FILM FRENZY

Rupert Everett in Cemetery Man (Photo: Severin Films)

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.)

CEMETERY MAN (1994). While Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane might contain the most famous snow globe in cinematic history — it’s what kicks off the central mystery as Charles Foster Kane whispers, “Rosebud” — another orb’s importance in director Michele Soavi’s Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte dellamore, meaning “of death, of love”) is no less consequential. And like the snow globe itself, this constantly swirling film is all shook up, alternately a raucous zombie movie, a tragic love story, an existentialist character study, and a gruesome slasher flick — and always a dark comedy. Based on both a novel (Dellamorte Dellamore) and a comic book (Dylan Dog) by Tiziano Sclavi, this English-language import from Italy casts Rupert Everett as Francesco Dellamorte, the caretaker at a cemetery that produces zombies at regular intervals. With only a dim-witted assistant, Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro), to keep him company, Dellamorte leads a lonely existence, although he suspects that’s about to change when he falls for a beauty (Anna Falchi) who’s just buried her much older husband. She decides she wants to make love to Dellamorte on top of her late hubby’s grave, and that’s when matters really begin to get out of hand. A liberal dose of dream logic is probably the best way to approach this fantastical tale that’s admittedly stronger (and livelier) during the first half but does end on a rather ingenious note.

Cemetery Man arrives in a one-disc Blu-ray edition, a two-disc 4K + Blu-ray edition, and a four-disc 4K + Blu-ray + CD edition. Extras in the single-disc and two-disc editions include audio commentary by Soavi and screenwriter Gianni Romoli; a making-of piece; and interviews with Soavi, Everett, and Falchi. The four-disc set includes more interviews, among them Romoli and Fabiana Formica (who plays Gnaghi’s teen crush); the soundtrack CD; and a booklet.

Movie: ★★★

CITY OF HOPE (1991). A month after reviewing John Sayles’ 1988 Eight Men Out (go here), here’s another plug for a movie from the consistently excellent writer-director. Like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, City of Hope is another drama in which numerous characters grapple with the various problems that have come to define their lives in a concrete jungle. There’s Wynn (Joe Morton), an idealistic black city councilman who believes he wields a modicum of power while other blacks think he’s merely a pawn for the white establishment. There’s Joe Rinaldi (Tony Lo Bianco), a land developer and building contractor being pressured to sell (or torch) a shabby apartment complex to make room for a shiny new mall. There’s Joe’s son Nick (Vincent Spano), a restless youth still trying to figure out his future. And there are politicians, lawyers, cops, auto mechanics, and even teenage boys, all tangled up in a web of deceit and corruption, and all sharing the same soiled bed. Sayles tackles editing chores himself (he also appears as the vile Carl), and it’s interesting how he constantly shifts the focus, with characters being cut off mid-speech in order to start following other key players. Not all of the storylines are resolved in a satisfactory manner, and David Strathairn’s street wanderer Asteroid is a poor imitation of Do the Right Thing’s Smiley. For the most part, though, City of Hope is an absorbing tale whose themes remain relevant and continue to reverberate.

The only Blu-ray extra is audio commentary by Sayles.

Movie: ★★★

CRY-BABY (1990). After two decades of causing a record amount of pearl-clutching with the demented likes of Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos, writer-director John Waters elected to make more mainstream movies in order to garner wider acceptance. One example is this PG-13 confection, which demonstrates that, while he might have curbed his offensive excesses, he certainly hasn’t betrayed his beliefs. As usual, Waters turns his nose (and middle finger) up at decent, square society, preferring instead to frolic with the freaks, geeks, and outcasts. He also might be the only filmmaker who can make the act of French kissing look as sexy as popping a blister. Set in 1954 Baltimore, this stars Johnny Depp as Wade Walker (aka “Cry-Baby”), a greaser whose bad-boy demeanor attracts good girl Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane). Allison soon decides that the squares are pretty boring and it’s more fun to hang out with Cry-Baby and his gang, an assemblage whose members include his sister Pepper (Ricki Lake), the tough Wanda (Traci Lords), and the singular Hatchet-Face (Kim McGuire). High spirits abound, and the quirky cast — a Trivial Pursuit game in itself — includes Patty Hearst, Iggy Pop, Joe Dallesandro, and, I suppose for comparative normalcy, Willem Dafoe. But here’s a case of a movie trying too hard, with the jokes so overcooked and the quirks so overemphasized that the flop sweat practically shows.

The 4K + Blu-ray edition of Cry-Baby contains both the 85-minute theatrical version and the 92-minute director’s cut. Extras include audio commentary by Waters; a 2005 making-of featurette; interviews with Locane, Lords, and Lake; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★½

GLORY (1989). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has never been able to live down the fact that, in the same year that witnessed the release of the powerful, complex, and incendiary Do the Right Thing, it chose to hand Best Picture to Driving Miss Daisy, in which a kindly black character spends all his time chauffeuring an elderly white woman. Yet many forget that 1989 saw AMPAS ignoring (in the Best Picture/Director/Screenplay races) another worthy contender, this one focusing on the bravery of the black men who served their country and in the process helped win a war. In crafting his screenplay for Glory, Kevin Jarre conducted his research from a few books as well as the personal letters of Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick), the 25-year-old Union Army officer placed in command of one of the Civil War’s first black regiments. Director Edward Zwick stages some remarkable battle sequences, but the film’s core rests in the complicated relationships between its characters. Broderick, miscast in Ladyhawke, does better by this period, offering a thoughtful portrayal, although faring best are Morgan Freeman as Rawlins, the de facto spokesman for the soldiers, and especially Denzel Washington as Trip, a former slave angry at everyone around him. Nominated for five Oscars, this earned three: Best Supporting Actor (Washington), Best Cinematography, and Best Sound. James Horner’s acclaimed score failed to snag a nod (he was nominated that year for Field of Dreams instead) but did win a Grammy Award.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by Zwick; video commentary by Zwick, Broderick, and Freeman; an interactive Civil War battlefield map; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★★½

OF MICE AND MEN (1992). Considering novels usually get mangled as they make their way to the movie screen, it’s worth noting that John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, merely one of the all-time great literary achievements, has been successfully transferred to film on not one but two occasions. The 1939 interpretation (and Best Picture Oscar nominee) starring Lon Chaney Jr. as the feeble-minded Lennie and Burgess Meredith as the sensible George remains the definitive version, but this 1992 take adapted by two-time Academy Award winner Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies) and directed by Gary Sinise is a gem in its own right. Tackling the material in an appropriately economical manner, the pair allow several powerful themes to take hold, with the movie working as an evocation of an era in which the American Dream still inspired people by remaining (or at least appearing to remain) within reach, as a poignant look at the various modes of alienation and segregation forced upon women (represented by Twin Peaks‘ Sherilyn Fenn), blacks (City of Hope’s Joe Morton), and the elderly (Ray Walston), and, centrally, as a fable about two men (Sinise as George and John Malkovich as Lennie) whose special friendship sets them apart from the rest of the pack. The film is largely faithful to Steinbeck’s book, meaning it retains the ability to deliver that final knockout punch.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★★★½

SHREK FOREVER AFTER (2010). Excluding spin-offs and TV specials, the Shrek series now stands at 2-2. After the first two entertaining (if wildly overrated) installments made enough money to seemingly feed and clothe the entire U.S. population, the filmmakers opted to give us a pair of desperate lunges at more filthy lucre. Shrek Forever After is an improvement over Shrek the Third (reviewed here), but it’s not enough of a step up to make much difference. This entry gives us a Shrek (again voiced by Mike Myers) who’s none too happy with his domesticated lot in life. Feeling stifled by his family — wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and three flatulating infants — and longing for the days when he was hated and feared by everyone around him, he ends up signing a contract whipped up by the devious Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn), one that eventually leads to an alternate reality in which Shrek never existed. Thus, Rumpelstiltskin rules the kingdom, Fiona is a resistance fighter, Donkey (Eddie Murphy) is an unwilling servant to the witches who serve as Rumpelstiltkin’s enforcers, and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) has grown fat and lazy. Living on the contract’s borrowed time, Shrek has less than 24 hours to make everything right. Little kids will lap this up with the same zeal as Donkey digging into a stack of his beloved waffles, but adults will find nothing new here, just another retread of ideas exhausted in the previous entries. And while the plotline aggressively lifts from It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s clear that this isn’t a wonderful movie, just a mediocre one.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray + Digital edition include filmmaker audio commentary; deleted scenes; and music videos.

Movie: ★★

THUNDERHEART (1992). Although a fictional work, Thunderheart is rooted in the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973, when Oglala Sioux traditionalists clashed with pro-government forces on a South Dakota reservation. Screenwriter John Fusco throws the character of FBI agent Ray Levoi (Val Kilmer) into the mix, as his Sioux heritage (which he tries to hide) leads the agency to determine he’s the best choice to investigate the murder of a Native American activist in the Dakota territory. Ray is partnered with a veteran agent (Sam Shepard) and initially goes along with the belief that the slaying was committed by a local radical (real-life activist John Trudell). But once Ray teams up with a tribal police officer (Graham Greene, stealing the show) and routinely visits a wizened elder (Chief Ted Thin Elk), he not only sees cracks in the case but also begins undergoing his own spiritual awakening. Fusco spent years researching his material, and his appreciation for the culture is apparent — with the scripter receiving aid from director Michael Apted, the setting isn’t just window dressing but instead becomes the nucleus of a man’s journey of self-discovery. Unfortunately, the convoluted mystery holds no surprises, and it all leads to a climax that’s too hokey for what Fusco and Apted are trying to achieve. One of the movie’s producers was Robert De Niro, who of course recently co-starred in the Native American drama Killers of the Flower Moon.

Blu-ray extras consist of audio commentary by Fusco and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★½

WE GO ON (2016). Many movies find its protagonist grappling with issues of life and death, but here’s one that takes a fairly interesting slant on the topic of life after death. A timid sort whose existence revolves around his fears, Miles Grissom (Clark Freeman) is particularly obsessed with dying — to that end, he places an ad offering $30,000 to the person who can conclusively prove there’s indeed some sort of afterlife. His overly protective mother (Annette O’Toole) thinks he’s wasting his money, but she nevertheless helps him sort through 1,067 replies — including, as he notes, “241 for Jesus Christ Amen, 97 definite fakes, 91 pranks … and 12 people who wanna be my personal psychedelic drug guy.” Among the very few that appear legit are those from a scholar (John Glover), a medium (Giovanna Zacarías), an entrepreneur (Dig Wayne), and, perhaps most intriguingly, an airport-runway worker (Jay Dunn) whose own potential sweetheart (Laura Heisler) ends up prominently figuring in the proceedings. So do Miles and his mom ever see dead people? No fair revealing, but let’s just say that the movie is more interesting during its first half, when it relies far more on ambiguity and less on the jump-scare tropes that have become far too familiar in genre fare of this sort. Still, this works more often than not, particularly in its characters’ philosophical discussions of what it means to believe (or not believe) in an afterlife.

Blu-ray extras include separate audio commentaries by writer-director-editor Andy Mitton, writer-director-editor Jess Holland, and O’Toole and Freeman; and the theatrical trailer for the previous flick from Mitton and Holland, 2010’s YellowBrickRoad (reviewed here).

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

SOYLENT GREEN (1973). Charlton Heston is arguably best known for his historical epics, Westerns, and disaster flicks, but for a brief period, he was Hollywood’s idea of the perfect hero for downbeat films that presented the future Earth in an especially grim light. Following 1968’s exemplary Planet of the Apes (and a brief appearance in its first sequel) and 1971’s execrable The Omega Man, the lock-jawed actor headlined this adaptation of Harry Harrison’s sci-fi novel Make Room! Make Room! Set in 2022, at which point the planet is grotesquely overpopulated — there are 40 million people in New York City alone, thankfully a far cry from today’s 8 million residents — and most luxuries (hot water, electricity, and real foods such as meat, veggies, and fruit) are enjoyed only by the wealthiest, the film stars a suitably gruff Heston as Thorn, a detective assigned to investigate the murder of a corporate VIP (Joseph Cotten). Aided by Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson), his roommate and case researcher, Thorn follows a trail of corruption that exposes the secret behind Soylent Green, a food product reportedly made out of soy beans and lentil. The grittiness of early-70s cinema works well for this fatalistic tale, easily negating the dated aspects of the production (love that old-school video game in Cotten’s apartment!) and creating a futureworld that’s both plausible and frightening. Forty-two years after Little Caesar made him a star, Robinson proves to be typically magnificent in his final performance in his 101st film — his poignant turn provides the picture with its heart, and the 79-year-old actor, gravely ill during filming, passed away a few days after the movie wrapped. (The greatest actor never nominated for an Academy Award, he learned on his deathbed that he was receiving an honorary career Oscar but didn’t live to attend the ceremony.) Incidentally, the film’s one classic line appeared on the American Film Institute’s 2005 list of the 100 best movie quotes; I’d state it here, but since it’s a spoiler, it would ruin the twist ending for anyone who’s not already aware of it … all six of you.

Movie: ★★★