Home Media Magazine - October 21-27, 2007 - (Page 19)

www.homemediamagazine.com REVIEWS I WARNER HOME VIDEO DIRECTOR’S SERIES: STANLEY KUBRICK Street 10/23 Warner, Drama, $79.92 10-DVD set, NR. Stars Jack Nicholson, Malcolm McDowell, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd. A nyone looking to start a collection of Stanley Kubrick films should begin with this boxed set. If there’s a common thread to Kubrick’s films, it is that he wasn’t too concerned about blazing trails in any particular genre. He would see others make their movies, then he would try to top them. The films in this set are prime examples of this ethic: 2001: A Space Odyssey (sci-fi), Full Metal Jacket (Vietnam War), The Shining (horror), A Clockwork Orange (youth rebellion) and Eyes Wide Shut (erotic thriller). Whether he succeeded in bringing forth the definitive works in these categories is open to debate, but there is little doubt that the editions contained in this DVD collection are the definitive presentations of these films. The remastered 2001 looks incredible and emphasizes Kubrick’s visual style. The effects still hold up nearly 40 years later, and it’s nice to see so many giants of the genre (James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas) praising Kubrick’s influence on them, and discuss how this film elevated science-fiction cinema from the cheesy ‘B’ movies of the 1950s to epics such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars. All the special features are loaded with such interesting tidbits. The Shining features an insightful commentary from Kubrick biographer John Baxter and cinematographer Garrett Brown, who invented the steadicam. They discuss Kubrick’s well-known hatred of flying, and how all the beautiful aerial shots in the film were conducted by a second-unit team in a helicopter. A Clockwork Orange also is notable, with featurettes that place the film in its historical context. The level of violence in the film was so shocking to British sensibilities when it was released in 1971 that Kubrick voluntarily pulled the film from the market. While the film has been readily available on home video for more than two decades in the United States, most Britons were unable to see it until recently. The individual titles also are available separately on DVD, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. In addition, Warner is repromoting the Kubrick classics Barry Lyndon and Lolita. — John Latchem I GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL Prebook 10/25; Street 11/20 ThinkFilm, Documentary, B.O. $0.05 million, $27.98 DVD, Unrated. C ité Soleil is a ramshackle slum outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with the distinction of having been cited by the United Nations as “the most dangerous place in the world.” No one, after seeing Asger Leth’s documentary Ghosts of Cité Soleil is likely to contest that assertion. The film is not so much a work of reportage as it is a field report from hell. Blighted by poverty, disease and rampant gang violence, it is a ghetto of the worst imaginable variety, and it is something of a miracle — given the dangers of even visiting — that Leth’s intimate, first-hand depiction exists at all. The focus of the picture is on two brothers, 2Pac and Bily, both of whom are leaders of so-called “Chimere” gangs — loose organizations of thugs ostensibly employed by Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to suppress opposition. Cocky, heavily-armed and in love with American gangster-rap, they move like trash-talking royalty through the streets of Cité Soleil. But when opposition forces manage to drive Aristide out of office, suddenly the Chimeres find themselves targeted as enemies of the state. Leth is only marginally concerned with exploring the causes of Cité Soleil’s volatile atmosphere, but very interested in its symptoms. Most of the film is devoted to showing the day-in, day-out of slum life: Babies are birthed in the street, gun play is commonplace, and life is very, very cheap. It is clear that the filmmaker developed a special rapport with his subjects — he even documents an unlikely love triangle between the two bothers and a French relief worker — and this is what gives Ghosts of Cité Soleil its strength. While the film may lack a great deal in terms of providing a balanced overview of Haiti’s social and political problems, it more than makes up for it with the rawness and immediacy of its footage. — Eddie Mullins October 21–27, 2007 Home Media Magazine 19 http://www.homemediamagazine.com http://www.disinfo.com http://myspace.com/disinfo

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Home Media Magazine - October 21-27, 2007

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