For the week of November 19th, Universal Studios is bringing The World's End to Blu-ray. The film - the third in the unofficial "Cornetto Trilogy" (which began with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) from filmmakers Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost - is the most recent of 2013's apocalypse-themed comedies; superficially, it's not all that different from the raunchy This Is the End. Both feature all-star casts (This Is the End raided the Apatow Acting Pantry for its leading players; The World's End goes through the BBC's casting rosters, with Pegg, Frost, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Martin Freeman, Rosamund Pike, Game of Thrones's David Bradley, Bill Nighy, and a former 007 logging screen time), both focus on unhappy man-children, and both turn to well-established genre tropes to represent the end of the world (This Is the End riffs on supernatural horror; The World's End lampoons sci-fi thrillers like The Day of the Triffids). While both are worthwhile features - This Is the End, in fact, gets more big laughs on a minute-for-minute basis than most mainstream comedies - it is The World's End that proves unusually resonant. For all its action and humor, the picture is deeply concerned with the danger of trying to go home again, especially when the pull of nostalgia restricts forward emotional progression. The film's leading man, Gary King (Pegg), is as addicted to his teenage misadventures as he is to drugs and alcohol, and for a while, he seems willing to ruin his former best friends' lives if it means getting to relive the past. This would make for compelling viewing on its own, but Wright's breakneck adventure pacing and witty, dizzily allusive dialogue make The World's End an exciting, breezy ode to lost manhood. I've heard the movie called "Doctor Who meets Withnail and I," and I can't think of a more apt description.
Kenneth Brown noted that "It's a bit darker than Wright's usual comedies too, with a self-centered hero-in-the-making that verges on unlikable (intentionally), a lovable lug who's abused and manipulated by a poor excuse for a friend, and a story that doesn't guarantee its entire ensemble will make it out in one piece. Shaun of the Dead edged nearer and nearer to heartache as it hurtled along, pulling back at the last minute with an 'all's well that ends well' finale after some sad business during a grim last stand. The World's End is a riot to the bitter end - don't you worry - but it doesn't flinch or back down, sidestepping a traditionally happy end-cap in favor of something much, much more satisfying (not to mention wholly unexpected). I'd even go so far as to say the third act approaches Python-level brilliance, not just subverting a dozen sci-fi tropes, but one-upping them altogether. Compare Oblivion's climactic showdown to End's. There's no contest. Wright's face-off and endgame is richer, more thought-provoking, more intelligent, and possibly even more poignant science fiction. It just so happens to be hilarious. God forbid. Add to that a killer cast, terrific visual effects, a fantastic soundtrack, and thrilling, blazingly choreographed action scenes and you have something more than the best comedy of the year; you have one of the best science fiction films of 2013."
Also from Universal this week is 2 Guns, an action-adventure that reunites Mark Wahlberg with director Baltasar Kormákur. It's their first film together since last year's Contraband, which might not be an exemplar of action moviemaking, but it's still a pretty terrific B-movie: terse, energetic, and funny. 2 Guns expands the scope quite a bit, to both good and bad effects. The bad: this movie is way more convoluted than it needs to be. I haven't read the comic book that inspired the film, but I have to assume the movie version's over-reliance on plot twists comes straight from the inclination certain comic books have towards cliff-hangers. At its core, this is a buddy-cop story about mismatched undercover cops (Wahlberg and Denzel Washington) who must band together against a common enemy, but their relationship sometimes buckles under the story contrivances that screenwriter Blake Masters has cooked up. I'm talking vicious drug cartels (personified by the great Edward James Olmos), shadowy government bureaucrats (including James Marsden, Fred Ward, and Robert John Burke), sexy DEA agents (Mrs. Robin Thicke herself, the lovely Paula Patton) - all of which seem to switch allegiances every five minutes - convertibles full of money, dead chickens, angry bulls, a scenery-gnawing Bill Paxton, and lots of spent bullet casings. When the film settles enough to focus on the banter between Wahlberg and Washington, things improve considerably. The two actors prove to be two tastes that taste great together, with Washington's wry badass sparking off Wahlberg's amiable goof, and their chemistry elevates the plot whirligigs spinning around them. A solid rental, especially for a Sunday afternoon.
In his Blu-ray review, Kenneth Brown asked viewers, "Get a kick out of headliners like Washington and Wahlberg dabbling in the dark side? Willing to look the other way when plot twists are obvious and plot progression is needlessly complicated? Value comicbook gunplay, colorful criminals and angsty antiheroes above... well, anything more compelling? 2 Guns is for you. There's just plenty more like it out there, and plenty more on the horizon. Escapism isn't exactly a new American pastime. We've been dumping billions into the hard-R action grinder for decades. Films like 2 Guns, though, are caught between genre classicism and more contemporary, self-aware thrills, paying homage to the guilty pleasures of the '90s while taking a stab at something newer and more clever. Once in a great while, a film comes along that strikes that balance and enters the new action lexicon. 2 Guns is not that film, fun as it is if you're able to set aside expectations, switch off your brain, and be entertained by good actors knowingly sinking their teeth into a fatty, gristly script."
For a much more sedate, reflective screen venture, there's always Yasujiro Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story, which arrives courtesy of the Criterion Collection. Director James Mangold may have cited this as a major inspiration on his The Wolverine, yet Tokyo Story is as quiet and intimate as The Wolverine is loud and violent. On the surface, not much happens; an elderly couple (Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama) travel to Tokyo to visit their family. There is a division between young and old, and past resentments emerge as the family reconnects, though Ozu keeps any potential for melodrama at a low simmer: he is content to let behavior and character take the place of conventional drama. But Ozu creates an undercurrent of gripping tension - when one of the family members gets sick, the family coheres and fractures in ways that are more unexpected precisely because we're not looking for surprising plot turns. A small, beautifully observed gem, and one of the most influential works in modern Japanese cinema.
Svet Atanasov's Blu-ray review noted that the film is "regarded as one of the greatest films ever made...prior to Criterion's DVD release, the only way to see Tokyo Story was via second-hand VHS copies. Nowadays, with a few exceptions, most of Ozu's films are relatively easy to locate and purchase. Tokyo Story is comprised of short episodes chronicling life in post-war Japan, and specifically the generational conflict between children and parents exacerbated by the country's rapid industrialization. The key themes in Tokyo Story, however, are universal in nature. There are hardly any traces of melodramatic clichés. Powerful climaxes are also missing. Throughout the film there are no attempts by Ozu to side with or blame any of the main protagonists either - the viewer is simply left to contemplate the motives behind their decisions. The overwhelming majority of the time Ozu's camera remains static, primarily at floor level, observing the main protagonists from afar. The occasional panoramic vistas from Tokyo are also notably serene. The dialog is fairly basic. Like most of Ozu's films, Tokyo Story also has a consistent, slow pacing."
With Kino Lorber's new Russian Ark Blu-ray, viewers have a chance to witness one of 21st Century cinema's great technical marvels. For ninety-six minutes, director Alexander Sokurov and his cinematographer (Tilman Büttner) craft a story from an unbroken, single-take. Achieving this film required no small amount of preparation; Sokurov had to coordinate complex camera moves around three orchestras and over 2,000 extras, and the finished feature reflects the third camera take (he couldn't complete the first two takes, alas). On that level alone, Russian Ark merits the attention of true cineastes. That said, Sokurov isn't just interested in pulling off a technical gimmick. Moving through the Winter Palace in Russia, he succeeds in conveying a rich, experimental look into the history of St. Petersburg, and the ghosts - both literal and otherwise - that haunt the Russian psyche. We go to the movies for pictures like Russian Ark: they are the purest of sensory experiences.
Casey Broadwater remarked that "This is a deeply Russian film - that sounds obvious, right? - not just because it's made by a Russian director and about Russian history, but because it seems made specifically for Russian audiences, for whom the film's soul-of-the-motherland content will unavoidably have a stronger resonance. The rest of us, like the European, are outsiders looking in, unable to get more than a tourist's grasp on its significance. And that's fine. It really is enough to simply sit in awe of Russian Ark's opulence - technical, artistic, and otherwise. The 2,000 member cast, attired in elaborate, period-accurate costumes made specifically for the film. The simultaneous sense of careful orchestration and wild, free-form energy. The weight and span of cultural history. It all serves to rectify the European's complaint that 'Everyone can see the future, but no one remembers the past'...The single take premise might sound like a gimmick, but it proves to be a beautiful, dream-like way to move seamlessly through 300 years of history. There really is nothing like it, even simply as an experiment in the capabilities of early digital moviemaking."
Among certain circles of moviegoers, the 1976 film Assault on Precinct 13 is just as important. It's a B-movie, produced during an era when exploitation cinema made B-movies ever more ubiquitous (and disreputable, some might say). But there are B-movies and there are B-movies, and Assault on Precinct 13 falls into the latter camp. What it has that its less accomplished brethren (including its artless, hyper-violent 2005 remake) lack is the presence of John Carpenter, who - in his second feature-length film (after 1974's Dark Star) - takes a pulp actioner and turns it into something like art. You wouldn't think it from the story, which pits a small band of cops and convicts against a very angry L.A. street gang that surrounds the title police precinct. Carpenter's masterstroke is that the film is never just its setup. The faceless hordes that attack the heroes lend Assault on Precinct 13 the flavor of a horror movie like Night of the Living Dead (or Carpenter's own Prince of Darkness), though Carpenter's love of Howard Hawks and all things Western keeps the proceedings from getting too grim; we watch Austin Stoker's good cop verbally spar with the convicted felon (Darwin Joston) who becomes his unwitting partner, and all of a sudden, we're straight in the landscape of classic siege movies like Rio Bravo. Carpenter pairs those elements alongside his economical sense of space and widescreen filming compositions, and the result is an iconic B-programmer, and the real beginning of Carpenter's directing glory days.
Jeffrey Kauffman commented on how "John Carpenter seems to be one of those directors who is reassessed with a fair degree of regularity. Yesterday's misfire soon becomes tomorrow's masterpiece, only to be relegated to middling status when some new 'expert' critic comes along. But Assault on Precinct 13 is unusual in how quickly the initial reassessment came. When the film premiered in the United States in 1976 it received at best mixed reviews, and many found the film overly violent and trite. As so often seems to be the case, European critics and audiences warmed much more significantly to the film, and when Assault on Precinct 13 started playing the festival circuit in 1977, suddenly there was a new 'consensus' that the film marked a storytelling high point for Carpenter. The intervening years have seen a rather radical backpedaling by at least some who initially dismissed the film, and Assault on Precinct 13 is now generally agreed to be one of the most viscerally gut wrenching films in Carpenter's long and sometimes odd career. Carpenter has sometimes been accused of being intentionally obtuse and for indulging in hammy histrionics (especially in his horror outings), but Assault on Precinct 13 is a lean, mean and spare film that sets up its premise quickly and clearly, and then moves its characters about on a rather complex but always easily understandable chessboard of simultaneously unfolding events."
Cinedigm is releasing Violet & Daisy, and here's a situation where looks can be deceiving. Do not be fooled by the 2013 release date on the box: Violet & Daisy comes off like one of the many ultraviolent Tarantino ripoffs that emerged in the immediate wake of Pulp Fiction. Precious screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher helms this trying-too-hard action-comedy, which centers on two teenage friends (Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan) who carry out contract assassinations in order to bankroll their teenybopper lifestyle. Fletcher tries to blend a variety of disparate tones here - he's got the deliberately juvenile conversations and affectations of his heroines bouncing against gory violence, hammy theatrics, and a wistful look at fallen innocence - to no great success. Like Precious, what lingers here is how flamboyantly, defiantly, unsatisfyingly weirdViolet & Daisy is. Nevertheless, the picture still has one element that's worth recommending - James Gandolfini's offbeat, gentle supporting performance. As an unlucky thief with a contract on his life, Gandolfini makes a meal of Fletcher's atonal script; here's a man who faces certain death with dignity and kindness, who bakes his killers cookies and somehow convinces us that's the perfect course of action to take. It's yet another reminder of how good Gandolfini was, and how much we've lost now that he's gone.
From Anchor Bay comes All Is Bright. This dark comedy stars Paul Giamatti as a recently paroled thief who, in a grumbling, last-ditch attempt to go straight, agrees to help his former best friend and criminal partner (Paul Rudd) sell Christmas trees in Brooklyn. Giamatti's character is prone to violent rages and fits of profanity, and the juxtaposition of his less-than sunny disposition against the holiday setting recalls Terry Zwigoff's brilliant Bad Santa, with its bleak and angry Billy Bob Thornton performance. However, that earlier film was aggressively relentless in its humor and its skewering of Christmas traditions, and All Is Bright takes a more subdued, melancholy approach. Its director, Phil Morrison, last graced the screens with his 2005 family drama Junebug, and All Is Bright shares that earlier film's appreciation for quiet character beats. There's no big heist here, no sudden revelations: Giamatti feels abandoned by everyone who used to care about him, and the cold, impersonal New York settings reflect his inner alienation. What levity exists comes from Rudd's semi-dopey turn and from Happy-Go-Lucky's Sally Hawkins as a Russian immigrant Giamatti with whom forms a halting connection, but by and large, this is a moody, introspective character piece that trusts its actors enough to let them direct the story, and not the other way around.
Martin Liebman wrote that "the material, dreary as it may be, works in large part thanks to the quality of the performances. Paul Giamatti is stellar in the film, portraying a hard luck parolee who genuinely wants to reconnect with his old life, at least his old life that didn't land him in prison. Giamatti brings an incredible depth to a character who, on the outside, appears simple enough, a regular hard-luck individual who's dealing with a broken family, a ruined life, and the call of the very thing that landed him in prison years ago. It's his ability to so effortlessly capture that simplicity that makes the performance great; the nuance is in the character's very essence, seen with every stare, felt with each movement, and understood with every decision. Paul Rudd's performance isn't quite so dynamic, but it, too, proves highly effective and naturally balanced. The picture's rather gloomy, overcast appearance certainly helps set the stage, but it's Giamatti's performance that gives the film the depth it would not have found with a lesser actor in the lead role."
Finally, Blue Underground is issuing a restored version of the cult 1990 action-horror procedural Maniac Cop 2. As far as bloody slashers go, the first Maniac Cop's only claim to fame is its infusion of a more traditional police milieu - while the concept of a undead cop (Robert Z'Dar) dispensing violent justice on the streets of New York City is a meaty one, director William Lustig and screenwriter Larry Cohen couldn't give the proceedings the gritty/funny kick of, say, Cohen's 1982 Q: The Winged Serpent. They have no such problem this time around. Maniac Cop 2 is a rare bird, the sequel that far surpasses the original: it's so good it makes me wish I liked Maniac Cop more. Picking up right where the first film ended, Maniac Cop 2 jumps right into full-throated screen chaos, as Z'Dar's killer teams up with an even more deranged psychopath (B-movie king Leo Rossi, doing the best work of his career) to carve a bloody swath through Manhattan. Lustig and Cohen toss out the first film's stalk-and-stab aesthetic in favor of hyperbolic gunfights (on the Blu-ray's special features, they claim they took inspiration from the balletic, Hong Kong shoot-'em-ups of the 1980s, and it shows) and splattery gore effects, and they even score some nice satirical points in the form of Robert Davi's hilariously deadpan tough cop and the killers' increasing publicity exposure. For what Maniac Cop 2 is, it's just about perfect.
In his Blu-ray review, Svet Atanasov wrote that "Mani[a]c Cop 2 is essentially a better polished version of the first film. The action sequences, in particular, are far better choreographed and shot. The plot is once again utterly unbelievable, but it never feels like there was any intent to prove otherwise. Instead of trying to make the film look realistic, its creators concentrated on replicating and then improving the atmosphere and style introduced in the first film. As a result large parts of the sequel are actually far more effective. For a film of this caliber, the cast is very good. Davi's performance, in particular, is far more convincing than [Bruce] Campbell's. [Laurene] Landon's replacement, the elegant Claudia Christian, also fits better...Technically, the film is also a lot more convincing. The special effects are more complex and the editing far better. The long and quite dangerous sequence where Cordell confronts his old foes in Sing Sing, for instance, required multiple takes that were done during different days, but the final results [are] indeed terrific."