BLONDE FIST. (1991) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

TAKESHI KITANO'S 'A SCENE AT THE SEA.' (1991) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Film Collection Blu-Ray Review

Rating:
12
Release Date:
28th October 2013 (UK)
Distributor:
Mediumrare Entertainment
Directors:
Steve Barron, Michael Pressman,Stuart Gillard
Cast:
Josh Pais, Michelan Sisti, Leif Tilden, David Forman, Judith Hogg
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has skateboarded onto blu-ray courtesy of Mediumrare. The 3 original live-action films have been digitally remastered and collected together for the first time in the UK. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles come from an original comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The comic books were much darker in tone and were actually a response to Frank Miller’s Ronin.

The first film in the set is by far the best and closest to the original comic book. It’s considerably darker than the sequels even though it’s kid friendly enough it’s not gonna scare the kids. The Foot Clan (led by Shredder) is behind a crime wave across New York City and the police can’t stop it. The Ninja Turtles come out the sewer after saving report April O’Neil and they john forces with vigilante Casey Jones to combat the Foot Clan.

The first film is probably the film I’ve seen the most with the possibly exceptions of Donnie Darko and Brazil. Strange mixture but the first Ninja Turtles was a film I would watch over and over when I was like 5 or 6 like kids do. I have such a fondness for this film and supposedly still holds up pretty well while the sequels don’t. It’s also worth to note it has an early role from Sam Rockwell as the classy credit Head Thug.

It’s one of the first comic book adaptations; it’s post-Superman and pre-Blade. This period was during the time when comic book adaptations were a totally liability (except Batman) and many of the ones in the 8 years between Ninja Turtles and Blade were direct to video or tv movies. It’s surprising that were due to the massive success of Ninja Turtles (it was at one point the highest grossing independent film ever made) that not more were made but maybe if Terry Gilliam’s Watchmen happened the comic book film craze would have happened a lot earlier.

The sequels are a real mixed bag; the first sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze is quite clearly the better of the 2. I’ve watched it a ridiculous amount of times when I was a kid from a taped broadcast of it. It’s dated pretty poorly which partly due to Vanilla Ice’s cameo and his “Ninja Rap”. It’s more colourful than the original’s relatively dark aesthetic and was clearly aimed to sell more action figures and was more inspired by the animated show that was on at the same. It’s also noticeably less violent than the 1st film, which was relatively violent for a PG film.

The final film has the Turtles travel back in time to feudal era Japan and they become samurai warriors. It’s all a bit naff and it’s a long way from the urban dwellings of the first film and I liked it as a kid but 16 years later it’s a pretty disappointing effort. It’s sadly going be remade by Michael Bay who is going have the turtles as aliens or something dumb like that.

★★★½☆

Ian Schultz

Maurice Pialat's Van Gogh To Master Stroke Its Way Into A Masters Of Cinema Release

UK Release Date:
23rd September 2013
Distributor:
Eureka Entertainment
Buy/Pre-Order:
2-Disc DVD or Blu-ray
Eureka Entertainment have announced that they will be releasing VAN GOGH, considered by some to be the greatest film by Maurice Pialat, the legendary French filmmaker, seven of whose previous films have been given Masters of Cinema editions (including L'Enfance-nue and A nos amours). Van Gogh, the epic and powerful bio-pic of the final weeks in the life of Vincent van Gogh, will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on 23 September 2013.

One of the greatest films by one of the finest directors of the second half of the 20th century, Maurice Pialat's Van Gogh represents an ambitious and crowning achievement in its portrayal of the master painter's final weeks of life, almost exactly one-hundred years earlier.

Van Gogh, depicted by the remarkable actor/songwriter-singer Jacques Dutronc (Godard's Sauve qui peut (la vie)), has arrived at Auvers-sur-Oise to come under the care of Dr. Gachet (Gérard Séty) for his nervous agitation. Soon after the arrival of Vincent's brother Théo (Bernard Le Coq) and his wife, plein air portraiture and conviviality give way to the more crepuscular moods of brothels and cabarets, and the painter's anguished existence, tossing between money worries and an impassioned relationship with the doctor's teenage daughter, finally meets its terminal scene.

With its loosely factual and wholly inspired treatment of the last period of Van Gogh's life, Pialat's film applies an impressionist touch to the biographical picture — indeed, the filmmaker was himself an accomplished painter, and the personal resonance of the subject matter results in an epic, major late work. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Maurice Pialat's Van Gogh on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, and also in a special two-disc DVD edition.

Check out The Van Gogh trailer...


SPECIAL BLU-RAY AND ‘TWO-DISC DVD’ EDITIONS:

• Gorgeous new restoration of the film, appearing in 1080p on the Blu-ray
• New and improved optional English subtitles
• Van Gogh (1965) — a short, early documentary about the painter, by Maurice Pialat
• A 10-minute video interview with Pialat from 1991
• A 50-minute video interview with Pialat from 1992
• Video interviews with actors Jacques Dutronc and Bernard Le Coq; director of photography Emmanuel Machuel; and editor Yann Dedet
• Deleted scenes
• Original theatrical trailer
• 56-PAGE BOOKLET containing a new and exclusive essay by critic Sabrina Marques; Jean-Luc Godard's letter to Pialat after seeing the film, followed by Godard's tribute to Pialat upon the director's passing in 2003; copious newly translated interviews with Maurice Pialat; images of Pialat's canvasses; rare imagery; and more!

Here's some quotes about Van Gogh...

"Pialat is one of the finest living French filmmakers, and Van Gogh, his tenth feature, is arguably one of his best." –Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader in 1993

"An extraordinary film....We flatter ourselves that if we were around in 1890, we would have recognized Van Gogh's genius and changed his fate. But we probably wouldn't have – just as we probably don't recognize the Van Goghs among us now. In this sad, brilliant film, Pialat gives us a terrible inkling of why." –Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times

We will be hoping to review this closer to the release, so stay tuned. Van Gogh will be released in UK&Ireland on 23rd September on DVD and Blu-Ray.