For the week of December 17th, Warner Home Entertainment is bringing the 4K restoration of Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey to Blu-ray. This disc is absolutely worth the wait – after some mastering issues that led to delays, Warner has presented the film in the most technically immaculate version since its 1968 release. Still, as fantastic as it looks in 4K high-def, you owe it to yourself to see the film on the biggest possible screen. On a huge digital transfer or photochemical print, you realize the degree to which Kubrick carefully calibrated his efforts to the large-screen format. Think of those long docking sequences. The "Blue Danube Waltz" is the most iconic, but that's just one of six or seven, and on a big screen you see the textures on the spaceship, on their landing surfaces, be they moon-rock or man-made. Years of blockbuster space epics have desensitized us to the fact that 2001 is maybe the greatest special-effects reel ever made, but I sorta get why we neglect this film alongside more obvious candidates like Star Wars and Avatar. Kubrick slathers 2001 in complex matte paintings and scale props and process shots and rotating sets and front projection and photochemical experiments and gorgeous prosthetics, yet with the exception of the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" climax, most of these effects emphasize hyperrealism over kinetic thrills. You'd never mistake 2001 for a documentary (Geoffrey Unsworth's widescreen cinematography would make this the moviest-movie even if we didn't also have sociopathic AI's and alien monoliths), but Kubrick wants to amaze through scale, through fidelity to science and physics as if everything we were seeing could be real (not for nothing, he consulted with NASA scientists when designing the effects). In that regard, so many of the moments that play as indulgences on a TV gain in richness and power when projected large. No longer is Kubrick just showing off (although he is, a little); we need sequences like the "Dawn of Man" and Bowman's ultimate trip to run long so we can immerse ourselves in all those details. Better still, Bowman's journey across the infinite plays like the greatest IMAX reel in the world. Only those slightly cheesy rotating quadrangles over Jupiter don't convince, but I'm still grateful they exist, if only because effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull would build off them for his phenomenal Close Encounters of the Third Kind effects work. Those beats remind us that we're watching something constructed - it's artwork on par with a J.W. Turner or a Goya painting.
In his Blu-ray review, Jeffrey Kauffman wrote that he "would encourage newcomers to this film to really take a deep, maybe even meditative, breath before embarking on this epochal journey, because Kubrick is really in no rush to dole out a cinematic thrill every ten pages, or whatever the Syd Field model dictates. That 'leisurely' pace begins with the surprisingly long atonal music that plays even before Leo the Lion shows up, but it continues through The Dawn of Man sequence (where one sixties critic famously complained that Kubrick held 'each and every' shot too long), and a lot of the subsequent material, where both a tamped down emotional aspect and long stretches of nothing, or not much, happening tend to give a feeling that's maybe the cinematic equivalent of the Discovery One astronauts in cryogenic stasis. But one of the things about 2001: A Space Odyssey that continues to impress now fifty years after its original release is how deliberate it all is, from its weird 'monolithic' imagery to its then provocative use of classical music to accompany science fiction tinged imagery to its almost prescient treatment of an out of control artificial intelligence."
The other big 4K re-release of the week? Fittingly, it comes courtesy of Kubrick's most famous protégé: Steven Spielberg's masterful Holocaust drama Schindler's List, which is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year. Whenever he's asked, Spielberg always lists Schindler's List as one of the three hardest pictures he's ever made (the other two are Jaws and Ready Player One, BTW), yet his self-assessment belies what a frighteningly effortless viewing experience the film offers. Schindler's List should be homework - it's a three-plus-hour drama about how opportunistic businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson, in the best performance he'll ever give) became the unlikely savior to 1,600 Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, and it unfolds in stark black-and-white (DP Janusz Kaminski's Oscar-winning cinematography makes the film look like a WWII newsreel broadcasting from Hell) and horrific graphic violence. I don't know what's worse: the film's brutal liquidation-of-the-ghettos setpiece, or the random atrocities that Ralph Fiennes' loathsome Nazi commandant metes out as casually as a cigarette break (and Spielberg conflates the two: vide the horrifying sequence where Fiennes steps outside for a smoke and target practice on his unsuspecting concentration-camp prisoners). Here's the thing, though: you get lost in this movie all the same. As violent as it is, the carnage never plays as exploitative, and editor Michael Kahn keeps the proceedings moving so quickly that we never linger too long on the worst horrors. Rare is the 195-minute-long movie that feels like it's only ninety minutes, but here you go. Furthermore, Spielberg is working at the absolute peak of his craft. Unlike, say, Empire of the Sun (his previous attempt to show critics he'd grown up), Spielberg doesn't run from his greatest-showman techniques. Rather, he leans into them, contrasting kinetic action sequences against dialogue scenes that unfold in deceptively long takes and crackle like the best live theater (Steven Zaillian gets the sole script credit, but Aaron Sorkin polished the dialogue, and it shows). Spielberg also indulges his love of the unobtrusive genre mash-up. Yes, this is a war story and a tragedy, but it's also a nuanced character study, a full-scale suspense thriller, a grand melodrama, and - most amazingly - a stealth buddy picture. As good as Neeson is, Ben Kingsley matches him step-for-step as Schindler's warmly pragmatic accountant - you can chart the film's beating heart in their weighty interactions. First Kingsley can't look Schindler in the eyes, and by the end, he can't stop looking at Schindler with amazement. Watching Schindler's List, you will think to yourself, "Oh, this is the best movie ever made from the greatest living American filmmaker," and with the clarity of a moral absolute. This movie is a magic trick.
You know what would make a great double-feature with Schindler's List? Julien Duvivier's cynical and stylish noir Panique, which the Criterion Collection is covering this week. This film has cast a spell over me since I first saw it in film school a decade ago; for all the monochrome style and grace Duvivier gives it, Panique unnerves like few French genre pictures from its era. Ostensibly, it's a lurid slice of pulp: Duvivier took inspiration from the iconic mystery writer Georges Simenon and his novel Monsieur Hire's Engagement. The formality of that title - "engagement," like it's a good thing - belies the Job-trials of the title character (played in the film by the great Michel Simon), a defiantly reclusive Parisian who becomes the prime suspect after a woman in his neighborhood turns up dead. Without spoiling too much, it's safe to say that things do not go well for Hire. Most noir heroes are doomed from the jump, and it doesn't help that the real killer has done such a good job of making Hire a patsy for the murder. However, Hire is a patsy in another, altogether unexpected fashion, and here's where those Schindler's List comparisons become most resonant. See, Hire is Jewish, and in the sociopolitically charged atmosphere of 1940s France, that quality proves more fatal than even the most damning evidence: everyone is so quick to blame Hire just because of his ethnic background. And so Panique transcends its genre leanings. Duvivier is indicting his fellow countrypeople, for their acquiescence to the Nazi presence during World War II, and he's suggesting that the psychic damage alone will last far past V-E Day. That he's able to do so in a potboiler as engaging as Fritz Lang's Fury or William Wellman's The Ox-Bow Incident makes Panique all the more significant - we're as disgusted by the injustice as we are captivated by Duvivier's peerless filmmaking gifts.
Also from Universal: the family-friendly horror adventure The House with a Clock in Its Walls. If nothing else, 2018 may go down as the Year That Made Me Appreciate Jack Black Again. His nervy goofball act galvanized pictures like Orange County and School of Rock, but for a decade and a half, Black has been mired in tepid studio comedies and failed stabs at dramatic relevance, both have which have slowed him down and dulled his impact (Tropic Thunder and Bernie aside). But this year? We began with his hilarious turn in Jumanji 2 (that scene where his teenage girl-trapped-inside-a-middle-aged dude's body realizes the mechanics of how guys pee ranks with the best of his Tenacious D material), and we end here with The House with a Clock in Its Walls's Jonathan Barnavelt. At first glimpse, it seems like we're in for some fundamental Black miscasting: Barnavelt is a debonair-if-eccentric warlock, and he's certainly not prone to the kinds of linguistic and scatological absurdities in which Black delights. Yet Black makes the role his own, filling the space with his boundless personality and late-period Orson Welles girth (that's actually a compliment, believe it or not). He plays up Barnavelt's many mediocrities (he can't play the saxophone, he's prone to a little thoughtless destruction, and he's kind of a terrible warlock) so he can better assay the character's zest for life. The thing Barnavelt is best at is loving the things he's not great at. That quality is part and parcel of Black's core programming, and when The House with a Clock in Its Walls is at its best (when he's teaching his cousin Lewis about magic, when he's sparring with Cate Blanchett's delightful witch/next-door neighbor), it's when Black seems most comfortable in his imperfections. Pity the rest of the movie isn't consistently on Black's wavelength. I'm tempted to call this director Eli Roth's best movie, if only because I've hated everything else he's directed. Roth acquits himself here, no more, no less: he wisely cedes the screen to Jon Hutman's gorgeous production design (this movie looks like Crimson Peak for kids) even though he can't make any of it look scary, and he more-or-less leaves the actors to their own devices, which is fine when it comes to old pros like Black, Blanchett, or Kyle MacLachlan (as the film's Big Bad) but fatal whenever he cuts to young star Owen Vaccaro, who gives one of the most mannered and least natural child performances I've ever seen. It's a shame - I really like the effects, and Eric Kripke's script is often very funny. With a better director, we might have a The Monster Squad-esque minor classic. As is, we've got a pleasantly inoffensive reminder of how good Jack Black is. Small favors, I guess.
Martin Liebman wrote that the film "is a superficial movie that dazzles and delights with its seamless integration of modern wizardry: computer generated special effects. The film expertly integrates them into its dense and detailed world - Jonathan's house, primarily - that like many of the Harry Potter interiors comes alive but often in the background rather than as a focal point. Certainly there is some fun to be had with the various animated objects, both friendly and, at film's end, not-so-friendly, but the film is first and foremost a character study, following young Lewis through the grieving process and exploring how dabbling in the world of magic and then devouring everything he can get his hands on both helps and hinders the process. Roth smartly balances character and special effects, creating a world of wonder but one that does not overwhelm the story. He makes magic integral but not the focal point. There's always a tangible sense of flesh and blood to the movie."
From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment comes the surprise smash hit Venom. I say "surprise" because all advance signs pointed to this one being an unmitigated failure - the uninspiring trailers, the PG-13 rating, the rumors of some superior extended cut that we'd never see, the fact that Eminem wrote an original song for the movie like it's 2003 or something - yet the film ended up grossing the GDP of a mid-sized developing nation. Ultimately, I think my biggest problem with Venom is that I wish it were better or worse than it is. We aren't looking at some idiosyncratic superhero riff OR a camp classic; the final cut is a middling, inherently functional programmer that distinguishes itself in almost no significant fashions. Think what you'd get if Simon West directed Spider-Man: Tom Hardy's plucky reporter Eddie Brock is investigating the connections between a mysterious billionaire (Riz Ahmed, in the first bad performance he's given) and a host of illegal human experimentations, only to become the unwitting host for an alien parasite that gives Brock superhuman powers. And Brock uses those powers to fight evil, and also maybe to win back his long-suffering ex (Michelle Williams, who's a delight even though she doesn't need to be), and so it goes, all without the virtuosity that a Sam Raimi or Christopher Nolan might bring to the material. Director Ruben Fleischer can point and shoot and no more, and the whole script feels like it was Jenga'ed together - you can see the writers (the committee of Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner, Kelly Marcel, and Will Beall) dropping contrivances and plot fixes almost in real time, like they're only just realizing what needs to happen for the movie to end. I'm thinking of the way they hang a lantern on Ahmed's upcoming space flight so brightly we won't be surprised when the finale takes us to a CGI NASA-ripoff, or how the Venom symbiote awkwardly blurts out (with twenty-five minutes in the movie left to go) it hates fire because the Three-Act Superhero Movie Structure necessitates that your super needs a Kryptonite, and Venom plain forgot up to that point. But if Venom has anything to offer, it's Tom Hardy, who...whoo boy, is he going for it here. I don't know what the hell "it" is, or if "it" is any good, but he's playing for the rafters as both Brock (who speaks in that garbled Mike Tyson-esque mumble Hardy uses to approximate a Noo Yawk accent) and the titular character (who speaks in an exaggerated version of Hardy's actual English accent that recalls a more peevish/homicidal Knight Rider). He reminds me if you Brundlefly'ed A Streetcar Named Desire-era Brando with The Missouri Breaks-era Brando. You cannot accuse Hardy of phoning this one in. I totally understand if you still want to hang up on him.
Weirdly enough, Shane Black's Predator rebootquel came closer to satisfying the "so bad it's good" craving Venom couldn't deliver. I totally understand why The Predator flopped so hard this summer. Not since Justice League have I seen a movie bearing such grisly post-production scars, from rushed CGI to callbacks to dialogue we've never heard before to hastily reworked plot mechanics. The dimly-lit forest finale plays as so perfunctory that major characters appear and disappear as if by magic - I'd still like someone to explain what happens to Sterling K. Brown (having a ball as the film's Nicorette-chewing, douchebro government agent), or how Olivia Munn is able to traverse miles of rough forest terrain on foot in mere minutes. At times, we're watching a juiced-up, EXTREME reboot of the Predator mythology; at times, Black is in ironic deconstructionist mode, letting his supporting cast openly mock the stuff in the movie that doesn't make sense (one of the many running gags finds the characters questioning why we even call the main character "Predator"). Beyond all of that, the film's attitude towards mental illness is...questionable, at best. Black pays lip service to the idea that he's reclaiming disabilities as strengths rather than weaknesses - Munn's nerdy biologist (who's also a demon with an assault rifle in the third act because of course she is) posits that the hero's autistic son (Jacob Tremblay, doing wonders with a problematic role that probably doesn't even belong in this movie) represents the next evolution in human development - but we've still got to deal with a lot of r-word jokes and Thomas Jane's Tourette's shtick. Yet for all its faults (maybe even because of them) The Predator remains interesting and compulsively watchable. Black has so much he wants to do with the Predator series. Pity he had to contend with a studio (Fox) not known for supporting its franchise architects (Ryan Reynolds and James Mangold aside). That tension turns The Predator into a quality dialectic where inspiration thrives alongside wearying compromise. Black and co-writer Fred Dekker have audaciously reimagined the whole Predator mythology...in what feels like a late-stage script pass designed to patch up reshot material. They write brilliantly self-aware one-liners and gags...that Black the director often bungles in incoherent action or character staging. They announce a major movie star in the form of Trevante Rhodes, whose cynical, gleefully suicidal badass is as electric as Mel Gibson's first Martin Riggs at-bat...and then they have Rhodes play second-fiddle to Boyd Holbrook's beyond-boring leading man. You get whiplash from The Predator switchbacking crazily between stuff that works and stuff that just doesn't, and part of me wonders how much of that is studio meddling, Black's own lunatic instincts, or his lunatic interests pushing back against studio meddling. Whatever the case, it's fascinating to watch, and never boring. We're never going to get another Predator movie like this again (or if we do, it'll be a PG-13 John Moore joint), so I don't know whether or not to condemn Black for blowing up the franchise or to praise him for the size of the explosion. Bit of both, I suppose.