The Screengrab : boy a

DVD Digest for October 7, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

It’s a massive week for classic films, and a surprisingly good one for new releases too, once you get past the big Hollywood titles…

DVD of the Week: There was no small amount of competition for this spot, not merely because of the jaw-dropping number of classic titles being release but also due to one of TV’s best sitcoms seeing its most recent season bow on DVD store shelves. But with all the great stuff that’s hitting stores this week, to my eyes there was only one logical choice- Universal’s Touch of Evil 50th Anniversary Edition. It would be one thing if this DVD was simply a cash-in, a new pressing of the previously released 1998 cut of the film. But joining the “restored” version of the film are both the original theatrical cut and an additional “preview version”, both of which are being released on DVD for the first time. In addition, there are plenty of extras both old and new, including commentary tracks to correspond with each of the three available versions of the movie. What more could a Touch of Evil fan ask for? How about a reproduction of the legendary Orson Welles memo that led to the 1998 restoration? Yep, that’s in here too. I don’t normally double-dip my DVDs, but I’m definitely going to make the upgrade this time.

But wait, there’s more! Disney is releasing a 2-disc “Platinum Edition” of their 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty, packed with plenty of extras for both family audiences and animation buffs. Criterion is releasing two more films from the French master of crime dramas, Jean-Pierre Melville- Le Doulos (starring Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Le Deuxieme Souffle (with Lino Ventura). There are new 2-disc special editions of three of Hitchcock’s most iconic classics- Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo (all Universal). And Ray Harryhausen is representin’ here too, with a new DVD of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad 50th Anniversary Edition (Sony, also Blu-Ray), plus the Ray Harryhausen Giftset (Sony, also Blu-Ray), which includes previously-released editions of 20 Million Miles to Earth, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, plus collectible Ymir figurine.

Also, like musicals? Then pick up Fox’s The Alice Faye Collection Volume 2, which contains Hollywood Cavalcade, The Great American Broadcast, Four Jills in a Jeep, Rose of Washington Square, and Hello, Frisco, Hello (also available separately). And with the winter months coming sooner than you’d think, you can start traveling in the comfort of your own home with The Michael Palin Collection (Warner), which collects the amiable Python’s adventures Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, Full Circle, Hemingway Adventure, Great Railways Journeys, Sahara and Himalaya into one handy box set. Finally, Warner is releasing two very different classic titles, The Picture of Dorian Gray and the Watership Down Deluxe Edition. So yeah, something for everyone.

But wait, there’s more! Two of my favorite films from the first half of 2008 are hitting the streets today- Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park (Genius Productions) and Stuart Gordon’s Stuck (Image Entertainment). And two other acclaimed indies are getting released as well, The Visitor (Anchor Bay, also Blu-Ray) starring Screengrab fave Richard Jenkins, and Boy A (Genius Productions). And, oh yeah… The Happening (Fox, also Blu-Ray) and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan (Sony, also Blu-Ray). Although I’m not sure I want to know anybody who’d buy these instead of any of the aforementioned classics.

This week’s TV on DVD release is 30 Rock Season 2 (Universal), which finds Liz, Jack, Tracy, Kenneth the Page, and the rest of the TGS gang taking a trip to MILF Island, among other misadventures. Also this week: Brotherhood Season 2 (Paramount), How I Met Your Mother Season 3 (Fox), and The Simpsons Season 11 (Fox).

Finally, this week’s Halloween-heavy Blu-Ray only releases include: The Amityville Horror (MGM), Beetlejuice 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Warner), Body Heat (Warner), Young Frankenstein (Fox), Carrie (MGM), and Otis (Warner). No word on whether Carré Otis is somehow involved.

Trailer Review: Boy A

Paul Clark — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:00:00 GMT

John Crowley’s film got mostly positive notices on the festival scene last year, and is by most accounts a well-told redemption tale. That said, I’m not sure I’m so keen on this trailer. The film’s premise- does a boy who killed someone as a child ever stop being a murderer, and if so, does he deserve to be forgiven?- is a sound one. Yet I think it’s a miscalculation for the trailer to introduce the murders at the outset. Better, I think, to introduce the character as an adult before springing his past upon us, or even to be vague about the killings altogether. Still, the film looks promising, especially the lead performance by Andrew Garfield, a far cry from the snot-faced douchiness of his performance in Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs.

Tribeca Film Festival Review: "Boy A"

Phil Nugent — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The English film Boy A, one of the strongest dramatic features in this year's Tribeca Film Festival, is a sympathetic character study of a person that most of society would vote to flush: a twenty-four-year-old man (Andrew Garfield) who's just been released from prison after serving a fourteen-year sentence for a murder committed when he was ten years old. The movie, which is based on a novel by Jonathan Trigell, was directed by John Crowley from a script by Mark O'Rowe. They previously worked together on the Intermission, an invigorating jumble of a movie with a slew of characters colliding with each others as their storylines criss-crossed. Boy A has a smaller cast and a much tighter focus: everything comes down to the character who, during his trial, was turned by the tabloids into a monster known by the protective alias "Boy A." Preparing him for release into the world, his gently paternal counselor (Peter Mullen) christens him "Jack" and advises him to immediately start applying for as many jobs as he can, because "the more forms you fill out, the more real your name's going to become to you." The counselor tries his best to give "Jack" the right balance of tender concern and tough-minded direction, but there isn't much he can do about his charge's real problem. Having missed out on fourteen key years of social interaction, Jack is like a Martian trying to learn how to pass for human, and desperate to not give himself away in the process. (When a nice, approachable girl from his new workplace flirts with him, he doesn't know what to say except, "I love you.") In some important ways, he's still ten years old. When the counselor drives him to his new lodgings, he sticks his face out the window, checking out the sights and possibilities open to a free adult, and his face lights up in response to seeing a familiar yellow-and-red logo. "McDonald's!" he says in an awestruck voice.

Andrew Garfield gives a blessedly open and unguarded performance. He gives Jack a shy dignity; other people are impressed with Jack, because they mistake the concentration with which he's struggling to avoid putting a foot wrong as evidence that he has deeper things on his mind. The script errs a bit in giving the audience too many reasons to share in that admiration; it skirts the usual trap of making the potentially unsympathetic character a touch superhuman, as if it would be all right to lynch him if he were just average. And a subplot involving the counselor's son is rigged and hokey. But Crowley's sure touch with Garfield and the other actors, including Mullen and Katie Lyons as the girl from work) takes the curse off much of this. Garfield's performance alone does more to illuminate that there are aspects to the problem of "kids who kill" than is dreamt of in Dr. Phil's philosophy. The adult Jack doesn't experience self-pity or see himself as a marytr; he simply wants the chance to live some kind of life in which he's not defined by something that happened when he was, for all intents and purposes, a different, less fully formed being than he is now.