From Nicholas Pileggi’s true-life bestseller Wiseguy, GoodFellas explores the criminal life like no other movie. Directed and co-written by Martin Scorsese, it was judged 1990’s Best Picture by the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics. Electrifying performances abound and from a standout cast that includes Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco and Paul Sorvino, Joe Pesci walked off with the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.

Goodfellas shows Scorsese to be a master of pacing, as it’s a film that briskly covers a vast amount of time, but does so while letting its scenes play out to their greatest effect. It’s the sense of years passing and people changing, all while the presence of the mob stays constant, that gives us an intimate look into the life of Henry and Karen Hill, the real-life characters the film is based on.

Goodfellas has a grand sweep to it that makes it seem in some ways the greatest achievement of Scorsese’s career. While it doesn’t quite achieve that level for me, there’s no denying what a remarkable film it is.

Warner Brothers releases the Blu-ray of Goodfellas with some extras thrown in to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the film. The film is presented in 1080p high definition with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. One could speculate on why the visual presentation here is fairly underwhelming, but it’s quite possible that the disc — produced in the early days of Blu-ray, before the format wars had ended — didn’t benefit from the technical knowledge that tends to produce sparkling high def catalog releases almost every time these days.

If you don’t already own Goodfellas on Blu-ray, this 20th Anniversary Edition is the one to go with since its packaging is more attractive than the 2007 release and it contains a high-quality documentary about the gangster genre.

DISC 1

• Cast and Crew Audio Commentary – Director Martin Scorsese, author/screenwriter Nicolas Pileggi, producers Irwin Winkler and Barbara De Fina, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and cast members Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino and Frank Vincent all participate in this recorded-separately-and-spliced-together-style commentary track. Very insightful, and due to the style in which it was pieced together, always moving and jumping around from voice to voice and story to story, this is absolutely worth listening to. Scorsese’s comments are especially interesting, as you would expect.
• Cop and Crook Audio Commentary – The second commentary features the real Henry Hill and FBI agent Edward McDonald. This is especially interesting for the real-life comparisons Hill relates. McDonald actually does a great job of asking questions and keeping the conversation going.
• Getting Made (29:36) – This is the standard making-of for the film. Interviews with cast and crew highlight the production, with lots of emphasis put on character building and editing.
• Made Men: The Goodfellas Legacy (13:33) – This shorter piece is more of a tribute, as a younger generation of filmmakers (e.g. Jon Favreau, Richard Linklater) discuss the impact of Goodfellas on their career and life.
• Paper is Cheaper Than Film (4:27) – This is a presentation of Scorsese’s drawn storyboards and written notations, alongside clips of the film. ” The Workaday Gangster (7:58) – The final featurette in this set is a discussion on the lifestyle of the mob. Constantly working, the real-life wiseguys were always on the ready…
• Theatrical Trailer (1:28)

DISC 2

• Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film (105:43) – This feature-length documentary from 2008 is incredibly detailed and exhaustive! While it starts and ends great, you may get a bit lost in the middle. This piece does a serious break-down of the gangster genre in Hollywood, starting with Burglar on the Roof from 1898 (that’s not a typo) and ending with The Departed . The heaviest concentration focuses, as the title indicates, on the golden era of the genre, which is considered to be the 1930’s. There are great interviews with film historians and critics, authors and filmmakers. There is also great use of vintage interviews from the filmmakers and stars of the golden era, plus clips of those films (even silent era stuff!). This is a great piece for anyone who has an interest in film history. Though it may get dry in the middle there, it’s still absolutely worth watching on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
• Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes (30:39) – There are four Friz Freleng cartoons here. “I Like Mountain Music” is from 1933 and in black and white; “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter” is from 1937 and in color. These first two are hard to watch and have nothing to do with gangsters. There are obviously way better choices in the catalogue and I am not sure why they were chosen for inclusion here. But then “Racketeer Rabbit” (1946) and “Bugs and Thugs” (1954) come on and all is forgiven. Both of these are classics, staring the infamous rabbit and some bumbling gangsters.

An unusual hybrid of chick-flick by way of science fiction, The Time Traveler’s Wife had the potential to be a truly unique love story; one for the guys as well as the girls.  However, the end result veers way too far into the romantic depths in order to accomplish a successful genre combo.  Resembling something far closer to The Notebook than to The Twilight Zone, the film ends up alienating fans of each genre by not adhering to either one. 

Based on the best-selling book by Audrey Niffenegger, the story revolves around a couple, Henry and Clare (Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams), who find themselves destined to be together despite Henry’s inablity to control his gift/curse of time travel.  Despite the fact that the film’s title alludes to Clare, this is really Henry’s story.  There is no explanation given for his “chrono impairment”, nor are there any rules (he meets himself throughout the film without paradox).  Henry finds himself drawn “like gravity” to the same pivotal moments of his life, again and again.  Whether it’s the car crash that killed his mother, or the day he meets Clare for the first time, he cannot control where he goes or when he goes there.

While this randomness might have worked in book form, it doesn’t translate to film.  On the page, this sort of free-form storytelling can be effective.  But on film, a more linear structure is needed.  There doesn’t seem to be a cohesive narrative, but rather a series of events that don’t really amount to much of anything when pieced together.

I will give the film credit for not following the chick-flick wedding cliches.  The first part of the film details Henry and Clare’s courtship, going all the way back to adult Henry meeting Clare as a child.  These provide some of the film’s best scenes, and provide an interesting complication for Henry as he is later forced to live up to the expectations established by the “ghost” of his former self.  However, in an unusual move for this type of film, the second part of the film goes to a darker place, right after the inevitable wedding. 

This is the where the fantasy ends for Clare and she has to deal with the ramifications of having a time-travelling husband.  How can she live a normal life with a normal family if she never knows when her husband is going to randomly disappear?  And is it a genetic condition, one that would endanger a future child?

I liked these ideas and conflicts, but the way they were presented just felt false.  Overly sentimental and emotionally forced, the filmmakers pile on the sap and melodrama without restraint.  Bana and McAdams have a definite chemistry, and this helps the film in a lot of ways.  But the chemistry between them can’t overshadow the soap opera that is playing out on screen. 

Visually, the film is impressive.  The colors are vibrant, the directing is showy without ever being distracting, and there are a lot of creative edits in order to keep the story moving.  One of the bonus features describes all the early scenes as being from the point of view of a character’s distorted memory, rather than reality.  Therefore, the colors are brighter, the hair more perfect, etc.  Personally, I don’t think this approach makes sense as we are supposed to be seeing him literally traveling to these moments in time, but as an aesthetic approach it does create some beautiful imagery. 

For the new Blu-Ray release, two bonus features were included.  I wasn’t particularly excited as I began watching these, but I found myself more captivated by these features than I was by the film itself.  The first one is called “Behind the Story: An Unconventional Love Story.”  I found myself having a greater appreciation for the film after watching this.  I still don’t think it’s a particularly good movie, but I can respect what they were trying to accomplish. 

Featuring several interviews with cast and crew as well as visual depictions of what they are discussing, this feature brings to light several thematic aspects of the film I hadn’t even realized as I watched it.  For example, they discuss the concept of the film being “constructed around echoes,” and how they made specific attempts to replicate visual cues throughout the film.  They also discuss the different interpretations of the time-travel itself and whether it’s to be looked at literally or as various metaphors for relationships.

The other feature is called “The Time Traveller’s Wife: Love Beyond Words.”  This feature is all about adapting the book into a film.  It’s interesting hearing the screenwriter discuss his thought process as he tried to turn a very literary story into something suitable for the screen.  In my opinion, he wasn’t successful, but it was still interesting to get the different perspectives on the story.

This isn’t an awful movie.  It’s just not very good.  There is a lot of potential in the basic premise, but they chose to push the film in an over-the-top romantic direction that cancelled out what could have been a compelling story.  I’m sure the book is great, but it just did not translate.  Some of the film works, but overall, I found it a disappointing, jumbled mess.

It’s no shock that Drew Barrymore chose Whip It as her directorial debut.  A film about women’s roller derby featuring tough, trash-talking tattooed women seems right up her alley.  What is surprising is her ability to mine genuine humor and emotion out of such an unconventional premise. 

Ellen Page (Juno) gives another terrific performance as Bliss Cavendar.  As the film begins she is a front-runner in a beauty pageant, and obviously miserable.  There is something missing from her life, but her mother’s obsession with these pageants is preventing her from figuring out what she should be doing with her life.  Eventually, she finds her way to Austin, Texas, and becomes a roller-derby sensation going by the name of Babe Ruthless.

As her mother, Marcia Gay Harden portrays a character that genuinely wants what is best for her daughters.  She just doesn’t understand the impact roller-derby has on her daughter’s life.  As Bliss Cavendar, she is a ridiculed, nerdy waitress living an ordinary life.  But when she becomes Babe Ruthless, her life opens up.  She is forced to become more aggressive, physically and mentally.

Page plays Cavendar and Ruthless as if they were two different people.  The constant repression of Ruthless (what seems to be her real persona) is a tremendous pressure on her in “the real world,” and it is this struggle that drives the film.  As things progress, it becomes clearer to everybody that this is who she is meant to be.  This sense of discovery is a huge part of why the film works so well.  It’s a believable and entertaining transition.

The other reason the film works so well is the terrific supporting cast.  Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) shines as her best friend, Posh.  They have a believable repartee between them, and this friendship is a cornerstone of the film.  Barrymore smartly spends a lot of time away from the roller derby just observing these two living their lives.  Their friendship is a crucial aspect of the characters, and it’s a smart move to spend so much time with them, away from the main story.

As for the roller derby itself, it’s a violent and fascinating sport that I honestly didn’t even know existed.  Barrymore sets up the rules pretty early in the film, and then does a great job actually filming the sport itself.  I’ve seen a lot of sports movies and while this does tend to follow the formula, it’s refreshing to follow a sport that I’ve never seen before.  There is an energy and excitement to the game sequences, and she never loses sight of the action.  It becomes very easy to follow, and I eventually found myself actually getting invested in the game itself.

The other roller-derby competitors are a really fun group to watch.  Kristin Wiig, Zoe Bell, Eve, and even Drew Barrymore all play various team members.  They all play tough girls, but never end up as stereotypes or cliches.  Each individual is a memorable character, fleshed out and believable.  The interactions between the team demonstrate a sense of family that is never forced.  Another standout is Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven, the common enemy of the team.  She seems to be having a blast with this performance, and her over-the-top attacks make it easier to root for the team.

Unfortunately, the extras on this set are terrible.  There are nine deleted scenes, and many of them are simple scene extensions.  There is a three-minute feature on the screenwriter and her process of writing the story.  And the last feature is an ad for the soundtrack.  I was amazed at the miniscule amount of material on the set.  I would have thought Barrymore would have had a lot of material chronicling her debut.  She doesn’t even provide a commentary track.

But my disappointment was balanced out with my enthusiasm for the film itself.  I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it nearly as much as I did, and was amazed at just how fun it actually ended up being.  While the story is a bit of a cliché, it’s smartly written and always entertaining.  I wasn’t expecting much from Barrymore, but she really did a great job and I look forward to seeing whatever her next attempt may be.

Over the years I’ve seen many musicals, both live and on film.  Yet somehow, I’ve managed to go my whole life without ever seeing a single moment of the Music Man.  It’s not that I’ve been against it in any way, I’ve simply just never gotten around to it.  I began watching the newly released Blu-Ray completely unfamiliar with the story, the characters, or any of the music (although I did end up recognizing a lot of it, having never realized where the music came from).  Going into a film blank is an exceptionally rare experience for me, and one I was eager to jump right into.  Unfortunately, it turned out that I hadn’t been missing anything that great.

This is one of those movies made up of moments.  There are fantastic set pieces, character beats and musical numbers throughout, but as a whole the story just doesn’t really come together.  Robert Preston is a standout, bringing an energy and excitement to his role of con artist Harold Hill.  Having perfected the role on Broadway, he supports the entire film with his performance.  Shirley Jones (The Partridge Family) also shines as Hill’s love interest, “Marian the Librarian.” 

Without these two performances, I don’t believe the film would be as renowned as it is today.  The story revolves around Hill’s attempts to con River City, a small town in Iowa, into purchasing band equipment and lessons that he cannot provide.  As we learn, he has scammed several towns prior to this one, collecting the money and running away.  However, due to various circumstances, he can’t leave until the town has received their band uniforms.  During this time, he falls in love with Marian, gets to know the citizens and manages to improve the town through music while they in turn make him a better man. 

It’s a very simplistic story, and is dragged out over two hours and thirty minutes.  In a film with so much boisterous energy and lively musical numbers, I was amazed at how slow the film actually felt.  We spend so much time getting to know practically the entire town that we don’t really get to know anybody.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, considering how annoyingly caricatured several of the residents are.  I understand that the movie is based on a play, but the performances still feel way too theatrical for the medium.  The filmmakers needed to tone down these performances, but rather encouraged the slapstick and over-the-top goofy accents and voices. 

Of course, The Music Man is a musical, and in this regard, the film is fantastic.  I ended up recognizing the majority of the songs without even realizing I had heard them before.  These are iconic songs, ones that have earned a place in the pantheon of great musical numbers.  The main song of the film is Seventy-Six Trombones, a fantastic march that Hill uses to sell the idea of a band to the residents of the town. 

However, some of the best musical moments are those that slowly evolve from regular dialogue, eventually transitioning into full-blown musical numbers.  In fact, the opening sequence is like this, featuring a group of traveling salesman conversing through overlapping musical dialogue in time with the rhythms of their train.  And sometimes, these different styles end up overlapping, with full-blown melodies integrated into the more conversational style of song. 

As for the Blu-Ray itself, the picture looks and sounds terrific.  The colors are vibrant and the image pops off the screen.  The sound is flawless, with a clarity that enables us to hear every word of overlapping dialogue and perfectly realize every note of music.  The extras however, are minimal.  There is the original theatrical trailer, which is a lot of fun, and a feature called “Right Here in River City.” 

Running just over 22 minutes, this is a terrific documentary featuring modern-day interviews intermixed with footage from filming.  By incorporating current interviews with Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett and Onna White, they provide a modern perspective on what it was like to film this so many years ago.  It’s apparent that everybody involved in this production had a great deal of admiration and respect for the finished product.  They also seemed to have a great time actually filming it.  Filled with anecdotes as well as insightful analysis, this is a bonus feature worth watching. 

I just wish I could say that I liked the film itself more.  While I loved the music and some of the performances, I couldn’t get past my frustration with the citizens of the town or the dragged out storyline.  The film is worth seeing and I’m glad that I did, but I still can’t help but find the film overrated.

Most movies these days seem to live and breathe by a gimmick.  It seems as if there always has to be some new conceit, whether it’s the effects, the characters, action sequences, or a twist within the story.  In 2003’s Mystic River, brilliantly directed by Clint Eastwood, he knew he had a great story and cast, and that was all he needed.

He opens the movie with an unsettling prelude, showing our central cast as a close group of childhood friends.  One of these friends, Dave, ends up abducted by someone posing as a cop.  Four days later, he escapes after enduring unspecified, but obviously horrific abuse, and it is this chapter of this life that will forever define who he is. 

Cut to the present, and these three still know each other, but they are no longer the tight-knit group they once were.  Dave, now played by Tim Robbins, is a father himself, but one who is obviously haunted by the demons of those four days.  His friends, Jimmy and Sean, now played by Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon, are living their own lives, Jimmy as the owner of a local store and Sean as a cop.  Through a series of unknown events, Jimmy’s 19-year old daughter ends up murdered the same night Dave comes home covered in blood, claiming to have killed a mugger.  Is it coincidence or is he the killer?

On paper, this is a relatively straightforward murder mystery, but there is a power to this story unusual for the genre.  Jimmy’s grief over the loss of his daughter is palpable.  Penn’s acting is so intense that you genuinely feel devastated over the loss of his beloved girl.  When he decides that the cops assigned to the case (including Sean) aren’t doing enough in their investigation, he begins his own detective work, and you completely believe in his tactics.  Of course, things end up spiraling out of control, but the desperation behind every act makes it all believable.

As the film progresses, the audience is able to start piecing the puzzle together.  There are no shocking twists, and the story itself is rather straightforward.  What makes this film unique are the nuances of the characters.  Dave’s abduction is the dark cloud hanging over the proceedings and the fact that they used to be friends adds an element of depth to everything that is happening.  Eastwood describes the film as being like a Greek tragedy, and that seems about right.  He views the film as the “unraveling of a mystery that goes back generations,” and yet at the same time, evolves to an unbelievably intense finale, one completely of the present.  The central mystery doesn’t end up taking much time out of their lives, and yet the story feels epic. 

Every character is crucial in a story like this, and every actor does a phenomenal job.  Even those with limited screen time make the most out of their performance.  There isn’t a false note within the film.  Laurence Fishburn, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney all do stupendous work, shaping their performances to create memorable characters of consequence. 

Warner Bros. has released a terrific Blu-Ray of this film.  Extras include “Mystic River: Beneath the Surface” a 23-minute documentary featuring current interviews with the cast, Eastwood, Brian Helgeland (the screenwriter), and Dennis Lehane (the novelist who wrote the book on which the film is based).  This is one of those features that is kind of dry, but fascinating at the same time.  It simply consists of people talking to the camera, reminiscing and ruminating on the film.  There is no flash in this feature, but there is a lot of substance.

There is also a feature that runs just over 11 minutes called “From Page to Screen.”  This was originally a special for Bravo, and doesn’t feel all that different from the “Beneath the Surface” feature.  It’s just more interviews and clips.  However, my favorite extras were the Charlie Rose Show interviews.  Featuring interviews with Clint Eastwood, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon, Rose does a great job just conversing with these fascinating people.  There are times where these types of interviews feel as much like a commercial as anything, but these particular interviews are simply conversation.  Sitting in front of a black set with no fancy graphics or eye-catching camera moves, they sit and discuss their life’s work, not just the film.  These segments provide fascinating insight into these brilliant actors and directors, and I loved watching them.  Rounding out the extras are the teaser trailer and the full preview.

Eastwood states that he shoots his movies by “treating every scene like it’s the most important scene in the picture.”  This dedication has almost always served him well, but it really comes across here.  Almost every moment is both crucial to the film as a whole, as well as serving as a fascinating stand-alone moment.  There is no wasted time in this film.  It’s a masterful script, turned into a brilliant movie.  Both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins deservedly won Oscars for their performances, and the film got nominations for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actress (for Marcia Gay Harden).  This is a remarkable film, and one that deserves every accolade it received.  Having directed several brilliant films, I would still consider Mystic River his masterpiece.

Amelia Earhart is probably still the best-know female aviator despite the fact that she disappeared without a trace over 50 years ago. Director Mira Nair has now created a long-overdue tribute to this incredibly audacious woman with “Amelia,” which has now arrived on blu-ray. Amelia (Hilary Swank) has always been fascinated by the prospect of flying. At an early age she witnessed the first flying machines and decided to become a pilot herself.

Star Hilary Swank has the boyish looks that are a near doppelganger for the first woman who flew across the Atlantic. She is a fine actress and has the chops necessary to bring Earhart to life. Swank stars against strong leading man Richard Gere in what should have been a stellar cast that included Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston in supporting roles. The Englishman and Scot are both highly talented. Unfortunately, the first problem that arises is the near wooden performance of Swank that loses the ambition and charisma of Earhart. She was one of the largest figures in America in pre-World War II days and Swank does not conjure up a woman so universally loved. Gere, on the other hand, has been one of the favorite actors for women since 1982´s “An Officer and a Gentleman,” but he doesn´t share chemistry with Swank.

The movie begins almost immediately showing some of the final moments of Earhart´s (Swank) failed flight around the world where her husband and publicist George Putnam (Gere) is getting word that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan (Eccleston) are flying against stronger headwinds and may not have enough fuel to reach the tiny island of Howland Island. The film then moves back to Earhart´s earlier days when she fell in love with flying and, like everything else in the film, it spends precious little time proving depth to her history. This is a movie where almost everything is glossed over except for a few long looks between Earhart and purported lover Gene Vidal (McGregor). It isn´t long before Putnam hires Earhart to fly as a passenger to cross the Atlantic. This first flight is one of the film´s better scenes and whether or not Earhart almost fell out of the plane happened, it contains the most dramatic moment of the film.

The unfortunate ending to Earhart´s highly publicized flight around the world is not hypothesized by the filmmakers and screenwriters Ronald Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan deserve some credit for not taking an Oliver Stone-like route to telling the story. Director Mira Nair though needed to add just a little more drama to the final moments and I feel she spent entirely too much time on the radio communications between Earhart and the Naval forces that were waiting for her at Howland Island. The point was gotten very quickly and any emotion that Earhart was unable to communicate and find the island was lost. A few shots at distraught Noonan showed that the navigator understood death was upon him, but Swank gave little emotion during this drawn-out sequence. The filmmakers could have done without the hypothesized moments in the cabin of the Electra and focused on how everybody else handled the events.

“Amelia” is a very gentle film with many nuances surrounding the Amelia Earhart mythology. It is never sensational and instead opts for a closer look at the woman that Amelia was rather than the adventurous feats she continuously undertook. Her historic solo crossing of the Atlantic is playing for now more than a few minutes while her globe-circling attempt to fly around the world bookends the film as a whole. Instead of focusing on the near-misses, the strenuous and undoubtedly frightening moments of some of her flights, instead we learn what kind of a woman Amelia Earhart really was. How her relationship with George Putnam – who adored and loved her like a goddess – grew, how she withstood the temptations presented to her by the aviation industry and other powerful companies, how she disliked the celebrity status she had and the sell-out she felt she had become, and how she ultimately dedicated her entire life to flying.

“Amelia” is a touching and heartfelt movie, very different from what I expected. Focusing on her character, life and her person as a whole, it is much less action-laden as you might expect but more than makes up for it by wonderfully keen observations and warmth. I loved the film and will clearly watch it again and again.

Blu-ray Disc Special Features:
Disc One
    •    Theatrical version
    •    Deleted scenes
    •    Making Amelia
    •    The Power of Amelia Earhart
    •    The Plane Behind the Legend
    •    Re-constructing the Planes of Amelia
    •    Movietone News

Disc Two
    •    Digital Copy

DVD Special Features:
    •    Theatrical version
    •    Deleted scenes
    •    Making Amelia
    •    The Power of Amelia Earhart
    •    Movietone News

In what I’m sure is an attempt to capitalize on the 2009 remake of the same name, the original Fame from 1980 is getting a cleaned up re-release on Blu-Ray.  Director Alan Parker’s 1980 film chronicles the lives of a group of students/performers attending New York City’s High School for the Performing Arts.  Beginning with the intense audition process and culminating with a graduation four years later, the film is a gritty portrayal of teenage artistry and the desire to evolve their craft into something more.  However, despite the lofty ambitions, I found the film often unfocused, trying to follow too many stories at one time, and never staying with a story long enough to make it worth the effort.

Throughout the course of the film, we watch the struggles of these artists, dancers, actors and singers.  There are several fascinating characters, and yet the struggle to follow so much at once shortchanges what should have been a more concise film.  Alternating between the intensity of the school and the intensity of their lives, the film is choppy and uneven. 

It doesn’t help that the film can’t decide whether or not it’s a musical.  Being at a school that focuses on the arts naturally lends itself to musical numbers, but when the music erupts onto the streets of New York, it’s jarring and awkward.  If the film embraced this musicality and was a musical throughout, this might have been easier to accept, but the rarity of these moments enhances the lack of focus.

However, the movie looks great.  Filmed at a real performing arts high school in New York, with many of the school’s real students in the film, there is an authenticity throughout.  With the exception of the musical numbers, there is never a moment that feels produced.  Shot very naturalistically, it occasionally takes on the nature of a documentary; one in which we simply observe these students and their lives.

The acting of the film is a mixed bag.  Occasionally great and often terrible, it was surprising to see such an uncomfortable mix of talent.  Everybody seems to be trying really hard, but it often feels as if they are trying too hard.  The actors playing the students seem so desperate to convey the talent behind their characters that they end up overplaying them as people.  It doesn’t help that the story would cut away everytime I’d start to get invested in a performance. 

Ironically, most of the cast ended up not making it big in the industry.  A few did, of course, but many of them just disappeared.  One of the interesting features on the Blu-Ray is a video commentary with several of these actors.  When an icon appears on the screen, you can activate this feature and watch them recording a modern day commentary track.  It is fascinating to see these people thirty years later talking about their performances and experiences making the film.  There is also a commentary track with Parker that runs the full length of the film.

Interestingly, they have also included a short documentary released with the film in 1980.  I love vintage behind-the-scenes features, and this is a pretty comprehensive one.  While it runs just over 10 minutes, it shows the filming of several sequences, and has interviews with Parker and several cast members.  There is also an 11-minute modern day documentary looking at the real school that inspired the film.  The school has been updated since filming, but it’s still fascinating to get such a thorough look at the location as well as interviews with several students currently attending.  This was a nice touch, creating a parallel with the students of today to the students of the film.

The only other extra is the film’s three-minute trailer, which sells the film exactly as it is.  A showcase for teenage talent with scattered plot throughout.  I would have liked more focus and payoffs to several of the stories, but regardless, it’s an interesting film.  I haven’t seen the remake, so I don’t know how they compare, but I can’t imagine it’s a whole lot better.  Having also inspired a television series, this was obviously a very popular film.  It was even nominated for six Oscars (it only won two).  I enjoyed it somewhat, but it wasn’t good enough to warrant a spinoff and a remake.  This is a school worth visiting once, but I have no desire to return.

I’ve often heard Boogie Nights described as a film about the 70’s adult film industry.  While this may be true on the most basic level, it’s about much more than that.  Sharing a similar technique that he later employed in Magnolia, director Paul Thomas Anderson tells an epic-sized story by presenting several smaller-scale stories integrated together.  Yes, the film is set in the world of pornography, but that is not what it is about.  It is about a specific group of people.  They may work in the seedy underbelly of the San Fernando Valley, but Boogie Nights is the story of their lives and not their occupations.

That doesn’t mean that the film isn’t graphic.  While there may not necessarily be a lot of sex, the sequences that are there tend to be relatively pornographic themselves.  By the very nature of the subject matter, the film has an undercurrent of sexuality that can be very uncomfortable. While this is a very powerful film, it is understandably not for everybody.

Set during the transition from the seventies to the eighties, Anderson frames the film around Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg).  Beginning the film as a dishwasher, Adams finds his way into the porn business, eventually becoming porn superstar Dirk Diggler.  Wahlberg is amazing in the role, transitioning from the enthusiastic young newcomer to the desperate loser desperate to reclaim his glory days.  There have been many films that have chronicled an individual’s rise to stardom and eventual descent into despair.  What makes this film unique (beyond the time period and setting) is the cast of characters surrounding the lead.

Featuring a large percentage of the cast from Magnolia (filmed two years after Boogie Nights), there are no “filler” characters.  Overseeing this group is director Jack Horner, played by Burt Reynolds, who received an Oscar nomination for his performance.  Serving as a sort-of father figure to Adams, the audience slowly begins to notice the darkness beneath his character.  Reynolds creates a subtly nuanced character, one that is easy to identify with at first but becomes more and more unsettling as the film progresses.  There are other great performances from John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Heather Graham, and on an on. 

But another true standout is Julianne Moore. If Reynolds is the film’s father figure, she is definitely the mother figure.  As porn star Amber Waves, this is taken to a literal extreme at one point when a character asks if she can start calling her mom, and she agrees.  It’s a complex performance, and she definitely earned the Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress that she received that year.

It’s hard to believe that this was only Anderson’s second film.  It feels like the work of a master filmmaker, one who has been doing this for years.  Going beyond props, lighting and music, he captures the essence of the seventies and eighties in a remarkable way.  It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how he accomplished this, but this world feels like reality and not recreation. 

For such an accomplished film, I was expecting a greater amount of bonus features.  The bulk of the extras are the deleted scenes.  As the film already runs long at 2 hours and 35 minutes, these scenes feel extraneous.  Many of them are simply padding, filling out scenes that are already in the film.  The deleted sequences that feature John C. Reilly are isolated from the rest and put in a separate feature entitled “The John C. Reilly files.”  These could have just easily fit in with the other deleted scenes, and were probably separated to create the illusion that there are more extras on the disc than are actually included.  Rounding out the set is the trailer and a music video featuring the cast of the film.

While I personally prefer Anderson’s work in Magnolia and There Will Be Blood, I am still in awe over the filmmaking prowess on display in this film.  I mentioned above that Julianne Moore and Burt Reynolds received Oscar nominations for their roles, but Anderson also received a nomination for Best Screenplay.  He is a fantastic writer, and has a true mastery of creating characters and writing dialogue. 

As I said above, this film goes to some really dark places.  But there are moments of joy mixed in.  The action may take place in an uncomfortable setting, but none of the characters in the film are ashamed.  They take pride in what they do, and are just living their lives.  And this is what I liked about the film.  Getting to see complex characters living their lives.  I don’t know if I’d be comfortable watching this again anytime soon, but I can definitely appreciate what I saw.  This is not a movie about the 70’s adult film industry.  It’s a movie about hope, despair, love, hate, etc.  It’s a powerful movie, and one definitely worth seeing.

FBI agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) lives in a world where robotic surrogates stand in for people, protecting them from violence, contagion—and the appearance of aging. These picture perfect, real-life avatars—fit, good-looking, remotely controlled machines that assume their operator’s life role—enable the population to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Greer and his partner, Agent Peters (Radha Mitchell), are called in to probe the mysterious death of a college student, whose life ended when his surrogate was destroyed. When Greer’s surrogate is damaged in the investigation, he ventures out of his apartment for the first time in decades. In a world of masks, Greer must decide who is real and who can be trusted.

The basic concept that the movie builds itself upon is that in the very near future we will be able to buy robots that not only look and feel human, but that we can control as well.  Humans, according to the film, will choose to live their lives via these robots which are known as surrogates, people will sit at home all day long and let these surrogates go to work for them, relax for them, buy clothes for them, do everything for them.

Bruce Willis, as one might expect, plays the main FBI agent on the case.  Tom Greer (Willis) quickly finds himself caught up in a world of secrets and lies, one where the military, the federal government, and the company which created the surrogates have all been keeping secrets.  He must figure out whether it was Lionel Canter (James Cromwell), the inventor of surrogates; the leader of the anti-surrogate group, The Prophet (Ving Rhames); the current corporate bosses at VSI, the company that makes surrogates; or someone else behind the device and the murder.

The film is far better in its smaller moments, when it focuses on Greer’s personal life and the disconnect he has with his wife, Maggie (Roasmund Pike).  The couple have lost their son in an accident and have done a relatively poor job of holding their marriage together.  Maggie has trouble living with her actual body in the real world following the incident, choosing to insulate herself from possible pain instead.

The extra features on the new Blu-ray release include deleted scenes and a featurette which looks at how close we are scientifically to being able to create surrogates (it too fails to make a compelling case for why society as a whole would choose to live that way).  There is also a piece on how the graphic novel the film is based came about and eventually made it to the big screen; a music video, “I Will Not Bow,” by Breaking Benjamin, and an audio commentary track by Mostow.

The Blu-ray release features an impressive 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track.  Some of the action sequences are overly loud, but those same scenes also feature great bass, and superb use of the surrounds.  Dialogue doesn’t suffer even in the loud scenes – it feels as though the dialogue has been goosed equally with the effects.  With the amount of detail and clearness of the image, it is easy to pick the surrogate out of the crowd (the surrogates have a plastic-y sheen to them).  The level of detail extends beyond faces however, and the image features a great deal of depth and good black levels.

Mostow may have created a beautiful world with Surrogates, and he may do quite well in general at depicting robots covered with real and/or fake skin, but what he hasn’t done here is to create a future that is in any way believable.  Only a fool would think that science and technology did not have the potential to become a burden, and because of that it seems highly unlikely that humanity would ever wish to follow down the road Mostow and company have laid out in the film

Bonus Features

Surrogates on DVD includes:
Commentary with director Jonathan Mostow
·      “I Will Not Bow” Music Video by Breaking Benjamin

The Surrogates Blu-ray contains the DVD extras plus exclusive bonus features that go into the heart of the film’s intriguing premise:

·      A More Perfect You: The Science of Surrogates — The world of surrogates is not far away! Mind-controlled robotics is already in use in today. This featurette explores the realities of this technology and offers an in-depth look into the creation of the superhuman versions of the cast created for this film.

·      Breaking the Frame: A Graphic Novel Comes to Life — A visual exploration of the evolution of Surrogates from graphic novel to major motion picture from the earliest designs and sketches. Pivotal sequences come to life in a dazzling 3-D animated experience.
Four Deleted Scenes

As films become more generic every year, it seems increasingly difficult to find a film with a truly unique premise.  Especially in romantic comedies, which by their very nature are generic and safe.  And yet in “The Invention of Lying,” writer/co-director and star Ricky Gervais (he of the brilliant British version of the Office) has crafted a genuinely original romantic comedy, both funny and poignant.

As the film begins, we are introduced to a world in which the very concept of a lie doesn’t exist.  It’s not that people in this world are somehow physically prohibited from lying, like in Jim Carrey’s Liar, Liar.  It’s that they literally do not understand the concept of lying.  If a statement is spoken, by nature it is truth.  So what happens when somebody invents the idea of “saying what wasn’t?”

As Mark Bellison, Gervais brings an identifiable, everyman quality to the character.  He is a recently fired screenwriter (in this world, films consist of people reading facts to the screen), resigned to the fact that he is not “genetically compatible” with Anna McDoogles, the girl of his dreams (Jennifer Garner).  Once he discovers the concept of lies, he predictably utilizes this new power for his own gain.  But whereas most films would stop here, letting him learn valuable life lessons and still get the girl, Bellison ends up affecting the world on a much grander scale. 

Quite on accident, he ends up accidentally inventing religion.  As he explains to the world the concept of “The Big Man in the Sky,” I began to realize how much bigger this movie is than initially expected.  With the world reacting in a mixture of elation and terror, the film takes on a scale both epic and personal.  And yet, it never loses sight of the love story between Bellison and McDoogles.

Much of the film’s humor comes from the very nature of the world itself.  Since nobody lies, they’ve evolved an over-the-top bluntness.  It isn’t simply an incapability of fiction, but rather, truth-telling to the extreme.  Everybody shares everything they are thinking, and this is simply accepted.  This is a world without regard for others feelings and Gervais mines the situation for everything he can.  Rob Lowe and Tina Fey stand out as people completely comfortable with saying what is on their minds, no matter how insulting and offensive that may be.  Garner also does a great job of this, but she mixes in an element of humanity to her portrayal. 

In fact, the entire cast is terrific.  Louis C.K. is hilarious as Bellison’s best friend who just can’t quite grasp the new concepts he is being presented with, and Jeffrey Tambor, Jonah Hill and even Phillip Seymour Hoffman show up in smaller, but equally funny roles. 

It would have been nice if the extras were even remotely as entertaining as the film.  One of the biggest and worst features is a (thankfully) deleted opening sequence…with cavemen (played by many of the film’s cast).  It was embarrassing to watch, and would have felt completely out of place in the finished film.  There is also a feature where the cast is interviewed about Gervais while showing footage of him screwing up take after take with his over-the-top laughter.  I usually find these generic and forgettable, but this is one is downright annoying.  I’m sure he’s a great guy to work with, but his “hyena laugh” was getting on my nerves after awhile.  Rounding out the set are some more deleted scenes, 10 minutes of Gervais’ Video Podcast, and a feature about Karl Pilkington, Gervais’ best friend, as he prepares to shoot his scene as a caveman extra.

I wouldn’t recommend bothering with any of the extras.  But the film is something special.  It’s a rare romantic comedy with originality, genuine emotion, and humor.  I highly recommend it.