DVD Releases: December 16, 2004

The Ultimate Matrix Collection

The Matrix Reloaded: Reviews and Feature - all the coverage from MCN.

Matrix Revolutions - An MCN Review: Wasn't it Elliott who said: This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

One has to imagine the esteemed poet was offered a sneak peak at Matrix Revolutions and though he had a penchant for iambic pentameter, really wanted to be a movie critic.

The Matrix THB Review: The Matrix actually gets under your skin. The film asks and answers questions that we all ask ourselves all the time. From the real reason for deja vu to the choice we all make each day to be sheep or to face the slaughter, The Matrix is completely unreal and yet completely within our grasp. And besides that, it kicks cyber-ass as a straight-forward action film from beginning to end.

Matrix Revolutions - Pride, Unprejudiced: I'm a sucker for formal beauty in movies, from the most costly and bogus of studio-machined contraptions to the most dolorously pretentious foreign-language films to the cheapest of grimy yet snazzy digital video experiments.

And A Matrix Followup: Rebecca Ascher-Walsh's Entertainment Weekly cover story on The Matrix is not only unhip (Hint: If the phrase "it rocks" is in your lead and you aren't Harry Knowles, you are out of touch) and inaccurate (I'll make you a list some day), it is an embarrassment to the magazine.

The Women of The Matrix: These human women of The Matrix each bring such different characteristics to the party. Yet after getting through Revolutions and reflecting back, the casting is dead on. Carrie-Anne Moss and Jada Pinkett Smith are the two poles of this epic’s feminine soul.

The Men of The Matrix: One of the genius elements of the trilogy is the challenging evolution of Neo. At the end of the first movie, the audience was thrilled by Thomas Anderson’s evolution into the superheroic Neo. But it was, as the Wachowskis have always said, just the birth. Reloaded pissed some people off by first restraining Neo, then by starting him down a road of inevitability that didn’t make them comfortable.

The Matrix Revolutions: What has occurred to me most clearly is that The Matrix, as a series, has created its own rather remarkable schizophrenia… to both its benefit and detriment.

The Door in the Floor
US/Canada Gross: $3.8 million

Despite all the early buzz, pegging The Door in the Floor as a can’t-miss Oscar contender, this wickedly complex drama was released and abandoned before most of its potential audience even knew it was in theaters. At its most visible, this highly abridged version of John Irving’s relationship-drama, “A Widow for One Year,” could be seen on a grand total of 134 screens … somewhere. This, despite a very smart and often darkly funny screenplay, and terrific performances by Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, Mimi Rogers and Jon Foster. Opening as it did in mid-July, The Door in the Floor couldn’t have been more misplaced in Sony’s summer release schedule. Among the things contributing to the rapidly collapsing marriage of Tod and Marion Cole (Bridges and Basinger) is a preventable family tragedy, mutual adultery, cancerous secrets, deep depression, too much money and spare time, and the arrival of an ambitious summer intern who’s quickly sucked into a quagmire of the Coles’ emotional depravity.

In short, this movie wasn’t going to compete with I Robot and A Cinderella Story, all which opened on the same night, for popcorn sales. Nevertheless, there’s nothing at all wrong with Tod Williams’ writing and direction, which not only found the drama in Irving’s story but also its humor, of which there’s plenty. Not coincidentally, perhaps, the timing of the DVD release coincides with the opening of Oscar nominating season. Here’s hoping the voters take the time to sample it when their copy arrives in the mail. -- Gary Dretzka

Pride, Unprejudiced: Tod Williams' somber second feature, The Door in the Floor is a refined achievement: an adult-themed picture, richly and rewardingly detailed in dialogue, décor and psychology. It's also frankly sexual. After two viewings, the subtlety of the performances is even more admirable than at first sight.

King Arthur
Worldwide Gross: $195 million

THB Review: It's official… this is Bruckheimer's worst film ever. Days of Thunder and Kangaroo Jack are no longer fighting for the basement slot. All and all, I'd rather be at Van Helsing.

King Arthur News & Preview

The Legendary King Arthur
Arthur | Guinevere | Merlin |
Gawain & Galahad | Lancelot
The Knight's Oath

Photo Galleries
Clive Owen as King Arthur
Keira Knightly As Guinevere
The Court
The Warriors

Shaun of the Dead
Worldwide Gross: $13.4 million

Interview: What we wanted to do was create a very realistic and--albeit a comic one-naturalistic environment, and plunk this crazy fantasy thing in the middle of it. So we spent some time getting to know these people, seeing that they're sort of real, lovable people, and then once you've been lulled into that false sense of security of thinking that you're watching a sort of kitchen sink comedy-drama, suddenly the zombies start happening. So that when Ed and Shaun find themselves in the garden with the girl is a real shock, because you've almost forgotten you're watching a zombie film.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Worldwide Gross: $144 million

The Hot Button Review: It is all too stupid to watch a movie about Dodgeball. But it is laugh out loud funny and what more do you want from a comedy? Ben Stiller will make you think twice before you go out for pizza after the movies. And the surprise cameos are more than enough reason to avoid imdb until after you've seen the film.

Meet the Parents: Special Edition
Worldwide Gross: $295.5 million

Yes, Meet the Parents: Special Edition is essentially the same very funny comedy that was released in DVD in May, 2003, except with three dozen previously unseen outtakes (whoopee!), a few more deleted scenes, and featurettes on taking polygraph tests and goofy cats. Oh, yeah, and a free-ticket coupon to the imminent sequel, Meet the Fokkers, which adds Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand to the mix. That’s it. (I wonder who gets the free coupons from the dozens of copies purchased by stores in the big video chains.) -- Gary Dretzka

Mary Poppins: 40th Anniversary Edition
Worldwide Gross: $102.3 million

Mary Poppins: 40th Anniversary Edition, the third DVD release of the endearing Disney classic, is a perfect gift for the many Boomer parents who accompanied their children to those “Mary Poppins Sing-Along” extravaganzas at the El Capitan Theater … as well as the drag queens and stoners who flocked to midnight matinees. In addition to an exquisitely re-mastered new print and audio track, the generous package includes the commentary and singing of Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews (with composer Richard Sherman); the deleted song, “Chimpanzoo”; a special-effects explainer doc and “Movie Magic” featurette; rehearsal footage from the original recording sessions; pop-up trivia and an interactive set-top game; footage of early meetings with author-consultant P.L. Travers; and a new animated adaptation of Travers’ "The Cat That Looked At A King."

For those who simply can’t get enough of Julie Andrews, there’s also The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. In this cavity-inducing sequel to the surprise 2001 hit, Andrews is reunited with director Garry Marshall and co-star Anne Hathaway, who was so wonderful in the under-seen Ella Enchanted. This paint-by-numbers effort, though, is strictly for the kiddies. -- Gary Dretzka

Criterion Collection revisits the cinema’s first serial killings in its pristine special-edition DVD of M. Even after 71 years, the ability of Fritz Lang’s German-language thriller to shock and disturb audiences remains fully intact, and Peter Lorre’s portrayal of the whistling pedophile is every bit as powerful as it was when first witnessed on the big screen or in some college lecture hall. It would be great if aspiring screenwriters were required to study this DVD -- along with its bounty of extras -- before being allowed to submit any script with a sociopath as its primary villain. In addition to a restored print, this set includes audio commentary by Anton Kaes and Eric Rentschler; a 32-page booklet, with an essay by Stanley Kauffmann, interviews and the script for a missing scene; a filmed conversation with Fritz Lang, directed by William Friedkin; a short film inspired by M, from director Claude Chabrol; and classroom tapes of editor Paul Falkenberg, discussing the film and its history.-- Gary Dretzka

Trailer | News & Preview
The Spider-Man Musical Score

The Bourne Supremacy
US/Canada Gross: $176 million

Beyond all the frenzied popcorn-friendly action, there’s probably no better reason to pick up The Bourne Supremacy -- the second installment in Universal’s series of Robert Ludlum adaptations -- than the DVD’s extensive menu of bonus features. In addition to some half-hearted commentaries and interviews, the featurettes go into copious detail on the film’s pyrotechnics, car chases and martial-arts sequences. And, after all, that’s what the Bourne franchise is, was and always will be about … at least until Matt Damon takes a powder or Jason Bourne finally remembers why everyone’s chasing him. -- Gary Dretzka

MCN Review: Matt Damon's Jason Bourne is the post-millennial answer to Connery's Bond. Jack Ryan had his shot, but he came up short and, with three actors as Ryan in the franchise's four movies, killed off any hope of touching the clouds.

I don't suppose it would do me any good to call for help.

Mikey & Nickey

Pride, Unprejudiced: “I CAME AS SOON AS I GOT YOUR TOWEL” — why is that line one of the most weirdly perfect in American movies? It’s a seeming non sequitur amid the unceasing delights of the desperate, ruthless Mikey & Nicky, Elaine May’s nicotine-stained 1977 masterpiece.

White Thunder

Fans of Nanook of the North, Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, The Fast Runner and other titles in the adrift-on-an-ice-floe sub-genre of adventure films, should strap their team of huskies to the nearest sled and mush out to the local video store to pick up a copy of White Thunder. This fascinating Milestone documentary describes the ill-fated journey taken in 1931 by director Varick Frissell, cinematographer Alexander G. Penrod, a Hollywood sound crew and several dozen insanely courageous seamen aboard the sealing ship S.S. Viking. They were off the northern Newfoundland coast -- shooting additional footage for a Paramount project on the sealing industry -- when the Viking blew up, killing two dozen men, including Frissell.

As the testimony in White Thunder demonstrates, Frissell was an extraordinary man, both as an adventurer and documentarian (he was a student of Robert Flaherty). After filming The Great Arctic Seal Hunt, for release in 1928, and newsreel footage of the Mexican revolution, the tall and lanky Ivy Leaguer was able to convince Jesse Lasky to finance an epic melodrama based on the exploits of the sealers who literally surfed the ice fields of the North Atlantic in pursuit of seals. The first version of White Thunder was deemed unsatisfactory by both Frissell and Lasky, so Frissell returned to Newfoundland to record some additional footage, and, sadly, meet his doom. Hoping to take advantage of the front-page news, a new distributor released a version of Frissell’s feature film as The Viking, which has gone largely unseen for the last 70 years. Native Newfoundlander Victoria King completed her work on White Thunder in 2002, and, for the video release, Milestone has added two of Frissell’s earlier films, as well as the 81-minute The Viking. True, the number of baby seals killed is enough to offend all but the most callous of viewers. Defending the hunt, though, wasn’t as much a part of Frissell’s mission as the desire to document a hugely dangerous activity most viewers would never be able to witness first-hand. It’s easy, though, to skip over the offending carnage, and the scenes in which the hunters are shown scampering over the bobbing chunks of ice are truly breathtaking. -- Gary Dretzka

Legong: Dance of the Virgins

Pride, Unprejudiced: Working in a similar style and manner as F. W. Murnau's last movie, Tabu, Legong was shot in Northern Bali in 1933 by Marquis Henry de la Falaise de la Coudray, husband to screen star Constance Bennett. Capturing Balinese customs and rituals, it's an ethnographic marvel, and marvelous that it's no longer overlooked, or preserved only in one of the many censor-slashed versions around the world.

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Significant both as one of the last silent films to be commercially released, and as the last to produced and released in two-strip Technicolor, Milestone’s impeccably restored Legong: Dance of the Virgins transports viewers to a island paradise a million miles away from the Great Depression and rise of fascism in Europe in 1935. Directed by Henri de la Falaise and released by Constance Bennett’s production company, Legong was shot entirely on location in Bali, where native talent was enlisted to re-create the legend of a young maiden’s ill-fated journey into womanhood. Because De la Falaise shot the women in their natural state of partial undress, Legong received scant distribution in the United States, outside “grind houses” … and, indeed, even today feels as if it were a sidebar to a National Geographic magazine spread. In 1999, the UCLA Film and Television Archive restored Legong using bits and pieces of prints from the U.S., Canada and England. It did a terrific job. Also included in the package is a newly commissioned soundtrack of gamelan music, which adds immensely to the enjoyment of the film. Completing the package are two similarly exotic De la Falaise films, Kliou the Killer (which was shot in Vietnam) and The Gods of Bali. -- Gary Dretzka

Walt Disney Treasures

Handsomely packaged in limited-edition tins, all of the titles in the “Walt Disney Treasures” collection are pretty terrific. This week’s additions include, Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Volume Two, The Complete Pluto, Volume One and the first week of the original Mickey Mouse Club, which includes a Mouseketeer reunion and other features. It’s about time Pluto received the same star treatment as Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Davy Crockett, but the real treat here -- for Boomer dads and granddads, anyway -- comes in being able to ogle Annette, Darlene and future pin-up Doreen one more time, before joining host Jimmy Dodd and “mooseketeer” Roy Williams in the great Disneyland in the sky. -- Gary Dretzka

George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey

At some point during the creation of the bio-doc, George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey, George Stevens Jr. probably was jokingly encouraged by friends to consider the title, “I Remember Daddy.” George Sr., after all, had directed and exec produced the beloved immigrant drama I Remember Mama, and, by 1985, his name carried very little outside Hollywood in 1985. Even so, Stevens’ career represented a journey through a half-century of American filmmaking, and his story was well worth repeating. Stevens started out as a cameraman and gag writer for Laurel and Hardy, and Hal Roach, but his reputation would be made directing such marquee-topping fare as Gunga Din (also arriving in DVD this week, along with Mama and George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin), Alice Adams, Annie Oakley, Swing Time, Woman of the Year, The Talk of the Town, Shane, Giant, The Diary of Anne Frank and The Greatest Story Ever Told. It was Stevens’ experiences as a director of documentaries during World War II, though, that inform A Filmmaker’s Journey with a palpable aura of gravity. He was among the first to document the horrors of concentration camps, and his footage was used in the Nuremberg trials to condemn Nazi leaders for their genocidal policies. After the war, Stevens’ reputation as a perfectionist conspired to reduce his output to a mere trickle of films. Several of Hollywood’s biggest stars contribute to George Jr.’s documentary. -- Gary Dretzka

The Buster Keaton Collection

The Buster Keaton Collection combines the first three films -- The Cameraman, Free and Easy and Spite Marriage -- that the wondrously gifted comic actor made for MGM at the dawn of the age of talkies. None are as famous as The General, Sherlock Jr., Go West, Steamboat Bill Jr. or even The Paleface, but The Cameraman clearly ranks among his best work. The other two titles, though, demonstrate what can happen to an improvisational genius when he is handcuffed by a studio not terribly interested in his detours from the script. Still, any new Keaton DVD is going to be better than what’s now available on VHS. -- Gary Dretzka

Gargoyles

Before anime-influenced cartoons began to dominate syndicated children’s programming, there still was room in some afternoon timeslots for interesting original cartoon series. Gargoyles was noteworthy for its cast of wicked winged warriors -- all seeking revenge for being frozen in stone for a millennium -- as well as the dark and ominous depictions of their new Manhattan digs. In this, Gargoyles (whose first season has been collected on DVD) resembled several other animated action series of the period -- including those inspired by DC Comics and Marvel superheroes -- but it seemed a great leap forward from its Transformer-inspired competition. Now, in the wake of Pokemon, these visually distinctive cartoons almost qualify as classics .-- Gary Dretzka

Late Night Shopping

Fans of such offbeat BBC America series as Coupling and The Office represent the target audience for Late Night Shopping, an urban comedy about a motley crew of twenty-something slackers who get together each night in a Glasgow café before going off to work. Their graveyard-shift jobs are every bit as mundane as the conversation shared over coffee, but, after a while, both begin to make sense … in context, at least. When the playboy of the group accidentally stumbles into a one-night stand with the estranged girlfriend of one of his lovesick pals, everyone gathers their neuroses for a romantic rescue mission. Released in the U.K. in 2001, Late Night Shopping is arriving on these shores on DVD, which probably is where it belonged in the first place. -- Gary Dretzka

The Girl From Paris

In Jean-Michel Simonet’s engaging fish-out-of-water drama The Girl From Paris, a perfectly cast Mathilde Seigner plays a successful computer instructor who fulfills her longtime dream of escaping the city for a scenic farm in the Rhone Alps. Once ensconced in her spectacular new digs, she comes to the same realization as Warren Zevon, who, in “Play It All Night Long,” observed: “There ain't much to country living/Sweat, piss, jizz and blood.” The young woman is surprisingly game, however, even if she’s been saddled with the everyday presence of the previous owner of the farm, grumpily played by Michel Serrault. Their relationship improves, of course, but not before the audience is treated to a story that is rich with beauty, grit and real human emotions. Reviews on the Internet suggest that some scenes of day-to-day animal husbandry might be too rough for some viewers. True, but none is very long or terribly disturbing, especially for anyone who’s made it through a biology course in high school without fainting. -- Gary Dretzka

Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius ‘Hook’ Mitchell

Basketball folklore is filled with stories of teenage phenoms, who, for one reason or another, failed to make the transition from the urban playgrounds, to college and the pros. The movies Rebound: The Legend of Earl ‘The Goat’ Manigault and The Basketball Diaries were based on cases similar to the one documented by Michael Skolnik and William O’Neillin in Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius ‘Hook’ Mitchell. Their film traces the life of the 5-feet-9 point guard from Oakland who could dunk a basketball after first jumping over the top of a Volkswagen or a huddle of fellow players. Mitchell grew up playing with future all-stars Gary Payton and Jason Kidd, but, instead of following them into college, he focused most of his attention on maintaining a drug habit. A botched robbery led to a long bit in the California Men’s Penal Colony, where he continued to amaze fellow inmates with his hoop skills. The interviews with current NBA players and friends, along with Mitchell’s absence of bitterness, make “Hook” must-viewing for basketball fans. -- Gary Dretzka