DVD Traffic Report: January 2008 Archives
4 by Agnes Varda (Criterion)
Among the most important female directors* in film history, Agnes Varda may best be remembered for crashing the boys' club that was the Nouvelle Vague with Cleo from 5 to 7, her 1962 study in real-time anxiousness — the title character hangs around in Paris, awaiting the results of a cancer biopsy. But she was already on the scene in 1956, when she made La Pointe Courte, a film-school standby and an important precursor to the French New Wave. This boxed set collects both of those high-water marks along with Le Bonheur (1965), the well-regarded Vagabond (1985) and a full load of extras. I haven't seen it myself, but it's on my list.
* No, there aren't many of them. Another good reason to investigate the great ones.
Buy it from Amazon.com: 4 by Agnès Varda (La Pointe Courte, Cléo from 5 to 7, Le bonheur, Vagabond) - Criterion Collection
Monty Python's Life of Brian (Sony)
How many times do you have to buy Life of Brian, anyway? If you already own a DVD version, this latest iteration — the "Immaculate Edition" — may be missable. But if you're like me, you haven't watched this since the Criterion laserdisc came out and need an upgrade. (You could also ask why you spent big money on a Criterion laserdisc that you would only play once, and why you would compound that fiscal error by sinking even more money into a DVD that you're likely to only play once — but then you wouldn't be like me.) My copy (Blu-ray) hasn't arrived from Amazon.com yet, but it looks like this one contains the same five deleted scenes and the same twin commentary tracks as the Criterion version, which means I can thrill again to the sound of distinguished Python Terry Gilliam griping about how much better this film would have been if the group had let him direct. (He's probably right, of course.) As Python goes, I honestly prefer the more madcap Holy Grail — but this one has the distinction of being perhaps the least offensive film ever to get a worldwide reputation for blasphemy. Here's a recent interview with John Cleese on the subject.
Buy it from Amazon.com: Monty Python's Life Of Brian - The Immaculate Edition
or Monty Python's Life Of Brian - Collector's Edition [Blu-ray] (Note: Amazon.com says the Blu-ray version is two discs, but apparently it's just one.)
Eastern Promises (Universal)
The life of a Russian gangster, with a heart. Forget about the story, which is a slight thing, and more than a little obvious. It’s elevated — from an auteurist perspective at least — by Cronenberg’s pedigree, although it’s perhaps the most conventional of the director’s many genre-tweaking exercises. But this expertly modulated B-movie exercise in tension and release is really the Viggo Mortenson show — he spends most of the movie with the kind of confident almost-grin on his face that suggests he’s the only one who realizes that a joke is being told. It’s not until a punishing action scene, in which Mortenson’s Nikolai fights for his life, nude, in a Russian bath house, that he delivers the punchline. Like the superior A History of Violence, Eastern Promises is a deliberately modest but sophisticated (and quite entertaining) accomplishment.
Buy it from Amazon.com: Eastern Promises (Widescreen Edition)
Zodiac: Director’s Cut (
The differences between this version and the theatrical
release are fairly minor, but if you’re going to dig into (or revisit)
Fincher’s obsessive, nearly three-hour look at the unsolved mystery of the
Zodiac killer, you might as well go all the way. The complete film holds up to
repeat viewings, but this DVD is a nibbler’s delight, since the film can be
broken down into so many virtuosic sequences and incredibly ambitious VFX shots
that reward close examination. The digital cinematography by Harris Savides is
worth a close look, almost — but not quite — replicating the look of film and
still giving an oddly plastic feel to some of the imagery. (In my review, I
guessed that the cab seen from a crane shot in one of the film’s early murder
sequences was a CG model. I found out later that I was completely wrong. But
it’s still fascinating to consider the provenance of these images from a tech
point of view.) The two-disc release carries a full load of extras, including
two documentaries and the requisite Fincher commentary. (Original review.)
or Zodiac (Two-Disc Director's Cut) [HD DVD]
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