Celebrating Films of the 1960s & 1970s - Todd Garbarini

RESTORED "SAMURAI COP" SCREENINGS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:16:55 -0500

by Todd Garbarini

Samurai Cop, director Amir Shervan's 1989 film starring actors Robert Z'Dar, Matt Hannon and Jannis Farley, has been restored in high definition on DVD by Cinema Epoch and is now available for purchase in a special edition for a limited time on Amazon.com prior to the film's June 4th, 2013 DVD street date. Click here to purchase this new pressing (do not be fooled into purchasing the inferior Media Blasters DVD that was released in 2004). This new version is superior.

While going through boxes last year in a California studio vault, both Cinema Epoch President Greg Hatanaka and Cinema Epoch Producer and Director of Acquisition's Douglas Dunning (he's also a cult actor and voice over artist) discovered the original 35mm camera negative to the late Mr. Shervan's film. It is from this source that the new DVD has been transferred.

Samurai Cop will also be screened at midnight on May 31, 2013 at the Landmark's Nuart Theatre in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. Tentatively scheduled to appear in person at this screening on the 31st are actor/stuntman Gerald Okamura, actors Jimmy Williams and Mark Frazer, film composer Alan DerMarderosian, cinematographer Peter Palian, and Ben Shervan (the late director's son). There will also be a limited number of pre-signed DVDs autographed by actor Robert Z'Dar for purchase at this screening only.

Samurai Cop’s Facebook page can be found here.

Upcoming screenings will also be taking place at:

May 10 & 11 at 12:30m – Egyptian Theatre, Seattle, WA

May 31 & June 1 at Midnight – Uptown Theatre, Minneapolis, MN

June 7 at Midnight – River Oaks Theatre, Houston, TX

June 7 at Midnight – E Street Cinema, Washington, DC

June 7 at Midnight – Ritz at the Bourse, Philadelphia, PA

June 14 & 15 at Midnight – Inwood Theatre, Dallas, TX

June 28 & 29 at Midnight – Sunshine Cinemas, New York, NY

June 28 & 29 at Midnight – Esquire Theatre, Denver, CO

DVD REVIEW: "THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN" (1980) FROM SCORPION RELEASING

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 05 May 2013 05:36:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Rarely has distributor exploitation been as blatant as in the case of Simon Wincer’s The Day After Halloween (1980), a ludicrously-named Australian outing originally optioned under the name of Centerfold, then changed to Snapshot after the producers were unable to secure that title, and was eventually released as One More Minute. It appeared on video shelves here in the U.S. on VHS both in 1983 from Catalina Home Video under the title of The Day After Halloween and in 1985 as The Night After Halloween on Magnum Home Entertainment. The film came on the heels of the John Carpenter-scripted Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) which was set against the milieu of the fashion industry. Filmed in 1978 and released in Australia the following year, The Day After Halloween has absolutely nothing to do with John Carpenter’s seminal holiday suspense yarn, and isn’t even a slasher film. It isn’t even a thriller. At best, it can be considered a mystery that concerns a young woman named Angela (Sigrid Thornton) who lives with her wretched, belittling mother and is trying to fend off the unwanted affections of her obsessed and emotionally unstable ex-boyfriend Daryl (Vincent Gil) who drives an ice cream truck (think Phantasm!). She’s late for work which earns her the condemnation of her hairstylist boss but garners the affections of Madeline (Chantal Contouri), a sophisticate who dresses like Joan Collins who encourages Angela to parlay her natural good looks into a modeling career which lands her topless in Cleo, the Australian equivalent of Cosmopolitan Magazine, in an ad for Bermuda Cool cologne. The ad proves lucrative but also draws the unsolicited attention of lots of tongue-wagging men twice her age in an effort to score with her. A photographer sets up a meeting with her and uses an innocent photo session as a ruse to get her drunk and undressed, but she bails, which leads to a frightening confrontation later on.

Given the cookie-cutter nature of films from this era, it isn’t difficult to realize who really idolizes Angela and wants her the most. The Bermuda Cool photographing sequence goes on much longer than it should (remember that long, wordless sequence in Play Misty for Me set to a Roberta Flack song? That was shorter!). Lacking a cinematic style, the film for the most part is shot in masters and throws lots of red herrings at the audience, but it makes for an entertaining film. The acting is impressive for this sort of story. The score is by the late Australian composer Brian May whose music to George Miller’s The Road Warrior (1981) is one of the best action film scores ever. Prior to this, Mr. May scored Patrick (1978) which was produced by Anthony Ginnane who also acts as producer on this film as well (if you have seen the Italian cut of Patrick, Mr. May’s score was replaced by Goblin’s). Director Wincer has gone on to director more notable and successful films: Phar Lap (1983), D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), Quigley Down Under (1990), Free Willy (1993), and The Phantom (1996).

The film has been released on Scorpion Releasing’s Katarina's Nightmare Theater line, hosted by Katarina Leigh Waters. Ms. Waters proves to be a charming and knowledgeable emcee and provides an amusing introduction to the film. She points out that this is the first time the film is being presented on home video in its original 2.35:1 anamorphic Panavision aspect ratio. The film is transferred from a theatrical print, but it is free of dirt and scratches. The sound is in mono and is passable.

The DVD contains the entire, uncut version of the film with Snapshot on the title card, however there is an extra that contains a portion of the opening credits with The Day After Halloween as the title (the fuzziness of the image and overall lack of quality appears to be sourced from VHS). There is also an extremely informative running commentary with producer Anthony Ginnane moderated by Ms. Waters. A veteran of over fifty films, Mr. Ginnane is a fountain of knowledge and remembers quite a bit about the making of this film which had a very tight production schedule on the order of three weeks shooting time. The DVD cover replicates the original American one-sheet which is a nicely-designed image but is completely misleading – it is simply the wrong cover for this movie.

Click here to order from Amazon

REVIEW: DISNEY'S "WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?" ON BLU-RAY

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:21:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

On Saturday, April 23, 1988, I attended the Official Starlog Festival at the then-Penta Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Seventh Avenue. It was my first time meeting makeup artist Tom Savini and several cast members of Star Trek were also on hand. Film producer Frank Marshall, whom cineastes will know from The Warriors (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Poltergeist (1982), Back to the Future (1985), and most recently The Borne Legacy (2012), also showed up for a few hours to debut footage that director Robert Zemeckis shot for a new upcoming film entitled Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which was based upon the 1981 novel by Gary K. Wolf, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? The footage that we saw consisted of Bob Hoskins interacting with Roger and other animated characters and it looked pretty seemless. When the film opened two months later, I was delighted to see my favorite cartoon characters appear in one film.

The premise is fairly straight forward and owes a huge debt to the film noirs of the Thirties and Forties and there is more than a passing wink at Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) as Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is hired by R.K. Maroon (the head of Maroon Cartoons) to investigate allegations that Jessica Rabbit, the wife of cartoon star Roger Rabbit (both of whom live in Toontown with other cartoon characters who act in movies for real people producers and directors), is having an affair. Eddie hates toons because his brother, Teddy, was killed by one some years earlier. Eddie shows Roger pictures that he took of Roger’s wife, Jessica, playing patty-cake with Marvin Acme. Roger interprets this as his wife cheating on him, and when Acme is killed the next day by a fallen piano, Roger moves to the head of the suspect list. Since toons are pretty much indestructible (they have to be in order for them to be “killed” in their cartoons!), an evil man named Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd), who presides over Toontown, knows that the only way to kill a toon should one of them step out of line is to submerge them into a vat of acid he calls “The Dip”. His minions are sent out to find Roger and bring him back for the murder of Marvin Acme. This leads to a series of action-packed misadventures that are executed in the tradition of most of the beloved Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies cartoons.

This is the film’s first foray on to Blu-ray, and its third go-round on DVD. It comes in a 2-disc set with one Blu-ray and one DVD. The Blu-ray contains the following extras:

Filmmaker’s running commentary (runs in tandem with the film)

The Roger Rabbit Shorts: Tummy Trouble, Roller Coaster Rabbit & Trail Mix-Up

Who Made Roger Rabbit (10:55)

Deleted Scene: The Pig Head Sequence (5:30)

Before and After (3:07)

Toon Stand-Ins (3:14)

Behind the Ears documentary (36:37)

On Set! behind-the-scenes (4:50)

The DVD contains these additional extras:

Valiant Files

Toontown Confidential, a feature that can be enabled while watching the film which has facts and trivia

What is missing, and this is something I have never seen on any home video release of the film be it VHS, laserdisc (does anyone remember the controversy surrounding this release?), or previous editions DVDs, is the CBS-TV special Roger Rabbit & the Secrets of Toon Town which aired on Tuesday, September 13, 1988. Its exclusion might be attributed to a rights issue. Fortunately, it can be seen here on Youtube. The quality is not stellar, however it is better than not having access to it at all.

All in all, this Blu-ray is a worthy upgrade to a fun film that has earned its place in movie history.

Click here to order from Amazon

CINEMA RETRO EXCLUSIVE! TODD GARBARINI INTERVIEWS PASHA ROBERTS, DIRECTOR OF "SILVER CIRCLE"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:11:29 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Pasha Roberts is the director of the new film Silver Circle. He obtained his masters in financial engineering, which he describes as “hedge fund math,” roughly ten years ago. His interest was in financial digitalization and how to apply modern computer graphics to high finance. His thesis subject consisted of applying a game-like graphics engine to doing equity trading in finance so that a reasonably intelligent 13-year-old gamer could use it to learn this type of trading. Upon doing this, he realized that what was missing from financial communications was a way of describing complicated concepts from a Ph.D level and bringing it down to a Masters level, essentially reducing the complexity and making it accessible; he did this by working with banks, corporations and think tanks.

Beginning around 2006, he began moving towards more economic-type concepts, and felt that it was important to describe things on more of an economic level rather than a financial level. When the housing and financial crash occurred in 2008, he decided that Silver Circle should really be about a crash and the intrigue around that crash.

Todd Garbarini: Your animation company, Two Lanterns Media, produced a series entitled Save Sonny which concerns a young adult entering the workforce who becomes perturbed to find that some of his paycheck is being deducted by a mysterious entity known as FICA (laughs). Does Sonny personify the average young American in your mind?

Pasha Roberts: At that point, we kind of did that, yeah. That was kind of a South Park-level of humor, there are some farts jokes in there as well. The goal at the time was to take the subject and make it interesting and acceptable for somebody who, when they get their first job, suddenly realizes that they don't get all of their money. They want to know where it goes to, specifically FICA, and why. That was a whole, completely different other style and was not as serious as (our new film) Silver Circle, but kind of tongue-in-cheek and somewhat educational.

TG: The series reminds me of Schoolhouse Rock which endeavored to educate children on science, economics, history, etc. Do you see yourself as an educator for social change and personal financial responsibility through animation?

PR: Yeah, you could say it that way. We were focusing on the story first and therefore tried to make it fun and interesting without trying to be too pedantic about it. That's why Silver Circle isn't full of speeches, although it has one or two that are kind of mixed in. We were interested in working with people who wanted to make a movie with a backbone and a spine and ideas in it. The audience can certainly enjoy it on an intellectual level in that regard, but otherwise they can also enjoy themselves from the movie perspective as we do have some action sequences and a car chase.

TG: Silver Circle posits the financial collapse of the United States economic system roughly six years from now. It is animated in the style of a contemporary video game. Was this your decision from the get-go?

PR: We were actually looking at A Scanner Darkly, actually we did use Maya, we didn't really use cel shading for this but we did look a lot at that. We really wanted to make the characters look less realistic and keep them from looking kind of spooky, and even so I think we could have done more with that. It's kind of a crossover thing, you don't see a lot of animated movies that are not comedies or fantasies, so people aren’t used to seeing this type of animation with something serious.

TG: How long did the process of making the film take, from conception to final product?

PR: Four years. We basically started brainstorming about it the day after Lehman Brothers went down because it was such a big dramatic moment, and I thought this could be a real interesting theme. The screenwriting itself took about a year as there was a completely different concept at first and it took a little while to burn through a couple of screenwriters until we finally settled on Stephen (Schwartz). Then we spent three years on production. The overall budget was roughly $2M. One of the really interesting things about the movie is that the end credits contain the names of about ten core people who really worked on it, compared to an army of animators.

TG: In the film, the Federal Reserve has been tasked with stabilizing the economy, but all attempts have failed and the Rebels illegally mint silver coins hoping to stabilize the financial health of the country. How do you feel this mirrors the current economic situation in the U.S. today?

PR: I think that we are currently heading in the direction that is depicted in the film, although I don't think that it will be as bad. There were a couple of things that are in the movie and were even in the script but hadn't happened yet but actually came true as we progressed through making the movie. For example, there is a guy by the name of Bernard von Nothaus who is currently in prison for making money out of silver, and that’s his crime. His sentencing judge basically called him a domestic terrorist for trying to make money out of silver. So, that was not going on. Then, the Federal Reserve was actually talking about taking over neighborhoods and basically calling them “land banks,” which is of course essential part of Silver Circle’s plot. So, there are angles going on in that direction already and I do believe that marijuana is on its way to being legalized, and this also occurs in the movie. I hope that the movie obviously isn't prescient in terms of being completely true. We looked at a lot of the history of Argentina and Zimbabwe and what happens when a currency begins to die and how people behave as a result of that.

TG: What do you hope audiences will take away from the film?

PR: First off, I hope that they enjoy the story. Obviously, I want them to have a great time. I want it to be a fun, good story for the audience. After that, I hope that people are not only entertained, and but there are also a lot of embedded things in the movie for the so-called armchair economists and conspiracy theorists. I really do hope that it gets people to start to think about money and know that there is this thing out there called the Federal Reserve that is very real and they are not murderous bastards (laughs). I want the audience to not take the concepts of money for granted. Most other countries understand that and the changing of European currency and so on and so forth - things abroad do not appear to be as well-established or as stable as things appear to be here. So, hopefully the audience will think about that. The angle that we're taking is that we really can make an animated movie with a spine of ideas that people will actually appreciate instead of just offering up a whitewashed movie.

Silver Circle Theater Schedule:

4/05 Laemmle’s NoHo – Los Angeles, CA (Buy your tickets here)

4/11 Pollack Tempe Cinema – Tempe, AZ (Buy your tickets here)

4/12 Regal Cinema – Ballston – Arlington, VA (Tickets on sale soon)

4/18 Flix Brewhouse – Round Rock, TX (Buy your tickets here)

Silver Circle’s official website is here.

Click here to read Todd Garbarini's review of Silver Circle

FILM REVIEW: "ROOM 237"; A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT STANLEY KUBRICK'S "THE SHINING"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:23:11 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Room 237 is the title of the excellent new documentary by director Rodney Ascher that takes the points of view of five off-screen individuals who do their best to unmask the purported hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick’s initially disappointing yet subsequently revered 1980 film version of Stephen King’s The Shining. In doing so, they are keeping in line with a motif derived straight from the novel in a sequence wherein Horace Derwent, a former owner of the Overlook Hotel, urges his costumed party-goers to unmask at a lavish celebration, thereby revealing their identities. The human face as a mask is also a common theme throughout all of Mr. Kubrick’s filmography, so it is only fitting that Room 237 takes the approach of removing layers to reveal what might be hidden beneath the surface in order to get at The Shining’s essence.

As a fan of Mr. Kubrick’s film for the past thirty years, I can honestly say that even though I have seen it easily more than fifty times I never noticed the props, visual references or subtexts that these five narrators diligently point out (granted this was difficult to do on archaic home video systems such as CED or VHS due to their significantly reduced image quality, to say nothing of the substandard televisions they were played back on, although the technically superior Blu-ray is a much better medium due to its high definition quality and lends itself ideal for this examination). Nor did I see the various continuity errors, judged as deliberate by Mr. Kubrick from the narrators’ perspectives, such as the carpet that changes direction in the hallway or the chair against the wall disappearing during Jack Torrance’s (Jack Nicholson) emotional outburst after his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) interrupts his writing. An argument can be made that Room 237 is less about the hidden meanings in The Shining than it is an explanation of five different people’s interpretations and experiences of seeing The Shining. There were times wherein the person speaking discussed in great length the strange layout of the Overlook Hotel and I must admit I could not see what they were getting at, however this is just one point that is made and there are numerous theories to go around on other subtexts of the film: the purported significance of the number 42; the architectural impossibility of the window in Mr. Ullman’s office; the ludicrous sexual reference in Mr. Ullman’s first handshake with Jack (this is a bit of a stretch – no pun intended, of course!); the Minotaur motif; the strange layout itself of the Overlook Hotel; the references to the genocide of Native Americans and even the Holocaust, the subject of which Mr. Kubrick later attempted to make a film about but eventually abandoned as he felt he could not do justice to the horror of this bleak period in history.

Director Ascher makes the interesting choice of not showing the faces of the narrators, and this maneuver works to the film’s advantage since so much of it is about pointing out what the narrators see. Cross-cutting between the narrators and the points they want to make would have either reduced the film’s running time (102 minutes, roughly the same as The French Connection (1970), my favorite film) or would have left most of the cogent points on the cutting room floor. I can only hope that the forthcoming DVD will offer up some nice extras in the way of deleted scenes. I am certain that there must have been some discussion about the significance of Jack telling Mr. Ullman that Wendy is a “confirmed ghost story and horror film addict,” yet her artistic escapes consist of reading The Catcher in the Rye and watching Summer of ’42 (there’s that number again!), two classics about the coming-of-age of a young male.

I especially liked Room 237’s framing device of using Lamberto Bava’s Demons (1985) and Demons 2: The Nightmare Continues (1986) as footage of an audience viewing The Shining in a theater and on television, respectively, to make certain points. Ideally, The Shining should be viewed in a movie theater, although realistically that is unfortunately not an option for most of us. The home video revolution saved many a film from inevitable obscurity and this is where the majority of Shining enthusiasts (myself included) had the opportunity to see it and thrill to it to our heart’s content.

The prerequisites for enjoying Room 237 include more than a passing interest in The Shining (it certainly helps to be a rabid fan of the film, thus having tremendous familiarity of it), patience, and certainly a sense of humor. Room 237 succeeds in imparting to the audience just how compelling and frightening The Shining can be to a first-time viewer. It is also a testament to the notion that film viewing is a solitary experience as no two people will see any one film with the same set of eyes. Perhaps, as is the case with The Shining, and many other Kubrick films, multiple viewings of Room 237 will clear up and even reveal more of what the narrators say they see. Whether you consider the film to be completely true or complete bollocks, one thing that can be said is that Room 237 is entertaining, thought-provoking, fascinating and enlightening. It’s my choice for Best Documentary at the 2014 Oscars.

Click here for the film’s official site.

FANS PETITION FOR DVD RELEASE OF "CURTAINS" AND "PROM NIGHT"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 05:48:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Horror films are a hot commodity. Some of the most well-known slasher films of the 1980’s have been re-issued on DVD and Blu-ray by companies looking to cash-in on audiences’ seemingly insatiable appetite for murder and mayhem while also introducing them to a whole new generation of fans with disposable income. Two titles that fans want on DVD and Blu-ray in the way of special editions are Paul Lynch’s Prom Night (1980) and Richard Ciupka’s Curtains (1983), both Canadian productions through Simcom, the former having fared far better on home video than the latter.

Prom Night was originally released theatrically by Avco Embassy Pictures in July 1980. It was distributed on VHS by MCA Home Video in 1981 and again by Virgin Vision, Inc. in 1988. MCA also released a laserdisc pan-and-scan version on their laser rot-prone DiscoVision line in 1981 (curiously, the film bypassed the RCA Select-A-Vision Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) stylus-based format of the early 1980’s, the direct competitor to laserdisc). The film fared better when a widescreen laserdisc sourced from a 35mm interpositive followed in 1997 courtesy of Elite Entertainment. In February 1998, Anchor Bay Entertainment released a widescreen DVD that included the original theatrical trailer (1.85:1 presentation is a must for this title as a boom mike is clearly visible in several shots in the full frame format). After the rights lapsed the film was picked up by Echo Bridge Entertainment and reissued in October 2007, this time dispensing with said trailer. Overall, Prom Night has been released on home video in three different formats no less than six times in the United States alone, not counting the international, non-Region 1 releases around the globe. All of these U.S. versions contain only the film without any additional extras that are practically a requirement to home video now: running commentaries, on-set interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, isolated musical scores, comments from contemporaries, stills galleries, etc.

Curtains, on the other hand, is a thriller that has suffered indignities far too numerous to list. Plagued from the outset by a problematic production, the financing ran out and put the cast and crew on hiatus for over one year. Much of the crew was replaced, and despite having been released theatrically in April 1983 to many respectable movie theaters by the long-defunct Jensen Farley Pictures, Curtains has only appeared on home video twice in the United States: in December 1983 Vestron Video released it on VHS, and in October 2010 Echo Bridge Entertainment released it as part of The Midnight Horror Collection: Bloody Slashers set which also includes Hoboken Hollow (2006), Secrets of the Clown (2007), and Room 33 (2009). In a maneuver regarded as perfunctory by those not in the know, Curtains appears to be lumped in with these three contemporary tales for no better reason than to “round out” the other titles – the original ad slick for Curtains was jettisoned and replaced with an image of a hand parting a curtain.

Curtains was also released in April 2007 on Region 2 DVD in the UK by Black Horse Entertainment. As with the Echo Bridge Entertainment release, the original poster artwork was not used. Again, an uninspired makeshift cover image that fails to represent the film in any way adorns the case. Curtains can be found at horror film conventions on DVD-R sporting its beautiful and atmospheric original one-sheet artwork, but the DVD transfer is sourced from the Vestron VHS cassette and is therefore in dire need of color correction; a 2K/4K high definition upgrade is long overdue.

Prom Night has a creepy score by Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer (he scored a handful of films for Bob Clark, including the classic 1974 film Black Christmas and was also a musical consultant on “Act II” of Curtains). Mr. Zaza also scored Curtains, which might have been a rejected score for Prom Night as several cues that appear in Prom Night also made their way into Curtains. Director Ciupka’s name was also removed from the credits to Curtains; whether or not this has any bearing on the lack of a DVD release is a mystery.

Fans can ponder why these titles are not available in full-blown special editions, and there are probably many legitimate reasons why the current DVDs turn up in Walmart discount bins. The original 35mm film negatives to each respective film may not be available as the whereabouts may be in question, or they may no longer even exist; management might feel that an insufficient number of fans willing to pay for the films exists and there is a fear of losing money on these titles; both films were made as Canadian tax shelter projects and this may also pose a problem. With the glut of far lesser quality horror thrillers available in beautifully designed special editions, the mind reels as to why these two films in particular have been marginalized and seem to be anathema to the royal treatment.

Echo Bridge Entertainment, a DVD company that uses the slogan “The Entertainment Alternative for What the World Wants to See” (not sure where that came from or what it is based upon), is now being approached by fans on an online petition website respectfully asking them to release the rights for these two films to Scream Factory, the Shout! Factory subsidiary that is making a name for itself with beautiful deluxe versions of genre favorites Terror Train (1980), The Funhouse (1981), Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), and the upcoming Deadly Blessing (1981) to name a few. This company would be an ideal organization to release these films as their work thus far has proven that they will spend the time and provide just the proper amount of TLC that these films deserve.

As of this writing, the petition has 300 signatures and is looking for a total of 1200, which is not an impossible number to reach. Click here to sign the petition on Petition Buzz requesting licensing of Prom Night and Curtains.

BLU-RAY REVIEW: JAMES CAMERON'S "THE TERMINATOR" (1984) STARRING ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:56:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

James Cameron's The Terminator is a masterpiece of cinematic storytelling, conceived by Mr. Cameron while in Rome with a fever years earlier (the late director Robert Altman had a similar situation that led to the writing of my favorite film of his, Three Women, released in 1977). Shot in early 1984 for roughly $6M (the amount spent solely on the sound mix of the superb $90M sequel seven years later), this futuristic action powerhouse grabs the audience by the throat and takes us on a wild ride. Despite the inexorable pace – much like the titular villain’s nature – the film manages to come up for air and miraculously never feels over-the-top, long-winded or plodding.

The Terminator opened on Friday, October 26, 1984 and yours truly missed out on seeing it, electing to see the horror film greatest hits compilation Terror in the Aisles instead. I had to wait until the end of the school year eight months later to see the film in a classroom on VHS, the small-screen presentation diminishing none of the film’s raw emotional power to my teenage eyes, both of which were glued to the television. The film made Arnold Schwarzenegger a super star and was the surprise sleeper hit of the season, his depiction of a terrifying cyborg with a relentless mission it will stop at nothing to complete solidifying his place as an action icon. Two weeks later Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street was unleashed on unsuspecting moviegoers and cinema hasn't been the same since, introducing a child killer who invades teen-agers’ dreams in his attempts to murder them. The Terminator added “Come with me if you want to live.” and the oft-quoted “I’ll be back.” to the American lexicon and became as familiar as “May the Force be with you.” and “Go ahead. Make my day.” Nightmare, of course, contributed the creepy “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…” children’s song.

Linda Hamilton shines as Sarah Connor, a 28 year-old diner waitress who unwittingly is targeted for termination by the Terminator after it travels from the future, determined to kill her so that her unborn son cannot rise against the machines. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn in a terrific and underrated performance) is the human counterpart sent to intercept and destroy the Terminator so that Sarah may live. What makes the film so brilliant is not only the ideas it presents but how it conveys them to the audience. For the first thirty-five minutes, we are just as in the dark as Sarah (not knowing she’s about to be on the run for her life) and Kyle (since the Terminator looks human on the outside, he has to wait until it moves in on Sarah before he can strike) and are only given little bits of information until Kyle and the Terminator meet face to face at the TechNoir dance club (the shootout in this ultra-Eighties club, followed by the escape, are beautifully edited set pieces that set the tone for the rest of the film).

The film may be low-budget, but it honestly does not feel like it. The story is enthralling and completely believable. Mr. Biehn gives a performance just as compelling as Donald Pleasence did in Halloween (1978). Without his history, conviction and attempts to make those around him believe that what he is saying is true, Kyle Reese, the soldier from the future who comes across time to father John Connor with Sarah, would fall under the weight of the film. There is a level of plausibility to the story that is lacking from other films about the future, heightened by Stan Winston’s special effects work. The flashback battle scenes of the war in 2019 recall Mad Max (1979) and Mad Max 2 (1981) (retitled The Road Warrior for its 1982 US release). The Terminator is the boiler plate for future films about, well. The future!

Composer Brad Fiedel has created a magnificently menacing score, robotic and simplistic like the Terminator. Dick Miller provides a great cameo as a gun store clerk (I just noticed the store’s address as 14329 and its similarity to 14239, the address of the first Sarah Connor the Terminator kills from the phonebook listing – and I have seen the film many times over! Oh, the clarity of high definition!).

The Blu-ray, which was released at least twice before (once in a special version containing a hardcover book), comes with the same extras ported over from the previous editions:

· Behind the scenes – runes about 13 minutes

· Terminator: A Retrospective – runs just over 20 minutes and contains interviews from 1986 and 1992

· A collection of deleted scenes

I wish that this time around the disc included a running commentary with the director at the very least. This is a watershed film that rewrote the book on science fiction action films and it is deserving of more extras than the studios have lavished on it thus far. If you have not yet picked up the film on Blu-ray, this edition will do quite nicely.

The film has been remastered and looks as good as it is going to in 1080P.

Click here to order discounted from Amazon

FILM REVIEW: "SILVER CIRCLE" IS TERRIFIC

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:48:49 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Most big screen action films feel like video games made for the theatres. The over-the-top, psychotically-edited films of most of Michael Bay’s output of late, specifically the Transformer series, can attest to this fact. While the availability of inexpensive technology that was non-existent twenty years ago has brought tools to those who wish to push the envelope and find new and different ways to tell stories, there is virtually no limit to how filmmakers can realize their vision. We have reached a point in our intake of entertainment wherein movies influence video games and music videos and the lines between these disparate forms of enjoyment are becoming ever less defined.

Video games have experienced a surge in popularity in recent years thanks in part to high definition graphics, powerful home computers and gaming systems, and the ability to play against complete strangers several miles away or across the globe. One of the most profitable series is the Grand Theft Auto game from Rock Star Games, a company that has received flack for their violent and sexual content. The game literally puts the player (or perpetrator, depending upon your point of view) in the driver seat to navigate a dangerous city plagued by vagrants and social undesirables. Your mission is to commit as many crimes as possible as a means to an end. The graphics are high quality and the people are very realistic. It is this style of video game animation that has taken center stage in the terrific new film by Pasha Roberts called Silver Circle.

Set in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. in 2019, the same year as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Silver Circle concerns a world where inflation has run rampant following the financial collapse of the United States. A beer costs $90.00 and a gallon of gas averages $152.00, so $7.00 for a buzz and $3.59 for the precious juice no longer sounds like such a bad deal. But, it’s all relative. Pot has been legal since 2016 (apparently the war on drugs, a roughly $500 billion a year enterprise, is no longer a top priority), the same year that silver and gold was outlawed, and the Federal Reserve, referred to only as The Fed (much like Big Brother) is the country’s third attempt at a centralized banking system and it simply isn’t working. Desperate attempts by the aforementioned entity to stabilize the economy via printing worthless paper money with nothing to back it up except waning public trust is proving disastrous while managing home prices has similar effects.

Jay, an arson investigator, is brought in to determine the party responsible for the destruction of several homes in the Glenwood Homes subdivision which is the property of the Strategic Housing Reserve. He meets the lead realtor at the Cornwall Real Estate office and is intrigued by her assistant, Zoe, who agrees to meet with him later and give him some information off the record. Their meeting proves to be fortuitous as Jay is saved by Zoe when he is ambushed by henchmen looking to throw him off the case. Zoe gives chase in her mini-automobile that would make William Friedkin smile, effectively losing the bad guys. She clearly has some sort of expert training that the average realtor assistant would be oblivious to. It turns out that Zoe is a part of a group that call themselves The Rebels who illegally mint tangible, silver coins (hence the film’s title) in the hopes of stabilizing the financial health of the country.

While it might be easy to dismiss Silver Circle as just a story told through the unorthodox platform of video game animation, the film’s message is very real and serious and most certainly topical. Unlike contemporary action films that hit the audience over the head with cuts so fast that there is little time to process, Silver Circle moves at a much more visually manageable pace. It’s a film that has a message, and it manages to both entertain and inform the audience. The film’s greatest strength lies in getting the audience to think instead of just veg-out.

The film will begin touring the country starting in New York on Friday, March 22^nd. Click here on the film’s official website to see where it is playing and read more about the film, the characters, and the talented animators who brought Silver Circle to life.

INTERVIEWS WITH DISNEY "PETER PAN" VOICE ACTORS KATHRYN BEAUMONT AND PAUL COLLINS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 22:03:42 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

Walt Disney Studios graciously provided me with the opportunity recently to discuss Peter Pan with two of the film’s stars: Kathryn Beaumont, who provided the voice of Wendy, and Paul Collins, who provided the voice of John Darling.

KATHRYN BEAUMONT

Todd Garbarini: Thank you for speaking with me about Peter Pan.

Kathryn Beaumont: Thank you, it’s my pleasure!

TG: I am a big fan of the Disney cartoons as I spent the better part of my childhood seeing them.

KB: I'm so glad! They really are special, aren't they? The Disney cartoons really stand the test of time.

TG: These are some of the earliest movies I ever saw in both movie theaters and drive-ins. I really miss the drive-ins. There are so few of them left.

KB: I know! I miss the drive-ins, too!

TG: I understand that you were born and lived in London. How did you come to enter show business?

KG: I was in On An Island with You (1948) and Challenge to Lassie (1949) and at that point MGM was scouting characters for their new ideas for British classic-like stories, and so they put me under contract and I started working for them. I was with MGM for a while, and as you know a lot of those ideas just never come into being and ended up being put on the shelf. They kept me under contract though and at that time that was when Walt Disney was looking for his Alice in Wonderland. The rest, as they say, is sort of history! Just about the time that my contract was due to be changed over for the next six months, that is a six-month option, at that point there was some sort of negotiation and I went over to Disney and started working on Alice in Wonderland.

TG: Were you familiar with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when you were asked to perform the voice of the titular heroine?

KB: (laughs) It reminds me of when I first met Walt. He greeted me at the door and walked me into the office where everybody was settled because we were going to be signing the contracts. The publicity department was there and all of that. He walked me over to the little table and chairs. He told me that it would be kind of nice for us to go over the original book. He asked if I was familiar with the story. I said, “Oh yes, yes of course, of course!” (laughs) I had had it read to me when I was very young. Everybody in England was familiar with it. Those were the absolute classics. I was familiar with the stories whether I had read them not and by that time I could read them myself. So yes, I was extremely familiar. So, we sat down and he was sort of trying to explain to me what his vision was for the film and how he was trying to bring a little bit of both Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland into this new animated feature. So, it was very informative and we had a lot of fun looking through the books and sharing all the things that we knew about the stories.

TG: Like so many of the classic Disney films, Alice in Wonderland was animated by the Nine Old Men, the famous animators who worked on so many of these classics. I met two of them, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, in November 1987 at a local mall when they were promoting their book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. They were very nice to speak with. How did you get along with the animators on the set of the film?

KB: Oh, I was just so grateful to them while I was working there. They just made me feel so much at home. They had me involved in the entire process as they would invite me into their offices at the studio where they were working. They showed me the rough drawings that they had been working on. Later on, they allowed me to go into “Ink and Paint” and told me to walk around and see what was going on and how that process worked. It was from one department to another and so on and so forth. As a result, I really felt that I was a big part of this overall process and I really enjoyed it very, very much.

TG: When it came time to doing Peter Pan, did you act as a live action reference for the animators as the character of Wendy?

KB: Oh yes, I did, as I had had a wonderful experience doing this also on Alice in Wonderland. When I was nearly finished with Alice, the studio was really quite ready to move straight into production on Peter Pan. That was their next animated feature. And so I began right away with the scenes that Wendy was involved with, with the live-action recordings. Right after that was the live action. That process usually consisted of a day or two of rehearsal to sort of map things out to see what they were looking for and determine the motion of the characters. As result, we were very prepared for when the camera was there and so we went through the action. This was done of course to help out the artists who were trying to draw the human figures which were the most natural and also the most challenging part of the process.

TG: Peter Pan has a few short musical numbers, among them “Follow the Leader.” Did you provide any additional voices for any of these subordinate characters for the songs or did you stick strictly to Wendy?

KB: No, I wasn't involved with those. They used a lot of boys for those voices, and I was not involved with any of them. The character of Wendy, unlike Alice, was more of a supporting role and that was the only voice that I provided for the film.

TG: What did you like most about your experiences on Peter Pan?

KB: Well, I would say it was similar to my experiences on Alice in Wonderland and that it was just a wonderful time working with very talented people, people whom I admired so much, and people whom I came to know very well, such as Hans Conreid (who provided the voices of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook). Like myself, he was also asked to provide the live-action as well as the voiceover parts. That kind of experience is what, I think, stands out in my memory. It was such a lovely time for me as a youngster playing these important roles and being able to get to know these creative people involved in this wonderful process.

TG: What was your reaction when you heard your voice in these films?

KB: Oh, I suppose that I viewed the movies I thought, “Oh, that's me!” (laughs)

TG: You became a teacher just after your stint in Hollywood. What grade or grades did you teach?

KB: Well, as it goes as a new teacher you're not high up on the totem pole. You end up changing grade levels every year. So, I have a lot of experience in the upper grades as well as the lower grades. I really did enjoy second grade. I took every opportunity to make my desires known that I really liked second grade. So from that point on until the end of my career, I taught second grade.

TG: What do you think is behind the longevity of such classic films as the movies that you worked on?

KB: I believe that it's the timelessness of the stories, and the stories really have something to say to young children. It came down to Disney's expertise in storytelling and his wonderful team that he worked with. They made the characters so realistic in terms that even adults could identify with them and not just the children in the audience.

Continue reading "INTERVIEWS WITH DISNEY "PETER PAN" VOICE ACTORS KATHRYN BEAUMONT AND PAUL COLLINS "

BLU-RAY REVIEW: DISNEY'S CLASSIC "PETER PAN" (1953) 3 DISC DIAMOND EDITION

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 05:17:00 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

I remember the first time I saw Peter Pan (1953) on the big screen. It was the re-release in the summer of 1976 on a very hot day at the Cort Theatre on East Main St. in Somerville, New Jersey. Unlike The Outsiders’s Pony Boy Curtis, when I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie theatre, I had only one thing on my mind: food. My hunger for beautiful animation was satiated for the moment, but I was very hungry after spending nearly three hours in the theatre. My childhood was sprinkled with double features of Disney cartoons and live-action films. Until I saw the thrilling Superman: The Movie in 1978, Peter Pan really gave the seven-year-old I was the idea that I could actually fly – at least vicariously. The Sir James Matthew Barrie story of a boy who soars through the air and who doesn’t age has captivated the world for well over a century, easily crossing cultures with its love of childhood and its adventures in Neverland. There are several sequences that may raise a few eyebrows in today's politically correct environment, such as those of involving the depictions of Native Americans in a visibly racist fashion, however this film is a product of its time and Disney has wisely chosen not to alter it in any way. On that note, it is interesting that to this day we still cannot get a legitimate video version of 1946’s Song of the South, a film that I enjoyed immensely as a child but appears to be a sore spot with the company in how African-Americans are depicted in that film.

The action in Peter Pan begins in Bloomsbury in London wherein two brothers, John and Michael Darling, are playing pirates, based on stories that their older sister Wendy told them. Their father feels that Wendy should have her own room now and must stop telling silly stories to the young ones who keep the household in chaos. That night, Peter Pan and his little sidekick Tinkerbell show up and take the kids to Neverland, a place where Peter lives and has made the decision to never grow up, remaining instead a child. There are other people in Neverland, including the Lost Boys, a group of six youngsters who are all dressed in pajamas. There are also a group of pirates just off the coast headed by Captain Hook and Mr. Smee (Smee plays Otis to Hook’s Lex Luthor). It turns out that Tinkerbell is jealous of Wendy and aims to get her out of the picture! More adventures ensue, but this is a Disney film, and no great harm ever comes to the characters.

This is the first time that the film has been released on Blu-ray, and as is customary with the previous Disney releases, the film has undergone a major restoration. The results are spectacular. The nuances detailed in the images are sharp and sumptuous. If you haven't seen the film on Blu-ray, you really haven't seen it. I know it's a cliché but it's very true especially when it comes to films of this ilk.

The Blu-ray comes with a standard definition DVD as well as the requisite digital copy. In addition to the film, there is a wealth of extras: I’ve made no bones about the fact that I love audio commentaries, and thankfully one is included with this film. It is provided by Roy Disney, and also included are comments from the animators and some voice actors as well.

Backstage Disney – this extra is shot in standard definition and previously appeared on the original Platinum DVD released in 2007. There are five featurettes in this batch:

You Can Fly: The Making of Peter Pan

In Walt's Words: Why I Made Peter Pan,

The Peter Pan That Almost Was

Tinker Bell: A Fairy's Tale

The Peter Pan Story

Music & More – A collection of songs:

The Pirate Song

Never Land: The Lost Song

The Second Star to the Right

There is an introduction to the movie by Walt’s daughter, Diane Miller-Disney, shot in high definition.

Growing Up with Nine Old Men – this is a nice documentary that runs about forty minutes and is in high definition also. The nine old men in question consist of animators Les Clark, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, and Frank Thomas. Unfortunately, all of these gentlemen have since passed on. However, their children discuss their fathers’ work for Disney.

There is a short section on deleted songs and scenes which consist of storyboards and early artwork. There is also a Peter Pan sing-along which allows children to sing-along songs. This can be enabled by turning on the subtitle option.

Click here to order from Amazon

REVIEW: "LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS" MAGAZINE ISSUE #29

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:41:00 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

Richard Klemensen’s Little Shoppe of Horrors is a stellar magazine. If you like Gary Svehla’s Midnight Marquee and similar publications that are well-written and polished, you’ll love the beautiful Little Shoppe of Horrors. In 2012 it entered its 40^th anniversary with the most current issue, number 29. Cinema Retro is a mere youngster by comparison! Subtitled “The Journal of Classic British Horror Films,” Little Shoppe of Horrors is chock full of exclusive images of the glory days of the Hammer horror films. It is obvious that Mr. Klemensen has a true love for these films. In this issue you’ll find a wonderful look back at the life and work of Vincent Price. The front and rear covers of the latest issue feature beautiful images by Jeff Preston and Mark Maddox, respectively, of Vincent Price, and the inside covers feature artwork by Dean Ormston and Paul Watts.

Issue #29 includes:

· An exclusive interview with film and television director Frank Darabont and film director Tim Burton, whose love of Vincent Price can been seen through much of his work over the past thirty years, going back to the very beginnings of his career with his short film, Vincent, which is about a young boy who wants to be Vincent Price and can be seen here (it’s even narrated by Vincent Price!). Both directors talk specifically about The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

· Justin Humphreys gives readers an in-depth look at the making of The Abominable Dr. Phibes in a nearly 30-page article (take that, Cinefantastique!) about the making of the film. He also profiles the late Dr. Phibes set designer Brian Eatwell.

· David Taylor writes about the late model-turned-actress Virginia North who played Vulnavia in the film.

· Author Denis Meikle provides an inside look on the set of The Abominable Dr. Phibes when he interviewed Vincent Price.

· Sam Irwin and David Taylor create a chronological history of the treatments and script ideas related to what was to become a Dr. Phibes franchise, in addition to a look at how Dr. Phibes has lived on in novels and comic books.

And much, much more in its 108 pages.

Little Shoppe of Horrors has a beautifully designed and easily navigable website that permits readers to see what’s coming up in the next issue, in addition to ordering copies of back issues.

All in all, this is a beautiful-designed and printed publication, published first and foremost by the only people who should be publishing it – die-hard fans with a true love for the subject matter. A must for horror fans!

As an aside, there is also a wonderful audio interview that was recently conducted with Mr. Klemensen, and you can click here to listen to it. He explains how he was such a fan of these movies and how they differed from other horror films from the time in that they were in color and featured classically-trained actors such as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing who both starred in innumerable roles for Hammer. He also talks about how he contacted people in the British film industry who were more than willing to talk to him about their work, and how he managed to visit Pinewood Studios in England.

DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEW: ROY FRUMKES' "THE DEFINITIVE DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD" ON BLU-RAY

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 16:28:00 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

The Definitive Document of the Dead is the latest incarnation of director Roy Frumkes’s insightful behind-the-scenes look at the making of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), a film that has achieved a level of adoration and cult status that is truly amazing given that it was released unrated at a time when such a maneuver was considered box office poison. No doubt increasing in popularity after its release on VHS (this is where Yours Truly first saw it in the summer of 1985), Dawn has become the zombie film by which all others are measured. What this 16mm documentary illustrates brilliantly is the creative process that a director must go through, and it conveys it extremely well to the average moviegoer who may not have the slightest idea as to how a movie is made. It looks at its subject from the standpoint of filmmaking as an art form, and at one point director Romero, with omnipresent cigarette in hand, even compares the process to painting, and how an artist uses watercolors and “accidents” in their final work. Dawn went into production in October 1977 at the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania and lasted approximately six months (if you believe the Internet Movie Database) and thankfully Mr. Frumkes actively sought and was given access to the mall set over a weekend in January of 1978 (my guess is that this was the third or fourth week of that month as the archival footage shows the entire exterior of the mall blanketed in snow; the entire Northeast had suffered a snowfall of one to nearly two feet at that time).

Most documentaries that appear on DVD and Blu-ray nowadays are nothing more than self-promotion pieces. The Definitive Document of the Dead, on the other hand, actually takes you behind the scenes of the film and enlightens the viewer on the creative process, specifically the teamwork and the collaborative nature of the people working on the film. Mr. Frumkes talks to Tom Savini, Michael Gornick, John Amplas, Richard Rubenstein, the cast of Dawn, and of course director Romero himself (it’s interesting to note that filming had to be suspended from Thanksgiving until just after Christmas as decorations populated the mall. Of course, nowadays Christmas starts being promoted as early as the end of August, something probably completely unheard of 35 years ago!). The documentary gives us a great look into Mr. Romero's creative methods of filmmaking; he is quite candid about how he makes movies and discusses how he feels about being compared to Alfred Hitchcock with his 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. The comparison probably stems from the fact that the opening scenes look like a throwback to silent cinema storytelling, and that is an area that Night excels at, giving visual information to the audience and pulling us into the movie. There is mention of Howard Hawks’s film version of The Thing, released in 1951, as the movie that introduced Mr. Romero to horror and the idea of confined spaces made him want to make movies. Another pivotal film that is not touched upon in this documentary (but is mentioned on the newly-recorded commentary provided by Mr. Frumkes) is Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann, also from 1951, a film that was an enormous influence on Mr. Romero and aided in the creation of his own personal visual style. He also talks about how actor Duane Jones, the lead black actor in Night, was chosen simply because he was the best actor who auditioned for the role, squashing rumors that he was making a statement about the black man’s struggles in a white man’s world. Naturally, this draws comparisons to Ken Foree’s role in Dawn. Richard Rubenstein also weighs in and discusses the European style of producing, and how Dario Argento and his brother Claudio co-financed Dawn. Dawn was originally a much darker picture with a very down and bleak ending. As shooting progressed, the film took on a comic bookish feel and there is an obvious lightening up of mood. Whereas Mr. Romero had a crew of about eight people on Martin (1977), Dawn has a cast and crew in the hundreds. The most fascinating part of the documentary has Mr. Romero describing the rhythms created by editing and spatial design. Prior to his foray into feature filmmaking, Mr. Romero honed his editing skills by making many 30-second commercials (like Sir Ridley Scott who made roughly 3000(!) prior to The Duellists (1977) and Alien (1979).

After a discussion about the distribution of the film and leaving it unrated with a running time of just over two hours, the documentary switches gears to the 1989 summer filming of Two Evil Eyes (1991). Mr. Romero discusses how he wants a family atmosphere on the set without any of the political Hollywood nonsense. There is also a follow-up segment on Land of the Dead (2005) which focuses on Mr. Romero's daughter, Tina Romero, who discusses how she got involved in filmmaking. Be warned: there is a trailer for a hard-core sex parody of Night, and I'll let your imagination guess what the title of this film is! While this trailer does not contain any overt sex, there is much nudity.

There is also footage of the Chiller Theatre convention in 2005 which features a reunion of the cast of Day of the Dead, discussions with Greg Nicotero, Bill Lustig, and some of the cast and crew of Dawn. The final segments, all of which are shot on standard definition video, ends with Mr. Frumkes heading to the Toronto set of Diary of the Dead in the fall of 2006. While these last few segments are nowhere near as incisive as the footage shot for Dawn, they still are relevant, fun to watch and make The Definitive Document of the Dead a worthy addition to the libraries of Romero fans.

This documentary has been available on home video several times before. It first made the rounds in 1985, and I first time I saw it was four years later when it was released on VHS. It also appears on Dawn of the Dead: the Ultimate Edition, which was released on DVD in September 2004. Synapse Films then released it on DVD in 1999 with some nice extras, including a commentary with Mr. Frumkes and some cast and crew members. This latest version, The Definitive Document of the Dead, goes further than its previous incarnations. In addition to the extra footage that has been added, it begins with a slightly different beginning than its predecessors: a very humorous introduction by Mr. Romero for the audience at a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX and segues into a little bit of a discussion that he had in 2006 in Huntington, Long Island.

The documentary is available in two flavors: as a single, stand-alone standard definition DVD with a newly-recorded commentary provided by Mr. Frunkes running 102 minutes that covers Dawn up to Diary, and as a limited edition DVD/Blu-ray combo set that includes a standard definition DVD with the aforementioned extras, plus a Blu-ray of Mr. Frumkes’s original, 1978 documentary Document of the Dead, which runs 66 minutes and was scanned in high definition from the 16mm master. If you have a Blu-ray player, it is worth spending the extra cash to get the limited edition, which also contains a fold-out poster of Wes Benscoter’s beautiful new cover art for the DVD and Blu-ray. Have a look at this artist’s website. His work is brilliant.

NOTE: It has come to our attention that the Blu-ray edition of this title sold out immediately. The DVD edition is still available from Amazon. Click here to order

REVIEW: TIM BURTON'S "FRANKENWEENIE" BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:40:00 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

Frankenweenie (2012) is an animated big-screen expansion of Tim Burton's own 1984 live-action short film of the same name and utilizes the Frankenstein monster tale by Mary Shelley to tell a clever and ultimately moving story about a young boy, Victor Frankenstein, and how he copes with the loss of his beloved dog. This is a universal scenario that every child who grows up with a pet must face at some point. I have only seen a handful of films tackle this subject, and Don Coscarelli’s 1975 outing Kenny and Company is notable for its depiction of a young boy who must take his dog to the vet to be put to sleep.

Victor loves making 16mm movies with his dog, Sparky, in his hometown of New Holland, which is constructed to look like Everytown, USA. Sparky stars as the “Sparkysaurus.” After all, what young boy doesn't love dinosaurs? Mixing footage of Sparky with self-made animation, Victor's movie illustrates an imagination no doubt inspired by The Twilight Zone and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). Victor, obviously an alter-ego for director Burton, is an awkward child who keeps a low profile from his classmates and his neighbor Mr. Burgermeister (a nice nod to Rankin and Bass) who brandishes a hedge clipper. During a baseball game, Victor hits a home run, but Sparky chases the ball into the street and is killed by a car. Devastated, Victor mopes through school until his science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski, a grotesque caricature of a man, shows the class how to use electricity to move a dead frog’s legs. Experiencing a “Eureka!” moment, Victor is filled with a new sense of purpose, and converts his parent’s attic into a makeshift laboratory. Following his teacher’s instructions, he reanimates Sparky with the help of lightning.

Victor does his best to keep Sparky’s reemergence a secret. A creepy, overzealous kid from the neighborhood, Edgar, wants to know how Victor did it. Word gets out about Sparky, and other children competing for a science project attempt similar experiments until things get out of control: a rat becomes a crazed monster; a turtle is made enormous and stomps among a town square carnival like a mixture of Godzilla and Gamera; sea monkeys run amok through the streets; a cute, next-door poodle who fancies Sparky is made to resemble Elsa Lanchester. (There are some cute inside jokes here: the name "Shelley" appears on a tombstone and Bambi is displayed on a local theatre marquee, perhaps as much a nod to the classic short film Bambi Meets Godzilla as it is an homage to the Disney film.) The climax is a loving homage to James Whale’s 1931 classic that started it all and fueled nightmares for years to come.

Thematically, Frankenweenie shares many similarities to Henry Selick's 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas (produced by Burton) in that a protagonist compelled to do a good deed ends up making a mess of things. Most of the characters, particularly the children, have predominantly large eyes, as if they stepped out of a Margaret Keane painting (it’s no wonder that she is the subject of the director’s next film, due for release later this year).

Filmed on Canon EOS 5D Mark II single lens reflux cameras and printed in black and white, Frankenweenie looks lovely and is easily one of the year’s best films. It should win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It would be nice to see black and white return to the screen as an art form as it truly looks beautiful. Danny Elfman provides yet another memorable score to a Tim Burton film.

There are a few nice extras included on the Blu-ray disc:

· We get a short film starring Sparky called Captain Sparky vs. the Flying Saucers, the in-movie that appears at the start of the film and runs roughly two and a-half-minutes in length (no relation to Siskel and Ebert’s Sparky the Wonder Dog of PBS’s Sneak Previews from the early 1980s.).

· Miniatures in Motion: Bringing Frankenweenie to Life is an excellent behind-the-scenes documentary featurette that runs about 23 minutes (I wish it was longer) and takes us to the massive 60,000 foot soundstage in London where the film was shot and contains comments from the many animators who worked on the individual scenes – they all averaged about two minutes per week of screen time! What is truly extraordinary about this piece is seeing the astonishing level of detail and attention that is made to even the smallest of items. You get a new appreciation of the film and all the hard work that went into making it. Absolutely nothing in this movie has been computer-generated. It was all designed, built, and manufactured for the film.

· The Frankenweenie Touring Exhibit is enough to make one jealous if you don’t live in one of the cities that it comes to.

· A music video

· Tim Burton's original 1984 featurette, Frankenweenie, upon which this film is based. This wonderful live-action film was financed by Disney and the producers were reportedly shocked at how frightening it would be for children, so much so that they fired Burton and shelved the project. It runs 30 minutes and stars Barret Oliver (The Neverending Story) as Victor, the young son of Ben and Susan (Daniel Stern and Shelley Duvall). Sofia Coppola, inexplicably using the name Domino, appears as a friend of Victor’s.

It would have been nice to have a running commentary with Tim Burton or from the animators as I love commentaries and eagerly listen to them whenever they appear as extras. However, this is a minor quibble. The film looks absolutely amazing on Blu-ray and is a worthy addition to your collection.

Click here to order order 4 disc deluxe edition with DVD and digital copies included.

REVIEW: PIXAR CLASSIC "FINDING NEMO" (2003) SWIMS ON TO BLU-RAY

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 05:29:00 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

It's hard to believe that Pixar Animation Studios’ Finding Nemo, which was released on Friday, May 30, 2003, is now ten years-old. One of the most popular animated films of all time, Finding Nemo is a delightful excursion into the world of undersea life with plenty of colorful characters to go around. Employing the voice talents of some of Hollywood's best-known and most respected performers, Finding Nemo aims to not only entertain us but educate us, as well. It succeeds extraordinarily well in doing both.

Despite the years of science that I've accumulated under my belt by way of elementary, intermediate, and high school, I must plead ignorance and admit to never having heard of a clownfish (scientifically known as Amphiprion ocellaris) prior to Finding Nemo. Director Andrew Stanton reportedly saw these water dwellers in an aquarium in Florida and their vibrant look helped provide inspiration for the film. The aptly-named Marlin and Coral are two such fish, parents just starting a family. Unfortunately, a barracuda attack leaves Marlin alone except for one remaining fish egg out of roughly one hundred which he decides to name Nemo, a name that his wife Coral liked prior to her untimely demise. As a result of this attack, Nemo suffers from a malformed right fin, making him the runt of the litter, so to speak. Due to this perceived limitation, Marlin becomes just a tad overprotective and overbearing and follows Nemo wherever he goes, looking out for him. When Nemo goes off to school to learn the ways of underwater sea life, his father finds it very difficult to let him go off on his own. This frustration leads Nemo to rush off into unchartered waters where he is swooped up by humans, possibly to never see his father again. Marlin sets out to rescue him, and is befriended by Dory, a well-intentioned regal blue tang who suffers from short-term memory loss. They join forces to locate Nemo after a clue that reveals he is in Sydney, Australia. Along the way they encounter some crazy characters, such as a shark who is swearing off eating fish; a group of jellyfish; a group of sea turtles caught up in the East Australian Current; and a pelican who is trying to help Nemo. Added to this mix are a few human characters, specifically a dentist whose fish tank is home to a motley crew of sea life all trying to help Nemo (who is now a prisoner in the tank) get home. One of his patients is his niece, Darla, a pre-prepubescent nightmare sporting metal braces and is the film’s answer to Toy Story’s Sid, the kid down the block who loves to destroy toys.

The film is beautifully animated. Pixar has certainly come a long way from its early days; more money, of course, means better technology and the underwater world of Finding Nemo really comes to life here in a way that 1989’s The Little Mermaid only hinted at. The nuances in the plant life are exquisite, and the banter between the characters is laugh-out-loud funny. The underrated Albert Brooks, whom I liked so much in Taxi Driver (1976), Broadcast News (1987), and Drive (2011), voices Marlin with a fatherly exuberance and concern. Ellen DeGeneres is his equal as Dory, the forgetful fish. Also on hand are Willem Dafoe, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Geoffrey Rush, and Elizabeth Perkins. In the same way that Jaws (1975) made oceanographers and marine biologists out of wide-eyed children in the audience fascinated by the Carcharodon carcharias, Finding Nemo his more than likely inspired more than a few future Jacques Cousteaus.

As to be expected, the Blu-ray is a revelation, and Finding Nemo has never looked better on home video. There is a clarity, sharpness and depth that truly amazing to see. The film comes in two flavors on disc: a three-disc set and a five-disc set (this contains a 3D version of the film). The first Blu-ray disc extras contains the following extras in high definition: a cute, three and-a-half minute short from 1989 called Knick Knack; a five-minute loop called “Aquarium” that allows you to run continuously on the monitor; “CineExplore,” a feature that allows you to view the complete film while hearing comments from the filmmakers with superimposed storyboards on the screen; “Finding Nemo: A Roundtable Discussion” is a seventeen-minute discussion among the filmmakers reminiscing ten years after the film’s release; “Reinventing the Submarine Voyage” at Disneyland, runs roughly fifteen minutes and looks at the underwater sea rides; alternate opening (three minutes); and “A Lesson in Flashbacks” which runs eight minutes wherein the director recalls how the film was originally conceived. The second Blu-ray contains the following extras all ported over from the original 2004 DVD release, which are all in standard definition with the exception of “Aquariums” and “Art Review” (an eight-minute discussion of concept design); “Making Nemo” is a 25-minute documentary on the making of the film; “Exploring the Reef” is exactly what the title entails; “Studio Tour” which takes the audience behind the doors of Pixar for five minutes; several outtakes, deleted scenes, and publicity pieces; and “Mr. Ray’s Enclyclopedia.”

It is interesting to note that Pixar was more focused on The Incredibles (2004) during the making Finding Nemo, believing that the former would be the huge hit and the latter would do minimal business. Universal Pictures did the same thing in 1974 when they were making The Hindenburg and gave the green light to Jaws, thinking that the star-studded disaster film by Robert Wise Allen would be the box office champ while the film about a Great White Shark was their “little picture.”

Finding Nemo is a big picture of the little clownfish that could.

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BOOK REVIEW: "E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL- FROM CONCEPT TO CLASSIC"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 05:07:00 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: From Concept to Classic is a 30^th anniversary paperback reprint of the book that was originally published in hardcover for the film’s 20^th anniversary in 2002 that accompanied the special edition DVD Ultimate Gift Set of Steven Spielberg’s classic story of a young boy, the product of a divorced home, who befriends an extra-terrestrial who is mistakenly left behind by his spaceship following a hasty exit from earth. If you own the 2002 edition, the new book is identical except for the fact that it is paperback and its dimensions measure 9” x 0.4” x 10.8”, a little larger than its predecessor. The introduction to the new printing by Steven Spielberg is also updated and does not retain his introduction to the 2002 edition.

The book is essentially separated into three sections. Section one covers the origins and the overall development of the film from concept (as a story called Night Skies which was originally very malevolent in tone) to the first draft which was penned by Melissa Mathison, whose work on Carroll Ballard’s 1979 film The Black Stallion impressed Mr. Spielberg so much that he hand-picked her to write the script. Mr. Spielberg’s idea for E.T., which originated while on location in the summer of 1980 during the shooting of Raiders of the Lost Ark, came from his thoughts about the alien at the end of his own Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and what it would be like for him if he were to be inadvertently stranded on earth. There are also comments from producer Kathleen Kennedy (now the president of Lucasfilm), E.T. designer and creator Carlo Rambaldi, actor Henry Thomas, actress Drew Barrymore, actor Robert MacNaughton, actor Peter Coyote, actress Dee Wallace-Stone, composer John Williams, cinematographer Allen Daviau, editor Carol Littleton, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren, and production designer James D. Bissell.

Section two contains the film’s complete screenplay, which was the first draft that Mrs. Mathison wrote and was so good that the director decided to shoot it as-is with very little, if any, changes. The screenplay is complemented by illustrations by Ed Verraux and production notes the give further insight into the original ideas that the crew had in mind but had to be abandoned or altered due to time constraints or logistics. It also includes the sequence with the school principal (played by Harrison Ford) that was cut from the film, in addition to other shots/scenes that were cut.

Section three concerns itself with the film’s post-production (the models of the children on their bikes, E.T.’s spaceship) and its impact on the movie-going public (the E.T. phenomenon and merchandising), and the 2002 restoration.

It is interesting to note that E.T., which was originally entitled A Boy’s Life, was conceived of as a small, personal film. Although the director was by this time a household name due to the success of Jaws and the aforementioned Close Encounters and Raiders, no one could have expected the film to do the sort of business that it ended up doing, easily propelling it to the top spot as the year’s most financially successful film. This book does an excellent job of giving the reader great insight into not only the making of the film but into the thoughts of those involved in its creation. What is most evident is that everyone on the set (cast and crew alike) treated the creature of E.T. with dignity and respect as if he was a real, live creature. Itself the brainchild of designer and creator Carlo Rambaldi, who also created the aliens in Close Encounters, the mechanical head effects of the alien in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), and the entacled creature in Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession (1981) to name a few, E.T. rarely looks like an animatronic puppet even in the behind-the-scenes shots. You would really swear that he was a real creature. Mr. Rambaldi passed away in August of this year at the age of 86, and E.T. stands as one of his greatest (and certainly most emotional) achievements.

For fans of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, this book is a must-have.

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