A few more worthwhile titles on 4K-UHD and Blu-ray already released and/or coming soon.
The Long Kiss Goodnight – 4K-UHD – Arrow Video
That genius Jennifer Lawrence once boasted that she was the “the first female action lead,” referring to her role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games franchise which bowed in 2012. Social media was rightly all over her and she immediately qualified that outrageously ill-informed comment.
But who gets that credit? I guess it depends on how you define the female action hero. And does it matter who was first?
Katharine Hepburn was pretty badass in The African Queen (1951) and Vivien Leigh did dramatically save Tara in Gone With the Wind (1939). Do they count?
Many cite Pam Grier’s blaxploitation movies, Coffey and Foxy Brown in 1973 and 1974 respectively.
The recent CW doc, I Am Raquel Welch, pointed out that Welch was the real pioneer with 1966’s One Million Years B.C.
When lists of groundbreaking female action stars are made, Sigourney Weaver usually leads with Alien and Aliens. And there have been many significant wonder women since like, Linda Hamilton, Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, Zoe Saldaña, ScarJo, Gal Gadot…
A Time magazine piece from 2017 charting the Evolution of the Female Action Hero cites no less than 36 performances yet there is one name egregiously omitted, that of Geena Davis, arguably (and I’d love to make the argument) the most kick-ass female action lead of the 1990s in Renny Harlin’s The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Shame on most of these “lists” for excluding her.
And shame on me for avoiding this film until now. But thanks to Arrow Video’s fantabulous 4K, I can honestly insist that Davis must be given her due in a performance so far superior to most of the male action heroes of the day (sorry/not sorry Bruce Willis). Davis stands among the most exceptional of them all.
At the time of its release in October 1996, the movie received fairly good reviews, but Harlin and Davis (married at the time) were just emerging from one of the biggest box office disasters, less than a year prior, Cuttroat Island (another film I avoided at the time and, perhaps, should watch one day). Audiences didn’t flock to Long Kiss either. That is unfortunate because, despite its flaws, there’s a lot more to the film than the initial crap ad campaign had people believing.
The plot predated the Matt Damon Bourne Identity franchise (the films not the books), dealing with an amnesiac who turns out to be a former CIA assassin.
Davis plays Samantha Caine, a small-town schoolteacher with a loving boyfriend and young daughter who has no memory of her life before she washed up on a beach 8 years earlier. An accident sparks a few past memories and thanks to the services of private eye Mitch Henessey (Samuel L. Jackson) she goes on a quest to figure out her past identity which leads to much explosive mayhem and the discovery that she has some mighty survival talents. Oh, she must also foil an evil terrorist plot that could annihilate thousands.
The Long Kiss Goodnight is not without its faults. There are a few too many mind-numbing action scenes (just how often can we watch things blow up without getting a bit bored) and the celebrated but often forced Shane Black dialogue can wear a bit thin. But the general narrative is clever, and the conspiratorial reveal is, strangely, believable.
But what makes the film soar—and it does, often—are the performances led by an absolutely commanding Davis. Jackson is no slouch either. This is one of his best turns. And test audiences loved him so much they were furious that he was killed in the initial cut, forcing Harlin to let him live.
Craig Bierko is a wickedly terrifying villain. He is someone who should have had more male lead opportunities. Brian Cox and David Morse also make their respective marks in supporting roles.
The disc boasts a brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films from the original 35mm negative approved by Harlin and is presented in Dolby Vision with the original DTS-HD MA 5.1, stereo 2.0. and new Dolby Atmos audio options. It’s a treat to experience.
Arrow’s Limited Edition 4K-UHD/Blu-ray combo contains a host of marvelous special features including a new audio commentary by film critic Walter Chaw and another by film critics Drusilla Adeline and Joshua Conkel, co-hosts of the Bloodhaus podcast as well as deleted scenes and a slew of new interviews and archival promo-chats.
Yvonne Zima, who played Davis’s daughter, in a new interview, makes the wise point that the movie was before its time and that audiences back then had issues with female action heroes. Black speculated that had the lead been male, the film would have probably made money. How sad if that’s true. Harlin blamed New Line Cinema’s marketing team.
Things certainly have changed. And it’s time Geena Davis is given the credit she deserves and is included in the pantheon of great female action heroes.
In a recent interview, Davis stated that, along with Thelma in Thelma and Louise, this was her favorite role. Once you see the movie, you will understand why.
The Long Kiss Goodnight will be released on April 8, 2025.
https://www.arrowvideo.com/4k/the-long-kiss-goodnight-limited-edition-4k-uhd/16034468.html
Gladiator II – 4K-UHD — Paramount
After the first few press screenings of Gladiator II last year, many Academy Award prognosticators were speculating that this would be Ridley Scott’s Oscar to lose, and that Denzel Washington would win the Best Supporting Actor award. Within weeks, those excited but misguided predictions died down and by the time the nominations were announced the film received only one mention, for Janty Yates and Dave Crossman’s costume design. What happened? Well, the rush to make fast and furious forecasting didn’t help. But, maybe, the movie just wasn’t as good as everyone imagined it was—certainly not as beloved.
I will say up front, that I thoroughly enjoyed the film at the screening I attended. I had rewatched Gladiator the night before, which I did not like, initially, and was appalled won the Best Picture Oscar back in 2000. But I appreciated the longer cut on 4K. It’s a film that aged quite well, except for the horrible performance by Joaquin Phoenix, who was inexplicably nominated for an Oscar.
It took Scott 24 years to make the sequel and watching it a second time on this 4K edition made me wonder if Scott thinks its more important to shower the audience with incredible action sequences instead of presenting historically accurate stories? Why isn’t it possible to attempt to do both, especially when you had almost a quarter of a century to have someone write a decent screenplay? Is it necessary to run roughshod over real characters and events in order to bombard the audience with one bloodsportbath after another?
There are hints of what Gladiator II could have been in the more intimate scenes between star Paul Mescal and Connie Nielsen–who play Lucius, son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, and his mother, Lucilla–thanks to the actors, not the leaden script (by Peter Craig and David Scarpa) which insists on keeping their relationship as black and white as possible.
I did enjoy Washington’s campy turn, no matter how anachronistic it is. Shame he wasn’t allowed to be more bisexual.
The Paramount 4K is amazing. And not. The CGI madness becomes glaring and the film looks too polished, but John Matheison’s cinematography is allowed to pop in the very few non-action scenes. The Dolby Atmos sound is pretty potent.
There are a host of extras but, alas, they’re mostly promotional bits and nothing really revealing.
Best I can say is that the 4K disc makes a nice companion piece to Gladiator and it’s far better than Scott’s last few films, especially the stinkers, Napoleon and House of Gucci.
Gladiator II is currently available.
https://www.paramountmovies.com/movies/gladiator-ii
The 10th Victim – Blu-Ray – Kino Lorber
The great Italian filmmaker Elio Petri’s incisive corruption satire, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, won the 1971 Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, but only six years earlier, he concocted a scathing dark comedy/sci-fi/rom-com that was way before it’s time and feels scarily possible in our current Trumpian universe.
The 10th Victim is set in the year 2079, after WW3, when the world’s governments have acknowledged people’s degenerate lust for murder, which has been legalized via an international game known as “The Big Hunt.” Players are chosen at random, via computer, and if they can survive five bouts each as ‘hunter’ and ‘victim,’ they’ll win $1 million. Of course, the media has gotten involved and is broadcasting many of the more prominent assassinations live—this might be the first film to feature reality TV slayings—Sidney Lumet’s Network would take it to insanely brilliant and frightening extremes a decade later.
The zany narrative opens with Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) making her 9th kill (5th defensive) in spectacularly kinky fashion. She is next selected to slaughter Marcello Poletti (a ridiculously charismatic Marcello Mastroianni), who just finished off his 6th victim in quite a clever manner. Unbeknownst to Marcello, his death is to be televised in the Temple of Venus in Rome, with a significant sponsorship, the Ming Tea Company. But things don’t go quite as planned and the final reel is loaded with jolts and surprises.
Based on a short story by Robert Scheckley, the devilishly nasty script is by Petri, Tonino Guerra, Giorgio Salvioni and Ennio Flaiano. The film is produced by Carlo Ponti (Sophia Loren’s husband), who wasn’t ever keen on the endeavor and insisted on changing the original tragic ending.
One of the many side-splitting scenes has a hunter complaining about the places where you’re forbidden to shoot and kill people, “hospitals, restaurants, churches, barbers, orphanages. What’s the use of having a hunt?”
This distinctive and perspicacious film boasts fab mod, pop-art photography by Gianni Di Venanzo and a groovy ‘60s score by Piero Piccioni. The film’s look exists more in a post-Bond era milieu melded with Ancient Rome.
The uber-dashing Mastroianni goes blonde here, not only to match his stunning foe, but to also paint him as cold and indifferent. Chill, if you will. Andress is marvelously enigmatic. Jane Fonda was originally mentioned to play the role.
Bravo to Kino for a lovely 2K restoration. The special features include a short doc titled Elio Petri – Subject for Further Research, which explores the director’s work as well as new audio commentary by film historians Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth. The film can also be experienced in both Italian and English audio with optional English subtitles. Dubbing was the fashion back then so lips rarely match dialogue regardless.
Petrie directed less than two dozen films and died in 1982 at the age of 53. For those cinephiles only familiar with the Oscar-winning Investigation,The 10th Victim is a great place to start an exploration of his eclectic filmography.
The 10th Victim is currently available.
https://kinolorber.com/product/the-10th-victim-the-tenth-victim
Diary of a Chambermaid — Blu-ray — Kino Lorber
Luis Buñuel the master of surreality onscreen (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object of Desire) crafted one of his more subtle cinematic satires on class and the aristocracy with his 1964 drama, Diary of a Chambermaid.
Led by a perfectly paradoxical performance by Jeanne Moreau (The 400 Blows & Jules et Jim, both by François Truffaut) this adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s novel, set in the French countryside in the late 1920s, proves quite the eerily timely look at the rise of fascism.
The stylishly Parisien Célestine (Moreau) arrives at a provincial Normandy estate to assume the role of chambermaid to an eccentric family and finds herself surrounded by perverts, fetishists and hypocrites, not to mention antisemites and racists, although she doesn’t seem to mind all that much. But when a young girl is raped and murdered, Célestine sets out to discover the culprit, doing what she must to expose him.
This was the first screenplay collaboration between Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, who would become his life-long co-writer.
The Blu-ray features a terrific 2K Restoration by StudioCanal. The black and white cinematography by Roger Fellous is stunning. Special features include a new audio commentary by film historian Imogen Sara Smith, a fascinating doc on the making of the movie, An Angel in the Marshes, and two insightful interviews with screenwriter Carrière, that shed light on some of the enigmatic mysteries in the film.
Criterion pressed a DVD version in 2001, but this is the first time the Buñuel classic is being released on Blu-ray in the U.S.
The film is most fascinating thanks to Moreau and her supporting cast, never overplaying the satire and striking just the right chords to show us a society on the verge of choices that will lead to a kind of madness that seems destined to repeat itself every hundred years or so.
Diary of a Chambermaid is currently available.
https://kinolorber.com/product/diary-of-a-chambermaid
Peril & Distress: Endless Night & Picture Mommy Dead — 4K-UHD — Kino Lorber
Beginning in 1928, Agatha Christie novels have been adapted for the big screen 50 times. René Clair’s And Then There Were None (1945), Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution (1957) Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and John Guillermin’s Death on the Nile (1978) are rightly considered among the best and most faithful of the lot. Christie, herself, liked the Wilder and Lumet films—only!
But there were other worthy, if campy and curious, cinematic adaptations. Guy Hamilton’s Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Michael Winner’s Appointment with Death (1988) are both immensely entertaining and the recent trio of Kenneth Branagh iterations, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice, were beguiling and gave further depth to the sleuth Hercule Poirot.
A bizarre entry into the Christie cinematic canon was Sidney Gilliat’s Endless Night, released in the UK in 1972 but never shown in the U.S.
Christie’s 1967 novel of the same name was less a murder mystery and more an atmospheric, psychological character study. The film, adapted by Gilliat, has a few wonderful performances and an overused twist you can see coming very early on.
Michael Rogers (the highly underrated Hywel Bennett, co-star of Loot) is a working-class photographer-wannabe living with his mother. One day he meets Ellie (Hayley Mills) and they fall in love. Unbeknownst to him, she’s one of the 6 or 16 richest girls in the world. They wed in secret, keeping her family in the dark, and so begins a strange story that mixes murder, duplicity, greed and lust.
This would be third and final time Bennett and Mills would appear onscreen together having starred in two terrific Roy Boulting films, The Family Way (1966) and Twisted Nerve (1968).
Besides Bennett, the film boasts excellent performances by Swedish actor Per Oscarsson as Michael’s dying architect buddy and the great George Sanders (Oscar winner for All About Eve) as Ellie’s uncle Andrew, who isn’t really her uncle.
The renown writer was quite disappointed in the film stating, “it got flatter and less interesting every minute.” Personally, I felt just the opposite seeing it for the very first time on this impressive Kino Lorber 4K-UHD. I was rather bored for the first 30 minutes and then it began to captivate me. I was able to forgive the obvious denouement reveal because I found Bennett’s work so refreshingly nuanced and complex, especially for a Christie character.
The “Peril & Distress” double feature also includes the pretty lame thriller, Picture Mommy Dead, which, like Endless Night, looks fantastic on 4K but the sit is excruciating until the movie finally comes to life in the final reel and we get to see Zsa Zsa Gabor camp it up.
The plot involves a young girl, Susan (Susan Gordon), haunted by visions of her “Mommy” (Gabor) burning to death years earlier in a mysterious fire. Susan has just been released from a convent/institution and rejoins her father (Don Ameche) and his new wife (Martha Hyer), who used to be Susan’s governess. The rest of the facile narrative involves who would inherit the home and land if Susan were to be institutionalized or die. And who really killed “Mommy.” (Easy to figure out).
I do have to single out Wendell Corey as the estate’s irascible, mumbling scene stealing attorney.
Directed with little suspense by Bert I. Gordon and written by Robert Sherman, Picture Mommy Dead was panned when it was released in 1966, and I completely understand why.
Peril & Distress: Endless Night & Picture Mommy Dead is currently available.
https://kinolorber.com/product/peril-distress-endless-night-picture-mommy-dead
