E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES Nocturnal Admissions By D.K. Holm April 29, 2005 [nota bene: The following column, by necessity, contains some spoilers! If you don't want to know the ending of the movies mentioned, don't read on.] Out of Africa THE INTERPRETER Socially concerned and studded with stars, THE INTERPRETER is a big, blowsy Hollywood type movie with a regal Hollywood lineage. Its tale of a United Nations interpreter who overhears a plot to assassinate a dignitary has ghostly roots in two much-beloved movies, a genealogy that both prepares and entices the viewer but somewhat misleads him. First there is Alfred Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST, the only other film I can think of that has scenes at or in the United Nations. The institution wouldn't let Hitchcock inside so he constructed some sets (he would probably have done that anyway) and sneaked some exterior footage of Cary Grant outside the place. NXNW is the very definition of lighthearted, romantic suspense, and is a little at odds with the sometimes-confused sobriety of THE INTERPRETER, but in terms of hinting at what the movie promises, it's a good citation, whether or not it was an explicit influence. The other seed for THE INTERPRETER is Stanley Donen's CHARADE, a 1960s Hitchcock knock-off also starring Grant and also much beloved by fans and critics. In that film, Audrey Hepburn plays an interpreter in Paris, and Donen has fun with the sound proofed rooms, the international setting, and the concept of interpretation and misrepresentation. So does Sidney Pollack, to a certain extent, in his somber updating of this kind of Hitchcockian fun. The plot, as other reviews will also no doubt reiterate, has Kidman as the unfortunately named Sylvia Broome. She is a flautist whose day job is as an interpreter at the U.N., her specialty being Ku, the (fake) dialect spoken in Matobo, the mythical African country from which Broome flies at an early age in THE INTERPRETER's copious backstory. One night she goes back to retrieve her flute from one of those sound chambers that ring the General Assembly and manages to overhear two men whispering plans to take out some forthcoming visiting speaker. Broome doesn't immediately report to the necessary officials this plot for reasons that aren't clear and perhaps aren't meant to be. Suffice it to say here that the two conspirators happen to be speaking Ku, and she guesses that the man they are referring to is Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), aka "The Teacher," the current president of Matobo, and a man who transitioned from revolutionary hero to corrupt Dada. When she does finally tell the security division of the U. N. she meets up with the equally misnamed Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) and Dot Woods (Catherine Keener) — their monikers sound like spam names. At first Broome thinks that this duo from the Secret Service is assigned to protect her, but instead she quickly finds to her chagrin they are interrogating her. Shady elements from Broome's past, it turns out, undermine the credibility of her tale. The murkiest aspect of the film is the internal politics of Matobo. The film, credited to about five different scribes, fails to delineate what the two or three opposing factions in the African country really believe in, aside from a few vague platitudes. Oh, for the days of the Cold War, where your residence in relation to the Iron Curtain provided such a decisive shorthand! Here the politics is like the nonsense in STAR WARS, with its Trade Federation and earnest colloquies in grand enclaves over clauses and agreements and other nonsensical MacGuffins. Eventually, her interrogators do come to believe her story, or at least aspects of it, especially after a peeping tom threatens her and a bus she was on explodes — clues that she knows something she shouldn't. The rest of the film is a race against time to stop the plot against the unpopular president of Matobo before he speaks. Yet in the end THE INTERPRETER is very un-Hitchcock like. It's all super-competently assembled, but lacks that deft touch that we remember from Hitchcock's classier films, such as TO CATCH A THIEF. Hitchcock would not have bypassed the opportunities offered by, for example, a scene with Kidman on a Moped driving through Manhattan and unknowingly pursued by a foe (why this guy is chasing her is never even addressed). Hitchcock (like Richard Lester and Russ Meyer) liked to break things down in the editing room. Pollack just shows the two vehicles in traffic. This Moped, alternating with that limo, this time a little closer, that time a little further away. Hitchcock would have provided close ups and POV shots. He would have put you not only in Kidman's mind, but also in the mind of the pursuer, challenging your loyalties. He would have shown Kidman's foot on the gas pedal (maybe the rubber pad is wearing away?) or her finger on the horn (is it still connected? Will it sound when she needs it a few seconds from now?), or on some crucial object she has that is slowly slipping out of its case, in danger of flying into the street. He would have misdirected you, made you worry about one thing before surprising you with another element, out of left field yet still plausible. This is the antithesis of the TV movie approach, which all too many Hollywood movies prefer to adopt, no doubt because it is faster and cheaper. As it stands now, Pollack's Moped scene (edited by William Steinkamp) is OK but kind of incomprehensible and ultimately pointless (except that by this time the movie needed a boost of energy). Another Hitchcock inspired scene occurs with the movie's set-piece, a suspense sequence set on a bus carrying no less than five of the plot's various essential integers. This one works a lot better, though you don't necessarily feel much in the way of suspense. Instead, you wonder why Kidman is on this bus; why the Matobo rebel leader even takes this bus, why the assassin also there needs to execute this plot, and why everything has to be conducted at some high pitched level of secrecy — just stop the fucking bus. But this isn't to say the THE INTERPRETER doesn't have a lot to recommend it, even on the Hitchcockian level. Like a good Hitchcock film, its meaning is inscribed in almost every visual image or line of dialogue. There is a cool first conversation between Penn and Kidman where the imprecision of his words annoys her: I'd be fired if I translated something that imprecisely, she says. Precise meaning of words looms large in the film and in the visuals. The conspiracy she hears is spoken in a whisper. Later in the movie Broome explains to Keller (does that name RING a bell?) that the qualities of human whispering preclude vocal recognition. Later, though, Keller uses the idea that she might recognize the voices as a ruse. But the payoff comes in the climactic scene, in which someone reads a summing of passage from a book, a statement that says in part that the truth can be heard, even when it speaks in a whisper. If you have been paying attention throughout the film, the result is a very powerful punchline. Also, a cat and mouse dialogue between Penn and Kidman as they stand next to the Mexico chair in the GA is very well written and well acted, culminating in the point that "Vengeance is a lazy way to grieve." Like the second THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE INTERPRETER is a film about telephones, about communication. In one poignant scene Kidman and Penn talk to each other via cel phone across the gap between their buildings that separates their sounds but not their presence. The set up rhymes with Broome's workspace, a tiny booth abutting a rabbit warren hovering high above the dignitaries. She is still interpreting — what he wants, what he needs — and teaching him how to interpret her. There are also numerous images of communication devices marbled throughout the film's visual lexicon. It's also a "modes of transportation" movie: walking, cars, Mopeds, buses, choppers, and so forth keep Manhattan seeing very busy. Consequently the moments of repose, such as that telephone conversation across an alley, take on greater intimacy. Pollock's nighttime Manhattan feels feel much like EYEWITNESS (Broome's apartment could very well be located at the same intersection as Sigourney Weaver's in that film). THE INTERPRETER is equally as languorous as EYEWITNESS and as loving toward the city and all its variety. EYEWITNESS is the perfect date film. THE INTERPRETER, though, is not. It's wrapped up with Pollack's typical feel bad ending style in which the lovers don't get together (here they were barely lovers anyway). It's as if Pollock figured that THE WAY WE WERE was a huge hit because of its "mature" ending, and has been denying us hope very since, through THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR to THE ELECTRIC HOUSEMAN and OUT OF AFRICA, and now THE INTERPRETER. Still, Kidman has never looked lovelier. Let's pause this review for a few seconds to ponder her newfound beauty under the loving guidance of Darius Khondji.

This is important because Kidman has looked a little … odd in films lately. THE STEPFORD WIVES is a good example. There, she looked pinched and shrewish, almost Asian in her mien, and wholly uncomfortable. Others have called attention to this and even PEOPLE magazine, a conduit of publicist spin, suggested recently that Kidman was difficult to photograph (this is not strictly true. I know someone who did photograph her, and he said the only thing you had to worry about was a deep cleft in the tip of her nose). Anyway, I'm glad to see her back as she used to be back in films such as DEAD CALM when I first knew to love her.

Sean Penn, on the other hand, has opted to go in the opposite direction. Here he is a Secret Service agent with "a past" — all cops in Hollywood movies have to have a past, even if it is only a recent one — which has rendered him rumbled and unrested. He comes across a tad like Al Pacino in INSOMNIA, kind of driven and shredded. He also evokes a kind of world-weary continental manner, like Yves Montand in a thousand cop films, a man for whom coffee and cigarettes are the poppers fueling his investigative engine.

Because this is a traditional Hollywood suspense vehicle, you forget that Kidman and Penn are Academy Award Winners! What are they doing in this stuff? Shouldn't they be doing more Jane Austen and Henry James adaptations, or more examinations of the hollowness of the American male? In his last movie, Penn was an aspiring Nixon assassinator; here, he flips to the other side of the moral spectrum.

Kidman and Penn's "romance" has all the spontaneity and liveliness of Redford and Streep in Pollack's OUT OF AFRICA. Thus it falls upon Keener to provide comic relief. She has about three very funny lines in the film ("Please step away from the prime minister" is one of them), and is possibly meant to be viewed as in love with Penn's character, given the lingering and concerned looks she is shown to be giving him each time he buries his head in a briefing document. An indie film darling like Parker Posey, she forms an interesting contrast of beauty to Kidman's alabaster sheen and trembling Pekinese fragility. Garbed in Tarantino style pantsuits, she has no need for a gun: her wonderfully acerbic voice is all the ammunition she needs.

Incidentally, there is one shot in the trailer that doesn't occur in the film. I guess we'll know the answer to that riddle when the DVD comes out. And also, what is it about Nicole and Bathrooms? She's becoming a regular Tarantino. In EYES WIDE SHUT, in the recent and undervalued BIRTH, and now here, crucial scenes occur in her bathrooms. Kidman strikes me as a closed up person in real life who likes to unveil things in movies only. A bathroom is a perfect place to challenge vulnerability. Which reminds me that THE INTERPRETER reunites Pollack and Kidman for the first time since Kubrick's film. Pollack was a great friend of Kubrick's — and so was Stanley Donen, who did CHARADE. It's a nexus dense enough to tickle the critic, who likes nothing more than to interpret.

Media Notes From All Over

As an American it is my God-given right to plant myself in front of the television every night and veg out to network programming (I don't have cable). As a consequence I've become fixated on various unknown entities who appear repeatedly every night. I am of course referring to the nameless actresses who beautify various commercials. Among them is the gravelly voiced blonde in the Saturn commercial who describes the unusually late birth of her first child (she looks like Mary McCormack). Another is the silent, stunning brunette in the gray pantsuit in the Taco Bell commercial who is helping to interrogate, in the HOMICIDE - LAW & ORDER mode, a suspect. Finally there is the slacker girl in the Volkswagen commercial who makes so much noise dancing in her apartment that she and her boyfriend buy a house where they can hop up and down to alt music with impunity. Who are these people? Will we ever see them again? There was a time when directors such as Hawks and Hitchcock would see faces in fashion magazines (Lauren Becall) or commercials (Tippi Hedren), track them down and make stars out of them. And you may recall that Tom Selleck got his start in a mouthwash commercial (opposite another beauty, Kelly Harmon). The Volkswagen girl is especially well-cast. With her leonine hair and under bite she looks exactly like someone you'd see sitting in a coffee shop writing in her journal, or standing silently cool at a local nightclub. But would her looks translate to a movie career? Hollywood is unforgiving, and physical beauty trumps everything else: talent, intelligence, moral right. She's perfect for the small screen or for introducing to your grandmother at a family picnic, but thinking about the big screen makes me feel protective of her fragile eccentric beauty. In a way I hope the residuals of the Volkswagen commercial are enough to spare her from any further jobs, so that her perfection as the hopping alt girl will live forever.

DVD DIATRIBE Archives

I'm not going to trot out the inevitable comparisons of movies as a musical form. But I am going to note that the overtaking of movies by pop music was predestined, once companies such as American International specifically targeted the youth market in the 1950s. By then, not even mainstream Hollywood could ignore the youthquake (vide BLACKBOARD JUNGLE).

What I find amazing right now is that some of the best films coming out right now are movie oriented. Not only are documentaries in general about the best buy at the movie theaters, but docs about bands and music are the best, as exemplified by the array of music DVDs I've accumulated for this week.

The distance between what pop music in movies used to be and what it is now is exemplified by LI'L ABNER (Paramount, 1959, $14.95, Tuesday, April 19, 2005). This film is a time capsule, capturing the old fashioned 1950s long after the decade had already really ended (about 1956). Here is a movie that aspires to Tex Avary style mammary excess, the satire of corporate America, and the consequences of the red scare, nominal concerns at the time, all based, of course, on Al Capp's popular comic strip, which set the tone for much of the culture at large through the 1940s and in the early 1950s (when I was a kid I loved the strip and snipped them out of the paper, but that was during its last legs when Capp didn't even draw it anymore).

Filmed entirely on a cartoony set, the movie, like the musical on which it is based, captures the essence of Capp's strip while adding two or three good songs from a field of about eight. It's adapted rather blandly by Mel Frank and Norman Panama who went on to do a bunch of comedies with Bob Hope as a sort of poor man's Wilder and Diamond. About the only thing to recommend this film is the outrageous voluptuousness of its cast, including Julie Newmar as Stultifying Jones.

Paramount's barebones disc makes up in price what it lacks in supplements. The transfer (1.85:1, enhanced), however, is excellent, very bright and flavorful, just as a comic adaptation should be, while the DD mono is adequate.

Leap forward a decade and you have FESTIVAL EXPRESS (New Line, 2003, two discs, $24.95, Tuesday, November 2, 2004), a documentary about a traveling rock and roll show (Janis Joplin, the Dead, the Band, Delaney and Bonnie) touring the Canadian hinterlands via train in the summer of 1970. Blending archival footage of the concerts and backstage material with modern interviews with surviving participants, it's also a fascinating time capsule, a reminder of what the youthquake was like before the advent of "therapeutic" America and its scorn for personal excess, ritual drug use, hedonism, and rejection of mainstream values.

If you liked the movie on the big screen you appreciate the two disc set, which sports an excellent transfer (1.85:1, enhanced, though the original material has the graininess of being enlarged from 16 mm), and with DD 5.1; (along with DTS 5.1 and DD 2.0 Surround. Disc one includes an additional 50 minutes of performance and other material (along with an easy listening music track option), which the second disc includes additional or extended interviews with Phil Lesh, Buddy Guy, Bob Weir and Ken Walker along with a documentary about the documentary, a photo gallery and the theatrical trailer.

Operating at the same time as the ultimately more popular and mainstream bands in the Festival Express, The Residents were true outsiders. Eschewing the normal route of self-promotion, this group of unknown membership (supposedly from Louisiana) hid itself behind big eyeball head masks, performed behind scrims when they appeared live (rarely), released their records themselves outside the clutches of an industry the didn't want them anyway, and generally generated a cloud of obfuscation.

THE RESIDENTS COMMERCIAL DVD (Cryptic, 2004, $19.98, Tuesday, November 2, 2004) is probably not the best introduction to the gang, but it is certainly a fascinating document of 20th century popular culture. The disc is a rethinking of a 1980 album (called THE COMMERCIAL ALBUM) that the prolific band released consisting of various one-minute long songs (beating even the Ramones in lack of duration). For this DVD the band has added some tunes, invited some guests, and enlisted the aid of numerous artists to illustrate the sounds, turning them into a cross breed between music videos, commercials, and performance art. The disc last under an hour but therefore has some 56 tunes on it (10 of them new Residents numbers).

The transfers are as clean as they are disturbing (in full frame, 1.33:1). Some are cropped in widescreen but not anamorphic, and the older "commercials" reveal their video heritage. The DD 4.0 is excellent. The disc has no supplements, although the various tunes are offered either in order with a play all option or ranged via comical categories (weird, comic, depressing).

But music, that protean culture, continued to change, away from the rustic energy of the Festival Express performers and the MAD magazine rage of the Residents. Thus we transition to Slade. An intensely popular glam band in England (their much-loved Christmas single is parodied in LOVE, ACTUALLY) their role in British culture was SUPPLANTED by punk rock a few years later. Movies such as SLADE IN FLAME (Shout Factory, 1975, $19.98, Tuesday, November 16, 2004; the DVD was released simultaneously with a CD of greatest hits, GET YER BOOTS ON) didn't help.

In the movie, an attempt to mimic the band trajectory of the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, and numerous other bands that made movies, Slade does something a little different: they play a band that is a parodic, failed variation on themselves, called Flame (the movie is vaguely like THE RUTTLES). It's another time capsule, but probably really obscure for American viewers. Still, Slade deserves some attention.

The movie itself is only 86 minutes long, but the sole extra is excellent, an hour-long interview with band member Noddy Holder, who tracks the history of the film and the band. It's kind of an audio-visual commentary track. The transfer is a source of minor controversy in the DVD world. The original film was shot widescreen, 2.35:1, but this transfer is 1.85:1, which suggests that it is derived from a compromised videotape rather than original elements, but no one knows. The sound, however, is good.

Bands like Slade would very shortly have no need for movies. With the 1980s came the ascendancy of the music video (invented, like much else having to do with band promotion, by the Beatles). Palm Pictures in its "Directors Label" DVD series has gathered together a lavish selection of videos by three of the form's best directors Chris Cunningham, Spike Jonze, and Michel Gondry.

Cunningham is a special effects guy who has turned to making music videos. Jonze and Gondry are commercial and music video directors who have graduated to motion pictures. Curiously, both of them have ended up closely collaborating with screenwriter Charles Kaufman. Clearly their sensibilities mesh, and all together this trio may be the most significant force in movies for the next five or six years.

Yet the three are all very different from each other. If Jonze is the skate board world dude, and Gondry the continental fantasist, then Cunningham is the bleak distopianist whose work could easily mesh with The Residents. THE WORK OF DIRECTOR CHRIS CUNNINGHAM (Palm Pictures, two discs, $19.99, Tuesday, October 28, 2003) gathers together a wealth of Cunningham's videos and other work. A sort of modern Leger, Cunningham is a guy who could easily have done TETSUO. He is part of that sub-movement of art that sees human beings evolving (or devolving?) into machines. Here we have videos for Björk, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Madonna, Portishead, and Leftfield and also included in the set is the short film MONKEY DRUMMER along with commercials for Nissan, Levis, and Sony Playstation. The transfers come in a variety of formats, and the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is good. The set also comes with a 52-page booklet that covers the videos and CC's career.

Cunningham's set is light compared to Gondry's packed disc of THE WORK OF DIRECTOR MICHEL GONDRY (Palm Pictures, two discs, $19.99, Tuesday, September 23, 2003).

A double sided disc, side A presents the director's newer videos (Foo Fighters, Chemical Brothers, Kylie Minogue, and mostly Björk), along with some short films and his commercials from 1996 to 2001 (Levi's, Smirnoff, Polaroid; Jim Carrey in PECAN PIE), while side B covers 1987 to 1995 (the Rolling Stones's 1995 version of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and Oui Oui, his own band). Broken up across the two sides is the 75-minute doc, "I've Been 12 Forever," a detailed account of the director's life and career. Videos can be viewed either in chronological order, shuffled, or by artist. The package begins with an introduction by Gondry that weirdly expands with each subsequent playing. This disc also comes with a thick booklet.

Jonze, as we can see from THE WORK OF DIRECTOR SPIKE JONZE (Palm Pictures, two discs, $19.99, Tuesday, September 23, 2003) was the house auteur for the Beastie Boys, and all of his BB vids are included here. Also on hand are the famous video of Fatboy Slim with Christopher Walken, and tunes for Weezer, Dinosaur, Jr., and the ubiquitous Björk, who seems to know what she is doing when it comes to hiring video directors. The videos here are for the most part in full frame and the DD 2.0 is good. The double-sided disc features numerous supplements, including audio commentaries for most of the videos from either the musicians or the actors, a video interview with some of the bands Jonze made videos for, a making of, a few trailers, and weblinks. The B side contains several early short films by Jonze, B-roll footage for an Oasis video that never came to pass, and three quasi-documentaries. Finally, as with the other two sets in the series, the box comes with a fat pamphlet.

The singer - songwriter is a distinctly '90s phenomenon very much in the spirit of the self-absorbed nouveau coffee house folksiness. I happened to bypass a lot of that unless a song happened to be used in a movie. So two DVD editions of VH1's Storyteller series provides a fine chance to catch up.

I happened to see Natalie Merchant when she was still with 10, 000 Maniacs, back when bands were naming themselves after movie titles (though this is a mis-rendering of 1000 MANIACS). She was obviously the start of that show though it was amazing that a nationally touring professional band would have a central figure who could make so many mistakes at the piano and still generate worshipful applause from the hitlerjungen in the audience. In any case, I sat so far back I didn't really get a good look at her. Therefore I was struck by two things in VH1 STORYTELLERS: NATALIE MERCHANT (Rhino, 1998, $14.98, Tuesday, April 26, 2005). One is, this chick has enormous tits. And as I stated a few paragraphs, in show biz beauty trumps everything else. Would Merchant have risen so far if she had had a voluptuous allure? I don't know much about her career but her songs are to me mostly risible self-absorbed meaningfully meaningless drivel.

Except for one. I first heard "These Are the Days" during a beautiful little sequence in Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. It's the scene in the middle when Cage gets into the back of the ambulance to give Arquette a ride to the hospital. They simply sit next to each other while the song plays on the soundtrack for several seconds until Arquette finally turns to look at Cage — and then the film abruptly cuts to the next scene. For some reason I find this sequence ineffably beautiful. I played that chapter of the DVD (the first one I acquired) repeatedly for that snippet of song. In any case I loved the song upon first hearing (which is unusual for me as it is for most people) but didn't recognize Merchant as the singer, but easily tracked it down on CD.

So naturally, STORYTELLERS chooses to begin in media res with the song already half over. Merchant goes on to do the usual arrogant indie rock singer songwriter things: talk about herself (as if the songs don't already do enough of that already), chastise the audience for not responding correctly, and gets lost in her own swirling dance style. She performs six tunes in all, introducing each one at length, as is the format for this particular concert series.

Fortunately on the disc's extras the song "These Are the Days" in full is an option, along with another bonus tune. There is also a four-page insert with remarks about Merchant, a discography, and a episode guide to the series.

Competing for attention is another singer songwriter on VH1 STORYTELLERS: ALANIS MORRISETTE (Rhino, 1999, $14.98, Tuesday, April 26, 2005). The Canadian Morrisette is the Madonna of the singer-songwriters, a person who has had about 12 different public personalities. The most "real" is her nervous breakdown SS-er phase, commemorated here in a nice concert that also encourages questions from the audience.

I'm not familiar with every aspect of Morrisette's career, so I don't know if she always sang with that cutting, slicing range change that sounds like some kind of variation on CW yodeling. On the one hand I find it annoying; on another, attractive. She's kind of a maddening figure. Morrisette does seven tunes, and the disc comes with two more bonus cuts. The transfers for both discs are excellent, and the DD 5.1 is excellent. A similar four-page booklet comes with this DVD as well.

The concert film has become almost a work of art in itself. In JAY-Z: FADE TO BLACK (Paramount, 2004, $29.95, Tuesday, April 5, 2005) the concert film for the super successful hip hop star the technical presentation is superb. I just wish I liked the music more.

The rapper is joined on stage in cameos by Rocafella, Foxy Brown, Ghostface Killah, Pharrell of the Neptunes, and R. Kelly, Beyonce, and Mary J. Blige. The DVD also features a deleted scene, a music video, and a making of that shows the rapper creating one of his lyrics.

To be perfectly frank I was also bored by LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE (Sony Pictures, 2004, $24.95, Tuesday, March 8, 2005). But it is probably something wrong me. Again, technically, this is an accomplished presentation (directed on film by Antoine Fuqua). Concert films have reached such a level of perfection that you feel as if you are on stage, and I daresay that seeing the movie is probably better than sitting in the audience.

An off-shoot of Martin Scorsese's recently sponsored PBS series on the blues, the film gathers up most of the important still living blues musicians to stage a massive concert that more or less chronologically surveys the form. Mostly there are live performances (Ruth Brown, Odetta, Macy Gray, Bonnie Raitt, Hubert Sumlin, Buddy Guy, B. B. King, Larry Johnson, among many others) interspersed with the occasional archival images of now-dead performers. For some reason, Bill Cosby even gets up on the stage for some flat comedy pranks.

But for the most part the emphasis is on musical performance. Unfortunately, once a singer stops for a bridge, the film will then chose to show documentary footage of the making of the concert or get a talking head to say something. Fortunately, Robert Cray's excellent rendition of "I Pity the Fool" is held in its entirety, the musical star hunched over the microphone, the lighting demonizing him in support of the Satanic song.

Supplements are meager: a short interview with Fuqua plus five additional performances including "Stop Messin' Around," Steven Tyler and Joe Perry; "The Sky is Crying," Greg Allmann and Warren Haynes; "Minnesota Blues," with Mos Def; and "First Time I Met the Blues," Buddy Guy. The wide screen transfer is excellent (1.78:1, enhanced), and the 5.1 audio appears to be a rather shaky variation on DD called "Dobly Digital." At least that's what the box says.

I already reviewed DIG! (Palm Pictures, 2004, two discs, $24.98, Tuesday, April 12, 2005) a few weeks ago. Since this is a two disc set with lots of extras stuff on it I can add that Palm Pictures dos this fantastic documentary right with its excellent full frame transfer and DD 5.1 track.

The set is packed. The first disc has three commentary tracks, one by director Ondi Timoner and co-producers David Timoner and Vasco Lucas Nunes, one by members of The Dandy Warhols, and one with members of The Brian Jonestown Massacre. There are also ifinifilm style extended or deleted scenes that can be reinserted. Disc two features three Dandy Warhol videos, two live performances by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and a "jam session." There are 20 deleted scenes, a "Where Are They Now?" update, trailers, weblinks, and DVD credits.

DIG! is one of the best films of last year. But so are METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER (Paramount, 2004, two discs, $29.95, Tuesday, January 25, 2005) and the thrifty END OF THE CENTURY (Rhino, 2004, $19.99, Tuesday, March 15, 2005). These later two documentaries interact with each other beautifully.

As is well known, METALLICA covers a few years of crisis in the life of the band, which had lost a bass player and were experiencing a sort of mid life crisis, ending up consulting a shrink named Phil and trying to get a new album together, ST. ANGER. END OF THE CENTURY is a thorough history of the band, with a frank dissection of its own internal tensions.

METALLICA ends up being inspiration and it's almost heartbreaking to see such an important and pioneering band appear to break down before your eyes. The film is thematically very different from Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger's previous crime documentaries but does share with them a command of a host of incidents that occur over a long time span and an intimacy with the subjects.

The Ramones got their name from the hotel check in name that Paul McCartney used to use and both bands follow the Beatles template in their evolution. If James Hetfield is Metallica's John Lennon — broody, charismatic, troubled, a natural leader — then Lars Ulrich is its Paul McCartney — pouty, controlling, more commercially oriented, and unrequitedly "in love" with Hetfield/Lennon like everyone else. In one sequence the band shoots a video in a prison and Hetfield, with his craggy bad boy good looks and tattoos, fits right into the general ambiance. Kirk Hammett is the Ringo, self-effacing, egoless, and agreeable. Meanwhile, Johnny Ramone (John Cummings) is the McCartney, a conservative and traditionalist against Joey Ramone's (Jeff Hyman) Lennonesque outsider status.

Like the Ramones, Metallica keep loosing a member. For the thrash metal band it was their bass player: the first one died, the second one quit in a power play with Hetfield. The Ramones kept losing drummers. The first one, Tommy Ramone (Thomas Erdely), was a key ingredient. Subsequent drummers had troublesome behavioral habits or argued with Johnny over money. Unlike Metallica, however, three of the Ramones are now dead: there is no more Ramones.

To me, Johnny is the most fascinating figure in the film, because he is so different from me and my values while seemingly sharing some tastes (in old horror films). He is revealed as a George Bush loving, war supporting Republican, a guy who really doesn't like other people and in a story only vaguely recounted in the movie stole away Joey Ramone's girlfriend (they later married). Yet the band, always rancorous with each other, stayed together. It's fascinating. Johnny was more or less a criminal (like Hetfield, he might have ended up in the slammer), yet did a complete turnaround and embraced America's most bedrock values.

What's also fascinating about Johnny is his aesthetic. In one telling passage he is reported telling some aspirant British rockers not to worry about talent. We stink, and look how far we got. You don't actually have to be good to get that far in rock and roll. This is actually a liberating position to take, and you can see its equivalent in other arts, such as the Basquiat paintings that Lars collected and in the films of Guy Maddin.

Paramount's METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER is excellent. The transfer and sound are good, and there are 26 deleted scenes, doubling the film's length. Plus there are two commentary tracks, one by the band, and another by Berlinger and Sinofsky. Concert footage, two trailers, and a music video round out the package.

Equally superb is Rhinos END OF THE CENTURY. Though the film is in unenhanced widescreen (1.78:1), it comes with both Dolby 2.0 Stereo and DD 5.1 and features 11 deleted scenes that add almost 40 minutes, and the theatrical trailer. I watched this film about three times while chugging through this review, and it captivated me to the same level that SHATTERED GLASS did last year.

There is a tangible difference in quality between HBO shows and Showtime's episodic TV series, and I'm not exactly sure what causes it. Both cable networks strive for "edgy" adult fare. Maybe HBO is better at sweeping away its miscues or something but HBO tends to be more mature, sharper, funnier, and sexier. If Showtime has RED SHOE DIARIES, HBO has REAL SEX. When Showtime has DEAD LIKE ME, HBO has AUTOPSY. Showtime has STARGATE SG-1 and HBO has THE SOPRANOS and THE WIRE. HBO has the LARRY SANDERS SHOW, while Showtime gives us THE CHRIS ISAAK SHOW and SOUL FOOD. HBO has CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM; Showtime HUFF. HBO = OZ, DEADWOOD, DREAM ON, TENACIOUS D, AMERICA UNDERCOVER; Showtime = 0.

QUEER AS FOLK: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON, COLLECTOR'S EDITION (Showtime, 2004, five discs, $109.98, Tuesday, April 5, 2005) is a well-meaning series, now in its fifth season, that has a specific constituency. It's essentially Showtime's answer to SIX FEET UNDER (which is really a gay show), but the HBO show has anger and an existential edge. QUEER wants to reassure its audience.

I haven't seen the British progenitor of QUEER AS FOLK. I can say that its American spin off is very much like a lot of other TV shows you might watch. The gang gathers in a diner, not unlike the cast of SEINFELD. The diner itself, with its vulgarian owner (Sharon Gless) is a throwback to ALICE. One of the characters has gone and done a comic book called RAGE, mirroring a plot thread in the currently unfolding O. C. Like most shows on TV it is really a soap opera with a little bit of sit-com thrown in. And some of the situations are truly banal when stated out of context of the show itself. One character has trouble telling his partner what he really things of his novel. Another wants to propose but can't find the right moment. Serious things happen in this season (there is a death, an AIDS scare, and cancer). It is also one of those shows in which when someone says, Oh, they'll never call, the phone instantly rings. But well meaning and well acted and well written as it is, QUEER is HBO lite.

If HBO had made QUEER AS FOLK, there would have been more tension between the gay and lesbian characters. There would have been more story, and some leaps in time. You would have had to work to follow it. If FX had made QUEER AS FOLK the clash between gay bashers and the temporary vigilantes that figures in the first few episodes of season four would have been escalated (FX is not afraid of slaughter). The obligatory weekly sex scenes would have been grungier and more ugly-real. But this is Showtime, so the cast isn't quite as handsome or pretty as it could be; the writing isn't quite as sharp as it could be. It has neither the wit of (the old) WILL & GRACE, nor the eroticism of

But it is clear that QUEER AS FOLK intends not to. Instead, it wants to be reassuring, comforting, normative, and advice giving. It wants to help you with your problems, or at the least let you see how insignificant they become if recontextualized within gay pride. There is nothing wrong with this. But it can make for boring, water-treading television.

I happen to know the brother of Michelle Clunie, one of the stars, and Bill would be very disappointed if I turned on the usual lusting persona that characterizes this column. Suffice it to say here that Clunie is cute and does a good job and is something of a Ashley Judd clone and that she is also dating her co-star Gale Harold, with whom she is making a movie, advertised here on one of the meager extras. Another extra shows a trailer for and a brief making of for Peter Paige's directorial debut SAY UNCLE. Other extras include a bit about a national promotion to turn the nation's gay bars into the show's Babylon for one night, text bios, and a commercial, inexplicably, for Atlantis Cruises.

In case you are curious, there is another Stephen King movie out, this one called STEPHEN KING'S RIDING THE BULLET (Lion's Gate, 2004, $26.95, Tuesday, April 19, 2005). It's kind of a blend of the occasional early car - MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE horror films he occasionally wrote and the emotional reminiscence style of "late" King, as in GREEN MILE. The film is produced, written, and first-time-directed by a frequent movie collaborator of King's, Mick Garris. The film has a complex production history that Garris goes into on the first of the disc's two audio commentary tracks; suffice it to say here that it was filmed in Canada originally for the screen, got waylaid to TV, but needed an at least brief screen presence to portend its DVD release, which it received via Lion's Gate.

I'm sorry to say that all these labors were not quite worth it. But I don't necessarily blame the filmmakers; rather, the source material seems to harbor the cause for this production's woes, even though Garris changed a lot of it, including setting the story back in the 1960s. It is a typically digressive King tale. With no editorial restraints whatsoever, he is free to add in irrelevant characters and take side trips that amount to little, and which dissipate the suspense, the presumed reason for the production in the first place. Garris tries to tie it all together by attempting to thematically link up the various elements and scenes but again, boredom ensues.

The premise is that a gloomy death obsessed college kid (Jonathan Jackson) and aspiring artist learns that his mother has had a heart attack. He hitchhikes home and on the way encounters various people (Nicky Katt, Cliff Robertson) who feature mountingly dire attitudes to old age and death. The pinnacle is reached with a speedster (David Arquette) who appears to be Satan or Death in the guise of a guy who died in a car crash on the hero's birthday (forgive me if some of these details are a tad off; it is very hard to concentrate on this film). This demon offers him the choice of his own life or his mother's. Will he make the "correct" choice? Will he then get home in time to visit her before she dies? Will his girlfriend (Erika Christensen) still be waiting for him back at college? Will his hippie friends ever get jobs?

The most frightening thing about the film is Barbara Hershey's Jack-O-Lantern face bobbing into view via flashbacks. One can see the sense of using her in the film. She is a '60s icon (and the film is also filled with '60s pop tunes). But Hershey's various face alternations since BEACHES rather undermine her former hippie lifestyle philosophies.

The widescreen transfer (1.85:1, enhanced) for RIDING THE BULLET strikes me as a little murky, but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Sound comes in an adequate English Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English and Spanish. Besides Garris's informative yak track there is a secondary track with Garris, producer Joel T. Smith, lead Jackson, DP Robert New, and special effects guys Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger. In addition there are seven small making of featurettes, the first one on Arquette's makeup, soon followed by a profile of Bernie Wrightson, whose art stands in for the lead's, a snippet on the film's cars, accounts of shooting a cemetery scene and a car crash, a short bit on shooting at an amusement park, and some storyboard to final product comparisons. Most of these features are two minutes long, with a couple at about five minutes. On a separate menu is a RIDING THE BULLET artwork gallery (2:48), an animated survey of Bernie Wrightson's Cryptkeeper looking illustrations for the film. Finally, there is the trailer (1:32). The disc has nice menus, though, which are both animated and musical, with 24-chapter scene selection.

Letters

From Eddie C.:

"I've always loved Frank Miller's work. He helped redefine some of the best characters in comics (Daredevil, Batman, Wolverine) and brought them to a whole new level. That being said, I'm probably the only comic fan I know who doesn't care for SIN CITY (the books or the movie). I know that's blasphemy, but I just don't get why people are hyping this up so much. The characters are thinly drawn (in more ways than one) cardboard cutouts, and listening to the dialogue (and inner monologues) is quite painful. My friend and I literally cringed at some points during the movie. Don't get me wrong, it's just that everything I've come to expect from good comics and good movies did not prepare me for this whole SIN CITY thing. Miller used to bring such depth and complexity to otherwise one-dimensional comic characters with subtle characterization in some of the best-crafted stories in the biz. SIN CITY does not fit among the best DAREDEVIL stories or THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Anyway, I don't want to harp on it too much, but another thing that bothers me is this connection between comics and movies. I've never thought of comics as "like movies" or the other way around. Comics come in part from a long literary tradition (as evidenced by use of 'graphic novel' instead of comic). Story and art are combined in a unique artistic style (comics at their best) in what is a unique medium (separate from just books or film). Look at some of the literary influences in some of the best comics: a lot of the stuff from vintage Marvel (especially Stan Lee's stuff), character names, Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN. But I digress … Frank Miller will always be one of the best all-time writers in comics, but in my book, SIN CITY will not go down in history as one of the best comic book series. Can't hold a candle to other greats, SANDMAN, Moore's WATCHMEN, Ennis's PREACHER. On a more positive note, I did agree with your assessment of THE LONE GUNMEN. This could have been an excellent series, had they not brought "Jimmy Bond" into it. They didn't need extra comedy (those three are hilarious on their own) and he just dumbed down the show."

From Theron Neel:

"C'mon, man, you know PULP FICTION was thefilm of the '90s. There's no "perhaps" about it …"

And incidentally, if you are interested in KILL BILL, you might find my new book, KILL BILL: AN UNOFFICIAL CASEBOOK useful. It is now available in fine bookstores everywhere, or from Amazon.

NEXT TIME: THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, more Asian action films, several STAR TREKS, and more!

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