There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Letters to Juliet. It’s the picture of an ideal romantic comedy – smart girl is engaged to wonderful chef-guy who barely knows she’s there, so she trades up for equally wonderful guy who does. Yes, there’s an entire subplot involving the equally wonderful guy’s granny, the letter she wrote and shoved in a hole in a wall 50-years ago, and the fact that the smart girl discovers the letter and brings granny together with her long lost Italian lover-boy/grandpa. But that’s all the window-dressing for the boy-girl romance at the core of the film. Nobody is really supposed to care all too much about the old folks. And that’s where the film really trips up.
For all of Amanda Seyfried‘s current rising-star-power, playing a New York Times fact-checker/want-to-be writer on a romantic vacation to Italy, it’s the amazing Vanessa Redgrave as the love-lorn granny who truly steals the film in both her performance of the character and in her storyline. It’s tough to sympathize with Seyfried’s whining, moping character – not satisfied with her fiance’s lack of attention to her as he struggles to set up his restaurant business, prior to it’s grand opening. She’s needy and impatient and ultimately (SPOILER WARNING) moves on from him far too quickly when a more convenient, more attentive option presents himself (END SPOILER…if it was really a spoiler to begin with, seeing as how it’s granny’s boy, Christopher Egan posing with Seyfried in all the press shots for the film and not Gael García Bernal, who plays the fiance). Redgrave, on the other hand, is marvelous and believable as an older woman who, after the loss of her husband, receives a response to a letter she wrote and crammed into Juliet’s wall (yes, that Juliet…apparently sad ladies write her letters and put them on a wall under the balcony she purportedly stood on, chatting to her Romeo back in the dark ages) 50-years ago, which urges her on to seek out the love she was forced to abandon in her youth. Her quest is fun, fanciful and provides the film with its much needed heart. Without her, and Bernal in an incredibly spirited and believable performance as the fiance Seyfried should hang on to for dear life, if she knows what’s good for her, the film would be a tepid, cliched affair. As it is, it’s a pretty standard romp through the Italian countryside with a handful of worthwhile characters.
Letters to Juliet comes to Blu-ray sporting a very handsome and very detailed presentation. The colours veer toward the warmer side of the palette but that’s just how director Gary Winick and DOP Marco Pontecorvo like it, pumping up the reds and yellows of that hot Tuscan sun. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is mostly unremarkable, as audio on films in this genre generally are. Music is dynamic enough and dialogue is clean and clear up the middle, but don’t expect to be blown away by this source-accurate track.
Special features on my Canadian edition of the Blu-ray consist of a fairly standard director commentary track (with Seyfried riding shotgun), some deleted and extended scenes with director’s introduction and a couple of decent but fluffy featurettes – The Making of ‘Letters to Juliet:’ In Italia (12:40) and A Courtyard in Verona (5:40). All decent stuff if you’re a fan of the film!
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]]>REMEMBER ME (2010, Blu-ray released June 22, 2010 – MSRP $34.99)
Is Remember Me a film to remember? Well, Robert Pattinson – henceforth referred to as Vampire Boy – plays Tyler, a broody, introverted youth simultaneously refusing and craving love … obviously the role was chosen to showcase the versatility of his acting chops. To be fair, Vampire Boy can act, and on top of being competent he’s easy to watch. It’s a shame the Twilight series will forever damage his cred. Maybe that is why he overreaches by taking on the role of executive producer here.
After a despondent night of college boozin’ Vampire Boy gets lippy with a cop for no apparent reason. The officer is played by the always stellar Chris Cooper. Cooper throws him in jail and as revenge, Vampire Boy’s roommate, the annoyingly talented Tate Ellington, encourages him to pursue Cooper’s daughter – Preggers-from-Lost (Emilie de Ravin). Holy coincidence Batman! Both Vampire Boy and Preggers-from-Lost have been wounded by tragic losses drawing them closer into the melancholic arms of one another. As a child, she witnessed the murder of her mother on a subway platform while his brother hung himself – and guess who found the body?
Among scenes of the tormented lovers torn between what they want and what they’ve lost, we have interspersed family conflict. Cooper is racked with guilt and over-protectiveness with his daughter. I think he may also like the taste of the booze. Pierce Brosnan plays a distant yet stinking rich father to Vampire-boy, while Ruby Jerins rounds out the cast as his kid sister, Caroline (she’s cute…role accomplished.) Before falling for the golden locks of Preggers-from-Lost, Caroline is the sole thing in the world he gives a damn about. Without giving anything away, things happen, people kiss, people get mad, people sit down and look contemplatively at the floor/out the window, and people have to deal with loss and more loss.
Heavy handed director Allen Coulter (with a CV packed with TV credits) should have concentrated less on making smoking look cool and more on exploiting the plethora of talent handed to him. Cooper and Brosnan are two of the best things about this film, yet the film would have benefited had their roles been brought to the forefront or scrapped altogether. There is too much sulking and not enough character development. Coulter does handle some of the lighter moments rather well, in particular the early dating scenes. Remember Me most likely would have would have been a stronger movie had a more accomplished filmmaker been at the helm. At least cinematographer Jonathan Freeman makes everything look pretty.
Love and loss, nearly two melodramatic hours worth, but not at a total loss. I wouldn’t say Remember Me is a good film but somehow I did enjoy it and having not heard anything about it going in, the ending took me for a whirl…
The good news here is that Remember Me looks and sounds just fine on Blu-ray. There’s nothing to write home about – this won’t be your new demo-disc – but the transfer is solid, as is the lossless English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Detail and colour fidelity are superb but you’ll note some shots that drift to the softer side of photography. That’s the style of the film, in this case, and not the transfer/encode. The audio is front heavy, as expected in a conversational drama of this sort, but still manages moments of great dynamism in the music and immersion in the sound field, particularly in the busy, exterior NYC scenes.
Special features are few but solid on the Blu-ray, comprised of a fairly engaging 15-minute “Making-of” featurette and a couple of commentary tracks – one with Coulter and one with the cast.
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]]>Oh geez. I usually like to pick a top disc release every week. I usually like to be able to recommend a single title for you to pick up, you know, if you’ve got a tight budget, or just want to see the best of the best. But I can’t really do it this week. There are too many brilliant Blu-ray discs out this week! I’ll highlight a few of them but please comb through the whole list. There’s something for everyone here!
Moon is one of the best films of the year. And it’s also a really fine Blu-ray disc. Don’t just pick it up for the quirky sci-fi story or the brilliant performance by Sam Rockwell. Pick it up because its a great all-round debut from a fine filmmaker (I’m looking at you, Duncan Jones!) given a spectacular Blu-ray disc treatment courtesy of Sony. Oh, and the score by Clint Mansell is probably my favourite of 2009!
I love, love, love The Brothers Bloom! We got it on Blu-ray here in Canada a few months ago (read my full review here). Glad to see that you folks south of the 49th parallel will finally have a chance to check it out too! Great film!
What can I possibly say about Federico Fellini‘s classic film 8 1/2 that hasn’t been said a million times before? Except maybe that it holds the honour of being the first title from my list of Top 10 Criterion DVDs that deserve a Blu-ray upgrade to graduate to high-def! I can’t wait to get my hands on this and ditch my old, very nearly worn out DVD set. Any takers out there? Anyone still satisfied with standard-def? (Sorry, just cultivating my High-Def snobbishness!)
High-Def Simpsons on Blu-ray!! This is such a great, little compact set, with the whole season spread over 2-Discs! Great. I just got my hands on it but haven’t had a chance to screen any episodes yet. I’m curious to see how much compression Fox had to use to cram them all onto the discs. Full review coming later in the week!
I’d love to see The Hurt Locker! It’s another in the long line of potentially great films I missed out on in the theatres this past year. I understand it’s one of the best of the best and though I can’t speak from personal experience, I’ve included it here, in the top releases of the week on reputation alone.
ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:
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The Brothers Bloom is Rian Johnson‘s follow-up to his 2005 Sundance hit, Brick, a low-budget high-school film noir feature starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Full of literary and cinematic allusion, Bloom succeeds on so many levels as a wonderful ode to the powerful art of storytelling but is perhaps a bit too clever for its own good. It’s the story of two orphan brothers who become con-men, men who have fallen into living out the elaborate stories they create. Stephen and Bloom (clear references to Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom in James Joyce‘s Ulysses), along with silent partner, Bang Bang embark on their final con to swindle rich heiress Penelope (after Odysseus’s loyal wife in Homer‘s famous epic) out of her millions. Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody are wonderful as the pair of brothers caught in perpetual struggle with one another – Brody’s Bloom desperate to get out of the con game and live an “unwritten life” while Ruffalo’s Stephen knows better how to make his brother happy, keeping the con on track. Rinko Kikuchi plays Bang Bang, the silent, explosive-crazy Harpo Marx of the crew. But it’s Rachel Weisz as Penelope who steals the show as the eccentric heiress whose hobby is picking up and learning hobbies.
The Brothers Bloom has a plot that follows a con that might be a con-of-a-con or might be real life and is probably a little convoluted for most. It does, however feature clear character arcs that are satisfying, if not easy to foretell. But the wantonly oddball, idiosyncratic behaviour of everyone up on the screen, along with Johnson’s directorial and soundtrack choices, could leave you with the feeling that the film is an exercise in style over substance, as it has many film critics. I disagree. I think it’s a film that’s fun on the surface but also absolutely brimming with subtext and subtlety. This will be one worth owning. A film that will pay off the more you watch it. Owning the Blu-ray disc, however, if you live outside of Canada, won’t be as easy as hustling out to your local Best Buy.
The Brothers Bloom Blu-ray disc is currently only available for rent in the USA. I’m not quite sure what Summit is thinking with this move. I mean, you can go out and rent it at Blockbuster, or Netflix it or whatever. But the only way you can own a copy is to order it from Canada (currently only $26.99 CAN at Amazon.ca) That’s right. We, here in the great white north have already got The Brothers Bloom on Blu-ray and let me tell you, it’s a worthwhile purchase. Apparently, Summit will release it for sale in the US in January.
The disc looks and sounds pretty great. It’s far from reference quality with a lot of soft looking shots and slightly less detail than you’re hoping for but it’s a thoroughly film-like presentation. The special features include over 35 minutes of deleted scenes, an image gallery and a really great fly-on-the-wall behind-the-scenes featurette. The real gem of the discs extras, however is the commentary track featuring a chat with Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman. Bergman chimes in every now and again but for the most part stays silent as Johnson unveils in depth production details, thematic symbolism and story secrets. He also answers questions that fans have asked over Twitter! Great commentary track! Great disc!
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Teenage Vamp-land: Twilight hits Blu-ray Disc on March 21st
The box-office smash hit, Twilight, adapted from Stephenie Meyer‘s book of the same name hits Blu-ray disc on March 21st (that’s right, a Saturday!) courtesy of Summit Entertainment. No details of the Blu-ray release have been announced yet but the 2-disc Special Edition DVD will feature an audio commentary with director Catherine Hardwicke and stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, 5 extended scenes with director introductions, 5 deleted scenes with introductions, the 7-part The Adventure Begins: The Journey from Page to Screen documentary, the Comic-Con Phenomenon featurette, 3 music videos (featuring Muse, Paramore and Linkin Park) and more TBA.
Speaking at a press conference in November, Hardwicke addressed her hopes and plans for the Blu-ray release,
“I’ve seen the sparkle scene on Blu-ray, and it looks really great. I was worried how that would translate.”
“We are looking into to going back to ILM and pushing that scene a little further for the Blu-ray disc. We have about a dozen deleted or extended scenes to put on the DVD, and I made a couple crazy montages of all the times the vampires kiss or attack someone and of all the human hijinx, and I’ve done a visual remix of the movie for the DVD also.”