April 2006
	by Max (with Walt Oleksy)	view previous issues here

It’s a pleasure to recommend not just one but several new DVD releases as contenders for best pick of the month. They were all Academy Award nominees or winners last month, and I give each two paws up and tail wags. My choice as best pick is the one that surprised everyone by losing as best picture.

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BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
No, it’s not really a gay cowboy movie. Too bad it got that tag, because it’s much more and better than that. Yes, it is about two guys who wear bluejeans and cowboy hats, but they’re sheep-herders who become strongly attracted to each other during a summer working alone together in the Montana mountains. I won’t reveal more, but urge everyone to see this exceptional movie that is perfectly cast and acted (by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal), beautifully written (E. Annie Proulx and Larry McMurtry), and photographed, and expertly directed by Ang Lee who justifiably won the Academy Award as best director. And yes, I believe it should have won the Best Picture Academy Award, especially since the winner, “Crash,” is, as I have previously reviewed, trash. From Alberta Filmworks, Focus Features, Paramount and Universal and others.

I’d like to quote from one review of the movie, which I heartily agree with. It was not written by a professional movie critic, but by a movie-goer from Canada:

“I was fortunate enough to see the North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. That was two days ago, and this film just won’t leave my mind. Not that I'm complaining, because this is what good cinema is all about… Ennis and Jack, two cowboys who fall in love. As others have touched on, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is so much more than merely a gay cowboy movie . It perfectly captures what true, unbridled love is all about and this love transcends any issues of sexuality or gender. Love is a force of nature. Unfortunately for many people and indeed the protagonists of our story, society doesn't always view it that way.”

Be cautioned, it does have brief nudity, but that sometimes happens between people in love.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I really liked this latest version of the oft-filmed romantic comedy, with Keira Knightley luminous as Elizabeth Bennett from Jane Austen’s beloved novel of manners and mating in Georgian England. Matthew Macfadyen ably plays Mr. Darcy, but it’s a role that calls for dour introversion and is easily overshadowed by the more spunky Lizzy. Beautifully acted, costumed, and amid authentic period settings, this is old-fashioned classic movie-making seldom seen on the screen today (of course it comes not from Hollywood but
from a co-British-French effort). It’s thoroughly delightful, although I still prefer the 1995 British television miniseries which starred Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, perhaps
because that was longer and could tell more of the story and character motivation. From Working Title Films, Studio Canal, and Universal Home Entertainment.

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

Almost a docudrama, a tribute to legendary television newsman Edward R. Murrow and his war with hate-monger Sen. Joseph McCarthy during America’s Communist witch-hunt period in the 1950s. David Strathairn looks like Murrow and deftly plays him, with very able support from Patricia Clarkson, Jeff Daniels, and others including George Clooney who won the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance. Clooney also directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Grant Heslov and is to be commended for giving us such an insightful movie. A co-production from France, Japan, the UK, and USA, it is on DVD from Warner Bros.

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

"Geishas were fashionistas, the supermodels of their time," says director Rob Marshall in an interview included with the movie on DVD. Two great Chinese beauties star in this excellent film set in Japan– newcomer Zhang Ziyi and the near-legendary Gong Li – based on Arthur Golden’s best-selling 1997 novel. The film tells about learning the art of being a woman in 1930s Japan. Fascinating and beautiful, from Sony Pictures.

WALK THE LINE

An excellent biopic about country singing legend Johnny Cash’s rise, fall, and rise again, with Joaquin Phoenix uncanny as Cash and Reese Witherspoon winning the best actress Oscar as June Carter Cash. Lots of great country singing (by the stars themselves) and a strong story with strong language, theme, and drug dependency. For mature audiences, so don’t take the kids to see it. From 20th-Century Fox.

CAPOTE

Not really a Truman Capote biopic, this excellent film focuses more on the diminutive, baby-faced, high-pitched-voiced iconoclast writer’s adventure into getting the interviews to write his landmark non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood. Capote was captivated by Perry Smith, one of the convicted killers of a Kansas family whom he interviewed behind bars. Was he using Smith to write a sensational book that would gain him wider fame than he already had achieved, or was Smith using him to gain a pardon? The movie attempts to answer these and other questions about the very talented but rather odd Capote. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Capote. One of the surprises of the movie is that the screenplay was written by the very talented young actor, Dan Futterman, who was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar from his script, from the book by Gerald Clarke. A very interesting and well-made movie indeed, from Sony
Pictures. Be cautioned for violence and strong language.

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

An Academy Award and Golden Globe contender, this is a real pleaser; a heart-warming whimsical story based on the childhood experiences of director-writer Noah Baumbach, of KICKING AND SCREAMING. Jeff Daniels, one of Hollywood’s most under-rated actors, wears a thick beard as the husband and Laura Linney plays the wife in this often hilarious portrait of a dysfunctional Brooklyn family in the mid-1980s. You’ll probably recognize yourself and your own childhood in this excellent film from Sony Pictures.

Also recommended this month:

THE DYING GAUL

This thriller will give you something(s) to think and wonder about. Who is doing what to whom and why? It’s a roller-coaster mind game played to perfection by Campbell Scott, Patricia Clarkson, and Peter Sarsgaard. Scott is a hugely successful and wealthy movie producer, Clarkson is his wife, and Sarsgaard is a kind-of beatnik screen writer who enters their life and at least Scott’s bed. To tell more would spoil the many intrigues and surprises in this taut drama that will make you wonder long after the film ends. It may not be completely satisfying in answering all your questions, but I always like a movie that leaves me guessing so I can draw my own conclusions. But the ending is a shocker.
From Sony Pictures who call it “A tale of lust, power, and betrayal set in the seductive world of the Hollywood elite.” Oh, yes. And more.

THE RED AND THE BLACK

Kim Rossi Stuart, the young French star who scored big in KEYS TO THE HOUSE, stars in this new film based on Stendahl’s classic novel. He plays a peasant who gets ahead in the world by adopting the mores of hypocrisy in which society operates. No, it’s not set in the present day but during the French Restoration, which was riddled with greed and corruption. Excellent new foreign film recently seen on the Bravo channel on television. From Koch-Lorber.

LORD MOUNTBATTEN: THE LAST VICEROY
The end of the 200-year British rule in India is told in this Emmy Award-winning Masterpiece Theatre drama. Nicol Williamson portrays Lord Mountbatten, a great grandson of Queen Victoria, while Ian Richardson is Pandit Nehru, and Sam Dastor is Mahatma Gandhi in this engrossing historical adventure recounting India’s transition to self-rule. The 2-DVD boxed set runs 306 minutes. Excellent historical drama from Acorn Media.

CUBAN BLOOD
Gael Garcia Bernal, Mexico’s hottest young actor, stars in this exciting drama set just before Cuba’s Communist revolution, telling the story of one boy living through it.  Harvey Keitel co-stars as an anti-Castro rebel also fighting President Batista’s police.
Strong stuff well-worth viewing, on DVD from Cinerenta and Velocity.

WHERE THE TRUTH LIES
Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon star as brothers in this erotic thriller. They’re a comedy team that becomes enmeshed in murder when a beautiful woman is found dead in their hotel suite. If you like mysteries with a sexy edge, you ought to take a look at this one, from Sony Pictures.

THE SCULPTRESS
This is a mystery in the grand British tradition that was recently shown on PBS and Masterpiece Theatre. Pauline Quirke stars as a convicted murderess whose nickname is the movie’s title because of how she does in her victims. Caroline Goodall plays a writer who tries to learn whether the killer, serving a life prison sentence, is innocent but protecting the real murderer. Based on the novel by Minette Walters, from WGBH Boston Video.

THE DARK
This spooky thriller is only for those who like them really on the dark side. Maria Bello fears that her missing daughter is being held prisoner in the land of the dead. Following an ancient Celtic myth, she attempts to rescue her child even though it could mean exchanging her life for her child’s. See what I mean: it’s very dark. Sean Bean co-stars as the missing girl’s father. The DVD has an alternate ending, but I won’t tell which one is more satisfying. From Impact Pictures, Constantin Film, and Sony Pictures.

THE TENANTS
A taut drama involving jealousy, racism, and obsession, this film based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize winning author Bernard Malamud stars Dylan McDermott as a writer struggling to finish his novel while living in a rundown tenement in Brooklyn in 1972.
He’s the only tenant until another writer moves into the building and they become artistic rivals, complicated by the new tenant’s girlfriend and the landlord intending to evict them and have the building demolished. Be cautioned that it is for mature audiences because it has strong language, some violence and sexual content and drug use. From Sony Pictures.

TAGGART
An off-beat blend of humor and crime-solving comes together well in the longest-running police detective drama on British television. Mark McManus plays Detective Chief Inspector Jim Taggart attempting to solve numerous crimes in Glasgow, Scotland. “Britain’s grittiest police series,” says one critic. “A perfect mix of razor-sharp humor and knife-edge violence,” says another. They got that right. From BFS Entertainment.

Play it again, Sam

Six classic Busby Berkeley musicals are now on DVD, beautifully restored in the original black and white and with wonderful music soundtracks. Berkeley came to the movies from choreographing and directing Broadway shows when the movies had just begun to talk, and immediately taught them how to sing and dance as well as talk. His highly imaginative staging of production numbers set a standard never equaled much less surpassed. The movies include the legendary 42nd STREET and FOOTLIGHT PARADE, plus DAMES and GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 and the 1935 edition of that series. Stars include James Cagney, Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell, Gloria Stuart, Dick Powell, Glenda Farrell and most of the old Warner Brothers stock company. Wonderful nostalgic fun in a six-disc set or individually from Warners.

About as much John Wayne as you could ask for is offered in THE ULTIMATE JOHN WAYNE FILM COLLECTION, a 7-DVD boxed set with 25 feature-length films, mostly from his early career. Westerns include ANGEL AND THE BADMAN and many of his early 1930s sagebrush adventures and other action genres. The hit of the collection is the action-comedy western, McCLINTOCK From Passport Video and Koch Entertainment.

The renewed popularity of country singer Johnny Cash, because of the biopic “Walk the Line,” prompts release on DVD of two movies: I WALK THE LINE, a 1970 western with Cash and June Carter Cash, Gregory Peck, John Schneider, Kriss Kristofferson, and Tuesday Weld; and STAGECOACH, with Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings in a vintage television remake of the John Ford classic western. Both from Sony Pictures.

Some recent favorite romances as Sony Pictures double-feature DVDs, all of them well worth watching again or for the first time. They include Julia Roberts hits MONA LISA SMILE and AMERICAN SWEETHEARTS, THE MAN IN THE MOON and BENNY AND JUNE, and Reese Witherspoon, this year’s best actress Oscar winner, in LEGALLY BLONDE 1 & 2. Go ahead, make your heart-mate’s day.

WALKING THE BIBLE

As recently seen on PBS-Television, author Bruce Feiler turns his best-seller of the same name into a road trip through the lands of the Bible, getting a more historical perspective on the people and places of the ancient world. With an archaeologist, Feiler visits an area of Iraq where some believe the Garden of Eden was located, travels to Mt. Ararat where Noah’s Ark is said to have come to rest in Turkey, and other Biblical locations. Excellent historical-religious adventure in every way, in a 2-DVD set from WGBH Boston Video.

SECRETS OF LOST EMPIRES
How did engineers of civilizations in the ancient world build such incredible landmarks as the pyramids of Egypt, the obelisk of the pharos, the coliseum of Rome, Stonehenge in England, and the citadels of the Incas? A 5-hour series from NOVA attempts to answer the fascinating question with the aid of current engineers and historians. With printable materials for educators, the DVD is from WGBH Boston Video.

THE MUMMY WHO WOULD BE KING
Could a shriveled mummy that had long lain neglected on a museum shelf in Niagara Falls be the remains of Rameses I, founder of Egypt’s illustrious 19th dynasty? The fascinating odyssey of the mummy and attempts to discover who it was in life were dramatized in a NOVA documentary, now on DVD from WGBH Boston Video.

HAWAII’S LAST QUEEN
The life and reign of Queen Lili’uokalani, born in 1838 and ascending to the throne after her brother’s death in 1891, is told in an American Experience television documentary now on DVD from WGBH Boston Video. In a power struggle with American sugar growers and the U.S. government, her reign lasted only two years, when U.S. Marines dethroned her and the Hawaiian people lost their kingdom. It’s a fascinating story now on DVD from WGBH Boston Video.

BAMBI II

Walt Disney probably would have approved of this sequel to his beloved classic because it remains essentially true to the original. Two important factors in its favor are that neither the animation nor the music is computer-generated. It’s really a very sweet story, taking up from the death of Bambi’s mother and focusing on the growing bond between
Bambi and his father, the King of the Forest. Old friends Thumper, Flower, and Owl are also in the story, which runs a little over an hour and could have been longer. Better than
most everything else for children from Hollywood today. From Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

HIP HOP FOR KIDS
If this is the only way to pull your kids away from violent computer games and dumb television shows, go for it. This DVD shows kids how to dance and stay in shape, promising “it’s so kid-friendly and entertaining, they won’t even know it’s good for them.”   For ages 7-16, from Jumping Fish Productions, it has received a Parent’s Choice Recommendation from the Film Advisory Board’s Award of Excellence, and will be available May 30.

It’s hard to excuse whoever put together the list of movie people who died in the year before the 2006 Academy Awards, because they failed to include two great ladies of the screen. So I won’t excuse them, but will honor Ruth Hussey and Ruth Warrick here.

Ruth Hussey, born 1911 in Providence, Rhode Island, was an ancestor of Christopher Hussey who was one of the original purchasers of Nantucket Island, Mass. After studying drama at Brown University and the University of Michigan, she became a radio fashion commentator and then a Powers model. Discovered by a MGM casting agent while in the Los Angeles stage production of “Dead End” in 1937, she was signed to a contract with the studio and became one of its most reliable actresses. After NORTHWEST PASSAGE and FLIGHT COMMAND, she was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar as the scandal magazine photographer who almost lost James Stewart to Katharine Hepburn in 1940’s THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. She was busy in movies during the World War II years, most notably as Robert Young’s devoted wife in H.M. PULHAM, ESQ. (be sure to see it on Turner Classic Movies next time it shows); and as Ray Milland’s charming sister in the classic ghost story, THE UNINVITED. In 1949 she was tennis player Jordan Baker in the Alan Ladd version of THE GREAT GATSBY (by far superior to Robert Redford’s later take on the F. Scott Fitzgerald masterpiece). She appeared in more than 40 films before turning to the stage and television. She died at the age of 93 on April 19, 2005 in a California nursing home from complications after a hospital stay for appendicitis. We will remember her beauty, graciousness, and movie appearances very fondly.

Ruth Warrick was born 1916 in St. Joseph, Mo. After college and a brief period as a radio singer, she went to New York and became a member of Orson Wells’ Mercury Theater. She made her indelible movie debut in Welles’ CITIZEN KANE in 1941, as the newspaper magnet Kane’s first wife, and later appeared in Welles’ JOURNEY INTO FEAR. Warrick also was notable in Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’s THE CORSICAN BROTHERS and Walt Disney’s SONG OF THE SOUTH, then appeared in a number
of lesser movies before turning to television in the 1950s. She became a legend as a soap opera queen playing matriarch Phoebe Tyler Wallingford in “All My Children,” from its first airing in 1970 to an appearance shortly before her death. The role won her millions of fans and two Emmy nominations and an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. She died of pneumonia at the age of 89 on January 15, 2005. Her beauty, elegance, and acting ability also will be long and fondly remembered.

See you next month at the same fire hydrant.