Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

BLACK SUNDAY (1977)

Set against the growing tensions between the US and Palestinian activists Black September, this action/disaster film takes real-world situations to the extreme and builds to a fantastic finale.

After a mission in which Major Kabokov (Robert Shaw) let one of the leaders of a terrorist group, Dahlia (Marthe Keller), escape, he and the CIA race against time to stop the next atrocity planned on US soil. Dahlia has seduced Michael Lander (Bruce Dern), a disturbed Vietnam veteran, into joining their plight. His treatment following the war giving him more than enough venom to attempt to blow up the Goodyear Blimp and kill as many people as possible during the annual Super Bowl.

Black Sunday is unique in its approach to both the foreign and domestic terrorists, pretty much confirming that it is the actions of the US and ally countries that create the unrest that leads to the terrorists wanting to commit atrocities. The original novel was written by Thomas Harris, long before he would hit the mainstream with his Hannibal Lecter books, and the adaptation manages to produce one of the best examples of the genre. Director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) knew how to film action to get the most from every element and the widescreen image is packed with detail. Both Shaw and Dern are at the peak of their talents; Shaw understated and authoritative while Dern plays deranged better than almost anyone else. It’s a shame, then, that Shaw would be dead the year after release. The climax involving the blimp and the Super Bowl is spectacular – Paramount were allowed to film at the actual event – heightened by John Williams’ superb score.

It’s likely that something like this happened at the time of production was speculative fiction. We’ve seen in recent decades that the reality can be often much worse, making this escapist action flick look minor league. It’s still incredibly exhilarating, though, and is in the same vein as ‘terrorist disaster movies’ such as Rollercoaster. The Blu-ray release, from Australia’s Imprint label, boasts a fascinating commentary from Stephen Prince highlights a lot of Frankenheimer’s framing choices and is recommended listening for budding cinematographers.

Out now from Imprint.

THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976)

Although remembered and billed as a comedy, there’s little to laugh about in this cult film, despite starring one of the greatest actors in cinema, Walter Matthau.

Matthau plays a former minor league baseball player who is now a washed-up alcoholic. He’s hired to coach a youth team that comprises of assorted misfit kids who don’t know one end of the bat from the other. After a humiliating loss in their first game, he tracks down a former protégé of his (Tatum O’Neal) and a local lout (Jackie Earle Haley), who usually spends his time aggravating the grown-ups. Thanks to these youngsters, the team make it to the championship final against the uber-competitive Yankees team, coached by Vic Morrow.

There’s no denying there’s a lot of heart in The Bad News Bears, it’s been celebrated as a classic for years and was a box office smash when it was released. Unfortunately, the mean-spirited nature of Matthau’s beer-swilling, cigar-chomping character for the majority of the running time and the abuse metered out by Morrow’s aggressive, win-at-all-costs coach is at odds with what should be a feel-good outsiders-do-good story. O’Neal is as brilliant as she was in Paper Moon several years earlier and just as precocious is Haley, who of course later went on to appear in 2009’s Watchmen.

There’s still plenty to enjoy if you can overlook the outdated language and attitudes and the movie still a boasts large fan base. Scott Harrison’s commentary on the Imprint Blu-ray is full of enthusiasm and it’s clear he has a lot of love for the film. It’s worth noting for UK viewers, you don’t need to know anything about baseball to enjoy the sporty scenes, particularly since the Bears are so bad.

PROJECT ITHACA

A group of people find themselves trapped on board a dark and dirty cave-like alien spacecraft. They seem to be strangers and are puzzled by why they are imprisoned in this strange place.

The aliens cruelly explore their minds and play back sequences of their life. Strapped to the walls of the craft like prisoners in a medieval jail, they realise they have been abducted from different time periods, the latest in 2050 and the earliest in 1969. They also work out that the aliens feed off and harvest their fears and emotions as a form of fuel.

One of the prisoners is John (James Gallanders), who worked in the U.S. government’s War Department, and who says he was involved in recovering a dead alien and the wreckage of its spaceship at Roswell in 1947. In the vicinity of the crash a baby with exceptional telepathic powers was born. This child is now one of his fellow prisoners and he discloses they called her Sera – short for Specialised Extraterrestrial Reconnaissance Agent. John recounts how they used Sera in Project Ithaca as a weapon to fight the alien forces and that the fate of themselves and humanity now depends on her.

Project Ithaca is an imaginative change from most films that use the alleged flying saucer crash at Roswell as a launching point. In the hands of director Nicholas Humphries we get a very dark, nightmarish, swear-filled, convoluted, and claustrophobic vision of alien contact that is shocking and draining.

ROMEO IS BLEEDING (1993)

In the interview that’s included amongst the extras for Romeo is Bleeding, director Peter Medak states that the film was a failure on its initial 1994 release as it was the wrong time for it. It’s difficult to see just what time this polished piece of neo-noir would fit. It’s too violent and profanity laden for the golden age of noir, but it’s not sophisticated enough for an older ‘90s audience whose cinematic maturity would have been shaped by such ‘70s fare as All the President’s Men, Taxi Driver, and Apocalypse Now.

Gary Oldman plays Jack Grimaldi, a crooked witness protection cop that sells the locations of witnesses to his mob boss (Roy Scheider). Just to endear you to the character even more, he cheats on his wife (Annabella Sciorra) with a fantasy indulging waitress (Juliette Lewis). And then he encounters sexually obsessed psycho mob mistress Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin), who enjoys watching Jack get caught, quite literally, with his pants down. Eventually Jack is framed for the murder of two fellow cops, but Mona is charged for the deaths, the mob boss wants Mona dead and he wants Jack to do the killing, but the FBI wants Mona breathing, which complicates things, and Mona offers Jack a deal to tempting to refuse, whilst he has his pants down naturally.

Romeo is Bleeding perhaps tries too hard to be typical noir. There’s Oldman’s portentously pithy yet leaden narration, Olin’s predatory femme fatale, perhaps the most over-the-top lethal of fatales ever committed to celluloid (it seems that Olin was enjoying herself anyway), and Mark Isham’s jazz score that is so jazzed as to be intrusive rather than subtly enhancing the film. As a result the film comes across as being an ironic pastiche rather than legitimate neo-noir.

Peter Medak is a truly gifted director. He achieved acclaim with the satirical Peter O’Toole comedy The Ruling Class, Let Him Have It with Christopher Eccleston earned headlines by exposing a justice system that seemed more intent on meting out vengeance, and the heart breaking The Changeling is one of the finest ghost stories committed to film. It’s a shame then that Romeo is Bleeding is such a misstep in what is otherwise a varied and illustrious career.

The extras are somewhat sparse on this Blu-ray release. There’s a trailer, that completely miss sells the film, but how often have we seen those? Alexandra Heller-Nicholas commentary goes into great depth about gender politics in genre films. Heller-Nicholas also discusses Annabella Sciorra’s alleged rape by Harvey Weinstein during the making of the film. This was only brought to light when she and other women bravely gave testimony against him. The interview, which was conducted under lock down conditions is illuminating. He discusses his life in Communist Hungary before escaping to Britain where his career began. And finally there’s Mark Isham’s isolated score for those of you that enjoy overbaked jazz.

THE NIGHTINGALE

Jennifer Kent follows up her breakout horror, The Babadook, with a revenge film set in the Australia of 1825. Clare (Aisling Fraciosi) is a young Irish convict living as a maid for a small English military unit, waiting for the signed papers that will release her home. After an act of brutal violence, she and an aboriginal guide (Baykali Ganambarr) set off in pursuit of revenge.

The Nightingale is a film of historic anger. In just over two hours it plunges you into life in Australia at the time, where the English were there to ‘civilise’ the ‘savage’ land, but it was their violence and destruction that was the true savagery that was brought to Australia as they colonised it. It’s certainly not an easy film to watch – it’s a protracted chase punctuated by scenes of violence, sometimes quite graphic – but it just about holds the attention.

But in essence, this is still a film where the inciting action for revenge is the rape of a woman. It may hold itself a bit higher than many others who’ve done the same before with its exploration and presentation of the brutal colourisation of Australia, and not revel in the sexual violence being meted out, but it’s still a film whose plot has been done many times before, and it feels long overdue for this what almost now feels like a trope to be put to the side.

If you’re looking to find out more, the disc boasts a few extras including a making of, interviews, and a video essay of the film and its historical and political context.

BUTCHERS

In the mould of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Butchers focuses on a backwoods family of butchers whose stock is made up of hapless travellers who happen to stray in their neighbourhood.

After a brief introduction to our family, we’re taken to ‘the beginning… of the end’. It’s 1998 and a pair of couples break down on a stretch of road while out driving. Given the year, we don’t have to worry about that ‘no signal’ cliché, but one of the four does have a video camera (“In 25 years, people will film everything”, he quips). Naturally, trying to get a pickup truck from the nearest garage doesn’t end well. This continues to ‘the middle… of nowhere’, where we discover where the family’s meat goes and things get worse. By the time it gets to ‘the end… is near’, things have gone south majorly.

Co-writer (with Daniel Weissenberger) and director Adrian Langley takes more than a few leaves out of the Tobe Hooper classic’s playbook, by being brutal as hell but showing as little as possible. The focus is also more on the dysfunctional family than the victims, who are just the usual teen fodder. Langley uses all the tricks in the backwoods book, but also manages to be unpredictable when needed. It’s gloriously shot, highlighting the contrast of the lovely forest and the grimy shack the victims are kept and that aspect alone raises the quality above the standard well-trodden fare. It’s clear Langley knows we’re all aware of the tropes and isn’t shy about making that obvious, but if you’re going to tread a well-worn path, you might as well do it in style, which is just what he does. While it won’t win any awards for originality, it’s a fun watch for those with a stomach and in the mood for another ‘hillbillies with a cannibal brother’ flick.

NOS4A2: SEASON ONE AND TWO

Christmas really does come early for fans of AMC’s ambitious adaptation of Joe Hill’s NOS4A2, as both seasons arrive together on Blu-ray. And it’s not even Easter!

Season One introduces aspiring artist Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings), whom discovers she has an extraordinary talent that only creative minds possess. She is able to transport herself far and wide using an old, dilapidated bridge as a portal where she’s then able to find lost things, children for instance. This ability brings her the unwanted attention of Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto), an ageless entity that lures children into his Rolls-Royce Wraith with the promise of a trip to Christmasland, before devouring their essence. Naturally, conflict between the two ensues and not without tragic consequences.

Season Two picks up almost a decade later and Vic, now a mother, is broken from her experiences. To make matters worse Charlie Manx returns deadlier than ever. Before Vic only had her friends and herself to worry about. Now the stakes are so much higher as she has a child to protect from a seemingly unstoppable and relentless evil.

On the surface, NOS4A2 appears to be a straightforward horror, and whilst there are elements of outright horror, it is so much more than that. It’s a character driven piece that at its core is about everyone having to grow up and face their responsibilities whether literally, spiritually or metaphorically. You’d expect this of the human characters, but it is also true of the otherworldly Charlie Manx played with chilling perfection by Zachary Quinto. Manx does not see himself as a villain, but rather as Peter Pan. In his mind, sucking the life out of children and depositing their demonically fanged husks into Christmasland is rescuing them from abusive homes and adult neglect.

Vic McQueen is Ashleigh Cummings’ first major role although it certainly doesn’t come across like that. She has the confidence and gravitas that many of her much older peers possess. She is a very physical actor able to convey meaning with the slightest of facial expressions or a subtle movement of her body.

Olafur Darri Olafsson’s Bing Partridge (Manx’s intellectually challenged human henchman) is the standout performance of the entire series. As the series progresses, he commits more depraved and grievous acts in the hope that he will finally earn a place in Christmasland.

Each season has its own set of extras. Season One includes A Look at the Series, which as the title suggests is an overview of NOS4A2’s first season. Meet the Characters are mini interviews with the cast, whilst Becoming Charlie Manx is a more in-depth look at how Quinto channels the character of Charlie Manx. The Making of NOS4A2 is really no different from the countless ‘Making of’s…’ that everyone will be familiar with. Adapting the Book, however, is a particularly interesting piece.

The series has dispensed with the protracted nature of the book’s story following Vic’s childhood. Instead, we jump right in with Vic as teen just discovering her power. Joe Hill on the Themes and Inspirations of NOS4A2 is just that, but he’s very affable whilst explaining his love of vampires and other demonic entities.

Season Two’s extras are more modest, comprising of a few short, clip-heavy promotional featurettes. However the Comic-Con panel filmed via Zoom during the summer and featuring Quinto, Hill, and Jami O’Brien (the series’ creator/adaptor) is an entertaining and informative look at the show.

NOS4A2 is not without its faults. Vic’s love interests are fairly generic and forgettable. Any reasonably competent actor could play them. There’s also an episode early in Season One where Vic laments the fact that she couldn’t go to a decent college as her parents aren’t wealthy enough. This slows the pacing of the episode considerably and jars with other great character moments as it makes her character seem selfish and petty, which is most certainly is not.

On the whole, NOS4A2 is a worthy of adaptation of Joe King’s novel. It’s effectively creepy with its sombre photography, with the exception of Christmasland with its bright and colourful lights, which makes for a tragic juxtaposition of the monstrous, soulless children incarcerated there. Quinto and Cumming’s are engaging leads, with Olafur Darri Olafsson’s beguilingly tragic portrayal of Bing effortlessly stealing the show with every scene he’s in.

Release Date: March 8th

BAD BOY BUBBY (1993)

Controversial from the moment of its release, Rolf de Heer’s Bad Boy Bubby was a festival hit and while it’s certainly not a mainstream title, still holds much cult appeal.

Bubby (Nicholas Hope) has been brought up in a squalid apartment by his mother (Claire Benito), who has convinced him that if he went outside into the world, he would be poisoned by the air – she even dons a gasmask to ‘prove’ this point when she leaves. His mother abuses the middle-aged man-child Bubby in other ways, too; threats of violence, the wrath of Jesus, and incest are among the many ways his mind has been warped since birth. When his father (Ralph Cotterill) returns suddenly, his world is turned upside down – and expanded (literally, as the space in the dingy room increases) – until he snaps and kills them both with Clingfilm. Left to his own devices, he not only discovers the world not to be as toxic as he was taught, but also that there are pleasurable things, too.

Equally satirical and shocking, Bad Boy Bubby displays the main character’s child-like wonder alongside his ways of learning (he mimics those around him). It’s much more than a fish out of water story, though. His insular upbringing also gives rise to some alarming scenes of both animal and sexual abuse, the latter apparent as he his fixated with large breasts (like his mother’s) and is constantly touching women inappropriately. Later on, he is integrated into a community of severely handicapped adults when their carers find out that he can understand what they are trying to say. There are obvious parallels to films as diverse as Eraserhead (particularly during the apartment scenes), Being There, and Forest Gump (Bubby becomes a star due to his quirks).

No matter how disturbing some scenes are, it’s hard not to get swept along with Bubby’s adventures (and plights!). The soundtrack immerses the audience into his world (literally if you watch it with the binaural audio track using headphones) and Umbrella’s Blu-ray provides all the supplementary features you’d need to make sense of everything. From festival Q&A sessions to an interview with the director, there’s plenty to get through after you’ve enjoyed the film itself. If you haven’t experienced it before, we can promise you that you won’t know what hit you!

THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL: LIVE ON STAGE!

It’s hard to believe SpongeBob has now been around two decades, 12 seasons, 3 films, and nearly 40 video games. Sooner or later is was bound to be a Broadway musical right? Well in 2017 that’s exactly what happened, and now the same musical comes to your home with the DVD release.

In this disaster story, SpongeBob, Sandy, and Patrick attempt to save Bikini Bottom from an erupting Volcano, whilst plankton sets out a scheme to hypnotise the whole town, who’s go-to idea to save the town is to put on a music concert. For the most part the casting is excellent. The actors that play SpongeBob, Squidward, and Mr Crab are the standouts, with their mannerisms and voices being very similar to the cartoon. The less said about Patrick Starr, however, the better.

The songs are the high quality you come to expect from Broadway. Highlights include Just a Simple Sponge, Bikini Bottom Day, and the extremely catchy Chop to the Top. The thing that makes this standout from most musicals it’s how much it leans into its cartoon origins. They have a live sound effects musician at the back of the stage adding humour throughout. Special effects look and are cheap, including a moment where characters are just acted out badly with someone playing with small figurines of bikini bottom, complete with random army man toy. The sets and characters are bright and colourful. All this add to the shows charm.

In terms of extra content on the DVD itself, there’s not a great deal. It’s just the main feature, a sing-a-long version, and collections on photos. The SpongeBob Musical is a delight for children and adults of all ages. Its catchy songs will become earworms long after an eventful evening in Bikini Bottom.

COME TRUE

Back in the early nineties, weirdy-indie band Daisy Chainsaw released their third single Hope All Your Dreams Come True, a song from the more bizarre end of their already-oddball musical spectrum. It was neither a chart nor a critical success, and the indifference that greeted it hastened the group’s demise. It was however a freakishly disturbing and unsettling listen, as a haunting melody unfolds over jagged, fractured sonics.

It’s a record that’s come back to this reviewer’s mind because the song’s emotive atmosphere shares much in common with the mood of a new independent Canadian psychological horror-thriller. Come True is an assured, and extremely unnerving, exploration of how individuals’ perception of their identity, and their anxieties about the things that threaten them, are revealed through the experience of dreaming.

Sarah Dunn is an unhappy and disaffected eighteen-year-old loner. Alienated from her parents, she’s sleeping rough, couch surfing and hanging out with her very few friends. When she learns of a new research project, willing to pay people to monitor them sleeping, she’s instinctively suspicious but she signs up. She soon learns that these researchers have found a way to generate real-time visualisations of sleepers’ dreams. And those dreams include disturbing nightmares, something that Sarah is all too familiar with.

The film steps through the theories of psychologist Carl Jung and his notion of the ‘collective unconscious’, which he believed connects all humans in a shared memory. The story is punctuated by chapter plates that refer to the different ‘archetypes’ that Jung devised to populate his theory. Name-checking Jung in an indie-thriller might invite accusations of pretentiousness and, as it’s not a perspective that the movie relies on consistently, it’s far from an essential inclusion.

The recurring dream sequences at the core of Come True’s narrative are the movie’s boldest moments. Shot in monochrome, with a first-person viewpoint that drifts through near-darkness illuminated only by flickering light, and amplified by scratchy and jarring noises, their effect is cumulatively impressive. And as time goes on, they become ever more alarming. These dreams are experienced first-hand by the sleeping volunteers and observed on monitors by the research team, as the barriers between sleeping and wakefulness become blurred. The ‘real world’ sections of the film also become stranger and less explicable as the film unfolds, and Sarah’s world becomes more disjointed.

Sleep terrors, and the sense that something is waiting for you to close your eyes have featured in films as different as Paperhouse and A Nightmare on Elm Street. But in Come True, the purpose of the premise is not to deliver outright terror but a sickening sense of foreboding. The plot builds towards a finale that, while surprising and unpredictable, is unlikely to please everyone who’s come along for the journey through this dreamscape. And at key moments, the dialogue is not always quite so polished as the cleverly-constructed visuals and soundscape.

But where Come True succeeds completely is in building an atmosphere of mounting dread, and of evoking a sense of a fragile young woman struggling with her dissociation from the world. In a strong ensemble cast, Skylar Radzion shines as the brittle Sarah, while the spectres that appear as ‘the stuff of nightmares’ are more than enough to discourage anyone from taking a quick forty winks.

Release Date: March 15th (digital) / April 5th (UK Limited Edition Blu-ray)