..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..R.J.
Matson
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Michael
Wilmington
..DVD Review ..The Worst of 2004 Beyond the Sea
Directed by Kevin SpaceyKevin Spacey's biographical splish-splash of the singer, Bobby Darin, Beyond the Sea, is so full of loving sincerity that you can't possibly dislike it. Many people dislike Spacey and they don't have nice things to say about the film, but while there are questionable bullet points on Spacey's resume, Beyond the Sea is a heartfelt gem, so earnest, so joyful and so celebratory of Darin's spirit that the movie's flaws or embarrassments are completely irrelevant. Spacey is like a 10-year-old kid who has hit his first standup double. It may be sloppy as all get out, but the important thing is he succeeded, and is grinning from ear to ear because he knows he did. Spacey wrote and directed the film, and stars as Darin, doing his own singing and dancing. The film's outer structure has Darin, perhaps as he is dying, imagining a biographical musical being made of his life. "This was our way of addressing the age issue that seemed to become something that people on the outside of making the movie were making into a rather big deal," Spacey explains in his commentary track on the Lions Gate Home Entertainment release (17231, $28), "It wasn't such a big deal to us, and we thought, perhaps, dealing with it on the face of it, at the beginning of the movie, was a way to allow people to relax and enjoy the film and get over that issue." The strategy works, even though his character seems to mutate rather than to age. Spacey's singing is downright chilling at times. In some numbers, such as "Artificial Flowers," he lands bullseyes on Darin's vocal colors, and even when he's a bit off, such as with Darin's most ubiquitous hit, "Mack the Knife," it's still close enough to not spoil the magic. The 118-minute film follows the uneven arc of Darin's career, which slipped for a while during the Sixties but was in resurgence before he passed away, and it also charts his romance and marriage to the actress, Sandra Dee, played by Kate Bosworth, which also had inevitable ups and downs. What really turns the 2004 movie into a delightful, birds on high, must-have DVD, however, is the musical numbers, especially the title song, which depicts Darin's whirlwind romance with Dee in music and dance. Lions Gate has not chapter encoded the DVD well, so you have to scan a little bit to get to it, but you can easily end up spending an hour or two playing the sequence over and over again. There isn't much that is subtle about the way Spacey has designed it, but this is the musical centerpiece of a musical film, so there doesn't have to be. You know, beyond a doubt, Spacey's heart has led him to golden sands.
The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer looks okay. Because of the film's budget restrictions, there are times where the reliance on digital lighting effects get a little heavy, leading to minor distortions, but for the most part, the picture's many different styles (to match the different phases of Darin's life-again, the title number's colors are glorious) are delivered effectively. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is wonderful, taking full advantage of the fresh recordings Spacey's concept facilitated (they worked off of Darin's own notated arrangements-"The accuracy of what we were doing was note-for-note what Bobby had done in recording studios or in live performances."). There is English captioning, optional Spanish subtitles, and a decent 17-minute production documentary.
Producer Andy Paterson joins Spacey on the commentary track. They talk about shooting the film in Germany and having it pass, effectively, for America, and they talk about Darin, about the film's structure and concept, and what was going on during the shooting of individual scenes-he went through four fake noses one day, trying to shoot near a fireplace fire (they kept melting). Spacey explains that he meticulously cast parts with genuine actors that would normally go to extras. "When you have actors, and you can give them direction, and they're directable, then they actually will take a little tiny part like that and invest it with something." When he did have to use extras, however, things didn't go as smoothly. "Our choreographer walked up to me and said, 'Kevin, we have a bit of a problem.' I said, 'What?' and he said, 'Well, for some reason, the German extras are clapping on one-three instead of two-four.'"
August 25, 2005
DVD Roundup: This Week's DVD Releases
The Review VaultDouglas Pratt's DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter is published monthly.
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