Me and You and Everyone We Know... Plus Their Short Films, Too

Alright, after the heart-rending nihilism of Time Of the Wolf, it's time for a complete change of pace. So I'm looking at the feature film debut of Miranda July, 2005's Me and You and Everyone We Know. I suppose, at it's core, it's a rom-com. A man and a woman, both struggling to find their niche in the world, eventually discover each other. But it's also got a sort of Altman-ish structure, where the film follows a diverse collection of characters whose stories wind up interconnecting at unexpected intervals. More importantly, though, it's a much more inventive, sensitive, smart film on top of all that.

Update 3/23/15 - 4/30/20: Woot!  We finally have a blu-ray now - and it's in the Criterion Collection?  Nice!

I can see this movie striking people as being too precious at a cursory, superficial glance. Like a Northern Exposure-y series of set pieces saying: isn't it cute how eccentric everybody is. But as quirky as it is, it's not oddness for oddness's sake. And this film's may not be totally innocent of that, but most of the absurdities here are built from a relatable truth, like the agent who insists Miranda mail her tape to the the address they're at, rather than just accepting the tape in person. "But I'm so close," she says to crossed arms. So she devises an impromptu moment, where she's riding down in the same elevator as the agent, and compels him to pick it up. But he still insists on handing it back to her, for her to take it home with her and mail it back to them. It's relatable, it's often clever. It's just good writing.

There are also moments of underage characters exploring their sexuality which will have many viewers facing an art film where they wanted breezy entertainment. There are bits that never quite make it off the ground, and undercooked lines of dialogue like "email wouldn't even exist if it weren't for AIDS." But there are pieces, like the goldfish segment, which is so strong, it could be a perfect, wonderful short film all on its own. There's a segment where the leads are forced to share a moment when they're gluing something together that has to be held the pieces together for 1 to 2 minutes. It's just the little kind of thing that, as a writer, makes me think, I wish I came up with that! And it's got a pretty compelling soundtrack to boot.

Well, so, this is another case where I've got the Region 1 and Region 2 versions to compare, and for the same reasons as Time: they've got unique sets of extras. But in terms of PQ, as of this week, I think we can assume both of them are a little dated, thanks to the brand new blu-ray edition from Criterion.  But you know what they say about assuming, so let's have a proper comparison.

1) 2005 MGM US DVD; 2) 2006 Optimum UK DVD; 3) 2020 US Criterion BD.

The DVD transfers are both excellent and practically identical. Same framing, same colors, no interlacing or ghosting. The cases say 1.85:1, but it's just a little more open, very slightly letterboxed to 1.82:1 on both discs. There's really nothing to complain about or even distinguish between the two discs. There's no blu-ray available of this title, but this movie looks pretty great - top notch for standard definition.

1) 2006 Optimum UK DVD; 2) 2020 US Criterion BD.

There's a blu-ray now!  And, well... it's not a fancy new transfer.  This seems to be the same master MGM used for the DVD fifteen years ago, but considering this film was apparently shot on HDCam, as opposed to film, it's not like there's a negative to go back and re-scan.  Instead of film grain, there's patchwork macro-blocking that may or may not be native to the raw footage... it's the same thing you see on a lot of old blus, so maybe the film would've benefited from going back to the original tapes and re-compressing them with modern software, or maybe not.  We'll never know.  Anyway, this is the first HD release of the film, and dated master or not, it's still heaps clearer and sharper than the old DVDs.  So while it possibly could or couldn't look even better with extensive restoration work, it certainly looks better than anything that's come before; a very welcome upgrade. Plus, one difference: they opened the mattes a bit to 1.78:1, revealing slightly more along the top and bottom of the frame.

The Optimum disc lets you choose between Stereo 2.0 and Dolby Digital 5.1, while the MGM and Criterion discs just have the 5.1 track.  Considering this is a 2005 film, though, I think it's safe to assume that the 5.1 mix is the original track, so I'm A-OK with that.  Plus, the blu naturally bumps it up to lossless DTS-HD.  Both the MGM and Criterion (but not the Optimum) have optional English subtitles.

 

But here's where things get really interesting... the extras.  On the MGM DVD, there's six deleted scenes, and they're good. They're a bit long, so I can see how they'd mess up the pacing, and consequently why they'd be cut. But they're worth preserving and seeing as deleted scenes. Well, except one, which is just a shorter edit of another deleted scene that's already on disc. That seems excessive; but the rest are all fun and on par with the material that made it into the film. If you're a fan of the film, you'd want to see these, too. There's not much else on it, though. There's a bunch (eight!) of bonus trailers, but not even the trailer for the film itself.

Optimum's DVD, on the other hand, has a good deal more stuff, but disappointingly, is missing the deleted scenes. It's got a nice, in-depth 28 minute interview with July, where she tells the entire story of the film from its inception to changes made in script rewrites and on the set. Then there's 20 minutes of cast and crew interviews, including July again, which are good but a little more promotional and superficial (as in EPK stuff). Finally there's seven minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, again like Time Of the Wolf; but this time they're speaking English and we can hear what they're saying, which makes the footage more engaging. Finally, there's also a couple (four) bonus trailers and, this time, the actual Me and You and Everyone We Know trailer. Overall, this is fuller, richer special edition; but it's puzzling, and a bit frustrating, that they didn't include the deleted scenes.

But Criterion's is an even richer and fuller special edition.  First of all, it has the deleted scenes.  Well, the five.  That sixth alternate cut of the same scene has been dropped, which is just as well.  And it has the trailer.  And it has a whole bunch of new, exclusive stuff.  First of all, there's a substantial, nearly hour-long retrospective conversation with July and Lena Dunham.  And there's a fun short film July made about a film festival she attended.  Then there's a collection of scenes that July wrote and produced for a sort of pre-vis version of the film, made at the Sundance Director's Lab.  Like an early short version of the film, except it's just loose scenes rather than a complete film.  And those scenes also have optional commentary by July.  Criterion also offers a pretty chunky 44-page full color booklet with notes by Sara Magenheimer and Lauren Groff.  ...And that's just the stuff directly pertaining to Me and You.

1) 2005 VDB US DVD; 2) 2020 Criterion US BD.

There's also a bunch of Miranda July side projects.  There's a short documentary about a short-lived charity-themed art project she organized in the UK.  And there's an interview with her about her Joanie 4 Jackie project, where she curated short films by other female filmmakers.  And four of said shorts (The Slow Escape being a wonderful stand-out).  If that's starting to feel a little too removed for your tastes, they've also included two of July's own short films, as previously seen in her Videoworks DVD collection (for more info about these flicks, see that page).

These were presumably shot on video tape and SD digital, so Criterion's blu isn't much of an upgrade.  For 1998's The Amateurist, you can see they cropped the video noise bar at the bottom and brought down the gamma a smidgen, but it's a very minor distinction.  But 1999's Nest of Tens got cropped considerably, from 1.32:1 to 1.47:1, shaving off a decent bit of vertical picture information.  They've also gone and de-interlaced this one, which is a nice little fix (The Amateurist wasn't interlaced in the first place).

The one bummer is that Criterion didn't port over the Optimum extras.  Admittedly, with the hour+ of July talking about this film they did include, the Optimum interview got rendered a little redundant.  But that disc is the only way to hear from the other cast members, who neither MGM or Criterion sought out, not to mention the bonus behind-the-scenes footage.  But don't get the wrong impression; I'm quite happy overall.  We're finally getting this film in HD, which we've been waiting and waiting for, with a bunch of new treats and the deleted scenes.  The specs in the original announcement left them out, so that was a nice surprise.  But if you're a huge fan, I'd still suggest importing a copy of the UK DVD as an addendum for their special features, too.  I mean, as of this writing, AmazonUK is selling them for thirty cents, so it's not too extravagant an additional expense.
))<>((

M.I.A.: Ken Russell's Mind Bender, The Craziest Film You've Never Seen

1996's Mind Bender is easily one of Ken Russell's most wacked out, batshit films, which, if you're familiar with Russell's complete body of work, is really saying something.  I mean, this movie offers The First Ever Interactive Psychic Experience.  The poster invites viewers to "bring your broken clocks and watches to the theater."  I haven't got any broken clocks or watches to test it, but I'm sure it works.  Or, if it doesn't, that's just because I'm stuck with an ancient, low quality web-rip burned to DVDR because, on home video, I'm afraid it's still quite M.I.A..

And the psychic experience isn't even the looniest part.  This is a very freely adapted biopic about mystifier and paranormalist Uri Geller.  Just to give you a taste of how freely, there's a scene where Geller is driving a stolen army jeep blind, because he's wearing a sensory-deprivation helmet.  His manager and girlfriend help him steer from home by playing with a toy jeep on a map and sending him directions via ESP.  If that's not enough, he's using telekinesis to take out the CIA agents who are chasing him with machine guns.  Everything's going smoothly until his agent is distracted by the family dog, causing Geller to crash and be flown through his front windshield.  Fortunately, he just happened to have been right outside his own home, so he comes crashing through his own picture windows and lands on his couch, next to his childhood friend, who coolly hands him a cigar.  Just like I'm sure it must've happened in real life.

Through all the insanity, Russell does still manage to depict Geller true rise from a small time stage magician in Cyprus to the celebrity illusionist he still is today.  If you've seen Lisztomania, you know just how far Russell has taken his biographical films from his humbly dry BBC documentaries, and to be fair, a lot of what seems to crazy to be true is at least based in actual events.  For example, the CIA really did run tests on Geller in the 70s in attempts to verify and possibly weaponize any mental powers he might actually have.  Read this article in the Washington Post about it.   Sure it says more about our government's gullibility and willingness to burn taxpayers' money than anything about Geller, but it means all the craziness isn't purely spun from Russell's imagination.  And I suspect the over-the-top portrayal Russell gives this material, including his depiction of Geller's abilities as 100% real and very practically effective (at one point he uses his mind to rip somebody out of his limousine and flips him around in the air like a scene from an X-Men movie), is really Russell taking the piss out of what the we've been asked to believe and what many people seemed more than willing to accept.

Or perhaps he's just as happy to buy in as anybody, and this is the natural result of such an outrageous story combined with Russell's unleashed sensibilities.  Geller himself appears in the film at the end, so it's not like the filmmakers were in any kind of adversarial relationship with their subject.  It's also a little tricky to get a read on the film's intentions, because much of the acting is pretty stiff and unnatural.  The guy playing Geller (Ishai Golan) is a relative unknown, and he and his young co-stars often seem to be struggling to get out their lines.  On the other hand, the older end of the cast is considerably more assured, including the one and only Terrance Stamp and Hetty Baynes, who you may remember from Russell's Tales Of Erotica and Lady Chatterley, as well as the 1981 version of Sense and Sensibility.  All together, I'm not saying this is a good film by any traditional standards.  Anyone not wholly prepared for Russell's highly theatrical, cartoonishly camp irreverence, coupled with stiff performances and a ludicrous "true story" are going to be extremely put off.  And even if you're coming in prepared and fully on board, there are still a host of problems that don't tend to plague most of Russell's other works.  But the surrealism and fast paced, good natured spirit of it all leaves a lot for experienced Russell fans to appreciate, if not normies.

Mind Bender has been issued, more than once in fact, on DVD in Germany.  But unfortunately, they only feature the German dub of the film.  All we English-reliant viewers have by way of access to the original, English-language version are US (Republic Pictures) and UK (Buena Vista) VHS releases.  Today, that translates to these bland, fullframe video rips we've been looking at.  But this film did play theatrically in some parts of the world, and it was shot on 35mm, so theoretically there's room for this to look fantastically improved with a proper HD restoration. 

my tired old web-rip.

There's obviously not much reason for delving into the PQ of these screenshots, since they're not from any kind of official release.  But I think it is worth pointing out that this is a 1.33:1 (the German DVDs seem to be 4:3 as well), and look very open matte.  Some shots have miles of empty headroom.  So this film was clearly composed for widescreen.  If anyone were to someday give this film the proper release it deserves [hint, hint], this film would surely look much better in its proper OAR, which would allow viewers to better appreciate this film's qualities and be less distracted by its awkward staginess.  We've missed our chance for a Russell commentary, but an interview with Geller would be just as fascinating; and he might be willing, since he still seems supportive of the film.  He promotes it for streaming on his official site (I checked... it's the same trash transfer) and in his own words, "it's a crazy film but pay attention to the ending!"

Crime Week, Day 7: Alpha Dog

We bid adieu to Crime Week not with a particularly rare or celebrated crime film, but an underappreciated one: 2006's Alpha Dog.  Plus, during these rough times, I wanted to cover a truly worthy film that you can currently add to your collection for next to nothing.  As of this writing, the average used price of this blu on Amazon and other sites is $3.  You know, just in case you want to give yourself a break from the wallet-gouging collector's editions packed with tchotchkes and hardcover books you're never going to read.  There are quality releases of just as great films out there that won't sap your bank account.

I remember Alpha Dog kind of flopping when it came out, although looking it up on boxofficemojo, I guess it actually did reasonably well for a low budget crime flick.  I just remember people, both critically and in my real life, being very dismissive of it, treating it as a dumb, juvenile piece of trashy exploitation.  It took extra lumps because, while it wasn't quite his first role, this was pre-Social Network and people were still dubious of Justin Timberlake as a potentially credible actor.  And he was surrounded by talented up and comers who were collectively easily written off as MTV bait.  It doesn't help that writer/ director Nick Cassavetes has a shaky track record either.

But if you get past all the overreactions and preconceptions, you find a really great story, expertly told.  I believe it's actually Cassavetes' greatest work - a poignant tragedy about the under-supervised youths of Hollywood getting in over the heads playing at being gangsters.  When they kidnap someone's younger brother over a drug debt, they realize there's no turning back and the only way out they see is to kill the kid, played with real soul by Anton Yelchin.  It's heart-breaking as he doesn't even try to escape, feeling like he's just hanging out and partying with his older brother's friends, when the viewer knows right from the beginning where this is all headed.  This is a very different role for Bruce Willis and an impressive performance from Sharon Stone, although the filmmakers make an unfortunate choice for her at the very end of the film, which I won't spoil here, but I'll just say it takes you out of the picture in a way they couldn't have wanted.

And admittedly, that's not the only mistake.  This film gets it right 98% of the time, really nailing its portrayal of young adults too immature to see how they're misdirecting their lives trying to emulate pop culture portrayals of glorified crime.  They're young, they're rich, they're dumb and their parents are complicit.  It's an embarrassing phase of wasted privilege they would've all grown out of eventually, but unfortunately for them, it was suddenly too late.  Every once in a while, however, the filmmakers themselves seem to fall under the same spell their characters do, and the movie occasionally lapses into trite genre fare.  Like, at one point an exasperated character exclaims "fuck me," and then it hard cuts to two of the characters having a very porno-like sex scene, and you say to yourself, har har, I get it; that transition gag was written by a thirteen year-old boy.  Or for another example, there's a fight scene between some drunken teens in a house-party, where they're suddenly doing grossly over-choreographed flying kicks and crap, allowing the stunt guys to indulge their Jackie Chan fantasies.  And Harry Dean Stanton, who we all love, feels like he's acting in a different movie than everybody else.  So yeah, there are imperfections, but luckily they're not too overwhelming and you get past them relatively early in the film.  You might be looking askance at the screen with your arms crossed at the beginning of this picture, but once you get into the second act, the film really finds its groove and you'll be pulled into some genuinely moving drama.

In 2007, Universal issued Alpha Dog as a new release on DVD in both Full Screen and Widescreen versions.  Remember when that was common, or have you already blocked those dark times out?  Anyway, it didn't come out on blu right away, because Universal bet on HD DVD.  So that was its only HD release for a while.  But eventually 2010 rolled around and the format wars ended with a definitive victor, so they finally gave Alpha Dog a proper blu-ray release, as a 2-disc combo pack with the Widescreen DVD.  Later, the same blu-ray disc was also included in a 2011 double-disc set with the remake of Assault On Precinct 13, which seems like a pretty arbitrary pairing, but okay.

1) 2007 Universal widescreen DVD; 2) 2007 Universal full screen DVD;
3) 2010 Universal widescreen DVD; 4) 2010 Universal BD.

2010 Universal widescreen DVD left; 2010 Universal BD right.

To start with, all the widescreen editions are in 2.35:1, although the blu-ray zooms out to reveal a couple extra pixels worth around the edges.  The Full screen version, meanwhile, bears a shocking comparison to the anamorphic versions in 1.33:1, chopping off the sides so much, entire characters are dropped out of frame.  It is a full pan and scan job, though, so you'll eventually get to see everybody important on screen.  And in terms of clarity, it's a surprisingly strong difference, and detail that was lost in a soft haze on the DVD comes alive on the blu.  Looking at the grain (which is completely washed away on the DVD), this is no UHD, but it's much more authentically captured and filmic than I expected.  This is not another Monster situation with an old transfer screaming for another scan; it holds up quite well.

All of the above versions include the same 5.1 mix, plus a French dub, also in 5.1, with English, Spanish and French subs.  The only difference is that the English track is in DTS-HD on the blu, though the French track is the same lossy mix as the DVDs.

Extras are the same across the board: a single eleven minute featurette with behind-the-scenes footage and soundbites from Cassavetes and the cast.  It's a little better than your average promo featurette, but just barely.  At eleven minutes, you just can't go in-depth.  It's better than nothing, and it's worth watching if you own the disc (which, again, is more than you can say for some of those promo pieces), but it's disappointing in terms of exploring the film and especially in terms of information about the real crime.  Every time I've watched this with someone, we've immediately googled the real crime to find out what happened to the last character - something the DVD would've been ideally suited to have the answer to.  Strictly speaking, there is an in-menu text thing with brief quotes from the real-life witnesses, but it's not even a video extra at all.

So yeah, extras are the weak point here.  The current blu's a fine edition of the film itself; it's just not the special edition one would hope for.  At this point, though, I don't think we're going to do any better than that tacked-on Precinct 13 remake.  On the other hand, Alpha Dog is real cheap and easily found anywhere; you can't say it isn't a fine deal for the price.  And most importantly, it's a great movie.

Crime Week, Day 6: Party Monster

I used to be annoyed that this next one wasn't available on blu-ray, because 2003's Party Monster is a terrific little crime film that never quite got the praise it deserved.  I'd even occasionally search around in other regions to see if a decent import version hadn't flown under my radar.  But then I finally took a minute to consider when this was shot, looked into it and realized, of course, this was shot on standard def video, so like 24 Hour Party People, it wouldn't stand to look much better on BD anyway.  Of course, MVD still put that out, so maybe it will still happen.  But I've learned to stop worrying and love the DVD.

Oh, and P.S.!  That reminds me, I've just updated my 24 Hour Party People coverage to include MVD's blu-ray today, so you can go and see what I'm referring to for yourself.

Party Monster tells the story of - including the vicious murder by - semi-celebrity party promoter Michael Alig and his NYC club kids scene.  This is written, produced and directed by the team of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.  It's the first, and to date only, feature film by the duo with a decades long history of documentaries.  Some of their best known work includes The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Inside Deep Throat.  I can't say these guys rank alongside the truly great documentary filmmakers, per se, but they're certainly prolific.  As their first feature, it may be a little rough around the edges... it relies too heavily extreme close-ups and you can feel them struggling to mask budget limitations.  But given their history covering the scene, and perhaps just the generally tacky, salacious themes shared by the real events and the filmmakers' body of work (they're also the Shock Video guys, if you remember HBO's weird experiment with modern mondo trash in the 90s and 00s), they feel like the right guys to tell this story, and in the end, I think they did it just right.

Admittedly, this is a movie you have to put some faith in.  I've spoken to a number of people who were immediately put off by the performances in the opening and never made it, past, say 30 minutes in, and I totally get that.  The film starts with Culkin and Green both breaking the fourth wall to argue who this film is really meant to be about.  They perform with very cartoonishly fey artifices, and the whole thing can feel very cringe, if not downright homophobic.  But if you went in having seen the doc, you'd know the real people spoke that same way; putting on those over-the-top personas went with the costumes and drugs as part of their extreme desperation to escape their reality, which is exactly what Culkin and Green have captured.  And if you stick with it to the end, the actors definitely dig down to the humanity and heart of their characters.  Except for Dylan McDermott.  We've just seen him kick ass in Wonderland, but now he just looks woefully miscast, like he wandered in off the set of Access Hollywood.  But where McDermott awkwardly fails to capture the spirit (let alone the look) of his real-life counterpart, the rest of Party Monster's supporting cast knocks it out of the park, including wonderful turns by Chloë Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne, Wilson Cruz (Star Trek, My So Called Life) and even Marilyn Manson; and you only wish they all could have more screen time.

2004 Fox DVD fullscreen side top; 2004 Fox DVD widescreen side bottom.

Party Monster's a single-sided disc, but that hasn't stopped Fox from including both fullscreen (1.33:1) and widescreen (1.83:1) versions.  It's a bit of your standard compromise, where the fullscreen opens the mattes up, revealing more vertically.  But it still definitely takes large chunks off the sides and spoils the composition.

Now, I questioned earlier if the standard def video would even look any better on blu, but I do wonder if a new version could at least fix this interlacing.  It very well might be baked into the footage, but I'm not sure that it isn't just a part of this particular transfer.  (shrug)  Who knows?  Either way, it's soft and low-fi, even by DVD standards.  The colors are clearly intentionally over-saturated as a design choice, but the range still seems pretty crushed, which again is probably an issue with the original footage rather than the DVD transfer.  I'd certainly be curious to see if an HD restoration could do anything for it, but I suspect this is about as good as it'll ever get.

Party Monster includes a robust Dolby Digital 2.0 track that serves the music and dialogue well, as well as an additional Spanish dub.  Fox also includes optional English subtitle captions.

Extras ain't bad.  We mostly get a bunch of short stuff.  Cast interviews include most of the main players, but are all really short, EPK pieces, ranging from four minutes to thirty seconds.  There's nine minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, a nine minute promo featurette, a four and a half minute interview with Alig, which seems to be an outtake from the 1998 documentary and the trailer.  All of these short things are nice to have, and I'd definitely rather they be included than not, but they also still leave you hungry.  The most filling extra is the audio commentary by Bailey and Barbato that provides a lot of information both on the film and the club scene that inspired it.

One thing you really want to see in the extras of these crime films is coverage of the real incident, and while the Fox DVD does talk about briefly, it definitely falls short.  So thankfully, an indie label called Picture This released the 1998 Party Monster documentary - or "SHOCKUMENTARY" - on DVD in 2003, to compliment the feature film.  This is the original film Bailey and Barbato made for HBO that led to the feature in the first place.  It's only about an hour long, but talks to everybody, even Alig in prison, and also is full of vintage footage showing the famous parties, home videos and news footage to really paint a complete picture.  If you don't have any personal involvement in the club stuff, the first half can move a little slow.  It's a bunch of former kids eager to share their memories of each other like who regularly wore what costumes, etc.  But once the film gets to where things started to slip, it gets fascinating - not to mention just a fun way to compare all of the actors with their real-life counterparts - and becomes the perfect compliment to the feature film.

2003 US Picture This DVD.

This Party Monster is only in fullscreen, at 1.31:1, which is surely its OAR as a made-for-TV movie.  This was also shot on digital and has a similar color palette, though it's naturally packed with more, lower quality, vintage footage as you'd expect from a doc.  Unfortunately, it's interlaced, too.  That tends to go hand-in-hand with TV material, though, and as little hope I hold out for a BD restoration of the feature film, I have far less for this getting one.  So there's nothing to do but embrace whatever flaws we find.

Audio is just a basic, but clean, stereo track.  There are no subtitles.

Extras on this doc are pretty rewarding, too.  Maybe even moreso than Fox's DVD.  First off, we get an audio commentary by James St. James (Seth Green's character).  As you can imagine, it's not ideal.  He spends a lot of the time making catty comments about the outfits people are wearing and other silliness, but he also has some unique insights and overall it's an energetic, interesting listen even if it's a mess that you have to sift through.  There's a brief featurette on Clara the Chicken, one of the kids known for wearing a chicken mascot costume and original footage used to advertise and play in the clubs.  There are trailers for both the doc and the feature and a bunch of bonus trailers.  But most notably is another hour-long 1994 documentary called Nelson Sullivan's World of Wonder, also produced and directed by Barton and Bailey, which consists entirely of Sullivan filming himself, video diary style, and his downtown NY neighbors.  This includes an extended visit to the apartment of Christine, Marilyn Manson's character from the film, and famous LGBTQ icons like Quentin Crisp and RuPaul.  A lot of footage in 1998's Party Monster was shot by Sullivan, too, so it's great that this film found a home here, too.

So yeah, if a blu-ray ever happens, I'll spring for it and see if it helps at all.  But it probably won't, so it's a moot point.  But that's alright.  I've stopped working myself up over what would be little more than a side-grade.  The DVDs are just fine.