Memorial Day (2010/Image Blu-ray)/Titanic’s
Final Mystery (2012/Smithsonian/Inception DVD)/We Need To Talk About Kevin (2010/Oscilloscope Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture: B-/C/B-
& C+ Sound: B-/C+/B & B- Extras: C+/D/C+ Main Programs: C+
For the
Memorial Day 2012 weekend, we have a feature that is tribute to the holiday and
two other releases that are also about remembering the dead who died long
before they should have.
Sam
Fischer’s Memorial Day (2010)
attempts to tell the multi-generational story of service to the military and
has James Cromwell as a grandfather enjoying his twilight years on the porch of
his home when one of his grandson Kyle digs out an old military chest of
memorabilia that leads to flashbacks to his service in WWII (where Cromwell is
played by John Cromwell) while we also follow second Gulf War service with a
young adult Kyle (Jonathan Bennett) who is trying to deal with the war and the
legacy.
This is a
good work with some good acting and interesting moments that ring sincere, but
I found its ability to leap over Korea
and especially Vietnam
a little problematic (I had trouble buying it) and it implies that all our
conflicts are equal in a way that hurts it overall. Also, the shaky camerawork and some of the
styling of the flashbacks is problematic and offers what we have seen before,
so this did not stick with me overall, but you may enjoy it more.
Extras
include a Behind The Scenes piece and
feature length audio commentary track by Fischer, John Cromwell and Writer Marc
Conklin.
The
latest release on the Titanic disaster, Titanic’s
Final Mystery (2012), is different in that it is a British production and
not bad. To its advantage, it is
thorough for what it covers and as historically accurate, but the thing that
did not work for me is that the makers have actors play the survivors 100 years
ago being interviewed and I was thrown off by that to the point that it
backfires a bit. I still thought it was
good when that was not going on, but it seemed like filler and I would have
preferred the usual voiceovers. This
runs 92 minutes.
There are
no extras, but for more on Titanic, go to this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11523/A+Night+To+Remember+(1958/Criter
Finally
we have another film about murders at a school, a place that is supposed to be
a place of learning, but especially since the 1980s and more so since the end
of The Cold War, become a place for killing.
Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk
About Kevin (2010), her third feature film after Ratcatcher (now available from Criterion) and Morvern Caller (reviewed elsewhere on this site). This film has John C. Reilly and Tilda
Swinton as the parents of the title character (played in his later years by
Ezra Miller) in a film that attempts to be a character study of said
situation. Ramsay is a filmmaker of some
talent and can make challenging work, but this film fell short in a few ways.
Though I
though the performances were fine, Ramsay’s need to be gross and immerse the
audience with images of blood-like reds and other palpable items (food, finger
nails, anything that might seem counter to pleasantness and represent a world
of garbage and waste) is repetitive and overdone early on (down to the
soundtrack with over-sweetened sounds) and becomes gimmickry very quickly at
the expense of character development.
There is also the constant presence of people hating, mocking and even
assaulting the mother character, yet this almost trivializes the eventual
murders, though it does partly blame the parents for planting the seeds of the
awful final events.
Another
problem is that this was too similar to Donnie
Darko (also reviewed on this site) in its form and approach as Donnie essentially
creates havoc (sometimes supernatural in that case) at his school and with
people surrounding/connect to the school and the montages and slow motion here
are too similar to that film. Like the
other works on this list, it is worth taking a look at, but I was a little
disappointed.
I also
admit that as I watched, I felt bad that this would be one of the last films
Oscilloscope co-founder Adam Yauch of The Beastie Boys who died way too young
of cancer would see his company release to solid independent success. In the absence of the independent
subdivisions of the major studios and so many others bought out, Oscilloscope
has been a major force in getting independent films released that might
otherwise not have found distribution.
Besides being a great director himself, Yauch had great taste in the
visual arts along with his lover of music and it is a tribute to him that his
company has released and will continue to release films that are challenging
and different. We don’t see enough of
that.
Extras
include the original trailer, In Conversation – Telluride Film Festival honors
Tilda Swinton, Interview with Lionel Shriver whose short story was the basis
for this film, a Behind The Scenes featurette and extra footage from the tomato
festival in Spain
that figures prominently in the film.
You can read about Morvern Caller
at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/809/Morvern+Callar
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Memorial and 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on
Kevin are about evenly matched, with
some stylization, softness and image manipulation that is intended to
contribute to the narrative but holds back the overall fidelity of the playback
in both cases. The anamorphically
enhanced DVD of Kevin is softer and
does not look as good as the Blu-ray, but not by as much of a margin as I
expected. The letterboxed 1.78 X 1 image
on Titanic is average and has plenty
of detail issues, even when color is good.
Both
Blu-rays have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes and are both
dialogue-based, so the mixes can be towards the front speakers, but surrounds
kick in during action sequences so these are the mixes intended. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Kevin Blu-ray is weaker and not as warm
as the Blu-ray, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Titanic is weaker than expected with
narrower sound than it should have been and at a lower audio loudness than it
should be.
- Nicholas Sheffo
