The
People Vs. Larry Flynt
(1996/Sony/Columbia/Image Entertainment Blu-ray + Umbrella
Entertainment Region B Import Blu-ray)/Salvador
(1986/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Snowden
(2016/Universal Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture:
B/B/B/B & C+ Sound: B/B/B/B & C+ Extras: B/B+/B/C+
Films: B/B/B+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Salvador
Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, is
limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last,
while the Umbrella Entertainment Region B version of The
People Vs. Larry Flint
Blu-ray is still available as well, only plays on Blu-ray players
capable of that encoding of the format and all can be ordered from
the links below.
For
over four decades, Oliver Stone has been celebrated (except by those
targeting him) as a great filmmaker and one of the most important
U.S. filmmakers in the last half-century. He first gained notice
within the industry for his documentary work, attempts at genre films
and screenplay writing on Alan Parker's Midnight
Express
(1978), then two violent crime films that originally bombed: Brian De
Palma's Scarface
(1983, now a huge hit) and Michael Cimino's highly influential Year
Of The Dragon
(1985). By then, he was working on his political breakthrough film
Salvador
(1986) that put him on the map, had him (as Robert Philip Kolker
rightly suggests in his brilliant book A
Cinema Of Loneliness)
picking up where Arthur Penn left off in his deep look at issues and
events facing the U.S. and at one point, was as cutting edge as just
about anyone around.
Here,
we will look at one of his biggest production for another filmmaker
in this period and the two films that bookend his vital political
works.
Milos
Forman, himself as capable of strong political filmmaking, teamed up
with Stone to helm The
People Vs. Larry Flynt
(1996) as a biopic of sorts of controversial Hustler Magazine
publisher Larry Flynt (Woody Harrelson in one of his greatest
performances) getting as controversial and outrageous as possible
with his sex magazine that offered gross ideas, outrageous sexual
situations and more. As the title suggests, this is about censorship
for starters, but more deeply shows in the early days of the rise of
The Religious Right, Flynt and his magazine (which turned into a
multi-media empire) were an early target and it was in a much
sinister way for angrier deeper reasons.
This
group, including some very powerful, connected people politically,
thought Flynt would be an easy target. At this time, he lands up
finding the love of his life (Courtney Love) and an attorney (Edward
Norton) as this challenge arises. He is nearly assassinated and
their drug use, mental illness he did not know he had, a period where
he thought he was a Born Again Christian as a result and worse
transpire. When he comes back after them, wheelchair and all, they
are actually surprised.
It
is a still-powerful statement about freedom, freedom of the press,
freedom of speech, how the Far Right despised this and how the
counterculture helped spur that on and in all this, there is still a
very real love story. The film has sort of become lost in the
shuffle somewhat as it was not the huge hit at the time it deserved
to be, especially poignant as this was five years before 9/11
happened, pushing a smart work like this further in the past.
Now
more than ever, the value of the film is as strong as ever, its
points as priceless as ever. It is also the only time these two
great filmmakers worked together, with the resulting synergy what you
would expect from both at their best. If you have not seen it or not
seen it for a long time, you'll be surprised how well it really
works.
Extras
in both editions include two feature length audio commentary tracks,
one by co-writers Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski, the other
by co-stars Harrelson, Love & Norton and Deleted Scenes with
optional filmmaker's commentary. The Umbrella Import Blu-ray adds
the half-hour Behind The Scenes featurette Free
Speech or Porn
and documentary Larry
Flynt Exposed.
Those
very same Rightists were creating a new Vietnam situation when they
took power in the 1980s, but this time in Latin America with the
murders of all kinds of political activists, then drug dealers
connected to them, anything they felt was a communist threat and
more. Though a few films tried dealing with this to their credit,
Stone's Salvador
(1986) was the film that really hit the nail on the head, even before
the madness of the Iran-Contra Affair took hold. Stone arrived ahead
of the curve and this would establish his great thinking on political
matters cinematically for years to come.
James
Woods is a freelance photojournalist who travels to the title
location with a goofy friend (James Belushi in a really good turn)
thinking it will be fun or interesting, but both having no idea what
they've gotten into. Stone could have left this simply a darkly
comic film, but instead goes the extra way to use the duo as a mirror
of the complacent 1980s audience for best impact. Beyond that is
mostly spoilers, so I'll stop there, but the film turned out to be
one of the biggest artistic breakthroughs in cinema history and Stone
became the return of oppressed liberalism in 1980s Reagan America.
MGM
has decided to issue this gem via Twilight Time as a Limited Edition
Blu-ray and sent over a solid copy of the film for this release,
which has been in print for a while, but supplies are likely low and
with Stone back in full political form, I could see the film suddenly
going out of print.
The
film also stars
Elpidia Carillo, John Savage, Michael Murphy, Tony Plana, Jose Carols
Ruiz and Cynthia Gibb. It also began Stone's remarkable
collaboration with the genius Director of Photography Robert
Richardson.
Extras
include an illustrated booklet on the film including informative text
and yet another excellent, underrated essay by the great film scholar
Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc adds a feature length audio
commentary track with
Director Oliver Stone, an Isolated Score Track, "Into
the Valley of Death" - The Making of Salvador,
Deleted Scenes and an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Stone
followed with the huge Best Picture blockbuster hit Platoon,
Wall
Street,
Talk
Radio,
Born
On The Fourth Of July
and even The
Doors
seemed richly political and potent riding that wave, as it was. JFK
stunned the public and likely helped Bill Clinton become President,
then after going for a different type of epic in Heaven
& Earth
(also reviewed on Twilight Time Blu-ray elsewhere on this site),
stunned everyone for different reasons with his violent gritty, very
darkly humorous film Natural
Born Killers.
He then stunned again with Nixon,
possibly his best film, but revisited Killers
territory with the also controversial U
Turn
(as well reviewed on Twilight Time Blu-ray elsewhere on this site),
only to loose Richardson as his DP and took too long a break from
thrillers or overly political films.
Still,
hit Any
Given Sunday
was rightly bashed for being too friendly with the NFL, Alexander
for several inaccuracies, W.
for not bashing George W. Bush enough, his Wall
Street
sequel for being unfocused and illicit drug tale Savages
for being too scattered. So did he still have it in him to pull off
another strong political film that could challenge the establishment
and tell deeper truths?
Snowden
(2016) is finally a return to form for Stone, with the impact,
mastery and strength we expect from the man who made JFK,
Salvador
and Nixon,
in what is easily his best film since Nixon.
Knowing it is just the beginning of the story, as Snowden is not the
only person targeted for revealing the truth of these overreaching
programs (Congress just announced what a 'bad employee' and 'cheat'
just in time for this Blu-ray release that are highly belated and
highly intellectually dishonest to say the least) and other key
issues, Stone takes on the subject matter and holds nothing back.
That makes this possibly 2016's best film, despite some strange,
confused reviews by critics who missed the point of the film... or
did so on purpose.
Like
Flynt,
this is partly a biopic to let us get to know Edward Snowden (a
really fine performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who was serving his
country in the military before circumstances placed him behind a desk
where he lands up working fir the CIA and the rest eventually is
history. With no short cuts, the film asks with adult healthy
cynicism what the government is doing and how what's being done in
the name of terrorism is being highly abused. He has to hide all
this from his girlfriend (Shailene Woodley impressing more than you'd
think) and hold it all together as the learning curve as to the
madness ensuing gets more disturbing and much worse.
This
s more of a drama than a thriller, but some expected some kind of spy
film (even a Bond,
Bourne
or M:I
type versus the kind of bureaucratic-type it could have only honestly
been, yet Stone goes neither route) or the like, but it is the most
important political drama of the last few years, adds to the Citizen
Four
documentary on Mr. Snowden more need to see and is still a few steps
ahead of us and itself like Stone's best work. And he doesn't even
ask obvious questions, especially if this program is supposed to stop
terrorist attacks, why do they keep happening (Boston, Benghazi,
Germany, etc.) with the same lame excuse in EVERY CASE that the
suspect was 'on the radar' or 'on the map' or 'known by authorities'
yet not caught, tracked or detained enough to be stopped? The
programs are not perfected yet? No. Because the programs have other
purposes that are highly suspect, though I will concede that at least
some attacks had to have been prevented, but we'll never know the
whole story... for now.
Also
making the film more palpable and formidable are the great supporting
cast including Nicolas Cage, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom
Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans, Joely Fisher, Timothy Olyphant, Ben Chaplin,
Scott Eastwood and more we'll be seeing more of soon I hope.
Stone's
return this way could not have come soon enough and as before, his
film is being targeted for censorship (as usual) when he is onto
something. Considering the controversial election we just had, whose
results are more suspicious every day, he's back!
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds a great Snowden Q&A
hosted with Stone, Levitt, Woodley and Snowden himself via satellite,
Deleted Scenes (though some are technically Extended Scenes) and the
Finding
The Truth
making-of featurette. For more on Snowden and his controversy, try
this link to the oscar-winning Best Documentary Citizen
Four...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13765/Braddock+America+(2013/First+Run+Features+DV
All
three films look as good as they possibly could in 1080p, with the
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on both Flynt
Blu-rays coming from the same fine HD master, shot in real 35mm
anamorphic Panavision and looking as good as ever. Director of
Photography Philippe Rousselot (Antwone
Fisher,
Hope &
Glory,
Henry
& June,
Tailor
Of Panama,
Too
Beautiful For You,
Fantastic
Beasts)
does what I think is still some of the best work of his long career
here, effective as ever and very involving.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Salvador
can once in a spot or two show the age of the materials used, but
this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film
and really shows off how great this film actually looks as
lower-definition sources and bad transfers just cannot capture what
DP Richardson pulled off here.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Snowden
is Stone's first-ever all-digital HD narrative shoot and it works
very well while retaining the kind of character and approach you
would expect from Stone's best work.
Director of Photography Anthony Dod Mantel (Rush,
Slumdog
Millionaire,
28
Days Later,
Millions,
Dogville)
makes this compelling and shows how to use the scope frame with
digital HD without making it look cheap. An anamorphically enhanced
DVD version is also included for convenience, but it is passable at
best.
All
four Blu-rays also sound great and all feature DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes that sound fine throughout, with Flynt
coming out when Sony was promoting their SDDS/Sony Dynamic Digital
Sound system. The sound mix on both Blu-ray versions of the film are
equal. Salvador
was originally a Dolby A-type analog sound release, so you may hear
some limits in the recording, but this is still rich and strong just
the same and is also here in a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo
lossless mix with Pro Logic surrounds if you want to hear it as
originally intended for the purist in you. I like the 5.1 mix
better.
Snowden
is a brand-new film with a brand new recording and though Stone could
have gone for an 11.1 mix, he sticks with 5.1 and it is still very
effective, even offering detail and fine articulation in quiet
moments. The DVD offers a lesser, lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that I
passable, but hides how good the soundmaster is.
To
order the Salvador
limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and other great exclusives while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
and
to order the
Flynt
Umbrella import Blu-ray, go to this link:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo