Blind Revenge (2011/Cinema Epoch DVD)/Steel Magnolias (1989/Sony/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)

 

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

 

 

PLEASE NOTE:  The Steel Magnolias Blu-ray is limited to 3,000 copies and is available exclusively at the Screen Archives website which can be reached at the link at the end of this review.

 

 

 

Daryl Hannah has had a very mixed movie career.  For every hit (Tarantino’s Kill Bill films), cult film that became a classic (Blade Runner) films about something (Stone’s first Wall Street) and film that remained a cult item (Summer Lovers), she has made many forgettable, even awful (Legal Eagles) messes that she somehow survives including junk that is going (and deserves to go) straight to video.  So how does she endure such changes?

 

Maybe it is her beauty or the idea that she has more to offer than most filmmakers have been able to get out of her.  To put up with some of the duds she has made (especially recently), she must also be a very nice, patient woman.  We now look at two new releases of hers that are among her more interesting.

 

 

In Raoul Ruiz’s Blind Revenge (2011), she platys a woman who agrees to be hired by a blind man (Tom Conti in a good performance) to transcribe a book he wants to write.  Though other actors show up (including the late Simon MacCorkindale, Elaine Paige and Miriam (End Of Days) Margolyes), it is essentially the two actors, talking, interacting and that works surprisingly well and for a surprisingly long time in what is an ambitious work that is very watchable and more entertaining than expected.

 

The only thing is I did not buy the ending, but the fact that it got that far before running out of ideas is enough that it just might become a cult item and certainly one everyone should see once just to get their take on it.  Conti can act and Hannah more than holds her own, plus they even have chemistry.  Definitely try it out.  A trailer and stills are the only extras.

 

 

Rewinding to 1989, we have Herbert Ross’ moderate hit Steel Magnolias based on a stage play, getting a limited edition Blu-ray release from Twilight Time.  I always found this to be an odd failure of a film despite Ross’ capacities and a cast that includes Hannah, Sally Field, Dolly Parton, a Julia Roberts on the rise, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis.  There is no doubt of the talent, but I never liked the film because I thought it never worked and rang false form the earliest scenes.

 

In what almost seems like a joke, Hannah plays her mousy character with horn-rimmed glasses that makes her look more like she is ready for Halloween than this film, everyone also sports southern accents for the most part (it is almost like a weird Oscar-begging contest where no one wins) and the comic melodrama has those accents outdone by its clichés.

 

This just never gels, never becomes believable, feels flat and unreal.  It has a following and even some good acting moments, but despite looking and even feeling like it is taking place in the outdoor locales it is shot in, remains somehow stuck on the stage in spirit in the most restrictive way and likely led to more bad all-female cast films that did not work over the years in what is hardly a step forward for women in film.  We’ve seen worse, but even Producer Ray Stark could not make this one work and it remains an ensemble disappointment despite the fact that I like everyone in the cast.

 

Extras include an isolated music score of Georges Delerue’s music, feature length audio commentary by Director Ross and illustrated booklet with another fine essay by Julie Kirgo.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Blind is a little soft, but is not bad, has some good color and any motion blur is limited.  The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Steel is as good as this film ever looked, especially since TriStar was putting out substandard prints of even their big films (like Glory) due to financial troubles caused by loosing money on Rambo III, so some prints of this film looked better than others.  For those who saw lesser prints, this will be a revelation in color, depth and fidelity.  This did not improve the film for me, but made it a much more pleasant one to sit through.  Director of Photography John A. Alonzo (Chinatown) did a fine job of shooting this one as usual for a man of his talents and it finally shows here.

 

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Blind is not bad, well recorded enough and consistent throughout, making it as professional a job as you’d expect from an indie production, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Steel can be towards the front speakers.  This was originally an older Dolby A-type analog theatrical release and you can sadly hear this in the sonic limits on the mix, on the dialogue and even sound effects, so despite being an ambitious upgrade, the Delerue’ music tends to be the standout in the mix.  I was never a fan of how this film was mixed to begin with.

 

 

As noted above, Steel Magnolias can be ordered while supplies last at:

 

www.screenarchives.com

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo