If
Beale Street Could Talk
(2018/Fox Blu-ray w/DVD)/Poetic
Justice (1993/Sony
Blu-ray)/Talk Radio
(1988/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Wanda
(1970/Criterion Blu-ray)
Picture:
B & C+/B+/B+/B- Sound: B & C+/B+/B+/B- Extras: B
Films: B/B-/B/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Talk
Radio
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
and can be ordered from the links below.
Now
for some good films about the serious, stark side of life...
Barry
Jenkins follows up his Academy Award-winning Best Picture Moonlight
(reviewed
elsewhere on this site) with an impressive adaptation of James
Baldwin's classic novel If
Beale Street Could Talk
(2018), as relevant today as ever. A young couple (Kiki Layne and
Stephan James) are young, happy and fall in love somewhere in the
late 1960s, early 1970s, in the early part of the film that is
remarkable in its own right. We never see any couple in love
honestly like this, especially of color, so it is something special.
Unfortunately, the joy does not last long.
The
boyfriend is accused of a rape against a hispanic woman we absolutely
know he did not commit and has been partly set up by a racist,
ignorant police officer who could care less about anyone but himself.
From there, you have that conflict, the clash of the families on
both sides (he gets zero support or confidence from his sisters and
especially his own mother) and the general institutionalize racism
and lack of opportunity by design land up making for an awful
combination... then she has a surprise announcement.
The
result makes for an excellent flipside to Moonlight,
a film as worthy and one of the best releases of 2018. Regina King
rightly won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as the kind
of great mom and wife we do not see on the big screen enough, either.
What starts out as what could have been a simple 'good mom' role
slow expands into something deeper, Jenkins taking the leisure time
to develop and that is why the nearly two hours here do not seem like
enough, yet you feel you have had a deep, rare experience that we do
not see enough of in cinema anywhere. There are a few off-moments,
but otherwise, it is a film everyone should see.
I
don't know where Jenkins will go from here, but this is one of the
strongest back-to-back showings by any filmmaker of late and I hope
he is on the beginning of a serious roll of great cinema. His first
two films already produced priceless moments and we can only hope for
more.
Extras
include Deleted Scenes the featurette If
Beale Street Could Talk: Poetry in Motion
and a Feature Length Audio Commentary track by Barry Jenkins.
Janet
Jackson and the late Tupac Shakur star in Poetic
Justice
(1993), which is a touching 'street romance' fused with love, poetry,
and music. On Blu-ray for the first time and highly anticipated, the
film looks and sounds fantastic and is a much needed upgrade for
fans.
Directed
by John Singleton (Boyz
in the Hood),
the film also stars Maya Angelou, Regina King (here she is again!),
Khandi Alexander, Tone Loc, and Kimberly Brooks.
After
witnessing the murder of her boyfriend, young Justice (Jackson)
decides to forget about college and become a South Central Los
Angeles hairdresser. Avoiding friends, the only way for her to cope
with her depression is by writing poetry. On her way to a convention
in Oakland, she is forced to ride with an independent-minded postal
worker (Shakur), who don't see eye to eye. After they butt heads on
various topics, they learn that they aren't so different from one
another.
A
digital copy is also included.
Special
Features include...
10
Never before seen Deleted Scenes
Janet
Jackson and Tupac Shakur's Rare Screen Test
Revisiting
Poetic Justice with Director John Singleton
Director
Commentary
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
Oliver
Stone's infamous Talk
Radio
(1988), gets a special limited edition version on HD for the first
time courtesy of Twilight Time. Following the exploits of the foul
mouthed Dallas radio talk show host Barry Champlain (Eric Bogosian),
he ends up putting on the show of a lifetime on the eve of his
promotion onto national radio. Diving into different parts of the
successful DJ's personal life and career, the film explores the ups
and downs of the often times controversial profession of being a disc
jockey.
Some
of Stone's most inspired work, Talk
Radio
is a little dated, but still a powerful and entertaining piece of
cinema. The film has an excellent supporting cast with Alec Baldwin,
Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, John C. McGinley, John Pankow, and Michael
Wincott.
Special
Features include...
Another
great illustrated booklet with another solid, key Julie Kirgo essay
Isolated
Music Score Track
Filming
Rage: Oliver Stone on Talk Radio
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
Finally,
we have this gem of the American New Wave of independent cinema that
began in the late 1960s, Barbara Loden's Wanda
(1970) where the writer/director manages to play the title role with
uncompromising realism: a woman of no wealth, little means, is
depressed and is finished with her marriage. That includes two
children, but her soon to be ex-husband has a new lady in his life
and Wanda is ready to let them take over all the parenting.
Wondering around the coal country of Scranton, Pennsylvania in the
upper North East of the state, she starts taking up with all kinds of
men.
Unfortunately,
none respect her and they use her as much as she does them (sex for
food and money, et al) until she meets a guy only known as Mr. Dennis
(Michael Higgins) who is a crook, thief, con-artist, abuser of women
and not too bright in some of his robbery ideas. They meet at a bar
(no surprise there) and she just gets more and more unwisely
involved. This leads to his 'brilliant' idea of robbing a big bank,
in part by going after one of its managers and his family. From
there, it just gets more inane, insane and Wanda keeps letting
herself by used, but now as an accessory to what will soon be a
federal crime!
At
times, the film reminded me of Antonioni's Red
Desert
(1966, also on Criterion Blu-ray
elsewhere on this site) and she certainly takes her time exploring
and showing the character, one you feel sorry for, a victim of
poverty, sexism, a lack of education and victim of a coal town in
some decline. She has major issues even holding down a simple job
and Loden makes this feel as real as if you were watching a
documentary.
This
was produced on 16mm film, finally a common thing by the early 1970s
(Super 16mm was about to arrive too) and I like the look Director of
Photography Nicholas T. Proferes (who also edited) pull off. This
was almost a lost film, but it has thankfully been restored and is
way overdue for rediscovery as the topic of women director's becomes
as important as ever.
Extras
include (some of this from the press release) an illustrated paper
foldout with tech info and an essay by film critic Amy Taubin, while
the Blu-ray adds I
Am Wanda,
an hour-long documentary by Katja Raganelli featuring an interview
with director Barbara Loden filmed in 1980, Audio recording of Loden
speaking to students at the American Film Institute in 1971, Segment
from a 1971 episode of The
Dick Cavett Show
featuring Loden, The
Frontier Experience,
a short educational film from 1975 about a pioneer woman's struggle
to survive, directed by and starring Loden and a new Theatrical
Release Trailer.
All
four Blu-rays look as good as they possibly could in the format. The
1080p 2.00 X 1 digital High Definition AVC @ 34 MBPS image on the
Beale
Blu-ray is a really good HD shoot that runs smoothly for the most
part, though we get slight imperfections and some camera angles might
work better than others. The
anamorphically enhanced 2.00 X 1 image on the DVD is passable, but
misses too much detail, depth and color range. The DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the Blu-ray is dialogue-based, but is well
mixed and presented with a good choice of music. The lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 is smaller by comparison and not as warm.
Poetic
Justice is
presented in 1080p high definition with a widescreen aspect ratio of
1.85:1 and paired with an English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo
lossless (48kHz, 24-bit, from the later analog Dolby SR-type
(Spectral Recording) noise reduction system) sound, both of which are
of the norm for the format. Shot on 35mm, the colors and organic
feel of the film is intact with very clear audio mixes and nice
levels of visual color contrast throughout.
Talk
Radio
is presented in 1080p on Blu-ray disc with a widescreen aspect ratio
of 1.85:1 and a nice sounding English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0
Stereo lossless mix (from the older analog Dolby A-type noise
reduction system). This is a definite improvement over previous
releases of the film on disc in lesser formats. There's a little bit
of grain in the image, but nothing overly distracting.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Wanda
can show the age of the materials used, especially considering how
some elements survived better than others, but this is far superior a
transfer to all previous releases of the film. You can see the
improvements versus the same footage on the extras, with the
restoration involving as much of the original 16mm camera materials
possible, plus a 35mm blow-up print. The
sound is here in PCM 2.0 Mono lossless from the original 35mm optical
soundtrack and other 35mm optical sources, resulting in a impressive
result considering the films, age, budget and how it was not
preserved with big money for almost half a century. Some detail
might not be as good in some scenes from the 16mm film stocks of the
time, but 16mm professional production was new then (from the
supplements, they were certainly using 16mm cameras any serious
filmmaker would still absolutely want to own) and the look is very
consistent throughout. Expect some minor flaws.
To
order the Talk
Radio Blu
limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and other great exclusives while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo (Beale,
Wanda)
and James
Lockhart
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/