On DVD: Bigger Than Life (Criterion Collection)

Never before available on home video domestically, The Criterion Collection has finally released Nicholas Ray's groundbreaking Bigger Than Life. It's a claustrophobic, small-scale portrait of 1950s suburbia torn apart by a family man's addiction to prescription codeine. James Mason (who also produced) gave a defining performance in the lead role, undergoing a gripping transformation from middle class dad to psychotic would-be prophet of anti-middle class revolution. Released in 1956 to a largely negative reception, it's no surprise that Americans of the 1950s - eased into self-satisfaction with the realization of the postwar American dream - rejected this depiction of small town lives being violently rent asunder by a repressed subconscious cut loose.

Ed Avery (Mason) is a middle class schoolteacher, who lives in a large house on a pleasant street with his wife Lou (Barbara Rush) and young son Bobby (Christopher Olsen). Plagued by mysterious recurring pain, Avery is prescribed codeine, a then-new "miracle drug" that saves his life. The side effects, however, cause creeping madness in Avery, who begins to envision himself as a hero to society, the savior of his family, and the protector of all morality and ethics. With the help of his friend Wally (Walter Matthau), Lou struggles to escape Ed's increasingly tight clutches and seek aid from his doctors.

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On DVD: Howards End (Criterion Collection)

Watching Howards End is the cinematic equivalent of eating a heavy slice of some magical hybrid dessert - say, tiramisu ice cream pie. It's so delicious and richly layered that it's impossible to enjoy all at once. Multiple viewings are required in order to fully absorb all the ingredients of this masterful movie: the intricate story and screenplay, the characters, the lush production design, the music, and the harmonious conducting of the lot by director James Ivory. True to the source book by E.M. Forster, Howards End is a densely-packed novel on film, consistently driven by detailed character dynamics, which, in turn, are rooted in a very British social hierarchy and the tangled garden of emotional responses that grow from it.

Films committed to the great storytelling traditions of English literature are increasingly rare, and with Merchant-Ivory Productions fading away (Ismail Merchant died in 2005), it's bone-chilling to think that novelistic character-oriented drama may be under threat of extinction. To quell such concerns, the Criterion Collection has re-issued Howards End, improving upon the previous DVD on the Home Vision brand, with updated bonus content. 

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Howards End (Criterion Collection)

On DVD: Project Runway: Season Six

In my review of Project Runway: Season Five, I had an opportunity to enumerate the reasons why I enjoy the program so much more than other reality shows. Project Runway
provides a legitimate forum for creative thinkers to make original work in a charged but realistically challenging environment - instead of being an excuse for auto-humiliation on a grand scale. With Season Six, the show retains its basic strengths, but a move from New York to Los Angeles proves detrimental to the integrity of the competitive aspect of the program.
 

I don't want to make a big huge "coast vs. coast" argument here, but New York is without a doubt the center of fashion in the United States, if not the world. For Season Six, the producers moved Project Runway to Los Angeles, for reasons that I've not been able to fully divine. It's possible that production costs were lower in LA than in New York, but I'm just making a guess. Whatever the reasons, Project Runway doesn't feel right in Los Angeles. For one thing, the contestant designers are still vying for the same grand prize: a runway show at Bryant Park during Fashion Week. So the setting is now oddly removed from the locale of the designers' goal. For another thing, although there have been and continue to be successful designers who come from and are based in Los Angeles, New York just feels like a more inspiring place for fashion design. Beyond that, New Yorkers are generally better dressed than Angelenos (painful, I know, but true), which further brings home the sense of disconnection between the show's object and its setting.

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On DVD: South Park: The Complete Thirteenth Season

After thirteen seasons and 195 episodes, South Park remains one of the smartest and most consistently funny shows on television. In its first season, the program was a crude, daring bad-boy, willing to do anything for a laugh - or to generate controversy. But as time passed, South Park's reputation quickly grew as the intelligence of its creators became evident, nearly every episode driven by sharp satire. The fourteen episodes of South Park: The Complete Thirteenth Season include a bunch of hits, a few that miss the mark, but, overall, add up to a wholly satisfying season with a number of classic plotlines and jokes.
 

I hate to try to demystify the difficult subject of comedy, but it's interesting to think about why some shows succeed for so long while other struggle and fail. Maybe South Park's ongoing effectiveness has to do with the continued ownership of the program by its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Parker is credited as the writer and director of every episode of the thirteenth season, with Stone serving as a producer and voice actor.

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On DVD: Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

The awkwardly-titled Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire is one of the most lauded films of 2009, nominated for six Oscars, all in "major" categories (including Best Picture). It is a portrait of urban life that pulls no punches, detailing elements of our society often considered unmentionable in mainstream films - abuse, incest, disease, and other plagues related to poverty - sometimes hinted at but rarely depicted in the fearless, straightforward manner of Precious. The value of the film lies with this courage, and with that of its actors. For all this, however, Precious can't help but feel like a really rough after-school special - a movie about social problems and a denigrated inner-city heroine who ultimately finds redemption. While the plot and subject matter may ring true, the themes, unfortunately, are trite, and despite the best efforts of a talented cast, the film doesn't rise above them.

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