FANTASY DVDS
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Columbia/Tri-star Home Entertainment
Movie: 3.5; Disc: 4.0Ang Lee's attempt to bring Asian romance and adventure to American screens is to be praised, for his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , while bigger-budgeted and catering slightly more to the Western market than its Asian peer productions, is courageous for opening up a new vista of cinema for the American mainstream that has been growing in popularity in the American cinematic underground for over a decade.
And while we will not debate whether the film was the best film of 2001 or not, it is indeed a film visually mesmerizing and dramatically affecting. The film's cast, featuring the Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh, are superb in their performances. Grizzled warriors dedicated to each's philosophy and life-style, Fat and Yeoh say more about their internal feelings in a facial gesture than they could using 50 words. Obviously a couple in love but each unable to find the courage to confess that love to the other (while their lives in every other way exemplify a life of courage and dedication), theirs is an internal performance whose expression of passion is only allowable via their pristine and well-choreographed swordplay. But in actuality, the film belongs to the understated performance of Zhang Ziyi as the aristocratic daughter, a hidden past of unauthorized sword training at the hands of Jade Fox, a woman who murdered Chow Yun Fat's mentor years ago, and also a past romantic encounter with a bandit, the man she desperately loves but can never have (since she is about to undertake a pre-arranged marriage of convenience). The inner battle that Ziyi confronts as well as the external battles she fights with Fat and Yeoh create the dramatic tension of the movie. The movie's themes deal with loyalty and dedication to one's philosophy and following one's heart. However, we have the conflict between personal love and duty to a cause, we have the conflict between social classes featuring marriage for politics vs. marriage for love. We have the conflict between women who are good enough to sleep with the sword-training mentors but are not good enough to be trained by them. The ambiguity of service to ones self and service to a greater philosophic cause forms the chief conflict of this movie. In other words, for an action-adventure movie, the script is intellectual and thoughtful at the same time.
While Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon offers a complex plot and internal conflict, the tone of the film itself is very fantasy-oriented with its warriors that can defy the laws of physics, but under Ang Lee's direction, such a world seems effortlessly created and quite convincing. The individual battles themselves are works of cinematic art and hold up upon repeated DVD viewings, even when viewed using the pause and repeat buttons.
While I am a fan of subtitles for foreign language movies, I must note the superb work done for the alternative audio track featuring a dubbed version. To be quite honest, the dubbed version at times looks almost as though an English language version of the movie had been filmed, and the poetry of the language does not compromise the integrity of the production. In fact, the dubbed version is superior, in my estimation, for the complexity of the story goes beyond the sub-titled version and now one is able to actually watch the faces, the expressions, without having to shift one's eyes from the bottom to the top of the screen, switching between reading lines and watching the visuals.
The extras on this disc are extraordinary, including featurettes (Michelle Yeoh interview and a making-of special), audio commentary, photo montages, filmographies, production notes. The anamorphic letterboxed print is absolutely pristine . Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a movie to watch and rewatch, a movie that holds up upon multiple viewings for many different reasons.
FANTASTIA 2000
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Movie: 3.0; Disc: 4.0
The marriage of visual and sound is what makes the movie experience so magical. The original Fantasia, a classic of Disney animation, really can never be topped, but the original concept of updating the movie for future generations certainly deserves merit.Fortunately, Fantasia 2000 does not outwear its welcome; clocking in at about one hour and 15 minutes, the film reprises only The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from the original (a favorite starring Mickey Mouse) and includes all new segments, conducted by James Levine of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Employing both cutting-edge computer generated cartoon animation (the flying whales from the Pines of Rome sequence), as well as the more traditional Disney animation (Donald Duck’s segment, Pomp and Circumstance), Fantasia 2000 attempts to be just as amazing in 2000 as the original version was during the 1940s. And while animation and special effects have grown as a genre so much in 60 years, Fantasia 2000 still manages to mesmerize and amaze, as it blends the visual and the auditory, creating “music videos” for some of the best musical compositions ever composed: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, etc.
The home video DVD is a showpiece disk, the THX-certified mastering with a choice of either DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. Both the visual presentation and the audio presentation are so outstanding that this is one movie that you want to use to show-off your home theater system. In the Introduction sequence before Donald Duck’s Noah’s Ark segment, Mickey Mouse has to find Donald Duck who is still showering and is late for his segment. As Mickey hurriedly tries to find Donald Duck, in a surround sound eye-opener, Mickey literally runs around the theater speaking from every sound-field possible, left-right-front-rear—and every spot inbetween. It is absolutely amazing and demonstrates just how advanced home video has become and how marvelous the DVD format truly is (much of the credit due to Dolby Digital and DTS sound).
Fantasia 2000 is designed both for the young and the young at heart, and while some sequences may work better than others (my favorites are those incredible flying whales, the Noah’s Ark sequence with Donald and the Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 featuring the adventure of the brave tin soldier to save his beautiful ballerina from the evil Jack-in-the-Box)), the movie as a whole succeeds beautifully as cinematic art and simply amazes as good movies always do.
HEARTS IN ATLANTIS
Warner Home Video
Movie: 3.5; Disc: 3.5Sometimes something marvelous comes from nostalgia and cliché.
Hearts in Atlantis , a film directed by Scott Hicks ( Shine ), based upon the novel by Stephen King (in his most nostalgic Stand By Me mode) and starring Anthony Hopkins, could have been mediocre and just another same-old, same-old reflections-of-childhood drama.
The movie borrows the frame of a person in today's world unexpectedly called to the funeral of a friend, a friend from the distant past, and the resulting trip back "home" stirs up a wealth of emotions. The film also touches upon the themes of a single-parent household, with one child attempting to flourish in a world dampened by a mother's bitterness and struggling to make ends meet. It also depicts first love, standing up to bullies and the introduction of an adult stranger who becomes a mentor and father-figure, a man who made all the difference in a young boy's life. Hearts in Atlantis is all these things, plus more. The movie transcends these old chestnuts and explored-before themes, and offers a fresh take by reinventing them in such a way that powerfully touches the heart.
Forget the implausible premise that Anthony Hopkins as the loner, drifter Ted is fleeing the "Low-men" who are trying to recapture him to exploit his special psychic abilities to search out Communism in high places. This silly concept is not what the movie's about. Instead Ted becomes a symbol of the wizened elder adult who wishes to retire, to simply fade away, to get back to enjoying the simple things in life--and also the most meaningful. Ted, who rents an upstairs apartment above Bobby Garfield (Anton Yelchin), befriends the 11-year-old boy, left alone on his birthday night, and becomes the substitute father-figure Bobby yearns for and needs (his real father having died six years earlier, his mother bitterly downing his father's image at every chance she has). Bobby, who wishes to have a bicycle for his birthday, is told by grumpy mom that she has no money left after paying her bills and her only present to him is a library card (even though mom has a closet of fashionable outfits for her job). Ted in turn hires Bobby to read the newspaper to him and to watch out for warning signs that The Low-men are getting closer to discovering him. Mother, who immediately suspects the intent of any adult who wishes to spend a great deal of time alone with a young boy, still allows the friendship to develop for the simple reason that she is always at work or planning to accompany her boss on a seminar (and she needs Ted to baby-sit her child anyway). In that magical summer, Bobby, with Ted's guidance, learns about young love and that first special kiss from which all others will be judged, the truth behind bullies, the truth about his father and whether he was the low-down bum that Bobby's mother paints him as being and the inevitable changes that we all must except. By summer's end, Bobby's best friend Carol has been savagely beaten, his mother raped and an act of betrayal occurs so great that it involves all of Bobby's strength of character to summon the inner will to forgive. By summer's end, Ted is gone, Bobby has moved away from his neighborhood and the young boy will never again see his childhood best friends. The lesson is bittersweet yet life affirming at the same time.
Emotionally, this film touches that special nerve that goes directly to our collective hearts and connects with fundamental truths in growing up (especially those of us who were kids in the early 1960s when this film occurs). Hearts in Atlantis does it as well as any film ever made. We have those nostalgic moments of adult Bobby who keeps a framed photo of that treasured childhood friend in his study (later sadly admitting that they never kept in touch as they once promised) and he is able to pass that photo on to someone equally special at the film's end (just as a stranger passed on a photo of his father to him years before). We have the mythic first kiss that glows for a lifetime (and is fondly recalled by a young daughter a generation later). We have that desire for a cherished baseball glove that will only be acquired through death. We have the revisiting of the old childhood home that today looks run-down and scraggly but once appeared majestic and beautiful and represented all these wonderful moments from reflected childhood. We have those childhood crises that involve summoning supreme courage and demonstrating "our heart of a lion." And we have the inevitable good-byes, passings on, forgiveness and quiet reflections that only matter to we who were there at that special time in that special place. Hearts in Atlantis gets all of this right and the film invites frequent revisiting.
Besides featuring a good-looking letterboxed print in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround, the film offers audio commentary by Scott Hicks, Hicks' interview with Anthony Hopkins, cast/crew filmographies, trailer and photo gallery. Hearts in Atlantis was a quiet little movie that came and went without much notice theatrically. Don't let it escape again on home video, for it is one of the best of 2001!
THE MAJESTIC
Warner Home Video
Movie: 3.5; Disc: 3.5I am just amazed by the amount of negative publicity this movie garnered upon its initial theatrical release. Too derivative of Frank Capra, too sugarly sweet, too cutely manipulative, etc. Go blow it out your ear! Critics always gravitate toward the eccentric, the hip, the offbeat (was Memento really that stellar, was Monster's Ball everything that critics made it out to be upon initial release, was Hedwig and the Angry Inch the best rock musical film ever made?????), but sometimes they unfairly trash the old-fashioned sentimental film merely because it represents Old Hollywood and is viewed as being anti-the-Indie in spirit. Only two varieties of movies exist--not Indie and Mainstream, not money-makers and money-losers, not movies that are either loved or hated by the critics--no, only two types of movies exist, those that are good and those that are bad. And Frank Darabont's The Majestic is one of my favorite films of last year, a movie I avoided based upon critical naysayers, but a movie that blossoms on DVD where it has been masterfully reproduced, with a wealth of extras.
First of all, the cast is a real strength. Jim Carrey, so subtle and laidback, for once does not try to gain audience attention by banging us over the head with volume, silly faces and kinetic posturings. Here his confusion speaks wonders, his eyes communicate so much internally and his low-volume, non-dominating manner produces perhaps Carrey's most effective characterization to date. And isn't it wonderful to see a small town populated with the likes of James Whitmore, David Ogden Stiers and especially Martin Landau, whose performance here rivals the passion of his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood . That idyllic early 1950s smalltown USA, here called Lawson, is so seductive and warm and caring that who wouldn't want to live there, especially when confronting today's frantic world! Literally a small town where everyone knows your name, supports your efforts, covers your back and even your bills. Yes, even when Capra created Bedford Falls for It's a Wonderful Life , America was too cynical to accept the reality of such a place, just like Americans today understand the same about Lawson. But Lawson, like Bedford Falls before it, is more a state of the mind and heart than an actual place.
Interestingly, it's the image of the darkened cathedral of visual delight, the movie palace, that becomes the unifying image that blends Carrey's past life and screenwriting career in Hollywood (and those marvelous voiceovers by Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Garry Marshall, etc. as studio execs is a true delight) with his new life helping his "father" Martin Landau restore the too-long dormant town movie theater, The Majestic, to its former glory. Somehow that purifying vision created by the movies (and Landau's speech naming specific movies and movie stars of the past, describing their healing power, brings a tear to the eye) transcends all the political and social bullshit and restores a unifying community sense of hope too long missing from Lawson. When Carrey's memory returns, and he realizes who he is and who he is not, he chooses Lawson over Hollywood, realizing that his recently learned devotion to an ideal is more important than playing the Hollywood mindgames that insist upon compromise and surrender. Carrey, as is true in all the greatest characters from literature, is a different man by movie's end than he was at the beginning. His journey into quaint nostalgia, coming to understand the true reason why movies were so important in his life, ultimately says more about the American love affair with the movies than merely commenting upon Carrey's internal journey of discovery. Anyone who loves movies must see this movie.
Extras include additional scenes, a featurette on the American Blacklist, a trailer, and most refreshing, the entire "movie within the movie," the complete black-and- white short: Sand Pirates of the Sahara , starring "the chin," Bruce Campbell.THE MISTS OF AVALON
Warner Home Video
Movie: 3.0; Disc: 3.5The Arthurian Legend has been the subject of literature and movies for a long time, and the TNT television mini-series, The Mists of Avalon, is now available on DVD. While the DirecTV satellite broadcast was crystal clear, it cannot compare to the sharp clarity of the DVD release which makes the veteran Vilmos Zsigmond's photography all the more dazzling. Based upon the Marion Zimmer Bradley novel, interestingly enough, we have the macho King Arthur legend told from a woman's point of view, making Morgaine (Julianna Margulies), the villainess of the Authur legend, the narrator and heroine, basing this more romantic interpretation of the legend around her. At the heart of the story we have the symbiotic relationship between the old religion, the Goddess and Avalon, and the new religion, Christianity. In reality the religion of Avalon is Paganism and its worship of gods of nature and of fate, with ruling authority going to the figure of mother Earth, a woman.
In the Arthurian legend the worship of the old ways is heavily related to magic and mysticism while Christianity becomes the religion of logic. In The Mists of Avalon, maintaining an equal balance between the religion of the old and the new symbolizes peace and harmony in the individual characters and in England as a whole. By film's end, when Camelot lies wasted, depraved and in ruins, and when the Saxons overrun the land, the Goddess is forsasken and Christianity rules, women becoming secondardy to men.
The story is put into motion by High Priestess Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, the witchy woman (played by Angelica Houston) who tries to maintain the power and passion of Avalon among a new political hierarchy, picking young Morgaine to be her successor, by taking her away from her parents at a young age to begin her training. Morgaine's younger brother, Arthur, is also taken away at the same time by Merlin at an even younger age to begin his training, destined to become a pivotal king of England, one who will keep alive the spirit of Avalon. In this kinky universe of balance and symmetry we have Viviane manipulating the adolescent Morgaine and Arthur into unwittingly partaking in a fertility rite of passage, having sex with one another, of course nether being aware of the other's identity (both wear disguising masks during the ritual). And, per Viviane's and Merlin's plan, Morgaine becomes inpregnanted with Arthur's child, producing a bastard heir to the throne, but a child who comes under Morgause's (Joan Allen), aunt of Arthur and Morgaine, evil domination, ultimately this child bringing ruin to both Camelot and Avalon.
Also, because of a spell concocted by Morgause the newly crowned King Arthur is unable to bear children with his bride, so another sexually-charged sequence occurs when Arthur invites Lancelot to join him in bed with the Queen (of course Lancelot secretly loves her anyway) in hopes of conceiving a future heir for England.
The involved plot, merging romance, deception and intricate character interactions, also features stark battle sequences and physical tests of courage. Since the movie was not made for the big screen, the epic scope and adventure aspects of plot are downplayed by stressing intimate sequences involving characters; however, the visual look of The Mists of Avalon is lush and the production designs and costuming are always first-rate. The direction by Uli Edel always keeps the various sub-plots moving forward with enough special effects wizardry and action to entertain all. The battle sequences at the end are wonderfully conceived and feature real humans on the battlefield, not CGI enhanced armies. The DVD contains a wide selection of extras including a gallery of photos, storyboards, costume/production designs, a family tree, cast profiles and a wonderful letterboxed print with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. But most importantly it contains many deleted scenes, many of which seem pivotal to the plot. It seems that cable television is becoming, more and more, a viable venue for the production and release of wonderful new movies, often times movies presented in the elongated mini-series format, not always an option for theatrical features. So let's get over this "Movie of the Week" TV bias and accept The Mists of Avalon for being one of the better romantic fantasy adventure stories released in a long time.
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
Disney Home Entertainment
Movie: 3.0; Disc: 4.0Walt Disney DVD decided to inaugurate their Platinum Edition Series with the studio's first feature-length animation classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , released to less than ecstatic box-office in 1937, but a landmark movie that nurtured the concept that animation is cinematic art. In the Disney Platinum Editions, each feature will be restored to its original brilliance and contain a wealth of state-of-the-art bonus features, thus the reason for a second disc to be included. Altogether, the supple-mentals include (and this is just some of the added features) a Barbra Streisand music video, storyboard to film comparisons, preliminary designs and deleted/abandoned concepts and scenes, excerpts from Silly Symphony and the Multiplane Camera , the restoration history, original beginning and ending RKO credits, Disney Through the Decades, 8 trailers, radio broadcasts and commercials, the Los Angeles Premiere, etc.
But all of these extras mean absolutely nothing if the movie does not deserve classic status, more than 60 years after its original release. The movie's grim fairy story retelling emphasizes the horror elements most noticeably visualized in the Queen's dank dungeon featuring skeletons of long-dead victims reaching out for cups of water and observant rats darting to and fro. However, the humor of the story comes from the comical, slap-stick stunts of the seven dwarfs themselves, making every sneeze a wind storm of the worst type. But at its heart, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a romantic fantasy of first love and the first kiss. The Disney factory knew what it was concocting by creating a feature-length film that contained all three elements, making sure the sorrow never got too sad nor the horror too intense, that children of all ages must always be thought of as the target audience.
Miraculously, the restoration job performed on this 1937 well-worn feature is absolutely amazing. Visually, the sharp Technicolor saturation has returned with its vivid blues and greens and its deep blacks. Digitally, dust and scratches have been removed, making the print look just as new as it must have appeared upon its original release. The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound is crisp and enveloping, measuring up in every way to the visual presentation. Looking at the DVD today, the movie appears as though 60 years of dust, wear, fading and negative deterioration has been removed frame by frame.
The movie works best when it is at its most dramatic intensity, such as the opening sequences when the Queen consults her magic mirror and learns Princess Snow White is the fairest in the land, and the evil Queen plans the Princess' murder in the woods and demands the murderer cut out her heart and put it in her ornate jewelry box. And the closing sequences, when the Queen, now disguised as an old hag, goes to the cottage in the woods to trick Snow White into eating from the poisoned apple, causing her to fall into Sleepy Death. These sequences, with their stark camera angles, dramatic music and slowly mounting tension, are wonderfully executed. Less successful is the obvious filler involving the frolicking seven dwarfs, Snow White and the assembled chorus of forest animals attempting to entertain one another, simply to demonstrate the new animation/cartoon process. When the seven dwarfs first return home from work to discover their home has been invaded--and cleaned!--it is also a marvelous sequence introducing the individual characters of each little man, but then again, it is charged with tension and anticipation.
To be honest, not even Walt Disney knew how to transform the 5-to-10 minute cartoon format to 84-minute feature without making a few misjudgments in pacing and editing. Cartoons at the time were short, simple and generally contained one major concept or idea (which sometimes dragged on too long at even 10 minutes). Thus, this first experiment was one of trial and error and even better animated features were in the future for Disney. However, with its horror overtones and brutal script faithful to the original source material (no future animated Disney feature would ever ask a woodsman to cut out the Princess' heart and return it in a little box), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first of its kind, and it is a film that definitely holds up some 60-plus years after its first release. This Disney Platinum Edition DVD could not have been better presented nor been more definitive in that presentation. It's a stunner!