Cold Mountain (2003)/The English Patient (1996)/Frida (2002)/The Piano (1993/Miramax/Lionsgate Blu-rays)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-/B/B-/B-     Extras: C/C+/B/C-     Films: C/C+/B-/B-

 

 

Lionsgate’s rollout of hit Miramax films continues with four more notable releases, but none worked as well as I had hoped, then or now.

 

 

Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain (2003) was a drama that brought together Jude Law (who has an odd knack for picking odd scripts that never seem to make for good films), Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger in a slow, long and definitely cold drama about life just before The Civil War began.  At 154 minutes, you would think there would be plenty of time to tell a great story, but this is a run-on tale where I slowly (no pun intended) less and less believed what I saw and how everything worked out.

 

Of course, the music was celebrated at the time, as this link will show:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/988/Cold+Mountain+soundtrack+(CD)

 

However, the actual film never gels and the subject was already played out when the film was released.  I can see all involved were trying to make this work, but it does not.  Donald Sutherland, Natalie Portman and Philip Seymour Hoffman also star and extras include storyboards, Deleted Scenes, four featurettes and feature length audio commentary by Minghella and Editor Walter Murch.

 

Minghella and Murch were reuniting from their far more successful The English Patient (1996), an interesting but overrated tale of romance that develops out of a mysterious man (Ralph Fiennes) being cared for by a British medical unit, but they might change their mind if they knew who he was.  The film offers a complex, multi-layered way to tell the story and there are some interesting moments, but I always felt the film played it safe and was disappointed despite all that worked.

 

That includes the casting of Willem Dafoe, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth.  Fox originally had the rights to make the film, but when they refused to fund it unless Demi Moore (!?!?!) was cast, it made it over to Miramax.  Moore can act when she tries, as Margin Call recently proved, but she was all wrong for this film and it would have been a disaster.  Extras include Deleted Scenes, eight featurettes and feature length audio commentary by Minghella, Producer Saul Zaentz and Author Michael Ondaatje.

 

Julie Taymor’s Frida (2002) is a biopic that has its moments about the controversial artist and Selma Hayek was perfectly cast in the film, but Taymor wants to tell the life story but also keep emphasizing the art itself and that is a juggling act that holds the film back.  It is an ambitious attempt to break the usual biopic formula, but the results are mixed just the same.  Alfred Molina, Antonio Banderas, Valeria Golino, Ashley Judd, Edward Norton, Geoffrey Rush and Mia Maestro also star.  Extras include nine featurettes (including interview pieces) and feature length audio commentary by Taymor.

 

Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) is our final entry about the love affair between a deaf married woman (Holly Hunter) and interested older man (Harvey Keitel).  She is married (after being sold!!) to another man (Sam Neill) and you can imagine she is going to have to make a serious choice while she can.  The film became the target of satire and comments about the actor’s nude scenes, but the latter was a bold thing to do narratively and the performances down to a young Anna Paquin are good.  The film is quiet and slow, but that works to the film’s advantage.

 

Though not perfect and with some problems, it is as good as any of the films here, it holds together fine at 2 hours and id you liked it, is worth revisiting.  If you have never seen it, it is worth seeing once, but be prepared for its ability to be different.  The only extra is the Theatrical Trailer.

 

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Mountain, 1.85 X 1 on Patient and 1.78 X 1 on the remaining Blus are all from dated, older HD masters that are passable and better than previous DVD versions, but not great.  Patient is a strange mix of nice shots and ones that are either too dark or suddenly sepia-toned in ways that do not make sense and do not match any footage of the film I have ever seen before.  I don’t know what happened here, but the result is just wrong and someone should ask Director of Photography John Seale about it.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on all four Blu-rays are also down a generation and even towards the front speakers, but Patient suffers the least with a soundfield mostly still in tact.  However, I have heard the film sound better and once again, something has gone wrong.  Oh, well.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo