wig Period. I don't know anyone who would pay $17.99 for this.
When I need to convey some thoughts about a few DVD or Blu-ray releases but don't have time nor you the need of 1000 words of filler, I compile thoughts in these entries. The title of I Have No Time, But I Must Screen is shamelessly adapted from the great Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, a wonderful collection of fiction that I consider one of my favorites. Amazon offers it in Analog Paper format for just under $11.
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Trying Out the Gold Class Experience

A new cinema-and-cocktails concept is opening in Austin this weekend. I'm attending the Open House event later today. Gold Class Cinemas is being pitched as not unlike flying first class, and with $29 ticket prices, they certainly are after the luxury market only. No mallrats, cinephiles, or hip-hopsters welcome, just clean-cut, homogenized upper class whites. Forgive me in advance, but the below video makes it seem like lapdances are involved: One location already exists in Beverly Hills, and originates in Australia, where the ads feature nothing but white people. The Austin location is showing the following movies on its opening weekend (starting next Thursday the 6th): Clash of the Titans 3D Date Night Death at a Funeral Iron Man 2 Kick-Ass The Back-Up Plan The Losers From the Gold Class website: "Gold Class Cinema shows the top new commercial movie releases and blockbusters in the latest digital projection, including RealD 3D, with super-wide screens and digital sound. Most Gold Class Cinemas are the size of a standard 150 seat movie theater, however, with 40 or less seats. The difference is a fully reclining plush chair and slightly lighted table for your food and drink. Gold Class provides an intimate, gold-standard experience; it's like watching a movie in a private screening room."
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Old Nightmare

I could never be mistaken for a gorehound. The only kind of horror I'm actively into is suspense horror, and only in measured doses. Call me a weakling if you will, but blood and guts have never been my thing.

Not a screencap and not representative of the blue-hue I mention below.
That said, I've always dug the concept behind the Nightmare on Elm Street series if not every entry in it. So sue me, I really dig the hell out of New Nightmare. The original Elm Street hit Blu-ray a couple of weeks ago and I'm only just getting to it. The transfer is the big deal here (in a good way), even though it's a bit cool, with dark scenes coming off a little blue-toned. This could just as easily be the fault of the actual projected look of the movie on film as it could be VC-1 as the video encoder used. Either way, it's only a minor note on an otherwise grain-appropriate, clean, and even transfer of a 26-year-old movie. The audio upgrade to DTS-Master HD 7.1 is the real wowzer here. As someone who has only ever experienced the movie on home video or cable (there are a few generations of us now), I'd consider this a definitive release of the title, complete with the extras (2 commentaries, 3 featurettes, alternate endings, in-movie focus points, and interactive trivia track). Amazon's $16.99 asking price includes a movie cash voucher for this weekend's remake/reboot that's gotten tons of disastrous reviews.
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Blue Eyes Blu

The reasons to drop a few bills on Warner's forthcoming (4th May) Blu-ray book edition of Doctor Zhivago are the video and audio upgrades, which are absolutely stellar. Color depth is noticeably richer than DVD, especially in Julie Christie's striking blue eyes. Contrast and detail are also greatly benefitted by the huge jump in picture resolution found in the 8K scan Warner did of the original negative for this new edition. This has joined The African Queen as one of the most impressive catalog color transfers of the year.

I watch Zhivago at least once a year, if not twice. The same goes for David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. My fondness for re-watching is why I miss the Isolated Score track that was dropped in the evolution from DVD to Blu. Aside from that, the extras from WB's 2001-vintage DVD Special Edition have been retained on a second disc (a standard-def DVD) identical to disc 2 from the previous set.

The extras DVD in the front cover of the "book".
Some may cry foul that "disc 2" isn't a Blu-ray disc, but I'm glad the release is absent the additional cost of remastering extras for HD (some of which wouldn't have looked any better regardless). In addition to that, they've put together a new two-"act" retrospective talking heads piece that includes Nicholas Meyer and Martin Campbell among others. I'd watch the held-over extras more than once, but this is a one-viewing thing for me.

The beginning of the 50-page built-into-the-case booklet.

David Lean

The feature disc, which includes the movie, commentary, and the 2-part, 40-minute Anniversary featurette.
Amazon is selling the Blu-ray for $28.99, which will probably drop in price the week of release (next week), so fear not in pre-ordering since Amazon's price guarantee will be in effect. There's a DVD version of this 45th Anniversary Edition for around $22, but anyone who's been reading this for a while knows how I feel about DVDs when equivalent Blu-rays are out. WB is also making Zhivago available On Demand from Amazon and for Download from iTunes (links taken from the official site).

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Basil of Baker Street

Disney re-issued The Great Mouse Detective on DVD two weeks ago with only a couple of new extras (a game and a promo for a TV show I know nothing about). I had never seen the movie, but am an avowed Sherlock Holmes obsessive, so I'd always had interest. My wife informs me that as a member of my generation, I must have not had a childhood and grown up under a rock to have missed it. I've also never seen The Goonies. Yes, I know. I'm still trying to determine what, precisely, is wrong with me.

Vincent Price's Professor Ratigan, the reason to watch the movie.
I was delighted to find out that Vincent Price voiced the villain (which I knew but had forgotten), and even more than that, I was thrilled to find this Disney movie was decidedly scary, dark and weird. That said, it didn't really light me on fire, and mind, this comes from a guy who watches The Little Mermaid for fun every once in a while. I had an added desire to see this after seeing Waking Sleeping Beauty, the wonderful doc about this era of Disney history, at SXSW. The carried-over extras include a making-of piece that has some generous minutes with Price, one of the icons among icons for me. The transfer isn't touted as nor does it appear to be any different than the previous one. Amazon has the re-un-vaulted Mouse Detective for a mere $12.

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Alamo Shakeup

http://blog.originalalamo.com/2010/04/29/cue-the-end-of-queues-the-alamo-is-doing-away-with-lines-before-movies/
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Big Blue Bucks

Avatar has sold more home video-ness than anything ever. With my in-laws visiting, I put it on over the weekend to get a look at the opening half hour. They asked me to leave it on. They were hooked. The visuals were impressive even without the third dimension. To my wife's utter shock, her mother was the one saying "no, leave it on, this is neat."

They never went to see it theatrically (much less in 3D), and found it to be "pretty good, but I mean, not Best Picture of the year or anything". It just goes to show that spectacle is spectacle, regardless of added dimension. Even my wife, who refused to watch it in theaters in staunch defense of practical visual effects, grudgingly admitted it was pretty good, better than she expected. She added very firmly that it's "nowhere near as good as The Hurt Locker" and that the idea of a sequel sickens her. She has no desire for a second chapter. My favorite part of the existing Blu-ray release is that there's no advertising anywhere on the disc. Not pre-empting the feature, not buried in a menu, nada. They were upfront about supplemental material coming, but it'll take time. This lets you rent it if you just want to watch it before the end of the year, and buy it if you don't give a crap about extras (which is most of the general public).
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Wrecked

Everything I was planning to post yesterday and today was thrown into upheaval when I spun out on a slick road and skid backward 40-50 yards, narrowly missing a violent slam into a tree yesterday. I'm a bit banged up but otherwise fine, just sluggish from pain meds. The worst part was that not a single person stopped to offer help. We live in a country of unfriendliness. Posting should resume as normal on Monday, including my assessment of Criterion's Stagecoach, some Ozu bits, and a stack of backdated disc reviews. Back to bed.
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King of the Home Video World

From an Entertainment Weekly article, direct word from James Cameron about the Avatar Blu-ray I've got sitting on my desk: "There's zero extras! There's so few extras that you put it in, you push play, and the movie starts. There are no trailers, there's no bullshit at the beginning that you have to endlessly go through. I have a deal with the studio and it goes like this: Any movie I make that makes over a billion dollars goes out without a bunch of crap trailers for your other movies." I frankly approve of the upfront bluntness as to why there are no extras on this release. It makes sense, and it's not like they're pretending this is the only one ever and then surprise everyone with another edition later. He's laid out the roadmap.
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512: Godard's 4th, Vivre sa vie

Another wonderful work from Jean-Luc Godard is added to the Criterion inventory, and the Blu-ray of Vivre sa vie (available from yesterday, 20 April) is yet another credit to their name in the black & white HD transfer field. The 12-tableux tale of Nana the would-be actress, does-become prostitute (Anna Karina) is brusque and captivating, and there's yet to be a half-decent US release until now. Indelibly classic moments like Nana's dance in the pool hall and her solo viewing of Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc are now easy to find and experience for anyone.

The commentary track references Ophuls' Lola Montes (currently available from Criterion), a movie about a once free spirit now caged. Vivre sa vie deals very much in themes of imprisonment, but in contrast to Lola's predicament, Nana is jailed out in the open, unfettered. Nana continues trying to escape, only to plunge further into a labyrinth.

The 2001-recorded commentary track by scholar Adrian Martin is informative and clips right along with the 83-minute feature. The bits where he touches on the real-life strains in the marriage between Karina and Godard were particularly interesting to hear just a couple of months after working my way through Criterion's now-out-of-print Pierrot le fou disc. The supplements paired with the feature are really rather ingenious, from the 2004 video interview with scholar Jean Narboni (conducted by historian Noel Simsolo) to a 1961-recorded one with Karina to excerpts from a 1961 French TV special on prostitution. I'm not going to act like the names of the two scholars were familiar to me, since I had to look them up. Narboni appeared as an actor in Godard's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (which I regret missing when it screened in Austin last summer) and as himself in Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinemateque. Simsolo appeared in Godard's In Praise of Love (1999) and has written volumes and volumes on many directors, from Hitchcock to Sacha Guitry (an Eclipse set of Guitry work is coming in July). Both men have contributed plenty of critical writing about the man. Their chat is insightful and interesting.

The vintage interview with Karina from Cinepanorama is fascinating, again, relative to my viewing of a much more recently-recorded one on the Pierrot release. As much as one would assume an artist would hold back or talk about people differently at one point than four or five decades later, Karina's demeanor and candor are surprisingly similar, with only minor revelations discovered after the passage of time. I'd consider it an interesting juxtaposition to chronologically watch Vivre and Pierrot and then the respective supplemental interviews. The prostitution TV special and the illustrated essay on the book that inspired the film (La Prostitution) are among the most unique and brillianty-paired supplements on recent releases. That isn't to downplay the work done on other titles, but rather, to highlight how ingenious and surprising Criterion can be even relative to their rich track record. The booklet foregoes a lengthy modern critical essay in favor of a short one from Michael Atkinson paired with vintage writing. It comes off like a masterfully-planned, multi-course literary feast. Amazon is selling the Blu-ray edition for $29.99. I hope very much that the reverse chronological order we've seen Criterion release Godard's films on Blu-ray indicates that we can soon see Band of Outsiders and Breathless upgrades. The latter's restored print is currently touring the US.
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Re-encoded Rogue Waves

Adding more balance to the library of disaster films on Blu-ray, Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon hit the format last week. The digital seams are as visible as on any format thus far. The Pete Hammond quote ("A nonstop action film that doesn't come up for air.") remains intact as well, thankfully. I only watched segments of the movie, but it looks pretty solid all-around. More noticeable is the gigantic audio boost from the DTS-HD Master track. Emmy Rossum grates more than she did a few years ago. DVD extras are also carried over, including a History Channel doc about Rogue Waves. The junket for this remake of The Poseidon Adventure is where a writer got the scoop of the decade from Kurt Russell.
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