Film Intuition: Review Database

Blu-ray Review: West Side Story (1961) -- 50th Anniversary Edition

2011-12-11T16:57:00.001-07:00

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It wasn’t until the theatrical release of The Sound of Music that West Side Story filmmaker (and Citizen Kane editor) Robert Wise asked audiences how to “solve a problem like Maria.”

Yet roughly twenty years earlier, Wise’s West Side co-director Jerome Robbins was asked to solve the problem of the man who would become the lover of the Story’s heroine – also named Maria – when a frustrated friend knocked on the legendary choreographer’s door, struggling with an acting class assignment of how to bring Romeo Montague to life.

And while it’s never been proven that the “friend” in question was none other than Montgomery Clift*, given the way that West Side Story seems to transcend the musical genre, it’s not surprising to discover that the person who lit the creative match for a contemporary take on Shakespeare’s "star-cross’d" tragedy wasn’t even a song and dance man himself.

Of course, rhythm and movement was Robbins’ stock in trade so he turned to other avant-garde artists in the field – eager to push the boundaries of what the American stage musical was in the middle of the twentieth century to make something unlike anything that had been executed before.

To carry it out, Robbins made a wise decision to enlist the help of playwright Arthur Laurents, whose interest in social consciousness and the human struggles of everyday life naturally lent itself to the contemporary handling of the material.

In doing so, Laurents traded in the Bard’s poison of deadly potions to vengeful prejudice sweeping the streets of New York City instead of Fair Verona where he laid the scene of two street gangs (the white “Jets” verses the Puerto Rican “Sharks”) both alike in desperation when an interracial romance between Shark sister Maria (Natalie Wood) and inactive Jet (Richard Beymer) gets in the way of territorial war.

While it’s hard to imagine West Side Story with any one element from music to lyrics to dance to drama removed, it’s amazing to mentally break down the work involved and admire just how ambitious Robbins’ and company were to choreograph steps to that score with just the right lyrics to move the dramatic plot forward.

A triumphant collaboration that began with a core team of four including Robbins, Laurents, master maestro Leonard Bernstein and wit plus grit poetic lyricist Stephen Sondheim, when West Side Story moved from stage to screen, editor turned director Robert Wise and award-winning scripter Ernest Lehman were added to the mix.

Anchored by composer Leonard Bernstein’s daring score which married the sound of smoke filled jazz clubs with the sweet sounding perfection of symphony hall -- the staggering soundtrack jumps octaves and time-signatures every few measures.

And similar to the way that the poetic language of Romeo stays with us the most, in a musical fusion blend of sight and sound, Story adapts and transforms the poetic language of the Bard’s iambic pentameter to do the same by giving off the impression of spontaneous improvisation in all areas including song, dance and free-flowing camera movement.

Given that the sound level of the music was always a point of contention for Bernstein – considering his famous dislike of the triple sized orchestra used to record the score to rather unsubtle effect – it’s safe to say that he may not have been overjoyed by the overwhelming and at times downright ostentatious 7.1 high definition audio track on the film’s 50th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray debut.

Drowning out everything from some of the individual singers to the overall dialogue, even though the theater-level soundtrack tends to blast you out of your chair more often than you’d like in countless efforts to scramble for the volume control, the sheer majesty of this Criterion quality, scratch and flaw free pristine 1080 pixel image resolution will leave you speechless.

Giving other MGM/Fox Blu-ray transfers a run for their money, from Story era classics like Sound of Music to Fiddler on the Roof to contemporary classics like Moulin Rouge!, this three-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack is a must-own musical collection, complete with a fascinating Memories documentary (roughly ten years old) that includes vintage footage and rare clips and recordings including pretty if underwhelming performances of beloved tunes by Natalie Wood herself.

While the topic of prejudice will never stop being vital to us, 1961’s ten-time Oscar winner West Side Story is a vibrant reminder of just how important it is to teach the next generation lessons of acceptance and diversity before they learn them on the street whether it’s on the Broadway stage, on the page with the Bard or with a Blu-ray player hooked up to a HD screen.

*Source: Music on Film: West Side Story by Barry Monush

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Shanghai Mystery (2006) aka Shanghai Red

2011-12-04T16:55:00.001-07:00

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Original 2006 Theatrical Title: Shanghai Red

As the old saying goes, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” and this becomes a main theme that serves writer/director Oscar Luis Costo well in his intriguing albeit sluggish Shanghai-set mood piece Shanghai Mystery, where the adage is utilized again and again.

Unfortunately by settling for a storyline that’s only faintly mysterious rather than a full-out Shanghai Mystery, from a viewer perspective, this clichéd piece of wisdom comes back to haunt us with the realization that even though we’re set up with a titular mystery, the genre-promise established by the opening credits disappears long before we reach the conclusion.

While we’re led to believe that if we remain patient we’ll eventually unmask the villain responsible for the murder of her husband, that’s quickly put on the back burner in favor of an emotional/psychological look at Vivian Wu’s conflicted character, who spends a majority of the film narrating the chronologically challenged tale to the audience through a jailhouse interview device.

Despite its shortcomings, it’s a sophisticated star vehicle for Costo’s wife Vivian Wu, who also serves as a producer of the largely subtitled film, co-starring Desperate Housewives ensemble actor Richard Burgi.

Is our gun-toting lady in red a heroine pushed too far in her role as a single mother or in her double life as a part-time vengeance seeking antiheroic assassin aiming to gun down the man who made her a widow?

Best described as an unlikely Film Noir inspired cross between Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita and Zhang Yimou’s 1990 neorealist period, though it’s quite stylishly made from a technical standpoint, Shanghai Mystery is tonally uneven, frustratingly paced and oddly structured.

Anticlimactic if fascinating on the most basic level, Costo’s Shanghai Mystery begins with more promise than a great title alone due to its terrific starting point that could’ve been used as a building block to one solid gender-reversal Neo-Noir thriller that refreshingly places a woman in a role traditionally reserved for a man.

An unusual Mystery that's missing a mystery beyond one inviting us to question where the mystery went and if it got lost in translation in a film, though Shanghai spirals out of control by trying to be too many genres for too many people, its biggest misstep relates to character rather than plot.

Wooden stock characters may abound as is the case in Noir flavored film but Shanghai shanghais us completely by drastically changing Wu’s characterization via an upsetting revelation that occurs late in the game, which not only makes it hard to sympathize with her but seemingly comes out of nowhere.

Richly atmospheric and undeniably ambitious, though it misses the mark as a traditional or existential mystery by not knowing the potential of the plot until the mystery was gone, Costo’s otherwise bold effort remains impressive on a filmmaking level, boasting crisp cinematography and lush production values executed by those working behind the scenes.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on DVD Review: Luther -- Series 2 (2011) aka Luther 2

2011-12-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

Those who’ve had many small screen encounters with police procedurals of the British kind might be quick to assume that Luther series creator Neil Cross drew inspiration from similar sociological and psychologically fixated programs such as Murphy’s Law, Blue Murder, Prime Suspect and Cracker.

Yet the roots for the eponymous brilliant but obsessive Detective Chief Inspector embodied by actor Idris Elba (HBO’s The Wire) are far more diverse than you’d suspect as Cross’s inspiration was half-literary and half-Yankee.

Initially impressed by the “elementary” yet elegant logically based deductive reasoning techniques by Sherlock Holmes, Cross derived pop-culture wisdom to balance out the scales of Holmesian good for Elba’s albeit somewhat antiheroic character with the “inverted detective format” evidenced on the iconic USA smash series Columbo by openly revealing the evil perpetrator but not the means with which he’ll be caught.

Therefore, rather than spend an inordinate amount of time on Poirot-style drawing-room explanatory speeches that link the crook to the crime for the case’s final solution, we become part of the mystery itself as a vicarious member of Luther’s cast-of-characters.

By switching our point-of-view from one side to the other a la Hitchcock’s Psycho or Rope, we’re forced to see the events through the eyes of the murderous perpetrator, wanting to shout clues to Luther from our family room, hoping there’s enough evidence to keep the criminal in custody more than a mere matter of hours.

Thus, we’re put on edge and pushed to participate in case building as opposed to case solving – engaging parts of our brain we seldom use as TV viewers while trying to figure out (right along with Luther) how to piece together the clues to construct a solid case rather than a circumstantial or coincidental house of cards.

It’s an enviable and intelligent feat all around, making the second series of the acclaimed and award-nominated show an addictive addition to your sleuths-of-the-small-screen collection.

And as such, by clocking in at just four hours and dividing the season’s two masterful two-hour mysteries into four episodes transferred to two BBC DVDs – Luther justifies my sole piece of criticism that it’s much too good to be much too short.

Unlike Prime Suspect which at times could drag out each individual case far too long as Helen Mirren doggedly chased every single red-herring, because there are so many subplots including those unrelated to a given case, at times Luther’s running-time runs out before we catch up with all of the drama going on off-the-beat.

Despite the fact that I hadn’t seen the first series and was therefore unable to piece together some of the back-stories, the emotions are so strong and the mysteries so engrossing that I didn’t need to view in numerical order to find myself wanting to knock it out in a marathon day of viewing.

Intense and supremely well-acted by its ensemble cast – led by Elba’s multiple award-nominated powerhouse performance – not only will Sherlock and Columbo enthusiasts enjoy Luther, I dare say that in an alternate universe of fictional characters, the sleuths themselves would’ve found the coppers’ complicated, code-filled, identity-skewed Serious and Serial Crimes thrilling to comprehend as well.

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Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Winnie the Pooh (2011)

2011-11-07T12:21:00.001-07:00

Now Available to Own

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As our new Pooh series narrator John Cleese informs us, Christopher Robin not only possesses a very active imagination but he also has an uncanny ability to collect things, including the charming and eccentric cast of stuffed animal characters that audiences treasure right along with Christopher Robin as well.

But when pieces of his favorite collection go missing, Christopher and Pooh know that there’s no better person to turn to than their friend Owl given his talent for telling the rest of Hundred Acre Wood’s lovable residents what to do.

Offering a pot of delicious honey as a reward to the individual that’s first to succeed in locating Eeyrore’s missing tail or finding a promising replacement, Owl inspires the group to begin dividing into search parties with the ultimate goal of tracking down an appendage worthy of being used to pin the tail on the donkey.

And when the first adventure spirals off into a second one, imaginations go into overdrive after Christopher Robin’s hastily written note sends Rabbit into a paranoid frenzy, enlisting others – on the strength of what may be a simple spelling error and misunderstanding -- to set a trap to catch a mysterious creature suspected of kidnapping their poor human pal.

A refreshingly wholesome – not to mention thoroughly un-cynical animated work free of trendy pop culture references and enough sneaked-in double entendres to keep the parents awake – Winnie the Pooh serves as a high-quality, palette cleansing antidote to 3D overload children’s fare.

Yes, some of the new character voices may take some getting used to, particularly in the case of Tigger, who is not only saddled with a different rhythm but an uncharacteristic lack of charm as well, coming across as a hyper child with a millisecond-long attention span instead of the jumping, laughing Tigger we all remember.

Nonetheless, the new Disney film remains impressive and fortunately, it’s fairly easy to overlook a few out-of-place annoyances due to the swift pace and emphasis on ensemble storytelling.

And although Zooey Deschanel’s soothing Judy Garland-esque sunny vocals shine sublimely well in the high definition Blu-ray’s 5.1 surround sound audio field, overall the traditional artistic framing of scenes with hand drawn sketches make the DVD version roughly on par with the HD disc available in the money saving combo pack.

But while it’s hard to justify the extra expense for the Blu-ray format only with the realization that Pooh clocks in with an extremely succinct running time of just 62 minutes, the thoroughly enjoyable picture is ideally suited for the small screen, offering enthusiastic parents and caregivers a terrific opportunity to introduce the silly and sensitive bear to young audience members of a new generation.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Faces in the Crowd (2011)

2011-11-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

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Oscar nominated French filmmaker Julien Magnat (student short: The All-New Adventures of Chastity Blade) makes his ambitious if ultimately awkward English language feature debut with this clunky thriller that destroys the promise of its clever premise with logic that’s so laughable that it leaves holes big enough to drive the strained script through.

Bolstered by a solidly constructed foundation and anchored by the commitment and conviction shown by actress Milla Jovovich’s strong performance, writer/director Magnat’s easily predictable yet uneasy serial killer mystery is unfortunately bogged down by a crowd of unlikable characters – most of whom behave in the most mind-bogglingly bizarre ways throughout.

Although she manages to survive her wrong place/wrong time encounter with multiple murderer Tearjerk Jack – becoming the case’s first official living witness who’s seen the blade wielding psychopath – Jovovich’s sweet schoolteacher discovers that instead of mere Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, she’s developed Prosopagnosia or Face Blindness, making the faces of friends, lovers and strangers all swirl together in an unrecognizable blur.

Facing an uncertain fate with the realization that the killer could be right in front of her at any given moment with the cool confidence that the heroine wouldn’t know him from Adam (or actually anyone), although Magnat’s movie offers a smart twist on the blind terror subgenre best epitomized by the classic chiller Wait Until Dark, Faces in the Crowd never fully pays off on the plotline he’s attempted to set-up.

From failing to make us believe that the only viable lead to catching a serial killer wouldn’t qualify for police protection because of paperwork to sending our heroine out to meet an estranged lover late at night after she’d been purposely placed in hiding, Magnat distracts us from his ingenious premise with illogical behavior and an alarming lack of common sense.

Moving beyond out-of-character behavior to flat out idiocy, although it’s ripe for rotation on Lifetime as a woman-in-peril thriller, Faces in the Crowd may also have a future as RiffTrax fodder in the future as we endure all types of head-scratching moments from start-to-finish.

While Faces is several steps above a run-of-the-mill made-for-TV mystery, mostly due to a strong emotive turn by Jovovich who keeps getting better with each and every role, sadly when you place Magnat’s picture alongside other English language feature debuts – much like a room of faces in the onscreen crowd – our memory of it will be little more than a blur.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

2011-11-03T15:55:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

The first film of the franchise that I’ve seen since taking in the official first film of the multibillion dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, On Stranger Tides is another efficiently made supernatural, seafaring swashbuckler.

As opposed to being swept away by a sea of convoluted chaotic subplots, Stranger sets its sails early on in the first act to ensure we don’t get shipwrecked by too many competing storylines.

Inspired by the titular novel by Tides scribe Tim Powers, screenwriters Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott put the lessons learned by the Caribbean trilogy to good use, boldly dropping old faces to go-fish for new cast-mates that aid in a standalone James Bond like sequel feel which isn’t overly dependent on Pirates pictures of the past.

Yet the supporting cast is called supportive for a reason as – even when it takes the form of two-time Oscar winner Penelope Cruz and Deadwood scene-stealer Ian McShane – there’s no denying that the treasure viewers prize the most is the mischievous wit and rebellion embodied by Johnny Depp’s now-iconic “if Keith Richards had a love child with Jim Morrison” cool rock ‘n roll mojo fueled performance as laidback pirate Jack Sparrow.

After Sparrow finds himself face-to-face, tale-to-tale, and sword-to-sword with an old-flame turned crafty con-woman Angelica (Cruz), he’s enlisted to undertake a dangerous adventure that tests his alliances between love and greed as well as life and death when Angelica and her deceitful Blackbeard father (McShane) force Sparrow to track down Ponce de Leon’s legendary Fountain of Youth.

Venturing to uncover the booty before the expeditions of other countries and old rivals such as Geoffrey Rush’s Barbosa beat the pirate to the punch, Sparrow must survive mermaids of the Jaws rather than Splash variety, Butch Cassidy worthy cliff-terrain, and a few Princess Bride-esque double crosses and shape-shifting twists of plot and character alike in a bloated yet entertainingly busy 136 minute running time.

Although the relative emphasis on less-is-more simplicity is more blessing than curse in stark contrast to other Jerry Bruckheimer everything-and-the-kitchen sink nonsensical hundred million dollar plus CG-heavy live action video games including Prince of Persia and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Stranger Tides still feels slightly formulaic for all of the talent involved.

A spirited old fashioned romp, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is nonetheless sure to earn the “That’s Swashbuckling Entertainment” Errol Flynn seal of approval, which – after the release of former Disney owned Miramax execs Harvey and Bob Weinstein’s Scream 4 – easily makes it the most enjoyable fourth installment of 2011.

Appealing to those who particularly partial to the first picture, Stranger Tides additionally benefits from the fiery interplay of Depp and Cruz which is spotlighted nicely by new franchise helmer Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) along with the gorgeously rich imagery of Disney’s superlatively transferred Blu-ray Combo Pack edition.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Phase 7 (2011)

2011-11-03T15:36:00.001-07:00

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Intended as a comedic horror allegory of the state of irrational paranoia as well as genuine fear surrounding the Swine Flu epidemic that terrified the globe a few years back – writer/director Nicolas Goldbart’s Argentine import Phase 7 is proof that anything can inspire filmmakers to serve up a new twist on an old genre.

A revisionist western, a dark comedy, an exploitative work of psychological exploration, a gory medical satire or a Sergio Leone meets John Carpenter play on Shaun of the Dead divided by [Rec] times 28 Days Later – whichever way you choose to dissect Goldbart’s motion picture oddity, it’s safe to say you’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

Overly ambitious and admittedly flawed, because Phase 7 is fueled by the novelty of its inventive premise that finds its leads involuntarily quarantined in their apartment following a disease outbreak, it starts to run out of gas relatively quickly after we pass the no-return point of the first act.

Unable to compel us for the length of its succinct running time as something other than a thin helping of popcorn entertainment that refreshingly does inspire its audience to think more than average gory action fare. Namely, before Phase 7 settles in fully as a Swine Flu allegory, the word-of-mouth crossover film festival hit from a Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 executive producer also fascinates as a work of political daring.

Given some subtle editing tricks that intercut key news footage at certain times and various supporting players in the UN like apartment building, it’s easy to view 7 as a possible consumerist parable or a Big Brother foreign policy fable in the post Bush I (and Bush II) world, making Goldbart’s film that much more appealing to a non-horror enthusiast market.

Although it never fully pays off on the satirical level it initially foreshadowed as it grows a bit one-dimensional as it continues, overall it’s a very impressive and wholly original entry into the sociologically relevant paranoid horror subgenre that quarantines writer/director Nicolas Goldbart as a talented helmer that we ought to watch even closer in the future for symptoms of filmmaking fever.

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Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Everything Must Go (2011)

2011-10-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

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Though he describes his dad as “more of a drunk who did interesting things,” as we discover in writer/director Dan Rush’s indie feature Everything Must Go, salesman Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell) might just as well have been talking about himself. Only in Nick’s case, the interesting things have a way of happening to him involuntarily.

And it’s a good thing that he doesn’t live in a place where precipitation is all that common because for Arizona resident Halsey, when it rains, it pours as he gets fired from his Regional Vice President position at a company he’d given sixteen years of his life to and then finds out his wife has not only left him but also changed the locks, leaving everything Nick Halsey owns on the front lawn.

Out of options – not to mention nearly out of stuff – Nick realizes that to formally occupy his own lawn in the eyes of his community, he has to keep up the pretense of a sale for the sake of appearances.

Setting up shop in his yard, he spends a bulk of the film trying to figure out what his next move should be – beyond whether or not to sell a half a bottle of mouthwash to a random yard sale wanderer.

Whereas these decisions are made infinitely easier when he hires a neighbor kid to run his extremely disorganized sale alongside him in exchange for cigarette breaks he doesn’t use and baseball lessons, decisions about life and what’s next in the scheme of things continue to elude Nick.

Continuing to demonstrate his impressive range as a dramatic actor of untapped skill, following a career-changing turn in Marc Forster’s Stranger than Fiction, Will Ferrell sheds all traces of ham-and-cheese, embracing humility and humanity in their place in a fine performance as a lost man for whom answers refuse to come easily in this refreshingly real, slice-of-life adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story “Why Don’t You Dance?”

Bold in its simplicity, clarity and authenticity – shortcuts are thankfully nowhere to be found in Dan Rush’s understated work wherein life unfolds without contrivance or cliché.

Although admittedly due to its very nature as a vignette and fact that the source material for the film came from the realm of short fiction, some big questions are left unanswered or articulated with much in the way of explanation.

Yet while this may bother some viewers who require more closure or a firmer conclusion that will provide us with a better sense of what might be next for Nick or indeed even a greater understanding of what had occurred earlier for the man as well, ultimately in the case of this work, less is so much more.

By giving us just enough to follow Nick from one point to the next, the film’s structure accurately reflects the plight of its existentially adrift lead as well as that of two other similarly struggling supporting players in the form of a new neighbor played by Rebecca Hall and Nick’s unlikely teen protégé (Christopher Wallace).

Moreover, in doing so in a film that’s unpretentious, devoid of cynicism and generous to its characters – flaws and all -- Rush invites us to deduce the truth about all three individuals the way we would do with our own neighbors, piecing all the interesting things together ourselves.

Knowing that anything goes upon the discovery that everything must go, Will Ferrell reminds us just how interesting playing it straight can be, letting go of his traditional “larger than life” onscreen persona to keep things real in Rush’s impressive debut.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: The Lion King (1994) -- Diamond Edition

2011-10-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

Simba the lion cub isn’t the only one who “just can’t wait to be king” in Walt Disney animation’s Hamlet inspired epic of lion-sized family dysfunction, tragedy of Greek proportions and biblical complexity (oh my!) as shortly into the film, Simba’s nefarious green-eyed Uncle Scar gives into the green-eyed monster that is jealousy to murderous effect.

Pulling a Cain and Abel in a kiddie movie takes Disney villainy to a whole new level in what is arguably Disney’s darkest turn since Bambi’s mother was assassinated by an unseen human hunter so many decades ago.

Is it any wonder then that Bambi was recently restored to cinematographic splendor for its high definition debut mere months before Lion King shared the same fate as the ultimate anthropomorphic coming-of-age in the wild amidst tragedy double feature?

And in fact, Bambi was a direct source of inspiration on the more than six hundred illustrators, technicians, camera operators and Disney professionals who lent a hand on what would become the highest grossing hand-drawn animated feature of all-time.

Taking a cue from Bambi in using nature as its muse to base its iconic animal characters on the real-life animals found in the wild as opposed to convenient fictionalized versions of lions and tigers found in their imagination, Lion King’s commitment to authenticity is apparent right from the start in the film’s “Circle of Life” prologue sequence, which may very well be one of the studio’s crowning achievements.

A pitch-perfect opener that celebrates life, love, creativity, music, art, education and friendship – all of which together simultaneously represent the studio’s reason for being as well –The Lion King effectively references the “Circle” once again in the closing moments of the film, harking back to Bambi’s cyclical structure while adhering to the circular pattern of nature that doubles as the film’s overall theme.

While it’s doubtful that younger viewers will get the same “reading” of the picture and indeed, Lion King will inevitably play differently to those of various ages – in spite of its rather alarmingly Shakespearean subplot involving murderous greed, envy and malice in the pursuit of power – it’s an ultimately life-affirming odyssey incorporating the usual trials and tribulations of the Joseph Campbell Hero’s Journey.

Although it’s best known for its sing-along friendly Oscar-winning music from Elton John and Tim Rice, the powerful speaker shaking symphonic score from Hans Zimmer really stands out in this Blu-ray upgrade, balancing out the aforementioned duo’s radio-friendly pop songs and setting the stage for the African adventure.

Multigenerational in its appeal in addition to involving audience members of both genders, The Lion King is as far from Disney’s world of princesses, magic spells, poisoned apples and glass slippers as one could possibly get, even if admittedly it still uses the old studio standby of talking animals, silly sidekicks and royal birthrights being robbed right out from underneath the hero by relatives and/or someone they know.

While the movie’s hyena villains still annoy me on a Jar-Jar Binks in the new Star Wars borderline-racist-depiction level, going a tad overboard in their characterization to the extent that it’s sure to make some viewers uncomfortable, overall it’s easy to overlook as overwhelmed as we are by the power of the contemporary classic.

Though not on par with the masterful Beauty and the Beast, it’s a brilliant achievement of the highest artistic craftsmanship as further proof of the studio’s late ‘80s, early ‘90s renaissance that included such films as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin in addition to Beauty and Lion.

Painstakingly transferred to pitch-perfect Blu-ray complete with the option of 3D with a Diamond Edition set made exclusively for those that have the requisite technology set-ups and prefer to relive the recent theatrical experience by screening it in 3D in their living rooms, The Lion King arrives with a bevy of bonus features.

While the 2D version is dazzling enough for this reviewer, there’s a whole lot of studio treasure to explore including Disney’s informative second-screen option enabling you to get a closer look at the film with an additional screen (laptop, cell phone etc.) of behind-the-scenes information that’s fit for The Lion King.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Ben-Hur (1959) -- Fiftieth Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition

2011-10-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

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Instead of turning water into wine, the 1959 production of Lew Wallace’s 1880 epic Christian novel turned MGM’s impending financial ruin of bankruptcy into box office gold with the most lucrative not to mention award-winning Hollywood endeavor of the year, thereby blessing the studio offscreen with the same level of miraculous wonder that changed the life of Charlton Heston’s eponymous hero onscreen in Ben-Hur.

The first of only three films in history to win a whopping eleven Oscars (with Titanic and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King following suit in ’97 and ’03), three times proved to likewise be the charm for the legendary widescreen MGM remake as 1959’s production marked the third film adaptation of Wallace’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

Still one of the grandest old-school hero’s journeys of them all, director William Wyler’s Technicolor odyssey set the bar for Hollywood epics and helped usher in the era of event movies that would eventually follow from Spartacus to Cleopatra and Lawrence of Arabia.

Admittedly, the meandering structure of Wyler’s production make it hard to deny that Ben-Hur would’ve been helped by a sharper final edit of a good thirty to forty-five minutes as the movie devolves into episodic subplots following the cinematic crowning achievement that is Hur’s legendary chariot race sequence.

However, aside from its clunky pacing problems which ultimately stem from the overall awkward genre transition from adventure film to passion play as Hur strives to be all things to all audiences, it’s nonetheless aged remarkably well and the movie’s influence can still be felt over five decades later in the films of Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott in particular.

In fact, an entire documentary could be made focusing on the impact that Hur has had on contemporary popcorn pictures, beginning with a sharp focus on the decade of the ‘80s testosterone fueled blockbuster of modern hero’s journeys, in addition to Ben-Hur’s obvious influence on Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (itself an amalgam of Hur and the Hur inspired Spartacus), of course.

Gorgeously restored to digitally enhanced perfection and packaged as a five-DVD fiftieth anniversary limited edition gift set collection with two keepsake books containing Charlton Heston’s private set diaries and an in-depth production book with original pressbook photos, studio information and more, Warner Brothers’ release of the MGM classic also serves up the 1925 feature for contrast and comparison.

And while it’s a treasure trove for scholars – not to mention Heston enthusiasts – as far as this critic is concerned, the feature presentation itself is the main attraction. The anniversary edition boasts eye-popping clarity, pitch-perfect flesh tones that stand up well next to the sun-drenched landscape and the film’s magnificent use of rich red hues look so impressive in DVD that I couldn’t help but wonder what – if any major – difference the high definition recent Blu-ray release would make.

Miklos Rozsa’s iconic score soars through every speaker of your home theater system both as part of the picture and as the main event given the DVD bonus of watching Wyler’s work with the isolated musical score to soak up the film on an aesthetic level alone.

Yet whichever way you prefer to soak up the well-preserved grandeur of this National Library of Congress certified National Treasure, the one thing that everyone can agree on is even in the cyclical world of film – when just like in the ‘50s, studios are relying on all kinds of gimmicks like extra wide screens and 3D to lure in viewers – there’s still nothing more thrilling than the effort of real human beings working together without state-of-the-art effects.

And nowhere is this feat best evidenced than in action director Andrew Marton’s five-week long chariot race shoot. One of Hollywood’s best adrenaline-fueled adventurous showdowns ever captured on celluloid, the death-defying climax of Ben-Hur is so miraculously awe-inspiring and groundbreaking that it’s the cinematic equivalent of turning water into wine.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Make Believe (2010)

2011-10-12T14:26:00.000-07:00

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When she was four years old, Krystyn Lambert asked her mom if she was from another planet. She knew she wasn’t like everyone else but once she found her people and indulged her passion with endless practice, patience and perfectionism, Lambert encountered a lot of fellow Earthly oddballs called magicians who spring into action with a deck of cards and a sense of wonder.

Magicians, she discovered, can do something nobody else can do and in so doing shatter worldviews, remove obstacles, right wrongs, and (most importantly) connect to other human beings without barriers of culture, class or conversation thanks to the universal language of make believe.

One of six teens profiled in J. Clay Tweel’s winningly endearing documentary centering on entrants to the art form’s equivalent of the Olympic Games via the World Magic Seminar competition staged at The Orleans in Las Vegas, Krystyn Lambert is the only female in the mix and a clear front-runner complete with education and vast experience as well as industry mentors and an “in” at The Magic Shop.

Known as the group’s “Malibu Barbie” due to her looks, which refreshingly equal her intellect, Lambert isn’t the only subject who spends all of her free time devoted to her craft.

In Make Believe, we’re quickly led behind the curtain and into the homemade magic factories, laboratories, lairs, theatres, practice rehearsal spaces, after-school jobs, auditoriums and hobby shops haunted by a painfully shy Littleton, Colorado longer who goes from introverted to extroverted in a matter of minutes, coming to life when he starts to perform.

Journeying to the windy city before taking us abroad, we’re riveted by the subtle family dynamics at play in the portrait of a nineteen year old Chicagoan who postponed college for a year specifically to figure out the best way to create, shuffle and incorporate faux iPods into his act to prepare for the Vegas event.

And in his chronicle of the select few that professional tricksters will invite to compete at the World Magic Seminar, Tweel sheds new light on situations most of us only see a fraction of on the evening news by taking us on a touching coming-of-age tour of countries and cultures through the lens of illusion.

This feat is particularly apparent onscreen in Make Believe when the filmmaker leaves the comfort of American suburbia to visit the budding magic scene in Cape Town, South Africa where the art of make believe provides a much-needed means of escape by way of escapism as we meet performing arts students who indulge their love of showmanship through the academic curriculum that keeps them out of the ultraviolent slums.

Amazingly ambitious for an independent documentary feature -- let alone a directorial debut -- Tweel seems to take a cue from his guileless, optimistic daydreaming leads, traveling from Cape Town to an idyllic, remote Japanese locale where a young man renews our faith in the power of creativity, graduating from a single nearly worn-out videotape of a single magic special to inventing his own tricks with nature serving as his muse.

Through subtitles or sleight-of-hand, the meaning is always clear as we discover the role that magic has played in not only helping these six adolescents unravel some of life’s biggest mysteries but also figure out who they are along the way as Earthly oddballs with an out-of-this-world hunger to make you believe in the impossible… if only for an instant.

And in the case of Tweel’s terrific film, he manages to make this feat last far more than just an instant, keeping us utterly captivated for the entire 91 minute running time of this film festival circuit sleeper from the producers of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Scream 4 (2011)

2011-10-11T16:29:00.002-07:00

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What sets the Scream franchise apart from the rest of the blockbuster horror movie genre isn’t the fact that it’s so cleverly witty and pop-culturally self-referential – a postmodern comment of the genre it’s lampooning while at the same time taking itself seriously as though we were watching the feature presentation complete with filmmaker commentary from start to finish.

No, honestly what sets the series apart is how damn surprising it is or more accurately how startled we are on a multitude of levels as audience members – how it manages to take not just the scary movie formula and veritable genre goal of scaring the ever-lovin’ popcorn and goobers out of us and manages to move beyond that to thrill us in an entirely new way.

The Scream movies work so well because they blur the line between viewer and cast member – vicariously putting us in the film as co-conspirator one minute and victim the next and changing our role often.

In the course of a single onscreen phone call, we move from voyeur spectator to participant faster than we ourselves were aware of the change in point-of-view. And the process repeats frequently as director Wes Craven changes perspective to cover terror from all angles -- similar to the way the shower scene plays out in Psycho in making us see the events unfold through the eyes of both Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.

Except this time around in the meta pop-culture world of Scream where characters comment on situations they’re in while they’re in them, we’re also aware of the camera, the tricks, the audience and the deceptive reality of each and every point-of-view, knowing we shouldn’t simply trust our eyes or ears. Time and again in Scream, Wes Craven uses celluloid as though it were an entirely new sense.

Obviously given the limits of the genre on a predator/prey primal level, we’ve seen it all before and Scream is further challenged by the fact that this is its fourth time at bat and they were always too cool for school in that they’d had the bases covered in the first hyper-aware act of the first film.

And because we know that when the phone rings, it’s going to be Ghostface instead of a friend playing a practical joke, it’s going to take a lot more than a simple scare to set this Scream apart.

Furthermore, to their immense credit, Craven and company swing for the fences in the latest and second greatest installment, sending the first of several curveballs right out of the park from the minute the movie begins – exactly like they did roughly fifteen years ago in the opening of the inaugural Scream when Drew Barrymore answered the original call.

Presenting us with everything we’re accustomed to while commenting on it, Scream 4 deceptively kicks off with a “business as usual” vibe before scripter Kevin Williamson reminds us that postmodern begins with the word “post” for a reason.

In a wildly weird introduction, Williamson (in addition to uncredited script polisher Ehren Kruger) fight against the very foundation upon which Scream was built, dissecting the franchise’s formula by simultaneous parody and homage, avoiding and confronting the movie-within-a-movie paradigms that served the first two Scream pictures so magnificently.

Immediately challenging your perception of what’s real – before you begin to get your bearings, the film builds on a beginning you didn’t expect before pulling the same bait and switch again and again to ingenious effect, once again calling up sights and sounds of earlier Screams for a new plan of attack.

Yes, it’s the same routine. The killer is on the other end of the phone after all but are we in the same place? Is the right person on either end of the line? Is technology adding a new layer or more confusion?

Similar to the way that Sylvester Stallone’s sixth entry in the Rocky series succeeded so wonderfully by essentially going back to its roots to ignore the trappings of movie sequel limbo altogether, Scream 4 operates on a similar level, playing to fans as the ultimate bookend to what was originally supposed to be a horror trilogy.

Augmented by an ingenious screenplay and assured direction, Scream 4 builds on signature scenes from Screams of the past as well as structure mandates of the widely recognized formula modus operandi complete with those epic standalone openers, violent showdowns and villainous pop-ups following a multiple talking-killer reveal in the end.

From not one but three fake-outs to spoof their tendency to serve up false-starts to the bold use of old locations and character-driven confrontations of mistaken identities and horror movie trivia employed to outsmart the killer and/or save a life, Scream 4’s a meta mix-tape movie. And amazingly, this particular Scream manages to walk a fine line of revisiting familiar territory instead of opting to completely reinvent the wheel while simultaneously never copying itself.

Even though we’ve seen some of the exact same set-ups before, they’re freshly crafted in Scream 4 to the point that we marvel over how effectively Craven manages to pay off on viewer assumption to diabolically surprising effect.

While admittedly the momentum does slip slightly following the jumpy beginning in order to acquaint us with the film’s newest additions in the form of Sidney Prescott’s high school cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) as well as her soon-to-be-Ghostface-prey pretty girl posse of friends and film buff hangers-on, Scream 4 picks up speed as it continues, deftly balancing the old and the new once Sidney returns to Woodsboro.

Having published a survivor memoir following what she believed to be the end of Ghostface, Sidney arrives on the anniversary of the tragic crimes that set Scream in motion fifteen years earlier along with her ethically challenged book editor in tow (Alison Brie), only to discover that you can’t go home again without old skeletons tumbling out of the closet to provide the 111 minute film with enough murder and mayhem to put Woodsboro on alert once again.

Teaming up with series favorites – the writer’s block plagued reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and Gale’s deputy turned Sheriff husband Dewey Riely (David Arquette) – as well as her cousin’s targeted circle of friends, Sidney tries to unmask Ghostface once and for all.

While the final act doesn’t quite have the same energy apparent in the first two franchise films, Scream 4 is still light-years better than the third installment, eventually developing a major twist that unlike previous entries, we couldn’t see coming (at least to some extent) a mile away.

Although the first movie is still the best (despite some genre trappings that have dated it slightly), the fourth film ranks a close second.

Thus the thrill of redial is far from gone when it comes to Scream thanks to a stellar sequel it’s easy to get hung up on. With Ghostface dialing "M" for murder, switchboard operators Craven and Williamson shock us into a fun frenzy.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the brothers Weinstein aren’t putting their heads together to produce a second standalone Scream trilogy with the hopes of developing another one of this generation’s favorite scary movies to watch with the phone off the hook.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on Blu-ray Review: The Hour (2011)

2011-10-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

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An imported BBC work of sudsy miniseries sophistication, The Hour plays like a Mad Men spinoff as penned by mile-a-minute screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and go-to English lit adapter Andrew Davies.

Destined to attract devotees of Don Draper suffering from Men in the gray flannel suited concrete jungle withdrawal along with those who were disappointed when Sorkin’s short-lived SNL behind-the-scenes NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was canceled -- BBC pulled out all the stops with a stellar Blu-ray transfer of their acclaimed summertime smash.

In fact, despite The Hour’s impressive IQ as high quality '00s television about high quality ‘50s television, polish and perfection is so prevalent throughout that at times it keeps us at arm’s length, coming off cooler than museum air-conditioning at with its mechanical precision as an impeccably crafted yet predictably safe work of highbrow diversion.

Filled with the requisite number of big moments and stagey speeches you can set your watch by, as the series continues it becomes easier to anticipate the “For Your Consideration” moments sure to net its exceptional cast award consideration in the 2012 season.

Nonetheless, because the major turns of events and soapbox soliloquies are enlivened by the presence of the vivacious Romola Garai – refreshingly given the chance to play a real flesh and blood woman instead of a girl – and Bright Star's Ben Whishaw in his most fully realized and complex turn since Brideshead Revisited, The Hour is elevated to must-see status even before the convoluted plotline begins to click together.

Although they deal with conflicts of interest on a daily basis, the show-runners of BBC’s 1956 news magazine program “The Hour” find themselves thrust into a web of conspiracy, crime, and deceit on an international level when what on the surface appears to be a simple case of murder involves the upper echelons of British intelligence, dirty little governmental secrets and foreign policy.

And the six-part series is at its best when embracing its inner Grisham movie feel of big brother paranoia in the Manchurian Candidate era rather than settling in for the claustrophobic chatter of a cross between Good Night and Good Luck and All the President’s Men.

Once The Hour realizes that its okay to give its brain a slight rest, it successfully gets our blood pumping --injecting the drama with (albeit) intellectual action -- stimulating our adrenaline as well as our gray matter with thrilling revelations and exciting turns of events that make the second half of screenwriter Abi Morgan’s 344 minute endeavor far more engrossing than the first.

An easy homerun for the period production friendly network, as expected The Hour boasts superlative art direction, costuming and technical values. But because of the BBC reputation and the topical, thematic and historic company the miniseries keeps among other channel masterpieces including State of Play, it’s an altogether impressive if slightly underwhelming offering.

However, given the incredible momentum that builds as the plotlines collide with new supporting characters and true motives are revealed, there’s enough promise evidenced in The Hour’s phenomenal last act for us to add the recently announced commission of a second series to our list of hotly anticipated 2012-2013 television events... alongside the return of Don Draper, of course.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on Blu-ray Review: Sons of Anarchy -- Season Three

2011-09-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

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Related Review:

Sons of Anarchy -- Season Two

With regard to plot alone, the masterfully multilayered, richly complex and emotionally charged third installment of FX’s Shakespeare’s-Hamlet-on-Bikes gritty crime saga Sons of Anarchy is number one with a bullet in terms of masterful storytelling, delivering a season so engrossing that I devoured all thirteen episodes in less than twenty-eight hours.

Timed to coincide with the start of the fourth season on the small screen, Fox’s Blu-ray boxed set offers three extended episodes which not only add to the cinematic feel of Kurt Sutter’s series – complete with carefully edited montages chopped to funky musical covers of rock classics that ingeniously bookend key events – but also showcases the showrunner’s commitment to cast and character.

Maggie Siff’s fascinating, put-upon Ophelia influenced Tara, the frustrated doctor by day/”old lady” by night that’s ever so closer to becoming Gemma with every successive episode is given the opportunity to deliver some of the otherwise male-dominated series’ best dialogue in the very first hour of season three, courtesy of footage that had originally been left on the cutting room floor in order to meet the forty-five minute commercial-free timeslot.

If SOA season one is the equivalent of Coppola’s first Godfather considering the daddy issues and conflicts of family vs. self in terms of the business the men of Charming (as opposed to the Corleone clan) have chosen, by bringing Sutter’s series to Belfast to unveil more of its origin story, season three therefore becomes SAMCRO’s own version of The Godfather Part II.

Although the previous baker’s dozen had greatly entertained, this time around we’re served up a sequence of sinfully seductive events with a richness in flavor we didn’t even know we were missing that’s augmented evermore by a deeply entrenched circular theme of life and death that adds a sense of greater urgency to the plight of Jax (the incomparable Charlie Hunnam) to find his kidnapped son.

While the threat of death has always been just a shot away on Sutter’s drama, from the metaphorical and allegorical decay of Ron Perlman’s arthritic “king” to ever-present ghosts of the past as well, more characters faced with birth, death and issues of mortality (as well as morality).

As always, the seamlessly interwoven Shakespearean element remains, both in overt and occasional nods to dubbing Perlman, Katey Sagal and Hunnam’s leads the king, queen and prince respectively and with regard to structural homage.

Although the interpretation is loose, Shakespeare’s influence is there all the same through foreshadowing and execution of tragic set-ups complete with the bard’s favorite devices, themes and motifs of eavesdropping, manipulation, betrayal, double cross, power plays, star cross’d problems of blood, fate and timing, madness, revenge and the comeuppance of sins executed in the past (whether carried out in kind or by kin).

In fact, Sutter nearly takes his passion for the classics a step too far by leading us into operatic “get to know a relative almost biblically” Godfather III terrain before ultimately backing out of the would-be Belfast booty call altogether to re-center Jax on his journey to hell and back to save his son.

Speaking of hell hath no fury, Ally Walker’s chilling ATF agent June Stahl returns to new diabolical heights as perhaps contemporary television’s most sinister small screen villain since Rich Man, Poor Man’s Falconetti in a role that’s made far more subversive not only because she’s embodied by a beautiful woman in a male run series but also because her very identity lies to us as an alleged “good guy.”

Yet in the gray landscape where Sutter’s show lays its scene amidst all of the exhaust and cigarette smoke that causes viewers to squint their eyes at the deceptively sunny Charming, California skies, it’s the Sons that as Piney informs us during a wild, wild west style shoot-out who are “the good guys” for helping put medication in the hands of those who need it.

An incredibly ambitious season that’s bursting at the seams with plot, the thirteen episodes of Sons 3 benefit considerably from both a second look as well as the opportunity provided by the set to absorb them as part of a consecutive marathon.

Though it threatens to spread itself too thin in terms of concurrent storylines as the season begins with the fine cast unwisely divided into three distinct areas with several compelling (yet mercilessly competing) plots, eventually it all comes together and the women of season three have much more to do than ever before.

Whether they’re holding life and death in their hands, bodies and selves or making some of the show’s most impactful decisions, the ever-changing dynamic between Gemma and Tara is now not only a hallmark of SAMCRO but a highlight.

Furthermore with the Hamlet level foreshadowing that leads us into the fourth season, Sutter’s elaborate series three stories continue to build at such a steady pace that frequently episodes start right back up in the exact same location that had faded to black just moments before in the previous entries, making the underrated SOA one of the sharpest, most addictive basic cable programs around.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: High and Low (1963)

2011-09-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

A watershed production in the career of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, 1963’s High and Low utilized American postmodern film noir docudrama techniques evidenced in Sweet Smell of Success, Naked City, The Killing, The Asphalt Jungle and Pickup on South Street among others to a level of painterly wizardry, culminating in one of the master director’s most technically innovative works.

Painstaking attention to detail in the marriage of theatricality and reality to fashion the film as if it were a piece of architecture finds Kurosawa’s talented stable of actors (including an implosive, controlled and wonderfully against-type turn by Toshiro Mifune) blocked in frame with the same care as props and set decorations.

And with this in mind, Kurosawa’s moody High also serves as a fascinating study for those who’ve just ejected Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle and are curious to see the way that space, shape, angles and texture onscreen – or lack thereof – can impact not just the tone of the story and our understanding of it but the overall cohesive structure of a picture as well.

By moving from a high key lit comedy to a Japanese take on Tinsletown noir, viewers will be able to appreciate the craftsmanship on a greater level than perhaps simply observed by moving through Kurosawa’s prolific oeuvre one motion picture at a time to explore the filmmaker’s countless and consistently diverse literary adaptations.

A kidnap for ransom thriller inspired by American crime novelist Ed McBain’s ’59 paperback King’s Ransom, High and Low was altered enough in screenplay form to bear only the basic spine of the scribe’s dime store detective potboiler.

Tengoku to Jigoku -- literally translated Heaven and Hell – can be viewed straightforward as a cool, calculating crime picture or taken in a multitude of ways from allegorically as an exploration of the corporate Americanization of Japan (thus keeping High as timely today as it was in ’63) to an ethical and moral dilemma of near-biblical proportions.

Wealthy shoe company tycoon Kingo Gondo (Mifune) finds himself in the midst of an impossible situation, caught between right, wrong and ruin (literally and figuratively) when faced with the decision of whether or not to fork over more money than he has in his possession when a band of kidnappers mistakenly capture the son of his penniless chauffeur instead of his own.

A taut thriller that holds up well nearly five decades later, whichever way you investigate High and Low, the bottom line is Kurosawa’s picture still works as a sophisticated piece of popcorn cinema, entertaining the hell out of your as a tense, sophisticated, steadily-building showdown of good and evil.

While it does admittedly overstay its welcome, running out of steam in a final meandering act that loses some of the dramatic heft it had gathered earlier on, High’s impact on world cinema cannot be overstated.

Obviously a major source of inspiration for Ron Howard’s nerve-wracking ’95 chiller Ransom, Kurosawa’s obsessive attention to detail and passion for police procedural minutia additionally anticipated and paved the way for the gritty docudrama style explorations of both sides of the thin blue line witnessed in Michael Mann’s Heat and David Fincher’s Zodiac.

A work of rare quality that’s intelligent as it is intense, High and Low does offer viewers a cinematic contact high, playing on the mind as well as the senses with shots that will leave you dizzy and breathless. Pushing back the length of his ever growing shots even further, Kurosawa’s early ‘60s epic boasts numerous eight and nine minute takes, which easily benefitted from his notorious rehearsal periods.

Yet High and Low rivaled Hitchcock’s Rope with the inclusion of a near-reel spanning ten minute single sequential take in the form of a bravura footchase, necessitating not only raised stages and the conversion of theatre techniques to film but also the involvement of nine cameras shooting simultaneously – pushing Kurosawa beyond his previous background of dual lenses and two camera set-ups.

Despite this, all of the architectural window-dressing and moviemaking wizardry in the world can’t hide the fact that High suffers from pacing lows and abrupt tonal changes in its final act as suddenly docudrama turned police drama morphs into a disjointed melodrama. Yet even though the film switches gears late in the game and loses some of the razor sharp focus it displayed early on, High and Low nonetheless remains a towering achievement in Kurosawa’s career.

Brilliantly brought to Blu-ray life in Criterion’s high definition update save for the absence of yellow subtitles to keep the white lettering from vanishing into the black and white concrete jungle of ‘60s corporate Japan, High and Low is an unparalleled effort that never ceases to impress from an aesthetic standpoint given its crisp museum level frame composition. Additionally, it also sets itself apart for its ethical engagement as a truly complex, humanistic thriller of high and low moral quandaries.

A compelling tale of crime, punishment, payment and class, Kurosawa’s heavenly look at Heaven and Hell is as multi-faceted as his spins on Shakespeare and as eye-catchingly unforgettable as the new wave of cinema that was occurring across the way in France at the very same time of this 1963 release.

Blu-ray Review: Rio (2011)

2011-09-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

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Eye-poppingly gorgeous CG animated feature from Fox Ice Age franchise creators Blue Sky animation is given the luxurious Blu-ray high definition treatment for this charming fish-out-of-water (or domesticated-bird-in-the-sky) flick Rio.

Sunny family fare, Rio centers on a rare Minnesota macaw (Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg) that’s persuaded to fly south to Brazil along with his adorably mousey bookish bookshop owner (voiced by Funny People’s Leslie Mann) in order to mate with the last exotic feathered creature of his kind and save their species’ line.

Although slightly underwhelming given its predictability in plotline once we venture to new terrain, Fox’s family film is otherwise infectious. Comprised of Pixar cuteness and Dreamworks’s Madagascar-inspired dance fever via a penchant for getting funky at the drop of a computer-drawn hat in several sequences, Rio is sweet, snappily paced, refreshingly wholesome thanks to its large avoidance of crass scatology or a need to be so pop-culturally referential that it’s dated by the time it hits disc.

Amazingly crisp, clear and clean in is visual presentation, while I’m sure it’s an absolute stunner in 3D Blu-ray so if you’ve got the technology then flaunt it by all means, the 2D version is so superlative that it puts the drab, lifeless color scheme and cold, hard lines of Disney’s recent Mars Needs Moms release to shame.

As a love letter to Brazil – complete with a celebration of Carnival -- Rio plays like a kid-tested, film geek approved CG animated and certifiably tragedy free Black Orpheus replacement for the preschool set in its commitment to setting. And furthermore, considering the selection of an unexpected starting location via my old stomping grounds of Minnesota, the creativity just keeps on coming and is particularly evident throughout in its unwillingness to adhere to traditional gender stereotypes in animated movies.

An antidote to princess-centric damsel in distress storytelling that’s overly-reliant on hero’s journey motifs, Rio helps differentiate itself from usual fare and avoid parroting previous hits like Disney’s affable Beverly Hills Chihuahua, by going against what’s expected with the decision to make Anne Hathaway’s beautiful Brazilian bird the wiser, experienced alpha to Eisenberg’s earnest newbie wimp male.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: The Entitled (2011)

2011-09-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

Courier Paul Dynan (Kevin Zegers) may boast an impressive education, a penchant for perfectionism and a hunger for hard work so strong that he’s willing to offer firms the chance to test drive his skills for free as a volunteer just to get his foot in the door.

But at the end of the day, Paul Dynan understands that he’s still just a blue collar bike messenger who can’t keep that door open without assistance because in the New York business world it’s all about who you know and where you come from no matter how many hours a night he spends reading up and researching the beautiful and damned entitled ones he knows are entitled enough to get ahead without even trying.

Facing mounting medical bills for his increasingly sick mother and foreclosure notices arriving everyday, Paul decides to put his extracurricular “homework” to unorthodox use by way of a most dangerous and daringly deadly plan.

He quickly sets in motion a kidnap-for-ransom Robin Hood scheme of stealing rich spawn from the rich with the goal of hijacking the paternal pockets of the trust fund babies he’ll hold hostage along with two sociopathic slackers of the Gus Van Sant To Die For persuasion, hoping to pocket the proceeds long enough to pay off his parents’ overwhelming debt.

Former Air Bud Disney kid turned talented Transamerica character actor Kevin Zegers continues on his casting tour of New York based rebels following a snakelike stint on CW’s Gossip Girl with yet another fine turn as the anchor of Anchor Bay’s darkly engrossing thriller that actually packs along a few nice surprises to help it elevate above and deviate from other B-movie straight-to-disc noirs of the Ray Liotta variety.

Although it’s fairly easy to see one character-based twist a mile away thanks to some transparent context clues dropped into the dialogue of Entitled daddies Ray Liotta, Victor Garber and Stephen McHattie, Aaron Woodley’s picture nonetheless manages to command out attention throughout and well past the point of relative character inconsistencies and faulty logic.

While admittedly it’s safe to predict that Paul’s plan will be neither simple nor perfect and we know from the moment it starts that it will fail to go according to any kind of schedule, Woodley’s cinematic plan – thanks to a taut script from William Morrissey – is a different story altogether.

Pulsing along at a fast pace, Anchor Bay’s effective Entitled offers new angles on an old noir arrangement with sharp direction, sublime technical specs that make the clarity of the DVD image sparkle like high definition, in addition to a performance by Zegers that’s not only so authentic that it should be criminal but so impressive it’s bound to open more doors for the up-and-coming actor.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Something Wild (1986)

2011-09-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

On the surface, Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild might seem like an odd choice for the filmmaker’s inaugural Criterion Collection release. Yet upon closer inspection, Demme’s unsung and often overlooked Wild card work of ‘80s cinematic iconoclasm of the countercultural existential yuppie nightmare variety (think Blue Velvet, Blood Simple, After Hours, Paris, Texas, Lost in America) proves to be something of a zeitgeist title.

As such, Criterion’s colorful warm-weather release of road movie madness taps into what sets him apart as a storyteller, thus begging a more careful reading of Demme’s deceptively simple contemporary cult classic which pays tongue-in-cheek homage to yellow brick route ‘66s and rabbit holes Out of the Past filled with Pandora’s boxes and Louise Brooks bobs.

An intentionally sexy screwball noir turned thriller dramedy, Wild signifies Demme’s transition from pop culturally in-tune documentaries and slice-of-life character studies like Stop Making Sense and Melvin and Howard to sociologically inclined edgier fare that provoked strong international response from terror to empathy and back again in Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia respectively.

A genre blurring rollercoaster, Something Wild barrels down the same tracks twice – the second time in reverse – as first time screenwriter and then-recent NYU graduate E. Max Frye’s intricately planned puzzler uses similar locales, plot points as well as some of the exact same dialogue to which we’d been initially introduced to inventive, intriguing and at times downright ironic effect.

By matching the lusty abandon of Wild’s first half with an impending sense of doom in the second loopy go-round, Frye crafts an endlessly fascinating if admittedly flawed and by its very nature unevenly unstable minor Demme masterpiece where up is down and left is right.

Seducing a stranger right along with the audience, Wild features Melanie Griffith in a pre-Working Girl/post-Body Double breakout role as a risk-taking, fast talking hedonist named Lulu who picks up a seemingly straitlaced businessman (Jeff Daniels) with a compulsion for seeing how many small crimes and cheap thrills he can get away with under the guise of yuppie pretense and politeness.

Ignoring all advice not to talk to strangers as well as traffic ordinances and good sense, Daniels’ corporate dullard Charlie is more than happy to play the part of Lulu’s sudden love slave, playing hooky from cubicle life, an unseen wife and ‘80s suburbia in favor of stolen hooch and a cheap hotel room that turns into an impromptu road trip back ten years to Lulu’s high school reunion in small town main street USA.

Just one of several turns on a roadmap we realize we haven’t seen before, by the time Demme’s second unorthodox ‘80s outsiders-on-the-road movie hits its halfway point, we’re no longer sure just who’s playing who once Lulu’s screw-loose old flame appears on the scene in the form of a devilish and diabolical Ray Liotta.

Singlehandedly bringing Film Noir into Demme’s contemporary spin on Stanwyck and Sturges style screwball, Liotta’s presence throws us for a major loop, nearly taking the film into Coen or Lynchian territory, switching the tone from howlingly comedic to twisted and sardonic, making us reevaluate all that had come before it as Frye revisits the same paradigm setup in a new light.

An all-around oddity, Demme’s Wild will most certainly divide film fans that prefer to avoid pictures that don’t play by genre rules. Yet even though Wild threatens to jump the tracks as it careens into a jarring and surprisingly violent climax worthy of black and white Robert Mitchum-flavored Film Noir, if you grab onto something and ride it out, there’s no underestimating Wild’s ability to thrill from the first uphill climb to the second run-through along the tracks.

Given a crisp, clean if sonically underwhelming Blu-ray high definition transfer, while Wild may be light on Criterion Collection bonus features, Demme’s sinfully smart, singularly suspenseful, seductively silly film is Something extraordinarily unexpected and indefinably wild to behold all the same.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

2011-09-23T09:08:00.001-07:00

Now Available to Own

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Fans of Robin Hood, Rob Roy, The Three Musketeers, Zorro, the Scarlet Pimpernel and Dr. Syn are sure to flock to this Errol Flynn style swashbuckling throwback to the golden age of escapist tinsletown fare of 1940s picture shows.

Posh production values boasting picturesque European scenic views, elaborate nineteenth century period art direction and lush character-enhancing costuming help cushion director Kevin Reynolds’s genre appropriate penchant for movie melodrama in this – Hollywood’s tenth sudsy swordfight-laden spin on Alexander Dumas’s original eponymous epic centering on the vengeful Count of Monte Cristo.

Made by a company so successful at adapting classic adventure in a multitude of mediums from animating Robin Hood, developing a Syn miniseries, a Zorro series and a big screen Musketeers release that they could take out a patent or outsource an entire assembly-line like factory devoted to the craft, Touchstone’s parent company Walt Disney Studios spared no expense in bringing Dumas’s tale to the screen.

Given a gorgeous Blu-ray high definition transfer that brings post-Napoleonic France directly into your living room, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Tristan & Isolde director Kevin Reynolds introduces us to Jim Caviezel’s soon-to-be-betrayed lead in the form of the gentle, ethical and unfailingly loyal illiterate sailor Edmond Dantes.

Manipulated by his spoiled, selfish – not to mention wealthy and titled – lifelong best friend Mondego (Guy Pearce), Dantes finds himself knocked down like a chess pawn in one of the games the two used to play as children.

While spending more than a decade in Shawshank Redemption-like prison conditions, Dantes plots not only his escape but also his plans to embark on a new game once he reaches the outside, putting Mondego in the position of a pawn to his king (or rather the fictional “count” he reinvents himself as) in order to exact revenge.

Extremely ambitious and considerably well-executed throughout, although the tenth cinematic Count consistently holds your attention at least for the entire count of each characters’ elaborate psychological and physical moves and attacks, overall Reynolds’s Count is nearly undone by its initially sluggish and ultimately staccato pacing problems.

Spending far too much time locked up with Dantes while suffering from a postmodern Green Mile of the Monte Cristo Redemption-like feel before having to breathlessly rush through the ultimate comeuppance vs. Mondego which the entire crux of the character’s arc had been based on makes the final reel a bit of an unsatisfying letdown.

While unfortunately the pacing issues take their toll on Count’s overall success, it’s a bit easier to overlook some laughable gaffes in the believability of the timeline given the dubious “aging” of the picture’s primary characters.

Despite the fact that neither Caviezel or Pearce appear to have changed a day since the purported sixteen year gap in time that marries the beginning of the film to its conclusion, the magnetism of the men in their performances more than makes up for the shortcomings in makeup (if not story structure).

Though it’s Memento’s Guy Pearce that manages to steal focus throughout as Dumas’s diabolical villain, particularly when pitted against the rather one-dimensional development of Caviezel’s gallant yet guileless and initially dim sailor, the plight of our dogged lead and revenge by any means remains not just as cinematically compelling as ever but fascinating enough to make new fans reach for the scribe’s swashbuckling source material.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: The Tempest (2010)

2011-09-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

Now Available to Own

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Prospero’s past is prologue for plot and point-of-view as he becomes a she in visionary filmmaker Julie Taymor’s feminist, female-centric Tempest.

As Prospera, Helen Mirren cuts right to the core of the banished Italian single mother’s rage by unspooling her plan for wrath and revenge on the men who'd done her wrong.

With a conjured storm of comeuppance in the present for sins of the past that will impact the future of Shakespeare’s entire cast of characters, Prospera proves that Hell hath no fury like a sorceress scorned, shipwrecking the guilty victims shortly into Taymor’s audaciously avant garde cinematic interpretation of the Bard’s final opus.

Though it’s amusing to note that Taymor’s adaptation allows Mirren to reunite with her recent 2011 Arthur costar Russell Brand in a new and completely different play on previously produced material, the actress is in exceptionally fine form, commanding and earning our attention to the exclusion of all else every single time she appears onscreen from start to finish.

And as it turns out, the Mirren distraction is a welcome one indeed as even Taymor’s trademark stunning visuals – whether sparse and severe or vibrantly eye-popping – fail to keep us as engaged as we should be and have been in other Taymor titles and Bard-on-the-big-screen endeavors.

Though given an impressively crisp and technically dazzling Blu-ray high definition transfer, overall The Tempest suffers from an excess of cinematographic style over simple storytelling substance – screaming for our consideration audibly and visually, when a simple stage whisper would’ve not just sufficed but seduced us in Shakespearean grandeur.

Despite a genuinely gripping introduction and some shivery Shakespearean soliloquies spoken by the likes of David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Djimon Hounsou and Alfred Molina, 2010’s Tempest quickly grows wacky, wild and just plain weird as it continues, trying our patience and testing our mettle following a catastrophic loss of momentum in the second half.

Wandering around aimlessly in search of some way to bring all of the elements together cohesively and – when failing to do so – using every opportunity to call attention to itself superficially rather than genuinely engaging us in the tale, this time around Prospera’s sorcery inspires more of a mess than the stuff of which dreams are made.

Of course, given the number of overlapping subplots, themes and literary devices apparent in Tempest, which he’d brilliantly recycled and repurposed for comedy and tragedy alike throughout his oeuvre, the play itself at times feels like a filmed feat of Cliff’s Notes or a musical interpretation of the Bard’s greatest hits collection.

Yet flaws aside, Taymor’s Tempest is perhaps best appreciated as a companion piece to the director’s previous pictures from Frida to Titus to her pop art rock opera masterpiece Across the Universe.

Text ©2011, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.