Has the writers’ strike forced you to start consuming TV leftovers at any alarming rate?  Luckily, there’s an alternative for your entertainment needs and it comes in three letters:  DVDs.  (Okay, so four letters…)

Let’s be clear from the start—this is not a rundown of high-profile DVDs such as 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, or Michael Clayton.  You know about those.  No, the following concerns titles that are easy to overlook because they had limited theatrical runs (or ones that took place decades ago), they’re independent and not publicized much, or they are tempting to dismiss as too genre-y or esoteric.  Consider this an act of placing them back on your radar screen.  This rundown comprises caper films, horror movies, comedies, a psychological thriller and a classic or two, so let’s get to it.

Ladron Que Roba A Ladron (a.k.a. “To Rob a Thief”)
Street Date: January 29

If you’re a fan of the TV series Hustle or would be up for an Ocean’s 11 sequel without all the star power but with a bit more adrenaline and lot more laughs, this movie is for you.  Like Hustle, Ladron is uptempo, playful and stylish (although not slick).  And while these aspects partly recall that British import, this is a Spanish language movie set in Los Angeles.  As such, it offers a fascinating genre-based glimpse into issues of immigration and assimilation that I certainly was not expecting.  But far from being didactic, director Joe Menendez and writer JoJo Henrickson layer the contemporary themes into the comedy.  Early on the pace lags in bits as we go through the typical motions of assembling the heist team, and there are some stock characters, such as the mechanic-girl (Ivonne Montero) who “cleans up” into a beauty.  Still, once it kicks into gear, Ladron Que Roba A Ladron is tremendous fun and a great ride—the heist itself seems to take up half the movie or more!  No, don’t expect big-budget set pieces and the like.  Instead, settle in for clever reveals and twists and a really likable cast, anchored by a charismatic performance by Miguel Varoni.  To give you a sense of both the film’s lightness and originality, consider that it sports a unique villain—an infomercial “guru” kind of like Ron Popeil if he turned to the dark side.  Let’s put it this way:  if this movie were a pilot for a new cable series, you’d definitely want to tune in again.  Speaking of tunes, did I mention that the music is great, too?  Finally, the special features on the disc are very strong—from the animated menu to the insightful commentary by the director and writer (in English), this was not just slapped together.

Subtext in Ladron:  the "immigrants" plot in semi-darkness; their target, an affluent and connected businessman, lives in perpetual sunshine.

Spiral
Street Date:  February 19

Adam Green co-directed this film with his Hatchet star Joel Moore, who also co-wrote the script, and what a change-up these two have come up with.  That’s a facile observation of course, but it’s still worth making for two reasons: 1) to give notice to non-horror audiences who are leery of this collaboration given the team’s previous work together.  Such apprehensiveness is misguided—this is not a thinly disguised horror film, but a measured and thoughtful thriller from head to toe; 2) to point to Green’s and Moore’s tremendous talent in turning to material so different from their initial success and yet produce work that is so self-assured.  An unabashed psychological thriller with a mysterious point-of-view character and an “unreliable” narrative strategy a la The Machinist and The Tenant, Spiral is the kind of movie that wants to keep audiences guessing, but not annoyingly so, as so many gimmicky thrillers have done over the past decade.  Yes, there’s a fun game afoot, but it’s not simply a cerebral puzzle either.

When you make a movie about painting, you probably want to be very careful about your own color palette—and Spiral is, exactingly so.

To its credit, Spiral never goes there, thanks largely to its abundant sense of humor, (which is alternately sly, romantic, and goofy) and involving performances from all concerned, especially Amber Tamblyn.  As the lead, Joel Moore tackles a role that is part familiar office-drone/slacker hybrid and part Michele Piccolli’s intense painter from La Belle Noiseuse (1991).  The character may not work for some in concept, but it’s hard to find fault in Moore’s performance.  In addition, Zachary Levi, who also helped produce, does a very nice job with a completely different character than the one he plays on the TV series Chuck.  In one confrontation with Tricia Helfer of Battlestar Galatica, the sparks really fly; brief as it is, this scene makes me want to see Green tackle a straight-ahead drama at some point, the direction is so dead-on.

The body language explains everything—except why these two are friends. 

So if you’re expecting some kind of visceral roller coaster, look elsewhere; the keynotes heard here are about atmosphere and portents, and all are sounded by character development.  In fact, Spiral runs the risk of losing some viewers in the second act, which plays out like a dark rom-com, so great is its commitment to its own characters.  However, one admires Moore and Green for making this investment and not only differentiating their film from more formulaic ones but also making this gambit pay off in spades.  Spiral’s ending hit me between the eyes like the compressed-air gun that Javier Bardem wields in No Country for Old Men.

(Note:  If you live in L.A., NYC, Austin, or Portland, you’ll also have a chance at catching Spiral in theaters this month before the DVD arrives in stores.)

Catacombs
Street Date:  February 19

When you first start watching Catacombs, you immediately want it to lose the voice-over narration, perhaps considering it clumsy or unnecessary.  But from my own experience I urge you not to rush to judgment.  Rather, go with the flow and reach for the popcorn with two hands:  Catacombs has a lot of unexpected pleasures, both big and small.  From the get-go it’s obvious that we’ve got a highly original setting (the real-life network of tombs below Paris), one that evokes silent classics such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925) even as it plants today’s hipster diaspora and ravers squarely at its center.

Co-directors and writers Tomm Coker and David Elliot know how to tell a story efficiently and with the occasional flair that’s most welcome, and the production values are pretty impressive throughout.  Shannyn Sossanon, who was recently maligned in the press along with pretty much everything else in One Missed Call, is quite good here as the lead.  When she has a headache, you feel it.  Yet she never tries to oversell her performance, which works to the film’s overall advantage.  Without a doubt, though, it’s the cinematography in Catacombs that’s the real standout.  Daylight, nighttime, interior, exterior, vibrant color or dismal darkness—whatever condition the story calls for—DP Maxime Alexandre exceeds expectations at every turn.  And in a film in which the play of light and shadow is crucial to the story on many levels, his contribution is no less than stellar.  In fact, though it’s easy to term Catacombs a B-movie, it’s shot with more invention and thoughtfulness than many A-movies.

But make no mistake, after all is said and done, this is a B-movie whose script is apparently not afraid to chart the familiar.  The tropes, archetypes, and clichés keep coming—you can pick whichever of these terms fits depending on how generous you feel.  Catacombs has false scares, the “survivor girl,” the lumbering mask-wearing killer, the good girl vs. bad girl motif, and an urban-legendesque back story.  Still, please do not dismiss this flick as a run-of-the-mill direct-to-video horror-by-numbers effort.  Stick with it and you’ll be amply rewarded, as was I.

Finally, for pop music fans, Alecia (“Pink”) Moore has an important role, and she’s quite a natural on screen.  I hope to see more film work from her, although hopefully minus all the tour-guide-like lines of exposition she’s been given here.  If you’re fan of slasher movies, Catacombs is practically a must-see.  For others, here’s a chance to see a film that I believe did not have a U.S. theatrical run, but which thoroughly deserved one.  Just turn down the lights, pretend it’s October instead of February, and prepare to get messed with.  In a good way, of course.

The Ten
Street Date:  January 15

This is a movie that you should really be able to download on a chapter-by-chapter basis because paying for, or watching, the whole thing is a very risky proposition.  Divided into comedic vignettes that send up the Biblical commandments, The Ten is wildly uneven.  But you should certainly not avoid it for that reason alone.  Instead, if you’re selective you’ll find yourself enjoying high-concept sketch comedy that pretty much rules over most of what you’d find on TV these days.

Here’s why you need to be careful, though:  the connecting framework is nearly unwatchable—neither witty nor engaging, it puts two talented actors, Paul Rudd and Famke Janssen, in an embarrassing situation.  Adding to the bad first impression is the fact that the opening segment is arguably the weakest (its one joke goes to places you would have thought up in high school).  Also, perhaps The Ten’s most celebrated segment, with Winona Ryder lusting after a ventriloquist’s dummy, is often staged awkwardly (perhaps intentionally, but that didn’t make it funnier).  Finally, the climactic musical number is a grave miscalculation, too self-indulgent and much longer than it needs to be.  It might have been cute at half its length, but in its present form it suffers in comparison to other offbeat show-stoppers, such as in the South Park movie.

That said, here are my favorite “Thou Shalt”’s...

·“Not Kill”:  Stars co-writer Ken Marino, whose character doesn’t see what the big deal is (“…as a GOOF!”).  Very simple, very dark, very memorable.

·“Honor Thy Mother and Father”:  I really liked Oliver Platt here—in fact, I’m smiling just recalling his entrance.  And after his wonderful performance in ESPN’s The Bronx is Burning last year, Platt is on a roll.

·“Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods”:  A deadpan yet intense Liev Schrieber really makes this one; although the denouement is a bit much, the absurdist premise, which concerns hording CAT scan machines, is inspired.

·"Not Take the Lord's Name in Vain":  One of the raunchiest and certainly the most blasphemous of the sketches, this one features an almost unrecognizable Justin Theroux as Jesus and a winning Gretchen Mol as his “girlfriend.”

Détective (from the Jean-Luc Godard three-disc set)
Street Date:  February 5

A set of four rarely-seen Godard flicks?  It must be part of Criterion’s Eclipse line—no, wait, it’s from Lionsgate!  At a later date I’ll get into all the content in this set, but for now I just wanted to applaud the distributor for this risk-taking move.  No, it’s not that Godard is some little-known filmmaker, but there is a danger in bundling more than one title by this auteur for the simple reason that you’ll never know which Godard you’ll get, kind of like getting a box of chocolates in which some of the truffles might contain caviar or pebbles instead.  Will you get the brilliant formalist of Contempt, the self-indulgent bad boy of Hail Mary, the polemicist of Weekend, the Tarantino-esque Romantic of A Band à Part and Breathless, or the tongue-in-cheek pulp master of Alphaville or Pierrot Le Fou (which actually has just been released by Criterion)?

The neat thing about Détective (1985) is that all of these Godards seem to show up at one point or another.  In very broad terms, one might divide his oeuvre into those films that tell stories and those deconstruct them.  Détective does both, pretty much simultaneously.  No sooner does the narrative advance then rushing in behind it are asides, non-sequiturs, competing texts, intrusions and disruptions.  A film school paper might point out that the real detective here is the audience itself, as it picks through filmic language to uncover the true meaning not of a couple of murders, but why there should in fact be a movie about trying to uncover the truth about a couple of murders.  What’s at stake for all concerned, actors, filmmaker, audiences, and even (gulp) French culture as a whole?

What do we expect—from a storyline, from a director, from genre, from a movie from “entertainment”—anyway?  Strangely and wonderfully, the more Détective undermines its characters, the more it brings us closer to people (not “characters”) and how we read them:  it’s as though the feature-film codes and storytelling devices have been so internalized by us that they are a form of an unnoticed filter—or force field—through which we can never actually “know” a film’s characters or their story.  Godard repeatedly demonstrates the sham of “caring about” and “identifying with” the various noir-like figures who populate Détective:  when we are most tempted to do so is really when we have really fallen in love with ourselves.  While movies want to simulate intimacy most of the time, they don’t actually create it, genre films least of all.  We feel closest to a situation, a challenge, a plot obstacle not when they “touch us personally” but rather the opposite:  when they conform to some preexisting archetype that we hold a place for until it arrives.

If you’re so accustomed to Hollywood’s approach of foisting identification on us—an act of seduction that either you submit to or don’t, which in turn determines whether you “like” a movie or not—then you’ll either love Détective as a mesmerizingly artful and honest change of pace, or hate it because it doesn’t follow those rules.  One of Godard’s goals seems to be to draw attention to the fact that these rules are constructs after all; they don’t come part and parcel with the film stock.  To drive this point home, the film employs tactics that are recognizable from earlier Godard works such as ironic onscreen meta-text, scenes that start without preamble and end without closure, and an editing style that seems to churn the plot more than move it.  To this mix Godard adds a few new tricks:  soundtrack music that swells unexpectedly and inappropriately, characters who get in the way of the speaker and “ruin” the audience’s sightline to the central action, and nudity that can’t decide whether it’s erotic, absurd, or both.  After a couple of reels of this, of having expectations thwarted at nearly every turn, one starts to pick up on one’s own pre-programmed modes of cinematic desire.  In myself I noticed that I’m behaviorally trained for push-button gratification where music is concerned—I immediately react to its moods regardless of what’s happening visually on the screen.

In fact, it often seems that Godard wants to free all the separate elements—the actors, the camerawork, the plot itself—from the tyranny of the industry’s commercial demands and the resultant limited capacity on the part of the audience to experience them in new ways.  Ah, but there’s the rub.  Genre itself, as a way of determining in advance which narrative and formal elements the market will reward, is largely born of economic considerations.  Therefore, genre becomes the ultimate item that Godard is trying to liberate.  Of course deep down he probably knows that this is a losing battle, but in Détective at least, it’s that battle—with all that is at stake aesthetically and ideologically—that provides the only real dramatic tension in a conventional sense:  we are held in suspense as to whether the trappings of genre can be used to generate the real thing, working from the outside-in.

And some of those trappings, as far as this specific genre is concerned, are “tough guys,” “beautiful dames,” sentimentality and its ever-present flipside, the hard-boiled attitude.  Rarely if ever has an all-star cast been used so experimentally and in such a mercenary manner:  Godard is all too aware that “stars” themselves become potent signifiers, and he enlists the actors and the appeal of their stardom (whether they were technically stars already or not) as a means to explore, and to compensate for, the actual lack of generic elements in the film.  His co-conspirators in this regard include Johnny Hallyday, Jean-Pierre Leaud (who’s hilarious), Emmanuelle Seigner, Nathalie Baye, and, in a small role, a very young Julie Delpy.

This Sporting Life
Street Date:  January 22

If you know the “Angry Young Man” school of drama only as a movement—as an abstraction—then treat yourself to This Sporting Life and experience its immediacy and freshness as if it were still 1963, the year of its release.  Based on a novel by David Storey, who also adapted his work for the screen, it is compelling in a way that few dramatic films are, both modest in its approach and towering in its achievement.

For years available in Region 1 in inferior versions—I first saw it on a barely acceptable VHS print—This Sporting Life is one of those gems that have long cried out for the Criterion Collection treatment, and it has finally received it.  I’ve seen this Lindsay Anderson picture described as one of the greatest British films of all time, an assessment I’m included to agree with.  At the very least it confirms the notion that Richard Harris (nominated for an Oscar for his work here, as was Rachel Roberts, playing opposite him) was one of the most underrated leading men of the ‘60s and early ‘70s.  As a rugby player on his way up, Harris makes you realize that although you may not know actual people like this in real life, you certainly understand them, perhaps even need to understand them.  With such gripping performances at its core and a haunting realism from Anderson, This Sporting Life, like any great dramatic work, marries universal themes to an indelible portrait of a specific time and place.

(credit: courtesy of the Criterion Collection)

As for the story itself, let me put it this way:  if reality TV or primetime soaps were as riveting as this, I’d watch television a lot more than I do.  But they’re usually not.  The point of such a comparison is to draw attention to the extent to which I suspect our culture’s appreciation of real drama has been diluted by such fare.  Cable dramas tend to favor the outlandish, where even the quiet moments are loud, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  And when we see drama in a more recognizable and modulated real-world setting, it is often in the realm of the independent feature, which means that preciousness, quirkiness, or narrative experimentation are often not too far behind.  Although I court being called a reactionary for stating this, with This Sporting Life we have the “real deal”:  it’s straightforward, authentic, unpretentious, powerful.  A disturbing romance, a kitchen sink drama, a sports movie, and a work of literature that captures its period and something timeless as well—This Sporting Life succeeds stupendously on all these levels.

Although Anderson may be better known for making the higher octane If… (1968), the Criterion edition of that film doesn’t dwell much on him.  As if to overcompensate, this release contains a treasure trove of fascinating material, including docs and interviews, and on a second disc, three other complete films by Anderson!  For fans of British cinema this is almost a must-own.  For everyone else, merely a must-see.

Trade
Street Date:  January 29

It’s rare that the almost obligatory aerial shots for a title sequence get me jazzed, but here director Marco Kreuzpaintner uses them to “tell a story” before the story proper even gets started.  Indeed, two of the movie’s chief virtues (which are easy to overlook, given the volatile content that is to come) are thus evident from square one—strong storytelling and truly wonderful cinematography.  Trade is so dazzling in its opening Mexico City scenes, which capture the small-scale and personal as well as vividly sketching the metropolis itself, that it strongly recalls Iñarritu’s masterwork Amores Perros (2000).  (In fact, keep watching and you’ll see that that film’s quite-good Marco Perez in a stand-out role here as one of the heavies.)

Throughout Trade, Kreuzpaintner's direction of both the actors and the camera is sure-handed and effective.  The notable exception is when he tends to puts too fine a point on things.  For example, think about these close-ups from the film:  a single long-stemmed rose dropped in the street, a child’s battered doll lying in a desolate field, or a black telephone receiver dangling from a public phone booth.  Chances are, you get a sense of what emotions you’re supposed to feel in those scenes without even seeing the movie.  Similarly, his overdirecting actually underscores perhaps the weakest part of the otherwise interesting script—the fairly predictable, and often pedantic, bonding that occurs between the two male leads played by Kevin Kline and young Cesar Ramos.  While the forced-sounding dialogue is not Kreuzpaintner’s fault, Ramos delivers the lines with an annoying bluster instead of, for example, quiet defiance.

But enough about the negatives.  Trade’s story, and how it’s filmed, represents a near-perfect blend of message movie and thriller.  Some audiences won’t like that mixture in principle, but if you’re open to it, this film delivers on both fronts.  A good point of comparison might be made with Maria Full of Grace (2004), which was also a message movie but one which concealed its genre-trimmings more, so that audiences considered it an arthouse flick.  I actually applaud Trade for allowing its strong crime-thriller undercurrents to power the plot without apology.  Yes, I wish the bad guys (who are certainly bad) were a bit smarter and more professional (strong bad guys = strong movies), but there’s an interesting trade-off here:  we get glimpses of their humanity, even in damaged form, instead.

So if you prepare yourself for a stark and often gripping drama and will take the thriller aspects as icing on the cake, Trade will not disappoint.  But this is not a drum-tight pursuit/revenge/kidnapping movie.  Rather, its episodic structure is more concerned with embellishing itself with themes of faith and sacrifice than with “clicking.” Likewise, the story by Peter Landesman and Jose Rivera attempts to build subplots for all its characters, some with more success than others, rather than focusing on one or two.  I found this strategy to be thoughtful and interesting although the resolution then bears the burden of wrapping up too much too quickly and suffers as a result.

While never one for plot summaries, I should still point out that if you’re not considering Trade with the foreknowledge that it’s about the sex trafficking, then this is your warning.  While the sex is hardly graphic (there’s no nudity), the implied sex certainly is, and the overall air of ultra-sleazy dread is palpable.  In the interest of public health, do not attempt to screen this or This Sporting Life on February 14.

Finally, a note on the acting:  Central to Trade are strong performances from child actor Paulina Gaitan and young-star-to-watch Alicja Bachleda-Curus (whom I hope to interview in the coming weeks); Kevin Kline doesn’t even appear for the first half hour.   I’ve read criticism of Kline that faults him for underplaying and being too deadpan, but I think his instincts were good—or Kreuzpaintner’s were.  The rest of the movie is so emotional, dealing with themes of sacrifice and violation and vengeance, that his restraint actually keeps Trade from overheating and possibly imploding.  Also, it’s just refreshing to see a cop character who is not so “intense” and “obsessed” right out of the gate.

All in all, Trade should appeal to a large cross-section of moviegoers—fans of socially-conscious dramas, crime thrillers, and even horror movies (so harrowing and bleak are some scenes) will all find something worthwhile in it.

The aftermath of brutality:  no blood, no hysteria... but her hand doesn't quite look like it belongs to her anymore.

The Naked Prey
Street Date:  January 15

I’m embarrassed to say that I initially missed the parallel between this film and Mel Gibson’s strikingly underrated Apocalypto (2006).  In the latter film the spell that the vast, primal chase cast over me was only broken once near the end.  In one sequence Gibson resorts to stock action-movie slo-mo that, even though its screen time was brief, totally popped me out of the experience:  suddenly I was back in the present day.  Well, The Naked Prey (1966) has no such moments.  Transporting, brutal, and at turns both minimalist and maximalist, this movie is far more than an exemplar of the straight-ahead action school; it’s probably the purest pursuit film you’re ever likely to watch.  And if you’ve seen it before over the years as I have, possibly on television, then you owe it to yourself to check out this pristine print from the Criterion Collection.

But The Naked Prey is actually more than a fascinating and exciting exercise in single-minded storytelling.  In the end, you’re left with a complex vision of both human cruelty and human compassion.  Its deeper themes kind of sneak up on you and, before you know it, your sense of what it means to be a member of our species has expanded—for better and worse.  Eschewing a Manicheistic treatment of its subject matter, Cornel Wilde’s film instead explores the existential and societal basis for the structure we call “morality” in the first place.  Of course it might seem extravagant to make such claims for what is essentially an adventure film, but those who don’t approach genre with these kind of high expectations probably would have stopped reading my column long ago.  As for Wilde himself, having known him mostly for his straight-laced leading roles such as in the noir The Big Combo (1953), I’m eager to discover his other directorial efforts.
 

(credit: courtesy of the Criterion Collection)

Also from Criterion, the disc sports special features that are more targeted and spare than those on This Sporting Life, but are no less valuable.  Paul Giamatti reads “John Colter’s Escape,” a real-life account of a 1913 incident involving the Blackfoot Indians that inspired The Naked Prey.  But in keeping with the film’s African setting and acknowledging the importance of the local culture and history to the story, we also get a glimpse into how the original soundtrack was created.  Using the original instrumentation and music, the ethnomusicologist responsible was charged by Wilde to turn short passages into longer, movie-friendly versions without losing authenticity.  The features related to this process provide a fascinating look at how such issues are handled in the context of both creative filmmaking and a respectful “appropriation” of source material from another culture.

Other New and Upcoming Releases

Following is a list of links for recent and forthcoming DVD titles that Firefox News has previously reviewed, either for their theatrical runs or as DVD releases:

Tragic Ceremony
Street date:  January 29

Negima! Box Set
Street date:  February 5

Pierrot Le Fou
Street date:  February 19

Ricco The Mean Machine
Street date:  January 29

One Piece: The Desert Princess and the Pirates: Adventures in Alabasta
Street date:  February 19

A Bloody Aria
Street date:  February 26

Witchblade Vol. 4
Street date:  January 29

Val Lewton:  The Man in the Shadows
Street date:  January 29

Beck:  Mongolian Chop Squad Vol. 6
Street date:  January 29

Saw IV
Street Date:  January 22

School Rumble Vol. 5
Street Date:  February 5

30 Days of Night
Street date:  February 26

Hell Girl Vol. 3
Street Date:  January 15