Stephen Schaefer’s Hollywood & Mine

The just-concluded 79th Venice Film Festival proceeded for the 2nd consecutive year with effective safety protocols amid the never-ending pandemic.  Seating was entirely social distanced. Everyone had to be certified that they were vaccination-compliant for Italy’s ‘Green Pass’ designation. Masks were required indoors.  One awkward consequence:  Seats had to be reserved days ahead for every screening and, for possible contact tracing in case of a COVID case, you could not change your seat.  Advance online reservations were also required for the press conferences. This meant that competition films, along with press conferences, sold out immediately.  The hottest tickets that proved impossible for me to see: ‘Spencer,’ the Princess Diana drama with Kristen Stewart, ‘Dune: Part 1,’ ‘Official Competition,’ a Spanish showbiz comedy teaming Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, which had press raving that it was the best film here, and Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog.’  ‘The Lost Daughter,’ Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directing debut which she adapted from Elena Ferrante’s novel, won her the Golden Lion for Best Screenplay.

Looking back:

WARNER BROS. – WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!
Watching ‘Dune: Part 1’ – and they ain’t kidding, it’s only the first half – I recalled how Bob Shaye at tiny New Line Cinema (now owned as primarily a distribution label by WB) proved to be a gambler for the ages with ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy.  Shaye had bet the bank, so to speak, spending $100 million each on the 3 film installments necessary to tell J.R.R. Tolkien’s intricately detailed tale of hobbits, elves, fairies and evil.  Shaye committed to the 3 films before anyone could see the first film, much less know whether the public would be interested enough to come back each year for Parts 2 & 3.  His gamble played off spectacularly.  Warner Bros. however chose to make only ‘Dune: Part 1’ from Frank Herbert’s ‘60s novel.

It’s a massive story and in this second film take on the ecologically-tinted tale, the first half is pretty much laying out the players, the stakes, the geography.  It’s mostly low-key, somber and not particularly exciting, much less riveting, with a story with echoes of classic Joseph Campbell and ‘Star Wars’ as it charts the evolution of a youthful Prince rising to the demands of destiny to be King.  But this ‘Dune: Part 1,’ made for a reported $160 million not including another $50 million for marketing, stops-ends-dies just as its revving up!!  And it will be at least 3 years before we find out how it ends with this cast and this director because WB won’t greenlight ‘Part 2’ until they see what the box-office and reviews and reception are!  Sad, if not slightly pathetic.  You don’t come out of ‘Part 1’ raving – you come out wondering what’s next.  In this case, we’re all wondering if there will be – and when? – a next.

DIRECTORS ROLLING ALONG
Perhaps because the jury was headed by ‘Parasite’ Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho, several violent horror entries premiered: Edgar Wright’s ‘Last Night in Soho,’ Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon,’ David Gordon Green’s ‘Halloween Kills.’

Wright, particularly, offered a dazzling example of personal cinema with ‘Soho’ – it’s a movie that’s practically defined (as was his ‘Baby Driver’) by its soundtrack of ‘60s British singles to create each scene’s rhythm and pacing.  Wright stages dance sequences with a welcome bravado that means what we’re seeing is not via CGI effects but cleverness and lots of mirrors to stage sequences that are captured live with clever choreography.  It’s a dream-like story, the country mouse who comes to the Big City and grows up, topped by the unexpected depth of Diana Rigg’s landlady in her final role. Amirpour similarly excavated classic horror tropes to follow her Mona Lisa, an extraordinary escapee from a lunatic asylum where she’s been kept for 12 years, since she just 10 years old (played by the North Korean Jeon Jong-seo). Somehow – should we blame that Blood Moon? – this Mona Lisa has suddenly freed herself by assuming mind control over her attendants. She soon uses it on anyone she meets.  She lands in New Orleans where she’s befriended by a Brit drug dealer and a single mother grifter. There’s a sense of humor here as classic confrontations between the sweet young woman who’s actually a monster and her victims continually ensue. Think of the Boris Karloff Frankenstein monster – when he meets the little girl she thinks he’s sweet – until he drowns her.  This Mona Lisa is that kind of monster, always surprising people with her abilities when they expect a docile, passive victim.

AUTEURS!
A trio of true auteurs — Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar, Oscar winner Jane Campion, Oscar nominee Paul Schrader – offered personal cinema.  Almodóvar’s ‘Parallel Mothers’ was slow, surprising; an uneven mix of historical posturing and personal drama with the filmmaker’s muse Penelope Cruz once again providing the passion as a professional single woman with a big secret was named the festival’s Best Actress.

‘The Power of the Dog’ is Campion’s adaptation of a novel set in 1925 rural Montana with Benedict Cumberbatch as a closeted, paranoid cowboy and Kirsten Dunst an abused alcoholic.  ‘Dog’ is most unusual for this filmmaker who has always had a woman as her central character.  Schrader’s ‘The Card Counter,’ now in theaters, is another of this writer-director’s dark character studies.  Oscar Isaac wanders casinos, disengaged, solitary, nearly in hiding because we discover he’s a Mideast war casualty, a soldier who was among the very few American soldiers to be imprisoned for torture at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.  Its grim subject and slow-burning violence found a warm reception.  Campion won the festival’s Best Director Golden Lion.

CLASSIC WESTERN
‘Old Henry’ stands out in the Venice line-up because it’s a classic American Western, the kind Clint Eastwood might have made 40 years ago.  Set in 1906 Kansas, Henry is a taciturn farmer (a career-defining performance from Tim Blake Nelson), a widower with an unhappy teenage son, who aids a near-mortally wounded cowboy carrying a stash of cash.  Really bad guys are following him.  Will Henry stand up to them?  Who exactly are the bad guys here?  If you don’t know the answers, you’ve obviously never seen a Western.

NEW DVDs:
AMERICAN CLASSIC                              What’s amazing about Frank Darabont’s 1994 Stephen King adaptation, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code, WB, R) is that while it’s today a beloved and acknowledged masterwork, it didn’t make a big splash when first released.  Only thru rentals and word of mouth did ‘Shawshank’ ultimately enter into the hallowed ground of most revered.  This is a prison picture set in Maine with a glorious duo at the center – Tim Robbins as Andy and Morgan Freeman’s Red. They are convicts whose friendship becomes a beacon of light and hope in the miserable institution they find themselves.  Red was written as an Irishman.  Darabont initially wanted Gene Hackman or Robert Duvall as Andy. They were unavailable. Andy was offered to Kevin Costner and Tom Hanks (who would star in Darabont’s next King adaptation ‘The Green Mile’).  Both stars were already booked.  Tom Cruise was intrigued enough to attend table readings but passed because of Darabont’s inexperience as a director. Special Features: Darabont’s invaluable commentary. Two documentaries, one on a ‘Look Back’ and ‘The Redeeming Feature.’ Also, 2 storyboards and photo galleries.

CRUELLA ORIGIN SAGA                             When Disney’s animated ‘101 Dalmatians’ arrived in 1961, adapted from Dodie Smith’s book, the evil dog-napping Cruella de Vil stole the show with her  twitchy style, skinny frame and maniacal desire for 100 dead Dalmatian puppies to make the fur coat of her dreams.  With this year’s ‘Disney Cruella’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code, Disney, PG-13), Mme. De Vil gets an origin story that carries her from traumatic childhood to an ambitious would-be fashionista who wreaks revenge on those who done her wrong!  Emma Stone stars as the talented but heartless Cruella, Emma Thompson as a fashion designing diva who is Cruella’s teacher then rival.  A sequel is promised.  The Extras: There is an Easter egg guide referencing the animated original. Bloopers, deleted scenes. Featurettes on the dogs, the transformations, the styles and the sidekicks.

CAPTAIN KIRK!                       The box-set ‘Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code, Paramount, PG) notes that it’s now 55 years of ‘Star Trek,’ and this quartet is newly remastered. Here then the first 4 feature films that revived (for eternity it seems) the ground-breaking ‘60s TV series that laid the foundation.  Here are the never-to-be-matched original cast:  William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig and James Doohan.  Beyond the quartet of hit feature films, there are hours of special features, including newly programmed isolated scores as well as directors’ commentaries, joint commentaries by Nimoy and Shatner, tributes, interviews and much more.

A MIGHTY MEGAN                           As formulaic as Megan Fox’s dramatic thriller ‘Till Death’ (Blu-ray, Screen Media, Not Rated) might be, it works! There’s an irresistible, fairy-tale like story of a beautiful bride held prisoner by a sadistic billionaire husband who must somehow escape the fate he’s meant for her and live.  Then there’s Fox whose porcelain beauty and jet black hair add a nearly unreal dimension to this endangered spouse They added an extra twist to the creep she’s married by making him British!  And there’s a running ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ gag that continually lifts the dire circumstances into the absurdly comical.  You have to love how the powerless Fox unstintingly keeps trying to save herself in an isolated, snow-covered lake house that lacks heat and, to a deadly extreme, hospitality.

SCARLETT’S ORIGIN STORY                      Scarlett Johansson’s solo origin picture in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ‘Black Widow’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code, Marvel, PG-13), has been overshadowed by the star’s lawsuit against Disney for offering the movie on Disney+ simultaneously with its theatrical release, cutting into her profit participation in a mightily un-Marvel-ous way.  That’s regrettable since ‘Black Widow,’ directed by Australian Cate Shortland, has so much to offer.  There’s Johansson, of course, who has no trouble defeating the hordes of would-be assassins who here are interestingly all female.  ‘Black Widow’ stands primarily as a portrait of Natasha’s childhood with a ‘sister’ (Florence Pugh) and parents (Rachel Weisz, David Harbour) who are straight out of the embedded Russian spies of TV’s ‘The Americans.’  There are the monumental battles, natch.  Bonus Extras: Deleted scenes, gag reel, ‘Sisters Gonna Work It,’ ‘Go Big if You’re Going Home.’

PAGING DR. FREDDIE                                 Freddie Highmore has justly won acclaim as Dr. Shaun Murphy, a surgeon at the fictional San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital who has autism and savant syndrome.  ‘The Good Doctor: Season Four’ (DVD, Sony, Not Rated) finds Murphy in his fourth-year residency where he is in charge of a group of new residents while involved in an off and on romantic relationship with Lea (Paige Spara).  The COVID-19 pandemic is here and must be confronted.  Season Four notes the departure of Antonia Thomas’ Dr. Claire Brown who chooses to remain in Guatemala helping the poor rather than be a continual presence on ‘Good Doctor.’ The Bonus Feature offers ‘A Farewell’ to Thomas.  A fifth season is imminent.

SUPERIOR SIDNEY LUMET                      Based on Robert Daley’s 1978 novel of the same name, ‘Prince of the City’ (Blu-ray, WB Archive, R) stands as a triumph for co-writer/director Sidney Lumet (‘Murder on the Orient Express,’ ‘Twelve Angry Men,’ ‘Dog Day Afternoon’).  Lumet’s 1981 neo-noir about NYPD police corruption was inspired by real-life narcotics detective Robert Leuci, here called Daniel Ciello.  Leuici was part of the Special Investigative Unit, the crème of the city’s cops, the ‘princes’ of the city who did the French Connection bust, who were great detectives, but who kept crossing the line.  Until Leuci (and Ciello in Lumet’s movie) sees how the stench of what he’s doing – illegal activities involving graft, the mob, informants and drugs – makes him willing to wear a wire and testify. But with the emphatic understanding: I will never rat on my partners.  That, in essence, is the tragedy here: This cop is forced to do the one thing he swore he would never do to stay out of prison.  Treat Williams is magnificent in a career-defining role as he carries this nearly 3-hour descent into testifying, leaving in his wake suicide, homicide and despair. As expected Lumet gets terrific work from his large (100-plus speaking parts) cast: Lindsay Crouse (Lumet’s ‘The Verdict’) as Danny’s wife, Jerry Orbach, even Cynthia Nixon as a teenage druggy.  Bonus: ‘Prince of the City – The Real Story.’

ORIGINAL GANGSTER                     There’s an astonishing irony in Francesco Rosi’s vivid Italian gangster film ‘Lucky Luciano’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, R).  This 1973 crime melodrama co-stars Oscar winner Rod Steiger (‘On the Waterfront,’ ‘In the Heat of the Night’), Oscar winner Edmond O’Brien (‘The Barefoot Contessa’) and Vincent Gardenia (Oscar nominated for ‘Bang the Drum Slowly,’ ‘Moonstruck’).  Gian Maria Volonte is the notorious Mafia boss Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano who in the Thirties was ‘The Boss of All Bosses’ and jailed.  During WWII he offered his services to help the war effort which won him in 1946 a pardon for murdering his associates. He was exiled back to Italy from the US. The irony is that back home in Naples, Luciano became a world leader in criminal activities.  Rosi, who worked frequently with Volonte (‘Christ Stopped at Eboli,’ the mesmerizing ‘The Mattei Affair’), offers a docu-style drama with Luciano’s real-life narcotics nemesis, agent Charles Siragusa playing himself.  This 4K restoration from the original camera negative has a compelling commentary by film critic Simon Abrams.

SPLENDIDLY MODERN DANCE                               With the AIDS crisis, choreographer-dancer-director Bill T. Jones lost his professional and personal partner Arnie Zane in 1988.  Jones’ tour de force ballet ‘D-Man in the Waters’ is regarded as among the most important works of art to emerge from the AIDS crisis. Created in 1989, here in ‘Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters’ (DVD, Kino Lorber, Not Rated) a group of young dancers reinterpret the work.  This documentary, via interviews, archival material and cinematography, tells the story of an iconic dance and illustrates art’s power of expression and ability to detail the triumph of the human spirit.  Jones, at 69 a Tony winner and Kennedy Center honoree, continues to work. The ‘Bring It’ box quotes Mikhail Baryshnikov as calling ‘Can You Bring It’ a ‘must-see for every dancer.’

DASHIELL HAMMETT SHINES                       One of the few film series that remained at the highest level in terms of budget, casting and release, The Thin Man series created a model American marriage, one that suggested, sex, booze and fun, in rich heiress Nora Charles’s heavy-drinking life of crime-solving with her first-rate, heavy-drinking detective hubby Nick Charles.  As played by Myrna Loy and William Powell, they were and are forever fabulous. There were 6 Thin Man movies, beginning in 1934.  The 5 sequels that began in 1936 concluded in 1947 with ‘The Song of the Thin Man.’  The beautiful Blu-ray ‘Shadow of the Thin Man’ (Blu-ray, WB Archive, Not Rated), released in 1941, is the 4th entry with Nick and Nora and their son Nick Jr. involved in solving a jockey’s murder at a racetrack.  Supporting players include future Oscar winner Donna Reed (‘From Here to Eternity’) and Stella Adler, the legendary acting teacher who would coach Marlon Brando. Extras: A vintage short, a classic cartoon.

ELVIS: END OF THE LINE                            ‘Change of Habit’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, G), which teamed Elvis Presley and a pre-‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ MTM, was the end of the line for Presley’s movie star career.  His crass manager had starred the King in a decade-long series of cheap, silly musicals which ground to an emphatic halt when no one would pay Presley his million dollar fee.  So Colonel Parker (the name was an invention, he was a Colonel of nothing) made a face-saving deal with NBC: Presley would star in the 1969 ‘Habit’ and do a network TV special, ‘Elvis,’ for $1.25 million.  From here until his death Presley appeared on film only in musical documentaries.  ‘Habit’ rates as a foolhardy attempt to reverse the damage by asking that Presley be taken seriously as a ghetto doctor assisted by a trio of ‘social workers,’ who are really nuns preparing to take their final vows.  Will Moore’s nun abandon the convent and celibacy for the good doctor?  Elvis still sings.  Moore was one year away from the TV series that would make her an icon.  Bonus: Audio commentary.

WITCHES! VAMPIRES! AND MORE!                         An imaginative British fantasy series about Diana (Teresa Palmer), a reluctant witch and tenured Yale University professor at Oxford, the valuable bewitched manuscript she discovers in Oxford’s Bodleian Library and her eventual romance with Matthew (Matthew Goode), a handsome vampire, ‘A Discovery of Witches: Season 2’ (Blu-ray, 10 episodes, 2 discs, Sundance Now, Not Rated) is already renewed for Season 3. Time travel is an essential in Season 2 where Matthew and Diana hide out in Elizabethan London while occasionally returning to present day.  Among the large cast: Sorcha Cusack, Lindsay Duncan, James Purefoy and Valarie Pettiford.  Bonus: ‘The Story of A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES,’ ‘Can Love Survive’ and ‘Creating Elizabethan London.