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The second film in Guy Maddin's "autobiographical trilogy"
pushes his themes of sexual repression and guilt into even more disturbing
dimensions with a weird family melodrama of incest and child abuse wrapped in a
perverted horror movie. The fictional Guy Maddin remembers back to his childhood
in a lighthouse orphanage run by his emotionally smothering mother and distant,
workaholic scientist father, who feed off the youth of their charges (including
their own children) like vampires. The perverse fantasy has elements of juvenile
mystery and features cross-dressing characters, boy crushes, Sapphic love, and a
zombie. Maddin loves the grainy, soft, lo-fi look of super-8 film, which has a
hazy beauty of its own; and he edits in shards and splinters, roughing up the
image and making it pull and stutter like a damaged print chattering in the
projector gate. It could be the visual equivalent of hip-hop scratching on a
vinyl record. It's weird, creepy, imaginative, and unlike anything else out
there. The film is Maddin's first to be shot outside of Canada -- he came
to Seattle to make it for the nonprofit The Film Company -- and he dubbed
the finished feature his first "foreign film." The film was originally
presented as a theatrical event with a live orchestra and narrator and later
released with a soundtrack and narration by Isabella Rossellini. This disc
features the release soundtrack plus alternate narrator tracks recorded by Louis
Negin and director Maddin and recordings from live shows with narrators Laurie
Anderson, John Ashbery, Crispin Glover, Eli Wallach, and Rossellini, all from
the New York screenings at the Village East Cinema in May 2007. Features the
50-minute original documentary "97 Percent True," named after Maddin's assertion
that the film is "97 percent autobiographically true." Maybe not literally, but
as he explains, "There's a few surface details that have been changed & but
it's emotionally and melodramatically true, psychologically true, poetically
true." Also features a deleted scene, two original short films by Maddin ("It's
My Mother's Birthday Today" and "Footsteps") and a booklet with a new essay by
film critic Dennis Lim among the supplements.
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| Perils of the New Land: Films of the Immigrant Experience (1910-1915) |
Two social reform dramas, both included in the National Film
Registry, are collected in this two-disc set from Flicker Alley. Reginald Barker
(uncredited) directs the Thomas Ince production " The Italian" (1915), starring George Beban as a simple
gondolier who immigrates to America to make good and marry his sweetheart,
Annette (Clara Williams). His dreams of success quickly meet reality when he
faces the poverty of life in the slums of New York's East Side (recreated in
Hollywood through vivid sets and locations). The story itself is pure
melodrama -- a sick baby, a violent robbery, an unjust arrest -- but
don't expect a neat little happy ending. The print was restored from three
sources, but most of it is copied from an original nitrate print and looks quite
strong, and the lively compilation score is performed by the Mont Alto Motion
Picture Orchestra. Also features the even more lurid " Traffic in Souls" (1913), a white slavery thriller, and three
early Edison Company shorts ("The Police Force of New York City," "The Call of
the City" and "McQuade of the Traffic Squad"), and each feature has optional
commentary. |
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| Eclipse Series 11: Larisa Shepitko |
The latest collection in Criterion's no-frills Eclipse series
spotlights the work of Soviet director Larisa Shepitko with two features. " The Ascent" (1977), the final feature in her abbreviated
career (she died in 1979) and considered by many to be her masterpiece, is a
savagely intimate drama about a pair of Russian partisans captured and
interrogated by the Nazis during World War II. This is intense Soviet cinema in
the extreme, austere and stark, shot in long takes and unblinking close-ups of
faces in a hostile world all but lost in the snowy winter landscape. Also
includes her second feature " Wings" (1966), the story of a female fighter pilot
who remembers back to her glory days during World War II while working as a
school headmistress. Two discs in two thinpak cases in a paperboard
slip-sleeve. |
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| Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers: 20th Anniversary Edition |
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"They charge an arm and a leg!" reads the tagline of this
exploitation grunge classic. Do we really need an anniversary release of it? Of
course not, which only makes this DVD that much more fabulous! Jay Richardson is
the ostensible star, a seedy private eye who tracks runaway Linnea Quigley to a
blood cult of chainsaw-worshipping prostitutes. Fred Olen Ray designed the film
for cult consumption and cast Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface in the original "The
Texas Chain Saw Massacre") with that in mind. He's a real stiff in the role of
the cult leader, but B-sexploitation starlets Quigley and Michelle Bauer know
how to have fun with the material, which includes a chain saw battle and
Quigley's performance of "The Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws." Now that's
entertainment! Features commentary by director/producer Ray and co-writer T.L.
Lankford, and a making-of featurette.
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| Ferris Bueller's Day Off / I Love the 80's Collection |
The fun-loving high school jokester beloved by all (except
principal Jeffrey Jones) is back in a DVD re-release in Paramount's "I Love the
80's" line. Matthew Broderick plays the truant hero determined to get in one
last day of playing hooky, much to the delight of the entire population of
Chicago, with his reluctant best friend (Alan Ruck) and adoring girlfriend (Mia
Sara) in tow. Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen co-star, and Ben Stein made his
way into the pop culture consciousness as the droning economics teacher
desperate for any class participation ("Anyone? Anyone?"). The disc features
commentary by writer/director John Hughes. Also re-released under the "I Love
the 80's" imprint this week are a pair of Hughes-scripted films, " Pretty in Pink" (1986) and " Some Kind of Wonderful" (1987), both directed by Howard
Deutch; the dance-rebel musical " Footloose" (1984) with Kevin Bacon; and " Top Gun" (1986), the film that made Tom Cruise a superstar
and boosted U.S. Navy recruitment to its highest level in years. |
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In addition to his regular contributions to MSN Movies, Sean Axmaker is a
film critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and a DVD columnist for MSN
Entertainment. He is also a contributing writer for GreenCine.com, Turner
Classic Movies Online and Asian Cult Cinema, among other publications.
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Get Smart! Please!In honor of bumbling Maxwell
Smart, a brief history of our favorite clueless detectives On the RocksWith 'Iron Man' and 'Hancock' featuring
heavy-drinking protagonists, we reflect on the most memorable drunks in movie
history UnclassicsThough they may be listed among the
greatest films of all time, these 10 movies deserve to be
downgraded | |
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