DVD Playhouse: June 2010

DVD PLAYHOUSE—JUNE 2010
By
Allen Gardner

THE WHITE RIBBON (Sony) On the eve of WW I, a small village in Germany is struck by a series of tragic, seemingly unconnected events until the townspeople, and the audience, start to connect the dots. Shot in stark, beautiful black & white, director Michael Haneke has fashioned a haunting metaphorical drama that is as coldly chilling as anything made by Ingmar Bergman, and darkly unsettling as anything from the canon of David Lynch. A rich, tough, brilliant cinematic experience you’re not likely to forget. Also available on Blu-ray disc. BD bonuses: Interviews with cast and crew; featurettes. Widescreen Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (Disney) Tim Burton’s take on the Lewis Carroll classic finds young Alice (Mia Wasikowska), a 19th century girl who finds herself in an unhappy engagement to a boorish suitor, tumbling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, where she encounters magical cakes, mischievous rabbits, and one very mad hatter (Johnny Depp) who tries to help keep Alice’s head off the evil Queen (Helena Bonham Carter)’s chopping block. Eye-popping CGI is so rich and vibrant with color and detail, the viewer almost feels as though he or she could reach out and touch it—and therein lies the problem with this magnificent, opulent production: it’s TOO eye-popping! If Burton had toned down the visuals slightly and balanced them out with the story and characters contained therein, he would have had a modern classic on his hands. As it is, the real world scenes at the beginning and end work brilliantly, but Wonderland fries your senses dead within about ten minutes of its frenetic, surreal beauty washing over, and ultimately drowning you. Young Wasikowska is a real find as the plucky Alice. Available in a Blu-ray/DVD combo back. Bonuses: Featurettes; Character profiles; Games; Trailers. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround.
THE BOOK OF ELI (Warner Bros.) Fun post-apocalyptic western from Allen and Albert Hughes about a lone wanderer (are there any other kind?), played by Denzel Washington, who carries the last copy of a sacred text which could be the blueprint for a renewed society and civilization. In the wrong hands, however, such as those of warloard Gary Oldman, it could be the hammer of a despot. Familiar territory, to be sure, but executed with skill and aplomb, and, we get the feeling, with most of the cast and crew's tongues very firmly in-cheek. Nice support from Mila Kunis, Jennifer Beals, Ray Stevenson and the great Michael Gambon. Also available on Blu-ray disc. BD Bonuses: Storyboard-to-screen comparisons; Featurettes that explore the film's produciton as well as the historical and mythological roots of the film's central themes; Soundtrack featurette. Other bonuses: Additional scenes; Animated short. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround.
RED DESERT (Criterion) Michelangelo Antonioni’s first color film, from 1964, is a visual feast. Addressing his usual theme of alienation, Antonioni this time attacks the spiritual desolation of the technological age, with Monica Vitti playing a bourgeois woman who wanders through a bleak industrial landscape, laid to waste by factories, power stations and pollution. Along the way, she may, or may not, be falling for her husband’s co-worker (Richard Harris), who seems unsure of his feelings, as well. Antonioni’s most controversial film, which most viewers and critics either hail as a masterpiece or slam as a pretentious bore. A true cinematic litmus test, if there ever was one. Decide for yourself. Also available on Blu-ray disc, in a stunning transfer. Bonuses: Commentary by Italian film scholar David Forgacs; Archival interviews with Antonioni and Vitti; Two short documentaries about Antonioni; Dailies from original production; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 1.0 mono.
A SINGLE MAN (Sony) Spellbinding, beautiful film directing debut from designer Tom Ford, adapted from Christopher Isherwood's novel, about a college professor (Colin Firth, who gives the performance of his career) in 1962 L.A. who, following the sudden death of his lover (Matthew Goode), finds himself slowly losing his very carefully-orchestrated grip on life. Julliane Moore is also dazzling in support as a self-loathing, lonely Beverly Hills matron whose own grief nearly overshadows Firth's. Top-drawer in every respect, and not to be missed. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses on BD: MovieSynch and BD-LIVE features including trivia, cast bios, and more. Bonuses: Commentary by Ford; Featurette. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround.
EVERLASTING MOMENTS (Criterion) Jan Troell’s study of early feminism in turn-of-the-last century Sweden is a moving, heart-felt tale. A young woman (Maria Heiskanen), stuck in poverty and an abusive marriage, finds an outlet in the burgeoning art of photography, eventually realizing her own voice and identity for the first time. Gorgeously shot in sepia tones that recall vintage tintype photos of the late 19th and early 20th century, Everlasting Moments is a restrained gem of a film that could only have come from the hands of a master, like Troell. Based on a true story. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Short documentary about the film’s production; Collection of photos from the woman on whom the film is based; Documentary on Troell; Trailer. Widescreen; DTS-HD 5.1 surround.
UNTHINKABLE (Sony) The terror alert is raised to red when a nuclear expert-turned-terrorist (Michael Sheen, excellent as always) plants nukes in three unnamed major American cities. When he's captured, an idealistic FBI agent (Carrie-Ann Moss) must join forces with a no-holds-barred intelligence operative/interrogator (Samuel L. Jackson, who chews the scenery with aplomb) to get the locations of the devices from the extremist, by any means necessary...or not. Tense thriller is raised up several notches by fine cast and a top-flight script by Peter Woodward (son of the late actor Edward Woodward). Strangely relegated straight to DVD by Sony, when this very solid thriller surely would have made a worthy theatrical release, especially given the utter wasteland that currently populates the nation's multiplexes. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Extended version of the film with alternate ending; Commentary by director Gregor Jordan. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround.
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS (Sony) Fun animated story, based on the popular 1980s children's book, about a young inventor who comes up with a device that can convert water into any food on Earth, saving the citizens of his tiny island from their mundance dependence on the sardines which they catch, can, and must live on day-in, day-out. But, as always with too much of a good thing, events get out of hand, with the machine developing a mind of its own, and running amock, slamming the island with spaghetti tornadoes and raining giant meatballs which threaten the entire population. Enjoyable most of the way through, but then engages in sensory overload in the extreme, particularly with its impressive 3D effects which, while techincally amazing, also prove that too much of a good thing is...well, too much! Also playable in 2D. Nice voice work from Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Benjamin Bratt and Mr. T (!), to name a few. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Extended scenes; Music video; Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround.
CLOSE-UP (Criterion) Acclaimed film from Iranian helmer Abbas Kiarostami: a fiction/documentary hybrid that uses a real-life event: the arrest of a man on charges that he fraudulently assumed the identity of a famous filmmaker, to create a stunning examination of the nature of reality, movies and popular culture, identity, and existence, heightened all the more by the real people from the case playing themselves. A fascinating, utterly unique work. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Kiarostami’s biographers; The Traveler, Kiarostami’s first feature; Documentaries and featurettes; Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono.
THE GREATEST (E1 Entertainment) Solid family drama about a grieving couple (Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan, who also exec produced) mourning the loss of their son. When the son's girlfriend (Carey Mulligan, fine as always) shows up on their doorstep, pregnant with their grandchild, old feelings and emotions rise to the surface, pushing the already-delicate fabric of the family closer to unraveling. Honest, powerful story pulls no punches in its warts-and-all depiction of its characters. Brosnan and Sarandon deliver some of their finest work, with fine support from Michael Shannon, Zoe Kravitz, Aaron Johnson and Johnny Simmons. Bonuses: Interviews with cast members; Deleted scenes. Widescreeen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS/THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (Lions Gate) Double feature of Richard Lester’s hit films, based on Alexander Dumas’ popular writings, that tell the classic tale of four mercenaries (Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Frank Finlay) who join forces to fight corruption in the court of Louis XIII. All-star cast features Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch (in her best role), Faye Dunaway, Christopher Lee, Geraldine Chaplin, Roy Kinnear, and Jean-Pierre Cassel, to name a few. Originally shot as one epic film, then cut into two separate features by director Lester, released a year apart (1973, ’74). Both hold up beautifully. Bonuses: Featurettes; Trailers and TV spots. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 mono.
SMALL TOWN SATURDAY NIGHT (Lions Gate) Nice “kitchen sink” story about a small town musician (Chris Pine) who dreams of traveling to Nashville to pursue his dreams of being a singer/songwriter, dreams which his less-ambitious girlfriend (Bre Blair) doesn’t share. Honest, unsentimental slice-of-life story pulls no punches, and is reminiscent of similar films which came out the UK in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Bonuses: Trailer gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
CINEMA PRIDE COLLECTION (20th Century Fox) Terrific box set of films that deal with gay and lesbian themes, dating from the early ‘60s with Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, to recent titles such as Kissing Jessica Stein. All ten films are masterpieces of their genre, using comedy and drama alike to bring their stories to life. The films are: The Children’s Hour, La Cage Aux Folles; Boys Don’t Cry, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Bent; Kissing Jessica Stein; The Birdcage; Imagine Me & You; The Object of My Affection; and My Beautiful Laundrette. All are widescreen. Dolby 2.0 mono, 2.0 surround, 5.1 surround.
ELVIS 75th BIRTHDAY COLLECTION (20th Century Fox) Terrific collection of Elvis Presley pictures, including two of his best (Don Siegel’s Flaming Star, from 1960, and Clifford Odets’ Wild in the Country, from 1961). The other titles are all enjoyable, if standard, Presley fare, with Love Me Tender (1956), Elvis’ first film, the standout of that lot. The entire set contains: Clambake, Flaming Star, Follow That Dream, Frankie and Johnny, Kid Galahad, Love Me Tender, and Wild in the Country. All are widescreen, Dolby 2.0 mono and surround.
STOLEN (IFC Films) Solid drama tells parallel stories, set 50 years apart: Josh Lucas plays a distraught single father in 1958 whose mentally-impaired son goes missing after an evening of carousing. 50 years later, small town cop Jon Hamm finds himself reopening the old case when a child’s bones are discovered during the excavation of a construction site, the remains dating back 50 years, and the case triggering the painful memory of Hamm’s own missing son, who may have fallen prey to the same serial killer. Excellent support from James Van Der Beek and veteran Joanna Cassidy. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurette; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
YOUTH IN REVOLT (Sony) Enjoyable, and surprisingly edgy, coming-of-age comedy starring Michael Cera as angsty teen intellectual Nick Twisp, a lad desperately trying to bed the beautiful Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) whom he meets while on a family vacation. With Sheeni’s encouragement, Nick abandons his safe, risk-free life to create alter-ego Francois Dillinger, a Euro-trash fop who smokes Gittanes, wears an ascot, and will bend in any direction to win Sheeni’s carnal favors. Funny and winning from start to finish, with a sense of intelligence and literacy that is lacking from most of today’s teen comedies (or just about any genre, for that matter). Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Deleted scenes and animated sequences; Audition footage; Commentary with Cera and director Miguel Arteta. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround.
MARY AND MAX (IFC Films) Delightfully odd claymation film from Down Under about the pen-pal relationship between 8 year-old Daisy (voiced by Toni Collette), a lonely little girl in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horowitz (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman), an obese, middle-ager with Asperger’s Syndrome, living in New York City. Over two decades, their long-distance relationship covers life-changing moments, odd burgeoning interests and the always-changing human condition. Fascinating, heartbreaking and quite funny. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Trailers; Commentary by filmmaker Adam Elliot; Featurettes; Alternate scenes; Casting call; Short film by Elliot, Harvie Krumpet. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
CONTROL ALT DELETE (E1 Entertainment) Funny low-budget comedy about a geeky computer programmer named Lewis (Tyler Labine) who, on the eve of the millennium, gets dumped by his girlfriend. With Y2K threatening to wreak havoc on the world, Lewis takes his online obsession to an entirely new level, putting his job, and his happiness, on the edge. Very cute, enjoyable romantic comedy. Bonuses: Interviews with cast and crew. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
THE PROFESSIONAL (Lions Gate) Fun escapist adventure from 1981 stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a secret agent on a mission to assassinate a corrupt foreign dictator. When he finds himself betrayed by his own government, and left for dead in an African jail, this very angry Gaul warrior sets out to plot his escape and take revenge on those responsible. Tough, no frills action thriller with lots of explosions and pre-CGI action. Fun to see an old-school thriller like this for a change! Nice score by the great, and prolific, Ennio Morricone. Bonuses: Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 mono.
REMEMBER ME (Summit Entertainment) Solid drama about a young man (Robert Pattinson) from an affluent family whose chance encounter with a fellow troubled soul (Emilie de Ravin, excellent) offers him the chance of love and redemption. Directed with a sure hand by Allen Coulter, with fine support from Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Lena Olin. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by cast and director Coulter; Featurette. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround.
WHEN IN ROME (Touchstone/Disney) Serviceable romantic comedy stars Kristin Bell as a romantically luckless New York museum curator who travels to Rome for her sister’s wedding. While there, she plucks some coins from the fabled Fontana de Amore, magically igniting amorous feelings from every unworthy suitor in the vicinity, until she encounters dreamy reporter Josh Duhamel. While she finds her feelings are mutual, how does she know if their love is real, or a result of the fountain’s legendary magic? A great date movie, if there ever was one. Also available on Blu-ray disc. BD bonuses: Alternate opening and ending; Featurettes; Extended scenes. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Bloopers; Music videos. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround.
STARSTRUCK (Disney) Tween-aimed musical about a young pop star (Sterling Knight) who finds himself falling for a small town girl (Danielle Campbell) he encounters against the backdrop of Hollywood glitz and glamour. Not bad of its type, but will most definitely be appreciated more by those with fewer days on their calendar. 2 disc extended edition features the movie, plus a soundtrack album with 12 original tracks. Bonuses: Extended movie score; Three music videos; Sing-along with the movie. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
SHINJUKU INCIDENT (Sony) Slam-bang adventure starring Jackie Chan as a Chinese laborer who emigrates to Japan, hoping for a better life, and quickly finds himself rising up the ladder in the black market underworld. As a reward for his business aplomb, the local Yakuza boss rewards him with control of Tokyo’s lucrative Shinjuku district, where he must fight rival gangs to keep control of his turf. One of Chan’s rare completely dramatic outings, and it’s a winner from start to finish, with a gritty, authentic feel, some truly shocking violence, and terrific fight scenes. Bonuses: Commentary by Chan; Featurette. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
ONCE MORE WITH FEELING (IFC Films) Chazz Palminteri stars as a successful psychologist who finds himself hooked on the world of karaoke singing, and rediscovering his childhood dream of becoming a singer. The good doctor soon finds himself involved with a sultry fellow-lounge singer (Linda Fiornetino), and his old life coming apart at the seams. Fine supporting cast includes Drea de Matteo, in a hilarious turn as Palminteri’s daughter, and Maria Tucci. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.




DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL! HBO releases CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, THE COMPLETE SEVENTH SEASON, featuring all ten episodes on two discs. Former Seinfeld co-creator/writer Larry David’s quasi-improvisational black comedy about his life and misadventures continues to beguile and tickle our collective funny bones. Features the long-awaited reunion of the Seinfeld cast, which has to be seen to be believed! Bonuses: Featurettes; Interview with David and Seinfeld cast. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. HUNG, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, stars Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker, a former high school superstar who finds that the adult world has left him behind. After losing his wife, suffering a pay cut as a coach at his old school, and losing a good portion of his house to a fire, Ray turns to the one thing that he’s always been good at: lovin’, thanks in (very) large part to the endowment nature has given him, Ray becomes a reluctant male prostitute, with recovering hippie Tanya (Jane Adams) as his equally-reluctant pimp. Funny, barbed social satire pushes the envelope in spades, and mostly delivers. Anne Heche is a hoot as Jane’s gold-digger ex-wife. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes; Audio commentaries by series creators and executive producers, and writer Brett C. Leonard. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround. ENTOURAGE, THE COMPLETE SIXTH SEASON, features more cynical Hollywood adventures from E, Vince, Turtle, Drama and the rest of the crew, as Vince once again finds his career in high gear after landing the lead role in Gatsby, directed by Martin Scorsese. Smart, scathing Hollywood satire is still irresistible and has lost none of its comic edge after all this time. Bonuses: Featurettes; Commentary by cast and crew. Widescreen Dolby 5.1 surround. Acorn Media releases more great titles from across the Pond: DOC MARTIN, SERIES 4 features Martin Clunes as an ill-tempered physician in the small, seaside town of Portwenn, who must deal with life, love and increasingly difficult patients on a daily basis. Will the doc finally leave Portwenn behind, and return to London to be the successful surgeon he once was? Very funny, clever social comedy. Eight episodes on two discs. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. STEALING HITLER is an uproarious farce, based on a true story, starring Jonathan Pryce as a German reporter who stumbles upon a story that involves the “lost” diaries of Adolph Hitler! When he convinces the legendary Stern Magazine to cough up millions for the story, reviving his sagging career in the process, he has no idea that it’s all been the work of a small-time forger (Alexei Sayle) in Stuttgart, who has been churning the books out for the highest bidder. Five episodes on two discs. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. LIFE ON MARS, THE COMPLETE COLLECTION, features the entire groundbreaking British series, later unsuccessfully re-booted for U.S. television, about a present-day cop (John Simm) in Manchester who is hit by a car, and wakes up in 1973…as a cop in Manchester, where the rules of the game are very, very different. Terrific blend of police procedural, social commentary and sci-fi, which knew well enough to end on a high note. 16 episodes on 8 discs. Bonuses: Commentary by cast and crew on series one; Featurettes; Outtakes; Documentary on the series’ production. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. TOUCHING EVIL, THE COMPLETE COLLECTION, follows the adventures of Detective Inspector Dave Creegan (Robson Green) of the Organized and Serial Crime Unit, which takes on the biggest evildoers in Britain. Tough, disturbing drama isn’t afraid to pull punches, and doesn’t, and will never show up on U.S. network TV as a result. Our advice: get this terrific box set, and don’t look back! 8 episodes on 5 discs. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. Sony releases HAWTHORNE, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, stars Jada Pinkett Smith as a nurse in a big city hospital who finds that her life is a daily battle, whether it’s seeing that all patients get equal medical care, battling the egos of the hospitals top doctors and administrators, or dealing with the death of her husband. Fine drama features solid support from Christina Moore, Suleka Mathew, Hannah Hodson, Michael Vartan, Judy Reyes, and Malcolm Jamal-Warner, with the welcome presence of the venerable Cloris Leachman. Bonuses: Featurettes; Interview with Pinkett Smith. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. 20th Century Fox releases FAMILY GUY, VOLUME EIGHT features 15 new episodes of the beloved animated series on 3 discs. Mixes gleefully offensive humor with an equal dose of heart, courtesy of creator Seth MacFarlane. Features extended, uncensored episodes considered too hot for TV! Bonuses: Commentary by MacFarlane, cast and crew; Deleted scenes; Featurettes; Family Guy karaoke. Full screen. Dolby 5.1 surround. BURN NOTICE, SEASON THREE features more adventures of the seemingly indestructible Michael Western who, in spite of his good intentions, finds himself with a hard-nosed lady cop on his tail, leaving sidekick Sam and femme fatale Fiona to watch his back. 4 disc set contains 16 episodes. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. AMERICAN DAD, VOLUME 5 (UNCENSORED) features more twisted animated adventures from the subversive comic minds of Mike Barker, Matt Weitzman and Seth MacFarlane, following the two-fisted life of CIA agent Stan Smith, a one-man war on terror, and his expectedly dysfunctional family. Season five finds Stan in pursuit of the most all-American of past-times: revenge! 3 disc set contains 14 episodes. Bonuses: Trivia track; Deleted scenes; Drinking game; Commentary by cast and crew. Full screen . Dolby 5.1 surround. ABC Family releases THE SECRET LIFE OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER, VOLUME FOUR, the network’s celebrated drama that takes a fly-on-the-wall look at contemporary teen life. Authentic-feeling drama cleverly casts Brat Pack vet Molly Ringwald as one of the kids’ overloaded parents. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. Warner Bros. releases ER, THE COMPLETE THIRTEENTH SEASON, featuring more drama from the inner-city hospital emergency room sprung from the fertile mind of the late Michael Crichton. Season thirteen finds venerable Dr. Weaver leaving the hospital, and intern Dr. Tony Gates arriving with a straightforward attitude and complicated personal life. Love, death, birth and lots of gauze. What more can you ask for in a primetime drama? Bonuses: Unaired scenes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. SANCTUARY, THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON, follows Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping), a scientist specializing in the paranormal, who seeks out all breeds of monstrous creatures with the potential of wreaking havoc, or panic, on mankind. Aided by her trusty team of minions (Ryan Robbins, Agam Darshi, Robin Dunne, Christopher Heyerdahl) the Sanctuary team tracks down, studies and tries to protect the strange and terrifying creatures that secretly populate our world. Bonuses: Commentary by cast and crew; Featurettes; Bloopers and outtakes; Photo gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.



BLU BAYOU Some of the best titles arriving on Blu-ray disc this month include Criterion’s BD release of Luchino Visconti’s THE LEOPARD, the 1963 classic starring Burt Lancaster as an aristocrat in 1860 Sicily who can’t quite fathom the social and political changes that are unifying Italy, and changing the antiquated values by which he’s lived his life. One of the great epic films, full of lush visual beauty, stunning battle scenes, and equally-powerful quiet moments. Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale make one of the screens great pair of lovers, as well. Blu-ray transfer practically pops off the screen, making this restored masterpiece look as if it were shot yesterday, instead of nearly 50 years ago. Hugely influential on generations of filmmakers after its release, it has been cited by Francis Ford Coppola as his primary inspiration for how he shot The Godfather films. Two disc set. Bonuses: Original Italian-language 185 minute cut and the 161 minute U.S. release, with English-dubbed dialogue; Retrospective documentary on the film’s production; Interview with film scholar Millicent Marcus; Trailers and newsreels; Photo gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 1.0 mono. MGM/Fox release the long-awaited BD version of THE MAN WITH NO NAME TRILOGY, Sergio Leone’s classics trio of “spaghetti Westerns” that made an international star of former TV actor Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly have never looked or sounded better, with the latter ranking as a true masterpiece of the genre, and shown here in its restored, 179 minute version. Bonuses include: Commentary by film historians Christopher Frayling and Richard Schickel; Featurettes; American versions of the films; Network prologue for Fistful featuring Harry Dean Stanton; Documentaries on Leone and how the trilogy changed the modern Western; Trailers and TV spots; Easter eggs. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround. Eastwood’s first American Western, heavily-influenced by his Italian work, was 1968’s HANG ‘EM HIGH, with Clint playing an honest cowpoke who finds himself (unjustly) on the wrong end of a hangman’s noose at the hands of a crooked lawman (Ed Begley). When Clint survives, he sets out for revenge! Solid oater with fine support from Pat Hingle, Inger Stevens and (briefly) Dennis Hopper at his unhinged best. 2 disc set includes Blu-ray and regular DVD copies. Bonuses: Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround. THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK is writer/director Randall Wallace (Braveheart)’s reboot of Dumas’ Three Musketeers, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu and Gabriel Byrne. Great fun, and appropriately gritty and dark, as opposed to the Disney-fied versions we’ve seen in years past. Contains BD and DVD versions of the film. Bonuses: Commentary by Wallace; Featurettes; Storyboard/conceptual drawings gallery. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround. THE ILLUSIONIST is a deft cinematic sleight-of-hand starring Edward Norton as an illusionist who has captivated 19th century Vienna, including Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). When Leopold’s fiancée (Jessica Biel) finds herself falling for Norton, the Prince’s interest turns to obsession, and the city’s Chief of police (Paul Giamatti) finds himself investigating a shocking crime! Features BD and regular DVD versions. Bonuses: Commentary by writer/director Neil Burger; Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround. Paramount/Lions Gate releases Barry Levinson’s JIMMY HOLLYWOOD, starring Joe Pesci as a struggling actor who can’t get arrested, but finds himself besieged by crime in his tough Hollywood ‘hood. Fed up, he assumes a new identity, “Jericho,” and recruits his spaced-out buddy (Christian Slater) to help him form a vigilante group that videotapes bad guys, then turns the tapes over to the cops. Spotty comedy/satire has some nice moments and is worth a look, but doesn’t rank among Levinson’s best. Pesci is very funny. Widescreen. DTS-HD 5.1 surround. LADYBUGS is a serviceable, if unexceptional, Rodney Dangerfield vehicle, featuring the least-respected comic in show biz playing a salesman who tries to impress his boss by volunteering to coach the company-sponsored girls’ soccer team. When he realizes that his players are hopelessly inept, Rodney recruits his fiancées soccer star son (the late Jonathan Brandis) to dress in drag and be the team’s ringer. Cute comedy, aimed at the kids. Widescreen. DTS-HD 5.1 surround. SHOWGIRLS, 15th ANNIVERSARY SINSATIONAL EDITION is a nice BD transfer of Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas' notorious trainwreck about a naif (Elizabeth Berkley) who arrives in Las Vegas with dreams of being a showgirl, and winds up becoming its premiere stripper instead. One of those rare gems that seems to take utter glee in its awfulness, which is why it endures as a cult/camp favorite. Game supporting cast includes Gina Gershon, Kyle MacLachlan and Glenn Plummer. Also earns points for being one of the few films that was made to embrace the NC-17 rating, which may have helped contribute to the NC's becoming a scarlett letter. Bonuses: Featurettes; Commentary by David Schmader; Trvia track; Featurettes; Stripper tutorial; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-HD 5.1 surround. Blue Underground releases UNCLE SAM, a low-buget gorefest starring a who’s-who of horror film vets. During a 4th of July weekend, a small town’s recently buried hero of the first Gulf War rises from the dead to punish the unpatriotic. Quite campy and fun, if you can accept the ridiculousness of its premise. Cast includes Isaac Hayes, P.J. Soles, Timothy Bottoms, William Smith, Robert Forster. Directed by horror icon William Lustig and penned by the equally-renowned Larry Cohen. Bonuses: Commentary by Lustig, Cohen and producer George G. Braunstein; 2nd commentary with Lustig and Hayes; Featurette on stunts with commentary from stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos; Deleted scene; Gag reel; Trailer; Poster and still galleries. Widescreen. DTS-HD 7.1 surround.



DOCUMENTARY DAYS Reality has never looked or sounded better with the release of these new titles. Indiepix releases ESTILO HIP HOP, a portrait of three hip hop activists from Brazil, Chile and Cuba who believe that their music can help change the world. Warts-and-all film shows the young men struggling with day-to-day life, while still trying to keep their eyes on the prize. Bonuses: Origins of hip hop documentary. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 mono. IT CAME FROM KUCHAR profiles the underground films of twins George and Mike Kuchar, who went from the 1960s New York underground film scene of Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, et al, to become the twin maestros of B-movie glamour and sleaze. Terrifically entertaining look at two uncompromising artists and their process. Bonuses: Commentary by the Kuchar brothers and director Jennifer M. Kroot; Deleted and extended scenes; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. A&E releases PARANORMAL COPS, THE COMPLETE SEASON ONE, following a group of real-life Chicago police officers who apply their forensic and investigative expertise to paranormal casework. Sort of a documentary version of The X-Files, and nearly as thrilling and suspenseful as the classic series was. 2 disc set. Bonuses: Additional footage. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. New Video/History Channel releases HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE, THE COMPLETE SEASON TWO, a 4 disc set containing all 13 episodes of the popular series, which takes a scientific, and visually stunning look at how the Earth, as we know it today, was formed by a series of volcanic eruptions, floods, and other natural disasters. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. ICE ROAD TRUCKERS, THE COMPLETE SEASON THREE, is a 3 disc set of the reality series which follows big rig truckers who navigate the treacherous frozen roads of northern Alaska. Some truly heart-pounding sequences, made all the more so when you realize it’s the real thing! Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Additional footage. Full screen. DTS-HD 2.0 audio. AMERICAN PICKERS, THE COMPLETE SEASON ONE follows the scavenging adventures of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, who trawl the backroads of America for antiques, knick-knacks and other collectible pieces of memorabilia and pop culture which people have unwittingly discarded. Fascinating look at the other side of the antique business. 3 disc set. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. Disinformation releases WORLD CUP SOCCER IN AFRICA. WHO REALLY WINS?, which takes a conceptual look at the effect this year’s World Cup will have on the society and economy of South Africa, particularly once the games are over, and the players and fans return home. Candid film features commentary from such luminaries as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, sports celebrities and ordinary South Africans. Fascinating and incendiary film. Bonuses: Extended interviews; Featurette. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 mono. Athena releases WORLD WAR I IN COLOR, a tremendous compilation of archival footage of the first World War that has been meticulously colorized under the guidance of expert historians. Narrated by Kenneth Branagh, series also features archival interviews with WW I vets, who recall their terrifying experiences in the trenches, as well as chats with historians who shed light on the 20th century’s first epic-scale war. Six episodes on three discs. Bonuses: Featurettes; Biographies; Viewer’s guide. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. VENICE REVEALED is hosted by historian Peter Ackroyd, who takes a look at the social and artistic history of one of Europe’s most fascinating cities. 4 episode series on 4 discs. Bonuses: Viewer’s guide; Biographies; Featurette; Web extras. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo.



FOR THE KIDDIES Paramount/Nickelodeon release the impressive boxed set of AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER, THE COMPLETE BOOK 1, an eye-popping animated series about twelve-year-old Aang, a reluctant and irresponsible boy who must face his destiny as the Avatar, the Chosen One who can restore the world order. Epic treatment of an oft-told story, but this version is so well-done, you’re willing to overlook the familiarity and clichés that abound. Sure to please the kids in your house. Seven disc set features a host of bonuses: Behind-the-scenes documentary; Conceptual art gallery; Interviews with the creative team; Featurettes; Preview edition of the Avatar book. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. YO GABBA GABBA! CLUBHOUSE features four animated adventures from the popular Nickelodeon series: “Clubhouse,” “Adventure,” “Summer,” and “Animals.” Perfect fare for those aged 5 and under. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. ICARLY: I SAVED YOUR LIFE is Nick’s tween-oriented series, and this DVD collection features two movies (iSaved Your Life, extended director’s cut and iQuit iCarly) and three TV episodes (“iThink They Kissed,” “iTwins,” and “iMove Out.” Bonuses: Featurettes. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. Lions Gate releases JIM HENSON’S DOG CITY, an Emmy award-winning family classic, sending up gangster films with an all-dog puppet cast. Follow the cops and gangsters of Dog City in the 1930s as they battle for territory, bones, and control of Dog City itself. Very clever stuff, sure to please kids and adults alike. Bonuses: Concept art gallery; Photo gallery. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. Warner Bros. releases HOT WHEELS BATTLE FORCE 5, SEASON ONE, VOLUME TWO, featuring more animated adventures of Very, Aguar, Stanford, Zoom, Sherman and Spinner who must stick together to save the world from destruction. Some nice animation, obviously influenced by Japanese Anime. Six episodes on one disc. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. SESAME STREET FIREFLY FUN AND BUGGY BUDDIES features all-entomological-themed episodes from the classic PBS kids’ show. Episodes include “Elmo’s World: Bugs,” “Slimey’s Pet Bug, Dirty,” and “Fly, Little Firefly.” Again, perfect for ages 5 and under, and nostalgic adults might get a kick out of it, too! Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono.

Read more!

Dennis Hopper: 1936-2010

Dennis Hopper: actor, artist, filmmaker, Hollywood survivor.

Just days after remembering the loss of Sydney Pollack two years ago, we awaken to mourn the loss of another Hollywood icon, Dennis Hopper, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday. Hopper had been on my short list of "dream interviews" during my tenure at Venice Magazine. When I was lucky enough to finally sit down with him in November of 2008, I was thrilled, and didn't know quite what to expect.

What I found while smoking cigars with Hopper in his Venice home-studio, was a thoughtful man with a gentle demeanor, who spoke in measured tones and loved telling stories. Gone was the wild-eyed "enfant terrible" that Hopper had made his name playing, and sometimes living. What I saw instead was a man who seemed to be at peace with himself and his life, who loved his children, art, film and new ideas. Sometimes when you have seen life at its ugliest, as Hopper surely had, you're able to come out the other side and drink in its beauty. I hope this was true.

Rest in peace, and thanks for it all.


DENNIS HOPPER IS RIDING EASY
By
Alex Simon

The Hollywood landscape is littered with tragedies, broken promise and self-destruction. Many promising artists stumble once and never recover from that initial fall. In the history of American film, there has never been a phoenix-like story of survival and rebirth quite like that of Dennis Hopper, who has gone from Warner Bros. contract player in his late teens, to Hollywood outcast, to renowned artist, photographer and art collector, to the man who brought independent cinema into the mainstream with Easy Rider, to being outcast again and nearly destroyed during a period of heavy drug and alcohol abuse. There are single incidents of self-destruction in Dennis Hopper’s life that most human beings could never walk away from in one piece, and by his own admission, Hopper repeated these incidents dozens of times over decades, until getting sober for good in 1985.

Hopper has also had a Zelig-like ability to have been surrounded by some of the film, art and political world’s most significant players: James Dean, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Martin Luther King, Marlon Brando, John Wayne, Miles Davis, and dozens of other legendary names that could fill every page of this blog and turn it into a history book. Few Hollywood players have led as rich, and varied a life as that of Dennis Lee Hopper, who was born May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas. Hopper has appeared in 200 films and television productions since 1955, with 2008 showcasing “Dennis the Menace,” as he was nicknamed in his enfant terrible days, in no less than eight feature films, the best being Isabel Coixet’s superb Elegy, with Hopper in a masterful turn as Sir Ben Kingsley’s best friend and confidant, and the lead in the Starz network’s first original series, Crash, based on Paul Haggis’ Oscar-winning film, telling a tableaux of tales about the disparate denizens of Los Angeles. Hopper scores big again with his manic portrait of a legendary record producer who seems to be constantly teetering on the precipice of madness or epiphany.

A long-time Venice resident, Dennis Hopper has been named one of the top 100 collectors of modern art in the world, and was recently honored by the Cinematheque Francais in Paris with a retrospective of his work. Mr. Hopper sat down with Venice Senior Editor Alex Simon recently over a cigar, and discussed his life as Hollywood’s greatest survivor. Read on…

You’ve had a busy year. Let’s start by talking about Crash.
Dennis Hopper: I had just gotten back from the Cannes Film Festival, and my agent called and asked if I’d like to do a TV series. They said it was an incredible part and based on the film Crash, which won all the Academy Awards. The kicker was I had two days to decide! (laughs) But I’m glad I did it. It’s been a lot of fun and we’re working very hard: sometimes working sixteen hour days, but nobody’s complaining because the scripts are so good. We have no restrictions in terms of what we can say or do, and in many ways we have more freedom than we would on film, because we had a commitment for thirteen episodes. Then two days after I shot the first episode, I was in France where the cinematheque in Paris had spent three and a half years working on a retrospective of my work and some of my art collection and took the fifth floor of the Frank Gehry building, where the cinematheque is located and built this virtual reality installation with twenty different screens that showed all the films I’d made, commercials I’d done, experimental films I’d made with Andy Warhol and Bruce Conner. It covered my entire career up till now, and it was really amazing.

Every time I’ve been in Paris, Easy Rider seems to be playing somewhere.
Yeah, it played in one theater on the Left Bank for twenty years. It was a very narrow, long little theater. I kept seeing this woman who grew older and older over the years at all these film festivals. She’d walk up to me and say “It’s still playing!” (laughs) I felt like a jazz musician in France, when jazz went sour in the States, the Europeans all sort of took over the jazz movement. I guess if you’re a big enough failure, they really take you to heart! (laughs)


Hopper as Billy in Easy Rider.

You really do have the greatest Hollywood survival story, ever.
Yeah, and this is not a place where you want to try and survive. (laughs)

Well, one could argue that Hollywood is a living metaphor for social Darwinism at its most twisted.
True, very true.

Watching your character in the first episode of Crash, I thought to myself ‘So Frank Booth survived the gunshot to the head in Blue Velvet and became a record producer.’
(laughs) Yeah, right!

Who else would call someone an “eyeless fuck” but Frank Booth?
(laughs) Yeah, yeah. My first conversation with my penis in the limo with the young woman driver, it’s pretty hairy. When I hire the new driver, who’s black, and say “Gorillas in the mist, that’s what the LAPD call you,” he has no stop switch, my character. He says everything and insults everybody. He just goes for it.

Which at one time could have described you.
Yeah, probably. I guess so. It was so long ago now, I can’t remember. (laughs) Phil Spector and I had an office together for ten years, and people have asked me if I’m doing Phil Spector in this and I said ‘No. I’m doing me!’ (laughs) The office was right up on Sunset before you go into Beverly Hills. David Geffen was in there for a while, too.

I know you’ve done TV work before, going back to its infancy in the 1950s. How is working in TV a different process from doing a film, or is it?
Well, you have more time to develop a character, first of all. Instead of an hour and a half, you have thirteen hours, in this instance. Doing regular television you have lots of restrictions, but doing cable you have no restrictions and can push the envelope a lot farther. That said, you have more time to do a feature than you do a television series itself, because we’re constantly under the gun, working twice a week with sixteen hour days. I have so much dialogue, though. I have all these speeches to memorize which really, if you look at them, mean nothing at all! (laughs) They’re just these stream-of-consciousness rants. I’m like a little kid sitting in the corner memorizing this stuff all day and all night. We’re shooting it all in Albuquerque because (Governor) Bill Richardson is giving us such a good deal to film there. There’s probably more movies being shot in New Mexico than anywhere else in the States. It’s a drag because I have to leave my family, but the work is good.

Hopper and Sir Ben Kingsley in Isabel Coixet's Elegy.

You also have a terrific part in one of the year’s best films, Isabel Coixet’s Elegy.
That’s a brilliant film. I hope they get some awards so they’ll mass distribute it. Penelope Cruz gives one of the best female performances I’ve ever seen. I’m very proud to have been part of that.

How was working with Sir Ben Kingsley?
Sir Ben is great, man. All my scenes were with him, really. He’s so comfortable to be with. He’s such a good actor, you could just play moment-to-moment reality with him all day long. It’s a pleasure to work with an actor who’s that good. I had a ball with him, and he’s very funny. He just gives and never pushes and is really there for you, has a great rhythm.

Let’s start at the beginning: you were born in Kansas.
Dodge City, Kansas, 1936, which makes me seventy-two years-old. A guy who never thought he’d live to be thirty, who had a real shock when he made it to thirty-one.

Is there a secret to being a survivor? Does it come down to genetics, to luck, to having a specific outlook?
I think it’s probably a combination of all three. I had such a bad drinking problem, and it took a lot to get me sober.

And you knew from a young age that you liked mind-altering experiences. I remember hearing you tell a story about snorting gasoline from your grandfather’s truck…
Yeah, and I looked up at the clouds and saw clowns, until I ODed on the fumes and smashed up his truck with a baseball bat, thinking it was a monster, smashing out the lights. (laughs) I was about seven. (laughs) Not good, but that was the end of my gas-sniffing.

What did your parents do?
My father served in the OSS during World War II and came back and went to work for the railway mail. So we moved from Dodge City when I was nine, and moved to Kansas City, where I lived until I was thirteen, then we moved to San Diego. My father ended up managing the San Diego post office, and my mother, who had managed one of the largest outdoor swimming pools in the country—she was the backstroke champion of Kansas, and was on her way to the Olympics when she became pregnant with me—and then she managed a swimming pool in a suburb of San Diego called El Cajon. I started acting at The Old Globe Theater in San Diego when I was thirteen.

When did you know you were an actor?
I wanted to be an actor from the time I saw my first films, which I think were singing cowboy pictures like Roy Rogers.

What else do you remember about that time?
It was the dustbowl, so I had to wear a gas mask to school five days a week, and my grandmother would open the door and five inches of dust would blow inside. There were bread lines and soup lines, and it was really bad. The whole middle of the country had blown away. My grandmother used to fill her apron full of eggs and we’d go into town. She’d sell the eggs and we’d go to the movies, while my grandfather would be out working on his wheat farm. I got my first Sheep Dog from the Clutters, the family that was murdered years later that Capote wrote about in “In Cold Blood.” When I was eighteen years-old I came to Los Angeles, went under contract to Warner Bros. and did Rebel Without a Cause, my second movie.

Hopper, second from left, in Rebel Without a Cause.

I know both Nicholas Ray and James Dean were profound influences on you.
Yeah, Dean made a real impression on me. I thought I was the best young actor around, and then I saw him. I’d never seen anybody improvise before. I’d always been doing Shakespeare and other plays where everything was a preconceived idea, preconceived gestures, how I said a line…and here he was differently every scene, adding things to the script. It was really confusing to me, initially. I grabbed him one night, and said ‘What are you doing?’ And we talked for a while, and I asked ‘Should I go back and study with (Lee) Strasberg?’ He said “No, no, no. Just start doing things, but don’t show them. Don’t indicate, or presuppose what you’re going to do. Live in moment-to-moment reality. Instead of playing drinking your coffee, just drink your coffee. Just smoke your cigar, don’t play smoking the cigar. You’ll find the simplest things become very difficult the first time you get onstage or in front of the camera, but eventually you’ll get through all that. Just live in the moment.” So that was the beginning of it. We did Giant together next, and he used to watch me on that picture and critique me afterward. When his character got older, he started asking me to watch him in those scenes and to tell him if I thought he seemed old. That was basically our relationship. We weren’t great buddies who went out drinking or anything like that. He was five years older than me. That was quite an age difference at that point. Also, we thought of him as a kid because he’d done Rebel, but in point of fact, he was older than Elizabeth Taylor, who was considered an “adult.”

Didn’t he also encourage you to pursue photography?
No, but he saw me taking pictures and said “If you’re going to take pictures, don’t crop them.” I said ‘Why not?’ He said “Because you’re probably going to want to direct films someday, and you can’t crop film, so learn how to frame full-frame, full negative.” So from that day on, I didn’t crop my photographs.

Had Dean lived, would he have survived the ‘60s?
Oh yeah, I mean he was…first of all, Paul Newman, who was a good friend of mine and a great man, had made a film called The Silver Chalice which Paul took out an ad apologizing for, because it was so terrible, the two parts that made Paul a star: Somebody Up There Likes Me and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, had both been cast with James Dean before he died.

Do you know the book “Suspects” by the film critic and historian David Thomson?
No.

He takes famous movie characters and tells you what happened to them after the credits rolled. He did a similar piece on what happened after James Dean “survived” his car crash, with one of the punch lines being that Paul Newman kept losing parts to him and eventually moved back to Cleveland, where he became a successful car dealer.
(laughs) That’s so cool! Wow…

What are some of your memories of Mr. Newman?
Well, I’d been friends with Paul since I was eighteen years old. When they lived out here in California, he and Joanne (Woodward), I’d be at their house a couple times a week, then when they moved back East, we lost touch for a little while, but there was a five year period where I was with them every week. He was a terrific guy, very generous with all his charity work, and just had a huge heart, from day one. He was one of the most unselfish people I’ve ever known.

Hopper, bottom left, with Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Harry Dean Stanton, and many other actors who would go onto fame in the egg-eating sequence of Cool Hand Luke.

The two of you were in Cool Hand Luke which, like Rebel, had a who’s-who of young talent that went onto bigger things.
Stuart Rosenberg directed that, his first feature, and he’d had us all in various television shows he’d directed for years. I’d starred in about five different shows he’d directed. I don’t think I had one line of dialogue in that whole picture. I had some interesting physical business I did. Babalugats was the character’s name. I just sort of mumbled a lot. (laughs)

What was the atmosphere like on the set? I’ve heard that you all became pretty tight.
We did. We shot it all up in Stockton, California. We wore our chains and prison clothes all night. We’d go to sleep in this motel with our chains on, go into the restaurant and this little nightclub there, and we’d all be in our chains. (laughs) If a lady wanted to dance with a “prisoner” she could. (laughs) It was a fun shoot. Rosenberg was always fun to work with.

Director Nicholas Ray confers with James Dean on the set of Rebel Without a Cause.

And back to Rebel. What about Nicholas Ray?
Well Nick and I had a long, long relationship. He came and lived with me for a while. He showed up at the Cannes Film Festival when I was showing Easy Rider and asked to borrow $500, which I didn’t have at the time. He said “C’mon, you can get $500.” I said “I’ve been sleeping on the floor of a borrowed pool house for the last year editing this movie, being paid $140 dollars a month. I don’t have any money.” He said “Well go to (Bert) Schneider and ask for the money.” So I went to Schneider and borrowed the money and gave it to Nick, who came back an hour later and said “I need another 500.” I said ‘What you talking about?’ He said “I lost it in the casino across the street.” So he ended up living at my house in Taos, New Mexico for about six months, until I got him a job teaching. He ran up a phone bill that was unbelievable, looking for Howard Hughes to convince him to back his next movie. But during Rebel, Nick was very open to what were then, in the ‘50s, very new techniques of acting.

You became one of the first collectors of pop art. When did you first discover Warhol, Lichtenstein, Ruscha and the pop art movement?
I met a lot of the key figures at a place called Stone Brothers Printers, which was a place where they made mailers and did a magazine called Semina, which Wallace Berman put out. There was an old Chinese man named Mr. Chang who would dress in a Confederate General’s uniform and perform Shakespeare, very badly, in a heavy Chinese accent out on Hollywood Boulevard, and would put his hat out. James Dean was a big fan of this guy, and would throw quarters at him. (laughs) He was having a poetry reading at Stone Brothers, so we went there, and that night I met Walter Hopps and later he and Ed Kienholz started The Ferus Gallery on La Cienega, which is where Andy Warhol had his first show, and he then went to the Pasadena Museum where he gave Marcel Duchamp his first retrospective in 1963. So, in 1962 everybody was talking about “the return to reality.” I was a third generation abstract expressionist, which we all were, really. We were looking at a lot of the Bay Area painters, but really felt that they were just rehashing a lot of the old stuff, it wasn’t a return to reality. It was nothing new. I walked into the Ferus Gallery one day, and Irving Blum, who was running the gallery said “Dennis, I want to show you something.” He showed me two slides, one of which was of a soup can, and the other was a cartoon. It was Andy and Roy Lichtenstein. I went crazy, started jumping up and down and said ‘That’s it! That’s it!’ Irving said “That’s what?” I said ‘That’s the return to reality!’ Irving said “What are you doing tomorrow?” So we went to New York the next day, went to Andy Warhol’s studio, and met Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, I saw the whole thing. That was it. I bought a Roy Lichtenstein called “Sinking Sun” for $1100, which I later lost in a divorce. A year and a half ago it sold for $17,870,000. I bought one of Andy’s soup cans out here and I’ve been collecting since. That was a very exciting time in Los Angeles, in the early ‘60s, and that’s when I had my first shows.

Andy Warhol's 1971 portrait of Hopper.

It’s interesting, because I think most people view pop art as an East Coast movement, not that it was born here.
Yeah, and all the East Coast guys came out here for the Duchamp retrospective. We were all so backward; we had a great thing to fight against: around 1965, the Los Angeles County Museum, one of the curators bought a Jackson Pollock. The board of directors got together and were furious, and refused to show it in the main museum, calling it “Communist propaganda.”

Where the hell did they get that?
Who knows? That’s how backward we were! Then Kienholtz did “Backseat Dodge” which was this sculpture made out of wire, of two people that looked like they might be making it in the back seat, and they closed down the whole L.A. County Museum because of this. Around the same time, the LAPD came in and busted Wallace Berman’s show at The Ferus Gallery and destroyed all his pieces out in the alley because he had a nude picture of his wife on display. But it was a great thing if you were an artist to be sort of underground.

Hopper's 1961 photograph "Double Standard."

When you paint a picture, or shoot a photograph, is it a different process from when you act, or are you tapping into the same vein?
I think they’re all different disciplines, but working with Strasberg, we worked with our senses, and brought back emotional recall and so forth. So I think you work with the same instrument, and just apply it to different disciplines. I was born in Dodge City, Kansas and am really just a middle class farm boy at heart. I really thought acting, painting, music, writing were all part of being an artist. I never thought of them as being separate. I could never play music, but I’d always loved music, and I tried to apply that. Easy Rider was the first film to use “found” music that was popular at the time. Prior to that, most movies were scored with an orchestra. Colors was the first million-selling rap album, and I produced Miles Davis’ last album for The Hot Spot. When I went under contract to Warner Bros., it allowed me to have a cultural life, instead of having to get a “normal” job bussing tables, or putting on a suit and tie and going into the office. I just never stopped painting, taking photographs, writing. There was no pressure to “put that childish stuff away.” It allowed me to continue to be a child.

Hopper with then-wife, actress Daria Halprin, in Taos, circa 1971.

You had a seminal experience with the director Henry Hathaway on a picture called From Hell to Texas.
(laughs) Yeah, that was in 1958, with Don Murray, Diane Varsi and Chill Wills. I got into a lot of trouble on that. I was loaned out from Warner Bros. to Fox, and I didn’t want to do the part, but Hathaway kept insisting. We had the most wonderful dinners, just a delightful, wonderful guy at dinner, and a screaming, yelling maniac on the set. (laughs) But I ended up working for him more than any other director, did three films for him by the end.

Director Henry Hathaway, Hopper's nemesis and reluctant mentor.

But he was the antithesis of what you responded to: an old-school director who carried a riding crop.
Yeah, yeah, and he’d tell you exactly where to move, how to walk, how to talk. He’d give you line readings. I was now trying to “live in the moment” and doing things without preconceived ideas, and I walked off the picture three times on location. He’d beg me to come back, and we’d have a wonderful dinner where he’d be utterly charming and I’d say ‘Mr. Hathaway, tomorrow I’d like to try the scene this way.” And he’d say “Sure, sure kid. Whatever you say.” And the next day on the set, he’d be screaming and yelling again, and I’d say ‘Mr. Hathaway, last night at dinner, you said I could try this.’ He’d scream “That was just dinner talk, kid, dinner talk! We’re makin’ a movie here, now get the fuck over there and hit your mark and say your lines like I tell ya!” (laughs) If you really wanted to drive him crazy, you’d put a paper cup in the scene: “Paper cup in a fuckin’ western! They didn’t have fuckin’ paper cups in the old west, goddammit!” So the last day on the picture, I came on the set at 20th Century Fox, and he said “Hey, good morning. See that over there? Know what those are?” I said ‘Well, those are stacks of film cans, Henry.’ He said “That’s right. I’ve got enough film there to shoot for four and a half months. Did you know that I owned 40% of 20th Century Fox?” ‘No, I didn’t know that, Henry.’ “Well, I do. See that over there?” ‘Yeah, those are sleeping bags.’ “That’s right. We’re gonna do this scene till you do it my way,” and it was a ten line scene, “and we’ll send out for lunch, for dinner, we’ll sleep here for four and a half months, then we’ll send out for more!” So we started about eight o’clock in the morning. Around eleven at night, after 85 takes, I finally cracked, and said ‘Okay, tell me what you want to do.’ I did it, then I walked out. It wasn’t like somebody sent a black ball around after that, but word got around that I wasn’t somebody you wanted to work with. Soon after that, I was dropped from my contract at Warner Bros.. I went back to New York and I studied with Strasberg for five years. I didn’t have another major role in a studio picture for nearly ten years, until Hathaway hired me again for The Sons of Katie Elder in ’65.

Around the same time, you cut your teeth directing for Roger Corman, directing second unit on The Trip. What was it like stepping behind the camera for the first time?
Well, Roger was the kind of guy who wouldn’t give us any money, but would let us take cameras and equipment out on the weekends and shoot. Jack Nicholson had written the screenplay for that picture, and it was a wonderful screenplay. The stuff on Sunset Boulevard, and the acid trip and the stuff in the desert was all stuff that I shot, because we didn’t feel that Roger would have the inclination to shoot that stuff, so we did it all on weekends.

You got to work with some of the great directors throughout your career, from day one. Who are some of your greatest influences behind the camera?
I’d say George Stevens, and Henry Hathaway, strangely enough. (laughs) Even though I fought with him a lot, he had a great leanness to his work. Nick Ray, on Rebel, was a big influence, just watching him allow Dean to do what he did on that film. I’ve worked with so many top directors, John Sturges was another great one. You learn something from everyone, even if they’re terrible directors. A lot of directing is really like being a floor manager of a department store, where you’re just managing all these different divisions, and time is your worst enemy.

I heard that during the filming of True Grit that John Wayne chased you around Paramount with a loaded gun?
(laughs) No, that’s not quite how it happened. He used to arrive on the lot via helicopter from his mine sweeper that he had moored in Newport Beach. He’d have a .45 strapped on his side, wearing army fatigues, and that’s the way he’d arrive to work every day. This one day he arrived, and he wanted to know where “that Pinko Hopper was hiding.” I was actually in Glen Campbell’s trailer, hiding from him. He was screaming “My daughter was out at UCLA last night and heard (Black Panther) Eldridge Cleaver cussing, and I know he must be a friend of that Pinko Hopper! Where is he? I want to talk to him!” So he wasn’t literally running around with a gun looking for me. He was walking around with a gun at his hip, but I think he wanted to have a political discussion, as opposed to committing actual manslaughter! (laughs) Anyway, nothing ever came of it. That was just Duke.

The legendary opening sequence of Easy Rider.

Let’s talk about how Easy Rider was born.
Peter Fonda and I were doing motorcycle movies: I did one called The Glory Stompers and Peter did one called The Wild Angels. Jack Nicholson did one called Hell’s Angels on Wheels, all at American International Pictures. Peter had read I thing I wrote with Stewart Stern called The Last Movie, and I’d wanted to make it as my first film. Peter loved it and went around trying to raise money to make it, but wasn’t successful. We’d promised each other that if we were going to do a movie, that it wasn’t going to be a motorcycle movie. So we wrote a screenplay together with a standup comic named Don Sherman called The Yin and the Yang, a comedy, and we couldn’t find financing for that, either. Around three o’clock in the morning, Peter called me. He was up in Toronto promoting The Trip at the film festival up there. So Peter says that he’s just talked with James Nicholson, no relation to Jack, and Sam Arkoff, who ran AIP, and I told them this idea for a movie: these two guys sell a bunch of marijuana in Mexico, then buy these two beautiful, gleaming bikes and ride cross-country to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, where they have a great time, then they go into Florida to retire, and are shot by a couple of duck hunters. Peter says “They said we could both act in it, and you could direct. What do you think?” (laughs) I said ‘They actually said they’d give you money for that?’ “Yeah.” So I said ‘Terrific, man. If they really said they’d give you the money, it sounds great to me.’ So that’s how it started. Then when it came time to really do it, they pulled back and said I could act or direct, but not both. So we went to see Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, because they’d just finished doing The Monkees and our friend Michael McClure, a poet from San Francisco, he had a project called The Queens he wanted to do which was a satire about LBJ and Dean Rusk, and all these powerful Washington insiders dressed in drag, eating live lobsters, talking about how they assassinated President Kennedy. It was going to be a 20 minute short. We decided to pitch it to Rafelson and Schneider, Peter couldn’t help but talk about what was then called The Loners, and by then we had a full outline. Schneider left the room, the Rafelson left, who came back and said “Can I see you in my office?” So we went in and he said “Call Schneider at home tonight. I think he’s going to give you the money and let you act in it and direct it.” And Schneider said “Yeah, it’s a go.”

And it was groundbreaking on so many levels: the first movie to really address the counterculture seriously, not in an exploitative way. The first to show people openly using drugs. The first to show some of the serious social problems that were happening in the country, particularly in the Deep South, where you actually shot some of it.
Yeah, and like I said before, it was the first time found music was ever used. At that time it was so much cheaper. All I had to do was go the artist and ask their permission to use the music.

So was the decision one that was based more on economics than on creativity?
No. I went out and shot the movie in five and a half weeks. Laszlo Kovacs said it was the best-organized picture he’d ever shot. When we spoke at AFI a few years before he died, he said “People talk about how crazy the shoot was, but there was nothing crazy about that shoot.” The thing was, after shooting the film I came back to eighty hours of footage that I hadn’t seen, because in those days there was no way for me to see my dailies out on the road. I had an editing job that was just horrendous, took me over a year. And driving on the way to the studio to cut the picture, I’d hear all this great music on the radio: Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, The Byrds. I heard all these songs and cut the picture to picture, and not to sound. Then when I put in a song like “Born to be Wild” it just fit perfectly. But when you see the movie, the story is told through the music, not the dialogue. It was just one of those things that worked.

Has MTV ever acknowledged you of being an early inventor of music video?
(laughs) No, I don’t think so.

Easy Rider changed Hollywood.
Yeah, it certainly showed them that they could make independent films. You had to get an I.A. union stamp on your film to get released in those days, and we didn’t have that stamp. Bert Schneider’s father Abe was Chairman of Columbia Pictures and paid off the unions, gave them $25,000 so we could release the movie, which broke the code, and other studios saw that they could do the same thing: make a non-union film and then make a deal with the union to distribute it. Cassavetes was really the only person in the U.S. who’d been making independent films up to that point, because he was a from a well-to-do Greek shipping family that allowed him to finance his own low budget films. But he could never really get them distributed, because the majors wouldn’t distribute them.

I read a quote attributed to you, and maybe you can tell me if it’s accurate: “There are moments that I've had some real brilliance, you know. But I think they are moments. And sometimes, in a career, moments are enough. I never felt I played the great part. I never felt that I directed the great movie. And I can't say that it's anybody's fault but my own.”
Well, I could agree with everything but the last part. It wasn’t all my fault.

Hopper on the cover of Rolling Stone issue 56, April 16, 1970.

You don’t feel that Easy Rider is a great film?
I do. I do, but after that I should have made another great movie and Colors is an alright film, but I don’t know, I just never felt I directed the film I really wanted to direct after Easy Rider. I know I never did. But I don’t think it was my fault that I wasn’t allowed to. I had a lot of help on this end. It may have been my behavior that caused the rift to happen, but once it happened, it wasn’t my fault. I could’ve brought them a ship full of gold, and they wouldn’t have let me direct a picture after my fallout with Lew Wasserman over The Last Movie. He wanted me to re-edit it after The Venice Film Festival. I had final cut and said ‘no.’ He said “Then it will never be distributed.”

Let’s talk about Apocalypse Now. What are some of your memories of being in the Philippines doing that?
I was there for four or five months. When I arrived I was signed to play a CIA agent. There was no script. So I started out in a clean uniform being told by Francis (Coppola) that I was going to be second-in-charge to Marlon Brando’s army he had in the jungle. I was with these guys about three weeks and we were training with these Green Beret guys who’d just gotten out of Vietnam, playing war games. We had mortars that we’d play with that were full of powder, and if you got any of the powder on you, that meant you were dead. We had all these war toys we’d play with at night. We’d be assigned to hold a bridge. Would they be coming by the sea? Would they be coming through the jungle? We’d play these incredible war games and just had a ball. Finally Marlon arrived and everything was shut down for a week because he realized Marlon hadn’t read “Heart of Darkness,” so Francis went out to read Marlon “Heart of Darkness” and 900 people, the cast and crew, just sat and waited! (laughs) We called it “the million dollar week” because Marlon was getting paid a million dollars a week. When he came back he said “Marlon and I agreed that your part should be as large as his, or maybe larger.” When you read “Heart of Darkness” you never actually see the Kurtz character, you only hear about him being talked about by this Russian-Jewish trader, who comes out with shrunken heads and thinks he’s such a great man. So Francis wanted me to play that part, and made him a photojournalist who carried a lot of cameras instead of shrunken heads. So we started there, and wrote a little bit in the morning and then would just improvise off of that.

So those scenes between you and Martin Sheen, when he was locked in the bamboo cage, were largely improvised?
Yeah. I mean, it was improv that came out of writing.

Hopper, Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.

And you and Brando were never actually on the set together, right?
Yeah, he’d shoot one night, then I’d do another. I came in one night and Francis said “Marlon called you a ‘sniveling dog’ and threw bananas at you.’ So I had this prop man throwing bananas at me all night long. (laughs) And that’s how we worked for a couple weeks. It was Marlon’s decision for us to work separately and at the time, I was sort of offended by it, but looking back, I think Marlon did me a big favor. If you’re improvising something, and he suddenly started reading “Hollow Man” by D.H. Lawrence, you really can’t get something going if you have two people vying for (the director’s) time. In the end, it worked out really well.

In 1986 you had a renaissance in your career with three amazing movies: River’s Edge, Blue Velvet and Hoosiers, the last of which earned you an Oscar nomination. It marked a real comeback in your career, and you haven’t stopped working since.
That was my first year of sobriety, too. I’d been out of rehab like two months when I went into do Blue Velvet, then I went straight to Indiana and did Hoosiers. I didn’t do anything but get a haircut and put on some different wardrobe, then came back to Los Angeles and did River’s Edge. It’s funny because I play a drug addict in one, an alcoholic in the other, and a drug dealer in the third! (laughs) So my first year of sobriety was a test. (laughs)

Hopper as the evil Frank Booth, with Isabella Rossellini in David Lynch's Blue Velvet.

We have to talk about the character of Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. I read an interview with David Lynch where he said you called him after reading the script and said “David, you have to let me play this part because I am Frank Booth.”
Well actually, he’d already cast me, but I did call him after he’d cast me, and we’d never met at that point, and said ‘You haven’t made a mistake, because I am Frank Booth.” So supposedly he went back to the table with Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini and Laura Dern, they were all having lunch together, and said “I just got off the phone with Dennis Hopper, and he said that he was Frank Booth, which I guess is really good for the picture, but I don’t know how we’ll ever have lunch with him.” (laughs)

How were you Frank Booth?
I’d come out of a heavy drug life, and had known a lot of people like Frank. I didn’t mean that I was literally Frank Booth, but I’d certainly run into characters like Frank, and understood him. A big discrepancy came the first day we were shooting the big scene where Kyle is hiding in the closet and I come in demanding my bourbon and tell Isabella to spread her legs, and then this sort of horrendous rape scene occurs against her. None of us had met at this point and that was our first scene. (laughs) David had helium on the set, because in the script, the tank that Frank was constantly taking hits from was written as helium, which makes your voice really high, like Donald Duck. But it doesn’t disorient you in any way, it just makes you talk funny. So I said to David, ‘You know I always thought of this as being nitrous oxide or amyl nitrate or something.’ He said “What is that?” I said “Something that disorients your mind for a few minutes. I’m also having trouble acting with my voice sounding like this. So could I just show you what it would look like with the other stuff?” And I did, and David said “Oh, that’s great!” So we went with that, and I said ‘If you want to put the (helium) voice in later, in post, we can,’ and of course, we didn’t. So that was the only real contribution I made to that film, I guess. (laughs) David had written a great screenplay, and there wasn’t any reason to change anything else. Years later I was sitting, thinking about it, and I thought how really weird it would be if Frank Booth had only used the gas to change the sound of his voice, that it didn’t affect his mind at all, and what a cold, calculating kind of guy that would be. The Observer, in England, and Film Quarterly gave me an award in Paris as the outstanding villain of all-time for that film, which is pretty heavy, because that means I beat out Sir Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast and Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. (laughs)


Hopper and Christopher Walken in the legendary "eggplant" scene from True Romance.

Which brings us to True Romance and the scene between you and Christopher Walken, which has gone down as one of the great scenes in movie history. At the time, Quentin Tarantino was unknown. Did you know upon reading the script that a completely original voice had arrived?
Oh yeah, that was apparent immediately. I thought it was a terrific script and terrific movie, and it just died at the box office. All the buzz came out of tape and DVD. It was strange because I never saw it with an audience where it didn’t get a standing ovation at the end, at Toronto and other places. It just didn’t connect with mainstream audiences. Maybe it was the title, who knows? It’s such a great, popcorn eating movie, you know? (laughs) Tony Scott is a terrific director. The day we did that scene, we did the whole interior of my trailer here at the studio in Los Angeles. First of all, you don’t see speeches like this as an actor in film anymore. It was just pages and pages of this great dialogue. Tony started lighting, was going to shoot with two cameras, and was going to shoot Chris Walken first. Chris came in and saw it, and Tony approached me and said “Chris just said he didn’t want to go first. Would you mind going first?” I said ‘I don’t mind going first, but you’ve been lighting for two and a half hours, man!’ (laughs) Tony said he didn’t mind, and reversed all the lighting and went on me first, and that’s how we did it and it was just wonderful. The only improvisation in the whole thing, because Tarantino’s script was so good, was the bit about the eggplant and the cantaloupe. Walken and I went out later, selling the piece as a team. And someone said to us “Oh, you guys are great actors!” And Walken says “I don’t know if we’re great actors or not, but I started out as a dancer, and Hopper and I partner real well together.” (laughs) And I thought that was a great line.

We touched earlier on your being a survivor.
I think it was genetics. I think it was luck. I think it was attitude that got me through a lot of it. I believe in miracles. It’s a miracle that I’m still here. And I plan on being here a while longer.

Read more!