The Screengrab : america ferrara

DVD Digest for November 18, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week, some of summer’s biggest hits arrive in stores in time for the holiday shopping season, along with a handful of choice classics.

DVD of the week: With all the care Pixar devotes to creating their theatrical releases, it’s amazing that they have any time left for their DVDs. However, Pixar’s DVD editions are almost invariably first-rate, and this week’s release of WALL-E would appear to be no exception. We begin, of course, with the razor-sharp transfer of the movie itself, which comes directly from the digital master, making it arguably crisper than could be found in the theatre. But that’s only the beginning, with two animated shorts (one seen in theatres, the other a DVD original), featurettes on the film’s sound design, visual design, music, character design, and more. Finally, there are a number of features on WALL-E that take viewers into the world of the film, including a documentary about the movie’s robotic cast, and short films about the nefarious “Buy N Large” corporation from its inception to their Earth Exit plan, and beyond. Needless to say, WALL-E is an ideal DVD for kids, but it’s also a must-have even if you don’t have a family to buy for this holiday season.

Other recent releases coming to DVD this week: Ben Stiller’s Hollywood action satire Tropic Thunder (Paramount, also Blu-Ray); America Ferrara, Amber Tamblyn and friends in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (Warner, also Blu-Ray); and a quartet of acclaimed indie films- Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World (Image); the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson (Magnolia); Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely (Genius); and Audrey Tautou in Priceless (First Look).

On the classics front, the big release this week is David Lynch: The Lime Green Box Set (Absurda), which includes the new-to-DVD Industrial Symphony No. 1, plus the remastered Eraserhead, a Lynch-approved 5.1-surround version of Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Wild at Heart, The Short Films of David Lynch, Dumbland, along with new extras for Elephant Man and Wild at Heart, the Eraserhead soundtrack, and a “Mystery Disc” full of exclusive Lynch goodies. Or if you’re looking for something a little more “classical”, pick up the new Criterion editions of Martin Ritt’s masterful adaptation of the John le Carre novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, or the French swashbuckler Fanfan la Tulipe. Also worth mentioning is the release of Fred Schepisi’s long-unavailable classic of Australian cinema, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Ryko Distribution).

In a slow week for TV on DVD, the most noteworthy title is Bones Season 3 (Fox).

Finally, this week presents the most definitive argument that Blu-Ray has really arrived, with a plethora of mostly crappy Blu-Ray only releases. The exceptions are Curtis Hanson’s pretty-good Eminem vehicle 8 Mile (Universal) and the Neil Gaiman-scripted Mirrormask (Sony). But other than that, it’s looking pretty dire, with the Martin Lawrence double feature of Blue Streak (Sony) and National Security (Sony), Guy Ritchie’s Revolver (Sony), and Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales (Sony), which if nothing else remains the most definitive cinematic statement about the ongoing war over teen horniness. I’m for decriminalization, by the way.

DVD Digest for September 9, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Another slow week here at DVD Digest, with a handful of worthwhile classic DVDs and plenty of new editions of horror favorites to balance the small amount of quality new releases.

While next week is slated to bring a trio of wonderful new classics on DVD, this week your best bet is Warner’s new “Deluxe Edition” of Cool Hand Luke (also Blu-Ray). In addition, this week sees the release of the three pressing to date of The Big Lebowski (Universal), although the new “10th Anniversary Edition” has a number of interesting-looking new features that weren’t present in the previous “Achievers’ Edition”, notably featurettes that address the cult-classic status of the film and the Lebowski Fest phenomenon that has sprung up around it. And in advance of Halloween, the studios have begun re-releasing their horror classics, from the collection Fox Horror Classics Vol. 2 (which includes Chandu the Magician, Dr. Renault’s Secret, and Dragonwyck) to more recent titles like Child’s Play 20th Anniversary Edition and Pumpkinhead Collector’s Edition (both MGM).

If you’re in the market for something newer still, this week’s recent releases on DVD include: Sarah Palin Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in Baby Mama (Universal, also Blu-Ray); the long-awaited onscreen duel between Jackie Chan and Jet Li The Forbidden Kingdom (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray); Tarsem’s The Fall (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Helen Hunt’s directorial debut, Then She Found Me (Image); and The Seed, the latest from schlock auteur Uwe Boll.

Continuing the crush of television DVDs that invariably coincides with the new TV season, this week brings: David Caruso removing his sunglasses dramatically in CSI: Miami Season 6 (Paramount); more sexy medical drama in Gray’s Anatomy Season 4 (Disney, also Blu-Ray); Patricia Arquette in Medium Season 4 (Paramount); the Teen of Steel in Smallville Season 7 (Warner, also Blu-Ray); and America Ferrara frumping up in Ugly Betty Season 2 (Disney).

This week’s Blu-Ray only releases include: the football-centric double feature of Rudy and Jerry Maguire (both Sony); Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch and Day Watch (both Fox); and Fox’s The Omen Collection, which includes the first three theatrical features, with the original film also available separately.

Finally, I can’t let this week’s DVD Digest pass without mentioning the release of House of the Dead Director’s Cut: “Funny Version” (Lionsgate). Now, I’ve gone on record as a defender of the aforementioned Dr. Boll, and if nothing else this new, allegedly more comedic cut of Boll’s reviled 2003 film shows that at least the good doctor has a sense of humor about his work. But at the same time, this feels to me like an empty gesture. After all, with a movie as unintentionally funny as House of the Dead, is there really a need to add more comedy? Or is Boll just reaching out to his detractors by acknowledging that the film is laughable, and trying to add even more laughs for their benefit? If so, Boll could prove to be a much cannier master of spin than we’d originally thought.

Take Five: Arizona

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:15:00 GMT

How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer gets its limited-release debut this Friday, after two years of lingering on the festival circuit without a distributor. Although some critics have praised its good-natured look at sexuality and overall sunny demeanor, it's likely that the real reason Georgina Riedel's feature-length debut is finally seeing the light of day is the newfound TV stardom of its lead actress, America Ferrara. Still, the reason I want to see it is simple: it's set in Arizona. I was born and raised in Phoenix, at a time when everyone from there was from somewhere else, and while I don't really miss the place, I still have that hokey boosterism that makes me raise an eyebrow whenever I hear a movie or television show is set there or filming there. During the early days of Hollywood, the movie business was obsessed with the 48th state -- largely because it had only recently become a state. It was the last of the frontier, the final remnant of the proud plains and deserts of the New West, and while the vast majority of the western shoot-'em-ups set in Arizona were really made on a back lot five blocks from La Cienega Boulevard, there's still plenty of movies out there claiming Arizonan provenance. As the state has morphed into Southern California's bedroom annex, with all the strip malls and chain stores that implies, there's continued to be a few standout films that use the Grand Canyon State as their setting; here's five of them.

IN OLD ARIZONA (1929)

The filming of this early classic western didn't get within 300 miles of Arizona, but like a lot of early cowboy pictures, it's set there. In Old Arizona has a lot of the corny qualities that modern audiences associate with this era of filmmaking, but it's worth seeing -- and historically significant -- for a number of reasons. The first full-length talkie ever released by 20th Century Fox, it was also the first talking picture to be filmed outdoors. Director Raoul Walsh was set to play the lead himself, but a car accident robbed him of the chance, and cost him an eye, leading to the eyepatch that became his tradmark in later years; his replacement was Warner Baxter, who won only the second Best Actor Oscar in history for his performance as the Cisco Kid. Finally, the movie has a memorable twist ending that sets it apart -- courtesy of the original story, by O. Henry.

3:10 TO YUMA (1957)

We'd love to include the remake here, but it was filmed entirely in New Mexico, Arizona's glory-hogging next door neighbor. But the original is just as good in many ways; it's based on the same wildly popular pulp novella (by a young Elmore Leonard!) that spawned the reboot 50 years later, and the overall look, feel, and plot are the same. There's also a handful of swell performances, especially by leads Van Heflin and Glenn Ford, both playing against type. Often compared to its superior contemporary High Noon, 3:10 to Yuma simply isn't in that class, but it's still a tight, claustrophobic little western thriller, worth seeing until it sort of falls apart at the end. It's also about all the big-screen fame that Yuma, AZ -- a dodgy little town on the California border, best known for its ungodly temperatures in the summer -- would ever get.

PSYCHO (1960)

Very little of Alfred Hitchcock's slasher masterpiece was actually filmed in Phoenix, Arizona -- mostly just a few establishing shots and street scenes. But for some moviegoers, seeing the name of the town at the tail end of the movie's memorable opening credits would be their first recognizable experience of Arizona even existing outside of old-time westerns, and their first clue that the state capitol was actually a bustling modern city, not a frontier outpost constantly besieged by bands of Apache. (Even in the '70s, when I was growing up, people from out of state would ask me if living in Phoenix was like growing up in a Western.) The action shifts pretty early on to California, the home of the Bates Motel, but really, I just included it on this list to test my theory that no matter what 'best movie featuring _____' theme you come up with, you can fit Psycho into it.

REAL LIFE (1979)

Albert Brooks' first full-length film as a director is absolutely fantastic. It establishes his winning comedic persona as a shallow, self-centered Hollywood phony; it satirizes reality television a good twenty years before anyone else was doing it; it features one of Charles Grodin's finest big-screen performances, and a hilarious relief role for That Guy! J.A. Preston; and it's probably the funniest and most successful film that Brooks ever did. But for me, there was an extra kick: it was set, and partially filmed, in my hometown of Phoenix, and it's the very first time I can consciously remember seeing places in a movie that I'd actually been to in real life. When I first saw, at age 10, local newscaster Carlos Jurado removed from my living room TV and being featured on the silver screen, I gained an understanding of the power of movies I'd never really had before.

RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

Although the entirety of the Coen Brothers' first comic masterpiece was filmed in various locations around central Arizona, you wouldn't know it from the script. The place names are gibberish, the filming locations don't synch up with the places mentioned on screen, and the entire movie seems set less in any recognizable version of the Grand Canyon State than it is in some kind of rural fantasia that's half Wild West and half Appalachian hillbilly country. Roger Ebert actually got really bent out of shape about this, giving the film a disapproving review because of the ridiculous quasi-southern accents everyone sported and the nebulous redneck paradise it seemed to be set in, but Rog was really missing the point. I still lived in Arizona when this came out, and everyone I knew there loved it; it's not like we were expecting social realism out of the thing. The Coens are perfectly capable of verisimilitude when they want to be (see Fargo and The Big Lebowski for examples); here, Arizona was just a hook on which to hang the film's lunatic comedic sensibilities, with no more need for accuracy than Freedonia in Duck Soup.