Last
Summer
(2023/Criterion/Janus Blu-ray)/Mary
Pickford: The Love Light
(1921/MVD/VCI Blu-ray w/DVD)/Night
Full Of Rain
(1977/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/A
Real Pain
(2024/Searchlight Blu-ray)/Sisterhood
(2023/Distrib/Icarus DVD)
Picture:
B/B- & C+/B/B/C Sound: B-/B & C+/B-/B/C+ Extras:
C+/B-/D/C/C- Films: C+/C+/C+/B/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Night
Full Of Rain
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the links below.
Its
awards season again, so here are some notable dramas, old, new and
even challenging...
Catherine
Breillat's Last
Summer
(2023) has the director making her first film in over a decade, a
tale of a married woman (Lea Drucker) who is an attorney who helps
abused minors, but this is the new marriage of her current husband
(Olivier Rabourdin) who has a son named Theo (Samuel Kircher) and she
starts having an affair with Theo!
It
starts out as maybe a mistake, but quickly becomes much more and of
course, it will lead to total disaster if it is not stopped. The
acting, editing and directing is decent, but this gets a little
predictable, has some down and off moments and ultimately was not as
good as it could have been. Obviously, it is risky material to
attempt, but it was not consistent for what they finally come up with
and it is not just because of a ten-year absence from filmmaking for
Breillat.
At
least she tries to make films about real life and those interested
should still give it a good look. Otherwise, you might be at least
slightly disappointed.
Extras
include a paper foldout with an essay on the film by Michael Joshua
Rowin, while the disc adds...
• Meet
the Filmmakers, a new interview with director Catherine Breillat
• and
an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Mary
Pickford: The Love Light
(1921, finished late 1920) is directed by Francis Marion, an
all-too-rare case of a female filmmaker successful in the silent era,
or any era for that matter. Also, running 103 minutes, this WWI
melodrama was considered lost, but enough materials worldwide were
discovered and the film finally restored to its original length for
the first time in many, many decades.
Pickford
is an Italian woman who runs a local lighthouse as WWI rages on, when
she saves the life of a young man who almost drowns. She starts to
fall for him, but his dark secret is that he is a German Spy! She
would otherwise turn him in, but he (played by Fred Thomson) is
stopping her from doing so, making her a traitor, a woman helplessly
in love, both and what will she do next?
Well,
this does have its moments and parts of it hold up remarkably well
for its age, thanks in part to Pickford's instances on certain
standards and qualities in her films. Of course, new and
'unexpected' developments will occur making her moral dilemmas wilder
and more twisted, as expected. Her and some others as 'Italians'
pushes the envelope, looking more like a Carol
Burnett Show
skit at times than Italian Neo-realism, but that was filmmaking at
the time.
For
what we get, especially this complete, shows an ambitious production
for its time (only a few years after Griffith's Birth
Of A Nation)
that is an early, complete feature film at what we still consider a
feature film length and you can see once again why she was such a big
star. All serious film fans should see this one once, just to have
seen it.
Extras
include another illustrated, high quality booklet on the film and
Pickford with Liner Notes by the Mary Pickford Foundation, while the
discs add a Feature Length Audio Commentary track by Marc Wanamaker,
author & film historian
Lina
Wertmuller's Night
Full Of Rain
(1977) is the legendary director of Swept
Away
making her first feature film in English with Candice Bergen as a
photographer and Giancarlo Giannini as a older journalist who is too
old fashioned for his younger American friend. Still, they are
involved for better or worse, stretching the idea of opposites
attracting to its limits. Yes, toxic behavior and relationships even
happen to successful educated people.
Originally
shot under the longer title The
End Of The World In Our Usual Bed And A Night Full Of Rain,
the drama with some passing comedy (dark at that usually) still has
its share of politics and some Agit-Prop to boot dealing with the
split between the sexes and current revolutionary politics of the
time (albeit in some decline when the film arrived) as analogous to
each other. Only her tenth film and the follow up to the highly
acclaimed pair of critical and commercial hits in Swept
Away
and Seven
Beauties,
this did not fare as well, but is as ambitious and as writerly as her
best films.
The
actors are good, but this gets very surreal, even when dealing with a
group of women who come out of nowhere and represent all kinds of
women (including oppressed ones) from the past and recent past of
Italy, et al. It may not be for everyone, but it is worth a look for
those who like her, the actors, the different material and an early
work by the first woman ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best
Director.
There
are sadly no extras, but she only recently passed on in 2021 at age
93. She left quite the legacy and its good this has been issued in a
restored edition.
Jesse
Eisenberg's A
Real Pain
(2024) is one of the best films of the year and an impressive work
from the successful actor adding writer/director to his credits.
Eisenberg is David, racing to meet his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin,
in an amazing performance) at the airport, but not to stay where they
are. Instead, they are going all the way to Poland to take a tour of
the city and especially how it relates to The Holocaust; the trip
will include visiting a Nazi Death Camp.
A
character study of them, their family, Judaism, their situation,
personal pain and the world we live in, I think it is almost an
instant classic with Eisenberg also really good in his role, a solid
supporting cast and a film whose actors and screenplay comes up with
constant surprises. Eisenberg and Culkin have fine chemistry and
are totally convincing as cousins who used to be close and love each
other, but have drifted apart a bit. The film takes us on a mature
journey that we rarely see in any film or filmmaking anymore and the
result is something special we rarely see anymore. We post as it
added some Oscar nominations to other award season wins and I expect
more success for this film in the months and years to come.
Jennifer
Grey and Will Sharpe lead a really good supporting cast.
Extras
include Digital Code, while the disc adds the featurette Beautiful
Fate: Making A
Real Pain.
Per the press release.... ''Take a tour through the heart and
history of Poland while going behind the scenes of A
Real Pain.
Explore the themes of family and connection with Jesse Eisenberg and
Kieran Culkin. Experience all the humor and humanity that brought
this story to life.''
Nora
El Hourch's Sisterhood
(2023) starts out as a semi-comic romp of guys and gals being wacky
and inappropriate with each other in and out of school, but after the
first ten minutes or so, it starts to get serious and rough. This
includes a sexual assault, threats and oner of the victims is of a
trio of gals who are best friends. The victim posts a video going
after her assaulter, a friend of her brothers.
This
leads to more direct threats and more. Honest about many things,
there are still a few points in the film that do not add up
plot-wise, but this is still well acted, shot, directed and palpable.
I will not go into the issues risking ruining the film, but you do
not see enough films on this subject done like this and it is notable
enough that it deserves to be commended for what it does achieve.
Trailers
are the only extra.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition
image on Last
Summer
looks pretty good and consistent throughout with few minor issues and
the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is on the quiet side, but
it is fine otherwise save for its silences. Thus, we recommend you
be careful of volume switching and high playback levels before you
get used to it.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Love
Light
is going to show the age of the materials used 104+ years old and
counting, but the results are impressive with pure monochrome parts
(those not tinted) really impressing. All the hard work paid off,
which also does justice to the work of two important cameramen who
had long careers in Hollywood: Charles Roser and Adrian Cronjager.
The PCM
2.0 Stereo features a new score that some night find almost too new,
but its fine and serves the purpose. The
1.33 X 1 black & white image on the DVD can be soft, but is
passable for the old format, while the
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is serviceable, but the music sounds
better on the Blu-ray version as expected.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on
Night
Full Of Rain
rarely
shows the age of the materials used, making this look really good for
its age, while the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix from the original
theatrical mono is as good as this film will ever sound and it too
has more silences than expected.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on A
Real Pain
is pretty good, well shot, edited and mastered with consistent color,
plus some good detail and depth. That makes it one of the best
looking films of the year, while the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix can be on the quiet side at
times, but it is pretty well recorded and mixed for the most part
with smart choices of music throughout. However, this sound mix is a
mixdown from Dolby Atmos, so I guess that will be on any forthcoming
4K version.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Sisterhood
is softer than I would have liked, but you can tell it was shot much
better and would look better in its native HD. The lossy French
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo plays much better and is well recorded.
To
order the
Night
Full Of Rain
Warner Archive Blu-ray,
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
