Alien,
Aliens, Alien 3: Official Movie Novelizations
(2014 softback reissues (1979 - 97)/Titan Books)/Grand
Piano
(2012/Magnolia/MagNet Blu-ray)/McCanick
(2013/Well Go USA Blu-ray)/Rollerball
(1975/United Artists/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/3
Days To Kill (2013/Fox
Blu-ray w/DVD)
Books:
B Picture: B-/B-/B+/B- & C Sound: B-/B/B-/B- & C+
Extras: C/C-/B+/C- Films: C/C+/B+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Rollerball
Blu-ray is a limited edition release from our friends at Twilight
Time, only 3,000 copies are being made and they can be exclusively
ordered from the link below.
Classic
action meets some new ambitious entries that miss the mark...
We
actually start with 3 landmark paperbacks, all produced stand-alone
as they were when first published. Alien,
Aliens, Alien 3: Official Movie Novelizations
are new 2014 paperback reissues from the terrific Titan Books from
one of the greatest trilogies in all of cinema history. What made
these landmarks in their own right is the work of Alan Dean Foster,
whose adaptation of the 1979 Ridley Scott film set a new high
watermark for what a tie-in novelization could be of a movie. This
is not to say all previous tie-ins were awful, but some were too
short and other oversimplified their feature film counterparts.
Foster changed all that and add yet another classic moment to the
arrival of the 1979 film. Nice to see them back in print.
Eugenio
Mira's Grand
Piano
(2012) is another stuck-in-a thriller that tries to be something
more. Essentially Phone
Booth
on a piano bench, Elijah Wood is a famous musician back to perform
after having a notable failure over a particular composition made by
his now deceased mentor. His society-obsessed wife is trying to help
him, but he needs to take much of this on himself. The twist happens
during the performance when a note handwritten in red tells him he
will die if he plays one wrong note!
From
there he is tormented by a faceless voice (John Cusack) who he
eventually meets later, but this really lacks intensity and suspense
despite an interest set-up. Wood is top notch as usual, but the
script and its wacky and not necessarily effective ending undermines
everything, though all involved seem to be interested in making this
something special. Too bad it misses the mark because it was on the
right track and taking place in Chicago only helped it out.
Extras
include an AXS-TV clips to promote the film, five featurette clips
and a Making Of featurette.
Josh
C. Waller's McCanick
(2013) has the underrated David Morse as a tough, rough, even dirty
narcotics cop who is set off by the prison release of one Simon Weeks
(the late Corey Monteith in his last role) that involves a close
death to McCanick that is unrelated, but affects him, child
exploitation, pedophilia, boy prostitutes, drugs, thugs and murder.
McCanick's boss (the always formidable Claran Hinds) is his boss
warning him not to go too far, but in his own world of personal
madness, this is advice a light year too late.
Set
in Philadelphia, there are some really good performances and some
truly shocking, bold scenes through the film and it wants to leave
some questions unanswered like the 1970s urban cop dramas it tries so
hard to emulate without going the visual retro style Tarantino
single-handedly reintroduced. It may not work all the time, but it
is worth a look, including with its sad goodbye to Monteith.
Extras
include a trailer, Behind The Scenes featurette and Deleted &
Extended Scenes.
Norman
Jewison's Rollerball
(1975) is not just a generic future sport film of some kind, but a
great film that has statements to make, has only become better with
age, is as relevant as it ever was, was more prolific about
technology & people than many might think and is part of two
great film cycles of its time. It is not only part of the death
sport cycle in science fiction cinema of the time, it is the peak of
that movement, as well as a key sci-fi work from the genre's last
golden age that began in 1965 with Godard's Alphaville
and wound up in 1982 with Scott's Blade
Runner
and in 1984 with Gilliam's Brazil.
In
he near future, countries have become a thing of the past as
monopolistic corporations have taken over the planet, but a violent
game called Rollerball as supplanted soccer as the game of the world
reaching to the land that was the United States, where I has replaced
the likes of football and hockey, et al. National anthems have been
replaced with corporate anthems and everyone has multi-vision TVs to
watch things on. In all this, a champ has unexpectedly arisen in
Johnathan E (James Caan in one of his most underrated performances)
as the greatest player in the game. However, that's too much
subversive individualism for the corporate class and they want that
changed.
Bartholomew
(the great John Houseman) is a powerful corporate figure and tells
Jonathan he needs to retire, but Jonathan has heart, soul and is
still wondering why instead of doing as he's told as if he were a
child, the way all of Bartholomew's friends would like the world
populous to be. Jonathan has questions he is not sharing with
Bartholomew or anyone else and that is where the split the
controllers though they had eliminated is about to come back from
massive media repression.
The
amazing script and set up is backed by Jewison in the most underrated
film he ever made and a strong supporting cast including John Beck,
Moses Gunn, Shane Rimmer, Pamela Hensley, Maud Adams, Burt Kwouk,
Barbara Trentham, Robert Ito, uncredited turns by Craig R. Baxley,
Dick Enberg, Sarah Douglas and a totally credited turn by the great
Ralph Richardson.
This
was a big hit for United Artists worldwide and not everyone got what
the film was really about, but this is a film with a great
reputation, larger following than you might think and was one of the
first films MGM ever put on DVD from their back catalog when they
started supporting open DVD (versus the bizarre pay-per-view DIVX DVD
that bombed). Still, MGM is letting Twilight Time issue this as a
Limited Edition Blu-ray as part of MGM's 90th
Anniversary. This is likely going to sell out quickly so all serious
film fans and fans of this film should get their copy ASAP.
Extras
include two strong feature length audio commentary tracks (one by
Jewison, the other by author/creator William Harrison), TV Spots,
Trailers, vintage From
Rome To Rollerball: The Full Circle
featurette, Return
To The Arena: The Making Of Rollerball
featurette (all featured on the DVD version) and two new extras: a
new illustrated booklet with another Julie Kirgo essay that hits the
nail on the head and an Isolated Music Score track featuring the
underrated music of Andre Previn.
Oh,
and skip the hideous 2002 remake if you have not already lost 2 hours
of your life to it.
3
Days To Kill
(2013) starts
out with a promising premise as Kevin Costner (in his best role in a
while) plays an old spy who is ill, but has a big new assignment to
take on. Unfortunately, this is produced by Luc Besson and directed
by McG, who is to good filmmaking what McDonald's is to gourmet
cooking. Costner gives a really good performance, but even he cannot
override the deadly combination of Besson's plastic sense of action,
McG's hideously slap-dash sense of action, a ton of cliches that both
are so well known for and constant side ideas and bad humor that take
a potentially dark thriller that works and makes it into a full
throttle
catastrophe.
Amber
Heard does a Sharon Stone/Basic Instinct impersonation as a
female spy who knows how sick Costner is and gives him an
experimental drug to help him while he dos a dirty assignment for
her. He also is trying to be with his daughter and maybe his
estranged wife again, which makes up too much of this storyline,
killing any credibility, intensity and leaves us little suspense when
the idea and set-up should have been all that non-stop. They should
have gone for the Casino Royale/Skyfall model, but
chose The Pink Panther more often.
Too
bad, because the money, actors, locales and potential are here, but
in either the PG-13 or Unrated versions of the film, it is wildly
disappointing and one of the big creative tragedies of the last few
years. What a waste! What a shame!!!
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes
capable devices, while the discs add three featurette clips.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Grand
was shot on 35mm film, but has some ill-advised digital work that
holds the look of the film back and detail becomes an issue, so the
even more flawed 1080p 2.35 X 1 digitally-shot High Definition image
transfer on McCanick
can show the limits of the format used, yet can compete with the
filmed production by default. The 1080p 1.85 X 1 AVC @ 28 MBPS
digital High Definition image transfer on Kill
has less visual flaws, but the Arri Alexa HD-shot production also has
detail issues, so these three tie for second place for their visual
quality and the anamorphically enhanced DVD of the film is especially
soft and hard to watch.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Rollerball
can show the age of the materials used, but there are some terrific
shots here throughout that show how great-looking this film really is
and always was. We may get some slight flaws and grain at times, but
when the transfer look good, the shots are often stunning. The
futuristic look is that of clean Modernism (ala 2001: A Space
Odyssey, Logan's Run), but the scenes, sets and production
design rarely looks phony, campy, unintentionally funny or like a
shopping mall.
Director
of Photography Douglas Slocombe, B.S.C. (The
Blue Max,
Never
Say Never Again,
The Indiana Jones Trilogy, Freud)
makes this a very involving big screen event film whether it is
during the action packed games, in business buildings or the private
places of the rich and wealthy with a superior use of color at the
same time monochromatic approaches are used. UK 35mm prints were
apparently three-strip Technicolor and the film had a 70mm blow-up
print made as well. On this Blu-ray, you can see the depth intended
and the intended visual impact like never before, only rivaled by the
better film prints of the film.
All
four Blu-rays have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes,
though Rollerball
was originally a theatrical optical mono film and 4-track magnetic
stereo on 35mm prints and a 6-track magnetic stereo mix for its 70mm
blow-up. The 5.1 mix here is the same master as the old DVD and can
be more in the front speakers than I would have liked. The other
Blu-rays are all dialogue based with some action moments, but it is
McCanick
that is the sonic champ with a better sound mix and warmer, richer
soundfield throughout than expected. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on
the Kill
DVD is the sonic dud just by being so weak and no match for the DTS
on the Blu-ray version of the film.
You
can order the Rollerball
limited edition Blu-ray while supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
-
Nicholas Sheffo
