Bedazzled
(1967*)/Best F(r)iends
(2017 - 2018/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/A
Matter Of Life And Death
(1946/Criterion Blu-ray)/Second
Act (2018/Universal
Blu-ray w/DVD)/Will
Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
(1957/*both Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-rays)
Picture:
B/B/B/B & C+/B Sound: B/B/C+/B & C+/B- Extras:
C+/B/B/C-/B Films: B/C/B/C/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Bedazzled
and Will
Success
Spoil Rock Hunter?
Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight
Time, are limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while
supplies last and can both be ordered from the links below.
Here's
a very diverse set of comedies, a few of which go far beyond the
genre and you should know about...
Peter
Cook and Dudley Moore star in Stanley Donen's Bedazzled
(1967), the ''thinking man's comedy'', which is now on Blu-ray
courtesy of Twilight Time. Infamously remade in 2000 by Harold Ramis
with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley, a struggling burger flipper
(Cook) ends up selling his soul to the Devil (Moore) in exchange for
three wishes. Hopelessly in love with a co-worker, Cook will do
anything to win her heart. However, his wishes don't go exactly as
planned...
The
film also stars Eleanor Bron, Raquel Welch, Alba, Barry Humphries,
and Robert Russell. This classic comedy has a great script, and Cook
and Moore play quite well together on screen. Thinking back to
Harold Ramis' remake (which really wasn't that bad), you can tell
that the late filmmaker certainly had a fondness for this film.
Bedazzled
has been restored and is presented here in 1080p high definition on
Blu-ray disc with a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and audio
tracks in lossless English 2.0 DTS-HD MA (master Audio) Stereo and
English 1.0 DTS-HD MA Mono. The transfer is highly detailed with a
nice color palette and no signs of compression issues. Dudley
Moore's jazzy soundtrack (which also gets it's own isolated music
track on the disc) is nice and center in the mix, and suits the film
well.
Special
Features include...
Isolated
Music & Effects Track
Peter
Cook & Dudley Moore on The
Paul Ryan Show
A
Bedazzled Conversation with Harold Ramis
Original
Theatrical Trailers
and
a Collectible insert booklet (w/color photos) with linear notes by
Julie Kirgo
Psychedelic
and wild, Bedazzled
is a product of the late British 1960s, and is a fun comedy that
hasn't aged much thanks to Twilight Time.
Tommy
Wiseau and Greg Sestero of The
Room
fame step back into the spotlight with Best
F(r)iends Volume 1
(2017) and Volume
2
(2018). With Wiseau in the lead, you know you're in for a bizarre
ride and that is certainly what you get when you pop this in.
While
it makes a bit more sense than The
Room,
and was certainly better received critically on a whole, Best
F(r)iends
is a long two volume journey into an absurd story of a drifter
(Sestero) and a mortician (Wiseau) who form a bizarre partnership
selling gold teeth on the black market (that Wiseau steals from
corpses in the morgue) and get filthy rich quick. However, either
man is far from sane and they both end up overwhelmed with paranoia
of one another and get in more than one sticky situation.
Best
F(r)iends
also stars Kristen Stephenson Pino, Paul Scheer, Tom Bissell, Farhan
Umedaly, and Michael Davis to name a few. The film is directed by
Justin MacGregor and the screenplay is by the film's co-star Greg
Sestero.
The
film is presented in 1080p on Blu-ray disc with a widescreen aspect
ratio of 1.85:1 and a nice sounding track in lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
and lesser, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks in English, Spanish, and
French depending on your personal taste or needs, but why no lossless
sound option is odd. While some of the lighting is a bit odd (some
scenes even have noticeable lens flare and overexposed elements), the
film looks and sounds fine for the format and had to have some budget
behind it. Aerial shots of some of the film's locations in Las Vegas
and Los Angeles most notably hold up nicely here in 1080p, Best
F(r)iends
definitely has a bigger budget than The
Room.
Special
Features include...
Deleted
Scenes
Behind
the Scenes: ''Behind
the F(r)iendship''
featurette
Commentary
with Sestero and Wiseau
and
Behind the Scenes: ''Uncle
Rick''
featurette
When
The Archers, Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, made a comedy, it
was going to be more than a mere genre film and deliver something
you've never seen before. Such is the case with the amazing A
Matter Of Life And Death
(1946, actually issued as Stairway
To Heaven
in the U.S.!) has fantasy elements as well as a British pilot (David
Niven) has his airplane destroyed in flight and he has to parachute
to safety. That is if he can make it!
He
is supposed to die, but 'death' is running a bit late and he
instantly falls for an American radio operator (Kim Hunter) and vice
versa. So this is great, but he still has to die, but is it his
fault that powers beyond him that he did not even know about fail to
do their job? This lands up including visits by mysterious
strangers, visits to heaven and other interesting ins and outs that
make this a really fascinating film. It even has some romance to it,
but it asks hard questions about the title subjects and the world at
the time the film was made, including a great sense of history.
Another
highlight is the brilliant cinematography of Jack Cardiff, B.S.C.,
who makes heaven in crisp black and white the the moral world in
brilliant three-strip Technicolor, one of the best uses of the format
ever. The rest of the on-the-money cast includes Roger Livesey,
Abraham Soafer, Marius Goring, Kathleen Byron and Richard
Attenborough among others. How young everyone is here, but this is
one of the great British cinema classics
and it has been restored to its amazing glory. A few parts might be
a tad trite, but its a classic everyone should see and this new
Criterion Blu-ray is the best way outside of a mint-condition film
print to see it. Add the massive production design by Alfred Junge
and its ready for the best 4K and 8K Ultra HDTVs out there!
Extras
include an foldout inside the Blu-ray case with illustrations,
technical info and an essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek, while the
Blu-ray adds a feature length audio commentary from 2009 featuring
film scholar Ian Christie, New interview with editor Thelma
Schoonmaker, director Michael Powell's widow, New interview with film
historian Craig Barron on the film's visual effects and production
design, Interview from 2009 with filmmaker Martin Scorsese and The
Colour Merchant, a 1998 short film by Craig McCall featuring
cinematographer Jack Cardiff.
Jennifer
Lopez is back in another formulaic comedy that thinks int might be
romantic, but Peter Segal's Second
Act
(2018) is one act that should have ended after whatever the first one
was. Lopez is a middle aged woman with no college degree (one of the
best looking non-college grads in cinema history...) and keeps
getting passed over for promotions because of educational snobbery.
Can she find money, romance and happiness? Leah Remini is here as
her 'best friend' essentially playing the same role she plays in
every sitcom she surfaces on and though the actresses are friends in
real life, we get little more than that here.
Milo
Ventimiglia and Vanessa Hudgens also show up, but are given little to
do either and this lands up being the theatrical package deal version
of the fluff from bad TV networks (Hallmark, cough!) that destroy the
viewers minds. This is not as bad, but too often close. Yet another
STX package deal that does not deliver, distributor Universal has
issued it in a near-basic Blu-ray/DVD set. Lopez can act, but this
offers hardly any challenge to her talents. I get that it is meant
for a certain audience, but why make a film that limited?
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds brief clips used
to promote the film at the time of its theatrical release.
Last
but not least is the great and often dark comedy Will
Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
(1957),
one of the best films from one time animation genius Frank Tashlin,
who turned out to be one of the most important and now underrated
comedy directors in cinema history. Possibly Jayne Mansfield's best
film, we reviewed the film as part of a DVD box set of her's years
ago. Here is what I had to say in slightly upgraded form about the
film...
Based
on the play about Hollywood, but reset in the world of New York
advertising. Can the title character (Tony Randall, in one of his
greatest performances) become a big hit with is bosses to keep his
job and make it big once and for all. His daughter loves the big
movie star Rita Marlowe (a combination of Monroe and Mansfield) and
he could care less, until he sees her and sees her as the next star
connected to tacking Stay-Put brand products like glow-in-the-dark
lipstick (so 'he' can always find 'you' in the dark. The film loves
commercialism and also shows its darkest, more horrific side. The
film is about the madness of commodification of everything and how TV
plays into this, beginning with a struggle between early TV and
big-screen movies.
The
film opens with Randall talking to the audience as if reintroducing
color and widescreen, then a set of spoofs of TV commercials kick in.
Everything the products promise go wrong, always an issue when ads
were done live, but echoing the likes of the mythical up to no good
car salesman. Media has not changed this; it has just added a candy
coating. Henry Jones is back, as well as the actor John Williams and
the great Joan Blondell. It is an often brilliant, influential
comedy that may be one of the first explicitly dark ones Hollywood
ever produced, but is a marvel to watch for all kinds of reasons.
Before
her slow decline and quick death, Mansfield proved she could act and
definitely established that when she landed the first stage version
of Rock
Hunter,
with Tashlin knowing exactly what to do with her. The film has only
become more relevant in recent years and we post this as Fox has been
taken over by Disney in a deal that is now complete. I won't say
anything more about the film as not to ruin it, but it also makes for
an interesting companion to any and all versions of A
Star Is Born
and is a must-see film for anyone serious about cinema.
Extras
include an Isolated Music Score in lossless DTS-MA sound, an
illustrated booklet with tech info and yet another excellent essay by
the ever amazing Julie Kirgo, then other extras from the original DVD
release include Movietone Newsreels on Mansfield, an Original
Theatrical Trailer and a remarkable, stunning feature length audio
commentary by film historian, scholar and Professor Dana Polan. Get
this soon though, because Fox allowed this gem to be a Twilight
Time Limited Edition Blu-ray.
As
the last three releases are mine, I'll cover their technical playback
quality in this last section here.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Matter
rarely shows the age of the materials used, because the restoration
from the Sony team is so superior, there are demo shots here above my
letter grade for the picture. We get amazing black and white, plus
British
dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor
as noted above so rich, wide-ranging and often stunning that it will
challenge the viewer use to lesser HD color these days. A 4K scan of
the three-strip Technicolor negative was done, then all combined to
stunning effect. The PCM Mono sound is form a nitrate optical sound
film print and shows its age, but has been cleaned up the best it
could be without ruining fidelity or detail.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Act
is a typical, clean, if uninspiring HD shoot that is passable, but
not very memorable and the
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is much softer and harder to
watch. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the Blu-ray
is talk-based with music intruding when it probably should not, a
situation more obnoxious on the DVD with its lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
sound.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Hunter
can also show the age of the materials used, including some optical
printing the older DVD hid and a few other minor issues, but the
color, detail, depth and even more frame showing than the DVD make
seeing the film far more funny, creepy and enjoyable. Shot with the
old CinemaScope system, it has some flaws and distortions inherent to
the system, but the DeLuxe color is far better, richer and
wide-ranging than it was on the DVD or just about anywhere else I've
seen it.
We
also get no less than three soundtracks in which to view the film in
the lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) format: 5.1 (the best option),
4.0 and 2.0 Stereo mixes. The film was originally a 4-track magnetic
sound release with traveling dialogue and sound effects in the best
screenings that could plays those tracks. The soundmaster holds up
here and with the image looking like new, delivers the film as
vividly as it has been seen in decades, so getting this limited
edition copy from Twilight Time makes it worth going out of your way
for.
To
order the Bedazzled
and Will
Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
limited edition Blu-rays, buy them while supplies last at these
links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Bedazzled,
Best)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
