Her
(2013/Spike Jonze/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD)/Is The Man Who Is Tall
Happy? (2013/Chomsky/MPI/Sundance Selects DVD)/Mirage Men
(2014/Cinedigm DVD)/Tim's Vermeer (2013/Sony Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture:
B- & C/C+/C/B- & C+ Sound: B & C+/C+/C+/B- & C
Extras: C+/C+/D/C+ Films: B/B-/C/B-
These
new releases are about technology, special interests, mysteries and
how analog and digital forces in our world are interacting with each
other.
Spike
Jonze's Her
(2013) rightly won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award as
Joaquin Phoenix (back in top form yet again) plays a writer in the
near future who deals with expressing private thoughts and ideas
named Theodore, someone who is personally unhappy, until he starts
using a new computer program that talks back to him with a female
voice. Her name is Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) who has a
sense of artificial intelligence and that includes a remarkable
imitation of emotional range.
Theo
takes this seriously and starts to have a relationship with the
program, including going out to parties, sharing personal feelings
and opening up as if Samantha was human. To say anything more would
be telling, but Jonze is several steps ahead of his audience and that
makes this easily one of 2013's best feature films. Besides
reminding me of Jonze best short work and being easily his best
feature work, it also reminded me of the early, original Rod
Serling's Twilight
Zone
TV episode The
Lonely
(from Season
One,
reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) plus Olivia Wilde, Rooney
Mara and Amy Adams are perfect in their supporting work. If you have
not seen this gem yet, see it!
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes
capable devices, while the discs add A
Short Films By Lance Bangs
on the creation of this film and featurettes
Love
In The Modern Age
and How
Do You Share Your Life With Somebody.
Michel
Gondry's Is
The Man Who Is Tall Happy?
(2013) is the director's attempt to understand, grasp and interpret
the work of writer, innovator, theorist Noam Chomsky though a series
of questions and his own animation. It might be Gondry's best
feature-length work and makes for a good introduction to Chomsky for
those who have never heard of him or heard bad, dumb things about him
(because he is critical and wants people to think, he has been dubbed
anti-American, whatever that means), so the 89 minutes here is time
well spent, even if you know him and his work better as I do.
Extras
include a Making Of piece called Animating Noam Chomsky, Huffington
Post Live Interview, Doc NYC Q&A, Democracy Now Interview and
Original Theatrical Trailer. You can also read more about Chomsky at
these links:
Noam
Chomsky: Distorted Reality
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/388/Distorted+Morality+(Noam+Chomsky
Noam
Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2311/Noam+Chomsky+-+Rebel+Without+A+Pause+(Docu
John
Lundberg's Mirage
Men
(2014) is somewhere between a documentary and speculative work with
its take on the UFO craze of the 1950s, but in this case, we have
government men who admit they were following, even stalking people
who claimed they saw flying saucers, aliens and were asking too many
questions since a secret board of experts thought this was the best
way to handle too many inquiries into actual secret government
operations. This included getting some of these people to believe
there were aliens here so they would not know about any actual top
secret activities. It was also to have them easy to discredit at any
time, just in case they needed to do so.
At
85 minutes, you get plenty of interviews, rare clips, darkly humorous
moments and some people admitting to things that maybe should inspire
some kind of official inquiry, but who knows. Too bad this subject
is so played out, but in the face of so many bad reality TV shows and
speculative series on the subject, it is an improvement. Worth
seeing once if you can handle the repetition.
There
are no extras.
Penn
& Teller's Tim's
Vermeer
(2013) is an interesting documentary about the obsession of Tim
Jenison, a technical innovator who has become driven to figure out
how the master Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer managed to create
paintings that were so photo-realistic a century and a half before
photography's advent. X-rays have revealed that there are no
sketches underneath and his work was like no one else's. How did he
do it. It may take him massive patience, several years and have him
go down many avenues before he finds his answers, but Mr. Jenison is
going to find out if it is his last act on earth.
Fortunately,
it is never that melodramatic, but it is at least interesting and
this documentary shows us how he does this the long way because it is
the only way to see it unfold. David Hockney and Martin Mull are
among those who also show up and this is more interesting than you
might think, for as Jenison uses the latest digital technology to
figure things out, he has more analog work to do than he or anyone
could have ever imagined he would need to do.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary track by Penn, Teller, Tim
& Producer Farley Ziegler, Deleted, Extended & Alternate
Scenes and Toronto International Film Festival Q&A.
The
Blu-rays tie for the best image quality, with the 1080p 1.85 X 1
digital High Definition image transfer on Her
and 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Vermeer
being a little softer throughout than I would have liked, but at
least having a consistent look in each case throughout, but their
anamorphically
enhanced DVD counterparts are much softer, especially Her,
which is sometimes unwatchable it is so soft and ties the also
anamorphically enhanced Men
for the softest presentation on the list. That leaves the
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Happy
as good as any DVD here. Wonder how much better an HD presentation
would be.
As
for the sound, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the
Her
Blu-ray has the best sonics on the list with a consistent, even
clever soundfield throughout, something the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
on its DVD version cannot keep up with. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 lossless mix on the Vermeer
Blu-ray is more about quiet times and talking heads, so it is not
going to sound as good, but the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on its DVD
version is so weak that it is the poorest performer sonically on the
list. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Happy
and Men
are just fine for what they are, interview documentaries.
Also,
you can read more about the great Directors Label releases of short
films and Music Videos by two of the filmmakers above at these links:
Michel
Gondry
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/567/Work+of+Michel+Gondry+(Directors+Label
Spike
Jonze
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/464/Work+of+Spike+Jonze+(Directors+Label/Palm+DVD
-
Nicholas Sheffo