With his death came the inevitable increase in sales for his music and DVDs as he topped the download charts with Man in the Mirror and his music videos were bought en masse once again, as though it were the mid eighties. The mid eighties was Michael’s peak, when the Bad album spawned five US number ones and the movie Moonwalker was released.

Moonwalker was a Michael Jackson extravaganza. A movie that featured documentary clips of Michael and the Jackson Five, some of Michael’s music videos and a short story about Michael saving the world from drug obsessed crime baron Mr Big (played by Joe Pesci).

Moonwalker starts with a live performance of the download number one single Man in the Mirror before going into the documentary montage that takes you through the early days of Michael’s career, from his debut, through his Grammys and through the many highs that he enjoyed.

The movie also features the music video for the bonus track featured on the Bad album CD version, Leave Me Alone, which perfectly sums up Michael’s career and his relationship with the media.

The actual plot of Moonwalker finally kicks in as Michael stumbles onto the evil plans of Mr Big, causing him to be a marked man. Michael is chased by Big’s troopers, only to transform into a high performance car (way before Michael Bay got his hands on Transformers) and speed off towards the 1930’s Chicago club for the famous Smooth Criminal music video. This is perhaps Michael’s greatest video and without doubt the highlight of the movie, as Michael makes his way through the club to the tunes of Smooth Criminal, dispatching bad guys as he goes.

The finale of the film sees Michael take on the whole of Big’s army, before Transforming again into a giant robot, and then a spaceship.

This movie comes from the genius mind of Michael Jackson. It may not flow as a normal, narrative driven, movie would, but this doesn’t disguise the brilliance of Moonwalker. It’s escapist, it’s imaginative, it’s pure Michael Jackson.

The only downside to this DVD release is that it doesn’t feature any special features, but Michael Jackson’s numerous other DVDs more than make up for that.

Al Reinert’s documentary For All Mankind (1989) chronicles these missions in a unique way: it is essentially a mash-up of all of them, from liftoff to splashdown. No astronaut is identified by name yet we hear them talking about their experiences on the soundtrack. No one mission is identified from another and this strangely gives the film an epic quality, enhanced considerably by Brian Eno’s low key and oddly ominous electronic score.

With the exception of Kennedy’s famous speech, all of the footage in For All Mankind is taken from NASA’s archives and this gives the film the feel of being made from an insider’s perspective. This isn’t some omniscient dramatization like Apollo 13 (1995) but more like a fly-on-the-wall feel, like we are tagging along for the ride with these astronauts. In this day and age of DVDs, the various astronauts talking about their experiences over footage of the missions has the sensation of an audio commentary only not done by some scholar or filmmaker but by the men who were actually there.

Watching the footage of one of those huge rockets taking off is still an impressive spectacle to behold. The footage of the Earth as seen from outer space is breathtaking and really puts things into perspective. Even more impressive is footage of a spacewalk over the Earth as an astronaut describes the experience. No matter how many times one sees Neil Armstrong take the first step on the surface of the Moon it is still a stirring moment.

After For All Mankind, Reinert went to write Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 and contribute two screenplays for HBO’s ambitious 12-part miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998) but they don’t quite capture the immediacy of his documentary.

Special Features:

This is a re-issue of a previous release by the Criterion Collection but features a brand new transfer of the film, which looks fantastic. All of the previous extra material has been carried over.

There is an audio commentary by filmmaker Al Reinert and astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to set foot on the Moon. Reinert provides some insight into how the film came together. He went through thousands of hours of footage and managed to put together an 80-minute film. Cernan shares some of his experiences about what it was like to be an astronaut at that time.

New to this edition is “An Accidental Gift: The Making of For All Mankind,” a 30-minute retrospective documentary. Reinert always wanted to see this outer space/Moon footage on the big screen and this was the impetus for the film. He got his start as a journalist covering NASA in the early 1980s. Through his contacts he got access to their film archives and found footage that had never been shown. This is an excellent look at how For All Mankind came together.

Also new is “On Camera,” a compilation of on-camera interviews Reinert conducted with 15 of the Apollo astronauts. In the film itself only the audio is used and it is nice to put a face to the voice.

“Painting from the Moon” is an updating of an extra on the original edition. After retiring from NASA, astronaut Alan Bean became a painter and this is a gallery of his work with commentary.

“NASA Audio Highlights” is a collection of 21 soundbites from the first ten years of the American space program. Some of the most famous words have spoken during this time, including Neil Armstrong’s immortal words.

Finally, there is “3, 2, 1 . . . Blast Off!” a collection of launch footage of various rockets taking off for outer space.

Late one snowy night around Christmastime, a desperate looking man just makes it on to a train before it pulls out. He clings onto a present like it is the most important thing on Earth. He ends up passing out in a train car with Pete (Zahn), a lousy salesman, and Chloe (Sobieski), a young pre-med student. When Miles (Glover), the train’s conductor, asks the man for money for his ticket, he discovers that the man has died. A mysterious wooden box falls out of the package that the man was carrying and Pete can’t resist checking it out despite being warned not to by Miles.

Eventually, Chloe and Miles also look in the box and they all see something that is very beautiful and very valuable (although, we never see what’s inside it). They argue about what they should do. Do they take whatever is in the box and split up the amount that it’s worth? They decide to get rid of the body and divide up the profits, but of course it’s not going to be that easy (is it ever in these kinds of films?).

Steve Zahn plays the motormouth schemer, Danny Glover is the one with some semblance of a conscience and Leelee Sobieski is the quiet one, the wild card that changes everything. She has a deliciously unhinged role to sink her teeth into and it’s a lot of fun to see her character get progressively crazier. What happened to Sobieski’s career? She had such a promising start with Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and has yet to capitalize on the promise of that film, doing mostly B-movies with the notable exception of a small role in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (2009). She certainly has an intriguing presence on camera, a certain enigmatic quality that few filmmakers have been able to capitalize on and she is quite good in this film.

We don’t get the characters’ backstories in Night Train but let’s be honest, they are not all that important. First-time director Brian King drops these three people, with contrasting personalities into the film, and lets them bounce off each other. By not giving us any background information on the characters we are in the same boat as they are: we don’t know anything about them and so we don’t know what they are capable of until they are put in a given situation. As a result, the film keeps us guessing as to what they’re going to do next.

Night Train is nicely shot, intentionally set during the holiday season which gives King the excuse to decorate the train with atmospheric Christmas lights which is contrasted with shots of the train’s exterior as it goes speeding through the cold, inhospitable night. Much like the twisted thriller Shallow Grave (1994), once a significant amount of money is involved, normal people start behaving irrationally, driven by greed and willing to do all sorts of unpleasant things. King keeps things moving at a brisk pace as Night Train clocks in at a lean 91 minutes, trimmed of any narrative fat. The result is a tense thriller with lots of entertaining plot twists that keeps you guessing as to how it will all play out.

Special Features:

There is a trailer.

Also included is a “Photo Gallery,” a two-minute montage of stills from Night Train.

“Making of Featurette” takes a look at how the film came together. Director King talks about how he always liked trains as a setting in films and was inspired by old John Huston films. The producers talk about the challenge of building train sets and why they couldn’t just shoot on a real train. There are all kinds of behind-the-scenes footage which gives an indication of how much work went into this project.

“Interviews/Soundbites with Cast and Crew” features the four main actors, the director, the producers, and the SFX makeup guy. The actors talk about their characters and their interpretation of what the box means. They also talk about what drew them to their respective characters. The soundbites in the making of featurette are taken from these segments but now you can see them organized by person.

• The film also shot inside some of the most historic buildings in the city, including legendary British architect Lord Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower (the only film to ever be allowed to shoot there) on 57th Street and 8th Avenue; 45 Rockefeller Center (the building that features the statue of Atlas holding up the world at its entrance); the Grand Salon inside of the 1931 Jumeirah Essex House hotel on Central Park South; inside and out of St. James Church (1884) on Madison Avenue between 71st and 72nd Streets; inside of the Beaux Arts and Art Nouveau styled Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank Building (1908-12) on Chambers Street in the Wall Street district; utilizing the exterior of St. Anthony of Padua on Sullivan Street at the intersection of Greenwich Village, Tribeca and Soho, founded in 1866.

• The production spent two all-nighters dressing the beautiful atrium of Henri Bendel with a Midsummer Night’s Dream themed design, as well as the aviator-themed window displays.  They also created window displays for the Hearst Tower with faux stores by Valentino, Anna Sui, Catherine Malandrino and Alberto Ferretti.  Excited New Yorkers thought that actual stores had opened on the ground level of the Tower and were sorely disappointed to discover that they were only for the movie.

• Across the street from St. James Church, windows were re-dressed in actual Yves St. Laurent, Asprey and Sonia Rykiel stores for the film’s climax.

• In the film, costume designer Patricia Field selected clothing and accessories to adorn Isla Fisher’s Becky Bloomwood, including Balenciaga, Marc Jacobs, Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, Zac Posen, Miu Miu, Salvatore Ferragamo, Prada, Christian Dior, Todd Oldham, Gucci and Matthew Williamson, among others.

• To create a lavish display in Henri Bendel’s six-story atrium, as well as window decorations, production designer Kristi Zea and supervising art director Paul Kelly had to bring in a full complement of their department to pull an all-nighter with military precision, as they only had enough time between the store closing its doors to the public and reopening them again in the morning to pull off the impossible.  Mission was accomplished, with legions of New Yorkers admiring the results before the cameras began rolling later that day.

• Filming in New York City gave the filmmakers access to the pool of local actors perhaps better known for their work in the theatre than on film, including Christine Ebersole (Tony Award winner as Best Actress in a Musical for “Grey Gardens”), LaChanze (Tony Award winner as Best Actress in a Musical for “The Color Purple”) and Kaitlin Hopkins (star of the upcoming touring company of “Dirty Dancing: The Musical”).

• Ed Helms of “The Office” is seen only on videotape in the movie as self-help money management guru Garrett E. Barton.

• A bank loan officer is portrayed by Jonathan Tisch, Loews Hotel Chairman and CEO; and in a publishing reception scene filmed in Chicago, another banker is played by Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune Magazine.

• Robert Stanton, who plays ruthless debt collector Derek Smeath, drew upon the only other job he ever had besides actor: a skip tracer for a student loan company, finding people who had defaulted on their debts.  Stanton admits that he wasn’t good at harassing people, since he would always burst out in laughter instead.

• Sophie Kinsella was on the “Confessions of a Shopaholic” set nearly every day as associate producer, consulting and watching her beloved creation of Rebecca Bloomwood come to life. Not so coincidentally considering the massive international sales of the “Shopaholic” novels, Kinsella was often approached by excited fans on New York, Connecticut and Miami locations as if she were more of a movie star than an author.

The irony of the story lies in the fact that this profligate young woman (who longs to work for a fashion magazine) becomes a financial journalist, dishing out fiscal advice to her readers, with surprising success. She writes a column telling people how they should organize their finances; yet she keeps the horrific state of her own finances a secret. Hugh Dancy stars as her ambitious boss. He is the perfect antidote to Becky’s frivolous and chaotic charms. He is grounded and serious – at least to start with – before he falls under Becky’s charms. The chemistry between the two lead characters is palpable.

The hugely talented director, P.J. Hogan, brings heart, comedy and flair to this delightful film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It is full of broad physical humor and emotional moments too. Visually, the film is stunning, which is partly due to the style and ingenuity of award winning costume designer, Patricia Field. Field was the creative force behind the costumes for SEX AND THE CITY (the movie and episodes of the TV series) as well as THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.

The talented cast includes Krysten Ritter, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, John Lithgow, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lynn Redgrave. It is based on the best selling novels by Sophie Kinsella.

Australian director P.J.Hogan’s first film was MURIEL’S WEDDING in 1994, which he also wrote. His other films include MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and PETER PAN.

The director sat down in New York for the following interview.

Q: Why did you cast Isla Fisher in the leading role?

A: “I read the books by Sophie Kinsella – all five of them – and I thought the main character of Rebecca Bloomwood was a marvelous comic creation and there was so much physical comedy in the books and so many dramatic turns. Also though, I knew this was a character who hurts a lot of people she is close to, as well as being endearing and likeable. So I asked myself: who could play this role? Who could handle the physical demands, the comedy and the dramatic side of the film? The first person I actually thought of was Lucille Ball. I thought ‘I am looking for the second coming of Lucy here’ and I didn’t know who Isla was at that point. I had not seen her movies. I didn’t even know she was Australian. People think I am making that up, but it is true, I really did not know. Then the casting director said I should see Isla in WEDDING CRASHERS. So I saw it and actually thought Isla was American because her accent was so good. Anyway I loved her performance and then I met her and discovered she was an Aussie and that we had worked with many of the same people. We got on well and at the end of the meeting I thought: ‘she is Becky’. What really sealed the deal for me was when she told me that part of her training as an actor had involved attending Clown School in France and I thought ‘that’s it’. I knew she would be able to do the physical comedy as well the drama. Then soon after that, I found out that she could also carry the whole movie in the leading role.”

Q: Did you consider any bigger stars?
A: “I did not see any big established stars who were right for the role. Isla seemed to me to be the perfect Rebecca Bloomwood and the producer, Jerry Bruckheimer also loved Isla, so she had his support from the start.”

Q: What does Isla bring to the character?

A: “I think she brings a great deal of energy and joy. Isla loves to act and she loves to do comedy, she is not afraid of comedy. I think the genuine confidence and joy in her work spills over into the film. She is also extremely likeable which is very important for this character. I am very drawn to films with main characters who are not saints and Rebecca is not a saint. She is a shopaholic, she lives beyond her means and spends most of the film deceiving people and yet we really like her and personally I indentified with her, despite her flaws or maybe because of her flaws. Isla has that power I think, she is intensely likeable. Luckily I have worked with two actresses in the past who had that appeal, Julia Roberts (MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING) and Toni Collette (MURIEL’S WEDDING).”

Q: How exactly do you identify with Rebecca?

A: “I have definitely had my own ‘credit card moments’, particularly when I was younger, I got into a lot of trouble with credit cards. I ‘maxed’ many of them out and couldn’t pay them off. So I really did identify with her. At one time I actually paid my rent with my credit card, which you should never do. Also I would go out to dinner a lot, getting meals I couldn’t afford.”

Q: Can you discuss the upbeat, fun look of the film?

A: “My influences as a filmmaker are Vincente Minnelli and Bernardo Bertolucci, I like bright colors and a big lyrical look. I try to work with people who can give me that. I think for me, the film reminds me in some ways of my movie PETER PAN which was a complete fantasy. There is a fantasy element in this film too. The original title in England was The Secret Dream world of a Shopaholic. I thought ‘dream world’ was especially important and significant and I think that is reflected in the look and style of the movie.”

Q: Do you see Isla as a future superstar?

A: “I certainly hope she is because just as a member of the audience, I would love to see Isla Fisher in more films. I do think studios are always searching for the next Julia Roberts; they are always searching for a female star who audiences will pay good money to watch. I think Isla Fisher is immensely talented.”

Q: Why are Australian actors so popular just now do you think? There seem to be a lot in Hollywood?

A: “I think they are just so good and I don’t know why. They really are great.”

Q: Why did you pick Hugh Dancy?

A: “Once I had Isla in place as Rebecca, I knew what I was looking for in Luke Brandon. Isla brought a dangerous element to the movie because Rebecca is completely out of control and so I knew that I needed someone very centered as Luke, to contrast with this person who had no control. She needed someone to have too much self-control as a balance. The characters both help each other, he centers her, but also teaches her something about responsibility and credibility and she loosens him up. He really needs that because life is passing him by and Hugh was perfect in the role. He is good looking and very talented.”

Q: Did you have an instinct that they would have great chemistry?

A: “I hoped they would, they certainly seemed good together when they first met. I always put the main actors in the same room just to make sure that they get on and bring out the best in each other, that’s important, or they could be opposites, that’s important as well. In this case Hugh and Isla were great together from the start.”

Q: What were your favorite parts of the film to direct?

A: “I love doing the physical comedy because Isla is so good at it. And as the film progressed I tried to do more and more physical comedy and find opportunities for Isla to do what she does best. One great sequence involves the scene in which Hugh and Isla’s relationship moves from a professional relationship to a personal romance. It is the moment when he falls in love with her and I knew it had to be funny, I think it is more romantic when it is funny. This what happened: Isla said to me at one point: ‘this may not mean anything to you P.J., but Sacha (her partner Sacha Baron Cohen) told me that when I dance I am really funny.’ That is all she had to tell me. When I heard that, I thought a dance sequence in Miami, where the scene was to take place, might be good. Then Sophie Kinsella the author did some research and came up with the idea of Isla doing the ‘danzon’ a dance that involves the use of a fan’. Well give Isla a fan and that is all you need to do. So it evolved and ended up being a very funny scene in the film.”

Q: Can you discuss the theme of the film?

A: “It is all about shopping and of course shopping can be great fun, if you can afford what you are buying. I think that Sophie Kinsella was really onto something interesting when she wrote these books and created this character. She created a character who was living in a fantasy world and living beyond her means on credit and in complete denial. She is very happy with the life she has built herself, despite the fact that it is built on sand. I think that the world has woken up to find that we were all (or many of us) living in a fantasy world. We were living a life that we could not afford, especially in America. And I think that the brilliance of Sophie’s books is that they follow the story of that character and we find out how she can extricate herself from her problems. There is a lesson that Rebecca learns in the movie.”

Q: But it is also fun escapism isn’t it?

A: “Yes and it was very important for me to make an escapist film because at the time I got involved, I was going a difficult time in my life and I wanted to make a film that was very funny and that I would enjoy making and watching. But I knew that the message would always be there because that was in the DNA of the material. But first of all I wanted it to be a lot of fun.”

Q: Do you think it is good, perhaps therapeutic to have a sense of humor about the economy?

A: “Of course, what else can we do? Just cry about it? I know it is serious and everyone is terrified, but we are all entitled to forget our problems for a while, that is what I like to do when I go to the movies. Hopefully people will be able to do that at least for two hours when they watch this film. We are in the midst of tough times but there is humor to be found and hope to be had.”

Q: Do you have to stick closely to the book in a film like this?

A: “I don’t think so at all. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA was a great film and bore little relation to the book. It depends on the book and film. We had an advantage because we were drawing from two books and our other major advantage was that Sophie Kinsella was on the set. So the things that were invented were often invented by Sophie and Isla and me all working together, so it was all authentic.”

Q: You have made some great romantic comedies. What is your approach would you say?

A: “Well my films are called romantic comedies, but when I think about them, they aren’t really. In MURIEL’S WEDDING there is no guy, she wants to get married but the romance is all in her head. It is a romance with the idea of a wedding. With MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING the main character thinks she is in love, but she’s not. And with this one, the character falls in love with a guy who she is betraying in every possible way. I think I am drawn to romantic comedies where the romance is not really the main essence of the film, or the romance is in constant danger, threatened by the actions of the main character.”

Q: Do you think you have some intrinsic, natural gift for comedy?

A: “I hope so because if I don’t I am in big trouble (laughs). I love comedy; I find life intrinsically funny, especially when it is the most trying and difficult. Some of the funniest moments in my own life have also been the worst, you know, those times when you think to yourself: what can you do but laugh?”

Q: What are your favorite comedies?

A: “I have so many, I love THE RULES OF THE GAME and more recently TOOTSIE. I love the Marx Brothers comedies and Billy Wilder comedies are dark but extremely funny. I think he is a master. And I love Preston Sturges.”

Q: Who would you like to work with – anyone specifically?

A: “I think there are many actors who are incredibly funny who just don’t work enough. I worked with Kristin Scott Thomas on this movie and she has had an amazing resurgence in the last year or so in drama, but she is also really brilliant at comedy, she is very funny and has not made enough movies in general or done enough comedy in my opinion. She was hilarious in GOSFORD PARK.’

Q: What does she bring to her role as the fashion magazine editor in this film?

A: “She brings everything – that character is mostly her creation. We are dealing with someone who is a fashion icon and we wanted to make sure that she was not at all like Meryl Streep’s character from THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. And Kristin said to me: ‘I live in France and I know a woman who is completely ‘gaga’ but absolutely brilliant and I would like to make my character French.’ I thought that was a fantastic idea. So she based the character on someone she knew and that character is almost entirely her creation and is so funny.”

Q: How difficult is the whole process of making a film?

A: “It all takes a long time. My friends know how long it takes, they know that for every film I make there are another three I try to get made and can’t. I think that is true for all filmmakers with the exception of Steven Spielberg who can make anything he wants to make. It is really difficult. I think every filmmaker has pet projects he really wants to make and can’t. I am lucky though, because I have never made a film I did not want to make. I have felt passionate about every film I have made.”

Q: Is there anything on the horizon?

A: “I always have something on the horizon but I have no idea whether it will happen or not. There is a project I am working on with my wife that I would love to make and then very often things turn up when you least expect them. I love my work and I love the surprises.”

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC is on Blu-ray and DVD June 23^rd!

Hogan parlayed that film’s success with a lavish take on Peter Pan (2003) that was not the massive blockbuster success the studio had hoped for and the filmmaker has since struggled to get back on track, making a film called Unconditional Love (2002) that went direct-to-video here in North America. He seemed primed to make a comeback with his latest, Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), an adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name. It stars Isla Fisher, an up-and-coming actress with a lot of media buzz around her, and who was being groomed by the studio hype machine to follow in the footsteps of Meg Ryan, Roberts and Diaz as the next America’s cinematic sweetheart. However, Confessions of a Shopaholic was released during the highly publicized collapse of the world economy and suddenly, a film about a materialistic young woman who maxes out her credit cards, didn’t seem so funny anymore. Hogan’s film was not the massive commercial success that the studio had hoped for.

Since she was a child, Rebecca Bloomwood (Fisher) has been obsessed with expensive clothes – both wearing and purchasing them. She grows up to become a compulsive shopper unable to resist the lure of fancy items in a shop window or having visions of a store mannequin coming to life only to convince her to buy a scarf that she doesn’t really need. Becky dreams of writing for a high-fashion New York City magazine but faced with a mounting debt of $16,000 and having been recently fired from her job at a gardening periodical, she scrambles to find another writing gig. Becky settles for a personal finance column at a sister publication where she finds herself increasing drawn to her boss Luke Brandon (Dancy). She writes a column called “The Girl in the Green Scarf” and it quickly becomes a surprise hit.

Isla Fisher has little to work with and, at times, it is painful to watch her gamely spout unfunny dialogue and engage in silly displays of physical comedy. We are not laughing with her character but rather laughing at her, much as was the case with Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004). Fisher is clearly better than this material as she proved in other films like Hot Rod (2007) and The Lookout (2007). Hugh Dancy fairs a little better with the film’s hackneyed dialogue. Maybe it’s because of his British accent but he actually makes listening to it semi-tolerable. Dancy has a bit of a nervous Hugh Grant thing going on and his character is infinitely more interesting than Becky, which is not a good thing. Dancy and Fisher have nice chemistry together but it is rather baffling as to why his character would be even remotely attracted to hers. He’s a workaholic and she’s not so I guess opposites attract but in this case I didn’t buy it.

Confessions of a Shopaholic does not get off to a good start when early on the humour feels forced, like in Becky’s disastrous job interview and her attempt to dodge a debt collector on the phone. This film obviously wants to be the next The Devil Wears Prada (2006) but its screenplay lets its cast time and time again. Becky is a superficial clothes horse and she doesn’t seem remotely smart enough to work at a finance magazine… or any magazine for that matter. In this day and age, where we are in the depths of a terrible economic recession, making light of massive credit card debt and a protagonist obsessed with expensive clothes comes across as rather offensive. Based on the talent involved, Confessions of a Shopaholic is a huge disappointment and one would be better off watching The Devil Wears Prada or Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) instead.

Special Features:

There are four deleted scenes that include Becky daydreaming about the popularity of her column, another where she works at a clothing store with disastrous results, and a scene that shows Luke and Becky getting closer.

“Bloopers of a Shopaholic” is a collection of flubs and blown lines that is actually funnier than most of the film.

Finally, there is a music video for “Stuck with Each Other” by Shontelle featuring Akon. It is a typical movie tie-in video that features lots of clips from Confessions of a Shopaholic with Shontelle in a clothing store like a scene out of the film

Antonius Block (von Sydow), a 14th century knight, and his squire are resting on a beach, exhausted from the trials and tribulations of the Crusades and escaping the Black Death. Antonius awakens to find Death present and ready to take his life. In order to prolong the inevitable, the knight challenges the Grim Reaper to a game of chess and if he wins then he gets to live. A bemused Death agrees and so it goes. We also meet three performers, one of them is a juggler named Jof (Poppe), traveling the countryside. In an amusing turn he is courted by Death cutting down the tree that he’s sitting in. Jof and his companions eventually cross paths with Antonius.

Von Sydow plays the idealistic hero on a quest, complete with a sidekick. He’s a noble figure and brave enough to challenge Death to a game of chess. The Seventh Seal is not surprisingly rife with religious symbolism as the filmmaker wrestled with the weighty themes of life and death. Is God a man-made concept or did God create us? Bergman’s film is a fiercely intellectual film and yet not in a pretentious way. Since its debut in Stockholm in February 1957, The Seventh Seal has left behind an impressive legacy that has been expertly preserved in this excellent new special edition.

Special Features:

The first disc starts off with an audio commentary from the previous edition by film scholar Peter Cowie. He briefly talks about the impact that the first time he saw The Seventh Seal had on him. He points out where Bergman drew his inspiration for the look of Death. Cowie populates this track with production anecdotes along with an analysis of what we are watching as well as the film’s themes.

“Afterword” is a follow-up by Cowie to the 1987 commentary he did for the Criterion Collection. He points out the film’s rich humour, despite its reputation as a dark, brooding film about death. This extra gives him a chance to mention things that he failed to when he originally recorded the commentary.

“Max von Sydow Audio Interview” features excerpts of interviews Cowie conducted with the veteran actor in 1988 for a book about the man. He talks about his upbringing and his parents. He recounts his first experience with the theatre and how it led to him becoming an actor.

“Woody Allen on Bergman” features a wonderful short film from Turner Classic Movies with Allen talking about his love for Bergman’s films over a montage of clips from them. He says that The Seventh Seal is his favourite Bergman film. This is an eloquent tribute to the man and his films.

Also included is a trailer.

The second disc includes “Bergman Island,” an impressive feature-length documentary about Bergman that was released in 2006. Bergman reflects on his life and career, coming across as a modest and humble man who tells all kinds of engaging anecdotes from his life. There are many clips from his films and excellent behind-the-scenes footage.

Finally, there is “Bergman 101,” a crash course on the life and career of Bergman by Cowie. He narrates over stills and clips from the man’s films. This is an excellent primer that traces Bergman’s career arc and touches upon many of his films while also providing factoids and analysis.

We first meet playwright and actor Wallace Shawn walking the run-down-looking streets of SoHo in New York City as he contemplates the difficulties of his profession. He is en route to having dinner with an old friend, which he is dreading because they haven’t spoken in years and he’s heard all sorts of rumours. Shawn arrives at the restaurant and finally meets his old friend who is none other than theatre director Andre Gregory.

They get ordering their food out of the way and the film gets down to business: an in-depth conversation that covers all sorts of topics. Gregory starts things off by telling a long story about how, years ago, he had become disenchanted with the theatre and how his passion for it was rejuvenated. Other highlights include Gregory telling Shawn about what he always perceived as the fascist undertones in The Little Prince, an amusing story about a Buddhist monk who stayed with him and his family and how, over time, his habits changed due to the influence of metropolitan life. Gregory ruminates about death and the state of things – how we are unaware of ourselves. Conversely, Shawn talks about expressing one’s feelings directly and champions the theatre. He also talks about the notion of reality.

Most people know Shawn from either The Princess Bride (1987) or Clueless (1995), his two most high profile films, but prior to them he had several plays produced off-Broadway, including Our Late Night in 1975, which was directed by Gregory. Soon after, he had a memorable cameo playing Diane Keaton’s ex-husband in Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979). Like Shawn, Gregory was a well-known figure in New York’s experimental theatre world. He founded the Manhattan Project in the late 1960s, a theatre group that was known for its lengthy rehearsal periods and extensive use of improvisation.

My Dinner with Andre is a film that champions the lost art of conversation – something that is even more apparent in a world dominated by technological distractions like cell phones, the Internet, iPods, and so on. These things weren’t around at the time of the film which dates it, but in a good way. This is certainly not a film for everyone as many would probably find a film about two guys pontificating and philosophizing a big bore but for those who believe that we are getting increasingly disconnected from each other will find comfort in My Dinner with Andre.

Special Features:

“Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn” features filmmaker Noah Baumbach interviewing the stars of My Dinner with Andre separately. Gregory talks about how he met Shawn and how the film came together. He had told many of the stories recounted in the film, socially, and often felt like he was rehearsing for a film. He says that they asked Mike Nichols to direct but he couldn’t do it. Gregory talks about the writing and tells a lot of fantastic stories. Shawn talks about his views of theatre and his early experiences as a playwright. He also talks about how he came up with the idea for the film. One of his goals for the film was to destroy a side of himself that was ruled by fear. He says that Louis Malle brought a warmth to the film that he hadn’t written and may explain why it was so well-received.

“My Dinner with Louis” is a 1982 episode of the BBC show Arena and features Shawn talking with filmmaker Louis Malle about working with Jacques Cousteau and making films in America. He talks about the controversial reaction to his film, The Lovers (1958). He speaks quite eloquently about his early career. He discusses some of the themes he explored in his American films.

Millions of years ago on the planet Cybertron, two warring groups of transformable robots are draining their world of its energy. The cruel Decepticons, led by the merciless Megatron, want Cybertron for themselves. They have almost made the peaceful Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, extinct. Both sides decide that they must look to other planets for the energy they so desperately need. Each side sends their best representatives and it doesn’t take long before they continue their battle in outer space.

In the ensuing chaos, the Transformers crash land on Earth where they lie dormant for many years. A volcanic explosion revives the Autobots and Decepticons. Megatron plans to take all of the resources they need and return to Cybertron, while Optimus Prime wants to stop them. In order to remain undetected, the Transformers can change into things common to our planet: automobiles, airplanes, a portable radio, a gun, and so on. And so, the epic battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons continues on Earth with humanity caught in the middle.

The series kicked off with a three-episode mini-series before settling into a familiar formula as the Decepticons try to drain the planet of its resources and the Autobots try to stop them. One of the things that makes the show work so well is that it has a great villain in Megatron and a true hero in Optimus Prime. They represent tried and true archetypes that are easy to root for and against. It doesn’t hurt that there is something inherently cool about giant robots fighting each other.

This first season saw the introduction of two new sub-groups of Transformers – the Dinobots, inspired by dinosaur skeletons but unfortunately with the same level of intelligence, and the Insecticons, robots that can turn into nasty insects. The former ally themselves with the Autobots, while the latter team up with the Decepticons.

For anyone who grew up watching The Transformers, these DVDs will be a wonderful trip down memory lane. The episodes all look great with the correct animation colour inserted back in which was missing from the previous edition. The recaps of previous episodes and previews for upcoming ones are included, as well as bumper spots for commercial breaks that will instantly take you back to when you first saw them. I, for one, can’t wait for season two, which, of course, is the build up for Transformers: The Movie (1986).

Special Features:

“Triple Changer: From Toy to Comic to Screen” is a 20-minute retrospective featurette about The Transformers phenomenon. The show’s origins came from several Japanese toy lines. An American company named Hasbro decided to bring it to North America and create a cartoon around them, giving each robot its own personality and create a storyline. They also created a comic book to go with the toys. With this featurette we get the lowdown behind the names for the various robots in this informative and engaging extra.

Also included are three original commercials, vintage ads that tie in the toys with cartoons. The one featuring the Insecticons is a particularly memorable one.

“Public Service Announcement” is an example of how each episode used to end with a Transformer imparting a safety lesson and this one sees Bumblebee convincing a kid not to run away from home. This is all good cheesy fun.

Finally, there is a PDF copy of the script for “Transport to Oblivion.”

Season One: Clip 1

Season One: Clip 2

Season One: Clip 3

Season One: Clip 4

Season One: DVD Trailer