The Ultimate DVD Geek By Douglas PrattPratt@moviecitynews.com
The Informant!
An appealing bait-and-switch tale, pretty much based upon true events, Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant!, has been released by Warner Home Video. Channeling William H. Macy, Matt Damonstars as an executive in a large food conglomerate who confesses to the FBI that he has been involved in a worldwide price fixing scam when he is called in on the…
Read the full article »Paris, Texas
Wim Wenders relaxed and off-center 1984 road movie, Paris, Texas, has been released in a two-platter set by the Criterion Collection. The transfer is outstanding. The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.78:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The image is vividly crisp and colors are precise…
Read the full article »Whiteout
Nothing like a good snowbound suspense thriller for a cozy mid-winter evening’s entertainment, and Warner Home Video has provided just thing with the 2009 production, Whiteout, which has nothing to do with secretaries trying to fix mistakes on requisition orders and everything to do with triple homicides and inclement weather in Antarctica. Kate Beckinsale is a United…
Read the full article »Criterion Collection: Che
Steven Soderbergh’s two-part 2008 sequel to The Motorcycle Diaries has been released by The Criterion Collection as a three-platter set, Che. Soderbergh gave the films a slightly different look, although on a video screen, the change is modest. ChePart One, about Ernesto Guevera’s participation in the Cuban Revolution, is in classic widescreen, letterboxed with an aspect ratio of…
Read the full article »The Ten Best DVDs and Blu-Rays Of 2009
1. The Great Garrick (Warner Home Video DVD) Disregarding the mass market for renters and chain store shoppers, home video for people who genuinely love, live and breathe movies has formed two distinct and mutually exclusive paths. On the one path are ultra-perfect Blu-ray releases of high impact films, both admired classics and current spectacles….
Read the full article »Gone With the Wind
Despite its antebellum subject (it opens with a text scroll that suggests slave ownership was somehow ‘gallant’), Gone with the Wind was the first ‘modern’ film, the first color epic to make extensive use of special effects (albeit matte paintings) and to replicate the sweep and depth of a novel, while instilling it with the excitement…
Read the full article »Downhill Racer
Four decades and umpteen Warren Miller films later, the skiing sequences in Michael Ritchie’s 1969Downhill Racer are still hold-your-breath-and-don’t-blink thrilling. In fact, the whole movie is thrilling. Deftly staged and then masterfully edited, every sequence in the 101-minute feature is exquisitely succinct and yet abundantly rich in conveying the psychologies and emotions of the characters. Robert Redford stars…
Read the full article »Drag Me To Hell
Sam Raimi’s 2009 horror thriller, Drag Me to Hell, feels like a remake of an old Universal horror film that never existed. The movie seems familiar while at the same time being refreshingly original in comparison to the majority of new horror films that invade the market each month. That new bugaboo, the bank loan officer,…
Read the full article »Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Observe and Report
2009 turned out to be the year of the ‘shopping mall security person’ comedy, and it shows you how fast trends turn over these days that there were only three months between the theatrical release dates separating the point where the genre was established, with Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a Sony Pictures Home Entertainment release,…
Read the full article »X-Men Origins: Wolverine
A superficial but watchable comic book action film, X-Men Origins Wolverine, a summer of 2009 blockbuster hopeful that came up a hair or two short because of that superficiality, has been released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Since such films go down easier on home video, it probably won’t seem so bad and it really…
Read the full article »Fast & Furious
Often feeling more like a video game than a movie,Fast & Furious, not to be confused with its predecessor, The Fast and the Furious, brings back the acting team that made the first film a hit and concocts a vaguely believable story about Mexican drug lords hiring street racers to zip their contraband across the border-in…
Read the full article »Watchmen: Director’s Cut
The theatrical release was a disappointment, but that has nothing to do with the much longer and immensely satisfying Warner Home Video release,Watchmen Director’s Cut. Directed by Zack Snyder, the 186-minute feature is a two-generation epic comic book movie that works on almost every level. It does not have the giddy momentum of the deserved mega…
Read the full article »Waltz with Bashir
The greatest so far untapped potential in all of cinema is the animated documentary. The genre got off to a rousing start with Winsor McCay’s contemporary 1918 depiction of the sinking of the Lusitania, but virtually nothing has followed up that effort beyond a few educational programs such as Frank Capra’s Hemo the Magnificent. In 2008, however, there…
Read the full article »12 Rounds
Wrestler John Cena jumps off the ropes to take a shot at action hero stardom as a New Orleans cop in12 Rounds, a Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment release directed by the depreciated action maven, Renny Harlin. Aidan Gillen portrays an Irish terrorist who kidnaps the hero’s wife and makes him do all sorts of crazy things…
Read the full article »Last Year at Marienbad
What excited folks in 1961 about Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad was its overpowering formalism and mastery of style. Each shot seems so meticulously composed, down to the mannerism of every actor on the screen, that it leaves the impression that Resnais had absolute, total control over every pixel on the screen. The lack…
Read the full article »The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
His consciousness advances and matures in the normal manner, so it is only the body of the hero that ages in reverse in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an extended romantic story with what can readily be considered a fresh perspective. David Fincher directed the 2007 production, with Brad Pittundergoing innovative makeup effects for the central…
Read the full article »The Da Vinci Code: Extended Cut
Exclusive to Blu-ray, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released a 175-minute Extended Cut 2-Disc Set presentation of Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code. In terms of entertainment, the shorter version works better. The film may have been rightly lambasted by critics, but it has a breathless pull-you-through-it pace and creates an intriguing blend of historical trivia…
Read the full article »Nickelodeon & The Last Picture Show
Peter Bogdanovich’s paean to the early days of moviemaking, Nickelodeon, has been released as a 2-Disc Double Feature Director’s Choice title by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Nickelodeon / The Last Picture Show. Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show was available previously as a Special Edition. Each film is presented on a separate platter and is in letterboxed format only,…
Read the full article »Frost/Nixon
Most reminiscent of (and more satisfying than) Good Night and Good Luck, Ron Howard’s 2008 docudrama, Frost/Nixon, from Universal, is about a television news personality who rises to the occasion and achieves a journalistic milestone when tasked with interviewing an emotionally enfortressed politician. Yes, the imitative but psychologically thorough performances by the two stars- Michael Sheen as David Frost…
Read the full article »Marley & Me: Bad Dog Edition
Running 115 minutes, the enormously popular 2008 family film, Marley & Me, depicts the full life of a family dog as the family grows up around him. In his younger years, he is especially rambunctious, which contributed to the film’s superb marketing campaign that suggested the movie would be another Beethoven-style slapstick piece. Instead, the…
Read the full article »