Conrack
(1974/Fox/Twilight Time Blu-ray)/The
Gabby Douglas Story/Lizzie
Borden Took An Ax (both
2013/Sony DVDs)
Picture:
B-/C+/C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B-/D/D Films: C+/C+/C-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Conrack
Blu-ray is a limited edition with only 3,000 copies being produced
and is now only available from the Screen Archives website link
below.
Even
ambitious dramas about interesting real-life people can sometimes not
work out like you might want...
Martin
Ritt's Conrack
(1974) has Jon Voight as the real life writer Pat Conroy in a drama
about a young, idealistic liberal who goes to a poor post-segregated
island in The South next to South Carolina to help teach a group of
young African-American children become more educated. A forerunner
of many dramas about teachers trying to use their unique ideas to
help their students (hijacked by Right-wingers in the 1980s for the
worst) have a better life, the film was always a mixed bag to me
(long before Mr. Voight's controversial off-screen political
comments) as a drama.
Some
might find the idea of a smart white man teaching underprivileged
children of color condescending or politically incorrect, but this is
not a story about being proto-racist but trying to make change.
Still, the film gets so caught up in its own melodrama that it tends
to overdo some important point which Ritt sometimes falls victim to
in some of his works (Nuts,
Stanley
& Iris)
while having zero issues with in others (Hud,
The
Front
(see the Twilight Time Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) despite
serious intents to make it all work.
The
locals look fine in the scope frame and the cast, from professional
actors like Paul Winfield, Madge Sinclair and Hume Cronyn) to new and
unknowns make this film very palpable, but it just never worked for
me and now plays as a time capsule of a better Liberal America lost
too soon. Sad.
Extras
includes another illustrated booklet on the film including
informative text & Julie Kirgo essay, Isolated Music & Sound
Effects track, a terrific feature length audio commentary track with
film scholars Nick Redmond & Paul Seydor and Original Theatrical
Trailer.
Gregg
Champion's The
Gabby Douglas Story
(2013) is a telefilm that should be about how the young lady of the
title became an incredibly successful gymnast how made it all the way
to the 2012 Olympics, but half the script focuses on her mother (well
played here by Regina King) giving us long exposition in how Gabby
had so much to survive since her own mother had so many difficulties
in the beginning, including her very childbirth. This is a biopic
with an extra background, but still cannot overcome some of that
formula. Still, it is worth a look for a tale well told.
There
are no extras.
Finally
we have Nick Gomez's Lizzie
Borden Took An Ax
(2013) with Christina Ricci cast to type as the title murderess,
giving us the killings (in as safe a set of terms as possible), a
long courtroom trial, anything the makers can do for this not to be a
Horror genre entry and a mixed supporting cast including Stephen
McHattie and Billy Campbell in a telefilm that cannot make up its
mind what it wants to be.
The
result is that it drags way too often for its own good and having
Ricci lands up backfiring in the end through no fault of her own.
See it when you are wake if you must.
There
are no extras.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Conrack
can show the age of the materials used, but this is the best the film
has looked in a very long time. Issued in DeLuxe color prints,
Director
of Photography John A Alonzo, A.S.C. (Chinatown,
Sounder
(which he also lensed for Ritt), WattStax,
Harold
& Maude,
De Palma's Scarface)
used real anamorphic 35mm Panavision and the very widescreen frame to
its fullest extent opening up the world that would be a trap for the
children before Conroy arrives. The look helps the film hold up as
much as it does, but this print still has its flaws and softness.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the two DVDs are new
digital shoots and even with a nearly 40-years gap, still cannot
compete with Conrack
and Blu-ray versions would not make much of a difference in that
respect. They are still competent shoots, though.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix on Conrack
is a little weaker than expected, sounding more aged, dated and
compressed than expected, even affecting John Williams' score (it
sounds better on the isolated music track). Therefore, the lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVDs can more than compete.
You
can order
the Conrack
limited edition Blu-ray among the many great Twilight Time releases
while supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
-
Nicholas Sheffo
