Blue
Jasmine (2013/Sony
DVD)/Our Time
(1974/Warner Archive DVD)/Titus
(1999/Shakespeare/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)
Picture:
C/C/B- Sound: C+/C+/B Extras: C+/D/B Films: B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
Our
Time
is only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series and Titus
is a limited edition Blu-ray with only 3,000 copies produced from the
great label Twilight Time. Both can
be ordered from the links below.
Here
are three dramas that are all worth your time and have some great
moments between them...
Woody
Allen's Blue
Jasmine
(2013) is yet another remarkable work by one of America's most
important filmmakers, but it has gained amazing attention primarily
due to a stunning, classic, unreal, home run of a performance by Cate
Blanchett as a rich woman (the title character) whose world slowly
deteriorates along with her family as a very bad financial deal
becomes a disaster. She is from New York City, but moves to see and
live temporarily with her sister in San Francisco to fix her life,
but the damage happening inside her in an interior sense is only just
beginning.
Jasmine
loves the good life and living well in what has become a protective
bubble unto itself and is so unhappy with what her boyfriend (Alec
Baldwin at his subtly obnoxious best) has done to her life and now
she has to adjust and even might have to do work she would have never
thought she would have to do just to survive. But a strange sense of
denial is there and it turns out she is still recovering from a
severe nervous breakdown.
Allen
had not made many films in New York City in recent years due to it
being so expensive, though he lives there, so I get the impression he
is making real life parallels with his life and art.
The
cast is also on the money with Sally Hawkins as her sister, Bobby
Carnivale as her boyfriend who does not trust snobby Jasmine, Andrew
Dice Clay in a breakthrough performance, Louis C.K. as a guy who
hires Jasmine to work for him and the great Peter Sarsgaard who likes
Jasmine and might be able to help her if she can just be free of the
past and the pain. Blanchett's dialogue plays at first like European
stream of conscious filmmaking and Allen is in great form himself on
many levels. There are just a few minor things that held this back
for me, but those items (which I will not explain) will not affect or
be noticed by most viewers in a film that is bound to stay one of
Allen's most discussed of his many solid recent works.
Extras
include an interview compilation dubbed Notes
From The Red Carpet
and we also get a fun Blue
Jasmine Cast Press Conference
with Blanchett, Clay & Sarsgaard.
Peter
Hyams' Our
Time
(1974) is part of a sadly long gone films that deal maturely and
realistically with young adult concerns. Set at a private young
ladies' school in 1955, the always underrated Pamela Sue Martin is a
mischievous student in the otherwise conformist, upscale school who
has friends, ambitions of a better future and does not suffer B.S.
gladly, which will turn out to be a huge asset when trouble starts to
happen.
At
a party, she gets together with her boyfriend of interest (Parker
Stevenson, who can act when given good material) and they want to get
together to have sex at a time it is very forbidden and frowned upon.
This is as funny as it is charming, but they have great chemistry
together and so much so hat they would be paired up together again on
the likes of the hit TV show The
Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries
(reviewed elsewhere on this site). When one of her best friends (a
very effective Betsy Slade) does the same, but gets pregnant, they
have to figure out how to deal with it at a time when safe, legal,
clean abortions were not available.
The
film deals with that issue in excellent fashion, but the film is also
meant to be a character study of the time, people, us, who we are and
holds up better than I expected it to. I like Peter Hyams as a
filmmaker and this is one of his first feature films. A success in
its time, it has been forgotten too easily, yet has some great young
actors giving great performances. I will save other surprises for
when you can see this one, but should add that Hyams does a really
effective directing job here and on the film's 40th
Anniversary, holds up as moire than just a period piece, 1955, 1974
or otherwise.
There
are sadly no extras, though we heard Hyams recorded an audio
commentary for this film at some point, but that is not here.
Finally
we have Julie Taymor's Titus
(1999), a bold, sometimes violent an always gritty and effective
adaptation of William Shakespeare's Titus
Andronicus,
his most graphic and over the top work and one that is not discussed
of dealt with much, particularly by snobs who want to pretend The
Bard was some kind of uppity snob himself, but he was a realist and
ahead of his time in dealing with the human condition, even when it
was something or a subject no one wanted or wants to deal with.
Anthony
Hopkins is amazing in the title role, even if it seems in the
Hannibal Lecter mode and jessica Lange is more than able to match him
(fans of American
Horror Story
should find this to be far more than just a curio and see it!) with
Taymor matching the tale to modern events (Italian Fascism, et al) in
a way to vindicate the work beyond its high quality and as a response
and graphic disagreement with the Bard
Snobs
who think they know it all and leaves no stone unturned in dealing
with the implicit or explicit themes of the story. Alan Cumming,
Colm Feore and Johnathan Rhys Meyers are among the strong supporting
cast in one of the best of the recent productions of Shakespeare
classics.
Extras
include yet another terrific, illustrated booklet on the film
including informative text and a always solid essay on the film by
film scholar Julie Kirgo whose love of cinema always comes through,
while the Blu-ray adds extras from the DVD edition that includes no
less than three (!!!) feature
length audio commentary tracks (one by Taymor, another by Composer
Elliot Goldenthal, a third by Hopkins & co-star Harry Lennix),
the fine Goldenthal music score isolated as a stereo music track, a
Making Of featurette, Q&A with Taymor, Penny
Arcade Nightmares
and Original Theatrical Trailers.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Blue
and anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Time
(one of the last films issued in real three-strip, dye-transfer
Technicolor prints for a long time) are from good copies of their
respective features, offering fine shots, smooth editing and
memorable images, but they are both unfortunately much softer than I
would have liked on DVD, made more frustrating that they are so
watchable. Blue
at least has a Blu-ray edition issued, while Time
(with some aliasing) certainly deserves one. That leaves the
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Titus
here the visual champ, but it somewhat misses how good the 35mm film
prints issued in theaters looked because this looks like the older HD
master used for the DVD.
The result are some strained shots, some shots lacking in definition
and some limits in color range, so it can look like the film, but not
always totally.
As
for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Blue
is very dialogue based and barely stereo as Allen's films usually
are, but they are also well recorded as usual again leaving Allen the
last major filmmaker to still have faith in simple sound (as Charlie
Chaplin before him was the last to believe in the silent cinema), so
the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound on Time can more than compete.
Even for its age, it is well recorded and edited, so they both sound
a little better than they look and in lossless formats, could even
sound a bit better.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Titus
is easily the sonic champ here and with a character as unique as its
visuals, has a soundfield that is more consistent than you might
expect. I cannot imagine the film sounding better than this and it
shows the persons behind the recording did a superior job.
You
can order the Our
Time
Warner Archive DVDs, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
…and
to order the Titus
limited edition Blu-ray, order it while supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
-
Nicholas Sheffo
