Buys
I realized that I have a pretty large collection of "con movies", but didn't have The Sting! So I got that (haven't seen it since I was a kid), and Captain America: The First Avenger to boot. I also got Whedonistas!, a fine companion to Chicks Dig Time Lords, and William Shatner's new album, Seeking Major Tom.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: What can I say about 2001: A Space Odyssey that hasn't already been said, somewhere? I am of those who agree that it is a masterpiece and that it looks as good and relevant today as it ever did. I think I'll just talk about the DVD package instead. The commentary track is by co-stars Keir Duella and Gary Lockhood, evidently not taped together, but still providing insight on a great number of things, from working with Kubrick and on-set stories, to the film's reception and possible meanings. The making of material is all pretty good, but there's just so much to say about a film like this, it would take at least a third disc to adequately cover it. What 2001 needed was to be as stuffed with extras as a Lord of the Rings boxed set. And still, there are two hours worth of documentary features, covering the making of the film (with both contemporary and vintage features), its legacy for filmmakers, how its representation of the future compares to the real 2001, how the effects and concept art evolved, and discussion on the questions asked by the film. These do have behind the scenes footage, but are mostly talking heads - various filmmakers, critics and scientists. Additionally, there's a collection of Kubrick's photographs from Look! magazine, and a long archive interview with the man on audio only from 1966. The latter bugged by being unpausable, rewindable, etc., but was still quite interesting (though not actually focused on 2001).
Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan takes the story of Swan Lake itself and transposes it on the world of an anxious ballerina played by Natalie Portman. Like Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, it turns the character's anxieties into a hallucinatory dreamscape, so subjective, the audience never quite knows what's real or not. In the process, the fable turns into a horror film made all the more potent by the cinema verite feel of the camera work. It captures well, I think, the world behind the scenes of the ballet, but may not connect to all audiences given the sometimes shocking use of gore and erotica. Once Portman's breakdown is well under way, the film treads the fine line between the grotesque and the silly, but ultimately succeeds in the transcendent final sequence. The DVD includes a 48-minute making of that's rich in behind the scenes moments, shot guerrilla-style not unlike the movie itself.
Watched seasons 4 to 6 of How I Met Your Mother this week, and they kind of blur into each other in my mind, so I won't give each one a review. As a whole, there's no dip in quality from the first three seasons. If anything, the show's makers are settling in very comfortably, daring to play even more with the convention of having a narrator that's not necessarily always reliable. And though the mystery of who the Mother is continues to loom, they've also created (and sometimes paid off) other mysteries surrounding characters other than Ted (Barney's dad, for example, or the fact Ted meets the Mother when he's best man at a wedding, and then creating three distinct opportunities for him to become best man). So the series remains clever and full of heart, dramatic moments bouncing off the comedy quite well. Extras have dwindled a bit from Season 3 though. Season 4 has commentary on only 4 episodes (and one of those is by day players whose scene was entirely cut, funny but silly), a Q&A with the cast and crew (pretty good, but padded), a brief recap of past seasons, Barney's electronic CV as a music video, and a superlative gag reel (and yet, not a peep about two actresses getting pregnant in the same year). Season 5 is down to 3 episodes with commentary, another great gag reel, isolated "music videos" for Super Date and the awesome Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit, an actual new music video for Marshall's Best Night Ever, a look at how Super Date was achieved (surprising!), the full Wedding Bride trailer, a series recap that's an original song that sorta puts down the show, and a good making of feature about the 100th episode. For the remarkably emotional Season 6, it's 4 episodes with commentary, making of featurettes on two episodes (Subway Wars and Glitter), the always funny gag reel, a montage of things we know about the mother (including some new, but incidental, details), and a good number of deleted scenes.
I thought Disney's Mulan would have been an odd - if appreciated - fit for Kung Fu Fridays, but it really wasn't. It had all the staples: An irredeemable villain (he sets out to kill a little girl and does, guys), a girl disguised as a boy and no one can tell, guys in drag too, the Shaw Brothers' little bridge set, and an awesome training sequence! The animation is of course impeccable, and the violence, while bloodless, surprisingly harsh when it needs to be. Mulan makes an engaging heroine and even Eddie Murphy as Mushu the dragon is bearable (training for his later role as Donkey). Ming Na, Pat Morita and George Takei are all excellent casting. It's a charming action adventure and not a sappy romance fairy tale, so I don't mind having ONE Disney film on the shelf (though in the interest of full disclosure, one KFF patron did go home and immediately watch Van Damme's Cyborg to balance out his yin and yang). It's a special edition DVD, so there are plenty of extras: A valuable directors&producers commentary track, fun facts about concepts seen in the film, a wealth of design art galleries, the audio book version of the poem Mulan is based on, some terrible music videos (the highlight is Jackie Chan's version of I'll Make a Man Out of You, but its only production value is Jackie himself), deleted scenes in the form of soundtracked storyboards, and making of materials about most aspects of the production - from the idea to the international dubs - including various animatics. The glaring omission is the actors. Where were they for this? Some of the dub artists get more exposure than the principals, which barely rate a mention in the commentary. Us Ming Na fans have rights, Disney! (Also: None of the extras admit to the influence of kung fu cinema, which seems wrong to me.)
More animation? Ok. Batman Year One. To my surprise, they didn't go for the David Mazzuccelli look, though they did hint at it in a few shots, but they keep pretty much everything else from Frank Miller's seminal Batman (or should I say Commissioner Gordon) story. The tone of the original comics is very well reproduced, and Gordon makes as good an action hero as Batman does. Maybe Bruce Wayne's voice is too close to Gordon's (especially in voice-overs), but it's a minor point. Riveting stuff, and even if I'd already read Year One (maybe 10 years ago?), it still felt pretty fresh. Certain, at a few minutes above an hour, it was, if anything, too short. Because I got the 1-disc DVD edition, I can't tell you about the commentary track, or the documentary features on the importance of the book, etc. I CAN tell you about the 15-minute Catwoman short, which has Eliza Dushku reprise her role from the main feature in an extremely cool, extended action piece, whose only flaw is the NuDC scene in a strip joint, where even Catwoman does a little pole-dancing. Come on, DC. Too bad, because otherwise, it's top notch stuff. The new sneak peak is on Justice League: Doom, a feature that reassembles most of the original JL cast (Fillion's Hal replaces LaMarr's John) in a more-or-less original movie combining Mark Waid's Tower of Babel and the Super-Friends' Legion of Doom. Looks fun.
Audios: Ben and Polly's first trip in the TARDIS, The Smugglers, is one of those easily forgotten missing stories, and one of the last pure historicals. It's a pirate story with some good bits in it, and shows Polly to be the smarter of the two new companions. Ben is rather dense, bless him, always sending Polly off to make the coffee and forgetting he's time traveling. Hartnell also puts in a good performance, having fun bouncing off the story's rogues, and not at all seeming like a man on his way out because of health concerns. The linking narration is read by Anneke Wills (Polly) in an unfortunate monotone. I feel like she could attack it with a little more energy, but I got used to it by the second half. On a personal note, I do find that the less well-known a lost story is, the harder it is to get into it and get who's who straight on audio alone. For my daily Who project, I'll certainly supplement the experience with telesnaps when available.
Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
III.i. To Be or Not to Be - French Rock Opera
III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Discovering Hamlet
I realized that I have a pretty large collection of "con movies", but didn't have The Sting! So I got that (haven't seen it since I was a kid), and Captain America: The First Avenger to boot. I also got Whedonistas!, a fine companion to Chicks Dig Time Lords, and William Shatner's new album, Seeking Major Tom.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: What can I say about 2001: A Space Odyssey that hasn't already been said, somewhere? I am of those who agree that it is a masterpiece and that it looks as good and relevant today as it ever did. I think I'll just talk about the DVD package instead. The commentary track is by co-stars Keir Duella and Gary Lockhood, evidently not taped together, but still providing insight on a great number of things, from working with Kubrick and on-set stories, to the film's reception and possible meanings. The making of material is all pretty good, but there's just so much to say about a film like this, it would take at least a third disc to adequately cover it. What 2001 needed was to be as stuffed with extras as a Lord of the Rings boxed set. And still, there are two hours worth of documentary features, covering the making of the film (with both contemporary and vintage features), its legacy for filmmakers, how its representation of the future compares to the real 2001, how the effects and concept art evolved, and discussion on the questions asked by the film. These do have behind the scenes footage, but are mostly talking heads - various filmmakers, critics and scientists. Additionally, there's a collection of Kubrick's photographs from Look! magazine, and a long archive interview with the man on audio only from 1966. The latter bugged by being unpausable, rewindable, etc., but was still quite interesting (though not actually focused on 2001).
Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan takes the story of Swan Lake itself and transposes it on the world of an anxious ballerina played by Natalie Portman. Like Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, it turns the character's anxieties into a hallucinatory dreamscape, so subjective, the audience never quite knows what's real or not. In the process, the fable turns into a horror film made all the more potent by the cinema verite feel of the camera work. It captures well, I think, the world behind the scenes of the ballet, but may not connect to all audiences given the sometimes shocking use of gore and erotica. Once Portman's breakdown is well under way, the film treads the fine line between the grotesque and the silly, but ultimately succeeds in the transcendent final sequence. The DVD includes a 48-minute making of that's rich in behind the scenes moments, shot guerrilla-style not unlike the movie itself.
Watched seasons 4 to 6 of How I Met Your Mother this week, and they kind of blur into each other in my mind, so I won't give each one a review. As a whole, there's no dip in quality from the first three seasons. If anything, the show's makers are settling in very comfortably, daring to play even more with the convention of having a narrator that's not necessarily always reliable. And though the mystery of who the Mother is continues to loom, they've also created (and sometimes paid off) other mysteries surrounding characters other than Ted (Barney's dad, for example, or the fact Ted meets the Mother when he's best man at a wedding, and then creating three distinct opportunities for him to become best man). So the series remains clever and full of heart, dramatic moments bouncing off the comedy quite well. Extras have dwindled a bit from Season 3 though. Season 4 has commentary on only 4 episodes (and one of those is by day players whose scene was entirely cut, funny but silly), a Q&A with the cast and crew (pretty good, but padded), a brief recap of past seasons, Barney's electronic CV as a music video, and a superlative gag reel (and yet, not a peep about two actresses getting pregnant in the same year). Season 5 is down to 3 episodes with commentary, another great gag reel, isolated "music videos" for Super Date and the awesome Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit, an actual new music video for Marshall's Best Night Ever, a look at how Super Date was achieved (surprising!), the full Wedding Bride trailer, a series recap that's an original song that sorta puts down the show, and a good making of feature about the 100th episode. For the remarkably emotional Season 6, it's 4 episodes with commentary, making of featurettes on two episodes (Subway Wars and Glitter), the always funny gag reel, a montage of things we know about the mother (including some new, but incidental, details), and a good number of deleted scenes.
I thought Disney's Mulan would have been an odd - if appreciated - fit for Kung Fu Fridays, but it really wasn't. It had all the staples: An irredeemable villain (he sets out to kill a little girl and does, guys), a girl disguised as a boy and no one can tell, guys in drag too, the Shaw Brothers' little bridge set, and an awesome training sequence! The animation is of course impeccable, and the violence, while bloodless, surprisingly harsh when it needs to be. Mulan makes an engaging heroine and even Eddie Murphy as Mushu the dragon is bearable (training for his later role as Donkey). Ming Na, Pat Morita and George Takei are all excellent casting. It's a charming action adventure and not a sappy romance fairy tale, so I don't mind having ONE Disney film on the shelf (though in the interest of full disclosure, one KFF patron did go home and immediately watch Van Damme's Cyborg to balance out his yin and yang). It's a special edition DVD, so there are plenty of extras: A valuable directors&producers commentary track, fun facts about concepts seen in the film, a wealth of design art galleries, the audio book version of the poem Mulan is based on, some terrible music videos (the highlight is Jackie Chan's version of I'll Make a Man Out of You, but its only production value is Jackie himself), deleted scenes in the form of soundtracked storyboards, and making of materials about most aspects of the production - from the idea to the international dubs - including various animatics. The glaring omission is the actors. Where were they for this? Some of the dub artists get more exposure than the principals, which barely rate a mention in the commentary. Us Ming Na fans have rights, Disney! (Also: None of the extras admit to the influence of kung fu cinema, which seems wrong to me.)
More animation? Ok. Batman Year One. To my surprise, they didn't go for the David Mazzuccelli look, though they did hint at it in a few shots, but they keep pretty much everything else from Frank Miller's seminal Batman (or should I say Commissioner Gordon) story. The tone of the original comics is very well reproduced, and Gordon makes as good an action hero as Batman does. Maybe Bruce Wayne's voice is too close to Gordon's (especially in voice-overs), but it's a minor point. Riveting stuff, and even if I'd already read Year One (maybe 10 years ago?), it still felt pretty fresh. Certain, at a few minutes above an hour, it was, if anything, too short. Because I got the 1-disc DVD edition, I can't tell you about the commentary track, or the documentary features on the importance of the book, etc. I CAN tell you about the 15-minute Catwoman short, which has Eliza Dushku reprise her role from the main feature in an extremely cool, extended action piece, whose only flaw is the NuDC scene in a strip joint, where even Catwoman does a little pole-dancing. Come on, DC. Too bad, because otherwise, it's top notch stuff. The new sneak peak is on Justice League: Doom, a feature that reassembles most of the original JL cast (Fillion's Hal replaces LaMarr's John) in a more-or-less original movie combining Mark Waid's Tower of Babel and the Super-Friends' Legion of Doom. Looks fun.
Audios: Ben and Polly's first trip in the TARDIS, The Smugglers, is one of those easily forgotten missing stories, and one of the last pure historicals. It's a pirate story with some good bits in it, and shows Polly to be the smarter of the two new companions. Ben is rather dense, bless him, always sending Polly off to make the coffee and forgetting he's time traveling. Hartnell also puts in a good performance, having fun bouncing off the story's rogues, and not at all seeming like a man on his way out because of health concerns. The linking narration is read by Anneke Wills (Polly) in an unfortunate monotone. I feel like she could attack it with a little more energy, but I got used to it by the second half. On a personal note, I do find that the less well-known a lost story is, the harder it is to get into it and get who's who straight on audio alone. For my daily Who project, I'll certainly supplement the experience with telesnaps when available.Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
III.i. To Be or Not to Be - French Rock Opera
III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Discovering Hamlet
Comments
I regret nothing.
It made me wish Daredevil Born Again will had an adaptation someday!
Roger
I have to wonder whether Stephen Thompson was familiar with The Smugglers when he wrote The Curse of the Black Spot, what with both referencing or featuring Henry Avery.