Amour
(2012/Sony Blu-ray)/Bus Stop
(1956/Fox Blu-ray)/Floating City
(2012/Well Go USA Blu-ray)/Niagara
(1953/Fox Blu-ray)/On The Road
(2012/IFC/MPI Blu-ray)/To The Wonder
(2012/Magnolia Blu-ray)
Picture: B/B-/B-/B-/B/B Sound: B/B-/B-/B-/B/B Extras: C+/C/C-/C/C/C Films: C+/C+/C+/B-/C/C
Now for
some recent drama releases that produced mixed results…
Michael
Haneke’s Amour (2012) received more
attention than some of his recent efforts and has its moments telling the story
of an elderly couple and the husband (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who has to deal
with his wife (Emmanuelle Riva) slowly losing her memory and facilities,
slipping away from him after decades of a truly loving marriage. At its best, it is a film with good, even
powerful moments, but too many other times succumbs to Haneke pretensions that
hold the film back.
Isabelle
Huppert (a Haneke regular) is the daughter on the outside trying to deal with a
situation that is her business, but how much of the private space should she
stay out of? At least it is one of his
more accessible works, but I am no fan, yet the film deals with a serious issue
with class and dignity, so I am glad it has had the success it gained. Those who think they can handle it should
give it a look.
Extras include
a Making Of featurette and Q&A with Haneke in New York.
Joshua
Logan’s Bus Stop (1956) is one of
two classic Marilyn Monroe films on this list now on Blu-ray that is a nice
upgrade from its DVD release. Intended
as a drama to show off her more serious acting abilities, she falls for a young
rodeo guy (Don Murray) in what immediately is a dysfunctional, problematic,
romantic relationship. Her Southern
accent is not bad, but never totally convincing, yet this is some of her most
ambitious work and we get more than enough time stuck on the bus itself.
Worth a
look for being so different, it was meant as a big event film, but the results
always were mixed and it is a curio as much as anything else. Murray
makes a fine debut that set his career and there are some amusing moments in
between the melodrama.
Trailers
for this and other Monroe
films on Blu-ray are the only extra.
Yim Ho’s Floating City
(2012) is a drama about racism, colonialism and some history as a young man
goes through a living hell to become a successful businessman despite an ugly
past and racism in British-controlled Hong Kong. Of course, the U.K.
eventually turned over the country to China and that (if you know it)
haunts the story, as well as adding irony that would have been unthinkable not
that long ago.
Staring
in the 1940s when the protagonist is born, Bo (Aaron Kwok) will not let
anything get in his way, but there are some ugly twists and turns. Some may be predictable, but some are not and
there are more than a few moments that ring very true throughout. Unfortunately, too much of it is melodrama
and not enough of the racism or politics are explored explicitly, holding the
script and film’s potential back.
Acting is
fine and locations are a plus, but whether this is the product of a true New
Wave movement as the package’s notes say it is debatable. It does make me want to see more of Ho’s
films and see how much of a Hong Kong New Wave we get. I also thought some of the shots here were
visually impressive, helping the overall narrative by making it more
palpable. At 105 minutes, it is just long enough.
The
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.
Henry
Hathaway’s Niagara
(1953) is easily the best film on the list.
A drama about a married couple (Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotton) who
seem happy, but she has another younger lover and plans on killing her husband
once and for all, hoping the locale might help them wash away all evidence of
their crimes, but things will not work out as easily as that and the suspense and
tension begin.
Jean
Peters, Casey Adams, Don Wilson and Lurene Tuttle are among the great
supporting cast and the film holds up extraordinarily well on its 60th
Anniversary. If you’ve never seen this
one, get it!
Trailers
for this and other Monroe films on Blu-ray are
the only extra, but you can read about more Monroe Blu-rays at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11744/Forever+Marilyn+Blu-ray+Collection
Walter
Salles’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On
The Road (2012) follows several mixed short works, a co-directed work, the
horrid thriller Dark Water (2005 and
as awful as ever) and his overrated film of Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries. Not
impressed by those, I hoped this might be a breakthrough film, especially with
Francis Coppola’s American Zoetrope involved, but this film manages to render
the book boring, flat and having little to no idea why the book and its time
was so revolutionary.
Sam Riley
is the Kerouac stand-in who eventually has a friendship and affair with Dean
Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund with his own decent-if-not-totally-effective Southern
accent) boldly jumping into the role, but the sexual aspects of their
relationship are rendered secondary like so much else that is actually
important here, like how oppressive the era was itself and how original the
trips they took were. The locales and
sets are made to look period very nicely, but it never feels like the time or
has talk or actions that make one feel like they are listening in on events of
that time.
That it
is a mechanical experience that does not know where to really go and worst of
all, is not even that good of a road movie, the one thing it should not have
messed up. This equals predictable,
generic melodrama. Nevertheless, Kristen
Stewart shows up in one of her few lively performances of late, Steve Buscemi
has a brave turn as a older guy who gets hustled by Dean, Amy Adams, Alice
Braga, Tom Sturridge, Elisabeth Moss, Terrence Howard and turn by Viggo
Mortensen where he outacts the rest of the main cast every second he is on
screen cannot save the film from its self-imposed, uninspired limits. You might want to read the book first in this
case, because the film is enough to make one skip it.
Extras include
the Original Theatrical Trailer and Deleted Scenes.
Finally
we have Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder
(2012) which is more interested in being some kind of visual poem than a
narrative film and tries this by going the French New Wave route of stream of
conscience (down to people speaking French!) cinema. Olga Kurylenko is the lady who gets involved
with an American (Ben Affleck, who is good here in a restrained performance
until he turns into Ben Affleck again) that compares life to the afterlife,
happiness and adds to its examination of misery a constant observation of
corporations poisoning the earth with its chemical by-products.
However,
Malick is on his sudden religious kick again and has Javier Bardem as a priest
trying to help the helpless and Rachel McAdams as the lady who gets in the way
of the loving couple. Unfortunately,
this feels like a weak flipside to his film Tree Of Life (2011, reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and
whereas he was imitating Kubrick then, this time he is imitating Alain Resnais,
Nicolas Roeg and Michelangelo Antonioni too much this time out, resulting in
losing his own mark as a distinctive filmmaker.
See for yourself, but know this one runs a long 113 minutes.
Extras include
the Original Theatrical Trailer, a Making Of featurette and three additional
featurettes: The Actors Experience, The Ballet and Local Flavor.
I cannot
imagine these films looking much better than they do here unless you pumped up
the definition. The 1080p 1.85 X 1
digital High Definition image transfer on Amour
was lensed by the great Darius Khondji, A.S.C., A.F.C., showing off his
usually superior grasp of light and shadow.
He uses the Arri Alexa HD camera to fine effect throughout making it one
of the more interesting uses of that popular HD product to date. Detail and depth are consistent throughout
and can even look film-like at times.
The 1080p
2.55 X 1 AVC @ 33 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer on Bus Stop has some color and detail
issues due to age of the DeLuxe color and the distortions of the CinemaScope
system, but Fox spent serious money to fix, restore and repair the film years
ago for its DVD release and that work pays off as this Blu-ray is far superior
to that now older DVD. The same can be
said for the 1080p 1.33 X 1 AVC @ 33 MBPS digital High Definition image
transfer on Niagara,
which was originally issued in dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor 35mm
prints and you can often see how good that looks here. the print can show its age as well, but has
aged better than Bus Stop and fixed the film as thoroughly.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on City, Road and Wonder are also solid transfers, but City can be a little softer due to
being shot on a RED ONE MX HD camera and the results cannot compete with Amour’s Arri Alexa either. Road
and Wonder are two of the
best-looking releases on the list and both were shot on film. Road
was shot in Techniscope on 35mm film and Wonder
mixed 65mm and 35mm film, so no one can say they don’t look fine, but I would
imagine Wonder could look better and is being held back a bit. Both used Kodak film and their amazing Vision
3 series stocks. You get demo shots in
both cases as a result.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.0 lossless mix on Amour is dialogue-based and has its share of silence, yet this
somehow has one of the most consistent soundfields here. The sound is never pushed towards the front
speakers, making this the big surprise for me of this release. Top rate!
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 4.0 lossless mix is on Bus Stop has a tenuous soundfield and has sound towards the front
speakers as this was a film originally designed for 4-track magnetic stereo sound
with traveling dialogue and sound effects, but some sound can sound brittle and
show its age. Otherwise, we doubt it
will sound much better than this ever.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on the rest of the films range from
Niagara sounding surprisingly good
considering it was originally a theatrical monophonic release, City having mixed recording quality and
a soundfield that can be more towards the front speakers than a new film
release ought to be. Road and Wonder are even livelier than Amour,
but cannot surpass its consistency, but are both very well recorded, mixed and
have fine soundfields. Wonder even asks you turn the sound way
up, which is not a problem as it never distorts.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
