Michael Cimino's Oscar-winning THE DEER HUNTER gets Blu-ray/4K Ultra HD treatment

With the new release of both Blu-ray and 4K ultra high-def transfers of THE DEER HUNTER, yet another Best Picture "Oscar" winner joins the ranks of the embarrassingly over-rated. While certainly better than movies such as Crash, Around the World in 80 Days or The Greatest Show on Earth (to name but three of many), this film, directed by another Oscar winner Michael Cimino, with a screenplay (dialog as utterly prosaic as you could ask for) by Deric Washburn, who was Oscar-nominated, does have attributes still apparent enough for us to understand why it so impressed critics and movie-goers at the time of its 1978 release.

The war in Vietnam had ended but three years previous, and here was a movie that tackled that subject, seemingly in spades. The late director Cimino (shown at right) did a brave thing by tossing his audience into a day and night in the life of small-town Pennsylvania, using a Russian Orthodox wedding and its after-party as the way to introduce us to the film's large array of characters. Unfortunately almost all those characters prove to be unrelentingly dumb and drunk.

The exception is Michael, played by Robert De Niro, with a partial exception of another, Linda, played by Meryl Streep -- both of these, shown below, actors whose intelligence is difficult to keep under wraps.

Washburn's script underscores Michael's separation from the pack too obviously and heavily, with the uber-symbolic deer hunting sequence(s) set to embarrassingly awful music that tries to make the killing of a deer somehow a religious experience. Sorry: Even if the killing is done, as the movie would have it, via a single shot -- no dice. Instead it offers a look at Cimino's sentimentality in full swing.

The entire first hour of this three-hour-plus film is devoted to that pre-wedding, wedding and post-wedding party, and then the movie plops us into Vietnam, again with none of the usual basic-training or explanatory scenes we usually get in our war films. We're just suddenly thrust into post-battle, as the massacre of women and children, followed by a bit of vengeance, takes place. Soon our three heroes, Michael, along with his pals Nick (Christopher Walken, below)

and Steven (John Savage, below), are conveniently reunited, only to be, next moment, imprisoned and tortured by the North Vietnamese, in a scene featuring a form of Russian Roulette that was controversial at the time of theatrical release and remains so today. It works quite well, however, as a trigger for melodrama, the easy psychologising of Nick's character, revenge and a full-circle finale -- while providing a nifty action set-piece midway through the film.

Post-Vietnam-War we're back in Pennsylvania again, as our boys Michael and Steven pick up the very damaged pieces until, for the finale, Michael returns to Vietnam to "rescue" Nick. A lot of coincidence dots the movie, which, to my mind, prevents it from being taken nearly as seriously as a lot of critics did and do. As does the film's embrace of somewhat schlocky sentimentality posing as stark drama. (Plus, the scene at the wedding between our boys and that Green Beret at the bar seems cribbed from a class in Foreshadowing 101.)

The movie's view of the Vietnam War is utterly ahistorical in that it looks at the whole thing from the viewpoint of a small American town completely in thrall to both religion and patriotism. This is certainly true-to-life and it is also a valid viewpoint for a writer and director to take, should they choose it. Forty years on, this part of the film holds up, I would say, as well as it did upon original release. Even if you were dead set against this war, as I was , I think you must somewhat bow to the viewpoint here -- even if you might also wish that the filmmakers had included maybe one single atrocity by us Americans. But, hey, nobody so in thrall to religion and patriotism could ever see -- let alone admit to -- something like that.

What does not hold up, if it ever did, is the idea of The Deer Hunter as movie art. Even the performances struggle to rise above the obvious, with Ms Streep giving what may be the least interesting one of her entire career. Characters are mostly one- (very occasionally two-) note -- the men dumb and drunk, the women present to serve and/or be abused -- and the prosaic script gives them little chance to do much about this. Among supporting performances, the most interesting comes from George Dzundza, above, the least interesting from John Cazale, shown below, left.

Scene after scene endures past the point it should, adding to the huge length, so that by the film's finale, we can mostly sigh and shrug, Yeah, yeah: We get it. And then there's that final "deer" epiphany, accompanied by some more crappy, inspirational music. The Blu-ray transfer looks good but not great (TrustMovies does not have the equipment to view the 4K ultra HD disc), and among the bonus features, the interview with critic and film historian David Thompson is the most enjoyable. Even when I disagree with Thompson, I find this guy a delight.

From Shout! Factory/Shout Select, the two-disc boxed set of The Deer Hunter (Collector's Edition) will hit the street this coming Tuesday, May 26 -- for purchase (and, I would hope, rental). 

December Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: THE CROWN, SEASON 3 -- 1964-1977

There was a young lady from Dallas 

Who used a dynamite stick as a phallus. 

They found her vagina in North Carolina 

and her asshole in Buckingham Palace. 

Imagined not real, the limerick, above, that the screenwriter put in the mouth of Princess Margaret at a White House party in 1965 did the trick: At a lavish dinner party hosted by the Johnson’s for the Snowdon’s, Margaret wooed our president in vernacular they both enjoyed, getting Lyndon to agree to the British government’s plea for a U.S. bailout during an urgent financial crisis. Johnson had been refusing PM Harold Wilson’s calls (the Brit’s weren’t backing his war in Vietnam). But following Margaret and Tony’s visit, the ‘special relationship’ went from cool back to sure-footed. Her thrilling success didn’t widen Margaret’s sphere of influence at home as she was regarded as a bomb-thrower best kept on the down-low. Peter Morgan says he made up what happened at that dinner, but it was so like the principals, one can only wish it did, and pity poor Margaret — the little ‘vice queen’ with an applause deficit.

Morgan’s marvelous Netflix series continues with vignettes that are smaller than the drama of the world war era but absorbing. Here is Britain during the middle years of the Queen (now played by Olivia Colman of The Favourite), the young adulthood of Prince Charles and Princess Anne and the Snowdon scandals. One feels a tad sorry for the Windsors— the ruthless scrutiny and humiliations visited on this ordinary family living under glass.

The royal porn may pay for itself despite the schadenfreude and outright rejection it brings on itself, fed by the soap-opera tales of their private lives. The Windsors function with great success as a soft-touch but powerful PR firm — the outcome of the Crown’s search for meaning as it evolved from ruling monarchy to figurehead. Many royals work full time dutifully promoting civic and social causes. The self-imposed rules they live by assure that duty and kindness are quite, if not perfectly, constant; the Crown ‘firm’ functions as parent archetype, committed to useful work and maintenance of the public image. (Prince Andrew, having embarrassed himself in an unapologetic interview about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, has just been cut from the firm’s public face upon the intervention of Prince Charles, it is reported, asserting himself as monarch-to-be.) Maybe the US could profit from more do-good, apolitical authority.

The salacious chapters have some nuggets. We learn new about the origins of Charles (Josh O’Connor, Only You) and Camilla (Emerald Fennell, below). Camilla’s relationship with Andrew Parker-Bowles (Andrew Buchan) was more passionate than imagined in which they used others to make each other jealous, involving Charles and an acerbic Princess Anne (well-acted by Erin Doherty) who joined the quadrangle “for a bit of fun”. Lord Mountbatten and the Queen mother then broke up the party, instigating Camilla’s marriage to Parker-Bowles while Charles was on Naval duty. (No wonder he would later defiantly flout his marriage to Diana.) Much more domestic nastiness appears in the chapter about the affairs of Tony Snowdon (he who winsomely charmed the Queen to secure her favor) and Princess Margaret precipitating the deterioration of their marriage — splashy tabloid fodder then, soap-opera now.

It’s not all soap. A KGB spy is discovered living in the Palace and there are labor troubles. Prince Philip, splendidly acted by Tobias Menzies (Game of Thrones, Outlander; click here to read a fine interview with the actor), has a mid-life crisis coinciding with the US moon landing and visit of the astronauts to the palace. The Prince, a pilot himself, unhappily sidelined from adventure, waxes in awe of the young astronauts until he meets them, drippy with colds, having nothing of awe to report beyond the lists they had to tick off as they worked through their mission. Philip doesn’t get that ‘meaning’ is all in the doing — the action of climbing the mountain not getting to the top. Menzies (below, l; Prince Philip, r) conveys Philip’s emotions with such self-restraint, he has made himself the stealth star of this ensemble.

A chapter is devoted to the passing of David, Duke of Windsor (Derek Jacobi) living in exile in France and shunned with his notorious wife Wallis (Geraldine Chaplin), for whom he abdicated the throne. Again, Morgan ignores the elephant in the room — the pair’s unholy infatuation with the Nazi’s that led to their non-grata status, making government quietly grateful that divorced American Wallis kept David from the throne. Perhaps a different screenwriter at a different time will dramatize that juicy story.

Crown - 3’s most memorable episode may be the mining incident at Aberfan in 1966, a tiny Welch town that suffered a tragic coal-debris slide. After days of rain, a tip (little hill) of coal debris sank, sliding downward and across the street, burying the town elementary school. It killed 144 people, most of them kids. PM Harold Wilson, Prince Phillip, and camera-slung Tony Snowdon went to the scene at once but their description of the horror and the PM’s urgings could not convince the Queen to go — it fell to rogue Labour party members to induce her late visit. Labour threatened to blame the Queen and prior Tory governments who had ignored reported dangers at the mine site. Several lines of copy on the screen report that the Queen’s failure to go at once to Aberfan remains a matter of deep regret to Elizabeth, and that she has visited the town often in intervening years.

Another chapter shows us the character of the monarch-in-waiting — that is the story of Charles’s Welsh language and history instruction prior to his investiture as the Prince of Wales. The Welsh, especially his local university tutor, anticipate the chore with derision, only for Charles to win them over with sincere, earnest effort. Charles is well-conveyed by O’Connor, who conjures him quite completely (O'Connor below r, Prince Charles l)

At end, Crown 3 was as entertaining as earlier series, supporting Morgan’s stated goal to use the monarchy as a canvas for this decade or so of the latter 20th century, all the while laying out a good gossip. Full cast replacement helps his case, as you focus less on individuals and more on the unfolding stories of the era.

At left, screenwriter, Peter Morgan and his partner, Gillian Anderson, who will appear in the next edition of The Crown as Margaret Thatcher.

The above post was written by 

our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

Leslie Ann Coles' enchanting 2016 music documentary, MELODY MAKERS, finally arrives

Forget Rolling Stone. The music magazine you need to know all about -- and will find out plenty via this new film -- is the no-longer-published British weekly, Melody Maker, which ruled the music roost for most of its 75-year run, ceding its deserved dominance to rivals only when its owners insisted on major coverage going to popular boy bands and that ilk, rather than to the folk who actually made the music worth keeping.

As written and directed by Leslie Ann Coles (shown at left) and expertly edited by Mark Sanders, the film spends just the right amount of time with the many talking heads rounded up to speak about this marvelous magazine and its storied (even if many times accidental) scoops and articles that could and usually did goose the careers of the musical artists involved -- sometimes into overdrive.

We hear from former editors and journalists/ critics and especially from one particular photographer, Barrie Wentzell, whose resonant work (shown below) is also redolent and utterly defining of a time long gone -- and much missed by many of us.

The thing -- other than the subject itself -- that makes this documentary so special is how very speedy is the dialog, together with the ideas tossed around here. Similar to the fast pace of another recent doc, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, the movie assumes its audience to be intelligent and quick-thinking and so neither drags along nor grows repetitive (à la Ken Burns), as it drops its many bons mots and makes us think, assess and often laugh along the way.

What all these interviewees have to say, and what we learn about the bands, individual musicians, music politics and just-plain gossip of the day should delight and surprise anyone who lived through and paid attention to the music scene of this day (particularly the 1950s, 60s and 70s).

For instance: As there were few to no teachers of guitar in Britain at the time, rock musicians had to learn the instrument, along with what it could be made to do, all by themselves. Once something new was achieved, it was often shared, as the musicians moved on to yet another new chord or challenge. (You'll also discover what the Mafia had to do with why a magazine as popular as Melody Maker never saw U.S. distribution.)

As all this occurred well before the internet appeared, the relationship between the magazine and the musicians it covered was more than a little "chummy," which had both positive and negative effects. While it's hard not to recall this time as a kind of golden age, the tone of the doc is never self-congratulatory. These folk look back on things with an eye both distanced and melancholic. Still, when at the end of the movie, the workers tell us that these were the best jobs they ever had, you'll be hard put to disagree. Once you've seen this film, you'll understand why, had you been young in Great Britain back in the day, Melody Maker would have been your must-read.

From Cleopatra Entertainment and running just 78 minutes, Melody Makers opens in Los Angeles today, Friday, November 29, for a week-long run at the Arena CineLounge Sunset, 6464 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood CA, followed by the Apple iBook debut on the same day -- with a DVD Release scheduled for December 17. 

4th annual AMERICAN FRINGE FESTIVAL opens in Paris, November 15-17, with nine new films

We don't normally cover openings in Paris, but in this case it's a festival of new American movies, "on and of the margins of the U.S.," as the press release explains, and featuring the international premieres of nine independent films. Another reason for coverage is that the curators of this fest are two people that TrustMovies has very much enjoyed knowing and working with over the past years: Richard Peña, former program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Livia Bloom Ingram of Icarus Films, both of whose film knowledge and personal taste we've found to be very much worth our attention.

Notes Mr. Peña, à-propos this fest, “Much of what is acclaimed as ‘indie production’ in the U.S. today differs little from Hollywood commercial product in anything except budget. American Fringe reveals that the defiant and irreverent spirit that drove independent cinema pioneers is still very much alive if not often enough seen or celebrated. Moreover, in addition to exploring new cinematic ideas and forms, these films often focus on the margins of American society⁠—regionally, sexually, politically.” Bloom Ingram adds, “Each year, as we view the latest new American films in search of our annual selection for American Fringe, I’m inspired anew. Though these nine artists may still be ‘under the radar,’ each film is a singular display of talent, craft, vision and commitment to fierce independence.”

From what I can gather, the films will be shown at Paris' prestigious La Cinémathèque française  You can learn all about this year's program (in English) at this site, and in French at this one. While I had big plans to see several of this year's movies, I ended up having time to view only two -- though both were very much worth my time.

GREEN HOUSE -- directed by Armando Lamberti and written by Lamberti and the film's star, Brian May (shown above and above) -- proves a deadpan hoot boasting maybe the most gorgeous color palette I've seen in ages. I could watch it again just to drown in that uber-saturated cinematography (by Matthew Cherchio). It also offers perhaps the most all-out annoying character to be seen in cinema this past decade. As played by Mr. May, this is a guy you'll want to grace with a fat lip about every 60 seconds. This has got to be some sort of record-setting asshole, and Mr. May gives him an all-stops-out nastiness coupled to a certain reticent quality that helps render the character bizarrely special.

The movie's ending, as well as its end credits sequence, delights in a fuck-you-all insouciance that you'll either revel in or hate. Either way, Green House is something else indeed.

At the other end of the spectrum is the remarkably moving, thought-provoking and utterly serious documentary entitled SEADRIFT -- about the eponymously titled seaside community in Texas where, back in 1979, a Vietnamese refugee made national news by shooting and killing a local crabber. How and why this happened is explored in hindsight by filmmaker Tim Tsai by looking at historical records and interviewing the surviving folk from both the original local (and very white) Seadrift shellfishing community, and that of the immigrant Vietnamese who were "rescued" and moved to the USA, once we Americans pulled out of Vietnam after wreaking havoc there for more than a decade.

Mr. Tsai is even-handed in his exploration of now and then, of the locals and the Vietnamese, and what he shows us are people on both sides who were buffeted about by circumstance in some cases beyond their control. How the Vietnamese were summarily dumped into locations like Seadrift without any preparation for either them or the communities into which they were thrust could hardly help but stir up bad feelings. It was, as one participant notes, "a fast culture shock."

From early annoyance through eventual anger and finally violence, the documentary progresses. Of course we see nationalism and racism front and center (hello, KKK!) but we also see, eventually, some coming to terms with past sins and present feelings so that growth is made. One of the major moments comes as the daughter of the victim of the shooting talks about how one of the most famous wartime photos from Vietnam, together with the subject of that photo, has changed the way she looks at things.

Seadrift ends with an historical/political idea so on-the-mark it ought to be heard worldwide -- and certainly by those who still feel, after all that has transpired over there, that the USA had a good reason to be in Vietnam.

In addition to these two worthwhile films, there are seven more (including one short subject) on the American Fringe schedule. You can view all the programs by clicking here (for English) or here (for French). And if you happen to be in Paris this week, well, lucky you!

Note to filmmakers: 

There is no fee to submit your film 

to the next edition of American Fringe. 

Simply go to this site, enter your name, email, film title, 

logline, and screener link; your film will be considered.

TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN: Blu-ray debut for Stanley H. Brasloff's would-be cult classic

Whew! It's been awhile since TrustMovies has seen a movie -- even one from the early 1970s -- quite as bad as the please-mommy-let-me-become-a-cult-classic! piece of nonsense from one, Stanley H. Brasloff, entitled TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN.

According to the funny and certainly striving Bonus Feature on the disc about this would-be moviemaker, Mr. Brasloff based his film upon a supposedly true tale he had heard that I guess he felt might make a groundbreaking movie.

It probably did break some ground back in the 70s -- badly, but what-the-heck -- regarding sexuality, psychological disorder and especially incest. Yet so thuddingly poor is much of the dialog that the actors hired to speak this silliness should not be held fully responsible for the result. They try. Oh, god, do they try. (As director, Brasloff would seem to have encouraged them in this mode.)

Chief among them is the film's star, Marcia Forbes, shown above (with some of those titular toys) and below, right, whose only movie credit this film turned out to be. Talk about a career-stopper. In truth, Ms Forbes is asked to do what Meryl Streep perhaps could not (Ms Streep would have had the sense, however, to turn this movie down flat), but Forbes certainly gives it her best shot, playing a young woman whose very bad-parenting parents have managed to raise a real nutcase.

But she's a very pretty nutcase, so she pulls in just about everyone within her small orbit. Supposedly afraid of sexuality (especially from her young husband, played by Harlan Carey Poe, above, left), when she finally gets some, she's immediately ready to go for broke.

Much of the movie is devoted to our heroine's desire/attempt to locate her father, whom she has not seen for years and years, a task for which she uses a local Manhattan whore (Evelyn Kingsley, above, left), who has own designs on our girl, along with her pimp (Luis Arroyo, below, right).

Dad (Peter Lightstone, below) finally does make the expected appearance, and we have a family reunion to end all family reunions. At times, the movie does indeed approach the glories of unintentional camp but never quite goes full out enough to make us snort properly. And because it was made during those sexually-groundbreaking 70s, you can "read" it as a plea for heightened sexual awareness and openness -- until, that is, we get to the lesbian scene. Then it's all ooooh, naughty, naughty!

Ah, well. You can't have everything. And in the case of Toys Are Not for Children, you can't have much of anything. But if you are an aficionado of this sort of thing, be my guest. The new Blu-ray, from Arrow Video (distributed here in the USA via MVD Visual) -- running 85 minutes, and including a few of those usually notable Arrow special features -- hits the street today, Tuesday, October 8, for purchase and (I would hope) rental.

Ralph Fiennes & David Hare's excellent bio-pic of Rudolf Nureyev, THE WHITE CROW, opens

What a fine and fascinating entertainment, as well as one of the better bio-pics of recent times, is THE WHITE CROW -- the very welcome collaboration between director/co-star Ralph Fiennes, screenwriter David Hare, and the very impressive newcomer actor/dancer taking the title role, Oleg Ivenko, who plays the young adult Rudolf Nureyev.

What these three have given us is a portrait of Nureyev that seems nuanced, detailed and believable factually, psychologically and especially emotionally.

Fiennes (shown at right) and Hare go back and forth in time near constantly, and this works surprisingly well, TrustMovies thinks, because the pair concentrates less on connecting the specific what-happened-and-why dots than on the emotions these events raise in both the child and the young adult Nureyev. Thus we are consistently placed within both the heart and mind of the character, and this helps us understand the talented, gorgeous and highly self-centered man at the core of this film.

Mr. Ivenko, below, handles both the dance and the acting with aplomb. Perhaps Fiennes understood how to capture and make best use

of this young man's talents -- which in so many ways mirror those of Nureyev -- without asking him to do too much. In fact, Ivenko's is a paired-down performance -- he is most often shown simply "thinking" -- relying in good part of his handsome face, terrific body and dance skill to bring to life the international ballet idol of the 1960s and 70s. It works.

Aside from the childhood flashbacks, The White Crow concentrates on Nureyev's ballet training, particularly that under the tutelage of his chosen teacher, Pushkin (played with great restraint and a fine undercurrent by Fiennes, above, right), mixed consistently with his traveling in the Russian troupe to Paris, where he first became rightly famous.

There he meets and bonds with the young woman, Clara Saint (Adèle Exarchopoulos, above, right) and the French dancer/choreographer Pierre Lacotte (Raphaël Personnaz, below, right), both of whom prove instrumental in the Parisian life of our dancer, as well as in the choice he must finally make.

Thanks to the ever-invasive Russian officials assigned to chaperone/guard the dance troupe, our narcissistic hero champs harder at his bit until the exceedingly suspenseful climax of this first-rate film, which -- if the details of the finale are maybe not completely as-they-were -- can be forgiven because of the filmmakers' skillful handling of this scene.

Those of us old enough to remember and appreciate Nureyev's talent and beauty -- his famous bisexuality is clearly shown here, too -- will probably revel in how closely Ivenko achieves all this, while younger audiences will at least be given a good taste of what this dancer/icon was all about.

The movie's dance scenes (as above and below), though not so very many, are plenty good enough to convince us of why this then-unknown dancer rose so quickly and permanently to fame. Mr. Hare's screenplay, by the way, is so appropriate and smart that you are mostly unaware of it as the film rolls along.

From Sony Pictures Classics and running a rich and not-a-moment-too-long 127 minutes, The White Crow opened on the coasts last month and is now expanding nationwide. Here in South Florida, it begins its run this Friday, May 10, and will play the Miami area at the AMC Aventura 24, Regal's South Beach 18, and the Coral Gables Art Cinema; in Fort Lauderdale at the Classic Gateway 4; in Davie at the Cinemark Paradise 24; in Boynton Beach at the Cinemark 14; in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood and the Cinemark Palace; and at the Movies of Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth. Wherever you live across the country, click here and then click on GET TICKETS (badly designed but to be found hidden in Ivenko's forehead) to view the theaters nearest you.