Broken
Horses
(2014/Sony DVD)/The
Hunger
(1983/MGM/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Mad
Max: Fury Road
(2015/Warner/Blu-ray 3D w/Blu-ray 2D & DVD)
3D
Picture: B Picture: C/B/B & C+ Sound: C+/C+/B+ & C+
Extras: C/C+/B- Films: C/C+/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Hunger
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are three new genre films worth being 'in the know' about...
Vidhu
Yinod Chopra's Broken
Horses
(2014) is
a mixed bag of a sometimes darkly comic tale that starts with a young
man visiting his police officer father (Thomas Jane) on a shooting
range to shoot targets when what seems like a freak accident (a
bullet inside the wood behind one of the paper targets fires off,
killing the officer), but another cop (Vincent D'Onofrio
unfortunately playing to type) suggests it was a murder and that the
young man should avenge his father! Forward to modern day and we see
who has grown up, that things are still bad and the bad cop still
controls things.
One
brother (the late Anton Yelchin, who outside of the Star
Trek
revival had a knack for picking odd projects that just keep missing
the mark, no matter how ambitious or interesting) finds his brother
(Chris Marquette) has fallen in with the bad cop. What will he do,
especially since things became even more criminal? The film rightly
has no easy answers, but any attempts to explore them is met with
formula action/gangster storytelling that wastes a cast that also
includes Sean Patrick Flannery and and Maria Valverde. I keep hoping
this would go better, but as its 109 minutes rolled on, the cliches
started to pile up. This might become a curio of sorts eventually,
but I was disappointed, especially with the potential of the talent.
13
Behind The Scenes featurettes are the only extras.
Tony
Scott's The
Hunger
(1983) is
the late filmmakers first feature film, a highly stylized vampire
film with more name talent than usual as a powerful female vampire
(Catherine Deneuve) and her partner (David Bowie, who is not in the
film enough and allows Scott to reference his work as the title
character in The
Man Who Fell to Earth
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) to the film's ultimate detriment)
look for new victims and deal with many temptations in picking the
best victim at the best time, eternal life as the living dead
notwithstanding.
Enter
Susan Sarandon as an animal doctor who is experimenting with their
behavior and is an author on the subject, getting the attention of
Miriam Baylock (Deneuve with a very obvious name) early on. When the
film is not overdoing the smoke machine and on set super-cancer level
smoking, the editing and other subtleties have some good moments.
However, style way overtakes ideas and substance making this an odd
debut that did not help Scott early on. However, it is at least a
different kind of vampire film and has been somewhat influential on
several such films and too many TV series since.
MGM
puts this out for the brief time they were MGM/UA and Warner Archive
is issuing the film on Blu-ray finally to the relief of fans and the
curious. It has become a time capsule in a way, not always good, but
also boasts a decent supporting cast that helps it out 32+ years
later including a young Dan Hedaya, Cliff De Young, Ann Magnuson,
James Aubrey, Rufus Collins, Shane Rimmer and then-unknowns John
Pankow and Willem Dafoe, later to work together in William Friedkin's
highly underrated To
Live & Die In L.A.
(reviewed elsewhere on this site), so see this one once for what does
work.
The
one extra is a feature length audio commentary track by Scott and
Sarandon that vies between the two throughout.
George
Miller's Mad
Max: Fury Road
(2015)
arrives three decades after the end of the original trilogy when it
put Mel Gibson on the map. After several false starts, Tom Hardy
takes over the title role and we get a relaunch that could have been
tired or actually worked. Hardy does not erase Gibson's work in the
role, but picks things up well. Instead of a rehash of the original
film's murder/revenge plot, Max is haunted by unexplained losses as
he is eventually abducted by would-be soldiers of a death-worshipping
gang run by a semi-skull wearing ruler who makes empty promises in
the cult following/worship role and controls the only clean water in
a post-apocalyptic (nuclear, environmental, both or even more
man-made reasons) Australia.
The
more we learn about this nightmare world that Max has been dragged in
(his escape attempt is shot more like a horror film than anything
else), the uglier, more vulgar, more evil, more exploitative and
sexploitative it is. A group of exploited women decide a group
escape, led by Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron in easily her best
action performance) who got that title from the mad leader, but now
wants freedom and revenge. These women are hurt, angry and cannot
take the abuse anymore. Throw Max and gangs outside of the ugly
kingdom into the mix and violent conflict is unavoidable.
Miller
and the whole cast and crew manage to deliver a smart, unique new
film with a look and feel that echoes the original trilogy well, yet
creates a new dark world without compromise and constant ugly
realities throughout that inform a sense of honesty the action genre
used to have up until the 1980s. The acting from the rest of the
supporting cast is exceptional including Zoe Kravitz, Nicholas Hoult,
Hugh Keays-Byrne as the main villain and Josh Helman among other
actors I hope we see much more of in the near future.
Besides
going all out instead of being 'franchise lazy' like most such films
are today, the secret here is that Miller (who is an underrated
director to begin with) has never sold out the characters, fans and
the Australian action (and even Oz-ploitation) roots of the films or
their predecessors. Instead of more money ruining things, it is
actually on the big screen and that is why al that pre-production
money and those delays were worth the wait. These are serious
filmmakers (a declining breed of artists?) and like the Bond films
keeping their British end up because it is a foundation of their
identity, Mad
Max: Fury Road
is an Australian film first and never loses site of that.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes
capable devices (our copy came with a lenticular cover slipcase),
while the Blu-ray adds a terrific, multi-part Behind The
Scenes/Making Of featurette that includes interviews, Deleted Scenes,
how this was produced and a great segment of all the stunts done raw
without any digital visual effects; how tough and great a shoot this
really was. Impressive!
The
film later won 6 technical Academy Awards. You can read more about
the film in 4K at this link with the rest of the previous films in
the series:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16022/Eye+Of+The+Devil+(1966)/Mad+Love+(1935/both
And
you can read about Furiosa:
A Max Mad Saga 4K
at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16490/Dick+Tracy:+RKO+Pictures+Collection+(1945+-+1
Now
for playback performance. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image
transfer on Broken
is weaker than it should be, but has the historic distinction of
being one of the very last films to be shot on 35mm Fuji film, so
though this can be on the soft side, it is to the credit of Director
of Photography Tom Stern, A.F.C., A.S.C., that color is not gutted or
manipulated in lame, weak ways to be hip. I was curious to see this
one on Blu-ray and especially in a 35mm film print afterwards despite
the film disappointing.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Hunger
shows some print age, but it also was shot with plenty of fog and
smoke to a fault that looked hip at the time, but now looks more like
a subliminal smoking-ad-as-music-video secretly sponsored by the
entire tobacco industry adding great age to the film that took its
cues from Kubrick and took them into problematic directions. I
cannot imagine this looking much better without serous money spent.
Director of Photography Stephen Goldblatt, A.S.C., B.S.C. (Outland,
Cotton
Club,
Batman
Forever,
the first two Lethal
Weapon
films) pulls off a still-difficult shoot most camera people
(especially those new digital with little to no experience) could not
begin to know how to approach.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 MVC-encoded 3-D - Full Resolution digital High
Definition image and the 2D 1080p versions for Max
are equally good with the 3D covering some of the 2D flaws and
limits, but this is also a very rare digital shoot where the format
is pushed to the limit and looks solid throughout, is never phony in
the way it manipulates color or scenes and has a fine editing style
that fits perfect with everything. Director of Photography John
Seale, A.C.S., A.S.C., (Rain
Man,
The
English Patient,
BMX
Bandits,
The
Hitcher
(1986)) delivers his best work in years and some of the best in his
career in what is a groundbreaking shoot for digital Ultra HD
cameras. Seeing it either way will impress, though the
anamorphically
enhanced DVD version is on the weak side in comparison. Since this
posted, Warner issued this in the new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format. We
were not able to secure a copy, but we look forward to that version
down the line.
As
for sound, Broken
has a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that is not bad and has some
healthy surround moments, but tis is dialogue-based and sometimes
lacks a consistent soundfield, but that is still enough to match the
slightly weaker-than-expected DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono
lossless mix on Hunger
that shows its age a bit and might have called for at least a simple
stereo upgrade if most of the music was recorded in stereo.
Needless
to say the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless mix on Max
is the sonic winner here and one of the best sound mixes of the last
few years, also here in Dolby Atmos 11.1 as it was in its best
theatrical presentations. Like the previous three Max
films, this has character, smart sound design and is as state of the
art as the previous sequels were. Bass subwoofer sound is never
phony or overdone as has been the tendency of most big budget films
of late and the score by Junkie XL (aka Tom Holkenborg) simply adds
further intensity and impact in a mix loaded with great demo moments.
To
order the Warner Archive Blu-ray of The
Hunger,
go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
-
Nicholas Sheffo
