Oscar nominees in your own home
Oscar nominees in your own home
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Monday, 01, Jun 2009 03:13
2009 might have been the year of the Slumdog in the Academy's eyes - and who can argue when its director is such a family man that he'll wilfully perform a Tigger dance in front of the watching world due to a promise to his children? - but the eight Oscars for Danny Boyle's film overshadow an already sterling year for cinema.
David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button might have only received Academy recognition for its undeniably incredible technical achievements - with its Forrest Gump-esque script probably lowering its standing in the eyes of the voters - while Milk remained too straightforward a biography to ever overcome the Slumdog juggernaut, even with another successfully Oscar-baiting performance from Sean Penn.
With four of this year's strongest Oscar contenders released on DVD this week, Lewis Bazley recommends that you don't just pick up Slumdog Millionaire but see what other 2009 Oscar favourites have to offer on DVD as well.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Eric Roth's screenplay criminally ploughed the same furrows as his Oscar-winning Forrest Gump screenplay - as you'll see here - but in adapting a quirky little F Scott Fitzgerald short story into a sweeping epic concerned with love and loss, he and David Fincher have created an affecting, visually magnificent film, with a Brad Pitt performance that reminds you there's a lot more to him than standing next to Angelina on the red carpet.
Click here for the full inthenews.co.uk review
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Extras
A paltry lack of extras for such a technically astonishing film, but thankfully director David Fincher's on hand to provide a fascinating commentary. It's instantly personal, with the Seven helmer discussing the experience of watching his father's death early on. We learn of Jason Flemyng's ballsiness in sending Fincher an audition DVD and the ease of using a radio-controlled baby, while Fincher's upfront enough to admit his inexperience of Shakespeare. Even so, there's still little very explanation as to why screenwriter Eric Roth chose to place the film's climax within Hurricane Katrina, with even Fincher admitting it's "not intended to be inordinately important".
The Wrestler
A world widely mocked for its artifice, a director at home with hard-to-swallow arthouse and a leading man who threw away his talent and career while co-star Evan Rachel Wood was a toddler - few would have been surprised if The Wrestler faded into obscurity to leave Darren Aronofksy to move back to dividing, rather than uniting the critics. Except Mickey Rourke, playing a character whose broken, battered life bears more than a little similarity to his own, gave the performance of his life and the one-time matinee idol found himself within an inch of a richly deserved Oscar. While the climax will leave you choking back tears, this simple and moving tale has given Rourke a real-life shot at redemption.
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Click here for the full inthenews.co.uk review
Extras
Naughty Optimum Releasing for not allowing viewers to skip through umpteen trailers, but the irritation is allayed by sparse but absorbing DVD extras. We're treated to 42-minute documentary Within the Ring, as director Darren Aronofsky and producer Scott Franklin reveal the film's five-year journey from idea to screen. The sadness of the professional wrestler's career is further grounded in real life - if Randy the Ram didn't already bear enough similarities to the veteran Terry Funk - though a low-grade metal soundtrack feels fitting to the wrestling world yet inappropriate for the film's decidedly downbeat feel. An interview with Rourke, however, only adds to the film's parallels with the former heartthrob's life, with the rejuvenated actor as candid, hilarious and loveable as ever.
Milk
Though Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Emile Hirsch are on top form, it could be argued that this was the weakest best picture nominee of the year. But for its heavyweight cast and name director - who shoots the action in a disappointingly staid fashion - Milk could easily have been a Lifetime TV movie. It's only thanks to the huge significance of Harvey Milk's groundbreaking work and calls for tolerance that make this pedestrian biopic essential viewing in an age when as liberal a state as California is umm-ing and ahh-ing over gay marriage.
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Click here for the full inthenews.co.uk review
Extras
A UK and international trailer - which, presuming the DVD is in your player at the time, is utterly pointless - are the poorest examples of bonus material on offer here, but brief documentary Remembering Harvey just about gets away with including several scenes and stills from Van Sant's film, due to some heartfelt recollections of the groundbreaking politician from his contemporaries. 'Making of' piece Hollywood Comes to San Francisco also overuses scenes from the movie, splicing them with talking heads from actors in costume, deleted scenes are fine but throwaway and it's only the seven-minute piece Marching for Equality that really gives a feel of the onset atmosphere. A 90-minute documentary dedicated to Milk's impact would have been more appropriate, though presumably that'll be left for the special edition.
And last but by no means least...
Slumdog Millionaire
What hasn't been said already? Ignoring the ludicrous 'feelgood film of the decade' poster blurb - police brutality and enforced blinding don't smack of sunshine and lollipops, do they? - Danny Boyle's film not only managed to convey the staggering transformation of Mumbai, the 'liquid' city, but carried important socioeconomic messages within a deceptively simple story of love overcoming all obstacles. With Dev Patel and Freida Pinto set for stardom, a better life now ensured for the film's child stars, and Boyle able to pick and choose from a host of follow-up projects, it's a dark and dazzling film that would make even the most reticent of viewers bounce like Tigger.
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Click here for the full inthenews.co.uk review
Extras
At first glance, the Slumdog Millionaire special features mention provokes a gasp of horror at the inclusion of the words 'Jai Ho Remix' - it's not that offensively bad Pussycat Dolls remix where Lewis Hamilton's lass can't even pronounce the title properly, is it? Thankfully, it's just a music video of sorts for the original and superior AR Rahman version, and a nice inclusion to an otherwise rather empty extras section. There's the unnecessary theatrical trailer and six deleted scenes - including a particularly tense confrontation on the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? set between Anil Kapoor and Dev Patel - reveal how the plot of the best picture winner could have taken a marginally different turn. But it's Slumdog Dreams, an onset documentary, that shows how Danny Boyle's wonderful enthusiasm for the film - even before its richly deserved Oscar success - transformed a compelling and sentimental pot-boiler novel into an immersive, inspiring and brilliantly crafted film.
Lewis Bazley