For the week of June 4th, Universal Studios Home Entertainment is bringing Thoroughbreds to Blu-ray. I came out of this dark comedy thinking it played like if David Fincher and Stanley Kubrick somehow mounted a joint remake of Heathers. From the start - Olivia Cooke's self-identified sociopath calmly strokes a horse, before pulling a big knife out of her bag - the threat of violence holds over this film like a pall. We don't actually see any graphic bloodshed (the closest we get is a trailer-ready shot of Anton Yelchin getting hit, Looney Tunes-style, with a ceramic lamp), but we spend all ninety minutes preparing for the worst, so pervasive is the mood writer/director Cory Finley sets. He tells the stories in long, gliding camera takes where the widescreen image seems thisclose to revealing some ghastly atrocity without ever quite crossing over; I thought of Roman Polanski's best thrillers, and how he, too, generates so much tension from just not being able to see something. Kudos as well to the film's brilliant soundscape. Thoroughbreds works you over even when nothing explicitly menacing is happening - Finley will goose us with Erik Friedlander's atonal, discordant score, or he'll overemphasize some diegetic cue (a door opening; a cork popping; a Skype message incoming; a rowing machine chugging) until it sounds alien and hostile. Of course, none of this would work without the brilliant lead turns from Olivia Cooke and Anna Taylor-Joy. As two teenage girls that coldly, pragmatically start discussing their way towards actual murder, the two actress hit that same register of alien/hostile, except they're so charismatic (and so funny - despite the tension, Finley is making a comedy, and his leads make a meal of the dialogue) that we find ourselves involved with them even as their moral calculus repels us. Between this and Robert Eggers' brilliant The Witch, Taylor-Joy has fashioned herself as an indie femme fatale for the ages, and Cooke is even better as the more disturbed of the two. Cooke knows how broken she is, and that awareness (plus her curious, unsettling sense of loyalty) gives her character sympathetic edges that still curdle our stomachs. Honestly, I'd be tempted to call Thoroughbreds near peerless, were it not for one miscalculation. Finley finds the perfect note to end the movie on - a whisper-quiet, slow push-in that's equal parts horrific and tender - and then the movie chugs along for another four minutes. The epilogue isn't bad, to be sure. But it isn't perfect, and that distinction makes all the difference.
In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman wrote that "Cory Finley has crafted a very deliberate, engagingly slow-paced, careful and considered dark character film. Every shot tells its own story and each scene builds its own narrative, both of which funnel into the larger sequences -- chapters, as the movie labels them -- that altogether build an engagingly unique and tonally dark film watching experience. Even as the essential story is incredibly simple, the characters are as complex as they come, without coming across as overburdened by overly engineered depth. The film finds the proper balance between achieving forward story momentum and slow-burn character building and exploration, the latter of which dominates the film, the former of which is largely settled by the end of the first act. It's methodical, the actors brilliantly capture the unspoken depth as much as the essential physical actions that propel the story, and Finley frames it with exquisite structural draw, keeping it artfully and tellingly simple. He shoots his subjects in a manner that allows the actors to absolutely melt into character, where he simply uses the camera to draw on their innate abilities to shape the characters with very telling, but very natural, cadences that play beautifully to the lens."
I tell you what movie I do know is a stone classic: Pixar and Disney's The Incredibles, which is getting a much deserved 4K upgrade this week. No film has proven more important to the Pixar legacy than this one; if pictures like Toy Story and Finding Nemo established the CGI-animation studio as a box-office powerhouse, then The Incredibles made it clear Pixar could churn out a masterwork without seeming to sweat. I defy you to find a more seamless, confident piece of storytelling than this one, which weaves together so many different themes and narratives under a tonally consistent whole. Our entrance point is a midlife crisis story, with Bob Parr (Coach himself, Mr. Craig T. Nelson) struggling to fulfill his duties as a suburban father and employee. He hates his job (personified by Wallace Shawn's malevolent little toadie), and while he loves his wife (Holly Hunter, wonderful as always) and kids (Spencer Fox and author/historian/comedian Sarah Vowell), he feels overwhelmed by them more often than not, and oh yeah, he's also experiencing separation nostalgia for his old job as a costumed superhero, the super-strong Mr. Incredible. Bob's taken to running covert hero gigs (with his best friend and fellow former-super Lucius Best, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) just to feel alive, so when a mysterious businesswoman (Elizabeth Peña) offers him a chance to get back in the game, Bob can't resist...and that's when things get really complicated. I can't imagine anyone hasn't seen The Incredibles by now, but just in case, I'll tread lightly to preserve its secrets. Suffice to say, The Incredibles maintains this genuine streak of melancholy even after it turns into maybe the greatest James Bond-type adventure ever made - it takes seriously Bob's emotional journey and offers one incredible (ha) action sequence after another, especially once Bob's family catches wind of his second life. This is the superhero movie we always want but so rarely get, and much as I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe and theDark Knight trilogy, none of them convey the breathless sense of excitement that The Incredibles has in triplicate. But that's just writer/director Brad Bird for you. Right now, he's three for three in terms of his animated features (The Iron Giant and Ratatouille might be even better than this one, which is saying something), and no matter the subject matter, they all share Bird's consummate professionalism, his gift for the structurally perfect screenplay, and the idea that we're only at our best when we're doing what we love. Based off movies like The Incredibles, so is Brad Bird. Here's hoping he was just as inspired when he made The Incredible 2 - he's got a tough act to follow.
I've always found Peter Pan - which is getting a new "Signature Edition" from Disney Home Entertainment - to be one of Disney's most unusual storybook adaptations. Everyone knows and loves the Peter Pan legend; it's the epic tale of adolescence's last hurrah, as Wendy, her brothers, Peter, and the Lost Boys gorge themselves on as much excitement and whimsy as they can before marching toward responsibility. The movie, on the other hand, isn't so epic. This is a feature that includes a) pirate attacks, b) flying schooners, c) Indian attacks, d) all of the above, yet its scope feels quaint when compared to Disney adventures like Pinocchio or The Lion King. Lady and the Tramp feels more expansive, and it's a simple Ode to the Pleasures of Suburbia (shot in full Cinemascope). Pan's backdrops (drawn by the great Eyvind Earle) are pretty, but they're about as tangible as studio concept art; the action scenes are competent but few in number; and the cast of characters contains everyone who is necessary and no one else – besides Peter, Captain Hook, Smee, Wendy, George, Michael, and Tinkerbell, we get a few Indians, a handful of Lost Boys, and just enough pirates to outnumber them. Even the screen seems unusually confining. Peter Pan premiered in 1953, just as televisions were really beginning to flood American households, and you better believe that Walt Disney was moving forward with an eye towards the small screen. Just note how Disney animators used the 1.33:1 frame for Peter Pan. Compositions are mostly limited to wide and medium shots, straightforward affairs that present all the relevant character and action details with a minimum of fancy camera moves or animation tricks. In its simple, unobtrusive editing and shot rhythms, it looks like nothing more than an exceptionally well-decorated sitcom. Yet in its unassuming way, Peter Pan has proved itself one of Disney's sturdiest films. Whereas Cinderella's gender politics and Sleeping Beauty's flat, marking-time midsection make the two flicks difficult sits, Peter Pan maintains viewer interest all the way through. There's no fat on this one, and therein lies the benefit of Peter Pan's limited scope. We spend just as much time with the Darling family as we need to setup Wendy, George, and Michael, then Peter arrives, and it's off to Neverland before meeting/saving Tiger Lily, defeating Captain Hook, and heading back to London. The film doesn't care about complex characters or showstopping musical numbers (only the "What Makes the Red Man Red" song counts on that front, and it's a showstopper because of how appallingly racist it is); like its young protagonists, it just wants to have a good time. It's the magic of being young again, in all youth's winsome, unobtrusive glory.
Of the new Blu-ray, Martin Liebman noted that "Peter Pan is a treasure of a film and a joy of a Blu-ray. This 'Signature Collection' release carries over most of the previously released bonus content and adds several new supplements. The A/V presentations appear unchanged. As with most of the other Signature Collection releases, this one's not really worth the double dip unless one is a serious Disney collector or wants that desirable Movies Anywhere digital copy (or the slipcover), but for those who missed out on it the first time (as I did), it's a must-own."
Finally, Film Movement is bringing the new restoration of Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence to Blu-ray. This bleak Spaghetti Western illustrates that old Robert McKee script principle (or maybe it's Brian Cox as Robert McKee) that a movie "can have flaws, problems, but [if you] wow them in the end...you've got a hit." For the first ninety of The Great Silence's 105 minutes, I was convinced I was watching another Spaghetti Western also-ran. Nobody denies the genius of Sergio Leone's work, but the rest of the genre is extremely variable, quality-wise; for every Once Upon a Time in the West or The Big Gundown (which remains the greatest example of the form that Leone never directed), you've got something like The Great Silence, which has loads of great ideas that it struggles to realize. We have a mute gunslinger (Jean-Louis Trintignant) pitted against a genially psychotic bounty hunter (Klaus Kinski, underplaying to terrific effect), and all against the backdrop of Utah's desolate snowy mountains (actually the Dolomite range in northeastern Italy), but other than Ennio Morricone's terrific score and Silvano Ippoliti's breathtaking cinematography (you feel cold watching this movie), The Great Silence kinda sits there, rambling along while Corbucci and Co. enjoy an all-expenses-paid mountain vacation. I was not surprised to learn that Quentin Tarantino loves this film. It's the kind of vaguely underwhelming exploitationer that Tarantino would essentially remake to far better effect in his own work. Tarantino structures his underrated The Hateful Eight as a Great Silence remix, from the focus on bounty hunters to the barren winter climate, and as I tired of watching The Great Silence, I amused myself by spotting the similarities (an extended stagecoach scene; the way Hateful Eight's Walton Goggins acts as the moral inverse to Frank Wolff's befuddled sheriff here; the racial politics, although Tarantino pushes them further). Corbucci's predictable affair builds to a showdown between Trintignant and Kinski...except what transpires absolutely not does go the way we think it will. Corbucci keeps subverting our expectations in the final fifteen minutes, building to an ending so audaciously nihilistic that it crosses over into the transcendent. I think I forgot to breathe during that last reel, and credit to Corbucci: he almost redeems the entire film (even Tarantino is too much of an entertainer to go this far). Be warned, though. It's a long road there.