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French everyman Daniel Auteuil and baby doll pop singer Vanessa
Paradis star in Patrice Leconte's rhapsodic fairy tale of a knife thrower and
his waiflike muse, a little girl lost who he saves from suicide and puts into
his act. With her sparkling eyes and curled lips, Paradis looks like she's
walked out of a fashion layout, but behind her facade is the naïve innocence of
a child-woman who confuses sex and love, while Auteil's hangdog face suggests
the scarred survivor of a loveless existence who wears disappointment like a
badge of honor. Leconte drives the film into pure romantic fantasy: alone,
they're hopeless losers; together, they are pure magic. In the film's most
gloriously absurd moment, the two sneak off to an abandoned shack and play out
their act in private: knife-throwing not simply as foreplay but sex itself, and
she purrs and sighs and writhes in orgasmic gasps with each toss. Shot in
shimmering black-and-white CinemaScope, it's gloriously baroque, and at times
rhapsodically silly, and Leconte overcomes the paper doll characterizations and
older man/younger woman dynamic with sheer passion and cinematic verve. He
believes in his sequin and sawdust fantasy with such unabashed enthusiasm that
he makes it work even through its most absurd moments. The DVD debut of this
1999 romance is part of the second wave of Paramount releases licensed by Legend
Films. Other titles in this collection are included below.
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| Batman: The Movie |
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Holy camp fest, Batman! Adam West and Burt Ward leapt from their
self-parodying TV series to the big screen to take on their greatest foes the
Joker (Cesar Romero), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Riddler (Frank
Gorshin), and the purr-fectly sexy Catwoman (Lee Meriwether) in this
tongue-in-cheek superhero farce from 1966. West's arch deadpan only enhances the
painful puns. The exaggerated, ridiculously choreographed fight scenes are
punctuated by word balloons ("Pow!," "Thud!," and "Blammo!"), and the caped
crusader has a handy utility belt accessory for every occasion (Bat Shark
Repellent, anyone?). Along with the previously available commentary by stars
West and Ward (breezy but repetitive) are a new commentary track by screenwriter
Lorenzo Semple Jr. (strewn with behind-the-scenes dirt) and an optional subtitle
trivia track. New featurettes include "Batman: A Dynamic Legacy," "Caped
Crusaders: A Heroes Tribute" and "Gotham City's Most Wanted." Also available in
Blu-ray format.
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| Heathers: 20th High School Reunion Edition |
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Michael Lehmann's hilariously black-hearted comedy of teen angst
and vicious cliques, directed from a subversively clever script by Daniel Waters
(whose new film "Sex and Death 101" is also available this week), is a
devilishly nasty look at high school backbiting turned homicidal. In the climate
of real life teen violence, the film couldn't be made today, but the 1989
production is a wicked satire. Christian Slater does a dead-on young Jack
Nicholson, all sneering charm, and Winona Ryder is the smart girl smothered by
the inane snootiness of her "cool girls" clique who is eventually freed by
Slater's rebellion. New to this two-disc edition is the 20-minute featurette
"Return to Westerburg High," which is entertaining but doesn't have much that
isn't already in the 2001 featurette "Swatch Dogs and Diet Coke Heads" (which is
also included in this edition). Also features commentary by director Lehmann,
producer Denise Di Novi and writer Waters, and DVD-ROM accessible screenplay
excerpts (including the original ending) from the previous DVD release.
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| Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters |
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The life and legacy of Japanese author and playwright Yukio
Mishima is brought to the screen by writer/director Paul Schrader in this
Japanese-language American production. Framed by the events of his last day,
when the controversial nationalist famously committed public seppuku (ritual
suicide) as an act of protest against the government, Schrader intersperses
scenes from his life (shot in black and white) with stylized vibrant color
dramatizations from his novels. Ken Ogata plays Mishima, and Philip Glass
provides the score. The Criterion release features voice-over narrations in both
English (by Roy Scheider) and Japanese (by Ogata), and new commentary by
director Schrader and producer Alan Poul. The two-disc set also features the
55-minute BBC documentary "The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima," a video interview
excerpt with Mishima talking about writing, and numerous new video interviews
with Schrader's collaborators and others. A 56-page booklet features stills and
essays on the film, its censorship in Japan, and the set design.
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| The Pied Piper |
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Folk-pop troubadour Donovan is the Pied Piper of Hamelin in
Jacques Demy's folk-meets-medieval musical take on the dark fairy tale. It's
part feudal drama and part odyssey tale of gypsy flower-children stumbling into
the corrupt forces of church and state (as incarnated by Donald Pleasence, Diana
Dors, John Hurt and Roy Kinnear) and the Biblical punishment of the black
plague. It's an awkward mix of sensibilities directed with all the finesse of
bad children's theater and performed with either too much seriousness or too
little restraint. This bizarre fairy tale is not without a certain fascination,
but it is by any measure a bad film. Jack Wild co-stars.
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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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