Heat (1995)

Blu-ray released October 27, 2009

Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer shoot up L.A in Heat

"Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner."

That’s Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley, a professional thief leading an insular life in Michael Mann’s 1995 crime classic, Heat. It’s the kind of attitude you need when your idea of a good time is driving a truck into an armoured car to steal 1.6 million dollars. Especially when a rouge member of your team, Waingro (Kevin Gage), murders one of the guards, necessitating killing the other two to avoid leaving witnesses.

McCauley’s philosophy is his self-preservation mechanism, designed to prevent his capture and imprisonment. That is, however, what the tough snap-at-any-moment cop, Vincent Hanna, played by Al Pacino, most desires. He, like McCauley, is equally detached from others. He prefers to keep company with the criminals he hunts so obsessively. This pleases neither his wife, Justine (Diane Venora), nor his attention deprived step-daughter (Natalie Portman, in her second film).

McCauley, despite knowing Hanna is monitoring their every move, subsequently plans a 12 million dollar heist in Downtown L.A. This sets the scene for a phenomenal extended action sequence. Its virtuosity is in its technicality: the way Mann shoots it with frequent POV shots, Elliot Goldenthal spare percussive musical score. It’s cold, epic and brutal with a grim sense of reality. It’s here that Blu-ray comes into its own, with the thunderous automatic weapon fire rattling all 5.1 channels.

But though it may have been marketed as one, Heat is no action picture. It is instead a layered portrait of two men on either side of the law, both trying and failing to have it all. It deals specifically with their relationship to their women: Hanna to Justine, McCauley to his new girlfriend Eady (Amy Brenneman), and Chris (Val Kilmer), another member of McCauley’s team, to Charlene (Ashley Judd). They try but fail, the most long lasting kinship developing between the two lead adversaries.

Clash of the Titans

It’s perverse that Mann casts two megastars and yet keeps them apart bar one central scene. Taking a break from pursuing each other, Hanna and McCauley stop at a coffee shop and discuss each other in matter-of-fact, detached words. By their own admission, they are two sides of the same coin.

Heat is epic. Not in the same way as The Lord of the Rings or Lawrence of Arabia, but epic in the scope of its depiction of the cops and robbers circulating the underbelly of Los Angeles. There are at least half a dozen more significant characters that flesh out the world, including William Fichtner as an out-of-his-depth businessman and Jon Voight as one of McCauley’s few trusted associates, but the one that looms largest is the city itself. It’s an L.A. of greys and blues, one where the line between good and evil is not clearly defined.

While it’s disappointing that this release has no Blu-ray specific special features – they are the same that featured on the 2-disc DVD – they themselves are excellent. There’s a commentary by Mann, which is not wall-to-wall but interesting, eleven deleted scenes and five documentaries. The featurettes are a mixture of 1995 interviews and retrospectives created around the time of the release of the original DVD. There’s about an hour worth of material, the best of which are “Crime Stories” and “Into the Fire”, which give an in depth discussion of the film’s long gestation period (Mann couldn’t get it financed until shooting a TV movie on the same subject called L.A. Takedown), training the cast to use automatic weapons, shooting the climactic battle and the choice of soundtrack. Much of the cast and crew, including Mann, De Niro, Pacino, Kilmer, Judd and Tom Sizemore are interviewed. These extras are unsurprisingly presented in full-frame SD.

The quality of the feature presentation is, however, splendid and a perfect match of Mann’s uncomplicated style. The washed out cold tones don’t leap out at you as some other, more flashy films, but it’s beautiful and understated, a perfect reflection of the characters and of a Los Angeles divorced from its typical sunny, Hollywood image. It’s this layered depiction of the city and its two damaged protagonists that elevate what could have easily been a simplistic heist movie. Heat is a modern classic.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Released December 26, 2009

Robert Downey Jr.’s version of the famous detective is a dishevelled manic-depressive just as likely to outwit you with his fists as he is his brain. There’s not a deerstalker in sight. Berating modern Hollywood for turning him into an action hero and expanding the story to mythic superhero-like proportions will only prevent you from enjoying one the most purely fun entertainments of the year.

To be fair, many of the elements foregrounded in Guy Richie’s blockbuster are, at least peripherally, drawn from the original stories. Holmes was a trained boxer and a talented bare-knuckle fighter, a trait played up in a delicious blend of Richie’s hyper-kinetic slow motion and Holmes renowned deductive skill as he prefigures the exact blows and injuries necessary to incapacitate an opponent. He was fiercely intelligent and an occasional drug user. He did have little regard for the tidiness of his flat (which is littered with papers, trinkets and half-built inventions), and he was not exactly highly skilled in social situations. For that, he required the more sensible and grounded Dr. Watson. In this incarnation he is played by Jude Law and is more of an equal than an assistant. Their banter, energetically delivered by the two stars, forms the heart of the film.

We open with a tremendous action sequence, accompanied by a thunderously superb Hans Zimmer score, in which our heroes try to prevent the villainous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from completing a ritual sacrifice. Holmes is drawn out from his subsequent drug-induced slumber when it appears Blackwood, hanged for his crimes, has risen from the grave and is countinuing his meddlings in black magic and the occult. Blackwood’s scheme rivals that of a Bond villain, though the real mastermind lurks ominously in the shadows. At least, that is, until the sequel.

While there is one extravagant set piece too many, the pace is brisk, the action clever and the CGI evocation of Victorian London stylish. Like Ironman, though, Holmes belongs to Downey Jr., his flippant but layered take on the sophisticated sleuth surely to be added to the Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathebone pantheon.

Dead Calm (1989)

Blu-ray released October 28, 2009

Hate in the air in "Dead Calm"

Nicole Kidman gets a bad rap. Despite the current backlash against her, she’s still a fine actress, and back in 1989 she found herself in her first big role in Dead Calm. Based on a 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Williams, Dead Calm is an efficient and claustrophobic thriller that begins strongly but ultimately descends into slasher movie clichés.

Husband and wife, John (Sam Neill) and Rae (Kidman) are taking some time out for R&R on their yacht. Drifting through the sheet ice seas they stumble across the athletic Hughie (Billy Zane), who claims his shipmates died of botulism. John doesn’t quite believe his story, and leaves his wife and the sleeping Hughie to investigate Hughie's abandoned vessel, the Orpheus. It quickly becomes obvious that their deaths – all attractive young women – may not have been accidental. A tense cat and mouse game between Kidman and Zane ensues as John struggles to keep the sinking Orpheus afloat.

Kidman's Rae is apparently not the brightest fish in the sea, and takes some time to appreciate that Hughie does not want the best for his newly adopted hosts. Perhaps this is understandable since Hughie doesn't seem to know what he wants either: while he is clearly a psychopath, one wonders why he just doesn’t kill Rae immediately. This, and other logical flaws (Rae captures him, and then just ties him up on the floor?), mar the second half, which increasingly resembles the final confrontation of any number of slasher movies, complete with the killer's almost supernatural ability to return from the dead.

These contrivances detract from, but don't ruin, an otherwise taut thriller that benefits hugely from the small cast and the isolated location, beautifully captured by cinematographer Dean Semler. The performances from the three leads are fine, the energy between Zane and Kidman nicely contrasting the understated relationship between husband and wife. And it's this subtleness, sparse dialogue and Phillips Noyce's deliberate direction that gives the film its desperate, frightening tone. At least, that is, until Billy Zane turns into Michael Myers.

The Blu-ray itself is mediocre, with no special features bar a very low quality full-screen reproduction of the theatrical trailer, and a transfer that lacks clarity and definition. Still, it's a perfectly adequate reproduction of the film, just don't expect featurettes on the level of the recent edition of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

Published on Impulse Gamer

Avatar (2009)

Released December 17, 2009

Sam Worthington and Zoe Sandala's CGI cousins in "Avatar"

Words are being thrown around. Masterpiece. Revolutionary. It’ll change cinema. Technologically, it will. If only one could say the same of the dialogue, characters and plot.

Don’t get me wrong, James Cameron’s Avatar is an astonishing achievement. A visual wonder featuring the most sophisticated special effects of any film, it achieves that rare feat of transporting the audience to a living, breathing world. That world is Pandora, a planet overflowing with exotic animals and stunning rainforested scenery, which bursts off the screen in vibrant, colourful 3D. In Cameron’s hands, 3D is anything but a gimmick, enhancing details here and there without ever announcing itself. It’s an integral part of the experience.

The story essentially retells Dances with Wolves with blue aliens. They are the Na’vi, the natives of Pandora. Ten foot tall humanoids that move with feline grace, their livelihood is under threat from American corporate hordes who wish to ravage the planet in search of the mineral “unobtainium”. One way or another, the Na’vi are to be “relocated”. The spanner in the works is our hero, Jake Sully (rising Aussie star Sam Worthington), an ex-Marine and paraplegic who controls his able-bodied Na’vi “Avatar” in an attempt to coerce the natives into submission. His allegiances shift when he befriends the lithe female Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, who gives the film’s most affecting performance). Who’d have thought tails could ever be sexy. When it becomes clear that the invaders, including evil incarnate Colonel Quarich (Stephen Lang), have only their bank balance and testosterone in mind, the scene is set for an epic and unlikely showdown.

Despite its phenomenal visual tapestry that will reward repeat viewings, the story remains a simplistic but effective fable, with obvious allusions to Iraq-war politics and laced with eco-green themes that would make Al Gore proud. It’s energised by frequent bouts of action, some of the most viscerally exciting in years, in which Cameron fully exploits his ability to place the camera wherever he chooses.

Yes, the dialogue in Avatar is at times woeful, and the story routine, but it offers what so few movies do: a sense of wonder. And for that it deserves to be seen, in 3D, on the biggest screen possible.

Wicked

The Capitol Theatre, Sydney
from September 12, 2009

Glinda being Glinda, Elphie being skeptical

A short while ago I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Wicked, currently playing at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney. A Broadway musical in every sense of the term, it is astonishingly produced with amazing costumes, sets, special effects and, with one exception, performances. It almost feels too polished.

The conceit itself, as based on Gregory Maguire's novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is inspired. A revisionist spin on the Baum classic told from the point of view of the witches, it tells the story of Elphaba, the green skinned beauty later to become the not-so-evil Wicked Witch of the West. Elphaba is intelligent and perceptive, but outcast as a freak because of the colour of her skin. She dreams of meeting the Wizard and “proving her worth”, with hopes that he may “de-greenify” her. That way, she may finally gain the acceptance she seeks. She attends Shiz University where she meets Glinda - the Glinda - who adheres to the vapid blond college stereotype with only her looks and popularity in mind. Despite this, she means well, and the two form an unlikely friendship.

Various complications and love triangles naturally ensue as the pair head off from college to the Emerald City, where Elphaba finds the Wizard not as honest as she had initially believed. Elphaba flees in disgust as the Wizard announces to the "Ozians" that she is a “wicked witch” and should not be trusted. Furious, Elphaba tries to convince Glinda to join her in rebellion, but she refuses. This sets them both – and Oz – on a path towards their identities in the original story.

The cleverest thing about the story is the way it is interwoven with the original plot. It's as if Victor Fleming had decided to shoot what was happening in the back corridors of the castle instead of shooting Judy Garland watching in horror at the emptying hourglass. Much of the second act covers events known to anyone who’s seen the famous film version, as we learn, for instance, how the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow became the way they were.

"You see what I have to put up with? Those damn flying monkeys..."

But the best thing about Wicked is the music, which is insanely catchy and surprisingly complex. Showstoppers include Glinda's "Popular", in which she attempts to rid Elphaba of her more unique qualities, the act one finale "Defying Gravity" and the pop ballad, "For Good". The music by veteran Stephen Schwartz sticks closely to the mainstream Broadway idiom, but admirably uses the Wagnearian leitmotif to creative effect. A few motifs reoccur throughout, appearing differently each time according to the mood of the scene. The opening dramatic chords, foretelling the darkness to come, for instance, reappear in a more mellow form in the love ballad. The most recognisable is the "Unlimited/I'm limited" theme that represents Elphaba’s dreams and aspirations. This motif cleverly uses the the first seven notes of “Over the Rainbow” disguised with different timing and chords. To be sure, this leitmotif approach isn’t groundbreaking, but it gives the music a little more texture and coherence closer to an opera or film score than your average pop-musical.

The performances of the Sydney cast were exceptional, with Jemma Rix's (as Elphaba) vocal strengths particularly evident in the difficult act one finale. The one exception was Bert Newton, who took over the role of the Wizard from Rob Guest following his death. Straining credibility in both acting and vocal ability, he's the only weak link in an otherwise phenomenally polished production. Thankfully, at least, his character does not garner a lot of stage time.

That the drama of Wicked is a little unfocused and sometimes gets overwhelmed by the spectacle is just a reflection of the type of show it is: a grand, exciting and emotional piece of Broadway entertainment. I can't wait to see it again, and I can't wait to see what they do with the film adaptation when it rolls around in a few years time.

The Negotiator (1998)

Blu-ray released October 24, 2009

Where did you put my mother-f**kin' snakes?!

The Negotiator is one of the best thrillers of the 90s. Essentially Die Hard all over again, it's elevated by two compelling performances by Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey.

The hook this time is that instead of Alan Rickman with a German accent as the antagonist, it’s Jackson’s hostage negotiator, Danny Roman. Framed for his partner’s death, who was killed for getting too close to exposing an embezzlement fraud, Roman holes up on the twentieth floor of 77 West Wacker Drive in Chicago with four hostages including police commander Grant Frost (Ron Rifkin) and internal affairs officer Niebaum (the late J.T. Walsh). And he won’t leave until the real culprits are exposed.

Cue the arrival of fellow negotiator Chris Sabian (Spacey). Sabian is an independent observer who is proud of his zero casualty record. Interested only in peacefully diffusing the situation, he has a hard time preventing the police hordes from storming the building by force.

An exciting cat and mouse game ensues, as the two intelligent leads battle the bureaucracy and corruption around them in their search for the real culprits. It's reminicsent of other mano-o-mano confrontations such as Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman in Crimson Tide. Not as well written as that film, the screenplay is formulaic but elevated by small, clever details. A reoccurring argument about the ending of Shane, for instance, is infinitely more interesting than the usual action schtick of bellowing expletives at each other.

Elevated almost entirely by performances, the two compelling leads are accompanied by a rich cast of stalwarts playing exactly to type, including Rifkin, Walsh, David Morse and John Spencer. Paul Giamatti, before cementing a reputation as a character actor in Alexander Payne’s Sideways, is also in the cast, playing a shifty con man and one of Roman’s hostages.

Set mostly within one office building in Chicago, there’s a terrific sense of tension and claustrophobia, punctuated by bursts of action as the force attempts to take Roman down before he learns too much. Director F. Gary Gray, who also directed the equally enjoyable remake of The Italian Job, knows how to maintain tension and keep the energy high. If it falters, it’s in the finale, which, like the ending to Die Hard with a Vengeance, feels tacked on and superficial.

It’s appearance on Blu-ray is a mixed blessing. An uncomplicated release, the film is presented well in HD, free of artefacts and visual blemishes. It's better than the DVD release, but still lacks the clarity of the top tier blu-ray discs. There is also little in the way of special features. The only inclusions are a short documentary entitled “The 11th Hour: Stores from real Negotiators”, a short 16 minute featurette about the making of the film and the theatrical trailer. The extras are only in 480i and have two channel sound.

While far from a great film, there’s much to enjoy here. Sometimes all you want is a solid action thriller, and on that score The Negotiator is an unqualified success.

Away We Go (2009)

Released December 10, 2009

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as the ideal couple in "Away We Go"

Director Sam Mendes takes a break from his harder, more biting previous work (Revolutionary Road, American Beauty) in this immensely enjoyable dramedy about a couple looking to find a place to call home.

John Krasinski (of The Office) and Maya Rudolph (of Saturday Night Live) play Burt and Verona respectively. Burt is bearded, bespectacled, clumsy and spontaneous, but an all around nice guy who loves his girlfriend dearly. She, Verona, is six months pregnant. They live in Colorado near Burt’s parents (an hilarious Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara), who seem more interested in moving to Belgium than their impending granddaughter. Now with little reason to stay, Burt and Verona uproot and flutter between Arizona, Wisconsin and Montreal surveying different lifestyles and possibilities.

The episodes that follow are funny and laced with a wealth of acting talent in small roles. Stand outs are Allison Janney as a loud, obnoxious mother, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as an uptight new ager with an aversion to strollers. While these characters are overblown and the gags sometimes stray into banalities that could form the crux of a lesser film, the central couple are sensible, intelligent and likable people who keep it emotionally grounded.

This whimsy, complete with requisite indie songs that could have been plucked from Juno, charms, but sentimentality takes over as the leads close in on their search for home. However subtle the acting and direction in these scenes – and they are affecting – the closure they offer is unnecessary.

Critical reaction to Away We Go has been mixed, with some claiming the ideal of Burt and Verona makes them smug and condescending, while A.O. Scott describes their quest as a "flight from adulthood, from engagement, from responsibility". Both, perhaps, are true. If so, I’m happy to indulge Sam Mendes the fantasy.