Home Media Magazine - April 6-12, 2008 - (Page 24)

REVIEWS I JUNO Street 4/15 for mature thematic material, sexual content and language. Olivia Thirlby, Rainn Wilson. Edited by John Latchem www.homemediamagazine.com I SENSE & SENSIBILITY Street 4/8 BBC Video, Drama, $34.98 DVD, $49.98 w/Persuasion, NR. Stars Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, Dominic Cooper. Fox, Comedy, B.O. $142 million, $29.98 DVD, $34.98 two-DVD set, $39.98 Blu-ray, ‘PG-13’ Stars Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, he story of Juno starts with its auspicious writer, Diablo Cody, the former sex industry blogger who cashed in a sample screenplay for Oscar gold. Her success should really put the industry in perspective for all those film-school hacks floundering with a job at Starbucks wondering why they can’t seem to catch a break. Cody (real name Brook Busey) infuses her witty script with a crisp energy translated perfectly to the screen by director Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking), aided by a spot-on cast. Ellen Page effortlessly carries the film as Juno MacGuff, a 16-year-old who gets pregnant after deciding to cure a night of boredom by losing her virginity to her best guy friend (Cera of Superbad). From there the film takes an attitude that flies in the face of the conventional teen-pregnancy arc. The basic idea here is Juno has lost her innocence and spends the rest of the film trying to regain it, mostly by arranging an adoption with an infertile yuppie couple played by Bateman and Garner, who is sensational conveying both the potential joy and heartbreak associated with being an expectant adoptive mother. Equally impressive are Simmons and Janney as Juno’s supportive and equally offbeat parents. Juno feels less like a movie and more like an episode in the lives of this group of smart, quirky characters. Juno and her friends could be involved in any number of scenarios and I suspect we’d be as equally entertained. The deleted scenes become cherished glimpses into their shenanigans, playing out like the delicious flashbacks in a good episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The DVD’s numerous featurettes give the impression this was just a fun movie to make, driven by Cody’s unique narrative voice. Cody and Reitman demonstrate their remarkable creative synergy in a delightful commentary in which they take turns explaining to each other the little artistic touches they added. The extras go a long way in enhancing a film that, quite frankly, did pretty well on its own. You can’t ask for much more than that. – John Latchem T W hen I first heard BBC was making a new television miniseries based on Sense & Sensibility, all I could ask was “why?” Why on Earth would anyone make yet another adaptation of this particular Austen novel when the 1995 film starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet is such an endearing fan favorite? Leave it to BBC to make me eat my words. This new three-part adaptation is a delight. Although it does not rank better than its 1995 predecessor, it is certainly equal in value, with enough differences to make an old story fresh again. The new script — from screenwriter Andrew Davies, whose previous Austen adaptations include the recent Northanger Abbey and the classic 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Colin Firth — brings parts of the book to light that previously were not given full body, namely the indiscretions of Willoughby (Cooper). In other adaptations, these events are always told by one character to another, but in this sexed-up version the audience bears witness to his actions. The freshness is further enhanced by casting younger and little-known (at least to American audiences) actors, and by changing the setting of the Dashwood’s cottage home to the dramatic seaside, mirroring the harsh reality of the women’s exile from the family seat. The crowning achievement of this DVD, however, is the inclusion on the second disc of the made-for-TV Jane Austen biopic Miss Austen Regrets. Told from the perspective of Austen in her later years as she helps her niece Fanny find a husband, Olivia Williams’ performance as Austen contains all the depth and satirical humor that was lacking in Anne Hathaway’s portrayal in Becoming Jane. While the theories about Aunt Jane’s own romances are addressed, the film also explores the hardships Austen experienced as a single female writer, dependent upon her brothers for her livelihood. The result is a respectful picture of an independent, humorous woman who made real choices (possibly regrettable), gave us beautiful stories and remains a mystery. – Kyra Kudick I FRANK SINATRA: THE GOLDEN YEARS Prebook 4/8; Street 5/13 Warner, Drama, $39.92 five-DVD set, $12.97 individual titles, NR. Stars Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds, Deborah Kerr, Dean Martin. D 24 irector Otto Preminger’s memorable 1955 film The Man With the Golden Arm includes a scene in which Sinatra, who plays a drummer with a drug addiction, tries to go cold turkey and escape from a room that’s been secured by his onscreen girlfriend, Kim Novak. As he attempts to free himself from the invisible monkey, Sinatra shows no evidence of being arguably the world’s most compassionate singer or one of the most creative cultural icons ever, or even of acting at all. Looking at these series of scenes 50 years later it is impossible to believe that Sinatra, who received a best actor Academy Award nomination for his performance, is anything but a self-destructive junkie. With The Man With the Golden Arm, Sinatra became a dramatic artist and gives, perhaps, the most definitive film portrait of someone trying to kick a deadly drug habit. Fortunately, with this excellent collection one can then watch Sinatra frolic in a light comedy (Marriage on the Rocks), play a wartime action The Tender Trap hero (None but the Brave) and a playboy bachelor trying to avoid The Tender Trap called marriage. But it is his dramatic role as a World War II veteran reluctantly returning to the small Midwestern town where he grew up in Some Came Running that bookends his serious side as a dramatic artist. Some Came Running, which also features picture-perfect performances by longtime Sinatra pals MacLaine and Martin, is an extremely interesting and underrated picture with two unpredictable final scenes. The boxed set’s special features are indeed special because they showcase noted film critics and professors candidly talking about the collections’ best movies, while “Frank in the Fifties” spotlights when Sinatra ruled the entertainment world. Hopefully in the future Warner and other studios will forego interviewing cast members who just babble about how everyone on the film was so great to work with, or filmmakers who try to make themselves the center of attention instead of the movie at hand. If so they can study the original features here to see how to do it right. This Golden Years set is part of a larger promotion that includes a Rat Pack set, and collections focusing on Sinatra’s early work and his collaborations with Gene Kelly. – Craig Modderno Home Media Magazine April 6–12, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - April 6-12, 2008

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