Blu-ray Consumer Guide: June 2011

These things are always fun at the start ("Yay! I'm gonna watch a shitload of discs!"), daunting in the middle ("When am I gonna find time to watch all these damn discs?"), and a pain in the ass at the end ("Christ, I've got to write about all these fucking discs!"). But I'm trying to manage my time better, and I've got a pile of discs ready to go for the next installment, which I should be well into before the Red Hook pool opens, at least watching-wise.

You may notice I included the Blu-ray of Lolita but not Barry Lyndon. As it happens, I'm still gathering, um, data, on the whole, um, aspect-ratio, um, thing. I will say the image quality of the disc is such that if you can, as Roger Corman might put it, swing with the 1.7-something frame, it's pretty damn good. And that's all I'm gonna say at the moment. In the meantime, enjoy. And as this is the most service-journalism-ish feature on this blog (ground rules: for the most part a subjective but informed image-and-home-theater-experience assessment) it's the one wherein I mention that the blog does have a tip jar widget. Thanks, and again, enjoy. 

Equipment used: Players: For Region A domestic and import discs, Playstation 3 console. For Region B import discs, OPPO BDP 83. Display: Hitachi P50V701, 16:9 Standard 2 Aspect Ratio setting, Day (Dynamic) picture setting, reset by eye by author using Lawrence of Arabia film still in Kevin Brownlow's David Lean biography as guide.

A.I. : Artificial Intelligence (Warner)

Possibly my personal favorite Steven Spielberg film, looking very good indeed on high-def.  That diffused lighting thang the director and his cinematographer Janusz Kaminski so enjoy is rendered very nicely.  The slightly inhuman sheen of the cyborg characters seems more evident/pronounced…but the effects stuff looks pretty seamless, at least as seamless as they were at the time. This is the first of several films I’ll be rating in high-def that my wife will never, ever, in a million years let herself be talked into watching—emotional child-abandonment trauma, don’t you know. —A

 All The President’s Men (Warner)

Cinematographer Gordon Willis has gone on record calling this hi-def version a botch, and complaining, quite justifiably, at not having been even contacted with a notion to being consulted on it. And it’s true—if the cinematographer’s alive and still has eyes and so one, he or she ought to be consulted. And then you get Vittorio Storaro and his unusual ideas concerning aspect ratios and you…oh, never mind. In any event, the Blu-ray of this classic and still extremely engaging thriller DOES render colors little toward the hot side, particularly in the  scenes set in the Washington Post offices—the red filing cabinets do look as if they’ve been freshly painted. Redford IS very golden and blonde. And so on. On the plus side, I have to say that this only really registers as a distraction when you’re concentrating on these details. In a lot of other respects, the new detail really enhances the absorbing viewing experience. But still. Come on. — B-

Le Amiche/La Signora senza Camelie (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema Import)

Two separate packages, Region-B locked imports from a great label; both spectacular looking black and white ‘50s 1.37 films; both correctives to the conventional (and fortunately now-fading) wisdom that Michelangelo Antonioni only became a major filmmaker with L’Avventura, and the equally incorrect notion that L’Avventura represented a major break from his prior films.  Both insanely good films. Ostensibly '50s melodramas, with Le Amiche being the ostensible "women's picture" and Signora a not-quite avant le lettre quasi Daisy Clover showbiz exposé. Both Antonioni to the bone, in fact—brilliant, detached, virtuosic but ampathetic constructions. Have I mentioned the image quality is remarkable?  The very astute Gabe Klinger’s smart video discussions (shot, and not badly at that, by one Joe Swanberg, making these quite possibly the only Swanberg-related products besides that Criterion My Dinner With Andre that I’ll ever be able to whole-heartedly endorse, although hope does spring eternal) are engaging extras on each of the discs, although be aware, Mr. Klinger is sufficiently youthful-appearing here as to perhaps inspire some envious “Doogie-Hauser-of-film-crit” grousing. But he really knows his stuff, and contextualizes it and communicates it in an engaging, direct way. Really remarkable image quality, have I mentioned that? No kidding, it's like a newly struck print on Signora. Same with Le Amiche. A new excuse to buy a region-free Blu-ray player. For real. —A+

Betty Blue (Cinema Libre Studios)

First thoughts upon popping in the disc, almost literally: “What the fuck is up with this MENU?” Ugly typeface, poor navigation. The trailer preceding the menu, advertising this upcoming group of high-def releases of films by director Jean-Jacques Beineix, also flummoxes, being all over the place in terms of image quality. Once you get past the menu and into the film, though things improve. It looks pretty damn good, there’s SOME noise evident at intervals in shadow-pocketed areas of the image, but nothing overtly egregious. The summery golden beach glow of the early idyllic scenes is very nice. The subtitles are shadowed for easier reading. There were weird pauses when skipping chapters on my player, but other than that, this was a nice surprise. —B+

 The Beyond (Arrow)

Lucio Fulci’s provocative meditation on the challenges of hotel renovation gets the elaborate cultists-gone-wild treatment courtesy of Arrow. An import at an import price, but a region-free one. A pretty much perfect rendition of the never-not-opportunistic horror cheapie: Grungy. Viscous. Disgusting.

Ew, and additionally, ick. As such, pretty great. —A-

Bicycle Thieves (Arrow)

Awesome U.K.-based label Arrow isn’t just about the exploitation films, you know, and this high-def rendering of a DeSica picture you might have heard of is thrillingly beautiful. Really sharp and beautiful for the most part, displaying a little material-related softness in some areas, but overall a complete gift. This is Region-B locked;  I don’t know if a domestic rendering of the film in Blu-ray is in the works, but if you’ve got the set-up for it this release is a must. —A

The Black Pirate (Kino Lorber)

As great Douglas Fairbanks silents are concerned, no, this isn’t The Thief of Bagdad, but it is frisky and full of derring-do and has incredibly interesting two-strip Technicolor sequences. This Blu-ray’s from a master made from the restoration negative and has an abundance of what we sometimes call “good” grain. It’s a touch on the bright side… and largely pretty beautiful. The colors often have a muted pastel feel that’s not at all displeasing. The detail reveals a good deal of the movie-magic involved in concocting this seafaring fantasy, e.g., painted backdrops on the desert island, pancake makeup on Fairbanks. A nifty package. More, please. —A-

Blow Out (Criterion)

Not my favorite DePalma by a long shot, not even at the time, even though I saw it in theaters something on like a half dozen occasions during its 1981 release. What can I tell you, I must have had a weird and/or insufficient social life back then. In any event, this new, director-approved presentation has more grain on it than I actually recall. Detailing and colors are very strong, very consistent. This isn’t the place to get into a debate on the relative merits of the picture itself but I do have to say that the blasted thing does move right along and holds together on its own terms. In other words…they don’t make ‘em like they used to? Who knows. Also, the guy who plays cranky-on-television dude  “Jack Matters” (Maurice Copeland) looks an awful lot like future-suicide-on-television Bud Dwyer, which is weird. In all, a package to delight even the skeptical on this picture, I’d say. —A

The Comancheros (Fox)

First thing you notice here is that the picture is pretty bright. The second thing is…Hey, is that Henry Daniell? So it is. Good grain structure, a touch of orange a little too prominent in the overall color palette, maybe… and widescreen. Director Michael Curtiz, whose final film this 1961 John-Wayne-starring Western was, didn’t work in ‘Scope often, so that’s an attraction. What’s this? Whoo-hoo! A roulette table! Shades of you-know-what, speaking of Curtiz pictures! Damn, look at that hat Wayne is wearing. There’s sometimes a too-bright sheen on nasty Lee Marvin’s face, and the strong detail here makes the “wound” on his forehead look exactly like the fake plastic vomit that you could never fool your friends with.  That aside, a fun picture of its kind, possibly for specialists/collectors/auteurist/Western freaks only. Actually, that covers a not insubstantial amount of ground. —B+

Dementia 13/The Terror (HD Cinema Classics)

Time to check out some offerings from a new label offering public-domain “cult” “classics” newly remastered in high-def, you know the drill hype. There’s something about such out-of-nowhere enterprises that causes almost automatic suspicion. I’ve been reading not-great things about the fare offered by HD Cinema Classics, which had put out HD versions of Karlson’s Kansas City Confidential and Welles’ The Stranger that reviews said were barely worthy of being designated high-def. I steered clear, therefore, but for some reason wasn’t able to resist these newer offerings, maybe because they were such particularized cult items that I couldn’t imagine a more prestigious, responsible outfit as being interested in taking Blu-ray custodianship of them. Well, I may be right there but more fool me. Dementia 13, an enjoyable early Coppola pulp thriller backed by Roger Corman, featuring that indelible early image of a still-blaring transistor radio under water, is here a disappointment even by the standards of disappointment. A “clean” black-and-white image, to be sure, but VERY soft, with a lot of digital manipulation. Ugh. Key scenes (e.g., the transistor radio shot!) don’t play very well. Too bright, face tones blooming, washed out…bleh.

For whatever reason, the separate package of Corman’s disorienting, enervating mess The Terror, in widescreen and color, looks a lot better, pretty close to how you’d imagine you’d see it at a local theater back in the day, given that said theater wouldn’t have cared much about the presentation of such a piece of bottom-of-the-bill schlock. Said indifference might be said to enhance the discreet tedium of the film itself. But then again, we’re here to examine technical quality, not extrapolate in the mode of the surrealist critics. So: there’s some noticeable blowing out in the exterior daylight stuff.  —Dementia: C-;The Terror: C+

Diabolique (Criterion)

Clouzot on Blu-ray: since The Wages of Fear, we pretty much always approve. This delightfully curdled thriller is a no-brainer for any library, and the Blu is an optimum presentations. The slight softness of the image that crops up at times seems a product of actual light diffusion rather than a weak transfer or digital manipulation. Still, the sharp cynicism of the picture and its climactic horror image do resolve in memory as a somewhat harder picture than is sometimes evident here. The experienced reality of it is very handsome and entirely apt.  —A

 Fat Girl (Criterion)

Catherine Breillat’s growing-up-much-worse-than-absurd laughfest, which would make a truly great double feature with Hughes’ Sixteen Candles, don’t you think, is presented here with a very strong European image. Perhaps a little too strong, as in overly detailed for absolute verisimilitude: you can see the strap of the prosthetic penis in the notorious “you’ll still be a virgin if I do it like so” scene. I swear I wasn’t looking for it, honest. (See also Breillat’s Sex is Comedy.) In any event, high-def provocation for the whole family, if you’re family’s headed by Chuck Manson! I kid! [Rim shot] Seriously, strong stuff, recommended if you’ve got the stomach. Given the level of cultural adventurousness encouraged by our various gatekeepers, for better or worse I imagine you probably already know, or think you know, if you do or not.  —A

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Criterion)

What can one say, besides what one is usually compelled to say when one looks into a Criterion high-def upgrade of one of its catalog titles. That is, “Wow, it’s like the old standard def one, one, only BETTER!!!!” I caught e very slight bit of video noise in Apocalypse Now pastiche desert-race scene, but that aside, pristine, hallucinatory, great. —A

 Grand Prix (Warner)

We can all agree on the film’s weaknesses as a film…that is, its dramatic component is…wait for it….kind of boring. Jessica Walter getting huffy or no Jessica Walter getting huffy. Who knew that the combined personalities of James Garner, Yves Montand, and Toshiro fucking Mifune could fail to generate onscreen excitement in and of themselves? Still, I loved the HD disc version of this non-classic strictly on image quality grounds back in the competing format day, and the Blu-ray version is just as good; a really stunning image. Demo disc material for those who know their stuff. I recall the HD of Milestone’s Mutiny on the Bounty had a similar wobbly movie/great disc vibe, and I eagerly await THAT Blu-ray, too. —A

The Great Dictator (Criterion)

Chaplin’s first fully-fledged talking picture, a pacifist satire that makes poor Ron Rosenbaum’s head explode whenever somebody brings it up. Not really. Still, just to be on the safe side, nobody mention this Blu-ray to him, and enjoy the beautiful silvery image quality of this Blu-ray; notice the detail of the wind moving the grass in the background of the opening gag with the exploding shell. Ponder, too, the beginning of Chaplin’s EXPANSIVE mode. (The film is 125 minutes). Warning: the sup commentary, by scholars Dan Kamin and Hooman Mehran, is informative but gives new meaning to the term “superdry.” —A+

Henri Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (Flicker Alley)

French critic and preservationist Serge Bromberg’s excavation of a doomed project by the aforementioned Clouzot is, I believe, the first Blu-ray disc from the redoubtable label Flicker Alley, and it’s a gorgeous rendition of a fascinating and slightly disturbing record of a filmmaker’s obsession. You’ve never seen such beautiful screen tests. And graphs! Look at the dotted green lines on that graph paper that was part of Clouzot’s prep for a film he could never finish! The actual hi-def video stuff—contemporary interviews with surviving individuals involved with the doomed ‘60s project—is actually weaker looking than the archival materials. But not bad at all. All this and a topless, smoking Romy Schneider—you could assemble a damn good fetish video from her footage alone. Maybe that was part of the problem. —A

The Horse Soldiers (MGM/Fox)

Ford on Blu-ray. Another we-always-approve thing. This bare-bones offering of a first-rate, consistently-toned 1960 Civil War story is very solid. While there’s no real “restoration” or boosting evident to speak of, this appears to have been mastered from materials in better than decent shape. Over at his own website, in a comments section, the ever-sharp-eyed Dave Kehr noted, “One thing the Blu-ray really brings out on The Horse Soldiers is the radically experimental nature of Clothier’s cinematography. Ford seems to have pushed/allowed him to go even further than Winton Hoch did (reluctantly, it’s said) in the impending thunderstorm sequence of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Throughout The Horse Soldiers, they’re shooting in low light, overcast conditions, with very little fill light in the foreground, going for a drained, flattened look at least ten years ahead of its time (I was often reminded of Ric Waite’s work on Walter Hill’s The Long Riders). That, combined with the unusual, for Ford, southern landscape with its soft, rolling hills and tense thickets of tall trees, gives The Horse Soldiers an exceptional atmosphere in late Ford — almost the opposite of the harsh contrast and spare sets of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which of course was also photographed by Clothier.” I couldn’t put it better, so I won’t try. And I’ll be looking at the Blu-ray of The Long Riders for my next roundup. —A

The Hustler (Fox)

Good stuff, overall. There’s a slight, sometimes barely noticeable softness in the out-of-focus backgrounds of certain shots that speaks of some digitized adjustment, but nothing that really detracts from the overall effect. An auspicious high-def rendering of the beloved classic, etc. —A

Kes (Criterion)

“Was this shot in 16?” I wondered when I began watching this. Looks it, I further thought, but not in a bad way. The particular texture and grit of “realism” Ken Loach’s wondrous feature debut has is something I kind of reflexively associate with the smaller-gauge format. In any event, it was apparently NOT shot in 16, and it really looks swell. One of those films in which you can see the sun bright as any day right in the middle of a shot and you still know it’s cold as hell outside. The extras are also illuminating. Talk about a filmmaker who knows what he’s about;  Loach makes no bones about exactly what he and his cinema are after. Essential cinema in a superb configuration…albeit another film I’ll never show my poor wife (who was, just to give you a test case, absolutely traumatized by the penultimate scene of the Coens’ True Grit.)  A+

King of Kings (Warner)

People will say what they will about I Was A Teenage Jesus, but I’m always impressed by how fleet this thing is, how unusually it’s structured (the first hour is much more like a historical backgrounder than a Christ biopic), and by its quirky casting (Torn as Judas, Ryan as John the Baptist, etc.). And it does carry a sense of genuine albeit confused conviction throughout. And the image quality on this Blu-ray is gorgeous,  unimpeachable. My grade reflects my very pro-Nicholas-Ray-bias, I have to admit.—A+

Lolita (Warner)

Shelley Winters’ poignancy, James Mason’s dry line readings, and Peter Sellers’ alleged impersonation of his director’s Bronx honk notwithstanding, this teenage Nabokov freak has always considered this to be Kubrick’s weakest film. Still in all, I do not disdain its Blu-ray, which offers a quite nice black and white image in a lovely 1.66 frame. I’ve seen online complaints about low bitrates but can report from where I sit that the disc offers a far better-than average or even above-average home viewing experience.—A

 

The Man Who Could Cheat Death/The Skull (Paramount/Legend)

The double-feature Blu-ray discs of less-than-entirely distinguished Paramount releases from the Legend label, available at VERY popular prices, would seem, like the above-reviewed HD Cinema Classic titles, to present a “buyer beware” situation, potentially. But check it out. This double-feature offering presents two films on two separate discs…and one of them is, as you can see, The Skull, the lurid Freddie-Francis-directed 1965 Amicus potboiler-with-benefits. The picture here is grainy, a little on the purplish side to begin with…and improves further in. Into a fine, fun high-def experience. How much did I like it? So much that I haven’t even looked at The Man Who Could Cheat Death yet, and I’m already fully satisfied with having spent about 16 bucks on the package.  —B+

Once Upon A Time In The West (Paramount)

You know one movie moment that never fails to bring tears to my eyes? The crane shot going over the train station and showing the amazing Monument Valley landscape as Morricone’s score swells up during Claudia Cardinale’s entrance scene in this movie. And then the ride through the valley a little after that? I just bawl. I know, I’m abnormal. Anyway, this is one of my all time favorite movies, warts and all (this is not the time for a disquisition on Leone’s women problems, suffice it to say that’s where all of the wartage lies) and I see it on the big screen every time I can (did it at year’s end 2010, had an amazing time, at the Walter Reade). This Blu-ray uses the Film Foundation restoration as its source and has all the neat extras that were on the original DVD release. In any event, it was with a great sense of “WTFIU!?” when I put this in the player, which was soon replaced by a great sense of “WTFIU!!!!” I mean, this is IT. Nails it. Just wonderful.  From the first minute, it was like, “nailed it!”  And that continued throughout.—A+

 

Onechanbara (Bikini Samurai Squad) (Tokyo Shock)

Okay, I’ll admit that despite my sometimes refined language and my “aspirational” esoteric sensibility, I’m essentially as much of a piglet as any white male heterosexual. Hence my being drawn to this bit of Japanese exploitation, the cover/poster art of which features a view of star Eri Otuguro in a stance I find preternaturally, um, attractive. If only the film itself contained a single image as arresting. “Maybe the standard-def DVD was mastered too DARK, and I missed something. Maybe I should try the Blu-ray.” And so. I did. And no dice. I have to conclude the problem is with the film, as this doesn’t represent a bad transfer. I’m telling you this because you should avoid meeting the same fate, if you can help it. I’ll understand if you can’t. You pig.—C-

 

The Outlaw Josey Wales (Warner)

I don’t think this movie’s gonna need a whole lot of selling from my end, so I’ll just say the Blu-ray looks really great. They did a particularly good job with the video compression: you may recall there are quite a few fires in this picture, and nowhere do we get any cartoony stuff with the flames, a sign of half-assed compression at best. It’s releases such as this that have mavens accustomed to holding Warner to a very high standard, and that’s why we tend to be disappointed when it’s not always met, even in seemingly picayune ways.—A+

 

Pale Flower (Criterion)

This fatalistic deep-noir 1964 yakuza picture from director Masahiro Shinoda will be seen as a genuine discovery by a lot of people. It’s got some amazing stuff in it, for sure. And  this presentation offers a very good picture. Incredible detail. Wonderful blacks and grays. I was initially gonna say, the image “makes the film, which is no great shakes although it IS eccentric, look better than it actually is.” But I hear from some I have high regard for that they consider the film pretty great shakes indeed, which makes me wanna reassess it a bit. I wonder why I was initially disappointed in it; maybe because I was expected a Seigen Suzuki picture, and this ain’t that. In any event, the quality is SO outstanding that one wants to come back to the film again and again, so in a way Criterion has done MORE than its job here. So… —A+

Senso (Criterion)

Casting that could have been: Visconti wanted, and got assents from, Brando and Ingrid Bergman for his ultimately plangent period romance. But, “typical of Visconti’s bad luck,” Andrew Sarris recounted, Visconti’s “casting coup of the decade was vetoed by an Italian producer  who preferred and substituted Alida Valli and Farley Granger! Valli was extraordinarily effective and Granger surprisingly so, but the emotional electricity was never turned on.” Something else was, and from this period of hindsight this “lack” adds a dollop of not uninteresting objectivity to the operatic passion. In any event, this is a gorgeous disc of what has been a too-little seen film, and if you think the pastels of the two-strip Technicolor in The Black Pirate are something, you’ll be thrilled by the more delicate color effect the director and cinematographers Aldo, Krasker, and Rotunno (talk about a murderer’s row!) achieve here. You need this. And you know I NEVER say that. —A+

Smiles of a Summer Night (Criterion)

A good, fun Bergman, the basis of the great musical by Sondheim and company, riffed on not-so-well by Woody Allen in a similarly titled film and a bunch of others. Another one-time standard def disc raised to a new level by Criterion. The high-def version is not as unearthly and beautiful as that of The Magician, but that’s splitting hairs. “Wonderful” is the operative word. —A

 Solaris (Criterion)

The universally beloved sci-fi classic gets a high-def Criterion rethink with some new tints that emulate those on the not-well-liked Ruscico version, but have thus far not been as controversial as the whole Barry Lyndon aspect ratio deal. I wish I could accurately recollect things from my various theatrical viewing of the film but I understand that even attempting to do so is a way in which lies madness. What I can say is that it all FEELS right, and that the picture is gorgeously sharp, unimpeachable even; the grain structure true and filmlike. If you love the film, a must. If you think it might be of interest of you, this is the version to check out. If you’re not a fan, stay away. Simple.   A+

Some Like It Hot (MGM/Fox)

The release was not much hyped, the package is not big on new-new extras, but, like, holy crap: this is a really great looking version of one of the greatest comedies ever. Widescreen (ish-it’s actually a 1.66 picture!) black-and-white, with a real theatrical solidity to the picture, and no video noise to speak of. Tell the truth, I was expecting more than a bit, from the start, and so was a little shocked that there was…zip. Instead, fantastic differentiation in the gray scale, and there’s a lot of gray; look at the car Curtis and Lemmon are crouching behind in the garage massacre early on, versus the brick wall behind them. Marilyn really glistens, even when she’s looking a bit drawn and tense. A really great surprise and a must-have if you’ve ever loved the movie. —A+

 Something Wild (Criterion)

What a fascinating film. Watching it today, the notion that there’s somehow a schism between the ostensibly carefree, funsy opening stuff and the ultraviolent nasty climax is pretty much a complete myth, albeit one manipulated by director Jonathan Demme. All the seeds are there from the beginning, with the “Do I look like the kind of guy who would run out on a check, come on…” bit. Of course the mastery of tonal change is practically advertised in the reunion dance scene, as the lights go down and the band, The Willies as played by the Feelies, who had previously been playing exuberant covers of hit songs, transmogrify back into …the Feelies, and begin the somewhat sinister opening of “Loveless Love” (later to be heard to not entirely dissimilar effect in Assayas’ Carlos). Not for nothing, one realizes now, was Demme a producer on the film version of Willeford’s Miami Blues; the humor and warmth  side by side with venality, cruelty and violence here is very Willeford. There are also nods to Lang’s You Only Live Once…but I’m doing that thing where I’m getting into the film, not the Blu-ray. Which is just terrific.—A+

El Topo/The Holy Mountain (Abkco/Anchor Bay)

Holy crap, where did these prints of these whacked-out early ‘70s underground movies that made Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unusual name come from? They look AMAZING. SOMEONE at Abkco has a vault, and a temperature-controlled one at that. Or something. As for the films themselves, sold seperately on Blu-ray, they still remain an acquired taste. I was recently researching a piece on A Clockwork Orange, and I looked up Pauline Kael's review of it in her collection For Keeps, and found on a facing page her somewhat terrified finger-wagging at Jodorowsky and his audience of “heads,” with respect to El Topo: “…for the counter-culture violence is romantic and shock is beautiful; because extremes of feeling and lack of control are what one takes drugs for. What has begun happening, I think, is that the counter-culture has begun to look for the equivalent of a drug trip in its theatrical experiences.” Hey, whatever, lady, you can have your trip, just don’t bum out mine, dig? Also: what a priss! But seriously, the films play even more oddly in the absence of a counter-culture, and seem, frankly, more curios than bits of genuinely subversive art. Still, I’m glad to own these puppies, not least because the unclassifiable and perhaps unendurable Holy Mountain is really one of the great “confuse your friends” movies. —A

Topsy Turvy (Criterion)

Beautiful Blu-ray of a beautiful, engaging, utterly immersive movie. It would be almost repellently reductive to call this a Mike Leigh movie for people who don’t like Mike Leigh movies but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for it to practically function as such, in any event. What makes it a good potential introduction to Leigh is the way it shows off the virtuosic talents of his filmmaking collaborators, particularly the cast. Like the best historical films, including Tavernier’s The Princess of Montpensier, this attempts to depict people actually living in their time. The rich, deep colors are in a sense informed and defined by this attempt to simulate a livable historical reality in which the performers can “be” their characters. —A+

 Yi Yi (Criterion)

The late great Edward Yang did not have what you’d call a showy, elaborate or baroque visual style; what he did have was a camera that served both as an observer/recorded and a pen. That these qualities are only enhanced and deepened by this excellent Blu-ray presentation of one of his finest films would of course stand to reason. Solid, better than solid in fact,; really just a terrific experience of a special, unique, moving film. —A+

 

Comments

[Owain Wilson]

What I love about this series, is that you tell me exactly what I want to know in just a couple of sentences. Top of the pops!

[bill]

Yes, great work, Glenn, and thank you very much for the kind words and link. I obviously was thrilled with PALE FLOWER, I think it's a great discovery. The sequence that, for lack of another non-spoilery phrase, pays off the plot it undeniable.

Also, I liked the commentary track for THE GREAT DICTATOR. Maybe only because when I think of super-dry Criterion commentaries, all I can think of is PEEPING TOM...

[James Keepnews]

HOLY MOUNTAIN was far from unendurable for me (as opposed to later stretches of EL TOPO and no small amount of SANTA SANGRE) -- it's where I first truly appreciated Don Alejandro's warped genius. A pan-mystical Pilgrim's Progress, art-directed and choreographed into The Best Trip, Ever. Where knowing non-Ouspenskyam acidheads first spied their first enneagram, very possibly.

Nice work, as one comes to expect. Yeah, an HDTV and a Blu-Ray player. I should really get both.

[Michael Adams]

I've read Lolita several times and twice tried to teach it to completely bewildered undergraduates. Its greatness, of course, is Nabokov's style, which Kubrick cannot replicate, but he gets enough of its essence right, and Mason, Sellers, and Winters are all wonderful. It's not Uncle Vlad's Lolita, but it's pretty good.

[Tim K.]

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who gets emotional at those same moments you describe in Once Upon a Time in the West. I show this to my film classes every year, and it never fails to move. Now Claudia Cardinale will be in HD -- the teenage boys will not be able to control themselves. Not that I blame them.

[Oliver_C]

Many films have evoked Ozu in the decades since his death; I regard 'Yi Yi' as one of the handful that isn't merely evocative, but fully his aesthetic, humanistic and thematic equal.

I can't begin to imagine what Edward Yang's next film -- an animated feature with the voice of Jackie Chan -- might have been. 'Fantasia' meets 'Floating Weeds'?

By the way, one of the Japanese performers in 'Topsy Turvy', Kanako Morishita, was the daughter of the manager at a TEFL school where I used to work. 100% true!

[lazarus]

Agreed with Keepnews on Holy Mountain; I've projected this for friends on a couple occasions and everyone was pretty blown away/impressed by it. One friend said that the first 20-30 minutes just seemed like an expensive student film, but once the satire of the plot kicks in it's irresistible.

And agreed with Glenn on Lolita being Kubrick's weakest--as a big fan of the book I prefer Lyne's adaptation. Which may not be funny enough but at least he doesn't let Frank Langella unnecessarily take the film off the rails like Sellers does.

And you can count me in the club of people who get choked up on that Leone crane shot.

It's solidarity day!

[Tom Russell]

Two of my favourite movies-- BLOW OUT and OUATITW-- in great Blu-Ray editions? Well, I know what I'm asking for for my birthday.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

I'm actually surprised to find so many LOLITA non-fans here! I've always thought it was Kubrick's most underrated---lovely to look at (it's surprisingly unironic in evoking the genuine beauty of the American 'burbs) and much funnier, IMHO, than Strangelove, albeit less outrageous in conception. The book is really all about its narrator; Kubrick sensibly threw out that unadaptable aspect and made a straight-up comedy of manners. Comedy of manners lurks behind a lot of his movies (LYNDON most obviously) but this is the only time he really dove into making a sort of Joe Orton script, and it works wonderfully. Certainly it's the Kubrick movie I most enjoy re-watching; I think having actors who could run away with the material loosened him up a bit, as in the similarly successful and stolen-by-actors THE SHINING; it's something of a relief to be able to pay attention to something other than the directing.

Fwiw, Onechanbara is actually a video-game movie, based on a series of equally crappy-but-amusing Japanese videogames. Though it sounds like the games may have had more satisfying T&A than the movies, shockingly.

Aaaaand much as I love EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, I can't really blame Kael for being morally outraged. They're both such consciously Artaudian films, I think they would only be considered failures if they didn't outrage The New Yorker. And she's not at all wrong about their moral structure; she just takes it as seriously as Jorodowsky does, unlike those of us who can safely enjoy it as a time capsule rather than a call to arms.

[michaelgsmith]

Great stuff as always. You reminded me I need to pick up Bicycle Thieves. But, as great as the Some Like It Hot picture quality is, I would've docked points for the lack of an original mono soundtrack option!

[Gabe Klinger]

Is that the *same* Gabe Klinger who threw a hissy fit 'round these part just last week?

[Tom Block]

After I saw "My Voyage to Italy" I got my own obsessione with finding a copy of "Senso" as bright as the one in the clips--the color I kept keying on was the blue stained glass at the top of the opera house. This was only a few years ago but it was hard to find a decent subtitled copy then, so I kept gathering up and rejecting copies, to the point that I now own so many copies of it that I see I must've been mentally ill at the time--there's no other explanation for it. The whole episode remains a source of secret shame, and it doesn't help anything that the blue glass in "My Voyage" STILL looks brighter the Blu-Ray.

"Clouzot's Inferno" is indeed one-of-a-kind. Just look past the bit with the Slinky if you need to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wkW72K4ifI

[Matt Blankman]

The Outlaw Josey Wales blu ray really does look great. I find more to love about that film each time out.

[jbryant]

Glad to see those A ratings for the two I'm most likely to buy next: The Horse Soldiers and The Hustler. Then OUATITW and Smiles of a Summer Night and AI, then... oh, can someone just get me everything B+ or higher, please?

The Some Like It Hot disc definitely flew in under my radar -- had no idea it was out. Definitely goes on my must-have list.

Lolita is one of my fave Kubrick's as well, possibly due to my seeing a time or two before reading the novel. Even though the novel quickly became one of my all-time favorites, it somehow didn't diminish the film much for me. I liked Lyne's more faithful-seeming version, too, but missed Kubrick's comic tone.

[Claire K.]

Just to say a quick word for my lovely parents, here, may I clarify that "emotional child-abandonment trauma" does not refer to a personal childhood experience that A.I. would traumatically recall for me, but rather just an un-favorite cinematic THEME of mine?

[bill]

Oh, it's a good thing you said that Claire. I was about to call Child Protective Services.

[Jandy Stone]

Great, now I have about a bajillion dollars worth of Blu-rays I want to buy. :)

I may start with Once Upon a Time in the West - I've got the old DVD that I got at Walmart for like $6, but I'm kind of salivating over the Blu-ray.

[Wes]

Did you get the replacement disc for the Arrow BEYOND disc? The original one they issued had a black and white opening (should have been sepia tinted) and the whole film was way too bright. I heard it also had an abnormally low bit-rate or something. Anyway for those who care, the replacement disc looks spectacular.

[Partisan]

I'm not a big De Palma fan (only FEMME FATALE really works for me). As for BLOW-OUT, at the risk of spoilers, why is Dennis Farina even filming Nancy Allen and the unlucky presidential candidate? If the point is to blackmail the candidate, wouldn't it be better to photograph him having sex with Allen, or at least going into a bedroom with Allen? And isn't the whole point of Farina's photographs that Allen can't be seen at all?

[Ryan H.]

I'll cheer anyone who goes to bat for Spielberg's ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Kubrick's LOLITA is a fun enough black comedy if taken on its own terms. But Nabokov's own screenplay for LOLITA is so tremendous that I can't help but be disappointed his vision of the film didn't quite make it to the screen.

[Kent Jones]

Partisan, looking for a logical motivation in a Brian de Palma movie is like looking for a rational argument at a Tea Party convention. The usual explanation is "perversity" or "the logic of a nightmare." Better to move on to worthier topics, like the acrobats in FILM SOCIALISME or Terrence Malick's "precipitous decline" as a filmmaker.

Actually, I'm hard-pressed to think of a good reason for filming Nancy Allen under any circumstances.

Be that as it may, Dennis Farina isn't in BLOW OUT. You're thinking of Dennis Franz, soon to move on to better things.

[bill]

"Actually, I'm hard-pressed to think of a good reason for filming Nancy Allen under any circumstances."

What an odd thing to say.

[Glenn Kenny]

I thought she was just dandy in "Out of Sight."

[Tom Block]

She was (in a small part), and in her interviews she's never taken herself too seriously. That helps a lot with careers like hers.

[Tom Russell]

Taking my cue from our host's declaration that this isn't the place to get into a debate on the merits of BLOW OUT, I'll not in this thread mount any sort of exhaustive defense of my favorite picture by one of my favorite directors. But I will say a few words in defense of Nancy Allen, who I think is absolutely wonderful in it. Her performance in BLOW OUT delights and surprises me every time I see it: the way she parrots Travolta's lines about loose ends, the goofy charm of her character under sedation, the way in the luncheon scene that she realizes she's been tricked-- it's very entertaining, and her performance is in many ways responsible for any empathy a viewer feels at the end of the film.

(I will say that my missus disagrees strongly with me on the virtues of Ms. Allen's performance, finding her absolutely annoying. And I can certainly understand that point of view, even if I don't share it; a lot of people like Jay Baruchel, who sets my teeth on edge. There's no accounting for taste, and one man's "entertaining, idiosyncratic, and charming" is another's nails-on-chalkboard.)

Some argue that Allen has an extremely limited range; after all, her own husband cast her twice as a hooker, har-har. But compare her performance in BLOW OUT with that in DRESSED TO KILL: you have two very different characters. They sound different, act different, use different body language. I'm not saying that she's exactly Meryl Streep, but she *has* demonstrated range and intelligence over the years.

That's my two cents, anyway.

[partisan]

Kent: Doh! It's odd how one can confuse people. I remember having trouble distinguishing Max Eastman and Max Schachtman.

[Tom Block]

I think she's sorta sweet in it, the same way Karen Black and Theresa Russell could be sorta sweet sometimes, but she never conveyed much depth in anything I ever caught her in. More than any acting she ever did I was touched by her calling Travolta's performance "the heart" of "Blow Out", and she seems to have come through it all with a game, unwilted attitude. You won't catch me trashing her for that reason, but compared to what Spacek, Duvall, Lange, Rowlands, Burstyn, Keaton, etc., etc., were doing around that time, saying that Allen "act[ed] different" from role to role is damning her with faint praise.

[Kent Jones]

Just an opinion, bill - maybe less odd than unfashionable in this context. I find Nancy Allen tough to take as she's used in her ex-husband's movies. But she and BLOW OUT mean a lot to others, like Tom, so it's not worth getting into.

[bill]

Well, no. I didn't think my comment came off much like I was looking to get into anything. In my experience, people like her, that's all.

[Tom Russell]

@Tom Block-- Well, I certainly didn't mean to damn her with faint praise. You're right, however, that she's not on the same level as Spacek, etc.

I think you've hit on something in saying that she's "sorta sweet", ala Karen Black [*] and Theresa Russell. I think I have a soft-spot for sorta-sweetness; it's a rare quality. Perhaps not the most fulfilling quality, but an entertaining and a worthy one.

[*-- And, excuse the rant everyone, but speaking of Black and her sorta-sweetness: God Damn It, when is Ivan Passer's BORN TO Fucking WIN going to get the widescreen, carefully-restored, extras-laden DVD/Blu-Ray it damn well deserves? As I understand it, it's in the public domain, so it's not like there's a rights issue to hold it up.]