FILM FRENZY

Robert and David Carradine, Randy Quaid, Stacy and James Keach, and Keith Carradine in The Long Riders (Photo: Kino & MGM)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY (1941). It’s rather remarkable, and rather absurd, that Bernard Herrmann, despite writing so many magnificent film scores throughout his career — Psycho, North By Northwest, Taxi Driver, Cape Fear, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad represent but a mere sampling — only won a single, solitary Academy Award during his lifetime. And it wasn’t even for one of his contributions to enduring classics (alas, he only received a wimpy five nominations over 35 years, none for his many Hitchcock collaborations) but rather for a movie that’s not referenced much these days. That’s not a knock against All That Money Can Buy and certainly not a knock against his score — indeed, it’s a delightful piece of work, and it remains the biggest claim to fame of this expansion of Stephen Vincent Benet’s short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (also the film’s alternate title over the years). The morality tale finds the famed politician Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) taking on “Mr. Scratch” (Walter Huston) to save the soul of a simple farmer (James Craig). Craig’s performance is ofttimes downright terrible, but old pros Arnold and Huston pick up the pace, and the movie also offers a chance to catch sensuous French actress Simone Simon (as a wicked temptress) a year before she headlined the classic Cat People. Huston earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his twinkly turn as a mischievous, glad-handing devil, and, in addition to his victory for this film, Herrmann received a second Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture nomination that year, for something called Citizen Kane.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by film scholar Bruce Eder and Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith; a reading of Benet’s story by Alec Baldwin; and a restoration demonstration.

Movie: ★★★

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (2023). The 15th and final film in the DCEU, which is mercifully being put out of its misery to make room for the new-and-improved(?) DCU, this opens with one character getting blasted in the face by a stream of baby urine and ends with another cheerfully munching on a live cockroach. I can’t recall every scene from all 33 MCU flicks, but did, say, Captain America or Doctor Strange ever have to suffer such indignities? Then again, that’s par for the course when it comes to a movie as silly, simplistic, and sophomoric as this one. The regurgitated plot finds Arthur Curry / Aquaman (Jason Momoa) again having to contend with the vengeance-driven Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), this time turning to his estranged half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) for aid. Aquaman sported a pair of dull villains in Black Manta and Orm (aka Ocean Master); the sibling shift at least allows Orm to banter with Arthur — it’s a development that perks up Wilson, who was atypically monotonous in the first film — but Black Manta remains as broodily boring as before. As Aqua-Arthur, Momoa doubtless spent hours studying Chris Hemsworth’s Thor as if he were cramming for an exam — like its predecessor, this plagiarizes Thor: Ragnarok’s nyuk-nyuk humor, but the gags again land with the force of a dropped anvil. Nicole Kidman returns as Arthur’s mommy Atlanna, and her check must not have been sizable enough because she can barely disguise her contempt for this material (or perhaps for the genre itself). The visual effects are a slight improvement over the ones from the 2018 Aquaman, but no amount of CGI can conceal a plotline as banal as the one employed here.

Extras in the 4K UHD + Digital Code edition include a making-of featurette and a piece on that goofy octopus.

Movie: ★½

THE COLOR PURPLE (2023). For those needing a refresher course, this new version of The Color Purple is not based on the 1985 movie, despite that picture’s director (Steven Spielberg), producer (Quincy Jones), and co-star (Oprah Winfrey) all signing on as co-producers. Rather, it’s based on the hit Broadway musical, which, like the ’85 flick, was of course adapted from Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The controversy surrounding the previous screen adaptation — some loved it, some hated it, and one industry wag even accused Spielberg of taking great source material and turning it into a “zip-a-dee-doo-dah Song of the South” — did not circle this version. Alas, neither did the robust sales, as this take was, unlike its highly successful predecessor, a box office bomb (a $94M haul vs. a $15M budget then, a $60M haul vs. a $100M budget now). That’s a shame, because, pound for pound, this is the superior version, wringing as much emotion out of viewers as the previous picture but thankfully leaving aside its tonal inconsistencies (especially those Keystone Kops moments). The cast is excellent — particularly Fantasia Barrino as the hard-luck Celie, recent Rustin Oscar nominee Colman Domingo as the cruel Mister, and Danielle Brooks (deservedly earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination) as the spirited Sofia — and the narrative is so strong that the movie need not live or die by its musical numbers (which, for the most part, are deftly executed).

Extras in the 4K UHD + Digital Code edition consist of a making-of featurette; a look at the story’s characters; a peek at the creation of the musical numbers; and a look back at Walker’s novel and Spielberg’s film.

Movie: ★★★½

FEAR AND DESIRE (1953). According to Stanley Kubrick, his career began with the 1956 film noir gem The Killing. He had a strong dislike for his sophomore effort, 1955’s Killer’s Kiss (reviewed here), and absolutely loathed his debut feature. In fact, Kubrick so despised Fear and Desire that not only did he use such words as “embarrassing” and “amateurish” to describe it, he also sought to have all prints destroyed after its release. It remained impossible to locate for decades, only reemerging in the 1990s. Since then, it’s been publicly shown on a number of occasions and often released on home video, but Kino’s new 4K / Blu-ray release changes the dynamics once more. This edition not only includes the 62-minute version that’s been making the rounds ever since the picture’s rediscovery but also contains the 70-minute cut that hasn’t been seen since 1953, when Kubrick screened it under the title Shape of Fear before pulling it and trimming eight minutes of footage. This is exciting, even important, news, but what it doesn’t obscure is the fact that the picture itself remains a Kubrick curio rather than an integral part of his filmography. Written by Howard Sackler (later a Pulitzer Prize winner for The Great White Hope), it follows four soldiers who are trapped behind enemy lines. There are several interesting shot selections (as well as some irksome ones) and peeks at burgeoning Kubrick themes (such as war’s dehumanizing nature), but the story is threadbare and the dialogue heavy-handed. It’s essential viewing for cineastes and Kubrick completists, as long as no one expects an undiscovered masterpiece.

Extras include film historian audio commentary and Kubrick’s short films Flying Padre, Day of the Fight (both 1951), and The Seafarers (1953).

Movie: ★★

A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE (1971). Italian director Sergio Leone turned Clint Eastwood into a superstar with his “Man With No Name” trilogy and also significantly boosted Charles Bronson’s leading-man status with the Western masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West. Neither tough guy is on hand for this rowdy epic set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, but you do get Rod Steiger as a Mexican bandit (a suitably hammy turn, even if his accent often slips into the Southern twang he employed in In the Heat of the Night) and James Coburn as the Irish explosives expert who awakens the self-centered bandido’s anarchic spirit and sense of national pride. As with most Leone works, A Fistful of Dynamite (which also made the rounds under the monikers Duck, You Sucker and Once Upon a Time … the Revolution) is full of sly humor and startling camerawork, and it also finds the legendary Ennio Morricone contributing one of his most offbeat scores. This would prove to not only be Leone’s final Western but also his penultimate feature film — he would later helm the 1984 gangster yarn Once Upon a Time in America before calling it a career.

A Fistful of Dynamite was released in the U.S. on two separate occasions in 1972, with running times of 120 minutes and 138 minutes. Fortunately, it’s Leone’s original 157-minute cut that has been making the home-video rounds in recent years, and this new edition from Kino is no exception. Extras include audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox (Straight to Hell); audio commentary by film historian and Leone scholar Sir Christopher Frayling; a discussion of Leone by Frayling; a remembrance by co-scripter Sergio Donati; a piece on the movie’s different versions; and trailers for all five of Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns.

Movie: ★★★

THE LION IN WINTER (1968). Plenty of swords and knives make appearances in The Lion in Winter, but none can possibly cut as deep as the caustic dialogue penned by scripter James Goldman (adapting his own play) and captured by director Anthony Harvey. Peter O’Toole, who had previously portrayed King Henry II in 1964’s Becket, again tackles the role, this time as an older ruler who spars with his alienated wife, Eleanor of Aquitane (Katharine Hepburn), over which of their sons should become king after he dies. Henry favors the youngest, the bratty and seemingly simple-minded John (Nigel Terry), while Eleanor throws her weight behind the oldest, the fierce yet aloof Richard the Lionheart (Anthony Hopkins in his feature film debut); neither cares for the middle son, the perpetually scheming Geoffrey (John Castle). Also adding to the drama are Henry’s mistress Anais (Jane Merrow) and her brother, France’s King Philip II (Timothy Dalton, also making his movie debut). The gloves are off between all the characters in this rousing period romp showcasing formidable turns by Hepburn and O’Toole (the latter all of 35 during filming but convincingly playing 50). Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (O’Toole, who unjustly lost to Cliff Robertson’s shameless campaigning for the indifferently received Charly), this won for Best Actress (Hepburn’s third of four career wins), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score (John Barry). Trivia aside: While the Directors Guild Award has been a remarkably accurate barometer of who would go on to win the Best Director Oscar — only eight times in 76 years have they differed — this marked the first occasion that the DGA winner did not also snag the Oscar, with Harvey winning the DGA for this film but Carol Reed snagging the Oscar for Oliver!

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Harvey; an interview with sound recordist Simon Kaye; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★½

THE LONG RIDERS (1980). The Long Riders sounds like merely a gimmick: Cast real-life brothers as real-life outlaw siblings. But with director Walter Hill (back in his glory years) in charge, it turned out to be one of the last decent Westerns to hit the big screen until the early 1990s brought us the one-two punch of Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven. The Keaches (Stacy, James), the Carradines (David, Keith, Robert), the Quaids (Dennis, Randy), and the Guests (Christopher, Nicholas) respectively portray the James, Younger, Miller, and Ford brothers, and the picture episodically follows them as they rob banks, bicker among themselves, and attempt to forge some semblance of personal lives. In addition to respectively playing Frank and Jesse James, Stacy and James Keach also co-wrote the script and served as executive producers, but they were generous enough not to make themselves rise above the ensemble. All of the characterizations are interesting and all of the performances memorable, although it’s amusing to note that, in this picture dominated by men, the best work comes courtesy of Pamela Reed as the fiery Belle Starr.

Blu-ray extras include film historian audio commentary; a making-of featurette; interviews with Hill, the Carradines, the Keaches, Randy Quaid, Nicholas Guest, producer Tim Zinnemann, and composer Ry Cooder; a breakdown of the Northfield Minnesota Raid scene; a short piece in which Hill discusses director Sam Peckinpah (for whom he had written the script for 1972’s The Getaway); and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

POOR THINGS (2023). Other films fared better throughout awards season (although not many), but Poor Things is the one that earned my vote as the best picture of 2023 (go here for the complete list). Working from Alasdair Gray’s same-named novel, director Yorgos Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara (their 2018 release The Favourite likewise earned my vote as the best picture of that year; go here) have fashioned a true oddity, a Frankenstein Meets Forrest Gump flick filtered through a feminist focus. Emma Stone, taking a bold leap up to the level of today’s greatest actresses, stars as Bella, a suicide victim who’s brought back to life in the most fantastical way by quirky scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under the tutelage of Godwin, the childlike Bella receives an education within the strict confines of home, but as she matures, she realizes she wants to explore the outside world. And thus she takes off with a seedy lawyer (a hilarious Mark Ruffalo), growing ever more bold as she samples life’s perils and pleasures and in the process discovers her true self. To say that Poor Things isn’t for everyone is an understatement, yet those willing to go along for the sometimes gross yet always giddy ride will experience a movie that, much like Barbie, illustrates how a woman who knows nothing of our world’s crippling problems and prejudices might carve her own path in pursuit of becoming fully human and fully independent. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Ruffalo), Director, and Adapted Screenplay, this nabbed Stone a richly deserved Oscar for Best Actress as well as three additional statues for its sets, costumes, and makeup design.

Blu-ray extras consist of a making-of featurette and three deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★★½

QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER (1990). It’s fortuitous for film fanatics that Tom Selleck’s Magnum P.I. duties prevented him from accepting the role of Indiana Jones — yes, he was George Lucas’ first choice, not Harrison Ford (although Steven Spielberg wanted Ford all along) — since he’s long proven himself to be an actor of limited range. His perfectly acceptable but rather one-note style is best utilized in forgettable fare like the box office smash Three Men and a Baby and the box office flops Runaway and Mr. Baseball. Or like Quigley Down Under, a dopey adventure yarn that plops an American cowboy into an Australian setting. Selleck stars as Matthew Quigley, a sharpshooter who journeys to the land down under in the 1860s to work for a wealthy landowner (Alan Rickman) who claims he needs help with keeping the dingo population down. But when Quigley learns that the cattle baron really wants him to exterminate the Aborigines he feels are trespassing on his property, he vehemently and violently refuses, thereby making himself as unwanted as the indigenous locals. As was often the case, Rickman’s the best thing about this clumsy, unfocused, and uneven film, which loses any chance at saving itself whenever an overbearing Laura San Giacomo, as a wayward Texan named Crazy Cora, turns up on screen — and she turns up a lot.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition include a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette; an interview with San Giacomo; a piece in which master armorer Mike Tristano discusses the Sharps Rifle, the long-range weapon used by Selleck’s character in the film; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★

THE 355 (2022). There’s a tendency to attach the word “feminist” to any movie that takes a traditionally male-centric genre and fills the leading roles with women. But that’s a lazy and often erroneous approach. Thelma & Louise is a feminist work; so are the horror film The Descent and the superhero saga Wonder Woman. The 355, on the other hand, simply feels like a standard action yarn in which the central characters just happen to be women instead of Ethan Hunt or Jason Bourne. The picture is a sampling of girl power with a United Nations twist, as five global operatives — American (Jessica Chastain), British (Lupita Nyong’o), German (Diane Kruger), Colombian (Penelope Cruz), and Chinese (Fan Bingbing) — pool their resources in order to stop a wide range of bad guys from activating some gizmo that can basically cripple the world. The 355 is the sort of movie that doesn’t trust the intelligence of its audience — that’s a given when there’s a cityscape shot that captures the Eiffel Tower and the filmmakers feel the need to tag the location as “Paris, France.” Writer-director Simon Kinberg, co-scripting with playwright Theresa Rebeck, is the guy who brought down the once-proud X-Men franchise with the painful Dark Phoenix, and this effort shows the same general inefficiency when it comes to such cinematic niceties as dialogue, characterization, and thrillingly staged action sequences. The 355 isn’t a bad movie — rather, it’s aggressively average — and any lift it receives is, not surprisingly, provided by its powerhouse cast, Kruger in particular.

Extras in the 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Code edition include behind-the-scenes pieces focusing on the stunt work and the production design; deleted scenes; and VFX breakdowns.

Movie: ★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

THE CRUCIBLE (1996). Written in the midst of the McCarthy era as a thinly veiled attack on the Communist witch hunts that were disrupting the very fabric of the nation, Arthur Miller’s play has long since broken the shackles of that period and emerged as a timeless commentary on the evil that men (and women) do — especially under insincere veneers of righteousness and religion. Small wonder, then, that this superb adaptation, penned by Miller himself, remains as topical as ever (both in 1996 and 2024), with its trenchant themes — of hypocrisy, hatemongering, and political coups d’etat — crawling all over each other like worms in a can. Set in the Salem of 1692, the film finds venal Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder) triggering a mass hysteria in which accusations of witchcraft are resulting in the executions of innocent people; among those targeted by the immoral minority are farmer John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his wife Elizabeth (Joan Allen). The lead performances are all impeccable, with Day-Lewis’ zesty rectitude contrasting smartly with Allen’s quiet goodness, which in turn strikes the right balance with Ryder’s unrepentant monstrousness. Yet top acting honors go to the magnificent Paul Scofield as Judge Danforth, the McCarthyesque agent of evil who presides over the trials. The Crucible earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Allen) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Miller), but it should have earned many more, including one for Best Picture — it’s truly one of the great forgotten (and underrated) films of its era.

Movie: ★★★★