Kind Hearts and Coronets (The Criterion Collection, No. 325, 1949, 106 minutes, black and white, NR, full frame, DD mono in English with English subtitles, static musical menu with 19-chapter scene selection, 16-page insert with chapter titles, transfer info, pix, credits, and essay by Philip Kemp, keep case, two discs, $39.95, released on Tuesday, February 28, 2006) could be used in evidence of this thesis. From its very first minutes it is about performance, adopting roles, acting. It is the perfect actor's movie. It celebrates performance, and has the icy kind of morbid humor that one finds among cynical professionals whose careers teeter on the fickle luck of public acceptance.

Released in 1949, Kind Hearts and Coronets (the title comes from Tennyson) is an Ealing comedy, which is like a brand name among film buffs, except that it's not funny in the conventional sense — but then, few Ealings were, since it is a studio that really had its roots in a sort of pre-kitchen sink realism. Here, you don't rock with laughter. You nod with pleased absorption of the intricate wit of the project (as opposed to comedy). Directed by Robert Hamer and co-written by him and John Dighton and derived loosely from an Edwardian novel by Robert Horniman, it's one of those Firbankian or Wildean type tales that celebrates style for its own sake, or, in another interpretation, comments on style itself as a lifestyle. For a much more detailed review of the film Michael Newton's BFI Film Classics book on it (88 pages, $13.95, ISBN 0 85170 964 8), which probably tells you all you need to know about the film (it should have been included in the box).

The soft-spoken, curly haired Dennis Price plays Louis Mazzini (like so much else in the movie, Newton explains why the main character might have an Italian last name and heritage). The distant but excluded heir of the D'Ascoyne title, Mazzini sets out to revenge himself on the family for perceived slights to the body and memory of his mother, who was refused burial in the fabled D'Ascoyne crypt. By methodically killing off the eight D'Ascoyne's, all played by Alec Guinness, between him and the title, Mazzini can not only revenge his mother but finally find a place for himself in society.

The film begins with an executioner coming to perform his dark art on Mazzini, who by this point has been utterly successful in his plot, but who, in a twist out of Cornell Woolrich, ends up convicted for the one murder he didn't commit. How does one address a Duke?, the executioner asks the prison warden, amusingly focused on the proprieties while missing the irony of the overall. "Your Grace," is the answer, and the executioner proceeds to wander down the hallway, rehearsing the phrase "Your Grace" and its accompanying little bows.

From then on the rest of Kind Hearts and Coronets is about performance. It's like a lengthy dramatized illustration for an Erving Goffman book. Each of the characters is not just a person but a performance, especially from the two opposed women in Mazzini 's life, Sibella (Joan Greenwood, she of that feline voice), a childhood chum with whom he has a long term sexual liaison despite her marriage to someone else, and Edith (Valerie Hobson), the very proper and no-nonsense widow of one of his early victims.

Guinness plays numerous characters, each of whom is himself (or herself) wresting with roles in society of one kind or another. Mazzini himself poses as various thigns. And his relationship with Sibella is one of two cynical people on the make who recognize each other for it with admitting it and are really suitable for no one else, like Eve and Addison DeWitt.

Criterion excels at coverage of just this kind of film, a landmark little seen today but whose title is instantly recognizable and which older collector types want to own. Here, disc one has what is advertised as a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, and the disc also features the American ending, which reassures the audience that Mazzini will pay for his crimes. It also features the original theatrical trailer, and has a image gallery.

Disc 2 has but two supplements. The first is a lengthy BBC documentary about the history of Ealing Studios with ample interviews with then-living participants such as Charles Crichton and Googie Withers, and archival footage of the studio's founder, Michael Balcon. Though it doesn't supercede Charles Barr's excellent book on the studio (or Raymond Durgnat's insights into its product), the doc does offer numerous mouthwatering clips from now-hard-to-see films.

The second supplement is a 70-minute interview with Alec Guinness from 1977 — post Star Wars but just pre-Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy from the show Patterson. The interviewer walks the reticent Guinness through his life, gets his views on directors and actors, as well as the whole Star Wars thing. This is all fine but the inclusion of the Guinness interview perpetuates the notion that Kind Hearts and Coronets is somehow about him and his characters, rather than Price and his vengeance.

When She Spies (MGM, 2002, 900 minutes, color, NR, full frame, DD stereo and mono in English with English subtitles, static musical menu with 7-chapters per episode, card case with individual folder cases, four disc, $39.95, released on Tuesday, March 14, 2006) arrived in the mail I wasn't sure what to make of it. I hadn't heard of the show; never seen it; and was familiar only with its main star, Natasha Henstridge. I was guessing that it was a bit of a Charlie's Angels knock off, with some VIP thrown in.

In fact, it turned out to be, at least in its first season, a funny, well-written series, more Sledge Hammer than Alias.

The premise is easy to summarize. Three women from the dark side of the law, Cassie (Natasha Henstridge), a con artist with "daddy" issues, naive computer whiz D.D. (Kristin Miller), and the combative Shane (Natashia Williams) are collected Femme Nikita-style for the proactive arm of a secret government agency called the Bureau of Allied Intelligence Tactics (or B.A.I.T. for short and for no purpose). Their handler is Jack Wilde (Carlos Jacott from Kicking and Screaming). The show was created by Vince Manze (his only series creation thus far), along with, if the credits are accurate, three other people. She Spies made its debut on NBC on July 20, 2002 for four weeks before ending up in syndication for two years before its ultimate cancellation.

The main impulse of the show is to send up the genre, whatever one wants to call it — action chicks, ball busters, or tough girls — while also indulging good naturedly in the elements that make the genre watchable in the first place, which is attractive ladies in nice clothes being shown to their best advantage in seduction and fight scenes. In the show's first hour the trio come across their mirror image on a movie set, and engage in some genre busting critical banter with the three girls who are in a show that sounds like She Spies. They talk about McCluanesque exploitation of the media, and sanctioned exploitation, like a harsh critic of the show. Jump cuts elide boring parts and exposition scenes are labeled just that. The Universal tour is both mocked and advertised at the same time. The second episode features an elaborate parody of Eyes Wide Shut. It's knowing stuff and at least as worthy of Police Square if not Buffy> I enjoyed it all quite a bit despite the fact that the show has that fuzzy look that suggests it was shot on video, and the general poverty of location and set, especially as the season goes along. Without the imprimatur of NBC, things got a little dicey.

There are no extras on the set. Disc 1 features "First Episode," "The Martini Shot," "Poster Girl," "Daddy's Girl," and "Fondles." Disc 2 equals "Ice Man," "Three Women and a Baby," "Trap," "Spies vs. Spy," and "Perilyzed." Disc 3 "Betrayal," "The Girl With the Broken Heart," "You Don't Know Jack," "First Date," "While You Were Out And disc 4 "Daze of the Future Past," "The Replacement," "Damsels in De-Stress," "Learning to Fly," and "We'll Be Right Back."

D. K. Holm's 2006 Film Diary (Otherwise Known as a Blog)

Friday, 10 March, 2006

On Wednesday, I watched the premiere of The Unit because Shawn Ryan of The Shield is involved, though I didn't know that it was really a David Mamet project. On the one hand it appeared to be uniform TV stuff. I don't think that Ryan is suited to regular network, though the show fits into the CBS palette of right wing military and crime shows. On the other hand, there was something rather gripping about the pilot. It may have had to do with the emphasis on the women at home which, if nothing else, is designed to attract women to a man's show. But there was something horribly Stepford about the established women as they browbeat the newcomer into the cult of secrecy and its numerous rules. The final montage (series TV does montages very well these days, probably because they are edited and scored like commercials) was especially effective.

Then on Friday, I watched the premiere of Conviction, the new Law and Order show and it ends with a scene that is exactly like the last scene of The Unit, which itself harks back to the first episode of Hill Street Blues: a reveal in which two unlikely people are revealed to be sleeping with each other.

Conviction, by the way, is Dick Wolf's foray into the soap opera potentia of his catalog. It's created perhaps under the influence of Gray's Anatomy. Call it Black's Anatomy, if you will. Long time viewers of the first L&O will recall that the flagship show got very soap opera like in its fourth or fifth season before dropping all that to go back to the "ripped from the headlines" format that had made the show a success in the first place. Conviction (not to be confused with the terrific British mini series from 2004) rotates interesting or perplexing cases of legal cruxes with ongoing soap opera romances among its set of disctirct attornys, including a tough minded chick, a nerdy neophyte, and a male slut, all figures who have their equivalent in Gray's. Sunday, 12 March, 2006

All's right with the world. The Sopranos are back on the air, at least for the next 10 weeks, with an additional and "final" 6 in January. Personally I thought the episode started off the series strongly. At its strongest, David Chase's series is dense, allusive, complex, elliptical, and ambitious, and this first hour seemed all those things to me, from its complex montage overture set to a recitation by William S. Burroughs, to its surprise ending (and nervous-making lack of "next week on …"). A friend of mine theorizes that the season really begins the following Sunday, with Tony, perhaps in a coma, flashing back and dreaming the contents of season six and filling in the gaps between the end of season five and now, which would give the filmmakers a chance to begin again with the traditional season opening moment chronicling in manifold ways Tony's relationship with the New Jersey Star-Ledger at the end of his driveway.

On Oscar night, after the Oscar party was over, we stragglers watched the very first episode of The Sopranos again. It was amazing to see how different the show was at the beginning, while still being recognizably The Sopranos. The first episode was funnier, and a lot more jagged.

Sunday, 12 March, 2006

In the first few minutes it looked like my friend's theory about the season might be true: Tony wakes up somewhere. But it isn't our Tony; it is a Tony in a Bizarro world where is a weak shlub like everybody else, leading a Death of a Salesman life, and married to Charmaine rather than Carmella. The episode seemed to let a lot of air out of the series, and Tony stays in his coma in next week's episode, too, as various machinations go on around him.

But speaking of coincidences again, both this episode of The Sopranos and the earlier episode of West Week both hinge on a mislaid briefcase. That reminds me that there are at least two movies out on the theme of grown children staying at home (Lonesome Jim, Failure to Launch), and at least one TV series (Free Ride on Fox). Further, there are a bunch of TV commercials on the subject, including the old Taco Bell ads, plus a new one for KFC. What is on America's mind, here? It's curious that TV parents are shown eager to shed themselves of their kids, when in a few short years these same theoretical parents will probably need those kids around as their income, health, and means fail.

And incidentally, if you are interested in KILL BILL, you might find my new book, KILL BILL: AN UNOFFICIAL CASEBOOK useful. It is now available in fine bookstores everywhere, or from Amazon.

Not only that, I've got a new book out on an aspect of film noir I call film soleil, titled simply FILM SOLEIL. It is sure to alter film criticism as we know it to its very core. Order it now!

And if you are interested in what I sound like, I can be heard on KBOO radio (90.7 FM) the second and the fourth Wednesday of the month, at 9 AM in the morning (Pacific Standard Time) on Ed Goldberg's show MOVIE TALK along with Dawn Taylor. It's available via streaming audio (in 20 Kbps Stereo). The next broadcast is Wednesday, March 22, at 9 AM, with the critics' ten best lists.

COMING SOON: Oscar winners on DVD, a package of Hitchcock movies and TV shows, REMINGTON STEEL and other TV mystery shows, many STAR TREKS, the third annual DVD Tray of Horror, and more!

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