May 22: Video View column
When mounting the Mayan epic “Apocalypto” in the untouched jungles of Mexico, director Mel Gibson painstakingly designed the R-rated tale so that people would feel lost in time. “Apocalypto” (Touchstone; $29.99, DVD; $34.99, Blu-ray Disc; May 22), an intensely violent adventure, follows a young man (newcomer Rudy Youngblood) who is captured by enemies, forced to march miles from his family and saves himself from becoming a human sacrifice. He then must run through a dense jungle, elude the warriors who imprisoned him and return home to save his pregnant wife and child.
“I wanted the audience to feel completely a part of that time,” Gibson, who personally financed the $40 million picture, says in the production notes for “Apocalypto.” “I didn’t want one trace of the 21st century – while at the same time, cinematically, I wanted it to have a kind of break-neck kineticism and be very up-to-the-minute.
“That was very difficult to do.”
According to the production notes, the Maya homeland once spanned five modern countries – Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. Gibson was drawn to “Apocalypto” because he was fascinated by the dichotomy between the light and dark sides of the culture.
“In many ways they (the Mayans) were so sophisticated, and in other ways, they were so savage,” said Gibson, who won an Oscar as best director for “Braveheart” (1995). “But one of the things that’s very interesting is that they were very clear that their society was going to rise and fall.
“Whether it was a self-fulfilling prophecy or not, they were just dead accurate, they knew that there was a certain amount of time, a period of about 400 to 500 years, that a society could prosper before everything just falls out from under you.”
The controversial Gibson, who shouted anti-Semitic comments during an arrest for driving while intoxicated last summer, has faced some protests over the accuracy of “Apocalypto.” In March, Alicia Estrada, a professor of Central American Studies at Cal State Northridge, challenged Gibson during a question-and-answer session and labeled the film an attack on the Mayan people.
The 51-year-old filmmaker responded with an expletive, and she was escorted out of the lecture hall.
According to thenumbers.com, the subtitled “Apocalypto,” which is presented in the Mayan dialect of Yucatec, grossed $50.8 million in the United States and Canada and $40 million internationally. The 138-minute film was nominated for Oscars in the best makeup, sound mixing and sound editing categories.
The extras on the DVD include commentary by Gibson; a featurette (“Becoming Mayan”) exploring the ancient culture and how it was captured on film; and a deleted scene.
‘Blu-‘tiful ‘Pirates’
The new Blu-ray Disc, which provides the best image possible, gets a big boost this week with the release of 2003’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and 2006’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Disney; $34.99 each) on the visually stunning format.
The two highly anticipated Blu-ray titles have been pressed in 1080p (the number 1080 represents 1,080 lines of vertical resolution, while the letter “p” stands for progressive scan).
That dual release, of course, arrives just as the highly anticipated “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” with Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and Chow Yun-fat, arrives in theaters.
Both titles on high-definition Blu-ray are double-disc sets loaded with numerous extras, including blooper reels and making-of featurettes. They also provide a mischievous animated host, Jolly Roger, who helps viewers navigate through the extra features possible in the state-of-the-art Blu-ray Disc.
Movie Collections
“The Gary Cooper Collection” (MGM; $39.99, DVD; May 22) with “The Cowboy and the Lady” with Merle Oberon, “The Real Glory” with David Niven, “Vera Cruz” with Burt Lancaster and “The Winning of Barbara Worth” with Ronald Colman.
“The Peter Sellers Collection” (MGM; $39.99, DVD; May 22) with “The Pink Panther” with the one-named Capucine, “Casino Royale” with Woody Allen, “The Party” with Claudine Longet and “What’s New Pussycat?” with Paula Prentiss.
“Porky’s Ultimate Collection” ($29.99, DVD; May 22) with the R-rated original comedy hit and its two sequels, “Porky’s II: The Next Day” and “Porky’s Revenge.” “Revenge” is making its DVD debut, and also available is “Porky’s ‘One Size Fits All’ Edition” (Fox; $19.99, DVD), which contains only the first installment.
Now Playing!
The following DVD titles either are coming soon or recently landed at a video store near you.
If your local outlet doesn’t stock them, the DVD offerings can be mail ordered by calling (800) 523-0823 or going to the Web site moviesunlimited.com or amazon.com, unless otherwise noted.
Movies
“The Adventures of Marco Polo” (MGM; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Gary Cooper and Basil Rathbone in a 1938 action tale about the Venetian trader/explorer and his search for treasures.
“Alone With Her: Unrated” (Genius; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Tom Hanks’ son, Colin (“King Kong”), and Ana Claudia Talancon (“Fast Food Nation”) in a creepy thriller about a beautiful woman being stalked by a disturbed young man who’s obsessed by her.
“Ball of Fire” (MGM; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck in a 1941 romantic comedy about a stuffy professor and an attractive singer.
“Can-Can” (Fox; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Frank Sinatra (“Tony Rome”) and Shirley MacLaine (“Some Came Running”) in a musical, set in Paris during the 1890s, about a lawyer defending a dancer’s right to perform a sexually charged dance. Based on Cole Porter’s stage hit, the fully restored 1960 film is presented in anamorphic wide-screen and making its DVD debut.
“Casanova Brown” (MGM; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright in a romantic comedy (1944) about a professor who discovers that his ex-wife is pregnant with his child.
“Constellation” (Fox; $26.99, DVD; May 22) with Billy Dee Williams (“Lady Sings the Blues”) and Gabrielle Union (“Bad Boys II”) in a set-in-the-South drama, rated PG-13, about members of a dysfunctional family who gather for a funeral.
“Epic Movie: Unrated” (Fox; $29.99, DVD; May 22) with Kal Penn (“The Namesake”) in a spoof of hit films such as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, “Superman Returns,” “Borat” and “The Da Vinci Code.” It will also be available in the PG-13 theatrical version.
“Fay Grim”(Magnolia; $29.99, DVD; May 22) with Parker Posey (“Superman Returns”) in director Hal Hartley’s R-rated sequel to “Henry Fool” (1997). In the darkly humorous thriller, the title character is pressured by a CIA operative to travel to Paris and obtain notebooks that belong to her ex-husband and could compromise the security of the United States.
“The Good German” (Warner; $27.99, DVD; May 22) with George Clooney (“Ocean’s Eleven”) and Cate Blanchett (“The Aviator”) in an R-rated suspense tale about a military officer who returns to post-World War II Berlin to find his former lover and then becomes involved in a murder mystery. Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic”) directed the black-and-white picture as a tribute to “Casablanca.”
“The Italian” (Sony; $29.99, DVD; May 22) with Soviet filmmaker Andrei Kravchuk directing an unrated family drama about an abandoned 5-year-old Russian boy whose life changes when an Italian couple adopt him.
“Letters From Iwo Jima” (Warner; $34.99, two-disc special edition; $34.99, Blu-ray Disc; $39.99, HD DVD; May 22) with Ken Watanabe (“The Last Samurai”) in director Clint Eastwood’s World War II epic that shows the battle at Iwo Jima through the eyes of Japanese soldiers. It won a Golden Globe award as best foreign-language film and received Oscar nominations as best picture and director.
“The Mad: Unrated” (Genius; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Billy Zane (“Titanic”) in a gore-fest about hungry zombies seeking fresh human flesh.
n “Mistress of Spices” (Genius; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Aishwarya Rai (“Bride and Prejudice”) in an unrated import about a young Indian woman who runs a spice shop in San Francisco and can see into the desires of her customers.
“On the Riviera” (Fox; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Danny Kaye (“White Christmas”) and Gene Tierney (“Laura”) in a musical comedy with Kaye in dual roles as an entertainer and a war hero. The 1951 picture is making its DVD debut.
“Pigskin Parade” (Fox; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Judy Garland (“The Wizard of Oz”) making her screen debut in a 1936 college football musical, which has been digitally restored and is making its DVD debut.
“Three Bad Men” (ThinkFilm; $27.99, DVD; May 22) with George Kennedy (“Cool Hand Luke”), Mike Moroff (“Desperado”) and Chris Gann (“xXx”) in a PG-13 frontier tale about a trio of frontier thieves who come across the body of a dying man during their escape from a bank robbery and promise him they will rescue his wife from the outlaws who kidnapped her.
“The Wedding Night” (MGM; $19.99, DVD; May 22) with Cooper and Anna Stern in a 1935 romantic drama about a failed novelist who is inspired to write again by a Polish immigrant.
Television
“The Magnificent Seven: Season Two DVD Collection” (MGM; $29.99; now available) with Michael Biehn (“Grindhouse”) in three-disc set with all 13 episodes of the cowboy series based on the Western directed by John Sturges. The set includes four unaired final episodes.
“The O.C.: The Complete Fourth Season” (Warner; $59.99, DVD; May 22) with Benjamin McKenzie, Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson in a five-disc set with all 16 episodes from the show’s fourth year.
Children/Family
“Franklin and the Turtle Lake Treasure” (HBO; $14.99, DVD; May 22), a G-rated, direct-to-video animated movie in which the title character goes on a hunt with his feisty grandmother to find some missing family heirlooms.
“Tex Avery’s Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection” (Warner; $26.99, DVD; now available), a two-disc set with 24 big-screen shorts featuring the deadpan basset hound detective. The set includes “One Droopy Knight” (1957), which received an Oscar nomination as best-animated short.