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DVD Dead Ringers
Like many other films by Canadian director David Cronenberg (especially Crash), Dead Ringers presents the cinematic and psychological equivalent of an automobile accident--you dare not look, but you can't turn away. The film marked a directorial breakthrough for Cronenberg, who was able to continue some of the themes explored in his earlier horror films while graduating to a higher, more critically "respectable" level of artistic sophistication. The film is loosely based, amazingly enough, on a true story about twin gynecologists who routinely traded each others' identities, lives and even lovers. Utilizing innovative split-screen technology (years before computer manipulation made such trickery much easier), the film stars Jeremy Irons in flawless dual roles as the identical brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Their ability to instantly switch identities leads them to a shared relationship with a well-known actress (Genevieve Bujold) and, ultimately, a physical and psychological tailspin that sends them both to the brink of madness and death. The scenario suggests that both men are halves of a whole, and that one cannot exist without the other. But when Beverly pursues a kinky, drug-addicted affair with the actress, his more self-controlled brother is helpless to prevent their mutual decline. In this way Dead Ringers becomes a fascinating and stylistically clinical study of duality, and Cronenberg doesn't shy away from the dark and unpleasant aspects of the story. (One look at the movie's display of bizarre gynecological instruments and you'll know why women find this film particularly--and unforgettably--disturbing.) --Jeff Shannon
These days David Cronenberg is actually respected in the film community. He wasn't always, and it was with Dead Ringers that he escaped B horror movie schlockdom! Everything about Dead Ringers is brilliant. The direction, the original score, and the acting all come together beautifully, especially the peerless performance of Jeremy Irons playing twin brother gynecologists. Each twin brother has a distinct personality, yet Irons makes their differences very subtle! He never hits you over the head with the acting. He even purposefully blurs the lines between the two brothers to deliberately throw you off. You don't always know which brother is occupying the screen.
The score by Howard Shore is sumptuous, especially during the endgame of the film. Also, the romantic main theme that plays during the open credits provides the perfect pitch for the action that follows.
Cronenberg's directorial touch is perfect! Everything unfolds as it should. No camera pyrotechnics get in the way of the story. Most current directors need to observe the way Cronenberg lets the staged events play out naturally.
The supporting cast led by a game Genevieve Bujold and featuring a bevy of unknown actresses playing patients of the Mantle brothers all deliver solid performances. Bujold, playing an actress seeking to have a baby is not too showy. She's a good sexy foil for Irons' twins. I especially liked Stephen Lack (formerly the lead in an older Cronenberg film "Scanners") playing a sculptor in the latter portion of the film.
Quite simply, this was the best film that came out in 1988! Jeremy Irons should have won every award under the sun!
This DVD edition features a nifty and informative commentary track by Jeremy Irons.
Gyenecological Instruments for operating on mutant women
By far this is the best David Cronenberg film ever made! The sheer beauty of the film makes me sit back and think every single time I watch it. The metaphor and mythology of the thing astounds me. Jeremy irons is superb as both Doctors Elliot and Beverly Mantle. His performance is better than any other actor who has played a split role. Getting to the instruments created by the brothers and made by a gifted artist, they are awe inspiring. I have never seen such perfect work in the creation of a prop before. They should be in a museum.
Even if you have Criterion's DVD, you'll want this one, too.
First off, the commentary on this DVD is brand-new. It is Irons by himself, and if you're like me and rank Dead Ringers at the top of the DC heap, you will find this Warner disc well worth the money just for the commentary alone.
Secondly, the sound is much better. The Criterion disc -- and the Canadian 15th Anniversary edition, which simply duplicated all of Criterion's contents -- used the same 2.0 mix found on Anchor Bay's VHS and DVD releases from 1997/1998. The high end on the string instruments crackled and sounded fuzzy, the low end was completely missing. The emotional impact of the score in the film's devasting final image was simply ruined. Both the 5.1 mix and the new 2.0 mix sound much better on this disc.
One partial caveat: the nitwits that they are, Warner once again released the film in the matted ratio that THEY prefer -- which is always 1:85.1 -- and not DC's preferred framing of 1:66.1. (This particularly enrages me with their release of Hammer movies like Horror of Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein.) But fortunately it doesn't seem to make that much difference here, possibly because Dead Ringers was filmed with the knowledge it would be masked for various aspect ratios; and the picture quality seems to be a little bit better than Criterion's.
If you can pick this up discounted, especially in a larger order with no shipping charge, I would recommend this to all DC viewers who still remember and cherish the day 17 years ago when they stumbled out of their local movie theatre in complete flabbergasted numbness as a result of experiencing Cronenberg's melancholy masterpiece.
Walker (Lee Marvin) strides through Los Angeles with the steel-eyed stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting or return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (remade by Brian Helgeland as Payback), set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed, and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lee Marvin - Angie Dickinson Director(s): John Boorman DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Arguably the best and most personal of director David Cronenberg's early films, The Brood is an extremely unsettling horror film about familial disintegration and emotional trauma taken to a monstrous extreme. Art Hindle (Black Christmas) stars as a man embroiled in a bitter custody struggle with his estranged wife (Samantha Eggar), who is undergoing therapy at psychiatrist Oliver Reed's controversial institute. Reed's treatment causes his patients to give form to their inner conflicts, and Eggar--whose psyche is at the boiling point from childhood abuse as well as the custody trial--creates a horde of homicidal humanoid children who enact bloody revenge on anyone who has threatened their "mother." Cronenberg's first feature with name actors and composer Howard Shore has its... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Oliver Reed - Samantha Eggar Director(s): David Cronenberg DVD Release Date: Released the 26 August 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of the science fiction classic about a scientist who accidentally swaps body parts with a fly is both smart and terrifying: an allegory for the awful processes of slow death and a monster movie with a tragic spin. Jeff Goldblum gives a masterful performance as a sweet, nerdy scientist whose romance with a writer (Geena Davis) makes him more fully alive. Next thing you know, a tiny oversight in an experiment causes him to transmogrify, gradually, into something more like an insect than a human. This is Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome) country, so expect The Fly to be a gross-out, but in the way that disease corrupts the body and can make a loved one unrecognizable on every level. This is one of Cronenberg's best films, and certainly one... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jeff Goldblum - Geena Davis Director(s): David Cronenberg DVD Release Date: Released the 04 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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David Lynch's 1990 Wild at Heart is an utterly random and ugly experience with pockets of startling imagery and inspired set pieces. Based on a Barry Gifford novel, the film stars Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as lovers on the lam whose relationship is tested and who meet some truly dangerous wackos (including an almost-simian Willem Dafoe). Lynch's thoughts seem to be everywhere, and he expects the audience to keep up with a story that seems more a collection of avant-garde whims than a coherent vision with the intuitive brilliance of his Blue Velvet. Cage gives one of his more chaotic performances, but then he was just reading Lynch's signposts. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nicolas Cage - Laura Dern Director(s): David Lynch DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Something like a perfect artistic union is achieved in the major components of Paris, Texas: the twang of Ry Cooder's guitar, the lonely light of Robbie Muller's camera, the craggy landscape of Harry Dean Stanton's face. In his greatest role, longtime character actor Stanton plays a man brought back to his old life after wandering in the desert (or somewhere) for four years. He has a 7-year-old son to get to know, and his wife has gone missing. The material is much in the wanderlust spirit of director Wim Wenders, working from a script by Sam Shepard and L.M. Kit Carson. If the long climactic conversation between Stanton and Nastassja Kinski renders the movie uneven and slightly inscrutable, it's hard to think of a more fitting ending--and besides, the achingly empty American... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Harry Dean Stanton - Nastassja Kinski - Dean Stockwell Director(s): Wim Wenders DVD Release Date: Released the 14 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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