..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..R.J.
Matson
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Michael
Wilmington
The Best of 2007 ...
1. Ford at Fox (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)
With twenty-four films spread across twenty-one platters, many featuring new transfers and significant supplements and commentaries, Ford at Fox is the first DVD release that can truly be compared to a month-long museum program, which, heretofore, had been the penultimate format for disseminating an appreciation of a particular filmmaker to the public at large. Representing about half of director John Ford's output at the Fox and later 20th Century Fox studios, the set solidifies Ford's reputation as one of the pre-eminent American film directors and counterbalances the late-career impression that he was primarily interested in cavalry westerns. As the set reveals, the western was just one of many genres-military films, tearjerkers, comedies, gangster movies, international intrigue, and more-at which he was not just proficient, but masterful.
2. Blade Runner The Final Cut (Warner Home Video)
The definitive presentation of Ridley Scott's dazzling, hypnotic and groundbreaking 1982 science-fiction feature comes not only with an exquisite picture and sound transfer, but with an exceptionally comprehensive set of supplementary materials, including a retrospective documentary that runs over three-and-half hours, and three commentary tracks. Even viewers who question the film's intellectual or entertainment value will find it hard to maintain that stance once they have waded through the fascinating tale of Scott's determination, and the exceptional creativity he coaxed and bludgeoned out of those around him.
3. 300 (Warner)
Despite a summer full of blockbuster action features, only one DVD release of a 2007 film succeeded in sustaining the thrill ride promised by the movie's original promotions while also engaging a viewer's intellect with the construction of its foundation. Zack Snyder's feature turned out to be a dazzling aural and visual merger of fantasy and history, and the DVD backs it up with another fantastic transfer and a comprehensive supplement that enriches a viewer's understanding of both the film's narrative context and the creativity that fueled its spectacle.
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey 2-Disc Special Edition (Warner)
Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece had been released several times previously, even as a special edition, but Warner's new transfer supersedes every previous effort by light years, enhancing the film's subliminal power as much as it increases the movie's visceral stimulations. Additionally, there is a surprisingly effective commentary track from stars Kier Dullea and Gary Lockwood, and a number of other rewarding supplements.
5. The Departed (Warner)
The riveting 2006 Best Picture Oscar-winner about undercover cops and Boston mobsters has an engrossing audio mix and a consistently crisp image, and is accompanied by terrific documentaries about the criminal environment in Boston and about director Martin Scorsese.
6. Berlin Alexanderplatz (The Criterion Collection)
Twice as long as any other auteurist television miniseries, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's remarkable 1980 production represents what many filmmakers have aspired to accomplish but have never truly achieved, a full-length adaptation of a sprawling novel, reinvented for the screen but not compromised by running time constrains or any other artificial restrictions. When the program was originally conceived, there was barely a notion of home video and it was created under disposable conditions, and certainly without the understanding that someday DVDs would provide a better delivery medium for television programs than even television can foster. Hence, the DVD represents an epic restoration effort and has been effectively compiled onto six platters, with a seventh platter featuring a fascinating 1931 German adaptation of the Alfred Döblin novel and several terrific documentaries about Fassbinder and his prodigious filmmaking techniques. It should also be noted that virtually every Criterion release belongs on a Top Ten list, and other highlights from 2007 include Louis Malle's documentaries, Days of Heaven, Samuel Fuller's first films, Ingmar Bergman's first films, Hiroshi Teshigahara's films, Carlos Saura's dance trilogy, 3 Penny Opera, Under the Volcano, The Milky Way and on and on.
7. I Am Cuba (New Yorker Video)
The 1964 Russian/Cuban production directed by Mikhail Kalatozov was considered a disaster when it premiered in Cuba and in Russia, and was quickly relegated to a shelf where it languished for several decades, until a new generation of filmmakers recognized its technical brilliance (it includes what in all likelihood is the most amazing crane shot ever conceived) and overriding humanism. Much of the black-and-white film was shot with infrared stock, and has been transferred accurately for the first time, rendering vegetation white and blue skies black in transfixing contrast to the characters and their struggles. In one of the superb supplements on the outstanding three-platter set, several surviving actors and crewmembers in Cuba are shown the notices the film received upon its initial revival in the Nineties, and you can literally see the realization cross the face of each as they discover for the first time that an effort which had taken up a what was once an embarrassing portion of their past has turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece.
8. Inland Empire (Rhino)
To digress for a moment, 2007 witnessed the release of David Lynch's innovative television series, Twin Peaks, two separate times by Paramount, initially as just its Second Season component, and then as a completely revised and remastered Complete Series, including Lynch's enduring Pilot episode. Both DVDs were exceptional because each one provided new insights on Lynch himself, who is always as cooperative as he is inscrutable when it comes to discussing his work. That was also the case with his bedeviling 2007 feature film, Inland Empire. In the future, when his canon becomes a finite entity, then the film will be savored for the uniqueness of Lynch's cinematic constructs; but for now, it was apparently not unique enough in comparison to Lynch's other works, and disappeared faster than a stoplight changes from orange to red. Even the DVD has not exactly flown off the shelves. Nevertheless, the film, perhaps slightly less disciplined than Lynch's best works, is still an intoxicating home video experience, and the supplements are outstanding, not so much for the insights they offer to the movie itself as for the further portrait they provide of the enigmatic Lynch and his always curious and often profound filmmaking compulsions.
9. Apocalypto (Touchstone Home Entertainment)
Mel Gibson's 2006 action adventure set in Mesoamerica was another dazzling thrill ride that stimulates your rear speakers as it sparks your imagination. Free of the somber macho masochism permeating his bigger boxoffice hits, the film is well served by the capacities of the DVD format, and also offers a little of the star power that the movie itself could not, as Gibson supplies a good-natured and enthusiastic commentary track.
10. The Jazz Singer (Warner)
The outstanding three-platter set not only presents a movie that represented one of the most monumental changes in the motion picture business, but it places the film in an enlightening context by including a superb documentary about the history of sound on film and by sharing an extensive collection of early sound shorts. The 1927 Alan Crosland feature, starring the biggest pop music superstar of his day, Al Jolson, is also supported by an excellent commentary and a fresh transfer that preserves its formative audio track for the ages.
Honorable mention: Movie star Malcolm McDowell sat down for the DVD commentary microphones in 2007 not just once or twice, but for almost every classic film he ever appeared in (he had done a nice talk for Time after Time several years ago, and Evilenko last year). Witty and forthright, he recalls each production vividly and speaks informatively not only about his own craft, but about the atmosphere of the production, the various filmmaking techniques that were employed while he was in attendance, the personalities and skills of his co-workers and directors, and he even opens up quite a lot about his personal life, enhancing significantly the value of each DVD he participated in, including If.… (Criterion), A Clockwork Orange (Warner), O Lucky Man! (Warner), Royal Flash (Fox), and the raucous Caligula (Image Entertainment).
January 1, 2008
DVD Roundup: This Week's DVD Releases
The Review VaultDouglas Pratt's DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter is published monthly.
For a free sample, call (516)594-9304 or go to his website at www.DVDLaser.com
