We're just over a week and a half away from seeing Harrison Ford run around as Indiana Jones for the first time in almost twenty years in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and hopefully not collapse in an arthritic fit. Of course, that means putting out a collection for Indy buffs to buy -- just in time for a late-night triple feature before the big release. However, unlike the Die Hard re-do, which stripped tons of extras away, and other releases that just fill up landfill space, there is a perk in this whole money-grab: aside from getting them as a collection, you can pick them up for the first time separately.
That's music to my ears, since I detest Temple of Doom, and would be happy not to see it again. Pick up one, pick up a few, or pick them all up in the Adventure Collection, which is just the three special editions in a fancy cardboard box. Each disc has a bunch of extras -- intros, interviews, special effects, storyboards, and more. Some is old footage, but there's lots of new bits as well -- including a look at Skull on the Last Crusade DVD. Buy the Collection | Buy Raiders | Buy Doom | Buy Crusade
It's a splendid week for indie lovers with a taste for classic cinema -- which is everybody, right? -- with a flock of great Westerns and two Louis Malle films from Criterion among the highlights. More recent fare is more scarce.
Even though reviews were mixed to negative (our own Jeffrey M. Anderson was definitely mixed), Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth (Sony Classics) is almost required viewing. (Erik Davis posted a clip from the DVD just last week; check the official site for more.) The DVD includes an audio commentary by Coppola, a "making of" feature and two others on the music and make-up.
Tricia Regan's doc Autism: The Musical (Docurama) follows five autistic children as they write and produce a musical. Brendan Butler at Cinema Blend called it "heart-wrenching and heart-warming ... The dialogue the film opens with is as vivid and fierce as any hot-button topic in our country today." (Read more about the film at the official site.) The DVD includes deleted scenes and a "companion guide."
Leelee Sobieski stars as a would-be dominatrix in Walk All Over Me (The Weinstein Co.), which debuted at Toronto last fall; Eye Weekly said it was a "somewhat messy but energetic comic thriller." (Check the movie's site for more information.) The DVD includes a commentary by Sobieski, co-star Tricia Helfer and director Robert Cuffley, behind the scenes footage, a deleted scene, outtakes, a music video and still gallery.
I'm doing things a little different this week. Peter has covered this week's great releases in his column, noting flicks like Teeth and I'm Not There. For you Hilary Swank lovers, there's some post-death love after the jump, but below is a collection of film spoofs, rather than a plain ol' film.
After Fox canceled the Seth Green-starring Greg the Bunny, it seemed like that was the end of the show. But like some other Fox victims, that wasn't the end. There was a bit of a hiatus, and then IFC jumped on board and allowed Greg to get cinematic and merge television land with movie land. The result -- a whole bunch of puppet movie spoofs. Click here to get an idea of what you'd be in for. It's not every day that you get to see a puppet embodying Frank Booth.
This release includes spoofs of movies like Monster and American Movie, plus the 2005 reunion special that takes on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Rain Man, and more. As for guests, this batch includes Seth Green, Sarah Silverman, and Adam Goldberg.
The titles that will probably get the biggest play this week are Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, the indie auteur's take on Bob Dylan that inspired spirited critical debate, and Alejandro Monteverde's romantic drama Bella, which seemed to come out of nowhere to become an audience favorite, playing in theaters for months. Both hit DVD today; I'm Not There is packed with an audio commentary with Haynes, deleted scenes, featurettes, audition tapes, gag reel and more, while Bella has an audio commentary by the director, two featurettes and a music video.
Jess Weixler stars in Mitchell Lichtenstein's Teeth, which inspired no fewer than three reviews here at Cinematical: Scott Weinberg, Kim Voynar and Nick Schager. If that's not enough to lure you in, it's about vagina dentata! Read the reviews to learn more -- each of our reviewers focused on something different that appealed or repelled. The DVD includes an audio commentary by the director, deleted scenes, outtakes and behind the scenes footage.
As a mother of five, Kim Voynar presented a very personal perspective on Abby Ebstein's doc, The Business of Being Born, featuring Ricki Lake. Kim wrote in part: "Epstein does a thorough job of dissecting the cold, hard facts about the history of modern childbirth." Two featurettes are included on the DVD: one takes the viewer behind the scenes, and the other follows up with what happened to the participants.
It's hard to review Todd Rohal'sThe Guatemalan Handshake. It doesn't follow a set narrative structure; there is no complete story. Take Richard Linklater, Harmony Korine, and David Lynch, combine them into one man, shackle them to strange, small-town America, and inject them with thoughts of short shorts, strange characters, and lots of atomic buzzing -- then, just maybe, you can begin to imagine what's in store for you with this film.
At its vaguest, the film follows what happens after one man disappears one strange afternoon in a rural town near Three Mile island. Musician and actor Will Oldham, who has worked with indie names from John Sayles to Harmony Korine, begins the tale as Donald Turnupseed -- a young man who walks off and vanishes during a big power outage. No one seems especially concerned about his disappearance, except the young Turkeylegs (Katy Haywood), who tries to get the police involved before getting distracted by the crazy people who surround her.
I'm going for a highly praised film this week, rather than the big buzz, but you can check out a couple of other big releases after the jump.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly In 1996, Julian Schnabel directed Basquiat. Led by the charming and unforgettable performance of Jeffrey Wright as the famous artist, the film laid out the art world of 1980s New York City with heart, and it showcased many of today's top names. It was the straightforward film.
Now there's Golden Globe winner Le Scaphandre et le Papillon, a feature that has taken Schnabel out of the straight-forward and into a world of tragedy and eye-opening imagination. It's a move similar to David Lynch taking on The Straight Story, but switched. Instead of strange complexity to charming simplicity, it's the other way around. Diving Bell is the true story of what happened to Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who had been the editor-in-chief of French Elle, until a sudden stroke has left him still -- only able to move one eyelid. It's like taking the thought of paralysis and upping it -- no legs, no arms, no lips. But it isn't just a sad story of despair. After being forced to adapt to his condition, he write the memoir that becomes this film, all with the simple, blinking eye.
Two notable indie releases this week are covered in more detail elsewhere (reviews not up yet, though): Julian Schnabal's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Todd Rahal's The Guatemalan Handshake.
Robert Wilonsky of The Village Voice wrote that Aaron Wolf's King Corn "is as much a thoughtful meditation on the plight of the American farmer as it is a rant against our expanding waistlines." The doc follows two college friends as they learn about their shared "agricultural heritage, and the tale of how kernels of corn have insidiously worked their way into America's diet." The DVD from Balcony Releasing includes deleted scenes, featurettes, a music video, photo gallery, and "the lost basement lectures."
The Japanese Army's horrific massacre of thousands of Chinese is documented in Nanking through the use of "vintage footage, interviews with survivors, and a staged reading of excerpts from journals and letters by a group of actors," according to Kim Voynar's review. She felt it was "deeply affecting" and that "the scripted reading actually works more effectively than mere voiceover would have, bringing to life the people who were a part of the events that happened." The DVD from ThinkFilm looks bare bones, with just a trailer gallery included.
Bobby Roth wrote and directed Berkeley with a great deal of affection. He based it on his own life experiences during the time that he attended UC Berkeley in the late 1960s and cast his son Nick Roth in the lead.
This week, there are a few solid DVD choices that are already floating around the Cinematicalverse. You can check out Erik's review of the Cloverfield DVD, my review of the Charlie Wilson's War disc, or Peter's indie picks, which includes the somber but enjoyable Starting Out in the Evening. However, there's one release that hasn't been discussed yet:
Romulus, My Father When the film got its limited release in February, it came and went without a bang -- pulling in less than $3,000 (according to IMDb), even though it hit a few million in the Australian box office. But with the names and performances behind it, this film, based on Raimond Gaita's memoir, deserves another look.
Eric Bana stars as Romulus, balancing out the truly disappointing Lucky You, and proving that there's more to the actor than his less-loved one-two punch of Hulk and Troy. There's Franka Potente as his wife, Christina -- a role which allows her to be more than Bourne's fallen paramour, or an energetic, red-haired Lola. And rounding out the small family is Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays Raimond. While he's under the radar now, that will surely change once he gets in front of mainstream audiences with The Road. (There's some solid acting chops in that kid.) But there's also actor Richard Roxburgh (The Duke in Moulin Rouge) making his directorial debut.
A solid handful of indie titles vie for your attention on the DVD shelves this week. I've already written about the marketing for Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs, my pick of the week, but that shouldn't overshadow the intrinsic quality of the film itself. The DVD from IFC includes Thanks for the Add!, a short film by Swanberg, an audio commentary by Swanberg and actors / co-writers Greta Gerwig and Kent Osborne, behind the scenes footage, and SXSW video production diary spots.
I watched Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage (pictured) with expectations set perhaps too high. I thought it would be a thrilling Spanish ghost story; instead it's a rather pallid drama about a mother and a lost son with just a smidgen of suspense and supernatural overtones. Jette Kernion had a response similar to mine, but others liked it much more, including our own Scott Weinberg, who praised it as "entirely captivating from start to finish." The DVD from Picturehouse includes three featurettes and something on the somewhat misleading marketing campaign.
Family dysfunction and elder care may not sound like sexy subjects, but Tamara Jekins "simply takes us into the story of her fascinating characters, and the integrity with which she handles it makes it ring true throughout." That was the reaction of Kim Voynar to The Savages; she was especially impressed by the performances of Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The DVD from Fox Searchlight includes an extended scene, director's snapshots, and a featurette entitled "About the Savages."
There are two ways to watch Charlie Wilson's War. The first way is to watch it like we watch most movies -- go in to be entertained, to experience something outside of our scope of experience -- to leave our lives at the door and encounter something different. The other way is to be critical, having researched the situation upon which the film was based, to see how it diverges, and then decide whether the divergence is acceptable within the realm of what actually happened. One way will give you an entertaining experience. The other will probably result in the film getting under your skin.
I usually get pretty tense over large leaps in the truth. To this day, I grumble at the thought of Girl Interrupted, and the fact that they could insinuate that a character based on a real, live person could be indirectly involved in another's death when it simply isn't true. With Charlie Wilson's War, however, I wasn't completely weighed down by derailments from truth. Perhaps this is due to being warned after reading reviews like James' and Kim's, maybe it was due to the film more omitting facts than completely changing them, or perhaps it was the light delivery of the subject. Whatever the case, Charlie Wilson's War is an enjoyable film weighed down by its decisions of omission.
Certain movies get under my skin and refuse to leave. Case in point: Kiyoshi Kurosawa'sCure and Pulse (AKA Kairo). There are several startling scenes in those movies that left me on edge for days. Both are horror flicks, but differ in their approaches. Cure is a police procedural with an unsettling string of deaths, while Pulse imagines what happens when there is no more room in the spirit realm for dead people. Kurosawa has a gift for creating indelible imagery married to sometimes head-scratching stories. Even when things don't really add up, as in Bright Future, his films leave a distinct aftertaste.
Kurosawa's Retribution, from 2006, hit Region 1 DVD earlier this week, and it's an odd little beast. In the opening scene, a woman in a red dress is brutally drowned by a mysterious man in a shallow pool of salt water on a reclaimed piece of land near the ocean. Kôji Yakusho (Babel, Shall We Dance?) plays Yoshioka, a weary police detective (similar to the one he played in Cure) investigating the case. Before he can get too far, we witness a respected doctor kill his son, for little apparent reason, by the same method. Is the doctor a serial killer? Why are Yoshioka's fingerprints on the first victim's body? Why does Yoshioka start having nightmares about a woman in a red dress?
Deliberately paced, Retribution veers between an effective freak-out and a disappointing, frustrating mystery, but Kurosawa fans may want to check out its low-key artistic despair.
Call this a consumer advisory. I stopped by the Blockbuster across the street from my apartment on Thursday night and rented the just-released DVD of French horror flick Inside. When it played at the Toronto fest last fall, Scott Weinberg raved about it, and I survived a memorable midnight screening at Fantastic Fest a couple of weeks later. As Scott said, it's well-crafted but incredibly brutal and violent. The Weinstein Co. picked it up and, as many of us suspected, a theatrical release was bypassed and it was sent directly to DVD, unrated, on their Dimension Extreme label. Scott's review was even quoted on the back of the box: "Unrelenting, brutal and stunningly violent."
Dimension Extreme has a "rental exclusive" deal with Blockbuster. I thought I'd save a few bucks by renting instead of buying. First problem: The rental version doesn't include the comprehensive 55-minute "making of" feature that a friend had recommended. Second (and even bigger) problem: the only version available at the store where I rented is the R-rated version, cut from 83 to 75 minutes.
Can you really go wrong when your movie features two naked Academy Award-winners having sex? Fortunately, Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead goes far beyond surface pleasures. Jeffrey M. Anderson thought it was one of the year's best American films and Erik Davis felt it would was "sure to go down as one of Lumet's best in years." (For a contrary opinion, check out Ryan Stewart's review.) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei star. ThinkFilm's DVD includes an audio commentary with Lumet and his lead actors and a "making of" feature.
War/Dance follows a group of children living in a refugee camp in Uganda who have been invited to participate in a national music and dance competition. "I can't imagine anyone could watch War/Dance," wrote Kim Voynar when she saw it AFI Dallas last year, "without feeling heart-wrenched over these kids' stories and being touched by their heart and courage ... This is what documentary filmmaking is all about." ThinkFilm's DVD includes deleted and extended scenes, the theatrical trailer and a trailer gallery.
Also of interest: highly-acclaimed political drama Bamako (New Yorker); documentary Here is What Is (Suma), which goes behind the scenes with music producer Daniel Lanois, and Jeff Garlin's comedy/romance I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (IFC).
Juno She came onto the scene with a bang, charming audiences and quickly becoming a sensation. Of course, after the press she got, and buzz that followed, many have grown sick of the snarky teen and her Diablo Cody dialog that often crosses over the line from quirky to tired, but one thing always remains -- the phenomenon that followed the film centers on the fact that it's a wildly enjoyable comedy.
Ellen Page stars as Juno, a young woman who has discovered that she's gotten pregnant from an interlude with Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). After mulling over her options, she decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption -- to the awkwardly yuppie couple Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman). The story is simple, and it's the delivery that gives Juno charm. Within the over-the-top dialog exists real, flawed characters and a lot of heart. This is the sort of film that exists on many levels. For some, it will be utterly perfect as they delight in undone doodles, a melange of cultural references, and a moment in time that wonderfully encapsulates today and yesterday. For most of the rest, it will still be a great and enjoyable comedy because there are so many pieces to the Juno puzzle -- one might not capture you, but another piece is sure to.
There are three DVDs to choose from, and each one ups the ante on the other -- refreshingly, no matter which you pick, you're sure to get a large selection of goodies to watch. On the single disc version, there's a bunch of deleted scenes, a gag reel, gag take, cast & crew jam, and even screen tests. When you add another disc to the mix, there's a digital copy and four featurettes -- about the kids, Diablo Cody, Jason Reitman, and creating the film. Finally, with the Blu-Ray option, you get all of the above features plus two extras from Fox Movie Channel Presents.
My personal pick is the powerful, haunting There Will Be Blood, but there are other intriguing titles to explore. Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) won the inaugural Cinema Eye Award for Best Feature; according to one synopsis, the documentary examines the "cycles of violence that plague Brazil's upper and lower economic classes in fits of rampant corruption and violent kidnappings." The DVD from City Lights includes an audio commentary by the director and producers, as well as several additional scenes.
Linda Hattendorf first met the subject of her documentary, The Cats of Mirikitani, on the streets of New York. He was homeless; she bought one of his drawings. "Thus began a strange, intimate relationship," Martha Fischer wrote in her review. She called the doc "a treasure of personal filmmaking, created on a shoe-string budget and completely devoid of pretensions or aspirations beyond simple, intimate, storytelling." The DVD from Arts Alliance America includes 20 minutes of bonus footage, deleted scenes and Mirikitani art gallery images.
Indiana Jones -- The Adventure Collection
The titles that will probably get the biggest play this week are Todd Haynes' 
Two notable indie releases this week are covered in more detail elsewhere (reviews not up yet, though): Julian Schnabal's 
A solid handful of indie titles vie for your attention on the DVD shelves this week. I've 
Certain movies get under my skin and refuse to leave. Case in point: 
Call this a consumer advisory. I stopped by the Blockbuster across the street from my apartment on Thursday night and rented the just-released DVD of French horror flick 
Beyond the 
My personal pick is the powerful, haunting 
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SCOOP: Spider-Man 4 and 5 Might be Shot at the Same Time!
Cinematical Seven: Disney's Awesome Live-Action Kid Adventures
