Liberace: The World’s Greatest Showman (1992/Legend DVD)/Love Free Or Die (2012/Wolfe DVD)/Strange Frame (2013/Wolfe DVD)/This
Must Be The Place (2011/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)
Picture: C/C/C+/C+ Sound: C/C+/C+/C+ Extras: D/C/C+/D Main Programs: C+/B/C+/C+
Here are
some recent Gay & Lesbian-related releases to consider…
Liberace: The World’s Greatest
Showman (1992) is
being issued on DVD in time for the feature film (originally intended for
theaters, but homophobia has made it into a cable TV event) with Michael
Douglas as the legendary pianist. This
compilation documentary with plenty of rare stills, videotape and film footage
of the man at his peak. It runs 79
minutes and I wish the makers/owners had extended it for this release as more
footage would have made this better, but it is a nice summary of his work and
life, reminding us just how successful, bold, individualistic and ahead of his
time he was.
There are
no extras.
Macky
Alston’s Love Free Or Die (2012) is
a new documentary about Bishop Gene Robinson, who also happens to be gay and
has a life partner. Ironically coming
out on DVD as a new Pope has been elected, the 83-minutes-long work is to the
point, greatly detailed and pretty thorough about how he came into his
position, his political positions, the challenge of what would seem like a
contradictory life and what this says about our nation, religion, the future
and how times are changing, made more relevant by the Same Sex Marriage debate
following said new Pope.
As I
watched, it seemed almost unreal that what was happening was happening, but
here it is and it is interesting how this story has never appeared in the
mainstream media as all this change and debating is occurring. Not a fan of the hard Right turn religion
took in the 1980s, this also reflects the return of The Religious Left and this
time, they are not going to be going away or be marginalized anytime soon. Hope we hear more about this story down the
line.
A trailer
and featurette the only extras.
The
computer animated Strange Frame
(2013) is set decades into an over-technologized future where one woman falls
for another against a backdrop of genetically engineered slaves and slavery, a
world turned upside down, a future where civil rights struggles have to be fought
yet again and where happiness is harder to find.
It plays
like a part of a Heavy Metal movie and definitely owes something to the
original magazine’s counterculture sensibilities. It also is as sexual an a Japanese Animé, but
any lesbianism here is naturalistic and not of the perverted, thought-police
(or even pedophilic) kind we see in that genre.
There is humor here, but this is for mature adults.
It is a
mix of styles (post-modern indeed) and has some interesting moments, but it
cannot help repeating things we have seen before and the musical moments
throughout tend to get in the way of narrative development, further holding the
whole thing back. However, it has its
successes and for those interested, will be worth a look.
Voice
actors include Ron Glass, Michael Dorn, Tim Curry, George Takei, Claudia Black,
Cree Summer and Tara Strong.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer, Deleted Scene and Making Of featurette
with the voice cast.
Finally
we have Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must Be
The Place (2011) with Sean Penn as a one-time Goth Rock star named Cheyenne who looks
feminine, dresses like that and seems like a transsexual variant of the lead
singer of The Cure. Living off of his
royalties, he comes home to New York City from Dublin to deal with his
father’s legacy and how they did not get along.
He also
has to deal with his own personal isolationism, his personal pain and Penn
gives one of his more daring performances.
But even backed by work from a good cast that includes an oddly cast David
Byrne (I like him, but realism is not always enough), the great Harry Dean
Stanton, Joyce Van Patten and Frances McDormand, the 111 minutes don’t seem to
do enough with what is presented and some aspects of the script are either too
predictable or (like the ending) don’t quite work. Still, those interested should see it and
those who might find it challenging should take it on to see what they think.
There are
no extras.
The 1.33
X 1 on Liberace and anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Free are
softer than usual with more aliasing errors than expected and can be trying in
parts, but they are the two documentaries and that can be the nature of such
productions.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Frame and
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Place tie for first place with the former’s CGI animation good, but
sometimes simple and limited. The latter
is the only Blu-ray here, but has detail limits throughout that hold it back
despite having some nice location shooting.
The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mix on Place should be the sonic champion, but the dialogue-based
production is not very loud and sometimes limited in overall sonics, so the
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 Free and Place are able to compete. That leaves lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Liberace showing the age of the older
analog video production, but it is passable and not too rough.
- Nicholas Sheffo