For the week of February 18th, the biggest Blu-ray release is HBO's Season Three set of Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones remains one of the network's most popular programs, but Season Three saw it coming off the semi-slump that was its second season; the sudden infusion of new characters, coupled with (Spoiler to follow) the absence of a lead figure as compelling as Sean Bean's Ned Stark (End spoiler), left the show's sophomore year somewhat adrift from the intense, highly focused narrative of Season One. The show seemed like it had bitten off more than it could chew, but Season Three remedies that problem in a big way. Showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff have adapted only the first half of the third book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series – the aptly titled A Storm of Swords, given the carnage in Season Three – and that limited scope allows Weiss and Benioff to wade into the many intrigues of Westeros without succumbing to the too-breathless pace of the last season. To be sure, the action never flags, with particular highlights stemming from the Khaleesi's relentless pursuit of the Seven Kingdoms or Jon Snow's morally conflicted infiltration of the Wildlings north of the Wall, but these conventionally satisfying moments hit so much harder because of the ample time spent observing the show's large cast of characters. Fan favorites like Maisie Williams' Arya Stark and Peter Dinklage's Tyrion Lannister are still delights – and Tyrion's relationship with wry sellsword Bronn (Jerome Flynn) remains one of the places where Game of Thrones can flex its not-inconsiderable comic chops – but the show makes room for more unexpected character development. Chief among these is the bond that grows between House Stark sympathizer Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) and her prisoner, the depraved Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Their storyline plays out like a medieval version of Midnight Run, as the violent events tossed at Brienne and Jaime force the two to develop a relationship of mutual respect and trust. It's the stealth highlight of the show (honestly, the Brienne and Jaime stuff could fill a whole series by itself), and one of the main reasons that makes the wait for Season Four all the more excruciating.
In his Blu-ray review, Kenneth Brown wrote that he "could go on and on about everything Season Three gets right, but it would read like a point by point overview of all ten episodes. And who wants to risk spoiling any second of the madness, heartache and drama that transpires? (Although after the hit-or-miss treatment of Daenerys in Season Two, I will take a second to praise the sharp plunge forward Clarke's storyline finally, finally takes.) Criticisms, meanwhile, are few and far between - Bran's journey is sometimes more of a holding pattern and... erm... and... well, like I said, few and far between - and the momentum and suspense that builds from start to finish, whether the series is idle or barreling ahead, is riveting. Overwhelming, even (Binge viewers be warned: the third season can be exhausting). Humor and wit serve as an oasis. Victories are generally short-lived. Surprises and plot twists are more akin to weirdly welcome sucker punches. The series shifts on a dime and the ride is better for it. The writers aren't beholden to the audience any more than Martin is to his readers. Death and tragedy are commonplace. Stomach churning losses and disheartening falls are everywhere. And no conflict, much less any feud, is ever won. Especially when someone dares to believe they're safe, even for a moment. As crowded as Game of Thrones becomes in its third season, the ease with which it sheds baggage and the fearlessness with which it casts away characters maintains the balance. If the series isn't already sitting on the throne of your DVR season pass list, it should be."
From Shout Factory comes a new upgrade of Darkman. Long before his Spider-Man trilogy, director Sam Raimi crafted this delirious superhero thriller, which follows a savagely disfigured scientist (Liam Neeson, pre-Schindler's List and Taken) as he plots his revenge against the gangsters that tried to kill him. In many ways, Darkman feels like Raimi's answer to Tim Burton's Batman from the previous year; whereas that mega-blockbuster approached its pulp roots with some timidity (minus, of course, Jack Nicholson's full-throated turn as the Joker), Raimi embraces the camp, tossing in extreme camera moves and an operatic score (courtesy of Batman composer Danny Elfman) and over-the-top, bloody violence until the movie almost starts to function as a deranged comedy. However, Raimi doesn't stop there - Darkman also works as an affectionate homage to classic monster movies. Neeson resembles nothing less than a mix of both Frankenstein and his monstrous creation, as his Peyton Westlake tries to repair his damaged face (using a revolutionary synthetic skin that only bonds together for ninety-nine minutes) and, thus, his humanity, all the while struggling to keep his ever-more monstrous urges at bay. Ultimately, though Darkman isn't as tonally successful as, say, Spider-Man 2, the things that make it messy also make it a blast: Raimi is willing to toss anything at the screen to see if it sticks.
Jeffrey Kauffman commented that "Darkman is filled both with Raimi's hyperkinetic camera moves and the often unexpected touches of sometimes juvenile humor. Once he transmogrifies himself into the self-anointed Darkman, Peyton's emotional distress tends to work him into a lather when he thinks he's being perceived as a 'circus freak.' This of course leads to one sequence after another where the word 'freak' is bandied about until Darkman's head almost literally explodes (at least when Peyton is approaching that 99 minute mark), the capper of which is a sequence at (you've guessed it) an actual circus, where Peyton has taken [Frances McDormand's] Julie for a brief respite, only to find that the arcade attendant isn't exactly out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The entire hyperbolic sequence ends with Peyton going ballistic while we hear a circus barker advertising a Tod Browning-worthy act by repeatedly screaming, 'He's a freak, he's a freak, he's a FREAK!!' It's insanely funny and sinister in an almost David Lynchian way, and it's part of what makes Darkman such an interesting addition to the tormented quasi-superhero canon…Though it's certainly not at the level of Raimi's Spiderman outings, Darkman points the way toward the megahits that Raimi would start helming in a few years, while never losing that appealing low-fi ethos that made the director's first cult hits such word of mouth phenomena. Raimi's perpetuum mobile camera is also on full display throughout Darkman, with disorienting pans, dollies and crane shots that may have you reaching for the Dramamine. If the film never completely gels into a satisfying whole, it has the saving grace of the director himself: it never takes itself too seriously, and that allows the fun quotient to bridge a lot of territory in which a more turgid, self- absorbed film would have drowned."
Finally, Criterion is offering Blu-ray upgrades of two much-loved catalog titles, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Foreign Correspondent. Nominally an adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1970 children's novel, Fantastic Mr. Fox finds filmmaker Wes Anderson firmly in his element after the twin commercial disappointments of The Darjeeling Limited and his underrated The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; while honoring the spirit of Dahl's novel, Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach make Fantastic Mr. Fox their own, goosing the story of the rivalry between a debonair fox (George Clooney) and three evil chicken farmers (Michael Gambon, Robin Hurlstone, and Hugo Guinness) with Anderson's traditional offbeat curlicues, from a musical playlist that contains beats from the Robin Hood soundtrack, to a sadistic hipster rat that's equal parts West Side Story and Timothy Carey from The Killing (and is voiced by Willem Dafoe, to extra creepy effect), to the gloriously convoluted explanation of the foxes' favorite game, Whack-Bat. Yet the film never lapses into quirk-for-quirk's-sake – Anderson's control over the material is even more precise than in Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, no doubt the result of working within the labor-intensive stop-motion-animation process. That style compliments Anderson's already-handmade aesthetic perfectly and proves adept at conveying the surprisingly complicated emotional states of the characters. Fantastic Mr. Fox isn't just a lighthearted caper with daring escapes and chases and a literally cussing Bill Murray-voiced badger: it's also a drama about Mr. Fox attempting to foster some kind of greater intimacy with his family. He lies to his wife (Meryl Streep) about his criminal escapades, and the deceit threatens to separate the two even as Mr. Fox puts himself at odds with his son (Jason Schwartzman) for favoring the boy's cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson). These moments are often quite funny (Anderson isn't trying to make a Eugene O'Neill play here), but Anderson takes them just serious enough, and that care elevates the film into something special.
Brian Orndorf noted in his review that "Anderson unveils a sure gift for the genre. That's not to suggest the helmer has watered down his sense of mischief to make a PG animated feature; in fact, Fantastic retains a nice edge -- think Wallace & Gromit but with flicked cigarettes, dance parties, shoot-outs, and severed fox tails…Anderson, scripting with Noah Baumbach, leans into the merry attitude of Mr. Fox, arranging an adventure effort teeming with the sort of frame minutiae the filmmaker is well known for. The world of stop-motion animation only emboldens Anderson's design fetishes, indulging in this vast world of miniature animals living in miniature homes, fitting Dahl's characters for new clothes and a hipper soundtrack…taking his primary colored American Empirical conceptualization to an exhilarating level of visual elasticity and creativity. The animation is stunning to behold, not only for its playfulness and brilliant fluidity, but also for the soft fur textures of the characters, which almost require a reflexive reach toward the screen to sate curiosity. It's 3-D with 2-D tools, molding a resplendent storybook visual handle to a clever, urban comedy. The ornate decoration goes beyond the animals to the entire Fantastic world, teeming with design particulars that will require weeks of study, just to digest how much wit and affection Anderson has crammed into the vast corners of this outstanding picture."
Foreign Correspondent, on the other hand, is the work of another famed auteur, the great Alfred Hitchcock. The film was produced during Hitchcock's contract with David O. Selznick, though it wasn't produced by Selznick - the famed producer loaned Hitchcock out to Walter Wanger shortly after the production of Rebecca. It's a tale of pre-WWII intrigue, as a lantern-jawed American reporter (Joel McCrea) on assignment in Europe witnesses a public assassination with grave global implications. McCrea's search for the truth puts Hitchcock in familiar territory, but familiar does not equal boring, since the narrative allows the director to stage one breathless setpiece after another, including a tense pursuit through a windmill and a plane crash that still amazes, even in comparison to the technologically precise thrills of a Flight or Cast Away. Interestingly enough, despite its popcorn approach to the war effort, Foreign Correspondent remains one of the most overtly political features Hitchcock ever made; the film examines the downside of America's neutrality stance prior to Pearl Harbor, with the final scene explicitly criticizing the USA for standing on the sidelines as Hitler expanded his reign of terror. Some minor miscasting aside (McCrea is a painfully bland hero, a fact that Hitchcock only underscores by casting the far more charismatic George Sanders in a key supporting role), Foreign Correspondent remains one of Hitch's most exciting American films.
Svet Atanasov wrote that "Foreign Correspondent isn't one of [Hitchcock's] best, but it might be one of the most entertaining propaganda films ever made. It was completed in 1940, shortly before the Germans started bombing the United Kingdom. The majority of the film is structured as a romantic thriller but promotes various political views. The good and bad causes are identified early and there is absolutely no need for the viewer to pick sides. For a while what remains unclear is only how long it will take before the main protagonist's conspiracy theories will begin making sense to the people around him. The part of the film where he is treated as an annoying outsider who routinely complicates things because he is too paranoid is the most entertaining one. The film begins to stutter towards the end, after the two lovers return to London – some of the character transformations happen very quickly and look very unconvincing; there are dry political statements that also sound quite awkward. Still, it is impossible not to agree that many of the warnings that are recited throughout the film were indeed justified."