Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs

Monday, 17 June 2013

GREAT GATSBY (Paramount). Rich girls don’t marry poor boys. I thought I would catch up with the 1974 Jack Layton/Robert Redford version of Scott Fitzgerald’s account of the not-so-beautiful people in the Jazz Age, endlessly partying, endlessly dancing.

Mia Farrow is shallow Daisy. Bruce Dern is brutal Tom. Sam Waterston is bland Nick. Karen Black is hysterical Myrtle. The film is true to the novel and better than its reputation; but still not good enough, old sport.

ZERO DARK THIRTY (Universal). Director Kathryn Bigelow follows up The Locker Room with an intellectual thriller, a brutal and vivid semi-documentary account of the CIA’s efforts to find and kill Osma Bin Laden. Based on actual events, including torture of detainees, it does not always make for comfortable viewing.

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Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs

Monday, 10 June 2013

DJANGO UNCHAINED (Sony). Quentin Tarantino’s pastiche spaghetti western set in pre-Civil War America is Tarantino at his witty best and is first-rate entertainment. James Foxxe is a slave bent on revenge.

Christoph Waltz is a bounty hunter, eloquent, scrupulously polite and lethal. They make a splendid double-act. Leonardo DiCaprio is an aristocrat, suave, sadistic and racist. Samuel L Jackson is a warped Uncle Tom. The Ku Klux Klan is a silly joke in the Blazing Saddles manner. The finale is a bloodbath, so ludicrously excessive, that it feels like a different movie.

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Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

OPENING NIGHT (BFI). John Cassavetes 1977 film has his wife, the wonderful Gena Reynolds, as an ageing actress, an alcoholic, preparing for the premiere of a new play. Traumatised by a car accident she has witnessed and uncertain how to play the role she has been cast in, she has a spectacular breakdown.

The emotional pressures and crises mount. I seem (she says) to have lost my sense of reality. It is every actor’s nightmare ad-lib, every playwright’s nightmare rehearsal, every producer’s nightmare first night. Cassavetes is the lead actor. Ben Gazarra is the director. Joan Blondel is the playwright. The film will have a special appeal for people in show business.

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Robert Tanitch reviews The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection Volume 3 (StudioCanal)

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Four more of Ealing’s long-forgotten films: Frieda is the one to watch. It’s in quite a different league to the other three.

FRIEDA (1947). English officer marries the decent German girl who helped him escape from a POW camp during World War 2 and brings her home whilst the war is still on. How will ordinary English people behave towards her? Would you want your son to marry a German having been to the cinema and seen the horrific Holocaust newsreels?

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Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs

Monday, 20 May 2013

BROADCHURCH (Acorn). Chris Chibnail’s intriguing mystery is the most popular TV drama since Downton Abbey. Even the actors did not know who the murderer was whilst they were filming. For me the least interesting episode was the denouement. Of course, like everybody else, I wanted to know who had done it; but it is the characterisation of a community under stress which actually grips. The charismatic David Tennant and the amazing Olivia Colman head a fine cast. A sequel has been announced.

LORE (Artificial Eye) describes the horrors of the immediate aftermath of World War 2. The Germans are still in denial. A 14-year-old girl is left in charge of her younger sister, twin brothers and a baby. Her Nazi parents, who had committed atrocities against the Jews, are arrested. She makes a perilous journey through the Black Forest, helped by a young Jewish man. She is liable to starve and is in danger of being raped and shot. The story, directed by Cate Shortland, has a strong and depressing impact. There is no redemption.

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Robert Tanitch reviews The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection Volume 2 (StudioCanal)

Monday, 20 May 2013

The box set contains four films, one of which is a major discovery.

MIDSHIPMAN EASY (1935). Frederick Marryat 1836 adventure novel set during the Napoleonic Wars was a popular choice for Victorian schoolboys. Carol Reed’s film with its unconvincing fighting and indifferent acting won’t be popular with anybody today. Boy actor Hughie Green (much later in life he became a household name on TV) is in the leading role.

BRIEF ECSTASY (1937) is a big surprise. Everybody’s heard of Brief Encounter.  Who’s heard of this much earlier and far more erotic film? It deserves to be better known. It is what used to be called a woman’s picture. Will middle-class wife (Linden Travers) desert her elderly scientist husband (Paul Lukas) for a sexier and much younger man (Hugh Williams) with whom she had a one night stand when she was single?

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Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

THE IMPOSSIBLE (Entertainment 1). Disaster films are always popular but this is no blockbuster it’s the authentic thing. The horrors of the tsunami in 2004 in which 230000 people diedare brilliantly recreated and harrowing. Juan Antonio Bayoni’s film hones in one courageous family’s survival. The scenes between mother (Naomi Watts) and teenage son (the amazing Tom Holland) are physically tough and emotionally draining. Be prepared to shed tears.

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Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs

Monday, 29 April 2013

THE LIFE OF PI (20^th Century Fox). The adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel: an Indian teenager is shipwrecked and forced to share a boat with an adult Bengal tiger. It’s a water battle for survival, a test of faith embracing Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, a spiritual journey, a story with the intention to make you believe in God. Ang Lee’s versatility as a director is amazing. Technically and emotionally challenging, the special effects are stunning and the tiger is awesome.

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Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs

Monday, 22 April 2013

BLOOD SIMPLE (StudioCanal). A private eye is paid to kill a couple but thingsactually turn out extremely differently than expected through a misunderstanding. The Coen Brothers made a memorable debut in 1984 with this stylish, first class noir thriller, the blackest of black comedies, one of the best, a classic, full of irony, totally gripping, and sometimes very brutal.  There is a terrific performance from M Emmet Walsh as the detective.

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