Jonathan Demme, the personable film director who graduated from making "B"  movies for Roger Corman to the highest ranks of Hollywood filmmakers, has died from cancer at age 73. His remarkable career covered an impressively diverse number of films ranging from documentaries to comedies and thrillers. He won the Oscar for Best Director for his 1991 film "The Silence of the Lambs". His other credits include "Stop Making Sense", "Melvin and Howard", "Philadelphia", "Crazy Mama", "Handle with Care", "Last Embrace", "Something Wild", "Swimming to Cambodia", "Beloved" and the 2004 remake of "The Manchurian Candidate". For more click here. 

BY MARK CERULLI 

Even among discriminating CR readers, there is NO doubt that Alien, Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi masterpiece is truly terrifying. Jump forward to 2017: technology is light years ahead and the world is counting down towards Scott’s latest directing effort, Alien: Covenant. One of the many new technologies to emerge in the 38 years since the franchise chest-burst onto the scene is Virtual Reality. VR vastly expands the experience of a visual work by immersing the viewer in it. Like feature films a century ago, VR content is starting out as short films, being consumed by a growing audience. Kudos to Twentieth Century Fox and RSA for giving their iconic franchise the VR treatment with Alien: Covenant In Utero, A Virtual Reality Experience. The two-minute feature was unveiled at a special event held at Technicolor’s Experience Center, the company’s VR incubator in Culver City.

Who can forget John Hurt curiously peering into the strange pod and getting attacked by a face-hugger in the original Alien? Now you can be inside one of those very pods. “Consumers are being part of the story, not just watching the story,” says Matthais Wittmann, VFX Supervisor for MPC, the Technicolor company that worked on the project with Ridley Scott Associates, Twentieth Century Fox and a host of other partners.

“Our goal was to scare you,” said Ted Schilowitz, Futurist at 20^th Century Fox. Mission accomplished: The In Utero experience immerses the viewer inside the birthing pod, complete with sights (like blood or whatever alien fluids transverse the veins) and sounds (heartbeats, a screaming victim outside the pod) as the Alien Neomorph finishes developing and bursts out, fully lethal, towards its next victim.

“We hit the ground running,” says the project’s director, David Karlak, who rode the buzz from his brilliant futuristic short Rise straight into Ridley Scott’s office. “It’s an example of how you take all the different disciplines that make films look as good as they do today and recalibrating them to deliver a VR experience that is unparalleled,” the director adds. Obviously any young filmmaker would jump at the chance to work with a legend like Ridley Scott, but for Karlak, the project’s unique universe also had its attractions: “For me the inspiration was the concept… since this was told from the point of view of a Neomorph, how would a creature that’s designed to hunt perceive the world?” Well, like the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts to look like a nail.

Director David Karlak

Jen Dennis, RSA’s Executive Producer of Branded Content & VR watched how her boss immediately took to VR when a similar project was created for his 2015 hit, The Martian. “It’s very important to Ridley that these pieces have a real filmic essence to them, they have to feel ‘filmic.’” In a nod to Karlak’s talent she said, “When we saw Rise, we knew he was the right person for this.”

Achieving the proper 360° look fell to Technicolor’s MPC VFX Supervisor, Matthais Wittmann who had his hands full from the very first frame: “You need a really high frame rate or you get sick,” he pointed out. Since there are no cuts in VR, “You can’t save yourself with edits.”

The fact that MPC was also handling visual effects for Alien: Covenant was a huge plus. “We knew very early on that there would be a VR component so our crew went over to the sets to take photographs so we’d have them…” Wittmann says, adding, “our team was there, they knew about the lighting, they’ve worked on other Alien movies already so all this information we can leverage.” And then, of course, there was The Master: “Since this was a point of view that has never been done before,” Wittmann continues, “it was also very helpful to have Ridley Scott close by so we could ask him, ‘Is that how it would be?’” Director Karlak echoed how invaluable Scott’s guidance was – suggesting he watch videos of baby crocodiles hatching and endoscopic footage of a human womb, just to keep the team on the right track. Now after over five months of intense work, this alien baby has arrived, fangs and all…

Intrepid Cinema Retro scribe Mark Cerulli gets the full "Alien" VR treatment.

Alien: Covenant In Utero, A Virtual Reality Experience, is available on the Oculus platform on “Alien Day”, April 26^th and then on all mobile and tethered platforms like Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream View, HTC Vice and PlayStation VR starting May 10.

Alien: Covenant arrives in theaters on May 19^th from Twentieth Century Fox.

BY DOUG OSWALD

Robert Mitchum is Martin Brady, an American hired gun living in exile in Mexico in “The Wonderful Country,” a Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber. While waiting on the Rio Grande for his contact for a gun smuggling job, Brady decides to escort the wagon north to Puerto, Texas, and pick up a cache of guns on behalf of his employers, the Castro brothers.  Pancho Gil (Mike Kellin), another agent of the Castros, arrives to escort the guns they’re buying from a man named Sterner, but Brady insists on picking up the guns himself. When one of Brady’s associates reminds him that he’s a wanted man in America, Brady states, “I want to see the other side of the river.”

Arriving in Puerto, a tumble-weed startles Brady’s horse and he breaks a leg in the fall. He’s aided by Dr. Herbert J. Stovall (Charles McGraw), who sets his leg. Ben Sterner (John Banner, Sergeant Schultz of “Hogan’s Heroes” fame) receives his 500 silver Pecos in payment for the guns. We learn Brady killed the man who murdered his father and he believes he’s a wanted man, thus his self-imposed exile in Mexico.. We later discover this is not the case after the U.S. Army and the Texas Rangers approach him about working for them to prevent the Castro brothers from selling guns to the Apaches.

Major Stark Colton (Gary Merrill) wants Martin to help the U.S. Army stop the Castro brothers from selling guns to the Apaches. The Castros are a couple of regional Mexican tyrants, one a governor and the other a general. Texas Ranger Captain Rucker (Albert Dekker) wants Brady to join the Rangers, all past crimes forgiven. Meanwhile, Helen Colton (Julie London), Colton’s beautiful wife, meets up with Brady. Rumors spread about the two of them, resulting in Brady killing a man bullying his friend “Chico” Sterner (Max Slaten Ludwig) followed by his return to Mexico to confront the Castro brothers.

The wonderful country in “The Wonderful Country” may be that place between borders, cultures and people on the other side of the river or in the next village. It’s the place one longs for after leaving home, but can never fully return to. More Mexican than American after his years in exile, Brady wants to return home, but discovers it isn’t possible. He’s seen by the Castro Brothers as a “gringo” and by the Americans as some sort of hybrid Mexican not to be trusted.

Pedro Armendáriz is a welcome addition to the movie as Governor Don Cipriano Castro in a small role as the political half of the notorious Castro brothers. General Marcos Castro (Víctor Manuel Mendoza), is the military half and they play Brady against one another holding his past as collateral for his service until he’s had enough and refuses their orders. The Castro brothers are discussed throughout the first half of the movie, but their welcome appearance, especially that of Armendariz, is a bit of a let down because they have next to nothing to do other than give Brady new orders and to share their mistrust of each other.

“The Wonderful Country” boasts many merits, but it has a complicated plot which is slow paced and filled with underdeveloped dramatic elements and characters. I wanted to see more of Armendariz, Merrill, Banner and Kellin as well as a more fully developed relationship between Brady and Helen. We never fully learn about Helen’s past, why she’s unhappy with her husband or what she sees in Brady. We also don’t really get a satisfying reason for the gun running operation between the Castro’s, Sterner and the Apaches other than to have a gun battle between the U.S. Cavalry and the Apaches as well as several cross border visits for Brady and other members of the cast. Baseball great Leroy “Satchel” Paige has a small role as Army Sergeant Tobe Sutton and Jack Oakie makes an appearance as Travis Hyte.

The film is based on the novel by Tom Lea, who also has a cameo as the barber who gives Mitchum a shave. The 1959 United Artists release was directed by Academy Award winning editor Robert Parrish (He also co-directed “Casino Royale” (1967) and directed “Fire Down Below,” “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun,” “Lucy Gallant, “The Purple Plain,” “Saddle in the Wind” and more than a dozen other movies). Parrish had a distinguished career as editor/actor/director. He also wrote the best selling 1988 autobiographies “Growing Up In Hollywood” and “Hollywood Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” where he chronicles his experiences as a child actor in Charlie Chaplin and Our Gang comedies to his WWII service, relationships with many classic Hollywood greats and his editing/directing career.

Produced by Mitchum’s production company, D.R.M. Productions with Mitchum credited as executive producer, there’s also a great score by Alex North. In the end, the sum totals of all those other interesting elements do not add up to a cohesive movie. it needs a tighter plot and and even the 98 minute running time seems a bit padded.. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks and sounds terrific, preserving the beautifully filmed widescreen image. The disc includes the theatrical trailer for this and two other Mitchum releases as the only extras. "The Wonderful Country" is a flawed but entertaining film and  the Blu-ray is a welcome addition  for fans of Mitchum and traditional Westerns.

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