Andrei Rublev Sanity Check

Andrei Rublev is a medieval painter known for his Catholic frescoes, and this is his three and a half hour, black and white life story.  Wait, where are you going?  No, 1966's Andrei Rublev is actually a fascinating early work by Andrei Tarkovsky that's full of life.  We've got naked pagans, invading mongrels, exhilarating balloon rides reminiscent of the opening of 8 1/2, sadistic torture and great art.  Not to over-promise on the cheap thrills, this is a beautifully shot art film with lots of discourse on religious philosophy.  But it's not some boring biopic; it's a vibrant, impassioned film; a genuine masterwork if ever there was one.

a grim moment only seen in The Passion of Andrei cut

Criterion first released it on DVD back in 1999.  Artificial Eye later released it in the UK in 2002, and eventually beat Criterion to the blu-ray punch in 2016.  But both of their releases was a shorter cut, which... well, let's get into that.  Tarkovsky first released a 205 minute version (alternatively titled The Passion According To Andrei), which the Russian government censored, and made him make a 185 minute version.  So Criterion had released the uncut version and Artificial Eye released the cut version.  BUT, in later years, Tarkovsky has said in interviews that he prefers the shorter, tighter cut, so that's arguably his director's cut.  Fans were divided.  But in 2018, Criterion made the best choice and released both cuts on blu-ray in a definitive new, 2-disc set.

1) 1999 Criterion DVD; 2) 2018 Criterion 185m BD; 3) 2018 Criterion 205m BD.

All three discs present the film in roughly 2.35:1 (the 1999 DVD is 2.37:1), though you can see the original DVD was non-anamorphic, which is why I left the negative space around the first set of shots.  It's also cropped tighter around the sides compared to the blu-rays, both of which were restored in 2k. All the booklet says is that, "[t]his new digital transfer was created in high-definition resolution on a Spirit Datacine film scanner from a 35mm internegative and restored by Mosfilm."  It doesn't even hint at there being two different transfers, though these scans are clearly dissimilar (though they're both 2.35; you can see the framing is not identical).  My guess is that the longer version was scanned from a film print; it's much lower contrast, shows considerably more weathering, and fine detail like film grain is smoothed over, unlike the shorter cut.  They both blow the old DVD away, though, so even though it's inferior, you won't be dissatisfied cranking up either disc.

All three discs have the original Russian mono, in LPCM on the two blus, with optional English subtitles.  The subs on the extended cut blu-ray, unfortunately, are burnt in.  Though it's not too offensive, as we English speakers are unlikely to ever watch this film without subtitles, but they're optional on the shorter cut and the original DVD, which tells us the probably had a different source for the extended cut in 1999 than in 2018.

Now, the original DVD featured a partial (understandable, given this film's length) audio commentary by film scholar Vlada Petric.  It also had a featurette where Petric addresses the camera directly, interspersed with excerpts of Tarkovski being interviewed, taken from the 1984 documentary A Poet In the Cinema.  And it includes a fold-out booklet with notes by critic J. Hoberman.

Criterion updated their release for 2018 with a bunch of new stuff.  There;s a new featurette that interviews cinematographer Vadim Yusov and actor Nikolai Burlyaev (he played Boriska and had previously performed the titular leading role in Ivan's Childhood) and two vintage 1966 featurettes: one about the writing of the script, and a shorter one showing Tarkovski at work on location.  Then there's an interview with one expert and a visual essay by another.  There's the trailer, and they've also included Tarkovski's entire student film (many previous Tarkovsky films included a five minute clip), 1961's The Steamroller and the Violin.

1) 2002 Facets DVD; 2) 2018 Criterion BD.

Steamroller had previously been available as a stand-alone DVD release from Facets Video, which yes, I do have.  It's completely barebones (except for some text menu stuff), so we just had the 46-minute film itself on the disc.  And as we can see here, it's clearly been restored since then.  Facets presents the film in 1.30:1, while Criterion offers it at 1.41:1.  Perhaps the biggest distinction is that the DVD was interlaced, which the BD corrects.  But we can also see the colors are less washed out, detail is clearer and there's even some soft film grain, which has been totally smoothed out of the SD transfer.  The two transfers seem to be taken from the same source, noting the identical film damage, but this is clearly a new scan giving us the film in proper HD.  Both discs just present the original Russian mono in lossy 2.0, but the subtitles are now removable, where they were previously burnt into the Facets.

Steamroller's not a terribly moving film or anything.  It's more of interest to Tarkovski scholars than general film fans (though I'm sure it's much better than anything most of us smart-ass critics could make, 'ey?), but it does display some of his talents and artistry that would flourish in his later works.  So it's nice to finally get it in HD.  The blu-ray also carries over the commentary, and upgrades the booklet to a fold-out poster with the same notes on the back.  But they did lose the featurette, which is a shame, since that gave us a chance to hear about this movie from Tarkovsky himself.  Maybe Criterion plans to slap the entire Poet In the Cinema doc on a future release?  Anyway, this is such an essential release that never seemed to get the coverage it deserved.  Blu-ray.com didn't even review it.  Are we living in crazy times?

The One and Only Unborn One and Two

Roger Corman's The Unborn films are a real staple of the early 90s horror scene.  It was always on cable TV, and every video store had 'em.  Once the It's Alive movies ended, these began.  The original came out in 1991 and honestly, it plays like an unaired Thirtysomething Halloween special, which I mean in all the best and the worst ways.  Seriously, from the dialogue and performances to the sets and camerawork, you could air it between two random episodes and never spot the shift.  It's a pretty honest expose of the same generation's yuppie angst over the ordeal of pregnancy with a fairly obvious but effective horror spin.  The disturbing stuff is generally disturbing and well executed given the otherwise fast and cheap vibe of this production (it is a Corman production, after all).  The cat scene will go down in history of upsetting horror moments.

It's got a surprisingly strong cast, with Brooke Adams (who was in an episode of Thirtysomething this same year, by the way) and Return Of the Living Dead's James Karen doing real first rate work.  Kathy Griffin is perfectly cast as an admittedly pre-enlightened lesbian birth coach (the cool housewife leaving her speechless by telling her to "suck my dick" couldn't have been more transparently written by a pair of male screenwriters threatened by feminism if her husband rode into the office on a motorcycle to carry her off).  And Corman's secret weapon Matt Roe is the king of sleazy sharks.  Oh, also look out for a pre-fame cameo by Lisa Kudrow.  It also has a pretty cool, understated synth soundtrack by Gary Numan (of "Cars" fame).

On the other hand, naysayers are right about one thing: it's kinda boring!  It's not just a slow burn, it's spinning its wheels.  Whole five to ten minute segments could have been twenty second montages.  And it's always headed to the most obvious, predictable places.  You know what it's leading up to just from the poster, but it doesn't get there until the last fifteen minutes.  Full of surprises, this movie is not.  Nice touches yes (I love that Adams keeps taking her mother, who is otherwise a completely superfluous character, everywhere with her in the last act, just to make everything a little more gonzo), and it picks up in the climax, but the unexpected no.  This is a movie that sets up all the pins and then makes you wait and wait and wait for them to drop.  Fortunately, it's worth it when they do, and everything was just weird and well done enough in the meantime.

2018 Scream Factory BD.

(New) Concorde released a fullscreen, barebones DVD of this back in 2001; but I knew it was only a matter of time until a proper edition came along, so I held out.  That turned out to be a long wait, but eventually Scream Factory stepped up to the plate, releasing this on blu with an all new 2k remaster.  This was our first chance to see the movie widescreen since it played theatrically (cable TV, VHS, laserdisc and the DVD were all 1.33), and the quality of its cinematography (by Academy Award winner Wally Pfister... perhaps you've heard of The Dark Knight?) is a bit of a revelation, making this feel more like a real movie, and less like an 80s network show.  Appropriately, the transfer it gets is properly filmic.  Grain abounds, if a little inconsistently.  It's not quite a Fidelity In Motion encode or a UHD, but for a standard 1080p BD, I'd give it an A-.  And we get a pretty strong DTS-HD stereo track with optional English subtitles.

It also comes with a really good audio commentary by director Rodman Flender (Idle Hands, Leprechaun 2), along with fellow Corman filmmaker Adam Simon (Brain Dead), who mostly acts as a buddy/ moderator on the track, but it turns out he does have a particular connection to this film.  The only other extra is the trailer, so Scream didn't bill it as a proper "Collector's Edition," but everything we do get is top shelf all the way.

And then we come to 1994's The Unborn II by Rick Jacobson, director of Bloodfist Parts 6 and 8, and starring LA Law's Michelle Greene & Family Ties' Scott Valentine.  This one never went to theaters and is evidently cheaper, but rewards you by also being zanier.  In the opening scene, a lady in a business suit walks up tome kids playing in a playground, pulls out a gun, and puts two in his face.  And it doesn't really let up.  Couple that with the decision to give the titular unborn considerably more screentime while making it look like one of The Garbage Pail Kids, and you've really got... something.

And it helps if you've just watched the original film.  No, Brooke Adams and the rest of the cast are not back, but if you're well versed in The Unborn, you can start to suss out that the playground shooter is meant to be Adams' character: a former mother of one of the babies running around with a gun on a mission to kill them all, right?  She's even the same basic look and type as Adams.  But then you meet Greene's character, who's also heavily signaling that she could be Adams character returned.  This movie's playing a game with us: are we following the pro- or an-tagonist from the previous film?  It keeps you on your toes as the stakes stay surprisingly high, at least until the drawn out and lackluster climax, which is admittedly a let down.  But the movie is so fun up to then, the lame ending isn't enough to spoil it.

2003 Concorde DVD.

This one went direct to video, so it almost certainly was always intended to be 1.33:1, but they may've also optimistically shot it safe for 1.85:1.  Either way, it was clearly shot on film (I'm guessing 16mm), so it would benefit considerably from a remaster.  Especially since this disc isn't even 1.33; it's more like 1.30:1 rounding up.  But at least this disc's not interlaced or anything.  It's just your basic, un-futzed with SD transfer.  Nothing fancy but nothing screwy, including your basic stereo mix in Dolby 2.0 with no subs.  The only extra is the trailer (watch them cheat by showing the creature from the end of the first movie), plus a couple of bonus trailers.

It's also worth noting that in 2009, David S. Goyer wrote and directed a very loose Platinum Dunes remake starring Gary Oldman and... actually, never mind.  I've seen it; it's not worth noting.

Anyway, I'd love to see a label like Arrow issue the real Unborn I & II on 4k with even more special features one day.  But considering how long it took us just to get the first one on a widescreen disc at all, I'm not holding my breath.  So until that day, these discs are the way to go.  The Unborn II DVD is a little hard to find (given its long OOP and still the definitive release of a well known horror flick), but be wary of importing cheaper alternatives.  The only one I'm aware of is a French DVD, but it has no English language options, just the French dub.  It's a trap.  You need the US DVD or, I guess, the laserdisc.

The Daniel Clowes Filmography

Comic writer/ artist Daniel Clowes' most celebrated film is, of course, Ghost World (Clowes was even nominated for an Oscar!), which I've already covered here.  But it's not the whole of his filmography.  Heck, it might not even be his best film.  Well... okay, actually it is.  But still, I'd argue his other movies come a lot closer than you may've been lead to believe or remember.  I had been happily living without these films in my collection, but upon a recent revisit, I realized this could not stand.  And as a bonus, these blus are rather cheap these days.  👍

Following Bad Santa, 2006 saw director Terry Zwigoff reunite with his most famous collaborator for Art School Confidential, based on a simple 4-page strip in an issue of Eightball, though Clowes also wrote the screenplay.  In both cases, I can see why these movies didn't really land.  In this case, it's sort of a defiantly artsy indie flick, but at the same time, first feels too indebted to lower common denominator comedies like Porky's, Superbad or Revenge Of the Nerds.  The first half in particular borrows pretty heavily from the young men on a quest to lose their virginity formula.  But I'd say that's more of a marketing issue, leaving this movie struggling to find its audience with a "who is this for" dilemma.  When it came out, I remember thinking Funny Pages was the movie this had failed to be.

But looking beyond that, this is an acerbic look on the art school world, from the students to the faculty and the entire institution.  And it's a thoughtful dialogue on art itself, all wrapped up in a clever murder mystery plot.  It's actually the film Velvet Buzzsaw wanted and failed to be.  And since Ghost World was so acclaimed, this movie was able to secure a fantastic cast all eager to be a part of this, including Anjelica Houston, John Malkovich (who also produced), returning Steve Buscemi, Mallrats' own Ethan Suplee, The Last Days of Disco's Matt Keeslar and the great Jim Broadbent.  The ending is ingenious, and Clowes unique writing definitely shines through the conventions.

2006 Sony DVD top; 2018 MVD BD bottom.

So MVD is clearly using the same base master as the original Sony, with essentially identical color timing, brightness levels, framing, etc.  Well, I say the framing is "essentially" identical, because both discs are 1.84:1, but the DVD is slightly vertically pinched, which the BD corrects.  ASC was shot on film, but you'd never know it from looking at these smooth, grainless transfers.  Still, the BD is sharper and less compressed than the DVD, so it's a fine jump to basic HD improving on the DVD, just an old transfer.

Sony's DVD features a 5.1 mix with optional English subtitles, plus a bunch of foreign subs and dubs.  MVD keeps all of that, bumping the 5.1 up to DTS-HD, and also adds a stereo mix in LPCM.

For extras, I wouldn't call it a proper special edition, but we get some decent stuff.  Both discs are virtually the same in this department, except the DVD has more bonus trailers.  We get a basic, promotional 'making of' featurette and a second featurette covering the film's debut at Cannes, both of which feature brief interviews with many of the cast and crew.  Then there's about fifteen minutes of deleted scenes (there are some amusing bits, but nothing major), and a short blooper reel.  Only the blu-ray includes the actual ASC trailer.

A decade later, we get the next Clowes film, 2017's Wilson.  Clowes wrote this screenplay too, adapted from his own comic of the same name, though now they've got a new director: Craig Johnson.  soft ending.  Fox execs probably got involved and said, this is a legit rom-com starring Woody Harrelson now.  We can't end it so bleakly.  It's not a bad ending, but it does feel like a cop-out.

But except for that, this film is still a pretty excellent, on point Clowes adaptation.  If you're not familiar with the source material,. I can guarantee you won't predict all the places this story goes to.  And while Harrelson's casting might be a little outsized, the rest of the cast is perfect, from co-star Laura Dern to minor supporting players like Mary Lynn Rajskub, Cheryl Hines, Margo Martindale, Brett Gelman and Isabella Amara.  I get why mainstream audiences expect a cute, sunny comedy would bounce off of this, and the ending is a bit off a let down if you've read Clowes original, but it's still a surprisingly good film if you go in with the right mindset.

2017 Fox DVD top; 2017 Fox BD bottom.

As a combopack, you could safely assume you're getting the same basic transfer on two separate discs, with the only difference being the HD boost the BD allows.  And you'd be mostly correct, but there is a small, unexpected difference: The DVD is 1.83:1, while the blu is 1.85.  Basically, the DVD has a slight vertical pinch (maybe in solidarity with Art School? haha), which the BD again corrects.  Besides that, it's just the normal boost in clarity you'd expect from the BD, fixing the light soft focus of the DVD compression.  This film was shot on digital and finished in 2k, so it's looking about as good as it ever will, which in this case is absolutely fine.  I'm sure you could get a superior encode on a UHD, but it would be a slim gain and I wouldn't hold my breath for such any such release.

Fox's release features Wilson's original 5.1 track (in DTS-HD on the blu), with French and Spanish 5.1 dubs, plus an English Audio Descriptive track.  It also includes optional English and Spanish subtitles.

Wilson has featurettes, too - three of 'em - but they're even shorter.  Like two minutes or less each.  But taken together, they add up to one okay little featurette.  Besides a bunch of soundbites from the cast and crew, which at least impart a little information, they do some panel to frame comparisons, which give you a good feel for how the movie stacks up against the graphic novel.  They even animate the chat bubbles.  Somebody cared.  Better though, is the almost 20 minutes of deleted scenes, many of which may've hurt the film's pace, but otherwise are pretty funny or add some more character nuance.  There's also a stills gallery, the trailer and a couple bonus trailers.

So neither film comes with the deep special edition we'd like, but they're better than barebones, so fans will get some value out of 'em.  Both are easy recommendations.

Eddington

And to fully complete the picture of Danial Clowes' filmography, I should mention that in 2011, actress and former Beastie Boys love interest Ione Skye directed a short film adaptation of Ice Haven called David Goldberg.  Predictably but sadly, it's not available on home video at all (but you can find it on Youtube).  I imagine it wouldn't be a simple prospect, but if a label like Criterion were ever to pick up one of these movies for a fancier, 4k release, David Goldberg would be a sweet special feature.  And additionally, Clowes appears in the 2010 documentary Shut Up, Little Man, which is available on DVD, and fleetingly in Ari Aster's Eddington, which is out on DVD, BD and UHD.  But now we've veered off into hardcore devotee territory.  I'd recommend Art School Confidential and Wilson to anybody, however, and their current treatment on blu-ray isn't exactly exciting, but they're fine, and definitely worth having.

Advancing The Front

Here's another label I've been meaning to get onto this site for a while: Indicator/ Powerhouse.  They're a UK outfit that started up in the tail end of 2016, releasing some impressive special editions, often of titles Twilight Time had released as limited editions in the US.  And that certainly holds true with today's film, The Front, which Indicator put out via their own limited edition Blu-ray/ DVD combo pack early this year.  Or last year, I suppose.  It's 2018 now.

Update 1/1/18 - 8/17/26: It's 2026 now, and Sony has advanced The Front to 4k on their all new UHD; and it's not even an overly limited, hard to find steelbook.

The Front's a great, comic take on Hollywood's blacklist during the red scare of the 1950s, that still manages to level lose site of the real history's gravity.  Woody Allen, who stars but doesn't write or direct this time, plays a small time bookie with pretty low aspirations in life.  When an old friend of his, a successful television writer who's been blacklisted from the entertainment industry due to his affiliations with the United States Communist Party, comes to him for help, he agrees because he needs the money.  In short, his friend would continue to write screenplays, but in Allen's name, and they would split the payments.  Their plan becomes so successful, soon other blacklisted writers come to Allen, and everything's going great, until Allen winds up becoming so successful, fame and attention starts to fall on him, and he has to go to greater and greater lengths to hide the fact that he's actually a talentless fraud.

So it's an easy, affable comedy premise.  It sounds like a sitcom, and even sometimes looks like one, since it's all about writing classic television.  But it's also obviously making a genuine political statement, peppered with real life moments of tragedy taken from screenwriter Walter Bernstein, who was himself blacklisted during the McCarthy era.  Lives ruined by paranoia and zealotry, a major character commits suicide.  It's a funny movie, but it's not all fun and games.  Director Martin Ritt and several other members of the cast and crew had also went through the blacklist - the closing credits demarcate everyone on this film who was - so they bring a truth to film that gives it real weight.  Nowhere is this stronger felt than in the supporting role of Zero Mostel (The Producers), the real life black-listed comic actor who gives a heart-rending performance as a black-listed comic actor who succumbs to deep desperation as he's pushed out of the show Allen is pretending to write for.   And the rest of the supporting cast is great, too, including Andrea Marcovicci and Danny Aiello, both of The Stuff fame.  But it's really Mostel's picture at least as much as it is Allen's.

The Front debuted on DVD from Columbia Tri-Star in 2004.  It was a single-sided disc but featured both full and widescreen presentations.  Otherwise, it was essentially barebones, but us Woody Allen fans had grown used to that.  And anyway, that disc was all we had of this film until 2014, when Twilight Time licensed the title from Sony and released it on blu-ray with a new 4k scan, and some nice features, including an audio commentary and their usual isolated score track.  That was limited to their usual 3000 copies, and Sony wound up issuing that remaster themselves as a MOD DVDR in 2015, sans extras.  Then, in 2017, Indicator came out with their limited (also 3000 copies), all region, dual format edition with that same 4k master, Twilight Time's new extras, and even a little bit more. It was the go-to extra until this year, when Sony came back, this time releasing the film as a full-blown 4k Ultra HD.

1) 2004 Tri-Star US fullscreen DVD; 2) 2004 Tri-Star US widescreen DVD;
3) 2017 Indicator UK DVD; 4) 2017 Indicator UK BD; 5) 2026 Sony US UHD.

So, I left the black bars around the first set of comparisons to highlight the differences in aspect ratio.  I mean, you don't need them to see the obvious difference between the Columbia Tri-Star's fullscreen version, and the other three widescreen versions; but it is interesting to note how the original widescreen transfer, though anamorphically enhanced, was slightly windowboxed.  The later 1.85:1 editions naturally took care of that, which frankly would only be an issue on more modern televisions anyway.  In terms of on-screen content, the shift in ARs is minute.  Interestingly, though, the fullscreen version is mostly just an open matte transfer, revealing excessive vertical information including lots of wasteful head space, and slicing just a little off the sides.

Anyway, Indicator's 4k scan is a huge improvement over the DVD, which was good for its time: anamorphic and no interlacing.  But it had some messy compression.  The film's always been a little on the soft side, but the DVD only made that worse, while the blu really zeros in on the detail, right down to the very natural, untampered with grain.  The general color timing is basically the same, but does have a more natural, authentic feel on the blu (or even Indicator's DVD).  And so yes, Indicator's disc was already a 4k master, but now Sony gives it to us a proper 4k disc with Dolby Vision HDR10.  The result is a similar transfer but a much stronger encode, making tiny detail and each fleck of film grain sharper and clearer.  I guess I should point out here that I've seen some online sources call this a triple layer disc, but it's just a 51.9 GB transfer on a dual layer disc.  But for a film this length, that's more than enough, and looks great.  Yes, it's an easily discernible improvement on the already strong transfer from Indicator.

Audio on all three discs (and indeed, every release of The Front) is just the original mono track in 2.0, but that's all any of us should want; and naturally all the HD discs rare in lossless LPCM.  The old DVD did include subtitles, in English, French, Japanese and Korean, while Indicator just boils it down to your basic English HoH.  Sony's UHD has 'em, too, and also brings back the French and Spanish.

So, again, the old Tri-Star DVD was barebones.  It just had a couple of bonus trailers.  But Twilight Time created a new audio commentary, with film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman and actress Marcovicci, which Indicator has thankfully licensed for their release, because it's a great track.  Kirgo and Redman alternate between acting as moderators for a very lively discussion with Marcovicci and providing expert commentary for the rest of the film.  The also carried over the original theatrical trailer and the isolated score track from TT.  The only thing they missed was the small booklet with additional notes by Kirgo.

But then they took the extra steps of creating their own booklet, a heftier 36-pager with notes by Gabriel Miller, who wrote a book on Ritt's films, and archival interviews with Ritt, Bernstein and Allen.  Even more compelling, they've included a video interview with The Front's director of photography Michael Chapman.  It's short but very interesting - don't skip it.  Indicator has also included an image gallery of on-set and promo photos, and reversible artwork, which is basically the same artwork, but minus the ratings and Indicator logos.

Disappointingly, Sony hasn't added anything new (there's a vintage 'making of' featurette on Youtube featuring an interview with the director... why not include that?); and they dropped the Chapman interview.  Plus the booklet.  Fortunately, they at least kept the commentary, the trailer and the isolated score, but still.  One hopes for steps forwards, not backwards.  It does come in a slipcover. 

It makes sense that Sony gave this a reissue given that its last domestic release was from Twilight Time, who dropped off a long time ago.  Now it's back in print and better than ever.  And don't feel too bad about missing out on that Chapman interview.  It comes from, and can be found on, a website called webofstories.  I'd still prefer to have it on disc; but it's no reason to hold out on upgrading this film if you're otherwise inclined to.  And this film does deserve it.