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Wilmington on DVDs
Flight of the Red
Balloon, The Incredible Hulk, Missing
plus, this week's box set picks

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Flight of the Red Balloon (Three Stars)
France; Hou Hsiao-hsien

Hou’s tribute to Albert Lamorisse’s beautiful original 1956 Red Balloon, recently released on DVD by Criterion. You should see both: Red Balloon because it’s a pure, lilting kid’s masterpiece and Flight of the Red Balloon because it’s one great filmmaker’s homage to another -- though the story, with Juliette Binoche as a troubled mother, eschews the fantastical. There‘s a balloon here, but it‘s no whimsical pet and martyr. It’s just a kibitzer on Hou‘s sublime long takes. (In French, with English subtitles.)

The Incredible Hulk (Three Stars)
U.S. Louis Leterrier, 2008 (Universal)

After Ang Lee’s 2002 Hulk, a somber, thoughtful look at Marvel Comics’ greenest and most angst-ridden superhero, the new Marvel edition of the saga, The Incredible Hulk, piles on the action, thanks to hyper-active French director Louis Leterrier (The Transporter) and blockbuster-prone scriptwriter Zak Penn (The Last Action Hero).

They deliver what you might call (if you were a publicist) a rock ‘em, sock ‘em action tornado, a mile-a-minute bash-and-crash-athon that taps back into the original comic book‘s wish-fulfillment wellsprings, recruits a fine new cast (Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, and Liv Tyler and William Hurt as Betty Ross and her general father Thad), brings on an odious new villain (Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky/The Abomination), simplifies the angst, pours on the CGI, and finally fits to a bloody T the Hulk‘s own catch phrase (and by now, a constant litany in Hulk movie reviews): “Smash!“

It’s been a good year for Marvel, and this DVD can only make it better, at least financially. (As if to remind us of Marvels past, Robert Downey, Jr., in his Iron Man mood, pops up at one point, to seal the deal.) I’m not being sarcastic here. I liked the movie, and it held me all the way, though the film’s grip relaxed pretty soon after I left the theater.

Why? Perhaps it’s because the cast and the production, not the story, are what make this movie click. Lee cast his earlier version somewhat strangely, with pretty-boy hunk Eric Bana as Bruce -- Jennifer Connelly and Sam Elliott were also there as more plausible Rosses -- sacrificing some of the story’s action-hero, worm-turning fantasy. Norton is a more ordinary-looking and empathetic Bruce, and he even suggests a deeper character psychologically -- while Tyler is a more fetching Betty and Hurt a more complex Ross. As for Roth, as a competing monster-antagonist, he‘s off the charts: a fishy-eyed, dead-souled bastard who keeps getting meaner and more dangerous with every scene.

PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC

Missing (Four Stars)
U.S.; Costa-Gavras, 1982 ) (Criterion)

Costa-Gavras‘ top-grade political thriller about the 1973 disappearance of irreverent young American Charlie Horman (John Shea) during the anti-Allende coup in Chile, and the determined attempts of his conservative dad (Jack Lemmon, at a dramatic peak) and liberal wife (Sissy Spacek) to find him. Solid, all the way, with fine extras.

COPICKS OF THE WEEK; BOX SETS

Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women (Four discs) (Four Stars)
Japan; Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936-56 (Criterion Collection)

Four modern Japanese film-tales of fallen women --geishas, mistresses and prostitutes -- from one of the greatest of all cinematic visual stylists and, in the first three cases below, from his best scriptwriter, Yoshikata Yoda. A must for foreign film connoisseurs. All films in Japanese, with English subtitles.

Included: Osaka Elegy (1936) Four Stars. The perils of office adultery, with Isuzu Yamada. Sisters of Gion (1936) Four Stars. Misoguchi‘s greatest pre-war film and his only Kinema Jumpo Best One winner: a withering study of the dark side of the geisha world. With Yamada. Women of the Night (1948) Four Stars. A raw portrait of postwar prostition, filmed in a very atypical but powerful near neo-realist style, starring Mizoguchi‘s favorite actress, Kinuyo Tanaka. Street of Shame (1956) Three-and-a-Half Stars. Mizouchi's last movie: Contemporary prostition again, this time, in a film so popular, it spurred government legislation. With Machiko Kyo, of Rashomon, as sexy Mickey.

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume Six (Four discs) (Three-and-a-Half Stars)
(U.S.; Various directors, 1930s-2000s (Warner)

Sixty vintage Looney Tunes -- including all the gang, the “incorrect” Bosko and Buddy, one-shots and wartime cartoons -- plus Looney extras and a well-deserved tribute to the great voice man Mel Blanc. Least of the six, but still a corker.

Included: Hare Trigger, Birth of a Notion, My Favorite Duck, Horton Hatches the Egg, Bugs Bunny in King Arthur’s Court, The Draft Horse, Fresh Airedale, The Hole Idea and many others.

Read Michael Wilmington's Theatrical Reviews of the Week: Changeling, Rachel Getting Married, Happy-Go-Lucky and I've Loved You So Long

Back to Wilmington On Movies

- Michael Wilmington
October 23, 2008

 

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