DJANGO Blu-ray

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

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

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

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