There's a ton of stuff I watched as far back as Thanksgiving (and as early as this evening) that I haven't written about. So here's PART ONE:
Rewatched CASABLANCA (1942) on HD-DVD with the Roger Ebert commentary track. Funny how, even though I know Michael Curtiz directed "Casablanca," I can't bring myself to put his name before the movie's title. To me the movie doesn't belong to any one actor or crew member (not even Bogart, whose Rick Blaine needs interaction with the other characters to bring out the best in him and viceversa) but it's that organic photoplay that lives and pulsates to its own synergy of audience friendly near-perfection. With all due apologies to Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's "House," "Casablanca" is the only motion picture with any right to start by calling itself 'A MOVIE' because that's what it is: not Michael Curtiz' vision, not the Bogey-Bergman show, not the Claude Rains show or the Dooley 'Sam' Wilson musical hour... it's just "Casablanca." It's also nice to have Uncle Roger's voice forever immortalized while talking about a movie he truly loves even as his critiques of it (those darned transit papers) are valid without taking away from its worth.
Rewatched Alfred Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) on DVD with the commentary track on. Robert Walker was DA MAN. Shame his career was cut short because he could have gone on to become an even greater character actor (probably in a few other Hitchcock movies) although I doubt he would have ever topped his Bruno Antony role. I'm not a fan of scholarly commentary tracks that piece together audio clips from interviews (no spontaneity) but the one here is decent enough.
Rewatched Charles Laughton's NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955) on Criterion Blu-ray. It just gets better and better with repeat viewings. In its own twisted way this should become a Christmas (Halloween?) classic just like "It's A Wonderful Life" and be shown regularly on network TV. Will never happen but hey, a cinephile can dream.
Rewatched Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960) on Blu-ray a couple more times (including the Stephen Rebello commentary track) plus all the extras/bonuses on the BD (same as the DVD CE). So, this past week I've watched "Psycho" more times than I did during my previous 37 years of age. Maybe it's because "Dexter" just ended its latest season and I'm pinning for a substitute, but I just cannot get enough of Norman and his crazy mother, the Crane sisters (and that hunk of meat named John Gavin they both take turns dragging around), Herrman's score, Balsam's Arbegast, Hitch's impish sense of humor, etc. The sequels are next (saw them once 18-20 or so years ago and only remember them being better than I expected) but I just don't have it in me to give Van Sant's 1998 shot-for-shot remake the courtesy of a tryout. What does the peanut gallery say?
Rewatched Ronald Neame's THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and John Guillermin's THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) on DVD with their respective commentary tracks on. These two Irwin Allen productions are inseparable to me as the only really good disaster movie's from the 70's in which everything (premise, execution, star power, WOW factor, etc.) lived up to their own standards/hype. Everything else from this genre (including the disaster movies Allen directed himself) were just different variations on craptastic, guilty-pleasure trash. "Poseidon" and "Inferno" benefit from having experienced directors like Neame ("Tunes of Glory") and Guillermin ("Rapture") working with good actors while letting Irwin do what he did best: big action sequences on even bigger sets. These aren't the finest acting moments from the likes of McQueen, Hackman, Newman, etc. but it doesn't come across on-screen that these stars are slumming for a paycheck. It's almost reassuring to hear in both movies pre-"Star Wars" John Williams composed scores free of Mickey Mousing notes. And even though "Towering Inferno" is already on Blu-ray (with "Poseidon Adventure" sure to follow any day now) it'll be a long time before anyone pries these well-packed DVD catalogue titles (with their great cover artwork, lobby cards, booklets and stuff) from my cold dead hands. They're a reminder that not too long ago (2005) movie studios still put thought, effort and care into their home video catalogue releases.
In his "Poseidon" commentary Ronald Neame wishes he had dialed back the OOP acting from Hackman and Borgnine when their characters fight/argue; I disagree because, for the first time (and after numerous viewings), Rogo really grew on me and I was actually laughing with (instead of at) Borgnine arguing with Stella Stevens. Watched it earlier this evening (Dec. 31st) and "Poseidon Adventure" makes a great New Year's Eve flick despite the toy boat and Leslie Nielsen endlessly tempting one to laugh out loud. For the "Towering Inferno" commentary F.X. Feeney (who was really good in Criterion's "Night of the Hunter" group commentary) runs out of things to say and resorts too often to play-by-play of what's happening on-screen. Even after all these years and countless viewings though, "Towering Inferno" is one of those movies I get lost into and forget little details (did the two woman that ran on the roof toward the helicopter caused it to crash, or was it the wind all along? Why does Senator Vaughn try so hard to save Richard Chamberlain from killing himself?) that always startle me when they unfold in the narrative. Having just seen them on "Network" it was also weird to watch Faye Dunaway and William Holden with their clothes on.
MST3K KTMA-21: LEGEND OF THE DINOSAUR (1989/1977) on DVD for the first time. My trip through the formative years of "MST3K" concludes with yet another badly-dubbed Sandy Frank Japanese import, the show's last KTMA show before going national. Besides being at the top of their game and loose with the riffs (though a few jokes like 'Yellow Broadcasting System' are racist!) Joel and the bots benefit from (a) no little children in the cast (hooray!), (b) a trippy soundtrack (Billy Taylor meets Disco Inferno!), (c) very little actual dialogue from the characters and (d) the bonkers premise of an Earthquake releasing ancient Japanese monsters (not dinosaurs!) trapped below a lake into the surface. And yes, that's the same premise of this summer's bomb "Piranha 3D." Ironically, when it started on Season 1 of the national "MST3K," the show's humor/riffs took a step back from the latter KTMA-era experiments, primarily because they were riffing pretty bad old B&W American poverty row movies. Joel, Trace and J. Elvis Weinstein (whose take on Servo I've learned to appreciate and even like alongside Kevin Murphy's iconic voice) would only be sporadically as funny on the Comedy Channel's early days as they were on KTMA's final shows.
HEART OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER'S APOCALYPSE (1991) on Blu-ray. Except for the absence of even a still image of Harvey Keitel as Willard (for legal reasons I presume) this is as good and informative as a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of a movie can ever get given the time, money and egos involved in the making of "Apocalypse Now." The years separating the on-location old documentary footage from the shooting of the new documentary's talking head interviews help tremendously give both distance and perspective. You will never see Brando the same way again after watching his bug swallowing outtake, or see/hear a still-young F.F. Coppola in various mental stages (tyrant, diva, delusional, self-pity, etc.) and shirtless as he struggles to battle the elements (man-made as well as mother nature) to get his vision filmed. A commentary track by F.F. Coppola and his footage-shooting wife (both recorded separately) achieves a degree of meta-reflection seldom experienced in contemporary media; old Coppola commenting on what middle-aged Coppola circa 1990 was thinking about what young Coppola circa 1977 was doing in The Philippines (all backed by grainy but sharp 16mm footage) is as surreal as any moment in the actual "Apocalypse Now" movie. Not the best movie of 1991 (an honor Gene Siskel bestowed upon it) but a great BD to have alongside the genuine article.
Rewatched Bryan Singer's THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995) on Blu-ray. Very soft and old MPEG-2 transfer (released back during the war with HD-DVD) hampers this one from truly shining in high-def. The extra boost in detail over DVD (particularly close-ups of Spacey, Byrne and Palminteri) also highlight how compressed and lacking in space this BD-25 disc is, even without extras (except a dozen space-hugging HD trailers for other MGM/Sony movies like "S.W.A.T." <sigh>). Oh well, unless I have the need to hear Singer, Ottman & co. yap (it's what the old DVD is for), "The Usual Suspects" on BD is still the same endlessly rewatchable whodunit I've always loved.
Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX (2001) on Blu-ray. Before I saw the theatrical version of "Apocalypse Now" with my parents (remember?) I watched "Redux" to refresh my memory. Because of Kilgore's obsession with surfing and the stolen surfing board Lance (Sam Bottoms) is more prominently featured in "Redux," which makes his descent into madness more harrowing and visible (he's more of a background player in the theatrical cut). The French Plantation scene is endless and borderline pointless (plus the French actors are weak); it's one more softening of Martin Sheen's Willard (more playful and 'one of us' with the boat's crew) which just doesn't play as well as Willard's stoic, quiet and inner-conflicted persona Sheen projects in the theatrical version. Watching "Redux" (both the good and bad stuff within its bloated running time) makes one admire the maturity and vision that a younger Francis Coppola showed back in '79 when trimming out the fat from "Apocalypse Now" before its theatrical release. I'm happy to own "Redux," but I'm even more happy that it's an optional version of "AN" within the same BD and not the only one.
BULLETPROOF MONK (2003) on MGM-HD for the first time. Like "The Matrix" with all the soul, myth and charm drained from it, this comic book adaptation is a barrage of now-dated SFX-fueled action stunts that don't pass the laugh test or excite. Chow Yun-Fat tries hard and we still love him (seriously, who doesn't like Tequila?
) but his charm alone cannot sustain an action movie in which director Paul Hunter (a music video guy who hasn't helmed a feature since "BM" bombed at the box office) is more concerned with CG-enhanced camera tricks and PG-13 fight choreography to pay attention to the fact nothing on-screen is working character/storywise. Seann William Scot just effin' grates as Kar (our hero?) and Jaime King looks like she wondered off the "Elektra" set, but at least the heavy (played by Marcus Jean Pirae) is hiss-worthy. This is one those high-def movies where the clarity of the image actually works against the flick by exposing the obvious fakery of the CG character models. This also happened to the "Matrix" sequels, but at least those movies had memorable characters (Neo), good actors (Fishburne) and a vision (the Wachowskis') guiding one past the action scenes. "Bulletproof Monk" doesn't, hence its supreme suckage. Rewatched FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (2004) on Blu-ray with the commentary track on. I'm glad these guys (director John Moore & crew) had a blast making this remake of the old Jimmy Stewart classic; their enthusiasm for the project (and jealousy of Dennis Quaid's ripped physique
) comes through in this commentary. But that still doesn't make the movie any better or more thrilling than your generic, creatively-hampered Hollywood remake. Except as a demo movie for the DTS soundtrack (L-O-U-D) so my sister can play around with her new Blu-ray player "Flight of the Phoenix" has nothing left to offer me. CONVICTION (2006) on DVD for the first time. This 13-episode spinoff from the "Law & Order" TV series (created to use the built sets from then just-canceled "Law & Order: Trial By Jury" spinoff before "Conviction" also got the ax) is the opposite of the mothership show that spawned it. The personal lives of a dozen or so young NYC prosecutors (including a borderline-ridiculous amount of sex scenes meant to appeal to a young audience) are front and center, with the cases at hand either backdrop or something tied to a cast member's personal issue. There's a ridiculously annoying jazzy score in the background during lots of scenes that nearly drove me bonkers. Except for two of its cast members (Milena Govich and Julianne Nicholson) going on to star in the main "L&O" shows "Conviction" is disposable, forgettable TV that only makes a "L&O" whore like myself miss the mothership even more.
Rewatched SPEED RACER (2008) on Blu-ray a couple of times, once on my parents' 52" Samsung LCD with 120hz refresh rate (i.e. the one's that make movies look like soap operas) which was pure visual nirvana. The mixture of artificial backgrounds, insanely-colorful hues, non-stop camera movement and super-imposed actors works as good as any CG animation in bringing out the liquid-smooth best out of high-def TV's that refresh a screen higher than the used-to-be-standard 60hz refresh rate of regular and plasma TV's. To me, surprisingly, the movie keeps getting better and better with repeat viewings (even Paulie Litt and the chimp's antics grew on me, although there's still way too much of these two on-screen) because of how straight and serious this cast of pros play the crazy stuff the Wachowski brothers ask of them. The scenes between Benno Fürmann (a German actor with nothing else on his resume) and Matthew Fox's Racer X are particularly well acted. As just a demo of how pretty two-dimensional HD can look and/or a wild, imaginative adaptation of an anime property into live action run amok (with a Hollywood budget to match) "Speed Racer" will always park into my winner's circle.
More to come...
Kurt is still the man (and Konami owes him "Metal Gear Solid" royalties as far as I'm concerned) but he's more of a poser and pretender than an actual hands-on man of action through most of the movie. And the high-def transfer, sadly, doesn't do much to bring detail out of a Dean Cundey-shot anamorphic picture that was darkly lit to begin with. "Escape From New York's" cast of bad-ass men and women (Borgnine, Hayes, Van Cleef, Barbeau, Dean Stanton, Pleasence, etc.) exist in a dystopian, atmospheric vision of Howard Hawk's motifs trapped in an early 80's exploitation cinema universe. It's 100% pure Carpenter, and thus can never be anything less than goddamn awesome.
The 'Agent Prince' jokes in "Agent for H.A.R.M" had me laughing harder than at any time since this season's next-to-last "Dexter" season finale.
