drive

Whatever ideas you have about DRIVE, I can almost guarantee you won’t get the film you’re expecting. Sure, the synopsis sounds like a typical genre action pic: mechanic / stunt man Ryan Gosling, who moonlights as a getaway driver, takes on a job to help out his next door neighbor (Carey Mulligan). When said job goes bad, Gosling and the girl come under fire from some angry underworld types (Ron Perlman, Albert Brooks) who want to cover their tracks.

But director Nicolas Winding Refn doesn’t ever let his movie take the predictable route…for good or bad. From the opening hot pink ‘80s font and corny keyboard score, to the jarring moments of extreme violence, right down to refusing to give his lead character a first or last name; DRIVE is essentially a big middle finger to the Hollywood establishment. And that fits right in with Gosling’s post-Notebook career, which seems to be equal amounts Marlon Brando eccentricity and Steve McQueen cool. Gosling has a chip on his shoulder, and the film lets him play in the action film environment without losing his “serious actor” cache. Drive’s stripped down simplicity will either bore and annoy you….or fascinate like a shiny new paint job on a beat up Buick. Extras on Blu-ray include several featurettes and a profile of the director.

It’s hard to talk about Rapture without talking about the company who’s releasing it on home video for the first time…and on Blu-ray no less. Twilight Time uses a business model that might just be the future of studio catalog releases, purchasing the rights to niche films and limiting production to 3000 units. So far, the company’s library consists of a few potential sell-outs (Fright Night and Mysterious Island) and many more that will only interest classic curiosity seekers and aficionados who’ve been hunting down a particular title since its original run. But much like the Criterion Collection, there’s something appealing about putting your faith in someone else’s eccentric tastes.

It’s easy to see why Rapture, directed by John Guillermin (perhaps best known to genre fans as the director of 1976’s King Kong remake), fell between the cinematic cracks. On the surface it has all the trappings of a Bergman film: isolated setting, small cast of characters, and copious amounts of sexual tension and mental illness threatening to erupt on a moment’s notice. Even the plot, which follows the emotional mood swings of an unbalanced young girl (Patricia Gozzi) whose sheltered life becomes much more interesting with the arrival of a wayward criminal (Dean Stockwell of Quantum Leap fame), plays like a combination of The Silence and Persona. While Guillerman’s film can’t match their impact, it’s more audience accessible than either of them. And it’s certainly beautiful to look at in high definition, sporting fantastic B & W seascapes that set a unique mood of windblown desolation and great performance across the board. In keeping with the targeted collector’s market, the disc also comes with an isolated score track

It’s become somewhat hip to praise the prolific output of producer Roger Corman these days. But assigning too much creative weight to films like The Arena, with Pam Grier as an Amazonian gladiator in a toga that can barely contain her…uh, assets, sort of takes the fun out of them. I suspect that Roger, even though he loves the delayed critical respect, has to be shaking his head at some of his work being labeled a “classic.”

Shout Factory’s Lethal Ladies 2 Collection gathers three more exploitation quickies that follow the Corman formula: boobs and blood…with a side-order of more boobs. The aforementioned The Arena is the best of the lot, with Grier as part of an all-girl gladiator gang forced to kill (or die) for Roman amusement. But an uprising is in the offing, and soon the fake blood is flowing as the ladies fight their way to freedom. Although the synopsis suggests something ambitious, The Arena gets by on tight camera angles and a cast of about 20 drunken extras. I’m pretty sure I saw the same solider die 5 times in different costumes. But that’s part of the Roger Corman charm. And it’s hard to deny Pam Grier’s charisma, even if your eyes aren’t always on her face.

The other two titles, Fly Me and Cover Girl Models, are really for Corman completists only. Although I should point out none of these were actually directed by Corman himself, who at this point in his career had delegated most of the work to his regulars, including editor Joe Dante (Gremlins). The tag line “See stewardesses battle kung-fu killers!” is all kinds of brilliant, but don’t expect the films to deliver much more than flat-chested thrills and weak fight choreography. That doesn’t make the triple feature DVD any less appreciated. Shout Factory even went above and beyond to include a commentary and featurette for The Arena and hilarious trailers and TV spots for the other films. Just knowing that someone went to the trouble to create solid anamorphic transfers for movies most people couldn’t see through their fogged up windshields, kind of puts a lump in my throat.