August starts off with a bang thanks to the release of the stylish comic book-based sci-fi film Oblivion, plus the wonderful indie coming-of-age saga Mud, the1960s musical saga The Sapphires, the poetic crime/family drama The Place Beyond the Pines, as well as new seasons of a number of excellent cable dramas including Strike Back, The Borgias, and Political Animals and a great slate of anime releases.
 
Theatrical Movies
 
Joseph Kosinski directed Oblivion (Universal, “PG-13,” $29.98, BD/Combo $34.98) and adapted it from his own comic book saga published by Radical.  Tom Cruise stars in the $120 million science fiction film that is visually arresting and like so many of 2013’s films is set in a post-apocalyptic future.   While neither a slam dunk with the critics (55% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), nor with audiences (a worldwide cumulative of $285 million), Oblivion remains an interesting amalgam of poetic science fiction and summer action movie, not totally successful, but nevertheless entertaining, especially for fans of the genre.
 
One of the best indie dramas of this or any other year is Mud (Lionsgate, “PG-13,” $19.98, BD $24.98), Jeff Nichols’ Sundance Winner, which features great performances from Matthew McConaughey and young Tye Sheridan.  Mud not only wowed the critics as it earned a near perfect 98% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it also earned $21.3 million on the art house circuit, a feat that very few indie films accomplish.
 
Another well-reviewed indie comedy/drama is The Sapphires (Anchor Bay, “PG-13,” $26.98, BD $30.99), which stars Chris O’Dowd (The IT Crowd) as a soul music-besotted Irish musician traveling in 1960s Australia who helps four Aboriginal women change their act from country music to R&B so they can play a tour for U.S. forces in Vietnam. With its still potent musical numbers and comic touches, this is a very entertaining film, but it also manages to reveal some of the nasty strains of racism in both Australian and American culture of the era.  Included in the extras is a very interesting interview between one of the film’s writers and his mother, who was a member of the real-life Sapphire group.
 
The indie spirit that animates both Mud and The Sapphires is also evident in Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines (Universal, “R,” $29.98, BD $34.98), a generation-spanning saga set in Schenectady, New York (“The Place Beyond the Pines” is a translation of the Native American name “Schenectady”).   Operating on opposite sides of the law, Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper both excel in this saga in which their lives and those of their sons become intertwined.  The movie’s tripartite narrative structure may put off some, but this is a film that managed to please both critics (82% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (it earned $21.4 million domestically).
 
For documentary fans there is West of Memphis (Sony, “R,” $30.99, BD $34.98), a film produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Academy Award documentary filmmaker Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil) that looks at the incredible miscarriage of justice in the case of the West Memphis Three.  Of course this subject has been covered rather exhaustively by the Paradise Lost trilogy of documentaries by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, but the material remains compelling, especially when viewed from the perspective of the efforts to free the West Memphis Three.
 
TV on DVD
 
Once again it is cable channels that provide the most interesting American releases in this category on Tuesday such as the Cinemax series Strike Back: The Complete Second Season (HBO, 450 min., $39.98, BD $49.99).  Though financed in part by Cinemax, this is U.K. series based on novels by former SAS commando Chris Ryan.  The series has evolved into a high octane, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller in which the agents of Section 20 roam the globe to prevent terrorism by securing nuclear triggers and other high value items that have fallen into the wrong hands.  With Strike Back’s strong production values, getting the Blu-ray makes sense for those who can afford to purchase or rent in the high-def format.
 
Also due on Tuesday is Neil Jordan’s The Borgias: The Final Season (Paramount, 516 min., $49.98, BD $59.98), a highly successful period drama set in 16th Century Italy.  Jordan had hoped that this series, which depicts the intrigues and schemes of the Borgia clan with merciless detachment, would get a fourth season, but the cost of production shut it down a season too early.  Nevertheless The Borgias remains one of the more original and interesting achievements of this era of growing cable dominance of dramatic TV programming.
 
Another cable series, though it is just a miniseries, is Greg (Green Lantern) Berlanti’s Political Animals: The Complete Series (Warner Bros., 301 min., $19.98), which appeared on the USA network in 2012.  The show focuses on Sigourney Weaver, who plays a Hillary Clintonesque ex-first lady-turned Secretary of State.  Though it was perhaps a little too much of a soap opera for contemporary tastes, anyone who followed U.S. politics in the 1990s realizes that the soapy reality depicted on Political Animals wasn’t really that much of a stretch.
 
Other shows of real interest to geek viewers include Community: The Complete Fourth Season (Sony, 275 min., $45.99).  The Dan Harmon-created Community, which is set at a community college in Colorado, is a critical darling that has won a devoted cult audience with its meta-humor and pop culture references.  Though it struggles in the ratings, Community remains one of the most innovative and consistently interesting series on network TV.  For those who love Broadway musicals there is Smash: Season 2 (Universal, 650 min., $44.98), the NBC series that is presented with plenty of bonus content.
 
There are also a few vintage releases of great interest to geek viewers including Battlestar Galactica: 35th Anniversary (Universal, 125 min., BD $19.98), a new hi-def version of the theatrical movie that was cobbled together out of the first and fourth episodes of the original BSG TV series starring Loren Greene and Dirk Benedict, and The Best of Fridays (Shout Factory, 1050 min., $39.99), which collects some of the best moments of Fridays, the cult ABC series from 1980-82 that helped jumpstart the TV careers Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Michael Richards (Seinfeld), and Melanie Chartoff (Parker Lewis Can’t Lose).  The only other vintage releases are Gunsmoke: Season 9, Vol.1 (Paramount, $49.99) and Gunsmoke: Season 9, Vol.2 (Paramount, $49.99).
 
Animated offerings this week include The Super 6: The Complete Series (TGG Direct, 440 min., $15.99), which collects the 1960s superhero spoof created by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises that featured a superhero team consisting of Super Bwoing, Granite Man, Magneto Man, Elevator Man, Super Scuba, and Captain Whammo/Zammo.   For those who prefer more modern efforts there is Taz-Mania, Season 1, Part 2: Who Let the Taz Out?.
 
Last week saw the release of new updated editions of the first five seasons of the classic English village murder series Midsomer Murders, which are being released in broadcast order for the first time here.  This week comes the release of Midsomer Murders Set #22 (Acorn Media, 372 min., $49.99, BD $59.99), which includes four new feature-length mysteries, which like the re-releases of the early episodes are presented in letterbox with subtitles.  This long-running series has recently made a major transition occasioned by the retirement of John Nettles, who played the central role of DCI Tom Barnaby.  Neil Dudgeon got the unenviable task of playing Tom’s replacement (and cousin) DCI John Barnaby, and in this series of four superb mysteries he really settles in to the role as he somewhat testily forges a bond with Detective Sergeant Ben Jones.  In Set #22 Barnaby has to deal with a group of Druids, rural bootleggers, a murder in a nunnery, and a deadly conflict between seriously competitive birders.  Each episode is set in the picturesque (and fictional) county of Midsomer—and the production values of this series definitely warrant springing for the Blu-ray edition if at all possible.
 
Another superb release from the U.K. is the 1982 miniseries Smiley’s People (Acorn Media, 324 min., BD $59.99) that is now available in an excellent new hi-def transfer that allows the series’ wonderful locations and excellent camerawork to shine through unabated.  This excellent adaptation of a novel by John Le Carre serves as a sequel to the earlier miniseries adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.   Once again Alec Guiness stars as George Smiley in a gripping Cold War tale.  Taken together these miniseries represent a sort of apogee of “novelistic” filmmaking.  They make very strong arguments that the expansive miniseries format is best suited for the adaptation of complex novels.  The pace of these realistic spy dramas is the precise opposite of the hyped-up action of modern Bond or Mission Impossible film.  Smiley’s People begins in Paris with an uncomfortable interview between a Soviet agent and a defector that leads to a brutal murder that brings George Smiley out of retirement and back into another murky duel with his Soviet nemesis Karla (who is played with his typical precision by Patrick Stewart).
 
Anime
 
It is a great week for anime releases starting with the “balls-to-the walls” action of Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail (Funimation, “17+,” 125 min., BD $39.98), which collects all five episodes of the OVA series released by Madhouse in 2010 and 2011.   The OVA episodes were the final effort in one of the most violent anime series of recent years.  Based on the manga series by Rei Hiroe, the Black Lagoon anime tell the story of a group of mercenaries/pirates operating in the Southeast Asia.  Deadly assassin/maid Roberta returns to the fictional Thai seaport that is the focal point of much of the action in this sexy and violent series that fully earns its “17+” age rating. Once again this set demonstrates the superiority of the hi-def Blu-ray format (though the Funimation release conveniently includes a DVD version that you can take on the road).
 
Equally interesting (and just as violent) is Berserk: The Golden Age Arc Movie 2: The Battle for Doldrey (Viz Media, “17+,” 95 min., $19.98, BD $24.98), which contains the second movie in a series that will eventually adapt the entire Berserk manga series by Kentaro Miura, one of the most perennially popular seinen manga series here in the U.S. (where it is published by Dark Horse).  The third film in the series, The Advent debuted in Japan in February.
 
For those who love cutting edge anime there is a new work from Makoto Shinkai (Voices of a Distant Star, 5 Centimeters Per Second).  Garden of Words (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 45 min., $29.98, BD $34.98) is a sensitively told romantic drama about a high school student who meets a woman when he is sketching in a garden on a rainy day.  They continue to meet in the garden on rainy days, but the rainy season is coming to a close.
 
Even this week’s only re-priced reissue is high quality—Dirty Pair Collection 2 (Right Stuf, “13+,” 225 min., $39.99), which collects episodes 14-25 of the classic Dirty Pair anime produced by Sunrise in the 1980s featuring the wild and crazy exploits of Kei and Yuri, interstellar cops (“trouble consultants”) who always get their man, but often lay waste to the neighborhood in the process in this classic cyberpunk comedy.
 
Classics on Blu-ray
 
Erich Von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (Kino, “Not Rated,” BD $29.98) was touted as Hollywood’s first million dollar movie when it appeared in 1922.  The Monte Carlo Plaza set reportedly cost half a million to construct and Von Stroheim manages to people it with hundreds and hundreds of elaborately costumed extras in scenes that haven’t lost their ability to impress.  Like Von Stroheim’s Greed, Foolish Wives was originally edited down to 32 reels, about six hours and was to have been shown in two parts.  Of course that would never have flown with exhibitors so the film was cut numerous times.  Kino’s version is based on AFI’s 1972 restoration (by Arthur Lennig) that runs 143 minutes, which is just under half of the original roadshow version of the film’s length.  But the film plays extremely well at this length and the performances by Stroheim’s stock company (Maude George, Mae Busch, Dale Fuller, Caesar Gravina, and the director himself) are fully realized.  Foolish Wives is a strange brew of post-World War I obsessions (“The Man You Love to Hate”) and techniques (iris in, iris out) with a clinical view of sexuality that would do Masters and Johnson proud plus post-modern touches like the cinema’s first “meta-novel”---the American ambassador’s wife is depicted reading a novel entitled Foolish Wives written by Erich Von Stroheim.
 
This version of the film is a visual improvement over previous DVD releases, but it is far from perfect.  The film was reconstructed from several different sources and shows plenty of scratches and bubbles as well as a considerable amount of grain.  Still the detail provided by the Blu-ray process allows much of the care that Von Stroheim lavished on costumes and sets to come through.  Extras include Patrick Montgomery’s highly informative 90-minute overview of Von Stroheim’s career, The Man You Love to Hate.


Tom Flinn

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.