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Dailies (DVD)—December 2006 #2
An encore roundup of the current best and rest in DVD. In this installment: The Woody Allen Collection, Essential Hopscotch Documentaries Vol 1: Fahrenheit 9/11/Soundtrack to War/Touching the Void, Bonnie and Clyde, Kingdom of Heaven, Carnivale: The Complete Second Season.
The Woody Allen Collection (MGM/RS, $59.95)
Annie Hall, Bananas, Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex, Interiors, Love and Death, Manhattan and Sleeper is a hilarious collection of 1970s Woody Allen classics, with the exception of Interiors, which isn’t a comedy. Allen’s insights into life, romance and comedy are great, and Annie Hall is probably his finest film. In this thinly veiled self-portrait Woody, the film’s director-writer-actor, plays Alvy Singer, a successful, neurotic Jewish comic. Annie Hall is about the joys and vicissitudes of Alvy’s relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The film begins with Alvy applying Groucho Marx’s brilliant witticism “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member,” to relationships. The endless comedy of relationships and New York’s diverse milieus are shown. The scene where Woody and Annie’s conversation is subtitled with what they are thinking is superb. And, the scene with the queue at the cinema. Alvy is going insane being subjected to a pretentious academic pontificating about Fellini, Beckett, and McLuhan. Woody brings McLuhan out from behind a sign and McLuhan tells the academic “You know nothing about my work.” Woody then tells us, “I wish I could do that in real life.” Me, too.
Or is it Manhattan? “You think you’re God”/“I gotta model myself after someone.” Manhattan is gorgeously, giddily shot in black and white by Gordon Willis (The Godfather), the potential of widescreen is realised. Allen plays comedy writer/aspirant novelist Issac Davis, a neurotic everyman’s intellectual. “Pseudo-intellectual garbage” Isaac Davis (Allen) tells his beautiful, schoolgirl ingenue Tracey (Mariel Hemingway) after talking with journalist Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton). Nonetheless, Isaac comes around to Mary’s charms. Only problem being many: Mary is romantically entangled with his best friend, Tracey remains on the scene, Issac’s ex-wife (a formidable Meryl Streep) is writing a salacious, tell-all book about their marriage. Scored with classic, aptly titled tunes like George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, it’s witty, literate and sardonic. There are numerous side-splitting scenes, fluidly interwoven with some sad ones. Isaac with his son. Isaac and friends awkwardly disagreeing in an art gallery. Isaac suggesting to his friends they go and sort some neo-Nazis rallying in New Jersey. Rereleased as a boxset. (7-disc set; optional English subtitles; trailers).—Alexander Bisley
Essential Hopscotch Documentaries Vol 1:
Fahrenheit 9/11, Soundtrack to War, Touching the Void (Hopscotch/RS, $29.95)
Thank the Deity for Michael Moore’s films. Taglined “the temperature at which freedom burns,” Fahrenheit 9/11 is a savvy, superb anti-Bush synthesis. A scorching assault on the man and his administration, the polemic begins with the election Bush almost won in 2000. After outlining Bush’s election theft, it then describes how Bush was to sleep at the wheel. Moore argues 9/11 shored up an unpopular presidency in the doldrums: Bush exploited people’s fear, to implement radical projects such as the war in Iraq. Moore expands Bowling for Columbine’s thesis about Orwellian fear and control. Bush is exposed as a dangerous, callous buffoon. Watch the self-styled “war president” sit hopelessly, like a dummy without a ventriloquist, reading My Pet Goat to a group of Florida schoolkids for seven minutes, after he’s told about the second plane hitting the World Trade Centre. Moore catalogues the unseemly and the disturbing; such as the cozy relationship between the Bush family and leading Saudi Arabian families like the bin Ladens, and companies such as Dick Cheney’s Halliburton’s enormous profiteering in Iraq. Given his grave subject, Moore restrains his hilarious, freewheeling irreverence somewhat. Less Moore is more; he gives Bush and his lackeys ample rope to hang themselves with; the material speaks for itself. Moore vividly illustrates the harsh, unsanitised reality of the invasion of Iraq. He nimbly assembles a breathtaking record of outrages, enlisting the persuasive power of cinema. In a knock out section, Moore returns to Flint, his home town, whose decimation under Reaganism he chronicled in Roger and Me. In the Flints of America, military recruiters exploit the poor like pimps. We hear the tear-jerking story of heartland conservative Lila Lipscomb. Her soldier son Michael’s last letter home, received after his death in Iraq, implores regime change at the White House. “He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I’m so furious right now, Mama.” The DVD extras include an extraordinary Bush press conference. Soundtrack to War’s best bits – and they are good – are in Fahrenheit 9/11. It records the music America’s boys and girls in Iraq are listening to and making. Otherwise, it’s a disappointment that barely holds your attention.
Joe Simpson is an atheist, but even Lazarus would be impressed with Touching the Void. Based on Simpson’s acclaimed book, it tells the true story of him and Simon Yates, a pair of affable British blokes who conquered Siula Grande, the Peruvian Andes fearsome 21 thousand footer, in 1985. Disaster strikes on the way down when Simpson shatters his leg. Later, Yates is forced to choose between dying with his friend or saving himself. He cuts the rope. Amazingly, they both “knocked the bastard off”. The duo’s frank accounts (coloured by British self-deprecation, understatement and dry wit), aided by one’s imagination, compel. (The documentary intercuts their reminiscences with a reconstruction using actors.) A scene featuring Boney M’s Brown Girl in the Ring may rival Reservoir Dogs’ Stuck in the Middle with You as a classic. A Jaws for mountaineering, it’s way more gripping than your average thriller. New to DVD. (3-disc set).—Alexander Bisley
Bonnie and Clyde (Warner Bros, $29.95)
Along with The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969), Bonnie and Clyde spearheaded The New American Cinema, challenging and reinvigorating classical Hollywood. Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) are a sympathetic portrayal of a real life duo, two bank robbers on a crime spree across an America ravaged by the 1930’s depression. They group up with Clyde’s brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck’s partner Blanche (Estelle Parsons) and C.W. Moss (Michael J Pollard). Bonnie and Clyde’s depictions of sexuality and violence were explicit and daring, helping shatter Hollywood’s strict, repressive censorship codes. It also teased the aesthetic influence of European art cinema’s 1960s new wave to America. Bonnie and Clyde appealed to the emerging, disillusioned American youth protest movement. Problems like the media’s manipulation of crime for its mercenary ends are shown. This masterpiece is filmed and edited with a poetic eye. On DVD. (optional English subtitles).—Alexander Bisley
Kingdom of Heaven (Fox/RS, $29.95)
“I once fought for two days with an arrow through my testicles,” so Balian’s father (Liam Neeson) recalls his Buck Shelford exploits as a leading knight soon after they meet for the first time. Before he dies, Neeson sends Balian (Orlando Bloom), a humble French blacksmith, off to Jerusalem. It’s a tough legacy to live up to. Anyway, Bloom can’t carry a big movie. The presence of an Eric Bana, Peter O’Toole or Russell Crowe is fatally lacking in Kingdom of Heaven. Balian remains a curiously slight character throughout. This would-be epic’s scene with his Henry V speech to rally the troops is about as stirring as Peter Dunne at a resthome. In Jerusalem, late 12th century, there’s an uneasy ceasefire between the Christians, who had savagely taken over Jerusalem, and the Muslims, who are led by Saladin (Ghassan Massoud). The story, bar notable inventions like Balian’s flaccid romance with Sybilla (Casino Royale’s Eva Green), is based on actual history. Guy de Lusignan (Rain’s Martin Csokas) and Reynald (Brendan Gleeson) are a couple of influential Christian crusaders, pumped up by the Pope, doing their bloodthirsty best to maximise war. They believe killing infidels (Muslims) is “the path to heaven”. Tiberias (Jeremy Irons) has repented from what’s going on, “fighting for wealth and land”. But he can’t do much to restrain this dastardly duo, and Balian is no help. The production design is solid; it’s well shot, aided by advances in digital trickery. Though Ridley Scott shows reasonable flair at orchestrating action, we’re somewhat inured by having experienced more impressive charging horses, fireballs and claret spray in movies like Gladiator, Troy and Rings. The politics are muddled but interesting. On DVD. (2-disc set; optional English subtitles; various production featurettes. A 4-Disc Director’s Cut is due late January).—Alexander Bisley
Carnivale: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros, $59.95)
While Twin Peaks fans may have run out of patience in their unending wait for Season Two on DVD, the second (and final) season of HBO’s Carnivale comes newly released to the format, and should more than compensate in its absence. The depression-era drama has a Lynchian affinity with the cult nineties series; equally short-lived and ahead of its time, Daniel Knauf’s one-of-a-kind creation is almost an unofficial homage, sharing oblique symbolism, shadowy figures, deathly foreboding, and nightmarish visions with Michael J. Anderson in the middle of it all. Classically a tale of Good vs. Evil, Season Two fast-tracks the collision course of Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl), a fugitive-turned-Carni burdened/blessed with incredible healing powers, and Brother Justin (Clancy Brown), a charismatic minister whose tearaway religious movement fronts the sinister black magic of the devil he cultivates. Aiding and abetting these two avatars in their apocalyptic rendezvous are a host of carnival freaks, and an army of cultists under Justin’s demonic spell. Loyal followers can take comfort in the knowledge that this fantastical jigsaw completes; that by its premature end, light and darkness will battle for the fate of the world. Why Carnivale succumbed to the fickleness of television can either be attributed to its rich and savvy – but esoteric – complexity (something Lost thinks it has), or its expensive cinematic breadth. It is certainly the best looking show ever to grace the small screen. Anything but ordinary, Carnivale’s epic mythology, biblical girth, weirdness and creepiness, and authentically unattractive cast make it an endgame to savour. Just hope like hell HBO does a “Firefly” and greenlights the movie it so deserves. New to DVD. (6-disc set; optional English subtitles; audio commentaries; cast & crew panel discussion; production/making of documentaries and featurettes).—Tim Wong
The Woody Allen Collection (MGM/RS, $59.95)Annie Hall, Bananas, Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex, Interiors, Love and Death, Manhattan and Sleeper is a hilarious collection of 1970s Woody Allen classics, with the exception of Interiors, which isn’t a comedy. Allen’s insights into life, romance and comedy are great, and Annie Hall is probably his finest film. In this thinly veiled self-portrait Woody, the film’s director-writer-actor, plays Alvy Singer, a successful, neurotic Jewish comic. Annie Hall is about the joys and vicissitudes of Alvy’s relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The film begins with Alvy applying Groucho Marx’s brilliant witticism “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member,” to relationships. The endless comedy of relationships and New York’s diverse milieus are shown. The scene where Woody and Annie’s conversation is subtitled with what they are thinking is superb. And, the scene with the queue at the cinema. Alvy is going insane being subjected to a pretentious academic pontificating about Fellini, Beckett, and McLuhan. Woody brings McLuhan out from behind a sign and McLuhan tells the academic “You know nothing about my work.” Woody then tells us, “I wish I could do that in real life.” Me, too.
Or is it Manhattan? “You think you’re God”/“I gotta model myself after someone.” Manhattan is gorgeously, giddily shot in black and white by Gordon Willis (The Godfather), the potential of widescreen is realised. Allen plays comedy writer/aspirant novelist Issac Davis, a neurotic everyman’s intellectual. “Pseudo-intellectual garbage” Isaac Davis (Allen) tells his beautiful, schoolgirl ingenue Tracey (Mariel Hemingway) after talking with journalist Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton). Nonetheless, Isaac comes around to Mary’s charms. Only problem being many: Mary is romantically entangled with his best friend, Tracey remains on the scene, Issac’s ex-wife (a formidable Meryl Streep) is writing a salacious, tell-all book about their marriage. Scored with classic, aptly titled tunes like George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, it’s witty, literate and sardonic. There are numerous side-splitting scenes, fluidly interwoven with some sad ones. Isaac with his son. Isaac and friends awkwardly disagreeing in an art gallery. Isaac suggesting to his friends they go and sort some neo-Nazis rallying in New Jersey. Rereleased as a boxset. (7-disc set; optional English subtitles; trailers).—Alexander Bisley
Essential Hopscotch Documentaries Vol 1:Fahrenheit 9/11, Soundtrack to War, Touching the Void (Hopscotch/RS, $29.95)
Thank the Deity for Michael Moore’s films. Taglined “the temperature at which freedom burns,” Fahrenheit 9/11 is a savvy, superb anti-Bush synthesis. A scorching assault on the man and his administration, the polemic begins with the election Bush almost won in 2000. After outlining Bush’s election theft, it then describes how Bush was to sleep at the wheel. Moore argues 9/11 shored up an unpopular presidency in the doldrums: Bush exploited people’s fear, to implement radical projects such as the war in Iraq. Moore expands Bowling for Columbine’s thesis about Orwellian fear and control. Bush is exposed as a dangerous, callous buffoon. Watch the self-styled “war president” sit hopelessly, like a dummy without a ventriloquist, reading My Pet Goat to a group of Florida schoolkids for seven minutes, after he’s told about the second plane hitting the World Trade Centre. Moore catalogues the unseemly and the disturbing; such as the cozy relationship between the Bush family and leading Saudi Arabian families like the bin Ladens, and companies such as Dick Cheney’s Halliburton’s enormous profiteering in Iraq. Given his grave subject, Moore restrains his hilarious, freewheeling irreverence somewhat. Less Moore is more; he gives Bush and his lackeys ample rope to hang themselves with; the material speaks for itself. Moore vividly illustrates the harsh, unsanitised reality of the invasion of Iraq. He nimbly assembles a breathtaking record of outrages, enlisting the persuasive power of cinema. In a knock out section, Moore returns to Flint, his home town, whose decimation under Reaganism he chronicled in Roger and Me. In the Flints of America, military recruiters exploit the poor like pimps. We hear the tear-jerking story of heartland conservative Lila Lipscomb. Her soldier son Michael’s last letter home, received after his death in Iraq, implores regime change at the White House. “He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I’m so furious right now, Mama.” The DVD extras include an extraordinary Bush press conference. Soundtrack to War’s best bits – and they are good – are in Fahrenheit 9/11. It records the music America’s boys and girls in Iraq are listening to and making. Otherwise, it’s a disappointment that barely holds your attention.
Joe Simpson is an atheist, but even Lazarus would be impressed with Touching the Void. Based on Simpson’s acclaimed book, it tells the true story of him and Simon Yates, a pair of affable British blokes who conquered Siula Grande, the Peruvian Andes fearsome 21 thousand footer, in 1985. Disaster strikes on the way down when Simpson shatters his leg. Later, Yates is forced to choose between dying with his friend or saving himself. He cuts the rope. Amazingly, they both “knocked the bastard off”. The duo’s frank accounts (coloured by British self-deprecation, understatement and dry wit), aided by one’s imagination, compel. (The documentary intercuts their reminiscences with a reconstruction using actors.) A scene featuring Boney M’s Brown Girl in the Ring may rival Reservoir Dogs’ Stuck in the Middle with You as a classic. A Jaws for mountaineering, it’s way more gripping than your average thriller. New to DVD. (3-disc set).—Alexander Bisley
Bonnie and Clyde (Warner Bros, $29.95)Along with The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969), Bonnie and Clyde spearheaded The New American Cinema, challenging and reinvigorating classical Hollywood. Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) are a sympathetic portrayal of a real life duo, two bank robbers on a crime spree across an America ravaged by the 1930’s depression. They group up with Clyde’s brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck’s partner Blanche (Estelle Parsons) and C.W. Moss (Michael J Pollard). Bonnie and Clyde’s depictions of sexuality and violence were explicit and daring, helping shatter Hollywood’s strict, repressive censorship codes. It also teased the aesthetic influence of European art cinema’s 1960s new wave to America. Bonnie and Clyde appealed to the emerging, disillusioned American youth protest movement. Problems like the media’s manipulation of crime for its mercenary ends are shown. This masterpiece is filmed and edited with a poetic eye. On DVD. (optional English subtitles).—Alexander Bisley
Kingdom of Heaven (Fox/RS, $29.95)“I once fought for two days with an arrow through my testicles,” so Balian’s father (Liam Neeson) recalls his Buck Shelford exploits as a leading knight soon after they meet for the first time. Before he dies, Neeson sends Balian (Orlando Bloom), a humble French blacksmith, off to Jerusalem. It’s a tough legacy to live up to. Anyway, Bloom can’t carry a big movie. The presence of an Eric Bana, Peter O’Toole or Russell Crowe is fatally lacking in Kingdom of Heaven. Balian remains a curiously slight character throughout. This would-be epic’s scene with his Henry V speech to rally the troops is about as stirring as Peter Dunne at a resthome. In Jerusalem, late 12th century, there’s an uneasy ceasefire between the Christians, who had savagely taken over Jerusalem, and the Muslims, who are led by Saladin (Ghassan Massoud). The story, bar notable inventions like Balian’s flaccid romance with Sybilla (Casino Royale’s Eva Green), is based on actual history. Guy de Lusignan (Rain’s Martin Csokas) and Reynald (Brendan Gleeson) are a couple of influential Christian crusaders, pumped up by the Pope, doing their bloodthirsty best to maximise war. They believe killing infidels (Muslims) is “the path to heaven”. Tiberias (Jeremy Irons) has repented from what’s going on, “fighting for wealth and land”. But he can’t do much to restrain this dastardly duo, and Balian is no help. The production design is solid; it’s well shot, aided by advances in digital trickery. Though Ridley Scott shows reasonable flair at orchestrating action, we’re somewhat inured by having experienced more impressive charging horses, fireballs and claret spray in movies like Gladiator, Troy and Rings. The politics are muddled but interesting. On DVD. (2-disc set; optional English subtitles; various production featurettes. A 4-Disc Director’s Cut is due late January).—Alexander Bisley
Carnivale: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros, $59.95)While Twin Peaks fans may have run out of patience in their unending wait for Season Two on DVD, the second (and final) season of HBO’s Carnivale comes newly released to the format, and should more than compensate in its absence. The depression-era drama has a Lynchian affinity with the cult nineties series; equally short-lived and ahead of its time, Daniel Knauf’s one-of-a-kind creation is almost an unofficial homage, sharing oblique symbolism, shadowy figures, deathly foreboding, and nightmarish visions with Michael J. Anderson in the middle of it all. Classically a tale of Good vs. Evil, Season Two fast-tracks the collision course of Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl), a fugitive-turned-Carni burdened/blessed with incredible healing powers, and Brother Justin (Clancy Brown), a charismatic minister whose tearaway religious movement fronts the sinister black magic of the devil he cultivates. Aiding and abetting these two avatars in their apocalyptic rendezvous are a host of carnival freaks, and an army of cultists under Justin’s demonic spell. Loyal followers can take comfort in the knowledge that this fantastical jigsaw completes; that by its premature end, light and darkness will battle for the fate of the world. Why Carnivale succumbed to the fickleness of television can either be attributed to its rich and savvy – but esoteric – complexity (something Lost thinks it has), or its expensive cinematic breadth. It is certainly the best looking show ever to grace the small screen. Anything but ordinary, Carnivale’s epic mythology, biblical girth, weirdness and creepiness, and authentically unattractive cast make it an endgame to savour. Just hope like hell HBO does a “Firefly” and greenlights the movie it so deserves. New to DVD. (6-disc set; optional English subtitles; audio commentaries; cast & crew panel discussion; production/making of documentaries and featurettes).—Tim Wong
