Reviews

The ninth episode in the Fast & the Furious stream of action flicks takes our crew of car thieves-turned-government-heroes into space. Seriously. Your ability to appreciate the film depends on how you read that first sentence. It’s either a recognition that when you jump sharks, you keep looking for the next shark to jump, or you call it quits and go after a different target. (Word on the street is that Vin Diesel wants the next film to involve time travel. Is that Back to the Fast Future?)

Old problems and family issues rise up in F9, as Dom Torretto (Diesel) discovers that his estranged brother Jakob (John Cena) is mixed up with Cipher (Scarlett Johansson), who is back to cause trouble for our heroes. First, she crashes Mr. Nobody’s (Kurt Russell) plane, and then sends Jakob to recover some black ops tech that the team acquires. Han (Sung Kang) isn’t dead. Queenie Shaw (Helen Mirren) gets involved. And did I mention they go to space? To stop a massive satellite that Cipher’s sidekick (Thue Ersted Rasmussen) sends up to hack worldwide computer systems? The stakes have never been higher!

The film has its spectacular moments, with fistfights on tanks and crazy electromagnets, but it’s still the witty dialogue that really draws the audience in. The melodrama aspects are so soapy that they’re almost funny, whether they’re intended to be or not, but the action is top-notch stunt-oriented, to the point where it seems like Furious and Mission Impossible are trying to settle a neighborhood bet about who can outdo whom.

With the theatrical and extended cuts, Universal has released the Blu-ray that includes a gag reel, commentary from Justin Lin (director, co-writer, producer), a look at John Cena’s love for supercars, and featurettes like “Practically Fast,” “Shifting Priorities,” and “Justice for Han.” With the tongue-in-cheek and laugh outloud, it’s begging for Universal to take the meme and make it reality: “Fast 10: Your Seatbelts.” (Right before Doc shows up driving the DeLorean.)

C’mon, guys, it could totally work!

Mare of Easttown was an unexpected gem, first telecast on HBO Max and now available via DVD. Over seven episodes, Kate Winslet’s detective Mare Sheehan navigates the troubling world of her hometown, where she once starred on the basketball court for her high school, and now lives in a tenuous web of family and relationships. When a young girl is murdered, just a year after another teenager disappeared, Sheehan’s grief over the loss of her son and her alcoholic self-medication threaten to derail her career, and crush what remains of her life. With Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Guy Pearce, and Evan Peters, Winslet turned in a performance that helped the show net sixteen Emmy nominations, and win four. Winslet provides terrific soul in revealing gradually all of the layers of humanity, motherhood, addict, and detective in a searing performance that makes for must-watch television. While lacking in special features, the DVD delivers the complete, gritty arc over seven episodes, for fans of True Detective and other “complete” mystery storylines.

In its final season, Scott Bakula’s SAC “King” Pride fights for sixteen episodes to clean up crime on NCIS: New Orleans, a NCIS-spinoff that ran for seven seasons on CBS. In a season that touched on the impact of COVID-19 and wrapped up the arc started in season one involving Callie Thorne’s criminal Sasha Broussard, fans are treated to a completion of the story begun when NCIS included a two-episode introduction during the eleventh season of the original in 2014. On the DVD, special features include “Season 7: Pride and Joy,” “The Best of Times,” and “Perfect Pair,” to accompany the action of Pride’s crew takes against those who threaten the peaceful, easy feeling of The Big Easy.

Just in time for the fifth season, Seal Team Season Four arrives on DVD with all of the David Boreanaz that audiences are hoping for. When Boreanaz left Bones to become the leader of the Bravo team, Jason Hayes, audiences tuned in to see what would happen, and the squad including Neil Brown Jr., A.J. Buckley, and Max Theriot have not disappointed. While previous seasons took a longer look at Brown’s Ray Perry, this one gives more insight into the lives of Spenser and Quinn when they’re not out on a mission. Audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a trio of special features (“Brothers in Arms,” “Meeting of the Minds,” and “If You Build It”) highlight the DVD, while Boreanaz writes an episode in addition to the one he directs.

Based on Anthony Burgess’ novel, Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange dives into a satirical (murderous) discourse on the nature of humanity and free will. Along the way, it’ll question where a person can be forced to be good or if goodness can only be determined by the actions a person makes on their own. It’s a troubling display, with a depth of potential if audiences are willing to wade into the grime covering leading man Malcolm McDowell’s Alex DeLarge.

Between Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove on one side, and The Shining and Full Metal Jacket on the other, Kubrick delivered this controversial piece of cinema in 1971. It’s a dystopian drama that’s as disturbing as Mad Max but that lacks the hope of The Book of Eli. (In fact, one of the author’s issues with the film is that the final chapter, one that established some hope of the future, was left out of American versions of the novel and Kubrick’s film.)

Now, on this ultra clear version of the film, McDowell and historian Nick Redman provide commentary, while special features like “Turning the Clockwork,” “Still Tickin,'” and others provide more insight into the making of the film and how it has been received over time. It’s considered a work of art for Kubrick’s eye behind the camera, but what are the actual lessons one can take away from this pessimistic look at the world and the way that humanity is headed?

It’s… hard to say.

From a Christian perspective, and Burgess considered himself a lapsed Catholic, it’s a film that seems to highlight how evil the inclinations of the human heart are. While DeLarge is put through conversion therapy later on in the film, it doesn’t actually cure him of his violent inclinations. He’s not a good person, but he seems to actually enjoy the evil he commits. No matter what he’s exposed to, he dives in deeper, drawing pleasure from the trouble he causes. Forcefully trying to break him of the violence (and alternatively using the violence), the government seems to be of two minds about the need for violence, making the conversion more about utilitarian means than actual social morality.

The overall vibe is creepy, and tragic. We vacillate between physically recoiling from DeLarge, and feeling sorry for him. He’s a warning about tomorrow’s youth, stuck between what could be and what is, what young people are told and what they’re pointed toward. This is especially true when we consider the way violence in wartime works, or the expectations on one level for law enforcement push into conflict, or on a smaller level the approach we have toward sports and competition. In the end, it’s not abundantly clear as we survey the violent world we live in that Burgess and Kubrick haven’t told a story that in its own way has come true.

Before he was helming The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, or The Outsiders, Francis Ford Coppola began his directing career with a Psycho knock-off commissioned by Roger Corman with funds left over from Corman’s The Young Racers. The end result is a black-and-white film that shows the worst in human behavior, and grounds the story in human greed.

The film ultimately helped Coppola move forward from his role as a sound technician for Corman, and the Blu-ray from Lionsgate allows the audience to hear from the director by way of introduction and audio commentary. Film fans, and fans of Coppola’s later work, will find some value in examining the film, but the convoluted scripting and subpar acting won’t cover up that the quality is clearly an early attempt at filmmaking by a director who was still figuring out his methods.

Luana Anders’ Louise Haloran is the character who drives the drama, straight into a horrific family situation full of deception and dastardly double-crossing. Haloran’s husband dies of a heart attack, and knowing that she’ll never inherit from her husband’s rich family, she fakes the family into believing that he’s still alive and away for work. She begins to wind her way into the family’s good graces, and plays on the matriarch’s (Eithne Dunn) grief over losing her only daughter in a drowning accident on the property. As Haloran moves her plans forward, a new violence enters the picture as a shadowy figure who begins a murdering spree.

Like an Alfred Hitchcock film, Dementia 13 keeps the audience guessing, but it never quite garners enough attention to captivate like the subjects it tries to emulate. In the end, it serves as a reminder that greed doesn’t pay, and that deception breeds more deception – until the end result is tragedy for everyone.