Cafe
de Flore (2012/Kino
DVD)/Captain Phillips
(2013/Sony Blu-ray w/DVD)/The
Fitzgerald Family Christmas
(2012/Magnolia Blu-ray)/Pit
Stop (2013/Wolfe DVD)/A
Single Shot
(2013/Tribeca/Well Go USA Blu-ray)/Terraferma
(2011/RAI/Cohen Media Group Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/B- & C/B-/C/B/B Sound: C+/B & C+/B-/C+/B-/B
Extras: D/C+/C-/C+/C+/C+ Films: B-/C+/C-/C/B-/B-
Here
is a solid new group of dramas for awards season, most of which you
have likely not heard of and most of which you should see...
Jean-Marc
Vallee's Cafe
de Flore
(2012) tells the tale of two eras via personal stories, starting with
a DJ (Kevin Parent in a fine debut performance) partying and trying
to find a better life while a mother (Vanessa Paradis) in the 1960s
has to deal with raising a mentally disabled son she loves. At
first, there would seem to be no connection, but the former has
several women and other couples to deal with and is a divorcee, while
the brave mother who loves her Down Syndrome child unconditionally
has been abandoned by her husband and is behind him 100% despite a
lack of outside support.
Though
not perfect, the film is trying to make mature statements about
people, relationships and our humanity and for a change, it succeeds
more than not with a fine supporting cast, smart screenplay and
ambitions that are often met. This never becomes pretentious,
formulaic or hits false notes, so the result is one of the better
foreign film releases of late that is definitely worth a look.
There
are sadly no extras.
Paul
Greengrass' Captain
Phillips
(2013) has Tom Hanks doing a pretty good job of playing Richard
Phillips, a professional seaman who has his boat hijacked during a
huge food delivery by Somali Pirates while he and his crew are just
doing their job. Said pirates get delusional quickly about the money
they could get from their rag tag operation, but they are ready to
kill and the script gos into detail early on in Somalia in how they
group assembles to pull off their crime.
Though
there are some good moments here as there always are in Director
Greengrass' work, the narrative and set-up cannot avoid an us and
them dichotomy despite the realism of the plotting and solid work by
the actors playing the pirates, plus Hanks has so much dialogue while
at gunpoint that it I hard to suspend disbelief that he would not be
assaulted or more in said situation. The U.S. Military and Navy
SEALs are shown in a positive light to the point that it is almost
too streamlined (we learn more about them and get more of a
connection in Zero
Dark Thirty)
that the film is affected.
However,
Greengrass has enough fine scenes where he pushes things to tell the
story that all is not lost, but this is also haunted by biopic
formula and at 134 minutes does not seem to say and do everything it
should have. Still, not bad.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes
capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds the Capturing
Captain Phillips
making-of featurette and a feature length audio commentary track by
director Greengrass.
Edward
Burns' The
Fitzgerald Family Christmas
(2012) is somehow the actor's 10th
feature as a director and he usually stars in his works, with this
being no exception, a drama about friends getting together for the
holidays and no snow to be found anywhere much like any new ideas
about how to tell and show such a story. The result is just about
all of his regular actors from all his past films get together and we
have 97 minutes to hope something good will happen when it does not.
The
disc has Theatrical and Unrated versions of the film, but it never
comes to be. The cast has talent, but offers nothing much new and
Burns never became a formidable director despite his best efforts.
This is also one more holiday release too many and for fans only.
Extra
include feature length audio commentary track by Burns on the Unrated
Version of the film and BD Live interactive functions.
Yen
Tan's Pit
Stop
(2013) is a short 80 minutes about an openly gay man (Marcus DeAna)
having an affair with a man (Bill Heck) who is not out in yet another
small Texas town. Of course, this sounds like Brokeback
Mountain,
but is far simpler and despite some potential, has far less character
and story development. The actors, situations and critique of Texas
as metaphor for homophobia, retro homophobia and obstacles in
connecting and finding happiness no matter who you are are on track
here.
I
just felt the film, despite being one of the most professionally shot
and edited gay cinema releases we've seen in a while, misses the mark
too often and has nothing new to say. Tan should try again and go
further in whatever his next film is about.
Extras
include two feature length audio commentary tracks and the Original
Theatrical Trailer.
David
M. Rosenthal's A
Single Shot
(2013) has Sam Rockwell as a hunter named John living alone after
being separated from his wife and baby, when hunting one day, he
discovers a woman dead nearby with a note about leaving her abusive
boyfriend. She could not take it anymore, but she did take a
suitcase with a small fortune he decides to take for himself. Of
course, people will come looking for the money including her rotten
boyfriend (Jason Issacs in a great turn). John wants his family
back.
Having
secured the money, he turns to his local small town lawyer (the very
welcome William H. Macy) but John is also starting to get phone
threats against himself, his family and those turn into threatening
vandalism. The result is a smart thriller and drama with a solid
cast Tribeca rightly backed that deserves a much wider audience than
it has gained so far and Rockwell handles the lead expertly as usual.
Definitely see this one too! Jeffrey Wright and Ted Levine also
star.
Extras
include a Making Of featurette, Original Theatrical Trailer and
Interviews featurette.
Emanuele
Crialese's Terraferma
(2011) is a tale about Sicilian boaters that will recall Visconti's
classic La
Terra Trema
(1948, reviewed on Blu-ray and import DVD elsewhere on this site) and
boldly has new points to make about people trapped in situations they
may not always realize they are part of. A boating family is out
working to make money at the only thing they can profit from, fishing
with tourism, when a boat of people fleeing Africa is intercepted by
Italian authorities.
However,
four of the immigrants fleeing awful conditions land up on their boat
and the family takes them home despite laws to the contrary. This
includes a woman who is pregnant and about to have a baby. We learn
that the guests are from Ethiopia (we find this out in a scene where
all are looking at a globe and Sicily is not even there for being so
small as the script drams parallels with the visuals between the two
parties) and claim to have been traveling for 2 years just to get to
the coast that would allow them to risk their lives to enter Sicily
illegally.
A
family member passes early on as we focus on the youngest fisherman
in the family (Fllippo Pucillo) a still too naïve, trusting and
kid-like, soon to be challenged by the situation that will grow worse
when authorities seize their boat in retaliation for helping these
vulnerable people. That drives the young man to try an avoid the
situation, but new twists and turns force him to decide whether he
needs to fight back or just let everything fall apart. This one too
succeeds often and definitely worth your time. It was Italy's
Academy Award entry that year too.
Extras
include an illustrated booklet on the film with chapter stops and
main cast, while the Blu-ray adds a Making Of featurette and Original
Theatrical Trailer.
Of
the four Blu-rays here, the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfers on Shot
and Terraferma
have the best transfers, even when they have minor flaws, but both
are also shot in the Super 35mm film process and that pays off well
in both cases with atmospheric, naturalistic and realistic shots
throughout that put most HD shoots to shame. The 1080p 2.35 X 1
digital High Definition image transfers on Phillips
and Family
each have their good shots, but do not look as consistently good and
happen to be HD shoots. Phillips
has much money in it for its CGI work, but it is also styled down to
look a bit rough and dark at times, while its anamorphically enhanced
DVD version is just too soft and hard to watch. Family
is just a bit generic at times with color that is not always
impressive.
That
leaves the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image ion the two DVDs
and Cafe
looks the best of all three DVDs, while Stop
is also softer than I would have liked and a little pale, tying the
Phillips
DVD for last place.
As
for sound, all four Blu-rays offer DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1
lossless mixes and the sonic champs are Phillips
and Terraferma,
both of which happen to be connected with the sea, but both are very
well recorded, mixed, warm, consistent and Phillips has the most
complex mix of anything on this list. Family
and Shot
are more dialogue-based and have moments of (practical) silence that
holds
them back from being more dynamic, but their mixed fit their scripts
and make sense.
All
three DVDs have lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes save Cafe
with a lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix with faint Pro Logic surrounds. They
are all pretty equal as the Phillips
DVD cannot handle the sonics the DTS-MA on the Blu-ray can and the
rest are dialogue-based dramas with a quieter leaning.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
