There is no doubt that Zach Snyder's "Sucker Punch" (Warner), the director's first original script, is a mess of movie. Even the term "original" is a questionable description, as the wide range of influences define the film as much as his own pop sensibilities. Yet "Sucker Punch" was so critically derided that I think it's been dismissed without really acknowledging the mad mix of inspirations or Snyder's own blinkered passion for the project, clearly something that, for reasons he may not be able to articulate, he poured his creative energies into.

 

The vague mid-20th Century setting with a 19th century gothic attitude and music-video stylings drops Baby Doll (Emily Browning) into a private sanitarium that looks like something out of the "Batman" movies. But before we have a chance to ruminate on the orphanage horror we are plunged into her fantasy of the place as a bordello prison fronted by a gangster (the head orderly, now with pencil mustache and zoot suit) in the flesh trade, with the Cuckoo's Nest of pretty young inmates now dancers in the show.

See an MSN exclusive clip from the Blu-ray "Maximum Movie Mode" below

 

But that's just the first step down the rabbit hole of escapist fantasy. Under the hypnotic sways of Baby Doll's magic moves, the girls are refashioned as jailbait stripper fantasies (all with exposed navels and a flash of thigh) and arm themselves with heavy metal artillery to take on one anachronistic video game scenario after another: a samurai rite of passage, a World War II mission against zombie Nazis, a siege on a castle of Orc-like beasts and dragons, a sci-fi odyssey against robot terrorists on a moon of Saturn. Because nothing says female empowerment than babydoll outfits and really big guns.

 

It's ridiculous and often incoherent, but also oddly fun in the sheer overkill of pulp and fantasy imagery: tragedy and triumph and ultimately a sense of empowerment buried under the exploitation. Mostly, though, it's a crazy ride though Snyder's pop culture subconscious. And if you suspend your disbelief at the mixed messages and warped metaphors, its excesses and overkill can be fun.

See more arguments in support of Snyder's "Sucker Punch" in my essay on Parallax View.  Sam Adams also defends the film at Time Out Chicago, where he makes the case that its a film maudit: "a project cursed by circumstance or out-of-control instincts that’s nonetheless revealing in a way successful films rarely are." To give credit where it is due, this piece was in part inspired by Adams' short essay and by a short conversation with Adams about our shared interest in the film. Thanks, Sam.

MSN film critic Glenn Kenny, meanwhile, offers the more familiar take on the film: "were one asked to come up with a concise précis of the movie -- not an easy task, given its convolution -- one could conceivably get away with "'Sin City' meets 'Brazil,' only really, really bad.""

The DVD and single-disc Blu-ray edition features four animated "prequel stories" set in the fantasy realms of the film, short pieces without much substance that were also used as promotional shorts for the film, and a very brief featurette (under four minutes) on the musical soundtrack.

 

An extended cut of the film, running 17 minutes longer (including a major musical number), is featured on the Blu-ray+DVD+Digital Copy three-disc set, along with the exclusive "Maximum Movie Mode" audio/video commentary track. Zack Snyder really embraces this type of interaction and steps in to deconstruct scenes and explain himself, but he's most engaged when it comes to explaining the execution. Though his cites Joseph Campbell along the way, he never really articulates his intentions. The rest of the mode is filled with picture-in-picture behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, effects work, and storyboards. 

MSN Exclusive clip: Zach Snyder shows he puts together a scene late in the film - after the jump

 

Here's what's new and notable on DVD and Blu-ray this week as featured on Videodrone

Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs for June 21

 

New Releases:

"The Adjustment Bureau" – Fighting Fate

Liam Neeson is "Unknown"

The New Release Rack: "Cedar Rapids" and "The Eagle," plus "Wimpy Kid" and "Big Momma" sequels and indie and art house releases

 

TV on DVD:

"Louie: The Complete First Season" – Louis C.K. Recreates the Sitcom

TV on DVD Channel Guide: "Medium" ends and "The Closer" re-opens, plus more BritTV, eighties TV movies and "Rocko's Modern Life"

 

The Cool and the Collectible:

"Kiss Me Deadly" – Film Noir Apocalypse, Then and Now

Cult Watch: SyFy campfest, Roger Corman's "Women in Cages" and Linda Blair's notorious "Born Innocent"

"Poison" – Todd Haynes' Debut Feature at 20

"Raffaello Matarazzo's Runaway Melodramas," plus Joseph Losey's "The Romantic Englishwoman," "Priest of Love," "Woman Obsessed" and more

 

Blu-ray Debuts:

"Kiss Me Deadly" – Film Noir Apocalypse, Then and Now

"Ghost in the Shell" – the rest of the story plus "The Island" and "The Medallion"

 

MOD Movies and TV:

"The FBI" and "Southland: Season Two," plus more animation from the Hannah Barbera Classic Collection

 

News and Commentary:

The Barry Lyndon debate ended? Glenn Kenny offers Stanley Kubrick's official word on the subject

Coming next week:

"Sucker Punch" (Warner)

"The Warrior's Way" (Fox)

"Season of the Witch" (Fox)

"Beastly" (Sony)

"Barney's Version" (Sony)

"People On Sunday" (Criterion)

"Black Moon" (Criterion)
"Zazie Dans Le Métro" (Criterion)
"Wild and Weird – The Alloy Orchestra Plays…" (Flicker Alley)

"Tetsuo: The Bullet Man" (IFC)

"Rizzoli & Isles: The Complete First Season" (Warner)

"Warehouse 13: Season Two" (Universal)

"The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy: Extended Edition" (Blu-ray) (Warner)

"Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" (Blu-ray) (Image)

Click here for more Coming Soon on DVD/Blu-ray

 

It's not just for movies: the MOD (manufacture on demand) model is a way for shows without big sales to still find their way to home video. Here are few shows that recently came out.

"The FBI: The First Season, Part One" (Warner Archive) – This Quinn Martin Production (the brand that gave us "The Fugitive" and "The Streets of San Fransico," among other shows) took the sober, procedural-intensive​ approach of "Dragnet" to the federal level, supposedly basing the stories on real-life cases and drawing from real investigative techniques from the Bureau. The real FBI gave its full approval and, in exchange, got a flattering primetime portrayal.

 

The show hasn't really aged  all that well, kind of plodding along, and with all the forensic-heavy shows on TV today, the tedious explanations of what we take for granted today is tiring. Still, it was a hit, running a sturdy nine seasons with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in the lead as Agent Lewis Erskine. Stephen Brooks is Special Agent Jim Rhodes, his first partner, in this collection of the first half of the debut season. Jeffrey Hunter plays the guest villain in the series debut, a handsome killer who targets women, and other guest stars in these early episodes include Robert Blake, Beau Bridges, Dabney Coleman, Robert Duvall, Jack Klugman, Leslie Nielsen and Burt Reynolds. 16 episodes on four discs in a standard case with hinged trays.

"Southland: The Complete Second Season Uncensored" (Warner Archive) - The network cop drama that relocated to commercial cable, "Southland" focuses on the people behind the badges of a Los Angeles precinct, from uniformed officers (including rookie Ben McKenzie and his dedicated veteran mentor Michael Cudlitz) to various grades of detectives, with Regina King as a cast standout as a passionately driven detective. The first season was a brief seven episodes, the second even shorter, more like the British model of limited run seasons, though the drama within is decidedly American life on the street. Six episodes on two discs in a standard case with a hinged tray.

 

The third season has already finished its 2011 run and TNT has renewed it for a fourth. It’s worth catching up with.

 

And here are three animated releases from the "Hannah Barbera Classic Collection":

"The Herculoids: The Complete Series" (Warner Archive), a weird, spacey 1967 series about beings that look like cavemen and prehistoric creatures in an interstellar empire. 18 episodes on two discs;

The eighties-era "Challenge of the Gobots: The Original Miniseries" (Warner Archive) presents the initial five episodes (just under two hours) of the show on a single disc;

"The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones" (Warner Archive) – The meeting we'd all been waiting for came via a 1987 animated TV movie, when Elroy's time machine swaps out the space-age nuclear family with the modern stone-age family.

 

All are available exclusively from the Warner Archive website:

The FBI: The First Season, Part One

Southland: The Complete Second Season Uncensored

The Herculoids: The Complete Series

Challenge of the Gobots: The Original Miniseries

The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones

 

MOD stands for "Manufacture on Demand" and represents a recent development in the DVD market, where slipping sales have slowed the release of classic, special interest and catalogue releases. These are DVD-R releases, no-frills discs from studio masters, ordered online and "burned" individually with every order. You can read a general introduction to the format and the model on my profile of the Warner Archive Collection on Parallax View here.

 

MSN's own Glenn Kenny, over at his indefensible blog "Some Came Running," has been back and forth on the often contentious and very passionate debate over the presentation of "Barry Lyndon" on Blu-ray (click here for backstory on the whole shebang).

This week, he came up with the final word on the subject: Stanley Kubrick's 1975 letter to the projectionists on how "Barry Lyndon" is to be shown. And he states quite clearly that it was "photographed in the 1-1.66 aspect ratio. Please be sure you project it at this ratio..." There's more, of course, and even Leon Vitali has affirmed the authenticity of the letter (which came to Kenny via Jay Cocks), while he doggedly defends his contention that Kubrick actually intended it to be shown at 1-1.77.

No matter. Kenny, as a professional critic, historian and all-around thinking person, weighs the new evidence and changes his position accordingly: Warner made a mistake and the Blu-ray, while absolutely beautiful, is not presented in accordance with Kubrick's intentions. Case closed, you'd think, but it's still odd to find the debate continuing on the home video sites and Blu-ray boards. As if staking a position has become a matter of honor to be met, regardless of the evidence. When did film history turn into American politics?

 

Criterion gives the special edition treatment to "Kiss Me Deadly" (Criterion), Robert Aldrich's atomic age reworking of Mickey Spillane. Some have called it the greatest film noir of all time; it is certainly the most apocalyptic and one of the most brutal, and it delivers a pulp punch while it savagely satirizes the entire hardboiled mythos. Reviewed on Videodrone here. The feature debut of Todd Haynes gets a new DVD edition in "Poison: 20th Anniversary Edition" (Zeitgeist). Reviewed on Videodrone here.

 

The rediscovery this week comes via "Raffaello Matarazzo's Runaway Melodramas: Eclipse Series 27" (Criterion/Eclipse).​ While the world was awed by the wave of neo-realism breaking out of Italian borders after the devastation of World War II, local audiences were flocking to the overheated melodramas directed by Raffaello Matarazzo and starring Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson as eternally star-crossed lovers, forever separated by scheming villains, moral hypocrites, lies, misunderstandings, emotional hurricanes and wicked plot twists designed to pour on the suffering.

 

While these are not unearthed masterpieces, they do indeed offer surprises to audiences steeped in the conventions of romantic melodrama. They build from the more conventional soap opera of jealousy, revenge and sacrifice of "Chains" (1949), the first collaboration between the director and stars, to the increasingly amplified complications, outsized suffering and elevated gestures of martyrdom in the subsequent films. The torment of "Tormento" (1950), which takes a page from "Stella Dallas" and twists it into an act of vicious vengeance, is largely engineered by a severe stepmother whose cruelty makes the wicked stepmothers of Disney look like misguided caregivers. And  "Nobody's Children" (1952) and its sequel "The White Angel" (1955) drives the twists with less malevolence and more devastating consequences, the lies and manipulations of controlling family members snowballing into blackmail, crushing loss and terrible tragedy that borders on murder. Matarazzo withholds the reward of a happy ending until the last seconds (and in one case withholds it completely, at least until the sequel) while he loads the film with Catholic imagery and the trials of a modern day Job. They make Hollywood's grand melodramas look timid by comparison.

 

The films in the four disc set are mastered from prints that suffer various states of damage: worn and damaged footage and unsteady footage, probably due to shrinking and splices. No supplements beyond some brief essays by Michael Koresky.

 

Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson star in the 1975 "The Romantic Englishwoman" (Kino), directed by Joseph Losey from a screenplay co-written by Tom Stoppard. "As a director Joseph Losey wasn’t known for his scintillating sense of humor and light touch," begins Dave Kehr in his rich review of the film's DVD/Blu-ray debut in the New York Times, which spotlights "the rather more witty and playful" quality of the film. "Uncharacteristic as it may be, “The Romantic Englishwoman” remains one of Losey’s most accomplished and engaging films." Also new from Kino is "Priest of Love" (Kino), a 1981 biographical drama starring Ian McKellan as D.H. Lawrence and co-starring Janet Suzman and Ava Gardner. The latter features a documentary on the film, interviews and deleted scenes. 

 

Criterion gives the special edition treatment to "Kiss Me Deadly" (Criterion), Robert Aldrich's atomic age reworking of Mickey Spillane. Some have called it the greatest film noir of all time; it is certainly the most apocalyptic and one of the most brutal, and it delivers a pulp punch while it savagely satirizes the entire hardboiled mythos. And the Blu-ray is gorgeous, which is weird to use in the context of this tawdry film shot on large part in the bowels of the old Bunker Hill neighborhood, but there you go. Reviewed on Videodrone here.

 

"Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society" (Anchor Bay)

"Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex: Laughing Man" (Anchor Bay)

"Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven" (Anchor Bay)

The serialized spin-off of the landmark anime feature "Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex" is actually a prequel, following the adventures of the covert cyber-S.W.A.T. team known as Section 9 that specializes in tech-crime and robotics gone wrong in a near future society where technology is not only a deadly tool for human criminals, but is evolving in its own right. Though not quite as dark as its inspiration, the series offers solid cyberpunk stories animated with style and designed and executed with a detail rarely seen outside of theatrical features.

 

The show ran for two series and both were released on DVD in multiple volumes of individual episodes. The Blu-ray editions edit multi-episode stories into complete features. It works quite well, in fact, removing some of the narrative hiccups and streamlining the stories, but I do wish that the discs would identity the episodes that make up each feature-length story. Because we really do want to see these things in order. Each disc also features a substantial collection of in-depth behind-the-scenes featurettes, all in Japanese with English subtitles.

 

Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson are clones in search of self in "The Island" (Paramount),  Michael Bay’s science fiction thriller turned property damage spectacle. Raised in an isolated, antiseptic compound in the wake of a nuclear holocaust (or so they are told), an entire society is raised on strict diets and indoctrination, trained to be simple and compliant and unquestioning. McGregor is the lone voice questions his existence and yearn for something more than the regimented life and he escapes into the crazy urban world with fellow naïf Johansson, with a small army of mercenaries (led by Djimon Hounsou) on their trail. The similarities to Robert Fiveson’s "Clonus," an almost forgotten film from the late seventies, are startling, and not to Bay’s credit. If anything, the ideas here are dumbed down in direct proportion to the increase in budget and the scale. The final act, however, is pure Michael Bay: a half-baked plan that stretches credulity and maximizes onscreen destruction. Features commentary by director Michael Bay and a couple of featurettes.

 

Jackie Chan's 2003 "The Medallion" (Image), directed by Gordon Chan, is a Hong Kong produced action comedy that attempts to fuse elements of his classic, slapstick-laced Hong Kong films with the big budget slickness of his Hollywood hits. New York Times critic Dave Kehr called it a “moderately successful attempt to bring Mr. Chan's two careers together” but critics generally agree that it is minor Jackie nonsense. Features commentary by co-executive producer Bill Borden and editor Don Brochu

 

Also debuting on Blu-ray: Joseph Losey's "The Romantic Englishwoman" (Kino) and "Priest of Love" (Kino) with Ian McKellan as D.H. Lawrence. The New Release Rack includes all the new films hitting Blu-ray as well.

 

"Poison: 20th Anniversary Edition" (Zeitgeist) celebrate the directorial debut of Todd Haynes. An audacious, disturbing film that explores taboo subjects in alternately poetic and grotesque imagery, it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and Haynes went on to direct "Far From Heaven," "I'm Not There" and the acclaimed "Mildred Pierce" mini-series. But when the film, which presents an explicit gay love affair in one section, first came out, its fame was as a cause célèbre. The conservative American Family Association launched a media attack on the film when it was revealed that it was in part funded by a grant from the NEA and conservative politicians joined the fray. The ensuing controversy gave the low budget, highly uncommercial 16mm production a far wider audience than it otherwise would have drawn. Hayne’s own provocative and fiercely independent vision justified the attention.

 

Haynes directs the triumvirate of tales in three disparate but vivid styles. "Horror" utilizes distorted lenses and stark B&W stock to create an alienated take on 1950s monster movies in the story of a sex researcher who becomes a deformed, disease ridden monster after he distills and, accidentally, ingests the essence of the human sex drive. In "Hero" Haynes takes to the flat TV news documentary style to tell, through a series of mock interviews, the story of a seven year old boy who escaped his abusive father with a Grimm Fairy Tale twist. The final and most substantial sequence, “Homo” (adapted from the works of Jean Genet, most notably “Thief's Journal”) alternates between a deceptively idyllic Eden-like vision of childhood and a dark, claustrophobic prison to explore the sado-masochistic romance between two thieves in terms both beautiful and brutal.

 

The film has been digitally remastered from the original elements for the new release. Along with the archival commentary with Todd Haynes, producer Christine Vachon and editor James Lyons (recorded for the 1999 DVD release), the new DVD features an audience Q&A with Haynes, Vachon and executive producer James Schamus from the anniversary screening of the film at Sundance 2011, the short film "Last Address" by Ira Sachs and galleries of poster concepts by Haynes and Polaroids taken on the set by Kelly Reichardt (who was on the crew). An accompanying booklet reprints production notes and J. Hoberman's original Village Voice review along with brief original essays. Comes in a paperboard digipak.

 

Catch up with "Louie: The Complete First Season" (Fox), Louis C.K.'s quasi-autobiographic​​al sitcom about a recently divorced comedian with two young daughters and an awkward reintroduction to the dating scene, on DVD and Blu-ray before the new season begins. In an age where cable keeps trying to push the envelope of acceptable material, "Louie" tosses it out there and then confronts it head on: racism, homophobia, politics, sex, all of it, done smartly and with a sense of humor. Reviewed on Videodrone here.

 

"Medium: The Seventh and Final Season" (Paramount) wraps one of the most underrated shows on TV, a family drama wrapped in a supernatural mystery. Allison Dubois (Patricia Arquette) and her family have been through a lot in the six seasons leading up to this—some of it a result of a sometimes unwelcome gift for second sight, most of it just the travails of a middle class family dealing with work, marriage, growing children and the anxieties keeping it all together in a rough economy—and the show's strength has always been its balance of crime drama and family drama. That her daughters have received her gift—which can be an assault on the senses and the emotions—only complicates growing up. The final season is an abbreviated 13-episode run but it brings the show back to the family and friends and the spiritual shadows hanging over them, much of it around her husband (Jake Weber). The four-disc set (in a standard case with hinged trays) also has featurettes, character profiles and a retrospective of the show.

 

There are a lot of cop shows on TV and just as many colorful squadroom casts, but "The Closer: The Complete Sixth Season" (Warner) brings back the most well-oiled detective squad on TV, something that fans of the show have watched come together under the tenacious and talented Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) over the seasons. Which makes their brand of professionalism and camaraderie all the more impressive because it feels earned, forged under the pressure of job. Meanwhile, this season observes the equilibrium of the department go off-balance when Johnson is encouraged (by Mary McDonnell's Internal Affairs officer) to apply for Police Chief, putting her in direct competition with her boss (and former lover) J.K. Simmons. 15 episodes on three discs in a standard case with hinged trays, plus a "Script to Screen" featurette following the making of the third episode of the season, an interview with Sedgwick, deleted scenes and a gag reel. Season seven begins in July in TNT.

 

"Rocko's Modern Life: Season One" (Shout! Factory), being the oddball animated adventures of an Australian wallaby and his friends, debuted on Nickelodeon in 1993. It was one of the channel's first original animation programming hits and became a favorite of kids and adults over its first four seasons. The 13 episodes of the first season debuts this week on DVD from Shout! Factory, a company dedicated to all manner of small screen nostalgia. Two discs, no supplements.

 

BritTV:

"Wired" (Acorn) is a new three-part thriller set in the modern world of international banking and organized crime, starring Jodie Whittaker as newly-promoted bank officer targeted by criminals to engineer a banking scam and Toby Stephens as an undercover cop with ambiguous loyalties. There's an interview with the stars at the Telegraph here.

 

A little more vintage is "Under the Hammer" (Acorn), a 1994 mystery series created by John Mortimer ("Rumpole of the Bailey") and set in the world of auction houses and antiquities. Richard Wilson stars. Seven episodes on two discs. And "Miss Marple: The Pale Horse" (Acorn), the latest entry in the British mystery series with Julia McKenzie, hits DVD a few weeks before its stateside debut on "Masterpiece Mystery!" and the disc features an earlier TV adaptation of the book from 1997.

 

TV Movies and Mini-Series (Vintage models):

Joan Collins was TV's favorite high-society schemer and seductress in the eighties, as these two mini-series/multi-pa​rt movies attest. In the 1986 "Monte Carlo" (Olive), adapted from the World War II espionage romance by Stephen Sheppard, she's a cabaret celebrity by day and a double agent for British Intelligence by night (or maybe it's the other way around, and in 1988's "Sins" (Olive), from the Judith Gould novel, she a fashion mogul surrounded by backstabbing rivals. Chris Nashawaty has fun with the trash-with-class TV shows at Entertainment Weekly here.

Also new this week is "Queenie" (Olive), starring Kirk Douglas, Sarah Miles, Joel Grey and Mia Sara as a fictionalized version of real-life star Merle Oberon, and the notorious 1974 "Movie of the Week" "Born Innocent" (Hen's Tooth) with Linda Blair, which gets its due in this week's "Cult Watch" here.