Deep Pockets Recommends...
by Brian Eggert
July 2011 Recommendations
The below DVD and Blu-ray picks from Deep Pockets include this site’s top home video recommendations for July, 2011, everything from modern masterpieces to landmark classics. Click the Amazon.com link, preorder away, and help support Deep Focus Review. To see a full directory of upcoming titles, check out the Calendar or visit Deep Pockets for a more complete shopping list.
July 12:
Brazil
Consider this first entry a warning rather than a recommendation. Universal’s new Blu-ray of Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil will serve its purpose for non-enthusiasts only. It may be the first and only version of the film available in the HD format, but that doesn’t mean cinephiles should rush out to drop a penny on this edition. Just as with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Universal wants to earn a pretty penny on their own Blu-ray disc before allowing The Criterion Collection, whose superior edition remains on the DVD format only, rights to distribute their own Blu-ray edition. The downfall here: no extras and a runtime of 132 min vs. Criterion’s “director’s cut” length of 142 min. Waiting a year or more for Criterion’s Blu-ray seems like the wiser choice, but, a Blu-ray of Brazil is now available if you want it.
The Lincoln Lawyer
Better than just another serviceable legal thriller, The Lincoln Lawyer crackles with energy thanks to a welcome return to real acting by Matthew McConaughey. Based on Michael Connelly’s book, the result reminds us that McConaughey earned his stardom from another legal thriller, Josh Grisham’s A Time to Kill. A better rental than purchase, this entertaining movie may contain predictable plotting, but it has enough expert casting flourishes courtesy of McConaughey, William H. Macy, and Marisa Tomei to make viewing worthwhile. The DVD/Blu-ray package contains a making-of documentary, a feature dedicated to Michael Connelly, a one-on-one conversation between McConaughey and Connelly, and deleted scenes.
July 15:
Rango
Gore Verbinski’s Rango derives inspiration from countless Westerns, embraces a self-aware style, and delivers a picture conceived from clever storytelling and gorgeous animation—easily the best animation of 2011 thus far. Johnny Depp voices the eponymous chameleon, a protagonist searching for meaning in the desert. He finds his purpose in Dirt, a makeshift Western town dying of thirst. Disguising himself as a gunslinger, this actor becomes his role through an exciting, at times existential adventure. The disc contains an alternate ending, ten deleted scenes, commentary by Verbinski, a storyboard-to-film comparison, a behind-the-scenes doc, and plenty more. As the first full-length feature animated by Industrial Light & Magic, Verbinski’s highly textured world should look breathtaking on Blu-ray (hence the “Disc of the Month” pick), making this a must-buy for animation lovers, Western enthusiasts, or fans of just-plain-good filmmaking.
July 19:
Beauty and the Beast
Jean Cocteau’s beautiful and poetic version of Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) is upgraded in a new Blu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection. Easily the best live-action adaptation of this classic tale, Cocteau’s version features dreamy performances by Jean Marais and Josette Day, and impressive, transportive makeup and special effects. Criterion’s disc contains a combination of materials available on their previous DVD edition and exclusives only available on this Blu-ray. Among features are Philip Glass’s opera La Belle et la Bête as an alternate soundtrack, the documentary Screening at the Majestic, separate commentaries by historians Arthur Knight and Sir Christopher Frayling, and a loaded booklet filled with writings on the film, including a new essay by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien.
Cracks
All but buried by distributors at IFC, Cracks, the first film by Jordan Scott, daughter of Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), aligns nicely with her father’s scenery-driven debut The Duelists. Unfortunately, like that film, the video presentation is less than ideal and offers no Blu-ray option to consumers. Eva Green leads an excellent all-female cast as a liberal teacher who influences her students and feeds on their worship of her. When a new, smarter, and prettier student arrives, challenging Green’s character, the teacher begins to show signs of instability, leading to a powerful and haunting climax. This DVD edition is certainly worth picking up for those interested in dramas set on the English countryside—and Scott’s keen eye for her setting should come across beautifully regardless of the standard-quality transfer.
July 26:
High and Low
Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low remains one of the Japanese director’s greatest achievements, a skilled crime thriller and confronting social commentary merged together in a unique whole. Toshiro Mifune plays an industrialist forced to liquidate his assets and give up his comfortable life and promising future to save his servant’s kidnapped child. Filled with meticulous police procedural detail and grave moral considerations, the film is perhaps Kurosawa’s most potent assessment of postwar Japan. Criterion’s new Blu-ray edition carries over all the supplements from their previous two-disc DVD edition, but with a new audio and video transfer worthy of HD. The features include commentary by Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince, an excerpt on High and Low from the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, an interview with Mifune from 1984, and a booklet featuring an on-set account by scholar Donald Richie.
Leon Morin, Priest
In Léon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre) by Jean-Pierre Melville (Army of Shadows), the French filmmaker considers a taboo subject. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a man of the cloth who attracts the women of his small, Nazi-occupied village. Combining a brooding tone with the provocative setting, Melville’s picture proceeds as Belmondo’s priest grows attracted to a widow whose sexual frustrations and religious uncertainties reflect his own. A clever and subversive film, it’s without a doubt one of the director’s most powerful wartime commentaries. Criterion’s release features a television interview with Melville and Belmondo from 1961, selected-scene commentary by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau, an essay by critic and novelist Gary Indiana, and excerpts from the book Melville on Melville. (Order Leon Morin, Priest
