Homage to the Master
As his career progressed, Alfred Hitchcock, the acknowledged master of suspense, made quite a study of death—murder, to be quite specific. He came to the realization that it’s a lot more difficult to kill a human being than Hollywood would have audiences believe.
Homicide victims in Hitchcock’s films found themselves in every longer and increasingly gruesome death scenes. Witness the lengthy gassing of an East German agent in the master’s 1966 Cold War thriller Torn Curtain.
To that end, the opening sequence of brothers Joel and Ethan Coen’s Academy Award winning film, No Country For Old Men, couldn’t be more of a tribute to Hitchcock’s attention to the detail during a vicious cold blooded murder.
Based on the best selling Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, No Country For Old Men is the story of conflict and struggle between three men on varying sides of the law, none of whom ever actually meet. Gritty, remorseless, and real, the story could have as easily taken place in the West Texas prairie of 1880 as it does in 1980.
The most graphically violent of the Coen brothers’ films—it borders on the slasher film genre—No Country, as did Fargo before it, finds humor in the nature and day-to-day routine of the lives of the West Texas people who round out its cast of characters.
Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) —the outsider, who is a relentless, remorseless, killer—is the exception to this easygoing, West Texas way of life. He is described as a man with no sense of humor, and Bardem’s Oscar-winning portrayal of him is flawlessly sociopathic.
Javier Bardem, Joel and Ethan Coen on the set of No Country for Old Men.
Image copyright© Disney. All rights reserved.
Equally as intense and authentic in their roles are Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, a hard scrabble Vietnam veteran and welder/cowpoke who happens on a fortune in drug money, and Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a man overwhelmed by the level of crime and violence Mexican drug trafficking has brought to his sleepy county.
If there’s a weak spot at all in the Coen’s otherwise superb production, it’s the use of the nearly cartoonish characterization of the classic Hollywood mother-in-law stereotype to move the story along. In a scene right out of the Flannery O’Connor short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, actress Beth Grant is saddled with delivering the paint-by-numbers set up dialog for the film’s dramatic climax.
Outside of that one false note, No Country For Old Men is superbly cast and features rich performances by Kelly MacDonald (Carla Jean Moss), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells), Steven Root (the unnamed Texas businessman behind the money), and Barry Corbin (Ellis).
This first release of No Country For Old Men to home video is, as you might expect, a bit light on bonus features. The DVD and Blu-ray discs share the same limited menu of three featurettes. The first two are the now all-too-common anal snogging behind the scenes: The Making of No Country For Old Men and Working with the Coens: Reflections of Cast and Crew. The third is the only slightly more informative, Diary of a Country Sheriff; there are no commentaries.
No Country For Old Men
Film: A
Bonus Features: C-
Buy or Rent: A good buy; cinephiles and Disney fans may want to wait for a deluxe edition release.
Suggested retail price: U.S. $29.99, Canada $34.99
Feature run time: 122 Minutes
Rated: “R” Strong Graphic Violence and Some Graphic Language. Bonus materials not rated
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1Widescreen adapted for 16x9 televisions
Sound: 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound
Languages: English, with French and Spanish subtitles
Some Enchanted Evening, Afternoon, or Whenever
I’ve got a secret. While Walt Disney Pictures Enchanted may be rated PG, it’s not just a kids and family film. This wonderfully funny updating and tweaking of the classic Disney fairytale image is every bit as entertaining for adults of all ages as it is for kids. In fact, while the film was in theatres, it wasn’t at all uncommon to hear parents shushing children during the “mushy stuff,” even as they were dabbing tears from their eyes.
You can read our theatrical reviewEnchanted: Updating Happily Ever After (For Grownups) here.
Enchanted is no less spellbinding on DVD than it was in theatres. Also, as a first release to home video, it too suffers from a dearth of extras and commentary.
Patrick Dempsey and Amy Adams await true love's first kiss in Enchanted.
Image copyright© Disney. All rights reserved.
Somewhat less self-congratulatory than most DVD and Blu-ray, bonus features extras include:
Fantasy Comes to Life, a look at the cinematic wizardry that went into the making of Enchanted in three behind-the-scenes featurettes: Happy Working Song, That’s How You Know, and A Blast at the Ball.
There is also a “Deleted Scenes” segment with introductions by director Kevin Lima, along with a selection of bloopers. For the kids, there’s Pip’s Predicament: A Pop-Up Adventure, featuring Giselle’s talking chipmunk pal “on a daring mission to rescue Prince Edward.”
There is one egregious omission from the DVD release of Enchanted.
The Blu-ray Disc of Enchanted contains all the bonus features found on the DVD plus an added feature the producers originally said would be available on both discs.
Enchanted contains dozens of hidden references to classic Disney films. Some are as obvious as the name of a Manhattan pizza parlor, Bella Notte, the title song from Lady and the Tramp, and the ballroom chandelier sequence from Beauty and the Beast. Most are a subtle homage to specific scenes from 70 years of classic Disney feature animation.
The only way to find out what and where all these hidden vignettes are is to buy the Blu-ray Disc of Enchanted and play the game The D-Files, which rewards Blu-ray viewers with three additional videos.
It’s a really sad way for Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment to “up-sell” consumers, and it truly short changes Disney customers who shell out the dough for the regular DVD.
Enchanted
Film: A
Bonus Features: B
Buy or Rent: A good buy; cinephiles and Disney fans may want to wait for a deluxe edition release.
Suggested retail price: DVD-US $29.99, Canada $37.99; Blu-ray-US $34.99, Canada $44.99
Feature run time: 107 Minutes
Rated: “PG”
Aspect ratio: DVD offered with FF (1.33:1) or WS (2.35:1), Blu-ray- WS (2.35:1)
Sound: DVD- 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound, Blu-ray- Dolby Tru HD
Languages: English, French, and Spanish
A Swing and a Miss
Chances are if you’re like me and countless others, the best times you have during “family get-togethers” are when you’re all sitting around swapping tales, and laughing about previous family events that weren’t nearly so hysterical while you were going through them.
If you’ve ever had that kind of experience, then you already know what’s wrong with the movie Dan In Real Life. Director/writer Pierce Gardner has forgotten that family drama is only funny in the past tense. As a direct result of this oversight, he’s served up a laughless, near lifeless comedy.
Dan Burns (Steve Carell) is a New Jersey newspaper columnist specializing in relationship advice. He’s a widower with three daughters, two of which hate him on general principals—they’re teenagers in love with driving and boys—and a middle schooler who’s just learning she won’t always be the apple of daddy’s eye.
It’s early fall, and Dan has taken the girls out of school and packed them off to Rhode Island to join the rest of his family for the annual closing up of Nana and Poppy Burns’ (Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney)seaside, summer home. No sooner have all the adult Burns brothers and sisters assembled then they all immediately resume their childhood family roles. What a surprise.
But the real twist comes when Dan, banished from the house for being too serious, meets the fascinating Marie (Juliette Binoche) at the local bookstore. Marie is the most beguiling and intriguing woman he’s met since loosing his wife four years earlier. There’s just one hitch.
Turns out that Marie is dating Mitch Burns (Dane Cook), Dan’s younger brother. In fact, she was on her way to spend the weekend with Mitch and the family when she ran into Dan, who conveniently never tells her his full name, while shopping for a book.
Two brothers, one girl. Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche and Dane Cook in Dan In Real Life.
Image copyright© Disney. All rights reserved.
What follows should make for rollicking good times around the Burnside fireside—in about five years. In the here and now, it’s just painful to watch, not that it isn’t entertaining.
Once you give up on the idea of Dan In Real Life being truly funny and realize you’re watching a slow-motion train wreck, the film is moderately enjoyable.
Carell, Binoche, Wiest, and Mahoney do a very good job of realistically bringing the story to life and moving it forward. The same cannot be said for Dane Cook, who seems to be forcibly injecting his standup comic persona into the Burns family.
The less said about the bonus features on the Dan In Real Life DVD and Blu-ray Disc the better. The majority of the featurettes are a love letter from director/writer Gardner to himself. They were so self-congratulatory for having brought this “family” of a cast and crew together that I couldn’t bring myself to sit through the movie for a second time with Gardner’s commentary track turned on.
Dan In Real Life
Film: C-
Bonus Features: F
Buy or Rent: Rent, and only if and when you miss those Thanksgiving dinners with your family.
Suggested retail price: DVD-US $29.99, Canada $37.99; Blu-ray-US $34.99, Canada $44.99
Feature run time: 98 Minutes
Rated: “PG-13” U.S., “PG” Canada
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Sound: 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound
Languages: English, French, and Spanish
Miramax Films, Walt Disney Home Entertainment and Touchstone Home Entertainment are distributed by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Inc.
