Summer is so close that we can taste it, so now is a perfect time to finish off your seasonal home theater vegetation before good weather forces you outdoors. Thankfully, April brought a handful of excellent DVD/Blu-ray releases to keep you inside, and content. Whether you are looking for mindless action, a challenging documentary, a good old-fashioned ghost story, or want to expand your collection with an all-time classic, these five fantastic releases should suit your needs nicely. If there is nothing on this list that tickles your fancy, perhaps you are not that into movies. I’m not sure why you would have clicked on this article if that was the case, but to each their own.
1) Chinatown (Paramount)
Hollywood in the 1970s is a period practically fetishized by film geeks. It was a rare time when films geared to adults were not only made, but were actually successful. Chinatown is one of the most beloved movies of the era. It began as the brainchild of noted Hollywood script-doctor Robert Towne (responsible for punching up Bonnie And Clyde, The Godfather, and others), who wanted to updated the beloved Old Hollywood film noir genre with a story that would dig deeper into the darkness of human nature than the production code would allow at the time, while also tying the tale into genuine 1930s Los Angeles corruption. He wrote a snarling detective role for Jack Nicholson as his star status was rising, talked self-obsessed super-producer Robert Evans into flipping the bill, and eventually got Roman Polanksi to come out of his post-Sharon Tate murder-retirement to direct. It’s a rare case of all those creative partners coming together perfectly with Nicholson bringing naturalism to Towne’s stylized words, Evans offering a fat budget and a prestigious release, and Polanski adding extra layers of cynicism, symbolism, and an iconic ending. The result was an undeniable masterpiece immeasurably improved by each collaborator.
Paramount’s Blu-ray release is unsurprisingly stacked with special features honoring the timeless film. Wonderfully concise and informative documentaries featuring all the key players are carried over from previous releases, with a couple of new additions exclusive to this set. An exhaustive documentary explores the true LA water conspiracy in the background of Chinatown for any longtime confused viewers, but even more impressive is a new audio commentary with director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) grilling Towne about his artistic intent, production details and pointing out some hidden bloopers and technical glitches. Throw in a stunning new HD transfer that enlivens Polanski’s crisply composed widescreen photography, and you’ve got an absolutely essential Blu-ray purchase. Only Criterion treats classic films with more reverence than this, and it should enough to have movie nerds foaming at the mouth.
2) Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Paramount)
When a new Mission Impossible movie was announced, it was met with cries of indifference. Tom Cruise’s globe-trotting spy franchise may have been a consistent money-maker, but each sequel provided less engaging than the last with the protagonist Ethan Hunt having no real personality that wasn’t provided by Cruise’s slowly diminishing star power. However, the folks behind this new entry made an ingenious decision in hiring Pixar stalwart Brad Bird (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) to direct. Bird instantly embraced the inherently frivolous nature of the franchise by whipping up a gloriously goofy spy thriller that acknowledges how silly the series is and plays with that fact without ever drifting into self-parody. The deliberately out-of-date cold war era conflict between the US and Russia is absurd, but thankfully, we’re never asked to take it seriously. The whole movie is pitched as popcorn fluff. and delivers all the goofy fun that can be had out of this sort of blockbuster. Simon Pegg returns for light comic relief as a befuddled spy, while Cruise trots out his superstar charm in a movie just stylized enough to contain it.
The biggest reason for the movie’s success are the incredible action scenes, particularly a vertigo-inducing sequence with Cruise dangling off the world’s largest sky-skaper in Dubai. Paramount’s glossy Blu-ray can’t quite match the intensity the sequence had while filling up IMAX screens, but it’s about as good as this movie could possibly look on home video. The documentaries showcase why the scenes work so well, with Bird insisting on using actual stuntmen and physical sets over CGI-enhanced imagery. The results speak for themselves, with the action flick feeling far more visceral than most of the explosion factorys unleashed on screens these days. Sure, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol offers little more than dumb fun, but few blockbusters can match it for sheer mindless entertainment. Bird has made one hell of a leap into the live action arena, reviving a dying franchise and bringing in dump trucks full of money for a happy studio. He should be able to make whatever movie he pleases now and that’s something to look forward to even if he also guaranteed the production of an inevitably disappointing fifth M:I movie by a different director.
3) The Innkeepers (Dark Sky)
Anyone who feels like contemporary horror movies have lost the best qualities of the genre in favor of gore and cashgrab remakes should thank the movie gods for writer-director Tii West. The man behind House Of The Devil is a throwback to the horror movies of old. He values suspense and carefully controlled tension over jump scares and bloodshed (though thankfully he’s not afraid of using those tactics when the time is right). His films play viewers like an instrument; teasing, needling, and prodding before delivering the pants-wetting goods only when they’ve been lulled into a state that will guarantee maximum impact. They are old-fashioned scare stories in a modern setting and while his indie horror movies don’t play to the masses yet, movie connoisseurs are catching on and it’s only a matter of time before he has the breakout genre hit he deserves. West’s latest horror dabbling is The Innkeepers a classic ghost story packed with wit, elegance, charm and of course, scares.
The setting is a crumbling haunted hotel called The Yankee Peddler. The cast are two underachieving 20somethings (the sarcastically hilarious Pat Healy and the adorably awkward/beautiful Sara Paxton), who have wasted their youth behind the counter and are now sleeping over as the only staff members left in the aging hotel’s final weekend before closure. They have long been convinced that the place is haunted, and plan to finally get their proof during the final weekend. With this being a horror movie, you can probably guess if they’re right. West carefully bides his time and builds atmosphere for the first 40 minutes or so, earning empathy for his goofball slackers and laying the foundation for the haunted house scarefactory to come. When it arrives, the simple scares hit harder because they feel so unexpected and we’re so invested in the characters who are in danger. It’s sounds like horror 101 stuff, but few people do it as well as West. Now, it’s not a perfect movie. West stumbles a bit with a psychic character and maybe creates a bit too much build up without enough of a payoff. However, for fans of classic slowburn horror, The Innkeepers is a gem that both feels like it’s from another era and completely contemporary at the same time. The indie DVD boasts a fine presentation for the shadowy visuals and carefully controlled audio atmosphere, along with a couple of commentaries for movie geeks. A must for anyone who loves horror movies, but is tired of super-slick blood n’ guts productions.
4) Into The Abyss (Mongrel)
Iconic eccentric filmmaker Werner Herzog returns with a new documentary Into the Abyss. Initially planned as a general documentary about Death Row in Texas, he soon discovered a single story about a decade-old triple homicide perpetrated purely to steal a car for a joy ride and created this fascinating portrait of the ugly underbelly of American culture. Traveling from trailer parks to luxury homes, everyone interviewed is either fascinated or victimized by murder, state sanctioned or otherwise. Herzog ditches his usual voiceover and lets his subjects tell their story. The troubled young men responsible have conflicting versions of the events but seem equally responsible despite only one getting the death penalty. However, even more fascinating are the side characters Herzog discoverers including one of the criminals humbled fathers serving his own life sentence, a psychologically scarred former executioner and, creepily, a woman who met and married one of the murderers while he was incarcerated.
The filmmaker had less than an hour to interview each subject and yet seems to probe deeper into their lives than most directors would even dream of accomplishing. This is another chapter in the Herzog’s ongoing studies of the furthest extremes of human nature and in its own quiet way, is one of his most unsettling accomplishments to date. Rarely before has Herzog delved this deeply into the darkness of human psyche (no, the ridiculous evil excess of Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant doesn’t count), but he remains as fascinated, open-minded, and even empathetic towards his subjects as ever. It’s a movie that will sear itself into your brain even if it doesn’t exactly qualify as lighthearted entertainment. Herzog is one of those directors who while respected now, will only truly be recognized as the genius he is after passing away and leaving behind dozens of remarkable movies like Into The Abyss that were almost taken for granted during their initial release. The DVD is barebones, but the emotionally draining and powerful film is more than enough to sell the shiny disc.
5) Haywire (Alliance)
The absurdly productive Steven Soderbergh makes a return with Haywire, his second project that was completely ignored in 2011 following Contagion. Continuing the director’s desire to dabble in every genre at least once regardless of if he’s suited to the material, it’s Soderbergh’s minimalist take on action movies. Inspired by the network TV sponsored fisticuffs of MMA fighter Gina Carano, the director built a movie around her as a black ops-trained mercenary/spy for hire, who secretly does the US government’s dirty work. Filmed in Soderbergh’s beloved detached and card-shuffle narrative style, it’s really just an excuse to show off Carano in pretty outfits in and exotic locals while beating the crap out of stars like Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor. It’s simple, but it works, with Carano having a genuine action star presence (perhaps aided by the fact that her character is written to be an unemotional blank slate, shielding her from having to do much acting in her debut).
Soderbergh’s current meandering style with locked off cameras studying characters who are seemly incapable of expressing themselves carries over to the action genre surprisingly well. While that approach might be insufferable in dramas like The Girlfriend Experience, here it creates an odd tension allowing the fights scenes to unexpectedly explode onto the screen every time. He also had all the actors do their own stunts along with Carano, which adds to the visceral effect and can often feel far more intimate and compelling than current Hollywood action movies working at ten times the budget. Considering the populist subject matter and all-star cast surrounding Carano (Fassbender, McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, etc), it’s odd that the studio dumped the move onto screens with little fanfare and audiences avoided it in droves, barely even aware it existed. Hopefully the movie will thrive on DVD/Blu-ray where the gut punch fight scenes play just as well. Haywire is far from a masterpiece, but it shouldn’t be ignored by anyone with a sweet spot for cinematic ass-kickery. The disc comes with a couple of fluffy documentaries that don’t add much insight, but then how much is there really to say about an unapologetic fight flick?
Honorable Mention: A Streetcar Named Desire (Warner Brothers)
An all-time classic gets the classy and extras packed presentation it deserves.
Read More: The full Essential Cinema column on A Streetcar Named Desire
—
Phil Brown writes about Essential Cinema for Toronto Standard.
For more, follow us on Twitter at @TorontoStandard and subscribe to our newsletter.
