Sony
Pictures Classics: 30th Anniversary Collection 4K Box Set
(Call
Me By Your Name
(2017)/Celluloid
Closet
(1995)/City
Of Lost Children
(1995)/Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(2000)/Devil's
Backbone
(2000)/Orlando
(1992)/Run
Lola Run
(1998)/SLC
Punk
(1999)/Still
Alice
(2014)/Synecdoche,
New York
(2008)/Volver
(2006))
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ (Closet:
B, Lola
& Volver:
A-) Sound: B/B-/B/B+/B/B-/B+/B-/B/B/B+ Extras:
B/B/C/C/B/B/C+/B/C/C/C+ Films (see below):
In
the early 1990s, one of the greatest mini-major studios ever, Orion
Pictures was about to fold. Despite huge commercial and critical
smash hits with Dances
With Wolves
and The
Silence Of The Lambs,
the studio had films that were only doing modest business, big budget
films that disappointed (Great
Balls Of Fire
and the first sequels to Bill
& Ted
and Robocop)
resulting in others that were barely released (the Car
54, Where Are You?
revival) and a few gems that were delayed for too long to potentially
reverse the companies fortunes (State
Of Grace,
Blue
Sky)
so they were gone. With this folding, their great subdivision, Orion
Pictures Classics, was also gone. In their wisdom and smartest
decisions they have made to date, Sony decided to pick up where Orion
left off and Sony Pictures Classics has created a subdivision taking
just as many risks and having the same highest quality cinema
standards.
The
new Sony
Pictures Classics: 30th
Anniversary 4K Box Set
offers eleven of the hundreds of films they have released in this
period and they are a solid sampling of the successes. We have
reviewed almost all of them over the decades we've existed and the
films (including links to our previous coverage where applicable)
are:
Luca
Guadagnino's Call
Me By Your Name
(2017) B-
Written
by James Ivory (who won a writing Academy Award for this) stars a
then-unknown Timothee Chalamet as Elio, now 17 years old and living
with his family in Italy, in 1985, when his father has another
scholar fly in from overseas to work on a cataloging art project with
him, et al. The up and coming scholar turns out to be an American
maned Oliver (Armie Hammer, a great actor now sadly sidelined by
personal issues) who is happy to be there and can even speak a little
Italian.
However,
Elio becomes interested in him, and soon, vice versa. Because of the
age difference, things do not happen immediately and Oliver, who
turns out to be bi-sexual, rightly expects disaster if they should
get involved. Then they actually fall in love.
Well,
much was made of the film as being an honest portrayal of such a
relationship and some still rightly brought up that Elio might not be
quite of age, though legally speaking, that age oddly (and in some
ways, oddly) varies from state to state in the U.S., for instance,
but it is a factor to seriously consider. The leads are good here,
as is the supporting cast and the locales are inarguable. There were
just a few things about the relationship I did not totally buy (more
exposition would have helped) and the ending and one particular
revelation was so off, that it could have been a separate movie.
On
this issue, Lolita
comes to mind, with this film falling somewhere between the Kubrick
version and more problematic Adrian Lyne remake (reviewed elsewhere
on this site) in realism and consequences. In that, Oliver is not
any kind of predator and the actors create some chemistry that makes
this film work more than it might otherwise. It is worth a look for
those interested.
Ron
Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's Celluloid
Closet
(1995) B+
This
outstanding documentary about the oppression of homosexuality in
cinema, especially with the start of the Hollywood Code in the
mid-1930s is an amazing compilation of the crazy ways the subject was
ignored, played as 'different' in the worst ways, or for comedy, or
outright as a sickness or by making such persons evil killers or the
like. 27 years later, some things have changed, but not by as much
as they should have. Lily Tomlin is among the narrators or this
must-see work for anyone serious about cinema, the arts, humanities
or filmmaking.
Jean-Pierre
Jeunet's City
Of Lost Children
(1995) C
Jeunet
is a good filmmaker, but not a great one and this film is very
popular still and has a unique, almost autueristic style. However,
it jumps the shark a few times due to repetition despite some solid
production design and acting as our pair of leads (including the
always reliable Ron Perlman) have to get into a boy's dream state to
save him. Wild images include a dark Santa Claus, but it never added
up for me any more than Delicatessen,
Amelie
(despite an appealing lead) or his original cut of Alien
Resurrection.
He just seems to get carried away with no point.
Ang
Lee's Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(2000) C
Original
4K release
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14514/Angels+&+Demons+(2009)/Crouching+Tiger,+Hidd
4K
Steelbook Edition
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15842/Broken+Hearts+Gallery+(2020/Blu-ray*)/Crouchin
Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8828/Crouching+Tiger+Hidden+Dragon/Curse+Of+The+G
Still
not a big fan of the film and never will be, this is the best I have
ever seen it to its credit, outside of 35mm film prints and I will
not say it looks bad, plus better now than his endless Ultra HD and
faster frame-rate experiment films that always seem mechanical and on
auto pilot.
Guillermo
del Toro's The
Devil's Backbone
(2000) B-
Criterion
Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12325/The+Devil
Australian
Import Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15027/Across+The+Line+(2015/LightYear+Blu-ray)/Beyon
I
like most of del Toro's work and though he cannot make a bad film,
many of his great efforts only do so much for me. This is one of the
more successful ones and those curious should catch it ASAP with its
mix of fantasy, history and politics.
Sally
Potter's Orlando
(1992) C+
PAL
Import DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8829/Literary+Adaptations
Tilda
Swinton still had the advantage of being mostly unknown outside of
Derek Jarman's films and plays a few variants of the title character.
The time and gender switching plays like Woody Allen's Zelig
meets Kubrick's Barry
Lyndon,
Shakespeare and some of Jarman's own period pieces. It looks great
and is remarkable that it was made on the budget it was produced
with, but she breaks the fourth wall just one too many times for my
taste, but it is based on a book and is rather faithful to it. Now
that she is bigger Oscar-winning actress (she claims she is not an
actor, which I half agree with in a good way, but a chameleon) this
is now a curio. Only a David Bowie or Annie Lennox (of Eurythmics)
could have done this role at the time. Billy Zane also stars.
Tom
Tykwer's Run
Lola Run
(1998) C+
U.S.
Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6679/Run+Lola+Run+(Blu-ray
Australian
Import Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16077/Betty+(1992)+Torment+(aka+L'Enfer/1994)/MVD/
People
still talk about
this sometimes surreal thriller with Franka Potente and Moritz
Bieibtreu, rightly making them international movie stars with solid
careers to date. I still think the film is a bit overrated and tries
too hard to imitate Godard's Breathless (1959, reviewed elsewhere on
this site) yet was never so impressed by it seeing it in 4K. I was
missing the impact of the image, even from 35mm film clips I saw, let
alone several video releases.
James
Merendino's
SLC
Punk
(1999) B-
Though
not exactly any kind of art film, this comedy about a few lone punk
rockers in the Utah city of the title (Salt Lake City, if you did not
figure it out by now) dealing with stuffy people, religious people,
righteous people, boring people or any combination of the above. Of
course, the standout is Matthew Lillard in a role so defining, people
probably think he is this wild in real life. The underrated Annabeth
Gish, Devon Sawa, fearless Christopher McDonald and the introduction
of three of the best actors we have now (Adam Pascal, Jason Segal and
Til Schweiger) means the film has appreciated in value more than
anyone thought at the time.
Add
recent events and it is probably a more important film than ever and
more of the humor holds up than many may have expected. Though no
masterpiece and it shows its low-budget origins sometimes, it is
definitely worth a look and one of the big surprises of this set.
Richard
Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's Still
Alice
(2014) C+
Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13479/Still+Alice+(2014/Sony+Blu-ray
Julianne
Moore,
Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart are still great casting in this film
that had mixed results, but it is worth a look if you have not seen
this Alzheimer's Disease drama. Sadly, eight years later and the
disease is just as horrid as ever.
Charlie
Kaufmann's
Synecdoche,
New York
(2008) C
DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8352/Synecdoche,+New+York+(2008/Sony+DVD
A
great cast in a drama about acting that did not work for me, but
seeing it again reminded me of what an amazing actor we lost in
Philip Seymour Hoffman, though I am no fan of much of Kaufmann's
work. Still worth a look for new reasons that did not exist when
first released.
and
Pedro Almodovar's Volver
(2006) B-
Original
Blu-ray release
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5216/Volver+(Blu-ray+++DVD-Video
Penelope
Cruz's long series of collaborations with Almodovar do not always
result is a film I like, but this is one of the ones that works well
enough.
Now
for playback performance. All films are presented in 2160p
HEVC/H.265, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra
High Definition image and look as great as they can in the 4K format,
with Lola
(1.85 X 1) and Volver
(2.35 X 1) being the real standouts and not just because of their
superior use of color, because Orlando
and even Tiger
(both
at 2.35 X 1, Tiger in Dolby Vision for the first time here) also have
great color, yet not as effective by a narrow margin. Celluloid
(1.85 X 1) only has the lowest image rating because of all the stock
footage and older film clips, but to its credit, they were all done
very well in their time and hold up well under the circumstances.
The
other aspect ratios to each film are Call
Me By Your Name,
City
Of Lost Children,
The
Devil's Backbone,
Orlando,
Run
Lola Run,
Still
Alice
(all 1.85 X 1,) SLC
Punk
and Synecdoche,
New York
(both 2.35 X 1.) I'll add that they all have demo moments and Tiger
repeats the solid 4K transfer of the previous releases.
All
the films repeat the same soundtracks they have had in previous
Blu-ray and even 4K releases, with Tiger
repeating its lossless Dolby Atmos 11.1 (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for
older systems) upgrade from the Steelbook edition. This also
shows its limits, so it is no replacement for its original 5.1 mix,
but an alternate choice. Most of the films offer DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, save Celluloid
and Orlando,
with DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes and Dolby Pro
Logic encoding. Volver
was PCM 5.1 in its older Blu-ray release, but has been changed to
DTS-MA as well and sounds as dynamic as before, so that is only a
codec switch and not an outright change. I cannot imagine any film
here sounding better than it does in these releases.
Extras
in this great fold-out-in-the-middle slipcase packaging include a
high quality illustrated book on the first three decades of Sony
Pictures Classics, each film here, a list of most films released by
the subdivision since its advent and an essay by the great David
Thompson. Each movie repeats its extras
from its previous Blu-ray (and in the case of Tiger,
4K) releases including extras we covered before, a few offer band new
items and they (per the press release too) all are:
CALL
ME BY YOUR NAME
Audio
Commentary with Actors Timothee Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg
Snapshots
of Italy: The Making of Call Me by Your Name
Featurette
In
Conversation with Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg,
and Luca Guadagnino Featurette
"Mystery
of Love"
Music Video by Sufjan Stevens
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
THE
CELLULOID CLOSET
Audio
Commentary with Filmmakers Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, Lily
Tomlin, producer Howard Rosenman, and editor Arnold Glassman
Additional
Commentary with Author Vito Russo
Collection
of Outtakes
Interview
with Vito Russo
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
THE
CITY OF LOST CHILDREN
Audio
Commentary with Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Actor Ron Perlman
NEWLY
ADDED: Audio Commentary with Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Making-Of
Featurette
"Les
Archives de Jean-Pierre Jeunet"
Interview
With Costume Designer Jean-Paul Gaultier
Theatrical
Teasers
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
CROUCHING
TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Audio
Commentary with Director Ang Lee and Writer / Producer James Schamus
Audio
Commentary with Cinematographer Peter Pau
Introduction
by Director Ang Lee
7
Deleted Scenes (in 4K HDR)
Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
A Retrospective
The
Making of Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon
English
''A
Love Before Time''
Music Video
Mandarin
''A
Love Before Time''
Music Video
A
Conversation with Michelle Yeoh
Photo
Gallery
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
THE
DEVIL'S BACKBONE
Audio
Commentary with Director Guillermo del Toro
Audio
Commentary with Director Guillermo del Toro and Cinematographer
Guillermo Navarro
Guillermo
del Toro Introduction
Director's
Thumbnails Track
Director's
Notebook
Que
es un fantasma?
Featurette
4
Deleted Scenes with Director Commentary
Sketch,
Storyboard, Screen: 6 Scenes
Making-Of
Featurette
Summoning
Spirits
Featurette
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
ORLANDO
Feature
Length Audio Commentary with Director Sally Potter and Actress Tilda
Swinton
Select
Scenes Commentary
Orlando
Goes to Russia
Orlando
in Uzbekistan
Jimmy
Was an Angel
Venice
Film Festival Press Conference
An
Interview with Sally Potter
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
RUN
LOLA RUN
Audio
Commentary with Director Tom Tykwer and Actor Franka Potente
NEWLY
ADDED: Audio Commentary with Director Tom Tykwer and Editor Mathilde
Bonnefoy &
Making-Of
Featurette
Still
Running
Featurette
''Believe''
Music Video
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
SLC
PUNK
NEW:
Revisiting
SLC PUNK:
a new interview with Director James Merendino
Audio
Commentary with Director James Merendino and Actors Matthew Lillard &
Michael Goorjian
Comic
Book Gallery
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
STILL
ALICE
3
Deleted Scenes
Directing
Alice
Featurette
Finding
Alice
Featurette
Interview
with Composer Ilan Eshkeri
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
SYNECDOCHE,
NEW YORK
The
Story of Caden Cotard
Featurette
NFTS/Script
Factory Masterclass
Infectious
Diseases in Cattle Roundtable
In
and Around Synecdoche,
New York
Featurette
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
and
VOLVER
Audio
Commentary: Director Pedro Almodovar and Actor Penelope Cruz
Making
of Volver
Featurette
Interview
With Pedro Almodovar
Interview
with Penelope Cruz
Interview
With Carmen Maura
Tribute
to Penelope Cruz
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer
-
Nicholas Sheffo
