New DVD Spin: 2 Days in Paris, Slings & Arrows, Jesse James, Godard and More

This week's new spotlight DVDs

2 Days in Paris (Official site) (20th Century Fox)
It's been a long time since we've been given a classically good Woody Allen comedy. I'm talking Golden Age Allen -- Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters… -- from years that feel farther in the past than they actually are. Those of us who love Woody from that era have missed him something fierce. So how fine it is to have Julie Delpy among us. It's clear throughout this Parisienne's sweet, funny, romantic comic feature from 2007, 2 Days In Paris, that she misses him too. She has given us her own "Woody Allenesque" relationship comedy -- doing for Paris what Allen did for New York -- without losing her grip on the fact that it's her film, not his or anyone else's.

Delpy plays Marion, a French-born, New York-dwelling photographer with a retinal disorder. After a vacation in Venice, Marion invites her American boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) to visit her parents in Paris before returning to New York. The Italian leg of their trip didn't go well -- Marion and Jack are two 35-year-olds at a critical point in the "learning about each other" stage of their relationship -- and the couple gets further stressed upon meeting Marion's ribald and sexually frank family (Delpy's real-life actor parents, Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet, are delightful here), not to mention Jack's clash with French food, with the language, and especially with the apparent legion of Marion's former lovers, including an avant-garde artist whose attachment to Marion isn't as all-in-the-past as Marion has let on.

While watching 2 Days In Paris on the couch with a framed original one-sheet poster of Annie Hall on the wall behind me, I was first alarmed, then won over by the film's revivification of familiar Allen ingredients. With her well-pitched odd-duck quirks and oversized glasses, Delpy from the first scene slips into vintage Diane Keaton's sensible shoes without -- and this is crucial -- making us think she's "doing" Diane Keaton. Meanwhile, with his allergies and anxieties and "neurotic Jewish New Yorker" demeanor, Goldberg gets to be the Woody Allen character while looking a whole lot like a tattooed Tony Roberts.

Delpy's witty script left room for improvizational spontaneity, and both leads prove that they can deliver a well-turned riposte without making it a cutesy affectation. We get bedroom under-the-covers quips about orgasms and foreplay, and cracks about Republicans and Da Vinci Code believers; Marion cries because women use more toilet paper than men, so therefore they're more responsible for the environmental destruction; and Jack's first tourist item is to visit Jim Morrison's grave at Père Lechaise -- it's not that he likes The Doors, but he's "a big Val Kilmer fan." There's even an equivalent of Allen's "because we need the eggs" speech.

Don't get me wrong. Even though Delpy, Allen-like, wrote, directed, co-produced and musically scored 2 Days in Paris, it comes across neither as a mere vanity project nor a pastiche aping favorite scenes from a generation ago. Delpy and her tics are each too individual, and her film too sincere, for that. And nowhere in the DVD's extras is the resemblance -- purely coincidental, surely -- even mentioned. Of course Delpy's film isn't as finessed or precisely structured or as long-term memorable as one of Allen's greats. For one thing, distracting us from Delpy's themes of seeing clearly, of being "in the moment" rather than merely an observer of it, is her reliance on close-ups that create a purposeful vérité feel but that also move us so close to the characters that we're intruding into each other's personal space (a condition which itself generates a funny bit on a subway).

Nonetheless, 2 Days in Paris is an impressive, funny urban comedy of manners from a suitably distinctive voice that I hope we'll hear again soon.

Besides, we do need the eggs.

20th Century Fox's DVD of 2 Days in Paris brings us a good-looking 1.85:1 image with fine audio in Dolby 5.1 surround. The extras as few. A chaptered sixteen-minute interview with Delpy provides a fluff-free and personal production chronicle. Also here are five extended scenes.

Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection (Wikipedia) (Acorn Media)
Is this the best TV series to ever come out of Canada? If it's not, I'd love to see the competition because Slings & Arrows is easily one of the funniest, smartest, best written and performed series to hit any airwaves anywhere. Combining a hilarious comic pitch with warmly felt personal drama, this universally acclaimed series mines gold from the personal and professional crises of a dysfunctional Canadian theater troupe -- said to be based on the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. This clever love letter, simultaneously celebrating and satirizing the theater, sends up the compromises needed to keep art alive in a short-attention-span era. Think The Larry Sanders show with tights and swords.

Originally Broadcast in the U.S. on the Sundance Channel, each of these three seasons unfolds behind-the-scenes as the New Burbage Theatre Festival tries to hold it together -- mentally, financially, artistically, sexually -- long enough to mount a successful theatrical season, or at least not kill anyone while doing it. (That said, the ghost of the New Burbage's former director, killed early in the first episode, is a recurring character throughout all three seasons.)

Slings & Arrows stars lick-the-screen handsome (just ask my wife) Paul Gross, Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall), Martha Burns and Don McKellar. The series was created and written by Susan Coyne, Mark McKinney and comedian Bob Martin (the Tony-award winning co-creator of Broadway's The Drowsy Chaperone), and drew from their own experiences in professional theater. Season-long guest stars include Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers, The Notebook, Mean Girls) in Season 1, Colm Feore (Chicago, 24) in Season 2, and indie sensation Sarah Polley (who has since directed Julie Christie in Away From Her) and renowned Stratford Festival actor William Hutt in one of his last performances in Season 3.

Must you be a theater-goer or Shakespeare aficionado to enjoy Slings & Arrows? Not at all. In an interview on the new bonus disc in this seven-disc set, Paul Gross observes that Slings & Arrows is a traditional workplace comedy that could be set in, say, a concrete plant. But because the characters are so "extreme," the comedy is that much greater. Slings & Arrows is affectionate, sophisticated, bitingly satirical, hilarious and sexy -- no English degree required. It is, at the same time, absolutely essential viewing for theater lovers, who may be blissfully horrified to see what goes on when the audience isn't looking.

What was it Hamlet said? "The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral. . . ." Terrific stuff all the way through.

Acorn Media's Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection boxed set (available from Acorn here) bundles the six previously released discs, presenting all 18 episodes in anamorphic widescreen, and adds the bonus disc with a featurette, "A Look Behind the Scenes," cast interviews and raw, unnarrated on-set rehearsal footage. Other extras scattered throughout the discs include bloopers, deleted and extended scenes, photo galleries, production notes, song lyrics, the trailer and cast filmographies.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Official site) (Warner Brothers)
It's a gorgeous, contemplatively paced Western about myth-making told with hypnotic dreaminess in the most myth-making medium of them all. "For a movie that has sat on a shelf for two years gathering bad buzz," said Peter Travers in Rolling Stone, "this quiet wow of a Western sneaks up as one hell of a satisfying surprise." Are we at a point in Hollywood history where Brad Pitt is now the grand old man to Casey Affleck's hot newcomer? Also here are Sam Shepard, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeremy Renner, Paul Schneider, Sam Rockwell and Zooey Deschanel. Warner Brothers' DVD -- available now in standard-def and Blu-ray -- adds no extras, but an HD DVD version will be released Feb. 26 with a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Across the Universe (Official site) (Sony)
Extravagant Broadway director Julie "The Lion King" Taymor -- assisted by Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther, T.V. Carpio, Eddie Izzard, Bono, Joe Cocker, Salma Hayek and more -- took the music of The Beatles and our romanticized memories of the 1960s' best ideals, then made a lush, indulgent, psychedelic, playful, sexy and visually dazzling movie musical phantasmagoria, one setting out to prove that, dawg, all you need is love. Damn the cynics and full speed ahead. Let it be. Available as a two-disc DVD set or a single Blu-ray disc, Across the Universe comes with a beautiful image and exquisite audio (Dolby Digital 5.1 on standard DVD, 24-bit Dolby TrueHD on Blu-ray). Extras include a commentary track by Taymor and music producer/composer Elliot Goldenthal. Also here are eight extended musical numbers and a deleted one ("And I Love Her" featuring co-stars Dana Fuchs and Martin Luther McCoy. The Blu-ray disc adds over two hours of high-definition production featurettes and other extras.

The Apartment: Collector's Edition (Wikipedia) (MGM)
The rare comedy to win the Best Picture Oscar, Billy Wilder's sly satirical masterpiece also took 1960's gold statue for best director (Wilder), best original screenplay (Wilder and his long-time collaborator I.A.L. Diamond), art direction and editing. Its two brilliant leads -- Jack Lemmon as the hapless office drone who lends out his apartment for his bosses' dalliances, and Shirley MacLaine as one of those dalliances -- were nominated for best actor and actress. Although Lemmon didn't win, Kevin Spacey at the 2000 Academy Awards dedicated his Oscar for American Beauty to his performance here. Romance and Wilderian cynicism never balanced so perfectly. Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston and Jack Kruschen co-star.

MGM upgraded their 2001 DVD of The Apartment for this Collector's Edition, improving the image and adding Dolby 5.1 sound, two new featurettes ("Inside the Apartment" and "Tribute to Jack Lemmon") and a commentary by film historian and author Bruce Block. Don't let the crappy cover design talk you out of picking up this one.

Jean-Luc Godard: 3-Disc Collector's Edition (Studio Canal/Lionsgate)
Here are four films from the post-New Wave output of Jean-Luc Godard, one of France's most famous directors and perhaps the New Waviest of them all. Dating from the 1980s and '90s, these films are experimental, challenging (or plain difficult, depending on your point of view), often whimsical and self-satirizing, cold, and demand that you engage with them more than we've been trained to do by movies. To summarize what the films are about means downplaying plot description and focusing instead on their radical aesthetic and core themes -- art, the quest for spiritual meaning, the meaning that lies beyond words, and "what a woman can do to a man." Heady stuff? You bet. But also daring, beautifully shot (a Godard hallmark) and, at their best, engrossing at a whole new level of your brain. Although this set is not an advisable entry point for anyone new to Godard's work, film school students (whether of the classroom or armchair variety) will find plenty to absorb here, and the rewards can be greater for being more hard-fought than the typical afternoon at the Regal.

First on hand here is Prenom Carmen (First Name: Carmen) (1983), which tells the story of Carmen X (Maruschka Detmers), a female member of a terrorist gang. She asks her uncle Jean, a washed-up film director (played by Godard himself) if she can borrow his beachside house to make a film with some friends, but they are in fact planning to rob a bank. During the robbery she falls in love with a security guard. The film intercuts between Carmen's escape with the guard, her uncle's attempt to make a comeback film, and a string quartet attempting to perform Beethoven.

In the strained and joyless Passion (1982), Godard is reunited with breathtakingly cameraman Raoul Coutard after 16 years, and with a trio of great actors he orchestrates his personal passions for classical music, romantic painting, and the business of film-making around his favorite theme of how life relates to love. On a movie set, in a factory, and at a hotel, Godard explores the nature of work, love and filmmaking. While Solidarity takes on the Polish government, a Polish film director, Jerzy, is stuck in France making a film for TV. He's over-budget and uninspired; the film, called "Passion," comes to a halt when producers refuse to increase his budget until he explains the film's story to them. Unable to do this, he becomes involved with Hannah, a hotel owner and factory worker, played by Isabelle Huppert.

Détective (1985) is the most accessible and the funniest of the films here. In a lavish Paris hotel, an unhappily married couple try to collect a debt from a boxing manager who is mixed up with the mob. Meanwhile, a detective is determined to solve a two-year-old murder that's somehow connected with the other stories that weave and intersect around him. Look for young Julie Delpy here.

Confounding and nearly impenetrable, Hélas pour moi (Oh, Woe is Me) (1993) is a modern updating of the Greek myth of Alcmene, in which Zeus assumes the shape of Alcmene's husband, Amphitryon, so that he can experience the pleasure of physical love. Here God enters the body of filmmaker Simon Donnadieu (Gerard Depardieu). When Donnadieu returns home, his wife Rachel (Laurence Masliah) realizes something is amiss but sticks by her newly divine husband. Meanwhile, the journalist Klimt (Bernard Verley) investigates this case of divine possession.

The Lionsgate box handsomely packages all four films with trés bien transfers and audio (Dolby mono in French with optional subtitles). There are no extras other than the vaporous locutions and twisting intersections of existence.

Also out this week:

Blind Dating (2006)
Featuring Chris Pine (the new Capt. James Kirk in the next Trek feature), Eddie Kaye Thomas, Anjali Jay and Jane Seymour. A blind young man (Chris Pine) -- whose good looks drive women wild -- thinks he finds love with an Indian woman (Anjali Jay), though their relationship is fraught with cultural differences. Extras: Deleted footage, bloopers, behind-the-scenes featurette, cast interviews. (Fox)

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
Featuring Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen, Samantha Morton, Abbie Cornish. Extras: Deleted scenes, "The Reign Continues: Making Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Inside Elizabeth's World" featurette, "Commanding the Winds: Creating the Armada," "Towers, Courts and Cathedral" locations and sets featurette, commentary by director Shekhar Kapur. Also available on HD DVD. (Universal)

Feast of Love (2007)
Robert Benton directs Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Jane Alexander, Alexa Davalos, Toby Hemingway, Selma Blair, Stana Katic, Billy Burke, Fred Ward and Erika Marozsan. Extras: Commentary by Benton, "What Fools These Mortals Be" featurette, "A Merry Feast" featurette, "The Players" featurette, The Cary Brothers "Honestly" music video. (MGM)

Fierce People (2005)
Actor turned director Griffin Dunne's Fierce People finally staggered into theaters last year, more than two years after its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. They should have kept it on the shelf. Diane Lane stars as Liz, a coke-snorting, alcoholic masseuse raising her 16-year-old son, Finn (Anton Yelchin), on the lower-rent streets of Manhattan circa 1980. Meanwhile, Finn's estranged father, the "Elvis of anthropology," toils in some remote jungle studying a primitive tribe called the Ishkanani. When Finn gets busted scoring Mom some blow down at the corner store, Liz's parental instincts kick in and, instead of shipping Finn off to spend the summer with his father, she instead accepts the invitation of a wealthy client, Mr. Osborne (Donald Sutherland), to come to his sprawling, Kennedy-like compound in suburban New Jersey, where she will be paid for her services while young Finn gets a taste of how the other half lives. Here begins the obvious, sophomoric exploration of the super-rich as (again) an anthropological study. Plodding, undeservedly smug in its supposed subversiveness, and as subtle as an anal rape (an act, by the way, that sends the plot and the tone spinning down the abyss). DVD Features: Audio commentary by Griffin Dunne, deleted scenes, "Breaking Down the Tribe" featurette.

Romance & Cigarettes (2007)
A down-and-dirty musical set in the world of working-class New York, Romance & Cigarettes tells the story of a husband's journey into infidelity and redemption when he must choose between his seductive mistress and his beleaguered wife. John Turturro directs James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker, Aida Turturro, Christopher Walken, Barbara Sukowa, Elaine Stritch, Eddie Izzard, Amy Sedaris and P.J. Brown. Extras: "Behind the Scenes of Romance & Cigarettes," deleted scenes, introduction by director John Turturro, commentary by Turturro. (Sony).

Storm Warning (2007)
Yet another derivative gore fest. Caught in a massive storm that throws them off course, a young couple is stranded on a remote island where they seek refuge in an abandoned farmhouse. They soon realize that (I'm bored now) they're not alone and are being held hostage by a group of deranged killers. Storm Warning is as passé and pointless as a "2 Girls 1 Cup" reaction video, but if this is your kind of thing, then here's the latest specimen. The DVD contains commentary by director Jamie Blanks, writer Everett DeRoche, actor Robert Taylor, cinematographer Karl Von Moller, production designer Robby Perkins and special-effects guy Justin Dix.

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