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Home Video Releases for January 2000 Nitrate Online explores a sampling of the most noteworthy, provocative and satisfying video and/or DVD releases for the month of January. Titles are followed by original country and year of release, as well as release date (if known). Street dates change constantly and often differ from format to format, so check with your favorite online or brick-and-mortar supplier for up-to-date information.
Beyond
the A-list: Black
Cat, White Cat
(France/Germany/Serbo-Croatia, 1998, January 11) "Story is not the most important thing in this
movie," concludes an Internet Movie Database user's comment on Emir
Kusturica's first film since the magnificent, controversial, Palm d'Or-winning Underground,
and the amateur's nailed it (hey, these days everyone's a critic): seeking to
avoid the fuss and frustration of his recent work -- remember Arizona
Dream? -- the filmmaker has returned to the subject of his 1989 Time
of the Gypsies with a fast-paced comedy/thriller about feuding families that
Kusturica describes as being more "from the earth." That it certainly
is, as rival patriarchs Grga and Zarije try to stay one step ahead of their
scheming offspring but find themselves presiding over a boisterous arranged
marriage. "I wanted someone who could bring a certain softness into a
film," explained the director to the British film journal Sight and
Sound of his decision to hire Luc Besson's cinematographer to shoot the
movie. "People have a prejudice about the gypsies, that they're nasty,
awful killers, but I wanted to emphasize their tenderness, their spiritualism
and their softness." It is, in fact, Kusturica's zany blend of sentiment
and energy that is for many the most important thing about his movies -- and is
the rapidly beating heart of Black Cat,
White Cat. B.U.S.T.E.D.
(aka Everybody Loves Sunshine) (United Kingdom,
1999, January 25) In addition to his music and webwork, David Bowie’s
still making movies -- they’re just not as high-profile as his provocative
early-career choices like The Man Who Fell to Earth, Merry Christmas,
Mr. Lawrence and The Hunger. In this stylish yet incomprehensible
British gangster movie, shot and played in the vein of such recent U.K. fare as Trainspotting
and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (but without the urgency and
originality of either -- which may account for its extremely limited and spotty
theatrical window), Bowie pops up occasionally as Bernie, the fastidious,
bespectacled underworld boss who’s kept the gang belonging to Terry (British
music star Goldie, also in The World is Not Enough) and Ray
(writer-director Andrew Goth, sort of a cross between George Clooney and Ainsley
Harriott) together while the cousins were in prison. Now that they’re out, the
bloodthirsty Terry looks to consolidate his power while Ray tries to break into
the techno scene (the film was shot on location in Liverpool and on the Isle of
Man). Oddly enough, much of the extended family antics of the thugs is played
for awkward and often naïve laughs (particularly the showbiz subplot),
punctuated by bursts of illogical violence against the Chinese gang that
threatens them. “Let’s fuck the gangster shit,” Terry says not far into
the movie, and it’s a sentiment most audiences will share by the fade. Hellhounds
on My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson
(USA, 1999) A tireless champion of regional American music, Robert Mugge has been making feature documentaries on important musicians (Al Green, Ruben Blades, Sun Ra) and musical movements (blues, reggae, zydeco) since 1976. His most recent feature, Hellhounds on My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson, stitches together performance footage from a 1998 tribute to the legendary bluesman in and around Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (part of their ongoing American Music Masters series) with interview and seminar footage in which the rocky road to posthumous legitimacy -- and profitability -- for Johnson’s music is explained. The extensive roster of performers range from the famous to the not-so-well-known, with guitarists such as Guy Davis, Rory Block (who does a fierce version of “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day”) and even Gov’t Mule more than holding their own against Bob Weir, Keb’ Mo’, Robert Lockwood Jr. and the like. Subtitled “A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads,” Deep Blues is one of Mugge’s best single works, a genial journey through the musical meccas and juke joints of Tennessee and Mississippi in the company of writer, musical producer and blues historian Robert Palmer and, in the early reels, Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart (then between solo tourdates). Performers include R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Roosevelt “Booba” Barnes (who plays a number of guitar solos with his teeth). The DVD’s of each title are recommended, both for the numerous extras and the extraordinary sound quality common to all of Mugge’s films. Dr.
Akagi
(Kanzo Sensei, Japan, 1998, November 16, 1999) From
72-year-old Shohei Imamura, the director of the magnificent Vengeance is Mine
(1979) and the 1997 Cannes grand prize-winner The Eel (both available and
well worth a look), comes a sly wartime comedy about dedication and nationalism.
Nicknamed “Dr. Liver” for his fierce war on hepatitis (that’s also the
name of the movie’s source novel), the dapper Akagi is first seen running from
house call to house call, and it soon becomes apparent that this is his normal
state. And no wonder, since the wretched conditions under which he works during
the last days of World War II have resulted in unsanitary conditions and an
outbreak of hepatitis that goes largely ignored by his superiors, who complain
that he’s using too much glucose. Determined to fight the epidemic at all
costs, the doctor engages in some unusual practices, including plundering a
movie projector’s lamp for a high-powered microscope and digging up a
newly-buried corpse to get a fresh liver for research. Along the way, he
gradually acquires the dedicated support of a merry band of local outcasts,
including a young prostitute, a drug-addicted doctor, a secular monk and a Dutch
prisoner of war. As in all of Imamura’s recent films, the story is played with
a broad yet straight-faced streak of black humor, informed by a serene wisdom
that comes only from age. Yet there’s also the touch of dirty old man in many
of the sexually-oriented sequences here (“I am interested in the relationship
between the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social
structure,” he once said), reminiscent of the mischievous, self-conscious
smuttiness of Frenzy-era Hitchcock. The cumulative effect is most
rewarding, as Imamura balances conflicting elements of comedy and drama with
supreme confidence. As usual, Kino Video’s letterboxed transfer is
spectacular, with a crisp print, easy-to-read subtitles and appealing packaging.
Lord
Love a Duck
(USA, 1966, January 4) “American
Beauty,” says the protagonist of Lord Love a Duck, describing an
inkblot during a psychiatric examination. A huge coincidence, to be sure, but
the scabrously funny hijinks of this visionary, low-budget teenage comedy are
certainly in the same satiric ballpark of the odds-on favorite for 1999’s Best
Picture Oscar. Misunderstood non-conformists everywhere will embrace Alan
“Mollymauk” Musgrave (Roddy McDowall), the cocky boy genius of this
one-of-a-kind directing debut from George Axelrod, who wrote The Seven Year
Itch (both play and film) and adapted The Manchurian Candidate for
director John Frankenheimer. Told in flashback from the psych ward to which
he’s been banished, the film is the bizarre and freewheeling saga of this odd
free spirit, who refers to himself in the third person with a nickname taken
from “a bird thought to be extinct” and has a seismic, guru-like effect on
the life of recent, insecure transfer student Barbara Ann Greene (Tuesday Weld)
at the hideous, spanking new Consolidated High School in southern California by
making it possible for Barbara Ann to realize whatever she wants -- from
cashmere sweaters to Hollywood stardom. The supporing cast includes Harvey
Korman as fussy principal Weldon Emmett, Lola (“Peter Gunn”) Albright as
Barbara Ann’s cocktail waitress Mom and the one and only Ruth Gordon as Mrs.
Barnard, who moves from yogurt to booze under Mollymauk’s tutelage.
Relentlessly leering in that 1960s Hollywood way (check out the scene where Weld
models the sweaters for guffawing dad Max Showalter) and so primitively filmed
that the sets look about to fall over and the booms and lights can be seen
swinging crazily above many of the performers, this is nevertheless a remarkably
original and undisciplined movie. Talk
about meeting cute: in a port somewhere near Marseilles, loudmouthed single mom
Jeanette is prevented from lifting a few gallons of paint from a decrepit cement
factory by guard Marius, who later brings her the cans as a peace offering.
Their working-class romance blossoms from there, aided and abetted by their
supportive neighbors in this genial slice-of-life comedy/drama from
writer-director Robert Guiediguian (who dedicates the film to workers
everywhere). He’s obviously inspired by Marcel Pagnol’s trilogy about the
simple people of Marseilles, Marius (1931), Fanny (1932) and César
(1934). In fact, with another twenty or thirty years this movie’s Marius
could almost be the title character of the middle film, who ached to go to sea
but ended up working at his father’s bar. Ariane Asciride is terrific as the
opinionated yet sensible Jeanette, with Gerard Meylan’s weary nobility also
reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Leaud. Subjects ripe for discussion during the many
comical bull sessions that punctuate the film include he socioeconomic perils of
drinking imported beer, the differences among major religions and the danger of
throwing stones at National Front posters. There’s even a good old-fashioned
bar fight, complete with the patrons chucking raw squid at each other. In the
end, however, Marius and Jeannette is about being brave enough to love,
embracing what’s good in life, enduring what’s bad and having strong
opinions about everything. New Yorker’s tape is letterboxed with easy-to-read
English subtitles. The
Night of the Hunter
(USA, 1955, January 18) A
review of the 1995 restoration of this classic chiller referred to the film as a
“horror fable,” and that’s as good a two-word description as any for this
one-of-a-kind movie, remembered for Robert Mitchum as the demented preacher with
L-O-V-E” and H-A-T-E tattooed on his knuckles but cherished for its
expressionistic visual and verbal mix of sentiment and sadism. As he moseys
through Depression-era West Virginia leaving dead widows in his wake,
“Reverend” Harry Powell discovers the promise of a missing $10,000, zeroing
in on the two small children who hold the secret. He completely fools their weak
mother (Shelley Winters), but finds a more formidable opponent in saintly but
steely Lillian Gish, whose presence underscores the movie’s debt to D.W.
Griffith. The sole directing credit of actor Charles Laughton, the film’s
much-disputed script is credited to critic James Agee; a failure in its day, the
picture remains startlingly fresh and unusually frank for its era on the
subjects of sex and sexual hysteria, repression and childrearing (or lack thereof). The much-anticipated DVD
debut of The Night of the Hunter is a bare-bones affair, with only a
theatrical trailer and a perfunctory booklet (four pages, not the eight usually
advertised) in addition to the film itself. Thankfully, the picture quality is
fine, highlighting Stanley Cortez’ remarkable photography (he also shot Orson
Welles’ Magnificent Ambersons). Although the print bears that “this
film has been reformatted to fit your screen” card at the beginning, it looks
to be fairly close to the 1:33 format in which it was shot. Peter
Pan
(USA, 1924, November 30, 1999) This
whimsical silent film, restored using the original nitrate material and tintings,
charmed a new generation of children of all ages recently on the regional film
festival circuit in the USA, with many of the dates featuring live music by
Philip C. Carli and the Flower City Orchestra. Now, the good folks at Kino Video
have preserved this remarkable silent film presentation on video and a
feature-laden DVD, part of their “Premiere Silents” series, which also
includes Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927) and The Vanishing American
(1925). The story is, of course, J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play about a boy who
refuses to grow up. But while Disney’s 1953 animated musical version, that
1955 “Producer’s Showcase” kinescope with Mary Martin (also new in stores)
and Steven Spielberg’s confused 1991 extravaganza Hook are the
better-known versions, director Herbert Brenon’s simple, charming approach to
the material gives it instant appeal. Betty Bronson is fine in the title role,
matched by the robust Ernest Torrence as Captain Hook. Ironically, it was only
through the neglect of this long-forgotten film that the print is in such
remarkably good shape. Unlike such acknowledged silent masterpieces as Nosferatu
and the like, since Peter Pan was never shown the print remained in pristine
condition. As a result, this is one of the cleanest silent films likely to be
unearthed, and this enhances not only the fresh, beguiling nature of the
production but the spectacular cinematography of James Wong Howe, who went on to
photograph such Hollywood classics as The Thin Man and Hangmen Also
Die! (another new title from Kino). The DVD features a revealing print essay
on the film and its fate by historian Frederick C. Szebin, a gallery of
production still and promotional material, and a half-hour interview with Esther
Ralston, who plays Mrs. Darling. Pink
Floyd: The Wall
(United Kingdom, 1982, December 2, 1999) More
than the “kinetic sleeve art” sniffed at by British critics, this literal
yet lively pre-MTV film version of the Pink Floyd concept album has held up
quite well, particularly in the stunning transfer and sleek menu design utilized
for the DVD debut (the widescreen VHS tape is due January 25). Boomtown Rat and
Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof plays Pink, a beleaguered British rock star
crumbling under the pressures of an American tour. Alan Parker’s direction
moves the story (on which he collaborated with band founder Roger Waters) deftly
from the present into the past and into a possible future, scoring obvious (war
is bad!) but still powerful points about how the traumas of the child affect the
man. While at least one of the extras (punningly called “a saucerful of
features”) is the usual studio-generated “making of” puffery, there’s a
new documentary called “Looking Back at the Wall” that includes new and for
the most part revealing interviews with a graying Roger Waters (who calls rock
and roll “my industry”), Parker, graphic designer Gerald Scarfe,
cinematographer Peter Bizou and others. The goodies also include a rough edit of
the “Hey You” number, which had been largely truncated prior to the film’s
release and the feature itself sports a remastered surround sound/Dolby Digital
soundtrack. The downside: there are no printed chapter titles, which makes it
difficult to navigate through such a non-linear movie, and the booklet is just a
folded collage of Scarfe’s images with precious little useful information. The
Silent Revolution: What Do Those Old Films Mean?
(United Kingdom, 1985, January 25) While
the names Cecil Hepworth, William Haggar, August Blom, Jacques Feyder, Dziga
Vertov and Edgar Ulmer may mean little to the average filmgoer, the
contributions of these and other early pioneers of moviemaking have had a
lasting effect on the formation and identities of national cinemas. This is the
legitimate, fascinating argument of Noel Burch in his six-part 1985 British
documentary series, newly released on a three-tape box set by the
always-dependable Facets Multimedia. Illustrating his theories with little-seen
clips from literally dozens of movies from archives around the world, Burch
examines the social, political and cinematic development of early motion picture
production in the United Kingdom, America, Denmark, France, the USSR and
Germany. He’s particularly big on class differences, positing the tensions
between the haves with the cameras and the have-nots in the street as a
principle cause of both subject and treatment. The measured, almost laconic
style of the program is hypnotic, and will leave viewers thinking of these often
primitive works in new and rewarding ways. Annick Nozati’s original music,
both dreamy and discordant, adds immeasurably to the ethereal tone. The
Simpsons Go Hollywood
(USA, 1992-1995, January 11) The
first of three collections to be released this year as part of the 10th
anniversary of this relentlessly funny television institution (the May issue of
“Political Party” and the Halloween release of the terrific “Trick or
Treehouse” are promised among other events, promotions and “great stuff that
doesn’t suck” detailed on the thesimpsons.com website), the three tapes in
this box set include four episodes previously unavailable on VHS. Those are the
classic two-part cliffhanger “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” and two Krusty the Klown
klass… uh, classics, “Bart Gets Famous” and “Krusty Gets Kancelled”
(the one with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Luke Perry and Elizabeth Taylor). The
first tape features the Conan O’Brien-scripted disaster film spoof “Marge
vs. the Monorail” and “A Streetcar Named Marge” (the only episode in this
set on creator Matt Groening’s recent list of ten favorites in
“Entertainment Weekly” and an excellent companion piece to Pedro
Almodovar’s new movie All About My Mother). Also included at the
beginning of each tape is a special edit of all of Bart’s phone pranks on the
eternally gullible Moe. Other than being densely packed with movie references
and irreverent jibes at just about every social institution held dear in these
United States, each of these episodes features the distinctive voice of Phil
Hartman, whose presence on the show is sorely missed.
Short of having the entire decade’s worth of shows in chronological
order on DVD (are you listening, Matt?), this series is the next best thing. Twin
Falls Idaho
(USA, 1999, January 18) One
of the most satisfying elements of a well-made film is pace, the internal rhythm
of a movie that is part story, part performance, part director’s eye and a
great deal of luck. While not for all tastes, Twin Falls Idaho is
a remarkable example of a movie creating a world very much like our own that is
completely different from what the majority of us are used to. Summoned to a
fleabag urban hotel, reluctant hooker Penny (Michele Hicks) meets conjoined
twins Francis and Blake Falls. A friendship of sorts develops, and they grow
even closer after an adventure at a Halloween party. The Falls brothers are
played convincingly by twins Michael (Blake) and Mark (Francis) Polish, who
aren’t conjoined in real life. The well-handled supporting cast includes TV
vets William Katt and Garrett Morris, as well as Lesley Ann Warren and Patrick
Bachau. The compassion in brother Michael’s direction, highlighted by a
dreamy, intimate, almost slow-motion approach to blocking and movement, may very
well be informed by his life as a twin, and the result is a movie of uncommon
symbolic depth (yes, there are laughs too) that may or may not be accessible to
whoever’s watching. One of the chief strengths of the film is that it
doesn’t care if it’s getting through or not -- it is what it is, and
that’s that. Visually the film gives distinction to the ordinary (the sets,
particularly the hotel, like summon thoughts of Blue Velvet, without any
of the menace), and the music of newcomer Stuart Matthewman, augmented by
traffic noises and whooshing sounds, is one of the year’s most atmospheric and
complex scores. Don't have a DVD player? Didn't find what you are looking for? Look in the back issues of the store or in the extensive catalog of Amazon.COM by entering your search in the text box below: Contents | Features | Reviews
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