MCN DVD Reviews: April 21, 2009

The Wrap Up ...

	..The MCN Reviews Vault
	..The MCN Critics Roundup

The Wrestler: Blu-ray

Much has been made about the so-called “resurrection” of Mickey Rourke, based solely on his triumphant performance in Darren Aronofsky’s smashing drama, The Wrestler. It’s not true that Rourke, who’s turned down more sweet roles than most mainstream stars have been offered, ever completely disappeared from the scene.

He made his mark in such high-profile pictures as Body Heat, Diner, Rumble Fish, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Nine and ½ Weeks and Angel Heart, before delivering a career-defining performance as writer Charles Bukowski in Barfly.

To the consternation of his advisers, the Miami-raised iconoclast then tested the limits of Hollywood’s patience by attempting to maintain an acting career, while also indulging such passions as boxing, motorcycles and hanging out with supermodels … who wouldn’t, though? Even though Rourke no longer was scoring above-the-title roles, he continued to find regular work as drug dealers, meth cooks, bounty hunters, bookies, bikers and other undesirable elements.

In Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker, he played an unforgettably sleazy lawyer, and, in Sin City, a hyper-violent avenger. If, indeed, his screen persona was resurrected by Aronofsky, it was as an actor capable of selling tickets based on his presence, alone, a notion that would negate Marisa Tomei’s sexy turn as a stripper. It remains an open question as to how many leading-man roles will be offered to Rourke, based on his stellar portrayal of over-the-hill gladiator Randy "The Ram" Robinson in The Wrestler.

Randy, a heavily scarred grappler, has reached the point in his career at which every new body slam could be his last. In an attempt to cope with that very real possibility, he looks for work outside the ring and the possibility of long-term companionship with the compassionate, if hard-bitten stripper and his bitterly estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). It’s to the director’s great credit that he manages to balance so precisely the melodramatic elements with what Randy’s excruciating, often comic experiences in the ring and locker rooms, at publicity appearances and behind the deli counter at a supermarket. It’s difficult to imagine anyone delivering better performances than those turned in by Rourke, Tomei and Wood.

In addition to the digital copy for portable media platforms, the Blu-ray edition adds featurettes on the filming of pro-wrestling events, the tricks of a real wrestler’s trade and music video of Bruce Springsteen’s The Wrestler, a song unfairly ignored by the Motion Picture Academy’s nominating committee.- Gary Dretzka

Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painleve
Glass: A Portrait in Twelve Parts

Charles Darwin was a naturalist and explorer, whose theory of evolution literally changed the way human beings looked at themselves and all other species of life. Born 20 years after Darwin’s death in 1882, the French documentarian Jean Painlevé examined modern evolutionary theory not only through the prism of a filmmaker, but also as a mathematician, physician, zoologist, critic, anarchist, surrealist, inventor and animator.

In more than 200 films created, often simultaneously, for scientific study, popular consumption and as art, Painleve examined nature at extremely close range. He was one of the first filmmakers to take his camera underwater, where he captured the otherworldly movement and sometimes baffling habits of such creatures as sea horses, octopi, skeleton shrimp, fanworms, crabs and mollusks.

Among the 23 films in Science Is Fiction is Vampire, in which Painleve studied the behavior of vampire bats, comparing it to that of Count Graf Orlov’s in Nosferatu. In his more fanciful interpretations, Painleve suggested how poets, Modernist composers and choreographers might have viewed his “recordings of reality,” even if he sometimes employed such techniques as slow and accelerated motion and high magnification. The fascinating new Criterion Collection edition adds an original 90-minute score by Yo La Tengo to eight of the films; two hours of interviews with the filmmaker; upgraded English subtitles; an essay by film scholar Scott MacDonald.

Judging only from the music heard in Scott Hicks’ Glass: A Portrait in Twelve Parts, it would have been interesting to learn how Philip Glass might have scored one of Painleve’s pieces. The hypnotically repetitive and genuinely poetic movement of the sea creatures lent themselves well to Glass’ music. Hicks’ intentionally worshipful biodoc is anything but minimalist in scope or length, but it capably describes how the prolific composer of operas, symphonies, chamber pieces and movie scores approached his work and personal life in the 18 months before his 70th birthday in 2007.

During that period, Glass was preparing for the premiere of his opera, Waiting for the Barbarians, based on a Nobel Prize-winning book by J.M. Coetzee, and his Symphony No. 8. He also reserved time for scoring Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream and composing music based on non-Western sounds and non-traditional instruments.

His willingness to open his professional and family life to Hicks (Shine, No Reservations) allowed the filmmaker to paint an intimate, if occasionally exhausting portrait of someone he obviously admired greatly. Besides Allen, testimony is provided by such collaborators as Martin Scorsese, Errol Morris, Chuck Close, Laurie Anderson, Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi), former wife JoAnne Akalaitis and various spiritual guides (he considers himself to be of the “Jewish-Taoist-Hindu-Toltec-Buddhist” persuasion).

More dramatically, perhaps, Hicks also was able to study Glass’ relationship with his wife, Holly, and their young children, during many happy moments and the sad revelation of her decision to separate from him. While Hicks doesn’t dwell on it, Holly clearly was a victim of Glass’ obsessive approach to his music and spirituality … something, no doubt, shared by other geniuses. The DVD package adds bonus performances of Dracula, Metamorphosis, Orion and Einstein on the Beach; additional interview footage with Glass; deleted and extended scenes; Hicks’ commentary; and a booklet with production notes. - Gary Dretzka

Notorious

Having experienced George Tillman Jr.’s extremely well crafted biopic of Biggie Smalls only on DVD, I was surprised to discover the divergence of opinion on it by the critics represented on Metacritic.

Notorious chronicles the rise of the martyred hip-hop sensation, also known as Notorious B.I.G. and Christopher Wallace, from his days as a schoolboy geek, through his formative years as a street-level drug dealer, and into the highest realm of pop-cultural superstardom. If Tillman elected not to delve too deeply into the conspiracies that resulted in the deaths of Biggie and his friend-turned-rival Tupac Shakur, the director ably demonstrates how this mountain of a man’s rise from obscurity and his braggadocio resonated with countless fans. Neither does he whitewash Smalls’ sometimes cruel treatment of the women he married or who bore his children.

Jamal "Gravy" Woolard not only is a dead-ringer for Smalls – as is Biggie’s son, Christopher, who plays his dad as a boy -- but, in his debut film, he also reveals a natural acting talent. Woolard’s familiarity with the hip-hop scene comes through most effectively in the concert scenes, which, to my mind, were the equal of those in 8 Mile. If Notorious doesn’t scratch too far below the surface of the east coast/west coast feud that was milked for all it was worth by the media and record promoters, it’s probably because one of the key instigators, Sean "Puffy" Combs (played by Derek Luke), executive produced the film.

Also listed as a producer is Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace (Angela Bassett), who, we learn in the making-of featurettes, spent almost every day of the production schedule on set. – Gary Dretzka

How About You

At a time when American studios have given up all pretense of trying to reach audiences over the age of 50, the British continue to churn out reliably entertaining dramedies set in nursing homes and other places where grandparents can be found … when not babysitting their kids’ kids, anyway.

In the newly released Is AnybodyThere?, Michael Caine plays a retired magician who adopts the lonely, death-obsessed son of the owners of the retirement home in which he’s living. Caine’s presence may be the only really good reason to buy a ticket to see Is Anybody There?, but the same could be said about several other of the movies in which he’s starred in his long career.

In the similarly set How About You, the good excuses for a DVD rental are named Vanessa Redgrave, Joss Ackland, Brenda Fricker and Imelda Staunton, although 27-year-old Hayley Atwell (The Duchess) holds her own against the veteran cast, as well. She plays Ellie, a headstrong young woman who’s put in charge of an Irish boarding home over the Christmas holiday. Left behind are four cantankerous geezers who easily find her last nerve and stomp on it.

Unwilling to put up with their guff much longer, Ellie demands they take responsibility for their own happiness and well-being, or they’ll be put out to pasture in a less savory facility. Like most British film and TV exports, How About You is exceptionally well made and impeccably acted. If it’s also too sentimental by half … well, tough bananas. - Gary Dretzka

The Poker Club
Laid to Rest
Hellraiser: Blu-ray

Poker has grown in popularity to a point where it’s become an all-too-convenient device for writers and filmmakers looking for a way to introduce longtime buddies, intimations of “bromance,” and unwieldy plot twists. The Poker Club, based on a novel by Ed Gorman, finds a way to work all three elements into a story that also is set partially in a strip club.

Here, Monday night is poker night in the basement of the home owned by Aaron Tyler (Johnathon Schaech), a lawyer newly separated from his wife. On the particular Monday night we meet Aaron and his three buddies, a burglar breaks into the house and pays for the blunder with his life. Instead of calling the cops and explaining the circumstances, the lads listen to their most paranoid member friend and agree to dispose of the body, without first checking to see if any clues could lead back to the scene of the crime.

Roger Ebert refers to these sorts of misguided decisions as “idiot plot” devices, and they tend to occur more often in movies that go straight to cable or DVD than those accorded a theatrical run, however brief. It is at this point in the narrative, as well, that any of the characters is seen with a playing card in his hands. Instead, the story turns on finding the person who’s begun making threatening phone calls to Tyler, who could have benefitted from paying the phone company extra for caller-ID or star-69. The twist at the end will surprise only those viewers who’ve never read or watched a good mystery.

In Laid to Rest, a young woman awakes from an unconscious state in a coffin, into which she can’t remember being placed. To her relief, the coffin has yet to be buried, so there’s a chance she’ll escape a cruel fate. Instead, “The Girl” (Bobby Sue Luther) soon comes to realize that she’s being held prisoner by a fiend known simply as Chrome Skull. After she also manages to escape from his funeral-home jail, Girl finds refuge in the home of a pair of good Samaritans. Being technologically savvy, Chrome Skull has no trouble locating her new hideout and including the couple in his deadly game. And so on and so forth. The DVD also offers several making-of featurettes.

If there’s such a place as a Horror Hall of Fame, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is, Clive Barker’s enduring super-villain Pinhead certainly would be among the inductees. Indeed, after nearly a dozen appearances in the “Hellraiser” series, the exploits of the lead Cenobite, a.k.a. Captain Elliott Spencer, probably could fill an entire wing. Pinhead’s first appearance, in the 1987 Hellraiser, can now be savored in Blu-ray, along with Barker’s commentary and a long list of making-of and background featurettes. - Gary Dretzka

Dog Days of Summer
The Last Word
Into the Blue 2: The Reef
Kicking the Dog
Moscow Chill

In this Dove family-approved drama, veteran character actor Will Patton plays an artist who’s been commissioned to create a miniaturized version of a Mayberry-like town to mark its sesquicentennial. By all outward appearances, Eli Cottonwood is a grifter taking the town fathers for a ride. Instead of studying the town’s physical makeup, Cottonwood enlists two local boys to take photographs and gather intelligence on its citizenry. Their eyes reveal a very different community than the one expected to be rendered by the artist. As the story opens, one of those boys returns home as an adult, days before the town is scheduled to be flooded for the benefit of developers. Dove’s endorsement shouldn’t dissuade anyone – even those lacking family values – from enjoying this unpretentious study of small-town life and hypocrisy.

A year after debuting at Sundance, Geoffrey Haley’s quirky romantic comedy The Last Word is arriving in the straight-to-DVD marketplace. This, despite the presence of Wes Bentley, Winona Ryder and Ray Romano. Bentley plays a young man who, we’re led to believe, makes his living writing suicide notes for those too pathetic to compose their own last thoughts. In an odd twist, the writer meets and falls for the sister of one of his newly deceased clients, while both were attending the same funeral. Naturally, this puts him in the awkward position of having to choose between truth and romance. Romano, as the writer’s newest client, adds much comic relief to proceedings.

Also arriving in video stores, without the benefit of a theatrical run – or Jessica Alba and Paul Walker, for that matter -- is Into the Blue 2: The Reef. Here, the owners of a struggling dive shop in Hawaii (Chris Carmack, Laura Vandervoort) think they’ve hit paydirt after being hired to find a sunken treasure. The loot was stolen from some Middle Eastern potentate, however, and an easy gig quickly becomes difficult.

In Randy “Scoot” Lammey’s Kicking the Dog, a group of recent college graduates – men and women, both -- spend part of their last summer together exchanging whoppers about their sexual prowess and discussing various perversions. They also ingest a lot of booze. As raunchy comedies go, this one could stand to grow up a bit. Compared to these bozos, the kids in American Pie are Masters and Johnson.

In Moscow Chill, the American action star and onetime Prada model Norman Reedus plays Ray, a computer hacker so addicted to his profession that he allows himself to be broken out of jail, with only a few days left in his sentence, to pull another heist. His liberators work for a Russian mobster desirous of a safe way to divert wire transfers into his secret accounts. The plan sounds simple enough, but, after falling for a Russian dame, it begins to unravel. Out of his element, Ray struggles to escape the jaws of a different sort of prison. Director Chris Solimine co-wrote the screenplay with the estimable Russian filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky. - Gary Dretzka

Forever

A cemetery might seem an unlikely magnet for tourists, but, Paris’ Père-Lachaise isn’t like any other cemetery in the world. For more than 200 years, it has provided a final resting place for such prominent artists and writers as Oscar Wilde, Frederic Chopin, Marcel Proust, Maria Callas, Moliere, Guillaume Apollinaire, Honore de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Amedeo Modigliani, Camille Pissarro and most notoriously, perhaps, Jim Morrison.

Countless well-known statesmen, martyrs, soldiers, rebels, ex-pats and scoundrels also are entombed there, but Heddy Honigmann’s moving documentary, Forever, focuses directly on how the lives of artists continue to be celebrated by the people who visit the cemetery and tend their graves. Unlike cemeteries in some parts of America, headstones aren’t required to be flush to the earth, for the sole convenience of maintenance workers on riding mowers. The crypts and tombs come in all shapes and sizes … some simple, others ornate. The remains of non-celebrated Parisians often can be found alongside those of celebrities and heroes.

Forever is no mere travelogue, though. Honigmann was able to match visitors from all corners of the world to the artists whose tombs they were visiting. She elicited testimonials from them that were philosophical, sentimental, tragic and often quite amusing. Over their words, she imposed examples of the artists’ work or scanned the detritus left behind by admirers. The Dutch filmmaker also was able to coax musical testimonials from a Japanese pianist, who idolized Chopin, and a Persian immigrant/cabbie who sang at the grave of the banned Iranian writer, Sadegh Hedayat. The DVD also includes an extended interview with the filmmaker. - Gary Dretzka

Last Picture Show & Nickelodeon: 2-pack
Arctic Tale: Blu-ray

In the early 1970s, there was no more prominent director of films than Peter Bogdanovich. The Last Picture Show was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two, and it would go on to become a modern classic. What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon also were terrific entertainments.

After leaving his wife and collaborator, Polly Platt, for his star ingénue, Cybill Shepherd, though, Bogdanovich lost his magic touch. Among the low points was the box-office and critical dud Nickelodeon, a film that recalled the early days of the silent era and starred Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Brian Keith, John Ritter and Stella Stevens. It has been revived in a “2-pack” from Sony in both its original color incarnation and a longer black-and-white director’s cut.

Bogdanovich loved slapstick comedy, but wasn’t always able to pull it off convincingly. Even so, Nickelodeon is infinitely more interesting, at least, than 90 percent of the comedies churned out of Hollywood in the last 25 years. Bogdanovich would later find success in the composition of smaller independent projects and as an actor. Saint Jack, in particular, is a long-buried gem.

New to Blu-ray is Arctic Tale, a family-oriented real-life adventure that attempted to piggy-back on the success of March of the Penguins. Queen Latifah narrated the parallel stories of Nanu, a polar-bear cub, and Seela, a walrus pup.

The National Geographic documentary was earlier released on HD-DVD and it’s taken a while for the beautifully shot Arctic Tale to find its way to Blu-ray, a format that is perfect for outdoor tales. Among the perils faced by Nanu and Seela is global warming, which threatens to melt their home turf from under them.

- Gary Dretzka

TV-to-DVD

In another quick turn-around for Comedy Channel titles, blue-collar comic Ron White’s latest special, Behavioral Problems, has been made available in a slightly longer version than the one that was shown this past weekend on cable.

Just in time for the release of the new Wolverine opus, Buena Vista and Marvel have sent out X-Men, Volumes 1&2, comprised of episodes from the 1990s animated series. The mutant adventures were adapted from the original comic-book series.

No entertainer is hotter than Tina Fey right now and, in Elmo & the Bookaneers, she leads a pack of bookish pirates to Elmo’s library. Also included is an episode from the claymation series, Bert and Ernie s Adventures.

Meanwhile, Life of Ryan: The Complete Series encapsulates the adventures of skateboarder Ryan Sheckler, as he pursues glory and a girlfriend. The fifth season of Hawaii Five-0 and 11th stanza of Dallas also are new to video stores. - Gary Dretzka