Barefoot
(2013/Lionsgate DVD)/Copperhead
(2013/Warner Blu-ray)/Head
On (1998/Umbrella Region
Free Import Blu-ray)/The
Time Being (2012/Tribeca
Film/Cinedigm DVD)/These
Birds Walk
(2014/Oscilloscope DVD)
Picture:
C/B-/B-/C+/C Sound: C+/B/C+/C/C+ Extras: D/D/C+/C/C+
Films: C/C-/C+/B-/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Head
On
Import Region Free Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at
Umbrella Entertainment and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
is an odd new set of dramas that you should know about...
Andrew
Fleming's Barefoot
(2013) has Evan Rachel Wood and Scott Speedman as two persons on the
outs (she is introverted and his family has cast him as a black
sheep) who might be compatible, but it is hard to tell, so the
screenplay goes out of its way to make things a little quirky, but
that never feels authentic. Treat Williams and JK Simmons have good
supporting turns here, but this never rings as true as the makers
would have us believe.
As
well, the leads never totally have the chemistry you might expect,
though this being from the mumblecore subgenre of romantic films
where chemistry and speaking coherently are not requirements for
narrative storytelling, could that be intended? Either way, those
factors and a lack of focus or original ideas stops this one fropm
working. I even liked the leads.
There
are no extras, though I give them points for having Michael Penn do
the score.
Ron
Maxwell's Copperhead
(2013) is the director's very belated third (and we hope final) film
about the Civil War that began with the Gettysburg
TV mini-seires that became a cut into a theatrical film release,
followed by its overbloated, boring, and all too long sequel Gods
& Generals.
Almost as boring as its predecessor, this drama has us looking at
the lives of those good Southerners who happened to be on the wrong
side of the war, but the script lands up trivializing it all with
tons of clichés.
Even
wackier, it starts up a romance subplot with a young man (Casey
Thomas Brown) that his father (Billy Campbell) seems to disapprove of
a bit, but that changes later when he signs up to fight, leaving a
narrative gap when that should not have been the focus of this
production to begin with. The Civil War is in the background (don't
even think Gone
With The Wind),
Peter Fonda shows up and is not in enough scenes and don't expect any
serious ballte footage. What we have here is basicalluy a TV movie
with little point. Maxwell handled youth and youths much better
decades ago in his underrated Little
Darlings,
but that director is nowhere to be found here.
There
are no extras.
Ana
Kokkinos' Head
On
(1998) is from Australia and deals with a Greek family who has
immigrated to the great country Down Under, but the twist is that
late-teen Ari (a bold performance by Alex Dimitriades) is in conflict
with his father, is actually gay and is out to hve as much wreckless
sex as anything with no future in sight. This ioncludes well-hanlded
scenes where he has sexual encounters (most very high risk) and
intoxicates himself often, yet we can sympathize with him and he is
one of the more likable people here.
Not
that anyone is a villain, as even the fatehr is just portrayed as
old-fashioned, angry and stuffy with formula expectations like having
him marry a nice greek gal. The script never dewlls on the obvioius
to its credit, we also have a transvestite (Paul Capsis) as a main
character and archive footage is often used to show the Greek
experience of immigation and as symbol for hopes of a better life.
Ari even upsets his mother with talk about going back, but whether he
is serious about that or able to concentrate on anything else is not
likely. My one complaint with the film is that its ending is pat and
flat after all it says, does and shows. Otherwise, it is a minor
classic of Australian cinema and worth going out of your way for if
you are interested.
Extras
include a Behind The Scenes Photo Gallery, PAL Video Paul Capsis
Music Video, PAL Video Head
On - Six Years On
featurette (will only play on Blu-ray players than can handle PAL
format video) and the Original Theatrical Trailer.
Nenad
Cicin-Sain's The
Time Being
(2012) is the niceest surprise of the bunch with the underrated Wes
Bentley as an artist, painter and family man who is not seeing his
career go where it ought to and works other jobs until he gets a
break. It might come from an old rich man (the ever solid Frank
Langella) who just bought one of his paintings and wants to hire him
to do some work, but when the assignment is to abstractly videotape
soemthing, he is suspicious it is a dead end until he is reminded how
much money he'll make... the kind that will not totally take him off
of his artistic course, he hopes.
From
there, the script becoimes a characetr study of the men, art and the
world we inhabit with some nice surprises and a few teists and turns
for a change that make this film's ambitions work more often than we
see these days in independent production. A gem that works pretty
wellmost oif the time to the end, I very much recommend it for those
who like serious motion pictures with intelligence.
A
director interview is sadly the only extra.
The
Omar Mullick/Bassam Tariq drama These
Birds Walk
(2014) starts with the problem of having two directors who yes-men
each other too much, making any points outside of showing the lives
of the people in this story in a documentary rawness during the
course of the scripted narrative about how orphaned and/or youths of
limited resources fall through the big cracks of a society like that
in Karachi, Pakistan because the government does not provide enough
(or efficient enough) a safety net for them and thus, their future.
The
other character focused on is an ambulance driver who sometimes has
to choose between shuttling around these lost children and dead
bodies. This only runs 71 minutes and is not able to finish much of
what it starts, nor does it add as much new as one would have hoped
considering we have seen so many dramas and documentaries on the
subject from places all over the world, including the USA itself.
Still, it has a few memorable moments just the same, but focus it
lacks.
Extras
includes a feature
length audio commentary track by the co-directors, Deleted Scenes and
the Original Theatrical Trailer.
In
the image department, the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Head On (shot on 35mm film and here in a rough
print) and the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer
on Copperhead
(shot on HD in a sometimes uneven manner) tie for first place in
playback quality with their own issues and limits, yet it does not
make them hard to atch and Head On has definition and color to its
advantage over all on this list. The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X
1 image on Being
ranks second place for a good-looking digital shoot where the
director and Director of Photography Mihai Malaimare, Jr. (who has
been Francis Coppola's DP for a while recently) pull off a
smart-looking picture that would very likely look better on a Blu-ray
which it deserves.
That
leaves the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Barefoot
and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Birds
softer, weaker and lacking than I would have liked to see them, but
Blu-ray versions might help them a bit.
In
the sound department, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix
on Copperhead
is the surprising sonic champ here despite its sometimes
dialogue-based nature. It is well recorded and mixed with a
consistent soundfield that will not disappoint fans of Gettysburg
and Gods
& Generals.
The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Head
On
shows the age of the recording and its low budget, so the lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 mixes on Barefoot
and Birds
can compete, even in their weakness. However, it is most unfortunate
the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Being
is very weak throughout and the lossy Dolby 2.0 Stereo version is no
better. I don't know what happened, but it needs to be corrected if
a Blu-ray is ever issued. The soundfield is a real problem.
You
can order
the Head
On
Umbrella import Blu-ray by going to this link:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo