Tag Archives: Blu-ray/DVD reissues

Cult Movie, Dystopian, Food, Romantic Comedy

Blu-ray reissue: Delicatessen ***1/2

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 11, 2010)

Image result for delicatessen 1991

Delicatessen – Lionsgate Blu-ray

This film is so…French. A seriocomic vision of a food-scarce, dystopian future society along the lines of Soylent Green, directed with great verve and trademark surrealist touches by co-directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (The City of Lost Children). The pair’s favorite leading man, Dominique Pinon (sort of a sawed-off Robin Williams) plays a circus performer who moves into an apartment building with a butcher shop downstairs. The shop’s proprietor seems to be appraising the new tenant with, shall we say, a “professional” eye? In Jeunet and Caro’s bizarro world, it’s all par for the course (just wait ‘til you get a load of the vegan “troglodytes” who live underneath the city streets). One sequence, involving a hilarious, imaginatively staged sex scene, stands on its own as a veritable master class in the arts of film and sound editing. The arresting visuals really come alive in Lionsgate’s Blu-ray edition.

60's Counterculture, Drama, Drug Culture, Rock 'n' Roll

Blu-ray reissue: America Lost and Found: The BBS Story (box set) ****

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 11, 2010)

America Lost and Found: The BBS Story – Criterion Blu-ray (6-disc set)

Back in the late 60s, Bob Rafelson, Burt Schneider and Steve Blauner capitalized on the success of their very profitable brainchild, The Monkees (referring to both the band and the associated hit TV series) by forming a movie production company called BBS Productions. The name may not ring a bell, but some of the films released by the company between 1968 and 1974 certainly will: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show. These are but three of the seven titles included in this collection from Criterion, which I would consider the box set of the year. Two genuine rarities are here as well-Drive, He Said (Jack Nicholson’s 1971 directorial debut), and the very first film by Henry Jaglom, A Safe Place.

For my money, the real jewels here are the Blu-ray debuts for Head, the surreal music-biz satire starring The Monkees, and Rafelson’s bittersweet character study about beautiful losers and the dark side of the American dream, The King of Marvin Gardens. In purely visual terms, the latter film is a revelation in this format; the transcendent camera work by the late great Laszlo Kovacs can now be fully appreciated. All of the prints are sparkling and beautifully restored, and feature commentary tracks. It’s a bit puzzling that they didn’t include one of the more notable BBS productions…the classic Vietnam doc, Hearts and Minds-but hey, you can’t have everything. This is still an essential collection of important American films.

Drama, Family Issues, Road Movie

Blu-ray reissue: Paris, Texas ****

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 4, 2010)

Paris, Texas – Criterion Collection Blu-ray

What is it with European filmmakers and their obsession with the American West? Perhaps it’s all that wide open space, interpreted by the creative eye as a blank, limitless canvas. At any rate, director Wim Wenders and DP Robby Muller paint themselves a lovely desert Southwest landscape for this enigmatic, languidly paced 1984 melodrama (written by Sam Shepard and L.M. Kit Carson). With Shepard on board, you know that the protagonist is going to be a troubled, troubled man-and nothing says “rode hard and put up wet” like the careworn tributaries of Harry Dean Stanton’s weather-beaten face.

In his career-best performance, Stanton portrays a man who has been missing for 4 years after abandoning his wife (Nastassja Kinski) and their young son. One day he reappears, with a tight-lipped countenance and a 1000-yard stare that tells you this guy is on a return trip from out where Jesus lost his shoes. Now it’s up to his brother (Dean Stockwell) to help him assemble the jigsaw. Stanton delivers an astonishing monologue in the film’s denouement that reminds us what a good actor does.

Criterion’s Blu-ray features a crystalline transfer, and the dynamic audio does Ry Cooder’s mournful slide guitar proud.

Heist Caper, Neo-Noir

Blu-ray reissue: Johnny Handsome ***1/2

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 4, 2010)

Image result for johnny handsome (1989)

Johnny Handsome – Lionsgate Blu-ray

Seconds meets Point Blank in this taut, nasty neo-noir from director Walter Hill, which is one of my favorite sleepers of the 1980s.

Mickey Rourke stars as the genetically deformed Johnny, a career criminal low-life with a knack for masterminding heists. As he nears the end of a prison stretch, he is offered reconstructive face surgery by an empathetic doctor (Forest Whitaker), who eventually helps him get paroled.

Johnny’s first order of business is planning some payback on his former partners, who set him up to take the fall. The trick will be how to do it while under the watchful eye of the cynical cop (Morgan Freeman) who originally put him away, and knows a recidivist when he sees one. Lance Henriksen and Ellen Barkin are the film’s guilty pleasure as a nihilistic couple who make Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers look like Ozzie and Harriet.

Screenwriter Ken Friedman adapted from John Godey’s novel. The Blu-ray release should earn this underrated gem new fans.

Action, Cult Movie, Dystopian, Sports

Blu-ray reissue: Death Race 2000 (1975) ***

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 4, 2010)

Death Race 2000 – Shout! Factory Blu-ray

At first glance, Paul Bartel’s 1975 cult gem about a “futuristic” gladiatorial cross-country auto race in which drivers score points for running down pedestrians is an over-the-top black comedy. It could also be viewed as a takeoff on Rollerball, as broad political satire, or perhaps wry commentary on that great American tradition of watching televised bloodsport for entertainment. One thing I’ll say -it’s never boring! David Carradine is a riot as defending race champ, “Frankenstein”. Also featured in the cast: Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul) and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone. This Blu-ray is part of Shout! Factory’s “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” series, with cherry-picked titles from the legendary “no-budget” producer’s inventory of 1970s and 1980s exploitation films. It’s debatable whether hi-def improves some of these curios, but most of them are cult buff catnip.

60's Counterculture, Art world, Documentary, Family Issues

Blu-ray reissue: Crumb ****

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 4, 2010)

Crumb – The Criterion Collection Blu-ray

So you thought your childhood was fucked up? Meet the Crumb family. Then shake your head in wonder that R. Crumb didn’t grow up to be a serial killer, as opposed to an underground comic icon. Director Terry Zwigoff’s propensity for championing the “outsider” (Ghost World, Bad Santa, Art School Confidential) was firmly established in this 1994 doc. Zwigoff toiled on his portrait of the artist for nearly a decade, and the result of his labor of love is at once hilarious, heartbreaking, outrageous and moving. Although the film looks to have been shot in 16mm, Criterion’s hi-def upgrade pays off most noticeably in the montages of Crumb’s classic Zap Comix panels and vivid artwork. There are some great new extras in this edition as well; most notably the 50+ minutes of deleted scenes.

Drama, Musical

Blu-ray reissue: Black Orpheus ****

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 4, 2010)

Black Orpheus – Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Marcel Camus directed this mesmerizing 1959 film, a modern spin on a classic Greek myth, fueled by the pulsating rhythms of Rio’s Carnaval and tempered by the gentle sway of Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s gorgeous samba soundtrack. Camus and Jacques Viot adapted the screenplay from the play by Vinicius de Moraes. Handsome tram operator Orfeo (Breno Mello) is engaged to the vivacious Mira (Lourdes de Olivera) but gets hit by the thunderbolt when he meets sweetly innocent Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn). As in most romantic triangles, things are bound to get ugly, especially when Mr. Death (Ademar da Silva) starts lurking about. A unique film that fully engages the senses (not to mention the fact that Mello and Dawn have got to be the most beautiful screen couple in the history of cinema). Criterion’s Blu-ray is outstanding.

Drama

Blu-ray reissue: Black Narcissus ***

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 4, 2010)

Black Narcissus – The Criterion Collection Blu-ray

From a strictly narrative standpoint, The Archers (co-directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) certainly made more coherent films during their illustrious career; but in purely visual terms, few as artfully directed, beautifully composed and gorgeously shot as this 1947 melodrama. While the histrionic performances and the torrid story line (concerning sexual panic among British nuns in an isolated Himalayan convent) may not have dated so well, the stunning photography by DP Jack Cardiff and art direction from Alfred Junge was made to order for the hi-def format (both scored Oscars for their work). Criterion does their usual voodoo with the picture transfer and the extras, which include an interesting commentary track featuring Powell and admirer Martin Scorsese.

Adventure

Blu-ray reissue: The African Queen ****

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 4, 2010)

The African Queen – Paramount Blu-ray

I think it’s safe to say that this 1951 film is a bona fide classic. What’s not to love about Bogie (as a coarse, drunken steamboat pilot) and Kate Hepburn (as an uptight missionary), thrown together in the heart of the Congo, fighting the river wild, jungle rot and Germans in a colorful WW I-era adventure-comedy-romance? Sure, it’s a total Hollywood fantasy, but with two charismatic performances, John Huston directing, and outstanding location photography by DP Jack Cardiff, who cares? Huston co-adapted the screenplay with James Agee from C.M. Forester’s novel. Paramount did a great job on the transfer; it’s the best the film has ever looked on the home screen.