RING Worm
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
I hate to be a LORD OF THE RINGS dissenter, but I was fairly disappointed in the third film of the trilogy.
And I'm not sure why. I've read the other criticisms — the deletion of Christopher Lee, the 47 false endings, the deviations from the book — but they don't seem to really address this weird aching lack in the film. True, I am not a fan of the source books in the first place; and though I love Peter Jackson, I didn't necessarily look forward to these films as much as most of my geek friends (I know several people who went to Trilogy Tuesday). The first one was good; I really liked the second; but the third … I don't really know why it left me so cold. I thought that seeing the film again on disc, accompanied by the supplements would help isolate the cause of my disappointment.
 |
But it didn't. More on the supplements in a second, but the film's "problems," if there are any, did not speak out, even in the quiet and solitude of the living room. But I think that any flaws in the film have their roots in the book, this huge, fey, unwieldy thing that Jackson and the screenwriters probably improved upon it. It may be my problem with fantasy and science fiction in general. Speaking broadly, it's never about the thing itself, it's always an allegory for another thing, communists or fascists or some other contemporaneous bugaboo. And so much time is spent erecting the basics of these artificial worlds that, in prose anyway, acres of paper are wasted on what are basically verbal blueprints and first draft constitutions; meanwhile characters are underdeveloped (repetition does not equal development).
 |
In the case of THE LORD OF THE RINGS the fantasy is in the service of basic warmongering (as opposed to the peacenik politics of other '50s science fiction and fantasy books). Stripped of its bizarre creatures, tortured nomenclature, and labored geography, the books are really a celebration of war as a noble enterprise fit for a man who earns cred on the battlefield. While a humongous vaginal slit hovers in the sky, joyous armies clash by night, and it is all good, all necessary.
 |
I'm not even sure that the special effects were as good in this one as they were in the second film in the series. Things felt … layered, without true depth. But then, I also get the impression that there was a big push to finish the third film, and that there were drastic changes in it at the last minute. The inevitable second set, a no doubt four or five disc set due later this year, offers the chance to repair all the flaws that Jackson himself may find in the film. And frankly, I may well change my tune after I've dived into the film once again, in a longer version and with better supplements.
Even though it is in a sense a "holding pattern" film, New Line's two-disc set is good for what it does, presenting the film in widescreen (2.35:1, enhanced — with a pan and scan also available) with DD 5.1 audio, and English and Spanish subtitles.
The first supplement on the extras laden disc two is "The Quest Fulfilled: A Director's Journey" (23 minutes). Reviewers will recognize it as standard issue EPK. It does feature is a brief passage from Jackson's 35-minute demo reel, with which he sold the film to New Line. "A Filmmaker's Journey: Making THE RETURN OF THE KING (28:30) focuses on the third film, but a lot of what's in here is also in the previous supplement. "National Geographic's LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING" (45:56) draws parallels between the novel's characters and historical figures. It has its value, however, because it contains deleted footage.
These films are followed by short featurettes created for the official LORD OF THE RINGS website, poor image quality bits of boosterism that are LOTR's-centric: "Aragorn's Destiny" (3:27), "Minas Tirith: Capital of Gondor (3:13), "The Battle of Pelanor Fields" (2:17), "Samwise the Brave" (4:34). "Eowyn: White Lady of Rohan" (3:45), "Digital Horse Doubles" (4:38), all the titles self-explanatory.
Finally, there are two trailers, the teaser and the theatrical trailer, followed by 13 TV spots (6:47), and the Lord of the Rings trilogy supertrailer (6:38). Finally, there's a sneak preview of the video game (3:03).
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING comes in a dual DVD slim line keep-case case, with musical, animated menus and 60-chapter scene selection. It went on the market on Tuesday, May 25, for $29.95.
Rodeo Drive
JUNIOR BONNER
Sam Peckinpah's rodeo film, made between THE GETAWAY and PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, is one of those quiet masterpieces, an unheralded film from the 1970s that further defines that decade. To call it a "rodeo film" is to perform a slight of hand, since it is really about the state of the family in modern America, at a time when the nuclear family, in the interpretation of Peckinpah and the screenwriter Jeb Rosebrook, was riven by clashing values, relaxed sexual mores, the temptations of capitalism, and the divisive intrusion of mass media. Above all, it is a quiet movie — it's nearly silent filmmaking — that is in fact best viewed in the solitude of the family home's entertainment center.
It's a simple tale, on the surface. Junior Bonner (Steve McQueen, in one of his finest, most "real" performances), washes back into his hometown thanks to the exigencies of the rodeo circuit. Before his hometown he hopes to triumphantly ride the bull that bested him in their last confrontation. The bull is owned by Buck Roan (Ben Johnson, who creates a link between this film and Ford's), whom Bonner bribes to get access to the bull again (it's suppose to be by random draw). Since this is his hometown, Bonner looks up is dad Ace (Robert Preston, who is wonderful), his long suffering mom (Ida Lupino, who hated working on the film, as she is quoted as saying in a Warners 50th anniversary coffee table book), and his brother Curley (Joe Don Baker), a developer. There is a lot of backstory in this film. Only we never see it. Nor do we hear it. The tangled pasts of the characters with each other are contained in the glances and sad expressions they adopt.
These people are all struggling to live, despite the surface frivolity of the rodeo world (the film was also made way back in a time when movies could show men having one night stands with women without any scolding). There is a scene at the beginning when Bonner is getting gas. Everyone is friendly. He buys some apples from a merchant and gives some to his horse. The scene is simple, and has the tone of Lynch's THE STRAIGHT STORY, of bedrock humanity among people who essentially get along. But all of the scene's actions are taking place within the context of commerce; it's the fuel of the society's engine and behind Bonner's façade, the core motivation for almost all of his actions. What the economic system does, however, is leave Bonner a loner, living his etiolated life constantly on the road, sleeping by the side of the road because he can't afford a motel. There is really no villain in the film; the system is the villain, whether all the characters realize it or not.
 |
MGM's presentation of JUNIOR BONNER comes in a non-16X9 transfer (2.35:1), though it looks OK in terms of color and sharpness. The sound is a modest mono audio.
The disc also comes with a major supplement, an audio commentary track featuring Peckinpah experts Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, and David Waddle, which is moderated by Nick Redman. Seydor makes the grand claim that JUNIOR BONNER may be the most perfectly edited film, and it must be said that two viewings in a row support that claim. The quartet is enthusiastic about Peckinpah and his movie, and shows a nuanced understanding of it. JUNIOR BONNER retails for $14.95 and went on the street May 24th.
The Family that Slays Together
LITTLE MURDERS
The first movie review I ever wrote was of LITTLE MURDERS, the screen adaptation of Jules Feiffer's play about America's descent into violence and anomie, released in 1971. A blushing tyke, I wrote it for the school paper. However, I was already very familiar with Feiffer, first from his book THE GREAT COMIC BOOK SUPERHEROES (where Tarantino presumably lifted the Superman speech for KILL BILL), and from his mass-market collections of comic strips, SICK SICK SICK and others. Feiffer is probably the only truly existential comic strip artist, and his humor is very much in the vein of '50s self-consciousness and inadequacy. Later on I read all his plays, saw LITTLE MURDERS on stage, and also loved CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, which is one of the great, most searing films of the '70s.
Feiffer tells a very funny story about his career as a playwright. When he first started doing his strip in the VILLAGE VOICE people at cocktail parties would refer to it as anything but a comic strip — visual essays, humor, commentary — anything but a comic strip. Apparently New York intellectuals considered cartoons, even with adult themes, childish. When he came to do plays, starting with LITTLE MURDERS, the Manhattan theater reviewers dismissed them as little more than cartoons. He had to become a playwriting, Feiffer says, to finally be considered a cartoonist.
 |
There is little doubt that LITTLE MURDERS was ahead of its time, both as a play (that closed after one week, but was revived some time later to greater success) and as a movie (which "opens up" the script and provides more backstory and views of the mean streets of New York City). Feiffer is contemplating the steady coarsening of everyday urban life, and offers up a hellish vision of city life in which bloodied men can stand in subways unnoticed, muggers rove in packs, gunshots ring out in the night, stalking and sexual harassment runs out of control (most phone calls come from "breathers") and the once confident representatives of our institutions are calcified ogres living in the past. Generally the fodder of stand up comics such as Alan King and Bob Newhart, trivial urban frustration becomes, in Feiffer's hands, a terrifying indictment of our ineffectiveness as human beings. Kubrick picked up on the same kind of social anomie in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, with a similar conclusion: if you can't defeat the hoards of selfish, vile, monstrous gangsters, then join them. Little has changed, obviously, in the 30-plus years since LITTLE MURDERS came out, and to step out onto the street today in any of our major cities is to court blind impotent rage.
 |
Feiffer also makes amusing play with gender identities. Alfred Chamberlain (Elliott Gould, who had been in the play and co-produced the movie) is passive, weak, and listless. Patsy (Marcia Rodd), the woman who falls for him, is athletic and determined, the apple of her family's eye. She is one of Feiffer's frighteningly competent women, and Patsy is very comfortable being "worshiped" by a succession of "fags" she has converted to robust heterosexuality. Patsy brings home Alfred to meet the parents (Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson, the Graduate's mom) and her masturbatory brother, and his crushed masculinity fails to impress them. However, as the old adage goes, the family that slays together stays together.
 |
LITTLE MURDERS has a fantastic cast of New York actors, and is directed by Alan Arkin as if he were destined to be Woody Allen. Instead, Woody Allen took over that job. There are four great speeches in the film, the first by the judge, played by Lou Jacobi, which is fall down funny, the second by Donald Sutherland as a hippie minister, the third by Gould about why he is the way he is, and the final one by Arkin as a police detective slipping into Strangelove territory. All of them are brilliantly written and enacted.
Fox's DVD of LITTLE MURDERS offers a fine widescreen transfer (1.85:1, enhanced), with an adequate English DD stereo track (there are also Spanish and French mono tracks, and subtitles).
The main supplement is a feature length edited audio commentary track alternating Gould and Feiffer. It's quite good. Gould talks more than Feiffer; Gould emphasizes the production history, Feiffer his moral and artistic intentions. One of the highlights is Gould reading a letter that Jean Renoir sent to director Arkin, praising the film. Gould's involvement was much more in depth than anyone looking at the credits might suspect (for example he interviewed Jean-Luc Godard as a potential director of the film, as well as Jane Fonda, whose sexual allure drove Gould to the vapors). On the other hand, Gould can sometimes slip into vague ActorSpeak. At a couple of points he sounds like Olivier accepting the Oscar, or Martin Short's version of the philosophical Jerry Lewis. But all in all it is a delight to hear what they have to say about this undeservedly ignored gem.
The rest of the extras consist of the movie's trailer and some TV spots. The silent, static menu offers 16-chapter scene selection. And comes in a keep case. LITTLE MURDERS hit the street on June 1st and retails for $9.98.
NEXT TIME: THE LEOPARD, ROBOCOP, CITY OF GOLD, and more!
E-MAIL THE AUTHOR |
ARCHIVES
