Fray (2014/Cinema Epoch DVD)/The Guest (2013/Universal Blu-ray w/DVD)/The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1969/Fox)/Under Fire (1983/Orion/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-rays)

Picture: C/B- & C/B/B- Sound: C+/B & C+/B-/B Extras: C-/C/B/B Films: B-/C-/B+/B-

PLEASE NOTE: The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and Under Fire Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, are limited to only 3,000 copies each and can be ordered while supplies last from the link below.

Over the decades, films have addressed war in all forms from making the big statement to exploitation, all of which thew following releases show...

Geoff Ryan's Fray (2014) is our independent surprise here, telling the tale of a young man (a breakthrough performance by Bryan Kaplan) whose served several tours in the Gulf-era of wars, now trying to adjust and reintegrate back into the society and country he fought for. Trying to get a job while studying economics, he lands up with a friend in his teacher (Marisa Costa) who tries to help him as well. There is support and empathy from more sources than expected, but he is still suffering PTSD and is having too many issues that only he would understand.

Ryan also wrote the smart script that has a better grasp of the Gulf-era wars than any narrative film since Jarhead (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and is something special serious film fans should go out of their way to see. I hope we see all the involved parties in more films again real soon!

A trailer is sadly the only extra.

Adam Wingard's The Guest (2013) takes the opposite end of things as a low budget release by a major studio in which man coming home from war (Dan Stevens doing his best Matthew McConaughey impersonation) is someone who is psychotic, has some dark secret to hide, is a predator and is evil. Reminding one of the Vietnam exploitation films on the subject from that time period, it is terribly predictable, also following every cliché of the domestic threat thriller from the 1980s, its 101 minutes land up being all over the place pressing every button it can for younger viewers who have never seen a film before.

Leland Orser and Brendan Meyer also show up, with the cast including Maika Monroe, Sheila Kelley and Lance Reddick in endlessly forgettable ways that even culminate in is really dumb climax that is amateur hour in the worse way. Yawn!

Extras include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices, while the discs add a feature length commentary track with the director & writer Simon Barrett helping to explain how this all went so terribly wrong, a Q&A with Dan Stevens and Deleted Scenes.

Ronald Neame's The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) is a film that is so surprising and remains so powerful, that I was even surprised by how it has only gained strength over the ages. One of the greatest of the 'good teacher' films still getting made today, Maggie Smith is outstanding in the title role of a teacher who seems have that something extra special to share with the students of the all-female school where she has taught for a very long time. Not always a favorite of those in power, she sees her life in its prime despite her older age and no family, circa 1932 in the U.K. as the first traces of the next World War start to take shape unbeknownst to any of them.

She apparently had a tryst or more with the art teacher at the school Mr. Lloyd (Smith's real-life husband Robert Stephens) and has many wondering if she'll get involved with another fellow teacher she talks to often (the underrated Gordon Jackson), but she has other things on her mind, as does Lloyd who starts seducing students when painting them. Too bad all the paintings somehow bizarrely resemble Miss Brodie!

Yet all of this becomes more ironic when Brodie starts talking of her trips to Italy and how she believes Mr. Mussolini (the anti-fascist jokes in the script are sly) is trying to fix his country and bring it order as if it were her classroom, but she's put her money on the wrong horse and the repercussions about the choices we make in life go from the personal to the final scenes making the big statement about lie and choices, especially where wart is concerned. The film does such a brilliant job of this, its observations of WWII Europe and Vietnam by implication are as potent as ever, that statement resonates with the power of the conclusion of Dr. Zhivago (1965) and applies to wars fought now as strongly as ever and as it did with any other.

Smith is one of the only actresses who could have ever pulled this off and gentleman director Neame may have had bigger hits (The Poseidon Adventure) to go with smart thrillers (The Odessa Files) and witty comedies (The Horse's Mouth), but The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie is his ultimate cinematic achievement and a masterwork everyone needs to see as much as ever before.

Finally we have Roger Spottiswoode's Under Fire (1983), as timely as ever in dealing with how photo journalists risk their lives to tell the world the truth. Taking place in the late 1970s in Central America, where a bad situation is deteriorating, a serious photo-journalist (Nick Nolte) is out to get the story of the Sandinistas and how they are fighting U.S.-sponsored powers. He meets up with a friend (Gene Hackman) and lands up becoming more than interested in his wife (Joanna Cassidy) in a script co-written by future director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Cobb) that has some solid moments, but also misses some others.

Part of the problem is that it plays and feels like a 1980s film instead of a film from its time, give or take the electronic segments of Jerry Goldsmith's solid score. Another is that it is not exactly as critical of things as they happen as an Oliver Stone film of the time would have been, so the drama and melodrama get in the way of its ability and edge to be realistic and deliver. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ed Harris and Richard Masur are among the interesting supporting cast that is a plus, but the film's minor shortcomings hold it back a bit. Otherwise, it is a film everyone should see at least once.

Extras on both Twilight Time releases include illustrated booklets with new essays on their respective film by Julie Kirgo, while the discs add Original Theatrical Trailers, Isolated Music & Sound Effects tracks and feature length audio commentary tracks. Brodie has one with Neame and Franklin that is really good, while Fire has two with film historian Nick Redmond: one has him joined by Spottiswoode, Assistant Editor Paul Seydor & Photo-Journalist Matthew Naythons, the other with Julie Kirgo, fellow scholar Jeff Bond, Music Editor Kenny Hall & Music Mixer-Producer Bruce Botnick, plus we also get a nice interview clip with Joanna Cassidy and excerpts from Matthew Naythons' Photo Archive.

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Fray is a little softer throughout than I would have liked to to be, especially since it is very well shot and edited throughout and deserves a Blu-ray release. It is one of the best-looking independent productions I have seen lately and I wish more where half this ambitious.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on the Guest Blu-ray is a little sloppy and has moments of motion blur out of nowhere that adds to the inconsistency, which is more obvious on the very soft, anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image DVD version which is the poorest performer of any disc on the list. Too bad, as some shots are not bad.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Brodie can show the age of the materials used in a few spots, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film and has some great shots throughout. Shot by the ingenious Director of Photography Ted Moore, B.S.C. (known for his many Bond films among other great achievements) makes this an even richer experience with rich, thick, smart shot after shot throughout resulting in a density that makes you feel you are trapped at the school and is on par with his Bond films on Blu-ray.

Not to be outdone, the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Fire can also show the age of the materials used, but this is also superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film and also has one of the greatest cinematographers of all time behind the lens, veteran Stanley Kubrick Director of Photography John Alcott, B.S.C., offering an interesting follow-up to his black and white work on the remarkable and remarkably underrated and outright remarkable Overlord (1975, reviewed on Criterion Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) in dealing with a war narrative. Nice.

As for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Fray is a very professional recording for an independent release and is so good, I would like to hear it lossless. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Guest is well mixed, well presented and has the best sonics here as expected and the only thing the makers got correct. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on its DVD version is somehow much weaker for some reason and the comparison is interesting in its oddities.

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 Mono lossless mix on Brodie is better than either DVD, but also shows its age, yet this is often warm and what you would expect for a theatrical monophonic film of its age. That leaves the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo on Fire the big surprise here, sporting very clear, strong Pro Logic-like surrounds throughout and for a Dolby A-type analog theatrical sound release, is often as good as Guest, believe it or not.

To order The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and Under Fire limited edition Blu-rays, buy them while supplies last at this link:

www.screenarchives.com

- Nicholas Sheffo