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Shelf Life: The Professional
Filed under: Fandom, Home Entertainment, Shelf Life
This week, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released Leon: The Professional on Blu-ray, and because I have the best job in the world, I got to watch it for this column. The truth is that this was a formative movie for me, not only augmenting my budding cinephilia in terms of attention to and interest in strongly visual filmmakers, but in understanding the technical and artistic value of widescreen cinema. Before the film was released on widescreen VHS and later, DVD, I watched the pan-and-scan version when it was first released on video and almost got sick from the cropping and scanning of director Luc Besson's balletic camerawork.
Thankfully, I never have to watch it via that sort of butchered presentation again, and even if you don't think the movie is a masterpiece, at the very least, SPHE's new Blu-ray offers a gorgeously rich transfer that fully celebrates Besson's cinematography. But even though this is a film I've revisited several times since its original release in 1994, I was curious to see how well The Professional would hold up some 15 years later – which brings us to this week's "Shelf Life."
Shelf Life: Monsters, Inc.
Filed under: Animation, Comedy, Disney, Home Entertainment, Shelf Life
On November 10, 2009, Walt Disney Home Entertainment is releasing a 4-disc Blu-ray set for Monsters, Inc., Pete Docter's feature directorial debut. Much like Finding Nemo set the stage for what Andrew Stanton eventually did on Wall-E, the 2001 Pixar film offers a glimpse of what was yet to come from Docter – who went on to direct this summer's Up, also out next week – but it also reiterates some of the themes that run throughout all of the studio's best work, including the concept of an alternate perspective on a place or idea that seems obvious, and the idea of families that are both familiar and unconventional. But how effectively does it examine and explore those things, particularly in light of what the studio has done since?
Suffice it to say that the Blu-ray set offers not only the best presentation of the film imaginable, but a bounty of extra content that expands the film's universe in new and interesting ways. As for the movie itself?
Shelf Life: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Filed under: Fandom, Shelf Life
While the majority of Cinematical's "Shelf Life" columns thus far have targeted specific releases that relate to new films, the truth is that we came up with this series so that we could go back and watch movies we wanted to see, whether it was to experience them for the first time after an eon of reactions and expectations, or just to see whether we were the same people we were when we first saw them, or just maybe, to champion an overlooked gem that disappeared into the ether after its initial release. This week's selection, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, falls into the third category, and we're happy to revisit it instead of some completely random movie that most folks already know they like.
The Facts: Directed by Peter Hunt, who previously edited three of the earlier films in the series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service marked the arrival of actor George Lazenby in the already-iconic role of James Bond. Lazenby notably only played the character one time, refunding money he was paid to appear in the next installment, Diamonds Are Forever, and according to the actor, declining to reprise the role because he thought the character was out of touch with modern audiences by the start of the 1970s. Meanwhile, other rumors swirled around his departure, including friction with the producers, but the film nevertheless ranked as another hit for the franchise, pulling in some $87 million worldwide.
Shelf Life: Contact
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Shelf Life
Admittedly, a big part of the appeal of "Shelf Life" (as a film writer, anyway) is having a legitimate excuse to go back and watch a lot of movies we remember loving, partially for the hell of it, and partially because we wonder if our feelings have changed significantly over time. Interestingly, this has thus far not begat a lot of pure reassurance, nor transformed initial or even evolved/ devolved reactions; rather, it's given us a window into – and more specifically, a stronger argument for – some of the appetites and interests we've developed as our sensibilities as moviegoers (much less critics) has evolved.
This week's case in point is Contact, Robert Zemeckis' 1997 film about humankind's first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Released during the summer after my college graduation, when I was at the height of my pretentiousness as a cinephile, it nevertheless knocked my socks off when I saw it, combining a sense of wonder with technical proficiency and an emotional sophistication that wouldn't register with yours truly until much later. If it still has – which is precisely why it's this week's "Shelf Life" subject. (Well, that and the fact it's just been released on Blu-ray by Warner Home Video.)
Shelf Life: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Filed under: Warner Brothers, Fandom, Home Entertainment, Shelf Life
This week, Spike Jonze's long-awaited adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are finally arrives in theaters, rewarding us for years and years of devoted attention to the production's twists and turns. But as exciting as the saga of its making has been, we've been bummed out that there are so few stopgap releases offering a similar kind of creepy, beautiful melancholy for kid audiences (and especially, audiences that are kids at heart).
Then again, looking back at the legacy of so-called family films that truly offer something transgressive, much less a little bit trippy, there aren't a whole lot of titles that come to mind as consummate entries in that rewarding, rarified canon. All of which brings us to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. No, not Tim Burton's 2005 film about a dentist's son who overcomes his obsession with Michael Jackson impersonation with the help of an adorable street urchin; the 1971 Mel Stuart film that turned the stuff of kids' dreams into a palpable reality, while offering a few future nightmares along the way.
Whether by accident or design, Warner Home Video released Willy Wonka on Blu-ray last week as a home-video supplement to Wild Things, and both because of our affection for borderline-creepy kid stories and of course our appetite for all things high definition, Stuart's film is the subject of this week's "Shelf Life."
Shelf Life: Natural Born Killers
Filed under: Warner Brothers, Fandom, Home Entertainment, Shelf Life
In the last several weeks, "Shelf Life" columns have examined venerated films from different genres or filmographies that were tangentially if not directly related to the week's new releases: Carrie in anticipation of Jennifer's Body, Dawn of the Dead before Zombieland, and so on. This week, we're looking ahead at a future Blu-ray release, next week's Natural Born Killers, because, quite frankly, who's seen this thing in the last decade?
That of course isn't to say it's not still an incendiary classic, but in retrospect, Oliver Stone's treatise on media savagery feels like both a product of its time and a random blitz of imagery that has since dulled our perceptions of (and reactions to) the film's overall effect. But then again, it just might have been ahead of its time, or maybe just a misunderstood romance, or some other unholy beast that looks a lot different 15 years after it debuted in theaters. As such, Stone's Natural Born Killers is the subject of this week's "Shelf Life."
Shelf Life: Dawn Of The Dead
Filed under: Shelf Life
While we'll pretty much make up any reason to watch a zombie any time day or night, much less one written and directed by the de facto creator of the genre, George Romero, the release of Zombieland gave our appetite for undead entertainment some legitimacy this week. And while Zack Snyder's 2004 reimagining of Dawn of the Dead might be the more obvious candidate for a "Shelf Life" column given Snyder's status as an emerging auteur himself, not to mention the fact it's the best American zombie movie in the last decade, we elected to go back to Romero's 1979 original and see if its classic status is still deserved.
The Facts: Also known as Zombi, George Romero's follow-up to the 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead was released May 24, 1979 after premiering in Italy almost a year before. With an estimated budget of $650,000, Romero's film grossed $55 million to date worldwide (equal to $181 million in 2009 dollars), and is widely acknowledged as the best zombie movie of all time – even if its predecessor likely remains the most influential.
Shelf Life: The Sixth Sense
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Fandom, Shelf Life
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Last week's "Shelf Life" looked back at Carrie, the iconic Brian De Palma movie that introduced the world to movies about terrifying teenage girls, the latest iteration of which is Diablo Cody's follow-up to Juno, Jennifer's Body. In anticipation of the upcoming movie Surrogates, which opens this Friday, we decided to revisit Bruce Willis' last great hit, The Sixth Sense, admittedly less because it has anything other than its star in common with Jonathan Mostow's technothriller than the fact that there are few movies in the last decade as acclaimed and commercially successful as M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 breakthrough. As such, we figured it was time to take a look at the movie that made "I see dead people" a pop culture catchphrase and examine whether it should truly live on as the classic it was originally considered.
The Facts: M. Night Shyamalan and his diminutive star, Haley Joel Osment, became overnight icons with this 1999 film about a doctor named Malcolm (played by Willis) desperately trying to reach a little boy named Cole who claims to see ghosts. Though it allegedly cost only $55 million to make, the film became the sleeper hit of that summer, earning some $670 million worldwide as well as six Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, Editor, and Original Screenplay. Meanwhile, the film drew almost unanimous praise from the critical community, and currently enjoys a 85 percent Tomatometer rating. Not to mention its greatest legacy – namely, making twist endings the hallmark (and eventually, Achilles' heel) of its director, most of whose subsequent movies featured some sort of third-act surprise.
Shelf Life: Carrie
Filed under: Fandom, Shelf Life
In the previous two installments of "Shelf Life," we took a look at a couple of prominent Oscar winners that have been both canonized and churned up by the annals of history. Interestingly, both of them held up a lot better than we originally expected, primarily because of our own hazy memories of Titanic and American Beauty, but also because of the wealth of films their successes inspired in terms of characters, stories, styles and even spectacles. As such it seemed appropriate to go back and check out a movie that in no small way served as the foundation for literally countless imitators and rip-offs, potentially one of which, Jennifer's Body, opens this week. The film we're referring to, of course, is Brian De Palma's Carrie, and we recently rewatched this venerated horror classic to see if it's still as worthy of its classic status as it was when everyone and their insane, God-fearing mother decided to do their version of it.
Shelf Life: American Beauty
Filed under: Fandom, Home Entertainment, Shelf Life
After Cinematical's new "Movies I Will Never See" series elicited a strong variety of reactions – both positive and negative - from readers, it occurred to us that there's a huge, untapped reservoir of existing films that we have actually seen, and it would probably be at least as interesting, if not more so, to go back and see how well they held up in the years since their release. These may be acclaimed classics that audiences simply haven't revisited on a regular basis, or condemned failures that might deserve a second look; but setting a statute of limitations of five years or more old (meaning before '04), we're going back to see how good are the bad movies, and how bad are the good ones - in other words testing their shelf life.
After last week's look at Titanic, it seemed somewhat appropriate to revisit other noteworthy Oscar winners. But while there were certainly a wealth of questionably worthy titles celebrated in the Academy's history, one in particular seemed especially ripe for consideration: American Beauty, Sam Mendes' directorial debut. Perhaps it's because so many movies followed its lead in deconstructing suburbia, or perhaps it's just because it's been ten years, but Mendes' film doesn't seem as relevant, important, or even as good as it once was – which is why we recently popped it in the DVD player for another look.
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