Rhettoric Review

MACHINE GUN MCCAIN Bluray

2010-09-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

John Cassavetes has an interesting history behind him. Today he’s revered as a Hollywood great, and considering his directorial body of work, from Faces to A Woman Under the Influence, it’s easy to see why. To most, though, he is remembered as an actor, notably from Rosemary’s Baby and The Dirty Dozen, the film that gave him his first nomination and the one that finally led to leading roles. In truth, though, he was never much of an actor. Smarmy, one note and stilted, whether he was leering at his daughter in The Incubus or getting his head blown off in De Palma’s The Fury, he’d always play the same smug part. As a villain he could get under your skin, but it was more because of his indifference to the role than the quality of his performance. It’s a shame, because early on in his career he demonstrated a lot of promise beside James Whitmore in the Rebel without a Cause clone, Crime in the Streets (recently released in Warner’s Film Noir Collection Vol. 5). In that role there was a fire behind those brooding eyes, and a surprising emotive range – going from tough hood to crying child at the turn of a dime. The roles never really came fast and furious after that initial screen introduction, and instead three years later he’d find himself behind the director’s chair for the first time.

Unable to get the parts he wanted, Cassavetes instead turned to directing, and the films thereafter seemed to be just the bottom line. He needed financing for his movies, and since Hollywood never gave him plum parts as an actor, he seemed to bullishly turn his back on them with his dry, detached performances. One such performance is as the titular robber in Machine Gun McCain, released at the height of his popularity a year after Rosemary’s Baby. It was directed by the political Italian filmmaker Giuliano Montaldo, who had seen some Stateside success with another heist picture two years prior, the Edward G. Robinson vehicle, Grand Slam. Montaldo mentions in the extras how it was tough to work with Cassavetes, as he was always passive aggressive in trying to call the shots from in front of the camera. It’s a wonder why he was so confident, since his character is undeveloped, inconsistent and uninterested. He mouths off any suggestion from his son who just picked him up from prison. He’s unaffectionate and power hungry with his newly-eloped wife (The Wicker Man’s Britt Ekland). Cassavetes never seems to know how to play the character, painfully evident in a scene later in the film where he goes from determined and on the hunt, to crying, to laughing and finally to smug – all in the span of about 30 seconds. Perhaps he was going for some type of Method internal allocation, bringing forward whatever was in his head at the moment, but whatever the pretense, it’s a really muddled and closed off performance.

The film isn’t really one to watch for its story, either. It too seems rather closed off, exploring a family mafia in Las Vegas, but one we the viewer are not really made a part. We understand Charlie Adamo’s (future Cassavetes regular and Columbo star Peter Falk) frustration at being a targeted outsider in the gambling ring because we too can’t seem to get a break into the inside. The film follows Cassavetes’ McCain as he plans and executes his first big heist out of the slammer, but as presented in the film there really isn’t much to it. There are no major obstacles in the second act, no hitches during the heist and little more than your stock film noir finale for the ending. The story is forgettable, and Cassavetes’ performance is memorable for the wrong reasons.

What makes a viewing justifiable are the parties on the periphery – Gena Rowlands is quite strong in a limited part as McCain’s steadfast love interest (and Cassavetes’ in real life) and nearly equally as beautiful. While Fulci favorite Florinda Bolkan (Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Don’t Torture a Duckling) doesn’t offer up the same kind of performance, she’s even more beautiful here. Shapely bone structure, thick, voluminous hair and a tight, olive physique, she was quite the looker, and she looks especially good in the costumes outfitted to her here. Falk is of course always a good watch, and aside from the acting, Ennio Morricone’s titular theme done in the repetitive, character name-spewing fashion of Django, is also good. It’s a shame Morricone’s score consists of little else other than a few instrumental riffs on the title track and some light backing. This is definitely a far cry from the work he was doing with Leone at the time, but considering he clocked 25…yes, 25, films in 1969 alone, you can understand why his contributions here are so meager.

In the end, meager is really the word that describes Machine Gun McCain in full. It’s got familiar story elements with familiar sound and familiar faces, but none of it really rises above the bar. Cassavetes doesn’t give us a character to care about, and Montaldo does sub-par job establishing even a viable adversary for Cassavetes’ McCain. When the stock finale comes to a close, you get the sense everyone involved cares about as much as we do for the outcome. Not much. Cassavetes made the film to fund his directorial efforts, Rowlands did it for her husband, Morricone did it in between 24 others that year,and Montaldo directed it just to get a piece of the Hollywood money machine. Machine Gun McCain is the epitome of a paycheck movie – one done with competency but without passion. This gun shoots blanks.

presentation...

Blue Underground fires out Machine Gun McCain in hard hitting 1080P HD. While on past titles like The Stendhal Syndrome and The New York Ripper I’ve expressed my reservations of their grainy post-sharpening techniques, on the whole Blue Underground has consistently delivered some of the best HD presentations available on the format. Machine Gun McCain is another looker, incredibly vivid with all those grand late-sixties colors, from the bright lights of Las Vegas to Florinda Bolkan’s lush green dress. The transfer has a nice, natural film grain present, and detail is solid without seeming artificially sharp. Print damage is virtually non-existent and aside from a few color matching issues shot to shot, there was little to really nitpick here. The disc is only single layer, but there’s only about thirty minutes of HD extras, and coupled with the film that’s just over 2 hours of HD content on a single layer. Not the best compression, but certainly more than enough for a satisfying, and in this case very satisfying, final product.

Sound-wise, we hear the gunfire in DTS-HD Master Audio, but all that frill is for a mono mix. It’s not a particularly rousing track, and Morricone’s soundtrack often rings quiet aside from the eponymous “no one does it better than McCain!” theme song. Dialogue is mostly clear, although there were a few times, like in the noisy casino, where it was tough to make out all the speech. Still, a perfectly serviceable sound mix for a film that deserves just about that.

extras...

A relatively sparse slate here other than an articulate and enthused interview with director Giuliano Montaldo. He explains at length how he got his start in acting and how he was eventually given an opportunity to direct by the company behind the Dollars movies. He then goes on to talk specifically about McCain from working with all those actors, including the at times tough task of directing Cassavetes, to staging scenes and mastering the camera. He also talks more broadly about his career and why he declined an offer from Paramount to make more American movies. It’s an engaging 20-odd minutes, although he doesn’t mention the figures that cult fans would care about the most like Bolkan or Morricone. It’s recorded in Italian and subtitled in English. There are separate English and Italian trailers also included to round off the disc.

wrapping it up...

Blue Underground has kept a relatively low profile on the cult video scene for the last two years, relying almost entirely on repurposing their catalog for Blu-ray. It was a nice surprise, then, when they finally announced a new title in McCain for both DVD and Blu-ray. The end result, though, isn’t quite what it could have been. Cassavetes gives a disinterested and disjointed performance, the story is cliché pulp all the way, and there isn’t much in the way of style. To its benefit, it has a fine cast of cult favorites and a charming theme song from Mr. Morricone. On the whole, though, it’s a paycheck for all involved. Blue Underground has earned their pay in the presentation, though, with an excellent film transfer and a satisfying mono DTS mix. The interview with the director adds a nice personal touch, even if the film itself is lacking one. If you like star gazing, it’s worth a ratatatat shot, but all others should go out and support the Underground by buying one of their other, better discs like The Prowler or City of the Living Dead.

overall...

Content: C

Video: A-

Audio: C+

Extras: B-

Final Grade: C

DJANGO Blu-ray

2010-05-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

Let’s make no mistake, Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy probably left the biggest impact on the western genre at any time and from any place. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is consistently heralded as the greatest western ever made, garnering the #4 spot on the IMDb top 250 and a consistent citation from filmmakers as one of the most influential films ever. If you want to look at influence by sheer imitation, though, Sergio Corbucci’s Django might just sneak in to the top. Coming before The Ugly in 1965, it left quite a mark with its stoic anti-hero with a coffin he drags behind him as penance. Franco Nero made a huge mark on the genre as the lead, and he alone would star in fifteen different westerns, including the belated sequel (where Django becomes a monk, no less!) Django Strikes Again, and the similar, and fantastic, one-man-against-the-world Keoma by Enzo G. Castellari. It seemed for a time, though, that every western to follow in Django’s wake would erroneously be retitled to something in the Django name, despite the fact that few of the films even had a character named Django. Still, every Italian production for the last twenty decades, and Blue Underground clocks 50 “unofficial” sequels, all did their part in trying to replicate the style of Corbucci’s trendsetter.

It’s been thirty-five years now, though, since the gatling gun toting gunslinger first rolled into town. Is he still a good shot, or has the shine of his pistol tarnished a bit in light of all the imitations to follow in its wake. At the time of its release, it was known as one of the most violent films ever made, most famously for featuring an ear-severing scene that Tarantino would later homage in Reservoir Dogs. Still, will this be respected today as one that cultivated the genre, or does it still pack enough punch to entertain today? Saddle up, friends, let’s find some bounty.

The film begins with Luis Bacalov’s theme that memorably bellows “Djangooooooo, have you always been alone? “ as the drifter walks through a muddied desert dragging behind him a coffin that’s too heavy to be empty. As he reaches the crest of a hill, he witnesses a woman being tied to and beaten on a bridge by Mexican bandits. Rather than rush to her rescue like any other white hatted western hero would in films prior to Django, he instead watches in silence. The guy’s got a lot more baggage than just that coffin. Looking instead to come to her rescue are a few white horsemen. Instead, they kill the Mexicans and look to punish whom Django later learns to be runaway prostitute Maria (Loredana Nusciak). In the beat of a second, though, Django unleashes a flurry of fire, shooting down the handful of bandits. He takes Maria and heads back to the brothel she ran from.

When he enters the brothel he can’t even be taken seriously enough to get a drink. The town has been dominated by bandits demanding profits for their protection, led by Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo). Jackson and his boys have this little game where they unchain Mexican captives and gun them down as they try to escape. They’re badass. Django quickly commands respect, though, when he shoots down another smattering of the Major’s men in front of all the whores and their pudgy manager. He gets a drink and his pick of any woman in the joint, but Django can’t be bothered with such excess. When asked by the owner what’s inside the coffin, he responds with perfect deprecating glory, “Django.”

The Major’s men come back for Django, this time nearly fifty-strong, but in one fell swoop sends them all into the dirt with the gatling gun he’d been concealing in his coffin. He wasn’t lying when he said he himself was in the coffin, either, since he’s been punishing himself ever since he allowed his lover to be killed by the Major while he was away. Django’s back, though, and he’ll get his man, as well as maybe a little bit of gold from that paunchy Mexican general, Hugo Rodriguez (Jose Bodalo).

Leone’s films found their appeal by lingering stylishly on empty, quiet moments in cinemascope, using close-ups, sound effects and Morricone’s rollicking music to inflate what was initially just another riff on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. His great non-performance aside, Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name was essentially a cipher, an empty vessel for Leone’s skills at visual storytelling. Django as a character, though, is front and center what makes Sergio Corbucci’s film still just as compelling today. The narrative plays deliriously with our expectations, constantly flipping from presenting Django as a respectable hero and a callous outlaw. At the start we see him watch a woman beaten only to, much later, save her. He brings her to a brothel to get some sleep – a nice gesture, right? Well, apparently he was doing it at the request of the Mexican general. Okay, well she’s safe, right? Instead of leaving with dignity, he instead strikes a deal to steal a sack full of gold. Not only that, but he steals the gold a second time from his partner as he tries to make a getaway. Near the end of the film Maria finally offers herself to Django, and he looks to want to reciprocate but doesn’t. You think to yourself, “Oh, it’s the pain of losing his lover that’s holding him back”, right? Well, the next scene he declares that he doesn’t want her and instead wants the native prostitute. Dirty move, isn’t it? Well, just wait. He doesn’t pick the native for sex, but instead as a decoy so he can make off with the gold without anyone knowing. Even during the film’s memorable finale, Django is thrown once again in conflict with his valour and his villainy, forced to choose between his gold and his girl, and even then Corbucci doesn’t succumb to cliché.

The film is constantly pulling Django’s morals from side to side, never quite allowing the audience a chance to see who he really is behind that concealing black-rimmed hat. Even that iconic coffin is one filled with duality. First we recognize it as a sort of cross he drags for penance for allowing his lover to die, but then we find out instead that it’s used to conceal his punishing weapon. With the script written by Sergio Corbucci and his brother Bruno, though, it’s never black and white. It’s always a bit of both, and the way they play with our expectations of what a western hero should be and what a western hero really was in the duplicitous Old West makes Django always compelling at every turn. There’d be a ton of films that would emulate the stoic lead pioneered by Eastwood and Nero, but few would explore the infinitely more interesting blur between hero and villain, a trait that still gives Django an edge over its imitators all these years later.

Although Django doesn’t seem all that violent today, even when he’s gunning down forty men in the span of seconds, it still possess scenes of maliciousness that give its guns pop. The ear-cutting scene has been done several times since, and with greater graphic violence, but Corbucci’s film still resonates not for the violence, but for the way it’s willing to revel in the lowly behavior of its baddies. They don’t just cut off his ear, they FEED IT back to the victim. That’s how depraved this movie is. Or again, the start, where Django just quietly watches Maria tied and whipped. There are other scenes with this kind of unflinching honesty at the dissoluteness of these characters, like when the camera lingers on Django getting pummeled in the face by the butt of a rifle or when, after being bludgeoned, Django has his hands trotted over by all of the Major’s horses. It’s not so much that it’s graphic, it’s just the wanton principle behind it all.

The sudden outbursts of malicious violence, and Corbucci’s refusal to define Django as any kind of hero proper, allow his film to constantly buck expectation and to still stand out today as one of the premier films of the genre. While personal favorites like Keoma or Mannaja may offer a grander, more poetic brutality and style, they can’t match the sheer audacity of Corbucci’s sotic little piece. Like his protagonist, Django rolls forward with little expectation but shoots through the roof with every scene following. It’s a shame that Nero and Corbucci never worked together on creating a series proper for our beloved Django. Yes, they made a couple westerns together, The Mercenary and Companeros, which are quite good, but never would they revisit the character that come to define both their careers. Leone and Eastwood got a trilogy with their Man With No Name, but for the man whose name we’ll never forget, only one. It’s a shame, but maybe it’s fitting, for there’ll never be another like Django. And as fans, we’ll continue to bellow his name as he drags the weight of all inferior westerns through the mud in his coffin. “Oh Django! After the showers, the sun…you will be shining!”

presentation...

One thing is clear – Blue Underground’s Blu-rays always look tack sharp. The problem with a lot of them, though, is that they reach that point through some creative digital sharpening and a whole lot of noise. Django is such a disc, with amazing sharpness and detail in objects, from the individual hairs on Nero’s beard to the fine little pieces of glimmering gold in the bandits’ bag. Yet, behind all that detail is a consistent flurry of fine black dots, proving that Blue Underground really is pushing these negatives the furthest they can go in the pursuit of detail. While this is par for the course with many Blue titles, Django may suffer most given the depreciating condition of the original film elements. There are many scenes where the white flickering dissolve from the print would be glaringly obvious if it weren’t for all the black noise. Still, they’ve polished a turd of a print as nicely as they can, and Blue Underground needs to be commended for digitally removing a number of major glaring print defects on this new release. This is a major step ahead of the older DVD, which while noisy is impeccably clean and never aflutter in the gate. Colors are trademark Blue Underground vivacious and anyone remembering the film as a battered home video staple are about to see it in a whole new light.

Sound-wise, we get two tracks in DTS-HD Master Audio, but both are unfortunately mono only. Usually Blue Underground pulls out all the stops in their surround sound remixes, especially in their recent Blu-ray for Fulci’s City of the Living Dead, but here the best we get is one fairly deep channel. Bigger than a remix, though, is the inclusion of the Italian track to go along with the Enlgish, for it features Franco Nero’s original voice. The English dubbing certainly isn’t the best, always out of sync with mouths and, especially in Django’s case, robotically stilted. Hearing Nero in his original tongue is definitely how this should be heard, and like with the video, Blue Underground has done a nice job cleaning this up so any playback damage, like hiss, pops or dropouts, are almost entirely removed.

extras...

While not the full out special edition a movie of this caliber and influence deserves, Blue Underground has ported over extras from their original 2-disc release from 2008 along with a vintage documentary that was previously released on Blue Underground’s Run, Man, Run DVD. “Western, Italian Style” is a 38-minute documentary from 1968, and it amusingly plays out in that kitschy, instructional video kind of fashion. It certainly doesn’t cover the genre with breadth, but it does feature a few of the classics, namely Once Upon a Time in the West, Corbucci’s The Great Silence and Run, Man, Run. It also features interviews and on-set footage with directors Enzo Castellari, Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Sollima and Mario Caiano. Castellari’s earlier bit is the best, where he deals with a some on-screen fight choreography in amusing fashion. Forget the genre it is chronicling, though, the documentary itself is a vintage artifact more than worth preserving, and it’s great that Blue Underground included it here. It would be great to see more of this sort of thing on future releases rather than spending the money on newer, narrowly-focused interviews and commentary.

First from the previous DVDs is an interview with Franco Nero and under-appreciated neo-realist Ruggero Deodato (who directed Cannibal Holocaust but served as the assistant director on Django). The two have plenty of very worthwhile anecdotes to share, from how Franco Nero got his screen name to why Deodato decided to give all his extras wear red masks during the film. It’s a wonderful, if all too brief, chat with two legends, and it ends fittingly with Nero talking about the possibility of getting back in the saddle as our favorite gunslinger.

Next is a ten-minute short film featuring Franco Nero, The Last Pistolero. While initially a little deliberately arthouse, it finds its form near the end and offers a fine little deconstruction of the western hero. With Nero in the lead and totally silent throughout, it’s as if his Django, and every other western staple, is coming face to face with karma, knowing that successfully dodging thousands of bullets a movie and somehow surviving eventually catches up with you. Presented in black and white, it’s a good looking little piece, but the non-anamorphic letterbox encode leaves much to be desired.

Rounding off the disc are English and Italian trailers and a short introduction from Mr. Nero himself.

wrapping it up...

Django is one of the grand characters of the cinema, a man woven with complexity, and one who behind that large brimmed hat still conceals so much of that from the audience. Eastwood may get too much credit as the penultimate anti-hero, but for my money Franco Nero’s guns that title down. Stylishly simple but scripturally complex, Django is a film both viscerally violent and emotionally complex. It’s one of the spaghetti greats. Blue Underground has pulled off an amazingly sharp and restored transfer, even if their signature noise dirties up the frame. The audio offers DTS options for both the English and the preferred Italian track with Nero’s original voice. The extras, while not the flurry of bullets the film deserves, complement the feature and provide a nice bit of retrospective. Blue Underground has a stable of great Italian westerns…hopefully they’ll open the coffin and set the rest of this fine era of filmmaking free like they have here with Django. Djangooooooooooo!

overall...

Content: A

Video: B+

Audio: C+

Extras: B

Final Grade: B

CLASS ACT on Warner Archive DVD

2010-05-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

You may not see it in Oscar lists or on the IMDb top 250, where films like Schindler’s List or Pulp Fiction dominate what most understand to be the pinnacle of nineties cinema, but the evolution of African American filmmaking was far and away the biggest mover and shaker of the decade. You had the emergence and refinement of some pretty amazing black storytellers including Spike Lee, John Singleton, the Hughes brothers and F. Gary Grey. Okay, kidding about that last one. But here you had virtually a new way of looking at class struggle, with hard hitting inner-city dramas that finally did away with the cool caricatures of blaxploitation cinema. It was a weighty new realm for expression, and these filmmakers forced audiences to take black cinema seriously (even if there’d been fringe filmmakers like Charles Burnett and Gordon Parks doing it before). Maybe too seriously, though.

In the midst of all the harsh pistol wielding tragedy of your South Centrals and your Menace II Societys, there was a smaller, friendlier bit of black cinema on the emerge as well. Reginald Hudlin turned a Harvard dissertation into a light, fun and surprisingly observant little New Line film called House Party, which became a sleeper hit in 1990. The film offered a refreshing look at black youth, removing the guns, crime and harsh language that had characterized black cinema, instead offering up a couple cool, collected spokesmen for a reformed depiction of African American culture. Kid’n Play, as they’d affectionately be known, was the duo of Christopher “Kid” Reid and Christopher “Play” Martin. One with big hair and the other with big attitude, they proved to be quite the cinematic duo, headlining three House Party films until finally handing the genre over to IMX et al. for the fourth. Outside of the House Party flicks, though, you certainly don’t hear much about Kid’n Play, but before they relinquished the limelight, they gave it one more kick with the rollicking Class Act.

The film is a modern spin on The Prince and the Pauper, having the genius, big haired scholar, Duncan Pinderhughes (Kid) getting his high school transcripts mixed up with juvenile felon with the gold tooth, Blade Brown (Play). Brown forces Duncan to play along, recognizing the opportunity he has in getting better grades and out of juvee. Duncan nebbishly accepts, because hey, he could use a little help in gym class, too. The swapped identities create more than just mix ups in their marks – suddenly they’re having to play up stereotypes to keep up appearances. Duncan needs to spot a gold tooth, ditch the high-top doo, dress with flash and even kick some ass. Blade’s also entrusted Duncan with Lucille, his fully hydraulic pimp mobile. On the flipside, Blade must put pencil to paper to work hard in class and win the affection of classmate Ellen (Fresh Prince’s gorgeous Karyn Parsons)…but he won’t wear Duncan’s JC Penny digs. Duncan also finds some love in Damita (Alysia Rogers, her only other credit other than Boyz N the Hood), but she was previously with a drug pusher named Wedge…and he’s no doorstop!

The harmless swap of identities soon escalates to shootouts, car chases, jail time and even a knowledge bowl. Of course, Kid’n Play manage to find time for a little rap off (this time out of the house and at a high school drug rally) and a whole lot of fun. Along the way they’ll also run into some pretty major nineties fixtures like sidekick Doug E. Doug (Dr. Giggles, Cool Runnings), flirty teacher Rhea Perlman (Cheers), sassy mom Loretta Divine (Urban Legend, Waiting to Exhale) and the one and only Pauly Shore (Encino Man, Son-in-Law) who basically plays himself as the organizer for the rap off drug rally. Along with the cast of pop culture particulars, there is also a dynamic soundtrack filled with some of the decade’s best dance and R&B music, including Black Box, Art of Noise, Monie Love, Jade and LL Cool J, cementing the film as one of those seminal cultural artifacts. Hell, there’s even a chase scene set to “U Can’t Touch This”.

Class Act is a breezy, lovable little movie and it's more than just the music and the cameos. Behind it is a pretty accomplished bunch of artists. Nobody watches these kind of movies for the cinematography, but the celebrated Francis Kenny (behind the stylish Heathers and New Jack City) really injects the film with a visual energy, whether it’s a tracking POV of a football falling out of the air into Kid’s shaky hands to some humorous fast motion antics or dolly moves. While he’s by no means Kenny’s equal, director Randall Miller (cousin of Rhea Perlman, which explains the cameo) himself had a fun little run in the nineties, with endearing comedies like Sinbad’s Houseguest and The Sixth Man (curiously also written by a one Christopher Reed) to his credit. The editing, which at times has a kinetic, western-influenced use of special relations, was done by genre vet John Burnett (Grease, …And Justice For All, The Way We Were) and stands as his final film credit. Michael Swerdlick gets credit as head writer (among the four other that are credited), and the similarities between this and his eighties favorite Can’t Buy Me Love are certainly many. Both expunge a positive message about being comfortable with who you are outside of class, race and other labels, while at the same time progressively proposing that being someone you’re not may actually help you become someone even better.

What makes the film are not these lessons on morality, though, it’s the cool, natural interplay and unabashed charisma between the leads. Kid’n Play definitely deserve that singular moniker, because the two are yin and yang on screen. Kid’s affable with a quiet skill at comic timing, while Play can empower any line of dialogue with an authoritative edge. Together they ignite, and of all their films, this one gives them the most time together in scenarios other than just being themselves or making music. At a time when black figures needed to have inner-city edge, this fine pair demonstrates that sometimes just a positive will to entertain can be just as impactful as donning a .45 in east LA. Forget 2pac; that Kid’n Play never had a career after this is truly one of the grand casualties of the nineties.

Class Act is a cute and cool little movie. It exudes fun, thanks to the chemistry of the leads and the quality of the who’s who of nineties supporting players and music, and even has a few pointed cultural insights along the way. Remember, this is Kid’n Play we’re talking about, the masters of weaving positive youth messages in a light, playful style. As a kid, this was a movie my brother and I would throw in every other day, and I’m happy to say that fifteen years and a new video format later, the movie still holds up. It’s the perfect blend of goofy humor and biting high school satire. To quote Duncan when trying to find the past participle of Blade’s “You Dig?” question…“I dug”. This movie rocks.

presentation...

I never saw this in theaters, but I sure did run the VHS I had of a taped broadcast from Super Channel into the ground. I’m thankful to say that now it can finally be retired – the film has been gloriously restored in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen for this Warner Archive DVD. The print is impeccably clean and fairly vibrant with all those loud, early-nineties colors and styles. There is some light grain throughout, and the picture does have a certain softness to it. Still, for a film that’s generally been distributed via pan and scan VHS, it’s pretty eye opening to see Francis Kenny’s full widescreen compositions in such clean and accurate fashion.

The audio is likewise preserved in a Dolby Stereo Surround 2.0 track, and while it’s not as catching as the video, it’s equally as clean. The sound is all there without any hiss, pops or crackles, although at times it might be a bit too clean, exposing a few poorly mixed ADR line additions. Still, all that great music comes through boisterous, although imagine how it would have sounded in full 5.1. Once can dream.

extras...

Warner Archive discs are made on demand on high quality DVD+R media, so usually the film, a label and a case is all you get. It’s a nice surprise, then, to find the theatrical trailer for the film, which features some playful preview-specific banter between the pop duo. It’s presented open matte (which exposes some of the set during the dance scene) and pretty soft, but again, a great addition. If there’s anything that is required on a DVD release it’s a trailer – more than a marketing tool, they often hold a big part in defining the film itself. Hopefully Warner has realized that and when possible will include them on future Archive discs.

rap-ping it up...

Class Act was the first Kid’n Play vehicle post-House Party, and inexplicably it would also be their last. It’s a pretty loveable movie with a cast of memorable nineties film and TV stars, a soundtrack full of great dance music and a story that’s more clever than the misleading Porky’s-influenced cover would have you believe. All the elements combine for one of the quintessential films that defined the nineties, and it’s certainly a lot lighter, and even more progressive, than all those black, urban boyz dramas. It’s a shame the film has been all but forgotten, but thankfully Warner is giving fans a chance to check it out once more exclusively through their Warner Archive site. It looks and sounds good, and even has a trailer, so fans of the “hip-hop Laurel and Hardy” (if only they had that kind of longevity!) need give this kid a play!

overall...

Content: B+

Video: B-

Audio: B-

Extras: D

Final Grade: B

THE NEVERENDING STORY Blu-ray

2010-03-15T00:47:00.000-07:00

They don’t make ‘em like they used to…or maybe with Wolfgang Petersen's The NeverEnding Story they never did make them like that. A labor of love for Germany with its most promising directorial upstart since Herzog, and a team of seasoned artists, puppeteers, craftsmen and composers, The NeverEnding Story is one of those great films made by great people looking to put themselves on the international map. Forgive the crass comparison, but it’s almost like an Evil Dead on a fantasy scale, where the innovations of style and presentation supersede the kind of big budgets that Hollywood uses to try and mask creative bankruptcy. That’s not to say The NeverEnding Story had a small budget, it was Germany’s largest at the time, but for a dark and quirky little export, it was the creativity of the presentation that turned it into a mainstay of American rental shelves and the canon of children the world over. Riding furry dragons, battling the nothing, naming the empress…these are the goals of a child born in the eighties.

I say that with pride, since the positive message that we’re all stars of our own story certainly is a great mantra to grow up with. I also say that with a tinge of regret, too, since the films the kiddies get today are missing so much of the core of what makes great art like The NeverEnding Story. When the saccharine of Pixar and the shallow showmanship of Harry Potter are the best kids films have to offer, maybe the nothing has indeed won. The NeverEnding Story, by comparison, is a film unafraid to trudge through the darkness of the human spirit in order to find the light of self-reflection. Perhaps that’s the German tradition, Brothers Grimm and all, but the way Petersen’s film faces the darkest fears of childhood – from losing your mother, your pet, your courage or your friends to contemplating even your own death, makes for some weighty and affecting themes. There are few films, even today, that have moved me inside the way The NeverEnding Story has in the swamps of sadness or in the ethereal final plea by The Childlike Empress. It’s tragic, epic stuff, and being brought through the emotional NeverEnding Story reel no doubt helped me cope with those kind of pressures and realities that come later in life.

It’s amazing, really, all the grand, Homer-like themes of grandiose self-discovery that are squeezed into this taut little 90-minute narrative. In addition to the whole notion of death that permeates the film in various shapes, whether it’s personified by wolf or by nothing itself, the film also immaculately weaves in themes of heaven, art and imagination. Three years before The Princess Bride, we’re captivated by a self-referential narrative where the child reading the story is more important, even, than the story itself. Unlike The Princess Bride, though, this is more than just a clever bookend. It allows Wolfgang Petersen the chance to explore the power of storytelling and art, and how the creativity of the mind is really mankind’s only way at immortality. The way Fantasia, the crumbling world of the narrative-within-a-narrative, can be rebuilt with only the wishes of a small boy, is like the ultimate personification of self-worth. What better message for a child, or anyone, really, than the notion that as long as you can dream death and emptiness can never exist? That sounds better than me than the mantra that you should treat your toys better because they have feelings, too.

The NeverEnding Story is certainly in a league of its own when it comes to the maturity of its story and its grappling with college-level themes;. When the narrative double breaks the fourth wall by not only having the characters of Fantasia refer to their reader, but then the reader refer to us, you know this is a film that dares to challenge rather than passively entertain the viewer with say a game of quiddich. But it’s Petersen’s magnificent vision, and the skills of his team, that make the presentation just as opulent as its story origins. Even today, over 25 years later, the visuals are an orgy of sprawling imagery. Fantasia certainly is as beautiful as you could dream it be, and the camera never seems at a standstill, breezing through the beautiful world like Falcor in flight. And it certainly doesn’t stop with the camera. Almost every shot in Fantasia is a composite of momentous matte work, detailed miniatures, inventive force perspective scaling or near life-like animatronics to make all those imaginative creatures come to life. And the beauty of it all is that it’s all tangible. It’s all real.

Not to sound the curmudgeon, but something dire has been lost in cinema’s move to computer effects work. I’ve been saying this for years when it comes to horror films, and how the magician-like artistry that went into devising all those murderous set pieces like those seen in Friday the 13th or The Thing has simply been replaced with an all encompassing computer program. Every image in The NeverEnding Story, yes, does invite that curious sense of awe in how the makers were able to do it, but more than that, it gives the film an organic richness that turns the fantasy into more than just eye candy, but actually something that could be real. Watching it again today, Atreyu’s quest seems filled with such peril because that poor boy really is slung through pits of thick sloppy mud, tornados-worth of wind and shoe-fulls of sand. You practically want to have a shower yourself after watching him trudge through all those dreary swamps. It’s all that organic, tangible art direction that gives the film such a real, inhabitable quality that just can never be in CG films. Even the sometimes stilted facial puppeting feels more real than pitch-perfect facial computing because you see that real, physical quality of the characters. In the way it effectively blends the layers of fantasy and reality, the film truly does create a neverending quality.

A critique of the film wouldn’t be complete without its score and Limahl’s undeniably catchy title tune. It should be noted that Limahl’s track, under the synthized guidance of one of the kings of the entire synth-pop soundscape, Giorgio Moroder, itself is neverending. It starts as it ends, with a slow fade, never beginning or ending at any single moment. It’s always going, just as our stories, like Bastian’s, are constantly being written. It’s a simple but wonderfully telling sound device that Moroder, as well as Klaus Doldinger, who composed all traditional orchestral tracks, utilize throughout the film with their elliptical, repetitive themes.

Through sound, through image and through story, The NeverEnding Story is a film that captivates and inspires. It’s one of the most grand and beautiful stories ever captured on film – one so effective Hollywood tried to copy it twice with great failure with 1989 and 1994 sequels and a few equally uninspired television series. Warner Brothers tried to do as the title said to continue on the tale, but the irony is that the first film itself has, over the years, proven itself to in essence be never ending. So filled with wonder and emotion, it’s a story so great that it demands to be seen again and again. Seen as a child and again as a teen, later in middle age and certainly later on as a senior; it’s a film so in tune with the essence of humanity that it always speaks a new tale with every viewing. By it once, watch it forever. This is your stranded on a desert island film. The quintessential family film and the one tangible document that makes a religious agnostic like myself believe that there may indeed be a heaven. That’s The NeverEnding Story.

presentation...

Wolfgang Petersen recently revealed to online controversy that he had not been approached for this Blu-ray release of arguably his most famous film. He mentioned he would have liked to have overseen the coloring of the video, but honestly, the coloring is probably this transfer’s best asset. All those sunset-hued matte paintings and oil-in-water effects work exhibit striking colors, and every other texture, from orange school lockers to the claustrophobic browns of Bastian’s emotionally-deepled homestead are all so rich in detail. They really look great. Something Petersen, and I guess Warner, could not shape, however, is the quality of the image, which sadly looks a little soft here. Nothing is ever sharp enough to render as lifelike or three dimensional. At first I thought it might be a product of all that optical work, which inherently softens an image since it in effect shoots the same thing twice, but softness was demonstrated even in close-ups without any visible effects work. I also noticed some slight flickering at times and some inconsistency in black levels during some of the darker scenes with Gmork and Bastian in the school attic. Still, for a film shot and realized as beautifully as The NeverEnding Story, this concerns seem like mere nitpicking. It’s a beautiful looking movie, and even if the sharpness or contrast doesn’t entirely hold, at least we’re finally able to experience it cleaned up nicely in 1080p HD.

The back of the Blu-ray advertises “For the First Time in 5.1 Audio!” and yes, it’s certainly cause for elation. The DTS-HD Master Audio track is wonderful – filled with a very deep sound space. There were several instances that really gave my subwoofer a workout. When the nothing comes, the sound literally sucks from all speakers, and it’s an almost overwhelming sound that really feels involving. There is also a very distinct use of channel separation, both in the front and back channels. When Fantasia is reduced to mere bits floating in space, you actually hear each piece fly by you from front to back. It’s very effective. This happens throughout, not just for select sequences. Considering the monaural origins of the source material, the resonance and envelopment of this surround sound track is all the more impressive. It’s rare that a remix track holds weight with those you’d hear in theaters today, but I’m delighted to say that The NeverEnding Story is one of them. Amazing!

extras...

The nothing must have taken a pit stop at the Warner Brothers lot, because there isn’t a single extra included on this release. Even the DVD at least had the original trailer. For a film whose resonance will surely only build as the children from the eighties show it to their children and beyond, it’s a shame there hasn’t been a full on special edition to try and encapsulate the magic. Although the images on screen are all filled with such wonder, perhaps dispelling the myths about the film would somehow deflate the magnificence of the final product. Maybe, but at least give us a “where are they now” with all the child actors so memorably captured in the film. Or even better, how about including the LP that Childlike Empress Tami Stronach released shortly after the film using similar synth stylings to Moroder's work on the film. One can dream, right Bastian?

wrapping it up...

The NeverEnding Story is quintessential storytelling, as important for our humanity as the morality plays of The Brothers Grimm. It’s got a story that explores both dark and deep themes surrounding art and humanity and a presentation so rich in visual and audible beauty that brings the fantastical Fantasia to life. The film is all about the imagination, and what Petersen and his crew of artists put on screen is certainly as fantastic as anyone could ever imagine. The image quality isn’t quite as fantastic, although it’s been cleaned up and colored effectively. The sound, though, is as rich a 5.1 restoration as I’ve ever heard. No extras is again the sad reality for a film that dreams so big, but for a film this good, any extra would be mere window dressing. It’s a window into our soul and a vast expanse of the things that make humanity so inspiring. Buy it and watch it again and again, for this is a tale that should never cease to be told. A story that should never end.

overall...

Content: A

Video: B+

Audio: A

Extras: F

Final Grade: B

GOODFELLAS Blu-ray

2010-02-19T08:16:00.000-08:00

Martin Scorsese is the greatest filmmaker in the history of the cinema. It’s a bold statement, but after watching GoodFellas again, for what must be the 10th or so time now in my quarter century (and change) of existence, I can say that with relative certainty. Now, there are directors who I enjoy more – who mesh with my sensibilities on style and content, like Michelangelo Antonioni, Brian De Palma, Robert Bresson and John Carpenter, but none are as inherently “good” at storytelling as that mousy little Italian from the Bronx. Compared to his contemporaries (like De Palma or Carpenter) or to the celebrated auteurs of the genre (Antonioni and Bresson, among many others), Scorsese demonstrates an almost effortless command of genre, able to switch gears from period melodrama to hard-nosed gangster pictures with utter ease. While he certainly shows an affinity for the movies on the mean streets, he’s proven with black comedies like The King of Comedy and After Hours to period dramas like The Age of Innocence and The Aviator and even musical (New York, New York) and documentarian (My Voyage to Italy) interludes in between, that he can handle anything. And he can do it so well that his skill is virtually transparent.

We’ve come to expect things from Scorsese’s work – a roaming camera, quick cuts, insular leading men, bursts of emotional violence and deep seeded religious torment, and usually we get them. But what makes Scorsese so good is the way he we’ve these auteur trademarks into his work with such transparency. In Carpenter films I’ll pick out the Hawksian line exchange, the arbitrary four actor cinemascope composition, the Western outlook. I’ll see Carpenter in those moments, shining through whatever story he is telling. With Scorsese, his common storytelling recipes instead only help spice his actual story. They serve the material first before the director, even if they are obvious marks of his authorship. Case in point that virtuoso tracking shot when Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) takes his bride to be Karen (Lorraine Bracco, who'd land The Sopranos based on her work here) from the street, between the crowd, in through the basement and up and seated into the night club. It’s one of the most complicated and choreographed sequences I’ve ever seen, requiring virtually a city block worth of lighting, extras and blocking, and requiring nearly a full 1000 footer of 35mm film stock per take. Looking at the scene in a film class, it’s simply amazing. Scorsese’s defining shot. But looking at it within the scene, you’re hard pressed to even notice the complexity of the shot itself because it integrates so clearly with the fluidity of the moment. This is Karen discovering a whole new world, and the shot shows the interconnectedness the mob has with people and place. It may have Scorsese’s stamp all over it, but it works so well within the context of GoodFellas that you’d be hard pressed to point it out. That’s what makes a master of the medium.

Now when it comes to GoodFellas specifically, we could talk about the performances – how pitch perfect Liotta, De Niro, Pesci and Sorvino are in bringing depth, range and volatility to characters usually conceived of as shallow heavies in the Hollywood era. We could talk about the kinetic cinematography, the crisscrossing editing or even Saul Bass’ pitch perfect title cards. All these things are great, and all further demonstration of how strong a collaborator Scorsese is with both his cast and crew. But what makes the film for me is how accessible, enjoyable and in motion his film is. When you hear Scorsese speak at award ceremonies (and we’ve heard plenty these last few years!) he’s always motoring a mile a minute with endless tangents of interest, and when you watch how fast and observant GoodFellas is with time, psychology, characterization and metaphor, you can see that energy bleed through into his films. It’s not a “gangster movie” as we know it, like The Godfather or Scarface or Angels with Dirty Wings. It’s a biopic, it’s a period piece, it’s a drama, hell, it’s even a thriller for that tricked out bit of drug-induced paranoia that closes off the third act of the film. It’s so many things rolled into one, and each and every aspect is so compelling, from the little things like the observations about gangster names (“everyone is named ‘Peter’ or ‘Paul’!”) to the bigger things like Tommy’s (Joe Pesci) little guy complex or the thin line between laugh and death (“funny how?”). Whatever it is, it never feels like it’s a film about a theme or a story – it just feels like it is. It lives.

GoodFellas is probably the most visually stylish and kinetic film I can think of that still manages to come off as almost documentarian-like in its truths and closeness to character. You really feel like you are that camera following Henry into the night club, or the guy taking those stabs to the stomach for telling Tommy to fetch his shine box. Scorsese throws you right into the story (with that opening “from as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a gangster” line) and never lets you out until those last frame gun shots hit you like a sobering alarm clock. It’s an upper, it’s a downer and it’s an all around jolt to the safe artificiality of the cinema. GoodFellas is a movie that is so bustling with life you almost feel like a character is going to come out of the screen all Purple Rose of Cairo style to whisk you into Scorsese’s fabulous world. And you wish it could be so. It’s as vivacious a film Scorsese has ever made, and as long as I’m living I’ll have comfort knowing that GoodFellas will be living right there beside me.

presentation...

Speaking of life, this new 1080p transfer certainly is as close to it as we’ve come with the film on home video. Previously released on HD-DVD, the film gets a minor face lift here on Blu-ray, slightly richer colors and a bit more cleanup. Some of the scenes still play a bit darker than they probably should. Also, there were a few scenes where I noticed some artificial sharpening, but for the most part the picture looks solid without looking falsely crisp or processed. It’s not quite as sharp as the new films today, but as the film approaches its twenty year anniversary, it still looks pretty damn dapper. Not Jimmy Conway dapper, but hey, here’s a twenty, go buy a drink.

The sound is presented in disappointing Dolby Digital 5.1. I can see using that for the early days of HD-DVD, but a few years later on Blu-ray, when everyone is using lossless TrueHD or DTS-HD, and this certainly sounds dated. Not only is the track thinner and more muffled compared to HD audio masters, but there’s a pretty lazy use of the surrounds. There is very little depth to the track, and overall it’s merely passable. For a film of such pedigree, the sound deserved so much more.

extras...

On this Blu-ray you essentially get everything that was on the special 2-disc DVD and the HD-DVD in addition to a feature length Turner classics documentary on gangster films on a separate DVD. “Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film” if nothing else, will certainly give you a laundry list of interesting gangster films to add to the movie queue. It examines the big stars from the era, the big producers who made them, and the big studio, Warner Brothers, where many were made. It tries to make connections between the past and present, and offers up some interesting historic events that helped shape the course of the genre. Also included on the disc are some amusing gangster-themed cartoons. Neither are essential for the enjoyment of GoodFellas, but they do offer a nice perk for fans of the genre.

Now, on to the older stuff. There are two commentaries culled together from past interviews from the last two decades. The first, “Cast and Crew” contains Scorsese, Liotta, Bracco, Sorvino, Frank Vincent and a number of the top brass on the film. The second, “Cop and Crook” has the real Henry Hill along with former FBI agent Edward McDonald. Hill’s commentary isn’t quite as engaging or revealing as one would hope, but the cast and crew piece is just stuffed with interesting stuff. That’s five hours of extras right there.

There are also three featurettes. “Getting Made” again culls together a number of older interviews, including some with Pesci and De Niro, as well as a bunch of behind the scenes footage to really give you a sense of the production. The best bits are the candid shots of Scorsese directing on set. Totally engaging. The next doc, “Made Men: The GoodFellas Legacy” features a number of top Hollywood directors talking about how good the film is and the kind of influence it has had on their careers. Among the directors are the Hughes brothers, Jon Favereau, Joe Carnahan, Richard Linklater and Frank Darabont. Who knew Darabont screened it every Saturday while making Shawshank? The last featurette again goes for the “truth” angle by interviewing Henry Hill and others on the reality of the gangster lifestyle. Again, ehh, not so good, but I guess it’s good to have here.

Rounding off the set is “Paper is Cheaper than Film”, which is a sizable storyboard-to-screen comparison. Finally, the classic theatrical trailer is also included. Like Warner’s other HD product, this does not have a main menu and the movie just begins playing upon insertion. The package is in a nice shiny bookcase packaging similar to previous Blu-rays for JFK and Natural Born Killers. There’s a nice picture-laden booklet glued in between the two discs. The packaging gives the film class worthy of a fine plate of pasta at the Copacabana.

wrapping it up...

GoodFellas is a brisk and beautiful bit of filmmaking levity by Martin Scorsese. So stylized, yet so verite-like in its directness, it’s one of those rare movies that can just do it all and captivate you every step of the way. It’s so much more than just your standard gangster film, it’s a living, breathing document of life and death, family and friends and all the bumps in between. And a lot of violence. The video is slightly better than the HD-DVD but still not quite perfect, and the sound is sadly missing the HD upgrade it deserves. The bonus documentary is a nice addition, and the featurettes are great, but those with HD-DVD players would probably be better off getting that disc for a couple bucks rather than shelling out $34.99 for this modest upgrade. Regardless, though, this is a masterpiece that demands to be in your collection. Don’t be surprised to wake up to the gun shots of Joe Pesci if you don’t get it.

overall...

Content: A

Video: B

Audio: B-

Extras: B+

Final Grade: B

GONE WITH THE WIND Blu-ray

2009-12-22T16:21:00.001-08:00

If America would preserve only one film from its sprawling legacy of motion pictures, there would be no better candidate than Victor Flemming’s Gone with the Wind. And no, I’m not just saying that because its main character is where I derive my namesake. No, Gone with the Wind is the quintessential American masterpiece. A film that has it all, an epic story of the history of a nation, expansive with the biggest sets, largest casts, most splendid art design and a truly timeless use of Technicolor. With a runtime just shy of four hours, pound for pound there’s no single artifact of grander splendor than this defining moment of the peak of the Classical Hollywood era. You don’t need me to tell you its greatness, though; Hollywood has done a good enough job of that with all the countless re-releases, be they on television, video, DVD or theatrical re-engagements. As long as pictures still move, there will be no wind that could ever carry this film away.

And now today, on the dawn of its 70th anniversary, the film is being released again once more. This will mark its fifth incarnation on DVD, but of greater significance its first time on Blu-ray. From the burning of Atlanta to the epic silhouettes at sunset, the film is filled with some of the most beautiful images committed to celluloid. Three strips of celluloid, to be specific. Yes, there have always been revival film exhibitions of the film with every passing decade it seems, this gives us the first time to really deconstruct the images up close. To pause it, to look deep into the deep focus photography to admire and ingest all the production value inherent in every frame. Gone with the Wind has always stood as an artifact of perfection – just how perfect is it in HD?

For me, this perfection that Gone with the Wind has attained in its grandiose cinematography, it’s colossal sets and the unending supply of extras has almost given the film a hollow sense of cold calculation. There never seemed to be any degree of creative pressure. No lack of budget to force a scene to be down-scaled. No lack of extras to force a scene into close-ups. No lack of daylight to get that countryside crane shot. Anything this film wanted, and I do refer to the film as a separate entity since it passed through so many hands creatively I couldn’t dare just call it Flemming’s, it seemingly got. Art to me has always been in fighting limitations to create greatness. Without a seeming limit on time or budget, though, it’s seemed as if Gone with the Wind never had to endure the hardships that almost any other work of significant artistic merit has had to endure. But now, in HD, the film tells a different story. Yes, it’s still a masterfully idyllic tale of the Civil War, but now, stitched into that veil of perfection, are the seams of craftsmanship.

The added resolution tellingly reveals shots that had always appeared to be sprawling vistas to instead be lifelike matte paintings. Death defying effects now reveal a grain structure that disrobe the optical imagery over-top. Those scenes on the stagecoach reveal backgrounds only achievable on a set. Yes, the clarity and color saturation indeed make the film more beautiful than it surely has ever looked at home, but even more importantly it reveals the humanity behind the production. It gives it a living, artistic blip of imperfection that it’s been long deprived since it’s made its way to the home and to new generations.

In HD no longer is this a film of almost robotic technical perfection, but instead it reveals itself as a movie driven by creativity – from the hands that painted the glorious matte paintings throughout to the optical effects of falling fire or stagecoach speed. This wasn’t just a masterpiece made by a bottomless budget, but instead one by a colossal team of artists that make the effects crews in Avatar seem like location’s manager in My Dinner with Andre. I’ve always respected, admired and awed at the film, but the way it is presented here with such clarity, I can finally appreciate it for the artistic fortitude of its creators. They have made a film where every image – from the color to the composition of actors, props and sets, is of satiating beauty. Even at four hours, this is a film that could still enthrall based on image alone.

Of course, Gone with the Wind is so much more than a pretty picture. It’s story is a wonderful combination of the macro and the micro – presenting on one hand a unified tale of the birth of America, or modernity, of the present and on the other the coming of age of one spoiled little girl. Like other grand epics to follow in its mold, Titanic and Doctor Zhivago among them, it’s able to expertly involve the audience in the plight of history by centralizing it in the heart of a lowly protagonist. It glorifies the era of Southern slavery the same way D.W. Griffith’s now sadly reviled The Birth of a Nation does, but the difference here is that it presents a developed core of central characters that aren’t just caricatured to mere brush strokes. Indeed Hattie McDaniel as the maid was the first black performer to ever win an Oscar for her impassioned performance. You won’t see that from any of the chicken eating black-faced stereotypes in The Birth of a Nation.

For a film so awe striking with all its visual splendor, it’s amazing that the performances, from Hattie McDaniel to, even more memorably, the two star crossed leads whose posterly embrace has forever resonated as a staple of fictional characterizations. As rendered by Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara are two of the grandest screen characters that just happen to reside in the most grandest of motion pictures. At a time when romance was so often melodramatic and telegraphed, the two stars inject a wily sense of unpredictability to each part that never ceases to surprise. Rhett is a rascal and Scarlett a pouty little brat, and perhaps it is these deviations from the traditional romantic archetypes that makes this love story so endearing. Or maybe it’s because the film refuses to resort to the standard clichés of romance that makes the film transcendental when Hollywood at the time was all about presenting uniformity. Gone with the Wind then, as it does now, presents a storytelling of difference that stood out from the pack not just by the splendor of its visuals, but by its refusal to be conventional, either in the story or the performances.

It’s for these reasons and so much more that Gone with the Wind forever deserves the title as the greatest of all American films. There is no way Hollywood could ever recreate the expansive splendor of the art direction, the saturation of the Technicolor process, the brawn of the lead performances or the tenacity of its convention-defying story…especially not all in the same motion picture! It’s the Mona Lisa, it’s the Bible, it’s the very idea of perfection of its medium. And on Blu-ray that perfection is preserved all the more, with its few seams revealed just to remind us that yes, this perfection was indeed culled from things that sometimes weren’t. Wow.

Presentation…

Gone with the Wind is the first film I’ve seen on this new format in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Unlike DVD, which would present films natively in 1.33:1, Blu-ray and less specifically the HD spec, present films natively in the 16x9 (1.78:1) format. As a result, the film is presented pillarboxed inside the 1.78:1 frame. As I’ve elaborated on in my critique of the film, it certainly is beautiful, the deep Technicolor hues really benefitting from the broadened color space of HD. Images are clear and very detailed without showing any signs of digital sharpening. Edges have a slight softness to them that befits reality. There is nary a piece of film damage or debris throughout. The closest you get to it are the inherent grain in the film’s many optical effects. When it comes to vintage landmarks, especially those of the Technicolor order, the desire by Hollywood is to push the saturation as far as it can go. Thankfully here there is a restraint that keeps detail in the blacks and skin tones in check, yet still allows all the other colors to breathe as surely they were intended seventy years ago. That’s the toughest thing to take with this new transfer, though – that the film is actually that old. It’s wonderful that one of the most beautiful movies still looks just as beautiful today.

The film was initially mono, and the mono is preserved here, but it’s also been given a lift to Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The audio elements seemed preserved as well as ever, with almost all traces of hiss completely removed. Every audible bit is rife with clarity, although more than the image the sound definitely reveals its age. Dialogue often contains a flat tonality, lacking the broad depth of today’s sound devices. Max Steiner’s orchestral score is effectively spread around the sound space, and occasionally during the war scenes and other major action moments, there are bits of directionality to the effects. While not quite as glorious as the pictorial restoration, the sound here still is notably restored.

Extras…

Before we get to the hours upon hours of extras, first thing’s first: the packaging on this limited edition set is breathtaking. Like this year’s earlier The Wizard of Oz, the large box is upholstered in velvet with a beautifully embossed painting of the iconic poster image on the front. Open it up and inside is a similarly spectacular array of packaging, from a large hard cover book with plenty of promotional photos to printed reproductions of important letters passed around the studio regarding casting and production. Most memorable is a 1937 letter from David O. Selznick about his three picks for the Rhett Butler part. Also included is a pitch perfect reproduction of the original 1939 program complete with beautifully painted artwork on each page. In addition to many other Selznick letters there is a nice little package of 5x7” watercolor reproduction art prints that further help to demonstrate the careful artistry that went into making the picture. All that and I’ve just talked about the paper!

Contained on the four discs in this set is possibly the healthiest array of extras any release has ever seen. Unlike previous releases of the film on video, the entire four hour picture is now presented on a single disc. No more getting up to change tapes or DVDs – it’s quite the achievement that this massive picture is contained all on a single dual-layer BD. Not only that, but there’s also a four hour commentary with historian Rudy Behlmer containing enough fact to surprisingly sustain the four hours.

Disc two is another dual-layer BD, and like the BD for the film, compresses what was once two discs of footage onto one. In this case it is over 8 hours of footage (3 new and 5 recycled from previous releases). The new footage involves the hour-long documentary “1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year” and a new 30-minute historian retrospective on the film titled “Gone with the Wind: The Legend Lives On”. Finally, the last new extra on disc two, and certainly a notable inclusion, is the 1980 Telefilm “Moviola: The Scarlett O’Hara Story” which, you guessed it, chronicles the history of casting the part Vivien Leigh would immortalize. For those who haven’t gone through the previous 4-disc DVD, here are all the extras from that ported over to this BD:

“The Making of a Legend” a 2-hour 1988 documentary narrated by Christopher Plummer on the rich and complex history of the film’s various stages.

“Restoring a Legend”, made exclusively for the 2004 DVD release, about the process taken to restore the film. Too bad a Blu-ray update wasn’t also included…

“Dixie Hails Gone with the Wind” a 1939 Newsreel of the Atlanta premiere

“Atlanta Civil War Centennial” a 1961 Newsreel of the 100 year Civil War anniversary screening , again in Atlanta

“The Old South” an illuminating 10-minute vintage short on the practice of cotton picking

“Melanie Remembers: Reflections by Olivia de Havilland”a 40-minute interview with the gray and beautiful actress on what it means to be part of such a momentous picture

“Gable: The King Remembered” an hour-long doc on the big eared Hollywood heartthrob

“Viven Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond” a 45-minute look at the accomplished life of the actress, narrated by Jessica Lange

“The Supporting Players” a sizable featurette on all the actors, from Ashley to Mammy, who made up the memorable cast

There are also a bunch of other little nick knacks, like the prologue detailing the history of the Civil War for non-American audiences, various scenes dubbed into different languages, several different trailers, and an awards listing. Whew!

Disc three is exclusive to the Blu-ray set, although it’s contained on a dual-sided DVD. It contains the 6(!) hour documentary, “MGM: When the Lion Roars” which, not surprisingly, details the history of one of old Hollywood’s most notable studios with thorough tribute. This was originally a mini-series in 1992 and has been effectively preserved and presented here. For film buffs, watching this is a must! This was previously featured as a Blu-ray exclusive in the similarly packaged set for The Wizard of Oz also.

And finally, this colossal set is rounded off with a comparatively stingy sampler CD of the film’s soundtrack. The CD contains eight of the film’s many tracks, although most of the major ones, like the start, the end and the escape from Atlanta all represented here.

Four discs – two Blu-rays, a DVD and a CD, as well as printed material of all sorts, truly make this the benchmark release when it comes to retrospective features. Honestly, what more could you ask for short of bringing Leigh or Gable back from the grave?

Wrapping it up…

Gone with the Wind is THE seminal American film, a demonstration of all the splendor and reverie that film as a medium can offer. Similarly, this collectible Blu-ray package represents all the involving and educating experience the home video format can offer. With nearly 20-hours of bonus material, this truly is the most thorough and enlightening tribute to any film in home video history. The video and audio are painstakingly restored and presented in a manner certainly comparable to the first Technicolor printings of this Hollywood masterwork. No film has received greater tribute than this package from Warner, and no film is more deserving than this, the finest artifact from the Golden Age of Hollywood, the indisputable king of the moving image, Gone with the Wind.

overall...

Content: A

Video: A

Audio: A-

Extras: A

Final Grade: A

HEAT Blu-ray

2009-11-30T17:03:00.000-08:00

“I told you I’m never going back…”
-Last Lines, Heat

While it maybe be De Niro’s character, Neil McCauley saying that, it may as well be taken as De Niro’s commentary on his future career. After two decades of giving nuanced subtly both edge and pathos, depending on the character he played, De Niro seemed to lay it all out in Michael Mann’s truly iconic Heat. The movie ended up becoming one of those warmly reviewed but coldly received movies that sort of just got lost in the shuffle in 1995. While I wouldn’t levy all of De Niro’s career choices forward on this film alone, I’m sure it’s lack of awards and audience acclaim left him seeking a more commercial place in the spotlight. The Fan would come next, and between bombastic action or silly comedies like Analyze This and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Deniro became less an actor and more a figurehead for what good acting used to be. He also became a producer, and from the late nineties onwards, his career choices have been driven more by the producer’s desire to make money rather than the actor’s need to make art. But enough of that, let’s focus on one of his great roles in one of the grandest films of the nineties, newly on Blu-ray from Warner Brothers.

Heat pits De Niro against Pacino, but not really. Not really in the sense that neither ever share a frame of film together. They have a scene where they are in the same room, but the shots never allow either a chance to converge. They aren’t pitted together, either, because ultimately Mann reveals both characters to essentially be the same. They are professionals so obsessed with their work that they cause harm to those they love the most. They live for the thrill of the chase, but when the race is over they can’t leave the sidelines. De Niro is professional robber Neil McCauley, while Pacino is driven lieutenant Vincent Hanna. Neil’s got a team of robbers, lead by Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer), and Pacino has a team of officers, lead by Sergeant Drucker (Mykelti Williamson). Neil’s seeing Eady (sweet Amy Brenneman) and Vincent’s married with a daughter (Natalie Portman in one of her first roles), but for both of them, their family are their colleagues. Their job is their life.

What Michael Mann does over the next three hours is completely pick apart the cops and robbers genre, removing it from the good guy/bad guy archetypes it had become to one that taps into the universal essence of being. It matters less that Pacino gets his man, and more that in getting his man he’s given up everything. More than that, the poetically heart-wrenching finale finds that he hasn’t stopped a bad guy, but he’s lost a friend. He’s lost a part of himself. The supporting cast is terrific, the score, comprised of some beautiful steely ambient tracks from Brian Eno and a show stopping finale from the Kronos Quartet, is sublime, and the action scenes are just as intense as the dramatic ones. Like a De Niro performance in its prime, the film is both riling and understated, tense and contemplative, visceral and poetic. It came from a time when everyone was re-writing history, from Kevin Costner with Dances with Wolves to Clint Eastwood with Unforgiven, but there’s no question that Michael Mann re-wrote it best. Heat’s a film that burns brighter each and every year, and one of the true contemporary classics.

presentation...

After being one of the most ubiquitous DVDs of its time as a snapper cased budget title, Heat finally made the leap to the big leagues a couple years ago with a packed two disc special edition. Presentation wise, the DVDs were hardly different. The special edition had a slightly squeezed aspect ratio and at times slightly sharper picture because of the higher peaks in the bitrate, but overall the differences were negligible. Color timing was still the same and detail wasn’t at its best. This Blu-ray is an improvement in both detail and color timing, with details like the pores on skin or threads on a jacket now visible. While there is still noticeable grain from time to time, this is more a stylistic choice and less a fault of the transfer. Color has been corrected in most scenes, too, restoring a slightly colder hue that fits with the theme of detachment the film weaves so exquisitely. This Blu-ray is noticeably darker in scenes, which is odd considering most Blu-rays open up the contrast range, but given Mann is a perfectionist when it comes to overseeing the visuals of his films on DVD, I wouldn’t doubt he was behind that change. Overall, a decent upgrade compared to the previous DVD, but still not quite reference quality.

Heat blazes in a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, and it sounds great. Really full and almost organic at how the sound effects and all of the ambient musical tonalities come out bleeding from each speaker. It’s mostly subtle, but the big heist sequences certainly pack a punch too. The end sequence, with the airplanes flying by, makes a significant impact in TrueHD. A very strong upgrade.

extras...

The first extra bullet lists “New Content Changes Supervised by Director Michael Mann”, but by the looks of it, he didn’t have to supervise all that much. The extras are essentially identical to the previous two-disc DVD. Considering how packed that set was, though, I’m not really complaining. First is a commentary with Michael Mann. It’s got a lot of dead space in it, (and how could it not at 170 minutes?) but Mann still does expunge a lot of good detail about character and his overall director’s intent.

There are 11 additional scenes included, running just under10 minutes total. Some scenes are just a few collections of Pacino one liners, while most others are longer scenes with supporting characters like Tom Sizemore or Danny Trejo that add to the story but aren’t essential to the narrative. They are all presented interlaced and full screen letterboxed.

The meat of the extras are the five featurettes that run close to an hour and a half total. Each deconstructs a different facet of the film, and the people behind these must be commended for assembling so much of both the cast and the crew. Almost all the actors have come back again to speak, save for De Niro who participates via a 1995 interview. What’s great is that all the crew, from the first assistant director to the sound mixer, are back to talk about their recollections of the film. You can tell this was an important film and a passion project for so many because everyone has such vivid recollections of Michael’s vision and the awestruck moments that happened throughout the production.

Breaking it all down, here’s how the featurettes are brought together:

The first three featurettes are grouped together with an optional play all function. The first is “True Crime” (14:45) which talk about the real life cop and criminal who inspired Vincent and Neil in the film. The second is “Crime Stories” (20:25) where the actors reflect on their impressions of the story, Michael Mann talks about trying to add dimension to stock characters and how it had its genesis as the television pilot for L.A. Takedown. Of the three “Into the Fire” (23:52) is the best, talking about the actual production, including the heist sequence and the training that had to be done, rife with footage of De Niro firing real bullets on the gun range.

Curiously the other two featurettes, done in the similarly intertwined recollections fashion, are included on their own. The standout is naturally “Pacino and De Niro: The Conversation” (9:54) where actors, producers, a critic and Michael Mann all reflect on the magic that was the first scene where Pacino and De Niro share the same scene. They talk about first the actual effect the meeting has in the final film, and then later reveal how it was accomplished and just how professional both actors were in pulling the whole thing off. The second bit, “Return to the Scene of the Crime” (12:12) has the location manager and the associate producer returning to all the locations in the film, including the final scene at the LAX airport, explaining how the locations were, why Michael Mann wanted it and whether or not it would be possible to film there today.

Heat is such an important and epic picture, it’s wonderful that Warner treated it as such with its extras, avoiding any facet of promotion and instead zeroing in on the material as if it were a full class on film. The biggest surprise for me was just how eloquent everyone was in describing themes and interpretations from the film. Ashley Judd and Jon Voight in particular really come off as quite insightful and intelligent.

Rounding off the extras are the three trailers that were found on the original DVD, and ones that are nearly as iconic as the picture itself. The “Two Actors Collide” trailer has always been a favorite, and even in its short timeframe, evokes such an incredible, even nostalgic, mood.

wrapping it up...

Heat is a sprawling 170-minute character study masked as an L.A. crime picture. It’s Michael Mann’s ability to capture both the big picture and the small moments sometimes together at the same time that makes the picture such a touching and enthralling rarity in cinema. This is one of the rare movies where I’ll occasionally just fire up the ending and find myself floored nearly to tears at the beautiful tragedy that Mann creates. It’s one of a kind, and with a powerful presentation and hours of truly worthy featurettes, deleted scenes and commentary, Heat’s a movie everyone should warm to. Whether you get this Blu-ray or the supplementally same DVD, this is an essential purchase.

overall...

Content: A

Video: B+

Audio: A-

Extras: A-

Final Grade: A

SILENT SCREAM on DVD

2009-11-30T17:00:00.001-08:00

There is no greater paradox, both in title and product, than Silent Scream. A title like Gentle Mutilation would have made about as much sense, but that didn’t stop moviegoers in 1980 from flocking to the film. The other paradox is that the film found great success as a slasher, since when it was released in early 1980 there were really no other slashers in competition. Of course the flood gates would be dropped later on in the year with the genre-affirming success of Friday the 13th, but at this point there was a demand without supply. Aside from a few bloody kills, though, it’s not a slasher. It’s indebted to Psycho more than it is Halloween¸ but the success of Carpenter’s flick is what made it its money and is why the film is still bunched into slasher lists still today. It was initially announced as a Code Red title, but upstart Scorpion Releasing has instead made Silent Scream its inaugural release. Is this a new studio worth screaming about, or one better left in silence? Take a deep breath and get ready to clear your lungs.

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

MY BLOODY VALENTINE on Blu-ray

2009-11-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

“Oh the legend, they say, on a Valentine’s Day,
Is a curse that’ll live on and on;
And no one will know as the years come and go,
Of the horror from long time ago.”

For twenty eight years it did seem as if My Bloody Valentine was doomed to a curse by censorship. Forgotten, though, it wasn’t. Everyone knew of the horrors the MPAA inflicted upon this little Canadian cash in on Paramount’s past success with Friday the 13th. So revered were the death scenes that were all but excluded from the finished film that I’m sure, if you were to tally the threads, Valentine received more uncut requests than even the Friday films that spawned it. All the petitions, posts and emails, though, couldn’t escape the fact that the film remained a property of Paramount, and not only was the film too small a fish to fry, but they don’t even go unrated for their biggest properties. All that changed earlier this year when, gasp, Lionsgate of all companies got a hold of the DVD rights. It seemed like some fanboy had hacked into the Lionsgate email, but reports were coming out first that the deleted footage had been found, and then later that it would actually be seamlessly branched into the feature film. Seemed too good to be true, and now it’s gotten even better – it’s on blu-ray. Let’s cut to the heart of this slasher favorite.

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: Season Two on DVD

2009-11-30T16:53:00.000-08:00

When we think George A. Romero we usually think indie pioneer. A guy always outside the system, struggling to get his vision on the screen. Each new film is a triumph even before it is seen because of the mere fact that it was actually released. There was a fleeting time though, shortly after the success of Creepshow in 1982, that Romero could actually be considered studio. Creepshow brought in big bucks for Warner Brothers and revitalized the idea of horror anthology (with Twilight Zone: The Movie and Cat’s Eye to follow shortly after) and it was that success that saw Romero at the apex of his commercial clout. What did he do? He took it to the small screen with Tales from the Darkside, which ran for four seasons before being spun off into Monsters for another two years until Tales from the Darkside: The Movie took the whole thing full circle. While Romero is still gleefully mining the now esoteric depths of his Dead franchise, it’s interesting to look back on the work he made for the mainstream, for everyone to tune into week nights in syndication. The second season is usually make or break for a series, so what side of the line does Romero’s Darkside fall?

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

MELROSE PLACE: The Fifth Season, Vol. 2 DVD

2009-11-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

While it’s curious that CBS chose to split Melrose Place, Season Five into two separate volumes, especially considering Beverly Hills 90210 and all the MP prior had been full season sets, it sort of makes sense. Season five was tumultuous with a huge hemorrhaging of the main cast and a big influx of new residents. While the show stayed as steamy as ever, the demographics certainly changed a lot between the first and second halves of the season. The adage of season five truly was “out with the old, in with the new”. Also leaving with the old, though, were viewers, and season five marked the start of a steady ratings decline after the peak of the explosive season opener in season four. Should fans who have collected the series thus far on DVD follow suit, or do the new season five residents more than pay their rent? They definitely do enough of it on their back, at any rate!

I’m going to spare the lengthy synopsis, since if you’ve made it to the second half of season five, you know your Melrose. That and I’ve already written about it at length for the previous volume of season five. Instead, I’ll try and dodge major spoilers and instead just give you an appraisal of the real estate for this season’s second half. Jane (Josie Bissett) is gone and Kimberly (Marcia Cross) will be making her exit shortly after, too, but even on her death bed she keeps the love triangle between her, my main man Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) and Megan (Kelly Rutherford) alive and kicking. Just as soon as Kimberly is gone (and typical of Melrose’s ability to one-up itself, another person leaves the same episode!) there’s a new tenant in LA, Jennifer (Alyssa Milano) who happens to be of the Mancini persuasion. Like her older brother she isn’t afraid to scheme to get what she wants, and she’s got her eyes set on a few tenants on Melrose. Jake (Grant Show) and Alison (Courtney Thorne-Smith) are still falling in and out of love, Matt’s dealing with the sudden appearance of his abandoned niece, Taylor’s (Lisa Rinna) out of Kyle’s (Rob Estes) place and into the bed of many others and Sydney (Laura Leighton) settles down, first with one man and then another in white. Suave sonofabitch Peter Burns (Jack Wagner) is playing cat and mouse with Michael for control over Wilshire memorial, and Billy (Andrew Shue) and Sam (Brooke Langton) face hardship as her jailbird daddy comes back asking for favors. That leaves us with the queen of the show, Amanda (Queen Locklear), who tackles both marriage and divorce in the same season and a bunch of other side investments.

It’s in this season that the favorite Melrose hangout, Shooters, is finally retired and Kyle’s new dig, After Dark, takes its place in full jazz fashion. Other than Marcia Cross, all the other full-timers make it to the end, but whether they die or make it out of Melrose amicably (yes, it actually can happen!) , the end of the season sees the last of, count ‘em, Grant Show, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Leighton and, if you discount the one episode farewell at the start of season six, Doug Savant. That’s a big hit, but under the wing of Frank South, who was promoted to head writer after creator Darren Star left in season four, the season proves that big twists and sharp dialogue can always trump big changes and sharp exits. Because so much of the cast does leave this season that makes for a lot of good drama on its own, but the new cast certainly gives some new blood, too. Craig Field (David Chavert), who by my estimation provided the best drama for the first half of season five with all his office scheming with Amanda, continues to smarm it up, and bringing in Alyssa Milano as Michael’s sister was the perfect way to both flesh out Michael’s otherwise untapped family (every other main character has had some major run-ins with family) and to add in another feisty, passionate female lead. Kyle and Taylor really start to settle into their parts by the second half after the whole Taylor-Peter subplot finally resolves itself. While Megan is nice if not entirely exciting, the sore thumb is definitely Sam, who really drags Billy into the clenches of boredom for all their parts this season. It’s only at the end where she really, uh, crashes, the party.

While none of the major twists match the wig-tearing, building blowing, head-smashing rise-from-the-grave fun of previous seasons, this season, and particularly this half, certainly has its share of big twists. Even if there are more bumps in the road this season than ones past, it still comes together for a grand two-hour finale. The problem, though, is that the bar was just set too high with the wild and sensational seasons three and four, so by the time they hit five, where the focus shifted more to the spicy personal drama of season two, it just seemed a little…anti-climactic. There was no shortage of climaxing this series, though, with the bed hopping that made the series famous still in full swing. It all ends bittersweet as many of the characters say goodbye (either suddenly or not) to their longtime roomies, and don’t worry, Melrose fans, the last two seasons don’t really give you much time for remorse. From this half of Melrose Place onwards, each season has a completely different feel and cast, but bask in this, the last of the old and the start of the new. If transition is tough, don’t worry, Michael Mancini never changes his smug, selfish ways throughout the entire show, so as long as he’s aboard (and that stands again now for the recent revamp) I’m there. Consider this my deposit.

presentation...

The final 13 episodes are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Sadly, they are also presented in their original interlaced exhibition, which makes for a less than flattering HDTV viewing experience. Other than that self-imposed softness, there’s added softness in the overall image too. It’s not the sharpest picture, and that might be due to the fact that each dual layer disc is pushing three and a half hours. Thankfully the image is nice and vibrant, so colors hold up quite well. Some scenes are darker than they should be, and every so often some grain permeates the frame, but overall it’s like most any other nineties show on DVD – watchable, but definitely no knock out. Chalk it up to old video tape archival.

Sound wise, the episodes are presented in English Stereo. Don’t go looking for some left to right separation, even during some of the inevitable explosions that happen throughout this second half. Dialogue comes through nice and clear, and the music is adequately mixed. It should be noted that again, music has been changed from the original airing. While I normally don’t have a problem with it, since I understand the complexities of copyright management in the digital era, a show like Melrose Place¸ which was always garnished with the hottest tracks, certainly suffers without them. Some of those post-opening credit music beds are really, really tacky. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when season seven rolls around, when bands like Tal Bachman and Hanson were playing live at Kyle’s bar.

extras...

Any extras that were planned for this second set have been evicted. Or maybe the whole extras department has been condemned, since there hasn’t been a supplement on Melrose Place since season three. Too bad.

wrapping it up…

While it’s sad to see so many regulars go at the tail end of this fifth season, the series hardly bothered to look back, moving forward with sexy, saucy and scandalous melodrama. New tenants like Rob Estes, Lisa Rinna, David Chavert and Alyssa Milano really add some good personality, and it’s fun to see how all the old favorites bid farewell. At only 13 episodes (compared to the 19 of this season’s previous volume) it’s kind of tough to recommend this set at the same price point (especially since previous full length, 30+ episode seasons retail for the same), but if you’ve enjoyed Melrose Place thus far, don’t jump ship. There are still plenty of delights in season six and seven. In Mancini We Trust.

overall...

Content: A-

Video: C

Audio: C+

Extras: F

Final Grade: B

ORPHAN Blu-ray

2009-11-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

It’s kind of perverse the draw we have to killer kid movies. What is it about us that gets off in seeing prim children doing terrible things? Is it because we bide in the belief that all children are inherently good? Is it some sort of wish fulfillment for the power we ourselves lacked as weak kids? Is it a way to challenge order and normalcy? Hate for procreation? For parents? I don’t know, but no matter the motivation, I always get some sort of primal satisfaction with these kinds of movies. Orphan, released earlier this year to theaters, purported to be different. It offered a twist. Just what was wrong with Esther? To add to that now on home video, is there anything wrong with this Blu-ray? Read on, children.

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

NATURAL BORN KILLERS Director's Cut Blu-ray

2009-10-18T21:55:00.001-07:00

Natural Born Killers began innocently enough as a script by Quentin Tarantino. Like its sister script, True Romance, which Tarantino also sold to Warner Brothers to fund Pulp Fiction, Killers is a testament to everlasting love in the midst of violence. While Tarantino wrote Killers as more of a classical throwback to road on the run romances like Badlands, once Oliver Stone came aboard it turned into a completely different animal. The script quickly evolved into a shouting, exaggerated satire of violence and its symbiotic relationship with American media. Building on the quick cut, multi-format menagerie of JFK and utilizing Trent Reznor and a Bible’s worth of stock sound effects and music cues from all sources, Stone took the script even further by to make it full-fledged assault on the senses. It’s long been a subject of contestation, on the one hand praised as an audacious indictment of television, and on the other an irresponsible glorification of violence.

Whatever the opinion, it still remains relevant, and has had more home video releases over the years than almost any other film from the nineties. Warner recently released a nice book style Blu-ray of the theatrical cut, but if you wanted the uncut director’s cut, you had to go to Lionsgate because of Warner’s strict policy against non-rated material. I don’t really know what that policy is, since they have and do release unrated material, like Rest Stop or Beerfest, but at one point they must not have, hence leasing the sought after director’s cut of Killers to Lionsgate. Whatever the case, it’s back at Warner now, and they’re now debuting the cut on Blu-ray and DVD simultaneously, now with a new featurette and introduction. Fans have been waiting for the miracle a long time, and it appears to have finally struck. Let’s take a look at Stone’s stoned out film.

Oliver Stone treats the material like television right from the start. Not television in the derogatory sense of lesser production value or second-rate story, but television as a medium rather than a genre. We start into the film chronologically out of order, as if we just channel surfed to a show midway through. Mallory (Juliette Lewis, Cape Fear, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) is dancing away to some jukebox hits, while Mickey (Woody Harrelson, Cool Blue…okay and The People vs. Larry Flint and White Men Can’t Jump) is sitting at the diner counter eating some key lime pie. A couple hicks flirt with Mallory, Mickey finishes his bright green sliver of desert, and the two congregate to shoot the shit out of everyone in the diner. They are a couple of serial killers who kill for the thrill and the media is always there one step behind them.

What drove them to such absolutes? Before we blame it on the media, we get a wonderful scene, perhaps the standout in the movie, that parodies the fifties era sitcom, titled “I Love Mallory”. Rodney Dangerfield plays type and against all at once as her perverted, incestuous father barking vile threats and vulgar catcalls to Mallory while a studio audience laughs on. Mickey walks in and the audience cheers, and Harrelson even gives a humble smirk and a beat to the camera to really sell the shallow vapidity of such sitcom constructions of everyday life. Mickey and Mallory meet, drown the father and burn the mother, and then head off on their cross country trek for drugs, fame and maybe even a little meaning.

On their trip they get married, run into a Native American, whose detachment from media hegemony makes him the martyr of the film, sensationalist crime journalist Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr., Less Than Zero, Chaplin), who will do anything to interview the lovers to boost his own fame, corrupt FBI agent Detective Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan and that sex tape he was in a few years ago) and tart, mustachioed prison warden Dwight McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones, Under Siege, Black Moon Rising), among many others. They get bit by a snake, search for drugs, get arrested, break out of prison, rape a hostage and finally get a one on one with Wayne Gale. Only after the Gale interview only one is left standing. It ain’t Wayne.

If Marshall McLuhan, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Sam Peckinpah (take that, scorpion!) made a movie together, it would probably be something like Natural Born Killers. It’s one of those grand, multi-leveled films where the visuals alone can speak to a disconcerting audience, the violence can speak to another, and then the complex semiology of visual and audible symbols another still. It takes jabs at the American zeitgeist via its mosaic of visual pastiches, whether it’s those old Hollywood driving scenes set to disconnected backdrops (like those sequences at the start of The Naked Gun movies), rabid rabbits right out of Night of the Lepus or laugh tracks from old sitcoms. When it’s not taking up the full screen, these visual signifiers to our media culture are playing behind windows, in the sky or on the television – regardless of whether Mickey and Mallory are paying attention, they’re being inundated with consumption culture.

Stone gives consumption a color, too, via the green that makes itself prominent on a few select objects and scenes in the movie. Mickey’s vibrant key lime pie, junk food in a junk culture, the jukebox that Mallory plays her canned pop hits to help goad her sexuality (it's green when she's eaten out on her car, too), and the drug store (“DRUG ZONE” as it is not-so-subtly blown up as), where the two seek out treatment for their condition. Green appears once more during a tinted scene in the prison riot, suggesting, finally, that violence is America’s last major form of consumption. So whether he’s using old media, different film stocks, contrapuntal sound cues or even single colors, Stone is constantly layering his film with levels of metaphor, context and understanding.

The film has the pacing and the structure of a couch potato with his finger on the dial, surfing back and forth between film stocks and even story points. All the subliminal editing with demons, fire and negative image animals all culminate to the grand, indicting finale. After Mickey and Mallory have their grand face off with media and television literally with Wayne Gale, the channel then changes, and we are given a channel surf summary on the sensationalism of American media, with shots of the Menendez, Simpson and Bobbit trials, as well as a Tonya Harding skate. That end film montage does the opposite of what detractors of the film say about Natural Born Killers – rather than turn the two into heroes it instead makes them a flash in the pan. Film naturally glorifies or inflates its subject, but after two hours the “heroes” become nothing more than a channel worth changing. We never find out what happens to them, not because it matters, but because our A.D.D. information generation couldn’t be bothered for the follow up. There’s other stuff on TV.

presentation...

Considering the film is shot on 17 different exhibition formats, from 8mm to 35mm, black and white to video, it’s pretty tough to guage image quality. The cinematography is so stylized and over-processed that it’s never fully clear, but even in the flurry, the reality of the transfer is that it is soft. Even the 35mm color footage lacks edge sharpness and detail. There are never any scenes that provide the window effect of looking at reality, but perhaps that’s just as well considering it’s a film about the obtrusive hegemony of television. The one thing that this new Blu-ray really does offer over past DVDs is the boost in color. Robert Richardson’s cinematography is unkempt with a flurry of vibrant primary colors, with each color rich with many intertwined metaphors. Colors are so important in Natural Born Killers, and here they’ve never been more expressive. This 1.78:1 anamorphic 1080p VC1 encoded transfer may not be top quality, but the cinematography still is and it’s preserved well enough here.

Natural Born Killers is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, and the mix is a forceful one. Gunshots, rioting yells and some heinous laughing all really shoot out with force, and the LFE always gets a workout because of it. There’s an amazing selection of music here, from light fifties pop to Leonard Cohen’s perfectly nihilistic anchoring. Cohen supplies three songs for the film, all during the key moments (start, end and the riot climax) and if anything I’ll remember the sound for that rather than any sort of envelopment. There is some nice effects work moved to the rear speakers, although dialogue stays stuck in the center speaker. It’s a wild, abrasive film, and it has a soundtrack to match.

extras...

All the extras from the theatrical cut Blu-ray have been brought over for this new Blu-ray, including the 44-page booklet that was built into the packaging previously. Now it’s a booklet inside a regular Blu-ray case, along with a new 2009 introduction, but the content is otherwise the same. Extras from the previous release include the standard definition, interlaced:

• Theatrical trailer
• Twelve minute Charlie Rose interview with Stone
• Audio commentary with Oliver Stone
• Around 27-minutes of deleted scenes, including a memorable comedic rant on Mickey and Mallory by Denis Leary and other performances by Rachel Ticotin, the Barbarian Brothers and Ashley Judd. All scenes have optional introductions on their exclusion by Oliver Stone
• Alternate ending with optional Stone introduction
• It never made the previous Blu-ray, but the documentary from the original DVD, “Chaos Rising: The Storm Around Natural Born Killers”, is also included here in its 26-minute entirety.

On those extras: The deleted scenes are interesting, especially the Leary rant. Shame that couldn’t have made it into the final cut. The deleted scenes are otherwise of little consequence. The alternate ending is pretty contrived, and offers too much structured closure on a film that prides itself on its anarchy. All deleted scenes are presented full screen. The commentary is a lull, and really, it points to the idea that Stone is vastly overrated as a creative mind. The images and ideas he put on screen are certainly wonderful provocations, but when he’s forced to explain, as he tries to do here, he comes off as almost oblivious to the messages he seems to be getting at. Rather than dissect the meaning behind the many symbols in the film, he’ll instead say something like “I liked that shot” or something of that vapidity. The commentary was a big letdown, and the Charlie Rose interview is more an ego rest stop to push controversy rather than cut to the core of the man or the film. “Chaos Rising” offers a lengthy look at the making of the film, with most of the principal cast and crew weighing in on both the making-of and the controversy surrounding the film. It’s quite well made.

What’s new? Well, we get a short video introduction from Stone that is presented in HD. Through the nature of editing, this 4-minute introduction ends up coming off a lot more articulate than Stone does in any of the other pieces. There is also a new documentary, also in HD, called “NBK Evolution: How Would it All Go Down Now?” Running a TV-friendly 22-minutes, this is a fascinating documentary that manages to shed light on both the film and the media culture Stone was satirizing. It has several interviews both from the inside and outside, talking to filmmakers like Stone, Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as well as those in the media, from Wikipedia, YouTube and Twitter representatives to Tila Tequila and Joey Buttafuoco of all people. The editing is very good and complements the film quite nicely. The first half offers a nice look at the scandal of Natural Born Killers from today’s perspective, and the second half, on what it would be like today is interesting, if a little silly.

wrapping it up...

Natural Born Killers is a roughly sewn patchwork of violence, pastiche and television, yet as realized by Stone’s highly symbolic vision, Robert Richardson’s lucid cinematography and Leonard Cohen’s nihilistic prose, it ends up forming some beautiful fire blanket of American values. Winona, this is how you build an American quilt! The director’s cut is presented in full and with a bevy of extras new and old, some extras are better than others, but the set provides a good mélange of material. Killers is a film so packed with information that it can speak for itself more than anyone explaining it ever could. Hearing Stone shallowly deconstruct his fierce work only further signals that the less said about this nineties masterpiece the better. The image quality on the Blu-ray is acceptable, but soft, but the audio is at least an audible assault.

overall...

Film: A

Video: B-

Audio: B+

Extras: B

Final Grade: B

KARLOFF & LUGOSI: Horror Classics DVD

2009-10-18T21:49:00.001-07:00

Nowadays, actors use horror films as a calling card, starring in one to kickoff their career and then never looking back. Rather than embrace the genre, successful stars that started out in horror, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Travolta and Kevin Bacon, try instead to ignore it. It wasn’t always this way, though. God bless the greats, like the first two icons of fright, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, who did nothing but embrace their iconic horror presences throughout their careers. In the classical era of Hollywood, typecasting wasn’t a boon – it meant a career! Celebrating these two men who celebrated the genre, Warner presents here four films with the two legends on a two disc set. Let’s take a look at “Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics” and see just how classic these films really are.

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN Deluxe Edition DVD

2009-10-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Jason Takes Manhattan is the last, and least, of the series, I know, but every time it gets re-released I can't help but totally bask in its legacy. Even if some of the other entries lag compared to the more esteemed in the franchise, they never went so far out on a limb as Jason Takes Manhattan. If Part VIII is a failure, it's a grand one, and every time I watch it I admire its audacity. It certainly never plays things safe. Yet, for all the calamity, its biggest fault is that it promises even more than it can give, only docking in the titular city during the fleeting moments of the final act. Still, man, what a concept. Growing up with the Jason movies there was always comfort knowing that Jason was relegated to the lake. Unleashing him in the city though, it practically served as my self-enforced curfew ever since. No way was I going to meet that guy on the streets.

Its concept, its marketing and its legacy certainly supersedes the actual film, but finally with this new deluxe edition we get a look at the inside. Deleted scenes (and there are a lot of them), a gag reel, a featurette and a commentary. If that's not enough to make you reevaluate a bad film, then there's nothing that will. Paramount sadly closes the door on their wonderful deluxe series of Friday the 13th reissues with this, the last Paramount property before Jason shipped off for New Line. This is it, folks, the final voyage, so let's see if the sea sickness will finally subside and the quality film Rob Hedden always intended will finally emerge from the waste. Will it?

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD Deluxe Edition DVD

2009-10-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

Double dipping gets a lot of just flak, but when it comes to the Friday the 13th series I can't help but look forward to it. I grew up with these movies, and like the phenomenon of watching shows you already own in better form on edited television just for the experience of watching while others watch, there is something communal about it. Every release of the film gives us a chance to watch, celebrate and deconstruct it anew. It keeps the films fresh. It keeps the legacy alive. Of course, it also keeps money in Paramount's pockets, but sometimes even the man deserves a little love, especially when they nurtured such an iconic horror hero. Paramount has been giving fans what they want all year with packed deluxe editions of all our favorite Fridays and this now represents the last stop. The New Blood and Jason Takes Manhattan are finally on DVD, so set your mind to movement and lets watch the motion picture that introduced us to Kane Hodder and Friday's best female lead.

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (Anchor Bay) DVD

2009-10-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Me is a great movie. A really classy, professional and yet still twisted as all hell slasher – how many of those have you seen from a big studio? Anyway, despite the quality, the film has endured more for peripheral reasons. First is the cover artwork. The original poster treads a fine line between campy and iconic, with a shish kabob being shoved down a teen’s throat with a promise of “six of the most bizarre murders you’ll ever see.” There’s also one of those really bad disclaimers about the ending being too shocking and all that. Funny stuff, and something that has always endured with the film. Then, when Columbia finally released it on DVD, we again got an infamous cover, but this of a different kind. The new cover is hilarity. It’s inexplicable. It has absolutely nothing to do with the film; it’s like one of those clichéd Hollywood big shot decisions, where they try and sell exploitables without even seeing the product. There’s a scantly clad woman with glowing orange eyes holding a knifed cake in front of a lightning struck castle. If one of the Cat People had a birthday at Dracula’s mansion, then maybe we’d be getting close to relevant, but as is the cover is certainly the biggest abomination in the history of the medium.

There was another problem with Columbia’s DVD, though. The score was all wrong. There was this incredibly cheesy “Out of the Blue” disco tune in place of the traditional score, and even all the strings were completely different. Fans balked at both the cover and the canned score, but Columbia did not listen. Five candles later, though, and Anchor Bay is now celebrating this most infamous of slasher birthday’s with the original score intact. Are they really that different? How about the audio? Any supplemental presents worth opening? Let’s carve up this fine, old-Hollywood cake.

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

THE GATE DVD

2009-10-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

You’d think having a kid dealing with demonic creatures congregating in a giant hole in the ground would be an odd, one off concept, but there were actually a couple of those movies in the eighties, and both from Canada, no less. The Pit came first, and if you haven’t seen it yet you ought to pick up the cheap Anchor Bay double feature with it and Hellgate. It’s one of the most bizarre horror films out there, with one of the most off-putting, uncomfortable and inexplicable child performances this world has ever seen. Another world was unleashed from a backyard hole six years later with the more universally known The Gate. Featuring a cavalcade of special effects, backwards records and a lot of little children getting into big trouble, it became a surprising hit at the box office in 1987, trumping Ishtar upon initial release. It’s lead a quiet life on digital, being long out of print on DVD. Finally, though, Lionsgate has dug this one up once more, giving it a similar redesign and supplemental upgrade to match their other big kiddie horror movie, The Monster Squad. Squad was a huge success for them a couple years ago – does this gate open similar success?

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

Stepfather 3 DVD

2009-10-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

After carrying the first two films to wide critical recognition, Terry O'Quinn was virtually inseparable from the stepfather character. When talks came up about following up the successful second with a third, all eyes turned to O'Quinn. How could you make a Stepfather without him? ITC reportedly offered him a ton of money and even the opportunity to write or direct the sequel, but ultimately talks fell through. With that, theatrical hopes became a cable reality, as Stepfather 3 debuted on HBO before finding its way to video shelves. It may not have had O'Quinn, but it had a great cover, with daddy lit from below holding a bloody shovel. But what was with that tagline? "Daddy's been in the garden...again!" Again? Did he take horticulture classes between sequels or what? The closest he came to plant life was walking through autumn leaves in the first. No matter, here's the third and closing entry in the trilogy. Does it live up to the high standards of the first two, or should that family declare this one orphan?

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

STEPFATHER 2 DVD

2009-10-18T16:24:00.000-07:00

I was never old enough to watch The Stepfather movies when they came out, but I definitely remembered the covers. Now the first film had a different box art than the theatrical poster, and despite the overall mediocrity of both, it sold incredibly well on video. The third film had a much more striking image, with the bloody shovel concealing a bottom lit face. For an impressionable kid, though, nothing beat the cover for the second film. I didn’t care about the first film – I wanted to see that second! Who cares if the little girl and the dog aren’t even in the movie? Who cares if Terry O’Quinn doesn’t really even brandish a knife throughout? It was that image of the unstoppable father with the T-1000 eyes, and then that bloody 2 (a trend for sequels that has sadly fallen out of favor) that just created such an impression. By the poster alone, Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy should be awesome. Synapse seems to think so, re-releasing Miramax’s initial 2003 special edition with even more bonus features. Should we make room for daddy?

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

THE STEPFATHER DVD

2009-10-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

“Who Am I Here?” The posters and trailers famously heralded for the psychopath-family-swapper The Stepfather. Or not so famously, I guess, considering the film made a paltry 2.4 million at the box office. Yet, The Stepfather was one of the few horror films actually saved by the critics, garnering plenty of top ten mentions and even a surprise nomination by the Independent Spirit Awards for Terry O’Quinn as lead actor. That buzz helped drive a very successful run on video – so successful that a follow-up hit theatres two years later, with O’Quinn again as the lead. That one impressively made less than the sum of the paltry original, but still, a third O’Quinn-less sequel followed in 1992. Although box office performance certainly doesn’t indicate it, there’s a public fascination with the everyman gone berserk. The first film was based on the true story of John List, who eventually became an early America’s Most Wanted staple. It’s the kind of thing you watch on television questioning how someone so normal could ever do something so heinous. At a time when slashers were going supernatural and becoming increasingly unrealistic, The Stepfather again cut through the white picket fences that Halloween had ten years prior to again make suburban America unlikely targets for terror. All this filmed in Canada, no less.

Now, 22 years after its original release, The Stepfather is again being revived by the remake train. It’s tough to imagine much of a following existing for this modest original since it’s largely remained unreleased for over a decade. Buena Vista released the second film on DVD, but surprisingly the first that started it all hadn’t even made the leap to digital as of 2009. VHS has been the only way to see The Stepfather (and the third film, for those counting) but thankfully just in time for the remake Shout! Factory is presenting this little sleeper with a new anamorphic transfer and some cozy extras. Is it worth bringing home, or is this fodder for foster families?

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

CHILDREN OF THE CORN Blu-ray

2009-09-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

Walking the VHS rows as a kid, I’d always fascinate myself with all the chapters and sequels of all those venerable horror franchises. I’d daydream and hyperbolize just how good the first film in each franchise must be to spawn so many sequels. Everyone knew about the quality of the originals when it came to Psycho or Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street, but for every series spawned on a classic, there were a dozen or so that weren’t. The Amityville Horror, Ghoulies, Witchcraft, Pumpkinhead, and even Saw today, each have spawned never ending franchises on by most accounts terrible first films. Unlike drama or action, it’s not the strength of the cast or crew that makes these franchises last, but instead the mere strength of the concept. A possessed house, people forced to kill themselves, a punishing farm demon, goblins that come out of the toilet. Well, okay, not even the concept works in Ghoulies’ favor, but part of what makes horror so intriguing is the way franchises just never seem to die.

Not only does it happen with quite regularity that horror franchises reach the five film landmark, but it’s often the case that many of those sequels are completely different than the others. It’s always the roll of the dice with franchise horror. Sometimes you get sequels that have nothing to do with their originals – Troll 2, Halloween 3, Zombi 2, and sometimes you get sequels that by all accounts eclipse the originals – Ghoulies II, It Lives Again, Dawn of the Dead. Becoming a horror aficionado means taking the pledge to sift through the endless sequels in search of those diamond in the rough follow ups. It’s a hell of a sift for those brave enough to visit the Children of the Corn – seven films later and it’s still thriving on the direct-to-video market. What about the one that started it all? Anchor Bay’s released it twice before on DVD and now it hits the disc a third time on Blu-ray. The 20th Anniversary DiviMax has been upgraded with new features on Blu-ray for the 25th but is this franchise father closer to Amityville than it is Halloween? Time to start the harvest and find out!

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

ONE TREE HILL: The Complete Sixth Season DVD

2009-08-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

One Tree Hill has lived the most curious life. A pick up the pieces fill in for The WB after all the Dawson’s Creek cast wanted to grow up, One Tree Hill was rushed out on the same North Carolina sets but it didn’t get the same kind of ratings as its Kevin Williamson inspirer. Instead, One Tree Hill played second (maybe third) fiddle to pop culture phenom, The OC, on Fox. To steal a quote from Blade Runner, “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long” and after three seasons The OC was all but dead, limping forward one last painful year to close off the fourth. One Tree Hill, on the other hand, started to build an audience from the first to second season, and after a slight ratings drop when it switched nights in the stellar third season, it virtually held on to those dedicated teen fans up to present. It may never get the pop culture play that The OC or Dawson’s Creek received before it, or even the press its lead-in, Gossip Girl, receives, but it’s weathered the storm and has stuck it out through six seasons, with a seventh currently in production. The only teen show that has lasted longer has been Beverly Hills, 90210. Not bad for a modest little show initially about the perils that come with being on a basketball team.

Its ability to tread water all these years is a pretty significant feat, but One Tree Hill also deserves some kudos for its writing. One of the main reasons the show was able to stay alive was the clever construction of the fifth season, which eschewed the usual pratfalls of high school dramas by jumping the series forward four years. Normally teen shows start to fizzle when high school dramas merely become college dramas, so Mark Schwahn did brilliant by jumping us forward to after college life so we could not only witness these kids as grownups, but to also add a five year mystery that could be dramatically mined for years to come. Each character was suddenly defined by a career or lack thereof rather than teen angst, and it again lit a spark to the already brightly burning series. Granted, Dawson’s Creek did it first with the landmark series finale, but that was after we had to sit through boring lit class after lit class with Joey Potter through the fifth and sixth seasons.

Now, before I really get into One Tree Hill¸ I think I better address its incestuous connection with Dawson’s Creek. As much as One Tree Hill is a different show, it will always be indebted to the Creek by mere fact that superficially it is on many of the same sets and in the same location as Williamson’s series. The criticism and comparison has always been there, and in season six Mark Schwahn ingeniously addresses the elephant in the room by not only casting James Van Der Beek in a supporting role and not only making him an aged filmmaker, but having him oversee the most reflexive and self-conscious lift from Dawson’s Creek – the life story movie being made from Lucas’s memoirs. That amazing series finale for Dawson’s Creek, where (like One Tree Hill) everyone is grown up and now recollecting on the past, features a wonderfully parodying television series being made by Dawson on his life experiences, affectionately dubbed The Creek. When Dawson surprisingly didn’t get the girl in the finale, he had his show wherein his Dawson did get Joey. It was a wonderful testament to the cathartic and nostalgic power of filmmaking, and by bringing “Dawson” back to watch Lucas relive the same dream finally allows One Tree Hill to come full circle.

The thing is, though, Mark Schwahn doesn’t simply drum up one of Dawson’s Creek’s essential innovations just to copy or even pay homage. Schwahn presents us with what Dawson could be now, offering another perspective on the notion of storybook endings. What happens if the romanticized power of film, as it is so often depicted and as it was depicted in Dawson’s Creek, ain’t quite so romantic. What happens if it ends up being only a shallow substitute for real life experience? Looking at Van Der Beek here, you get the sense that this neo-Dawson definitely feels that way. Taking the meta layer one further, though, it’s as if Schwahn is letting Van Der Beek the actor vent his frustration of being teen idol one minute and the moment the show was canceled a direct to video has been the next. How fickle audiences are, and it’s only fitting that through the clever constructs by Schwahn & Co., Van Der Beek gets his best role post-Dawson (I’m counting the sublime The Rules of Attraction as before) performance on the very sets that once made him a household name.

So what about the rest of the sixth season? The relationships are still very much the same for those raised on the first few seasons. Nathan’s (James Lafferty) still with Hailey (Bethany Joy Lenz Galeotti), Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) is still brooding under Peyton (Hilarie Burton) and Brooke (Sophia Bush) is still the wild card with the clothing line. Mouth “Yes, I’m the nerd from Boy Meets World” McFadden (Lee Norris) is still being nice and hooking up with subsidiary guest appearances, and proving that every teen series needs a little boost of Melrose Place, Daphne Zuniga is still bitching it up as Brooke’s mother. It’s amazing that we should still care at this point, but while most series lose their creator later on into their runs (Darren Star with Melrose, Kevin Williamson with the Creek) Mark Schwahn has diligently committed to these characters and rather than tack on new traits and superficial spins, he’s stuck to exploring the core of these young souls, and with each year we learn more rather than deal with less.

The big dramas this season involve Lucas knocking Peyton up, Skills (Antwon Tanner) booty calling with Nathan’s mom (Barbara Alyn Woods), Hollywood opportunity knocking for Lucas, robbers knocking down Brooke, a big league basketball revival for Nathan and a kidnapping for Dan (Paul Johansson). After so many on-again-off-again romances between Lucas and Peyton it’s nice to finally see some closure here, especially knowing now that the two won’t be returning next year. One Tree Hill has been a show that’s never shied from growing up over the years, and Mark Schwahn gives his blonde core a beautiful arc that was in the making right from the first episode. They mature, find direction and secure a future together – sounds pretty good, Lucas, so why are you still brooding?!

Another way the show has been able to grow where others keep rehashing the same old thing is in not only having the main characters have a child, but in keeping that child as a regular on the show. For two seasons now, little Jackson Brundage has played son to Nathan and Hailey, and in those two seasons he’s grown a lot. Like the 7 Up films, it’s interesting to see a life shaped right on screen, and not only that, but the kid can act. He injects a spontaneous energy to the show, his non-scripted interludes often making the cut and surely adding levity to all the grown actors around him. It has always been an annoying distraction in television when kids are either born and forgotten (Friends, The OC) or miscarried once the pregnancy plot has played its course (Melrose Place). Here, One Tree Hill embraces the little one, and rather than bog the series down with responsibility, it jacks it up to a new level of realism.

That’s not to say the show isn’t sensational. Another thing that comes with growing up is that typical high school dramas like proms, kisses and hearsay can be replaced with soapier things like sex, death and careers. Although the plots haven’t gone totally sensational like Beverly Hills, 90210 did when it graduated, One Tree Hill has managed to consistently up the stakes while still retaining that quiet, small town core.

The core is the last thing I want to dwell on, because another thing that has kept this series alive and kicking where so many others have failed is that it’s really kept the group together. For six full seasons not only were the fab five all kept front and center, but so many of the supporting players stuck around too. Even characters who served a small arc and left usually wound up back in the show in one form or another. Creator Mark Schwahn has done a great job at looking inside for drama rather than always trying to pull it from outside. Drama is richer when the characters have a history, and everyone from Lucas’ mom and Ravens basketball star Quentin (Robbie Jones) to skater Chase Adams (Stephen Colletti) and slut with a heart Rachel Gatina (Danneel Harris) are always popping in for continuity. This has always been a favorite custom of the show ever since the third season when a once forgotten character suddenly returned to the show to take the school Columbine style because everyone (including the show’s producers) had forgotten about him. Since that point on, Schwahn’s never dumped a character and that’s why One Tree Hill stands today as one of the richest, deepest dramas on television.

You can tell times are tight, since the seams of production are certainly starting to show on those Wilmington sets. The photography isn’t as sharp, the camera moves less competent and the set pieces less extravagant, likely due to less shoot days, smaller crews and dwindling budgets. The Gavin DeGraw theme song is long gone, in fact so are most of the big music plugs like Fall Out Boy that used to frequent the show. Yet hold on it does, and for the first time One Tree Hill will be moving forward without its full core at the center next year. Even if it’s visually starting to look more like a daytime soap than the nighttime one it aspired to be, One Tree Hill is still very much alive and kicking, and if this season six is any indication, it has a long set of legs still ahead of it. Even after six straight points, One Tree Hill is still a swish.

presentation...

The production values may have been downgraded for this season, but the transfers here are still of the high quality Warner has consistently delivered for the previous five. The episodes are progressive scan, 16x9 and with a ratio of 1.78:1. Four of the 24 episodes are included on each dual layer disc, averaging around 3-hours per disc. That means there is a little compression, but the encoding is such that it’s not overly noticeable. Edges are fairly sharp and detail is maintained, although given the grain present throughout there are at times some bits of macro blocking in some of the still areas. Colors don’t totally jump from the screen, but flesh tones have been preserved well. Overall, a nice picture.

While the show has always been 16x9, only recently has it been in Dolby Digital 5.1. The first several seasons were stereo only, but now they are 5.1 and honestly, it doesn’t sound all that different. There is a bit more bass kick to the episodes, but the sound space is still virtually all up front, and even then directionality between left and right speakers isn’t really that pronounced. Everything is clear and there is no hiss or crackle, but there is nothing really stand out about this mix either. Good, serviceable and as it should be.

extras...

Through all the extensive supplements that have peppered the previous releases, it’s always been apparent the crew for One Tree Hill really does love the show. It’s a different experience watching these supplements compared to most other extras because you feel, cheesy enough, like you’re walking in on a loving, inviting family. It’s great to see the supportive world that makes one of televisions finest shows out today, and season six continues the trend with hours worth of behind-the-scenes content.

First up are a couple commentaries by Mark Schwahn and select cast and crew. If you’ve ever seen any of the previous sets you know what to expect here – affectionate, honest and revealing reflections and observations about how these fine little pieces were put together. The episodes selected aren’t really the notable ones you’d expect given everything that happens in the show, but some of those episodes do get extra play in the featurettes below.

“OTH – The Director’s Debut” (13:06) is a wonderful little featurette demonstrating how Mark Schwahn not only keeps his core together on screen, but also behind it. The featurette chronicles the first time directing gigs on the show for actors Chad Michael Murray, James Lafferty and Bethany Joy Galeotti. All the other principals are interviewed as well, and each show great support for their peers and the fun everyone was having is certainly infectious. Schwahn talking about how it was a great way to give back to the team and to help them grow really make the show seem more than just a job but more like a family. It’s a revealing and positive look at just how tight this team really is.

There’s also a Gag Reel (4:03) that is hardly about flubbing lines and more just behind-the-scenes antics, pranks and some funny slapstick stuff on set. The most humorous bit is when Lucas and Peyton are having a tender moment on the bleachers and an extra in the background accidentally flashes the beaver right in between their eye line. Worthy of some chuckles and feel good like the rest of the extras included here.

One Tree Hill has always had a special tie to music, with all the episodes named after songs, Hailey always exploring her passion as a musical artist and Peyton always working her magic as a music producer and aficionado. While again the heyday of big musical cameos like Gavin DeGraw, Sheryl Crow or Fall Out Boy, they are still giving back to the musical community both on the show and outside it, and this “OTH Celebrity Soundtrack” (21:39) featurette shows just what they’ve been up to for season six. In short, they’ve allowed artists they respect compose individual episodes, they’ve featured a few artists as characters in the show and even centered an entire episode around a concert that Peyton throws for the troops. That in-show concert was actually a concert in real life, with characters still staying in character for all the fans who attended, which is another fine moment of meta for an always reflexive show. This little piece is another enlightening little piece about the musical process on the show.

Yet another fine featurette follows with “OTH Goes Back in Time” (17:25) where the entire cast and crew reflect on the out of character experience of setting an episode in the 1940s. There is extensive behind the scenes footage of the set construction and even some of the stunts, and the crew talk about what it was like to play in an alternate universe. Chad Michael Murray wrote the episode, so it was interesting to hear his take and to see his involvement (both here and as a director in the other featurette). Murray seems to have such a blast behind-the-scenes that even if he isn’t coming back to act in Season 7, I wonder if he’ll be extending his passion for writing or directing. I don’t know if he’s any good or not, but he seems to have fun, at any rate.

The last featurette is “Slammin’ with OTH” (11:34) which introduces (to me, at least) the bat crazy “Slam Ball” sport which is sort of a hybrid between basketball, hockey and trampolining. It’s a wild sport to watch and with this featurette we get to see behind the scenes into the game and how it factored into a story arc on the show. There is a bunch of test footage with James Lafferty trying some dunks, and honestly, the guy can play. He almost earns that number 23 he wears in the show. Hearing Lafferty and the rest of the crew talk about the sport and seeing it on screen really makes me want to at least give it a shot. So with that, a job well done on this promo piece!

Lastly there are a number of deleted scenes included for every odd episode. Nothing substantial or really all that worthy of inclusion, but nice to have for the completists.

wrapping it up...

One Tree Hill reinvented itself when it jumped forward four years in season five, and season six continues to keep things fresh by not exploring new characters or locales, but by simply looking within. The core for this show, from the five leads to the adults and the recurring support have always been so relatable and interesting to watch, and creator Mark Schwahn doesn’t take it for granted for a second. He continues to bring back older characters for newer situations and by this point the social rubric is so rich now no other teen show can touch it in regards to sheer emotional depth. Not only does Schwahn look inward on his own characters, but he even takes a plot thread to do it with James Van Der Beek’s Dawson. What’s not to like? This DVD set doesn’t have much to scoff at either, delivering another consistently solid video and audio transfer and a rich assortment of featurettes, commentaries and deleted scenes. One Tree Hill hardly made it past the pilot, hardly was renewed for the second season and has been day to day every time renewal talks hit The WB/CW, but six seasons later it’s still top of the teen class. In the hills and valleys of a television show’s run, One Tree has been all hills.

overall...

Content: A-

Video: B+

Audio: B+

Extras: A-

Final Grade: B

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK Warner Archive DVD

2009-08-26T18:38:00.001-07:00

There’s a sub-genre of horror films that is all but extinct today: Housewife Horror. With women’s lib in the late sixties and early seventies, it seemed like women truly would get a fair shake in society. Yet, old customs, preconceptions and prejudices have made the journey to absolute equality a much longer battle. To address those cases of progressive minds stuck in homemaker houses was the genre practically birthed by Polanski with Rosemary’s Baby. Others would soon follow, like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Images, Season of the Witch, and The Stepford Wives all in the early seventies. Television certainly wasn’t off limits either, with two notable entries fusing female frustrations with tiny tormenters. Many remember the second, Trilogy of Terror, for the segment where Karen Black is tormented by a possessed Zuni fetish doll but before that there was an entire telefilm devoted to that same concept. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark has long been a TV movie favorite and now finally, like favorite Bad Ronald before it, it’s finally coming to DVD via the Warner Archives. Is it worth dusting off, or should this sleeper stay bricked in the fireplace?

Read the rest of the review over at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition Blu-ray

2009-08-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

If you grew up in the eighties, the term “Ninja Turtles” was about as ubiquitous as “please” or “thank you”. Children the world over would get up early every Saturday morning to get a glimpse at what those zany, pizza-eating mutants were up to this time. For my little brother, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was so all encompassing that he’d refer to the entire batch of Saturday morning cartoons simply as “Ninja Turtles”. If we were watching He-Man is was “Ninja Turtles”. If he wanted mom to tape G.I. Joe it was “Ninja Turtles”. So from 6 A.M. until noon, everything on television was effectively “Ninja Turtles”. And looking back, it’s tough to blame him for the misconception.

Turtles were everywhere. Comics, cartoons, video games, Halloween outfits, audio tapes, action figures, music videos and Vanilla Ice. The guys basically steamrolled the wants and desires of all young boys. Like why do I still remember the phrase “Check Splinter – he’s a radical rat!” but I can’t even remember my first communion or my fifth birthday? Even things that didn’t have the turtles name on it still undeniably had the turtles stamp. One video game I remember playing as a kid was Blaster Master, where a kid’s little frog escapes the aquarium, lands on some weird ooze and ends up mutating into a monster. It was practically awesome before it even started because of the similarities to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon prologue. There is no denying it – until the turtles went to feudal Japan, they were on top of the world.

It’s now, unbelievably, the 25th anniversary since their comic book inception and now the guys in green are finally going Blu. Warner Brothers has put together once of the coolest collectable (nay, gnarly) packages the Blu-ray medium has yet seen, and has bundled together all three original live-action films as well as the recent animated reimaging. There’s even a comic, character cards, a signed sketch and a beanie (that the collector in me refuses to remove from the package) to make this the ultimate Ninja Turtle nostalgia experience. One thing, though…how do these movies hold up after all the years? Is it really something worth revisiting? I certainly don’t have any desire to track down an old Stretch Armstrong or Nerf gun, but hey, maybe these reptiles named after Italian artists are worthy of similar canonization. As my little brother would say ever Saturday morning…"It’s Turtle Time."

By the time the first film came out, it already had a multitude of parallel franchises to appease. There were already comics, cartoons, video games and action figures . The comics were darker, in debt to the Frank Miller neo-noir style, while the cartoons and video games appealed to a much younger demographic. The movie thus had two vastly different audiences it had to straddle, or to speak in pizza terms, it needed something with the works. Like they did with Critters four years prior (it gets a fun, self-deprecating nod as Raphael scoffs when he sees it on a movie marquee), New Line manages to make a film for everyone. Kiddy and goofy enough to never leave the kids without some catch phrase to blurt or ninja move to mimic, while dark enough to appeal to those raised on other comic book adaptations like Robocop or martial arts imports. What other kids movie features a James Cagney impression and a nod to The Grapes of Wrath?

The movie gives us an in to the turtle legacy via Channel 3 news reporter April O’Neil (Judith Hoag) when they rescue her from a mugging. Not really dissimilar from the same year’s Robocop 2, Manhattan is overrun with crime, and even the kids are in on it. Through April we learn through some really blurry stop motion flashbacks that the turtles bathed in some radioactive ooze (didn’t all misunderstood heroes in the eighties?) and that splinter got his ear cut off by Shredder. There’s also Canada’s finest export, frequent Cronenberg and Egoyan collaborator Elias Koteas, leading the way as the brawn over brains Casey Jones. Fitting that the Canadian is identified by his hockey mask and stick. Anyway, the rest is more or less fighting, Asian mysticism and pizza.

While all the clunky jokes and forced catch phrases certainly put the picture in a time and place, the film still separates itself from the pack of kiddy fighting franchises by its insistence on preaching mind over matter. While the Splinter here is clearly a Yoda clone, it’s still impressive that much of the first half of the movie is spent stressing how violence should be a last ditch effort rather than a go to solution. The bought between Raphael and Casey Jones, where he essentially calls out Jones for his brute sadistic tactics is actually progressive. How did we go so wrong with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers? It ain’t high art, hell, it’s even a bit racist (“Amy I behind again on my Sony payment, or what?” April says to one of Shredder’s ninjas) but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has that hip, irreverent charm that made New Line Cinema the king of independent eighties entertainment.

Before the first was even finished oozing out profits, New Line already had the second storming theaters in the spring of 1991. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. To make sure you know you aren’t in an arthouse film, the film begins with a lengthy montage of people all over Manhattan eating pizza. Cops, yuppies, Italians, blacks…everyone loves pizza, and everyone loves the Turtles! Cowabunga! Sorry about that. Anyway, Shredder’s back from the dump and he’s got his hand on the ooze that mutated the turtles, and now he’s planning on mutating some monsters of his own. The turtles must address their origins and Shredder must address his greed, but know that the pizza conquers all.

So what’s new for round two? Well, April got a whole lot hotter, this time played by Paige Turco (now that’s the babe I remember from the cartoons!). Corey Feldman passes this time on the Donatello voiceover duties, while Casey Jones is all but forgotten. The bigger budget means the turtles team up most infamously with Vanilla Ice for the legendary “Ninja Rap” finale (“Have you ever seen a turtle get down?!”). The bigger budget requires a broader appeal, so the film has a noticeably lighter tone, although it doesn’t really get any goofier than the first. It’s more accessible but it doesn’t entirely abandon its darker roots; in fact, all the story involving the ooze and its history is certainly meatier than the tiny plot anchovies of the first. By almost all accounts this is a first-rate follow-up to the first, except for one thing…

I’ll never forget how disappointed I was when I first saw the live action Bebop and Rocksteady. That memory alone pretty much supersedes any other memory I have of the second film. I mean, just look at the screenshot above. These guys are supposed to be a fucking rhino and a pig. What the hell is that? A werewolf and a dinosaur? Okay, so they weren’t actually “Bebop” or “Rocksteady” (actually Tokka and Rahzar) but every Turtle fan knows they were supposed to be. They were such a seminal part of the television show, the fact that they weren’t included in the original was already a massive oversight, so with Ooze we all thought they’d get it right. No. Instead, two of the biggest loser henchmen to ever grace the movies. Even back then my brother and I knew it was sacrilege to even touch their action figures when Bebop and Rocksteady were in their presence. B&R were the hip antithesis to the turtles (like Shredder was to Splinter) and without them the balance of the world is just totally off. New Line sure faltered there, but at least the series would never get as bad as Critters 4, right?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time is a piece of shit. We know now that a series always jumps the shark when the central characters get displaced to a gimmicky alternate world (just ask Critters 4, Leprechaun 4, Jason X, et al.) but I guess in 1993 nobody knew. Somehow, someone at the house of Shaye thought “Hey, let’s send the turtles back to feudal Japan!” They had Casey Jones back, they had Feldman returning as Donatello and they hung on to the better April from Ooze. The stars had aligned for the ultimate Turtle fable, but instead they sent them the Kurosawa route for a third grade knockoff. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Hell, even the Ghoulies got to go to college.

Instead, some guy who’s not Shredder (at least make him an ancestor, or something!) working with some corrupt British imperialist. Proving his worth as an actor, Koteas also plays a dual role , one a bearded British prisoner and the other briefly as Mr. Hockey Mask back in Manhattan. Speaking of Manhattan, the priests that were displaced through time in exchange for the turtles are starting to get restless in various fish out of water, you-mean-I-can’t-go-inside-the-television kind of things. Keeping the Oriental racism from the first film, the monks memorably dance at a night club to Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” to reaffirm that non-whites are feral, unlearned creatures. The Turtles get Vanilla Ice though, so I guess being white ain’t all that much better. The green guys get their own turtle out of water stuff as well, learning tender lessons like how to fly a kite and how to eat seaweed.

As bad as it sounds, it’s not really the story that makes Turtles in Time by far the weakest of the live action trilogy. It’s the fact that the story is so generic – you could place any hero in the turtles’ place and the story really wouldn’t change much. Put in Tom Cruise and you get The Last Samurai. They find out zero history about themselves, their arch nemesis or anything that isn’t some lame buzz word. The other part that really grates is that the turtles have turned into walking pop culture regurgitation. Every sentence they say pays lip service to some terrible catch phrase we would have like to have left back with the Teletubbies. “Help, I’m a turtle and I can’t get up?” Really, Donatello? They even say “Shwing!” when April converts her costume to a dress. Any personality they used to have has been replaced with a shallow sense of hegemony, with them mere mouthpieces for control, capitalism and all other things that help them sell merchandise. When they all reconvene at the end for a dance to some techno tune from the soundtrack the turtles effectively dance themselves to the grave.

What a long burial it turned out to be. While it only made a quarter of what the original film made, and close to half of what the sequel did, Turtles in Time still turned a tidy profit. Still, from what Wikipedia describes as “development hell”, it took 14-years to revive the reptiles from shell shock. Gone are the live action, Jim Henson's costumes and instead the turtles make their way through CGI in TMNT. Although the title may suggest a return to the roots, these aren’t the turtles we remember. Leonardo is a gravel voiced renegade, Donatello does tech support and Michelangelo eats pizza and does children’s parties. Raphael is a biker and April now lives in Central America (where racism this time comes in the form of bad “The jungle can be a very dangerous place!” Tony Montana-isms). It’s the present day, so the turtles do recognize the fact that they are getting old. So old in fact that instead of doing battle with a contemporary like Shredder, they’re instead fighting prehistoric demons revived at an art exhibit. I guess they just couldn’t shake that time travel stuff from the third film, could they?

Seriously, what do we have to do to get a turtles movie with Shredder? It’s like making a Star Wars movie without Darth Vader or, uh, a Critters movie without Don Opper. Even if it’s back in Manhattan and filled with all the good guy regulars, this still can’t help but feel like a diversion before the real story gets back on track. The CGI is all too textured and motions too fluid, it too feels more like a videogame cut scene rather than the real thing. Even the third live action film had a tangible charm to the way these big rubbery creatures were interacting with real humans in real environments. It gave the turtles a special quality, they were something truly different in an ordinary world. There was even a degree of performance art in the way the stunt men could get those giant suits to still do back flips and roundhouse kicks. Call me old fashioned, but there’s always something special about the real thing.

In a way, TMNT is more notable as being the true document of New Line’s death. The old pulp that independent juggernaut used to churn out in the eighties and nineties was something really special. They always had a penchant for the perverse, their movies always taking familiar genres or stories and mixing them up with weirdness, whether it be turning the slasher into a deadly dream world in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Gremlins into swearing, space traveling aliens in Critters or hard nosed rap into positive party flicks via House Party. Then they made Lord of the Rings and squandered the rest of their last ten years trying to emulate that success with the flops that bankrupt them like The Golden Compass or Bob Shaye’s own The Last Mimzy.

When New Line Cinema died, so too did that punk presence they had, and now we’re left to watch all their classic properties cleaned up and sanitized under the larger Warner wing. TMNT is the first big casualty, a soulless and empty tech demo of a movie. Sad to say, but I’d much rather be back in feudal Japan than with these hollow shells of what once was. I don’t know if the world has grown too old for big animals in suits, but I hope for the sake of the series that the turtles go back to being tubular in those big rubber outfits. Maybe then will “Ninja Turtles” go back to meaning something more than just the Saturday morning cartoons we all remember as kids.

presentation...

All four films are VC1 encoded in 1080p, with the live action films 1.85:1 and the CG film 2.35:1. The first three look noticeably better than those old New Line DVDs but still have some problems. The first looks the worst, with a layer of grain throughout and an overall softness to the image. Nothing ever really pops. Also, the stop motion flashbacks look really bad, like VHS worthy, with a muddy, blurry appearance that’s almost tough to make out. Secret of the Ooze has a little less grain but still looks softer than it should. Again, it looks clean but nothing really jumps out. Being made a few years later and with a bigger budget, Turtles in Time actually looks a large leap better than the previous two films. The opening silhouettes over the rising sun and everything else, really, bursts with vivid colors and solid sharpness. You can see all the little textured dimples on the turtle faces and sometimes it really looks like they are right there rather than on a screen. Grain is almost non-existent and overall Part III looks fantastic. The CG TMNT naturally is without grain or blemish, being all computer rendered, and it looks as synthetic and smooth as it should. That I don’t like the overly textured world is more a preference rather than a fault of the visuals. The first two films could still use some serious restoration work, but they still do benefit from the Blu-ray upgrade.

The sound also gets a nice Blu-ray boost with new Dolby TrueHD 5.1 remixes for all four films. While there isn’t much or any separation between channels, and the dialogue stays staunchly up front, the sound space has really been beefed up. The LFE really works hard, maybe too hard, in bassing up the punches, kicks and musical cues throughout. A bit of ambience also makes its way to the backs as well, although it’s still not really discrete or directional. For a retro remix, these are some of the better mixes out there – remaining faithful to the initial stereo mixes, but amping them up with a fuller sound. TMNT was naturally released in 5.1 and it is easily the best sounding of the bunch – but who wants to watch that, anyway?

extras...

First thing’s first – the packaging on this sucker is just awesome. The pizza box actually has grease stains on the front and back and is made in full out cardboard. The discs look like pizzas and even the character cards are housed in something that looks like a food menu. There’s a huge comic book of the first film included, a sketch with a reproduction signature and even a beanie toque to show your turtle fandom loud and proud. With an initial impression like that the extras have to be awesome, right? It’s the turtles’ 25th anniversary after all! Trailers. Yep, that’s all we get for the first three films. Trailers. And an ad for the Wii game. What kind of anniversary is that? Where is my Corey Feldman commentary? Where is my Elias Koteas walkthrough of Manhattan? Where my video apology from Stuart Gillard for directing Turtles in Time (and RocketMan and Paradise while he’s at it)? Sadly, there’s nothing.

Even the Blu-ray menus are as bare as they can get, with a static image and a virtually empty pop-up menu. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the highest grossing independent film of all time, how can it not have had a single extra after all these years on home video? It was such a monumental film for New Line, you’d think they’d do it justice by celebrating it with at least a retrospective doc if not commentaries and the like. How cool would it be to see that notoriously awful “Behind the Shells” concert VHS tape? Or how about hearing creators Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman talk about what they thought of the films, the franchising or just Ninja Turtles in general. Even if they wouldn’t do it, almost everyone who had a significant part in these movies hasn’t really done a whole lot else other than television, so it shouldn’t be too tough to get them to relive the magic. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

TMNT does have some extras, but it’s a real blasé assortment of press stuff and work in progress renders. Writer/director Kevin Munroe does a commentary on the film and he starts it off by talking about how “cool” it is to do a commentary. Ugh. Since the movie was made by guys sitting in front of computers, there really isn’t much story to tell. Munroe finds things to talk about, though, but none are much of interest. Munroe also voices over most of the other supplements, which include three additional rendered scenes, two storyboard to CG sequences, a rough alternate ending (where Casey Jones proposes!) and a better, more comic-inspired intro to the movie. It would have been nice to watch these pieces with their original tracks, since it’s tough to figure out what’s going on with Munroe’s voice talking over the production sound.

Lastly, there are a couple of short, puffy featurettes, one of which has to be particularly embarrassing for Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laurence Fishburne and Patrick Stewart. There is no pain like seeing Gellar ramble on about the story and how progressive her April character is, or in hearing the hypocrisy of Stewart actually saying “The story line in this is very strong.” Really, Patty…really? “TMNT: Voice Talent First Look” (5:04) is really more the voice talent trying to plug the film, and it’s embarrassing on all accounts. “Donny’s Digital Data Files” (1:57) is a quick look at the rendering work the crew had to do, but is too short to hold any weight. To top off the pain, these extras are also interlaced. Not really the finest tribute to the quarter century of some of art’s most recognizable heroes.

wrapping it up...

From Baltimora to Vanilla Ice, from Manhattan to feudal Japan, from live action to CGI – the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had quite the journey over their four forays on film. The first two are both still fun today, and even the third has its moments when compared to the blasé Sonic Adventure cut scene that is TMNT. The packaging for this 25th anniversary is pretty standout, and the sound has been nicely upgraded to 5.1, but the rest of the treatment on this set leaves much to be desired. The first three films only get a trailer, and the last film is snore city when it comes to the supplemental ingredients. The video on the first two films is still soft, grainy and at times even hard to decipher proving that Warner wasn’t willing to go the extra mile with New Line’s big franchise. While watching these childhood favorites again is a nice way to remember the New Line that was, it’s literally burial in a cardboard box rather than the lavish send off New Line, and the series, deserves. Nostalgic, yes, but gnarly, it ain’t.

overall...

Content: B

Video: B-

Audio: B+

Extras: D+

Final Grade: C

HARPER'S ISLAND DVD

2009-08-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

Whodunit television as we know it today was probably conceived when pop culture the world over wondered just who shot J.R. on popular nighttime soap Dallas. After that cliffhanger, they coddled the mystery for another four episodes, leaving people guessing, in suspense and just generally frantic to figure out how it would all come together. It took about ten years, but Twin Peaks finally took that Dallas plot thread and pushed it to the center, where the entire series was solely about discovering who wrapped young Laura Palmer in plastic. Of course with David Lynch behind it it ended up becoming so much more and less all at the same time, but regardless of how surreal it got, fans still demanded an answer. Special Agent Cooper’s appraisal of pie certainly had its followers, but quickly pop culture tired of Twin Peaks when it strayed away from the formula that brought it first into the mainstream.

While there were certainly shows since inspired by the Twin Peaks mold, like Push, Nevada, it proved more to be a creative one-off than the lasting genre that showed so much promise in the Dallas days. Along came Harper’s Island earlier this year to change all that, though, with the simple premise of a murder an episode as a killer stalks an island wedding party. No season cliffhangers, just a slasher whodunit spread lightly over 13 episodes. The formula seemed to work for TV, but how does it transition to home video. Does it become the most long-winded slasher in history with redundant recaps from episode to episode, or does the guaranteed quota of grisly deaths it still translate to good entertainment? Let the island lighthouse shine light on the truth!

Read the rest of the review over at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

FRENCH CONNECTION II Blu-ray

2009-08-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

With Billy Friedkin knee deep in Israel laboring over a masterpiece nobody would even see, and with financial and critical success necessitating a sequel, someone new would have to come in and direct French Connection II. Only, the director they chose was far from the new blood they had previously sought when they chose Friedkin. The producers went with John Frankenheimer, one of the underrated “action verite”, as I like to dub him, directors of the sixties. Ticking up classics like The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds, he was the proven talent that eccentric Friedkin wasn’t. Would that mean, then, that French Connection II would deliver on an old, reliable, predestined formula? Absolutely not!

The high concept for the sequel is this time bringing New York cop to French drug ring. Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is still chasing Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), only this time the location is different. Popeye quickly learns that the France police force is just as corrupt and mismanaged as his own, although en francais he can’t just beat down his man. There are politics. Brutal, constricting politics. Before he even gets a taste of that, though, he’s getting a taste of a more dangerous dead end.

Alain is well aware of Doyle’s presence on his turf, and sensing Doyle’s threat to his drug cartel, Alain decides to fight fire with fire. He kidnaps Doyle, and instead of killing him, gets him hooked on drugs. Seriously. Once Doyle become reliant on the needle, they start pulling away long enough to make the withdrawals really count. After all the merde Doyle stirred up in New York, they are going to make sure he never toys with their operation again.

Eventually Doyle escapes, thanks to the hands of the France police force, and we know what that means. Chase sequence after chase sequence, right? Doyle shouting bigotry while the camera zigzags in and out of choreographed cat and mouse games. The stuff taught action is made of. No. Instead, Frankenheimer goes internal on Doyle. Determined to make drug addiction more than just a prime mover in terms of plot, Frankenheimer puts it front and center to show the devastation it can bring on even the most resistant of users.

We get scene after scene of Doyle going in and out of sanity, drooling, pleading and absolutely miserable for the bulk of the film. As far as sequels go, it’s one of the biggest U-turns in cinematic history, but considering the first film played by an entirely new rule book to begin with, why can’t Frankenheimer’s?

Well, even when Friedkin’s was getting overly ambitious, it always at least defaulted to entertainment. Frankenheimer’s film, although certainly noble and daring, gets overly comfortable in languishing with its lead. The addiction commentary gets stale after awhile, especially considering the bulk of the second act is spent in a dank room. The first film was all about the energy of the city, all those chases on foot and the thrill of the chase. Here Doyle is chasing drugs with alcohol, and while it’s certainly a striking change of pace, it starts to burn out long before Doyle ever does.

The film may not flourish when it comes to action, but accolades must be given to Hackman and his dedication to character. This ain’t a pretty role, especially considering it was the original film that won him the Oscar, but Hackman descends face first into all the shadows of his character. His performance during the withdrawal scenes are rife with emotional energy, as if he’s pulling right from the dark pits of his memory to blurt out the stuff he’s saying. It’s a bare performance, and considering Frankenheimer lingers there rather than on the action, a much richer performance than even Hackman’s work in the original. Hackman rightfully got a Golden Globe nomination for this, just like he did with the surprisingly Oscar-snubbed The Conversation a year prior. As a film French Connection II may not come together quite as a satisfactory whole, but as a performance, Hackman’s has never been better.

presentation...

Like the previous film this Blu-ray disc is presented 1.85:1 1080p widescreen. Friedkin went to great lengths to color time his Oscar-winner to perfection, and considering Frankenheimer left us in 2002, this film gets far less lavish treatment. The overall image is a great deal softer than the original film – not nearly as flattering as it should be. It’s grainy, and even the colors just don’t seem to show like they did in the first film. Drab is more the word to describe this pretty pithy transfer.

There’s a DTS-HD 5.1 audio track, but it ain’t reference quality, that’s for sure. Pure and simple, it’s a glorified mono track, just like the first film. The mono track is included here for comparison, and really, there isn’t much difference. Dialogue is at least all audible, and Don Ellis’ score again sounds just as shrill as ever.

extras...

French Connection II was previously released on DVD as part of a two-pack with the first film. Now that it’s flying solo on Blu-ray, Fox has thankfully added a number of interesting extras. The best of which is a newly produced documentary on the career of John Frankenheimer, the 27-minute “Frankenheimer in Focus”. It features a fine recollections by such filmmakers as William Friedkin, Actor Bruce Dern and Editor Tom Rolf, in addition to his family.

Frankenheimer himself is very articulate, and he very much narrates the piece from clips from older interviews. The resulting piece really helps show the kind of groundbreaking directness that Frankenheimer brought to the action film and to cinema as a whole. Specific films are highlighted, including how the ending to Black Sunday was totally compromised, and it’s overall a treat for this late director. Frankenheimer had previously recorded a commentary for the 2002 DVD, and it’s here in its entirety as well. Again, well spoken, and he really provides a lot of information about his approach to the film and the way they all pulled it off. For prospective filmmakers, this is a must listen.

Surprisingly, the next commentary with Producer Robert Rosen and Gene Hackman is also a very revealing window into the filmmaking process. Hackman sort of mumbles his way through most of the parts (still in character?), but it’s Rosen who really remembers the production in fine detail, and his anecdotes, like how they used hidden cameras for most of the busy street exteriors, are fascinating.

The previous conversation with Gene Hackman from the original film extras is continued here, and while shorter, is still a great watch and a nice primer to the essence of the film. It’s Hackman against a black screen, but he’s vocal about his initial hesitation on making a sequel, and his interest in acting out the scenes of withdrawal. Good stuff.

The disc is rounded off with some trailers, galleries and another isolated score. This track is even more sparse than that of the original, and not as experimentally interesting, either. Still, a nice addition, proving once again that Fox is determined to use Blu-ray for more than just pumping out new transfers.

wrapping it up...

You won’t necessarily be feeling withdrawals from the first film watching this sequel, and that’s thanks to Frankenheimer’s dedication to character in letting Hackman take his Popeye Doyle into a deep, dark abyss. The only problem, though, is that the story goes down there with him and hardly recovers, resulting in a slow, morose travelogue that just doesn’t have the same impact of the original. It’s certainly different, though. The image is a good upgrade from the DVD, but not near the beaut that the remastering of The French Connection was. The extras, while not as decked out as the original, offer a few fine hours of film history and serve as a nice epilogue to Frankenheimer’s career. If Requiem for a Dream made you want to run through fields of daisies, then French Connection II is for you.

overall...

Content: B-

Video: B-

Audio: C-

Extras: B+

Final Grade: C

THE FRENCH CONNECTION Blu-ray Review

2009-08-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

Before there was Paul Thomas Anderson, David Gordon Green or even Stephen Spielberg there was Hollywood’s first true wunderkind director of the American New Wave, William Friedkin. He got his first gig in the chair at age 21 directing for television. A stint on “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” followed, and within a few more years he had a vast repertoire of commercial projects like Sonny & Cher’s Good Times and Britt Ekland’s The Night They Raided Minsky’s. He also started to carve an artistic niche for himself with a competent adaptation of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party and the watershed in queer cinema, The Boys in the Band. It was with his next film that he’d bring together both commercial success and critical praise to become the youngest man to ever win best director. That is until it was found out that he was actually four years older than he said he was. The film, of course, was The French Connection.

No matter the merit of Friedkin’s best picture winner, it’s the phenomenal rise and fall of one of Hollywood’s hottest heads that remains the most interesting story. How his The Exorcist follow-up, and smaller-scale Heaven’s Gate, Sorcerer, flopped after years of delays. How he pissed off the entire gay community (when ten years prior they were embracing The Boys in the Band) by turning Al Pacino into a sadomasochistic closet case in the fascinatingly ambiguous Cruising. How he then descended into light drivel like the Deal of the Century and The Brink’s Job. How he actually kind of redeemed himself with the taught, ambitious amalgam of all his directorial themes, To Live and Die in L.A. and then how he pissed it all away once more with shit like Rampage and The Guardian. And then finally, how he decided to start boning Paramount Picture’s CEO, Sherry Lansing, in order to actually get his films distributed, of which there’d be four, including the Shaq-ified Blue Chips.

All that and I’m still missing a bunch, like how he’d form the short-lived The Directors Company with Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich. Each of those two directors would direct arguably their best films under the production company (Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon and Coppola’s The Conversation), but Friedkin would fail to finish a picture before it closed shop later on in 1974. Then there are all the temper tantrums, infidelity, egomania and bullishness documented in Peter Biskind’s take-it-or-leave-it Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. Tough to imagine a guy who today looks like an overweight William Fichtner crossed with a pitbull was in the seventies getting women left right and center pregnant and aborted. Such is the life of one of the most fascinating figures of Hollywood royalty.

But, uh, yeah, The French Connection. Great flick. Watching it again today, it’s uncertain what the Academy actually saw in the Oscar-winning story, since it’s essentially one long string of chase scenes and spy choreography, but as a testament to pure, unbridled filmic energy, The French Connection stands all its own. Owen Roizman’s grainy, kinetic and rough cinematography would singlehandedly create the gritty aesthetic employed by virtually every other actioner to follow and Gene Hackman’s racist, sexist, cocky but somehow endearing Popeye Doyle would set the mold for the anti-hero of the seventies. Less a film than a coalesce of effective and memorable moments, The French Connection is the kind of film Friedkin always wanted to make, for as he’s said before “For me, the greatest thrill in the world, the only thrill, is getting 20 seconds on the screen that really gases you.”

In The French Connection there are more spontaneous eruptions of this said gas than even Jack Black’s The Klumps parody, "Fatties Fart II" in Tropic Thunder. The bit with Hackman and Frenando Ray back and forth on the New York subway. Doyle’s first big bust in the all-black bar. The stripping of an entire car in a search for cocaine. Doyle’s famous wave when he finally gets his man. The gunshot lost in a Tarkovskian backdrop of urban decay. And of course, the chase scene to end all chase scenes, culminating in the cowardly shot to the back that would end up the film’s poster. These bits owe nothing to story, but are instead a testament to what Friedkin could do with visual space when he brought his A game. Two years ago he showed that he still kind of had it when he managed to turn the one-room stage play of Bug into a visual kaleidoscope that would effectively address all our paranoias about government surveillance post-9/11.

Sure, the guy’s got an ego more extroverted than Kevin Bacon’s penis in the nineties, but I’ve got to say it – when Friedkin’s not phoning it in for his wife, he’s good. Damn good. Friedkin’s made better, more fully realized pictures like To Live and Die in L.A. and his unfairly ignored nihilistic masterpiece, Sorcerer, but what a fine firecracker of energy The French Connection was and still continues to be. Forget spewing pea soup, calling out Satan and pissing on the carpet – with The French Connection Billy Friedkin found a way to make even the most mundane of regular human exchange interesting, and that’s cause célèbre.

presentation...

The French Connection has always been notoriously grimy, but this new HD is still nonetheless Blutiful. In the color timing process, which is fascinatingly documented in the supplements, Billy Friedkin tried out a special technique to achieve a harder, desaturated look. The effect is one of effective, creamy pastels, which really lends well to the cold, decrepit New York aesthetic that is predominant throughout the film. The grain still dances around more than Busby Berkley, but the colors finally come through with a calculated detail never before seen from the film on video. The New York aesthetic for the film is mostly browns, but it’s those blue cars or those sudden bursts of bright red blood that still possess the shock that they should. The sharpness is totally there, too, with many moments nearly window clear despite the fluttering grain. Fox has thankfully avoided trying to digitally soften the grain or to artificially enhance edge detail. Like Dark Sky’s Blu-ray transfer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this is a gritty film that still looks like a gritty film, and it’s movies like these, where all the random grain requires the higher bitrates afforded by Blu-ray, that really showcase the strengths of this new format.

Sound wise, the 5.1 DTS-HD audio included here doesn’t sound all that much better than the included mono mix. Don Ellis’ memorable orchestral score still hits all the right notes, but sound strangely constrained in this not-really 5.1 remix. The majority of the film is played out to more realistic ambiance of urban New Yawk, but even then this track fails to expand the soundspace outside of the front channels. There is hardly any separation from left to right, and virtually no use of the rears. Essentially this sounds just like a mono mix from 1970, which I guess it should and really that’s all that we should be asking for. Still, if you’re going to spring for DTS…use it.

extras...

The French Connection was one of the first big benefactors of Fox’s sadly shortlived Five-Star DVD series that saw interactive, multi-disc treatments for top-tier titans in their catalog like M*A*S*H, Die Hard, Cleopatra and, uh, Independence Day. That release saw two-discs complete with extras like a feature length commentary with Gene Hackman and the now deceased Roy Scheider, another with Friedkin, deleted scenes, and a couple lengthy documentaries. Determined to prove its worth other than for a lavish picture restoration, this Blu-ray disc retains all those great extras and a bunch more. Notable inclusions are an introduction by Friedkin, an isolated score and a trivia track on disc one, and on disc two (yeah, two blu-ray discs!) a whole bunch of new short featurettes. The best of the bunch is “Anatomy of a Chase”, where Friedkin and Producer Phil D’Antoni go back and revisit all the locations for the film’s infamous chase scene, with Friedkin verbally acting it all out complete with comparisons of the locations from old to new. There are some nice bits where he mentions how some of the thrills were manipulated, and how others came on unsafely by accident. In his determination to entertain, the 73-year old Friedkin even runs up those notorious stairs where Doyle made his most iconic of kills.

The other new extras include an interview with Gene Hackman on his Popeye Doyle character, who addresses his “Never trust a Nigger” line and much of his admiration for Friedkin’s process. Then there’s the aforementioned color timing with Friedkin where he speaks about trying to recreate the Moby Dick pastel Technicolor look. More than just extras about the cast and crew themselves, there is also a quality “Rogue Cop: The Noir Connection” where several familiar film historians deconstruct The French Connection and compare and contrast it with the popular noirs that helped define the genre decades before Friedkin’s film burst on the scene. “Scene of the Crime” was filmed the same day as Friedkin did his “Anatomy of a Chase”, and this is again another nice revisiting of the Brooklyn bridge and how that infamous traffic jam was achieved. Of note, we also meet the cop whom Friedkin based his controversial Al Pacino character in Cruising.

Friedkin makes the most of his day of filming by also meeting up with technical consultant and actor in The French Connection, Sonny Grosso, to revisit the true story behind the film. They both recollect of all the characters that permeate the film and how they are both similar and different than the actual characters. There’s also a surprisingly interesting look at Don Ellis’ score, where a music historian describes Ellis’ groundbreaking approach to music – how he specifically got a four key trumpet produced so he could explore the quarter tones that were always underexplored in music. It’s these tones that help give the film the unsettling, shrill and moving music that has become such an identifiable part of the film.

It’s a lot of content to mull over, and considering the variety of each individual supplement, it doesn’t get much better than this. My one gripe, and this seems to be the trend these days, is the axing of the trailers that were originally included on the DVDs. Trailers are an art form in themselves, and I wish companies wouldn’t cut corners to avoid any royalties by removing them from the film to which they should be so intricately connected.

wrapping it up...

While Friedkin’s ego may prove more timeless, The French Connection still endures as one hell of a collection of rousing action scenes and skillful director moments. The grainy visuals really pop with the addition of high definition, even if the sound still sounds same ‘ol. Fox went over and above with their two discs of extras, nearly doubling the content of the already packed Five-Star edition DVD from a few years prior, and packing it with extra after extra of great content. This should now be the final word on the connection francais, and with Warner’s excellent edition of Cruising from a few years prior, that leaves only Sorcerer of Friedkin’s classical period up for high definition remastering. Universal, if you’re holding it back for fear of stroking Friedkin’s self-love hard on, then at least do it for Roy Scheider. Hell, do it for Tangerine Dream. Just do it.

overall...

Content: A

Video: A-

Audio: B

Extras: A

Final Grade: A

GOSSIP GIRL: The Complete Second Season DVD

2009-08-25T02:37:00.001-07:00

It’s funny the way television works. Shows always seem to begin their run as innocent testaments to the triumph of love. Drama is almost always centered around a central guy-girl duo, both being from opposite sides of the tracks and both finding a way to beat the odds and make it work. Dallas, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills, 90210, The OC, One Tree Hill, Dawson’s Creek, it’s all the same template. Yet, it’s hardly ever that romance that translates into big ratings. Do we really remember Dallas for the Romeo & Juliet pairing of Bobby and Pam? No, we remember it for J.R. and his scheming ways. Do we remember Melrose Place because of Allison and Billy’s goofy courtship? No, we remember it for crazy Kimberly, bitchy Amanda and scheming Michael. Viewers love the bad boys, and no matter how much studios try to shovel romance, it’s the dirt that keeps viewers interested. Happy endings are so 1940.

Case in point, Gossip Girl. Here is a show that again began as a star-crossed pairing between the pampered private school princess Serena van der Woodsen (I know, with a name like that how could you guess, right?) , played not-so-lively by Blake Lively, and east-ender with a struggling rock star for a father Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), but quickly found its footing in another vocation. Gossip Girl became a show about spoiled douchebags. Part of the initial allure of The OC was all the rich and oblivious mockery of the nouveau riche, but rather than mock it, Gossip Girl embraces it. Serena’s foil, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) is a mollycoddled little brat, and her male equal, Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) is even worse. Despite the Tiger Beat looks and harmless and generally well-to-do posturing of on-again-off-again Serena/Blair love interest Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), it’s the badass buffoonery of Chuck that seems to have all the girls and pop culture in a swoon. And this guy’s bad.

Now, there have certainly been anti-heroes in soaps before, indeed with people like J.R., Michael Mancini and One Tree Hill’s Dan Scott the genre practically thrives on it. With Chuck though, the Gossip crew push the limits of vile asshattery. You know your anti-hero is bad when his rich connections get him off rape charges during the opening episode. What a way to begin! So even if Gossip Girl tried to center on the goody good with Dan and Serena, by the first episode it was already becoming a peep hole into the lives of assholes and people you generally just love to not hate, but despise. It took Melrose Place and Dallas a good 40 episodes to reach that conclusion, but here in 2007 it only took Gossip Girl one. And once Gossip Girl found its footing in vice, it ran with it. For the season two push, The CW even went as far as to promote the well-received series with the most venomous critical pans, proudly boasting the Boston Herald’s “Every Parent’s Nightmare!” dismissal. It’s rich kids doing bad things, and by posturing it as the film adults want to hate, they’ve turned it into a faux-taboo pop culture mainstay. The douchebags are here to stay.

So what’s new in season two? Well, to start we get some amusing guest roles from Michelle TratchenIcanneverspellherlastnameberg and Brittany Snow. The Upper East Siders are still as spoiled and selfish as ever, but that doesn’t’t stop them from falling in and out of love and alliance on bi-episode basis. Most of the conflicts are of the petty omg J ruined S’s party cuz she texted the addy to gossip girl variety, but the scheming and sobbing also extends to funerals, jails and ivy league colleges. The prime mover this season is just where oh where each senior will affirm their family status by choosing a posh school in post-secondary. That is, if they ever make it there. Chuck’s back on the booze, Blair’s classing it up with community service and Serena’s flirting with a walk down the aisle. There are school plays, sweet sixteen parties and bed swapping galore, and all the while Kirsten Bell is dropping XO-XOs and hearsay as the titular gossip girl. Even her reign as the vile voice of the show is in limbo when Serena plans to out the mystery blogger for the finale.

These people are shallow, their pursuits frivolous, but all the pompous, wintry New York gloss somehow translates into addicting entertainment. Perhaps it’s because all the other breakout teen TV has been set in warm, vapid bikini weather or because we’re all just so cynical now, but watching these mindless tarts trot around in button jackets and woven scarves certainly has an appeal. Maybe it’s the fun in seeing all these spoiled brats going through the motions of trying on mommy’s makeup or daddy’s credit cards as a rite of passage. Maybe it’s because, deep down, we like to see the Gordon Gecko’s of the world succeed because, hey, ain’t that capitalism and ain’t that America?

While these snots will probably never change, I still do wait with baited, misty breath for what changes come with season three in the Big Apple. The era of the wide-eyed, do good teenager is dead. The douche bags have taken over, and until this current recession becomes a blip in the past, cynicism will rule all. And it’s all happening in the high rises and low brows of Gossip Girl.

Presentation...

All 25-episodes of the second season come in high quality 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, progressively encoded, and a 5.1 Dolby Digital surround mix. I didn’t notice a ton of directional effects – it’s mostly dialogue up front and a bit of fill in the back, but the mix effectively levels the dialogue and “It” band music in harmony. The video looks really crisp and it’s quite amazing how far television has come in the last decade, since my Melrose, Dawson’s Creek and 90210 still look like utter crap. Colors are intentionally muted because you can’t really be sly and detached without hues of grey, but it still looks ice cold appealing.

The series is presented in one big alpha case with most of the DVDs located in a middle snap in holster series. There’s a cardboard slipcase overtop of it all to make it more fitting with box sets previously released for TV product. There’s also a nice little booklet that provides a listing, summary and bullets of included extras for each episode. The menus are a little tacky, with the highlight in the form of a mouse pointer like the equally tacky episode intros, but they are organized well enough to make navigating the discs pretty intuitive. My one gripe is that right off the bat it features descriptions of the episodes on the right side of the screen, making it tough to start things up without some sense of what’s going to unfold in the episode. A plus is the toggle switch between watching the episodes with or without the recap. I remember some of my classic TV shows with the recaps and when they’re nowhere on the discs it’s always a bit of a throw-off.

As for extras, here’s the gossip:

“5th Avenue Meets Gossip Girl” features an interactive map of New York with short little 2:00 video documents of each location used in the series. It features interviews with the cast, crew and building owners, and gives a nice description not only of how each is used in the show but how each location functions in real life, too. Gossip Girl fans heading to NY, take note!

“lol” which translates to “Gag reel” for those not text message inclined. It’s actually quite humorous and really shows the way all these actors are when they’re not putting up a front for the show or for the press kit. It runs a substantial length of 10:39 and features all the principals and even a bit of the jovial crew. From the looks of it, Leighton Meester flubs her shit by far the most.

There are six “Chasing Dorota” webisodes that run roughly 3:00 a piece. Basically the proletariat spin on Gossip Girl, this features the trials and tribulations of Blair’s maid. The concept is probably funnier than the execution, it nevertheless features the maids getting together and talking shop, and Dorota trying to choose between the security guard downstairs or an old Polish ex. Each episode has the requisite narration, replacing “XOXO” with “Ta Ta”. Cute, but insubstantial.

“Gossip Girl: Faces Behind the Design” talks about the posh designs on display in the show, from the clothing to the actual art pieces within the locales. Jenny’s fashion line in the series is featured, with interviews with the ghost designer on how he came up with the styles by relating with the characters from the show. More interesting is how the show worked in a street photographer into the episodes and how the real photographer had to come in after cut to get the shots the actors were faking during the roll. The show did a few other interesting things with art throughout, and it’s on display here in this well edited 17:02 supplement.

And winning the award for the longest supplement I’ve ever seen (this side of The Frightners' 4.5 hour doc) is the 2:27:50 audiobook reading of the second entry in the Gossip Girl book series, “You Know You Love Me”. The series predated the show and set the groundwork for all that was to follow, and it’s nice to have that bit of history here, read for this release by Christina Ricci. It’s kind of funny to hear the usually wry actress reading everything with such earnest enunciation, but a paycheck is a paycheck, right? There are a ton of chapter stops, although regrettably no index for all those not hardcore enough to do it all in one sitting. It can also be downloaded onto a computer via DVD-ROM for those who want to throw it on their iPod. A novel (heh) extra that’s been continued on from the Ricci reading of the first novel on season one, here’s hoping it continues.

All those extras are located on the final disc, but there are unaired scenes scattered throughout the other discs, appended to whatever episode they originate from. There are often several on a single episode, showing just how easy it can be to trim or exclude subplots to hit that forty-three minutes.

While I’d like to see more on the cast opening up about their characters, or even the writers talking about how to adapt the book material, the extras here are still well done and a cut above the usual TV on DVD treatment.

Wrapping it up…

It may have abandoned the conceit that love conquers all after the first episode, but Gossip Girl still entertains free of irony as a window into the vapidity of bourgeois life. These people are douchebags and they revel in the fact, living out their shallow lives like it’s the only thing that matters. After this bunch, I don’t know how teen TV can ever go back to earnest romances and After School Special-esque lessons. The episodes look great in 16x9 and sound equally as good in 5.1. The packaging and presentation are solid, and the extras provide a decent window into the series plus a cool Christina Ricci spoken audio book of the novel that started it all. If you like your soaps steamy and in a tub filled with San Pellegrino, Gossip Girl won’t clean you up, but it’ll at least heat things up. Looking forward to next season, XOXO, Rhett Miller.

Overall...

Content: B

Video: A-

Audio: B+

Extras: B

Final Grade: B

MELROSE PLACE: The Fifth Season, Vol. 1 DVD

2009-08-24T23:56:00.000-07:00

Truly, madly, deeply, I’m in love with Melrose Place. I grew up watching Beverly Hills, 90210 on TBS afterschool, and had perfect attendance throughout the other teen soap runs of Dawson’s Creek, The O.C., One Tree Hill and Degrassi, but little did I know it was all child’s play. It wasn’t until I moved into the Place Melrose when it hit DVD in 2006 that I truly started to live. Somehow in my teen years I lived oblivious to the whole pop culture phenomenon, instead basking contently in le triangle d’amour of Brenda-Dylan-Kelly. I never felt a void for not including a dollop of Melrose in all those sudsy baths of television soaps. I was in high school, and I was content. Who needs a spin-off of 90210 when you could have the real thing at West Beverly?

This was more than just a spin-off, though…this was graduation. This was higher education into just how outrageous, sexy, fun and catty television could be. Of course I didn’t know that, but with the 2006 DVD debut looming, some of my friends on set began talking. Reminiscing in all the great Melrose memories – of Marcia Cross blowing up the building, Patrick Muldoon coming back from the dead or Heather Locklear watching her father get blown to smithereens. “But Donna kept her virginity all throughout high school…” I’d mumbled defeated. Whatever. I’ve got my show, and all this Melrose talk will cease come once production wraps.

Well, as it turns out, my next film project following was to be camera trainee on some crummy Nora Roberts Lifetime movie. Refuge from all these Melrose musings? No, it was the breaking point. As fate would have it, Heather Locklear was to star, and I’d spend the better part of the month taping down her marks. There was no escaping this now – I had to jump feet first into the melodrama, L.A. style. I bought the first season, and hook line and sinker I was immediately reeled in by all the mile a minute plot twists. Of course the series began more humbly than the prime time soap du jour it would become, but that’s a tale for a different review. The fifth season here, sadly truncated into only the first half for this DVD release, marks an important turning point in the series. Let’s talk about the Melrose magic, and just what happened to it when the series went from ratings juggernaut in season four to barely being renewed in season six.

If you ask series connoisseurs, of which I can proudly consider myself a part two short years later, the series Jumped the Shark at the end of the fourth season. It was always a series characterized by jaw dropping plot twists at every cliffhanger finale, but no matter how outrageous, they always seemed grounded in some sense of reality. Cross’s Kimberly was a loon, but even when she was blowing up buildings there were repercussions. By the end of the fourth season, though, the series had nearly drowned in its own soap bubbles as Kimberly kidnapped smarmy and smug doctor, Peter Burns (current beau of our favorite Locklear, Jack Wagner), and somehow managed to have him committed to an insane asylum where she was not only running under one of her deranged split-personalities, but where she also had the authority to give him a full frontal lobotomy in front of, who else, Priscilla Presley. And then, meanwhile, Muldoon’s evil fashion mogul Richard Hart closed off the episode by reaching his hand up from his grave to come back to get revenge on his killers, Sydney and Jane Andrews (Laura Leighton and Josie Bissett, respectively). It was damn fun, but so over-the-top that no future twist could ever top it without breaking the fourth wall. With all its outlandishness, Melrose Place had painted itself into a corner.

For season five, the writers vowed to return the series to its, erm, roots, but moving away from rising from the grave storylines to the more plausible sexy trash that made seasons two and three dy-no-mite. It’s for this reason that those new to the show tread cautiously here, since this is no doubt a construction zone. A time of rebuilding. Original cast members were being phased out in favor of bringing new blood to the series. Kimberly was facing a brain tumor, gaybestfriend Matt Fielding (Desperate Housewives’ Doug Savant, who’d later marry Melrose alum Leighton) was starting an adoptive family, Jane was heading back to Chicago to deal with news of a different birth mother, and Allison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith) and Jake Hanson (Grant Show) were looking for residence outside of L.A. Even Sydney’s days were numbered. With six original leads sent packing by the end, just as many new tenants to the famous apartment complex needed to take up residency. So the season five cast was huge – the biggest the series cast would ever be. All this change and the series was supposed to return to its roots, too? Yikes.

Somehow, it managed, though. Highlighting the new additions was Rob Estes, who had just come off a successful run on the trashy Silk Stalkings (and who would later do Spelling proud with the patriarchal lead on the new 90210) and his big-lipped, big-mouthed wife, Lisa Renna (now doing workout videos in the Jane Fonda vein). Together they played the doomed McBrides who would jump in and out of love octagons with Locklear’s Amanda, Peter Burns and the rat to end all rats, Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro, the only guy to make it from first episode to last). Then there was David Charvet as Craig Field, the scheming little rich brat to try and usurp Amanda’s throne as queen (king?) of the advertising world. The mantra of Melrose was always “For Sex and Money”, and for at least season five the snotty weasel followed it to a T. Kelly Rutherford joined as call girl Megan Lewis, hired by Kimberly to fulfill Mancini’s sexual impulses while she battled it out with cancer. And remember, this is the series when it’s not over-the-top! Rounding out the new additions was the Southern nice girl with a white-trash past, Samantha Reilly (Brooke Langton), who aw shucks-ed her way into Billy Campbell’s (Andrew Shue) heart.

Basically, one of the many pleasures of Melrose Place is that eventually every tenant in the building would sleep with the other, sort of solidifying that Bulworth phrase that if we all just fucked each other then dichotomies of race, religion and difference would fall by the wayside. Of course, in prime time, nobody ever has kids though. It’s always abortions and adoptions and miscarriages before those little tykes force the show to grow up and the ratings to erode. So it was with all this new cast that we could finally set aside our old Melrose hang-ups about Billy and Allison and Amanda and Jake and finally just let everyone have it every which way on bed, desk or the totally awesome common area pool. My brother and I clocked it in one episode of this season, and there were no less than eight separate sex scenes from different cast members in a single episode. Try to find a porn with that much.

Of course there was more to the show than just sex. There was money. Dr. Mancini was always thinking of ways to get even more of it, and Amanda was memorably tearing down anyone who stood in her way from rising to the top of her ad company. Jake was looking to break from his blue collar roots by running the local hangout, Shooters, and even Matt, the man who in season one turned down many a promotion for social work with inner-city kids, was on his way to himself becoming a rich doctor. To get to the money often took scheming, which again made for great TV, or even sex, which made for even better TV.

Melrose Place was head of the pack because no matter what, it was never ashamed of being saucy, shallow or downright slutty. It embraced it. When most shows then, and even most today, were always copping out with happy endings and canonical ideas of romance and honor, Melrose Place was gleefully tearing conventions down with bitchy Amanda as its spokeswoman. Taylor is going to force Mancini to impregnate her not because of goals of maternity or of bringing a life into this world, but to make her ex-husband crazy jealous. That’s it, and that’s what Melrose is all about. Check your pretension at the door and prepare for the wildest soap opera residency you can imagine. I did, and kneeling down at Locklear’s feet to mark her camera steps felt not only natural, but earned. For in the nineties, her Amanda Woodward was Queen Bitch of prime time, and if everyone else could grovel at her feet, then I sure as hell could too.

presentation...

The first nineteen episodes of season five are presented in their correct 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio. Like all other shows from the early nineties, these episodes have been preserved on horribly interlaced video, hampering any extra sharpness the DVD format provides. The episodes are mostly clean of defect, which is in a way amazing considering how they’ve used those same stock shots of the Melrose Place pool for five seasons now. In his own way the stock shot pool boy should be considered a regular on IMDb. Digressions aside, the image is perfectly acceptable, and at least a step up from the SOAPNET airings.

The music doesn’t fare so well. Like with all the previous seasons on versatile disc, these episodes have had their music swapped with royalty free garbage. Some of those post-credit tunes are just painful to sit through. The plus side is that no episodes have been edited content wise like they were in Season Two (when an entire Billy Campbell karaoke subplot was removed to avoid paying rights for a Neil Diamond song), but then again, there were no real songs incorporated into any of the narratives. Seasons six and seven get problematic when Kyle brings in a bunch of (at the time) big acts like Tal Bachman and those crazy MMMBoppers to his After Hours bar and jazz club. These guys were featured throughout the episodes, so I fear for the future of our favorite apartment complex on DVD. The episodes are supposed to be stereo, but I must have soap suds in my ears because all I hear is mon to the izzo.

extras...

There is little incentive supplement wise for paying the rent this season. Nadda.

wrapping it up…

There’s only one place I want to live, and it ain’t with Dawson, it ain’t in Beverly Hills or One Tree Hill and it sure as hell isn’t The O.C. Melrose Place is what prime time soap opera is all about, equally apt to taking a lead character over the deep end as it is taking them to bed with a different lover. The love triangles, squares and pentagons come as fast and furious as Paul Walker and with Locklear, Cross and Rinna en camp, there’s more bitch here than Lassie. The fifth season was so bulging at the seams from all the new characters that they’d virtually get a whole new sweater by the sixth season, but for old Melrose fans, this is the last of the original cast. While the sex, drama and sex here doesn’t compare with the heyday of seasons two to four, it’s still top notch TV that deserves to perch atop the soap opera canon. Heather, next time I’ll grovel at your feet without pay.

overall...

Content: A-

Video: C

Audio: C+

Extras: F

Final Grade: B