Tagged: film

Review: “Wreck-It Ralph” needs no hint book to unlock its fun

The Kid would never forgive if I used any other poster…

Wreck-It Ralph is very much of a new breed of Disney animation, showing both the freshness of new blood in the company, and a new attention to story with Pixar’s John Lasseter now holding court as the New Walt at the company.  Directed by Rich Moore (The Simpsons) and written by Moore, other Simpsons alum Jim Reardon, the film takes ideas from Toy Story, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Saturday Morning cult favorite Reboot.  The world inside videogames is alive; after hours they visit each other, attend parties and if their games were unplugged, roam the halls of Game Central Station begging for spare fruits and power-ups.

Wreck-it Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the antagonist of classic videogame Fix It Felix Jr., the titular hero voiced by Jack McBrayer.  After thirty years of being the bad guy, he examines his life and finds it lacking.  He attends the 30th anniversary party for the game at Felix’s penthouse apartment, and is made clear he is not welcome by the denizens of the apartment house whose job is his to demolish hundreds of times daily.  He attempts to show that he wants to be a good guy, and is told that he is a bad guy, will remain a bad guy, and that he must “go with the program”.  He embarks on a quest to “become a hero”, which he believes will bring him the love (or at least the penthouse apartment) of the people of his game.  He plans to “game jump” into another videogame, where he can take the role of good guy and achieve his dream.  His choice, the new sci-fi shoot-em-up Hero’s Duty, spearheaded by the gruff and buxom Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch).  He makes it to the climax of the game, and earns a “hero” medal, but his ingrained predilection to destroy sends things into a shamble quickly, launching him screaming into the super-sweet cart-racer Sugar Rush, with a cy-bug, one of the baddies from Duty in tow.  He meets Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), a bit of glitch code from the game who, like Ralph, wants to better herself and prove she can be a hero.  But according to the ruler of the land, King Kandy (Alan Tudyk), there may be a real danger if Vanellope lives out her dream.  And all along, the Cy-Bug from Hero’s Duty is multiplying into peppermint-striped hordes under the taffy swamps and rock-candy mountains.

The film takes a unique take from the first scene – Ralph is clearly portrayed as the bad guy, but not all that bad.  But in addition, like in many of the Farrelly Brothers comedies, he’s given a reasonable motivation for his unpleasantness.  According to the games opening cut scene, he was ejected from his home (a stump in the forest) in order to build the residential edifice at which he daily expresses his dissatisfaction.  The theme of the film is clearly about the upsides and downsides trying to be more than you were literally created to be – Ralph’s desire is honest, but like Vanellope’s, runs the risk of hurting many others.  The ecology of the game world has a bit of an edge as well – the idea of homeless videogame characters gets a laugh, but it’s an uncomfortable laugh for the parents.

You’ve already heard about the cameos.  Like the aforementioned Roger Rabbit, the film had gained great buzz by arranging cameos from scads of classic videogames and characters, including the combatants from Street Fighter, the cast of Pac-Man, and, The Kid’s personal favorite, Sonic The Hedgehog. Lesser-known games like Burger Time and Tapper make an appearance, the latter being the popular after-hours hang-out of the gaming world.  Like the appearance of actual toys in Toy Story, they give the world a sense of verisimilitude and realism, as well as provide for plugs of lots of classic games. Not to mention a few new ones.  As part of Sonic’s appearance, Ralph will be appearing in Sonic’s new game, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.  Even the legendary Konami Super-Code appears in the game.  No child of the 80s can sit through those scenes of Dig-Dug diving into the floor of the game station without being gobsmacked by nostalgia.

But in addition to the cameos the Disney creators do a great job of creating games that have the real look and feel of real games from various gaming eras.  Fix-It Felix Jr. is a game in the Donkey Kong / Crazy Climber mold, and and first look, it looks fun enough to want to play for real (and you can, at the film’s website, as well as Hero’s Duty and Sugar Rush). Hero’s Duty is a parody of modern first-person shooters like Halo, and Calhoun is clearly a kissing cousin of “Fem-Shep” from Mass Effect.  Sugar Rush also parodies the recent tactic of product placements in video games, by having actual product placements.  Felix and Calhoun almost meet their end in Nestle Quik-sand, are saved by Laffy Taffy, and while the boiling “diet cola” lake may be generic, the stalactites of Mentos above it are decidedly not.

The quality of the film can be best explained by an error of The Wife’s – when she saw the level of humor and clearly rich plot, she mistakenly assumed it was a Pixar release.  High praise indeed, and praise that Disney has worked hard to obtain.  The last few Disney releases have been quite a step up from a recent period of repetition, and that’s a good thing.

REVIEW: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

REVIEW: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Pride, Prejudice and Zombies was a quirky, fun mash-up of genres that sparked a brief fad of similar works. Of the rushed releases to fight for shelf space, about the only worth successor was Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  This is early Abe; pre-White House, when the rail splitter used his axe in imaginative ways, keeping the frontier safe from the undead. Given the nation’s continuing fascination with Honest Abe, it was tailor made for Hollywood.

This summer, we got director Timur Bekmambetov’s interpretation and thanks to a script from Grahame-Smith, the finished product is pretty much what you expect: atmospheric popcorn fun. While attention has returned to the more somber Abe with Steve Spielberg’s forthcoming Lincoln, 20th Century Home Entertainment has released Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on home video and it’s well worth a look.

Starring Benjamin Walker, the film’s protagonist looks perfectly capable of dealing death to vampires while cracking the occasional joke which was the man’s signature. The story sets out early in his life when he saw his mother poisoned by a vampire, named Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), and years later, after being trained by Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), exacts his grisly revenge, setting Lincoln on his path to destiny. Along the way, he befriends shopkeeper Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson), working and living at the general store. And he meets his future wife, Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), when she was young, pretty and still sane. We rush through the 1800s at a pretty fast clip so suddenly he’s president and the Civil War is threatening.

His mission to eradicate vampires leads him to learn they all report to Southern plantation owner Adam (Rufus Sewell) and his sister, Vadoma (Erin Wasson). Adams offers Confederate president Jefferson Davis (John Rothman) his vampire’s allegiance in the coming war. Don’t come looking for a history lesson in the plot although it does nicely weave the vampires’ plight and desire for dominance into the slavery issue (slaves make for plentiful and tasty food it seems). Nor should you look for the vamps to follow the standard rules so the bitten become vampires instantly and Abe’s axe is dipped in silver, better for werewolves than vampires.

The film veers from playing it with tongue firmly in cheek to deadly serious and the shifting can be jarring and dissatisfying. Bekmambetov, best known for the stylish Wanted, does a better job with the look of the film, using a dark color palette and keeping things feeling eerie. His action is frenetic but unoriginal, which is a shame. His cast does what they can but the tone affects their performances, wasting some fine potential.

Thankfully, the transfer to disc is pretty flawless and sounds good. The Combo Pack comes with the standard Blu-ray, DVD, and a code for both an iTunes digital copy and UltraViolet copy. The extras are a standard assortment, starting with Audio Commentary with Writer Seth Grahame-Smith which is interesting although his wit needed more air time. The Great Calamity (7:43), is an interesting CGI-animated short about vampires in America as told by Edgar Allen Poe to Lincoln, featuring the story of Elizabeth Bathory. The Making of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (75:21) is a five-part making-of documentary which tells you everything you need to know and then some. Lincoln Park’s “Powerless” Music Video (2:54) and theatrical trailer round out the assorted extras.

REVIEW: The French Connection

The escapades of New York Police detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle was well known even in the early 1960s and attempts to tell his story fell through until he was captured in print in the best-selling Robin Cook book The French Connection. William Friedkin helmed a film adaptation that made Doyle the poster boy for brutal but effective policemen for the next decade and catapulted character actor Gene Hackman into leading man status. The French Connection is very much a product of the 1970s as filmmakers were shaking off the restrictions of the now-dead studio system and a new wave of filmmakers were stretching their muscles, trying things that were new and fresh in terms of structure, production, and performance.

As part of 20th Century Home Entertainment’s Signature collection of classics now on Blu-ray, this film is a reminder of just how good a movie can be when all the right elements fall into place. When first released in Blu-ray back in 2009, Friedkin was intimately involved in the transfer and touted its improvements. Overlaying a saturated color print over a black and white print, Friedkin obtained a washed out color palette that he felt properly represented his vision and while purists howled. This new version is also approved by both Friedkin and Cinematographer Owen Roizman and looks good, certainly better than the original DVD. The transfer captures Manhattan at a time when it teetered on the brink of grime and bankruptcy.

Why did this win the Best Picture Award in 1971? It’s a story of good versus evil, drugs, an immortal car chase and terrific performances by an ensemble that featured Roy Scheider as Doyle’s partner Buddy “Cloudy” Russo, ex-con-turned-coffee shop owner named Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco), and French shipping executive Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), who is trying to brink 120 lbs. of heroin into the city. The core story is the attempt by Doyle and Russo to find out when the shipment will arrive and arresting Charnier, but getting the facts and then executing the arrest propels the movie with the tempo of a finely tuned race car. Doyle is the center, profane, racists, crude and mesmerizing.

Speaking of races, the car chase is a class as Doyle commandeered a civilian’s Pontiac LeMans and chased an elevated train carrying an escaping hitman. Shot in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, it followed the BMT West End Line (now the D and B lines) until the subway collided with another. The front mounted cameras was undercranked so the speed appeared higher than it was but was an adrenaline-pumping sequence that elevated the film to the upper echelon of action pics at the time.

The disc re-presents the 2001 DVD’s extras including two audio commentary tracks – one from Friedkin, the second with Hackman and Scheider. The deleted scenes are accompanied with Friedkin’s interesting commentary and there are two documentaries: the BBC-produced The Poughkeepsie Shuffle and Untold Stories of The French Connection – 30th Anniversary Special. New to Blu-ray are seven new pieces: Anatomy of a Chase; Hackman on Doyle; Friedkin and Grosso Remember the Real French Connection; Scene of the Crime; Color Timing The French Connection; Cop Jazz: The Music of Don Ellis, and Rogue Cop: The Noir Connection, with historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. Like others in the Signature series, it comes with a glossy booklet with tons of information on the film.

REVIEW: The Brothers McMullen

Few made a bigger debut in the 1990s than Edward Burns who wrote and starred in The Brothers McMullen, which remains a quiet classic, often overlooked. These days, he is perhaps better known for his run on HBO’s Entourage, playing a version of himself. Thankfully, he continues to be a creative force, continuing to appear in and make movies. Still, his first offering is worth a look and thankfully, 20th Century Home Entertainment has given us a new Blu-ray edition as part of their Signature Collection.

What makes his first movie so powerful is its storyline and sparseness. Working on a shoestring budget, the film lacked a large production crew, shooting on location without permission while his mom made lunch for whoever was on set that day. It was guerilla shooting fueled by passion and it all shows on the screen. As a result, you’re forced to focus on the characters and story and there’s plenty here.

At the funeral for his father, Finbar “Barry” McMullen (Burns) says goodbye to his mother (Catharine Bolz), who will be returning to Ireland. We then jump ahead five years to see that Barry and his brothers are all dreaming and struggling. Jack (Jack Mulcahy) and his wife Molly (Connie Britton), still living in the McMullen family home, are straining as she wants to start a family and he’s resistant to the notion (igniting an affair). Then there’s serial dater and would-be screenwriter

In an ironic touch Patrick (Mike McGlone), the most devoutly Catholic of the Irish brothers, is dating Susan (Shari Albert), a nice Jewish girl whose father wants to shower them with an apartment and give the man a job. Marrying her has Patrick scared. Barry is a serial dater and would-be screenwriter who is ending his latest relationship with Ann (Elizabeth McKay), leaving him homeless.

We pick up on the occasion of Molly’s thirtieth birthday party and then we follow the next eight months of their lives and it’s never short of fascinating as events force the three brothers to once more be living under the same roof, with all its ghosts and memories. In time we come to understand that the boys are mostly worried about recreating their parents’ loveless marriage, raising a cold family largely in caused by their father’s alcoholism. The cycle may be broken when Barry begins seeing Audrey (Maxine Bahns).

Overall, the performances are spot on and it’s refreshing to see Britton early in her career at a time she is shining on ABC’s Nashville.

This is well worth a second or third look and thankfully the Blu-ray transfer of the 16mm film is pristine. The disc comes with a commentary from Burns, honestly revealing the trick she used to get this film made while still working for Entertainment Tonight. Culled from previous versions is Fox Movie Channel Presents Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman (14:26) which reminds us this was the first release from the Fox Searchlight label. The Signature case includes a glossy insert with production notes about the film.

FORTIER TAKES ON ‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN AFRIKA’!

  • News
  • November 2, 2012

ALL PULP REVIEWS- Reviews by Ron Fortier
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AFRIKA
By Balogun Ojetade
Meji Books
MV Media LLC
145 pages
Since the advent of Sword & Soul, a subgenre focusing primarily on African mythology, we’ve seen many wonderful anthologies and novels come along that are breathing new life and welcomed vigor into fantasy literature.  The two biggest proponents, creators if you will, of this new classification are authors Charles Saunders and Milton Davis.  Saunders is known for his lifelong achievements in authoring some of the finest black fantasy fiction ever put to paper to include his marvelous heroes, Imaro and Dossouye.  Whereas Davis, beside his own amazing fiction, has been the driving force behind MV media, LLC, a publishing brand devoted to Sword & Soul.
Now, from that house, we have ONCE UPON A TIME IN AFRICA by Balgum Ojetade; a sprawling, colorful and fast moving adventure that defines the best of Sword & Soul.  It is a tale of whimsy, love, magic and war told with such comfortable ease as to pull the reader along effortlessly.  Now in all fairness, this reviewer was challenged to keep the many characters separate due to their exotic foreign names that twists one’s mental tongue in a variety of unique vowels and consonants.  Thankfully Ojetade does provide a glossary of names at the book’s conclusion which was most helpful.  Despite this minor annoyance, he does distinguish each figure in unique ways that did allow us to enjoy the action without getting overly concerned about proper pronunciations along the way.
Alaafin, the Emperor of the Empire of Oyo wishes to marry off his beautiful but mischievous daughter, Princess Esuseeke.  Seeke, as she is referred to, is very much a “tomboy” who prefers studying martial arts rather than learning sewing or poetry in the royal palace.  It is Alaafin’s prime minister, Temileke who suggest Alaafin sponsor a Grand Tournament to feature the best fighters in all the land brought together to battle for the hand of the princess.  The emperor approves of the idea and dispatches Temileke to the furthest corners of Oyo to recruit only the greatest warriors in the kingdom to participate.
Meanwhile, Seeke, frustrated by her role as the prize in such a contest, accidently encounters her father’s chief general, Aare Ona Kakanfo.  Or so she believes. In reality the person she meets wearing the general’s combat mask is actually Akinkugbe; a young warrior wishing to enter the contest disguised as the general.  When Akin manages to win Seeke’s heart, things start to get complicated.  All the while the real Kakanfo is commanding the forces of Oyo in the south against their enemies the Urabi, desert people whose singular goal is to conquer Oyo.
As the day of the tournament fast approaches, Akin is trapped having to maintain his disguise and somehow figure a way to defeat the other fighters to win the hand of the woman he loves.  While at the same time, the Urabi, unable to defeat Kakanfo’s troops, desperately recruit the services of a brutal demon and a deadly female assassin to help turn the tide of battle in their favor.
All these various plot elements converge dramatically at the book’s conclusion wherein Akin and Seeke not only must overcome overwhelming odds to be together but at the same time rally their people to withstand the calamitous assault of their fiendish enemies and save the empire.  ONCE UPON A TIME IN AFRIKA is a rousing, old fashion adventure tale that had me wishing Hollywood would pick it up and film it; it is that captivating an epic.  Ojetade is a writer worth taking note of, he delivers on all fronts and this reviewer has become an instant fan. 

SANTA GETS PULPED!

  • Uncategorized
  • October 28, 2012
Cover Art: Mark Maddox

2011 Rondo Artist of the Year, and New Pulp artist, Mark Maddox has illustrated the cover for the Christmas 2012 issue of Diabolique magazine in stores this November.

From the press release: The cover painting is by the brilliant Mark Maddox. And a very special thanks to Spring Wolf D.D., Ph.D. for writing a superb cover article for us on the dark origins of Santa Claus.

About Diabolique Magazine:
Diabolique is a lavishly illustrated, bimonthly print and digital magazine that explores all aspects of the horror genre, including film, theatre, literature, music, history and the arts, bringing fresh perspective and analysis to subjects old and new, from ancient folklore and Gothic classics to contemporary film releases and modern literary gems. Each issue brims with insightful commentary, criticism, and engrossing information complemented by photos, illustrations and handsome, full-color design. Past issues have included contributors from such horror luminaries as Jonathan Rigby, David Del Valle, David Huckvale, Paul Murray, and Elizabeth Miller. Diabolique is edited by Scott Feinblatt and Brandon Kosters.

Visit Diabolique on-line at www.diaboliquemagazine.com and on Facebook.

REVIEW: Prometheus

Ridley Scott rarely repeats himself, avoiding formulaic sequels, useless prequels, and remakes. Instead, the stylist conjures up new works and attempts to be thought-provoking time after time. You might have bought into the hype that this year’s Prometheus is an out and out set up to his Alien, but you’d be wrong. While tangentially connected to the first successful science fiction/horror film hybrid, this film is a pure science fiction film owing plenty to Stanley Kubrick.

The movie, now out on disc from 20th Century Home Entertainment, is an ambitious production with a strong cast, surrounded by amazing visuals. While we laughed at how weak the story and characterizations were in James Cameron’s Avatar, here, we are merely disappointed the story isn’t a match for the visual virtuosity on display. While far from Scott’s best, he deserves credit for trying something different and challenging his audience.

Scott sets his story in 2093, optimistically thinking we will be regularly working in space and ready to traverse the distant reaches of the galaxy. Scientists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) find a map as part of a 30,000-year-old cave painting on the Isle of Skye, confirming there is sentient life elsewhere in the universe. Dubbed The Engineers, they seemingly beckon mankind to find them. The audience has already met them in an opening sequence that suggests they arrived on Earth with some goo that ignited the spark of life (and was also seen as the mummified Space Jockey way back in 1979). To discover the answer, deep-pocketed Peter Weyland (Guy Pierce) funds the construction of The Prometheus, which is thusly launched, its crew in hibernation en route to moon LV-223 and the evidence of intelligent life.

Heading up the crew is Mereditch Vickers (Charlize Theron) alongside the ship’s captain Janek (Idris Elba) with android David (Michael Fassbender), geologist Fifield (Sean Harris), and biologist Millburn (Rafe Spall). One trick he does reuse from Alien is that before long, things go horribly awry. The story has gaping, starship-sized plot holes and the grand themes – where do we come from? — do nothing to mask them. It would have been nice if the crew had more depth of character or interacted in more interesting ways.

Fassbender has the toughest job, making his eight generation android different than the others seen in earlier films making up the Alien universe. Theron is strong with her work but Rapace gives us the more interesting, nuanced performance.

Scott shot this for big screen 3-D, framing things to pop just so, and dazzle us with detail. Thankfully, that all transfers pretty nicely to the home screen and 2-D. The transfer is pretty spectacular both audio and visual.

The Combo Pack offers you the film on Blu-ray, DVD, and Ultraviolet (a larger Combo Pack with 3-D Blu-ray is also an option, with a fourth disc containing an amazing three-and-half-hour documentary by Charles de Lauzirika). The special features provided on the standard Blu-ray begins with Scott’s audio commentary, supplemented with one from co-writers John Spaihts and Damon Lindelof.

There are thirty-seven minutes of Deleted, Extended & Alternate Scenes which you can on their own or with audio commentary by editor Pietro Scalia and VFX supervisor Richard Stammers. These are all interesting to watch, several of which would have made the film stronger. The Peter Weyland Files (18:57) are culled from the Internet.

REVIEW: Chernobyl Diaries

Producer Oren Peli commanded our attention with the interesting Paranormal Activity, but has since proven to be a lot less interesting to watch. His subsequent works have lacked flaw or much suspense or originality. His latest disappointment is the post-apocalyptic Chernobyl Diaries, which is a horror film using the Russian nuclear disaster as the catalyst. The film, out on Blu-ray from Warner Home Video, lets down the viewer by not being good, scary, or by having anything to say about nuclear reactors at a time when the topic is bubbling up once again as we scramble for alternative energy sources.

The basics of the story show a group of friends take an “Extreme Tour” of Prypiat, the town next door to the fabled power plant which exploded in 1986 and currently sits buried under concrete. When they somehow get stranded from the tour, you know nothing good will come of this decision. Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), the tour guide, is the one to make the inane decision to spend the night rather than hike through the night the twelve miles to get help or find appropriate shelter. In a thankfully brief eighty-six minutes, we watch several get killed and a few lucky ones survive. Ho hum.

Peli knows how to scare us, having made his name with Paranormal Activity but he and Bradley Parker reuse all the same techniques in a new setting, recycling without any benefit to the audience. At least visually they make things look and feel bleak with Hungary and Serbia standing in for poor Prypiat.

This film was shot on the cheap, reportedly $1 million, which may explain the lack of adequate script or solid cast to convince us something bad is really going on. The quartet of kids is led by singer Jesse McCartney and Norwegian actress Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, neither of whom are bad enough to deserve Razzies, just bland. They run, they hide, they get hunted by who-knows-what, which miraculously transforms into I-don’t-care long before the fifty minute mark.

Before he is allowed to shot another movie, Peli needs to convince us he has something to say or something to show us. Right now, we’ve seen it all and have little need to come back for more.

The movie looks and sounds fine on the transfer. The Combo Pack offers us the Blu-ray, DVD, and Ultraviolet along with a few extras including Uri’s Extreme Tours Infomercial (1:19); Chernobyl Conspiracy Viral Video (2:25); a single deleted scene and an alternate ending that doesn’t help.

REVIEW: The Raven

The timing of The Raven’s home video release is a curious one as I am busily teaching my eighth graders about the short story, using Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” as the first example. This feature film was released in the spring and sank without making much of a ripple at the box office, unlike Poe, who startled readers with amazing regularity for over a decade before his tragic, mysterious death.

To introduce the students to Poe, we reviewed his life which had him all over the northeast, marrying a thirteen year old relative and fighting depression and alcohol while trying to be the best writer or journalist he could be. His works of prose and poetry made for excellent reading in the newspapers and magazines while he laid the groundwork for contemporary detective fiction and helped transition us from the more genteel gothic tale to one of pure horror.

Screenwriters Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare used the unrecorded circumstances of Poe’s final days and blended them with elements drawn from his works to tell this particular story that fails to be a solid detective yarn or be particularly scary. Director James McTeigue’s (V for Vendetta) best move was to cast John Cusak as Poe, giving us a sympathetic character, although he appears far too robust given what really happened in Baltimore back in 1849. Foreshadowing the serial killers that became a staple of newspapers and novels decades later, this story shows us Poe chasing such a killer.

None of it really happened and the R-rated film is too violent for my young charges to see, which may be just as well given its lack of real suspense or good writing. Even the pounding soundtrack is more distracting than unsettling, just another layer of noise on an all-too busy film.

Why is he in Baltimore? Not chasing a killing but there to woo and marry Emily Hamilton (Alive Eve), despite the disapproval of her father, Captain Charles (Brendan Gleeson). He’s also drunk and in need of work, hoping to land some assignment from editor, Maddox (Kevin McNally). During this time, someone is killing young women in a manner reminiscent of Poe’s work so Police detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) summons Poe for a consultation and suddenly the game is afoot.

If you enjoy Poe’s work, you will appreciate the nods which have been woven or shoved into the fabric of the story but on the whole it is tedious business, not at all helped from flat dialogue and characterizations to a less than effective atmosphere. And it also avoids being interesting by being very predictable so of course Emily falls into the killer’s hands and Poe will be the only one to save her. Had the screenwriters actually used Poe’s structure of building suspense and playing with the psychological underpinnings of gothic fiction, things might have turned out far differently. Instead, we’re left checking our watch and wondering how such rich material could feel so obvious.

The film’s transfer to Blu-ray is nicely handled and McTiegue’s dark, shadowy shots retain their black moodiness. Similarly, the audio work is just swell.

McTiegue and producers Marc D. Evans, Trevor Macy, and Aaron Ryder provide rich details on the film’s making in the audio commentary. The disc also comes with six Deleted and Extended Scenes (10:41); none of which are missed. The Raven Guts: Bringing Death to Live (13:32) is a just-right-length making of featurette while the teaching in me wanted more from The Madness, Misery, and Mystery of Edgar Allen Poe (9:50), as a pair of experts tell us what Poe’s life was really like, especially at the end. There are three additional pieces: Behind the Beauty and Horror (2:18), The Raven Presents John Cusack & James McTeigue (2:45), and Music for the Raven – The Team (5:10).

REVIEW: Bones the Complete Seventh Season

Bones has carefully straddled the line between light-hearted crime drama, ala Hart to Hart and taut melodrama. Over the seven seasons, showrunner Hart Hanson has carefully brought the main characters, Special Agent Seely Booth (David Boreanaz) and Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), together, nicely balancing the “will they or won’t they?” romantic tension until finally, in the last season, they finally became a couple. Probably quicker than anticipated, thanks to a real life pregnancy, Brennan was with child.

The seventh season of Bones, now out on Blu-ray from 20th Century Home Entertainment, is a shorter than normal thirteen episodes because of the circumstances, but Hanson did not slow down the pacing, setting things up for a dramatic cliffhanger that left fans really hanging for the spring and summer.

Along the way, the supporting cast at the Jeffersonian Institute Forensic Sciences Department was also given their moments in the spotlight, proving they are one of the richest, most interesting ensembles on prime time. With all the personal issues surrounding the cast, it’s pretty impressive they still manage to fit in unique corpse of the week stories. Things kicked off with a body at a paintball event and continued forward. The forensic testing results remain ridiculously fast in arriving and Angela (Michaela Conlin) never meets a challenge whose butt she can’t kick so there are definite stretches of credulity, moreso this season than in the past. Sweets (John Frances Daley) lost some of his boyish charm as he grew deadly accurate with his service revolver.

The series nicely rotated the usual interns, freshening the group dynamic with regularity and the addition of southern gentleman Finn Abernathy (Luke Kleintank) was a nice addition. His flirtation and dating of Cam’s (Tamara Taylor) daughter was an interesting development that ultimately went nowhere.

The most unusual episode of the season has to be “The Suit on the Set” where Booth and Brennan travel to watch a film based on one of her books is being made. They skewer Hollywood’s inability to faithfully adapt a novel, going for busts and pyrotechnics over plot and characterization. A little silly but a refreshing change of pace.

The finale sees the return of criminal Christopher Pellant who goes out of his way to frame Brennan, turning her into a wanted felon. The problem here is that the circumstantial evidence mounts so high so fast, at least one of the characters should have at least questioned the absurdity of all this damning information pouring out at once. But nope, never happened. Instead, Brennan and her dad (Ryan O’Neal) take the baby and go on the run, leaving Booth behind.

Given the shortened season, one would have expected either additional special features to compensate or fewer given the dearth of material to work with. We get more of the latter than the former with two deleted scenes, commentary on one episode, a four minute Gag Reel, and two small pieces on the Hollywood episode. First, there’s Creating The Suit on the Set (10:59) on how the episode was made then a fun, fake Bone of Contention: On the Red Carpet (3:18)

I was late to the series and was able to plow through the first five seasons to jump on board but you cannot start cold with this season. It’s too involved in its continuity and character relationships to be totally accessible to a newcomer. But for those of us who are fans of this show, adapted from the novels by Kathy Reichs, it was a slid if flawed season and worth a second look.

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