July’s video releases don’t feature blockbusters as much as smaller films with personal stories. Lots of serious talent went into these efforts, which haven’t exactly made a splash at the box office, but home video is their chance.
Examples include Harmony Korine’s observational stab at teen comedy, “Spring Breakers”; the hit-man thriller “Dead Man Down,” with Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace, from Swedish “Dragon Tattoo” director Niels Arden Oplev; Francis Ford Coppola’s horror-mystery “Twixt” with Val Kilmer; Danny Boyle’s amnesia thriller “Trance,” about a stolen Goya painting; and Kim Ki-Duk’s festival hit “Pieta,” about a loan shark and the woman who claims to be his mom.
Sally Potter is one of the few directors who combine passion with intellect in a convincing way, especially through female characters. “Ginger & Rosa” could be described as a teen-girl drama with Elle Fanning and Alice Englert finding out that BFF’s aren’t always F, but it’s more a series of vivid scenes on growing up bohemian in England during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Potter’s original title, “Bomb,” is better.
The tidal wave of acclaimed documentaries continues. Michael Apted’s “56 UP” is the latest installment of his project to follow 14 Brits every seven years since age 7. It’s an effective kaleidoscope of ordinary British life for the last 50 years and a measure of the impact of the project on their lives. It’s fascinating and understandable even if you haven’t seen the previous films, and a complete box set is also available.
Oscar nominee “The Gatekeepers” and Sundance winner “The House I Live In” interview people in the middle of rough, violent, depressing “wars.” The first film talks to six former heads of Israel’s secret service on their careers over the last 30 years and what they’ve learned about terrorism and Palestine. The second film takes on the U.S.’ “War on Drugs” and concepts of prison.
Talking heads are famously the basis of Claude Lanzmann’s relentless nine-hour “Shoah,” with people who survived, witnessed or participated in the Holocaust. Devoid of newsreel clips, it’s about present memory. The new Criterion edition adds three additional films Lanzmann made in the last 13 years.
Once upon a time, Eastern Europe made the best historical epics: vivid, lyrical and very present, with modern devices such as handheld cameras. (Today everyone makes them like this.) It was partly technique and partly that they still felt the past around them. One such is “Marketa Lazarova,” made during the 1967 Czech Spring and chosen in a 1998 poll as their country’s best film.
The medieval story of rival families who kidnap various people is so elliptical, it’s difficult to be sure what’s going on in any given scene, but the contours and tone are clear. It’s up there with “Andrei Rublev,” “The Red and the Black” and “Mother Joan of the Angels” (all masterpieces).
Director William Cameron Menzies and writer H.G. Wells made an epic of the future with “Things to Come” in 1936, a forecasting of war, disease and finally scientific paradise. A restored high-def transfer does wonders with technically impressive material that threatened to feel dated (and is still a bit stiff), and extras include informative commentary, analysis of music and design, and unused effects footage.
What’s the movie with Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock? It’s “Safety Last,” and that agonizing climb up a building remains as hilarious and gasp-inducing 90 years later and has lost none of its symbolic power. This sharply restored print offer two music tracks, commentary, three bonus shorts and, on a second disc, a feature-length doc on Lloyd and an excellent piece on how the stunts were done and how dangerous they remained despite safeguards. Prepare to laugh and sweat.
“The Curtis Harrington Short Film Collection” gathers dreamlike, poetic, sinister films inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and avant-gardist Maya Deren. Harrington plays the twin brother and sister in both a 1942 home movie of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” made when he was 14, and its 2002 remake.
From www.mysanantonio.com