Plot in one sentence: The tables are turned when an uppity rich bitch ends up stranded on a desert island with the Italian crewman she abused on a yacht.

Extras:

• Audio commentary by Guy Ritchie and producer Matthew Vaughn
• Deleted scenes with audio commentary: "Why Didn't You Get a Bigger Plane? (1:06), "Plane Lands in Greece" (:56), "A Boat With a Chimney" (:35), "Have You Ever Tried to Jump Rope on a Boat" (:30), "I Don't Swim With Shit" (:23), "Great White Whats?" (:49), "Your Crew Smells" (1:43), "That's My St. Christopher" (:22), "My Name is Peppe" (1:18), "I Can't Believe You Didn't Bring a Cell Phone" (:41), "Why Do You Have a Gun on Your Ship?" (1:34), "Thank You, Master" (:37), "You Have a Mouth Like a Sewer" (:38), "Dance for Me" (:30), "There's No Supermarket Here" (:41), "You Are So Beautiful" (1:19)
• Untitled making of featurette (19:58)
• Trailers for SWEPT AWAY (1:44), PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2:33), SNATCH (2:08), MAID IN MANHATTAN (2:32)
• Filmographies for Guy Ritchie (one screen), Madonna (two screens), Adriano Giannini (one screen), Bruce Greenwood (two screens), Jeanne Tripplehorn (two screens)

It seems like every review of a Madonna movie starts off wondering why movie fame has eluded her. Or else the writer wonders why she bothers to try to be a movie star in the first place, since she's so bad at it. Some critics, such as David Thomson, seem irritated that she has tried to foist herself on the public though yet another medium, the big screen. "She is disappointed about something, and hugely driven by resentment," he writes of Madonna in THE NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM. Well, Madonna can exasperate a man (just look at Warren Beatty in TRUTH OR DARE).

Certainly a little narcissism and a lust for power motivate any multi-media diva. But there always seems to be a little something extra going on with Madonna. Something…sexual. She has explored sexual lifestyle alternatives in BODY OF EVIDENCE and several of her videos, especially "Express Yourself." She has published a book of her sexual fantasies. In fact, Madonna was on quite a sex kick there for a while, before seeming to retire to motherhood and domesticity. But it wasn't "regular" sex she was all about. It was domination, submission, bondage, flashing, lesbianism: all the stuff your parents feared you'd get involved in when you went to punk rock shows. As the well-toned star wrote in her physically unwieldy paean to exhibitionism, SEX, "There's something comforting about being tied up. Like when you were a baby and your mother strapped you in the car seat. She wanted you to be safe. It was an act of love." Could it be that the all-powerful executive, producer, singer, and writer is a little kinky? Do fantasies of domination and submission dance in her mind like sugarplums when she is at rest? Could some of her bizarre, self-destructive project choices be driven, not by greed, but by an undeniable thirst for sexual game-playing, the sexy thrill of "confessing" your untoward sexual fantasies?

If so, it's gratifying to see the old girl still game for it in SWEPT AWAY. In the film, she's playing the snooty bitch to end all bitches who gets her comeuppance when she is stranded on a desert island with the ship's crew member whom she irritated the most. She is a haughty dame brought down, a queen reduced to crawling through the sand begging for food, a broad who gets slapped around and deserves it. If only the film had been more erotic! Then it might have become a camp sex film classic like the film version of Story of O.

SWEPT AWAY was a pretty good idea for a Madonna project. It's a remake of a popular and controversial art house film from the early '70s. It concerns class issues, political differences, and bizarre sexuality. And the producers managed to lure the son (Adriano Giannini) of the star of the original film (Giancarlo Giannini, whom Lector offed in HANNIBAL) to reprise the role his father introduced. Is there another case in history in which the offspring of a star played the same part in a remake? (Probably, but I can't think of one right now).

Unfortunately, once Amber Leighton (Madonna)—the wife of a vaguely rich American industrialist (Bruce Greenwood) off on a cruise with her hub and some dissipated friends—ends up on a Mediterranean island with Giuseppe Esposito (Giannini), the crewman she has tortured in her capacity as unappeasable dominatrix, the film descends to the practical level of CAST AWAY. It becomes all about looking for food and spearing fish and going yuck over tiny octopi, plot points occasionally interrupted by heartfelt talks over a fire and long walks on the beach. The movie becomes a personals ad. Once Giuseppe "takes over" on the island, he bitch-slaps his former boss a few times, but there's much more in the way of dream sequences (Giuseppe imagining a Madonna video) and games of charade. Yes, here we have a major motion picture starring one of the world's most famous pop stars in which a rainy night of charades is a crucial plot point.

In that regard it's interesting to compare the remake to the original. In the first one, there was a lot more tension on the ship among the friends. Here it's like THE FOUR SEASONS or HUSBANDS AND WIVES, in which an older man with a dumb younger woman (Elizabeth Banks) is still "shocking." Jeanne Tripplehorn's already small part is reduced to that of traditional yachting party alcoholic.

There was also a much stronger political component in the original. Giannini's character was an unambiguous communist. But director Lina Wertmüller didn't let him off the hook or boldly endorse his views. She mocked everyone. In addition, it turns out that in the first one the Giannini character is married, so though the end of both films is essentially the same, the first one was bittersweet and comical as Giannini battles with his wife (he abused her much the way the socialite abused him on the boat). In the new version it's a sappy sad ending out of Madonna's confusing “fag-hag” movie THE NEXT BEST THING.

In a sense, the new movie is also too faithful to the source. The filmmakers should have re-thought the premise entirely. Instead of re-creating parodies of rich people derived from the time of the original, they could have made them nouveau rich vacationers from the entertainment biz with clichéd views about the rain forest and fur coats but who are mean to their servants. They could have derived some actual wit from skewering the pretensions of their own class.

And here's another weird difference. If I remember right, in the original film, the Giannini character blanches at the idea that the socialite would want anal sex. From his hyper-masculine realm, he views such activity as bourgeois decadence. For some reason Madonna chose not to include that scene in this version, even though she wrote in SEX, "That's what ass-fucking is all about. It's the most pleasurable way to get fucked and it hurts the most too. All your nerve endings are in your ass, but if you're not excited, or if you're not doing it right things can really go wrong." Appealing words of wisdom that Amber could have shared with Giuseppe.

Ultimately, SWEPT AWAY is just another boring movie, but the film doesn't hurt the career of Madonna at all. She's a steamroller who will carry on. Instead, it tarnishes the career of Guy Ritchie, who after LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS and SNATCH, had the makings of a British Scorsese, with a lively visual style and a frenetic but clear editing style. But like his Scottish colleagues who made SHALLOW GRAVE and TRAINSPOTTING, Ritchie's "going Hollywood" suggests an unexpected shallowness beneath the pixilated surface of his films. It's his THE BEACH.

These suspicions are only enhanced by the extras. Ritchie is so intent on his bad boy image that the audio commentary track he does with producer Matthew Vaughn doesn’t really convey any information. Plus, he seems a little bored by the whole thing, and lapses into periods of silence.

There is also a huge selection of deleted or expanded scenes that would have added an additional 10 minutes to the finished film, but to little effect. On this feature's optional commentary track, even Ritchie says that some of the deleted scenes are boring. During their commentary Vaughn seems confused as to what was in and not in the film. It's a little disturbing to think that he hasn't actually seen the film enough to know what the final product turned out to be. Most of the deleted scenes fill out some of the otherwise thin characters, such as Tripplehorn and Banks. The scene that both director and producer seem to lament not including is the one called "You Are So Beautiful," which is probably the sequence that is the most indulgent to Madonna's vanity.

There is also an untitled and uncredited "making of" featurette that Madonna manages to turn into TRUTH OR DARE II. She and Ritchie "interview" each other, mug for the camera, share candid footage from the set, and bypass some of the more interesting aspects of the making of the film (such as the special lenses the crew had to use in such an over-bright environment, alluded to only briefly). In the featurette's most shocking moment, Madonna asks permission to slap her husband in retaliation for all the slaps that he directed young Giannini to inflict on her during the shooting. Ritchie gives his consent and Madonna really lays one on him, revealing that good ole' dominatrix Madonna still has it in her.

Trailers for SWEPT AWAY and three other Columbia films are also included. The set of filmographies for Ritchie, Madonna, Giannini, Greenwood, and Tripplehorn are the usual skimpy affairs.

Who Let the Dommes Out?

PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED: COLLECTOR'S EDITION

• First screening: July 4, 1997
  
• Cyclops Vision
  
• $23.99
  
• 97 minutes
  
• NR
  
• Region 0
  
• Single disc
  
• Color
  
• Good widescreen (1.85:1) transfer (the transfer seems to be non-anamorphic) with an occasional "video-y" look
  
• Static, silent menu with 16-chapter scene selection
  
• Single sided, dual layered disc
  
• Adequate Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
  
• Keep case

• Cast: Guinevere Turner, Christien Anholt, Tom Bell, Georgina Hale
  
• Directed by Stuart Urban
  
• Credited writers: Stuart Urban
• Significant music: original music by Magnus Fiennes and Maya Fiennes, of the Ralph Fiennes clan

Plot in one sentence: A young Christian is assigned to infiltrate an S&M club where instead he falls in love with the lead dominatrix.

Extras:

• Audio commentary track by director Stuart Urban (recorded 2001)
• "Pervert's Progress": a making of featurette (24:43)
• "Perverts on Parade": featurette about the film's opening night (3:23)
• "Exploding man" unedited footage (:39)
• "Tanya's Tunes": interactive cartoon version of the movie by Mick Harrison (35 screens, with "play the scene from the movie" option under many of the frames)

Madonna could just as easily have played the main character in PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED. She's an American lifestyle dominatrix who, but for the fact that she seems to run a nightclub, has no visible means of support, and has a fairly large stable of male and female slaves and assistants, is perfectly normal.

Instead, Guinevere Turner enacts the role, and that's just fine by me. Turner is one of the most beautiful women in movies, but also among the most unheralded. She acts, writes, produces, directs, and is an uninhibited disciple of Sappho. If I ever met her, I'd probably try to pull a CHASING AMY on her (but with much less success).

In PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED, Turner plays Tanya Cheex, an American invader who has opened an S&M club in London. This raises the ire of a religious MP named Henry Harding (Tom Bell, of PRIME SUSPECT fame). He employs the young and virginal Peter Emery (Christien Anholt) to infiltrate the club and get the goods on the hedonistic perverts. Unfortunately, Peter falls under the romantic sway of the dominatrix and ends up sacrificing himself for her (i.e., receiving a prison sentence that might have gone to her). When he gets out, he finds Tanya pregnant and ends up in a threesome with Tanya, her loyal assistant Eugenie (Julie Graham), all attended to by Peter's mum.

The setting of the film is the S&M club scene memorialized in such expensive European coffee table magazines as SKIN TOO, MARQUIS, SECRET and others. As in keeping with either censorship laws or import restrictions, there is no actual sex in these sex magazines, but lots of leather fashions, arty photo spreads by fetish photographers, and hints as to where you could get sex by way of ads. These are all the kids the athletes used to kick around in high school and now they've formed a club that looks hip and fun on the surface and from which you are excluded. You only get to look at them in the club snapshots that fill up these magazines. Therefore, it's not entirely clear to outsiders what happens in these clubs, or if all the participants fully believe in the "leather lifestyle," but surely ecstasy is consumed, dancing is committed, and various fetish sex acts go on in back rooms. It's primarily a gay scene but everyone seems to pretend that its multi-sexual or pan-sexual, and that everyone is welcome.

PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED is a comedy, and comedy may be the best way to deal with S&M themes in mainstream movies. Super-serious movies like STORY OF O evoke only unintentional laughter from the unconverted. Tanya has a limo with the plates BOW B4ME, and she has "comic" interplay with her various slaves, including nipple ring and gag jokes with a fashion model named Enzo, who apparently has a large gay cult following. But I have to say that I didn't really laugh out loud during the film, perhaps because the plot is of a rather traditional vintage, just tricked up with whips and testicular electrodes. Nor is the comedy fully reasoned out. The film really is preaching to the perverted; it isn’t finding that finely honed humor where divergent cultures clash and elucidating it with high wit.

Writer and director Stuart Urban does managed to pull a switch. In this film, it is America that comes and corrupts England, rather than a European abroad who sullies the New World in all its innocence, which we've seen in stories from Henry James to Tom Wolfe. Americans are now the source of perversity, exporting it like mad in the form of professional dominatrixes who set up shop in the film's London. Perhaps this is also an allusion to the "Coca Colonization" of Europe, which exercised so many intellectuals in the '60s. Well, it's worse now, as a succession of Presidents browbeat the Old World's leaders into endorsing fun little wars in foreign lands. It bugs them. Now it permeates their movies.

If the film isn't funny enough and you aren't an anglophile or a subscriber to SKIN TOO, what's the film's attraction? Besides some sociological interest, it resides in Turner's unearthly beauty. She has a captivating and nearly perfect face, legs that look stunning in stockings and heels, and a knack for making tight fitting rubber or leather garb look like the height of fashion. It's a very nice moment when Turner grabs Enzo's leather-pouched tackle. Turner, the star of GO FISH and writer of AMERICAN PSYCHO among many other projects (and recently she even directed a short film), is probably not anything like Tanya or any of the other characters she has played in movies, but my concern is not to report reality, but rather wallow in fantasy.

The disc for PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED, distributed by the director himself via his own website, comes packed with supplements, and as this is a relatively recent "collector's edition," which is advertised as having more than was available on its previous incarnation. The DVD is set to be distributed in the US and Canada by First Look in the summer of 2003.

The main supplement is an audio commentary track by director Stuart Urban, recorded in 2001. Urban is clear and concise and cosmopolitan in his discourse. He doesn't happen to express any personal interest in the doings of his characters, but this is the kind of movie that has to have attracted the participation of at least a few authentic pervs. Urban allows as how he was influenced by Mr. Excess himself, Ken Russell, and the inclusion of Georgina Hale is a shout out to MAHLER and a few of the other Russell movies she starred in. He offers up a little gossip about the film. Tanya's club is called the House of Thwax; Urban wanted to call it the House of Whacks, but a similarly titled Chicago business wouldn't allow it (indicating that S&Mers aren't as unified a force as its publicists suggest). Urban also reveals that Anholt's nipple ring double met and married Mistress Diane, a New York dome who was an adviser on the set. And Urban tells a funny anecdote on himself to the effect that he created a small patch of fake hair to cover the private parts of the more modest female members of the cast, thinking that he had made a great invention, only to learn that such a device was hundreds of years old and called a merkin.

Other supplements include "Pervert's Progress," a short and conventional making of featurette, and a short collection of footage of the film's opening night party, called "Perverts on Parade." "Exploding man" is the unedited footage of a guy in the club on whose chest several hundred firecrackers are ignited. Finally, "Tanya's Tunes" is a comic strip version of PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED drawn by the film's story boarder, Mick Harrison, and commissioned for the disc. It's interactive, so if you like a particular scene, you can click to the live version of it.

[Copyright 2002 by Metro-Goldwyn -Mayer, Inc.]

Metropolitans

IGBY GOES DOWN

• Theatrical release: September 13, 2002
  
• MGM Home Entertainment
  
• $26.98
  
• 98 minutes
  
• R
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 4, 2003

• Single disc
  
• Color
  
• Wide screen transfer (2.35:1) enhanced for wide screen televisions
  
• Animated musical menu with 20-chapter scene selection
  
• Single-sided dual-layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, French 2.0 Surround, Spanish DD 2.0 Surround
  
• English, French, and Spanish subtitles
  
• Close captioned
  
• One page insert
  
• Keep case

• Cast: Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Jared Harris, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillippe, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon, Cynthia Nixon, Eric Bogosian, Bill Irwin
  
• Directed by Burr Steers
  
• Credited writer: Burr Steers
• Significant music: Uwe Fahrenkrog Petersen, and Pete Yorn

Plot in one sentence: Troublesome prep school kid kicks around Manhattan while trying to figure out what to do with his life.

Extras:

• Audio commentary by director Burr Steers and Kieran Culkin
• "In Search of Igby": making of featurette (16:35)
• Nine deleted scenes (10:33) with optional director's commentary: Young Igby leaving HOLIDAY, young Igby lying to brother, maid packing, extended scene between Sarandon and doctor, Igby talks to mirror, Danes and Culkin on the bus, Phillippe ignores a fallen down blind man, Phillippe and Danes in the diner, extended scene between Phillippe and Goldblum
• Photo gallery of 45 stills
• Theatrical trailer (2:20)
• "MGM Means Great Movies" trailer (1:13), THE USUAL SUSPECTS theatrical trailer (full frame, 1:26), ad for THELMA AND LOUISE DVD (:54) with muted sound that gets turned up as you watch, plus two screens worth of static ads for other MGM releases.

Another dominatrix, at least in spirit is Mimi Slocum, the horrific mother played by Susan Sarandon in IGBY GOES DOWN. She's one of those terrible mothers that the late Leslie Fiedler (LOVE AND DEATH IN THE AMERICAN NOVEL) would have had a field day with, who drives her sons mad, or away, as far as they can get. In fact by the end of the movie her son Igby (Kieran Culkin), whose name is a childhood nickname, has to be 3000 miles away in order to start finding happiness and freedom.

The story of IGBY GOES DOWN is less a plot than a series of vignette style learning experiences for the school phobic Igby. It's a coming of age tale, and not unlike CATCHER IN THE RYE, as I'm sure many other reviewers have noted. Igby is the rebellious son of Mimi. His godfather is a rich guy named D.H. (Jeff Goldblum), to whom she seems uncommonly close in the aftermath of Igby's father (Bill Pullman) going mad. We follow Igby for a few weeks as he is kicked out of one school, runs away from a military school, hides out in the loft of Rachel (Amanda Peet), D.H.'s secret lover, while pursuing Sookie (Claire Danes), whom he meets at a party. But just as Igby invades D.H.'s bed, so does Igby's conservative brother Ollie (Ryan Phillippe) snatch away Sookie. In the end, the brothers get back together to perform an assisted suicide on their mother, who is suffering from cancer. Finally, Igby is free to head west.

We're in METROPOLITAN country here, hanging out with privileged people wearing J. Press suits and school ties, and who cultivate relationships with women suffering from drug problems. But the world portrayed here is harder than the world Whit Stillman memorializes in his films (and in fact, IGBY's writer director, Burr Steers, played Van in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO). It's portrayed as one to escape, not relish.

Indeed, writer-director Steers comes from that world. He is the nephew of Gore Vidal (who has a cameo in the film) and the son of Nina Auchincloss, Vidal's half sister, who married Newton Steers, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and businessman, in the mid-'50s. Burr Steers was born in 1966. In his autobiography, Vidal talks at length about his hated mother Nina. Fred Kaplan, in his biography of Vidal, writers about Nina's daughter, nicknamed Nini, as "dark-haired, slight, flirtatious, eager to please, quick to anger, over-sensitive to slights, with more than a touch of her mother in her looks and in her personality. Nini was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she represented [to Vidal] the possibility of a sibling relationship, of meaningful family. On the other, she epitomized some of the unattractive burdens of family history."

Nini divorced Steers and then married—and divorced—diplomat Michael Straight. She apparently exasperated Vidal with her right wing politics, her chaotic private life, and her inability to finish a biography of Vidal's beloved grandfather, a US Senator.

A descendant of Aaron Burr, Steers has two brothers, Hugh and Ivan (comprising the triple dedicatees of one of Vidal's books), and is a scion of the Auchincloss family. He went into the movies instead of law or business and is, among other things, the FLOCK OF SEAGULLS guy in PULP FICTION and the writer of the recent comedy HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS.

Insufferable mothers seem to run in the Vidal family. The funny thing is, the horrific nature of the mom is more stated than realized. In fact, as you watch along you kind of wonder what the point of the movie actually is. Which isn't to suggest that it isn't enjoyable. The film has a great cast, some funny dialogue, and an unpredictable narrative. But one suspects that the material is of such a personal nature that Steers isn't aware that some of us aren't getting it. It captures a time and a place very well, but Igby isn't exactly the most pleasant character you've ever spent a couple of hours with: he's surly, moody, sarcastic, self-pitying, spoiled, and non-committal. Culkin, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Robert Downey, Jr., does a fine job with this dissipated, responsibility-fleeing jerk, but the viewer wants a bigger picture of what's going on here. The concern that seems to afflict Igby's life, besides mother hatred, seems to be a worry that he will go mad like his father. A final settling of paternity issues should allay his fears. But not the viewer's, who needs a little more guidance.

Insights into these matters fail to make their way into the audio commentary by director Steers and Kieran Culkin. Steers mostly talks about the production schedule and how people were to work with, while Culkin pipes up like a puppet occasionally to agree. Their chat is interesting as far as the making of the film goes, but we get little of the dishy background that may be hovering behind this story, and impact that the film may have had on Steers's life.

The same is true of "In Search of Igby," the disc's making of featurette. Nevertheless, it's one of the more interesting entries in this bastard genre. Goldblum is very charming in it (Steers was a student at Goldblum's acting school in Los Angeles, just as Sarandon is a longtime member of the Vidal rat pack) and the cast is surprisingly frank. And the feature actually shows the filmmakers filming, which is coming to be rare in this things.

There are also nine deleted or extended scenes that come to about 10 minutes worth of screen time. These scenes help the viewer to understand how important the film HOLIDAY, George Cukor's adaptation of Philip Barry's play about the idle rich, is to this script, how prone to lying Igby was from an early age, and how much more horrific the mother was meant to be than the final film allows her to be. In the optional director's commentary Steers provides some necessary background but also heartfelt regret about some of the cuts, especially a longer last scene with Goldblum.

Finally, there's a photo gallery of some 45 color production stills, and the theatrical trailer. The disc peters out with a bunch of trailers and ads for other MGM releases.

[Copyright 2002 by Metro-Goldwyn -Mayer, Inc.]

Thelma and Louise Go Down

THELMA AND LOUISE: SPECIAL EDITION

• Theatrical release: May 24 1991
  
• MGM Home Entertainment
  
• $24.98
  
• 129 minutes
  
• R
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 4, 2003

• Single disc
  
• Color
  
• Wide screen transfer (2.35:1) enhanced for wide screen televisions
  
• Animated musical menu with 32-chapter scene selection
  
• Double-sided dual-layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital English 5.1, French and Spanish 2.0
  
• English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles
  
• Close captioned
  
• Eight page insert
  
• Keep case, with cardboard slip box

• Cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Brad Pitt, Michael Madsen, Stephen Tobolowsky, Christopher McDonald
  
• Directed by Ridley Scott
  
• Credited writer: Callie Khouri
• Significant music: Hans Zimmer's influential, twangy country-inflected score

Plot in one sentence: Two working class ladies on a brief vacation end up on the run after one of them shoots a rapist.

Extras:

• Side One
• Audio commentary by director Ridley Scott
• Audio commentary by Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, and Callie Khouri
• Deleted Scenes: "Silver Bullet Getaway" (:48), "An Important Clue" (1:01), "First Motel" (4:54), "Talkin' 'bout Daryll" (2:13), "Police Sketches" (:31), "Smitten with J.D." (0:25), "Hal on the Case" (1:48), "Human Behavior" (:48), "Second Motel" (9:13), "Thelma and J.D." (6:19), "Hal at Home" (2:50), "Jimmy, J.D. and the Law" (2:49), "Fear of God" (1:38), "Looking for a Break" (1:13), "On the Road" (1:51), "Hot Pursuit" (2:50)
• Extended ending with different music and optional director commentary (3:39)
• Side Two
• "Thelma & Louise: The Last Journey," six chapter retrospective featurette (59:31)
• Original "making of" featurette with optional promotional narration (5:20)
• Two multi-angle storyboards
• Twelve photo galleries
• Original theatrical trailer, full frame (2:00)
• Home video preview, full frame (6:50)
• HANNIBAL DVD trailer, wide screen (2:19)
• TV spots: "Wanted" (:60), "Call of the Wild (:30), and "TV Promo Spot" (:30)
• "Part of You, Part of Me" music video (4:26)

THELMA & LOUISE is almost more of a sociological event, a rallying cry, an excuse for pundits to excoriate the decline of western civilization than it is a movie. But to see it again after a long hiatus to be reminded of how funny it is (especially Christopher McDonald as Thelma's husband Darryl), how beautifully shot it is (by Adrian Biddle), and how evocative the music is (by Ridley Scott regular Hans Zimmer).

So having the film on DVD in a handsome package and a wealth of supplements. I've never seen the laser disc version or the previous DVD edition, which came out in 1997 (making it one of the early DVD releases), but this one must look better. For one thing it's a dual layered disc, unlike the earlier release. The box does not indicate whether this is a new transfer, but I assume it is and it looked fine to me, with only the merest whisper of a scratch or piece of dirt, though I am just a regular old movie fan, not a technological expert. The sound quality was fine too, especially in the opening saloon scene and in various outdoor moments that include explosions.

There is still a legacy of previous versions on this disc, however. The audio commentary track by director Ridley Scott is from the past. Its audio quality is different, and he feels the need to introduce himself with a summary of his career (you can actually hear him shuffling the paperwork he in consulting). I'm guessing that it is from the laser disc, and if so it's good to have it revived. Recorded closer to the actual making of the film, the track has details that are clearer in Scott's mind (though he does tell some of the same tales as those on the making of feature).

New to the disc is a yak track with Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, and writer Callie Khouri. This is a very funny and entertaining commentary. Sarandon is rather matronly, while Davis comes across like an acolyte of the THELMA & LOUISE cult. She knows the film thoroughly, and gets off on it. She was even aware that there was a gathering at the Grand Canyon by female fans of the film a couple of years ago, for the film's 10th anniversary. At one point Davis even suggests that she and Sarandon should drive around in a convertible and see if anyone notices.

Davis actually has a Thelma-ish stance of heroine worship toward Sarandon, which the elder actress enjoys serenely. This is fine, but strikes me as a little odd, as her character is the one that changes the most (it's also charming how the girls transition through the film from gawd-awful mall clothes to rugged t-shirts and jeans) and in my humble opinion Davis puts forward much the better job of true acting than Sarandon. I especially love the short scene where Davis's Thelma talks about "crossing a line" in her mind. The mixture of wonder, realization, and fear on her face is priceless. Davis does a superb job.

There are numerous deleted scenes, which the viewer can watch all at once (with an optional graphic that announces deleted from undeleted footage in extended scenes), or one at a time (individually there are screen graphics that explain the background of the cuts). There isn't all that much to get excited about, though it is fun to have more bits of the movie to view. This feature provides more footage of Brad Pitt, but also more footage of Harvey Keitel, one of them comical (showing him diligently trying to navigate through a yard of sprinklers) and one of them touching, in bed with his wife (the otherwise invisible Catherine Keener), in which he asks her if she would find it possible to shoot someone. You also see a lot more of Michael Madsen (what a great cast this movie had!). On the other hand, you can also see why some of the Thelma and Louise moments were cut, as the performances weren't as up to same level as the rest of the movie.

Also inherited from the laser disc is an extended ending with different music and an optional director commentary. Basically, it shows the car falling into the canyon, and makes it clear that the girls are dead, though in the very last shot, you see them driving down the road (a continuation of the film's lengthy opening shot).

Another new feature starts off the second side of this double sided disc: "Thelma & Louise: The Last Journey" an hour long retrospective documentary whose title comes from remarks Scott has made about the film, that the whole movie is Thelma and Louise's last journey. MGM has a knack for this kind of feature (a similar retrospective on MGM's THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS disc) and this one doesn't disappoint. It's thorough, helpful, and packed with unexpected statements. To mention only one, Stephen Tobolowsky notes that the film is really a tragedy, and he is amazed when women come up to him and express admiration for what Thelma and Louise do because to him they are raped, robbed, hunted, and finally drive off a cliff.

Right after this is the original "making of" featurette (with optional promotional narration). Much of its on set images are cannibalized for the longer, newer doc, but at one point Davis says how much she enjoys the action film angle of making THELMA & LOUISE and how much she would like to keep making that kind of movie. Davis was to live up to this wish by starring in her then husband's THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, surely one of the most underrated action films of the '90s.

That's the bulk of the supplements. The rest of it — two multi-angle storyboards, 12 photo galleries, the original theatrical trailer, a home video preview, a HANNIBAL DVD release trailer, three TV spots, and the Glenn Frey "Part of You, Part of Me" music video for the movie — is nice to have on the disc but not substantial enough to tarry over more than once, if that.

THELMA & LOUISE is a great film, and today the aspects that seemed off-putting, such as the parody of a sexist pig whose oil truck the girls blow up, feel less problematic today. The supplementary material also makes clear what a collaborative effort the whole thing proved to be, and for example the oil truck scene would have been worse, we learn, if Sarandon hadn't insisted on some changes.

Beauty Sleep

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

• Theatrical release: October 29, 1946
  
• The Criterion Collection
  
• $39.95
  
• 93 minutes
  
• NR
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 11, 2002

• Single disc
  
• Black and white and color
  
• Full frame (1.33:1) transfer
  
• Animated, musical menu with 19-chapter scene selection
  
• Single sided, dual layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital mono, with Glass's opera remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1
  
• English subtitles
  
• Keep case

• Cast: Jean Marais, Josette Day
  
• Directed by Jean Cocteau
  
• Credited writers: Jean Cocteau, from Mme. Leprince de Beaumont's fairy tale

Plot in one sentence: Fairy tales in which a cursed aristocrat transformed into a beast falls for the self-sacrificing daughter of a merchant.

Extras:

• Audio Commentary by Arthur Knight, recorded for the Criterion laser disc in 1991
• Audio Commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling, recorded for the BFI disc in 2001
• Opera version by Philip Glass, with 10 screen intro by the composer.
• "Screening at the Majestic": short film by Yves Kovacs about the making of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (26:48)
• Interview with cinematographer Henri Alekan broadcast on Luxembourg television in 1995 (9:13)
• Excerpts from French TV show Secrets Professionnels: Tête à Tête: interviews with Hagop Arakelian, make up artist, broadcast on March 12, 1964 (8:47)
• Theatrical trailer (4:03)
• Restoration trailer (1:56)
• Film restoration featurette in French, from 1995 made for Luxumbourg television (4:06)
• Stills gallery of portraits by G. R. Aldo, and poster art (155 screens)
• 32 page insert with: chapter list, cast and credits, press kit essay by Cocteau, excerpt from Francis Steegmuller's bio of Cocteau, the source story by Mme. Leprince de Beaumont derived from Cocteau's DIARY OF A FILM, restoration and transfer details, and DVD credits
  

One of the most filmed stories in cinema history, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST probably reached its apotheosis in Jean Cocteau's post-war version. It doesn't have the catchy songs of Disney's later animated adaptation, but it does have a magical realism that is doubly astounding for being done all in camera (like Coppola's version of DRACULA). Received opinion dubs the film a masterpiece. It is heralded as one of the greatest of all time, is on every institution's list of must sees, and has had several books written about it, including one by the director himself, a film diary in which he recounts his thinking about the project and the impediments on his path to realizing it.

So why does it bore me so much? It must be a matter of taste, but the film puts me to sleep. I guess I resist "timeless" classics. Personally, I don't go for the puffy shirts and the heavily brocaded gowns. I don't care about fairy tales and living statues and ultra baroque set design. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is set in a world in which doors open automatically like in STAR TREK and evil sisters plot your demise. I know there is a depth to the film and a codified array of symbols such as roses and arrows that I'm not getting, and I eagerly await the BFI Film Classics monograph to set me straight. Until then, the new Criterion Collection DVD will satisfy the film's apparent legion of fans.

This is a restored version of the film, with new prints made from reconstructed positives and then with both the image and sound digitally cleaned up (a short featurette in French walks the viewer through the process). Restorers are not magicians, however, and flaws remain. For example, there is a jump or missing frames at 17:20 and a few other anomalies, but they shouldn't distract fans of the film.

There are no less than two audio commentary tracks. The first is by film historian and co-author of THE LIVLIEST ART, Arthur Knight, recorded for the Criterion laser disc BACK in 1991. He is informed and informative, and sounds an awful lot like Donald Richie, who did a track for RASHOMON. The next one is newer, and done by Sir Christopher Frayling, author of a bio about Sergio Leone, recorded for a BFI disc released in 2001. Frayling is very good on the film's production history, and comparisons between the film and the source story. He is an unusually enthusiastic academic. "Every frame looks like a strange little symbolist painting" he gushes around 55:09. A lagniappe is the opera score to the film by Philip Glass. If you choose that feature, you get the film, accompanied by Glass's evocative music and the dialogue sung by modern opera performers and keyed to match the lip movements of the screen actors. It's an interesting trick, but you don’t actually have to watch the film while listening to it. The music is preceded by 10 screen's worth of intro by the composer, who explains his background and his interest in the project.

After that there are three significant documentaries that celebrate the film. Yves Kovacs 's "Screening at the Majestic" gathers the remaining cast and crew to talk about it, and photographs some of them at the actual locations. This is a very charming featurette, if for no other reason than to see star Jean Marais actually age into a real-life manifestation of the Beast. There is also an interview with cinematographer Henri Alekan done for Luxembourg television in 1995 (in which he sits at an anchor desk with his interlocutor), and some excerpts from a French TV show interview with Hagop Arakelian, the make up artist (originally broadcast in 1964).

There's also the original theatrical trailer and the trailer for the recent restoration release, a mammoth stills gallery of lush portraits (155 screens worth) by G. R. Aldo, who had worked for Orson Welles and other filmmakers, along with some poster art. More tactile is the 32-page insert, which contains the chapter list, cast and credits, an essay by Cocteau that appeared in the original press kit, a relevant excerpt from Francis Steegmuller's bio of Cocteau, a translation of the original fairy tale by Mme. Leprince de Beaumont, derived from Cocteau's DIARY OF A FILM, and finally restoration and transfer details, and DVD credits.

NEXT TIME: FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, LIVING IN OBLIVION, MR. MAJESTYK, SCHOOL DAZE, FOUR FEATHERS, THE KILLERS, and more!

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