Black
Mass (Warner Blu-ray
w/DVD)/Bridge Of Spies
(Dreamworks/Touchstone/Disney Blu-ray w/DVD)/Show
Me A Hero (HBO Blu-ray
Set)/The 33
(Warner Blu-ray)/Truth
(Sony Blu-ray/all 2015)
Picture:
B & C/B & C+/B/B/B Sound: B & C+/B & B-/B/B/B
Extras: C+/B-/C-/C-/B- Main Programs: C+/B+/C+/C+/C+
You
know its awards season when you get so many releases based on real
life stories, but that does not always make for great filmmaking or
television, but at least the following are ambitious and one is an
underrated gem...
Scott
Cooper's Black
Mass
(2015) is the latest attempt to get the Gangster genre going again,
but post-Sopranos,
has seen no hits on the big or small screen. Johnny Depp needed a
critical comeback and for the most part, word on his work here as
real life killer gangster James ''Whitey'' Bugler (played briefly by
Jack Nicholson in Scorsese's The
Departed)
was accurate. After several comedy bombs, he is back in good form
and delivers impressively, but the way the film is scripted, paced
and directed causes it more problems than helps.
Bulger
was getting away with murder because the 'Feds' wanted to use him to
break Italian Gangsters and used him, an Irish Gangster, as an
informant. Than meant he'd get away with terrorizing anyone he
wanted and never seems to be arrested or incarcerated. The film
starts slowly just introducing everyone, but the storyline is too
simplified and too much of the real-life story is jettisoned, so that
is why the film did not do well for an audience wanting the likes of
GoodFellas,
Casino,
Godfather
or The
Sopranos.
This
is shot nicely on 35mm film and the money is on the screen, but the
unreported surprise is the outstanding supporting cast that makes
this more watchable, even if they could not help pave over the film's
flaws including Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, David Harbour,
Joel Edgerton, Dakota Johnson, a scene-stealing turn by Peter
Sarsgaard, Rory Cochrane, Julianne Nicholson, Juno Temple and others
that makes the interactions work, even when other things don't pan
out. I see too many missed opportunities, but fans of the genre
might want to give it a look.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds three Behind The
Scenes/Making Of featurettes that cover how the film was made and
more details on the actual case.
Steven
Spielberg's Bridge
Of Spies
(2015) is one of the last films, if not THE last film that will ever
have the Dreamworks name as Spielberg makes the move back to
Universal for a new era of his career and his Touchstone/Disney deal
ends. Ironically, his last political spy drama Munich
(which this film complements very much) was his last at Universal for
years. In what is his best film since then, two men are captured on
opposite sides of The Cold War in the early 1960s as unbeknownst to
most in the world, the USSR is about to get their half of Germany to
build a wall to create two separate german countries. The Berlin
Wall goes up almost unexpectedly as U.S. Authorities nab Rudolf Abel
(Mark Rylance) and the Soviets get U.S. Air Force pilot Francis Gary
Powers (Austin Stowell) when he is detected in a top secret airplane
that can take detailed photos of USSR land.
As
this unfolds, an insurance man who used to be a lawyer named James B.
Donovan (one of the best performances and roles of Tom Hanks' career)
is asked by his boss (Alan Alda) and the U.S. Government to act as a
non-government legal representative for Abel. Little do they expect
that he will actually defend him in the strongest legal terms whether
some political people want the man to get a kangaroo court trial or
not. Bashing him with shallow hate helps get people to support the
Cold War and makes him expendable, but Donovan has other ideas and
gets more involved than he could have ever imagined. The story
crosscuts between different storylines with great skill and ease (The
Coen Brothers co-wrote with Matt Charman) and we also get to see The
Berlin Wall start to go up (shades of Schindler's
List,
that with Munich,
shows how Nazi authoritarianism did not end after WWII) and a young
student named Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) is nabbed by the East
Germans trying to force the U.S. to recognize them as a separate
Germany from the free one and that leaves Donovan trying to free both
men when the CIA (et al) just want Powers and could care less about
Pryor!
Hanks
is in rare form here, an actor who I've always had mixed feeling
about since he stretched to do more than comedy, which he fits here
in smart ways. The idea is that Donovan has the best moral center,
common sense and will not sell out his morals or standards, even when
the press turns on him for 'defending a commie' putting his family in
jeopardy at one point. It also has time for smart character
development and I was surprised how effective this was throughout as
Spielberg has to leave his blockbuster/feel good side aside to really
dig into this story and tell it with no compromises and pulling any
punches. This should have been one of last year's biggest hits and
an award's season frontrunner, but too many missed it. I hope this
Blu-ray/DVD release changes that because it is a remarkable film all
around.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds four
featurettes: A Case Of The
Cold War, U-2
Spy Plane, Berlin
1961: Recreating The Divide
and Spy Swap: Looking Back
On The Final Act.
Show
Me A Hero
(2015) is an HBO Mini-Series about how in the 1980s, the mostly-white
neighborhood of Yonkers in New York resisted integration for a while,
despite federal orders and how key persons did or did not handle
things well. Slow moving and obvious in the early episodes, Oscar
Issac is the politician who makes a promise to integrate things, only
to give up early and get entangled in internal politics and personal
problems beyond the volatile situation. Paul Haggis created and
directed the show to his credit, which he juggles nicely.
Unfortunately,
much of this does not go far enough early enough, though all
eventually culminates in a solid final episode. Just know it is
slow-going too often. James Belushi is particularly good, as does
Winona Ryder, Alfred Molina, Catherine Keener, Bob Balaban and a
really decent cast. The 1980s and 1990s are recreated well enough,
but I wish a better pace and some different ideas had been tried out.
A
Making Of featurette is the only extra.
Patricia
Riggen's The
33
(2015) is a watchable but somewhat predictable melodrama about the
men of the title getting trapped inside a coal mine in Chile for 69
days that made international news and one again shows how
deregulation and a lack of worker's rights and unions constantly
create this same ugly, deadly situation over and over again. Antonio
Banderas, Lou Diamond Phillips, Juliette Binoche, James Brolin, Mario
Casas, Kate Castillo and Gabriel Byrne lead a really good cast with
chemistry and sections are still believable.
Too
bad it wants to be a feel-good film as well, which cuts into the kind
of necessary critique of the situation the film needed to present in
more than just parts. Still, this is worth a look, but it lacks the
impact it needed to have.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer and 2 brief clips on the making of the
film are the only extras.
James
Vanderbilt's Truth
(2015) covers
the 2004 incident where CBS News thought they were digging up a
'shocking' story about President George W. Bush, when it turns out it
might have been a plant by his people (like Karl Rove) that Bush did
not really deliver the military service he says he did or was
supposed to have as his father (a previous head of the CIA and
President for 8 years himself, George H.W. Bush) may have had the
power to protect him and keep him from seeing any real combat.
Considering no one cared that President Bill Clinton never served and
was against the Vietnam fiasco, why Dan Rather (Robert Redford) and
Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) would be so anxious to expose this and
think people would thought it mattered brings up an essay of
questions we don't have time for here.
However,
they fell for it and no matter what was or was not true, would end
Rather's reign as Walter Cronkite's successor and left CBS News with
another permanent scar to its reputation. A flipside to Redford's
problematic Quiz Show that definitely is trying not to glorify
journalism as Redford said he felt All The President's Men
later did, the film disappoints throughout despite tis best efforts
on an A-movie level. Nice it got made, but I just again wish it
would have worked much better and took on areas and sections the
script missed.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while we also get a Q&A with
Blanchett, Elisabeth Moss & Director Vanderbilt, a feature length
audio commentary track with Vanderbilt & Producers Brad Fischer &
William Sherak and The
Team, plus Blu-ray
exclusives The Reason For
Being featurette and
Deleted Scenes.
As
for playback performance, the 1080p digital High Definition
performance on all the Blu-rays are fine, but not always spectacular
even when they are consistent with all four feature films sporting
2.35 X 1 scope frames and Hero
in 1.78 X 1. All attempt visuals that are stylized to match the
periods they are in and though they do not do a bad job, none are
standouts, except Spies,
which has Spielberg's longtime Director
of Photography Janusz Kaminski delivering some stunning work
throughout in what might be their most complex work in color ever.
Light is usually simpler in Spielberg films, but not so much in his
more personal, serious works since Schindler's
List,
but this is even more complex than the best moments in Munich
and deservedly has been considered one of the best-looking films of
2015. Needless to say it was shot on 35mm film and in a far superior
way to most shoots of any kind in the last few years. The
anamorphically enhanced DVD version is passable, but looses too much
of the detail and range, but the same kind of DVD for Mass
is even softer and more problematic despite the Blu-ray version
sounding so good.
-
Nicholas Sheffo