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KING SOLOMON’S MINES

ICE STATION ZEBRA

The last twenty years of action filmmaking has certainly seen giant leaps forward in terms of technology, and you could argue that there’s a degree of slick now that was never possible before, but some things are impossible to improve on. Story, character, performance... these fundamentals have always been part of the best examples of the genre.

ICE STATION ZEBRA is one of those movies that I knew by title long before I ever saw the film. I knew it was one of Howard Hughes’s favorites to watch over and over during the crazy Vegas-penthouse-Kleenex-box-shoes years. I knew it was a staple of basic cable in the early days of TNT. And I knew it was a John Sturges film, a director I deeply admier. So why did I want this long to see it? I feel even sillier now that I finally have, since it speaks so directly to so many of my fetishes. It’s an espionage movie set on a submarine starring Patrick McGoohan shot in super-wide ‘60s scope. Absolute bliss...

I don’t think 150 minutes is long enough to really justify an intermission, an overture, and exit music, but hats off to Warner Bros. for faithfully reproducing all of it here. This is an unbelievably beautiful transfer, and one of the most striking things about the film is how well the miniature effects work holds up. It’s flawless, with the exception of one flying scene, and they use reality shots beautifully to sell the illusion. The end result is a film that plays just as well now as it must have in 1968 when it was released.

CELLULAR

THE NOTEBOOK

Y’know, I’m just as guilty of mainstream snobbery as anyone. Sometimes I’ll see a trailer for a film that is obviously aimed at a mainstream audience and some part of my brain will just slam shut instantly, leaving me with no desire to see the movie. It’s not that the filmmakers do their job poorly, even. It’s just that my tastes run to the off-center and the eccentric more often than not. Somebody out there keeps buying tickets to Shaun Levy films, so there’s a reason that the mainstream is what it is. What’s nice is when you finally end up seeing one of those films you dismissed out of hand and end up enjoying it as simple, uncomplicated entertainment, as is the case with both of these recent New Line releases.

I think I just plain like David R. Ellis. He made a totally lunatic debut with FINAL DESTINATION 2, and he’s got a deservedly great reputation as a second-unit action director. With CELLULAR, he proves that he can get good performances out of the right cast just as well as he can orchestrate tension and mayhem. Chris Evans, due to fall under the unforgiving microscope of fanboy scrutiny later this year when he plays Johnny Storm in FANTASTIC FOUR, makes an engaging lead here as Ryan, the poor dope who answers the wrong call on his cell phone one morning. Kim Basinger’s at her high-strung-shaky-as-a-Chihuahua best as the woman who makes that call, a lucky accidental connection on a phone that’s broken beyond repair. These two strangers, joined by a strange twist of fate and that tenuous electronic thread, end up sharing a long strange day as a mystery unravels around them. Larry Cohen’s got story credit on this one, and it’s his second time back to the phone well after PHONE BOOTH. This is a more successful thriller overall because (A) the lead character isn’t a scumbag and (B) the film is allowed to cover more ground instead of being pinned down to one spot. It’s not a particularly surprising conclusion once we finally get where we’re going, but Ellis brings a great sense of propulsive energy to it. Jason Statham and William H. Macy both play juicy supporting roles, and when it does all come together, it’s satisfying. One of the things I like most about the film is that it is completely without pretension. It’s just a good yarn told well. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Yes, I watched THE NOTEBOOK. I have a pregnant wife who is riding a daily emotional rollercoaster. Of COURSE, I watched THE NOTEBOOK. This may well be the most shameless tearjerker I’ve seen since the Hong Kong film FLY ME TO POLARIS, and I’ll give Nick Cassavetes credit for playing this material completely straight. He cast the film with strong actors, hired a great DP, and then went for it without hesitation. You can’t make a hyper-sentimental tearjerker like this if you’re going to half-ass it. You’ve got to mean it, 100%, and I get the feeling that the author of the book, Nicholas Sparks, does. They certainly threw a fistful of great screenwriters at the project, with Jeremy Leven (DON JUAN DEMARCO) and Jan Sardi (SHINE) both credited. It’s not the story that makes the thing so potent, since you can pretty much guess how it’ll end from the first fifteen minutes... it’s the structure.

Each piece of the puzzle is spoonfed to you at just the right moment for maximum impact, all the way up the film’s most powerful scene, in which the true nature (and author) of the notebook that James Garner has been reading to Gena Rowlands for the whole film is finally revealed. Garner and Rowlands give the story of the young lovers, intercut with them in the nursing home, some real weight, and it must have been particularly emotional for Cassavetes to direct his mother in this role. If you’ve seen that amazing Criterion Collection box set of John Cassavetes films, and the documentary A CONSTANT FORGE in particular, then you know that Nick Cassavetes grew up in a house where love, in all its violent, turbulent, upsetting, and uplifting glory, was the most important thing in the world. It was more vital than oxygen, and grand displays were the norm in life and in art. Knowing that, it makes perfect sense that Cassavetes would direct a film like this, and that he would approach it with complete sincerity.

Ryan Gosling made a great debut in THE BELIEVER in 2001, and since then, he’s been almost totally underutilized in film after film. Here, he gets a chance to play something besides a sleepy-eyed psycho, and the result might well change the course of his career. He strikes real sparks with Rachel McAdams, who also plays against type here. In MEAN GIRLS, she was a spectacular bitch, and it’s hard to overcome an impression that strong. For this film to work, she’s got to be worthy of the love of both Gosling and James Marsden (cast as a very credible other man), and she manages nicely. Sam Shepard and Joan Allen round out the supporting cast doing solid work, each of them getting a few moments to shine. In the end, though, the film belongs to Garner, who radiates pure charm and unflagging devotion for the entire running time. Again... this film doesn’t transcend its genre, I wouldn’t call it high art, and if you’re a cynical viewer, you won’t make it ten minutes in, but it does what it sets out to do with merciless precision, and if you’re looking for a three-hanky sobfest this Valentine’s Day, here’s a great bet.

Both releases are part of New Line’s Platinum Series, meaning they’re overloaded with extra features. THE NOTEBOOK has one commentary by Cassavetes and another by Nicholas Sparks. Rachel McAdams’s screen test is included along with 12 deleted scenes, each of which comes with optional commentary, a feature I always like because it’s nice to hear why something was cut. It’s a valuable lesson for aspiring filmmakers. There are also four behind-the-scenes featurettes, including one that’s about the Cassavetes family. There’s a 5.1 Dolby Digital mix, a Dobly surround mix, English and Spanish subtitles, and both a widescreen and a fullscreen transfer on the disc. CELLULAR has a director’s commentary, deleted and alternate scenes, and three behind-the-scenes features. The tech specs are almost exactly the same, except there’s no fullscreen transfer. Both discs feature typically great New Line transfers, and serve to remind just how long they’ve been one of the best in the DVD market.

OCTOBER SKY

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

RAY

These three recent discs, all based on true stories, manage to not only offer up excellent transfers of the films, but they also give glimpses of the people who inspired the stories to underline just how well the filmmakers managed to capture reality.

OCTOBER SKY is still the best film that Joe Johnston’s made as a director, a terrifically sincere family film based on the true story of Homer Hickam Jr., played here by Jake Gyllenhaal. Basically, Homer catches a glimpse of Sputnik one night, and he decides he wants to build and launch a rocket of his own. It’s a universal story for anyone who’s ever been called to a vocation and pursued it despite what seemed like insurmountable odds. Johnston creates a lovely sense of period detail, sketching Coalwood, West Virginia and the late ‘50s quite strikingly. Homer’s torn between the support of his teacher (Laura Dern) and the demands of his father (Chris Cooper), and he recruits several friends to help him accomplish his dreams.

Universal’s put together a nice documentary called “Aiming High: The Story Of The Rocket Boys,” which details the truth behind the movie and also fills in the story that took place afterwards. In addition, Homer Hickam contributes the commentary track for even more information. The disc looks and sounds great, and it was a pleasure to rediscover this heartfelt little sleeper. There are Dolby 5.1 mixes in English, French, and Spanish, and an English DTS 5.1 mix, with English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT: ULTIMATE EDITION

GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE

What do you do when you enjoy a movie but find yourself totally underwhelmed by a DVD? Here are two science-fiction films I really enjoy, both releases that I was looking forward to, but they strike me as massive letdowns for very different reasons, and I’m having a hard time recommending either.

Can we pass a law right now that says that Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment can’t release any more editions of Luc Besson’s THE FIFTH ELEMENT until they are willing to actually improve the transfer significantly? This is the third Region 1 DVD release of the film that I can think of just off-hand, and I was hoping that this time they had finally put out something great. I love this movie, and my feelings about it haven’t dimmed a bit since 1997, when it first came out. It’s silly and beautiful and sexy and oh so very damn French, and I love every ludicrous second of it. Milla Jovovich gives a truly original, intuitive performance as Leeloo, the Supreme Being, a weapon sent to Earth to stave off the approach of Mr. Shadow, a living planet made up of Pure Evil. Bruce Willis is hilarious in the film as Korben Dallas, a cabdriver/ex-soldier who ends up helping Leeloo and Father Cornelius (the hilarious Ian Holm), the priest who has spent his whole life awaiting her arrival. Gary Oldman, who should be forced to work only with Besson, contributes a magnificent looney portrayal of Zorg, a weapons dealer who is doing Mr. Shadow’s bidding on Earth. And then there’s Chris Tucker, whose Ruby Rod is still the strangest, funniest hybrid of Prince and Michael Jackson that I can imagine, a love-it-or-hate-it-but-you-ain’t-gonna-forget-it bit of work from the days before he became the $20 million recluse. The movie is overstuffed with exceptional visual flourishes and nutball bits of humor, and that’s what I love about it. How can anyone hate a movie where Tiny Lister plays the President of Earth? How can you possibly complain about a SF action film that has the balls to go its full running time without the hero (Korben) and the bad guy (Zorg) ever even laying eyes on one another? The costuming by Jean-Paul Gaultier is outrageous, and Leeloo’s white band-aid costume alone deserves some special spot in the SF Mastubatory Fantasy Hall Of Fame. The FX work by Digital Domain was groundbreaking at the time, and its influence is still being felt in big-budget fare now.

So why would I say you should probably skip this disc?

For one thing, the Superbit transfer here may have been impressive when it was initially released several years ago, but at this point, it’s fairly piss-poor. Six different subtitle tracks, a feature length text trivia fact track, a Dolby 5.1 track and a DTS track all take up a fair amount of encoding space, and despite the claim that it’s been remastered in high definition, it looks exactly like the old Superbit transfer. The blacks are filled with digital noise, and the color saturation is miserable. I’ve checked the disc on every TV and monitor in the house, as well as every disc player, and there’s no doubt about it: this transfer blows. The extras on disc two are entertaining, with separate features on the aliens, the digital effects, the costumes, the design work by Moebius, the actress who played the Diva, the casting, and more. It’s all good stuff and interesting...