BEST DVD RELEASES OF 2008 By Roy Frumkes

KEN RUSSELL AT THE BBC (BBC Video)

Despite the fact that the Laurel & Hardy routine at the beginning of SONG OF SUMMER is MIA, something that will bug me forever since SOS is Russell’s best film, this is a great collection, elegantly and discreetly packaged considering the enfant terrible it deals with, containing good recent interviews with the octogenarian filmmaker. Also included are: ELGAR (’62), THE DEBUSSY FILM (’65), ALWAYS ON SUNDAY (’65), ISADORA: THE BIGGEST DANCER IN THE WORLD (’66), and DANTE’S INFERNO (’67). Now let’s see Warner Bros put out THE DEVILS, and UA/MGM put out THE MUSIC LOVERS.

MARCO FERRERI COLLECTION (Koch Lorber Films)

LA GRANDE BOUFFE

Utterly unrepresented until now, save for inferior, VHS-quality releases, the black comedic visionary is wonderfully shocking here with eight features: EL COCHECITO, THE SEED OF MAN, LA GRANDE BOUFFE, DON’T TOUCH THE WHITE WOMAN, BYE BYE MONKEY, SEEKING ASYLUM, TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS, and THE HOUSE OF SMILES, spanning the years 1960-1988. LA GRANDE BOUFFE is one of the greats, held back by its US distributor for eons. I brought my young son to a special screening at Lincoln Center decades ago, and Ferreri was in attendance. When I went up to him with my son to say hello, he actually looked horrified that I’d brought a child to a screening of one of his films. Obviously he’d never seen STREET TRASH. My son was used to unforgiving cinema.

HOW THE WEST WAS WON (Warner Bros Home Entertainment)

This release almost had me in tears. Time, and digital technology, have enabled the computer wizards to remove the lines from the three Cinerama film strips, making one complete, mind-boggling canvas out of the 1962 epic Western. If only it could be projected this way in a theater. But the latest step forward is profound, with its great score, its depth-of-field, and its utterly compelling visual distortions. The John Ford Civil War sequences, which felt so clunky back in the day, are quite stirring all of a sudden in this resolved format. I’m really thrilled that I lived long enough to see it this way. Plus there’s a magnificent feature-length documentary included on the history of the unwieldy medium.

Not surprising that today’s two foremost American filmmakers – Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese – have agreed to appear on this compilation, extolling the gifts of Boetticher’s Western genre. It’s an important historical collection, and they’ve been gorgeously mastered. The five features are THE TALL T (1957), DECISION AT SUNDOWN (’57), BUCHANNAN RIDES ALONE (’58), RIDE LONESOME (’59), and COMMANCHE STATION (1960), plus a feature doc, A MAN CAN DO THAT, exec produced by Eastwood. These are lean, visually dominant narratives, with spectacular twists and complex characterizations. Randolph Scott, who stars in all of them, was eager to come out of retirement to appear in a film I co-produced called THE COMEBACK TRAIL. Happy as we were with Buster Crabbe as our final choice, Scott would have been wonderful.

HOUDINI THE MOVIE STAR (Kino International)

My grandfather was Houdini’s booking agent, and probably inspired me to follow the uneven path I have through the annals of cinema these past forty years. Houdini was a great magician, and perhaps even better at self-promotion. He certainly was not movie star material, but he made some interesting choices in his handful of cinematic appearances, and what still exists has been compiled onto this beautifully-designed three-disc collection. Films represented are THE MASTER MYSTERY (a serial from1919), THE GRIM GAME (a fragment from 1919), TERROR ISLAND (1920), THE MAN FROM BEYOND (1922) and HALDANE OF THE SECRET SERVICE (1923). Musical accompaniment has been supplied by several of the leading silent film composers/performers including Ben Model, Clark Wilson, Jon C. Mirsalis, and Stuart Oderman (who recently celebrated 50 years as a silent film pianist). There are fabulous supplements as well, including a 1914 audio recording of Houdini introducing his Water Torture Cell. The collection is worth it for that alone. This is a labor of love from an indie company that has brought us many gorgeous restorations over the years, particularly those of Fritz Lang and Murnau.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK: PREMIERE COLLECTION (Fox Home Entertainment)

Glenn has written about his top ten, and picked THE LODGER as one of them.

This box set is among the first of the DVD releases to be too large for a normal shelf. Others followed, such as the MURNAU/BORZAGE COLLECTION (also from Fox), and THE BLURAY PLANET OF THE APES COLLECTION (also from Fox), both marvelous, but equally provocative in terms of storage space. This collection presents eight immaculate masterings of the master’s work, bridging the silent period up into the 40s. The films range in terms of greatness, but in this compendium, who can complain. The design of the box and its contents is complex and aesthetically impressive. The extras are exhaustive and much appreciated, including commentaries, ‘making of’ featurettes, radio plays directed by Hitch, and interviews with Bogdanovich and Truffaut. Films included: THE LODGER (’27), SABOTAGE (1940), YOUNG AND INNOCENT (1937), REBECCA (1940), LIFEBOAT (1944), SPELLBOUND (1945), NOTORIOUS 1946), and THE PARADINE CASE (1947).

DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT (Classic Television)

On four discs, in two separate containers, the 30+ early TV espionage episodes (1952) starring Brian Donlevy are available at last. The iconic noir opening, of Secret agent Steve Mitchell appearing out of a thick fog, only to have a knife thrown at him, backed by the pounding score, set the mood for episodes that, today, seem almost relaxed in tone, bordering on improv. Donlevy fans who love his early work for Capra (THE GREAT MCGINTY), and as Western bad guys (UNION PACIFIC, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN), or a foreign legion bad guy (BEAU GESTE), or his later work in the Quatermass Hammer Films, Jerry Lewis’ THE ERRAND BOY, CURSE OF THE FLY, and, in failing health, GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE, will be delighted to own this collection. Did you know that his interests outside of acting were gold-mining and writing poetry, or that until his death in 1972 he was married to Bela Lugosi’s ex-wife, Lillian?

VAMPYR (Criterion)

Ever wonder what a Carl Dreyer vampire film would be like? Well he did one, in 1932, and it’s not like anything that he did before or since, or that anyone else has ever done. Unique and experimental, this early sound film, which focuses strictly on sound, not dialogue, has been labored over by the Ceneteca di Bologna, and presented by Criterion in a mega-box of treats almost too spectacular for its substance. Two discs contain the film, a ’66 doc on Dreyer’s career, a radio broadcast from ’58 of Dreyer reading an essay on filmmaking, and a book which contains Dreyer’s and Christen Jul’s original screenplay as well as Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 story “Carmilla” which was one source for the film. Which impels me to mention another film with even closer ties to le Fanu’s story – BLOOD AND ROSES (Look for the upcoming February Camp David with more information on this fairly lost classic). Where is it! How about it, Criterion – if Paramount won’t step up to the plate, why don’t you track down the original elements, clumsily edited for the US release in 1958, and give us back roger Vadim’s lyrical lesbian vampire trendsetter.

DON QUIXOTE (Image)

Bereft of any supplements, Orson Welles’ long-in-production morphing of the great story finally sees the light of day, cut together – probably longer than Welles would have liked, by AD Jess Franco (?!), the most important work the exploitation filmmaker has ever contributed to celluloid. Slow and enjoyable, the film really takes off at warp speed when Welles appears as himself within the narrative.

“DEXTER” Season Two (Paramount Home Entertainment/Showtime/CBS)

Everything they got wrong in Season One has been rethought and revitalized in this superb cable series. Even the makeup and lighting on star Michael Hall, which made him seem smarmy the first time around, has been revamped for these 12 episodes. The writing is great – probably the best of the year, including its only feature film competition, APPALOOSA – with character insights, dialogue, twists, and gallows humor galore. Can’t wait for Season Three, since I don’t get SHOWTIME.

SHE (Kino International & Legend Films)

This is Ray Harryhausen’s colorization of a criminally disastrous 1935 production involving filmmakers who were mentors to his career – Merian C. Cooper and Max Steiner, two of the creators of KING KONG. This one bit the dust the minute RKO changed their mind about making it in color. Now, with Legend’s latest colorization technology, and Harryhausen’s research into what the color palette should have been, down to costumes, etc., it’s a very good film, often mesmerizing, never boring, and artistically satisfying. For die-hards who can’t abide the idea of adding color to films originally shot in B&W, this is the enduring argument in favor of the process. There are also supplements, including a Harryhausen commentary, and the original B&W version, which is utterly worthless except for comparison’s sake, illustrating how miraculous the new version is.

EL CID (Genius Products, Inc)

Finally! This is one of the best of the Epics from the late 50s/mid 60s, one of the three or four best, really, and it’s been a long time coming. We’re given a good transfer, and a fine big box packaging, in an ivory case with gold lettering. On disc one is the film – a three+hour telling of the epic Spanish poem. Charlton Heston slips easily into the Cid’s armor, and Sophia Loren looks the most beautiful of her entire career. Anthony Mann does a fine job of directing (not a Noir moment, but maybe some Western influences), Philip Yordan’s and Ben Barzman’s screenplay is sophisticated and stirring, and Robert Krasker’s framing is heavily Eisensteinian. Miklos Rozsa’s score is arguably the best of his career. Gloria Musetta’s wardrobe direction – my goodness…! I suggested to Editor Robert Lawrence that the film could have used a bit of tightening – my only problem with it – and he quickly disagreed, but later I heard that he came around on that point. And there’s a commentary track featuring Producer Samuel Bronston’s son. If I haven’t convinced you that you should own this DVD, I don’t know what else I can say (though I do think the BluRay transfer might be even more awe-inspiring). Inside are some stills, and the reduced souvenir book, which was sold in theaters where the film played roadshow on its initial release dates. A second disc contains interesting docs about the making of the film. (Later in the year, Mann’s miasma of an epic, THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, with a dreadful script, deadly pacing, lackluster music, and plagiaristic action sequences, was also given the grand DVD release by the Weinstein company. I can’t recommend the film on any level, but the transfer and packaging are certainly great.)

AND FOR MY BEST THEATRICAL FILMS OF 2008

RAMBO ; JAR CITY ; THE BANK JOB ; FUNNY GAMES ; THE VISITOR ; CLOVERFIELD ; STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE ; IRON MAN ; DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH ; A GIRL CUT IN TWO ; RED ; TRAITOR ; LET THE RIGHT ONE IN ; APPALOOSA ; BLINDNESS ; TELL NO ONE ; SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE ; GRAN TORINO ; MAN ON WIRE

Continue to Glenn Andreiev’s picks…

I cheered for the villains who were building a colossal civilization.

Yes, its 10,000 B.C. but Evolet (Camilla Belle) has arched eyebrows, fake eyelashes, and breast implants. So much for authenticity. Since this is not a documentary or National Geographic Channel program, let’s proceed with the tale of tribal raids and prehistoric love.

D’Leh (Steven Strait) is an outcast due to his father abandoning him and his mother to a life of straw and scraps of raw meat. If D’Leh wants honor and a wife, he must kill a mammoth beast. He can then claim the spear of a warrior and take young Evolet as his own. Their village is made up of a bunch of straw huts and they barely get by. They have to rely on Old Woman (Mona Hammond), the oldest woman in the village, for foaming-at-the-mouth trance guidance.

A band of horse riding demon-men raid D’Leh’s village and enslave most of the able men and women. They burn the village. One of the warlords (Affif Ben Badra) immediately takes a liking to blue-eyed Evolet. He falls in love with her! These evil warlords are not on foot but on top of strange creatures, they are dressed for the freezing weather, and have weapons!

The root-eating villagers are not smart enough to figure out they had been rescued.

When I was in Mali, West Africa I spent some time with the Tuareg. The Tuareg people are nomadic people of the Sahara desert, mostly in the northern reaches of Mali near Timbuktu and Kidal. The Tuareg are often referred to as Blue Men of the Desert and still practice slavery. Anti-slavery activists allege that anywhere between 43,000 to 800,000 people live in bondage in Niger, mostly among the Tuareg and Arab communities. Slavery is an age-old custom in parts of Africa, practiced by several of its ethnic groups.

Today, in Timbuktu, slavery is a fact of life. I was told people often go into the desert and offer themselves for servitude, choosing slavery over starvation.

Not so for D’Leh’s tribe.

D’Leh, hiding out during the raid, gathers up some of the other men including quasi-leader/mentor Tic’Tic (Cliff Curtis), specifically to get his girlfriend back.

D’Leh and his small posse of men have to travel on foot through lousy weather, difficult terrain and hungry beasts. In a hilarious scene reminiscent of Daniel in the lion’s den, a saber-tooth tiger-cat remembers D’Leh freed him from a trap and doesn’t eat him! The other natives are thunderstruck and, thinking D’Leh is a Superior Being, follow him to fight the warlords.

Considering this herd of tribesmen are not wearing clothes, you’d think finding a bustling civilization would be a welcomed event.

Remember when Maximus and the other prisoner-gladiators first caught sight of the Coliseum? They were awestruck.

D’Leh’s maundering enemies need slaves to build their empire just like…oh, I forgot, the pharaohs didn’t use slave labor to build their monuments – it was the late summer-early autumn months, during the annual flooding of the fields, and local farmers had nothing else to do. Sort of like FDR’s New Deal “busy work” program, the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The warlords are raiding villages to satisfy the building plans of some veil-wearing transvestite ruler. D’Leh slips into the city and in Spartacus fashion, liberates all the slaves. They destroy the city.

I do not have any idea what Roland Emmerich was thinking when he embarked on this project. Was he thinking animated, Saturday morning TV series? Halloween costumes revenue? Were there animal skin costumes lying around he got at cost? Did he have one more film on his contract?

The CGI mammoth stampede and the warlord’s Atlantis civilization were spectacular, but the story was weak, dull, and underwritten. With only the warlords having interesting personalities, why didn’t we spend some time watching Evolet work some “Jezebel Magic” on her lovesick warlord?

“Live for nothing – or die for something – your choice”:
Rambo’s challenge to the feckless mercenary Lewis.
“Live for nothing. Die for something” has become a rallying cry in Burma today.

“Massacre” was the word the brutal military spoke in reply to the recent ‘Saffron Revolution’ when Buddhist monks chanting “metta” (loving kindness) led thousands in peaceful protest against intolerable conditions of poverty and misrule. Massacre by the thousands had also been the junta’s response to the last popular uprising, in 1988. The peoples of Burma have suffered under this increasingly murderous repression since 1962.

Monks, undaunted, and resolute activists in Burma who yearn passionately for Democracy to return to their beloved country, are prepared to die for their beliefs if that is what it has to take. Non-violence is their preferred method of opposing the evil of the machine guns pointing at them.

Yet, deep down some have a fantasy: if only, instead of the UN’s ineffectual envoy Gambari, RAMBO could triumphantly infiltrate the hated Nay Pyi Taw stronghold where the bloated Generals squat, to once and for all demolish the evil, vicious military for real.
“Do we get to win this time?”

When Sylvester Stallone decided to revisit John Rambo’s story after 20 years he questioned Soldiers of Fortune magazine: “Where is the one place on earth where the worst atrocities are taking place and getting the least amount of attention?” Answer: BURMA.

It is appropriate that this Rambo movie is the most bloody and violent of all, since the scene is set with documentary facts and footage of the actual, viciously brutal genocidal attacks which Burmese military junta soldiers perpetrate today and every day against their own people.

In the movie story, the ruthlessly sadistic extermination of innocent peasants in their mine-strewn paddy fields draws first blood, and Maung Maung Khin’s portrayal of the savage General Tint is no exaggeration of truth. When he enforces his first devastating attack on a Karen village, to kidnap young boys for soldiers, he barks out threats chilling in their cruelty: “They belong to me now. Obey or I will cut out your tongues, feed you your intestines. Hear me, believe me”.

Later, the missionary work in the Karen village is horrifyingly interrupted by an attack by General Tint’s troops so barbaric that my heart was pounding in fear and distress, knowing that this kind of attack is no fiction. No one and nothing is spared. Screaming with terror, villagers are shot down as they run, babes in arms blown to bits, bodies are beheaded, a pregnant woman ripped open at knifepoint. Men, old women and children stumble in petrified panic across paddy fields, mown down by machine guns. The huts are torched and the blaze reflected in the General’s sunglasses as he smokes his cigarette. When later the mercenary hired-guns behold the ravaged rotting bodies, residue of this depraved slaughter, they witness another obscenity as returning soldiers arrive to goad terrified Karen prisoners to run the diabolical mines-in-the-paddy-field gauntlet while the laughing torturers place bets on the outcome.

I compare these scenes with current news out of Burma, reporting on the ongoing 60-year genocidal civil war between the Karen people and the Burmese military junta.
March 11 2008: “Thousands of Karen civilians displaced in fresh attacks as UN envoy visit fails”.
March 8 2007: “Scorched earth terror campaign against civilians continues”.
March 4 2008: “Ga Yu Der village burned, Tay Bo Kee mortar rounds fired, villagers fled, Burma Army pursuing, seeking out more villages destroying homes, food and property”.
In a recent attack on humanitarian group Free Burma Rangers, who provide medicine and food for refugees near Maw Pu, 1,700 villagers fled from devastation: elsewhere 9 houses burned while 85 were forced to flee. In total an estimated 30,000 were displaced and on the run, in constant danger of rape as weapon of war, or death, or both.
Since 1996, Burma’s regime has destroyed 3,200 villages in eastern Burma – nearly twice the number destroyed in Darfur, Sudan. It has recruited up to 70,000 child soldiers to carry out attacks, more than any other country in the world. US ‘Campaign for Burma’ petitions to have the regime brought before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Sylvester Stallone has evidently taken this to heart.
The Daily Mail newspaper in England quotes him as saying:
“I witnessed the aftermath (in Burma) – survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land mine injuries, maggot infested wounds and ears cut off. We saw many elephants with blown-off legs. We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia, but this is more horrific. This is a hell-hole beyond your wildest dreams”.

In the US, the movie has publicized to a general public the tragic plight of this benighted country.

In Singapore’s Bugis Junction Cinema, a special screening was attended by hundreds of Burmese exiles. The organizers played Burmese revolutionary and student movement songs, the audience stood and “in all their strength sang the Burmese national anthem.
But as the movie began there was a great silence and a feeling of sadness and anger filled the hall. As the crowd witnessed rape, mass killings, and the burning of villages, there were sympathetic groans from some viewers who had witnessed the 1988 crackdown”.

In Burma itself the film is banned, and clandestine DVDs are secretly treasured and shared, at great risk. The danger is manifest in the arrest on March 10 of two Democracy activists in Rangoon for “Rambo” possession. They join the more than 1500 political prisoners and monks wasting away in punishing incarceration. Two of the Burmese-born actors in the film have reported that, in retribution, members of their family have been arrested also.

Stallone has said that reports of his film becoming a bootleg hit in Burma, and an inspiration to dissidents, is a pinnacle in his movie career. “These incredibly brave people have found, kind of a voice, in a very odd way, in American cinema … They’ve actually used some of the films quotes as rallying points. That, to me, is one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had in film”.

This seems to me to be perfectly in keeping with the Rambo legend, as he continues his hero’s journey. David Morrell has said he was conscious of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces ” when he first created the character of John Rambo as a mythic embodiment of the warrior spirit. Stallone has been consistent and convincing in conveying the ethical struggle constantly waged inside between outrage at hypocrisy in high places (“Fuck the world”); the knowledge that in himself “when you’re pushed, killing’s as easy as breathing”; and the honourable imperative to use his skills to out-massacre the bully and save the victim – courage to embrace “the hell that he calls home”.

Stallone, the actor, is perfectly cast: more even than his impressive physique, his face as it has changed over the years from the tough yet vulnerable young Vietnam vet trying to find his way in a hostile society to this stone-faced world-weary Thai exile carrying the weight and disillusion of the years on his shoulders, expresses what has been described as a kind of “blockheaded poetry”.

Stallone, the writer and director of this movie, has said: “I wanted to do something more spiritual and visually interesting”. He has succeeded on both counts. The landscape of the river scenes is breathtaking, and the orgy of destruction in the battle scenes is epic as well as explosively graphic and bloody. Amid and beyond the action, there are ethical and spiritual themes.

Ethically: Lewis (Graham McTavish), the hard-bitten tough-talking leader of the mercenaries, is the equivalent of the corrupt Marshall Murdock (FIRST BLOOD 2) in his cynical trivializing of the mission at hand: “ We’ll check it out – if we can extract them, good – if not, anything wrong at all, we fuck off”. Rambo’s arrow drawn tight against Lewis’s forehead stamps that out. Lewis is in the end badly wounded, but shamed into accepting the kindness he does not deserve. Michael (Paul Shultz) the missionary leader, who pompously rails against the killing of pirates who would have killed him and raped Sarah Miller, is seen to be himself roused to bloodlust in the final battle for survival.

Spiritually: through the humanity of Sarah (Julie Benz), the missionary who treats Rambo with compassion and concern, Rambo is slowly reborn to his feelings. She persuades him to take them up river by saying: “Maybe you’ve lost your faith in people. But you must still be faithful to something … Maybe we can’t change what is. But trying to save a life isn’t wasting your life, is it?” I could see the memory of Colonel Trautman and Afghanistan (RAMBO 3) in Rambo’s eyes. In an echo of the jade Buddha given to him by Ca Bao in FIRST BLOOD 2, Sarah presses the small wooden cross she wears into Rambo’s hands as she arrives at her destination. He holds it as he searches his soul for the meaning of his life.

She has also asked him whether he is curious to see what has changed “back home” –
“Got to have a reason for that” he replies.
It seems by the end of the story that he has found his reason.
From the mayhem of Burma to the farmland of Arizona, he approaches a mailbox – “R. Rambo” – he takes the long walk towards the family homestead …

The icon of Burma’s aspirations is Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the struggle for democracy and freedom from fear, Nobel Prize winner, prisoner of house arrest. She challenges the world to “Please use your liberty to promote ours”.

It is fitting that through John Rambo, icon of American cinema, Sylvester Stallone has had the grace to accept her challenge.

ELIZABETH SHEPHERD / Daughter of missionaries, who spent her childhood in Burma.

The quotes used are from the BurmaNet News.

When it was announced that George A. Romero’s follow up to his LAND OF THE DEAD would be shot with a group of teenagers out in the woods using handheld cameras exclusively, it sounded like the grandfather of the modern zombie film would be treading dangerously close to BLAIR WITCH PROJECT territory.

Jason Creed (Josh Close) is in his last year of film school and he and his crew – his girlfriend Debra (Michelle Morgan), classmates Tony (Shawn Roberts), Tracy (Amy Lalonde), Eliot (Joe Dinicol), Ridley (Philip Riccio), Gordo (Chris Violette) and Mary (Tatiana Maslany) along with their teacher, Maxwell (Scott Wentworth) – are out in the woods shooting a mummy movie. When the news reports come in that the dead are returning to life and eating the flesh of the living, the students decide it’d be in their best interest to get out of the woods and head for safety. Everyone piles into the Winnebago with hopes of making it back home to their families, but they soon realize that the plague has spread much further much faster then they thought. Making it home isn’t going to be easy, if it’s even possible. Adding to the group’s tension is the fact that Jason intends to document EVERYTHING that happens to them along the way to create his ultimate documentary film, “The Death of Death.”

Yes, it owes a nod to BLAIR WITCH, just as BLAIR WITCH owes a nod to CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, but outside of that, DIARY OF THE DEAD is it’s own visionary work. Part road movie, part zombie film and part character study, DIARY succeeds despite a few stumbles. Interesting that this low budget film would work better than the considerably more expensive LAND OF THE DEAD, proving that Romero, for whatever reason, seems to work better on a smaller scale. He is the apotheosis of the Independent Filmmaker, and I guess that is what it probably boils down to. Without major studio interference here he’s crafted his best film in years. With its convincing sense of furtive, grabbed footage, DIARY may not necessarily look like a Romero movie, but it definitely feels like one.

Well done and beautifully produced. Satisfactorily explains the incest charge against Anne Boleyn.

I’ve read several books on Henry Vlll and I’m a fan of Showtime’s “The Tudors,” yet THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL satisfactorily addresses many nagging questions left unanswered, specifically, those charges against Anne Boleyn of treason and incest.

But first, some history: In 1520, King Henry VIII attended the wedding of almost 12-year-old Mary Boleyn and William Carey. According to “Henry VIII: The King and His Court” by Alison Weir, “At some stage, perhaps even before her marriage, although the timing is not clear, Mary Boleyn became the King’s mistress, supplanting Elizabeth Blount in his affections.”
In1526, Mary gave birth to her second child, a son called Henry. He was widely considered to be the king’s son. He physically resembled the king, a fact often remarked upon. Perhaps more telling, Henry granted the Careys manors and estates during the affair and immediately before the child’s birth. The King, who had already acknowledged one illegitimate son, did not do so with Henry Carey since by that time he was determined to divorce Katharine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, the child’s aunt. Henry VIII would have been too embarrassed to recognize his bastard son by his fiancée’s younger, married sister who had already given him a daughter.
The conclusion by historians is that Mary and William’s two children were the king’s children. This suggests to historians that the marriage of William and Mary Carey was non-sexual.
Henry Vlll was obsessed with one thing – producing a legitimate male heir. Imagine the stress this put on his wives!
Princess Diana famously remarked that she had done her duty for her country and her sole purpose in life – producing not only an heir, but a spare as well.
THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL tackles the intense jealousy and conflicts that went on between Anne (Natalie Portman) and her younger sister, the virginal, saintly Mary (Scarlett Johansson), for the affection of King Henry (Eric Bana).
Anne and Mary’s father, Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance), is ruled by his brother-in-law the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey), who plots to put Anne in Henry’s path after finding out that the King has lost sexual interest in his wife, Katharine of Aragon (Ana Torrent). Soon the King will be looking for a mistress, and the Boleyn family would profit handsomely if Anne were chosen. The girls’ mother, Lady Elizabeth (Kristin Scott Thomas), is horrified that her daughters are being prostituted.
Willingly, Anne is presented to Henry, but when he sees sweet, blond, naïve Mary, he is enchanted. He appoints Mary as one of Queen Katharine’s Ladies-In-Waiting and gives a prestigious position at Court to her husband. William Carey (Benedict Cumberbatch) is well aware he is being a cuckold but for some reason not given, accepts. The entire family, including Mary’s brother George (Jim Sturgess), is ensconced in London at Henry’s Court.

While Mary risks a dangerous pregnancy and is confined to her bed, the Duke of Norfolk tells Anne it is now up to her to seduce Henry. The rest, as they say, is history.

The screenplay by Peter Morgan is based on the 2002 novel by Philippa Gregory. By writing a novel, Gregory ponders a few points that have gone unrecorded by historical fact. Her reason, nicely revealed by Morgan, why incest was one of the charges against Anne, is understandable.

I’m not a fan of Portman, but as Anne Boleyn she shows the ruthlessness and jealousy that must have eaten at Anne. Her sister had given Henry a much desired and healthy son. Johansson has the more difficult role – that of innocent sister in the whirl of intrigue and treachery. But the historical Mary produced two children for the King: She must have been quite a sexual rival and was a powerful force at the King’s Court.

Bana is big and sexy, but since Henry had been king since he was eighteen and used to absolute rule and the indulgence of his every whim, Bana lacks the maniacal egomania that Johnathan Rhys-Meyers has given his portrayal of Henry in The Tudors.

Finally a superpower human without the need to do good for humanity. No ending since it’s a 90 minute trailer for Christensen’s starring franchise.

Remember the old days when knowledge was jealously guarded by, first the pharaohs and kings, and then the Catholic Church? With the internet, there is no more secret knowledge. It’s all out there. And now it’s more important to be beautiful than smart. You can get bank loans for cosmetic surgery, so what’s next to set people apart? Well, in the near future (after we have sex with robots: David Levy, author of “Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relations”, says that in 400 years humans will be able to buy an electronic femme-fatale or a superstud sexbot as easily as a flat-screen TV), after we have been genetically engineered to be beautiful, we’ll want super powers.
But right now it’s just a squirmy quirk of mutant DNA. All superheroes and anti-superheroes have terrible childhoods. Its something everyone can relate to.

When David Rice was five years old his mother vanished and he was raised by a brutal, neglectful father who never brought him a birthday gift or noticed his son had an unusual gift. This gift, by the way, only serves David.

When a teenager, an accident causes David to consciously recognize his power to teleport anywhere. It took him 12 years to dope things out.

After learning about David’s teen years, we “jump” forward to present time, where David (Hayden Christensen) is living The Life in a luxury duplex in New York City! He goes into bank vaults and takes as much cash as he wants. (I would go to Hermes, thereby “jumping” the two year wait list for “the Birkin”.) But David is a really good guy. He leaves I.O.U.s. He can take stuff with him (unlike Invisible People who have to go around naked).

Apparently, for some reason, David needs “jump sites.” I’ve been to the Sphinx. David goes there in 1900, before the onslaught of the tourists, The Mall, and Pizza Hut. (Did you know the Sphinx, whose legacy was to look out into Infinity, now has a Pizza Hut directly in front of it blocking Time and Space? You can buy a high-rise apartment looking out at the Sphinx’s broken nose.)

The Sphinx is one of David’s jump sites. No one sees him sitting on top of the Sphinx’s head. Zahi Hawass, High Priest of The Sphinx and Great Pyramids complex, is off-site digging in sand for a bigger find than Howard Carter.

With the world literally his, David decides to go back to his hometown and romance his high school first crush, Millie (Rachel Bilson).

Hey, David’s life is shattered when he finds out he’s not the only one with this talent. And, he’s targeted for death. He’s being tracked by Griffin (Jamie Bell) for 10 years. Griffin must be obsessed with David since he has a police wall charting his every more. Griffin is also a Jumper.

Griffin doesn’t bother to explain a thing, especially about the nefarious Paladins, a centuries-old secret society that has been hunting Jumpers. They are all-powerful and vanquish Jumpers with high doses of electricity (tethers). David’s nemesis is fanatic Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) who believes that the Jumpers are snubbing their nose at God.

David runs into Griffin at the Coliseum and, followed by Roland’s men – who can “jump” also – the fight destroys the place. David has taken Rachel there to impress her by getting into a big fight and destroying the place.

I liked the special effects and the storyline – thin though it was. The full story must have been tethered into the netherworld.

While Christensen may be following in Ryan Phillippe’s career path (Robert Rodriguez, please give Ryan a terrific starring role), he’s perfect here as a confused slacker with no direction except to tramp around the world.

However, now that he’s met Griffin and Roland, he has a mission in life.

I will not ruin the silliness of David’s parentage “reveal” that desperately needs a script doctor asap, or bland Bilson. Only Bell, with a bemused hobo look (and an unrealized homoerotic fixation on David that will be dealt with in his Berber lair dwelling).

This franchise has a lot of potential, but what happened to director Doug Liman? He seems to have directed JUMPER from the sofa of his MR. AND MRS. SMITH mansion. There is absolutely no heat between Christensen and Bilson or Christensen and Jackson. I had originally thought that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were just cleverly directed by Liman to behave as sexy beasts.

After lying low for 20 years, Rambo massacres 1000 men. Best sequel of the series. I’m looking forward to Rambo V.

Disgusted with humankind – he’s seen it all and then some – John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is eking out a solitary living commandeering a leaky, slow boat on the Salween River in Northern Thailand.

Rambo reminds me of the great iconic anti-hero Roy Batty: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Those demanding missionaries (that’s Julie Benz from my favorite series, Showtime’s “Dexter”) will not take “No” for an answer when they approach Rambo to take them to the border where the Burmese-Karen civil war is raging.

Because Sarah (Benz) stands outside his hut in the thunderstorm, Rambo agrees to undertake the dangerous river journey without pay. Leaving them off, Rambo returns only to be confronted 10 days later by Colorado minister Arthur Marsh (Ken Howard). The missionaries have “gone missing” and are feared kidnapped. He has hired a group of mercenaries led by Lewis (Graham McTavish) to find and evacuate them.

(I interviewed McTavish on the Red Carpet at Planet Hollywood for the premiere of RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION. He was charming, gracious, very slim and dashing, and answered all my inappropriate Red Carpet questions. Obviously, he’s new to the ritual. I’ve since given up Red Carpets because you must only ask celebrities ‘What are you wearing?’ if you want a response.)

Rambo agrees to take the mercenaries to the place where he dropped off the missionaries. Like all monk-warriors, Rambo doesn’t do small-talk or sing war songs. But he does understand the skill and ideology of the mercenaries. When Lewis tells Rambo to stay in the boat, he ignores the order and follows the mercenaries inside the Seventh Circle of Hell compound.

The missionaries are not fairing well.

Hell breaks wide open. Body parts explode. Heads get blown off. Teenage boys are going to love this.

After lying low for 20 years, Rambo massacres 1000 men. I wanted him to yell at Sarah: “Happy now?”

You’ve got to give Stallone credit. The task of directing and acting in this could not have been easy. If he’s not soaking wet, he’s covered in mud. He certainly does not need the money.

Stallone directs with skill and menace for the generation of moviegoers who are now used to ultra-violence. He delivers the goods with excess vigor. This is a violent, gory, blood-letting extravaganza. Jigsaw (there’s a SAW 5 on the horizon) better up his game.

Stallone looks terrific and keeps the Rambo growl to a honorific FIRST BLOOD flashback. Without a villain to face – Rambo is now up against a nasty army of sadistic rebels – McTavish delivers as the arrogant, insult-baiting adversary who almost takes the movie from Sly, but gets his payback by being wounded. He has to be carried out of the jungle on a stretcher.

I don’t know why they held no press screenings or promotional screenings for RAMBO. Could the studio really have been afraid of RAMBO? I understand that the press junket interviews were done without a pre-screening of the film. This is highly unusual and was seen as forecasting a “stinker.” (We critics are being kept from seeing more movies every month!)

Written by Art Monterastelli and Sylvester Stallone (and based on characters created by my friend and former neighbor when I lived in Santa Fe, David Morrell), Rambo is still a man carrying around his demons and regrets. Well, he now has a body count that requires a lot of penance. If you are a fan of John Rambo, you will not be disappointed.

Will critics belittle Michael Douglas for resuscitating Gordon Gekko and Harrison Ford for putting back on that hat? When E.T. returns to Earth, will critics cry “foul!”?

Not for anyone over 30.

CLOVERFIELD is exactly what happens in the case of an extreme catastrophe. How long did it take before we knew exactly what happened to the Twin Towers? Clearly, the first responders -the Fire and Police Departments of New York, the Port Authority Police Department, and the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management – did not know the true extent of the disaster.

When it happens again, how many first responders will rush in to help?

In the scenario presented in CLOVERFIELD, a group of young people are celebrating a going-away party when an alien monster pounds into New York City. Mayhem breaks out. Nobody knows anything. And while thousands of New Yorkers are filming the carnage, it seems only one digital camera made it intact and became the official government documentation on the attack. It’s theZapruder film of the 21st Century.

Remember the great UFO flap of the1980’s? Remember the stampede of people claiming aliens from another world were abducting them and transporting them to makeshift hospitals rooms in flying saucers? Remember sex with aliens? The ubiquitous cell-phone camera and pocket digital camera would be a decade away. I met a Masai warrior in Kenya who carried a stick, a lion’s claw, and a cell-phone. He was tending his cattle. I saw monks in Lhasa, Tibet talking on cell-phones.

Alien abductions are a thing of the past because no one has successfully filmed their dreams. If you didn’t film it, it didn’t happen.

In any emergency the first thing people do is not get out of the way. They take out the cell-phone or digital-camera and start recording (see Thailand Tsunami videos). So as soon as an alien invasion of lower Manhattan happens, it is all recorded by “Hud.” He’s a lousy photographer but has been assigned to memorialize his friend’s party.

Where is R. Kelly when you need him?

Hud keeps on recording even after he shows us his crummy filming technique. He takes his camera to the streets and records for posterity the run for the bridge.

If you thought looking at pictures of people’s pets in Santa hats or their grandkids was painful, watch camera work without a “stabilizer.”

CLOVERFIELD is entirely filmed in “digital-camera reality”. It’s a neat concept and, using the hysteria of an alien monster stomping through Manhattan, a perfect set-up for absolute chaos. There’s screaming and jittery camera work. No one has a personality worth saving. Hud didn’t bother filming anything interesting pre-invasion.

Using the techniques of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and HOSTEL (the necessary calm before the storm opening where we watch the characters just being ordinary), we spend the first part of CLOVERFIELD suffering through a noisy, boring party. Since Hud is not interested in people or being an astute observer, we learn nothing about the people he films before the building they are partying in starts to crumble.

CLOVERFIELD is what we are now used to seeing on YouTube – lousy production values and cheap digital camera work. The filmmakers didn’t bow to pressure to slip in some standard Hollywood film work, and it never moves away from Hud’s point of view.

As far as depicting chaos, CLOVERFIELD is as close as one can get. And I love the truth it shows: The world might be going to Hell in a hand-basket, but it is also the right time to pick up that flat-screen TV you were coveting.

What happens in the first seven minutes of the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie THERE WILL BE BLOOD is merely a set up for what will ultimately become an intriguing story of greed and corruption in the early 1900’s. I was one of the fortunate ones to go in cold. I like to do that from time to time.
The film opens on one character drilling for oil in a wretched hole in the earth. He is hurt, and at first we don’t think this man will make it up alive, but he does. Action ensues with no dialog for the next several minutes. This does not matter; we are already hooked into the story.
Daniel Day Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, a soon-to-be oil tycoon drilling for the black gold in the rich earth of southern California. His days and nights are spent with his men and their families, draining the land of its natural resources. A drilling accident early in the film takes the life of one of his men and Daniel, feeling somewhat responsible for the accident, adopts his baby boy and claims him as his own.

Parading around as a two-man team, Daniel and his young son H.W. look into buying up as much land as they can get their hands on to drill. An unexpected tip by a local preacher’s son leads them to a small town where oil can be seen seeping through the surface of the earth. Feeling an opportunity of a lifetime, Daniel and H.W. set out to buy up the land, starting with the preacher’s family in their holy roller town and working their way across the terrain so they can lay oil pipes to the ocean, cutting out expensive train shipping. Once there, they begin setting up shop with their team as the locals look on with vested interest. But it is the preacher’s son, Eli Sunday, who reads Daniel’s intentions correctly in what becomes an ongoing battle of good verses evil. Daniel Day Lewis delivers PT Anderson’s dialog with firm objectives, creating a character as robust as any in his prior films. Eli Sunday, played brilliantly by Paul Dano, (he worked with Daniel Day Lewis once before on THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE) constantly tries to convert Daniel to his Christian beliefs and fold him into his obsessive world.

Cinematographer Robert Elswit ASC captures all the right images in the rich and rugged landscape, as hues of brown and black pop through his camera lenses. Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnificent staging of the action allows for brilliant acting, particularly by Daniel Day Lewis, sure to get an Oscar nod in what is an absolutely legendary performance. The film’s one downfall is the score. The narrative is laced with musical accompaniment through almost every sequence, which begins to border on annoying two hours in.
Paul Thomas Anderson has shown cinematic maturity well beyond his years with THERE WILL BE BLOOD. After a brief theatrical layoff, he has returned with a vengeance. This is certainly his best work, and that’s saying a lot from the director who made MAGNOLIA and BOOGIE NIGHTS.