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The story of Scarlett O'Hara, the narcissistic yet driven
Southern belle who defies all convention to rise from the ashes of the Civil War
as a steely, ruthless businesswoman, is as seductive as they come, and David O.
Selznick's lavish super-production is as perfectly crafted as Hollywood epic
entertainment gets. It's also a problematic classic that idealizes the
antebellum South and relegates its black characters to comic relief roles, a
sometimes embarrassing product of its era. British actress Vivien Leigh, then
unknown in America, plays Scarlett like a jungle cat, purring and soft yet
ferocious when she wants something, while Clark Gable is a dream Rhett Butler:
insolent, rakish, charming, and even noble under his gambling-man exterior. How
could she prefer that aristocratic fop Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) to this
red-blooded Southern wolf?
It looks magnificent in its Blu-ray debut,
with color that glows as if lit from within, and the entire film is kept to a
single disc. The rest of the set is packed with all the supplements from the
previous DVD special edition (commentary by film historian Rudy Behlmer, the
exhaustive 1989 documentary "The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind,"
documentaries on Gable and Leigh, and all manner of featurettes and archival
shorts) plus the 1992 documentary "MGM: When the Lion Roars," the 1980 TV movie
"The Scarlett O'Hara War," and the new 2009 TCM documentary "1939: Hollywood's
Greatest Year." The box set (and it's a box, all right) also includes a booklet,
miniature reproductions of art prints and the original theatrical program, and a
CD soundtrack sampler.
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| Kevin Smith Box Set |
Kevin Smith's debut film, "Clerks" (1994), is a grungy guerrilla
comedy about smart-aleck dropouts in the lowest rungs of the service industry,
shot on black-and-white 16 mm with a starvation budget in the hinterlands of New
Jersey. Fifteen years later it's still arguably his best film: scruffy,
sardonic, sarcastic and surly. And the Blu-ray debut features two versions of
the film (with commentary on each) and all the supplements of the earlier DVD
special edition. The set also features a pair of films rooted in the same Smith
"askewniverse": " Chasing Amy" (1997) and " Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" (2001), also with
commentary and other supplements. Smith kept his scruffy aesthetic even as he
graduated to studio budgets, which begs the question: Why Blu-ray? The answer:
Why not? |
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| Near Dark |
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"There's a price for the night." The artwork for Lionsgate's new
release of Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 film plays upon the romantic angle a la
"Twilight," but there's a very different kind of romance in this feral and
ferocious vampire road movie noir. This is a movie about blood in all senses of
the word, and it defies the traditions of vampire lore with a moving portrait of
healing and sacrifice. But it's also a modern Southwestern with teeth. Director
Bigelow offers a solid commentary track, and the disc includes the excellent,
original 47-minute documentary featurette "Living in Darkness" and a deleted
scene with director commentary.
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| It's a Wonderful Life |
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Teacher says: Every time someone watches "It's a Wonderful
Life," an angel gets its wings. OK, that's not actually the quote, but I stand
by the thought. At once one of the most life-affirming pictures of all time and
a nightmare of small-town America gone bad that rivals any 1940s film noir, this
is the craziest and most wonderful holiday movie ritual ever. Paramount became
the sole custodian of the film on home video a few years back, and now debuts it
on Blu-ray with a beautifully-mastered edition. Also features the previously
available documentary "The Making of It's a Wonderful Life" and a second disc
with a colorized version of the film (best left unwatched -- you don't take
crayons to a classic).
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| The General |
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To the best of my knowledge, Kino's Blu-ray release of "The
General" is the first silent film to get the high-definition treatment, and
deservedly so. The 1920s was a golden age of cinema and a peak of film craft,
and after years of poorly preserved and shoddily presented silent films,
audiences are starting to see just how stunning Hollywood silents really looked.
"The General" is no exception, and this edition, newly mastered from a print
struck directly from the original negative, is gorgeous. It's also one of the
greatest and funniest movies ever made. This edition features three musical
scores and all the (rather minor) supplements of Kino's previous DVD special
edition.
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Sean Axmaker is a film critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a DVD
columnist for MSN Entertainment and a contributing writer for GreenCine.com,
Turner Classic Movies Online, Parallax View and Asian Cult Cinema, among other
publications. Find links to all of this and more on his shamelessly self-promoting blog.
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