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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Relationships > Obsession > Death > Spain > Family > Performance Arts > Depression > Politics > Cold > Flowers (2014/Music Box DVD)/The Looking Glass (2015/First Run DVD)/Meadowland (2015/Cinedigm DVD)/Moonlighting (1982/B2MP Blu-ray w/DVD)/Nights With Theodore (2012 French Telefilm/Film Movement DVD)

Flowers (2014/Music Box DVD)/The Looking Glass (2015/First Run DVD)/Meadowland (2015/Cinedigm DVD)/Moonlighting (1982/B2MP Blu-ray w/DVD)/Nights With Theodore (2012 French Telefilm/Film Movement DVD)


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



Here's an interesting set of new dramas you should know about...



Jon Garano & Jose Mari Goenaga's Flowers (2014) is a very smart, pleasant surprise working on a higher level than most films today involving a married woman named Ane starts getting bouquets of flowers every Thursday by someone unknown, no card ever included in any of the deliveries. This does not make her likable husband happy and when they investigate, even the flower shop cannot identify the customer doing the weekly buy. When she looses her gift necklace her husband gave her recently while at work, there is a possibility we might find out the identity of the admirer.


However, we get a counterplot of a married man who is not having the best marriage himself and whose wife and mother do not get along at all. This makes him unhappy and his job keeps him that way. Soon, a twist will bring this and much more together in this extended character study with more energy than we've seen in such a drama in a while that asks and sometimes answers all kinds of questions about love, happiness, joy, family and death that impressed me al the way for its 97 minutes. This one could have gone on longer as far as I was concerned, but this gem from Spain was one I had heard about and it is nice all the hype was correct about it. That is all too rare these days. Go out of your way for this one.


A Making Of featurette, filmmaker Q&A from the L.A. Premiere and San Sebastian Film Festival press conference for the film are the extras.



John Hancock's The Looking Glass (2015) is a drama/comedy with some potential as a young a young lady (Grace Tarnov) has to deal with the awful loss of her mother and moves in with her grandmother (Dorothy Tristan), who used to be an actress. They have a good relationship, but the situation is ever-depressing, yet maybe Julie (Tarnov) can find a new way to express herself through the arts and performing. Can it bring other answers as well?


This has its moments in 110 minutes, but some scenes are cut and directed awkwardly, some solutions seem too pat and I did not buy it overall when all was said and done despite how promising it started. Hancock (Bang The Drum Slowly) can certainly handle complex drama, but a new approach would have helped this stand out better because the leads make sense. So I was a little disappointed,


Extended Scenes, Deleted Scenes, unfinished Hancock ''Town That Made A Movie'' film and ''Alice Variations'' performance are the extras.



Reed Morano's Meadowland (2015) has the always watchable Olivia Wilde as a mother who loses her son, though her husband (Luke Wilson) tries to help, she is devastated in a way she cannot be reached. I will preface this by saying this is all well-acted and has some nice moments, but the child-in-jeopardy part is early, predictable and the film never totally recovers from what is becoming too common a cliché of these dramas. It is trivializing child exploitation with so many films making this a cycle.


She starts to care for a child who is picked on and alone, but also has to deal with other emotional issues in what becomes a series of the return of the repressed. Unfortunately, the script and makers do not do enough with its 95 minutes to really make this work, stand out or really deliver something more or different. Elisabeth Moss, Giovanni Ribisi, John Leguizamo and Kevin Corrigan are a plus among a solid supporting cast, yet I was disappointed; especially considering the subject matter.


A Behind The Scenes featurette is the only extra.



Jerzy Skolimowski's Moonlighting (1982) will become a curio soon because it is the first lead feature film role for Jeremy Irons, about to reach a new audience as the new Alfred The Butler in Batman Vs. Superman, but the award-winning actor has been doing great work for years and this Cold War drama is the kind of smart drama that has aged well, serves as a time capsule and is worth seeing or revisiting, if you were lucky enough to see it in first release in theaters or on home video... granted you heard of it.


Lead worker/boss Nowak (Irons) and three friends leave Poland for the U.K. under the false pretense that they are visiting, but they are really rebuilding an apartment there for their boss that will save him a fortune by using their labor, but will make them a fortune because the reduced rate will still be plenty for all four of them. It is a rocky road and the neighbors are either eccentric, nebby or just mean. They stay the course, but things do not always go smoothly and being this is the late 1970s/early 1980s, the Solidarity movement kicks in causing a crackdown and they are suddenly cut off from their home country!


Irons narrates and is excellent throughout, never boring with each idea expressed as relevant as Malcolm McDowell's Alex in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (reviewed elsewhere on this site) telling us things going on we might not get, his personal feelings, the gravity of certain situations (including ones only the Cold War would present) and a sense of dread mixed with possibilities of freedom that creates irony throughout the film. The cast is great, though I found his ideas for survival by conning places to get money and resources a little too easy when they start to run out of money, but it is otherwise a remarkable independent production that has aged well and is worth going out of your way for to see. Nice to see this gem on Blu-ray.


Extras include a bonus audio commentary track with Irons, Isolated Music Score by Stanley Myers (Cimino's The Deer Hunter) with a then-unknown Hans Zimmer credited for his electronic music!, Original Theatrical Trailer and paper foldout with new essay by Ewa Mazierska on the film and much more. You can also read more about Skolimowski's remarkable film Deep End at this link...


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11108/Deep+End+(1970/BFI+Blu-ray+(Region+Free)+Du



Sebastien Betbeder's Nights With Theodore (2012) is a good idea for a film that only runs about an hour, but should have been longer and made into a theatrical film, but this French telefilm is very watchable as a couple (Pio Marmai, Agathe Bonitzer) meet, become instantly attracted to each other and get very involved very quickly to a backdrop of the historical French locale they hide in and engage with each other. This includes some beautiful moments and even archive footage inclusion that actually works.


However, though I enjoyed the whole thing, it is just too short and could have used another 20 to 30 minutes to really be developed and work. Still, as it stands, its worth a look.


There are no extras.



The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on the Moonlighting Blu-ray may show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to the few previous releases of the film to the point that I could not remember how weak the transfer was, but it was bad. This is the feature film debut of the great Director of Photography Tony Pierce-Roberts (later with Merchant-Ivory) and is impresses more than expected throughout with some nice shots and a smart use of color. It also comes with an anamorphically enhanced DVD, the same form as all the DVDs in this review.


That DVD ties the 2.35 X 1 image on Meadowland, but the 2.35 X 1 image on Flowers (as well shot as it is) and the 1.78 X 1 image on Glass and Theodore are softer throughout than I would have liked.


The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix on the Moonlighting Blu-ray is not much better than the same on the DVD version, yet the sound can still compete with most of the lossy Dolby Digital sound mixes here, including the 5.1 mixes on Flowers and Meadowland and 2.0 Stereo on Glass, bit the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on the TV production Nights is the weak one of the bunch just too soft and low for its own good. Be careful of high volume playback and volume switching in this case.



- Nicholas Sheffo


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