Blu-Ray Review Round-Up (08/10/2014)

Here's a few months worth of Blu-Ray reviews from Slant and Movie Mezzanine.

Movie Mezzanine

Sleepaway Camp (Scream Factory)
Rollerball (1975) (Twilight Time)
Lewis Black: Old Yeller (Image Entertainment) [DVD]
Cheap Thrills (Drafthouse Films)
Hell Divers (Warner Archive) [DVD]
Ravenous (Scream Factory)
The Unknown Known (Anchor Bay)
Deadly Eyes (Scream Factory)

Slant Magazine

A Hard Day's Night (Criterion)
Under the Skin (A24)
Pickpocket (Criterion)

The Dance of Reality (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 2014)

By the same token, it’s also a fitting summary of everything that hinders the film’s aspirations to a singular vision. The highly chromatic, ill-fitting series of tableaux admirably abandon the illusion of objectivity (or even a rationally viewed subjectivity) to celebrate the role imagination plays on memory. Yet for a film intended to reflect both its maker’s personal experience and unorthodox aesthetic, so much of The Dance of Reality feels old-hat, begging the question whether something can be surreal if you feel like you’ve seen it before.

Read my full review at Spectrum Culture.

Music Reviews

I'm trying my hand at more music reviews this year, mostly for the site Spectrum Culture. Here's links to my music-related pieces:

Nas, Illmatic
Miles Davis, Miles at the Fillmore—Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3
Lily Allen, Sheezus
Marc Ribot Trio, Live at the Village Vanguard
The Human League, Dare
Fucked Up, Glass Boys
Various Artists, C86
Led Zeppelin, I, II and III
Hole, Live Through This

Finding Fela (Alex Gibney)

A greater sin still is how the film saps Fela’s music of its energy. It’s not entirely Gibney’s fault: no documentary about an artist has ever captured the thrill of personal discovery of that artist’s work. Being flatly informed of the military raid on Fela’s Kalakuta Republic compound after hearing a snippet of “Zombie” pales in comparison to hearing all of “Zombie” first, being galvanized by it universal anti-military lyrics, then gradually filling in the context around that composition. When it is served to a viewer already wrapped in significance, the whole progression of immersion is thrown out, teaching detached admiration instead of passionate discovery.

Read my full review at Spectrum Culture.