Some Kind of Heaven On DVD, Both Essential and Disappointing

Ladies and gentlemen, and low lifes, there is a new superstar to keep your eye on in the field of documentaries.  Reminiscent of classic Errol Morris, with a touch of Urlich Seidl that'll have you questioning just how authentic some of these these seemingly too perfect moments can be, we have Lance Oppenheim.  2020's Some Kind Of Heaven is his feature film debut, following a series of intriguing short films and succeeded by the fantastic Spermworld and his more commercial but still gratifying venture, the recent Ren Faire miniseries for HBO.  This remains his best work, and unfortunately, still the only one available to own on disc in any capacity, via Magnolia Home Entertainment's 2021 DVD.
Produced by The New York Times and Darren Aronofsky (his best film!), Some Kind Of Heaven is set in The Villages, America's largest retirement community.  Located in Florida, This massive, heavily cultivated living experience is probably not how you imagine a retirement community to be.  It's wholly unique, if not straight up weird.  Similarly, if you go in expecting some quirky, light-hearted look at seniors living a slightly more active lifestyle than the stereotype, this movie will prove to be far more than you imagined as well.  It turns into a surprising exploration of the sometimes rather dark, and always impassioned personal lives of a handful of its residents.  From drug arrests and hustling to finding love while being financially trapped.  It's delicately told, funny and startlingly candid, without sliding into trashiness or exploitation.  And you definitely don't need to be predisposed to the subject of retirement villages to be moved by the experience.
2021 Magnolia DVD top; Youtube trailer (I'll explain) bottom.
Magnolia presents Some Kind Of Heaven in 1.33:1, which yes, is the correct aspect ratio.  It's a stylistic choice.  It also has a rather soft, fuzzy look, which presumably isn't a stylistic choice.  That's the bummer of only getting this on DVD, and a single-layer disc at that.  Still, I fired this up on Kanopy real quick, and yeah, it was a bit soft and fuzzy on streaming, too.  So maybe it actually is a stylistic choice, at least in part.  To settle it, I've downloaded the Youtube trailer in 1080p and compared it to the DVD...  Yeah, look how much clearer it is, with sharper detail and better color separation.  See how much more legible the letter on that guy's wings are?  Things would be at least that much easier on the eyes (probably even slightly better, with a proper encode) if we ever got this on blu.  C'est la vie.

At least this DVD offers the correct 5.1 mix in Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles.
To further the frustration, though, this disc is completely barebones, apart from a handful of bonus Magnolia trailers that auto-play on start-up - not even Heaven's.  Now, a barebones disc is always annoying, but it's especially so in this case, because there could easily have been some great stuff on here.  First of all, Oppenheim has a short film called called The Paradise Next Door, which is about the same place and comprised entirely of footage shot while making Some Kind Of Heaven.  It's a great, little companion piece... Oppenheim even refers to it as a "DVD-extra" on his Instagram page.  Come on, Magnolia; your filmmaker is laying them at your feet!  Another of his shorts, The Happiest Guy In the World, is also pretty great and shares a number of themes with Some Kind Of Heaven, so that could've been nice.  And Youtube is full of interviews with Oppenheim talking about Heaven, so he seems game to talk about it and has interesting things to say.  Even if maybe The New York Times was going to be difficult about licensing the shorts, surely Magnolia could've slapped a quick interview on here.  But not even the trailer?  That just makes this feel like a quick, "no care given" release.
Hopefully, if we're lucky, some boutique label will recognize Oppenheim's body of work and issue us a proper special edition collection, maybe overseas where there isn't already this preexisting DVD competitor in the market.  But unfortunately, documentary seems to be a tough genre to sell collectors on, so it'll probably be a very long wait.  So at least we have this.  And I'm eager to see what Lance will do next, even if I'll probably have to watch it on my computer.

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