Behind The Candelabra (2013/HBO DVD)/Call Me Fitz: The Complete Third Season (2012/E1 DVDs)/Petunia (2013/Wolfe DVD)/Sincerely Yours (1955/Warner Archive
DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/C/C+ Sound: C+/C+/C/C+ Extras: C/C/C/D Main Programs: B/C/C/C
PLEASE NOTE: Sincerely Yours is only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here are
a set of titles tied by comedy, music and themes…
Rejected
for U.S.
theatrical release by every major studio and top distributor around, Steven
Soderbergh’s Behind The Candelabra
(2013) is one of the year’s best motion pictures and is getting released
theatrically abroad. HBO smartly picked
up the autobiographical story of Scott Thorson (played here starting at 17
years old (!) by Matt Damon in a remarkable performance), a young man who works
on movies with animals and also happens to be bi-sexual at a time (the late
1970s) when this was not much discussed.
His life
is not bad when one night, his gay boss (Scott Bakula in one of his best-ever
roles) takes him to see the legendary pianist Liberace (Michael Douglas in a
haunting performance) and is stunned that he can play, that he is gay and no
one really gets that he is gay. They
meet and at first, it just seems like a business associate encounter, but
Liberace becomes slowly enthralled with Scott and hires him for his act as a
fantasy chauffer for his record-length fur coat!
However,
they start to get more involved despite the age difference and have a love affair
that stays secret the whole time until it sees its end and the script (based on
Thorson’s book, adapted here by Richard LaGravenese) does an ace of a job of
capturing the people, the time period, era and status of the situation
throughout. There are also some great
turns by Debbie Reynolds as Liberace’s mother, Dan Ackroyd as his loyal agent,
Nicky Katt, Paul Reiser and Rob Lowe as a plastic surgeon that rounds out Soderbergh’s
best film in years. Too bad he is about
to retire.
The story
never is never shy about gay sexuality, yet is never exploitive on the matter
and this ultimately is a character study of the time, our society and an untold
story of show business and media long overdue so good that you feel like you
are spying on the real thing happening.
Amazing.
The only
extra is a Making Of featurette that
should be seen after seeing the movie.
Also
obsessed with the gaudy Las Vegas
show business world in its own explicit way is Call Me Fitz: The Complete Third Season (2012) with Jason Priestley
as the title businessman, womanizer and manipulator with more than a few fans
and enemies alike. Priestley’s best work
to date, we have covered the previous seasons at these links:
One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11199/Bored+To+Death+%E2%80%93+The
Two
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11519/Bob:+The+Complete+Series+(1992
This time
out, the cast is still funny, energetic, has kept their comic timing and keep
the pace up, but the teleplays are starting to stumble (much like Girls recently) and the show sit
running out of ideas and losing whatever edge it had. Now the storyline is becoming obvious, the
show is repeating itself and the weekly TV grind is pushing the show into a
corner. Still, it could be worse, but I
had hoped the show would build on its potential and this time out at least, it
did not.
Extras include
a Season Three featurette, three other featurettes (World Of Fitz, Inside Call Me
Fitz, Meet Melody Gray) and a
Sizzle Reel.
Ash
Christian’s Petunia (2013) is about
the title family and its dysfunctional affairs including a married couple
(Christine Lahti and David Rasche) who hate each other as one daughter (Thora
Birch) is married and another son (Tobias Segal) starts to deal with his
homosexuality.
Unfortunately,
this is done more as a cartoon than a comedy with any edge or substance, which
is made worse by the fact that the makers have a really good cast here. This is just too slap-happy for its own good
and rarely rings true, not to mention how predictable it becomes. Some of the dialogue is also lame, but it is
at least consistent if not great.
Brittany Snow and Eddie Kaye Thomas also star.
Extras in
this great slipcase packaging include a radio interview with Birch, Lahti &
Urie, a feature length audio commentary track with Christian,
Co-Writer/Co-Producer Bennett & Producer Jordan Levine and an Original
Theatrical Trailer.
Finally
we have Gordon Douglas’ Sincerely Yours
(1955), a melodrama that features the real Liberace as a pianist who is
starting to have problems with his career via a devastation hearting problem
and potential affairs with two women (Dorothy Malone, Joanna Dru) that are as
laughable for all the wrong reasons as they are outright campy.
A dud
when it was issued, then reissued, often without Liberace having top billing,
its commercial failure killed his dreams of being a big movie star and later
reissues even under-1billed him, but the film is worth seeing for the time
period and especially for his amazing piano playing. It shows up referenced in Behind The Candelabra and should be in
print just the same.
There are
no extras.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Fitz
and anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 on Yours
are flawed, but the best presentations here and despite detail and definition
issues, have color and some warmth that put them ahead of the softer-than-expected
1.78 X 1 images on Behind and Petunia, which look too soft =for their
own good, though Behind has a Blu-ray that was annou8nced at the last minute
and that would be the preferred way of seeing it.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on Behind, Fitz and Petunia should tie for the best releases here sonically, but Petunia is badly mixed, poorly recorded
and the sound is too much towards the front channels more than usual for when I
encounter this kind of thing and all have this issue. I guess a lossless presentation might help Behind (on Blu-ray as noted) and Fitz, but Petunia would need reworked, so the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on
Yours is surprisingly good and equal
to any of the releases on this list, though you’ll wish the music was in stereo
every time Liberace plays.
To order Sincerely Yours, go to this link for it
and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
