Gloria (1980/Sony/Columbia)/The Incident (1967/Fox)/Model Shop (1969/Sony/Columbia/All Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-rays)/Three Way Wedding (2010)/You Will Be Mine (2009/both Film Movement DVDs)

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

PLEASE NOTE: The Gloria, Incident and Model Shop Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, are limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered from the links below..

Up next are dramas with more to offer than mere melodrama or serious situations...

Sharing a tad bit in common with Luc Besson's made-later Leon The Professional in more ways than one, Gena Rowlands stars as Gloria (1980), a film directed by film auteur and husband of Miss Rowlands, the late, great John Cassavetes. Interestingly made and acted, the film centers around a tough as nails lady named Gloria (Rowlands) who ends up protecting a six year old boy whose family has been murdered. Though she is tough on the outside and not afraid to pull the trigger, she ends up developing a soft spot for the boy and becomes his guardian. The boy falls in love with her and she's stuck in the position of dodging bullets from his assailants... but how far will she go?

The film also stars Buck Henry, John Adames, Julie Carmen, Lupe Garnica, Jessica Castillo, and Tom Noonan.

The Special Features are a little light on this one...

Two Trailers

Isolated Music Score Only Track (score by Bill Conti (Rocky, For Your Eyes Only))

and another illustrated Insert Booklet with another great Julie Kirgo essay.

Gloria is an interesting piece of cinema and one that Cassavetes fans won't want to miss on HD and yes, this is the film the great Sidney Lumet remade in 1999 with Sharon Stone and a formidable cast.

Larry Peerce's The Incident (1967) is a tense drama that eventually takes place on a New York City subway train, but only after we meet everyone that will be stuck there, starting with two sociopaths with issues (well played by Martin Sheen and Tony Musante early in their careers) who land up trapping the rest of the people they torment and threaten one section at at time. The film runs 99 minutes, but I would argue that it is now a time capsule because I find it hard to believe the passengers would put up with this without a physical altercation, armed passenger shooting one of the guys or the like, but behavioral standards of decently were different then.

The passengers are played by a surprisingly good Ed McMahon (Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show, reviewed all over this site) as a bitter father, Beau Bridges, a very young Donna Mills, Ruby Dee, Victor Arnold, Gary Merrill, Brock Peters, Diana Van Del Vlis, Jan Sterling and Thelma Ritter among them. That is a remarkable cast for a low budget outing like this, but another reason to see it. You'll be impressed by the look and the way it is shot and is a mature film that has become lost in the shuffle of newer, more violent, more pointless films. Being in black and white is likely a reason it has also not been seen as much as it deserves to, but it is solid monochrome and a great demo for any HDTV or even Ultra HDTV.

Extras are also solid and include another nicely 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 adds a very informative feature length audio commentary track by Director Peerce and the great film historian/scholar Nick Redman, Making Of, Isolated Music Score with select Sound Effects and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Jacques Demy's Model Shop (1969) is an incidental sequel to his earlier film Lola with Anouk Aimee reprising her role from that film, but she is not the main character, as important as she is here. Instead, it is Gary Lockwood as a laid back photographer who has a pretty but in compatible girlfriend, an MG that is about to be repossessed, uncertainty about his future and counterculture friends, when he discovers Lola photographing models for hire at a local business. He is also being drafted to fight in Vietnam and is unfazed, not even talking about dodging the draft.

Though it did not help the film at the box office, Lockwood had just been immortalized as one of the main astronauts in the final sections of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey the year before, though it should be noted that film had a mixed box office at first, then man landed on the moon and the hit success of A Clockwork Orange a few years later ignited new interest in the film.

What is interesting is how the film makes Hollywood/Los Angeles a character, slowly shooting its hillsides, businesses, oil wells, freeways, advertising campaigns and cars as intimately as it does the people, creating a sense of odd isolationism for the male lead while commenting on this world while suggesting (if briefly and vaguely) the horrors of Vietnam not far from the minds of moviegoers of the time. No one totally connects here, though George (Lockwood) becomes interested in Lola, yet even he cannot do much about it or does not seem potent enough to connect or aware enough to try. Sex is healthy in this film, yet it does not seem to bring as much connection or happiness as it should in the varied cases we see.

The approach likely threw off critics and audiences and the film is uneven for other reasons (Severn Darden shows up as a camera shop operator, but that is too brief as well) and what develops is almost a critique of the counterculture. It reminded me of some of the approach Antonioni would bring a year later to his underrated Zabriskie Point, still very underrated, yet also a box office disappointment.

Either way, this is a film all serious film fans should see at least once, a work lost in the shuffle of a director known for his operettas The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (see our Criterion Blu-ray review elsewhere on this site) and its direct sequel. It was Demy's first film in the U.S. and he shows well what he was seeing and apparently what others were missing. At a time of protest and violence, we only see echoes and traces of it in Hollywood here. If anything, especially in the digital video era, Model Shop has a whole new resonance.

Extras include yet another illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and yet another excellent, underrated essay by the great film scholar Julie Kirgo as we always get with all the great Twilight Time limited edition Blu-rays, while this Blu-ray adds an Isolated Music Score, TV Spots and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Auguste (Pascal Greggory) is a playwright trying to finish his play, but he needs a muse. Seeking inspiration he invites his cast to join him at his country villa. Harriet (Julie Depardieu), the leading lady who also just so happens to be his ex-wife and her new lover, Theo (Louis Garrel). Sensing the sexual tension, Auguste decides to seduce his young assistant Fanny (Agathe Bonitzer) in an attempt to make Harriet jealous... but instead of jealousy and fury she encourages them into a polygamous relationship and Auguste begins to believe the possibility to have a three-way marriage in Jacques Doillon's Three Way Wedding (2010).

Auguste is a somewhat famous playwright, but he needs to be inspired (by having sex). His ex-wife Harriet enjoys foreplay, teasing and rough sex with an open relationship policy. Harriet loves stringing along her ex-husband and her new and younger lover. Meanwhile, Auguste seduces his young and pretty red head assistant Fanny who wishes to become his next muse. Both Auguste and Theo become jealous at each other at first, but after considering a three-way relationship could mean both of them could be having sex with two beautiful women without any jealousy problems. In the end, no one cares about the play ...but who they are have sex with.

This is a French movie, how French people love movies about sexual awakening (and hot and steamy sex scenes). The story is about how actors, directors and writers loves having secret orgies and sex behind the curtains. And while French people act all civil and proper they are really nymphomaniacs and having as many partners as possible. (No wonder people consider French culture/people to be full of romance and passion.)

Marie (Judith Davis), a young pianist moves to the big city to study how to be be a concert pianist. She moves in with her childhood friend Emma (Islid Le Besco), a beautiful young med student. As time passes the two bond and become intimately close, Marie becomes confused about her own body and sexuality but Emma falls completely in love with Marie, while secretly Marie is passionate about Emma to the outside world she can never allow anyone to know. As their secret relationship becomes strained Marie continues to push Emma away until tragedy occurs...

In Sophie Laloy's You Will Be Mine (2009), Marie moves into the city with her childhood friend Emma. Emma cares deeply for Marie and teaches Marie how to live in the city, she even saves her from being raped at a party. After an intimate night of hot passion, Emma can no longer hold back her feelings for Marie. While Marie is thankful for everything Emma has done for her, she is afraid of how the world would see her if she was to come out with Emma. While loving Emma in their home, when they are outside she acts cold and pushes Emma away. In the end Marie has a love/hate relationship with Emma, she loves her but hates that she can never show it. Maria end up dating other men and having one night stands just trying to push Emma away and to make her give her up, but the more she does the more frustrated she becomes of herself. What will happen next?

This is also a French movie, this time about two beautiful woman and their secret relationship that went beyond friendship but could never leave their apartment. It is filled with intimate scenes of their sexual awakening along with love, hate, jealousy and desire. It also serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when people ignore their hearts or care too much of how society thinks of them, it is not just themselves they hurt ...but also ends up hunting the person they love.

Now for the playback performance on each disc release. Gloria is presented in 1080p Blu-ray with a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and an English 2.0 DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless Mono track. The film is lovingly restored and looks fantastic through and through, resulting in a clear presentation. The score by Bill Conti is top notch and helps elevate the action when needed (and carries the film fine on its own).

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on Incident can sometimes show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film showing how vivid the images can be by Director of Photography Gerald Hirschfeld on Kodak Tri-X 35mm negative of the time (250 ASA/ISO Tungsten) using practical light sand replacing some bulbs deceptively with stronger ones. At this time, it would have been hard to do this in color at the time since those film stocks were not as fast/light sensitive and it shows how great black and white can be. Kodak STILL makes Tri-X to this day with few changes and it never went out of production over all these decades. Impressive.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Model Shop can also show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film because the color range, depth and detail here are better than anything outside of a rare, good film print. Though the ads credit the color as merely 'color' or ColumbiaColor, the lab actually in the opening credits says the film is 'Color by Perfect' and Perfect was the name of a brief-lived company trying to make an impact in the film business by offering better color reproduction than anyone else save Technicolor. They even offered color movie film to consumers for a time. The results are that the color is slightly different, yet not phony, from anything else you'd see then and now, so it makes it a visually special film indeed if you pay close attention.

Incident and Model Shop offer their optical theatrical mono sound in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes that sound as good as they can, though Incident might have a few spots of unavoidable distortion. Otherwise, they sound good, though some might wish the music score by the band Spirit and composer Lou Adler on Model Shop was at least in stereo.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on both DVDs, Wedding and Mine, look as good as they possibly can on the older low def format and are Blu-ray candidates down the line, both HD shoots that play just fine, but the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes differ as Wedding is a bit softer than Mine in playback. Both are dialogue driven, so one only expects so much, but Wedding is actually slightly newer, so who knows why it turned out that way.

To order the Gloria, Incident and Model Shop limited edition Blu-rays, buy them and other great exclusives while supplies last at these links:

www.screenarchives.com

and

http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/

- Nicholas Sheffo, Ricky Chiang (DVDs) and James Lockhart (Gloria)

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/