FILM FRENZY

Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another (Photo: Warner Bros.)

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.)

AWAKENINGS (1990). Awakenings is based on the 1973 novel by Dr. Oliver Sacks, a leading doctor in the field of neurology. The book centers on his experiences in the late 1960s, when he spearheaded a remarkable if short-lived breakthrough in medical science. The movie, a mix of sincerity and calculatedness, finds Robin Williams assuming the Sacks-based role of Dr. Malcolm Sayer. A painfully introverted individual, he arrives at New York’s Bainbridge Hospital and immediately finds himself drawn to a group of patients suffering from a sickness that has placed them in near-comatose states for years, some even decades. Sayer is determined to bring them back to life, as it were, and he tests his drug on one of the patients: Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro), who’s been immobile for approximately 30 years. Once Lowe responds to the medication, all of the patients are similarly treated, resulting in everyone being able to reclaim their lives. But there are downsides to the experiment, as some patients have trouble adjusting to the modern world while others are frustrated by the realization that they’ve been cheated out of the vast majority of their years. Williams is fine in one of his earliest dramatic roles, while De Niro’s performance is a matter of taste: Some will marvel at his total immersion into a role that requires a lot of twitching while others will see early signs of the ham he would eventually become. Penny Marshall’s direction is often as clinical as the story’s setting, requiring the supporting cast to provide the warmth and emotion — particularly memorable is stage actress Ruth Nelson as Leonard’s long-suffering mother. This earned a trio of Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Actor (De Niro), and Adapted Screenplay (Steven Zaillian).

Extras in the 4K + Digital edition consist of a making-of piece; archival interviews with cast and crew members; and the trailer.

Movie: ★★½

CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935). Warner Bros. rolled the dice by casting an unknown in the leading role of their big-budget adventure yarn, but it was a decision that benefitted everyone, from the studio suits after it proved to be a box office smash to the audience members who thrilled to the swashbuckling escapades and, inevitably, to the film buffs who still treasure it as a Golden Age gem. And not only did the movie turn Errol Flynn into an overnight star, it also advanced the career of relative newcomer Olivia de Havilland, who would ultimately co-star with Flynn in eight films over a six-year stretch. Flynn plays Peter Blood, a British doctor whose stint as an unfairly incarcerated political prisoner convinces him to become a pirate, dividing his time between plundering other ships and wooing the niece (de Havilland) of the cruel governor (Lionel Atwill) determined to bring him down. Working with limited screen time, fourth-billed Basil Rathbone nyuks it up as a duplicitous French pirate, and his sword fight with Flynn is just one of this classic’s innumerable high points. Captain Blood earned two Academy Award nominations … or maybe five depending on how one looks at it. The film officially snagged nods for Best Picture and Best Sound, but because this was the second and last of the two years in which write-in ballots were allowed, it subsequently also scored noms for Best Director (Michael Curtiz), Best Screenplay (Casey Robinson), and Best Music Score (Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote the music, but department head Leo F. Forbstein got the citation).

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by author Alan K. Rode (Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film); a 2005 retrospective documentary; and a 1937 radio adaptation starring Flynn, de Havilland, and Rathbone.

Movie: ★★★½

DEATH ON THE NILE (1978) / THE MIRROR CRACK’D (1980) / EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1983). After their smashing success with the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express, the producing team of John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin elected to stick with Agatha Christie, overseeing three more adaptations of works by the popular author. Orient Express was released on 4K a couple of years ago — it’s now joined by the other three, all released in the ultra-hi-def format in individual editions.

Of the trio, Death on the Nile is the best. After an heiress (Lois Chiles) is murdered aboard a luxury boat making its way down the River Nile, it’s up to that great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to figure out whodunnit. Only Poirot’s longtime friend Colonel Race (David Niven) can be ruled out; every other passenger is fair game, since each had something to gain by the victim’s death. Among the suspects are the victim’s husband (Simon MacCorkindale), his former fiancée (Mia Farrow), a boorish businessman (George Kennedy), a shady doctor (Jack Warden), a busybody author (Angela Lansbury) and her soft-spoken daughter (Olivia Hussey), a wealthy American (Bette Davis) and her put-upon nurse (Maggie Smith), a hot-headed Communist (Jon Finch), and the victim’s maid (Jane Birkin). The intricacies of the plot, the top production values (Anthony Powell earned an Oscar for his costumes), and a splendid cast (Ustinov and Lansbury are the standouts) add up to stellar entertainment.

For The Mirror Crack’d, Lansbury moved up from suspect to star. She sets the stage for her success as Jessica Fletcher on TV’s long-running Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996) by portraying Miss Marple, here forced to solve a murder in her own small English village. The victim is a young woman (Maureen Bennett) who’s a fan of movie star Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor), in town to shoot a film alongside her director husband (Rock Hudson), their personal assistant (Geraldine Chaplin), the picture’s producer (Tony Curtis), and her co-star and rival (Kim Novak). Also on hand is a Scotland Yard inspector (Edward Fox) who happens to be Miss Marple’s nephew. Much humor is mined from the preening behavior displayed by the show biz characters, and it’s only after the movie is over that film buffs might pick up that the horrific real-life tragedy involving actress Gene Tierney had served as the story’s inspiration.

Evil Under the Sun finds Poirot (Ustinov) investigating the murder of a despised actress (Diana Rigg) at an Italian island resort. Family members (Denis Quilley, Emily Hone), acquaintances (Maggie Smith, Jane Birkin), lovers (Nicolas Clay, Colin Blakely), and work associates (Roddy McDowall, James Mason, Sylvia Miles) all fall under the studious gaze of the brilliant detective. After Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, Ustinov would return to the role of Poirot for three made-for-TV movies as well as a chintzy 1988 theatrical release from Cannon Films, the same outfit responsible for the dreadful Christie adaptation of Ten Little Indians with Frank Stallone.

All three 4K UHD + Blu-ray editions contain audio commentaries by various film historians and theatrical trailers. Other extras consist of a making-of featurette and interviews with Ustinov and Birkin on Death on the Nile; TV spots on The Mirror Crack’d; and a making-of piece and radio spots on Evil Under the Sun.

Death on the Nile: ★★★½

The Mirror Crack’d: ★★★

Evil Under the Sun: ★★★

DIVA (1981). An art-house flick that should appeal even to people who don’t like art-house flicks, writer-director Jean-Jacques Beineix’s debut feature was quite the sensation when it hit the U.S. in early 1982. It was tagged as the first film to spearhead the short-lived French movement known as cinéma du look, which eschewed deep-rooted realism for surface stylistics (other examples included Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita and Subway, Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang and The Lovers on the Bridge, and Beineix’s The Moon in the Gutter and Betty Blue). When a young postal courier (Frédéric Andréi) illegally records a performance by his favorite opera star (Wilhelmenia Fernandez), he finds himself being pursued by both Taiwanese bootleggers who want to profit from the cassette and Parisian criminals who learn that he unknowingly has a tape in his possession that exposes their prostitution ring. Memorable characters (Thuy An Luu’s Alba is a delight) and stunning set-pieces only add to the merriment.

Blu-ray extras include scene-specific audio commentary by Beineix; an introduction by author Phil Powrie (Jean-Jacques Beineix) and filmmaker Eric Grinda (the retrospective documentary Searching for Diva); and interviews with Beineix, Andréi, cast members Dominique Pinon, Richard Bohringer, and Anny Romand, cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, and composer Vladimir Cosma.

Movie: ★★★½

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR (2004). Based on a sizable chunk of John Irving’s A Widow for One Year, this outwardly melancholy but inwardly hopeful movie reunites Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, previous co-stars in 1987’s Nadine (anybody else remember that one?). They play Ted and Marion Cole, silently suffering parents who, years later, are still unable to cope with the deaths of their two teenage sons (both killed in a car accident). Ted, the author of popular but eerie children’s books, suggests a trial separation that involves both parents shuffling back and forth between two properties to each spend time with their young daughter Ruth (Elle Fanning, Oscar-nominated just yesterday for Sentimental Value); this decision coincides with the arrival of Eddie (Jon Foster), a young man who’s been hired for the summer to apprentice under Ted but who ends up spending more time in the sack with Marion. The Door In the Floor is one of those movies that screws up the small details while tapping into the larger issues — we may carp over the plot-friendly fact that nobody in this household apparently understands the concept of locks (which leads to the interruption of not one but two masturbatory exercises as well as one sexual coupling), yet we’re affected by the varying measures of cruelty and compassion that Ted and Marion fling at each other in their futile efforts to make their own pain go down a little easier. The “coming of age” angle involving Eddie is the weakest part of the story; far more powerful are the sequences in which Bridges (terrific), Basinger (touching), and/or young Fanning illustrate the difficulties in holding together a family when obligations are in arrears.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by writer-director Tod Williams; a making-of featurette; and a piece on Irving.

Movie: ★★★

HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE (1991). One of the best movies ever made about the filmmaking process, Hearts of Darkness, like Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (about the filming of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo) before it, examines how the creation of a difficult motion picture in an often punishing environment took its toll — physically, mentally, and emotionally — on a great director, exhausting him beyond all measure and perhaps even sapping him of many of his emotional juices. The movie under the microscope is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece Apocalypse Now, the Vietnam War saga (loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) that ate up several years of the director’s life as he struggled to complete his epic tale under often torturous conditions. We get to watch Martin Sheen freak out, Dennis Hopper space out, and Marlon Brando attempt to bail out; Coppola also had to deal with a hurricane that obliterated the film’s sets and with Sheen’s heart attack (Sheen, incidentally, was a replacement for Harvey Keitel, who had been fired from the role of Captain Willard a mere two weeks into shooting). Francis’ wife Eleanor Coppola shot the invaluable on-the-set footage, while Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper handled the years-after-the-fact interviews with many of the principals, including supporting actor Laurence Fishburne (all of 14 when he started on Apocalypse Now), co-scripter John Milius, and George Lucas, the latter revealing how he was originally set to helm a far different version of Milius’ screenplay in the early 1970s.

The only extras is a making-of featurette (so basically a making-of about a making-of).

Movie: ★★★½

K-PAX (2001). Watching two great actors on the order of Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges squander their talents on something as ghastly as K-PAX is akin to spending your savings on the purchase of a fondue restaurant and using its facilities to create nothing more than grilled cheese sandwiches. Offensively sanctimonious, flagrantly derivative, and just plain dull (don’t see K-PAX without NO-DOZ), this insufferable picture casts Spacey as Prot, who’s sent to a hospital’s mental ward after he turns up in a New York train station claiming to be from another planet (in the real-world NYC, this sort of ranting can be heard on a daily basis and wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow, so why the fuss here?). Prot’s case comes under the supervision of Dr. Mark Powell (Bridges), who initially dismisses the patient as yet another flake but soon starts to suspect there might be some veracity to the otherworldly claims. The first half of the film plays like Patch Adams minus the bedpans on the feet, as Prot engages in a lot of “cute” behavior (eating bananas with the peels left on, conversing with dogs via woof-woofs, etc.) and offers guidance to the other twinkly patients. The second part shifts gears but doesn’t get any better: It’s like a nightmare version of an actor’s theater workshop, as Powell uses hypnosis to learn about Prot’s past. Spacey’s performance is built on nothing but putrid platitudes and affected mannerisms — frankly, I didn’t think it was possible for him to ever be this bad — while Bridges’ wafer-thin role is far beneath his capabilities.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Iain Softley; a making-of featurette; behind-the-scenes photography by Bridges; and Softley’s original ending.

Movie: ★

LADDER 49 (2004). It was probably inevitable — desirable, even — for a post-9/11 movie to be made that celebrated firemen, but did it have to be as dull as this one? If there’s an original moment in this tedious (if earnest) drama, I must have been rubbing my eyes for a nanosecond and missed it; instead, director Jay Russell and writer Lewis Colick have managed to cram just about every overused melodramatic device into this one picture. Basically, only three types of scenes exist in the film: domestic interludes between good-hearted fireman Jack Morrison (a beefy Joaquin Phoenix) and his family, macho antics down at the firehouse between the avuncular station captain (a beefier John Travolta) and his men, and action scenes between the firefighters and their incendiary adversary. In an effort to elevate all these men to the level of heroes, Colick has stripped them of most traits, in effect leaving us with a roomful of cardboard stand-ups (only Robert Patrick, as the outspoken senior member of the team, is allowed any complex shadings). The firefighting scenes are competently presented but tend to blur into each other — for all its faults, the mediocre Backdraft at least made similar set-pieces exciting — and the movie’s 115 minutes are stretched out long enough to accommodate not only a karaoke sequence but at least two music-backed interludes designed more to fill out the CD soundtrack than advance the plot in any interesting fashion.

Blu-ray extras consist of audio commentary by Russell and editor Bud Smith; a making-of featurette; deleted scenes, a piece on real firefighters; and the music video for Robbie Robertson’s “Shine Your Light.”

Movie: ★½

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (2025). Before 2025, only three movies had won Best Film from all four of the main critics groups (New York, Los Angeles, National Society, and National Board): 1993’s Schindler’s List, 1997’s L.A. Confidential, and 2010’s The Social Network. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another now makes it four, but does it really deserve such a lofty honor? Most, I imagine, would say yes, and it’s beloved by the vast majority of critics (and not just PTA acolytes) to such a degree that it reduced the far superior Sinners to also-ran status in the various organizations’ Best Film balloting. One Battle After Another is a fine picture and certainly far better than the year’s other political screed, Ari Aster’s Eddington, but it could be that the enthusiasm partly emanates not only from the “he’s owed” narrative for PTA but also its standing as an urgent work that addresses the current fascistic takeover of these United States. Based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, it pits left-wing revolutionaries against a right-wing regime that targets immigrants and seeks to impose its will on the entire nation. Leonardo DiCaprio is all coiled anxiety as “Ghetto” Pat, a former revolutionary who’s now a paranoid pothead. The antagonist is Colonel Lockjaw (a buffoonish Sean Penn), who’s determined to wipe out all the remaining members of the outfit that once counted not only Bob among its members but also Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), an extremist who was Pat’s lover as well as the object of desire for a panting Lockjaw. The broadness of the comedy only works in spurts — it’s no surprise that the best performance comes from Benicio del Toro (as a fellow activist), who nicely underplays — and while there are a number of socko set-pieces, there’s also an overall messiness that feels less like a narrative necessity and more a misplaced meander. This picked up 13 Oscar nominations, including Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn’s Erection.

The Blu-ray + Digital Code edition contains no extras.

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.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition consist of audio commentary by Fusco; archival interviews with various cast and crew members, including Kilmer, Greene, Trudell, Apted, and Fusco; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★½

FILM CLIPS

ANEMONE (2025). When your kid asks for a favor, you gotta deliver. At least that seems to be the backstory behind Anemone, which finds Daniel Day-Lewis returning from the retirement he announced back in 2017 to help his son Ronan Day-Lewis with his directorial debut. Also lending Ronan a hand with the script, Day-Lewis takes to the screen for a dreary drama that hardly marks a triumphant comeback. He plays Ray Stoker, a veteran who’s now living as a recluse deep in the forests. His brother Jem (Sean Bean) turns up, asking Ray to return home so that he may have a good talk with his wayward son Brian (Samuel Bottomley). Ronan has a sharp eye — there are some interesting shots scattered throughout — but his direction is leaden and his story is trite and unconvincing.

The 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code edition offers no extras.

Movie: ★½

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959). One of director-producer William Castle’s most enjoyable flicks, House on Haunted Hill casts Vincent Price as an eccentric millionaire who offers five strangers $10,000 apiece to those who can survive a night at his haunted mansion. Upon its theatrical release, Castle (known as much for his showmanship as for his films) employed a gimmick he dubbed “Emergo,” having a skeleton swoop over the auditorium to coincide with its appearance in the film. Even without this added benefit, couch viewers will find themselves satisfied with the on-screen shenanigans. A limp remake starring Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen followed in 1999.

The only Blu-ray extra is podcaster audio commentary. A booklet is also included.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

JANE EYRE (1943). Over the past century-plus, there have been over 40 film and television adaptations of the Charlotte Bronte classic, with Samantha Morton, Mia Wasikowska, and Susannah York among the Janes and Timothy Dalton, William Hurt, and Michael Fassbender among the Rochesters. The best version? If we’re going with loose adaptations, that would be Jacques Tourneur’s excellent 1943 chiller I Walked with a Zombie; if we’re sticking with traditional interpretations, it’s probably this one. Along with writer-director Robert Stevenson, no less than Aldous Huxley and John Houseman had a hand in the screenplay for this Gothic take that features many of its best scenes early. That would be the stretch when little Jane (Peggy Ann Garner) is sent by her cruel aunt (Agnes Moorehead) to a school for unwanted children, where she’s tormented by the sadistic headmaster (Henry Daniell, adding to his lengthy list of screen villains) but strikes up a friendship with the kindly Helen Burns (an uncredited, 11-year-old Elizabeth Taylor). Ten years later, the adult Jane (Joan Fontaine) leaves the school grounds and heads to the estate of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles), where she’s to serve as governess to the French moppet Adèle (Margaret O’Brien). Rochester initially spends most of his time brooding and barking, but he and Jane eventually grow close, resulting in a bond that nevertheless might be broken thanks to his disturbing secret. Stevenson would go on to become Disney’s most bankable director (Mary Poppins, The Love Bug, etc.), but don’t expect any spoonfuls of sugar here: Jane Eyre is a dark, foreboding film, aided immeasurably by the efforts of director of photography George Barnes (an Oscar winner for Hitchcock’s Rebecca, starring Fontaine). The story isn’t as tightly bound in the second half, resulting in an occasional lull; still, it’s hard to ignore the hurricane force of Welles’ performance.

Movie: ★★★

TEACHERS (1984). Teachers is built like one of those classic black comedies where dark, sometimes even gruesome, humor is used to punch home the seriousness of the situation at hand. Considering its antecedents include M*A*S*H, The Hospital, and Network, there’s no shame in the fact that it doesn’t quite measure up. It’s too often painfully obvious in its implications and heavy-handed in its delivery, but that’s countered by the assembly of an exceptional cast as well as the prevalence of themes that remain relevant. Nick Nolte is Alex Jurel, a high school teacher whose idealism has long been replaced by exhaustion and alcohol — most Mondays, he doesn’t even bother to show up for class. Alex’s school is presently being sued by a student who graduated without knowing how to read or write; handing the case for the prosecution is Lisa Hammond (JoBeth Williams), who — surprise! — turns out to be one of Alex’s former students. Lisa is seeking a teacher who will speak out for the student and against the school’s ineffectual bureaucracy, but the shrewd superintendent (Lee Grant), oblivious principal (William Schallert), and cynical vice principal (Judd Hirsch) have already started circling the wagons, confident that not even the maverick Alex will cooperate with her. W.R. McKinney’s script seeks to expose incompetence wherever it exists, from the manner in which the parents of a rebellious teen (Ralph Macchio) fail to support their son to the teaching style of the dull Ditto Stiles (Royal Dano), who sleeps through every class while his students quietly write essays. Richard Mulligan amuses as a harmless nut who pretends to be a teacher and ends up being more effective than the real ones, while Laura Dern (as a student who gets impregnated by the gym teacher) and Morgan Freeman (as the attorney defending the school) show up in early screen appearances.

Movie: ★★★