Blu-ray Review: The Flash:The Complete First Season (2015)

by Tony Dayoub


Spinning off from it's popular sister show, Arrow, The Flash largely succeeded from escaping Arrow's long shadow within just a couple of episodes. Where it took nearly its entire first season for Arrow to fully embrace its comic book origins and leave behind the teen soap conventions of its home network, the CW, The Flash arrived fully formed, as its creators confirm in the new blu-ray set's only audio commentary. It has done so by turning its back on the dark, brooding atmosphere popularized by the Dark Knight epics that Arrow emulates. Instead, The Flash feels sunny and optimistic, largely a credit to the enjoyable bumbling geekiness of its nice-guy star, Grant Gustin, and his interpretation of CSI tech Barry Allen. It's a show whose occasional X-Files creepiness never really exceeds Goosebumps-level frights, making it ideal for family viewing, a fact which I can personally attest to (my wife and kids love it as much as I do).

Blu-ray Reviews: Barker Lost & Found, a Pair of Sci-Fi Epics, Criterion x 3, and a Twilight Time Bonus

by Tony Dayoub

Wow, it's been a long time, even for me. I just started a second gig which is keeping me away from these pages more than I'd like, but hopefully this will be the first of a number of posts that will appear here with more regularity. Anyway, here are some Blu-rays I've been watching while I diligently fulfill some of my end-of-year critic vote duties. Except for Nightbreed's, all of these entries sport actual screen captures by moi.

Blu-ray Reviews: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), The Innocents (1961), Macbeth (1971) and Star Trek: The Compendium (2009/2013)

by Tony Dayoub

Fall box office offerings are starting to heat up as we head into awards season. That means Blu-ray reviews will be more infrequent, so forgive the odd selection I've cobbled together for this one (and enjoy each Blu-ray's respective screen grabs).

Blu-ray Reviews: All That Jazz, ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!), and Locke

by Tony Dayoub

The year's best home releases usually fill that gap between the theatrical blockbuster season and that of awards hopefuls. Here are three worth your time.

Home Movies: The Big Chill (1983) and the Grace Kelly Collection

by Tony Dayoub

Since I spent recent months covering it on another site, I'm going to forgo reviewing (at least until I'm up for another binge watch) what looks like a glorious box set of Twin Peaks that includes both the classic series and its unfairly maligned cinematic prequel. Instead, let's look at a couple of this week's other worthy home releases.

Blu-ray Reviews: Under the Skin, Nymphomaniac, Volumes I and II, and Criterion 2x: Picnic at Hanging Rock and Red River

by Tony Dayoub

I'm playing catch-up with some of the Blu-rays I've been asked to review recently. So here's a selection of summer releases that's kind of evenly divided between experimental narratives and a couple of classics from the Criterion Collection. (One could argue that Picnic at Hanging Rock belongs in both categories.) Keep in mind the 50% off Criterion sale at Barnes and Noble is in its last week (it ends on 7/28).

(Except where listed, all screen captures are my own. Click on each photo to see it in its actual size.)

Blu-ray Reviews: Foreign Correspondent (1940), The Lady from Shanghai (1948) and Tess (1979)

by Tony Dayoub

A solid trio of classics (or at least two classics and one that deserves to be) arrived on Blu-ray last month, two from Criterion and one exclusive to the TCM Vault.

Blu-ray Review: Thief (1981)

by Tony Dayoub

"Lie to no one. If they're somebody close to you, you're gonna ruin it with a lie. And if they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to?" In Michael Mann's Thief, this advice from imprisoned master thief David "Okla" Bertinneau (Willie Nelson) is given to his protégé Frank (James Caan) from behind a glass separating the two during a visit at Joliet Correctional Center. And Frank not only heeds it; one could say he can't deviate from its straight, simple line for very long. A highline safecracker who only steals uncut gems, the "true blue" Frank is also quick to cut and run if his operation is endangered. He keeps any sort of attachments to a minimum because of how unguarded they make him to the men on both sides of the law who often come around extorting him for a taste of his action. It's a nihilistic defense mechanism Frank learned after a gang rape in prison left him so dejected that he realized he literally had nothing left to lose; his lack of vulnerabilities made him impervious to any further retribution.

Seventies Cinema Revival: Nashville (1975)

by Tony Dayoub

"Only time I ever went hog-wild... around the bend... was for the Kennedy boys. But they were different."

In a way, Robert Altman's Nashville is a bookend to 1970's M*A*S*H, which addressed the country's misgivings about Vietnam behind the smokescreen of the Korean War and a madcap mobile surgical unit operating in Southeast Asia. While the city of Nashville is a much smaller canvas, it stands in for a more expansive concept, contemporary America at its Bicentennial. The memorable cast of characters—sycophantic lawyer Delbert Reese (Ned Beatty), womanizing folk singer Tom Frank (Keith Carradine), Napoleonic country star Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson)—rival those of M*A*S*H in terms of eccentricities and surpass them in number. They form a microcosm of the country after the disillusionment of Watergate, the collapse of the idealism of the 60s, the assassinations that marked that era, a satirical apotheosis of all of the critiques Altman and screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr. first lobbed at the country in M*A*S*H.

August Blu-rays

by Tony Dayoub

This will probably be my final opportunity to recommend some Blu-ray releases (along with actual screen captures) before we get into festival and awards season. Let's look at a few of the best August had to offer.

Underrated: Rock Hudson in Seconds (1966)

by Tony Dayoub

I admit it's something of a misnomer to call Rock Hudson's performance in Seconds underrated. For years, Hudson has been praised for his turn in the John Frankenheimer thriller and deservedly so. But ask even the most avid film buff if they've seen the movie and you usually get something along the lines of, "I keep meaning to, but I just haven't gotten to it yet." Well, that should change after today with the Criterion Collection's new Blu-ray release.

Four Suggestions for the Final Weekend of Barnes and Noble's Criterion Sale

by Tony Dayoub

Barnes and Noble's semi-annual Criterion Collection sale, where one can obtain the pricey but well-curated discs for 50% off, is over on Monday, July 29 August 5th [Update: the sale has been extended for an additional week. (h/t to Scott Nye)]. I've got my discs. Do you have yours? If not, may I suggest four of their most recent Blu-ray releases for your perusal. Three are upgrades from films previously available on Criterion DVD, but the first one listed here is new to the collection.

Blu-ray Review: Criterion's Jubal (1956) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957)

by Tony Dayoub

Criterion's release of two Delmer Daves westerns, both sporting crisp 4K digital transfers if a bit lean on the frills, offer two of the finest catalogue Blu-rays of 2013 thus far. Taken together, both showcase the true range of their underrated star, Glenn Ford. The better known of the two is 3:10 to Yuma. The first screen adaptation of an Elmore Leonard story, it's about what you'd expect from the author, by turns brutal and quite funny, and it features Ford as a rather generously spirited outlaw. But more on that one later. Instead, can we talk about the underappreciated Jubal?

Blu-ray Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season Three (1989-1990)

by Tony Dayoub

Remastered in high definition, Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season Three arrives on Blu-ray today. This is the season when the fledgling revival of the 60s science fiction classic finally took flight, in fans eyes at least. The addition of showrunner Michael Piller seemed to elevate the quality of the storytelling. Piller's penchant for giving young writers a chance injected some new blood behind the scenes. But among the fascinating extras included in the new six-disc set are a panoply of featurettes focusing on the growing pains of the new writing staff that tell a different story.

Blu-ray Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation - "The Best of Both Worlds" (1990)

by Tony Dayoub

Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), the cerebral sequel series to the 60s science fiction classic, was just wrapping up its third season after an extended shakedown cruise when the behind-the-scenes tumult in the writer's room finally started to subside under the watchful aegis of new showrunner Michael Piller. Since taking over at the start of season 3 (reviewed here), Piller had completely overhauled the staff. He pushed out many still carrying grudges over bruises incurred in previous years in favor of new, relatively inexperienced writers (many of whom would one day go on to create their own notable sci-fi shows). The results were apparent onscreen. Many of the third season's episodes were among the franchise's best ever, shows like "The Offspring" and "Yesterday's Enterprise." (A review of Season 3's Blu-ray set is forthcoming.) But despite the new blood behind the scenes and a cast whose camaraderie offscreen was legendary, TNG still suffered from a noticeable stodginess.

Blu-ray Picks for March-April 2013

by Tony Dayoub

Spring Break is over. My boys are back in school. So things should get back to normal around here in the lead up to the summer blockbuster season. In the meantime, here are just a handful of Blu-rays that stood out from the ones I watched over my hiatus. (All stills are taken directly from their source Blu-ray and can be enlarged if you click on them.)

Blu-ray Review: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

by Tony Dayoub

"Dear old Clive, this is not a gentleman's war. This time you're fighting for your very existence against the most devilish idea ever created by a human brain... Nazism. And if you lose, there won't be a return match next year, perhaps not even for a hundred years."

Thanks to the Criterion Collection's new Blu-ray release of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I've found a new film to add to my list of all-time favorites. I shouldn't be surprised. Colonel Blimp is written, produced and directed by those Archer chaps, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes). Though the works of theirs I've seen are relatively small in number, movies like Black Narcissus and even the relatively obscure Gone to Earth sit high among my most beloved movies. Colonel Blimp appeals to me for much the same reason the others do. It is representative of Powell and Pressburger's disregard for conventional storytelling, structured as a complex flashback with digressive tonal shifts galore. If one can assign any overriding emotion to Colonel Blimp it is wistfulness. In this way it reminds me a lot of a deeply flawed picture that's still very dear to me, Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).

Lost in the Inky Blackness of Fear

by Tony Dayoub

The softly lit visage of fortune teller Mrs. Bellane (Hillary Brooke, pictured above) is a reminder, mid-way through 1944's Ministry of Fear, that director Fritz Lang's films frequently (and almost obstinately) take place in dread-suffused, self-contained worlds. The setting for this noir is no different. An anti-Nazi propaganda film adapted from a novel by Graham Greene, Ministry of Fear plays out as if it were a dark nightmare in the head of protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland). There are markers from the real world sketchily providing a backdrop that is vaguely lifelike. But much like in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, in which the labyrinthine New York streets don't resemble any Manhattan we're familiar with, Neale's London bears only the remotest affinity to its real-world counterpart.

Blu-ray Picks for Early 2013

by Tony Dayoub

My recent hiatus had one silver lining. It did give me a chance to catch up on some of the most notable Blu-ray releases of 2013 so far (including a couple of my favorite movies of 2012 and 2011). All photos are captured directly from the Blu-ray, so click on each to enlarge to the proper resolution. Without further ado, here are some brief thoughts on each disc after the jump.

Scenes from the Class Struggle in the Criterion Collection

by Tony Dayoub

Multiple viewings of a movie can not only yield varied interpretations but, more importantly, whether the film itself can stand up to such readings. When I watch a movie as many times as I've seen Rosemary's Baby (1968) I like to imagine a richer backstory for its characters than Roman Polanski might have deliberately threaded into the text. In reassessing Rosemary's Baby via its recent Criterion Blu-ray (released in October), I decided to entertain myself by watching malevolent-looking John Cassavetes' sly performance as the often ignored Guy Woodhouse, Rosemary's husband. Just as a rudimentary reading of the Bible might cast the Virgin Mary's husband Joseph in a relatively thankless part, so might one measure Guy, who is essentially meant to stay out of the way as a maybe-witches' coven ushers in their horrifying answer to the Messiah, the son of Satan. But what would motivate Guy to sell out and collaborate with the group in the first place? We might find some clues in some of Criterion's other recent releases.