The DVD Report #57

With all the major movies from last year having been released on DVD, it’s time to catch up on the “little” films you may have missed, or lose yourself in the thrall of a beloved classic.

The most ambitious film to be made from a Stephen King work in some years, Frank Darabont’s Stephen King’s The Mist is an exciting sci-fi horror film in which a small Maine town is beset by monsters coming out of the mist after a storm.

The major set piece is a grocery store where surviving town residents are holed up, with the tragic events bringing out the best in some, the worst in others. While the emphasis here is on character development rather than horror, it does not shy away from the latter when it comes, but neither does it dwell on it like most modern horror movies.

Thomas Jane, as the central character, a movie poster artist; Nathan Gamble as his young son; Toby Jones as the grocery store’s chief clerk; Laurie Holden as the new teacher in town; Frances Sternhagen as the wise old teacher; and Jeffrey DeMunn as a local businessman are all fine as the principal good guys. Andre Braugher has fun chewing the scenery as an arrogant lawyer, but William Sadler as a dimwitted big mouth and Marcia Gay Harden as a loony bible-spouting harridan are a bit much.

I’m told the ending of King’s novella was ambiguous whereas Darabont’s ending to the film is conclusive and unforgettable. It’s also wrongheaded in my opinion, but to say more would be to give it away.

Woody Allen’s films are generally hit or miss, but I’m happy to say Cassandra’s Dream, is more the former than the latter.

Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are perfectly cast as brothers with big dreams who agree to commit a murder for profit for their rich uncle, played by the always good Tom Wilkinson. Farrell is morally sickened by the idea but agrees to go along with it anyway in order to get out from under a gambling debt, while McGregor deals with it more pragmatically. Tension mounts. Will they do it? Will they be able to put it behind them or will it gnaw at them until one murder isn’t enough? It ultimately plays more like a Hitchcock suspense film than an Allen exploration of angst. Vilmos Zsigmond’s breathtaking cinematography adds immeasurably to the enjoyment, as does Philip Glass’ score.

One of the lesser efforts in the plethora of Iraq war stories released in the last year, writer-director James C. Strouse’s maudlin Grace Is Gone is a rather strange little film in which John Cusack plays a former soldier whose wife is still serving in the Army. He stays at home in Minnesota with his young daughters, shielding them as much as he can from news of the war. When his wife is killed, instead of telling them the truth, he takes them on a road trip to an amusement park in Florida. Along the way he stops at his mother’s house and has a run-in with his anti-war brother played by Alessandro Nivola, has the 12- and 8-year-olds’ ears pierced, and spends a couple of nights with them at a hotel. On the way home he tells them the truth while Clint Eastwood’s score drowns out the words.

A more engrossing film about a father-daughter relationship, Renny Harlin’s Cleaner debuted at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and played theatrically in Europe before going direct to DVD in the U.S.

Keke Palmer, who played the title role in Akeelah and the Bee, plays as beautifully opposite Samuel L. Jackson as her father in this film as she did Laurence Fishburne as her mentor in the previous one. Jackson, too, has one of his best roles as a retired policeman, now working as a crime scene cleaner embroiled in a high profile murder investigation. Ed Harris as Jackson’s former partner, Eva Mendes as the wife of a missing informant and Luis Guzman as the detective on the case are all excellent, but it’s the performances of Jackson and Palmer and the relationship between the two that make the film worth your time.

Hardly worth anybody’s time isPaul Schrader’s The Walker, a convoluted murder mystery set in Washington, D.C., but filmed in England. Woody Harrelson has the title role, that of an escort or “walker” of wealthy women, some of whom are played by Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily Tomlin, Lauren Bacall and a blink-and-you-miss-her Mary Beth Hurt. Willem Dafoe is Scott Thomas’ husband, a powerful U.S. Senator, and Ned Beatty is Tomlin’s husband, an even more powerful D.C. power broker. The murderer is a professional killer, but who hired him remains a mystery even after the film ends. Trust me, you won’t care.

Much better is Anton Corbijn’s Control, based on Deborah Curtis’ memoir, Touching From a Distance, about the life and death of her husband, Joy Divison lead singer Ian Curtis.

Newcomer Sam Riley is perfectly cast as the gifted singer who suffered from epilepsy as well as deep emotional problems. Samantha Morton once again proves why she is one of today’s best actresses as Deborah. The film gives equal weight to Curtis’ music as well as his short life.

On the reissue front, Criterion has produced a spectacular looking disc of the 1940 masterpiece, The Thief of Bagdad, co-directed by Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell and Tim Whelan. One of the most exciting fantasy films ever made, this Arabian Nights tale has it all, from eye-popping colors to how-did-they-do-that images of men on flying carpets and boys turned into dogs. Wonderfully cast with Conrad Veidt, Sabu, June Duprez, John Justin and Rex Ingram, the Special Edition has two commentaries: one by directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, and one by film and music historian Bruce Eder. A second disc offers a wealth of special features as well.

With big screen versions of Broadway musicals a rarity these days, TV’s PBS occasionally fills the gap with a live theatre or concert version of a Broadway musical that will likely never see the light of day as a Hollywood film. Such is the case with Stephen Sondheim’s Company, last year’s pared down revival which has now been released on DVD.

Not to be confused with 1971’s Original Cast Album: Company, also available on DVD, this version is the complete show whereas the former was a documentary about the highly charged recording sessions for the original Broadway version of nearly forty years ago.

The minimalist staging of the show, in which each performer must also play a musical instrument, as well as the occasional laughter from the audience, never lets us forget that we are watching a staging, rather than a filmed work in which we can lose ourselves. As a result, it is a less-than-compelling performance. Although all the performers are good, none, including star Raul Esparza, set off sparks the way Elaine Stritch did with her thrilling performance of “The Ladies Who Lunch” during the recording session.

One of the most requested miniseries has finally arrived on a commercial three-disc DVD collection after years of being available in a less-than-stellar bootleg collection. Paramount’s Holocaust won 8 Emmy Awards for the 1978-1979 TV Season out of 15 nominations including Best Limited Series, Actor (Michael Moriarty), Actress (Meryl Streep), Supporting Actress (Blanche Baker) and Director (Martin J. Chomsky). The performances of Fritz Weaver, Rosemary Harris, David Warner, Sam Wanamaker and Tovah Feldshuh were also nominated. Moriarty and Harris won Golden Globes and Chomsky the DGA.

The groundbreaking mini-series, which also stars James Woods and Joseph Bottoms, follows the tragedy and triumph of the fictional Jewish Weiss and German Dorf families from the 1930s to 1945. Filmed on location in Germany and Austria, the performance of the entire cast is at or near each of their considerable career highs.

-Peter J. Patrick (June 3, 2008)