In an age of instant on-demand video and streaming movies on Netflix and other venues, HBO by all rights should have been well on its way to the video grave, laid to rest nestled between Betamax and laserdiscs. In 2012 the idea of rotating theatrical feature films on a pay-per-view television channel -- its name is an acronym for Home Box Office, remember -- seems positively anachronistic.
But somewhere along the way, HBO decided to shift to creating its own content, rather than be swept under the tide of competitors playing the same movies (often more cheaply and/or conveniently). Today, it produces much of the best television available -- as evidenced by the fact that HBO regularly cleans up at the Emmys, and other movie-centric channels like AMC and FX have followed their lead into original programming.
Take "Game of Thrones," based on the first book of a popular fantasy series by George R. R. Martin. Produced for upwards of $60 million, the 10-episode season allowed viewers to luxuriate in Martin's epic narrative sweep and sprawling cast of characters.
Written for grownups, with layered characters blessed with moral ambiguities and flaws, Martin's book could not have translated satisfactorily into a two-hour film. With 10 full hours to roam, uninterrupted by commercials or the need to synch with the forced storytelling rhythms of regular TV, "Game" took the sword-and-sorcery genre to a level of ambition not seen since the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy nearly a decade ago.
It's the story of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, a loosely-held alliance of factions constantly vying for power. Lord Stark (Sean Bean) is the loyal friend of King Baratheon (Mark Addy), a once-great warrior grown haughty and indolent. When the king taps Stark to be his right-hand man, it forces the noble Stark clan to become embroiled in the high-stakes politics and infighting that swirl constantly around the Iron Throne.
DVD and Blu-ray features are first-rate. The DVD contains a making-of documentary, profiles of 15 major characters, an interactive overview of all the noble houses, and several other features. Most impressive: seven separate audio commentary tracks by the cast and crew, including author Martin.
The Blu-ray edition adds more interactive features, including 24 histories of the Seven Kingdoms as told by the characters themselves with animated illustrations. It also boasts an in-episode guide and hidden "dragon egg" bonus content.
"Game of Thrones" arrives on video Tuesday, March 6.
The Tuesday after Christmas is a notoriously awful spot for releasing video, and a strange tradition has sprung up of releasing grade-Z horror flicks on this date. This year is no different: audiences can take their choice of "Hostel: Part III," "Final Destination 5" or "Zombie Apocalypse," along with a couple other low-profile films ("A Good Old Fashioned Orgy") that barely got theatrical releases.
So while admitting that we're scraping the bottom of the home video barrel here, why review "Hostel: Part III"? Because it's indicative of a couple of cinematic trends.
The first is how certain types of movies can become the "flavor of the month" ... or the year. A while back, at the height of the quagmire in Iraq, it was the so-called "torture porn" subgenre of horror, kicked off by "Saw" and brought to its gruesome, bloody pinnacle with Eli Roth's "Hostel" series.
With a fetishistic obsession with the cruel mangling of the human body -- rendered in unflinching, splattered special effects -- these flicks brought the reality of war home to a largely disconnected audience that lapped it up with voyeuristic relish. The first movie, shot in 2006 on a shoestring, made $80 million in worldwide ticket sales, and was followed by an obligatory sequel the next year, which wasn't nearly successful.
Four years hence arrives the third go-round, minus the involvement of Roth, with the action transplanted from the remote dankness of Eastern Europe to the neon buzz of Las Vegas, accompanied by a familiar roster of handsome young people looking for a party and finding themselves strapped to a gurney in a torture chamber, their tender flesh grist for the mill of a very elite form of twisted entertainment.
I count myself a horror fan, but there just isn't much about "Hostel: Part III" that's truly terrifying.
The other trend this movie is indicative of is revealed by the fact that it arrives straight to video. Sequels are rarely as good as the original film, because the animating urge to make a good movie is overridden by the desire for more or less guaranteed success, and the associated dollars. This process continues, with or without the assistance of the original team of filmmakers and stars, so long as the moneychangers calculate there is enough profit to support the endeavor.
Much like antiquated businesses that seek only to manage decline, maximizing short-term gains by giving up on the prospect of long-term viability, movies franchises like "Hostel" are rarely innovative because those in charge have essentially already given up.
Video extras for "Hostel: Part III," the same for DVD and Blu-ray, consist entirely of a commentary track by director Scott Spiegel and star Kip Pardue.
This reboot of the "Conan" franchise was ill-conceived and poorly executed. The film cost $90 million to make and grossed barely more than $20 million, marking it as one of the biggest flops of 2011. It stars a nobody with whose near-total lack of onscreen charisma only reminds us how Arnold Schwarzenegger made Conan perhaps his most iconic film role after the Terminator.
Schwarzenegger had little acting ability when he first started, but he had ineluctable screen presence. Even his thick Australian accent added to the character, making him seem alien and strange. We really felt like Conan could have wandered down from the frozen hinterlands of Cimmeria into the civilized regions, and started brawling and wenching.
Author Robert E. Howard, who committed suicide at age 30, never attempted to give Conan a backstory. He simply was, and one of the things that made the character so appealing was that he did not spend a lot of time probing his inner self, and brought no baggage beyond a desire to slay, fornicate and conquer.
Both film versions feel compelled to give Conan a childhood story. With the original film, it simply was a jumping-off point for his adventures. But with "Conan the Barbarian," director Marcus Nispel and his trio of screenwriters make it the character's central conflict, as he attempts to avenge himself on the warlord who killed his father (Ron Perlman).
Schwarzenegger's Conan was less concerned with vengeance than solving the "Riddle of Steel." But all this new Conan wants to do -- besides pout and glower a lot -- is get one back for ol' daddy. The bad guy here is Zhalar Kym (Stephen Lang), who wants to reassemble the magical death mask the barbarian tribes sundered and split between them. At his side is his daughter Marique (Rose McGowan), who has a funky partially-shaven head and some sorcerous powers.
This brings us to Jason Momoa as the new Conan. Physically, as a fit for the character he's in some ways better than Schwarzenegger and some ways worse. Conan was supposed to be a Northerner whose skin was bronzed by the southern suns, so Momoa's Polynesian heritage actually works for him. I also liked that they gave him lots of scars, including several large ones on his face -- Howard always described Conan as covered with old battle wounds.
Somehow, though, Momoa just isn't as physically imposing as the former bodybuilder. Conan is the rare example where you do want an enormously muscular guy, because he's supposed to be the strongest man in the world.
This Conan's physical attributes seem modest. At one point the damsel in distress is dangling over a fiery pit by a chain, and he struggles to pull her up as his enemy closes in. The real Conan could've flung her around like a sack of sugar. Momoa also keeps encountering big bruisers much larger than himself, a tactic that should've been used more sparingly.
Momoa also falls into the annoying and common trap of speaking all his dialogue from the back of his throat, so it comes out gravely and "intense." Mostly it just sounds like he's choking on his soup.
The story is basically just one long chase. Conan takes prisoner the female monk (Rachel Nichols) who is the Pureblood essential to revitalizing the death mask's powers. His hope is to draw out Zhalar Kym so he can kill him. Of course, things grow more complicated.
The action scenes are largely murky and confusing affairs, with a whole lot of fancy sword-twirling by Momoa. Not to be a Howard purist here, but Conan would be more of a brutal, unpolished fighter. Though one battle between Conan and some sand mummies conjured up by Marique has some sizzle. Left unexplained, though, is why in the final showdown she never resorts to her magic and fights only with her Krueger-esque finger blades.
Not much in the way of new films coming out on video this week, so let's journey to the past for 1956's "The Killing," the third feature by director Stanley Kubrick and his first studio film. It's a hard-boiled film noir starring the great Sterling Hayden as the head of a gang looking to knock over a horse track for a cool $2 million.
"The Killing" is being released this week by The Criterion Collection. If you're not familiar with the Criterion outfit, they're the gold standard for the serious video collector. They only release films of significant artistic achievement -- though there's been some quibbling about that definition as of late -- and pull out all the stops in terms of the quality of the transfer and sumptuous extra features.
In most cases, a Criterion Collection release includes a restoration or remastering of the film itself, and "The Killing" is no exception. Kubrick's use of shadows is veritably oppressive, and the black-and-white cinematography (by Lucien Ballard) looks exquisite.
Kubrick, who also wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Lionel White, splits his effort between the taut logistics of the heist itself and the various personality defects of the people caught up in it.
Elisha Cook Jr. has a memorable turn as a nebbishy inside man, and Marie Windsor is positively slithery as his greedy, back-stabbing wife whose scheming brings the whole enterprise to disaster.
Interesting note: The title has several meanings, from a colloquialism for a major robbery, to the fact that the gang shoots one of the horses to cause a distraction, and that most of the cast winds up dead.
It's a worthy wind-up by perhaps the greatest filmmaker of the last half-century.
Video goodies are quite good: An interview with producer James B. Harris, archive interviews of Sterling Hayden, a feature about author White, and a booklet with an essay. It even comes with a copy of Kubrick's second film, "Killer's Kiss."
A second-rate rip-off of "Toy Story" mixed with a dose of Shakespeare, "Gnomeo & Juliet" is a British animated film that is meant to be enjoyed by the very youngest audience, and merely tolerated by their parents.
The set-up is that the star-crossed lovers, and all of their kin, are garden gnomes made of clay. They go about their business in the split backyard of an English duplex, tending their gardens and whatnot. When humans come around, though, they revert to their familiar (and tasteless) statuesque forms.
Gnomeo (voice by James McAvoy) is the hell-raising son of the matron of the Blue gnomes, while sweet Juliet (Emily Blunt) is royalty of their arch-enemy Reds. When they fall in love, it sets up a war between the clans, with the unfortunate ones ending up in a pile of smashed bits.
Directed by Kelly Asbury ("Shrek 2"), "Gnomeo & Juliet" has some fairly clever ideas, but always chooses the lowest common denominator when it comes to humor and characterization. The movie is pitched at about a pre-kindergarten level, and anyone more than a few years above that will find themselves frequently bored.
In this terrific age of animation in which we find ourselves, this film just doesn't measure up.
Extras are a bit sparse in the DVD version, and don't substantially improve even if you upgrade to Blu-ray.
The DVD has a "Crocodile Rock" music video, and featuettes with Ashley Jensen (who plays the princess' frog sidekick) and Elton John. That's it.
If you choose the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack (available in both 3D and regular versions), you get all the DVD stuff and several deleted or alternate scenes, including two alternate endings. There's also a "Fawn of Darkness" featurette.
"The Rite" is pretty much a one-trick pony: What if the exorcist became possessed himself?
Nearly 40 years after Linda Blair shocked audiences with some demonic neck-twisting and pea soup spewing, we've seen virtually every iteration of the exorcism routine. "The Rite," based on a nonfiction book by Matt Baglio, aims to drag exorcism into the 21st century by basing itself on real cases of demonic possession chronicled by the Catholic church.
Except... it's not real, really. The character Baglio used as his main character was a middle-aged priest, not a handsome young seminary student (Colin O'Donoghue) doubting his faith. And his mentor in the ways of exorcism (Anthony Hopkins) did not fall victim to possession himself.
So, "The Rite" is a mix of real-world religious lore and Hollywood hooey. I wouldn't mind the sham, except the end result is generally not very compelling, except for some nice scenery-chewing by Hopkins in the latter section where his eyes change color and his skin goes blotchy and cracked (well, more so).
This is a PG-13 horror film -- a contradiction in terms to purists like myself -- so the violence and taunting of religious mores never goes too far over the edge. It's Blasphemy Lite.
Extra features are nothing special. If you buy the DVD version, all you'll get are a handful of deleted/extended scenes totaling about 13 minutes, none of which is terribly consequential.
If you upgrade to the DVD/Blu-ray combo pack, you'll get a few more goodies, including an alternate ending with a creepier flavor, and a digital copy of the film.
A nearly 7-minute making-of featurette is interesting insofar as it introduces the real priest Baglio based his book on, and demonstrates how far afield the movie travels from it. In fact, the journalist character representing Baglio himself is changed to a hot Italian woman for O'Donoghue to make moony eyes at.
Don't get me wrong, "Toy Story 3" was terrific. But for my money, the best animated film so far in 2010 was "How to Train Your Dragon."
This marvelous computer-animation effort from DreamWorks combined exciting action sequences with slightly subversive humor, wrapped in a subtle life-lessons subtext about overcoming disability.
Jay Baruchel provides the voice of Hiccup, a wimpy teenage Viking who'd rather tinker with gizmos than fight the plague of dragons that constantly attack his village. But when your old man is the battle-scarred chieftain (Gerard Butler), your future is pretty much laid out for you.
Hiccup reluctantly enrolls in Dragon Training class, learning how to combat the various types of beasties breathing fire, spitting noxious gas and spewing lightning bolts. But his real education comes when he befriends a wounded dragon he dubs Toothless, and learns they're not the mindless killers his people have made them out to be.
Toothless has a maimed tail that won't allow him to fly without Hiccup's technology wizardry. And Gobber, the local blacksmith, is missing a leg and a hand. These and other story elements underscore the theme of celebrating our differences, without any of the usual pat smarminess.
Directed by Dean DuBlois and Chris Sanders, the same team behind "Lilo & Stitch," "Dragon" is the sort of smart, sassy kiddie flick that parents secretly slip into the video player after the children have gone to bed.
Extras range from measly to quite good, depending on which version you buy. The single-disc DVD comes with only a behind-the-scenes featurette with cast and crew.
The double DVD edition includes three deleted scenes, a message from author Cressida Crowell, and several games like a "Viking Personality Test," "Learn to Draw Toothless" and so forth.
On top of these features, the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack boasts a filmmakers' commentary track, a featurette on the artistry of dragons, pop-up trivia, and an interactive picture-in-picture feature with storyboards, video and interviews.
Plus, a new animated short: "Legend of the BoneKnapper Dragon."
"How to Train Your Dragon" hits video stories Friday, Oct. 15.
I was astonished when, in recent years, I kept hearing 1985's "Return of the Living Dead" referred to as a comedy. Sure, I thought, there are plenty of schlocky moments, silly humor and camp dialogue. This is, after all, a movie in which one of the main characters does an impromptu striptease in a graveyard, and spends the rest of the film naked -- even after she's turned into a zombie.
But a straight-out comedy? This was one of the seminal movie experiences of my teen years, a turning point where I realized that cheap, bloody horror films can be as integral a part of your cinematic diet as Ingmar Bergman, Woody Allen and Ridley Scott.
Speaking of Ridley Scott, the progeny of "Living Dead" is interesting. Dan O'Bannon, who wrote the screenplay for 1979's "Alien," directed by Scott, stepped behind the camera for this film. John Russo, who co-wrote the screenplay for George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," had a dispute with his old partner.
They resolved their differences by essentially splitting the zombie cannon between them, with Romero's subsequent pictures using the suffix "of the Dead," while Russo's would be branded "of the Living Dead."
These two writers, O'Bannon and Russo, got together to create what is, for my money, one of the all-time great zombie flicks. The disturbing violence, which somehow managed to muster an R rating from the MPAA, coupled with some terrific creature effects (on a budget of $4 million), and the aforementioned naked zombie girl combined to make an indelible imprint on my impressionable young mind.
The series would go on to spawn four sequels, none of which O'Bannon or Russo had anything to do with -- not that they were missing out on any glory.
Romero has enjoyed something of a revival in the last decade, which has lead to the Living Dead movies being denigrated as inferior castoffs from the Church of Zombiology. I don't know why; I think "Return of the Living Dead" is vastly superior to Romero's "Day of the Dead," which came out the same year. And 2005's "Land of the Dead" was so uninspiring I haven't even bothered to watch the other two that have come out since.
"Return of the Living Dead" has finally received a sumptuous Blu-ray release. If you're a fan of this movie, or just zombie flicks in general, this edition falls into don't-miss category.
It comes with a making-of documentary, a featurette on designing the film, another featurette about horror films of that era, special zombie subtitles and theatrical trailers. There are also two separate commentary tracks -- one by O'Bannon and production designer William Stout, and another by cast and crew.
O'Bannon cheerily admits in these extras that he intended the film as a comedy, but in their commentaries the cast talk about playing it straight. (With the notable exception of James Karen, whose over-the-top theatrics added a bit of hammy hot sauce to the proceedings.)
Despite the director's opinion, I still regard it as a genuinely horrifying movie that happens to have a lot of humor in it, rather than a comedy.
The zombies of "Return of the Living Dead" depart in ways great and small from the classic, Romero-style zombie.
The most noticeable of these is the first known appearance of "fast" zombies. Until then, zombies were always slow, shuffling creatures. That was part of their appeal as monsters -- they weren't very fast, and any able human could outrun them, but they were relentless.
There has since come to be a great debate among horror devotees about "fast" vs. "slow" zombies, though at this point only Romero still appears to be employing the slow kind. Even the 2004 remake of Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" featured fast zombies.
O'Bannon and Russo's zombies are also much more intelligent. They retain their ability to speak and reason, at least to a limited degree. In one of the film's most memorable scenes, a zombie gets on the CB of an ambulance and tricks the dispatcher, asking her to "send more paramedics." In another, a green female zombie -- well, her top half anyway, the rest of her having been hacked off above the pelvis -- is strapped to a table and interrogated.
Why do you eat brains, she is asked. "The pain ... the pain of being dead," she moans. Eating fresh human brains makes the pain go away, at least for awhile. This would differentiate these zombies from classic Romero ones, which were essentially cannibals who feasted upon the entire body.
Another thing to note is that in "Return of the Living Dead," being bitten by a zombie does not turn you into one -- only exposure to a deadly chemical developed by the military. In this way, the infestation of zombies is somewhat limited. Even though the gas can be spread through the air or seep into the ground through rain, the outbreak won't be exponential.
Also, these zombies are more resilient to damage. Piercing the brain or beheading the zombie does not stop them. The individual pieces keep coming after you. (Though I'm not sure what a disembodied foot would gain from killing, since it has no way to eat and thus relieve the pain of being dead.) They can only be destroyed by being completely reduced to ash, melted in acid, etc.
Of course, in the end the military solves its little problem by nuking the entire town of Louisville, where the story is set (though it was shot in Los Angeles).
The film just looks terrific in hi-def, and I noticed several details I'd missed before. For example, the half-zombie leaks spinal fluid from her "tail" during her interrogation, forming a nasty little clear pool of goo. Linnea Quigley's famous nude dance on a grave included a modesty insert to cover her most private regions. (In the commentary, she refers to it as a "plug" ... yargh!)
And the Tarman -- the deliciously slimy zombie/skeleton -- has never seemed more repulsive. I was surprised to learn that it was not an animatronic piece like I always thought, but an actor (Allan Trautman) wearing a special suit. For his beheading scene, they simply hired a shorter actor who had to wear the same, smelly outfit.
O'Bannon and Russo may have intended it as a comedy, but I still don't put "Return of the Living Dead" in the same category as "Shaun of the Dead" or "Zombieland." It's just too damn gory, too scary and too frackin' good to be dismissed as a zom com.
Movie: 4 stars out of four Extras: 3.5 stars out of four
Only Pixar, the animation studio behind "Finding Nemo" and "Wall·E," could produce a movie about a cranky, lonely old man and make it both an artistic and commercial hit.
Carl Fredricksen (voice by Ed Asner), the protagonist of "Up," has the world's sourest attitude. His beloved wife Ellie passed away some years ago, and all he really cares about in the world is the ramshackle home they shared for decades -- which is about to bulldozed for some high-rise construction.
So Carl hooks a million balloons to his house and floats it away. His goal is to navigate to Paradise Falls, the mysterious land where Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) -- the famous explorer who was his and Ellie's childhood hero -- disappeared long ago.
But it turns out that Carl has a stowaway: Russell (Jordan Nagai), a young Wilderness Explorer (think Cub Scout) obsessed with getting his last merit badge. Soon after landing in Paradise Falls, Carl and Russell are joined by Dug, a hyper dog with a gizmo collar that allows him to talk.
Director and co-writer Pete Docter ("Monsters, Inc.") layers the goofy antics in with some genuinely touching melodramatic moments. Like many Pixar films, "Up" is best appreciated by grown-ups.
Extra features are pretty good for the DVD version, but really take off in the Blu-ray edition (a combo DVD/Blu-ray pack is available).
The DVD comes with a commentary track by Docter and co-director Bob Peterson, alternate scenarios for the death of Muntz, a documentary on the filmmakers' journey to South America's Tepuis mountains for inspiration, and "Partly Cloudy," the short film that preceded "Up" in its theatrical release.
The Blu-ray has a host of features, including conceptual drawings of the major characters and canine companions, how the animators made Carl's house fly, and even how they carefully designed the interior and exterior of his house. Plus, a digital copy of the film for uploading to a portable device.
