Warner Bros. Studio continues their 100th anniversary celebration with the release of “East of Eden” for the first time on 4K Ultra HD. Directed by Academy Award winner Elia Kazan and adapted from John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, the film starred James Dean who gives a gripping performance that would earn him a posthumous Academy Award nomination. This terrific new edition features the film on 4K disc and digital copy.
The new 4K UHD edition of “East of Eden” will release on August 1, 2023. See below for a full synopsis and release information.
OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
Year: 1955
Runtime: 117 Minutes
Director: Elia Kazan
Screenwriter: Paul Osborn
Cast: James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, Richard Davalos, Burl Ives, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Dekker, Nick Dennis, Harold Gordon, Lois Smith
FROM THE STUDIO
In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother Aron for the love of their father Adam. Carl is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, to how to get ahead in business and in life, to how to relate to his estranged mother.
The 1955 period drama is directed by Elia Kazan from a screenplay by Paul Osborn and based on the 1952 John Steinbeck novel of the same name. The film stars James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, Burl Ives, Richard Davalos, and Jo Van Fleet.
East of Eden was nominated for 3 Academy Awards with Van Fleet winning for Best Supporting Actress. East of Eden was named one of the 400 best American films of all time by the American Film Institute. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
4K Ultra HD Features
East of EdenUltra HD Blu-ray contains the following previously released special features:
Commentary by Richard Schickel
Ultra HD Blu-ray Languages: English, Spanish, and French
Ultra HD Blu-ray Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, Parisian French
It’s kinda weird for a film to have such a rabid cult following well before it’s ever seen. But such was the case for “Barbie”, the new film from director Greta Gerwig based on the popular Mattel fashion dolls which first launched way back in 1959. Many of the film’s passionate fans were brought onboard by the wild social media hype. Others were drawn in by the intense marketing campaign that saw Barbie slapped on everything from a Prada clothing line to a limited-edition Burger King cheeseburger. It was a buzz that went beyond mere anticipation.
The eye-catching “Barbie” trailers stoked even more excitement. Suddenly memes were being generated by the gross. Google was turning its search pages pink, Xbox designed a Barbie inspired gaming console, Airbnb was listing a real-life Barbie Malibu Dream House. It was all pretty crazy. So in many ways “Barbie” was conditioned to succeed well before anyone had laid eyes on it. And any reasonable hesitations were mostly swept away in the sea of pink, plastic, and product.
It all translated into a record-breaking opening weekend for Gerwig and Warner Brothers. In one sense it was great to see. I’m a long-time fan of Gerwig and her work so it’s good to see her star deservingly rise. In another sense it’s a little sad to see her moving to mainstream studio blockbusters. It will inevitably take a bite out of her terrific independent filmmaking. And what does it mean for Greta Gerwig the actress? She’s such a delight on screen and it’s reasonable to expect that we’ll see her in even fewer acting roles.
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
“Barbie” (co-written by Gerwig and her longtime partner in life and in movies, Noah Baumbach) is quite the shift for the director whose two previous efforts were “Lady Bird” and “Little Women”. If you strain you can catch glimpses of the Greta Gerwig who more than earned her stripes through years of great work on the indie scene. But just as much of the film seems aimed at satisfying the expectations of fans and (I’m sure to some degree) the demands of Mattel and WB executives. It leaves “Barbie” feeling like a weird amalgamation of indie ideas and studio pomp.
Part satire, part deconstruction, part heavy-handed manifesto, “Barbie” wears its worldview on its sleeve. Patriarchy is clearly its favorite target with some of its shots being genuinely clever and funny while others are so overt and on-the-nose that you could almost spoon-feed them to 7-year-olds. You won’t find an ounce of subtlety or nuance in the movie’s commentary nor is it presented in a way that will actually challenge our sociocultural systems. It’s also undermined by one nagging contradiction that I won’t spoil.
The film’s biggest strength is Margot Robbie who may seem like the obvious choice to play Barbie, but who brings some unexpected weight and depth to the character through her knock-out performance. We first meet her in the pastel and plastic Barbieland, a matriarchal society where all the Barbies run things and go by the same names. There’s President Barbie (Issa Rae), Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), Physicist Barbie (Emma Mackey), Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), and so on (Robbie’s Barbie is referred to as Stereotypical Barbie for reasons that Gerwig makes impossible to miss).
Meanwhile the Kens hang out by the beach where Ryan Gosling’s version seeks to impress Robbie’s Barbie whenever she comes around. It quickly becomes evident that he’s smitten with her but she clearly doesn’t feel the same way. Other Ken versions are played by Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adair, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, and others. We even get John Cena in a pretty cringy cameo.
The opening act is easily the film’s best as Gerwig has a blast playing around in Barbieland, introducing the Barbies and Kens, and having a lot of fun with the silly dynamics between them all. But things change after Robbie’s Barbie (who I’ll just call Barbie for the remainder of the review) begins having thoughts of mortality, discovers she has cellulite, and worst of all is suddenly flat-footed.
Barbie learns the only way to return things to normal is to travel to the real-word and find the little girl who is playing with her. So Barbie sets off in her pink Corvette convertible only to later find Ken stowed away in the backseat. She reluctantly allows him to tag along on her journey. By the way, it’s best not to try and make sense out of any of this. The movie certainly doesn’t. How Barbieland and the real-world connect; how children in the real-world effect dolls in Barbieland – from the movie’s POV who knows and who cares.
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
One problem with putting so much effort into hammering home its message is that the film shortchanges other parts of the story. While it packs a few laughs, the entire real-world segment feels rushed and frankly quite shallow. The biggest casualties are Gloria (America Ferrera) and her tween-ish daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). Gloria works at Mattel and only seems there to deliver a big attention-drawing second-half monologue. Sasha is rebelling against pretty much everything although we never really know why. Their troubled mother/daughter relationship should have been a key part of the story. Instead it comes across as a paper-thin side note.
By the time the movie returns to Barbieland for its third act the gags start to get old and some of the swings at humor feel a little forced. Still the film manages to land on a pretty solid note – a bit contrived but sweet and smile-inducing. It’s the road to that point that has its potholes. There are enough cool references to make little girls smile but enough sexual innuendo and double entendres to make parents squirm. The set design is incredible but gets lost in the second half’s noise. The theme of breaking out of boxes and finding our true selves is a great one but is drowned out by the movie’s more singleminded interest.
It’s 100% aware that I’m not the target audience and much of “Barbie” could have flown right over my head. I kinda doubt it though. I’m a huge Gerwig fan. I liked the nostalgic callbacks and the many spoofs. I like its cornball sense of humor (which is right up my alley). Even its patriarchal theme creates the perfect sandbox for a movie like this to play in. It’s the clunky execution, the surface-level storytelling, the see-through attempts at subversiveness, and the complete lack of restraint that ultimately weighs the movie down. “Barbie” is in theaters now.
I’m sure you’ve heard it said the certain actors or actresses make whatever movie they’re in better? Sir Michael Caine is a prime example. The 90-year-old Englishman has had a sparkling career dating back to his first big screen role in 1950’s “Morning Departure”. Thankfully he is still working and still making movies better for having him in them. His latest is “The Great Escaper”, a tender feel-gooder based on a true story that sees him paired with the late Glenda Jackson in what was her final role.
Directed by Oliver Parker and written by William Ivory, “The Great Escaper” tells the story of 90-year-old Bernard Jordan who slipped away from his assisted living facility where he stayed with his wife Irene (Jackson) to attend a special event in Normandy marking the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The elderly man’s journey made national headlines. The new trailer shows both the humorous and the heartfelt side of Jordan’s story and Caine makes it all the more compelling.
“The Great Escaper” releases in theaters on October 6th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
1973’s “Serpico” was almost a much different movie. By that I don’t mean a different spin or a different genre. I mean there were some dramatically different creatives first attached to the gritty biographical crime drama. Sam Peckinpah was once in line to direct but eventually backed out. But the kicker was Robert Redford and Paul Newman, both relatively fresh off working together in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting”, were set to star with Redford playing the titular character Frank Serpico. They too left the project.
It was a bumpy road, but soon Sidney Lumet was brought in to direct. Even more notable, Al Pacino was given the lead role. Written by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler, “Serpico” was an adaptation of a 1973 book by author Peter Maas. It told the true story of New York City police officer Frank Serpico who came face to face with rampant police corruption. It was a gutsy film for its time and it received criticism from some within the NYPD and other groups who claimed the feature overlooked key parts and underrepresented key people from the true account.
Early on we see Frank Serpico as a young ambitious Italian who graduated from the New York Police Academy and was eventually stationed at a hopping downtown precinct. He starts as a patrolman but his feel for the street gets him promoted to a plainclothes officer. But he quickly begins seeing the underside of the department. And when he refuses to take a $300 payoff, Frank breaks an unwritten rule within the fraternity that puts him at odds with many of his fellow cops.
Image Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Pressure mounts for Frank to fall in line but he continues to resist, going as far as to become the eyes and ears of the commissioner. With a target on his back from both within and outside the department, Frank finds himself buckling under the pressure. Pacino’s performance organically evolves throughout the movie, turning his character from a well-intended but naive idealist to a hardened and stressed-out cynic. Pacino’s appearance mirrors the change, going from clean and buttoned-up to blousy shirts, bucket hats, and sandals.
Pacino would go on to win a Golden Globe and be nominated for an Academy Award for his performance. While the script doesn’t always do his character favors, Pacino is able to keep both his character and the story itself centered. He’s helped by a solid supporting cast featuring John Randolph, Jack Kehoe, Barbara Eda-Young, Tony Roberts, and Biff McGuire. Look close and you’ll also catch a couple of fun uncredited appearances by Judd Hirsch and F. Murray Abraham.
“Serpico” certainly had its detractors mainly among those who felt it veered too far away from the true account and was a little too selective in how it chose to focus its story. But as entertainment goes it works well as a big city crime drama with a sprinkle of neo-noir flavoring. And in the end the strengths of Lumet’s direction, Pacino’s performance, and Arthur J. Ornitz’s gritty cinematography are more than enough to get past the film’s handful of stumbles.
In a year that is showering us with cinematic treats such as the latest Mission: Impossible movie, a new Martin Scorsese epic, and the second chapter in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” (just to name a few), no movie has had me more excited than Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”. This historical thriller is based on the 2005 biography “American Prometheus: The triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” which in normal hands could have been your prototypical biopic. But this is Christopher Nolan and there’s nothing prototypical about his work.
“Oppenheimer” is Nolan’s twelfth feature film and I can honestly say I’ve been a big fan of all eleven movies that preceded it. Even more (and at the risk of coming across as an acolyte), his last SIX movies each ended up being my favorite film of their individual years. I know how suspect that sounds. But simply put, Nolan makes movies that wow me, captivate me, and in their own ways enhance my appreciate for the art form. To no surprise Nolan has done it again with “Oppenheimer”.
Sporting an incredible vision and one of the most fascinating casts in recent history, Nolan delivers what is a staggering cinematic achievement. With extraordinary craft, masterful pacing, and a truly exquisite management of tone, Nolan tells the true story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of most consequential figures in world history. A theoretical physicist credited as the “father of the atomic bomb”, Oppenheimer was a brilliant but flawed man. Nolan captures all of his complexity and contradictions in this dense and layered study that plays on a massive scale.
Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures
Riveting from start to finish, “Oppenheimer” examines its titular personality by placing us inside the head of a man looking beyond the world he lives in until that very world consumes him. We watch as he is lured in by scientific innovation and the prospect of saving the world. And later we see him crumbling under the enormous weight of what he has created; torn by ethical conundrums that are only matched by the guilt of his own personal moral failings.
“Oppenheimer” is anchored by what might be the best screenplay of Nolan’s career and easily the best screenplay of the year so far. The movie is three hours long and dialogue heavy yet there’s never a dull moment. You won’t find a wasted scene or a throwaway line. Nolan is always going somewhere and strategically moving his story and the characters who inhabit it forward. It’s a textbook case of a movie earning every second of its running time.
Cillian Murphy has never been better and gives a stunning three-dimensional performance, portraying Oppenheimer at various stages in his life with spellbinding commitment. We first meet him in his early days studying at the University of Cambridge and then later at the University of Göttingen. We watch as he goes home to America determined to bring quantum physics to the States. He begins teaching at Berkeley where he meets nuclear physicist Ernest Lawrence (a terrific Josh Hartnett).
Outside of science and academics, Oppenheimer has an on-and-off romance with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh – more on her in a bit), a psychiatrist and member of the Communist Party USA. Their relationship comes back to haunt him in more ways than one. Later he weds biologist Katherine “Kitty” Puening (Emily Blunt) and they have two children together. But we see their marriage has its own share of self-inflicted challenges.
And of course Nolan takes us through Oppenheimer’s involvement with the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb in the remote makeshift town of Los Alamos, New Mexico. There, under the direction of General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), Oppenheimer assembles a crack team of scientists to build the government a weapon that can end World War II. Oppenheimer hides from the inevitable consequences of such a weapon by dwelling on the alternative. He doesn’t know if America can be trusted with a bomb. But he does know that the Nazis can’t. So he pushes forward, intent on beating Germany to the bomb while slowly coming to realize what it is they’re unleashing.
Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures
As Nolan’s intricate story unfolds we’re given flash-forwards that shine a light on Oppenheimer’s tense relationship with Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss (a sublime and awards-worthy Robert Downey Jr.). These absorbing sequences follow Strauss as he’s set to be confirmed for United States Secretary of Commerce. But they’re shrewdly interlaced with scenes showing Oppenheimer’s 1954 security hearing where he faced trumped up charges that he was a Soviet agent. Watching these two threads tie together is nothing short of captivating.
Nolan’s lone miscalculation comes with his handling of Florence Pugh’s Jean Tatlock. She’s certainly a meaningful character, especially in how the filmmaker envisions her impact on Oppenheimer’s life. But Nolan’s needlessly explicit portrayal does little more than ensure an R rating. You can count Jean’s scenes on one hand, but Nolan’s unfortunate emphasis leaves Jean (and Pugh) feeling terribly shortchanged.
Aside from that, it’s hard to do anything but praise this monumental cinematic work. The phenomenal performances top to bottom. The incredible visuals from DP Hoyte van Hoytema. Ludwig Göransson’s beguiling score. Nolan’s impeccable precision and control. It’s all seamlessly bound together in a movie of both historical importance and present day urgency. Yes, “Oppenheimer” is a compelling look at a fascinating historical figure. It also holds a mirror to our world, warning of humanity’s propensity to focus so much on the now that we rarely consider the future. That truth is captured most in the film’s sobering gut-punch final scene – a movie moment that will stay etched in my mind for a long time. “Oppenheimer” is in theaters now.
Huel Taylor makes his directorial debut in the ambitious yet uneven “They Cloned Tyrone”. At its best this wild genre mashup feels like what we would get if the Coen brothers made a 1970s blaxploitation movie. At its shakiest the film has a hard time maintaining any kind of consistent tone. Written by Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier, the film is constantly bouncing back and forth between super seriousness to over-the-top absurdity. It ends up impacting everything from the story, the characters, and even the sometimes clever yet sometimes on-the-nose messaging.
Something that doesn’t miss the mark is the cracking chemistry between the film’s three stars, John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx. All three embody their characters with a streetwise panache. Yet it’s the distinctions between them that make them an interesting trio. The writing doesn’t always help them, at times relying so much on petty profanity-laced bickering and babbling that they almost become caricatures. But Boyega. Parris, and Foxx are crafty talents and they’re often elevating the material.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
The movie begins on a pretty serious note by introducing us to Fontaine (Boyega), a small-time drug dealer who has his hands full fending off rival neighborhood gangs and collecting money from his non-paying customers. One such customer is a hilariously decked-out pimp named Slick Charles (played by Foxx who looks like he stepped right out of a certain flashback sequence in “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” – fans to that hilarious 1988 film will know what I mean).
Slick Charles runs his sleazy operation out of a dirt-cheap motel called The Royal. There he’s constantly clashing with his strong-willed worker Yo-Yo (Parris) who claims she’s ready to retire so she can go to Memphis and find her “a real man”. Fontaine goes to Slick Charles’ motel room to squeeze out some money owed. But as he’s leaving he’s brutally gunned down by a rival gang member.
So Fontaine is dead right? Well not so fast. Suddenly we see him wake up in bed and once again start his daily routine (ala “Groundhog Day”). But when he shows up to collect his money from Slick Charles, he scares the self-proclaimed “1995 Players Ball Pimp of the Year” who witnessed Fontaine’s murder the night before. Slick Charles tries to explain what happened but Fontaine doesn’t buy it. He finally convinces Fontaine to go find Yo-Yo who can corroborate his story.
Without giving too much away, the three become neighborhood gumshoes, eventually uncovering a nefarious (and utterly ludicrous) plot against their predominantly Black inner-city community being carried out by an evil white extension of the US government. At least that’s the best way I can describe the film’s baddies. It’s hard to say for sure because the secret “scientific” agency is never explained all that well. Regardless, it sets up a pretty zany story that attempts to mix serious emotion and messaging with an utterly preposterous scenario that goes well beyond the cloning in the title.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
To its credit, the movie does have its funny moments that work well in large part thanks to Jamie Foxx. The comedy really ramps up the very moment he hits the screen. Over time the humor does take a backseat as Taylor tries to turn his potty-mouthed Three Stooges into characters with a (somewhat) serious side. But even then we still get some inherently funny bits that flow naturally out of the story.
Yet blending and managing tone is a tricky task and frankly “They Cloned Tyrone” is all over the map. The movie clearly wants to bring together a number of obvious influences and it’s that love for genre and style that gives the movie a certain allure. But it jumps around too much and doesn’t always seem to know what to do with its characters (take Kiefer Sutherland’s paper-thin villain who’s only purpose is to dump some exposition and shoot a few bullets). It turns out to be a nagging thorn in the film’s side that keeps it from being all that it could be. “They Cloned Tyrone” premieres today on Netflix.
Keith & the Movies 