More Home Entertainment to devour.
The Big Heat — 4K-UHD/Blu-ray — Criterion
The underrated femme-fatale-extraordinaire star Gloria Grahame won her Academy Award for under 10 minutes of screen time in the Vincente Minnelli Hollywood-set melodrama, The Bad and the Beautiful in 1952. But it was a year later that she would sear the screen as the singular, sassy gangster’s moll who takes matters into her own hands in Fritz Lang’s envelope-pushing (for 1953) Noir thriller, The Big Heat. Grahame and the film would not receive any love from the Academy, but the movie stands the test of time as one of the most uncompromising crime films of the 1950s. And her performance is one of the most daring for that decade.
Glenn Ford plays Sergeant Dave Bannion, a no-nonsense homicide detective investigating the suicide of a fellow cop, that leads to a Pandora’s Box involving a crime syndicate and many city officials. In retaliation for his refusal to stand down, someone close to Bannion is horrifically murdered and he sets off on an unyielding quest for revenge. The film co-stars a young Lee Marvin playing a misogynistic brute and Alexander Scourby as the smooth, if slightly stereotypical, mob boss.
The gritty screenplay, written by Sydney Boehm (When Worlds Collide) and based on a Saturday Evening Post serial & novel by William P. McGivern, takes things as far as they can possibly go for a Hollywood picture still under the dictates of the Catholic-led, censorial production code, which had started to slowly crumble around 1952 with Otto Preminger thumbing his nose at them with The Moon is Blue, but it wouldn’t be completely obliterated until the late ‘60s when a new insidious, but far less restrictive body known as the MPAA would begin rating films.
Besides the audacious moments of violence (a particularly shocking car explosion stands out) it’s the female characters that make The Big Heat so entrancing, beginning with Grahame, who owes her casting to Marilyn Monroe’s agents asking for too high a salary.
Grahame, combining acerbic wit and protective vanity with a self-reflexive attitude, kills as Debby—literally and figuratively. The character breaks new cinematic femme-fatale ground in her thirst for revenge and had it not been (I’m guessing) for the production code, might have even gotten away with her deliciously vengeful deeds. It’s a fearless performance. One for the books.
Jeanette Nolan nails Bertha Duncan, a greedy and heartless woman hell-bent on protecting her good name and social standing. Jocelyn Brando (Marlon’s sister) makes the most of the doting wife part. Dorothy Green, Carolyn Jones (in a tiny role she devours) and, especially, Edith Evanson are also memorable in their parts.
The themes of fear, loyalty, fidelity and corruption boldly reflect the McCarthyistic times the film was made in.
The Criterion 4K restoration is remarkable to behold.
The supplements are wonderful and include a new audio commentary by film-noir experts Alain Silver and James Ursini, interviews with Michael Mann and Martin Scorsese (too short), and a terrific audio interview with Lang conducted by film historian Gideon Bachmann and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich. The standout piece, however, is a new video essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme on the six outstanding women in the film, deftly diving into each.
The Big Heat is a must for fans of Noir and/or underrated gems.
https://www.criterion.com/films/29681-the-big-heat
Carnal Knowledge — 4K-UHD/Blu-ray — Criterion
I am a huge Mike Nichols fan! His first two films, 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and 1967’s The Graduate are groundbreaking works that garnered him his first Oscar nomination and his first Academy Award, respectively. He’d go on to receive three more Best Director Oscar nominations and make extraordinary and often-underrated cinematic works including Silkwood (1983), Heartburn (1986), Postcards from the Edge (1990) and Primary Colors (1998), to name a few. He is also responsible for possibly the greatest stage-to-small-screen adaptation of all-time with Tony Kushner’s Angels in America in 2003. In addition, he received 16 Tony nominations for his exceptional stage work, winning eight. He also pocketed a couple of Emmys.
Alas, I have never warmed to Carnal Knowledge. Not that one is really supposed to warm to the film, but its high placement in his canon has always stumped me. But now, seeing it again, via Criterion’s gorgeous transfer, I was left pretty haunted with much to ponder. I’ve concluded that the movie provokes in a manner where it forces you to reflect on your own character and the way you have treated sex and love partners—and sometimes it ain’t so pretty. It’s also a time-capsule look at toxic masculinity (although just how time-capsule can be debated).
The film opens in post-WW2 Massachusetts as college roommates Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) are both competing for the attention of nice-girl Susan (Candice Bergen). Jonathan is a brazen, cocksure cad while Sandy is seeming shyer. These two, we will learn, are really two sides of the same misogynistic coin.
Sandy ends up marrying Susan who has an affair with Jonathan—something Sandy doesn’t become privy to—at least while it’s happening. As Sandy becomes bored by Susan—who ends up completely vanishing from the film—Jonathan embarks on a volatile relationship with the lovable but insecure Bobbie (Ann-Margret, the film’s only Oscar nominee).
As the narrative takes our two impossible-to-like-but-still-charming protagonists into the sexual revolution decade, we become increasingly aware of their morally-bankrupt bond.
Jules Feiffer’s stinging script initially reminded me of later Woody Allen films. Feiffer has a way of capturing men and their inflated egos—that competitive nature—but also the disgusting way they see women, in such an honest manner that it’s often painful to watch.
There’s a particularly grueling, yet completely captivating scene between Jonathan and Bobbie late in the film that feels so utterly real, you want to leave the room to give them more privacy.
Feiffer wrote Carnal Knowledge as a play and sent it to Nichols who immediately envisioned it cinematically. His use of static shots and character framing is particularly fascinating, as lensed by the brilliant Giuseppe Rotunno.
Upon its release the film courted a great deal of controversy including an obscenity case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. This was a time where the industry was beginning to eschew the stringent production code and filmmakers were diving headfirst into more adult-oriented material. The frank dialogue, profanity and nudity in Carnal Knowledge was fairly new to American film and would spearhead a more open attitude in cinema that would mark the decade.
Nicholson, coming off his acclaimed and Oscar-nominated work in Easy Riders and Five Easy Pieces, delivers a gutsy, assertive turn. There’s nary a wee concern with his character’s likability. He’s irredeemably depraved, always showering after sex, needing to get clean—as if contact with women is akin to contracting plague. And he treats women like possessions. But at least he’s honest about it.
Bergen, an actor who wouldn’t be appreciated until almost a decade later with her hilarious Oscar-nominated turn in Alan J. Pakula’s Starting Over, is incredibly good here and we miss her when she completely disappears.
Ann-Margret took the role because she wanted to alter her sex-kitten image. Her raw, intense performance was certainly a game changer. She won the Golden Globe and, going into Oscar night, was seen as a possible upset choice, but was bested by Cloris Leachman’s lonely, cradle-robbing wife in Peter Bogdanich’s The Last Picture Show.
Once again, Criterion does a fantastic job with a stunner of a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack.
The Criterion special features include an illuminating chat between Jason Reitman and Nichols after a NYC screening in 2011. Nichols is quite honest in his assessment of the film, then and now. An audio commentary features filmmaker and playwright Neil LaBute. There is also a fascinating chat about the movie between Nichols’s biographer Mark Harris and film critic Dana Steven as well as a new interview with film-editing historian Bobbie O’Steen. Finally, an audio Q&A with Pfeiffer, then age 90, provides quite a bit of background and info.
https://www.criterion.com/films/28109-carnal-knowledge
Better Man – 4K-UHD – Paramount
Brit pop superstar Robbie Williams’ life comes to pizzazzy life in Michael Gracey’s grossly overlooked feature, Better Man, now out on a dazzling 4K-UHD disc from Paramount. The Greatest Showman-helmer is behind the success of this wild, unique and batshit crazy biopic of the icon’s career.
Williams has led a topsy-turvy, extravagant, yet deeply introspective life. He’s a master of contradictions and that is captured rather brilliantly in a movie that follows the singer from his turbulent childhood to being selected as one of five teens in the chart-busting boyband Take That to his astounding solo career. During his wacky journey to the top, he battled drug and alcohol addiction as well as great anxiety and stage fright. He’s the kind of artist who loves himself too much and not enough.
Oh, and he’s depicted as a CGI monkey. There’s that one small, huge bit of a bold move on the part of Gracey (and sanctioned by Robbie). And it works more than it doesn’t—although I did miss Robbie’s adorable mug.
The movie’s Golden-Globe-nominated song, “Forbidden Road,” co-penned with Williams by Freddy Wexler & Sacha Skarbek, made the Oscar shortlist, but was then disqualified for allegedly appropriating elements from Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name.” It’s a really good song. And, yes, it does sometimes sound like the Croce hit.
The film flopped here, but then we’ve never taken to or understood Williams. He’s conquered virtually every country except the U.S. Perhaps it’s his shameless sexual nature or his too-honest songwriting or his intense desire to be loved. We suck. And are the ones missing out. But the film lives on via streaming and a fabutastic 4K disc that perfectly captures this thrilling genre-blending visual treat that sends you on a meteoric high one moment, before sucker punching you the next.
The Bonus content includes a terrific 30-minute behind the scenes doc, Let Me Entertain You: The Making of Better Man, featuring Gracey and Williams discussing the flick, in-depth, as well as a cool tech feature, Monkey Business: The VFX.
This is a gem that fans of Williams, musicals and balls-out cinema will discover and delight in for many years to come.
https://www.paramountmovies.com/movies/better-man
The Way of the Gun – 4K-UHD — Lionsgate
Some have called Christopher McQuarrie’s directorial debut, The Year of the Gun, envelope-pushing. I see it as a mega-mixed bag—a terrific cast and that snappy McQuarrie dialogue, but little character development beyond the superficial, with no one really worthy of any kind of redemption.
Five years after he penned and won the Oscar for Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects, McQuarrie followed up that hit with this bloody and brutal crime thriller that feels like it wants to outdo Tarantino, but is too stylishly inconsistent.
The twisty narrative centers on a couple of thuggish criminals, Parker (Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro), who decide to kidnap a surrogate mom, Robin (Juliette Lewis), and then demand a ransom from the unborn child’s rich parents (Scott Wilson and Kristin Lehman). Things don’t go to plan when Robin’s bodyguards (Taye Diggs and Nicky Katt) get involved as does Joe Sarno (James Caan), an old school bagman who has more at stake than he lets on. Toss in a nervous gynecologist (Dylan Kussman) with his own secret and you have a heck of a lot of plot.
The set-up is certainly intriguing, but McQuarrie is more obsessed with filming tons of shootouts (too often where nothing and no one is hit, so it’s just constant gunfire) and lots of bloodshed (once they are hit) than any real character drama and intrigue. Still, Del Toro, Lewis and, especially, Caan makes lots of lemonade with the lemons they’re given. Also, Kussman is a standout.
The homophobic dialogue seems there simply to be there, which is disappointing.
The film does look rather smashing on 4K and the sound is perfectly ear-piercing. Lionsgate has done a fab job restoring the film from its 35mm original cut negative.
The Extras include the two new featurettes, Intention Is Everything, which features a chat with the production designer and art director and as well as Trigger Discipline, an interview with the prop mater, Also included: older (and too brief) cast interviews and an audio commentary with McQuarrie and composer Joe Kraemer.
Worth the buy, for the ensemble.
https://lionsgatelimited.com/products/the-way-of-the-gun-4k-steelbook
