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Nick Zegarac DVD reviews archives

© 2005/2006  Nick Zegarac

April - June 2008 reviews

No Country For Old Men, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Queen, Anne of the Thousand Days/Mary, Queen of Scots

An utterly faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s brilliantly original novel, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men (2007) is pitiless, unrelenting social critique seamlessly blended to a harrowing game of cat and mouse. Shot primarily in the empty backdrops of Texas, New Mexico, and Las Vegas, the film’s dark, edgy and sparse cinematography by Roger Deakins, along with its sweeping, yet emotionless script by the Coens, produces an unforgiving landscape of soulless characters caught in their own congruent and spiraling webs of self-destruction.

At $25 million, the film is a modestly budgeted joint venture between Paramount and Miramax Films. Casting is inspired. Newcomer to American audiences, Javier Bardem, justly receives his Best Actor Oscar for this strangely virtuous, almost philosophical, performance as the wedge-cut assassin driven to commit unspeakable acts in a very discerning way. Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin deliver potent and unsettling portraits of righteous fatigue and invigorated greed respectively.

The film begins in the stark landscape of West Texas, circa 1980, with Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) providing an aloof social critique on the sad, slow demise of peace in the region. Professional hitman, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), brutally slaughters Bell’s deputy to escape custody, first stealing his police cruiser, then murdering an unsuspecting, innocent driver for his vehicle to continue the trek across the country.

In the meantime, good ole boy Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) accidentally discovers the remnant-strewn carnage of a drug deal gone bad: multiple corpses, a bag full of money, and a barely alive Mexican who will perish without his help. At first, greed consumes Moss. He hightails out of the valley with the money, leaving the Mexican to die. An attack of conscience sends Moss back to the scene of the crime. Unfortunately, he is discovered by the other banditos and thereafter begins a panicked escape from Chigurh and the law.

Moss hides in a seedy motel, stashing his moneyed satchel in the air vent. Unaware that the satchel also contains a hidden tracking devise, Moss returns to the motel only to discover that the Mexicans have already broken into his room and are awaiting his return to kill him. Cleverly, Moss instead rents the room next door, removes the vent panel from the shared duct, and retrieves the cash before Chigurh arrives to kill the Mexicans in his room.

Moss is tracked by Chigurh to another hotel on the Mexican border. Narrowly escaping death, he is nevertheless wounded, awaking days later in a Mexican hospital to discover that another drug operative, Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), has a proposition that might save his life. Rejecting Wells outright, Moss telephones him later but is too late to save Wells’ life. Chigurh answers Wells’ phone, informing Moss that if he does not hand over the money his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald), will surely die.  

Moss refuses to give in. Instead, he arranges a rendezvous with Carla Jean.  His plan: to pass along the money and send her to safety. Tragically, Moss is discovered by the Mexicans and Chigurh at the rendezvous first and is murdered. Witnessing the aftermath, Sheriff Bell enters Moss’s hotel room – unaware that Chigurh is standing behind the door. Bell notices similar scratch marks on the vent in the room and realizes that the money is gone.

Interestingly enough, Chigurh does not kill Bell, nor does Bell notice the assassin standing only inches away from him. Instead, Bell visits his invalided uncle, Ellis (Barry Corbin), while Chigurh hunts down Carla Jean for the cash. In a scene of open-ended interpretation, Chigurh offers Carla her life if she will surrender the cash and call a coin toss – a reoccurring motif in the film. Carla refuses, and Chigurh departs her home with the money, implying that he has killed her. Unfortunately for Chigurh, he is T-boned by another driver, sustaining injury, but manages a painful escape before the arrival of police.

The final moments of the movie are up for discussion, with a retired Bell relating a pair of reoccurring dreams he has about his father to his wife, Loretta (Tess Harper). The first dream involves lost money that his father has given him; the second is a snapshot moment wherein Bell’s father, carrying a torch through the frozen wilderness, informs Bell that he will go on ahead to make a fire for their warmth. Bell is left alone and isolated in the cold.  “Then I woke up,” Bell concludes to Loretta and the audience, leaving the full poignancy and importance of the dreams a complete mystery.

No Country For Old Men is uncomfortable, compelled viewing. Its landscape of forgotten, hard-bitten men of the new West brutalizing one another for the sake of greed, scheming, and elusive wealth is faintly reminiscent of John Huston’s The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) loosely reinvented for the Reservoir Dogs (1992) generation. Though the story teems with an ominous oppression and fatalism that is decidedly not "feel good," the Coens' script redeems the narrative from just another conventional "death in the valley of indecision" where not even the most innocent among us is able to emerge unscathed.

Alliance’s anamorphic 2:35.1 DVD delivers a fairly impressive image throughout – highly stylized and with a sun burnt yellowish tint throughout that is in keeping with the original theatrical presentation. Fine details are nicely realized throughout. There is a minor hint of edge enhancement but nothing that will distract.

Contrast levels are bang on with deep blacks. Whites, as aforementioned, adopt a yellow tint but are otherwise clean and refined. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital effort with impressive spread. Extras include four vintage featurettes shot during production, including one largely self-congratulatory offering dedicated to working with the Coen brothers. 

One of the most profoundly sobering movies ever made about the holocaust, Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) is often stagy and slightly stoic, though never anything less than completely engrossing post-WWII melodrama. A revealing look at the aftermath of Hitlerian rule and driven by its star performances, the film is as vitally tragic, viscerally disturbing, yet ultimately as life-affirming as any "message picture" ever produced about the rule of law in an unjust world.

Abby Mann’s potent screenplay explores the Nuremberg trials from the perspective of American Justice, Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy), who is pulled from his retirement to preside on the trial of German judges accused of Nazi crimes. Upon his arrival in Berlin, Dan, a bombed out shell of its former self, is installed in the residence of a deceased Nazi General. Before trial, Dan begins to review the cases of Germany’s Chief Justice Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), a patriot once regarded highly for his personal convictions. The others on trial include the ineffectual Werner Lampe (Torbin Meyer), embittered Emil Hahn (Werner Klemperer), and indifferent, Freidrich Hofstedter (Martin Brandt). 

Gaining guarded insight into Germany’s political climate during the war from his two servants, Mrs. and Mr. Halbestadt (Virginia Christine and Ben Wright), Judge Haywood’s understandings and experiences are significantly broadened when Madame Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich), the former mistress of the house he now occupies, arrives to take some personal effects back to her small apartment. It is through Bertholt’s eyes and reflections that Haywood develops a quiet, though nevertheless potent grounding for the people who did not support Hitler’s final solution.

However, the film’s narrative also forces Dan to reconsider a very loaded question: Who is more to blame for the atrocities committed under Nazi rule? The ardent SS officers who openly supported Hitler or the conscientious objectors that remained silent while millions went to their deaths a stone’s throw away from their villages and towns? 

The real crux and spark of the film derives from its passionate court room exchanges between Defense Attorney Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) and the pronouncedly defiant Colonel Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), who serves as the United States lead prosecutor. One by one, the witnesses are brought forward with heartrending testimony. Rudolph Peterson’s (Montgomery Clift) unnecessary sterilization reveals another side to the German justice system that Haywood had not considered. However, it is Irene Hoffman’s (Judy Garland) utterly tragic recanting of her platonic teenage association with a retired Jewish merchant – an association that inadvertently lead to the man’s brutal extermination – that eventually leads Haywood to his ultimate conclusion about the purpose for the trial and its verdict.    

The final moments of the film’s narrative are dedicated to a tete-a-tete between Haywood and Dr. Janning, men so similar in their profession and way of interpreting the law that it both startles and haunts Haywood’s disbelief that such an intelligent man could so readily support atrocities of the Third Reich. 

Judgment at Nuremberg is not an easy film to sit through. As the audience, we are spared actual visual depictions of Nazi torture and brutalities, though Richard Widmark’s gripping commentary as Col. Lawson is quite enough to let our imaginations run wild into their animalistic depravity.  The entire cast performs superbly with Schell and Garland delivering the most haunted moments of reflection. These stellar bits of acting live on long after the footlights have come up.  Nominated for an astounding 11 Academy Awards and winner of 2, Judgment at Nuremberg remains a benchmark in 1960s cinema – powerfully frank and emotionally satisfying, a story for the ages brilliantly adapted for the big screen. It belongs on everyone’s top shelf; a must-have!

MGM DVD delivers a very smooth, though not anamorphic 1:66.1 image that will surely not disappoint. The B&W elements are remarkably clean with minimal film grain, accurately rendered contrast levels, deep solid blacks and very clean whites. The audio has been remixed to 5.1 (the original mono is also included). The two are practically identical in their spatial separation and fidelity, though in the 5.1 mix the music track is decidedly the benefactor.

Extras include a thoroughly insightful featurette in which screenwriter Abby Mann and co-star Maximilian Schell speak of their experiences on the film. Both are so well spoken that they put many a new audio commentary track to shame with their genuine ability to talk on cue. Also included is a 15 minute tribute to Stanley Kramer that is nicely done, if all too brief. A photo gallery, theatrical trailer, and promotional junket materials round out the extras.

Stephen Frears’ The Queen (2006) is a case of a good idea distilled into a mediocre film. For starters, its title is deceiving, since the narrative’s focus is not structured on the Queen at all, but rather on her reaction to England’s tragic loss of Princess Diana. Peter Morgan’s screenplay relies heavily on inserted BBC footage from those painful hours of mourning around Buckingham Palace immediately following the news that Diana had indeed died. True, gifted actress Helen Mirren (who won an Oscar for her role as Elizabeth) apes the monarch to perfection. She is the Queen in mannerism and deportment and remains the film’s one saleable commodity. Yet, there seems to be no cohesion to the footage excised from life and inserted into this story other than its brief reactionary flashpoints to the various sound bytes issuing from the Queen’s television.

The film opens with Tony Blair’s appointment to parliament. The Queen (Mirren) reminds him of his temporary place in the general scheme of British politics, a move that wins a rather uneasy détente between them until that fateful night in Paris. Moments after the first televised news that Diana’s car has been struck in a tunnel, Blair (Michael Sheen) is on the phone to Her Majesty, cautiously instructing as to the appropriate course of action. Blair advises a public address. But the Queen will have none of it. Instead, she’s off to Balmoral Castle for a little R&R with Prince Philip (James Cromwell), Prince Charles (Alex Jennings), and the young heirs to the throne.

At first, the mass sympathy is with the royal house. Soon, however, public opinion turns sour, particularly after the Queen refuses to offer even the most basic acknowledgement of Diana’s importance on the world stage: flags flying at half mast, a public address, her return to Buckingham Palace to mix with the outpouring of tears from mourners.

The film delights in exposing a crusty underbelly of tension amongst the royals: Prince Philip’s overriding contempt for Diana, Charles’ presumed outpouring of loss made ineffectual by an overbearing mother, Cherie Blair’s (Helen McCrory) refusal to curtsy before the queen. Yet, the overall empathy of the piece is lost under its barrage of actual news clips and sound bytes and under some heavy handed editing that reduces the Queen to mere glances and moments of silent introspection sandwiched between the documentary footage.

This isn’t a great melodrama, just a mediocre one that proved very adept at feeding the loyalist/royalist fan base to both Dianaphiles and devotees of the Queen. In the end, The Queen is a curiosity and an anomaly, an addendum to history made from a curious vantage of extensive research without the infusion of any sort of heart or soul to make the project come alive.

Alliance Home Video’s DVD is quite adequate. In theaters, the image had a tendency to be quite grainy in spots. This DVD reduces that grain element somewhat for a more smooth and acceptable image. Excised television snippets retain their broadcast feel. Filmic elements have a more refined quality. Colors are rich and fully saturated. Contrast levels are a tad weaker than expected. Blacks are more deep gray or hazy brown than black. Whites have a slightly yellowed characteristic that seems in keeping with the original theatrical presentation. Overall, the image quality will surely not disappoint. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital and presented at an adequate listening level. Extras include the film’s original trailer, an audio commentary and a "making of" featurette.

Based on Maxwell Anderson’s magnificent stage spectacle, Charles Jarrott’s Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) is a visceral and compelling Tudor melodrama about King Henry VIII’s mad obsession to produce the next heir of England. Deriving its name from the brief span in which Anne Boleyn became Queen of England then lost her head, the play debuted on Broadway in 1948 with no less a formidable Henry than actor Rex Harrison. Running 288 performances to rave reviews, the filmic adaptation had to be postponed repeatedly until Hollywood’s self-imposed code of ethics had sufficiently lapsed, allowing the movie to explore those more seedy sidelines of royal intrigue, incest and adultery.

The film opens on the twilight of Henry’s marriage to Queen Katharine of Aragon (Irene Papas). Originally an affair of state, the marriage was thrust upon Henry (Richard Burton) by his father to secure an alliance between England and Spain. However, Katharine has been unable to bear Henry a son. At court, Henry eyes the young maiden, Anne Boleyn (Genevieve Bujold). But his dalliances with Anne’s older sister, Mary (Valerie Gearon), have toughened her resolve. Apart from her obvious disdain for a man who would impregnate one woman while still married to another, Anne is in love with Lord Percy (Terrence Wilton).

But their love match is thwarted when Henry denies his blessing, and furthermore uses his influence to command Cardinal Wolsey (Anthony Quayle) to separate Anne and Percy so that he may pursue her instead. Eventually, Anne agrees to marry the King, though not without conflict. She does indeed give birth to the King’s future heir, Elizabeth: a bitter pill for Henry to swallow and made even more rancid when their second child – a son – is stillborn. 

Producer Hal B. Wallis delivers a formidable – if lengthy – filmic feast. By far, Burton’s Henry is the most flawed and human of all movie incarnations, revealing a fallible and tragic side. He is superb, but the acting kudos on this occasion belong squarely to Genevieve Bujold who delivers a wholly captivating performance as the woman who would dominate and change the future course of England’s history.

Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) charts the rise of Mary Stuart (Vanessa Redgrave), the last Roman Catholic ruler of Scotland. The only legitimate child of James V, Mary becomes the wife of the dauphin Francis (Richard Denning), who dies tragically in a riding accident. Encouraged to return to her native Scotland as the undisputed monarch, Mary is denied passport through England by Elizabeth (Glenda Jackson). Elizabeth further orders Mary's sailing vessel observed.

Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, including a minor revolution and constant threats of death, Mary manages to maintain her faith while attempting to unite her country and restore it to prosperity. She is hampered in her efforts on all fronts by a growing roster of false friends, as well as her own utterly bad judge in choosing male advisers. To this end, Mary falls madly and marries Lord Henry Darnley (Timothy Dalton), the great-grandson of England’s Henry VII. But her marriage is hardly ideal, especially with Darnley’s growing jealousy toward David Rizzio (Ian Holm), her trusted foreign correspondent. Eventually, Darnley makes a prisoner of his wife, who manages to escape a fate worse than death, only to be thrust into an even more abusive relationship with James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell (Nigel Davenport). 

Once again, producer Hal. B. Wallis and director Charles Jarrott regale us with tales of palace espionage. However, even at its lengthy running time, and with so much intrigue to contend with, the film seems pressed for time. The sets and costumes are first rate but the acting is secondary to both. Redgrave is an ample Mary, as is Jackson’s turn as Elizabeth. Their confrontations are the best and most enduring aspect about the film. For the rest, this is a mostly glossy and not very compelling melodrama that truncates history and speeds through pivotal events that really deserve more of our time and attention.

Universal Home Video has made a 2-disc collector’s set of both movies. Image quality on each transfer is uniform for the most part – save one discrepancy on Anne of the Thousand Days to be discussed in a moment. On both transfers color fidelity has been nicely preserved. Colors are rich and vibrant. Flesh tones have a very natural appearance. There is a good amount of fine detail available for a generally smooth and pleasing presentation throughout. Contrast levels seem bang on with deep blacks and clean whites. Occasionally, age related artifacts are present, but do not distract. The audio on both is 5.1 Dolby Digital and well represented with a very aggressive spread during music and effects. Dialogue is very natural sounding.

Now for the discrepancy.  On Anne of a Thousand Days there are several brief sequences in which the image jerks horizontally. During these moments, the image is highly unstable and riddled with an excessive amount of edge enhancement and shimmering of fine details. The "jerking" motion is probably due to sprocket hole damage inherent in the original camera negative. But the digital artifacts are entirely unacceptable and quite distracting. Overall, then, this DVD is a worthwhile purchase for its content – not its presentation.  

January - March 2008 reviews

Crash, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Eyes Wide Shut, East Side West Side

In essence and tone, Paul Haggis’ Crash (2004) is a morality play interweaving and overlapping several stories - all serving one fundamental theme: the purity of the human spirit, its tainting by the outside world, and recovery from learned prejudices. Set in present day Los Angeles, with Police Det. Graham Water’s (Don Cheadle) family tree providing the flimsiest of cohesion between various story threads, the film is, at times, a sobering reflection on racial stereotypes harbored under false pretenses and an underlying collective mistrust dictated by common fear.

That fear begins for DA Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser) and his wife, Jean (Sandra Bullock), when their SUV is taken at gunpoint by carjackers Anthony (Ludacris) and Graham’s younger brother, Lucien (Dato Bakhtadze), good-natured bad boys destined to meet with an untimely end. En route from their latest heist, the boys accidentally run down Park (Daniel Day Kim), a night worker whose laundry truck is stocked full of illegally smuggled Chinese refugees. Anthony and Lucien decide to save Park’s life by dumping his body off at the local hospital, unaware of the cargo they’re carrying.

Meanwhile, once safely at home, Jean freaks out about getting the locks changed on all the doors at their fashionable home, employing her own misguided racial profiling to convince Rick that locksmith Daniel (Michael Pena) will sell one of the master keys to thieves, just because he is Hispanic.

Responding to an APB on the Cabot’s stolen vehicle, Police Officers John Ryan (Matt Dillon) and Tom Handsen (Ryan Phillippe) pull over a similar vehicle carrying an upscale married couple, Cameron (Terrence Howard) and Christine Thayer (Thandi Newton). Ryan’s prejudice toward blacks in general causes him to overreact to the situation. He terrorizes the couple, physically assaulting Cameron and sexually abusing his wife before letting them off with "a warning." Shaken and disgusted by the incident, Handsen attempts to apply for a transfer; a request denied by Lt. Dixon (Keith David).

The narrative next picks up Daniel, who has been called in the middle of the night to fix the lock of a local Persian merchant, Farhad (Shaun Toub). Farhad’s daughter, Dorri (Bahar Soomekh), has bought him a gun as a precaution against intruders. However, owing to Farhad’s rather hot-headed temper, Dorri has also loaded the weapon with blanks – foresight that will figure prominently later on.

There is a lot more to each of these lives, best left unsaid for the first-time viewer to discover. The film is fluid and evolving, or unraveling, that is, as the various plot elements spin together to form one compelling ball of tension. Like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the screenplay by Haggis and Robert Moresco provides mere snapshots at varying intervals before moving in other directions, only to return and pick up each thread later on. Yet, on the whole, and for this critic’s tastes, the resolution to many of these proves a little "too kismet," becoming an inbred glimpse into characters who, try as they might, cannot seem to get away from one another. Praised for its frank and hard-hitting honesty, its bold critique of bigotry and racism, Crash is indeed an interesting exercise or, perhaps, "lesson" is a more fitting descriptor. But as pure entertainment, it does tend to be rather short-sighted.

Maple Home Video’s DVD exhibits exemplary mastering. The stylized visual elements are boldly authored with a stark and rather stunning color palette that is bold and vibrant. Contrast levels are severe, as intended. Blacks are jet black. Whites are often blooming, again, as intended. Grain structure varies throughout, though night scenes appear to contain minute traces of digital grit not as obvious during the film’s original theatrical engagement. On the whole, the visual quality of this disc will not disappoint. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital and delivers an aggressive sonic characteristic.

Disc One contains one of the poorest examples of a DVD "introduction" from a director that this critic has ever had the displeasure of viewing. The audio commentary by Haggis is not much better, though Don Cheadle's and Bobby Moresco’s involvement eases the pain somewhat. On disc 2 there are several interesting deleted scenes with or without director’s commentary, several additional featurettes on the making of the film, a music montage, storyboard, and script-to-screen comparisons.

Unabashedly optimistic, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) is arguably the first intellectual science fiction movie ever made. In retrospect then, at last Hollywood dared to tell a story that did not invite the "blood-thirsty haunted beings from a far off galaxy, hell bent on earth and earthlings’ destruction" scenario that by the 1950s had become so cliché ridden as to obstruct our sensibilities about the very real probability that "we" are not alone with benevolent travelers from another universe waiting to meet our acquaintance. In reflection on his own work, Spielberg has acknowledged that the film is a young man’s dalliance with the "what if" fantasy about alien life and, more directly, a precursor to his own E.T., The Extra Terrestrial (1982).

Richard Dryfuss is Roy Neary, an engineer who, after being called out to investigate a city wide power outage, instead has a close encounter with an alien craft at a lonely crossroads in the isolated country. The experience shatters Neary’s family life, already precariously looming toward divorce,  especially when his unsympathetic wife, Ronnie (Terri Garr), refuses to accept that Roy has seen anything but a mental breakdown.

Meanwhile on a remote farm, single-mother Gillian Guiler’s (Melinda Dillion) son, Barry (Cary Guffey), is abducted from their home by another alien encounter. After Roy almost runs over Barry with his truck, Gillian and Roy meet and quickly discover their mutual unrelenting and inexplicable urge to journey to the rocky enclave of Devil’s Tower where they quickly learn that the U.S. government has been putting up a front to scare local residents into an evacuation so that they can establish interstellar contact with the alien mother ship.

Those expecting fast action pyrotechnics and a conventional "boy meets alien" scenario would do best to satisfy their fixation elsewhere. Close Encounters is a thought-provoking, often lyrical and perennially engrossing tone poem made by a master filmmaker on the cusp of his own journey into the stars and the unexplained. Spielberg’s direction is sure-footed but methodically paced. The film raises more open-ended questions than providing closed-minded answers, but ultimately succeeds where lesser sci-fi fodder has failed: at creating an emotional backstory that serves as the film’s grounding element, utterly compelling, undiluted or overly explicative. 

At the time Spielberg was preparing for his foray into sci-fi, he had just stepped off the overnight success of Jaws (1976), a film not even Universal Studios had initially harbored much faith in. Ironically, Universal’s shortsightedness continued when Spielberg pitched his original idea for Close Encounters, allowing the beleaguered Columbia Studios their bite at the apple of Spielberg’s burgeoning "magic touch". Collecting his thoughts and handpicking a cast from an envious roster of stellar performers (including legendary film maker/author Francois Truffaut), Spielberg began shooting his movie under high expectations that were somewhat hampered, then entirely dashed, by Columbia’s urging to have the film ready for a Christmas release.

The gamble paid off. Close Encounters was a colossal financial and critical success though Spielberg always felt he had been forced into compromise in his final edit. Hence, after the film pulled Columbia out from its financial red, the studio granted Spielberg’s request to go back three years later to shoot additional scenes and re-edit his masterpiece for a new special edition. Unfortunately, Columbia imposed one more stipulation on Spielberg’s artistic integrity, forcing him to include a final sequence where Roy is seen inside the mother ship before it departs into uncharted intergalactic territory.

In 1999, Sony released this Special Edition as the "definitive version" of Close Encounters even though it was not to Spielberg liking. Now Sony Home Entertainment has rethought that strategy with Close Encounters of the Third Kind: the 30^th Anniversary Ultimate Edition, a three-disc compendium containing the original theatrical cut, the aforementioned Special Edition, and a new "Director’s Cut" approved by Steven Spielberg. All three versions run just a little over two hours and appear to have been sourced from identical film elements. Though much improved in image quality from their original release, these new discs fall a tad short of expectation.

Overall, color fidelity is excellent, particularly during sequences shot during the day. Flesh tones appear more natural then they do during night sequences. Optical shots retain a slightly degraded visual characteristic inherent in the matte and SFX processes employed at the time. Although the work itself retains that elusive aura of make-believe, the overall representation on these discs tends to emphasize their dated characteristic. A few brief shots continue to contain a more heavy and obvious patina of grain than one might expect, exaggerated by a sudden – if brief – digital harshness. The soundtrack on all three discs has been remastered using the best possible source material. Oddly enough, the new musical cue inserted into the final credit sequence of the SE fairs better sonically than the original theatrical and DE tracks, which crackles slightly when played at higher decibel levels.

Extras include a comprehensive look back at the creation, upgrading and restoration of this monumental bit of film history and theatrical trailers for all three versions, as well as a special new introduction by Steven Spielberg. Highly recommended!

Stanley Kubrick’s final movie before his death was Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He should have quit while he was ahead. For in this last experimental venture through the dark and depraved world of the sexually promiscuous and suicidal, Kubrick offers nothing but rare glimpses and brief flashes of his usual high standards.  Based on the brooding and ambiguous novel by Arnold Schnitzler, [Traumnovelle or Dream Story]  the film veers wildly between realms of subliminal perversion and kooky black comedy, peppered in sickly truncated bits of clichéd melodrama.

It stars then-married couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as Dr. William Harford and wife Alice. Though the thin veneer of William’s respectability appears to be holding true to very conservative form inside his cloistered circle of upper crust friends - embodied by his association with fellow physician Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) - alone and behind closed doors, Bill and Alice indulge in hot sex and recreational drug use after their young daughter, Helena (Madison Eglinton), has tottered off to bed.

Now for the wrinkle. Bill’s world is inexplicably turned upside down after Alice confides that she once had naughty thoughts over a naval officer she glimpsed in the lobby of the hotel they were staying at during their honeymoon. Though Alice never acted on the impulse, Bill decides to "get even" with his wife by frequenting the seedy part of town and getting into mischief. But his efforts lead to more sexual frustration than liberation.

An awkward dalliance with a prostitute results in the discovery that she is dying of AIDS. A group of college kids inexplicably assume that Bill is a homosexual and decide to rough him up outside a jazz bar. Inside, Bill learns from his old college buddy, Nick Nightingale (Todd Fields), of a frisky group sex party at a country estate. But the deal turns sour when the cult leader of this private affair realizes Bill is a party crasher and almost makes him the object of a group rape.

The filmic styling of the piece is what stands out the most. But style without substance is a poor precursor for solid entertainment value, a commodity the film miserably fails to deliver. Then rumors of Cruise’s own marital problems with Kidman are glaringly obvious on the screen. Their tawdry sex scenes have zero chemistry. It’s as though they’re brother and sister rather than husband and wife.

Opinion remains divided on Kubrick’s last film. You either love it or hate it. This critic falls into the latter category. The script by Kubrick and Frederic Raphael is an utterly pointless mishmash of moments best left on someone else’s cutting room floor. As the audience, we keep waiting for Kubrick to bring all the loose ends together (perhaps not in complete resolution, but at least a tightening up) and, for the most part, are bitterly disappointed when he leaves us hanging on Alice’s final request for she and Bill to just go home and “fuck.”

Warner Home Video’s anamorphic widescreen DVD is disappointing, not the least for the fact that it does NOT contain both the theatrical and unrated versions of the movie as promised on the slip cover packaging. What is even more disappointing is how overly saturated and softly focused the overall image seems to be. Flesh tones are never natural, but rather a garish stylized orange that is distracting and not in keeping with the original theatrical presentation. Though the image can occasionally be razor sharp, it more often contains a patina of haze and some rather obvious grain (the latter was a part of the theatrical presentation), that plays more like digital grit. The audio is 5.1 and delivers a fairly powerful kick in the film’s underscoring. Extras include vintage "making of" featurettes, a meandering audio commentary, and the film’s original theatrical trailer.

Based on the scintillating novel by Marcia Davenport, Mervyn LeRoy’s East Side West Side (1949) is a potent melodrama that takes a rather frank and unrelenting look at marital infidelity and the fallout incurred in the name of kept-up appearances with faux respectability. The story begins on New York’s fashionable East End with married couple Jessie (Barbara Stanwyck) and Brandon Bourne (James Mason) enjoying a ritual Thursday night feast at Jessie’s mother Nora Kernan’s (Gail Sondergaard) apartment. The gathering seems idyllic and quaint enough. However, as the couple departs for their own home, Nora suspects that all is not entirely well.

You see, Brandon was having a rather torrid romance with viper/mantrap, Isabel Lorrison (Ava Gardner), an affair that Jessie forgave. However, Isabel is back in town, and meaner, hotter and more sensually tempting than ever before. She lures Brandon away from Jessie at every chance, flaunting her success while certain that she will win her conquest in the end. Not that it matters either way to Isabel, who is currently seeing New York thug in a three-piece, Alec Dawning (Douglas Kennedy), much to the chagrin of his other playmate, Felice Backett (Beverly Michaels).

In the meantime, Jessie has befriended former cop turned man of the people, Mark Dwyer (Van Heflin), on leave from his job in Italy. Dwyer’s girlfriend, Rosa Senta (Cyd Charisse), has been nursing a school girl’s crush and keeping her home fires burning for Mark over the last two years in the hopes that he will feel the same toward her upon his return to America. But Mark quickly develops a yen for Jessie instead.

The great curiosity and skill of LeRoy’s direction is how it manages to effortlessly shift from a seemingly conventional soap opera about six lives inexplicably and unpredictably intertwined, into a full-blown film noir after Isabel’s body is discovered choked to death inside her apartment. LeRoy’s direction is strong and straightforward, though never pedestrian. He keeps the film moving, inserting comedic bits of business to break up the rather dark and brooding monotony of the more sinister plot twists.

The entire cast is superb. Mason, in particular, gives a brilliant read of this sort of "weak/troubled" and utterly flawed, though handsome enough man about town that became his stock and trade during the 50s, most notably as Norman Maine in A Star Is Born (1954). There’s great conviction in Stanwyck’s performance as well, shifting atmospherically from doting, respectful and understanding wife to a woman who’s had enough of both her life and the man who pretends to occupy it with her.  

Warner Home Video’s DVD is adequately rendered with minor flaws worth noting. Edge enhancement plagues the main title and end credit sequences. Age related artifacts are present throughout and, at times, heavier than expected. On the whole the gray scale has been impeccably rendered with fine gradation and a considerable amount of fine detail evident throughout. Blacks are solid and deep; whites, nearly pristine.

On several occasions image quality seems to have been sourced from a less than stellar print rather than the original camera negative (as in the scene where Mark takes Jessie to his old neighborhood and runs into a school mate he hasn’t seen in some time). Here, the image is briefly softer with lower contrast levels. On the whole, however, this transfer will surely not disappoint. The audio is mono as expected. Extras include a radio broadcast, several short subjects and the film’s original theatrical trailer. Recommended.

Inspired by graphic novelist, Frank Miller’s highly stylized and much celebrated reincarnation of the Battle of Thermopylae, Zack Snyder’s 300 (2006) is a thought-numbing would-be epic of impeccable carnage mostly created through the magic of CGI.  The film charts the ruthless and relentless journey of that noble sect of Grecian warriors, The Spartans, as they prepare to do battle against insurmountable Persian forces.

The Spartans are led by valiant King Leonidas (the spectacularly muscled Gerard Butler, who claims, in one of the behind the scenes featurettes, to holding a strict regime of 4-hour daily workouts 3 months prior to the film shoot), a bit of a maniacal crazy obsessed with an inherent code of ethics that cannot be tempted or compromised.  The Spartans march as one indestructible conquering machine. Throughout the film’s rather flimsy narrative, Leonidas makes repeated references to the fact that free men will always fight with more honor/valor and blind determination to preserve what is theirs than an army of slaves.

On the home front, Leonidas is loved by his Queen, Gorga (Lena Headey), respected by his people and worshipped by his soldiers. However, in Sparta’s council of elders there is much consternation over the question of leadership, particularly from Theron (Dominic West), a Janus-faced traitor who trades on his political authority for leverage with both the council and the loyalties of its Queen.  At the onset, the Spartans wage an all out slaughter against the Persian forces in one magnificent victory upon the next. But the tide turns out of favor when Leonidas discourages a humpback cripple, Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan) from joining their forces. Ephialtes betrays his king for superficial and earthly rewards.

The great disappointment of the film is that, though its visuals remain bloody and faithful to Miller’s original comic, their overwhelming spectacle is married to a rather passionless hodgepodge: more decorative than narrative and allowing for even less of a personal investment from the audience than one might expect. (For example: The central male/female relationship between Leonidas and Gorga fails to generate even an ounce of believable passion beyond the friction of bodies rising and falling in connubial bliss.)

Understandably, speaking parts are neither the point nor the purpose of Miller’s comic or the film’s screenplay. That works in service of the graphic novel, but it is a bit more problematic for cinema. In depriving us of words beyond mere sound bytes, the film becomes a derelict of mottos, not motivations. The Spartans' causes - honor, family, glory, freedom - never surmount the bone-crushing epic splendor of an ancient carnival freak show, with the Spartans appearing as though they have taken their memberships to Gold’s Gym too seriously and are now suffering from a bad case of penis envy and 'roid rage.

As Leonidas, Gerard Butler clearly has both a physical and emotional grasp and presence. Yet he is oddly deprived of humanity, circumcised in favor of a bloodless façade cut from the same cloth as Arnold Schwartzenegger’s Terminator. His actions thus appear more instinctual than articulate, less the meticulous plotting of a master warrior and superior general than the rabid backlash of a wounded animal.

Larry Fong’s MTV style camerawork and William Hoy’s editing – though considerably more smooth than most of their generation – nevertheless contribute to a superficial artificiality instead of total audience engagement. The battle sequences are not so brilliantly staged as they remain plastic and waxen vignettes (a sort of stop-motion tableau of Miller’s novel): artful, perhaps, but one-dimensional nonetheless. In the end, 300 inspires praise for its ability to provide an exceptionally accurate recreation of Miller’s comic styling. However, taken from its printed context, the filmic excursion remains as flat as those imaginative images on the printed page.       

Warner Home Video’s 2 disc DVD is generally pleasing and captures the CGI splendor of the original filmic presentation, though not without a few flaws. The stylized color palette is dramatically recreated. Blacks are solid and deep. There are no clean, pure whites. Occasionally, digital grit (apart from that inherent and planned in the original theatrical release) is quite thick and obvious, particularly during the final battle sequence, where close ups of Leonidas reveal a tiling effect on his headgear. The audio is an aggressive 5.1 Dolby Digital. Extras include an informative, occasionally rambling audio commentary track, plus a litany of behind-the-scenes featurettes on disc 2, delving into every conceivable aspect of the film’s creation. Oddly, the original theatrical trailer is not included.

Irving Reis’ tragic film noir, The Big Street (1942) is an engrossing character study in toxic relationships: a dark and brooding examination of a tragic woman who is evil in her intent, yet strangely sympathetic in her flawed understanding of human frailty and love. The film stars Lucille Ball as Gloria Lyons, a hot-to-trot nightclub singer who is utterly adored by busboy, Augustus "Little Pinks" Pinkerton (Henry Fonda, playing convincingly against type as the starry-eyed fop). Gloria loves no one – not even herself. She uses her boyfriend, the thuggish Case Ables (Barton MacLane), until she sets her eyes on a more handsome prospect, playboy Decatur Reed (William Orr). Unfortunately, for Gloria, Ables decides to teach her a lesson: slapping her down a flight of stairs. The resulting fall leads to irreversible and crippling paralysis.

Discarded and embittered, Gloria’s recovery is embraced and funded by "Pinks" and his band of faithful well-wishers, fronted by restaurateur Violet Shumberg (Agnes Moorehead), and playful gambler, Professor B (Ray Collins). But Gloria cannot stand the lot of them. Her seething contempt for poverty and those who work to live conceal her deeper fear that her own life is over and that, without the use of her legs, she will never be able to land the rich meal ticket she believes she deserves.

Based on the short story by Damon Runyon (who would later script the glorious Guys and Dolls), the screenplay by Leonard Spiegelgass adeptly moves the action from New York to Florida where Gloria continues to ridicule Pinks and the rest of those who seem to care more for her than even she does for herself. As Gloria, Ball is a revelation, a character so maniacal and oppressive in her discontent that she surely seems to be the most wicked and unflattering of all female leads.

Yet Ball manages to infuse something of a "little girl lost" into her performance, allowing us to see flashes of insecurity behind the sadism that will ultimately doom her to a tragic end. Gloria’s motto may indeed be that "a girl’s best friend is a dollar" but the infinite wisdom of the film is that it provides for a more enlightened philosophy: Selfless compassion is the admirable redeemer of fallen idols.

Warner Home Video’s DVD is fairly impressive. The B&W image is relatively grain free with a minimal amount of age related damage. Contrast levels appear slightly weak at times, but overall the gray scale exhibits a fine tonality with solid deep blacks and relatively clean whites. Occasionally, a slight hint of edge enhancement is detected, as well as pixelization in background details, but on the whole the image quality in this presentation will surely NOT disappoint. Extras are limited to two vintage short subjects and the film’s theatrical trailer.

Howard Hawks’ The Land of the Pharaohs (1955) is an impressive anomaly in the director’s career. Under the creative aegis of making a "Cecile B. Deville-type picture," Hawks aligns an impressive script by Harold Jack Bloom, William Faulkner, and Harry Kurnitz with stellar leads and a cast of literally thousands. The film boasts one impressive spectacle upon the next, not the least of which is Pharaoh Cheops Khu-Fu's (Jack Hawkins) triumphant processional and return to Egypt.

The story begins with Pharaoh’s return, trailed by a band of captured peoples fronted by the architect Vashtar (James Robertson Justice). Cheops orders Vashtar to build him an impregnable tomb where he will rest in luxury and want for nothing in his "second life." As construction begins, the spirit and hope of the people are high. Soon, however, Pharaoh becomes consumed by the thought of death, and the tone of his order and rule turns dark and brooding. After discovering that Vashtar’s sight is failing and that he has shared the secrets of Pharaoh’s tomb with his only son, Senta (then heartthrob, Dewey Martin), Pharaoh condemns both father and son to be buried alive in the tomb after his death.

Even more of a curiosity is the next act of the narrative.  Always loyal to his adoring wife Nailla (Kerima), Pharaoh is inexplicably drawn to hell cat Princess Nellifer (Joan Collins), who first denies Pharaoh’s workers the grain and monetary aid to build his resting temple, spits at him and bites his wrist, then plots his murder with her hulking man servant. This plan however goes awry when Pharaoh’s loyal advisor, Hamar (Alex Minotis), discovers Nellifer’s treachery and devises a fitting end for her after Pharaoh’s death.

The tale moves along effortlessly enough with much to admire from both its actors and the enormous and detailed sets that dwarf all human condition set before them. Director Hawks never cared much for the finished product, believing it to be a minor work amongst his illustrious canon of film favorites. Yet there is something genuinely engrossing about this sort of spectacle – more robust in its plotting and action than DeMille’s own Ten Commandments, and far more character driven with subliminal underpinnings of sadism and revenge. Though what is ultimately remembered from the film are not its quiet moments of introspection but the scathing spectacle, Land of the Pharaohs is thrilling entertainment of the sword and sandal vein.  It delivers the golden goods and makes us care about the whole darn mess.

Warner Home Video’s DVD is a tad disappointing. The anamorphic Cinemascope widescreen transfer was shot on Eastman Warner-Color film stock, a flawed format. The image, while occasionally sharp and detailed, is moreover marred by a distinct fading throughout, overly orange flesh tones and, at times, a considerable amount of obvious film grain and age related artifacts. There is also a hint of edge enhancement and shimmering of fine details sporadically throughout this presentation. Occasionally, the image wobbles from left to right during dissolves and fades. Colors are flat and pasty for the most part.

The audio is Dolby Stereo Surround and recaptures much of the vintage "scope" stereo sound – though occasionally the tracks are more strident than pure, with dialogue utterly manufactured. Extras are limited to the film’s theatrical trailer and a rather sparse audio commentary by Peter Bogdanovich with inserts of Hawks from an interview conducted in the early 1970s.

To date, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996) remains the only filmic version of Shakespeare’s immortal play to embrace the bard’s full text, incorporating all of the scenes and dialogue from the first folio and second quarto: a gargantuan undertaking that Branagh would later admit became his obsession. Not that anyone at Castlerock Entertainment, the studio funding the film’s $18 million bottom line, shared in the director’s verve for the assignment.

On the contrary, weary that Shakespeare on film has always been risky business, Castlerock hoped against hope to convince Branagh to shoot an "abridged version" that would be released simultaneously with the director’s own plans for an epic 4-hour spectacular. In the end, Branagh won out and only the full version had its general limited release to much critical praise, lamentation, and 4 Oscar nominations (but, tragically, no win!).

Hamlet (Branagh) is the rightful heir to the throne of Denmark, usurped of his title when his Uncle Claudius (Derek Jacobi) marries Hamlet’s mother, the queen (Julie Christie), thereby become the sovereign liege. But that isn’t what perplexes and haunts the very fibers of Hamlet’s being. Rather, he suspects foul play in the death of his own father, a suspicion made ruthlessly whole when his late father reappears as a ghost (Brian Blessed) to reveal his poisoning at Claudius’ hands. Yet how best to reveal the murder and fraud to the court of Denmark?

Hamlet’s mother suspects him to be suffering from some great mental malady, a depression capable of pushing him on the verge of insanity. Hamlet’s tender and loyal girlfriend, Ophelia (Kate Winslet), makes valiant attempts to rid her lover of his inner demons. But her own inability to conceive what Hamlet already knows, coupled with Hamlet’s growing paranoia that Ophelia’s father, Polonius (Richard Briers), the prime minister and Claudius’ right hand, might be manipulating his own daughter in service to hatch a new murder plot against Hamlet, sends the young heir into an emotional tailspin from which only great tragedy and death results.

Situating the action loosely somewhere in the 19^th century allows for a spectacular update of lavish locations to take center stage in this magnificent cinematic poem. It also affords Branagh the opportunity to carry off the play’s most celebrated soliloquy ("To be or not to be...") in front of a double-sided mirror, presumably making his own exchange in private, while all the while being cautiously observed by a plotting Claudius and innocent Polonius.

The film is also a veritable potpourri for a stunning Who’s Who of 20^th century acting talent. Charlton Heston is frightfully on point as the Player King, commanding and well appointed. Judi Dench is an engaging Hecuba; Robin Williams a delightfully obtuse Osric; and Billy Crystal is foppishly coy as the grave digger. True enough, Jack Lemmon’s Marcellus and Gerard Depardieu’s Reynaldo are mere flashes of dialogue, appearing then disappearing from the plot as written, and arguably master talents like Ruffus Sewell and John Mills are wasted in limited bit parts.

Branagh however, has taken a cue and made a valuable study of all star spectacles à la the cheek and girth of Michael Todd’s  Around the World In Eighty Days (1956), while borrowing from the bard’s own quill that "the play is the thing." What is therefore memorable about the film, in addition to its superb stellar roll call, is how many big names and even bigger talents managed to appear in brief support and to marvelous effect throughout. This is the Hamlet to put all others (save Olivier’s Oscar winning turn in 1949) to shame.

Warner Home Video’s anamorphic DVD has been superbly rendered with startling image clarity unseen since the film’s original 70mm road show engagement. Colors on this vibrant, rich and fully saturated. Branagh’s piercing blue eyes are blue. Claudius’ bridal attire is blood red. Fine details are evident throughout. Close ups of actors for example reveal minute lines and wrinkles in their faces.

The film is spread across two discs, broken at the original intermission, a forgivable interruption that allows for the badly needed food and/or bathroom break. Contrast levels are bang on. There is a minute amount of grain and a few minor instances of digital enhancement in certain scenes, but on the whole this is a pristine, near reference quality presentation worthy of addition to everyone’s home video collection. The audio has been magnificently remastered to 5.1 Dolby Digital. Patrick Doyle’s music cues are the real benefactor, but dialogue too seems to contain a more robust clarity than previously made available on the laserdisc edition.

There is but one disappointment to note in the extras. Although Branagh's and Russell Jackson’s audio commentary is superb it is not accompanied by anything but vintage featurettes to augment this presentation. There’s no "look back" featurette or documentary with interviews from the surviving cast and crew that would have authenticated this two disc release immensely. Oh well, a minor quibbling, I suppose. This edition of Hamlet comes highly recommended. At every level it is a spectacle of intense emotion NOT to be missed!

April-June 2007 reviews

The Devil Wears Prada, I Wake Up Screaming, Frank Capra: The Premiere Collection, The V.I.P.s,

Ever After, The Last of the Mohicans