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Cloverfield [BLU-RAY] (Paramount Home Entertainment, 6.3.2008) Disguised under deliberately goofy, yet deliciously edible-sounding, aliases such as Cheese and Slusho, Matt Reeves' Cloverfield was produced and rushed into theaters under an equally appetizing shroud of secrecy. From last year's incredibly elusive Super Bowl ad to the film's viral marketing campaign, Cloverfield had everybody scratching their heads and drooling in anticipation. Aside from the as-yet untitled title and the Blair Witch-ian visual style, the film's biggest appeal was the enigmatic creature who was last (un)seen hurling the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty onto the crowded streets of New York City. All we knew about the mysterious beast was that it was big and angry. Now that the highy-anticipated project has come and gone, one question has fortunately been answered: Cloverfield was a major success. (continued)

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"Bugsy" DVD, chats

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Having finally watched the Extended Unrated Bugsy DVD last week, I can report with great satisfaction that N.Y. Times DVD columnist Dave Kehr was totally right when he said that this longer version of the 1991 film "plays much more smoothly and inexorably than it did in the edited [theatrical] version," which ran about 15 minutes shorter.

(l. to r.) Toback, Levinson and Beatty taping discussion about the making of Bugsy, which is included on the DVD.

We all know that extended versions of films are not necessarily better or fuller things to sit through. This one is, however. In so doing the all-new Bugsy ranks alongside Cameron Crowe's longer "Untitled" version of Almost Famous and James Cameron's longer cut of Aliens.

I was going to run a tape of an interview I did with Bugsy screenwriter James Toback just before Christmas at the Harvard Club, but I screwed up by acciden- tally deleting it off the recorder as well as my hard drive -- brilliant. I was only able to salvage this pathetically short snippet in which Jim discusses the Hollywood syndrome of "parasites feeding off parasites."

To make up for the loss, I recorded the opening ten or twelve minutes of a chat between Toback, Bugsy director Barry Levinson and star-producer Warren Beatty that's included in the DVD doc called "The Road to Damascus: The Reinvention of Bugsy Siegel."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on December 30, 2006 at 10:41 AM

comment #1

ZacharyTF says ...

Ridley Scott's cut of Kingdom of Heaven is a far superior cut than the lobotomized version that was released in theaters.

Posted by ZacharyTF at December 30, 2006 12:08 PM

comment #2

Zac Bertschy says ...

I would take that a step further and say that while the theatrical cut of Kingdom of Heaven is a ponderous, poorly-edited fiasco, the director's cut is a true masterpiece, deserves many Oscars and is probably Ridley Scott's best film.

Posted by Zac Bertschy at December 30, 2006 4:42 PM

comment #3

Mike Schaefer says ...

To which I'd add the 3:45 version of Once Upon a Time in America, far far superior to the 2:30 mess that was released the same year.

Bugsy was a wonderfully entertaining film, and it has a killer performance by Annette Bening, who incredibly wasn't even nominated that year. Looking forward to the longer version.

Posted by Mike Schaefer at December 30, 2006 6:42 PM

comment #4

cjKennedy says ...

The original cut of Aliens was spare, economical and intense. Many of the scenes restored in the director's cut dampened the inertia and overall impact of the film....I'm thinking especially of the flashback scenes with Newt's family.

Posted by cjKennedy at December 30, 2006 6:42 PM

comment #5

Geoff says ...

The only cool thing i remember from the restored Aliens cut is the sequence with the programmed machine guns positioned outside their barricaded room. In the original cut we have to use our imaginations and picture what happened to Newt's family and everything else.

Posted by Geoff at December 31, 2006 4:21 AM