Time Bandits: The Criterion Blu-ray review

The movie portion of this review was previously published at Bullz-Eye. Stills are not screengrabs from the Criterion Blu-ray.

If you were a certain kind of boy or young teenager in the ‘80s, then there’s a good chance Time Bandits was a very important film for you. Sure, you loved Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Goonies, but Time Bandits was special in a different way because not everyone else was in on it; it was seemingly dismissed even by most adults (well, the ones I grew up around anyway). For many young people, it was our first introduction to the whacked out joys of Monty Python, even if we didn’t realize it at the time, as Time Bandits is not a proper Python film. But half of the six-man comedy troupe is involved in the picture, and so when we finally got around to discovering Python, we recognized John Cleese and Michael Palin from this film. Little did we know, though, that all of Python’s strange animations were the handiwork of the guy that directed this piece. Wasn’t it refreshing to not have every fact and figure at your immediate disposal way back then? You picked up information over the years while actively seeking it out. Perhaps, as Time Bandits hints, computers really are the playthings of Evil.

David Rappaport and Craig Warnock

However, it’s also possible you were not a certain kind of boy in the ‘80s, or that you’ve never even seen Time Bandits. If so, let’s lay it out there. One night, 11-year old Kevin (Craig Warnock) lies in his bed. Out of his wardrobe tumble six dwarfs on the run from God (who here is referred to as the Supreme Being). He’s their employer and they build trees for him. But they’ve stolen a powerful map from God, and now travel around through history, attempting to loot the past for riches. Kevin follows, and finds himself in all manner of incredulous situations, such as bantering with Robin Hood (John Cleese) or conning Napoleon (Ian Holm) out of his wealth. At the same time, Evil (David Warner, in one of his very best roles) watches over, secretly plotting his takeover of the world via the map, and eventually, an understanding of computers. Exactly what is “The Most Fabulous Object in the World,” and can the inept group of thieves procure it? 

Sean Connery as Agamemnon

As is probably to be expected, Time Bandits works on two different levels. There’s the fantasy/adventure angle for younger viewers, and a sharp, comical script loaded with observations and commentary for the adults. Much of the film’s satire revolves around consumerism and greed, and the lengths to which people will go in order to satiate such desires. Although John Cleese and Sean Connery get top billing (albeit alphabetical), the film’s stars are Warnock and the dwarf actors. David Rappaport plays the leader, Randall, and the emotional backbone of the film is really the relationship between him and Kevin, which is not even remotely a feel-good sort of thing. In fact, the dwarfs aren’t even particularly nice people, and in one segment, when Kevin is separated from them in Ancient Greece, he meets King Agamemnon (Connery), who is more of a father to him than his real father ever was. The dwarfs kidnap Kevin away from his new, perfect life, because they realize he’s actually smarter than they are, and they need him to further their schemes.

David Warner as Evil

Time Bandits didn’t seem a particularly dark movie to me as a kid, but in rewatching it today, I find myself somewhat aghast at how cynical it really is (although even when I was young I realized how fucked up and bleak the final moments of the film are). This really should come as no surprise when you consider that Terry Gilliam unveiled Brazil, the ultimate dark, fantastical social commentary of the 80s, a few years later. (Gilliam was even trying to get Brazil made before Bandits.) While this was Gilliam’s third film (he’d previously co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail and helmed Jabberwocky solo), it was the first in which he indulged himself seemingly every whim and idea. Each frame of the movie is crammed with detail, from the important to the trivial, and perhaps what’s most striking about it today is that all the effects are handmade (also the name of the production company – Handmade Films). This is a CGI-free picture, from back when there was no CGI, and it’s all the better for it. It’s a tangible universe; one that you can feel and believe in.

John Cleese as Robin Hood

None of this is to imply it’s a perfect film - just that it’s an ambitious and fun one. While the movie spares little time getting going, it takes forever to end, and much of the big finish, in which Kevin and the dwarfs battle Evil, goes on for far too long, and undercuts some of the intelligence the film is rooted in. When the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) shows up, the movie somewhat recovers, but even by then it feels as though the joke has perhaps gone on for a little too long. Yet these are nitpicks from someone who’s seen it countless times, and is possibly taking it all a bit too seriously. Time Bandits remains Fantasy 101, and a must see for people who enjoy this kind of fare. While you’re at it, why not share it with an impressionable 10-year old?

Blu-ray Review & Extras: The previous Image Entertainment Blu-ray release was a visual letdown, and barely deserving of the format, so thankfully Criterion has finally stepped up to the plate and delivered their shining goods via this new 2K digital restoration supervised by Gilliam. Time Bandits soars once again! Ported over from their own previous DVD release is a commentary track featuring contributions from Gilliam, Craig Warnock, Michael Palin, John Cleese, and David Warner (though not all together in one room). A new 23-minute piece traces the design aspects of the film through interviews with costume designer James Acheson and production designer Milly Burns.

Running at a whopping 81 minutes is a revealing conversation between Gilliam and film scholar Peter van Bagh. From the Midnight Sun Film Festival in 1998, the interview was recorded not long after Gilliam finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, though that particular film is only briefly discussed at the close. The rest of the conversation traces his growing up in Minnesota, his joining of Monty Python, and talk of each his classic films made until that point. If it’s not the definitive Gilliam interview, it’s certainly up there, and it is always a delight to listen to Gilliam talk life and shop, and here he’s given plenty of time to pontificate.

A short, vintage 8-minute piece from Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow is an interview with Shelley Duvall tied to the film’s release, which more than anything else is a great reminder of how obnoxious Tom Snyder was. There’s a short gallery of photos from the set, and a very funny three-minute trailer that wreaks havoc with the concept of trailer voiceovers - also ported over from the Criterion DVD. (The “Time Bandits Scrapbook,” which ran for 3:13 is absent.) Instead of a booklet, this disc’s essay, entitled “Guerrilla Fantasy” by critic David Sterritt, is printed on a large fold out piece of paper, which flips over to reveal a recreation of the iconic map. It’s not as large as the one in the film, yet would look very nice framed, though I suspect David Sterritt would rather me not recommend doing that. Finally, the disc features a snazzy lenticular slipcover, which may or may not be available on future pressings of the disc.

Photo of fold-out map included in the Criterion disc

Nightbreed: The Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack review

The director’s cut of Clive Barker’s Nightbreed has been a very, very long time coming, and rare is a film more deserving of a top to bottom reworking than this one. Released theatrically in 1990 in a tragically butchered form by Fox, the film should have been Barker’s leap to the big time. While it didn’t necessarily derail his movie career, it certainly didn’t help it, nor did it likely endear the movie business to Barker himself. With a two-hour running time, including 40 minutes of new footage, this is the version of the movie that should have been released 25 years ago.

Yet this new Nightbreed is such an unusual film that it probably wouldn’t have been any more popular at the box office than the tainted theatrical version. It’s just too strange to ever have appealed to mainstream audiences, regardless of its form. But it surely would have amassed a far greater following over the years, and would now be looked back on as one the great horror fantasy films of its time. Maybe it isn’t too late to attain such a title.

Adapted from Barker’s own novel Cabal, the story tells of disturbed young man Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer), who sees therapist Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg) for help with the visions he suffers – visions of a place called Midian. Meanwhile, a vicious masked psychopath is serial killing, and Decker convinces Boone he’s committing the crimes by slipping him psychedelics. But all is clearly not as it seems, and Midian is a very real place beckoning to Boone. Midian, located in a remote area beneath a forgotten graveyard, is where the monsters live – the freaks and genetic misfits that society has no room to accommodate. There they live in peace, away from mankind. But a war is coming, and the inhabitants of Midian will find their reclusive existence threatened by man, with Boone and his girlfriend Lori (Anne Bobby) at the center of the conflict.

The whole point of Nightbreed is that the monsters are the good guys, and humanity is morally corrupt, indecent, and without conscience or empathy. This is also very much the point that was gutted from the theatrical version all those years ago, leaving viewers wondering what the object of the exercise was. The Director’s Cut restores the crucial character and story arcs so that the film now feels well-rounded and full-bodied. Most importantly, the inhabitants of Midian have been brought to the forefront, and Nightbreed is populated by dozens and dozens of creatures – I do not exaggerate when I say that 50 feels like it might be low balling it – many onscreen for just seconds at a time.

Lylesburg (Doug Bradley, Pinhead of the Hellraiser films) is the leader of the colony. Aged and wizard-like, the old man has perpetually bleeding slits on his cheeks, which open to reveal eyes. Narcisse (Hugh Ross), the wild man with peeled back skin and an exposed skull, is Boone’s first tangible proof that Midian exists. Peloquin (Oliver Parker) is the red-skinned, tentacle-headed alpha male of Midian. Kinski (Nicholas Vince), whose head is shaped like a crescent moon – looking like Jay Leno via a Mighty Men and Monster Maker - is one of the first to show Boone kindness. Shuna Sassi (Christine McCorkindale) is covered in deadly needles, like some sort of sexy, birdlike porcupine. And the list could go on and on.

Much like its banner mission of flipping the good guys and the bad guys, Nightbreed seems to thrive on turning horror conventions on their ear, always in the service of casting its heroes in a positive light. It’s almost as if while writing it, Barker would come to a spot and say to himself, “Now what would every other horror writer do here? I think I’ll do just the opposite.” Its themes of persecution frequently hit home emotionally, and it’s sort of amazing how easy it is to care and root for these ghastly creatures in this “horror movie.” It’s the sort of the stuff that’s often the domain of science fiction and fantasy, but almost never horror. And the humans really are awful, terrible people, chewing into their roles with great relish. Charles Haid, best known for his work in Hill Street Blues, tears into it as a local cop, and Cronenberg is such an ideal choice for Decker that it is practically impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Here the infamous visionary behind fare such as Scanners and Videodrome embodies evil incarnate, and a more subversively malevolent movie figure you’ll be hard-pressed to find.

Craig Sheffer has all the makings of a standard, B-movie hero of the time period. There’s little that’s remarkable about his work here, and yet he unquestionably gets the job done. Anne Bobby, however, is a little treasure, and Lori’s story arc is far more the backbone of the picture than Boone’s. Midian calls out to Boone; it’s his destiny. Lori has to work for it, and in many ways she goes on far more of a traditional hero’s journey than the picture’s leading man. One of her great scenes, cut from the theatrical version but restored here, is a musical number early in the film. Set in a raucous dive bar, Lori howls “Johnny Get Angry” to an enthusiastic crowd (all while Boone, in the midst of the worst drug trip ever, looks on). The scene shouldn’t work, and yet it’s now impossible to imagine Nightbreed without it. Perhaps the greatest tragedy to come out of this movie’s mishandling is that Bobby didn’t get a bigger career out of it, which she more than deserved.

Blu-ray/DVD Extras: Shout only provided the Morgue with the standard Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, as opposed to the limited collector’s edition Blu-ray set, which has two extra discs, one of which features the original theatrical cut. While I was initially disappointed that I didn’t get the big set, as I really wanted a copy of the original cut, once I viewed the new version I no longer cared. Frankly, it’s been so long since I last viewed the theatrical cut, I couldn’t line list the differences. I only instinctively know that the new version is clearly and vastly superior, and viewing it makes the old version a relic, probably deserving of being lost to posterity.

Extras include an introduction from Clive Barker and Mark Alan Miller, the gentleman largely responsible for making the Director’s Cut a reality. It plays automatically with the film, but is skippable. The pair also has their own commentary track. Beyond that, there’s a 72-minute making of/remembrance called “Tribes of the Moon,” which includes Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, Doug Bradley, Hugh Ross, Simon Bamford, and Christine McCorkidale all waxing light-heartedly nostalgic about their time making the picture. While not definitive (frankly, I’d have killed for some Cronenberg on here), it remains a great deal of fun, and most any fan will be delighted by it. “Making Monsters” is a 42-minute featurette on the makeup and effects, which are stars of the film unto themselves. Here we get thoughts from artists Bob Keen, Martin Mercer, and Paul Jones, who only represent a sliver of Nightbreed’s behind the scenes talent, though they frequently discuss all of the other artists’ contributions. “Fire! Fights! Stunts! 2^nd Unit Shooting” is a 20-minute interview with action director Andy Armstrong. Lastly, there’s the film’s original theatrical trailer. All bonus programming is duplicated on both the Blu-ray and the DVD. 

The Innocents: The Criterion Blu-ray review

[Note: Screengrabs are taken from the MGM DVD release.]

Two big budget studio ghost stories from the early sixties are cinematic siblings, a notion exacerbated by the fact that in both cases the ghosts may (or may not) be products of overactive imaginations. Those classic films are The Innocents and The Haunting. The latter seemingly steals most of the thunder from the former, but now that Criterion has stepped up to the plate, maybe The Innocents will get some long overdue kudos and love. Based on the 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, The Innocents borrows its title from a stage adaptation by William Archibald, who also worked on the screenplay. Director Jack Clayton wasn’t satisfied with Archibald’s work, so he turned to no less than Truman Capote, who whipped the script into shape, and created the blueprint from which Clayton eventually worked.

Deborah Kerr stars as spinster Miss Giddens, hired by a disinterested uncle (Michael Redgrave) as governess to orphans Miles (Martin Stephens) and Flora (Pamela Franklin, in her film debut) at his palatial but crumbling country estate, Bly. Though Bly’s grounds include a staff headed by housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), Giddens is firmly in charge of the children, and any decisions made about their welfare and well being are entirely in her hands. Giddens learns of the recent troubled history of the estate, namely the untimely deaths of the previous governess, Miss Jessel, and the uncle’s valet, Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde). Soon enough, the visions begin. First Quint and then later Jessel torment Giddens, pushing her to the brink of sanity. The more she learns of the deceased, sexually deviant coupling, the more frenzied she becomes. Soon, Giddens is convinced the pair has evil, dastardly plans for the children, and she’ll go to any lengths to save them.

As to the possible existence of these ghosts, The Innocents is played so squarely down the middle that it really can go either way, and I don’t believe I’ve ever found it as ambiguous as I did upon viewing it via this new Criterion edition. This is to the film’s credit, because in the real world, we (well, most of us) don’t immediately believe someone who says they’ve seen a ghost. Those of us who do not give a season pass on our DVR to Ghost Hunters tend to be skeptical of such claims. The key to appreciating the movie on a level different than ghost story, I believe, is in the viewer’s ability to take Mrs. Grose seriously and not just write her off as a daft old woman who could never understand the supernatural. Because she’s the only other adult playing a major role in the proceedings, and as the movie never shows her as anything other than kindly and wise, her view of events must not only count, but is also crucial. And though Mrs. Grose is far too polite to ever say anything, she clearly believes Miss Giddens to be nucking futs.

I’ve experienced The Innocents on a couple previous formats over the years – official MGM laserdisc and DVD releases - and both were above average presentations, showcasing the movie with a clean print and in its proper Cinemascope 2.35:1 aspect ratio. And yet this Criterion Blu-ray with its spotless 4K transfer remains something of a revelation. This is the sort of movie Blu-ray was made for, as every monochrome frame of The Innocents is crammed with detail that can finally be pored over and analyzed in a home setting like never before. One even wonders if the movie looked this ideal in its original theatrical release.

Blu-ray Extras: Cultural historian Christopher Frayling pulls double duty here, with a 23-minute introduction, as well as helming the commentary track. Though there is a fair amount of overlap between the two, I have to give the guy some props: He’s engaging to listen to and seems to know more than anyone else about this movie; indeed, he may even know more than the people who created it. A new 19-minute interview features cinematographer John Bailey discussing Innocents DP extraordinaire Freddie Francis and his approach to the film and working relationship with Clayton. A relatively short piece (14 minutes) on the making of the film, entitled “Between Horror, Fear, and Beauty,” briefly features Francis himself, as well as editor Jim Clark and script supervisor Pamela Mann Francis. It’s a shame that someone didn’t (or wasn’t able to) round up Pamela Franklin and/or Martin Stephens for commentary as their POVs would seem invaluable to Innocents discussion. The disc also features the film’s trailer and the inner booklet offers up an essay entitled “Forbidden Games” by Maitland McDonagh. From an extras standpoint, not one of Criterion’s strongest showings, but as is nearly always the case with this company, the exceptional film presentation is the real star.

The Zero Theorem

As someone who’s been a disciple of all things Terry Gilliam for the better part of 30 years, it seems pretty obvious that his most innovative filmmaking days are probably behind him. Those of us that continue to return to his well keep our expectations firmly in check. We don’t expect mind blowing Brazil-level satirical explorations, or profound science fiction trips such as 12 Monkeys, but we are happy to indulge our favorite mad uncle when he unveils something a little less groundbreaking, from somewhere in between, and that’s more or less what The Zero Theorem is.

Set in some nearby hazy nether-future – a grotesque exaggeration of our own reality – the film revolves around hypochondriacal misanthrope Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz, looking like Bob Geldof after he shaved all his hair off in The Wall), a number-crunching programmer working for a soul-sucking mega-corporation called Mancom. He appears to be more than adept at his job, but awful at the rest of life. With virtually no social skills to speak of, Qohen (pronounced “Cohen”), when he isn’t at work, keeps himself holed up in a dilapidated mansion in a sketchy part of town, waiting for a mysterious phone call that he hopes will bring change. His sole desire is to be allowed to work from home, so he can be close to the phone and away from people.

Read the rest of this movie review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Leviathan: Blu-ray review

In 1989, there were no less than three underwater sci-fi thrillers in cinemas, but only one truly made waves: James Cameron’s masterpiece The Abyss (seriously, a case can be made that it’s his best movie, even if it isn’t his highest grossing or the most popular). The other two films – Deep Star Six and Leviathan – were released prior to Cameron’s movie and failed to find much of a theatrical audience. Eventually, both films moved on to rest comfortably on many a video store shelf, where they found viewers looking for a Friday night distraction. And while Deep Star Six has never really received a decent home video release here in the States, Scream Factory has stepped up to the plate to deliver a nice little Blu-ray of Leviathan.

Set miles below the surface in an underwater mining station, Leviathan tells the story of workers who discover a sunken Russian ship (named ‘Leviathan’), and inadvertently bring aboard an alien evil residing in its bowels. One by one, it begins to pick them off, yet death is not quite the final word for this motley crew. As you might surmise, Leviathan is short on originality, shamelessly cribbing from Alien, Aliens and Carpenter’s remake of The Thing. Curiously enough, aside from its setting, Leviathan bears almost no resemblance to The Abyss.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting STARLOG.

Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery Blu-ray review

With the steady, ongoing rise of streaming media, encyclopedic TV-on-Disc collections are heading the way of the dodo bird. So when a classy Blu-ray box set such as Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery hits the market, it’s worthy of celebration. Peaks, with its modest number of installments (30 episodes, two of which are movie-length), is the perfect show to which extra-special treatment should be given, especially in light of its cult following—which, ironically, has increased over recent years thanks to the series’ availability on streaming.

As with the Peaks Gold Box DVD collection from 2007, content producer Charles de Lauzirika is the man that should be celebrated here. Among de Lauzirika’s other home video credits are The Alien Quadrilogy and Blade Runner: The Final Cut, so the guy knows what fans want and this Blu-ray is no exception. But before moving on to the fine collection de Lauzirika has assembled, let’s talk Peaks for a bit.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Starlog.

Scanners: The Criterion Blu-ray / DVD Combo review

It’s difficult to calculate the exact influence the work of David Cronenberg has had on sci-fi film and what the genre might be like without him. His work, or at least the first half of his career, so squarely belongs to Cronenberg that it’s entirely possible his absence wouldn’t make a big difference at all, as nobody can do Cronenberg like Cronenberg. Even Cronenberg arguably had a tough time of conveying his specific brand of sci-fi by the time he got to eXistenZ in 1999, which to date remains his last completely original screenplay.

But a new Criterion release demands that we travel all the way back to 1981, when American audiences were considerably less familiar with the Canadian filmmaker. Despite having made a half a dozen features prior to it, Scanners was the movie that put Cronenberg on everyone’s radar, and it blew their minds…

Read the rest of this review by clicking here and visiting STARLOG.

Picnic at Hanging Rock: The Criterion Blu-ray / DVD Combo review

Back when I first saw 1975’s Picnic at Hanging Rock in the mid ‘90s, we didn’t have the internet. And the Criterion laserdisc I owned (one of the very last Criterion laserdisc releases) was bare bones, so beyond the film itself, there was no information on it. If memory serves me correctly, for some time I believed it to be based on a true story, and the movie’s opening intro, coupled with its mission to not answer its central mystery, might lead anyone to believe that it is. It just seemed like a highly artistic interpretation of real events. And it still does today, though via this brand new Criterion edition, decked with numerous bells and whistles, it’s easier to discover the truth, which is that Picnic at Hanging Rock was based on a fictitious novel by a lady named Joan Lindsay – a paperback copy of which is included in this set.

Hanging Rock - from a distance

The story at first revolves around a girl’s school in Victoria, Australia, in 1900, and the students’ St. Valentine’s Day outing to the imposing volcanic monument, Hanging Rock (which is a very real place). Upon arrival, quiet weirdness abounds, and after several lazy, dreamlike hours, three of the girls and one of the teachers have gone missing. The second half of the film studies the effects the disappearances have on not only the school, but also the nearby town and its variety of residents. It is, after all, a small town at the turn of the century where people do not just disappear.

Mrs. Appleyard passive-aggressively terrorizes Sara

The movie is crammed with ideas, thoughts, and feelings, expressed through an intricate, restrained drawing of its numerous characters, with the repression of the time period leading to people unable to properly communicate their fears, hopes, and desires. Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts), the severe, imposing school headmistress, takes out her frustrations on the awkward student, Sara (Margaret Nelson), while the much younger and more vibrant Mademoiselle de Poitiers (Helen Morse) is wracked with guilt over her inaction the day of the picnic. The befuddled Sgt. Bumpher (Wyn Roberts), who leads the investigation and search party to find the missing, continually finds himself at a loss for words (his position, coupled with his resemblance to Graham Chapman, leads to a frequent expectation for him to finally break out with an “All right! All right! All right!”).

Michael and Albert spy the schoolgirls headed for the rock

The privileged young English boy Michael Fitzhubert (Dominic Guard, who, for my Whovian brethren, played Olvir in “Terminus”) is haunted by the disappearances more than anyone else, and he makes it his mission to find out what happened, regardless of the potential cost to his own well being. By contrast, his blue collar Aussie acquaintance, Albert (a young John Jarratt, the bad guy of Wolf Creek), is haunted by his own past, and has closer ties to the school than he could ever know. Not every struggle in Hanging Rock is caused by the mystery, yet they often appear to be reflected in it.

Anne-Louise Lambert as Miranda

What is perhaps most absorbing about Hanging Rock is not the characters we spend time with throughout the entire film, but rather the missing girls, led by the luminescent Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), and their intellectual math instructor, Miss Greta McCraw (Vivean Gray) – all of whom cast a potent spell in the 40 or so minutes of screentime they have. Lambert is a cinematic angel, and her visage haunts the movie long after she’s gone, just as it does the viewer after the credits roll. But these days Gray’s McCraw is my favorite. The steely, calculating teacher, enlightened with a knowledge of the world that Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson would appreciate, appears to be living out of time and place. McCraw hypnotizes, not least because the movie dishes even less on her disappearance than the others. The film strongly suggests that the rock awakens something primal and perhaps even sexual in these women – something they were unable to tap into or unleash in the society they had grown up a part of, but that the rock opened, and they found inviting.

Mlle. de Poitiers (l) and Miss McCraw (r)

Yet those assertions are more my interpretation than anything else. Picnic at Hanging Rock should mean something different for each viewer. It’s that kind of movie, and the open-ended narrative is the lack of punctuation on an unfinished sentence. It’s an exercise in mood and sound (the music ranges from classical works to Zamfir’s pan flute to evocative original compositions), and most certainly stunning cinematography by Russell Boyd. Though it was not director Peter Weir’s debut film, it was the one that introduced his considerable talents to the world. Weir has since gone on to helm some truly incredible films over the course of his long career, though there’s not a one of them I wouldn’t put up against Hanging Rock just to demonstrate how strong the movie really is.

Lastly, keep an eye out for a very young Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook), who receives theatrical billing much higher on the marquee than her character - an amorous maid working at the school – demands. Off the cuff: Anyone else often find themselves playing games of “Is that Jacki Weaver or Sally Struthers?”

   

Blu-ray/DVD Extras: Picnic at Hanging Rock arrives in a “dual format” combo single Blu-ray/ two DVD set, which is a recent Criterion experiment that apparently, as of last Friday’s announcement, will be halted come September. Bit of a shame, really. I can see how DVD consumers would have issues with the price increase, but Blu-ray enthusiasts that “didn’t like making room for DVDs they didn’t want” just smacks of the oft-ridiculed first world problems. As a Blu-ray freak, I am always happy to get a free DVD with my purchase, Criterion or not, so I didn’t even really have time to warm up to this new presentation before it was dispensed with. In any case, the movie looks jaw-droppingly gorgeous and the 5.1 surround track more than gets the job done. Weir uses both pictures and sound to weave his tapestry, and both are surely tighter here than on any previous Region A/1 release. 

At the top of this piece I mentioned the Criterion laserdisc. It was followed by a bare bones DVD edition in 1999, and now, 15 years later, we have this hulking combo set that includes the paperback novel. Seriously, when the package arrived, I thought there were two movies enclosed. After all this time, Criterion rectifies those previous meager presentations with a host of lovingly prepared goodies.

Extras kick off with a 10-minute introduction by film scholar David Thomson, which is followed by an enlightening 25-minute interview with Weir - a welcome inclusion, as he meditates and dishes on all things Hanging. Likewise, “Everything Begins and Ends” is a 30-minute doc featuring interviews with producers Hal and Jim McElroy, exec producer Patricia Lovell, DP Russell Boyd, and cast members Anne-Louise Lambert and Helen Morse. At first glance it would be easy to take this disc to task for not featuring a commentary track, but between the Weir interview and the doc, there’s really no need for one as plenty of ground is covered, and Hanging Rock is not the kind of movie that viewers should be walked through scene by scene anyway. 

Additionally, there’s a theatrical trailer, and 26-minute period doc from ’75 entitled “A Recollection…Hanging Rock 1900,” much of which is shot at Hanging Rock, including further interviews with Joan Lindsay, Dominic Guard, Weir, and others. Lastly, on the video side of things, there’s a 50-minute black and white short film called Homesdale. It was this movie that led exec producer Lovell to hire Weir to helm Hanging Rock, though why that is remains yet another mystery, as the tone, feel and subject matter of the short isn’t much like the feature film. Even Weir seems puzzled by the fact in the interview piece. (Frankly, Homesdale is such an oddball piece, its weirdness makes Hanging Rock seem pretty straightforward by comparison – perhaps therein lies the answer.) 

In addition to the Lindsay paperback, this edition includes a beautiful 28-page inner booklet, laced with stills from the movie, and featuring a new essay by author Megan Abbott entitled “What We See and What We Seem,” as well as an excerpted piece from a 1996 book on Weir, by Marek Haltof, entitled “Peter Weir and the Australian New Wave Cinema.”

All screengrabs in this piece were taken from the DVD.

Ravenous: Blu-ray review

Once upon a time the big movie studios would occasionally make a risky film - sometimes with a bunch of money, and other times with just a little bit. Either way, it was an artistic gamble, and sometimes it would pay off, and other times it wouldn’t. This never seems to happen anymore, where all such choices are made only after myriad polls, research, and analysis, rather than from the gut. These days the risky fare is showing up on TV in the forms of shows like Hannibal (as perfect an example as any for this particular review). I’ve always wanted to meet and shake the hand of the Fox exec[1] who greenlit Ravenous - a period black comedy-horror western about cannibalism, in which the central character, Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce), doesn’t even speak a complete sentence for the first half hour. 

The modestly budgeted film ($12 million) tanked something fierce upon its release in spring of ‘99. Despite opening on over a thousand screens, its B.O. take was only around $2 million. But, as many movies of quality do, Ravenous lived to see better days, and over the years amassed a pretty hardcore cult following (undoubtedly aided by the increasing popularity of its two stars, Pearce and Robert Carlyle).

In the midst of the Mexican-American War circa 1847, Boyd, having been branded a coward by General Slauson (John Spencer), is sent to Fort Spencer in the remote, wintry Sierra Nevadas, where nothing ever happens. The Fort is staffed by a motley collection of military misfits played by Jeffrey Jones, Neal McDonough, Jeremy Davies, David Arquette, and Stephen Spinella, as well as a pair of Native siblings, amusingly named George (Joseph Runningfox) and Martha (Sheila Tousey, the only female in the picture). The trend of isolated boredom is bucked by the arrival of the mysterious Mr. Colqhoun (Carlyle). Starving and near death, he tells a tale of survival involving Colonel Ives – a member of his party who resorted to cannibalizing the rest of the expedition when the food ran out.

And little more should be said about the plot to the uninitiated. Knowing much else about Ravenous would spoil its manic twists and turns. The script’s unpredictability is one of the film’s numerous strong attributes. Despite its gruesome, graphic depictions of humans dining on each other’s flesh, the film has been called by many (including yours truly) a vampire movie in disguise. There are aspects of its story that echo the relationship of Louis and Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, yet on this viewing I found myself not wanting to acknowledge the vampiric parallels – as if they might somehow take away from the uniqueness of the movie, which actually bases its extensive chowdown on the Algonquian Wendigo myth. Maybe back in ’99 we needed to make such connections and conditions in order to accept a movie that revolves around such an unsettling topic, but today we’re living in a world in which a network series like Hannibal has been granted a third season. There’s no longer any reason to romanticize or qualify Ravenous to those who aren’t in the know, for if you’ve dined on Hannibal for thirteen weeks straight, this 100-minute movie should be a walk in the park (albeit a pretty twisted park).

Behind the lens, Ravenous was directed by the late Antonia Bird, a last minute replacement after the film’s original director, Milcho Manchevski, parted ways with the production after shooting began. Bird was brought onboard at the insistence of Carlyle who’d worked with her on two previous pictures, Priest and Face. Though Priest ruffled a few feathers upon its 1994 release, and met with a fair amount of acclaim, it might still be fair to say that Ravenous will be the movie for which she’ll ultimately be most remembered. The moody cinematography was accomplished by Anthony B. Richmond, and while recent credits of his aren’t particularly impressive, he once upon a time helped give a number of Nicolas Roeg movies - such as Don’t Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth - their distinctive looks. The screenplay was the debut of Ted Griffin, who’d go on to co-create another hailed concept that failed to find an audience, the recent one-season FX TV wonder, Terriers.

But perhaps the most exceptional layer of Ravenous is its score. I’ve often heard it said that the best movie scores are the ones you don’t notice, an assertion I take great issue with. To me, the best scores are the ones that stick in your mind – hopefully along with the rest of the picture – for weeks after having experienced them. Michael Nyman had created many such scores for the films of Peter Greenaway, though perhaps his most famous score was for Jane Campion’s The Piano. Here Nyman is, curiously, paired with Damon Albarn, who is nowadays best known as the mad genius behind Gorillaz. Together (or rather apart; they allegedly made their contributions separately), Nyman and Albarn composed and created a work that stands on its own, ranging from quirky tonal sounds to full on majestic orchestrations. The now out of print Ravenous soundtrack goes for pretty big dollars these days, which itself is something of a testament to its quality. Let the menu screen of this disc spin for a while in the background, and the central theme will undoubtedly hypnotize you.

The print used for this Blu-ray had some noticeable dirt on it, but after a bit it either disappeared or, caught up in the movie and I was, I ceased to notice it. While nobody will ever accuse Ravenous of having a varied color palette, the movie looks fair here, but not stellar; inconsistent would probably be the best word to describe it. The 5.1 DTS-HD audio track fares considerably better, in all the right places.

Blu-ray Extras: The very best DVD/Blu-ray extras are often produced years after the movie itself, once the actors and/or crew have gained some perspective on the proceedings, or when there’s no longer any danger of offending co-workers or executives or what have you. This Scream Factory Blu-ray offers up a recently shot 20-minute interview with Jeffrey Jones entitled “The Ravenous Tales of Colonel Hart,” in which he, as a history buff, discusses the implications of manifest destiny as presented in the picture and candidly dishes on the firing of Manchevski and the hiring of Bird. For the Ravenous buff, this is outstanding stuff and a welcome inclusion.

The rest of the extras are, I believe, all ported over from the original DVD release. There are three, count ‘em three, commentary tracks: Bird and Albarn, Griffin and Jones, and finally Carlyle flying solo. There are also deleted scenes with optional commentary by Bird, a theatrical trailer and TV spots, and two galleries of stills detailing the costume and production design. As with many Shout/Scream discs, the artwork can be flipped over to reveal an alternate cover that matches the original Ravenous movie poster art (pictured).

[1] While I can’t find a definitive answer, it appears that the late Laura Ziskin, who headed the arm of Fox (Fox 2000) that produced Ravenous, may have been the culprit.

Portions of this review were lifted from an earlier Rued Morgue article entitled Five Great Movies You May Not Have Seen...But Should.

Screenshots were taken from Vagebond's Movie Screenshots.

Cosmopolis: Blu-ray review

On paper, the marriage of cult film director David Cronenberg and cult novelist Don DeLillo is no doubt an ideal one, but movies require bringing dozens or even hundreds of other random factors into the mix, and it’s the director’s job to bring all of it together into one cohesive vision. Cosmopolis should have been a masterpiece, and bubbling away beneath its immensely flawed surface, one can see that masterpiece lurking. Unfortunately, the film is painted wall to wall with an uninspired, thoughtless and flat performance from Robert Pattinson that drags the entire affair down to nearly unwatchable. He is in every scene and the entire picture revolves around him. Understand, I’ve nothing against Pattinson. Being largely unfamiliar with his work, I went into Cosmopolis assuming that Cronenberg would work cinematic legerdemain with the actor, as he has done countless times before with dozens of players. He did not.

Read the rest of this review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.