| Video Roundup May 2009
Blu-ray Update
A selection of movies on Blu-ray for May 2009.
 The Beauty of Snakes
(Animal Planet) ****
Indiana Jones may hate them, but I’ve always found
snakes the most fascinating creatures -- and, as this spiffy documentary points out,
we’d be infested with rodents were there no snakes to control them. There are some
fascinating facts to learn here, such as how a snake "sees" with its forked
tongue, which it uses very much like radar in stalking prey -- which is what snakes do
best. There’s some surprising footage of baby snakes making their first kills within
hours of being born. We’re shown how snakes shed their skins, sometimes as often as
three times a year, and how they mate and give birth. There’s also a segment on their
interactions with people. The footage is all in hi-def, and looks it. Colors are vibrant,
especially benefiting such species as the rainbow boa of South America. Details abound,
and many scenes will stick in your memory. For me, it was the sight of a sidewinder moving
quickly over a barren desert, using its singular sideways motion to maintain an amazingly
rapid speed. The producers even mounted tiny "snakecams" to the creatures’
backs to get a snake’s-eye view of snake travel. The sound is merely Dolby Digital
5.1, but seems up to the tasks of music, narration, and sound effects. There are no
extras, and The Beauty of Snakes is a bit short at 43 minutes -- it’s so good
that I wish there had been more. I can’t say that very often.
 Doubt (Paramount) ****
Nominated for five Academy Awards, Doubt has quickly
found its way to DVD. While the Academy may have had some doubt in making its decisions, I
have no doubt in saying that this is one of the most arresting and interesting Blu-ray
releases of early 2009. Meryl Streep, who can make you believe that she actually is
whichever character she’s playing, stars as Sister Aloysius, who, tipped off by
naïve Sister James (Amy Adams) and abetted by her own prejudices, has come to believe
that Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is molesting some of the male students.
It’s 1968, a time when there were no front-page-headline trials of Roman Catholic
priests, and the most the Church would do was transfer a suspected priest to another
parish. The audience is given no sweeping condemnations or exonerations. In fact,
we’re made privy to dynamic and subtle conversations between Aloysius and Flynn from
which we draw our own conclusions -- as do they. The performers already mentioned are
magnificent; even better is Viola Davis as Mrs. Miller, the mother of Donald (Joseph
Foster II), the young boy at the heart of the conflict. The Blu-ray picture has subdued
color, as does the film itself, and there are many dark scenes, but enough detail to
immediately identify this as an HD transfer. The soundtrack is subtle and rambunctious by
turns: excellent for the dialogue, emotionally unsettling for the frequent winds that seem
to constantly sweep through the turbulent soundstage. A must-see for the performances
alone.
 Gigi (Warner Home
Video) ****
Gigi was the last of the big-budget MGM musicals,
and Vincente Minnelli’s last go at directing one of them. Producer Arthur Freed
brought in Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, fresh from their Broadway success with My
Fair Lady, to write the songs, and hired Maurice Chevalier, Leslie Caron, and Louis
Jourdan to give the film some French authenticity. In fact, it’s difficult to think
of a more perfectly cast movie musical. Gigi won nine Academy Awards -- singular
for a musical in 1958, when dramatic films were on the rise. This spectacular masterpiece
has been brought to home video several times, with disastrous results. This Blu-ray
edition is no home run, but it’s the best yet. All the bright colors are handled
without misstep. The interiors, with their red wallpaper, are rock-steady, and the Paris
outdoor scenes would be blessed by any tourist bureau as being most attractive and
appealing. Detail is good most of the time, and when it’s not, I think that’s
the fault of the fledgling CinemaScope process. The sound, though billed as Dolby TrueHD
5.1, is mostly in the front three channels. It’s bright and fairly rich, but the
overall transfer volume is quite low, especially when compared with the same scenes in the
production documentary. The extras include the original 1949 French film version, based on
the novel by Collette, from an unrestored print so scratched up that I expect few will
watch the whole thing; a vintage short, The Million Dollar Nickel; a vintage Tom
and Jerry CinemaScope cartoon, The Vanishing Duck; and an informative and
interesting feature-length commentary by Jeanine Basinger, with Leslie Caron.
 Never Say Never Again
(20th Century Fox) ***1/2
Though not part of the original Bond franchise, this 1983
film has since achieved enough status to be included in the annals of Bond movies. Sean
Connery had been replaced in the role of James Bond by Roger Moore in the six preceding
Bond films, and had aged enough that the producers felt he might no longer be credible as
Agent 007. But credible Connery was, proving more than up to the task. Originally made for
home video, the film was released by Warner Bros.; Fox has since acquired it, so that it
can now rest on the Blu-ray shelf alongside all the other Fox MGM Bond movies. (Alas, the
latest two Bond titles, with Daniel Craig, are from Sony Pictures, so your Bond shelf set
won’t be entirely uniform.) Never Say Never Again holds up well. It has an
interesting villain in Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), a sophisticated genius
teetering on the verge of madness, and a trio of lovely Bond ladies, including Barbara
Carrera as villainess Fatima Blush, and a very young Kim Basinger as Domino Petachi. The
regulars had to be filled out by actors other than those who’d played in the
officially sanctioned series; here Edward Fox ineffectively blusters as M, and the very
comely Pamela Salem is Miss Moneypenny. Interestingly enough, we get to see all of Ernst
Stavro Blofeld, here suavely played by Max von Sydow. The action sequences are fast-paced
and expertly timed, with good stuntwork, and Michel Legrand’s music hits the mark
more often than not. I never thought this was one of the best-looking Bonds on video, but
something like a miracle seems to have been wrought for this Blu-ray edition. The colors
are a little subdued yet quite natural, with very good skin tones, and the detail is
excellent, giving most scenes a three-dimensional feel. In one, Bond is at a beachside
bar, and behind him we can see far into the bar -- the image has tremendous depth of
field. The sound is relatively tame: lively and widely separated up front, but the
surrounds are scarcely called into play, except for some music cues. Well, it was
1983, near the beginning of Dolby soundtracks for movies. But the sound is clean and
clear, and the dialogue is easily intelligible, even in complex scenes. Also included are
three featurettes, a trailer, an impressive-looking, highly detailed gallery of
still-frame images, and a good commentary with director Irvin Kershner and film historian
Stephen James Rubin.
 The Princess Bride
(MGM) ****
William Goldman adapted his own novel for this movie, which
Rob Reiner directed with great gusto. Though it did pretty well when released to theaters
in 1987, it has since become a cult classic. Goldman and Reiner created a masterpiece that
works on several levels. On one, it’s a charming love story set in ancient times
about a soon-to-be princess, Buttercup (Robin Wright Penn), and Westley, a farm boy turned
buccaneer (Cary Elwes). On another it’s a gentle, warm satire of the entire
prince-and-princess genre, framed by scenes of a Grandfather (Peter Falk) telling the tale
to his ailing Grandson (Fred Savage). The film is peppered with amazing and perfectly cast
cameos (Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Christopher Guest, and others), not to
mention Mandy Patinkin’s dashing turn as Inigo Montoya, a master of sword and
wordplay cast in the mold of Cyrano de Bergerac (without the nose). This Blu-ray edition
is a treasure. It appears to have been transferred from a new print, and though
there’s somewhat comforting film grain, there are no tears or other damages. The
colors are ideal, and the detail is often astonishing, allowing the perception of great
depth in outdoor scenes. The DTS-HD Master Audio tracks are clean and full; the sound is
mostly up front, with occasional atmospheric effects in the rear channels, such as rushing
wind.
There are extras on the production, as well as a pithy
commentary by Goldman and Reiner. Also included is a DVD version of the film. It’s
excellent, but nowhere nearly as well defined as the Blu-ray.
. . . Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com |
