Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Is there anyone who doesn’t like Johnny Depp? Obviously the level to which your affections may run will vary dramatically, and likely be dependent upon your fondness for the seemingly never-ending stream of Pirates of the Caribbean films. But, it would surely be rare to find someone who actually dislikes everyone’s favourite Keith Richards impersonator… wouldn’t it?

Interestingly, if you take out the Pirates films, Depp has never truly been a box office banker. Alice In Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are exceptions, although their success is more to do with Tim Burton and the classical nature of the stories than any other factors. No, Depp has rarely had a hit and has more often than not had a miss; even the actually-pretty-good The Lone Ranger and Transcendence are considered financial flops. Perhaps then, Depp is an actor who should be judged on performance rather than result? This new Blu-ray collection presents a case for both the prosecution and the defence.

Of the four films included, it is the two with regular collaborator Burton that are the most troublesome. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) is an indulgently macabre treat that assaults the senses through lavish visuals and almost pantomime performances, but like any treat it becomes a little too sickly after you’ve consumed nearly all of it. Dark Shadows (2012), on the other hand, feels like a film that a student would make if they were trying, and ultimately failing, to imitate Burton’s unique style. With a script that needed at least one more pass and scenes that linger, outstaying they’re already lukewarm welcome, Dark Shadows is a tedious affair from which no-one in the esteemed cast, that also includes Eva Green and Michelle Pfeiffer, emerges from with any credit.

The two interesting films are The Astronaut’s Wife (1999) and Don Juan DeMarco (1994). The former is an interesting sci-fi thriller tinged with elements of horror that demonstrates Depp’s often forgotten subtlety as an actor. The latter taps into the same quality he showed in Benny & Joon and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape; a quiet depiction of a lovable misfit in a misunderstanding world and will remind you of Depp’s inherent early career likeability.

Only the most ardent Depp fan will truly enjoy all this collection. With two of Depp and Burton’s worst films and two others that are more eclectic in style, it is hard to know who this new release is for. If you really want to broaden your Johnny Depp cinematic knowledge, perhaps Ed Wood or Donnie Brasco would be more rewarding? Failing that, revisit The Lone Ranger and Transcendence; they’re actually pretty good.

JOHNNY DEPP COLLECTION / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: JOHNNY DEPP, EVA GREEN, HELENA BONHAM CARTER, CHARLIZE THERON, MARLON BRANDON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

If you ask people to think of Harrison Ford, most will conjure up images of Han Solo or Indiana Jones. While unavoidably and understandably synonymous with two of the most iconic characters in cinema history, it is worth remembering that he has appeared in more than 80 films aside from those two franchises. Now on Blu-ray is a collection of five films that demonstrate Ford’s more thoughtful side; less the wisecracking action hero, if you will.

Spanning a period of 25 years in Ford’s career, this collection includes some interesting choices. The earliest film is Frantic (1988), Roman Polanski’s Paris-set cat-and-mouse thriller that plunges Ford’s confused doctor into an underworld tightly woven with intrigue and mystery. The plot may become apparent long before the on-screen reveal, but Frantic is an accomplished, noir-inspired film which is more an example of the work of its director than his star, although Ford does seem to thrive under Polanski’s guidance. Whodunnit and partial courtroom drama Presumed Innocent (1990) carries much of Frantic’s style, and does a better job of hiding its plot twists but labours a little until the final act. Ford’s murder-accused prosecutor moodily mumbles his way through in what is a very reserved performance that is overshadowed slightly by Raul Julia’s witty defence lawyer and Brian Dennehy’s unscrupulous politician. That said, it is an emotion-filled lead role that Ford occupies superbly.

The theme of understatement is prevalent in the remaining 3 films in the collection. The Fugitive (1993) became a star-making vehicle for Tommy Lee Jones as his U. S. Marshall delivers quotable dialogue that will be the thing you remember from the film. The wrongly accused Dr. Richard Kimble is a more subdued character, but once again Ford handles the quiet complexity well. Firewall (2006) is without doubt the weakest film here, with Ford’s bank security expert being blackmailed by Paul Bettany’s besuited thief. The plot never really feels thought through, with random plot turns and inexplicable character decisions detracting from what is fundamentally a simple but interesting premise.

The final film is baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s biopic, 42 (2013). Here Ford hams it up as general manager Branch Rickey but this is Chadwick Boseman’s film. Avoiding most of the obvious clichés, 42 is an insightful portrayal of a black man entering what was a racist, white man’s sport and is an interesting, focussed account of a period in the life of a sporting icon. An important and relevant film, regardless of your preference for baseball or otherwise.

What is clear from this collection is that starring in a film with Harrison Ford is good for your career. These might not be the best examples from the filmography of one of Hollywood’s true greats (Ford’s one Oscar nomination was for Witness), but with the exception of the disappointing Firewall, they are all worthy of a Friday night’s viewing.

HARRISON FORD COLLECTION / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: HARRISON FORD, TOMMY LEE JONES, RAUL JULIA, PAUL BETTANY, SEAN YOUNG, CHADWICK BOSEMAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Ambition and vision are attributes that should, quite rightly, be respected and encouraged in filmmakers. Without them, and without those with the foresight to spot them, some of the greatest films in cinema history may never have been made. Sometimes though, ambition and vision can exceed the capabilities of the filmmaker, resulting in a film that descends into misguided confusion. Sadly, that appears to be the case with Live-Evil as a disjointed narrative struggles on uneasily alongside overly stylised visuals, with inconsistent tone and pace further adding to the issues.

While patrolling on Halloween, Deputy Hancock (Charlene Amoia) discovers a murder scene where the only survivor is a mysterious naked woman. Ignoring for now the fact that the woman has glowing pupils, she arrests the stranger and takes her back to the station. Once there, Hancock’s fellow officers begin to act strangely as the “evil” woman exudes a kind of psychic paranoia that infects victim’s minds. Then the film becomes a routine zombie horror. Then it turns into an ill-judged, almost slapstick comedy horror. Then the zombies go on a pilgrimage. Then, finally, it ends.

Around 20 minutes or so into Live-Evil (you see what they did there?), you may just happen to glance at your watch. If you do, you will undoubtedly be amazed (and horrified) you’re only 20 minutes in. The pacing in the opening half of the film is so ponderous and uninspiring it makes you wonder if it’s by design. Scenes linger long past the point they ceased to be interesting, and pauses between lines of dialogue make you want to reach in and shake the cast. When things finally do pick up some speed as the zombies converge on their “church” (and many drive there as, you know, it’s quicker), you find yourself simply no longer caring and begin to hope the remaining human characters get eaten as soon as possible.

Some humour is attempted by introducing a character whose name and purpose really don’t matter, but the lines feel like they’ve been lifted from an entirely different script, as if the filmmakers were working on a Scary Movie-style spoof at the same time and just decided to amalgamate the two. Simply put, nothing in Live-Evil is original or new, and you will have seen it all done before, just very much better.

Writer and director Ari Kirschenbaum clearly has ambition and a vision (of sorts), but this film doesn’t demonstrate either trait well. There is surely a good film in him somewhere but it might be advisable to wait for the next one as this isn’t it.

LIVE-EVIL / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ARI KIRSCHENBAUM / STARRING: TONY TODD, CHARLENE AMOIA, VLADIMIR KULICH, VINCENT M. WARD / RELEASE DATE: TBC

 

Named after Emmeline Pankhurst’s famous call-to-arms, when she told her followers that they would have to make themselves louder and more obtrusive than anybody else if they were ever going to succeed in their mission for equality, liberation and ‘votes for women’, Make More Noise! is a fascinating collection of short films and newsreels detailing how cinema and the world viewed the struggle of the suffragettes as they campaigned on Britain’s streets.

As political reformers go, the Suffragettes were extremely PR savvy. They understood the burgeoning power of cinema and they didn’t need spin doctors to teach them how to use the moving camera to their advantage. Amongst the gems on offer are a silent comedy about a husband whose suffragette wife leaves him with the babysitting but his dreams of getting revenge on her don’t go exactly to plan, an upsetting selection of footage from the 1913 Derby when suffragette Emily Davison threw herself in front of the King’s horse (the DVD also features a brief newsreel of her funeral), a War Office film about women working in a First World War munitions factory, and (our personal favourite) a brief but charming comedy about two young ladies who decide to take a horse-drawn fire engine for a joy ride. It is incomplete and it plays like a music hall skit, but it’s fabulous. The two actresses from this film – Alma Taylor and Chrissie White – feature in a handful of other short comedies on this DVD and were apparently major stars between 1911 and 1912. We hope that, somewhere in its archives, the BFI has more of their work to show us.

But it is wrong to concentrate solely on the light-hearted side of this important collection. Make More Noise! is a tremendous all-encompassing overview of the suffragette’s fight for justice, including scenes of demonstrations and riots, the question of ‘will there be women MPs?’, a strike by factory girls and a suffragette pageant marching through the streets of London. Many of these moments last only a minute or two, some of them far less than that, but this excellent DVD has been so flawlessly edited together that the frequent dis-continuity is never jarring. Mention should also be made of Lillian Henley’s musical score, which serves as a perfect accompaniment.

If Sarah Gavron’s excellent drama Suffragette placed this crucial period of British history back into the public consciousness, Make More Noise! highlights it and seals it there so it can never be forgotten.

Absolutely wonderful.

MAKE MORE NOISE! SUFFRAGETTES IN SILENT FILM / CERT: EXEMPT / DIRECTOR: BYRONY DIXON, MARGARET DERIAZ / SCREENPLAY: N/A / STARRING: N/A / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 23RD

 

In the aftermath of Goku’s thunderous punch-up with super-bad Freiza, the planet Namek was left to crumble into oblivion. With Goku seemingly caught in the rapture below, the gang try to bring him back with the Dragon Balls. Within the conflicting Ts and Cs, it turns out Goku wasn’t gobbled up in the explosion after all. Instead, he hopscotched to a distant planet to pack in some quality training. Over a year passes before he finally returns to Earth, but ditching his family for 12 months is a small price to pay for the ability to teleport.

Before Goku arrives though, the rest of the gang have to face the renewed fury of Frieza. And this time he’s brought his dad. Having undergone a Darth Vader-like cybernetic transformation to fix his bisected body, he’s out for blood and only the Earth’s total annihilation will suffice. Suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and a cocksure attitude – one to rival Vegeta’s boorish arrogance – is his ultimate downfall. It’s up to the pink-haired, sword-swinging super-Saiyan Trunks to clean up the mess.

While we’re quietly confident that folks know all the ins and outs of the series by this point, we’ll keep some of the twists secret. What we will say is that Trunks travelled from the future to warn of an impending android attack that leaves the earth a shelled out wasteland, and the gaggle of goodies a pile of corpses. But as events unfold, they’re vastly different to the future he lived through, and the rise of the lab-grown atrocity Cell is a much more deadly threat than the one the previous androids posed.

The exploration of time travel, and its many paradoxes, shows just how big an influence western sci-fi had on the formative series. In amongst the many nods to Star Wars are touchstones of Terminator and Alien. With the varying locations, series three proves to be a more stimulating and vigorous piece of storytelling then the previous entries.

More so than what came before, the Cell saga shows that Daisuke Nishio’s direction still stands up to scratch. The flourishes of horror are effectively tapped for the town and city-scapes festooned with empty clothes and the lingering silences. It’s what makes Cell such a chilling and memorable foe. He might be as one-dimensional a being as Frieza was – striving to achieve his perfect form for no other reason than because he can – but androids 17 and 18 with their brother/sister relationship see a level of characterisation on the enemy side hitherto unseen in the franchise. Add to that the enigmatic Android 16, and it’s a potent trio.

Although the voice acting is better remembered from childhood, it’s difficult to imagine any other actors stepping into the roles. Even with the cosmetic touch-ups and some of the events scrubbed completely, Kai is a rollicking tribute to that most cherished anime. Revisiting the series makes you realise just what an important work of sci-fi it is too. With Gohan versus Perfect Cell to come, the next collection can’t come soon enough.

Special Features: Textless opening and closing / Trailers

DRAGON BALL Z KAI: SERIES 3 / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: DAISUKE NISHIO / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: TSURU HIROMI, EMORI HIROKO, MIDORIKAWA HIKARU, NOZAWA MASAKO / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

The feature-length episodes of Beck are based on the popular novels by Mai Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö written in the 1960s and have been broadcast in Sweden since 1997, beginning as films in their own right rather than as a TV series. BBC4’s Saturday night foreign-noir slot caught up with Beck this year by showing episodes 26 to 30, which are collected on this 3-disc volume, supplied with English sub-titles.

The series follows the crime investigations of Martin Beck (Peter Haber) who leads a homicide squad based in Stockholm. Beck is methodical, thoughtful, introverted and married to his job; when asked to list three people he has regular contact with beyond work, he can only think of two relatives and his eccentric neighbour, Grannen. Given the often gruesome crimes and serious social issues explored by Beck, Grannen (Ingvar Hirdwall) provides some welcome comic relief. Like Mrs Tishell in Doc Martin, Grannen always wears a neck brace and when he catches sight of Beck he’s keen to share his odd-ball stories along with a swig of alcohol.

Beck is assisted by Gunvald Larsson (Mikael Persbrandt), who is an impetuous polar-opposite to him. Gunvald likes taking risks and being an action man, then there is the younger Oskar Bergman (Mans Nathanaelson) who is learning the ropes, much like Lewis in Inspector Morse.

Although this starts with Episode 26, Buried Alive, it is not difficult to follow the story and come to grips with the world of Beck. In this, his team deals with a serial killer who makes coffins for his victims and buries them alive, and it gets more chilling when Beck becomes the centre of the murderer’s attention.

The opening sequence of Episode 29, The Invasion, has two boys with rifles, wearing horror alien masks, playing in a forest when they see the hands of a corpse poking out of the ground. Rather than aliens from outer space, this episode takes a look at the attitudes toward foreign immigrants and migrants – very appropriately, given that Sweden’s open-door policy has prompted fears of immigrant-related crimes, unemployment and lack of integration. When another person is found murdered at his workplace, an Islamist terror group is suspected of being responsible. During their investigation they come across those who are helping illegal immigrants, those that exploit them as cheap labour and people who are prejudiced against them. Even the gung-ho Gunvald, who rejoices in driving a police car at high speed to hospital when Oskar’s wife goes into labour, is contemptuous of a racist man whom he knocks down and shoots at him with the man’s own (illegal) gun.

The combination of characters and thoughtful storylines that touch on contemporary issues, with a fair dash of red herrings, makes for a gripping series that makes it almost equal to the benchmark of all nordic-noir, Wallander. Certainly makes us want to see more of Beck, and we hope the earlier or future episodes will make their appearance on BBC4 and disc – though the earlier stories will have to be in Volumes numbered starting at minus 1!

BECK THE SERIES: VOLUME 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: PETER HABER, MIKAEL PERSBRANDT, MANS NATHANAELSON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Unless you’re an aficionado of Japanese cinema, Kiju Yoshida’s work might be unfamiliar to you. It’s very good to see that Arrow’s stunning new Blu-ray collection is correcting that oversight.

On the basis of the three films contained in this beautiful limited edition set, and the generous and fascinating special features (although the book which forms part of the set was not available for review), Yoshida’s work is fiercely different from most of the filmmaking we ever see in the West.

Eros+Massacre is essentially the life story of Sakae Osugi, an anarchist who believed in free love, socialism and intellectual freedom, and who was murdered by Japanese military police in 1923. The film focuses on the three women in Osugi’s life – his wife, his current lover, and a former lover who attempted to kill him, an incident that forms one of the main set-pieces of the movie. But Yoshida doesn’t stop there. He also sets up a second timeline that takes place in the late 1960s, as two students try to discover more about Osugi’s life and beliefs. Yoshida sometimes runs the two timestreams parallel to each other and sometimes intersects them, but the intricate stylistic choices he makes never leave us confused about where the narrative is leading. It is a film of cinematic genius and this set brings together both the theatrical cut and the much longer director’s cut, which are well worth watching side-by-side if you have the time (be warned – these are long films) because, even though they tell the same story, each adds something new to the retelling, making Eros+Massacre feel something like a hall of mirrors, with the theatrical and director’s cuts reflecting constantly back upon themselves, informing and enhancing each other, so that we’re almost left with a third retelling of the story that takes place solely inside the viewer’s mind, in the middle-ground between the two versions.

That’s what Yoshida’s work does to you. It is filmmaking on an existential level, that takes a while to grow comfortable with (his avant-garde framing and frequently overblown exposures can be quite disorienting, and the pacing of his films can grow a little tiring) but their true reward comes via the viewer’s subconscious.

Heroic Purgatory takes Yoshida even further and is more a philosophical exercise than a piece of storytelling. Of the three films, this is the one which is hardest to connect with and hardest to describe: the wife of an engineer finds a lost girl and brings her home, but when the girl’s father appears (and he may not actually be her father) the story splits off into past and future, where we learn about the engineer’s youth as a revolutionary and a plot to assassinate a political figure. Unlike Eros+Massacre, the story of Heroic Purgatory is fractured to the point of incomprehension. What saves the film is Yoshida’s dreamlike imagery, his strangely wandering camerawork and his juxtaposition between light and dark, hard emotion and cool ambivalence.

Coup d’Etat, like Eros+Massacre, is based loosely upon the life of a Japanese intellectual called Ikki Kita whose ideas inspired the failed military coup of 1936, an incident which eventually cost Kita his life. Like the previous two films, Coup d’Etat is much more concerned with the philosophical struggles and internal motivations of its protagonist, so that the coup itself is almost an afterthought, a story element Yoshida seems far less interested in portraying. As the dissection of a man whose worldviews are so flawed and rigid they eventually prove his own downfall, this film is fascinating. It’s only real stumbling block is the fact that, unless you already know a little about that period of Japanese history, it can be challenging to follow.

In fact, maybe that’s the reason Yoshida’s films are seen so rarely outside of his own country. They are, at their very heart, intensely intimate portraits of an alien culture, made all the more alien because, during the historical period within which Eros+Massacre and Coup d’Etat are mostly set, Japan was in a state of violent political and ideological flux the true resonances of which only the Japanese themselves can truly appreciate.

But back to the collection! Arrow have genuinely excelled themselves with this release. Once upon a time, it was only distributors like Criterion in the US and Eureka/Masters of Cinema in the UK who were making the genuine effort to unearth forgotten gems of world cinema and lavish them with the care and attention they deserved. Recently, Arrow have produced sets that not only rival Criterion and MoC’s best work, but which are works of art in themselves. The Kiju Yoshida collection is one of those.

Very highly recommended.

KIJU YOSHIDA: LOVE+ANARCHISM / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: KIJU YOSHIDA / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: MARIKO OKADA, TOSHIYUKI HOSOKAWA, YUKO KUSUNOKI, ETSUSHI TAKAHASHI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Fritz Haarmann was the “Vampire of Hanover”: a very scary serial killer who murdered at least 24 boys and young men (probably more) by actually biting through their Adam’s apple and trachea.  No weapons; just his teeth and maybe his hands. It’s also suspected that many of his victims ended up being sold as horse meat on the black market. He was caught and executed by guillotine in 1925. Who needs horror movies, eh? Fritz Lang’s M (1931) was partly based on Haarmann (although mainly on the equally psychotic Peter Kürten) but the first movie to be completely dedicated to the Haarmann case was the Rainer Werner Fassbinder-produced Tenderness of the Wolves, written by and starring Kurt Raab. Arrow has done the Blu-ray honours.

The period has been changed to post-WWII for some reason but the plot is reasonably close to the Haarmann story even if Raab seems to have based his appearance on Peter Lorre (the star of M) rather than Haarmann himself. We see Haarmann pick up various young men either by using his position as a police snitch or through the gay community of which he is part. Through most of the movie we never get past the start of his (normally voluntary) sexual liaisons once back at his apartment. For the most part Raab portrays him as an apparently sympathetic character who a few of his neighbours despise (for all the wrong reasons) while most respect despite his black market activities. Well, they sometimes get some meat off of him after all. Oh dear. There’s also at least one disturbingly young boy he takes home who, mercifully, we see no more of. When we finally see Haarmann in the act of killing by biting a later victim, drinking his blood and then taking him to bed, it really is powerfully disturbing.

It looks good in HD as this is actually a rather beautifully shot movie which seems to add to the hidden horror of it all. In just 82 minutes we go from mysterious banging in Haarmann’s room to the almost unbelievable sight of him committing his crimes. When the police finally track him down, he’s still driven to carry out his obsession as they’re trying to take him away. He was charming but we knew what he was up to, yet the juxtaposition between that earlier image and the incomprehensible brutality we finally see is utterly compelling. The film also makes no attempts to explain why Haarmann does what he does and that’s always best if you’re trying to make an impact. Hollywood could never have resisted a movie-ruining trap like that.

Well worth checking out this piece of German New German Cinema which is all the more chilling for being based on a true story.

Special Features: Commentary by Ulli Lommel / Interviews / Trailer / Booklet

TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES (1973) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ULLI LOMMEL / SCREENPLAY: KURT RAAB / STARRING: KURT RAAB, JEFF RODEN, MARGIT CARSTENSEN, INGRID CAVEN, WOLFGANG SCHENCK, RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW