DVD Trash
By: Kevin Filipski |
Wednesday June 01, 2005 |
| An untimely DVD detour through the digital dynamos and dilemnas available for your home viewing. In this installment we look at Best Picture Oscar nominees forgotten in the wake of Million Dollar Baby. Now on DVD, some deserve this fate, others don't. |
| When Million Dollar Baby won the Best Picture Oscar, every other nominee was forgotten. Now on DVD, some deserve this fate, others don't.
The Aviator (Warner Home Video) - Sadly thrown to the wolves when Million Dollar Baby cleaned up, The Aviator is still one of Martin Scorsese's finest. Carping that the director was selling out to Hollywood by making a big, long, stirring epic biopic that the Academy would love is beside the point. As long as the end result is as entertaining and electrifying as The Aviator, why quibble? Leonardo DiCaprio is at his charismatic best as Howard Hughes, and if Cate Blanchett (Best Supporting Actress winner) is more Rich Little than Kate Hepburn, at least her impression works alongside other celebrity cameos like Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner, Jude Law as Errol Flynn and others. Warner's two-disc DVD underlines this movie's importance: Scorsese gives his usual always-chatty commentary, and a dozen featurettes drop viewers into the rich Hollywood history behind The Aviator. Kinsey and Sideways (Fox) - Last fall, these two Fox Searchlight pictures were considered frontrunners for year-end awards; Sideways certainly lived up to its part of the bargain, but Kinsey fell by the wayside. What happened? Sideways was a critic-pleasing movie; although Kinsey got good reviews, Sideways got raves, making it the most overrated American movie since, probably, Pulp Fiction. And Sideways won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, usually an obvious consolation prize when other movies dominate the bigger awards. Sideways is a decent enough comic character study, though in no way as stimulating as Chuck Parfitt's novel. Writer/director Alexander Payne has a habit of turning good novels into lesser movies - witness his destructive transformation of Lewis Begley's subtle About Schmidt into an horrendously broad, sledgehammer Jack Nicholson vehicle. Sideways, inconsistent and overlong, does contain some of the comic shine that brightened Election, Payne's best to date. The acting is excellent too - welcome back, Virginia Madsen! Fox's DVD includes seven deleted scenes (Payne should have cut even more), a brief making-of and Paul Giametti's and Thomas Haden Church's amusing commentary. Kinsey is a simply remarkable film, one of the best screen biopics in years. Writer-director Bill Condon's two-hour bio feels as stuffed with incident and insight as a three-hour film would be. Condon has taken selective scenes from Kinsey's life, but it works as a warts-and-all portrait of a true revolutionary. Liam Neeson and Laura Linney (the movie's sole Oscar nomination) are first-rate and the supporting cast - Peter Saarsgard, Tim Hutton and Chris O'Donnell - are nearly their equals. Fox's two-disc set includes Condon's commentary, interviews and deleted scenes; the single-disc version only has the commentary.
Unlike its onstage incarnation, onscreen Closer allows only one leading lady to shine: Natalie Portman, who's thoroughly convincing as a na¯ve stripper, her Oscar-nominated turn the movie's emotional high point. Clive Owen also got nominated as one of the two cads; he and Jude Law are good, as is Julia Roberts, although you can almost see Nichols hoping to cut away from her often since she's not nearly as expressive a performer as Owen, Law and particularly Portman. The result, a tough, brittle journey through adultery, bitterness, revenge and redemption, was hated by many, but then again, it wasn't made to be loved. The DVD contains only the music video for Damien Rice's annoying song "The Blower's Daughter," heard far too often, along with a DTS audio track. House of Flying Daggers (Columbia/TriStar) - One of the most stunning-looking movies ever, House of Flying Daggers even makes Zhang Yimou's own Hero look amateurish in its use of color and choreography and editing and music and sound effects and visual effects. It's not for nothing that Zhao Xiaoding received an Oscar nomination for his fabulous photography. But after an hour, such fantastically-directed, splendidly-edited, staged and shot swordplay and action begins to take its toll. Visual dazzlement apropos of nothing has never been my raison d'etre in watching movies, and so this pageantry loses its luster. But the movie never looks less than ravishing throughout, and the presence of Zhang Ziyi - or Ziyi Zhang, as she's Americanizing her name now that she has shot the adaptation of The Memoirs of a Geisha - only adds to its true visual splendor. Sony's DVD includes several excellent extras, including commentaries by both director and lead actress and several featurettes that delve into the background of making this extraordinary visual extravaganza.
No matter: as heart-tuggingly sentimental as it is - and despite the many liberties it takes with the actual Barrie story - Finding Neverland somehow becomes a valentine to the creative impulse and to discovering the eternal childhood buried deep in adult's hearts. Depp is superb, as usual, Julie Christie is always a welcome presence and Kate Winslet and Dustin Hoffman (both prone to desperate overacting) are properly reserved. Nowhere near as tough and tender as Andrew Birkin's wonderful book about Barrie, J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, but Finding Neverland is filled with lovely grace notes. Buena Vista's DVD includes deleted scenes, outtakes, commentary and behind-the-scenes featurettes, which don't dwell on the factual inaccuracies. Shrek II and A Shark's Tale (Dreamworks) - I've never bought into the current animated renaissance: when The Incredibles ended, I was entertained but didn't feel a pressing need to watch it again. But since The Incredibles won the Best Animated Film Oscar, I had to see its competition. I must admit that the Academy chose the right movie. Both Shrek II and A Shark's Tale have many funny ideas and one-liners but are silly and patronizing. That seems to be the norm for animation these days. Clever directors pat themselves on the back for their cleverness, and we get stuck with stretches of wan parodies and take-offs on better product. A Shark's Tale: get DeNiro and Scorsese (and "The Sopranos" guys) to voice sharks, i.e., the Mafiosi. Hilarious! Shrek II: cram in more flatulence jokes than ever before. Knee-slapping! Actually, both movies look terrific on DVD, and with all the attendant bells and whistles attending Dreamworks' animated flicks, they'll undoubtedly entertain the kiddies again and again. But The Incredibles is funnier and wittier than both, and Disney went the extra mile (as they always do) by making its DVD release a two-disc set. Hotel Rwanda (MGM) - Earnest biopics are a dime a dozen, but when the material is powerful and the filmmaking more than adequate, the result is devastating drama. Hence Hotel Rwanda: Don Cheadle's emotional portrayal of the real-life savior of 1200 Rwandans during the 1994 genocide and civil war, Paul Rusesabagina, along with Sophie Okwendo's equally convincing acting as his wife, dominate Terry George's docudrama: Cheadle and Okwendo got well-deserved Oscar nods, as did George and Kier Pearson's screenplay. As usual, Hotel Rwanda was criticized for daring to find uplift amidst horror - also a naggingly unfair criticism of Schindler's List - but since the story is true, and there are thousands of potential stories from this conflict, why not tell this one? And it needs telling: human capacity for ignoring the awful lessons of history keeps growing, and a movie like Hotel Rwanda - painfully old-fashioned but riveting drama - is necessary viewing. MGM's DVD includes making-of featurettes, brief commentary by Cheadle and full-length commentary by director George and Rusesabagina.
As Julia, Annette Bening gives the kind of lustrous, larger-than-life performance that's been sorely lacking from her lately. With this marvelous Oscar-nominated star turn, Bening shows us what we've missed. Julia is the usual mixed bag of fragility and ego ingrained in so many performers, but Bening also brings out the lady's sheer sex appeal along with her vulnerability, hard-headedness and talent. (Her British accent ain't bad, either.) A consummate pro, Bening often selflessly yields center stage to costars Jeremy Irons, Bruce Greenwood and Juliet Stevenson. But Being Julia is Annette Bening's show all the way. Columbia's DVD includes commentary from Szabo, Bening and Irons, a making-of featurette and deleted scenes. Vera Drake (New Line) - A shattering drama about an unlikely abortionist in 1950s London, Vera Drake is easily Mike Leigh's best film to date, his earlier work marred by an arrogance toward characters and audience. Vera Drake extracts dramatic tension out of quotidian detail: we admire this dutiful housewife, mother, washerwoman and criminal because Leigh - nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay Oscars - never deifies her. Of course, Imelda Staunton's spellbinding Oscar-nominated performance as Vera helps. Staunton's Vera is more compelling than a mere saint: she's a flawed human being whose primary mistake is seeing the positive side of her crimes. Staunton creates such a credible everywoman that even those rare moments when Vera seems too good to be true are erased by her utter conviction. Vera Drake is a rarity: a message movie with a heart. New Line's DVD contains no extras (not even a trailer), which is a pity: not only does this fascinating true story deserve more exploration, but so do Leigh's unique working methods, which in this case created a terrific movie. |
