The week’s DVDs begin in Rome:
DVDs for Oct. 21 by Boo Allen
This week, we begin in Rome:
La Dolce Vita (*****)
The Criterion Collection has digitally restored Federico Fellini’s 1960 gem for its Blu-ray release. Marcello Mastroianni stars as Marcello Rubini, a Rome gossip columnist who journeys through the city for his work, meeting some of cinema’s most memorable characters. The lasting effects of his odyssey could be seen in Italy’s Oscar winning Best Foreign Language film, The Great Beauty. Fellini (still my favorite director) cynically depicted a fame and culturally obsessed society easily recognizable today. In an accompanying essay, film critic Gary Giddins describes Rubini’s wandering as a collection of seven stories told in fifty scenes, involving a “nighttime escapade and a vanquishing dawn.” Giddins asks “Has anyone ever equaled Mastroianni in expressing the muddle of sadism, impotence, and loss of affect born in the revelation of utter self-loathing?” No.
Not rated, 174 minutes.
Extras: interviews with film scholars David Forgacs (15 minutes) and Antonello Sarno (16 minutes), director Lina Wertmuller (7 minutes), a 30 minute segment with maestro Fellini, and a 47 minute, audio only, interview with Mastroianni. Plus: the ten minute analytical featurette “Eye of the Beholder,” and Giddins’ accompanying pamphlet with essay. Also included are numerous Fellini posters and various Fellini memorabilia taken from the collection of Ft. Worth’s Don Young: www.felliniana.com
Venus in Fur (***1/2)
Roman Polanski directed and co-wrote this clever two person film based on the stage play of co-screenwriter David Ives. Mathieu Amalric plays Thomas, a stage director and adapter of a 19th century erotic (or, pornographic) German novel. At the end of audition-day, Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner, Mrs. Polanski) uproariously appears hours late. Loud, crass, and scatter-brained, she browbeats Thomas into letting her perform. When the exhausted director relents, Vanda transforms herself. First, she changes into period costumes. She then becomes an accomplished performer, giving fresh, subdued, clear line interpretations that astound Thomas. They continue for the film’s remainder as she reverses the roles and domineers Thomas. This transformation gives rise to an examination of changing sexual mores. Funny, surprising, and inventive.
Not rated, 96 minutes.
Extras: 12 minutes of interviews with Polanski, Amalric and Seigner.
The Lusty Men (***1/2)
Warner Archive releases noted director Nicholas Ray’s rodeo-western The Lusty Men (1952, 113 minutes). A feeling of longing, even despair, runs through many of Ray’s films. Here, Ray channels that emptiness through a tough, laconic Robert Mitchum as Jeff McCloud, a broken down, recently retired rodeo rider. He lands a job on a Big Springs ranch and quickly becomes mentor to Wes Merritt (Arthur Kennedy). The younger man wants to leave ranching and join the rodeo circuit, a dangerous pursuit condemned by his wife, Louise (Susan Hayward). The three eventually go on the road together, which of course leads to trouble. The on-going drama drips with its fatal determinism. Co-written by former Dallas Morning News staffer Horace McCoy (They Shoot Horses Don’t They?).
America: Imagine the World Without Her (**)
This theatrical release suffers from spotty production values to complement its relentlessly trumpeted single theme of American exceptionalism. Naturally, the repetition’s reception may depend on individual viewpoints. The docu-drama clumsily re-enacts historical scenes, with embarrassing portrayals of various historical figures. Several sympathetic interview subjects include Ted Cruz, Niall Ferguson and others. Opposite viewpoints receive either brief dismissals or ridicule. Its slanted approach might have been better served with added technical and narrative attention.
Rated PG-13, 105 minutes.
Extras: 34 minutes of extended interviews and three extended scenes.
Steven Spielberg Presents: Animaniacs Wakko’s Wish
In this feature length animated film, Yakko, Wakko and their sister Dot conspire against evil Baron Von Plotz. When Dot falls sick, they discover a magic star and make a wish for Dot’s recovery. But for the wish to come true, Wakko must touch the star, bringing on their buddies Pinky, Slappy and Skippy Squirrel, Mindy, Buttons and others of the Animaniac roster while performing 15 songs.
Not rated, 81 minutes.
Finally, from this week’s TV arrivals:
Silent Witness—season one and season seventeen
BBC Home Entertainment brings to DVD and Blu-ray one of their most popular and most enduring series, one that influenced the prolific American “CSI” series. In the first season in 1996, Amanda Burton starred as Dr. Samantha Ryan. She joins her team of forensic pathologists and scientists in Cambridge to uncover the hidden details in the bodies found in the season’s eight episodes, on two discs. Every episode contains a fully formed drama and mystery. Burton left in 2004 to be replaced by Emilia Fox as Dr. Nikki Alexander, appearing in season seventeen’s ten episodes on three discs. Both strong-willed pathologists suffer contentious relations with their meddling superiors. The series also provides full portraits of Ryan’s and Alexander’s personal lives. This release of first and last accentuates changing investigative methods: beeper messages and fingerprints give way to texts and DNA analyses, and local crimes to national terrorism. In addition to releasing these two seasons, the BBC plans to release additional seasons in the future.
Season one: 360 minutes on two discs. Season seventeen: 512 minutes on three discs.
The Honorable Woman
Timing could not have been better for this recent eight part BBC mini-series. Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as newly knighted Nessa Stein, an English native with an Israeli citizenship because of her heritage. She and her brother Ephra (Andrew Buchan) inherited their father’s immense wealth from arms manufacturing when he is assassinated in front of them as children. She matures into a philanthropist intent on improving Israeli-Palestinian relations. When a business associate with a contract with her dies, intelligence agencies from Israel, England, and the U.S. converge. The season rapidly unfolds with multiple assassinations, kidnapping, Israeli vs. Palestinian intrigues, and a fight for intelligence by Britain’s M.I. 6, headed by Sir Hugh Hayden-Hoyle (Stephen Rea). Superb actors Janet McTeer and Lindsay Duncan also appear.
Not rated, 480 minutes.
Extras: a 16 minute “behind-the-scenes” featurette.
Mad Men—the final season, part one
The fascinating exploits of the workforce at Cooper, Draper, Price and Campbell begin to wind down in these first seven episodes of the last season. Don Draper (Jon Hamm), Roger Sterling (John Slattery), Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) and others fight through the 1960s, a decade devoted to paying for the previous era of rampant alcohol, pervasive sexism, and lax work ethics. During the season, Don travels twice to California to see 1960s-liberated wife Megan (Jessica Pare). But he bristles at work when he must work under Peggy (Elizabeth Moss). Responsibilities and people change, none more than the major character who dies before the season ends.
Not rated, 336 minutes.
Extras: commentary for every episode, an approximate 45 minute, two part featurette on “The Trial of the Chicago Eight,” a 24 minute, two part featurette on “Gay Rights,” and the eight minute “making of” featurette “The Best Things in Life are Free.”
Also on DVD: Canopy, King’s Faith, Running From Crazy, The Scribbler, Sex Tape, Snowpiercer.