Best DVDs of 2009, Part One: Blu-ray discs

2009 was a pretty lousy year in many respects, I found. One respect in which it was dis­tinctly not lousy was DVDs. A lot of great stuff, to the extent that I’m gonna need two posts to cite them all. And you may find I’ve missed a favor­ite or two of yours. First, the still-contention-fomenting Blu-ray Disc format. A lot of the below titles were released on standard-def DVD con­cur­rently, but not all of them; in any case, the Blu-rays of the films that got dual-format releases are my pre­ferred ver­sions. So. In alpha­bet­ic­al order…

DOMESTIC ISSUES

An American Werewolf In London (Universal) Sadly, I’ve nev­er quite been able to fig­ure out wheth­er I dig this grisly/funny John Landis con­coc­tion in spite of its mere­tri­cious­ness or pre­cisely because of it. In any event, this ren­der­ing of it pre­serves its excesses very nicely.

Bird With The Crystal Plumage (Blue Underground) Not my fave Argento by a longshot…but because the Blue Underground folks are not behold­en to cine­ma­to­graph­er Vittorio Storaro and his Esperanto-for-TV-displays 2.0 aspect ratio scheme, we now get a Storaro-shot widescreen Blu-ray in its ori­gin­al 2.35 ratio. 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Criterion) Yes, I know I was­n’t too crazy about this film, and remain so. Still, this disc is a keep­er because of its spec­tac­u­lar pic­ture qual­ity and exhaust­ive extras, which may someday per­suade me to upgrade my assess­ment of it. Criterion’s decision to handle this film is one of sev­er­al silly com­plaints voiced in a recent Newsweek art­icle by Daniel D’Addario, who sniffs, “turns out the art of the deal plays a big­ger role in the Criterion pro­cess than you’d think,” after quot­ing Criterion pres­id­ent Peter Becker say­ing that the Button disc was a kind of favor to David Fincher. Oh, some­body guide me to the faint­ing couch—Criterion admits it wants to work with David Fincher. Well, gee, who does­n’t want to work with David Fincher at some level. Hell, I’d like to work with David Fincher. But to D’Addario, this con­sti­tutes some kind of sin, as does Criterion’s recent deal with IFC, which has thus far yiel­ded spec­tac­u­lar Blu-ray edi­tions of Gomorrah, Che, and A Christmas Tale. These pic­tures are “decent enough,” allows D’Addario, “[b]ut clas­sics?” Maybe, maybe not, but hey, let’s look at the mis­sion state­ment that’s on every Criterion Collection case: “The Criterion Collection, a con­tinu­ing series of import­ant clas­sic and con­tem­por­ary films…” Aha! There goes D’Addario’s whole thes­is, I guess. Maybe the ques­tion should have been “But import­ant?” Of course that’s a more…mercurial qual­ity, I sup­pose. I for one wel­come the Criterion/IFC deal. IFC’s acquis­i­tion guy has great taste and he snatches up a lot of fant­ast­ic stuff very fast. (Last time I was at Cannes, whenev­er I’d see a pic­ture I thought was par­tic­u­larly fant­ast­ic, I’d call a friend who runs a DVD label and say, “Go after this,” and he’d say, “IFC just bought it.) But IFC’s cur­rent dis­tri­bu­tion mod­el, which ought to gain trac­tion in the com­ing months/years, often means that what the com­pany acquires gets a lim­ited the­at­ric­al expos­ure. The Criterion deal gets this stuff out there more prom­in­ently, which I con­sider a good thing. And in any event, as I’ve said before, Criterion isn’t a non-profit. And D’Addario’s argu­ments would have a little (a very little) more cred­ib­il­ity if he him­self did­n’t come off like he could­n’t tell Two Or Three Things I Know About Her from Ten Things I Hate About You without a Google search.

Dead and Buried (Blue Underground) Gary Sherman’s near-classic ’81 liv­ing dead film, one-stop shop­ping for exploit­a­tion kicks (gra­tu­it­ous nud­ity, nasty shocks), but also genu­inely spooky in an old-school vein. 

Dr. Strangelove (Sony, pic­tured) I saw a new 35mm print of this a week or so before I got the Blu-ray, so I felt par­tic­u­larly secure in siz­ing this one up. Just fab­ulous. A lot of grain? Yes, in all the right places. I took issue with grain-allergic Jeffrey Wells here. 

Drag Me To Hell (Universal) Vivid hor­ror car­toon fun!

Easy Rider (Warner) I’ve always con­sidered the film some­thing of a meander, but see­ing it like this—Lazslo Kovacs’ ground­break­ing, impres­sion­ist­ic, semi-doc-style cine­ma­to­graphy repro­duced with exquis­ite sensitivity—actually improved its dra­mat­ic com­pon­ent for me. Said com­pon­ent is, as Paul Schrader noted, quite con­ven­tion­al and sen­ti­ment­al. Still, it’s more than just a time-capsule piece.

Fight Club (Fox) The very dark com­edy’s darks are very rich here.

The 400 Blows (Criterion) Every frame an hon­est beauty.

The General (Kino) Remastered from a fine-grain print taken from the ori­gin­al neg­at­ive, this is a smooth-as-silk sepia exper­i­ence of an immor­tal mas­ter­piece. The great Dave Kehr uses the disc as a spring­board for his per­tin­ent mus­ings on Blu-ray and clas­sic cinema here. 

Gimme Shelter (Criterion): I wish I still had that old issue of Video Review wherein D.A. Pennebaker raves about the image qual­ity of 8mm film pro­jec­ted onto a white sheet, so I could get the exact quote. In any event, if you’re at all in sync with Pennebaker’s sentiment—that the format had a unique vivid beauty—you’ll under­stand the logic, no, the geni­us, of giv­ing this rough-and-ready 16mm-shot doc the Blu-ray treat­ment. There’s blur, there’s grain, there’s flar­ing; and it’s all beau­ti­ful. The movie, of course, is one half great con­cert film and oher half coun­ter­cul­ture nightmare.

Gone With The Wind (Warner) Speaking of sepia; the beau­ti­ful tinge of it injec­ted into the film’s Technicolor in its first half is giv­en its prop­ers in this dazzling rendi­tion of a mag­ni­fi­cent and prob­lem­at­ic picture.

Hot Fuzz (Universal): Very slick and sleek, befit­ting its brand of smart and tech­no­lo­gic­ally advanced comedy.

Howards End (Criterion) The Merchant/Ivory tra­di­tion of qual­ity, here rep­res­en­ted in its argu­ably most suc­cess­ful mani­fest­a­tion, and giv­en a metic­u­lous presentation.

Inglourious Basterds (Universal) That it should yield a great Blu-ray isn’t neces­sar­ily news. 

Kagemusha (Criterion) Jaw-dropping col­or. No, really, your jaw will drop.

Labyrinth (Sony) Scary mup­pets and…super creep? Oh, Bowie’s char­ac­ter isn’t that bad.

Last Year At Marienbad (Criterion) Not a puzzle film, but rather a work of sci­ence fic­tion. Images smooth as sat­in. And still cap­able of gen­er­at­ing con­tro­versy after fifty some odd years. 

The Last Metro (Criterion) A par­tic­u­larly gor­geous Truffaut/Almendros col­lab. Some notes here. 

Monsters Inc. (Disney) Already-classic Pixar.

Monterey Pop (Criterion) Pennebaker him­self. See entry for Gimme Shelter.

The New World (New Line) The exten­ded cut, 175 often breath­tak­ingly beau­ti­ful minutes. One wishes someone would give the film a treat­ment akin to the multi-version present­a­tion of Mr. Arkadin that Criterion did some years back. 

North By Northwest (Warner) Part of a Warner Blu-ray tri­fecta along with GWTW and Oz. Probably my favor­ite film of the three. 

Pierrot Le Fou (Criterion) Godard at his most color-drunk since Contempt.

Pinocchio (Disney) One of those “holy moley” home theat­er exper­i­ences. Pictured, and reviewed here.

Playtime (Criterion) If it’s gonna be watched at home, it’s gotta be watched in this ver­sion. Period. Here’s why.

Repulsion (Criterion) Polanski’s great all-men-are-creeps goose­bump fest. Look at the detail on that rabbit!

The Seventh Seal (Criterion) Something I really nev­er thought I’d see when the format deb­uted. Hence, the stuff that dreams are made of, in cer­tain respects.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney) The multi-plane cam­era 3‑D effect on this is actu­ally bet­ter than sev­er­al “real” 3‑D films I saw over the past few years. And the rest of it’s great too. 

South Pacific (Fox) More Todd-AO on Blu-ray, please? 

Synecdoche NY (Sony) Not just because I’m one of its volu­min­ous DVD extras. Really. 

Raging Bull (MGM) A superbly sat­is­fy­ing rendition.

Up (Disney) Again, not news.

Vanishing Point (Fox) Existentialism and fast cars, a minor cult clas­sic with some sub­stan­tial visu­al pleasures.

The Wages of Fear (Criterion) Desperate char­ac­ters and nerve-wracking sus­pense in piti­less black and white…

Wings of Desire (Criterion) Considered here. 

The Wizard of Oz (Warner) Definitively dazzling.

UPDATE: A read­er reminds me that the Zodiac dir­ect­or’s cut Blu-ray was a January ’09 release. Fits in nicely here; good thing its title begins with a Z…

FURTHER UPDATE: Having got­ten a Japanese issue of the amaz­ing Warner disc of An American In Paris pre­vi­ously, I stu­pidly for­got its domest­ic release in ’09. Of course it’s a must, as is the Blu-ray of Gigi. I also neg­lected to men­tion the icons of reli­gious and Technicolor kitsch Quo Vadis and The Robe. And the icon of just plain kitsch The Towering Inferno. All dazzling Blus!

FOREIGN ISSUES

Belle De Jour (Studio Canal Collection, Region B locked) This Studio Canal col­lec­tion is put­ting some pretty excit­ing stuff on Blu-ray, and doing it well. It’s likely that this title, and the Godard cited below, will see domest­ic release via Liongsate, and if they don’t screw them up, that’ll be great. Me, I could­n’t wait…

BFI Flipside label (Region B locked): Hard to pick just one title from this intriguing off­shoot of this splen­did label, which has been respons­ible for mag­ni­fi­cent Blu-rays of Antonioni’s The Red Desert and Pasolini’s “Trilogy of Life.” I’ve reviewed Primitive London and Herostratus here and here. And then there’s Lester’s The Bed-Sitting Room. And the three Jane Arden/Jack Bond films, which are impress­ive and haunt­ing and have been, for me, impossible to write about. An eccent­ric treas­ure trove.

Contempt (Studio Canal Collection, Region-free) Ooh, look how heav­enly white Michel Piccoli’s cigar­ette is…

The Dam Busters (Optimum, Region B locked) This favor­ite of WWII-movie con­nois­seurs really shines in this Blu-ray. A nice surprise.

Hamlet (ITV, Region B locked) A Facebook friend, cit­ing this and Welles’ Macbeth, called 1948 “the year Shakespeare went noir.” This disc is an immer­sion in fog-choked mel­an­chol­ic atmosphere.

Red Cliff I and II (Mei Ah Entertainment, Region A) If you can­’t see the full five-hour-plus ver­sion of this mag­ni­fi­cent Woo epic on a very big screen, these two excel­lent discs are the next best thing.

Sunrise (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema, Region-free) An inspired and inspir­ing disc. Reviewed here.

Tokyo Sonata (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema, Region-free) The Mad Detective Blu-ray isn’t any­thing to sneeze at, either. The label’s going to be even more aggress­ive with Blu-ray this year, which we should all be look­ing for­ward to.