“The Remains Of The Days” on BLU RAY – A Review Of The 2013 Sony Pictures 20th ‘Anniversary Edition’. Part of SONY COLLECTOR SERIES on BLU RAY

Here is a link to the right issue on Amazon UK to get the best price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DGXKNR8 

“…It Is Not My Place…” – The Remains Of The Day On BLU RAY

I own 7 titles in this Sony Pictures BLU RAY series (see PS below) and the picture quality on some of these reissues has been hit and miss for me – "Guns Of Navarone", "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" and "Stand By Me" are good rather than great – while "Gandhi", "The Bridge Of The River Kwai" and "From Here To Eternity" look utterly amazing. So it’s with relief that I can say the transfer of 1993’s "The Remains Of The Day" looks truly beautiful on this well laid out and well thought out 2013 Anniversary Edition BLU RAY.

Tony Pierce-Robert’s masterful cinematography is brought out in a way you’ve never seen it before in this quality transfer. It’s defaulted to 2.40 (bars top and bottom) - but even stretched to full aspect – the grain on the huge number of indoor shots is very minimal. It fact giving the picture a bit of distance – it could be “Downton Abbey” in High Def – it’s that well filmed. Boarding House signs, the family Daimler car, the crunch of the gravel outside the huge Darlington House door, a bead of sweat dripping off the old man’s nose as he serves at table, the squeak of leather shoes, chucking water over a kitchen table to wash it – it all looks and sounds glorious.

Anthony Hopkins (playing James Stevens) and Emma Thompson (playing Miss Kenton) had just come off "Howard's End" in 1991 – so they knew each other very well – and were ideal casting for this kind of material (Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep were once muted for the parts with Mike Nichols as the Director). Equally impressive is James Fox as Lord Darlington, a young Hugh Grant (pre "Four Weddings" fame) and English stalwart Peter Vaughan playing Hopkins’ frail father. There are also small parts for Ben Chaplin (ITV’s "Mad Dogs") and Lena Headey (Queen Cersei Lannister in "Game Of Thrones"). This is a world where people say “my dear boy” at dinner, there are 12 for tea and a scullery maid who’s eloped with a footman is described as a ”bad business”.

The principal Extra “The Filmmaker’s Journey” features interviews with Hopkins, Thompson, James Fox and Christopher Reeves, Director James Ivory, Producers Ismail Merchant and James Calley and novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.

AUDIO: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French, German, Italian and Spanish Dolby Surround

SUBTITLES: English, English SDH, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.

EXTRAS:

1. Ultraviolet Code – To Download the movie for mobile devices

2. The Remains Of The Day: The Filmmakers Journey

3. Blind Loyalty, Hollow Honor: England’s Fatal Flaw

4. Love & Loyalty: The Making Of The Remains Of The Day

5. Deleted Scenes

“The Remains Of The Day” is such a quality piece of filmmaking – a life wasted in servitude (dialogue above) – not taking a chance on love when it’s presented to you. And the ache that Hopkins and Thompson are able to bring to the piece is almost red raw.

This is a top class reissue – and I wish there were more of them…

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PS: SONY COLLECTORS SERIES (BLU RAY) 

Film fans will probably have noticed that original issues of this ‘UK’ Sony Pictures series of releases have generic artwork – usually a gold-banded card wrap on the outside with a number on the top of the spine (blue band on top, gold stripe set against a white sleeve). Although it doesn’t say so on anywhere on the artwork – this ‘UK’ set of BLU RAY releases has become known as the “Sony Collectors Series”.

“The Remains Of The Day” is number 19 so far (as of March 2014). Here are the other titles in the series – all of which originally came with ‘card wraps’:

1. Taxi Driver (35th Anniversary Edition) (1976)

2. The Bridge On The River Kwai (Collectors Edition) (1957)

3. Stand By Me (25th Anniversary Edition) (1986)

4. Gandhi (2 Disc Special Edition) (1982)

5. Easy Rider (Special Edition) (1969)

6. Midnight Express  (Special Edition) (1978)

7. Boyz N The Hood (20th Anniversary Edition) (1991)

8. Das Boot (2 Disc Director’s Cut) (1981)

9. The Guns Of Navarone (50th Anniversary Edition) (1961)

10. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (2 Disc Special Edition) (1977)

11. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (Special Edition) (1964)

12. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Special Edition) (2000)

13. The Caine Mutiny (Special Edition) (1954)

14. Lawrence Of Arabia (50th Anniversary Edition) (1962)

15. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Special Edition) (1993)

16. Groundhog Day (Special Edition) (1993)

17. Glory (Special Edition) (1990)

18. From Here To Eternity (Anniversary Edition) (1953)

19. The Remains Of The Day (Anniversary Edition) (1993)

“360”. A Review Of The 2012 Film Now On An Artificial Eye 2013 BLU RAY.

Here's a link to Amazon UK so you can buy the BLU RAY:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008X6HSTE

"…Which Way To Turn?...” 

In the bar of Budapest’s Steigenberger Hotel a handsome British Executive Michael Daly (Jude Law) is staring down into a whiskey as he waits for someone. A Slovakian woman arrives at the bar and orders red wine - dressed well enough to get in but sexily enough to be obviously open for business (a fantastic turn by Lucia Siposova). Just as Michael is about to make a mistake that will threaten his marriage to his beautiful wife Rose (Rachel Weisz) – two smarmy businessmen he’d met with earlier in the day arrive to renegotiate (one of whom is Peter Morgan the writer in a cameo). They notice both Michael and the hooker he was heading towards. As they condescendingly look her up sex ratings on the net - Michael takes a mobile phone call from his tiny daughter at home who wants a dog. In Paris Algerian Jamel Debbouze obsessively follows an employee lady friend from the back seat of a taxi desperately wanting to tell her of his passion – in the USA a tattooed twitchy imprisoned convict about to get out talks to his parole office about his urges towards young girls that he now feels are under control (Ben Foster in a stunning turn)  – a bereaved English father (Anthony Hopkins) meets another stray young lady on a plane and at the airport John worries that she (like his daughter) may become another victim – a brutish but essentially decent Ukrainian driver listens to language CDs in his car as Sergei dreams of better things than the whiplash tongue of his odious boss…

The structurally complicated “360” ploughs the same world-citizen territory of 2006’s “Babel” with its ten different stories converging on each other and is equally brilliant for it. This is about ordinary people – good people – struggling to do the right thing while one action carried out somewhere else connects them or threatens to derail them in a domino effect. And how in the end – if you’re lucky and let go enough – life will come full circle and mostly in a good way…

Directed by Fernando Meirelles (“City Of God” and “The Constant Gardener”) from an original screenplay by Peter Morgan (“The Queen” and “The Last King Of Scotland”) – “360” also lets its huge ensemble cast improvise for freshness and cleverly uses split screens to show up to three stories progressing at the same time.

Anthony Hopkins and Rachel Weisz attached themselves to the script early on and clearly got the film made - both loving the process (and it shows). Ben Foster and Jude Law are simply the acting icing on the cake. Each is mesmerizing in their wildly different roles - especially Foster whose part is the most creepy difficult to like let alone empathize with (achieves both). Weisz and Hopkins are so beautifully tender too. There’s a scene where Rose has a extramarital dalliance with a handsome Brazilian gentleman in a bedroom (when earlier she professed undying devotion to her husband Michael) that is amazing - while Hopkins literally rips your heart out as he explains at a meeting for bereaved parents his newfound wisdom of sorts. “360” features great actors at the top of their game allowed by filmmakers smart enough to let them shine.

But while the more famous leads gobble up great writing and parts – what gives “360” its five-star rating is the unknowns who steal the show and give this life’s connections overview such bite and reality. Even as a seasoned watcher - you really don’t know any of these actors from all different nationalities - and yet they etch their characters into your heart to a point where you’re desperate to see them break free from their physical and emotional chains. The ladies in particular are amazing – clearly relishing a generous and humane Director and a writer with a big heart and a sharp eye. But special mention must go to Vladimir Vdovichenkov (Russian) and Gabriella Marcinkova (Czechoslovakian) as the chauffeur and aimless daughter who may leave their sordid worlds behind and literally drive away to new lives…

The BLU RAY picture is defaulted to 2:35.1 so has bars above and below – but even with stretching to 16 x 9 full screen – gives a beautiful picture (the cinematography relishing Vienna, Budapest and Paris in the Winter). Other moments are less defined especially the indoor shots of sleazy photo labs and hotel rooms – filmed with an on-the-go grittiness that’s in keeping with the story. The master audio is 5.1 DTS with English Subtitles. The extras include a short interview with Brazilian Director Fernando Meirelles about the making of the film (financing, plot lines etc.) and interviews with the actors including the 4 principal leads and the Producer Andrew Eaton and Writer Peter Morgan.

Rich in observations and wisdom - “360” is a fantastic film that will stay with you despite its convoluted structure. And whatever turns you may take in life – make sure you visit this humble little gem somewhere along that thorny way… 

"Meet Joe Black". A Review Of The 1999 Film Now Reissued On A 2011 BLU RAY.

"...I Heard A Voice In My Sleep Last Night. What Did It Say?
It Said 'Yes'…"

"Meet Joe Black" is the kind of film that elicits derision and affection in equal measure - well if it’s one of your guilty pleasures – then you need to own it on BLU RAY.

I've had the now defunct HD-DVD format of Martin Brest’s 1999 movie for a while now to have the film in High Definition – and this Blu Ray reissue uses the same menus and extras. But it's the print-quality that will be the big draw here. With an aspect that fills the entire screen, the transfer is lush, detailed and a pleasure to look at practically all of the time. In short – “Meet Joe Black” is beautiful on Blu Ray...

Mixing the supernatural with romance could have been awkward and even 'silly' in places (it sometimes is - Pitt speaking jive in the hospital to a black woman who knows he’s the Grim Reaper is cringing), yet Brest has achieved an assured beauty throughout. This is a nice film in so many ways. And possibly because of its themes of death and loss and how we live our lives, it manages real warmth and a rare intelligence. The growing attraction between Claire Forlani (as Susan Parrish) and Brad Pitt (as Joe Black) is nicely set up in a café at the beginning of the film and then played out against preparations for her father’s 65th birthday in his mansion throughout the film (Death has taken over his body and is being shown around by a reluctant Hopkins). Thomas Newman’s lovely score also adds a classy feel to the film too and is used when it’s needed.

But it’s the cast that make you watch - Claire Forlani is luminously beautiful as Daddy’s ‘too busy to be in love’ daughter – she has eyes that could make most men literally lose their balance – while Anthony Hopkins as the corporate mogul William Parrish brings a sheer decency to the piece that gives it a beating heart (his dialogue above). The scene where he gets a heart attack in his office and the voice of death condescends and ridicules his advice to his daughter – is brilliant. You ‘feel’ his terror and disorientation. Throw in great supporting roles for Jake Weber as the dastardly boardroom schemer Drew, Marcia Gay Harden and Jeffrey Tambor as William’s sister Allison and his bumbling but honest friend Quince – and it zips along very nicely indeed despite its 3-hour length. Pitt is hugely impressive too - handsome, sinister, controlled and funny too. He may be eye-candy to some, but there’s real talent there – and often.

Apart from a 'Photo Montage' (still photographs of the cast and crew on location and on sets), there’s a lone extra called "Spotlight On Location" that features interviews with all the key people. It's barely 10-minutes long (and very lo-fi in terms of picture quality) but its hugely entertaining. You can literally feel the awe and affection with which Anthony Hopkins is held by the entire cast - and short as it is, the featurette provides genuine insights into why and how the movie got made.

Audio is English 5.1 with Subtitles in French and English For The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing.

“Meet Joe Black” is never going to trouble an Oscar List or be a discussion point at the next MENSA Annual General Meeting (too gushingly romantic), but for those who have been touched by its themes of enjoying life while you have it – and love getting another chance – on BLU RAY it’s a winner.

“I want to see you get swept away…” William Parrish says to his daughter. Well, now you can…