There have always been Elvis Presley tracks that I gravitate toward, like "Suspicious Minds", but I have never been a mega-die-hard fan of his entire discography nor much a fan of his movies. I therefore heartily applaud Warner Bros.' recent decision to offer Elvis on Tour on its own in addition to making it part of the recent "Elvis Collection 3-pack" (which adds Jailhouse Rock and Viva Las Vegas). On Tour is only $7 less than the 3-pack, so if you like Jailhouse or Viva, the bundle is the no-brainer.

The transfer on Elvis on Tour is...Read More

The five titles included in the recent TCM Spotlight Collection Errol Flynn Adventures set were all made between 1942 and 1945. They might as well have called it "Errol Flynn Plays an Do-No-Wrong Hero", since that describes him in every last title.

Even devoted Flynn fans wouldn't name-check them as favorites, mostly due to the fact that, like many WWII-produced films, they haven't been widely available (or at all) on home video over the last couple of decades, and they aren't exactly the titles that would be done for repertory screenings. They're very rah-rah, patriotic propaganda jobs,...Read More

Christopher Walken is much-beloved, but I worry that too much of that is due to two-bit impersonations of him. A semi-recent episode of SNL that he hosted beat that horse to death with a "Walken Family Reunion" sketch. The thing I love about Walken is his effortless skill at the "no-laugh" funny. Those moments in films when he really hits the "that's true of everyone" level of authenticity and doesn't push hard (if at all). The clip below from this week's DVD & Blu-ray release of $5 a Day (in which he co-stars) is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

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I've been MIA for a while, taking care of the various radical changes that have happened since my brother was diagnosed with some sort of evil tumor. I'm way, way behind on disc releases as expected, and I'm attacking a couple right here, right now. First up is the bang-up job that Criterion did with 1995's Crumb, directed by Terry Zwigoff.

The movie itself, for those unfamiliar, is a fascinating portrait of underground comic artist Robert Crumb, his family, and his various obsessions. It's always touchy saying that you love a film whose subject is a major...Read More

The best part of today's announcement of the Blu-ray release of Apocalypse Now (19 October) is that the Theatrical Cut and the "Redux" version are both in 2.35:1, the movie's original aspect ratio. Our long 2.00:1 nightmare, begun by the otherwise-brilliant Vittorio Storaro, is at last over--on this picture, at least.

The press release in my inbox says there will be two versions: (1) the 2-disc Two-Film Set, which contains the 1979 and Redux versions, old extras and some new ones, and (2) the 3-disc Full Disclosure Edition, which duplicates everything in the Two-Film Set and adds George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr's Hearts...Read More

I need some decompression time away from the column. That last piece took a lot out of me. It might be a day or a week, I don't know. The Powell & Pressburger "Double Archers" series is already done and timed to post over the next few days, but everything else I have in the hopper is partially finished or barely begun.

There are screening experiences that stick with you for years, decades, and, sometimes, the rest of your life. There's the first time you see that defining favorite movie that doesn't degrade in enjoyment as you age. There's your first movie out with a date. There's the first time you see something really memorable once you're out in the world on your own, away from home (whatever that means to you). I had a pair of these for the same movie a couple of weeks apart. The movie in question was Toy Story 3.

The act of leaving...Read More

Today's release of Criterion's gorgeous new Blu-rays of Powell & Pressburger's Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes is truly an occasion for celebration. None of the previous forms or formats in which I've seen either movie come anywhere near the presentation found on these discs. A couple of months ago, I decided that the best way to celebrate would be the limited run of articles you're reading right now. The burden of proof when recommending a vintage or catalog film to a friend is "why should I care and how will this change my life?"

I'm not pairing these because they're the new...Read More

Three months ago, I hatched an absurdly ambitious plan that I'm in the thick of on one front (Cinema Ozu), and finally beginning on another. As P&P are the better-known quantity, I elected to invest most of my time and writing into the still-ongoing Ozu series. Starting today and ending on Friday, I'm doing something fun with the fifteen year partnership between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

The Ozu series has dealt with his entire filmography: lost films, surviving films, titles available in the U.S., and a pile of others only available via import. With P&P, I decided to specifically program double...Read More

Al Pacino's accent blows, yes. Most people latch their feelings of its time of release to Christopher Nolan's re-working/remake of Insomnia. I thought it was perfectly serviceable then. It wasn't staggeringly great, but it was a good "studio picture with name actors" under the belt for Nolan. Re-watching it on Blu-ray the other night (and without having seen Inception), I really found myself favoring it a bit more than I'd recalled.

Maybe it's seeing and loving the craft inherent in the rich in-camera captured contrast and color timing. Most people don't fully perceive how much contrast and color work is shuffled to the...Read More

Setsuko (l.) and Uncle Kimoya (r.)

Feature #35:
What Did the Lady Forget? / Shujuko wa nani o wasureta ka
(1937)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD in Asia
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

A decided departure from the dire, hopeless (but still wonderful) The Only Son, Ozu's final pre-war film would plant the seeds from whence the social comedy in his later films would sprout. David Bordwell notes that What Did the Lady Forget? is often completely...Read More

Sakamoto as his signature character, Kihachi, in the character's swan song, An Inn in Tokyo

Takeshi Sakamoto was one of Ozu's most frequent go-to actors in the 1920's and 30's, like Tatsuo Saito, with whom he often appeared. Sakamoto showed up in three of Ozu's (now lost) first seven films. He then pops up in the earliest surviving film, Days of Youth. He's also in the partially-surviving I Graduated, But..., the lost Life of an Office Worker, and then plays the criminal boss in Tokkan Kozo, where a great partnership is born. Tomio...Read More

I really wish that Sony's recent release of Shinjuku Incident had been put on Blu-ray in addition to DVD. For those who complain about "Jackie Chan movies" as being hollow, lifeless bores...guess what? He agrees with you! He says in the lone featurette on the DVD that he does not want to just do action films. He knows he can fight. Everyone knows that. He's eager to show that he's an actor capable of doing the kung fu, and not the other way around. In the movie, Chan's character and his brother emigrate from China to Japan illegally. They get tangled in a...Read More

When this set was announced back in April, I started an absurdly ambitious series to tie into it. Cinema Ozu has turned out to be more personally rewarding and enjoyable than any film studies class I took in college (with the possible exception of Chinese Cinema and Culture). To me, what these long-sought-after releases represent to the aspiring filmmaker or film historian is considerable: a look inside two of the most affecting films in one of the greatest filmographies in all of cinema.

In-depth exploration of the themes and historical...Read More

The direct-to-video Unthinkable from a few weeks ago is actually rather good, with equally solid work from Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Sheen, and Carrie-Anne Moss. Moss and her FBI team (which includes Brandon Routh and Gil Bellows) accidentally raid the home of CIA operative "H" (Jackson), who is a specialist in "advanced interrogation techniques".

Sheen is an American soldier who converted to Islam, went rogue, and has set nuclear bombs to explode in major cities. The raid and the arrest of Sheen's character occur almost simultaneously, and Moss' Agent Brody is brought into the interrogation/information extraction process...Read More

The thing about Book of Eli is that it really requires some sort of receptiveness to the evangelical Christian narrative to work for any given viewer. Whether a Christian or not, it really requires some personal belief of a certain bent regarding sacrifice for a greater good beyond "do unto others...". As a post-apoccalyptic action movie, there are a couple of nice fight sequences and one-liners, but that's about it. I dug the desaturated look. Gary Oldman and Ray Stevenson are fun as teeth-gnashing baddies, and Denzel Washington is sufficiently oak-like as titular hero Eli.

The extras...Read More

I was in college around the same time that Mark Zuckerberg was. A song commonly traded on filesharing networks by...ahem, people our age, was the cover of Radiohead's "Creep" used in the fantastic new trailer for The Social Network. The song is haunting and creepy in its usage here. Breathes new life into a track long left by the side of the road by many. More often traded for its humor value was their cover of The Divinyls' "I Touch Myself".

The group that performs the song is...Read More

As I mentioned in last night's article, The Only Son is the only film thus far that specifies definite dates for different periods in the film. Past Ozu films have seen time pass, marked by "three years later" and so on, but this one is the most defined by its era. Not only does it come after the end of the Enlightened Rule (Meiji) period, but it specifically ties to the events of 1923, 1935, and 1936 (the year the film was released).

[A quick primer on the naming of Japanese...Read More

The Blu-ray of Clash of the Titans (2010) just arrived on my doorstep. A glance at the back cover reveals that it includes an alternate ending where Perseus confronts Zeus on Mount Olympus. It's a far cry from the radically different cut that Devin Faraci refers to in this article, but it's a glimpse, if nothing else. I, for one, wish they'd included more of Danny Huston as Poseidon. [CORRECTION: it seems there are some deleted scenes in there that I missed on first glance.]

Mother Otsune (l., played by Choko Iida) and only son Ryosuke as an adult (r., played by Shinichi Himori)

Feature #34:
The Only Son / Hitori musuko
(1936)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: released today (13 July 2010) by Criterion in the Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu set

I've rewritten this article nearly four times now. I blame the pressure of it representing half of the centerpiece of this series, which was quite literally born as a...Read More

Feature #33:
College is a Nice Place / Daigaku yoitoko
(1936)
Status: believed to be completely lost
Script: fully preserved
Region1 DVD: N/A

Ozu's return to college finds it a more hollow, bitter, and ironic place. Students as always struggle in the face of exams and employment, but gag-filled escapades are all long-gone. Higher education is a hindrance rather than a gateway to success in recession-ridden Japan. Unemployment is the norm, rather than the fate of the lazy. Bordwell's description of this Chishu Ryu-starring film believed completely lost is sobering indeed. It also drives home how tragic a...Read More

Feature #32:
An Inn in Tokyo / Tokyo no yado
(1935)
Status: 80 minutes out of ten reels available on DVD in Asia
Script: fully preserved
Prints: partial negative and prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

Ozu's single surviving feature (out of two) from 1935 is Kihachi's swan song. In it, he has grown quite a bit in selflessness and maturity. This time around, he has two sons. One is played by "Tokkan Kozo" once again, but is not named Tomibo. There's less screwing around and more drifting...Read More

Documentary Short #1:
The Lion Dance / Kagamijishi
(1935)
Status: fully preserved and available on DVD in Asia
Script: N/A
Prints: multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

The Japanese government started to heavily push films that concerned old-school culture in the mid-30's. Sponsorship from the Japan Cultural Association made Ozu's only documentary and first sound film happen. The film did not receive a traditional theatrical premiere, but instead made the rounds to social clubs and schools. I feel it could be an indispensable learning tool for anyone...Read More

Feature #31:
An Innocent Maid / Hakoiri musume
(1935)
Status: believed to be completely lost
Script: fully preserved
Region1 DVD: N/A

Information on this one from Bordwell's book is more limited than usual for a lost film. I would assume that this is mostly due to its utter failure critically and commercially. Kihachi has very little to do with this intended franchise-starter. Takeshi Sakamoto once again plays the can't-catch-a-break rascal whose son Tomibo (Tomio "Tokkan Kozo" Aoki) is, as always, more mature than his father. They live in a back alley making rice cakes, overhearing and prying into...Read More

Feature #30:
A Story of Floating Weeds / Ukigusa monogatari
(1934)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: Criterion #232 (packaged with remake Floating Weeds, aka Ukigusa)

I had a great time discussing both this film and its 25-years-later remake with the guys at CriterionCast a couple of weeks ago. When asked which we would save if we could pick only one, I instinctively said that I'd sacrifice myself so they both could live. As many similarities...Read More

This audio clip (from my CriterionCast appearance this past Friday) sums up my estimation of the transfer on the new "Ultimate Hunter Edition" Blu-ray of Predator. In short, it doesn't look like a movie shot on film in 1987. If you don't feel like listening, I'll reduce and condense my thoughts on it below.

Don't trust the people saying "I don't know what people are grumbling about, this is better than it's ever looked!". These people either A) haven't seen a movie this old projected on 35mm recently enough (whether this one or another), or B)...Read More

Release of the Week - Fresh from Cinemas
A Single Man
Colin Firth and Tom Ford deserve all of the credit they've gotten for this, one of the few 2009 movies with a really long life ahead of them. Blu-ray shows off the designer's eye of auteur-to-be Ford especially well here. I hope to see more from his guiding hand and creative mind. I don't care if he's an egotist. I don't care who he is in private life. I just want the movie to be good. The extras include a Tom Ford commentary and...Read More

I'm not terribly surprised that, since dumping cable service, I've enjoyed British TV broadcast over-the-air by PBS more than almost every show I would watch night in, night out on channel number 17,945. About a week ago, my wife and I caught a show called Doc Martin, which features one of our favorite British comediennes, Katherine Parkinson (from The IT Crowd), in a supporting role.

Parkinson (l.) and Clunes (r.)

The fourth season episode we saw found former London surgeon Martin Ellingham fighting against both the abrasively progressive ideas of a midwife and the backwater custom of eating...Read More

Radford and Wayne as Charters and Caldicott in Night Train to Munich

Release of the Week - Catalog Movie New to Disc
Night Train to Munich (Criterion Collection)
An early Carol Reed movie that is less a full-on classic than Third Man or others, but is no less essential to knowing Reed as a filmmaker. A sterling example of Criterion quality versus quantity of supplemental material.

Non-English Release of the Week
Everlasting Moments (Criterion Collection)
A great discovery.

Release of the Week - New
The White RibbonRead More

This stunning 8k scan of the fullest surviving version of A Star is Born (1954) is really gorgeous, and unlike titles like The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, North by Northwest, and Doctor Zhivago, it isn't generally considered one of the still-shining crown jewels in the WB library. This treatment makes a compelling case to remember it exists and give it a look.

It's a classic from its time, maybe, or possibly among the filmography of Judy Garland. It's no Singin in the Rain in terms of modern appreciation, for sure, but it's good that...Read More