So Many Vaults, So Little Time

Well, I thought I was going to have an easy job running through the August catalogue titles, but towards the end of the month they just kept coming. So I’m going to break this into two parts, with the second coming to your inbox on the weekend. Apologies, but there’s a lot of good stuff these days!

Let’s start with the most audacious film on the pile, which is really saying something what else is there: Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik, the delirious 1968 comic-strip adaptation starring John Philip Law as the unstoppable, irresistible thief created by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani in 1962. The cat-suited Diabolik is a master criminal with a very specific code of honor: Steal stuff, drive cool cars, collapse the filthy capitalist structure and have a hot girlfriend, not necessarily in that order.

With the enthusiastic aid of the aforementioned and frequently under-wardrobed girlfriend (Eva Kant, played by Marisa Mell), Diabolik thumbs his nose at authority figures and mobsters alike, always staying at least three steps ahead of the weary Inspector Gelko (Michel Piccoli). And though there is a considerable body count – especially if those government buildings Diabolik blows up were staffed at the time – Bava’s enthusiastic direction and the glorious production design give us the sense that it’s all in good fun. It’s a flesh-and-blood cartoon, and if we take it seriously that’s on us.

Spending most of his screen time in a full-body suit – with two color options, because Diabolik is nothing if not stylish – Law reduces himself to a piercing gaze and sharp physical movements, all elbows and knees. It’s a stark contrast to the stillness he brought to the blind angel Pygar in Roger Vadim’s Barbarella that same year, and I found myself wondering how Dino Di Laurentiis, who produced both pictures, could see Law’s broad-shouldered American-ness and realize he’d be so much more interesting as a comic-strip sketch than a whole person. Or maybe Di Laurentiis thought exclusively in two dimensions.

Certainly, Danger: Diabolik is not concerned with richly developed characters. There are good guys and bad guys, and Diabolik and Eva are smarter, faster and hotter than all of them, so they’re allowed to do whatever they want while looking fantastic. Imagine the aesthetic of the Adam West Batman TV series in the hands liberated Europeans who wanted to mock their repressed American cousins. But you know, good-naturedly.

Packaged in one of the label’s signature hardboxes with a 60-page hardcover book of production photos accompanied by an essay from historian Leon Hunt, Imprint’s Danger: Diabolik appears to use the same 4K master as Kino Lorber’s North American release, and it is a pip: Beautifully restored from the original camera negative, properly framed at 1.85:1 and running three minutes longer than the theatrical cut, thanks to the discovery of a post-credits reprise of “Deep Down.” Audio options for this version include 5.1 English surround soundtrack in DTS-HD and the original English and Italian mono, as well as a partially re-recorded English mono track, in linear PCM. (I believe that last one was created for the initial home-video release, before the original audio elements were found.)

Both the 4K and BD include two preexisting audio commentaries: The 2005 track with Law and Bava biographer Tim Lucas recorded for the Paramount DVD, and Lucas going solo on a “new, updated” track recorded for Imprint’s initial Blu-ray release six years ago. That’s also included where you’ll find the theatrical cut (in PCM English mono only) and the rest of the supplements.

Produced in consultation with Lucas, “Danger: Diabolik: From Fumetti to Film” is a thoroughly engaging 20-minute retrospective from Paramount’s DVD with appearances from Law, De Laurentiis and Morricone and superfans Adam Yauch, comics artist Stephen R. Bissette and writer-director Roman Coppola, who leaned heavily on Bava’s innovations for his own CQ.

There’s also a video essay by Kat Ellinger – which is more of a photo montage played over Ellinger’s thoughtful monograph about the film and its place in the context of ’60s Italian pop cinema, and of course no special edition of Danger: Diabolik would be complete without Yauch’s music video for the Beastie Boys’ “Body Movin’,” presented here with optional commentary by the artist formerly known as Nathaniel Hornblower.

While Imprint is cranking out handsome special editions and rescuing other worthy films from the memory hole, its parent company is doing its best to ensure new movies gets a shot at a physical release as well. Along with Danger: Diabolik, Via Vision was kind enough to include its new Blu-rays of Viggo Mortensen’s Falling and Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague – which, when they were announced earlier this year, looked to be the only physical releases of either title.

Criterion subsequently announced its own special edition of the latter, which I hope to review later this month. But if you’re less interested in bells and whistles and just want to own the movie, Via Vision’s edition – which contains a crisp 1080p presentation of the feature (with non-removable subtitles, as seen above) and the theatrical trailer – is a more affordable option.

Falling’s master looks just as good, and supports Mortensen’s moving 2020 family drama with an excellent Zoom conversation with Mortensen and co-stars Lance Henriksen and Laura Linney moderated by Werner Herzog. Thoughtful and even unexpectedly funny – much like Mortensen’s movie – it snapped me right back to fall 2020, when these online panels were relatively new and even movie stars hadn’t upgraded their home studios yet.

A trailer is also the sole extra on Sony’s Blu-ray edition of I’ll Do Anything, but honestly the fact that this movie has made it out at all – and as a pressed disc, rather than a BD-R – is something of a miracle. James L. Brooks’ famously incomplete 1994 dramedy has achieved almost legendary status among certain cinephile circles, partly because it’s been almost impossible to find for more than a decade and partly for the bananapants story of its production and release.

Fresh off the success of Broadcast News, one of the great grown-up movies about journalistic ethics and personal compromise, Brooks wanted to take a look at the entertainment industry next, with another ensemble dramedy that revolves around Nick Nolte as Matt Hobbs, a failed actor reduced to pity work as a driver for the producer (Albert Brooks) who turned him down for a big role.

Matt’s also recently reclaimed custody of his six-year-old daughter Jeannie (Whittni Wright), who manages to get cast in a sitcom on basically her first day in Hollywood – triggering Matt’s protective instincts while also bringing up his insecurities about his career path. And that threatens Matt’s budding relationship with script reader Cathy (Joely Richardson), and also Burke has started dating a no-nonsense young woman called Nan (Julie Kavner), which is a whole other thing.

Also? It was conceived, written and shot as a full-on musical, with the entire cast breaking into songs written by Prince and Sinead O’Connor. (There were production numbers and everything!)  And after a couple of disastrous test screenings, Brooks just decided to slice out the songs and release the film as a conventional drama. And that didn’t work at all, because now instead of characters reaching a point in a scene where they have to release their emotions in song, those scenes just end, kneecapping both the actors’ performances and Brooks’ intentions.

It’s very frustrating, and surely even more so for Brooks, who never really recovered from the experience; all of his subsequent movies – yes, including As Good as it Gets – feel like they’ve been edited and re-edited into mush, with plotlines and characters serving a specific narrative function with none of the eccentric life of his first two films.

Weirdly enough, in the context of Brooks’ entire career, I’ll Do Anything now plays like one of his stronger pictures; even with the high points removed, it’s more focused than Spanglish, How Do You Know or last year’s risible Ella McCay, and the plot is built on interesting moral questions rather than a clunky rom-com scenario. If nothing else, it’s good that it’s finally available on Blu-ray, in a decent-looking 1080p master with a DTS-HD 2.0 stereo soundtrack.

Speaking of incomplete 1990s movies: Practical Magic is back! Newly restored and reissued in 4K in advance of the long-awaited sequel, Griffin Dunne’s weird-ass supernatural casserole is just as weird, incoherent and slapdash as it ever was, with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman playing witchy New England sisters who mend their fractured relationship while dealing with such mundane contemporary concerns as single parenthood, generational trauma and domestic abuse and also ghosts and curses and demonic possession and at least one revenant.

Look, I was there in 1998 when Practical Magic confused the hell out of my preview audience, and I watched confounded over the next decade as it became a cable staple, enchanting tweens and teens who grew up to embrace it as a camp comedy and subtle feminist manifesto. It is neither of those things! It’s a mess! Every scene looks like it was shot on the first day of principal photography and the actors have only just been handed the script! But hey, people love it and the previous Blu-ray – released as a twofer with George Miller’s misbegotten adaptation of The Witches of Eastwick – looked like crap, so an upgrade is welcome.

And Warner’s new 4K master does improve considerably on that Blu-ray with a brighter image, richer colors and a more organic look overall. The new Atmos mix is also an improvement, though only Alan Silvestri’s score and a couple of more active sequences really benefit. Per Warner’s unofficial policy, the original 5.1 theatrical soundtrack is also included.

While the initial announcement promised a new retrospective featurette in which “the women who made it revisit the story, sisterhood and world that turned an unconventional film about witches into a generational touchstone,” that featurette does not appear to have made it onto the disc. But the archival extras from the original DVD release are here: Commentary by director Dunne, co-star Bullock, composer Silvestri and producer Denise Di Novi, and a pair of featurettes in which the cast and crew try very hard to sell Practical Magic as a much more normal movie than it is. Maybe that’s what scuttled the new featurette; two decades later, it’s got to be even more confusing to speak coherently about this thing.

Danger: Diabolik is now available in a 4K/Blu-ray combo hardbox from Imprint; Falling and Nouvelle Vague are now available on Blu-ray from Via Vision. I’ll Do Anything is now available on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and Practical Magic is now available in 4K from Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment.

Up next: Warner Archive’s Auntie Mame, Sony’s I’ll Do Anything and Lionsgate’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret wrap up the August catalogue run. But first, paid subscribers will enjoy tomorrow’s What’s Worth Watching, featuring my exclusive reviews of stuff that’s not on disc yet. Not on the paid tier yet? What’s keeping you? It’s five bucks a month, that’s barely a quarter of a movie ticket these days!