It’s a week of masterworks at your local brick and mortar, as the ennui infused release calendar of the summer months gives way to more honorable, high brow product. With four titles on SE&L’s select list, Criterion proves once again that no company does considered preservation better than this DVD distribution dynamo. In addition, two recent entries in 2006’s race for the year’s best argue their individual claims to such a status. Toss in a familiar giant lizard from the ’50s and you’ve got a diverse collection of wallet emptying essentials. Indeed, over the next few weeks, your entertainment budget will be ballooning as your bank account shrinks. The digital dog days are definitely over. Time to wallow in the wonderful excesses of a media maven’s dream. The selections SE&L will be picking up this week include:
Considered by many to be Fellini’s final ‘masterpiece’ (the rest of his career would be marked by several noble failures) this 1973 memoir is actually a strange combination of fact and fiction. Using his real life hometown of Rimini as a backdrop, the Italian auteur devises a ‘year in the life’ narrative centering on the Biondi family, the rise of fascism, and the never-ending human pursuit of sex. Yet unlike his previous efforts such as Satyricon or Juliet of the Spirits, Fellini tones down the visual excess, finding the perfect cinematic tone between art and artifice. The result is a kinetic crazy quilt of a memoir, a movie that mixes memory and fantasy to illustrate how the past forms and defines us.
Who would have thought Monty Python’s ex-pat animator would turn into one of the most gifted moviemakers of the 20th Century? Anyone who saw his agitprop approach to Orwellian future shock, that’s who. Mythic even before it’s release, director Terry Gilliam battled his studio sponsor (Universal) to get the film released. When his pleas fell of deaf bean-counter ears, he went the route of the critic. A couple of awards later, and Brazil became his breakout film. While its overloaded imagery and reliance on physical effects may put off some modern moviegoers used to CGI candy, it’s the remarkable ideas behind the visuals that mark this film’s most unforgettable facets.
Every now and then, the action genre needs a good kick in the clichés. Leave it to French filmmaker Luc Besson (who executive produced here) to find a way of supercharging the standard gangland shtick. Borrowing a little of Escape from New York (in the future, parts of Paris are walled off to keep “undesirables” in check) and incorporating the unique ‘free running’ style of stunt work known as Parkour, this rollercoaster on rocket fuel goes for a hyperstylized energy that’s highly addictive. While its storyline may suggest one too many trips to the Scarface plot pool, its look it so wholly original, and its setpieces so inspired, such copycat complicity is forgivable.
Forget bad dubbing into English. Forget Raymond Burr as a kind of creature feature color commentator. In fact, forget everything you know about the traditional Toho titan and check out this attempt to reclaim his original motion picture majesty. This is the timeless Japanese monster movie classic the way it was meant to be seen. Those used to Perry Mason’s appearance amongst all the Tokyo destroying mayhem will be happy to see the American version included as well. Toss in a collection of commentaries and bonus features and you’ve got a DVD presentation that forever vanquishes the film’s Saturday afternoon kid vid matinee aura. Godzilla was meant to symbolize nuclear technology run amuck, and with this release, his b-movie babysitting days may finally be over.
Call him France’s answer to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, or a post-modern throwback to the days of silent comedy, but no one can deny Jacques Tati’s filmmaking acumen. A stickler for detail as well as a painstaking perfectionist, his films often took years to complete. A comic consideration of modern technology, Playtime began production in 1964…and didn’t wrap until 1967! Still, many feel it is one of Tati’s greatest achievements. Focusing on his classic character, the bumbling Monsieur Hulot, and his 24 hours in Paris, this pop art poem glitters with cosmopolitan gloss and delightful urban angst. Thanks to Criterion, this forgotten master’s unique vision is preserved for future generations to marvel over.
Akira Kurosawa elevated Japanese cinema into a internationally recognized art form, and this is, arguably, his greatest achievement. A masterpiece of tone, detail and performance, this influential fusion of modern moralizing and typical Eastern traditions makes for a classic examination of duty and honor. Setting up layers of interaction – the samurai vs. the farmers, the collective vs. the oncoming attackers – and utilizing the inherent drama supplied via the mesmerizing monochrome cinematography, Kurosawa creates a tragedy of epic proportions, an incredibly human saga expanded out across the entire Asian horizon. And thanks to a new transfer from the classic film conservators, this director’s dynamic vision has never looked better.
The first, and so far best movie centering on the events of 9/11, United 93 benefits from a stellar storyline and upfront direction by Bourne Identity helmer Paul Greengrass. Instead of infusing outside elements into the narrative, or putting a particular political spin on the situation, Greengrass simply takes the circumstances that occurred on that doomed flight and lets them play out in all their undeniably nerve-wracking tension. What we end up with is a sensational, cinema vérité glimpse at what the final moments in a symbolic struggle between terror and heroism looked like. Sure, it’s depressing, the atmosphere of impending doom clouding all concerned. But there can still be catharsis in such filmic foreboding, as this memorable movie clearly demonstrates.
And Now for Something Completely Different
In a weekly addition to Who’s Minding the Store, SE&L will feature an off title disc worth checking out. For 5 September:
It took nearly six years of Midnight Movie cult celebrity for 20th Century Fox to pursue a sequel to 1975’s Rocky Horror Picture Show, and everything seemed right for a solid repeat success. The original was doing gangbuster business, playwright/songwriter Richard O’Brien was back to continue the pop song surreality, and director Jim Sharman was also on board, hoping to recapture the spirit of the first film. Yet instead of the continued kitsch and gender bending brazenness of the previous effort, O’Brien delivered a scathing slam on the modern media, turning Brad and Janet’s hometown of Denton into a giant TV station, and the paramours into participants/prisoners in some strange, sinister reality show. Ahead of its time in both approach and attitude, it naturally bombed. Still, the faithful have been waiting for this film’s return to the home theater fold. With the release of this 25th Anniversary DVD, it’s time for reconsideration may have finally arrived.
*=PopMatters Picks
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