THE APARTMENT (1960). A year after collaborating on the immortal Some Like It Hot, writer-director-producer Billy Wilder, co-writer I.A.L. Diamond and star Jack Lemmon reteamed for another screen gem that attained classic status in about as much time as it takes to comb one's hair. Yet such instant accolades were nothing more than a work of art receiving its proper due, and even 48 years later, this brilliant comedy has lost none of its luster. Lemmon stars as C.C. Baxter, an office underling who finds himself on a career trajectory toward executive status thanks to his compliance in allowing his apartment to be used by company superiors looking for a secluded place to take their mistresses. A bachelor with no friends or lovers, Baxter takes a liking to elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) and is understandably upset when he discovers that she's the latest conquest of company bigwig and married man Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). A tender, tentative romance that's also a scathing look at office politics, The Apartment works primarily because of the achingly heartfelt performances by Lemmon and MacLaine. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, this earned five, including Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay.
DVD extras include audio commentary by film historian Bruce Block, a making-of documentary, and a short piece on Lemmon.
Movie: ****
Extras: **1/2
GOYA'S GHOSTS (2007). Eight years was too long to wait for the next film from the great Milos Forman (Amadeus, Hair, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), and the fact that Goya's Ghosts isn't better feels like an outright betrayal of our collective patience. Directing his first picture since 1999's underrated Man on the Moon, Forman (who also co-scripted with Jean-Claude Carriere) has crafted a visually stunning but dramatically sloppy drama that kicks off in Madrid at the end of the 18th century, when Brother Lorenzo (Javier Bardem) emerges as a major player in the Spanish Inquisition that led to the torture, imprisonment and (often) deaths of innocents falsely accused of sinning against the Catholic Church. One such victim turns out to be Ines (Natalie Portman), a lovely lass whose refusal of pork at a local tavern (she doesn't like the taste) brands her as a "Judaizer." Stellan Skarsgard is effective as artist Francisco de Goya, who bears witness to the film's events, and it's a pity he doesn't rack up more screen time. Bardem is quietly menacing while Portman earns our sympathy – at least until she's saddled with a second role during the picture's final hour. Indeed, what had been working as a somber study of absolute power corrupting absolutely gets derailed when the story leaps forward 15 years, presenting us with jarring tonal shifts and wallowing in implausible melodrama. The total immersion into the film's staggering production values helps a great deal, but even it can't obscure a storyline that turns so silly, you half-expect Mel Brooks to show up reprising his "Inquisition" musical number from History of the World Part I.
DVD extras include a 2-minute behind-the-scenes featurette (hardly worth the effort) and 14 trailers.
Movie: **1/2
Extras: *1/2
INTO THE WILD (2007). Sean Penn's performances – even the fine ones – can best be described as overwrought, but place the actor behind the camera, and the opposite holds true: As a director, his preference has been for subtlety rather than showboating. Into the Wild finds him turning in his best directorial effort to date; adapting Jon Krakauer's based-on-fact novel, he has fashioned a somber, reflective film about a young man whose actions are so open to interpretation that where some will see an idealist, others will see an obnoxious brat; where some will see a martyr, others will merely see a moron. Emile Hirsch delivers a strong performance as Chris McCandless, a well-to-do college graduate who donates all of his savings to charity and heads for the wilderness. Determined to leave society and all its hypocrisies behind, he treks all over North America's untamed terrain, meeting a wide range of interesting individuals along the way (among them ones played by Oscar-nominated Hal Holbrook and scene-stealing Brian Dierker). Into the Wild is especially memorable in the manner in which it offers no absolutes: Functioning as a bookend piece to Werner Herzog's excellent documentary Grizzly Man, it demonstrates that nature is as beastly as it is beautiful, and even noble aspirations run the risk of getting trampled under its imposing weight. All of the characters have their say, yet even when people's opinions run counter to each other's, everyone is making sense and no one is being disingenuous. Penn obviously feels enormous sympathy for his protagonist, yet he doesn't present him as a saint, only a charismatic if troubled kid whose defining feature is that he managed to live a life less ordinary.
The Collector's Edition doesn't contain much in the way of extra material, yet it's oddly been split up onto two discs; bonuses consist of two making-of pieces totaling 40 minutes and theatrical trailers.
Movie: ***
Extras: **
MY KID COULD PAINT THAT (2007). In 2004, 4-year-old Binghamton, NY, native Marla Olmstead became a minor global celebrity when it was discovered that she was a child prodigy, a born painter who looked as if she could have provided Jackson Pollock with serious competition in abstract art. The value of her works climbed into the thousands, and there was a waiting list of collectors eager to pay big bucks for her paintings. But then along came 60 Minutes, which ran a blistering segment questioning whether the canvases were really painted by Marla or whether her dad Mark Olmstead played a significant part in their creation. Suddenly, Marla's stock plummeted, and the Olmsteads had to brace themselves against the nasty backlash even as they attempted to salvage their reputation. My Kid Could Paint That follows every moment of this intriguing tale, and a movie that began (according to director Amir Bar-Lev's on-camera assertion) as a look at modern art becomes, in the words of a frustrated Laura Olmstead, "documentary gold," a probing film not only about the subjective nature of art but also about the hypocrisy of the intelligentsia, the pervasiveness of modern media, and the sincerity of two parents who, whether innocent or guilty, were clearly thrust into the spotlight in a manner they didn't expect. "[We're] not stupid," insists Mark, "just naive." Taking a cue from Michael Moore, Bar-Lev eventually injects himself into the story, since he also forms doubts about Marla's abilities and requires proof that she really did create all those paintings. I won't reveal his discovery, except to say that the movie doesn't tie everything up with a pretty bow. Bar-Lev knows that the truth is often hard to ascertain: After all, life is messy, just like Marla's little hands as she creates art – or maybe just plays around – with all that colorful paint.
DVD extras include audio commentary by artist Anthony Brunelli and film editor John Walter, a piece that looks at events that occurred after the movie was released, and a discussion with New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman (who also appears in the film).
Movie: ***
Extras: **1/2
RICCO THE MEAN MACHINE (1973). The DVD box cover reads Ricco the Mean Machine. The film itself opens with merely Ricco. The Italian trailer carries an unwieldy title that translates as Some Guy With a Strange Face Is Looking For You to Kill You. The original American title back in 1973 was Cauldron of Death. And on videocassette, it debuted under the title Gangland. Then again, ample name-swapping was par for the course for this sort of Eurotrash exploitation cheapie with international financing and an American actor whose presence allowed it to play stateside during the glorious grindhouse era known as the 1970s. The box copy pretty much alerts connoisseurs of the gruesome high points they can expect during the film – "Acid bath baptisms ... rifle-butt dentistry ... switchblade circumcision ... .45 caliber brain surgery ..." – as well as the quality of the T&A practitioners: "drop-dead gorgeous" Malisa Longo and "beautiful" Barbara Bouchet. As for the rest, it's standard revenge-flick fare, with Christopher Mitchum (Robert's son) out to avenge the death of his father by taking down the powerful crime boss Don Avito. Don Avito, incidentally, is played by five-time Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy (Peyton Place, Champion), making this yet one more example of a great actor from Hollywood's golden age winding down his career in desultory fashion (see also Joseph Cotten in Lady Frankenstein and Veronica Lake in Flesh Feast). As for the wooden Mitchum, he's more girly-man than mean machine (never mind those ample muscles manufactured for the DVD cover art), and his Ricco's a far cry from the tough-guy image projected by his way-cool pop.
DVD extras include an interesting interview with Mitchum and the film's Italian trailer; the back of the box also cites a still gallery, but damn if I could find one anywhere on the disc.
Movie: *1/2
Extras: **
THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE (2007). Following 2006's After the Wedding (an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign-Language Film), Danish director Susanne Bier made her English-language with Things We Lost In the Fire. But if there was any worry that Bier was "going Hollywood," this somber and mature drama immediately quells that notion. Bier's steady hand behind the camera is enough to overcome the flaws in Allan Loeb's script, which relates the story of how two people – a widow (Halle Berry) and her late husband's drug-addicted friend (Benicio Del Toro) – cope in the aftermath of their shared tragedy. Bier, one of the disciples of the Dogme 95 style of moviemaking – basically, a Danish movement that insists on no employment of movie artifice (like special effects and soundtracks) and maximum use of natural light, hand-held cameras, etc. – has retained some of her European filmmaking instincts to cut down on the melodrama inherent in Loeb's screenplay. For the most part, she keeps the excess in check, which in turn leads to scenes that are even more powerful thanks to their subtlety. Berry does fine work in a rather difficult (i.e. inconsistent) role, yet it's Del Toro's staggering performance that earns this a recommendation. Del Toro's face can be a map of emotions, and he's allowed to unfold it freely in a multifaceted performance that really allows us to measure the actor's immense talents.
DVD extras include seven deleted scenes and a 20-minute making-of featurette.
Movie: ***
Extras: **
