Dead Man Walking (1995) + Hotel Rwanda
(2004) + Leaving Las Vegas (1995/Uncut) + The Manchurian Candidate (1962) + The Misfits (1961) + Some Like It Hot (1959) + The Terminator (1984/MGM Blu-rays)
Picture: B-
(Walking/Vegas: C+) Sound: C+/B-/C+/C+/C/C+/B- Extras: C/B+/C-/B/C-/B-/B- Films: C+/B+/C+/A-/B-/B-/B-
MGM
continues their wide back catalog Blu-ray release campaign that is impressive
in number and does not even include their Criterion licensing, but includes key
films in their catalog just the same and is sure to keep film fans happy
enough. Some are in better shape than
expected, while others are a little on the weak side. Here they are as follows, including some we
actually have never covered before.
Tim
Robbins’ anti-death penalty drama Dead
Man Walking (1995) is a good film, though I never though it was as good a
film as its celebrated lead performances by Susan Sarandon as a nun (overdue,
especially after her underrated work in The
Client) and Sean Penn as the convicted violent criminal she is trying to
help before his death. Originally issued
by two now-defunct companies (PolyGram and their one-time film division
Gramercy with MCA/Universal), the film is at least believable and consistent,
but I never thought it was anything more and sometimes it was too slow and
predictable for its own good. It is
still worth seeing once, but just don’t; have your hopes as high as the hype
and you’ll get it. A trailer and Robbins
on a feature length audio commentary are the only extras.
Terry George’s
Hotel Rwanda (2004) seems as
relevant as ever and I reviewed it years ago in its DVD edition at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2125/Hotel+Rwanda
This
duplicates everything from the DVD edition and is slightly better overall (see
tech info below), so get this version if you like the film or have never seen
it.
Mike
Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas (1995) was
also somewhat obvious and predictable to me as alcoholic Nicolas Cage and
hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Elisabeth Shue turn in fine performances in a dark
drama about the absolute underside of the great town, though few knew the town
would be changing like it has and all were smart enough to make it a character
in itself. They are good, but the film
did not stay with me after all these years, though I felt bad that both of
their careers did not work out artistically as I would have liked. Still, this is the best version of the film
to date, if narrowly.
John Frankenheimer’s
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) was
very badly remade and no one really seems to like or talk about what was a
monumental waste of time and talent, but the original remains a classic and
here is our coverage of the DVD release from years ago:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1351/Manchurian+Candidate+(1962,+remast
This too
duplicates everything from the DVD edition and is slightly better overall (see
tech info below), so get this version if you like the film or have never seen
it. Skip the original if you did not
already loose two hours of your life to it.
Two films
with Marilyn Monroe have been issued at the same time: John Huston’s legendary The Misfits (1961) and Billy Wilder’s
classic comedy Some Like It Hot
(1959), two gems from the amazing golden days of United Artists.
The Misfits (1961) was the last film of Clark
Gable and Monroe, both of whom were not in their best of health and are joined
by Montgomery Cliff, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter in this Arthur Miller (who
was married to Monroe at the time) in this contemporary Western about the lives
of a group of friends (or something like that) whom all think in the short term
and are not as happy as they could be.
It has a narrative, but also wants to be profound, so Miller and Huston
are trying to be writerly and readerly at the same time, resulting in a film
that can be interesting, but also uneven at times. After Monroe and Gable were gone, it became a
surreal curio as a result, sometimes losing its content for viewers, but it is
interesting in the way Hud, Last Picture Show and Brokeback Mountain are, all visiting the
West (or the South) now and seeing the tail end of was is promise lost. A trailer is the only extra.
Some Like It Hot is a funny film, though I never
thought it was the laugh riot some people did, it is a classic because of its
daring dealings with sexual identity and beyond the comedy we see the clashings
of various worlds (the arts versus criminals, rich versus poor, male versus
female, serious versus funny, progressive versus dead-end, young versus old,
happy versus miserable) that find interplay in ways only Wilder and co-writer
I.A.L. Diamond could. Monroe gives one of the best performances of
her career, Tony Curtis gets one of his most challenging and Jack Lemmon shows
what a comic genius he could be. George
Raft, Pat O’Brien and Joe E, Brown also star.
Extras include an Original Theatrical Trailer, Virtual Hall Of Memories,
Nostalgic Look Back documentary, two featurettes (The Legacy Of Some Like It Hot,
Memories From The Sweet Sues) and
feature length audio commentary track including a Curtis interview, archival
Lemmon interview, Paul Diamond (I.A.L. Diamonds’ son), Lowell Ganz and Babaloo
Mandel.
Finally
we have James Cameron’s original The
Terminator (1984), a film we somehow also kept missing to cover. We have covered all the sequel films and
brief-lived TV series. Here is our previous
coverage of the rest of the franchise to date in High Definition:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8553/Terminator+2:+Judgment+Day+%E2%
Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (HD-DVD, same performance as
Blu-ray)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4393/Terminator+3+%E2%80%93+Rise+Of
Terminator Salvation (4th Film)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9356/Terminator+Salvation+%E2%80%93
Terminator: The Sarah Connor
Chronicles - The Complete First Season
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7388/Terminator:+The+Sarah+Connor+Chro
Terminator: The Sarah Connor
Chronicles - The Complete Second Season
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9147/Terminator:+The+Sarah+Connor+Chro
After all
that, this film remains the original, the first and part of the vision that
matters most, Cameron’s. I liked the
second and third films, but not the rest and more is on the way. With Arnold Schwarzenegger returning for the
next film (!) and Cameron possibly returning at least as producer, we’ll see if
they can leap over attempts by others to continue without them.
For those
who do not know, Linda Hamilton is Sarah Connor, a woman who does not know that
she is marked for death as she is about to give birth to a son who will lead
humans against the uprising of killer machines with artificial intelligence who
want to take over. At first, we see a
seemingly unrelated series of killings by a mysterious stranger who arrives out
of nowhere in the nude, but it turns out he is a machine out to kill her and
when a woman with her name is shot to death, she still does not realize she is the actual target. That is until another mysterious stranger
(Michael Biehn) shows up and explains what is happening after saving her from
being shot to death.
To
Cameron’s credit often overlooked, he films most of this as a murder thriller,
a mystery film that pumps up the suspense even when it could have coasted on
other, lesser ideas as we see too often today.
When it first arrived, I had my issues with it (the tone was sometimes a
problem and it seemed a step backwards versus some of the best 1970s serious
Science Fiction), but the film was a surprise hit and the rest is history. Whether there is any more good storylines to
tell is unknown, but the original has not aged as badly as expected. Extras include Seven Deleted Scenes, Terminator: A Retrospective, Creating The Terminator: Visual Effects
& Music and comes in a hardcover case with short booklet with text on
and still from the film.
All seven
Blu-rays offer 1080p digital High Definition images and they are all at least
slight improvements over their DVD counterparts, though the AVC @ 38 MBPS 1.85
X 1 on Walking and AVC @ 40 MBPS
1.85 X 1 on Vegas are the weakest
and seem to be sourced from older HD masters.
Even though it was shot in Super 16mm, Vegas could look a little better.
The AVC @ 40 MBPS 2.35 X 1 on Rwanda
is actually an improvement on the DVD (despite my then high grade) when it
comes to Video Black, but that was a good DVD.
The print still shows grain. Manchurian also has better Video Black
in its black and white AVC @ 38 MBPS 1.78 X 1 transfer, though this is an older
HD master and could look better. I have
seen this in 35mm and know. The AVC @ 38
MBPS black and white 1.66 X 1 on Misfits
and AVC @ 32 MBPS black and white 1.66 X 1 on Hot are in the same boat, with older HD masters that look good and
better than DVD versions, but not as good as 35mm would.
Terminator has a print with more than its
share of dirt and debris (here at 1.85 X 1) that is passable, but could look so
much better if restored and not overly cleaned and you can see some of the
darkness and good color intended. This
is a Blu-ray reissue and was one of the early discs issued, so the repackaging
is nice, but the image could look better.
Terminator also features an
uncompressed PCM 5.1 mix that Cameron supposedly supervised himself and it
sounds good, but that cannot cover the age of the original recording and maybe
some audio breakthroughs since could lead to some improvements if he tried to
remix this again, maybe for DTS-MA 7.1 or the like. We’ll see, but as this mix stands, it is
still better than any other disc here but Rwanda,
which is its only equal. The other Blu-rays
and their DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mixes are upgrades of sound that is
usually optical monophonic sound, but Walking
was a digital Dolby Digital 5.1 release and Vegas was Dolby A-type analog stereo in theaters. Walking
sounds more worn than usual, while Vegas
shows the limits of some location shooting and budget limits in its audio. Misfits
has the poorest sound here, sounding too compressed (sometimes more than I have
heard with the film before) and could use some restoration work.
- Nicholas Sheffo
