Bits & Bites with a Brador

Our next pair of reviews is Roots Daughters:The Women of Rastafari from MVD, which was co-produced by the NFB, and examines the role of women within the Rastafari movement and religious ceremony. Director Bianca Nyavingi Brynda interviewed a balanced selection of women in Jamaica, and provides a brisk and informative intro on the roots of Rastafarian religion and customs.

Also of note is director Robin Neinstein's documentary and film version of Douglas Coupland's popular nostalgia books, Souvenir of Canada. It's a tough film to market beyond those not privy to the Canadian Experience (Smarties, Brador beer, bilingual packaging, and no right turns on a red light in Quebec) during the sixties and seventies, but Barry Stevens' adaptation and the plethora of archival images and film clips enhance this trip through 'pre-nostalgia,' as Coupland's efforts to showcase icons of our collective past are slowly being forgotten and eclipsed by more cultural ephemera.

Released by Maple, and co-produced by several entities (including the CBC and the NFB), it's a Canadian co-production that isn't afraid to show affection for national icons - so while it'll jar the memories of true Gen X's, it also explains why we're a bit goofy, too. Click on the title link to read about the extras, which also include a funny commentary with the film's director, producer, and Coupland.

Technorati Tags: DVD Reviews, Rastafari, and Douglas Coupland

Do You Like Argento?

While Dario Argento's last feature, The Card Player/Il Cartaio failed to achieve the fun of Sleepless/Non Ho Sonno, his TV movie (apparently a hope to ignite a new TV series) Do You Like Hitchcock?/Ti piace Hitchcock? went in an altogether different direction by weaving a narrative out of standard conventions and plot twists from the best Hitchcock films.

Not an easy task, and it's a bit surprising to see Argento having great fun in making us believe one Hitchcockian nod will follow through as the source did... and then take another amusing turn and twist to another convention. Pino Donaggio's synth/orchestral score is fairly restrained, and the location work is first rate, including the residential street that places a self-adoring babe in sight of a bespeckled film geek.

As with prior Argento films, there's adoration for fine architecture, and his camera lovingly exploits the lines and curves of old world apartments and their rickety elevators, plus the sleek glass and steel upgrade to the babe's apartment that allows the geek to survey her comings and goings. Anchor Bay's DVD brings Argento's playful film to Region 1 audiences, and beefs up the label's existing catalogue of the director's many titles. (Someone should release his Door into Darkness/Porta sul buio in a Region 1 set, now that the limited German release of the four-part TV series from 1973 is long gone.)

We've also uploaded our review of Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon, which is now rumored at DavisDVD.com to appear in a longer version on HD-DVD in December. That news is hardly a surprise, as the film's pacing was frankly a mess. We'll upload a review of the '72, version in the coming weeks, but you can read our reviews of Poseidon and the 2005 cash-in TV movie, where we compare characters, stupidities, and structural flaws of the two recent attempts to turn Paul Gallico's classic novel into a blockbuster.

Now when will Columbia release Goliath Awaits on DVD? You'd think the studio would've exploited the disaster-in-H20 wave of the past year, since this goofy but inventive drama of survivors living in the underwater wreck of a luxury liner for 40 years deserves a DVD release in its original TV length format. (The two-part series was later edited into a 110 min. version, and popped up on VHS and laserdisc.)

Lastly, we've extensively updated all of the Links sections, with new composer sites, more DVD labels, and resource sites we think are very cool and handy.

Technorati Tags: DVD Reviews, Dario Argento, and Poseidon Adventure

Jazz Shots, Jazz Schifrin, and Brassian Jazz

We're in the process of establishing a less formal updating process, which will ensure new stuff appears every few days instead in one big weekly upload, so bear with our oddball schedule.

Our first offerings for the month of September includes an interview with Elia Cmiral, who discusses his work on the American remake of Pulse. Part electronic and modern orchestral, Cmiral's Pulse is another smooth blend of two disciplines to create a creepy horror score, although his best entry remains the brutal music for Wrong Turn. Cmiral talks about Pulse, the aesthetics of horror music, and working with different orchestras around the world.

Also of interest to film music fans is EFORFilm/ MVD's latest four-volume wave of Jazz Shots. Divided into East and West Coast branches, the series is an anthology of very rare jazz performances by legends during the Golden Years of live TV, and later shows, like Jazz Casual, and Jazz Scene USA.

Jazz Shots from the East Coast Vol. 3 includes a bouncy rendition of Elmer Bernstein's Walk on the Wild Side theme, while Vols. 2 and 3 have clips of Dizzy Gillespie's group with Lalo Schifrin at the piano. Also from the Jazz Casual series is the Modern Jazz Quartet, and the archived performances on Vol. 2 have the group playing the main theme from John Lewis' Una Storia Milanese / Milano Story.

The West Coast volumes are just as fun, and Vol. 2 also features three meaty sets with Shorty Rogers and pianist Lou Levy. Really sweet stuff.

Also new to DVD is Tinto Brass' latest film, Private / Fallo! from Cult Epics. Available in a rated Producer's Cut, we've reviewed the unrated edition that beholds more Brassian silliness, and retentive production design.

We've also updated the WKME feature on our review of Kolberg to reflect a sidebar piece on the related title, Das Leben geht weiter / Life Goes On - one of the best documentaries on the making of a feature film.

Planned by Goebbels as the next epic after Kolberg's 1945 theatrical release, production was halted after the allied forces entered Berlin, and the film's status as the last work under the Third Reich became a legendary tale of sublime, Kubrickian folly.

The fate of the missing footage was slowly pieced together by author Hans Christoph Blumenberg, whose book subsequently became the basis for this Emmy Award-winning documentary by producer/co-writer Carl Schmitt, and co-writer/director Mark Cairns. Just click on the Kolberg link, scoot down to the bottom, and click on the doc's review link for more details!

Lastly, we've added CD reviews for Craig Armstrong's World Trade Center, and Aleph's packed CD of Lalo Schifrin's Magnum Force soundtrack.

As related material, we've also reviewed Motor's 1996 Schifrin anthology, Mission: Impossible... and More!, produced by Frank Jastfelder and Stefan Kassel, who also authored the soundtrack art compendium, The Album Cover Art of Soundtracks. Being a bit retentive ourselves, we've reviewed that 1997 book, too!



Technorati Tags: DVD Reviews, Tinto Brass, Pulse remake, Elmer Bernstein, Lalo Schifrin, WWII Propaganda, and Modern Jazz Quartet

How Uncle Joe won the war and saved planet Earth

Although IHF's DVD of The Fall of Berlin/Padeniye Berlina (1949) has been out for a while now, not many know it exists, let alone know where to pick up a copy, as its distribution has yet to reach the broad arm of the Amazon.com empire. (Some specialty online retailers do carry the title, and if you're in Toronto, it is available at Bay Street Video - one of KQEK.com's advertisers.)

We don't normally write epic reviews, but Fall is one fascinating artifact from the Stalin era, and it's impossible to cover such a surreal gem in 500 words since so much effort went into creating this monster, which concludes with the Red Army's Reichstag assault - staged on location in war-ravaged Berlin, using the pock-marked, skeletal remains of the actual edifice, with masses of Soviet soldiers, and plenty of war toys. Then there's the propaganda content that should have war movie buffs salivating for more - although this may be the apex of the Stalin genre and Uncle Joe's Deification on Film.

Fall was also scored by the great Dimitri Shostakovich, and while it's not really his best work - the libretto for the finale is laughably over the top - the film's notable for epitomizing the kind of ideological 'social realism' fodder the composer had to stomach and score after he fell into disfavor with Uncle Joe. (In coming weeks, I'll feature an examination of Shostakovich on DVD, which will include some unique documentaries and dramas recently released on disc.)

As a contrast, we also have the first title that's part of KOCH Vision's new agreement to distribute classic NFB (National Film Board of Canada) documentaries. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen is a 1965 follow-along from directors Donald Brittain and Don Owen, and while previously released under the Winstar banner, the reissue from KOCH replicates the same content, including four Cohen-related shorts: "I'm You're Man," "Poen," "A Kite is a Victim," and "Angel."

This week there's also a unique music slant, as we cover the latest rock-docs from Music Video Distribution/Sexy Intellectual: Led Zeppelin: The Origin of the Species, and The Rolling Stones Under Review: 1962-1966. These are solid and highly informative docs using many interviews and rare clips - worth a peek for fans and novitiates curious about the early years of each band.

We're also continuing in covering every film music DVD out there - and there ain't many - like Michael Kamen: Concerto for Saxophone. The late Kamen will forever be associated with the greatest action score of all-time (Die Hard) and music for the iconic 1980s/90s buddy cop satire & franchise (Lethal Weapon), and it was in 1990 that he recorded his first original concert album. Kamen was the ultimate bridge between the worlds of classical music and rock - largely because he played instruments and wrote music for both camps - and his involvement with Metallica, Eric Clapton, and Roger Waters, to name a few, resulted in lots of great music before he passed away in 2003.

In the imminent print issue of Music from the Movies, I've chosen to use the handful of available film music DVDs to single out some key production aspects that would make a perfect concert DVD - something fans came close to receiving with the must-have releases of Morricone Conducts Morricone and Arena Concerto.

DVDs are the perfect venue for fans who simply can't drop a few hundred dollars (or more) to visit a country and catch Morricone in concert, but it takes skill and substantial funds to craft a DVD that evokes the sounds and spirit of a live event.

(The teaser image above is a rear ad from an old 1988 Soundtrack! - Vol. 7/No. 26 - which trumpets a concert that never happened: Jerry Goldsmith with the Toronto Symphony. It's the closest T.O. ever came to enjoying what New York, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, and much of Europe experience with some frequency: live film music.)

Lastly, do check out our interview with Christophe Lennertz, the Emmy-nominated composer of TV's Supernatural who may become the Emmy-winning composer of Supernatural, if Sunday night's telecast on August 27th favors this talented composer of scores such as Clive Barker's Saint Sinner, and the upcoming features Tortilla Heaven, and Shark Bait/Pi's Story.

Coming next week: an unnecessary remake, refreshing Argento, and the latest cheekiness from popomeister Tinto Brass.

Technorati Tags: DVD Reviews, Stalin Propaganda, Shostakovich, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, Supernatural TV

Olympia's North American Debut & Frizzell Talks Horror

Summertime's often been a period where the studios release wartime flickers - dramas, soap operas, actioners, and the rare comedy - and this year's a bit more surprising for the documentaries and little-seen epics that have surfaced. Granted we've been dipping backwards to visit some titles as leads for the recent wave, but a big surprise was the appearance of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia - the classic documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The re-militarization of Germany under Hitler was in plain view throughout the doc, particularly the opening ceremonies, and the film's release in 1938 as an example of new film technique developing under the Third Reich kinda makes it tangential to the summer wartime wave.

Although a director-supervised transfer of the film appeared on laserdisc from Criterion, Pathfinder Home Entertainment is the first North American label to commercially release the film on DVD, and the results are very mixed. Our review deliberately checks out the extras, particularly the rare newsreels archived on the 2-disc set, with some comments about the overt wartime propaganda therein.

The review is also the first to use our WKME feature - basically hyperlinked text that loads a fresh page of sidebar comments, footnotes and reviews - which in Olympia's case, offers a review of the rarely seen 1940 film, Wunschkonzert. Released on VHS PAL in Germany, the film is unique - and perhaps largely forgotten - for using footage from Riefenstahl's film as cleverly intercut background footage to launch a wartime romance between two distanced lovers later separated by war.

(Many unique titles are mentioned in our Olympia review, and over the coming weeks we'll add capsule reviews for some that are still unavailable on DVD; while not actual DVD reviews, they'll offer brief WKME overviews, and we'll mention those new additions in this column.)

Olympia, from our end, is also the key culprit in our delayed July update, which includes a pair of reviews: Les Dalton, the grandly blundered live action version of the famous Morris-Goscinny comic book, released by Chrystal in a gorgeous DVD; and Maroon, Andre Gladu's latest installment in his three-part history of the Creole in Louisiana, and their influential music.

This is one title that, as of this writing, hasn't popped up in the IMDB, but is another fine example of the great documentaries made by the NFB (National Film Board of Canada), whose works are slowly (and finally!) making their way onto broadly distributed commercial DVDs. This 2-disc edition from Music Video Distribution also contains Gladu's prior entries, Zarico and Liberty Street Blues, and is worth checking out.

Lastly, we continue with our interviews & profiles, and offer a breezy conversation with film composer John Frizzell. With Lucky McKee's The Woods finally getting theatrical and planned home video play, and Stay Alive arriving on DVD September 19th, Frizzell talked to KQEK.com about the stylistic opportunities the horror genre frequently gives adventurous and skilled composers.

Coming next: vintage Leonard Cohen and The Rolling Stones, The Fall of Berlin in appropriated Agfacolor, and some exploitive trash to balance out the coming week.

Technorati Tags: DVD Reviews, Film Composers, Leni Riefenstahl, Creole Music