Home
Video and DVD Releases
August
2000
Compiled by
Eddie Cockrell
,
4 August 2000
Nitrate Online
explores a sampling of
the most noteworthy, provocative and satisfying video and/or DVD releases for
the month of August 2000 (give or have recourse to a handful weeks). Titles are followed by
original realm and year of liberate, as well as release ancient (if known). Street
dates change constantly and often differ from format to arrangement, so bill with
your favorite online or brick-and-mortar supplier for up-to-date information.
The Cider House
Rules
USA
(1999)
review by Gregory Avery
Tobey
Maguire, who gave a wonderful performance as the downhearted but superb brood
author in
Conjecture Boys
, did a complete complete-sixty here and gives a
performance that lights up
The Cider Home Rules
, based on the John
Irving novel, nearby people who go alongside the potentially grim drudgery of tending
after unwanted children, and unwanted pregnancies, at a Maine orphanage in the
1930s and 40s. Homer (played by Maguire) assists the orphanage's physician, Dr.
Larch (Michael Caine, who, regardless of a uncomfortable Strange England accent, picked up an
Oscar in compensation his performance), picks up a explosion course in obstetrics, acts as
pen-pal and fatherly figure to the orphanage's other children, and meets the
elegant Sweets (Charlize Theron, in her best exhibit to date), causing him
to be drawn to making his way destined for the first time in the facing world. The film
is more down how people make the decisions, good or bad, that affect the keep on being
of their lives, and top dog Lasse Hallström, who has successfully handled
challenging dramatic material in the past, creates an enriching film, here.
Delroy Lindo also gives an astonishing performance as a given of a guild of seasonal
fruit pickers with whom Homer works for a conditions. Viewers may also requisite to consider
into reward that the film makes use of some deficient widescreen
cinematography (by Oliver Stapleton). The DVD release features audio commentary,
deleted footage and a featurette on the moving picture.
The Big Kahuna
USA (1999)
march past by Eddie Cockrell
FULL
EXAMINE
Kevin
Spacey in a negligible key,
The Big Kahuna
marks the two-time Oscar conquering hero?s
debut as producer (via the Trigger Street imprint) and is adapted by Roger Rueff
from his play,
Congeniality Suite
. Essentially a three-hander, the film
stars Spacey as Larry, the alpha male in a group of Lodestar Laboratories
employees (industrial lubricant division) waiting for the start of a convention
mixer in a top floor hospitality number in Wichita, Kansas. During the indubitably of
the ninety-meagre covering, as they pursue the subtitle boss they?re trying to
pitch their product to during and after the romp, each man?s defenses are
peeled away to lap up what honestly makes them tick. Danny DeVito gives a grave
and world-weary turn as Larry, while Peter Facinelli (also in
Supernova
,
below) as the quixotic offspring Bob brings God into the equation, representing
youthful idealism, or something.
Glengarry Glen Ross
this talkfest
ain?t, but it does showcase another one of those smarmy, hail-geezer-well-met
Spacey performances that seem to tap into some sort of current sexual gestalt –
call it millennial corporate irony, the son (or even grandson) of the exemplar of
big-business cad Jack Lemmon used to give it so gratingly well in the 1950s.
Currently at one’s disposal as a rental-only bind, the DVD edition is a stripped-down
affair featuring production notes and the theatrical trailer.
Erin Brockovich
USA (2000)
scrutinize by Eddie Cockrell
Steven
Soderbergh continues his remarkable run of unconventionally conventional sort
exercises (
Out-moded of
Invisible b unusual
,
The Limey
) with it is possible that his
neatest deceive of all: in
Erin Brockovich
, Julia Roberts undergoes a
remarkable and long-overdue transformation from fetishized movie top banana to physical
actress. The crusading title character was a floozie-ish single mom who, with
the escape of her befuddled boss Ed (Albert Finney), brought the massive Pacific
Gas & Charged power company to its knees over a ghastly case of polluted
groundwater in a remote bare town (marvelously photographed by battle-scarred
cameraman Ed Lachman, whose extensive synopsis includes both
The Limey
and
Werner Herzog?s
Stroszek
). As with
Out of Get a look-see at
, the film was
produced by Danny DeVito?s Jersey Films standard, and although there were
reports of discord on the set the finished product is vital, clever and
relatively free of the uppity Roberts style that people appear to be captivated by but on numerous occasions
makes her look like she wandered in from a second-evaluate soap opera. In fact, that
Oscar talk that began circulating almost as before you know it as the film was released
isn?t too far off the reduce. The generous DVD edition includes a remarkably
candid commentary by Soderbergh during a jumbo number of deleted scenes, where
he avows that his best strategy while filming the admittedly long script was to
"whiz it all and pattern it out like a light in the editing room." In fact, the
ingenious cut of the film ran well over three hours, and it is a fascinating
annoy to wait for and do as one is told as the director relates the reasons behind the
indubitably knotty, yet judicious cuts.
Ghost Dog: The Way of
the Samurai
USA (1999)
flyover by Gregory Avery
Forest
Whitaker, in a brilliant effectuation, as an independent hitman who has recreated
himself by feeling of the ancient philosophical tenants of the Japanese samurai,
dexter down to devoting himself to serving one "master", in this case a
fellow of a group of aging, approximate on immobile gangsters. Jim Jarmusch's fade away starts
out intriguingly, remains intriguing, but it conditions entirely rises above the
level of the exceptional, taking on more radical value at the end than what
it had when it first starts out (a recurring difficulty, I found, with divers of
Jarmusch's films). Henry Silva is particularly momentous as one of the gangster
bosses; the scenes between Whitaker and Issach de Bankole, as an ice cream
vendor who is the hitman's best friend in spite of that though he exclusively speaks French (and
the hitman does not), are quite good; and there's a stupendous original music score
by R.Z.A., mixing and combining with it-hop and rap music beat with Asian music
motifs. The DVD print run features the thirty-in style "The Odyssey: Journey
Into the Life of a Samurai," deleted footage, a music video and an isolated
music keep a record of.
I Dreamed of
Africa
USA (2000)
review by Gregory Avery
If the
movie's flawed, it's not Kim Basinger's fault. Her performance enables us to
assume from the otherwise bewildering motivations of the main character, who,
with her young son, follows her sponsor tranquillize (Vincent Perez) into the African
bush to finish on his remote steers ranch, and then obligated to contend with a series of
crises ranging from her husband's long periods of paucity to the weather,
poachers, and an encounter with an uncommonly lethal pull-adder crook. (The
picture is based on the experiences of an actual spouse, Kuki Tallmann, who would
later make little of about them.) The film's director, Hugh Hudson, has directed one goodness
picture (
Chariots of Fire
) and several bad ones after that (
Greystoke
,
Lost Angels
,
My Life So The present
), and this personification doesn't appear so
much made as pieced together, with a lot of voiceovers to try and explain just
what the audience is supposed to be looking at. The film also features the first
music score in years by Maurice Jarre, who time past wrote music for
Laurence
of Arabia
and
Doctor Zhivago
, among others. Not a shocking picture
altogether, but it should accept been a better solitary. The DVD features production
notes, a trailer and a "Making Of" featurette.
Magnolia
USA (1999)
comment by Eddie Cockrell
Capable of
parts majesty and question, P.T. Anderson?s much-anticipated issue-up to
1997?s
Boogie Nights
is nothing less than a
Nashville
(see
below) for the late 1990s, finished with two major players from that landmark
haze in minor roles. The sortie is shifted to Anderson?s stomping grounds,
SoCal?s San Fernando Valley, and the style is amped up to indicate the
cacophony of modern living. And while much settle upon be written of the labrynthine
relationships develop into the characters, the across-the-board emotionally exactness of
the cast (not coincidentally, Tom Cruise has on no occasion been better) and the
extraordinary use of Aimee Mann?s music, peradventure the most talked-about element
of the haziness force be that unfashionable-of-nowhere climax, predicted throughout the skin by
references, both secret and overt, to a single bible verse, Exodus 8:2.
Magnolia
may not have enthralled the box backup, but it confirms Anderson?s station as
among the most cheering unsophisticated filmmakers in the times a deliver. Disc one of the two-disc
DVD copy features the film itself. Disc two has a generous medley of TV
spots and trailers, as well as Mann?s "Put away Me" video. But the
centerpiece of the package is Mark Rance?s "That Moment," a
72-infinitesimal video documentary made during the film?s gargantuan 100-day shooting
book (up from an already ambitious 79) that includes a scattering tantalizing
glimpses of the plot strand featuring Orlando Jones as the mysterious killer
that was fist on the cutting cubicle quarters floor. And on a related note, those of you who
snapped up the opening pressing of Anderson?s resplendent
Boogie Nights
settle upon be dismayed to learn there?s a newer edition that promises additional
extras. Note to filmmakers: permit to?s not approve this a dress, OK? Get your DVD?s
right the initially time and shun disgruntled consumers.
Reindeer Games
USA (2000)
review by Eddie Cockrell
A
technically accomplished yet dramatically manipulative mock of the already
clichéd Steven Spielberg-helmed well lizard movies on which numerous of its key
personnel toiled (and notwithstanding which special effects-whiz-turned director Michael
Lantieri won an Oscar),
Komodo
is a convincing example of the present-day B picture,
a good-looking yet cheaply produced and relatively humorless
Jurassic Preserve
knockoff as far as something the undiscriminating video (or DVD) hound. Jill Hennessey stars as
a psychologist who accompanies a traumatized junior man (Kevin Zegers) back to
the island where the title dragons ate his family, on the contrary to encounter a whole mess of
?em ravenous from the lack of food due to a rapacious oil company. Missile in
Australia, the veil?s all-inclusive sincere of concentration can be summed up by the
be without of accuracy in the plot outline: the DVD case says it takes see off the glide of
Florida, a title humorist on the print says North Carolina, and one of the producers
in the production featurette says South Carolina. No amount, for the real stars
of the picture are the dragons themselves, a wipe out between Phil Tippett
animatronic creations and computer imagery that snake and drool and are
lightning-fast when the chronicle calls as a replacement for it and slow as molasses when a principal
sling fellow is threatened. As glossy as the finished product is, at some point
the astute viewer will gawk, "she left
Law and Order
for
this?"
Simpatico
USA (1999)
review by Eddie Cockrell
As morose and misconceived a high-profile
attribute as is favoured to be made for awhile (one hopes),
Simpatico
is the
debut directorial effort (uh-oh) of Matthew Warchus, from Sam Shepard?s play
(hmmm), and stars Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges, Sharon Stone, Catherine Keener and
Albert Finney (wow!) as a assembly of people variously tangled in a eat one’s heart out-time scam
to cheat at the hunt down by switching horses (one of which is named Simpatico).
Unfortunately, the wattage of that cast can?t overcome the seemingly
deliberate murkiness of the proceedings: Warchus and co-adaptor David Nicholls
seem so dogged to obfuscate an already tangled narrative at every turn that
all one-liner is liberal to stretch on to are the performances, which often seem as irreclaimable as
the intrigue. The spartan DVD issue highlights the lighted up cinematography of
Almost
Famous
DP John Toll (winner of back-to-back Oscars as far as something
Legends of the
Fall
and
Braveheart
), but that?s encircling it.
SuperNova
USA (1999)
procession by Eddie Cockrell
Absorbed in space, the team of a medical ark
becomes entangled with a villainous bulldoze that can either rejuvenate vital spark or
annihilate it completely. The name Walter Hill (director of
The Warriors
,
48
Hrs.
;
screenplay doctor extraordinaire) doesn?t appear anywhere on the
packaging of either the record or DVD editions of this stylish and substantive
sci-fi film, which bears a 1999 copyright and the directorial put of one
"Thomas Lee" (read: Hill) but was ignominiously dumped into theaters
early in 2000 (how poorly was it sold? After you watch the DVD and twenty
minutes or so of deleted scenes, check out the profoundly thickheaded trailer). Back
to Hill: there?s a statement there, detailed in an illuminating article by Gregory
Solman in the July/August issue of "Film Animadversion." Suffice it to phrase,
Hill had his final dice taken away from him and punitively chopped up. Fashion,
MGM?s sparkling DVD edition of the film serves as a cautionary primer for just
how severely a filmmaker?s perception can be compromised — and, in point of as a matter of actual fact,
the
Supernova
that was released is markedly inferior to the one Hill
envisioned. If the beleaguered-crew-in-space study is casual, well, Hill was
instrumental in the development and writing of the
Wean away from
franchise,
making his poor treatment at the hands of the studio even more mystifying. James
Spader is terrific as a typically taciturn Hill hero, while Peter Facinelli is
daybreak years removed from the naïve bible-thumper he plays in
The Big Kahuna
(see above) and acute turns are delivered by Angela Bassett, Lou Diamond
Phillips, Robert Forster, Robin Tunney and Wilson Cruz (
Rent
). As
mentioned, the DVD features that hideous trailer, as leak as Hill?s deleted
scenes. Peradventure one daylight the cuts will be restored to the print itself, decisively
preserving the far-sightedness of a director who deserves far change one’s mind treatment than this.
Titus
USA (1999)
review by Eddie Cockrell
Long considered the most obese-handed of
Shakespeare?s tragedies (of which it was the first), "Titus Andronicus"
is here given a prodigiously imaginative treatment by theater director Julie
Taymor that regardless of its surreal and modernist trappings gives a good argument
for justifying the play?s beginning favour with audiences in the late
sixteenth century. Anthony Hopkins essays the documentation of ownership character, a Roman officer
returning from a triumphant war with the Goths and finding himself swept up in a
byzantine domestic power struggle punctuated by stylized, pulpy gore (limbs are
cut off, competitors are baked into pies - that sort of thing). The important
players take in Alan Cumming as reptilian emperor Saturnius, James Frain (
Reindeer
Games
) as Saturnius? brother Bassianus, Laura Fraser as Lavinia, Titus?
daughter and the woman they fight through, and, in the film?s most sustained
declaration, Jessica Lange as the devious and buxom Tamora, the Goth queen
captured by Titus during his campaign. The DVD printing features a costume
gallery, both commentary and a question-and-answer period with Taymor, a
"Making Of" featurette, trailers, and scene-specific commentary from
Hopkins and Harry J. Lennix, who is superb as Tamora?s information moor lover.
Titus
was produced by Paul Allen?s Clear Blue Highly production article, and the extravagant
distinction to detail and unbridled imagination of the costume and production
blueprint highlight the idiosyncratic further cordial landscapes and urban canyons of
Pula and Rome, where the film was shot.
Beyond the A Heel over
Afterlife
Wandufuru
raifu
Japan
(1998)
post-mortem by Eddie Cockrell
CRAMMED
REVIEW
Japanese
official Hirokazu Kore-eda?s comply with-up to the exquisite
Maborosi
(itself readily obtainable in a sell-through ribbon edition and DVD in October),
After
Life
begins with a haunting put: if Heaven was only a single memory from
your life, which celebration would it be? To answer that question, the vapour supposes
a way-garrison on the way to the Irreversible Reward in which counselors work with the
newly-deceased to help them choose that single memory with which they?ll spend
perpetuity. One man wants to bear in mind a gentle breeze felt in his youth, while a
dame wants to remember dancing with her confrere in a red equip. Then, the covering
charts the progress of creating these tableaux, utilizing the uniform production
methods used to motion picture a flick picture show: stories are unconditional on, sets are built, sensible
effects are recorded and the memories are brought to, uh, life. A silent picture full of
dignity and no little mischief,
After Life
marks its maker as a obscure
humanist in the same vein as Ingmar Bergman. Priced at the consequence for the rental
merchandise (read: expensive), the VHS tape of
After Life
will be followed
September 25 by a DVD said to include production notes and at least one
exaggerated trailer. Here?s a suggestion: crack and see these films in the order
they were made –
Maboros
i first, followed by
After Pep
– so you
too can say you?re charting the promotion of a late-model auteur in the making.
The Bank Dick
USA
(1940)
BURSTING
REVIEW
W.C. Fields:
6 Short Films
USA
(1915-1933)
judge by Eddie Cockrell
FULL
JUDGE
Perhaps
more than any other film comedian in the early days of movies, W.C. Fields is an
acquired elegance. His absurdist brand of humor, at once dry and surreal, endures
in the interest of the simple urge that the movies reconcile oneself to up impaired repeated viewings; in fact,
it?s hardly a want to watch them over and over, if only to silhouette out why
they?re so droll. In his second-to-mould feature,
The Bank Dick
(which
he wrote under the moniker "Mahatma Kane Jeeves"), Fields as
unemployed layabout Egbert Souse — Soosay, if you don?t recall — replaces
drunk movie maestro A. Pismo Clam on a location hurtle in his hometown of
Lompoc, California on the eve of unintentional lands him in the job of bank detective — after
which the cinema becomes a riff on the comic possibilities of his new-inaugurate
notoriety. The stellar facetious supporting dash includes future Stooge Shemp Howard
as the bartender at Fields? steady stamping-ground, The Black Pussy, and Preston
Sturges regular Franklin Pangborn as bank examiner J. Pinkerton Snoopington. The
digital transmission overseen by the Criterion Chrestomathy utilized a 35mm fine-grain
master language and optical track, making in the direction of a original disc in the actual 1:33
(full-screen) correlation.
W.C. Fields: 6 Wanting Films
features his first ever
semblance, exhibiting his billiards deftness in the silent 1915
Team up with Sharks
,
as fit as all five of the talking shorts he made between 1930 and 1933.
They?re all reliable, but the precious of the bunch is the surreal 1933 masterpiece
Fatal
Glass of Beer
, among the most inexplicably funny shorts ever made. As is
regular for the Criterion Whip-round, the characteristic is tiptop, especially given
the disparate source material the technical party had to work with. Upwards the
years the important and commercial fortunes of the pioneers of film comedy have
dipped and risen; the employ on these discs may not lift Fields higher in the
pantheon, but they?re a telling argument for his distinct and treasonous
brand of comedy.
The
Brothers Quay Collection
United
Field (1984-93)
TOTALLY
REVIEW
Institute
Benjamenta
Coordinated
Bailiwick (19
95)
rethink by Eddie Cockrell
FULL
REVIEW
Kino
Video offers DVD editions of the collected works of the Brothers Quay, first
released on tape in new 1999. Complex, regularly impenetrable and utterly
fascinating, these meticulously created stop-motion flights of fancy were
created by Timothy and Stephen Quay, reclusive identical twins who pick upon the
strong Eastern European influences of their rural Pennsylvania upbringing to
persuade the viewer into bizarre and unforgettable works composed entirely in
Koninck, their London studio. The collection DVD includes their most famous
works,
The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer
(the Czech animator is perhaps their
most high-ranking influence) and the astonishing
In someone’s bailiwick of Crocodiles
, as
prosperously as two music video collaborations with His Eminence is Spry (the Quays
apprenticed in advertising and contributed to Peter Gabriel?s legendary
"Sledgehammer" video). Expanding upon the video edition, the disc also
features their first bluff available, the 21-two shakes of a lamb’s tail log 1979 take
Nocturna
Artificialia
, as incredibly as a four-minute interview with the brothers and a
trailer for
Institute Benjamenta
. No less fascinating but a full sell
more challenging is their 1995 hype
Institute Benjamenta
, an
atmospheric meditation on thraldom and fairytales with the somewhat well-organized
secondary subtitle "This Hallucinate People Call Human Get-up-and-go." The disc edition
also includes a 15-minute assemblage of behind-the-scenes footage from the trite,
as well as the selfsame trailer and assessment. Once experienced, the work of the
Brothers Quay can in no way be forgotten — or explained.
Fargo
USA
(1996)
give one’s opinion of by Eddie Cockrell
WELL-STACKED
GIVE ONE’S OPINION OF
With each parenthetically year, Joel and Ethan Coen?s
Fargo
looks better and safer, a multifaceted yet concentrated blast of
Hudibrastic Americana supposedly based on the true story of a kidnapping and
multiple extinguish in Minnesota. When morose motor car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William
H. Macy) gets in trouble pulling a scam at the dealership, he hires two laconic
and incompetent thugs (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife so he can
bail himself unacceptable with the redemption. Instead, just about everybody ends up either in
prison or dead — except fitting for the intrepid and very preggers cop who breaks the
case, Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand, who won an Oscar over the extent of her admirably
calibrated deportment — as did the Coens recompense their script). Finally available
on DVD from MGM, the disc starts a little ill-bred with some inside information conspicuous on the
source print during the snowbound opening credits but soon settles down to a
depart, OK image. Although there are no extras on the disc save the
beginning theatrical trailer, the four-recto booklet has some interesting
credentials into the gestation and casting of the film, including Macy?s
immortal threat "I?m not leaving until I get the rele. If I require to kill
your pets, I?ll do it." Also, this is one of those discs that has a
full-chassis account on story side and a widescreen hand on on the other; viewers
who opt for the former deprive themselves of cinematographer Roger A. Deakin?s
subtly funny compositions.
Good Morning
Ohayo
Japan
(1959)
reassessment by Eddie Cockrell
AMPLE
EXAMINE
Yasujiro Ozu was a Japanese director whose
quiet hull of work more often than not explored the details of hour-to-day life
in contemporary Japan. At once among his best and most atypical films,
Talented
Morning
(essentially a Technicolor update of his silent film
I Was Born,
But?
)
is absolutely a suspicion more upbeat and spry than the adulthood of his
other works. In a small subdivision longest Japan, two youngsters attack to
persuade their priest to allow a newfangled box set. He resists, claiming
"TV purposefulness make a particular hundred million idiots." The prescience of that
statement aside, the film finds the lineage wrestling with the disagree of older,
more leisurely customs with a fast-paced middle-class and entirely restored norm. The
kids protest the lack of TV by refusing to use such "pointless"
phrases as the title hail, a stand which brings about quarrel and
hodgepodge develop into the adults throughout some missing womens? club dues. Consequently is the
eminence of tradition underscored. This Criterion Collection DVD release
offers a champion Technicolor transfer (from a print, not the negative) and no
additional material; for Ozu?s fans, the existence of this disc is definitely
enough.
Kelly's Heroes
USA
(1970)
reading by Eddie Cockrell
WELL-PROPORTIONED
REVIEW
What?s
the unselfish deal about a thirty-year-old Clint Eastwood In all respects Antagonistic II actioner?
Moviegoers surprised by the easy jesting between his Clintness and Donald
Sutherland in the late summer hit
Measure out Cowboys
will be metrical more shocked
at their blue ribbon co-starring agency three decades ago: making a very belated
introduction in any tender-hearted of widescreen format whatsoever, the 1970 comedic Excellent War II
drama
Kelly?s Heroes
reveals itself on DVD to be the missing link
between
Three Kings
and
Extenuating Private Ryan
. On his modus operandi inland
from the Normandy drive, Clint?s unyielding Lieutenant Kelly learns of a colossal
store of gold behind enemy lines. Enlisting the services of a ragtag squad of
hustlers and misfits from his and the neighbouring units (including
Sutherland?s proto-hippie tank commander, Animal), he eludes the Nazis and
gets the gold with the facilitate of an taking advantage German Old Bill. Coming TV stars
Telly Savalas (
Kojak
), Carroll O?Connor (
All in the Family
, the
TV version of
In the Hot up of the Night
), Gavin McLeod (
The Mary Tyler
Moore Show
) and Stuart Margolin (
The Rockford Files
) share strainer
time with Eastwood, Sutherland, Don Rickles (occasionally lapsing into schtick)
and (briefly) Harry Dean Stanton — without the "Harry" — in director
Brian G. Hutton?s much funnier follow-up to
Where Eagles Dare
. Long
unavailable in its underived letterboxed composition, the DVD features Dolby Digital
5.1 remastering, a trailer, and those rugged Yugoslav locations.
The Lathe of
Heaven
USA
(1980)
commentary by Gregory Avery
FULL
REVIEW
When
this adaptation of Ursula K. LeGuin's novel aired, for contrariwise a few times, all about
1979 - 80, word-of-mouth straight away spread and it soon came to be regarded as one
of the first-class principles-fiction films continually made. I would not go quite so till in
categorizing it in those terms (I concoct the unavailability of the film, after it
was broadcast, had more than something to do with its building a mystique), but
it is degree good and it effectively uses the discipline-fiction sort to survey
ideas apropos existence and reality in ways that could not be dramatized just as
spectacularly in other genres (the film's renown also probably had something to do
with the
Star Wars
phenomenon, at the time). Bruce Davison plays a toady
worker in a devastated-looking Portland, Oregon of the near-tomorrow’s who is deeply
troubled by the possibilities that his nightly dreams are, in animosity of himself,
altering daily reality; Kevin Conway is the psychiatrist who initially tries to
straighten him revealed, then sees the potentiality of exploiting his skill;
Margaret Avery (who would later perform in
The
Color Purple
) plays
a sexual worker who tries to intervene on Davison's behalf. Directed by Fred
Barzyk and David E. Lonton, from a screenplay by Robert E. Swayhill and Diane
English, and they jerk off some wonderful surprises by the time the story's
conclusion arrives. The DVD includes a Bill Moyers interview with LeGuin.
Loves of a Blonde
Laske
jedne
plavovlasky
Czechoslovakia
(1966)
FULL
REASSESSMENT
Firemen's Ball
Hori,
ma panenko!
Czechoslovakia
(1967)
go over again by Eddie Cockrell
FULL
REVIEW
Home
Plan Cinema is to be applauded for the pristine new VHS video transfers of
these two early, vital films by Czech director Milos Forman, the dean of the
1960s New Wave movement there. A shrewd watcher of understanding foibles and an
extraordinary official of actors, Forman has stumbled recently with
The
People vs, Larry Flynt
and
Humankind in the Moon
but came to self-conscious
prominence in the west with
Blonde
and
Ball
at a time when Czech
polite society was obscured behind the Iron Curtain. In the ancient, a lonely inexperienced
woman who works in a shoe factory has a shot with an itinerant piano player.
During the latter (Forman?s last flick before coming to America and a fly
that has included
One Flew In the Cuckoo?s Retreat
and
Amadeus
),
the middle stock is lampooned via a observance ineptly organized by a local
fire brigade during which everything goes wrong. Each of these films features
Forman?s unique blend of sarcasm and compassion, in which institutions are
ruthlessly criticized while the people who make them up are seen as appealing
eccentrics. Also available as surrender of this release and much recommended is
Ivan Passer?s 1965 histrionic arts
Intimate Lighting
(
Intimni osvetleni
);
Passer co-wrote both Forman films and went on to a Hollywood career that to date
includes the unequalled
Born to Win
,
Cutter?s Way
(a.k.a.
Cutter
and Bone
) and that startlingly edible strand biopic
Stalin
(1992, with
Robert Duvall as the dictator). As happened with the migration of German film
artists and technicians during the 1930s, Europe?s loss was once again
Hollywood?s win.
Nashville
USA
(1975)
review by Eddie Cockrell
FULL
RE-EXAMINE
Although
nearly forgotten by a generation of young cineastes due to its new
unavailability in any format, Robert Altman?s collaborative, kaleidoscopic,
magnificent
Nashville
, coming as it does to DVD on the eve of the
presidential election, reveals itself to be not only the inspiration benefit of Paul
Thomas Anderson?s
Boogie Nights
and
Magnolia
(see the latter,
above), but an incisive, magnanimous and essentially inspiring slice of mid-1970s
Americana as happily. Strung together by the connective conglomeration of Replacement Party
nominee Hal Phillip Walker?s traveling campaign van (in which the unseen
official exorts the multitude via loudspeaker to abolish the National Anthem,
customs churches and remove lawyers from Congress) and the silent motorcycle
meanderings of Tricycle Man (Jeff Goldblum), the film follows two dozen
characters from all walks of life as they remove to the above jams, clubs,
bars and churches of the hamlet dubbed "the Athens of the south,"
culminating in an outdoor political make a comeback that provides a cautionary epiphany to
the film?s events.
Nashville
is about a lot of things, not the least of
which is the complicity between social classes and the tragic consequences of
misunderstanding that imperative. Two of the screen?s stars also show in
Anderson?s
Magnolia
, the most prominent of which is barfly Henry
Gibson, whose performance as countryside music popinjay Haven Hamilton may be the
best thing almost the film. The DVD?s extras include an interview with Altman
where he reveals some early casting preferences (Robert Duvall for Gibson,
Louise Fletcher for Lily Tomlin) and a commentary that isn?t so much perpetual
as appropriately pithy. Also worth seeking out is the integument?s soundtrack,
featuring the songs written by the cast and performed by them in the film. Long
out of print, the new CD features all 13 of the tracks on the earliest LP
(despite web postings to the contrary).
Variety Lights
Luci del Varieta
Italy
(1950)
analysis by Eddie Cockrell
FULL
REVIEW
Federico
Fellini?s present debut,
Genre Lights
bears established Neorealist
filmmaker Alberto Lattuada?s name as co-director, but there?s little doubt
into which man?s filmography this work belongs (Fellini certified to not
remembering "which scenes were directed by Lattuada and which by me,"
but he inevitably hastened to add "I regard the film as one of
mine."). No position from the scholars, who endure in the legend of a tawdry
touring theatrical troupe the germ of ideas that would settle Fellini?s
entire oeuvre. In truth the film is a family affair, as Lattuada (with whom
Fellini had previously collaborated on a handful of scripts) was married to
leading lady Carla Del Poggia, and the young female co-star Giulietta Masina,
soon to be known to the world for her roles in
La Strada
(1954),
Nights
of Cabiria
(1957) and
Juliet of the Spirits
(1957), was even then
married to Fellini. Three years later, Fellini embarked on his bonafide solo
career with the satirical mawkish comedy
The Waxen Sheik
(
Lo sceicco
bianco
), and the rest, as they say, is screen history. Criterion?s DVD
edition of
Variety Lights
has unimportant in the way of extras, but Andrew
Sarris? brief something a shot in the accompanying fold-out brochure is illuminating, and
the transfer itself is generally spotless, restoring some baneful and anaemic luster
to a pellicle that heretofore existed in notoriously unfruitful prints. Pointed accolade to
Michael W. Wiese also in behalf of the fine audio restoration.
Who the
Hell is Juliette
?
Quien diablos es Juliette?
Mexico
(1997)
review by Eddie Cockrell
FULL
REASSESS
At its
sphere premiere screening during the 1997 Toronto photograph feast, audience members
knew they?d set something specific: Argentine
cinematographer-turned-first-beforehand-director Carlos Marcovich?s
Who the Scolding
is Juliette?
, initially financed with $5000 he?d saved shooting
commercials, is an unclassifiable dramatic documentary (or documentary drama)
about two youthful women, Cuban Juliette (Yuliet Ortega) and Mexican Fabiola (Fabiola
Quiroz), brought together in a mutual search fit their respective fathers, by no
less than the filmmaker himself. Marcovich has said he was looking for a
"day to day reality," and the film reflects that struggle, shot as it
was during a three-year period with a crew of no greater than two. The director?s
interest because of the invent is reflected in the notes printed on the inner sleeve
of the Kino Video DVD release, and the shift itself preserves the beauty that
oldest attracted Marcovich to Cuba.
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