A
Promise (2014/MPI/IFC
DVD)/Call Her Savage
(1932/Fox Screen Archives DVD)/Night
Moves (2013/Cinedigm
Blu-ray)/Victim
(2012/Well Go USA Blu-ray)/Young
& Beautiful
(2013/MPI/Sundance Selects DVD)
Picture:
C+/C/B-/B-/C+ Sound: C+/C/B-/B-/C+ Extras: C-/D/C-/C/C-
Films: C+/C+/B-/C/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Call
Her Savage
DVD is only available online from Fox, is in limited pressings and
can be ordered from Amazon though the right hand side bar on our
site.
Here
are five ambitious dramas that offer more than the usual, even if
they are not always successful...
Patrice
Leconte's A Promise
(2014) is a love triangle drama set in 1912 Germany as a young man
(Richard Madden of Game Of
Thrones) goes to work for
a smart, rich, married man (the underrated Alan Rickman) to help him
grow and maintain his successful industrial business, but the man
happens to have a beautiful, younger wife (the terrific Rebecca Hall)
who he slowly starts to really fall for despite all the problems and
complications that could ensure. Instead of being merely a
strung-out formulaic melodrama, this is a script with nuance and a
solid cast down to its supporting players.
In
addition, though it is not totally successful in what it tries to
pull off (we have just had one too many of these films just the
same), half the film is the realism and convincing sense of the
interactions and the few surprises they all manage to pull off. If
nothing else, see it for the actors, sets, clothes and locales.
A
trailer is the only extra.
John
Francis Dillon's Call Her
Savage (1932) is a
somewhat bold, pre-Code drama with interesting side pieces that tried
to bring the legendary Clara Bow into the sound era. The original IT
Girl and influence on the creation of the also-legendary Betty Boop,
Bow plays a tough broad who knows how hot and sexy she is and knows
the sometimes rotten world she is in. By the early 1910s (!) she
lands a fortune from where she lives in the country, then moves to
the new, fast-paced entity known as the big city. She quickly
chooses New York with its money, Art Deco, technology, sky scrapers
and promise of a better future. However, she also finds abrasive
people.
She
is wild, getting into fights with rival women, fresh men and anyone
in her way, though she is not a bad person, but the glitz is hiding
ugly possibilities and sometimes dark secrets. There are
intentionally comic moments and the makers (including producer Darryl
F. Zanuck) knew what to do with her star power) and that included
some more near nudity than anyone would see until the 1960s a few
years after this was released. The only problem is the ending, which
tries to explain her wildness and is pretty racist by any standard.
Until then, it is a fine showcase for Bow and co-stars including
Gilbert Rowland and Thelma Todd are a big plus.
There
are no extras.
Kelly
Reichardt's Night Moves
(2013) is the most successful of the films here, with Jesse
Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard as a trio of friends
who are also environmental activists who decide to do something about
it. With superior dialogue, performances and chemistry, they decide
to bomb a nearby dam because it is withholding water in a way that
they feel is harming the environment and who are the dam builders to
act like they own such a basic, important natural resource?
They
buy a boat (which has the name of the title of this film, though it
has more meaning than that), find a way to load it up with materials
to turn it into a bomb and intend to use it to break up the dam.
Will it work? Should they do it? Will it send a message? Can it
really have the effect they hope it will? Will someone be hurt in
the process? Can they keep their secret amongst themselves?
Fanning
has never been better and both Eisenberg and Sarsgaard prove once
again to be two of the best actors of their generation or anywhere on
the big screen. Though it has some shortcomings, I was shocked at
how much of this worked and how good and convincing they were. A
very timely film, I hope this is one lands up getting slowly but
surely discovered as I expect it will (Eisenberg playing Lex Luthor
soon will NOT hurt) and it is very much worth your time. Impressive!
A
trailer is the only extra.
Alex
Pillai's Victim
(2012) is a mixed-up youth crime drama that wants to show violent
crimes being committed, then tell us that those committing it have no
choice and are just doing it to survive, including going out to
parties and picking up women. The dialogue and slang is more
interesting than the story structure, which includes a pretty young
lady moving into a place with two female friends who happen to be
mixed up with the criminal guys without knowing it. She has a
boyfriend she is leaving behind, but he keeps calling her and one she
might be better off with, though he seems to have issues of his own.
The
main male criminal Tyson (Ashley Chin) is trying to raise his sister,
has big money problems and an absentee mother who is desperate for
drugs, et al and is a constant problem. This leads to side stories
of if his sister's friends will be the next generation of criminals.
Unfortunately, the script wallows in the very things it sometimes
tries to show as bad and the result is saying, no, robbing people at
gunpoint, beating them and terrorizing them is not that bad. I don't
know Pillai's intent's but this is ultimately a mess with a
not-so-shocking ending that lands up being a disaster.
A
trailer and several interview segments with various members of the
cast are the only extras.
Francois
Ozon's Young &
Beautiful (2013) is a
semi-sexy film with its own issues about a young woman (Marine Vasch)
losing her virginity to a nice guy in a way that makes her unhappy
and profoundly unsatisfied with her life and sexuality, so she lands
up becoming a high paid hooker! It does not happen that swiftly, but
close and though she is pretty and somewhat convincing, the script is
not up to it. A lack of exposition hurts as does Ozon saying things
only he understands.
Charlotte
Rampling makes an appearance in the end that is supposed to be
profound, but despite her welcome presence, it is too little too
late, while any comedy is dark and sad at best. Yes, there are other
pretty gals here and guys you would expect they want, contrasting
well against the old duds she lands up getting hired by, but it is
also insufficient to really thoroughly deal with the issues of human
sexuality all; think they are dealing with.
A
trailer is the only extra.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Moves
and 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Victim
are digital shoots with some good shots, yet they are obviously
digital in their image limits though to their credit, they are
consistent. They are also the best image performers on the list as
expected, but there are detail issues and some motion blur in spots
that hold both back. I think Moves
has the slimmest edge over Victim.
The 1.33
X 1 black & white image on Savage
shows its age as expected, but the roughness of this Fox Film (they
had not merged with 20th
Century Pictures yet) is not bad enough to get in the way of its
consistent look, though it could use some restoration just the same.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Promise and
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Young are in
between, offering thought-out digital shoots, but also having their
good moments along with softness, blur and playback limits. They
could both use Blu-ray editions.
As
for sound, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Moves
and Victim
are about even in playback, but Moves
has more detail and despite its quietness, better articulation, while
Victim
tends to be a little harsh, shrill and loud to its disadvantage. The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Savage
is audible, but shows its age as expected with background noise and
rough spots typical of most films from its period. That leaves the
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on Promise
and (in French) Young
that are also on the quiet, yet well-recorded and mixed side. They
would both benefit from lossless presentations, but fare well enough
in these editions.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
