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Reviews of The Spirit, The Reader and American Swing

The Spirit
Lionsgate
$29.95
2-Disc Edition: $34.98
Blu-ray: $39.99

Plot: A do-gooder cop (Gabriel Macht) is brought back from the dead to keep the streets of Central City safe as the super-strong, super-stylish hero The Spirit.

Opinion: The best thing about The Spirit is that it was directed by Frank Miller.  We’ve seen dozens of comic-book films recently, but this is the first one to be helmed by an actual comics artist and the difference is apparent right away.  Watching the film is like reading one of Miller’s comic books, from the framing of shots to the rhythm of the editing to the beautiful backgrounds that threaten divert your eye away from the action during certain scenes.  Unfortunately, the worst thing about The Spirit is that it was also written by Frank Miller, who hasn’t penned a script worth a damn since Batman: Year One.  As with much of his recent output, the film has no story to speak of and the tone is all over the place.  Still, as much as I rolled my eyes at the dialogue, I have to admit that the film itself never bored me.  Its visual beauty and sheer strangeness held my attention throughout.  I also can’t help but admire Miller’s passionate commitment to his peculiar vision.  For better or worse, you can feel his fingerprints all over the movie.

Bonus Features: A 20-minute making-of featurette and a 15-minute Q&A with Miller, both of which studiously avoid mentioning the film’s poor critical and commercial reception, but do offer some interesting insights into the movie’s production and the artist/filmmaker’s past works.  (Best quote: “I think the crudest possible way to [describe] my career is that I’ve been led by my dick.”  Nailed it Frank!)  Miller also contributes a commentary track along with producer Deborah Del Prete and offers a peek at his storyboards for the movie’s alternate ending.

Verdict: Rent It

Click here to see an exclusive clip from the making-of documentary on The Spirit DVD

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The Reader
The Weinstein Company
$29.95
Blu-ray: $34.99

Plot: A German teenager (David Kross) enjoys a summer fling with an older woman (Kate Winslet) who he later discovers was a Nazi during World War II.

Opinion: I love Kate Winslet, really I do, but I wasn’t a fan of either her 2008 vehicles Revolutionary Road and The Reader, the movie that finally nabbed her that long-delayed Oscar.  The problem with the picture is that it treats the Holocaust as fodder for an oh-so-tony art-house film, where the true horrors of that tragedy are never really grappled with in any kind of detail.  Instead, the emotional crux of the story turns on one man’s anger over the fact that the woman that introduced him to sex was a former Nazi.  It almost sounds like the premise for a comedy…except that the movie actually us to take it seriously.

Bonus Features: 12 deleted and extended scenes, a 20-minute making-of documentary and four additional featurettes, including one devoted to Kate Winslet’s makeup regimin to play her character as an old woman.

Verdict: Skip It

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American Swing
Magnolia
$26.98

Plot: A chronicle of the rise and fall of Plato’s Retreat, New York City’s number-one destination for swingers during the ’70s and early ’80s.

Opinion: I’m a sucker for movies about ’70s-era New York, probably because I never got to experience that period in the Big Apple’s lengthy history firsthand.  Although even if I had, I’m pretty sure I never would have had the guts to go to a place like Plato’s Retreat anyway.  Based on the glimpses of the club we see here via grainy amateur movies and vintage news footage, the décor was tacky, the buffet unappetizing and the conversation not particularly stimulating.  Then again, nobody was going to Plato’s to talk much anyway.  Clocking in a swift 80-minutes, this documentary offers an entertaining overview of the club’s history, but it also breezes past exploring a number of interesting subjects that would have given the film more dramatic heft.  I can’t be the only viewer left wondering how closely Plato’s owner was tied to the mob and whether more patrons didn’t go home nursing feelings of jealousy after watching their significant others having sex with total strangers.  A better documentary would have pursued these questions, but I do give credit to American Swing for revealing another side of a New York that no longer exists.

Bonus Features: Dozens of deleted scenes packed with hilarious details about the club in its heyday, some of which come courtesy of porn star (and Plator’s patron) Ron Jeremy.

Verdict: Rent It

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Also on DVD

A hit on the festival circuit since it premiered in 2005, the award-winning Israeli drama Live and Become (Menemsha Films, $29.95) follows the experiences of a young Ethiopian refugee who is sent to live in Israel by his mother in the hopes that he’ll be able to find a better life abroad.  If you’re more in the mood for scares than tears, check out Splinter (Mangolia, $26.98), an indie Evil Dead-style chiller that provides twice the scares of most Hollywood productions on half the budget.  If you’re hooked on the British teen soap opera Skins (and all of you should be) than you’ve undoubtedly been counting the hours until the show’s second series was released stateside.  Well, the wait is finally over: Skins Volume 2 (BBC, $39.98) hits stores today with another six episodes to feed your addiction.  Finally, Lionsgate takes us back to the ’80s courtesy of The Lost Collection (Lionsgate, $14.98 each), a collection of eight of that decade’s cult hits, from the comedies Irreconcilable Differences (starring a still-cheuribic Drew Barrymore) and Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home to the horror entry Slaughter High.