New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 4/9/13

Not a terribly exciting day for new releases, but there’s a few intriguing titles out today including the Criterion Collection Blu ray of David Cronenberg’s 1991 cult classic NAKED LUNCH. The film, called by Jonathan Rosenbaum “a highly transgressive and subjective film adaptation” of William Burrough’s 1959 novel, has been given a Cronenberg-approved High-definition digital transfer, a commentary featuring Cronenberg and actor Peter Weller, Chris Rodley’s 1992 television documentary “Naked Making Lunch,” Special effects gallery, a collection of original marketing materials, audio recording of William S. Burroughs reading from his novel “Naked Lunch,” a gallery of photos taken by poet Allen Ginsberg of Burroughs, and a booklet featuring reprinted pieces by film critic Janet Maslin and more. If that doesn’t satisfy NAKED LUNCH fans or obsessive cinephiles, I don’t know what will.

The Criterion Collection is also releasing Teinosuke Kinugasa’s 1953 Japanese drama GATE OF HELL today on Blu ray and DVD, which won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1954. The Special Features aren’t as extensive as NAKED LUNCH’s, but the film also got a High-definition digital transfer and features a fancy booklet.

Despite a charming Bill Murray performance as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Robert Michell’s HYDE PARK ON HUDSON was one of 2012’s most disappointing films. It got mostly dismissive reviews from critics (though Roger Ebert liked it and gave it 3 stars), and got little award season action (it won one British Independent Film Award for Olivia Colman’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth), but here it is out today on Blu ray and DVD in a prestigious looking package pretending to be more popular than it is. The ample Special Features attest to that: Audio Commentary with Director Roger Michell and Producer Kevin Loader, deleted scenes, and a few featurettes (“First Days,” “A Look Inside HYDE PARK ON HUDSON”), and something called BD Live.

A much better use of your time would be to watch Sang-soo Hong's IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, out today on DVD and available on Netflix Instant, which is where I saw it. French actress Isabelle Huppert stars as three different women, all named Anne, in three different scenarios (though some elements and people overlap) in the seaside town of Mohong, South Korea. It's freewheeling nature reminded me of some of Altman's spare experimental work (like THREE WOMEN). The DVD (no Blu ray release) doesn't have any bonus material but a film so spare and pretty really doesn't need any.

The second season of the Starz show Boss, starring Kelsey Grammer as the sinister Mayor of Chicago, is also out today in 2-disc Blu ray or 3-disc DVD sets. The show, which at times comes off as a blend of House of Cards and The Wire, was cancelled at the end of last year, but a movie follow-up is reportedly in the works. It’s obvious that Grammer want to get as far away from Frasier as he could with this role (he also executive produces the program), and his steely gravitas is effective here, but it’s pretty standard-issue political blackmailing stuff over and over. 

The premise of the mayor suffering from a disease of dementia (Lewy bodies) makes the show get more interesting, however, as his guilt filled hallucinations start getting the better of him. The surreal messiness of the man’s mind, captured with some of Grammar’s finest acting, is a welcome contrast to the boring slick office-set surroundings, and that helps make the last few episodes of this 10 episode batch of Boss something I wish the rest was: great T.V. Special features: audio commentaries on 3 episodes, and the 15 minute featurette “The King and His Court.” 

If you’ve been at all curious about Snoop Dog’s recent re-invention of himself as a Reggae artist named Snoop Lion, then Andy Capper’s documentary REINCARNATED is for you. We hang out with the always stoned superstar as he visits Jamaica and gets even more stoned, but that’s because it’s part of his spiritual journey, you dig? I’ll go into more depth next week about the doc when it goes digital (on iTunes, Amazon, XBox, Playstation/Sony), but for now I’ll just say that the single disc DVD release out today contains Special Features such as the featurettes dealing with “Tuff Gong Studios,” and deleted scenes featuring “Snoop Meets Ali,” and “Rita Marley” among others.

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Wes Anderson's MOONRISE KINGDOM Is Twee-rific

MOONRISE KINGDOM (Dir. Wes Anderson, 2012)

There are times during this film, Wes Anderson’s seventh as director, that I felt like I was paging through an old slightly faded and yellowed picture book of Rhode Island landscapes and settings.

The world that Anderson creates here will be familiar in its tone and eccentricity to those who’ve seen his previous movies, but his usual hallmarks - actors positioned in dead center frame, extreme shots of handwriting on notebook paper, a bold primary color scheme, kids who are too smart for their own good, and very formal dialogue - all come together much more naturally than before.

As whimsically titled as it is executed, MOONRISE KINGDOM concerns Jared Gillman and Kara Hayward, as a couple of kids in the summer of 1965 who don’t fit in their respective lives - he in his “Khaki” Scout troup; she in her dysfunctional family. They run off together across the fictitious island of New Penzance, off the coast of New England, in the days before a storm of “historic proportions” hits (as Bob Balaban, our onscreen narrator tells us).

This triggers the Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton), the local police Captain (Bruce Willis), and the girl’s lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), to form a search party to find the missing children.

Although he was the most unpopular scout in his troup, Gillman has mad camping skills so the kids are able to survive just fine in the woods. Hayward helps pass the time reading aloud from a stack of unreturned library books (all fictitious children’s titles with authentic period aesthetics).

The pair reach a secluded cove protected by steep cliffs where they dance on the beach to Françoise Hardy’s “Le Temps de l’Amour” on a battery-powered record player. They kiss and fall in love, but the search party soon swoops in to separate them.

Meanwhile there is a palpable chill in the air around Murray and McDormand as she is having an affair with Willis. There’s no real time to flesh this out so it’s on a back burner as Tilda Swinton as Social Services (that’s actually how she’s credited) shows up to take away Gillman and place him in a “juvenile refuge.” 

Gillman’s scout troup decides to help the love-smitten kids escape again, and with the help of Anderson regular Jason Scwartzman, as a Khaki scout leader, a makeshift marriage ceremony goes down. Then there’s that pesky violent storm to deal with.

Sure there’s a preciousness to the precision that some may find pretentious, and maybe it is a bit. But it’s touching how faithful Anderson is to that little inner kid of his.

We don’t learn much about these people as the characterizations don’t go very deep, and some details seem a bit too quirky (McDormand using a megaphone to order around her family - and I know that comes from co-screenwriter Roman Coppola’s real life), but the overriding sweetness and colorful aura casts too big a spell for that to matter.

Despite that it's set in the mid '60s, there surprisingly isn't any British invasion pop present. Apart from the Françoise Hardy tune and some Hank Williams, classical music dominates the soundtrack by way of a 7 part suite by noted composerAlexandre Desplat, some apt Leonard Bernsteinselections, and Benjamin Britten's “The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.”

Of Anderson’s films, I was most reminded of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS in such elements as the yellow tent aesthetics, Murray’s wife having an affair, a dog getting accidentally killed, and the ancient turntable, among some other more subtle similarities. Maybe it’s true that every film maker is essentially making the same movie over and over until they get it right.

Well, Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM is a twee-rific try.

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A Bill Murray Coloring Book? Yep, That's Right

Get this - a new Vancouver, Canada-based publisher, which is also a record label, named Belly Kids is releasing a Bill Murray coloring book in August called “Thrill Murray.”

From their press release: “Be it in ‘Groundhog Day,’ ‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘Rushmore’ or ‘Lost in Translation’ Bill Murray has become a diamond of the modern screen, the heartbeat of any worthwhile DVD collection.”

Can't argue with that. So, why not honor the icon with a colouring-in book (as the Canadians call it)?

The images they've released, selected from the over 20 different artists who contributed, are funny and well detailed, even if Murray looks skinny in films he was chubby in, and fat in the films he was fit in (i.e. “Lost in Translation”).

“Thrill Murray,” which is credited to author Mike Coley, will be available on August 13th. You can pre-order it here. Also available will be prints of a few of the images, and a tote bag.

So, stock up on crayons so you can fill in all the Bill you can.

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GET LOW: The Film Babble Blog Review

GET LOW (Dir. Aaron Schneider, 2009)

Set in depression era Tennessee, this is a whimsical tale of a mysterious old hermit who has an unusual plan for his funeral – he wants it to be a party while he’s still alive.

A grizzled Robert Duvall is the hermit, the kind who’d put up a self made wooden sign stating: “No Damn Trespassing – Beware Of Mule” on the road leading to his rustic house.

From his night sweats we see that Duvall is sick and dying. Knowing he has little time left he goes into the small town he lives on the outskirts of to make arrangements. “About time for me to get low” he tells the local pastor (Gerald McRaney).

A young funeral home employee (Lucas Black) overhears this and tells his boss – a mustached worried wart of a man played beautifully by Bill Murray – that their ailing business may have a possible client.

This is a perfect timing for Murray as he was just talking about how down the death business has been lately. Murray: “What are the odds of a funeral home going broke? We have a business that everybody on earth needs. If you can’t make that work it’s got to be you. Right? And yet, I don’t know. What do you do when people don’t die?”

Everybody in town appears to have heard rumors and gossip of all sorts about Duvall’s past. He wants it known that everybody who has such stories should come tell them at his “funeral party.” Duvall in turn will tell his story.

Sissy Spacek is an old flame who appears to be charmed by the old codger, but like everybody else she is tight lipped about what went down back in the day.

As the film began with a flashback to a burning house with a silhouette of somebody on fire jumping out of an upstairs window we have some hints about what will be revealed.

GET LOW has a lot of folksy charm, but it feels like it needed to be a lot more fleshed out. It sails sweetly on the strength of its performances largely Duvall and Murray, but it doesn’t take the risks necessary to give it the emotional power it sorely lacks.

As an African American preacher that Duvall wishes would attend his “going away” affair, Bill Cobbs unfortunately reminds us that this is a whitewashed version of the ‘30s in the South – one with no detectable racism.

The depression era really has no baring on the plot - it could've taken place anywhere at any time, but as it is loosely based on a true story that happened in 1938 Tennessee, that's how we have it.

Also the idea that the town folk would open up at the funeral party and the stories would fly never comes to pass. The climatic event contains a wonderfully delivered confessional speech by Duvall, but after that the ending peters out.

Still, Duvall is always an appealing actor and he never plays a false note as this cantankerous character, and Murray’s masterful portrayal of a broken-down-yet-still-chugging-along-salesman oaf makes every scene he’s in as absorbing as they are amusing.

Spacek and Black are fine in their roles, but both are broad strokes as supporting players which would've benefited from just one more rewrite by the screenwriters (Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell).

It’s a light drama sprinkled with light comedy that gets a little too carried away with its own whimsy. That’s okay though, I have a feeling that many audiences will get carried away with it.

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