For the week of February 1st, Walt Disney Home Entertainment is offering a new "Signature Edition" of the animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Those who already own the 2009 Diamond Edition need not necessarily upgrade to this Signature iteration; its only real benefit is that the Diamond Edition is out-of-print, as A/V specifications are largely identical, and the Signature version only has a handful of meaningful new supplements (plus, if we're judging on supplements-quality alone, then the Diamond Edition has this one beat). But all of that is merely a brief assessment of the disc's technical qualities. The film itself is far easier to rate - it's a masterpiece, plain and simple, and any true movie buff who missed the Diamond Edition (or who doesn't want to pay elevated OOP costs) owes it to themselves to pick up the new version. Nowadays, we get a different theatrically-released animated movie a month, so it's hard to comprehend the magnitude of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but in 1937, Walt Disney and his team of animators were entering largely uncharted terrain. While other countries had produced full-length animated features (I'm thinking of France's The Tale of the Fox or Russia's The New Gulliver), in America animators were crafting far shorter pictures. Disney and Co. had good reason to worry if an eighty-minute film would even work - would audiences have the patience for it? - and given the movie's then-exorbitant production costs (about $1.5 million), a commercial failure could have bankrupted Disney. In some alternate reality, there's a version of this story where Snow White did flop and Disney became just a footnote in animated filmmaking, but in this reality, the reverse happened, with Disney cementing his legacy and Snow White becoming, even when adjusted for inflation, one of the top ten highest-grossing films of all time. More importantly, Snow White established the viability of the animated film as a respected art form - we have films like Grave of the Fireflies and Inside Out because Snow White laid the groundwork. It's also still a wonderful entertainment. Sure, some of the technical elements don't dazzle to the degree they did in 1937 (the rotoscoped Snow White and Prince characters look particularly rudimentary), but the rest of the animation is so sophisticated that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ranks favorably with contemporary animated pictures. The Evil Queen remains one of Disney's most iconic villains, especially in her haggard crone guise, and the dwarves themselves benefit from exaggerated design schemas that make them instantly recognizable and relatable. The whole film plays like an extended Silly Symphonies entry, which is a very, very good thing.
In his Blu-ray review of the Signature Edition, Martin Liebman wrote that the film "is an unquestioned classic of cinema, animated or otherwise. And considering its place in Disney's history, it's fair to label it as one of the most important films in cinema history. Disney has done right by its first animated classic on Blu-ray, but this 'Signature Collection' version isn't the definitive release. For sheer volume of extras, the previously released 'Diamond Edition' still dwarfs this version, even considering some of the new material added here. Nevertheless, this release will prove essential in the collection of every Disney enthusiast and is a must-buy for fans who may have missed the Diamond Edition the first time around or those wanting a digital version of the movie. For those who are still enjoying their well-loved Diamond Edition release but aren't interested in some new extras and new, slicker packaging, there's no reason to pick up this release."
Also on the animated-film front is Warner and DCU Animated's Batman: Bad Blood. When it comes to full-length features, DCU has had a frustrating run over the last decade - for every sterling Batman: The Dark Knight Returns or Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox the studio has produced, we've had to put up with the half-baked comic-book theatrics of Batman: Assault on Arkham or Justice League: Throne of Atlantis - and Bad Blood, unfortunately, does little to address the consistency issues plaguing DCU's efforts. A continuation, of sorts, to Son of Batman and Batman vs. Robin (themselves both uneven takes on Grant Morrison's great Damian Wayne saga), Bad Blood sidelines Batman (indifferently voiced by Jason O'Mara) for most of the film's runtime after a vicious attack by the mysterious Heretic (Travis Willingham); in the Caped Crusader's absence, Nightwing (Sean Maher), Damian Wayne (Stuart Allen), Luke Fox (son of Lucius; voiced by Gaius Charles), and the brutal vigilante Batwoman (Yvonne Strahovski) band together to restore order to Gotham as well as to investigate what really happened to Batman. As setups go, it's a promising one, especially since it appears to draw inspiration from the Grant Morrison (there's that name again!) run where Nightwing took over as Batman after Bruce Wayne's death - that series got a lot of mileage from the interplay between the less tortured Dick Grayson and Damian's casually sadistic Robin and helped reinvigorate the franchise. However, without spoiling too much, let's just say that DCU has no intention of shaking up their world that much, and the promising new team-up of Batman side-characters turns into another rote conspiracy thriller involving a secret villain pulling the strings (hint: it's exactly who you think it is, given the Son of Batman/Batman vs. Robin connections), the millionth-and-a-half instance of mind control being used within the Batman universe, and the briefest semblance of character development that Bad Blood's seventy-four minutes can hold. Other than the lack of real chaos in Gotham City (for all the initial panic that Batman's disappearance causes, Bad Blood remains relatively unconcerned with any crime wave back home - No Man's Land, this is not), the biggest disappointment here is how unformed the heroes are. Luke Fox becomes a hero for the most tired reason you can imagine; Nightwing feints at some lingering "daddy" issues for like a scene or two; and Batwoman, who's the most interesting character on paper (a lesbian who doesn't care if bad guys die and has a horrifying family history), eventually loses all of her roughest edges in preparation for, I'm guessing, her own DCU movie. In fairness, Bad Blood isn't the worst of the DCU pictures - if nothing else, the action scenes are spry and engaging (Jay Oliva is old hand at generating cracking action beats), so at least we're never bored. But ultimately, the film is simultaneously too plotty and too underdone to really impress, and given the importance of Batman to the DCU (and the overwhelming preponderance of great Batman stories), underwhelming isn't good enough. You know how you can make it up to us, DC? A $70-million, two-hour, R-rated adaptation of Scott Snyder's The Black Mirror, with David Fincher as creative consultant. Do that, and we're good.
Jeffrey Kauffman called the film "a decently entertaining entry that revisits at least one major storyline in the Batman and Son arc while also providing a near ubiquitous glut of fighting sequences for those who require regular jolts of adrenaline. There are well known screenplay writing tutorials that will, for example, go over what "page number" in a screenplay should be set aside for an action sequence in a high octane (live action) film, with some mentors stating that a span of between ten and twenty minutes (or, in screenplay vernacular, ten to twenty pages) should elapse between these sequences. Since Batman: Bad Blood runs for just a bit over an hour, that approach has been telescoped rather dramatically, and so the action sequences tend to cascade over each other in a kind of breathless array that leaves relatively little time for actual exposition and plot development. Despite the somewhat frenetic energy levels on display, there is some passingly interesting content in Batman: Bad Blood, though longtime fans are probably going to be feel like they've already been through a lot of the plot dynamics in play, especially if they have in fact followed other media installments in the long and winding Batman storyline."
From Disney, DreamWorks, and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment comes the Cold War drama Bridge of Spies. The film, which marks the fourth actor-director collaboration between Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg (after Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, and The Terminal), finds the two working in a pure docudrama realm (none of The Terminal's forced whimsy here, thank God). The film hinges on the USSR's 1960 capture of downed U-2 spyplane pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), but most historians already know that tale, so Spielberg focuses instead on the backchannel negotiations between the CIA and KGB for Powers' release, and how they involved principled insurance attorney James Donovan (Hanks, going full Gregory Peck or Jimmy Stewart for the part, and gloriously so) and imprisoned Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance, recipient of the film's lone acting Oscar nomination). Like Spielberg's great Lincoln, most audiences seem to regard this film as homework - cinematic broccoli, if you will - to be appreciated/endured rather than enjoyed, and that classification underrates how suspenseful and funnyBridge of Spies really is. The Coen Brothers are responsible for polishing playwright Matt Sharman's original script, and the final draft bears clear evidence of their idiosyncratic approach to human behavior: Hanks's introduction comes on a rush of nonsensical legalese that wouldn't be out of place in Barton Fink or The Hudsucker Proxy, and you feel the Coens' perverse kick in undercutting traditional heroism through their structuring of the film's second half, which increases the tension tenfold (Donovan has to travel to East Berlin and covertly negotiate for the release of Powers and an unrelated American economics graduate student) even as it highlights the absurdities of Donovan's situation (his bizarre meeting with Abel's family, or the vaguely emasculating winter cold he finds himself suffering through as he's dodging spies and certain death). Yet unlike Lincoln, which bears a similarly literate and witty script (courtesy of Tony Kushner) but lacks some of Spielberg's traditional visual bravura, Bridge of Spies has the full Spielberg Touch. It moves like a visceral thriller. From the opening sequence, a nearly wordless FBI pursuit of Abel through the streets of New York, to the bittersweet finale, Spielberg is operating at the top of his game (and working in gorgeous 2.39:1 scope photography, to boot): it's his most absorbing picture since 2005's Munich. And yet the film can't shake its "dutiful obligation" status. To wit: note the film's Oscar nominations, which include nods for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Original Screenplay but snub Spielberg in the Best Director category, as if something this good gets that way by itself. I fear we're starting to underrate The Beard, and I'm reminded of Bill Murray's line from Stripes about Tito Puente: "[He's] gonna be dead, and you're gonna say, 'Oh, I've been listening to him for years, and I think he's fabulous.'" Let's stop making that mistake with Spielberg and start appreciating him more now, especially when his work is this fantastic. Maybe the best movie of the year.
Martin Liebman wrote that "the movie's technical merits prove just as enticing as its drama. Spielberg demonstrates a command of classically styled material that elevates it well beyond genre cinema's hazardous bottom rungs of forcibly, and cynically, overwrought shadowy period piece to masterfully yet understatedly styled work of art. His ability to work in classic noir stylings without forcing smoky, shadowy cliché dealings and environments and presenting the movie with a decided contrast between East and West are highlights, and so too is a foundation that accentuates substance over style. His direction, working with with longtime collaborator Janusz Kamiński, is to be commended as it demonstrates the movie's ability to make more nuanced and accentuating, rather than overbearing, use of environment, camera work, and lighting to command the screen in support of the drama, even if the audience isn't immediately or fully aware of the skillful behind-the-scenes workings of master craftsmen. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast in the lead, falling into part and highlighting the character's personality and steadfastness while building an underlying charm that helps cement his resolve and his relationship with a convicted spy. Mark Rylance is the film's other highlight in the role of Rudolf Abel, the man Donovan is charged with defending and, later, with negotiating his release."
After an aborted 2014 edition and a recent Wal-Mart exclusive, Paramount is finally (hopefully?) offering a wide release of Ben Stiller's Zoolander on Blu-ray. What Stiller and his co-writers Drake Sather and John Hamburg have done is to make a crowd-pleasing, populist entertainment that is also deeply, uncompromisingly strange. They set the picture in the world of high fashion, but Stiller and Co. really aren't interested in satirizing the ins and outs of that realm à la Robert Altman's Ready To Wear. Instead, they use all the trappings of haute couture as a springboard for a genuinely surreal farce about how catastrophically stupid male model Derek Zoolander (Stiller) finds himself at the center of a plot to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Sure, we get a few stabs at social realism (the Prime Minister wants to enforce harsher child labor restrictions, a move that would decimate the profit margins of fashion designers around the globe), but Stiller would rather pay grand-scale homage to, believe it or not, the paranoid conspiracy thrillers of the 1960s and 1970s. He gives the film the pop, absurdist glow of Theodore Flicker's The President's Analyst, and he even appropriates Zoolander's ka-bonkers brainwashing sequence from Alan J. Pakula's masterful The Parallax View because why not? Zoolander seems to exist as a direct illustration of the old dictum, "Comedy equals tragedy plus time," so all the low-hanging, institutionalized ennui of the '60s and '70s now becomes the stuff of high comedy. In fact, many of the movie's most hysterical bits pivot off death and destruction, whether it's a "harmless" gasoline fight that ends in tragedy or an assassination scored to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's '80s electronica favorite "Relax," yet Zoolander never feels morbid or bleak (it's no Dr. Strangelove) because Stiller genuinely wants his audience to have a good time. All these bizarre comedic beats - and the movie is chock full of brilliant insanity both small and large - hum along in a glossy studio package that remains the most confident and aesthetically pleasing thing Stiller has ever directed. Only Edgar Wright consistently delivers this kind of visual invention and sheen, and the polish and beauty help make palatable the weirdness without tamping it down. Besides his skillful handling of the action and gags, Stiller's ace-in-the-hole is the relationship between Zoolander and his equally stupid rival Hansel (Owen Wilson). The two characters share a surprisingly rich arc: at the start, Zoolander resents Hansel for his youth and burgeoning fame, and the movie gets a lot of mileage from their flinty anti-chemistry (Zoolander is desperate and bitter; Hansel is laid-back and arrogant). But when circumstances force the two to work together, we see this very genuine friendship solidify on-screen. The two actors are friends in real life, but they pull off that hat trick of making visceral their obvious affection for one another. Sure, the big turning point is a three-way sex scene that also includes a Maori tribesman and a Laotian monk, but that's just the kind of movie this is. Stiller and Wilson are so good together that it's easy to forget that Wilson actually disappears for much of the movie's middle forty minutes - their different types of chemistry leave that big of an impression. And I haven't even mentioned Will Ferrell's histrionic turn as fashion magnate - and conspiracy mastermind - Mugatu, or the wonderful straight-man turns from Christine Taylor and David Duchovny, or the string of absolutely perfect needle-drops throughout the picture. It's an embarrassment of riches. Paramount's making a sequel, and even though I'm not terribly optimistic about it, we'll always have this one. A perfect movie.
In his 2014 Blu-ray review, Michael Reuben wrote that the film "is unlike any other movie that Ben Stiller has directed. Its anarchic spirit is closer to Stiller's brilliant but short-lived television show or the collection of fake trailers that opens Tropic Thunder. Zoolander does have a story - a ridiculous story to match its dim-witted protagonist - but Stiller and his co-writers, John Hamburg (who would go on to co-write Meet the Parents and its sequels) and Drake Sather, are willing at any moment to put the story on hold for a physical gag, an extended sketch or a movie parody that's a self-contained little world. When Zoolander's soundtrack suddenly melts into the familiar strains of 2001's theme from Also Sprach Zarathustra, while the characters re-enact a scene from Kubrick's masterpiece, it's hard not to think of the film as Stiller's Airplane! The character of Derek Zoolander, dimwit male supermodel, came before the movie. (The name was a portmanteau of Dutch model Mark Vanderloo and American model Johnny Zander). Stiller and Sather created him for a pair of short films shown at the VH1 Fashion Awards in 1996 and 1997 (both of which are included in the extras) and then decided to build an entire feature around him. Hamburg joined the team at a later date, and the commentary the three writers recorded for the 2002 DVD release gives some idea of the many story points the team considered, developed and discarded. Set in the fashion world of New York City, Zoolander opened on September 28, 2001, which turned out to be seventeen days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The timing may have seemed unfortunate, but in fact it was ideal. Speaking as a New Yorker who saw the film on its opening weekend, I found the film's farcical silliness to be good and much-needed medicine. The film is so well made, and the fashion industry remains so ripe for parody, that it still works even though today some of the celebrity cameos are likely to provoke a 'Who's that?' reaction."