FILM FRENZY

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Photo: Criterion)

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.)

AFFLICTION (1998). As writer and/or director, Paul Schrader has spent much of his career on movies featuring tormented men who have settled on rage as the most viable way to express their inner feelings — think, for instance, of his scripts for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Light Sleeper, and Rolling Thunder (reviewed below). In this adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel, the protagonist follows suit, but there’s a key difference: More so than his screen antecedents, he tries to suppress, even diffuse, the fury that boils within him. Small-town sheriff Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) wants to be a different man than his father Glen (James Coburn), a brute whose passions in life have always been drowning in booze and terrorizing his two sons (the other is played as an adult by Willem Dafoe). Wade isn’t a bad guy; he’s just a perpetual screw-up, but he sees a chance at redemption when he begins to suspect that the accidental death of a union boss might have been murder. Convinced that he would be hailed as a hero if he cracks the case, he presses forward, not realizing that every step he makes brings him closer to a final confrontation with the father who has irrevocably scarred him. A number of storylines simultaneously weave their way through the film, but Schrader keeps a tight grip on all of them, laying them atop each other until they all end up pointing the way toward the devastating conclusion. Nolte is phenomenal in what’s a career performance, and he’s nearly matched by Coburn, whose genial screen image melts away in the wake of his frightening turn. Coburn won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but Nolte was only nominated for Best Actor, absurdly beaten by the buffoonish Roberto Benigni for that extended Hogan’s Heroes episode.

The only Blu-ray extra is the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★½

ALIENS (1986) / THE ABYSS (1989) / TRUE LIES (1994). Fans have seemingly been clamoring since those days when the auto-da-fé was all the rage in Europe, but, at long last, both The Abyss and True Lies have finally made it to Blu-ray (and 4K!). Joining them in their coming-out party is the re-release of another James Cameron title, Aliens.

Fans of Ridley Scott’s influential Alien will violently (and understandably) disagree, but here’s that rare sequel that’s actually superior to its predecessor. That’s no knock against Scott’s 1979 classic, which remains an excellent science fiction film and an excellent horror film — it’s just that I prefer Cameron’s follow-up, which remains an excellent science fiction film, an excellent horror film, an excellent action film, and an excellent war film. Given the picture’s enduring popularity, there’s really no point in rehashing the plot — in a nutshell, Ripley (series star Sigourney Weaver) heads back into space and leads a team of military grunts against the nasty extra-terrestrials — but there’s always room to rehash many of the highlights: Weaver’s terrific performance in the central role; the contrast between the courageous Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn) and the cowardly Private Hudson (Bill Paxton); the escalating villainy of company man Burke (Paul Reiser); scripter Cameron’s ability to keep piling on confrontations and director Cameron’s ability to keep milking them for maximum tension; and, of course, those wonderful alien creations. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Weaver, this won for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Effects Editing.

There were shooting delays, troublesome equipment, and a ballooning budget. Cameron’s tyrannical behavior was so grotesque that he has yet to completely live it down. Leading man Ed Harris nearly drowned, broke down crying during production, and refuses to ever discuss the picture. And leading lady Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio suffered a nervous breakdown during shooting and has since disowned the film. Given all this, it’s something of a miracle that The Abyss turned out to be a pretty good movie. After an American nuclear submarine gets destroyed while on patrol, the members of a nearby underwater oil-drilling facility are sent to search for survivors. Bud Brigman (Harris) is the team foreman, and the outfit is joined by Lindsey Brigman (Mastrantonio), the rig designer and Bud’s soon-to-be-ex, and a SEAL team led by the humorless Lt. Coffey (Michael Biehn). At first, Soviet aggression is suspected, but it soon becomes clear that an otherworldly entity is involved. The Abyss works so well as a straightforward thriller — the tension mounts with each new watery challenge — that the e.t. angle, basically Close Encounters of the Nautical Kind, almost feels like an afterthought, complete with an anticlimactic ending. Nominated for four Oscars, this won for Best Visual Effects.

A globe-trotting spy with a licence to kill, a fondness for gadgets, and an irresistibility to women is assigned to vanquish an army of heavily armed extremists. Yes, it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger as James Bond, the major difference being that this secret agent is happily married and unswervingly faithful. True Lies finds Arnold cast as Harry Tasker, whose spy status is so covert that Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), his mousy wife of 15 years, and their rebellious daughter Dana (a 13-year-old Eliza Dushku) believe him to be a boring software salesman. But Harry’s personal and professional lives inadvertently mingle when his family becomes the target of the Islamic terrorists he’s pursuing. Cameron is of course known for his remarkable action set-pieces, and amidst the bloat of True Lies can be found a couple of keepers (particularly a horse-and-motorcycle chase through a crowded hotel). But considering that nearly every other Cameron flick features a strong female at its center, the casual misogyny comes as a surprise, from the ridiculous character of Helen to the ugly wisecracks by Harry’s partner (Tom Arnold). The movie has also had to contend with criticisms of xenophobia and its treatment of girly-men (Bill Paxton is good in a humiliating role), but those slants are more up for debate. Yet even without a sociopolitical analysis, the film isn’t as fleet-footed or perpetually exciting as the material warrants.

As expected, the clarity on these discs is stunning — for example, True Lies is so crystal-clear that it’s easy to see that it’s a stuntman and not Arnie riding that horsey through the hotel. Aliens contains both the 137-minute theatrical version and the 154-minute Special Edition (go with the longer version), while The Abyss offers both the 140-minute theatrical version and the 171-minute Special Edition (go with the shorter version). Various extras on the titles (sold individually) include making-of featurettes, interviews, and more.

Aliens: ★★★★

The Abyss: ★★★

True Lies: ★★½

AMÉLIE (2001). After making his mark with the delightfully deranged films Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet made the ill-fated mistake of going Hollywood by overseeing the disappointing Alien: Resurrection. Amélie found Jeunet back in his element, as the creator of enchanting, quirky comedies that, like their central characters, march to their own (off)beat. An international sensation upon its release, Amélie (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulaini) is a disarming piece about an eccentric young woman (irresistible Audrey Tautou) who takes it upon herself to improve the lives of those around her. Her methods are unorthodox but effective, yet in the midst of her busybody schedule, she slowly realizes her own life could use some assistance when it comes to romance. On paper, this doesn’t sound much different than, say, Emma, Hello, Dolly! or Chocolat (three other works about matchmakers unlocking their own passions), but Jeunet and co-writer Guillaume Laurant never run with the conventional, preferring instead to pack their movie with unexpected literalizations (when Amélie spots her intended, she actually dissolves in a puddle of water), wildly original gags (keep your eye on that garden gnome), and the sort of touching asides that will bring sighs of recognition from appreciative viewers. This nabbed five Academy Award nominations, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay; unfairly overlooked was Yann Tiersen for his wonderful score (which lived in my CD player for a spell).

Extras in the Blu-ray SteelBook edition include audio commentary by Jeunet; a making-of featurette; an interview with Jeunet; cast auditions; and storyboard comparisons.

Movie: ★★★½

FREE STATE OF JONES (2016). Forget 12 Years a Slave: Just as much history can be found in the eight minutes required to listen to Guns N’ Roses’ “Civil War” as can be derived from the 140 minutes needed to watch this period effort which could easily have been named 2 Hours a Slog. Always earnest but only intermittently interesting, it suffers from ineffectual staging, a screenplay that’s both cluttered and incomplete, and too many examples betraying the maxim of “show, don’t tell.” “I don’t need your Civil War,” warbled Axl Rose. “It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.” That defines the mindset of Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), a Southern farmer who fights in the Confederate Army but soon realizes that he and his fellow grunts are only spilling blood to protect the interests of the fat-cat slave owners. He opts to desert his outfit, emerging over time as Mississippi’s own Robin Hood and fighting for the rights of the region’s poor whites and enslaved blacks. This has the makings of an engrossing and important movie, more so since it neatly ties into today’s racial strife (and more so if we return to Trump’s AmeriKKKa). But the film is so poorly paced and constructed that its themes never take root in any significant manner, with too much scrolling text and a clumsily integrated subplot (involving a trial over miscegenation, taking place 85 years after the war) serving as but two of the culprits. McConaughey delivers a strong performance, but his character is one-note, with no flaws but plenty of didactic speeches — including a tone-deaf one in which he states that he and other poor whites are just as much “n*****s” as any black person. Yes, because living in a dilapidated shack is comparable to being routinely chained, beaten, raped, castrated, and lynched.

The only Blu-ray extra is a featurette on the history of Jones County.

Movie: ★★

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975). It’s Valentine’s Day 1900, and the stern headmistress (Rachel Roberts) of an Australian girls’ school allows two teachers, the charming Mlle. de Poitiers (Helen Morse) and the stuffy Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray), to take the establishment’s teen charges on a picnic to the base of an imposing edifice known as Hanging Rock. Over the course of the day, three students as well as Miss McCraw will travel up into the rocky structure and simply disappear; with one exception, none will ever be seen again. Were they murdered? Abducted by aliens? Became one with nature? That’s the haunting mystery that partially drives what proved to be one of the key films of the Australian New Wave, the exciting explosion of cinema that occurred Down Under during the 1970s. Working from Cliff Green’s script (itself based on Joan Lindsay’s popular novel), director Peter Weir crafts a heavily atmospheric drama that’s steeped in sexual imagery and ideas, from the phallic-like nature of the rock with all its vaginal passages to the shot of virginal schoolgirls attempting (and failing) to tamp down their own erotic stirrings via constrictive corsets. Yet the film also works as an examination of the contrast between the unpredictability of this untamed landscape and the rigid societal rules of willfully naïve outsiders — a theme it has in common with another Aussie classic, Nicolas Roeg’s superb 1971 Walkabout. Weir would of course go on to forge a terrific Hollywood career crammed with the quality likes of Witness, Fearless, and The Truman Show.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include a making-of piece; a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette; an interview with Weir; and Weir’s 1971 directorial feature Homesdale.

Movie: ★★★½

ROLLING THUNDER (1977). One of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite movies — he named his short-lived distribution company after it — this controversial yarn written by Affliction’s Paul Schrader (a year after penning Taxi Driver) and Heywood Gould (a Razzie winner for Tom Cruise’s Cocktail) is basically an inferior version of Death Wish, with a thudding simplicity that makes the Charles Bronson hit look as complex as All the President’s Men by comparison. It doesn’t start out that way — indeed, it initially plays like Coming Home a year before Coming Home actually came out. William Devane stars as Major Charles Rane, who returns to his San Antonio, Texas, hometown after being held captive for seven years in a Vietnamese prison. He receives a box of silver coins for his time over there, a bad publicity stunt since the promise of easy money lures a group of thugs to his house, whereupon they murder his wife and son and leave him minus a hand. Once he recuperates, the now hook-handed Rane, with his best friend and fellow POW Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones) at his side, takes off seeking vengeance against the mostly Mexican lowlifes involved. The performances by Devane and Jones are subdued to the point of being catatonic, which seems like a sound way to convey their characters’ shell-shocked demeanor and inability to adjust to civilian life. But after a promising first act that tentatively probes Rane’s landmine of a mind, the movie chucks aside all shreds of ambiguity and exploration, reduces its heroes to two slabs of macho meat, and turns into a mindless action flick — and one that isn’t even staged all that imaginatively or excitingly by director John Flynn.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by Gould and film historian C. Courtney Joyner, and a making-of piece.

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE (1977). The team of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker would go on to create 1980’s Airplane! and 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, but my favorite of their output remains this early low-budget endeavor that carved out a nice niche on the cult circuit (made for a mere $600,000, it ended up with $20 million in the bank). Director John Landis, similarly on the cusp of hitting the big time (his next film would be National Lampoon’s Animal House the following year), orchestrates 83 minutes of pure hilarity, with the film nothing more than a spoof of TV shows, commercials, PSAs, motion pictures, and trailers of motion pictures. The longest piece is A Fistful of Yen — a Mad-like takeoff on the martial arts classic Enter the Dragon, it stars the appealing Evan Kim (in the Bruce Lee role) going undercover to the Isle of Lucy to stop the diabolical megalomaniac Dr. Klahn (Master Bong Soo Han). Despite its length, it’s actually one of the milder segments in this decidedly non-PC effort that revels in its extremities, with various skits targeting race (the TV show Danger Seekers), religion (the commercial for Willer Beer), politics (specifically, JFK’s assassination in the ad for the board game Scot Free), death (actor Henry Gibson on behalf of the United Appeal for the Dead) and sex sex sex (various segments). The announcer breaks are funny (“Moscow in flames, missiles headed toward New York. Film at 11.”) and the “Sex Record” sequence (featuring BIG JIM SLADE) never fails to amuse, although personal faves would have to include the trailers for That’s Armageddon! and Catholic High School Girls in Trouble. Look for a few familiar faces appearing in cameos, including one-time James Bond George Lazenby, The Incredible Hulk star Bill Bixby, and Donald Sutherland “as the clumsy waiter.”

Movie: ★★★½