Campbell’s
Kingdom (1957/VCI Blu-ray)/Cracks (2009/IFC DVD)/Good Will Hunting (1997)/Rounders (1998/Lionsgate Blu-rays)/Streetwalkin’ (1985/Shout! Factory
DVD)/Trust (2010/Millennium Blu-ray)
Picture:
B-/C+/B/B-/C+/B- Sound: C+/C+/B/B-/C+/B- Extras: C-/B-/B/C/C+/C Films: C/B-/B/C/C+/B-
Here is a
mix of dramas of note, including some you may not have heard of, but should
have…
Of the
six films here, we actually reviewed Ralph Thomas’ Campbell’s Kingdom (1957) in a PAL DVD import from England a while
ago as part of this review:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8709/British+Cinema+%E2%80%93+Crime
Though I
was not a fan of the film, I really thought this new VCI DVD version was an
improvement over the PAL DVD from Network U.K. and note that the gap between
PAL DVDs and Blu-rays can be slimmer than lower definition NTSC U.S. DVDs and
Blu-ray Discs. The 1080p 1.66 X 1
digital High Definition image transfer is not perfect, but has much better
color and definition overall than the DVD with more consistent Rank Color,
while the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is really pushing it for the old sound here,
but that and the Dolby Digital 2.0 sound are just that much better than the PAL
DVD though that does not make it a lossless audio option either. While the PAL DVD had three image galleries,
this has the Original Theatrical Trailer in HD, so fans will want both
editions.
Jordan
Scott’s Cracks (2009) is an
ambitious female cast-heavy drama about the disturbing goings-on at an upscale
all-girls school where a popular teacher (Eva Green of The Dreamers and Casino
Royale) loved by her students is disrupted when a new young lady (Imogen
Poots) arrives challenging the whole “happy” situation and especially stirs up
the rage of the unofficial head of the group (Juno Temple brave in a somewhat
thankless role) in a drama that is based on the Sheila Kohler novel. Though it includes some things we have seen
before (think Lord Of The Flies),
the film manages to achieve a rare female cinematic discourse that makes Miss
Scott a distinctive voice as a filmmaker and (also remarkably) distinct form
the three highly talented directors in her family: Jake Scott and co-producers
on the film: Ridley and Tony Scott. I
hope more people get to see it.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is stylized to look soft and the DVD
format makes it more so, but Director of Photography John Mathieson, B.S.C.,
really delivers and consistent, nuanced and even beautiful job that even this
DVD cannot hold back. I would love to
see this on film and Blu-ray. The Dolby
Digital 5.1 dialogue-based lossy mix is well recorded and more towards the
front channels than I would have liked, but is still consistent down to the
music score by Javier Navarrete, though I would love to hear this in a lossless
version. Extras include a trailer,
interviews and behind-the-scenes featurette that should be seen only after
seeing the film.
Next up
are two films from Miramax with early work by Matt Damon now being released by
Lionsgate on Blu-ray. Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting (1997) is the film
that gave Robin Williams an Academy Award, showed Matt Damon could really act
and won for the screenplay by Damon and Ben Affleck. Fourteen years later, Damon is a top lead
actor, Affleck (pushed way too much by the studios without making films people
really liked) has (along with personal troubles) seen his star rise and fall in
front of the camera (his directing skills in the long term remain to be seen)
and Van Sant did not go mainstream despite repeating this film as the
underrated Finding Forrester with
Sean Connery.
Damon is
a janitor at a college who also turns out to be a genius, but his personal
troubles and pain have stopped him from having personal success. He has a great band of loyal friends (the
Affleck Bothers play two of them) and the film is as much about Boston as it is about life
and character study. The film holds up,
yet has aged in odd ways, including how the talented Minnie Driver has
disappeared from our screens too soon.
Stellan Skarsgard is great as the teacher who finds out about Will
(Damon as the title character), but most of the film still works.
Still, there is a feeling of loss (besides Driver) and that somehow Damon and
Affleck have not had the careers they should have had, that maybe they could
have been stars and made more great films as writers and directors together and
apart. They are fans, but something is
missing and that oddly haunts this film in ways no one could have imagined at
the time. It is definitely worth
revisiting as a minor drama classic just the same.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer may have some issues in
datedness and might be an older HD master, but it is the best-looking release
on the list with consistent color and the best copy of the film on home video
to date closest to the 35mm film prints I saw years ago. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix
is also the best on the list with a solid, warm soundfield for another
dialogue-based film that uses music cleverly and has more going on in its
surrounds than usual. Extras include
Digital Copy for PC and PC portable devices, 11 Deleted Scenes with optional
audio commentary, a Production Featurette, Music Video, Theatrical Trailer,
Behind-The-Scenes-Footage, Academy Award Best Picture Montage and feature
length audio commentary by Van Sant, Affleck and Damon.
John Dahl
was on his way to becoming a major director when he made Rounders (1998) with Damon and Edward Norton in this tale of high
stakes card gambling made before the poker craze hit the nation. The film wants to be gritty, but also wants
to be smooth and even like a Scorsese film, but this never gels and despite
some other good actors in the cast including John Turturro, Famke Janssen,
Gretchen Mol and Martin Landau, John Malkovich shows up, steals every scenes he
is in, outacts the rest of the cast and the film never adds up. By the time the ending happens, which I never
bought, the film just does not work. Too
bad, because a different Malkovich performance, less voiceover by Damon and
better ending could have made this a better film, but no luck.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer is from an older HD transfer,
though it is one of the better discs on this list, but the look is too much
like other better films and it never achieves the singular look it needed. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix
is weaker than expected sounding like it is from a somewhat lossy source and
turning up the volume does not help.
Extras include two pieces on how to really play poker, a
Behind-The-Scenes Special and two feature length audio commentary tracks. One is with actual poker professionals, the
other with Dahl and Co-Screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppelman.
The Roger
Corman-produced Streetwalkin’ (1985)
was directed by Joan Freeman and has Melissa Leo (now an Academy Award winner
for The Fighter) as a runaway who
becomes a prostitute recruited upon arrival in the big city by a slick pimp
(Dale Midkiff, giving a better performance than you might think) who turns out
to be more insane than we could have first imagined. The film is an exploitative flick as all
Corman films are, but it still has some interesting moments and the supporting
cast includes Julie Newmar and Antonio Fargas.
Though not a great film it is ambitious for the kind of film it is and
is worth (re)visiting at least once. It
is also so 1980s!
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X1 image has a dated print, but good color throughout and some of
the shots look good for the format, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono may show
its age, but sounds good for its age and budget. Extras include a trailer and a feature length
audio commentary track by Freeman and Producer/Writer Robert Alden worth
hearing after seeing the film.
Last but
not least is Trust (2010) a
directing effort by actor David Schwimmer about child exploitation that is
better than I expected. Clive Owen and
Catherine Keener play good parents who raise their daughter (Liana Liberato)
the best they can, but what they do not know is that she is being stalked by a
man on the Internet who at first claims he is a teen, but is really an older
man and she eventually wants to meet him, even though she is under the
assumption he is more her age. Of
course, she is in danger in the meeting and is sexually assaulted, et al.
The
parents do not know what is going on and when they start to find out, the
situation gets ugly as the father in particular wants revenge, the mother wants
the truth as well and the daughter is too emotionally damaged and confused to
handle all of this. They get help from a
therapist (Viola Davis), but the film is one of the few smart, credible
examinations of how bad this situation is, giving the audience high alarm about
a problem at near crisis level the media is oddly ignoring. I am not a fan of Schwimmer’s acting, but
after seeing this, he should definitely consider this as a second career. This is definitely worth a look.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer can be soft and styled down a
bit (not to mention the use of low def digital video for web images), but has a
consistent look and one that makes sense for this kind of narrative, while the
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is towards the front speakers and is dialogue-based (plus
some of the web audio is simple stereo at best if not practically monophonic),
so don’t expect demo audio, but the approach again makes total sense. Extras include Previews, Film Outtakes and
the featurette Between The Lines.
- Nicholas Sheffo
