Fate
Is The Hunter (1964/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition
Blu-ray)/Stalingrad (2013/Sony Blu-ray 3D w/Blu-ray 2D)/Tapped
(2014 aka Tapped Out/Umbrella Import PAL DVD)
3D
Picture: B- 2D Picture: B/B-/C- Sound: B-/B-/C+ Extras:
B/C/D Film: B-/C/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Fate
Is The Hunter
Blu-ray is a limited edition with only 3,000 copies made and is only
available from our friends at Twilight Time, while the Tapped
Import DVD is now only available from Umbrella in Australia. All can
be ordered from the links below.
Here's
a real mix of new dramas...
Ralph
Nelson's Fate
Is The Hunter
(1964) is a drama that has its moments with Glenn Ford and Rod Taylor
as best friends who served in the military and now are airline
pilots, but Taylor has a fatal accident that kills everyone on a
commercial flight save the stewardess (Suzanne Pleshette) who might
be able to help when Taylor is accused of being an irresponsible
drunk. Ford knows better and spends the whole film clearing his
name. Nelson (Requiem
For A Heavyweight,
Lillies
Of The Field,
Soldier
Blue,
Charly)
is an interesting, underrated journeyman director whose work overall
is more interesting than he is remembered for.
He
has a great supporting cast to work with including Nancy Kwan (who
looks more modern than most of the cast!), Wally Cox, Nehemiah
Persoff, Constance Towers, Bert Freed, Mary Wickes, an uncredited
Stanley Adams and a flashback scene with Jane Russell. The film is
not always successful, but has dated in interesting ways and the kind
of quality film Fox was making after Cleopatra
lost them so much money. I am glad Twilight Time has issued this
underrated, ambitious and interesting work as a Limited Edition
Blu-ray. It is worth a serious look.
Extras
include another well-illustrated booklet on the film including
informative text and an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray a
feature length audio commentary track by Nancy Kwan and film scholar
Nick Redmond, an Isolated Music Score track from the great Jerry
Goldsmith, Original
Theatrical Trailer and a High Definition presentation of the terrific
documentary about Miss Kwan entitled To
Whom It May Concert: Ka Shen's Journey
(2010) which we previously reviewed at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11667/Mary+Pickford:+The+Muse+Of+The+Movies+(201
The
Russian cinema has been in flux, long severed from its Soviet days
and surpassed in epic moneymakers from Hollywood. Some good dramas
have turned up, but none of the larger productions that marked Soviet
excess in the name of the motherland have turned up. Fedor
Bondarchuk's Stalingrad
(2013) claims to be a realistic look at that great battle that helped
the Allies win WWII, but it has so many problems and issues that it
implodes on itself early.
The
battles are substandard, 3D awkward and it starts in the present with
Russians going to help Japan after a natural disaster. Then we get
the rest of the tale in flashback, but it rings phony for several
reasons. Why Japan? When some people get trapped in rubble, an
older Russian explains he has seen people survive such a thing
before, which takes us to the WWII battle, but that makes for a weak
transition. We never get connective exposition to make that connect
work either.
Then
we get WWII Soviet soldiers talking about God when the country they
lived and and fought for was totally against religion and especially
with Stalin in command, talking about God or any kind of faith could
get you killed by your own government, so the script is dying to
imitate Spielberg, Saving
Private Ryan
and worst of all, offer dangerous revisionist history of the past to
accommodate a Putin present that therefore touts a contradictory
history. This is also muddled, the battles overly digital, the
hand-to-hand combat weak, music score weak and the whole long 131
minutes a big disappointment that is an insult to the real history.
What a shame.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes
capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds a Making Of featurette.
Allan
Ungar's Tapped
(2014) is just another recycling of The
Karate Kid
(which was recently remade anyhow) and substitutes karate for mixed
martial arts (MMA), but someone forgot to substitute the cliches with
new ideas. Cody Hackman is the young man in despair whose in need of
support, has a bully to deal with and could find help if he listens
to the owner of a school (Michael Biehn) and from there, it is
everything you have seen before. Even the fighting (save some moves
from Biehn) didn't do much for me and I wanted to like this one, but
it never really added up. Fans of MMA and Biehn might want to see
it, but others should not hold their hopes up.
There
are no extras.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital black and white High Definition image on Fate
is shot on 35mm film, in CinemaScope and like the small number of
scope monochrome films made at the time, has a nice look to it
throughout. Nicely preserved and lensed by Director of Photography
Milton R. Krasner, A.S.C. (Buck
Privates,
Scarlet
Street,
All
About Eve,
Demetrius
& The Gladiators,
Bus
Stop,
King
Of Kings)
pulls off a stark post-Noir look that really helps the already
interesting narrative.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 MVC-encoded 3-D - Full Resolution digital High
Definition image on Stalingrad
is
not awful, but has a certain fake plasticity that does not help the
presentation or narrative, but the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High
Definition 2D version has its own issues from the 5K RED EPIC shoot.
The bad side of the narrative are magnified by the visual failings
and some of the visual effects are just overdone to boot.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Tapped
is a little too weak and plagued with aliasing errors and I wonder if
it is just the transfer. We'll compare it to the U.S. DVD when we
get to it.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 lossless mix on Fate
is as good as it is ever going to sound, nice and clean here for its
age and the limit of monaural sound. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 lossless mix on Stalingrad
has its moments, but the soundfield is a bit inconsistent despite
originally having an Auro 11.1 mix. Maybe they should have gone for
a 7.1 DTS track, but I suspect the sound was not there for that. The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Tapped
is the poorest performer here with a weak soundfield, but I wonder if
it would be better lossless.
As
noted above, to order Fate
Is The Hunter
limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and other Twilight Time releases
while supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
...and
to order the Tapped
Umbrella import DVD, go to this link:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au
-
Nicholas Sheffo
