The week’s DVDs begin in the forest:
DVDs and streaming for March 24 by Boo Allen
This week, we begin in the forest:
Into the Woods (***1/2)
In this handsome, Oscar-nominated production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s stage musical, an excellent cast of actors, singers, and singing actors enlivens the fairy-tale mash-up directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago). Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep plays the evil witch who puts a cast on a baker and his wife (James Corden, Emily Blunt). The spell propels the rest of the film, as it can only be relieved through a challenge involving Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and her Prince Charming (Chris Pine), Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) and his beanstalk, Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy), and Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford). Johnny Depp pops in, however briefly, to camp it up as The Big Bad Wolf, and the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale makes a cameo appearance as the baker’s father. Fun, funny, colorful, and featuring Sondheim’s sublime score.
Rated PG, 124 minutes.
Extras: commentary, a five minute featurette with Streep singing an original Sondheim song, a 14 minute “making of” featurette along with a comprehensive, four part “making of” featurette of around 30 minutes, a ten minute segment on the cast, five Easter eggs, and more.
Vincent and Theo (***1/2), John Ford: Dreaming the Quiet Man (***)
Olive Films brings to Blu-ray a pair of notable releases. In a departure from his usual fare, Robert Altman directed the penetrating bio-pic Vincent and Theo (1990, rated PG-13, 138 minutes). Altman, from Julian Mitchell’s screenplay, covers the tenuous relationship between Vincent Van Gough (Tim Roth) and his brother Theodore (Paul Rhys). Altman captures how Vincent’s declining mental state led to combative scenes with a brother who sheltered him and financed him, always believing in his genius. Wladimir Yordanoff plays the artist Paul Gaugin, Vincent’s friend who visited with him and painted with him during Vincent’s stay in Provence. The two fire and ice leads perfectly embody their characters, with Roth mesmerizing and even scary. On movie-only disc. Sé Merry Doyle directed the John Ford documentary (2012, not rated, 92 minutes) in an obvious act of love. Doyle travels to Ireland and to the small village where Ford filmed his cherished Irish homage The Quiet Man. Doyle mixes in archival on-set footage along with then-recent interviews with Maureen O’Hara and directors Martin Scorsese and Jim Sheridan. Doyle also seeks out village natives who took part in the film, either as cast or crew. He succeeds in painting a warm portrait of the making of a film he seems to have loved as much as Ford, who had thoughts about the film for many years before its conception. Narrated by Gabriel Byrne. Extras include an added eight minute interview with O’Hara, a four minute featurette on the costumes, and brief featurettes on the film’s sheepdog, an extra, the horse race sequence, and more.
Vice and Virtue (***)
Roger Vadim directed this odd, odd 1963 film starring Annie Girardot (receiving top billing) as Juliette Morand, or vice, and Catherine Denueve as her sister, Justine, the title virtue. Vadim ostensibly bases his film on a work by the Marquis de Sade, with screenplay from Vadim and two others. The director sets his morality tale in 1944-1945 German-occupied Paris, where Juliette serves as the mistress of sleazy German General von Bamberg (O. E. Hasse). At Bamberg’s apartment one night, Colonel Schorndorf (Robert Hossein) poisons the disloyal general. Juliette opportunistically responds by then beguiling the Colonel and becoming his mistress. Meanwhile, sister Justine has her wedding broken up on her wedding day when her partisan husband flees from German prosecution. The film then turns on its de Sade side, as the scene incongruously shifts to a German castle where Justine is forced to join a hoard of beautiful trapped women (including future Bond-girl Luciana Paluzzi). The war nears its end, and the invading Americans break up the bacchanalian revelries. The abundant actual war-time footage mixed in by Vadim adds realism but often appears jarringly inconsistent. More than in most of his later films, Vadim shows an pronounced visual eye with creative camera placements complementing the atmospheric lighting by cinematographer Marcel Grignon.
Not rated, 108 minutes. Movie-only disc.
Grace (**1/2)
This small production scores points for its obvious sincerity in the face of well-traveled material. Annika Marks persuasively takes the thankless role of playing the title character, Gracie, a young alcoholic who hits bottom when assaulting a police officer. Forced into rehab, she finally finds the personal connections (Sharon Lawrence) she needs to redeem herself. Not bad, just overly-familiar.
Not rated, 93 minutes.
Extras: alternate opening, an alternate ending, eight extended scenes, and five deleted scenes.
L.A. Apocalypse (**1/2) Deep in the earth’s core, something is amiss. Over-heating has caused it to melt, sending molten lava up onto the earth’s surface. And no place suffers more than Los Angeles, where Calvin (David Cade) knows all will be well again if he can only find his fiancée Ashley (Gina Holden) amid the carnage and destruction wrought by the film’s decent special effects. But first, Calvin must navigate among a gang of snarling escaped convicts and a domineering military presence, led by Major Gray, played by Raymond J. Barry (forever Arlo Givens). Directed by Michael J. Sarna.
Not rated, 83 minutes. Movie-only disc.
Muck (*)
Brainless slasher-drivel with plenty of gore to complement a lame, hoary story about a group of young people who stumble from one supposedly scary situation to the next, with many being slaughtered along the way. Beautified by but unredeemed by a handsome cast, including Lachlan Buchanan, Lauren Francesa, Jaclyn Swedberg, and, not-so-young, Kane Hodder. Muck, yuck.
Not rated, 98 minutes. Movie-only disc.
Also on DVD and streaming: Antarctica: A Year on Ice, The Hobbitt: the Battle of the Five Armies, Song One, Three Night Stand, Unbroken.