MCN DVD Reviews: June 9, 2009

The Wrap Up ...

	..MCN Review
	..MCN Weekend

Gran Torino: BluRay
Norman Lear TV Collection

Just as the 1972 muscle car at the spiritual heart of Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino is something of a living fossil, so, too, is the movie’s protagonist, a grumpy Korean War veteran named Walt Kowalski. The character harkens back to Archie Bunker, the bigot with a heart of gold in Norman Lear’s landmark sitcom, All in the Family, in that he’s wary of change and blames the country’s ills on people who don’t look exactly like him. The supreme test for Archie’s bigotry came when a black family moved into his all-white neighborhood and he no longer could justify his prejudices. Indeed, the Jeffersons were a mirror image of the Bunkers. Kowalski’s greatest fear is realized when a Hmung family moves next door to his modest home in a working-class neighborhood near the Ford plant in Detroit. Not only can’t Kowalski abide their speaking in a language other than his, but he also takes an instant dislike to their disruptive children and imported religious customs. Worse, seemingly overnight, the Lors’ house becomes a magnet for Asian-American gang-bangers, who goad the son into breaking into Kowalski’s garage and attempting to steal the Gran Torino. Thao’s penalty for getting caught is to perform chores for his neighbor over an extended period of time. In addition to imparting on the boy knowledge of tools and an appreciation for what they can do, Kowalski also introduces him to a United Nations of neighborhood characters who are every bit his equal in dishing out racial slurs. For his part, the old fart learns that it’s almost possible to hate your neighbors when their native cuisine is so damn appetizing. Simple, huh? Once that ice is broken, Kowalski is required to suck it up, again, by repairing the fissures between himself and his recently deceased wife’s liberal priest, who serves as a conduit between the old-timers and the newcomers. The constant barrage of racial epithets gets tiresome after about 20 minutes, as do screenwriter Nick Schenk’s other blue-collar clichés. Eastwood’s far too good a filmmaker, however, to allow the ugly words and prehistoric attitudes of his characters to spoil his relationship with viewers, who expect from him quietly heroic resolutions to difficult problems. The Blu-ray edition adds the featurettes The Eastwood Way, Manning the Wheel and Gran Torino: More Than a Car, as well as BD-Live functionality and a digital copy of the film.

As abhorrent as Kowalski’s behavior is in Gran Torino, its ability to shock older audiences, at least, was dulled by their having already experienced similar boorishness in such sitcoms as the aforementioned All in the Family, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Maude, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, One Day at a Time and Sanford & Son. Although,, today, he’s viewed primarily as a professional liberal, Norman Lear literally changed the face of television in 1970s, and his legacy can be seen in every new season’s prime-time schedule. Even though the world was exploding around them, the vast majority of all network executives were steadfast in their determination that none of the debate surrounding great social and political issues would be allowed to impede their ability to sell soap for their sponsors. CBS programming chief Fred Silverman was substantially more daring than other executives, however, and he gave Lear more than enough rope to hang both of them. Instead, after a cautious launch, All in the Family became a huge hit, spinning off two successful series and freeing producers to take similar chances on such unproven leads as Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, Redd Foxx, Bea Arthur, Sherman Helmsly and Isabel Sanford, Freddie Prinze and Jack Albertson, and Esther Rolle and John Amos. The shows gave CBS’ censors many headaches, not the least of which were interracial kisses, frank discussions about abortion, jokes at the expense of noted politicians and cultural icons, and audible toilet flushes. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was a nightly serial in which a Midwestern housewife (Louise Lasser) was required to endure more plagues than the people of Egypt. Meanwhile, other local loonies performed on a local TV talk show hosted by Martin Mull. It was a series so far ahead of its time that it might as well have been beamed from outer space. The new collection arrives with the first seasons of Lear’s classic hit shows and six hours of new bonus features. It’s a terrific set, but I wish they’d also made room for his similarly risky Hot L Baltimore. - Gary Dretzka

..MCN Review

The International

Even if the critics weren’t kind to Tom Tykwer’s stylish financial thriller, The International, and it hardly made a dent in the box-office, it’s well worth the price of a rental to see the rotunda of New York’s Guggenheim Museum turned into a shooting gallery. In plotting the signature showdown between Clive Owen’s Interpol cop and goons in the service of crooked bankers, the hyper-kinetic director of Run Lola Run must have salivated over the opportunity to choreograph such mayhem in a world-famous building. The winding corridor provided endless possibilities for the gunmen, who could target victims on floors above and below them, and use works of art as shields. It’s as exciting as anything in recent Bond movies, and that’s saying a lot. As such, the making-of featurettes in the bonus package are must-viewing. They explain how a true-to-life replica of the museum was built inside an unused repair facility for locomotives, freeing the filmmakers to approximate just how much damage could be inflicted on the Guggenheim if a similar encounter ever actually occurred within its sacred galleries. The story that leads up to the gun battle, sadly, isn’t nearly as convincing. Indeed, it often borders on the indecipherable. Owen and Naomi Watts play an attractive pair of sleuths, who are thwarted at every turn in their investigation of an international banking concern. The closer they get to the truth, it seems, the less their bosses want them to succeed. In that way, the plot of The International recalls the scandal that brought down the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, an institution that reported to no one and lent to whomever it chose, including gangsters, governments and terrorists. (It also was reminiscent of the earlier Vatican Bank scandal, which was dramatized in Godfather III.) It’s all very mysterious, of course, and absurdly violent. Working in the movie’s favor, though, is the ease with which Tykwer conveys his characters – and, by extension, his audience – from one fascinating location to another. One minute you’re inside the Guggenheim, then, the next, outside the similarly magnificent VW Autostadt, in Wolfsburg, Germany. From there, viewers might find themselves in Berlin, Milan or Istanbul, where the action moves quickly from deep within the bowels of a mosque to the rooftops of a densely populated neighborhood nearby. The movie also stars Armin Mueller-Stahl and Ulrich Thomsen. - Gary Dretzka

Home: Blu-ray
Milking the Rhino

As cautionary documentaries go, Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Home makes An Inconvenient Truth look like a child’s fairy tale. Narrated by Glenn Close, the film literally traces Earth’s evolutionary path from its volcanic birth to what could be its blubbery end. Creationists won’t find much to like in Home, which pretty much leaves God out of the equation, but those who buy into other theories won’t be disappointed. The beauty of the aerial photography, which is a trademark of Arthus-Bertrand’s work, is nothing less than stunning in hi-def. The visual reimagining of the planet’s birth and maturation as a habitat for men and beasts involved shooting over volcanoes, spectacular canyons and gorges, great prairies and deserts, mountain ranges and oceans. The closer Home gets to the present day, however, the more portentous becomes Close’s narrative. The camera’s focus, then, is directed at poisoned waterways, over-populated feed lots, polluted horizons, melted glaciers, scarred and scorched earth, and urban sprawl. And, that’s only for starters. The warnings only get more ominous … and, yes, tiresome. By the time, the camera reveals some environmental success stories, many traumatized viewers will have tuned out of the sermon. Home debuted day-and-date on the National Geographic channel, YouTube and on DVD/Blu-ray, upon which the hi-def photography looks spectacular.

Released with far less hype and corporate backing, Milking the Rhino describes how some Africans are attempting to cope with an environment thrown out of balance by equally devastating forces of man and nature. Drought, the eradication of forests and the effects of over-grazing all have had a negative impact on the people and animals who have shared the habitat for many centuries. The encroachment on tribal lands by outsiders also has thrown things out of whack for the native population. In a rare demonstration of empathy for villagers who don’t always see exotic wildlife in the same positive light as tourists, the filmmakers allow for a rational discussion of the cons of enforced environmentalism. (Their arguments jibe with those of ranchers in the American west who see wolves and coyotes as pests.) Villagers who’ve seen their crops trampled by elephants, and their cattle poached by lions, are tired of having to get the permission of tourism officials before taking care of their problem the old-fashioned way. Others, though, have come to understand the value of tourism to the region’s economy, especially in this period of extended drought. It’s rare to hear such a free exchange of ideas among people we see mostly in postcard poses. The title, Milking the Rhino, refers to the ability of villagers to profit from the presence of exotic species on their lands, while also maintaining a traditional lifestyle. David E. Simpson, of Kartemquin Films, takes viewers to the Meru region of Kenya and to Namibia, where real answers are being found for questions that ultimately affect us all. The Africans are making the decisions themselves – based on objective statistics and realistic economic scenarios – and, for once, not having quick-fixes forced upon them by well-meaning outsiders. This easy-on-the-eyes documentary makes its point without the use of scare tactics or the posturing of bird-brain celebrities, and, for that, it deserves our attention. - Gary Dretzka

Earthquake in Chile

Hollywood may be the last place one would go to find honest depictions of religious life and accuracy in its re-creations of monumental historical events, but it’s come a long way from the days when the Hollywood Production Code dictated that priests look like Pat O’Brien, Bing Crosby and Spencer Tracy. In those days, no ministers of religion could be used as buffoons or as villains and religious ceremonies had to be carefully and respectfully handled. It partially explains why so many Americans remained dubious, for so long, of reports of abuse by Catholic priests. Bing Crosby, a pederast? Hell, no. Europeans with direct knowledge of the horrors of the Inquisition and the Church’s acceptance of fascism were less easily shocked. Made in Spain, prior to the death of Francisco Franco and collapse of his dictatorship, Earthquake in Chile offers yet another example of the Church’s intolerance of the native religions and traditions, especially in Spanish colonies in the New World. That it got made there at all, even through German backers, was noteworthy. Set in colonial Chile, a highly educated and darkly handsome Indian, Jeronimo, is hired to tutor a rich heiress, Josefa. After their love for each other is revealed, priests demand that Josefa be sent to a convent to repent for her indiscretion and be hidden from her lover. After the nuns discover she’s pregnant, the Church demands she be beheaded. Just as the ax is about to fall, a tremendous earthquake devastates the city, clearing the jails and allowing Josefa to escape. After being reunited with Jeronimo, the couple joins other survivors – including members of the royal family – in a makeshift community. Reality intrudes with the arrival of the priest who sentenced Josefa to death. It’s an interesting movie, if a tad on the familiar side. The primary discordant note is sounded by the German voices – it was a co-production for European television -- in such an obviously Spanish milieu. - Gary Dretzka

Strike

Among the many things the world doesn’t need right now is another comedy set in the world of professional bowling. Still, as sports movies go, Strike isn’t a total gutter ball … I will admit to laughing occasionally. But, it’s much closer to a 7-10 Split (its former title) than a comedy that can roll in the same league with Kingpin. The story revolves around a pair of garden-variety slackers, who decide to pool their resources and embark on a career on the pro tour as Ross Vegas and Lil’ Reno. Vegas is a ridiculously good bowler, despite the fact he’s required to dress in an outfit from a 1970s disco parody. Also along for the ride is Tara Reid, in a pink wig. Turns out, she’s the sister of the director, Tommy Reid, and a producer of the movie. - Gary Dretzka

In Love We Trust

In Wang Xiaoshuai’s heart-wrenching relationship drama, a divorced Beijing couple faces the challenge of reuniting on a mission to save their daughter, while also putting their current marriages to the ultimate test. The girl, Hehe, has a potentially fatal blood disease, most likely leukemia, and, left untreated, she’ll die in three years. Chemotherapy treatments prove ineffective, leaving a bone-marrow transplant as the next-best option. Sadly, neither of the parents is a perfect match and Hehe is an only child. In any other country, a search might have turned a relative who was a compatible donor. In China, however, couples in high-density urban areas are limited by law to a single child, leaving an even smaller pool of possible candidates. Both of Hehe’s parents have re-married, and hope to have families of their own. There would be little chance that Hehe’s step-siblings would be a good match, either. The only option left, then, is the one that’s most untenable: marrow could be harvested from a natural sibling, produced by her birth parents. And, this is where things get really complicated. If the birth parents were able to bear another child, however, Chinese law would prohibit both of them from having another one with their current spouses. In a society where children, especially boys, are expected to extend long lineages and care for their elders, it would be the rare spouse that agreed to such an arrangement without reservation. While Hehe’s stepfather is portrayed as a living saint, her stepmother would face humiliation and recriminations if she didn’t produce an heir. Even so, both allow their spouses to participate in repeated artificial-insemination procedures. It would be at this point that most other couples would raise the white flag and pray for a miracle, even in an officially atheistic society. The mother is relentless in her determination to save her daughter, though, and won’t stop until all possibilities are exhausted, including sexual intercourse. As logical as that option might seem in the abstract, it not only could result in the destruction of both marriages, but it also could destroy their spouses’ reputations. In the capable hands of Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle, Shanghai Dreams), the risks faced by all of his characters – including Hehe – are never in doubt. These are flesh-and-blood human beings, attempting to avert the kind of a tragedy that could happen anywhere. Moreover, In Love We Trust depicts a slice of Beijing life generally deemed unremarkable by filmmakers and tourist brochures. - Gary Dretzka

Were the World Mine
Fired Up: Unrated Version

Shakespeare’s fanciful romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, has served filmmakers well over the years. Were the World Mine extends the conceit by setting the story in a town full of archetypal homophobes and having the protagonist enrolled in an all-male high school, where all the cool guys are athletes. When the drama teacher announced that the school’s next production would be A Midsummer Night’s Dream, naturally the macho-men student actors resisted playing the female parts … no matter how it was done in Shakesperian times. Timothy (Tanner Cohen) isn’t thrilled about being cast as the fairy, but he’s the actor with the best singing voice and the teacher has no choice. Tired of the controversy raised by the play’s homoerotic aspects, Timothy concocts a love potion from a recipe in the text. Initially, he sprays it in the face of one of the jocks for whom he’s pining, then members of the rugby team. Eventually, he finds it necessary to dose the entire town and all of its gay-bashers (including his mom). In one magical night, Timothy not only raises the consciousness of his friends and neighbors, but his potion also allows them to experience love without boundaries. Somehow, director/co-writer Tom Gustafson has created a movie that manages to deliver a potent message, without also being polemical, and is highly entertaining. Even the original music is decent. Were the World Mine has gone out unrated, but, if it weren’t for the positive portrayal of gay characters, I’d peg it at PG-13.

The only similarities between Were the World Mine and Fired Up are their high school settings and confusion of traditional male and female roles. In the snarky Fired Up, a pair of wiseass jocks joins the school’s cheerleading squad so they can have their pick of litter at cheerleader camp. In addition to being star football players, they also possess the gymnastic skills necessary to perform high-risk stunts and cheers. There are moral and ethical lessons to be learned here, somewhere, but who cares? What’s important is the quantity and quality of the up-skirt shots and close-ups of teenage bosoms. Fired Up may have been released theatrically PG-13, but the producers had every intention of sending out an unrated version in DVD. One of the bonus options even adds bright yellow stars to scenes and snippets excised in the original. While I wouldn’t pretend to know how teenagers might react to such an innovation, it’s a blessing for critics who may have seen the earlier rated version and would gag if they had to watch the whole thing again. It stars Nicholas D'Agosto (Heroes), Eric Christian Olsen (Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd), Sarah Roemer (Disturbia), AnnaLynne McCord (90210) and Molly Sims (Las Vegas), as the MILF. Her husband and fellow coach is played by John Michael Higgins (A Mighty Wind, Best in Show), who stands out because he actually knows out to act. - Gary Dretzka

Nobel Son

Randall Miller’s dark comedy is one of those concept-driven movies that requires a scorecard to keep track of characters and the positions they’re intended to play. Alan Rickman portrays a thoroughly unlikable chemist, whose ego goes into overdrive when he wins a Nobel Prize. He’s cheating on his wife -- a forensic psychiatrist (Mary Steenburgen) -- and has little regard for their son (Bryan Greenberg), a graduate student fixated on cannibalism. Incredibly, the young man is kidnapped, while mom and dad are in Sweden collecting his prize, by a clever thug (Shawn Hatosy) who claims to be the scientist’s illegitimate child. A severed thumb, supposedly removed from the victim’s hand, grabs everyone’s attention, causing an early return from Sweden and a full-court press by police. Also involved in the young man’s kidnapping and/or recovery are such recognizable actors as Danny DeVito, Bill Pullman, Ted Danson, Eliza Dushku, Ernie Hanson and Lindy Booth. A couple of dozen other names also appear in the credits … too many for a caper of this fragility. One of the kidnapper’s motivations is to insinuate himself into the life of his estranged father, possibly even getting the chemist to find more to admire in him than the son he raised. By this point, both young men had come to an agreement on the best way to relieve their father of $2 million. Patient viewers will be rewarded by an ingenious set piece, in which matching Mini-Coopers are used to sneak the ransom money past a shopping mall full of shoppers and several undercover cops. Too bad it wasn’t in a better film. Miller already had worked with Rickman, Pullman, Dushko and Hal B. Klein on the much better wine-country dramedy, Bottle Shock. After spending most of his career directing television shows, Miller probably needed to get something as convoluted as Nobel Son out of his system. - Gary Dretzka

Nenette + Boni

French director Claire Denis has made several interesting character-driven films involving adolescents and broken homes, some more accessible than others. In Nenette + Boni (1996), she introduces us to a brother and sister, who were separated from each other after their parents’ nasty divorce and are reunited by an emergency in the girl’s life. Boni, who is an accomplished pizza chef, lives in the Marseille apartment left to him by their mother. His stable existence is disrupted by the arrival of Nanette, his younger sister, who has split from her boarding school several months pregnant by a father who doesn’t exist. After Boni reluctantly agrees to let her crash with him, they’re paid a visit by their hoodlum father, who may or may not have something to do with his daughter’s condition. It’s that kind of movie. Boni decides to help Nanette by arranging for the delivery of the baby – it’s too late for a legal abortion – and setting up an adoption. Meanwhile, his fascination with a flirtatious local baker (an overripe Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) causes him to wonder him if he could care for anything larger than a pet rabbit. The principal actors, Alice Houri and Gregoire Colin, also starred in Denis’ 1994 telepic, U.S. Go Home, and have since gone on to become familiar faces in the French cinema. - Gary Dretzka

Train Master
Gothkill: Satanic Special Edition
Brother’s War
Silent Venom

In 1985, Andrei Konchalovsky’s Runaway Train struck a chord with the simplest of all premises: a pair of escaped convicts and a beautiful blond railway worker are trapped on a train with no brakes and nobody at the wheel. Instead of Jon Voight, Eric Roberts and Rebecca De Mornay, imagine that the characters in jeopardy are played by a group of very young actors, and their motivation for hijacking a locomotive is to force the new boss of the Willamette Western Railroad to re-hire the beloved 62-year-old train master he let go as a cost-saving measure. Gramps is a total railroad buff, who has imparted his passion for trains on the kids. He also taught a couple of them enough about operating a locomotive to be dangerous. Knowing this, the owner’s cocky 9-year-old son steals a toy from the old man’s grandchild, demanding he give him and a couple more friends a ride. The grandson is unaware that the engine was about to have its brakes replaced, so, when the thing gets going, its inertia carries them on an unplanned joy ride. At first, it’s kind of fun. Soon, however, it becomes clear that disaster awaits them around every curve. If you’re guessing that Gramps is the only person who knows how to save the boss’ son and the other kids … you, of course, are correct. Phil Bransom, in his feature debut, somehow manages to avoid all the clichés that normally trip up creators of such family fare. Although, the material is safe enough for kids between, say, 6 and 10, Train Master delivers some real thrills and suspense. Plus, it’s great to see any American film in which trains play a prominent role.

Other newly arrived direct-to-DVD titles include, JJ Connelly’s extremely goofy and entirely tongue-in-cheek Gothkill: Satanic Special Edition, in which a disgraced monk from days of the Inquisition is reincarnated, first, in the body of a serial killer, and, next, in the form of a weekend Goth Girl. In this guise, he’s able to increase his personal body count and ensure a comfy resting place in Hell. Reasonably well mad, Gothkill is just silly enough to find a niche in the marketplace of cheesy cult films. It also helps that the frequency of shots involving gore and T&A is high. The extras include a featurette on the crazy things that happen whenever Goth Kill is screened in New York bars and BDSM parties.

Brother’s War is set on the eastern front near the end of World War II, as the Red Army is cutting a wide swath in its rush to Berlin. The only time its soldiers stop, apparently, is to slaughter prisoners and rape innocent women. Jerry Butyn’s drama focuses on the efforts of a Nazi officer, a British spy and a Polish nurse to reach the American forces, before the Soviets take the opportunity to kill them and prevent news of an atrocity to reach the Allies. Free Masonry also becomes a factor in the outcome of Brother’s War, which might explain why its release into video coincided with Angels & Demons.

Hot on the heels of the release into Blu-ray of Anaconda and its latest sequel comes Silent Venom, in which the discovery of a new breed of mutant snake on a remote Pacific island nearly results in war between Taiwan and China. When tensions rise and the island is ordered evacuated, one of the researchers smuggles a box full of the snakes onto the submarine delivering them to Taiwan. An attack by a Chinese warship causes the snakes to escape from their hidey-hole. I’m guessing that the title, Snakes on a Sub, already was copyrighted by New Line. - Gary Dretzka

Iron Maiden: Flight 666

Only a very few rock bands have proven to be as formidable as the British heavy-metal ensemble, Iron Maiden. The lads have been head-banging for nearly 35 years and recent reports of their retirement appear to have been exaggerated. Flight 666 chronicles the first leg of the band’s exhaustive Somewhere Back in Time World Tour, which covered 50,000 miles, and involved 23 concerts on 5 continents in just 45 days. This was accomplished with the assistance of a customized Boeing 757, Ed Force One, which carried the musicians, crew members and 12 tons of stage equipment. The pilot was vocalist Bruce Dickinson, a fully qualified and active captain with Astraeus Airlines. A second disc adds footage of 16 songs performed in 16 cities around the world. - Gary Dretzka