For the week of October 24th, Shout/Scream Factory is offering a lovely new collector's edition of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III. Still smarting from the critical drubbing ladled upon John Boorman's fascinatingly incoherent Exorcist II: The Heretic, Blatty tried to restore some of the luster to the Exorcist series with this film, which begins as a police procedural, of all things; we're reuniting with The Exorcist's Lt. Kinderman (George C. Scott, replacing Lee J. Cobb) as he tracks a brutal serial killer. However, Kinderman's investigation takes a strange turn when he realizes that a) his quarry might be the reincarnation of an executed murderer (a terrifying Brad Dourif) and that b) Said Executed Murderer might have ties to the evil demon that possessed Linda Blair's Regan MacNeil. Blatty largely succeeded in making something that honored the spirit of the original Exorcist while still carving out new territory. Kinderman is a fantastic protagonist, and his hard-boiled perspective turns the picture in a kind of noir horror. Really, though, the reason to pick up this one is for the chance to see Blatty's long-rumored Legion director's cut. It isn't in perfect condition - some of the only extant footage appears as grainy VHS interludes - but it restores what has been something of a Holy Grail for many horror-movie fans. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that in this Legion iteration, the film barely qualifies as horror. For the most part, Legion is a dark drama, one where the interplay between Scott and Dourif's characters allows Blatty to engage with some fairly heady concepts of philosophy and religion. In fact, this version has more in common with Blatty's absurdist drama The Ninth Configuration than it does with anything Exorcist-related, especially given that the exorcism content is almost nonexistent. Blatty had no intention of going back to that particular well, but Warner Bros. expected that there be exorcisms in their Exorcist sequel, and so the studio mandated the third act battle against light and dark that concludes the theatrical cut. Blatty has excised that beat from Legion, and I don't know if it was the right call. Certainly, I respect the integrity of his Blatty's odd, off-key thriller, but the fact remains that many of Warner's efforts to rejigger the feature into a more conventional chiller added the right touch of genuine scares. The good news is, now you don't have to choose - Shout has provided both versions because they're the best, as per usual.
From Universal Studios Home Entertainment comes the family dramedy Captain Fantastic, and by "family," please don't assume "family-friendly." Writer-director-actor Matt Ross (he's currently killing it as the deluded Gavin Belson on Silicon Valley) has adopted a decidedly odd and off-kilter look at the American family; his representative slice is the Cash clan, a Bohemian group living their lives according to the transcendental (as referring to Emerson and Thoreau) socialist principles that their father Ben (a wonderful Viggo Mortensen) and mother Leslie (Trin Miller) see as instrumental to escaping the "lies" of modern society. However, society interjects itself in the most unexpected after Leslie kills herself, and the Cashes have to settle her final affairs with her far more conservative father Jack (Frank Langella). There's a way to tell this story that plays right into conventions: a lesser filmmaker might lionize Ben's freewheeling ways while demonizing his father-in-law, and to be sure, Captain Fantastic seems like it's going that way for its first third. But Ross is interested in nuance, and the more we look at the Cashes, the more problems we see. Ben is a spiritual, Chomsky-quoting liberal, but he's no free-spirit. Ben enforces his beliefs on his kids with the doctrine of a cult leader, and he's remarkably resistant to letting his children experience the world on their own terms, a condition that becomes especially problematic once his eldest child Bodevan (George MacKay) gets accepted to college. And Jack might balk at Ben's hippy-dippy ways, but he's also the most responsible adult in the film, and he genuinely wants to do the right thing for his grandchildren. Ross understands that people are more complex, and he lets his characters operate outside of any predetermined stereotypes. It's a shame, then, that Captain Fantastic ends on such a pat note - it arrives at such an insightful, well-fought conclusion, and then it feints a little to deliver a "happier" one - but that last five minutes doesn't really negate what Ross has achieved here.
In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman wrote that the film is "peculiar, and if it's anything else, it's unique. Stories of estranged families and disagreements over life's fundamental challenges are nothing new in dramatic storytelling, but here it's the presentation that sets the movie apart. The film can be, and usually is, honest and vulgar, heartfelt and heartbreaking, real and weird. The film embraces, and thrives on, a number of dichotomies in the way Ben raises his kids and how they all interact in the 'real world' that, to their eyes and playing on their experiences and expectations, isn't 'real' at all. The movie is all about extremes, but honest interpretations of those extremes and sincere beliefs in them. Ben, and it would seem his late wife, built a world true to their values, and it's paid off for them. The kids are mentally sharp and physically strong, but are they prepared to leave the nest? And is the world prepared for them? On the flip side, those who live 'traditional' lives cannot understand, and sometimes will not accept, Ben's ways. The film is a clash of peculiarities and worldview confrontations, wrapped up in a greater story that embraces humor, heart, a bit of chaos, and a lot of interesting dissections of the world and those who live in it in their own ways. The film boasts enthusiastic performances that, particularly from Ben's children, capture an essence and spirit of life, even as their life experiences aren't as 'traditional' as are those of the outsiders they encounter throughout the film. There's a tangible, well-rounded depth to them, even the youngest who don't simply go with the flow but who seem to embrace their uniqueness and work through the dualities that envelop them as the film progresses."
Olive Films is bringing a new "Signature Edition" of the John Ford classic The Quiet Man. Ford once claimed that The Quiet Man might be his favorite film, and if that's the case, it's hard to think of a more controversial "favorite" from a venerated director. If you hate The Quiet Man, then you hateThe Quiet Man. The film world is littered with people who find Ford's work here cloying and sentimental, that his story of a former Irish expat (John Wayne) returning to Inisfree in order to reclaim his family estate and romance a spirited local woman (Maureen O'Hara) is little more than a flimsy pretext for a lot of sappy mirth and stereotypical Irish humor. Essentially, imagine the in-between banter scenes from The Searchers stretched out to feature length, and you'll have a pretty good idea of the tone Ford is shooting for here. But here's the thing: I agree that Ford is working in clichés, and that for all his attempts to reconnect with his own birth culture (his own parents moved to New England from Ireland), the on-screen result has all the regional and cultural specificity of a really good greeting card. However, those problems don't stop the film from being a genuine, consistent delight. The Quiet Man reminds me of Powell and Pressburger's great I Know Where I'm Going! and not just because they're both gentle romances set north of England; the two films are supremely confident "hang-out" flicks, where what's happening isn't near as important as how it happens, how it feels to spend some time in the company of some lovely folks. Everybody is a character here (again, for some viewers that's a problem), whether it's Ward Bond's scheming local priest or Victor McLaglan's brawling antagonist, but no one is more appealing that O'Hara or Wayne, the latter of whom has never been this appealing or kind on camera. It's one of his best star performances because it proves that he didn't need a gun or a one-liner to connect with audiences - watching him fall for O'Hara, you wish Wayne had more opportunities to play the romantic lead. Still, Ford can't help but toss in a little action. The big fight between Wayne and McLaglan is a comic delight, and the inspiration, believe it or not, for the epic Roddy Piper/Keith David-throwdown in John Carpenter's They Live. The Quiet Man is the definition of an acquired taste, but it's irresistible for those who share it.
Of the film, Svet Atanasov wrote that "it is sourced from the same 4K restoration of the film which was initially introduced on Blu-ray in 2013. The new release offers a better technical presentation of the 4K restoration, as well as more supplemental features...including a very entertaining interview with Peter Bogdanovich and wonderful audio commentary with John Ford biographer Joseph McBride."
Finally, Capitol Records and Paramount Pictures are giving a much deserved Blu-ray upgrade to the Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home. Look, I'm no dummy - I suspect the sudden revival in this film has more to do with Dylan's recent (and controversial) Nobel Prize Award and less to do with the feature itself (you don't honor a film on its almost-twelve-year anniversary, after all). But the fact remains that even if the studios thought it commercially prudent to trot No Direction Home, the rest of us still benefit. No Direction Home is one of the great on-screen biographies of recent years, a rich, full examination of Bob Dylan and his legend. In many ways, we don't deviate from the established templates: we begin with Dylan's modest beginnings and follow him through his remarkable career, the way his music permeated at least two different cultural zeitgeists. However, No Direction Home rarely feels conventional, thanks to the presence of two creative geniuses: Dylan and director Martin Scorsese. Although Dylan himself provides the framing material necessary for shaping the larger story (through a series of interviews conducted by manager Jeff Rosen over a six-plus-year time period), you get the sense that he's never revealing more than he feels comfortable sharing. Like his best songs, Dylan the man retains a fundamental ambiguity even when he's talking right into the camera, so we always wonder what's really motivating him, what drives him. He's as opaque as any of the Dylan projections in Todd Haynes's masterful art film/biopic I'm Not There. And Scorsese respects that fundamental unknowability. He structures No Direction Home as a virtuoso exercise in associative editing, cutting (with editor David Tedeschi) between Dylan, his collaborators, archival footage, and Dylan's own music in a way that creates a psychological tapestry. It's as if Scorsese wants to convey the way he feels when he listens to Dylan's music. Even as four hours long, you never tire of the experience - it's a contact high. Dont Look Back might be the more iconic feature, but No Direction Home is better, and wholly worthy of its subject.