I’ve been waiting a long time to see Universal Home Video’s restored Spartacus Bluray, which streets on Tuesday, 10.6. I asked earlier today if I could snag a review copy but they said they had none, so I bought a copy on Amazon. DVD Beaver‘s Gary Tooze was sent a review copy, at least, and he’s posted quite the review: “The green is in the title, the dye restored and colors are a dramatic improvement in replicating the original appearance,” he writes. “Skin tones [have] a more natural state and there is also more information in the frame on all four sides! Detail has tightened [and] there is a sense of depth…magnificent!” Plus the disc contains a nine-minute “Restoring Spartacus” essay.
Framne captures from Gary Tooze’s DVd Beaver review. The above image is from the “shiny” 50th anniversary Bluray issued in 2010; the bottom image is from the restored version.
I need to see the reportedly not-so-hot Freeheld for sake of MichaelShannon‘s performance, which I hear is the stand-out element. If Shannon’s performance turns out to be as good as Christian Science Monitor critic Peter Rainer and others say it is, this plus his performance as 99 Homes might warrant serious talk about a Best Supporting Actor nomination. If Shannon has nailed it (as he often does) I want to report that. You think I’m looking forward to this?
In my humble view the best James Bond films are the first two — Terence Young‘s Dr. No (’62) and From Russia With Love (’63). These are the only ones featuring a lean and rugged Connery without an obvious toupee and before he began to pack on a couple of pounds, and facing semi-believable combatants in a half-credible, real-world milieu. After these two a sense of technological swagger and more than a touch of tongue-in-cheek humor started to penetrate the franchise with Guy Hamilton‘s Goldfinger (’64) — the last Bond film you could accept as an occasionally semi-realistic fantasy. These are the only three I re-watch on Bluray, although I don’t like Goldfinger as much as the first two.
I have a certain affection for Lewis Gilbert‘s The Spy Who Loved Me (’77) — the beginning of a brief ’70s period when the 007 series descended into light comedy. There was an effort to use a bit less gadgetry in John Glen‘s For Your Eyes Only (’81 — the only Bond film I ever paid a visit to at Pinewood) and I didn’t mind Glen’s The Living Daylights (’87). And I was amused by the return of Connery is Irvin Kershner‘s Never Say Never Again (’83). And I admit to feeling a surge of excitement when I first saw Martin Campbell‘s Casino Royale (’06)
All the other 007s except are somewhere between glossy flotsam and aggressive popcorn. Yes, including the other Daniel Craig films. (Be honest and ask yourself why you’ve never re-watched Skyfall or Quantum of Solace.) Yes, including Goldeneye, which some have a thing for.
53 years ago Joseph Wiseman, in the person of Dr. No, looked Sean Connery in the eye and explained that he was “a member of SPECTRE…special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion.” Every Bond fan in the world memorized that acronym, and before long it was as famous as CIA, KGB, MI5 and MI6…infamous, I mean. And yet in the new Spectre trailer Daniel Craig‘s 007 asks Lea Seydoux, “This organization…do you know what it’s called?” At the very least the Spectre screenwriters (John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth) should have had Craig say, “Spectre? That relic from a half-century ago?” And then Seydoux could set him straight. But for Bond to say in this day and age that he’s never even heard the name is ridiculous. The next thing he’ll say is that he’s never heard of Ernst Stavro Blofeld or the white cat or Rosa Klebb.
Six and a half months after the South by Southwest 2015 debut and several weeks after that ridiculous stonewalling episode sparked by Gravitas Ventures’ spokesperson AJ Feuerman, I finally saw Colin Hanks‘ All Things Must Pass (Gravitas, 10.16) late yesterday afternoon. And I have to say it’s much better than I expected. I was hoping for something reasonably well done or “good enough” or attaboyish, but this rise and fall of Tower Records history is extra-level — tight, comprehensive, exacting, epic-scaled. Hanks has clearly invested rivers of feeling and loads of hard work.
This thing is emotional. Especially that. If you lived through and savored the Tower Records heyday (mid ’60s to early aughts but more essentially the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s) it’ll open the floodgates big-time. The doc is full of characters and personalities and the usual eccentricities and foibles. It’s not just a recitation of occurrences or statistics. It’s about the heartbreak of time, about the cost of loss and how it all falls away sooner or later. It’s about “what happened to the fun?”
Because ATMP is not only a chronicle of a mythical record-store mecca but a farewell valentine to the now-concluded era of the record (or video) store as a family meeting place — an organic, tactile clubhouse where you went to hang and converse and debate as well as occasionally buy stuff. Streaming has made everything bountiful in terms of access but the face-to-face community aspect is toast. Social media is a chillier, lonelier way of communicating. Which is why I still go to Amoeba once or twice a week. Half the time I’ll decide to rent a streaming version of a Bluray I’ll see in the racks or pay less money by buying online, but I go for the visitation vibes, the personalities, the energy, the people-gazing.
Because (and I realize this is probably the most common observation of 21st Century life out there right now) there’s obviously an isolating element to social media absorption. I “talk” to more people these days than I ever did before Twitter and texting, and in much more intimate and particular terms in a sense, but the conversational quality isn’t the same.
