Category Archives: DVD Review

Blu-ray review: “A Brief History of Time: The Criterion Collection”

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In the 1980s, there was one nonfiction book that seemingly could be found on every bookshelf, mixed in with the Danielle Steel and Tom Clancy novels, and that was Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time.” Hawking’s theories of the origins of the universe and of black holes, combined with his personal story of being confined to a wheelchair, communicating one letter at a time through an electric clicker, were compelling stuff, even if most of it went way over the average Stephen King reader’s head.

They did not seem like compelling material for a movie, but UW grad Errol Morris, fresh off the success of “A Thin Blue Line,” threw himself into the project. The resulting film, 1991’s “A Brief History of Time,” is very much a Morris film rather than a Hawking film, which may be part of the reason it’s been unseen for so many years. But, as Morris told the Dissolve, he finally was able to buy back the rights to the film a few years ago, and went to Criterion with the hopes of finally getting it a proper release.

Morris recoiled at the idea of making a cinematic physics lecture — which was what Hawking wanted — instead wanting to make a film that combined science and biography, that drew poetic connections between the concept of far-flung black holes emitting radiation, and the sight of Hawking, his only connection with the wider world through that little clicker, one letter at a  time.

The film includes plenty of the playful visual touches that Morris has become known for in his documentaries, such as a cameo by a live chicken and footage from the 1979 Disney film “The Black Hole.” Also, if there seems something a little off about the talking-heads interviews with Morris’ family and colleagues, it’s because Morris built artificial sets that resembled research labs and drawing rooms for them to sit in, rather than interviewing them in their own drawing rooms and offices. Even Hawking is filmed on a soundstage that closely resembles his own office, right down to the Marilyn Monroe posters on the wall. (Morris has a great story on the 30-minute interview included with the Criterion disc in which he asked Hawking about his Marilyn fixation.)

Morris has never been interested in the idea of documentary film as “truth,” and seems to flaunt the untruthiness of things like stage sets and random chickens. But that’s all in service of getting to another truth that a conventional documentary (one that so easily could have been made of Hawking) might have missed.

Morris said Hawking fought him on including elements of his personal life in the film, and in fact Hawking was going through a messy divorce at the time, making Morris’ job even harder. Hawking wanted a movie about the science, but Morris, who called the book a “work of literature,” always insisted “that’s not the book you wrote.” The resulting film does work as a primer on Hawking’s theories, but also works even better as a glimpse inside the man who dreamed them up.

Blu-ray review: “King of the Hill: The Criterion Collection”

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When film lovers made lists of the movies that they wanted to see on DVD but were been released, Steven Soderbergh’s “King of the Hill” was often near the top of the list. Only available on VHS since its release in 1993, Soderbergh’s affecting and lovely third film is finally out this week, and worth the wait, on an extras-packed DVD/Blu-ray combo package from the Criterion Collection.

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I don’t care what Steven Soderbergh says, I still like “The Underneath’

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On the new Blu-ray of Steven Soderbergh’s “The Underneath,” somebody has some pretty harsh words to say about the film.”Dead on arrival,” “totally sleepy,” “15 seconds in I know we’re in trouble.” It’s an unusual perspective to say the least on a film being released on Criterion, which is supposed to celebrate great films.

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“Diana”: Making a royal mess out of a biopic

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In an alternate, more dispiriting universe than this one, Naomi Watts is up for an Academy Award this year for her portrayal of Princess Diana in “Diana.” (I think it’s that universe where Spock has a goatee.) It should have been this year’s “The Iron Lady” or “My Week With Marilyn,” a not-very-good hunk of Oscarbait built around an act of historical impersonation.

Instead, “Diana” never played in Madison theaters (despite trailers showing at Sundance for months), and slunk onto DVD last week. What went wrong?

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“Dead Weight”: Wisconsin-made horror film is like a Wausau “Walking Dead”

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If you’re looking to set your horror film in a bleak, unforgiving hellscape, Wisconsin in January should fit the bill nicely.

That’s what Wisconsin fimmakers Adam Bartlett and John Pata took advantage of in their zombie film “Dead Weight,” a low-key, low-budget movie that works effectively within its budgetary limitations, emphasizing character and tone over action and gore. I first saw “Dead Weight” a year ago on Wisconsin Public Television’s “Director’s Cut” — Horizon Movies just released it nationwide on DVD.

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Blu-ray review: “Throne of Blood: The Criterion Collection”

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In the essay accompanying the new DVD/Blu-ray release of Akira Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood,” Stephen Prince seems demur a little on the idea that the film is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” “While the description is certainly not untrue, the film is much more than a direct cinematic translation of a literary text.”

True, but then the best adaptations aren’t mere translations anyway, but embrace the new medium in exciting and unexpected ways. And “Throne of Blood” certainly has the backbone of Macbeth — the tale of a warrior who, blinded by a supernatural prophecy and urged by his scheming wife, betrays his friends and superiors in a bid for the throne.

And Prince is right — aside from an “Out damned spot!” I didn’t catch a line of “Macbeth” anywhere in “Throne of Blood” (in fact, it’s said Kurosawa never consulted the original text while making the film.) Instead, the 1957 film is a brilliant mix of historical epic and stage drama, at times putting the two genres side by side to great effect.

The great Toshiro Mifune is Washiku, a samurai general who serves under the Great Lord in the Spider Web’s Castle. While on patrol, Washiku and his comrade Miki are visited by a ghost, who prophesizes that both will rise in the ranks and eventually, Miki’s son will be Lord.

Washiku is happy by the prophecy, but his wife Asaji (Isuzu Yamada) begins planting seeds of doubt. What if Miki reveals the prophecy to the Lord, who perceives Washiku as a threat? I always pictured Lady Macbeth as a physically domineering figure, but Yamada is so effective because she is so still and demure, her head bowed as she plants seed after seed of mistrust in her husband’s mind. When the Lord does give Miki and Washiku the honors laid out in the ghost’s prophecy, Asaji is even more convinced that a massive plot against her husband is in the works. “One must kill so that one is not to be killed,” Asaji advises, the slogan of preemptive strikes down through the ages.

Washiku takes her advice, of course, and what follows is a bloody fight for power. What’s striking about “Throne of Blood” is the mix of styles — there are battle scenes familiar to Kurosawa fans, of great armies assembling for battle, of horses charging and arrows flying. But the interior scenes are filmed as if on a Japanese Noh stage, on bare floorboards with little props, the camera often at a distance, shooting straight-on, as if in the audience.

The result is a film that’s more chilly and distancing than “Seven Samurai” or “Ran”; we don’t identify with these characters, and are probably not meant to. Ultimately, “Throne of Blood” is about the folly of man, a point driven home in the beautifully grim final shot. All the graspings and jealousies of man, which mean so much to him in his lifetime, get wiped away by time.

The new Blu-ray edition includes all the special features from the original DVD, including a documentary on the making of “Throne of Blood,” as well as a commentary track by Michael Jeck. Perhaps most interestingly, viewers can choose between two different English subtitle translations, and translators Donald Richie and Linda Hoaglund both provide fascinating essays on how their approached their respective translations.

Blu-ray review: “Grey Gardens: The Criterion Collection”

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Were Big and Little Edie Beale, the subject of the cult favorite 1976 documentary “Grey Gardens,” the first “celebreality” stars? All the elements seem to be in place for a series on E! — a pair of bonafide eccentrics unabashed about revealing themselves for the camera, who have an adjunct connection to a star (in this case, the cousins of Jackie Onassis).

But dig into the new Blu-ray Criterion Collection edition of Albert and David Maysles’ film and you’ll find it goes far beyond “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Ninety minutes with the Beales in their decaying East Hampton mansion is an experience that’s hilarious, awful, touching and a little scary. If the camera exploits their plight, the Beales are fully aware of it and participants in the exploitation.

The movie opens with a flurry of headlines — the decrepit Grey Gardens mansion is about to be condemned and the Beales evicted, so family members (including Jackie O) fix the house back up. The Beales move in, but start allowing the place to slowly fall apart again (one way to tell the passage of time in “Grey Gardens” is watching how a raccoon slowly destroys one wall).

The Beales are much less interested in home upkeep and much more about talking, mother and daughter circling around and around the events of the distant past, quarrelling and laughing and singing and crying. The mother, Big Edie, sits in her single bed, the sheets covered by old photo albums, papers and other detritus of the past. Daughter Little Edie stalks around in a variety of bizarre homemade “costumes,” a scarf ever-present on her head, carrying on a rambling monologue in the plummy tones of high society. Cate Blanchett’s performance in “Blue Jasmine” must owe a little to Little Edie, that sound of privilege adrift.

“Everything good — that’s what you didn’t do,” Big Edie says acidly and memorably in response to one of Little Edie’s tirades about how her mother held her back and didn’t let her fall in love, pursue her dancing career, or otherwise live the life she wanted. A big part of “Grey Gardens” is about regret, how it can consume us and how we can vanquish it. The Beales may be pariahs in polite society, but they’ve certainly created their own iconoclastic existence within the walls of Grey Gardens, almost a dark mirror of the other mansions in the Hamptons, where family secrets are kept well hidden.

It’s no wonder the film was such a cult hit — every time you go back to it, you pick up more dialogue, understand better the whirlwind of emotions and memories in that house. It’s clear, from the film and from the interviews with Albert Maysles included on the DVD, that the filmmakers loved these women, and the four of them develop a strange chemistry that’s rare for documentary film.

Criterion first released “Grey Gardens” on DVD in 2001 — this new Blu-ray version includes a new 2K restoration, but also another full-length documentary, “The Beales of Grey Gardens,” made up footage the Maysles didn’t use in the original film. Which is good, because after seeing the original “Grey Gardens,” you’re going to want to spend some more time visiting the ladies.

Blu-ray review: “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me”: A no-hit wonder gets its due

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The story of Big Star had all the elements of a great rock ‘n’ roll story, except anyone paying attention to it.

The Memphis band made three critically-beloved power-pop albums in the 1970s whose impact rippled through generations of musicians and music fans to come. Big Star had a charismatic, enigmatic frontman in Alex Chilton, already a pop star for penning and singing The Box Tops’ “The Letter.” And they had a bonafide rock and roll tragedy in the story of Chris Bell, the McCartney to Chilton’s Lennon, who died in a car crash when he was only 27.

The only trouble was that Big Star couldn’t sell any records, and much of the world remained totally oblivious to such great music and a great story. The band disbanded in the mid-1970s, but true believers from the Replacements to Elliott Smith kept the flame alive. For younger listeners, Big Star was a band you found through your favorite bands.

Now comes “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me,” a definitive documentary to tell Big Star’s story and make sure their place in rock ‘n’ roll history is properly secured. Writer-director Drew DeNicola takes the viewer through the creation of the band and its three albums, “#1 Record,” “Radio City” and “Third/Sister Lovers,” talking to surviving band members, Memphis musicians and producers, critics and family members.

Two emotions fight for dominance while watching the saga — the exhilaration that comes from seeing great artists working at the peak of their powers, and the frustration of watching the world ignore those great artists. Theories abound as to why Big Star never stuck — they were bringing fragile, tuneful pop music into an early ’70s music business defined by arena shows and big, bombastic sounds. Bad luck also played a role, as the major-label merger that looked like it would rescue Big Star ended up torpedoing its chances.

After the band broke up, Bell and Chilton seemed to go in opposite directions. Bell continued to toil and perfect the Big Star sound (if nothing else, the film will ensure Big Star fans scoop up Bell’s excellent solo work), while Chilton seemed to repudiate its ear-friendly sound, defiantly making dissonant music with bands like Panther Burns. Eventually, Chilton resurrected Big Star in the 1990s, so he must have somehow reconciled his connection with the band.

A recurring visual motif in “Nothing Can Hurt Me” is the camera panning over shelves and shelves of old Big Star recordings, tapes all carefully labeled in black Magic Marker. It could be something out of a museum. But the genius of Big Star, and of “Nothing Can Hurt Me,” is that when you take those recordings off the shelf and cue them up, the music sounds as potent and as relevant as anything out there.