Shared Darkness

The steady rise, throughout the latter part of the 1990s, of
Latino-flavored content and the profiles of its creators has given way to a veritable
flurry in the past several years, and the past 14 months has been no exception,
with the recent $5 million Sundance purchase of the film La Misma Luna; Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas’ Bordertown,
from director Gregory Nava, securing distribution through THINKFilm; and, most
of all, a trio of Latin American directors with projects nominated at this past
year’s Academy Awards,
including Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, which scored a surprise
Golden Globe victory. Given these developments and more, it’s hard to ignore
the ascendant power and influence of south-of-our-border culture.

A box office hit in its native Mexico,
2004’s Al Otro Lado arrives with an
Oscar-burnished image, having served as Mexico’s
official entry for best foreign film at the 78th annual Academy Awards. Written
and directed by Gustavo Loza (2003’s Deep
Silence), the film is a poignant story, and a fairly star-studded one at
that, if your eyes are at all trained on international cinema. Volver’s
Carmen Maura, Amores Perros’ Vanessa
Bauche and Innocent Voices’ Adrian
Alonso star in the movie, which follows the lives of three children from three
different countries (Morocco, Cuba and Mexico) who all share the same loss —
the absence of a father who has emigrated searching for a better quality of life.

Most of this flight, of course, is motivated by a desire to
provide for a better life for one’s family — even if this means a corporeal separation
from them. Sometimes, though, it’s tinged with irresponsibility or
self-interest. Al Otro Lado is told
from the viewpoint of those left behind, and through their melancholic
grappling we come to understand their desires and dreams, all the universality
of their plight, even in its unique specificity.

Calling Al Otro Lado
— loosely translated as “to the other side” — very much a “festival film” isn’t a slam,
per se, it’s just calling it like it is. After all, the movie’s entertained
playdates at AFI Fest, the Damascus
Film Festival, the Manheim Heidelberg Film Festival, and the Palm
Springs, Portland
and Newport Beach International Film Festivals. The fact remains, though, that however
beautifully photographed it is at times, in its own grimy way, the movie still remains a niche curio. With her
wide, expressive eyes, Maura remains an actress of uncommon allure, and her
segment here is the most effective and interesting in a well-meaning but overall uneven endeavor.

Perhaps as a result of a passing acquaintance of mine — a maintenance
employee at my apartment complex, and probably the hardest worker on their
entire staff, a guy indispensable due to both sheer effort and multi-field handiness
— recently dealing with the impending loss of his job, if not facing the outright
threat of deportation, Al Otro Lado succeeded
more for me in tangentially arousing feelings of ruminative sympathy than as a
piece of dramatic agitprop. The same may be true for you. The Univision DVD
release of the movie, unfortunately, leaves a good bit to be desired. Menu
selections can be made in either English or Spanish, and there’s a 40-minute
making-of documentary — the sole supplemental extra — replete with location scouting footage from Havana
and Mariel, Cuba,
interspersed with on-set rehearsal footage. But compression issues, artifacting
and other digital hiccups mar the transfer and visual presentation. To purchase the DVD, via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C-
(Disc)

Copying Beethoven draws a
lot of inspiration from the soaring notes of the music itself, and comes packaged
with a powerhouse performance from Ed Harris, an inspired casting choice. Still,
Copying Beethoven can’t help but feel
very contrived at certain key moments, and the falseness of these impertinent devices
weigh heavy on the film.

Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, The Secret Garden), Copying
Beethoven aims to impart its lushly photographed drama through a romanticized
shorthand of the mercurial nature of brilliance and an awkwardly constructed
mentorship. Set in 1824, years since Beethoven’s last success, the movie
focuses on the time in the genius composer’s life when he is most plagued by loneliness
and personal trauma. As he’s aging and functionally deaf, a copyist is urgently
needed to help Beethoven finish his symphony in time for its scheduled debut performance.
Young conservatory student Anna Holtz (National
Treasure’s Diane Kruger) is recommended for the position, and the stubborn
battle of wills ensues, leading up to the symphony’s grand unveiling.

Harris is definitely no stranger to bringing larger-than-life
figures to the screen, having jumped behind the camera and tackled the title
role in 2000’s Pollock, which earned costar
Marcia Gay Harden a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Truth be told, the intensity
of Harris’ mesmerizing performance here notwithstanding, that film was a much
more interesting and adept exploration of an artist’s torment. Written and
produced by Stephen Rivele and Christopher Wikinson (Ali, Nixon), Copying Beethoven has the rich sense of period
detail you might expect from such accomplished big-screen biographers, but the movie
lacks subtlety to an astounding degree. Kruger is game, and certainly attractive,
but having her correct key musical mistakes in her employer’s work and, in the
end, co-conduct the material from the orchestra pit, gives off the decidedly misleading
impression of Beethoven as a doddering senior citizen. It rankles and rings
false, even without knowing a lot about the time period. Matthew Goode (Match Point, The Lookout), Ralph Riach and Bill Stewart, meanwhile, all co-star.

Copying Beethoven
is presented on a double-sided, single-layered disc, in 2.35:1 anamorphic
widescreen transfer that preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical
exhibition, but only delivers a so-so job on color-matching; some scenes seem
washed out, and not by artistic choice. Audio comes in a 5.1 Dolby surround sound
track that makes rich, evocative use of its rear channels for a symphonic fullness;
a Spanish language Dolby surround track and optional English and Spanish
subtitles are also included. DVD special features consist of an audio
commentary track with Holland and
Harris, folded together from discrete recordings; a collection of five deleted
scenes with optional commentary by Holland;
and a 10-minute making-of featurette that focuses almost entirely on the orchestral
ensemble scenes. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Set in the later Tang dynasty, in 10th century China, Curse of the Golden Flower reunites Hero
and House of Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou with his longtime
leading lady and the star of some of his best work, Gong Li. Unfolding in
broad, colorful strokes in a lavish, breathtaking and exquisitely designed
world, it’s a dizzied-up, decorative movie of cloak-and-dagger betrayal — part
martial arts epic, part costume drama — that essentially plays out as the
ultimate family squabble.

On the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, the Emperor (Chow Yun
Fat, dialing up the glowering) returns unexpectedly with his second son, Prince
Jai (Jay Chou). His pretext is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but
given the chilled relations between he and the ailing Empress (Gong), this
seems suspicious at best, disingenuous at worst. For many years the Empress and
Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), her stepson, have been having an illicit affair.
Feeling trapped, Prince Wan dreams of escaping the palace with his secret love
Chan (Li Man, Zhang’s newest casting discovery), the daughter of the loyal Imperial
doctor (Ni Dahong).

Meanwhile, as the faithful, doting Prince Jai grows worried
over his mother’s health, the Imperial doctor and his family are relocated by
the emperor when he senses a looming threat. Attacked by scores of assassins
during their move, Chan and her mother Jiang Shi (Chen Jin) are forced back to
the palace, where their return sets off a chain reaction of dark secrets,
shadowy deceptions and murky plottings. As truth is finally dragged into the
light of a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms serve as the
trampled, bloody backdrop for a showdown at the Imperial
Palace.

The performances in Curse
of the Golden Flower are steeped in melodrama, matching the movie’s
impressionistic handling of violence, which unfolds in leonine, largely
bloodless, certainly non-gory fashion, all things considered. There’s a
haughty, regal imperiousness to Gong’s Empress — similar to Meryl Streep’s work
in The Devil Wears Prada — even as
she comes to the realization that she’s being poisoned. It’s all fairly entertaining,
but not exactly something that gives one a strong sense of identification or
sympathy, with the Empress or anyone else.

In detail and scope, this surely ranks as one of Zhang’s
most ambitious films. Working with many of his frequent collaborators —
including cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding, production designer Huo Tingxiao, and
Oscar-nominated costume designer Yee Chung Man — Zhang creates a rich,
evocative drama with luminous flourishes of action. If there’s a further knock,
it’s that the pitch of the movie feels a bit too steep, and the setting
constrictive. Though the Emperor and Prince Jai have just returned from abroad
early in the film, there is no sense of the broader world or countryside — this
is a hermetically sealed picture, and its sumptuous settings notwithstanding,
one eventually yearns for a break — a larger canvas and some different colors.

Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, Curse of the
Golden Flower’s transfer is superb, maintaining the detail and color-steadfastness
of every frame. Focus is deep and sharp, contrast is vivid without being overpowering,
and there are no problems whatsoever with grain. DVD special features consist
of two items. First up is a brief making-of featurette that includes interviews
with various cast and crew members, all of whom talk about their experience on
the movie, and in particular working with one another. Costumes and production
design are also afforded some time and explanation. The only other inclusion is
footage from the movie’s Los Angeles
premiere at the 2006 AFI Fest, which features a few short interviews with Zhang
and his two leads. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

I’m dropping the additional appellation of ownership
bestowed upon National Lampoon, because I can’t for the life of me figure out
what the hell that really means these days. That leaves us with just Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, a movie
whose title references a character which is not at all in the actual film — perhaps
a first.

Penned by David Drew Gallagher (obviously preserving his
prerogative to switch or otherwise condense his name on future credited projects)
and directed by Mort Nathan (a former Golden Girls scribe and, ignominiously
enough, the writer-director behind Boat
Trip), the film is a down-market blend of pretty much exactly the sort of set
piece comedy and very occasional flashing of boobs that one would expect, with
a few moments of glancing amusement thrown in courtesy of some of the personalities.
The film got crucified critically (no surprise), and it washed out at the box
office, where it grossed only $4.2 million to its predecessor’s $21.3 million.
In reality, though, it’s not that bad.
It’s just a slightly-below-average doofus comedy for randy pubescent guys.

If it’s no great shock, it certainly still bears mentioning
that The Rise of Taj sorely misses
the droll presence of original star Ryan Reynolds, who can take a fairly pedestrian
line reading and, through sheer force of will, bend it into something funny.
What we’re left with in the front-and-centering of Kal Penn’s empowered supporting
character from the first film is a genial guide who slogs determinedly through
an overly pat narrative.

Having learned the ways of women from his legendary mentor,
Taj Badalandabad (Penn, above right) sets out for Great
Britain’s Camford
University, to obtain a graduate
degree in something or other. After having the rug of membership pulled from
under him at the snooty, elitist Fox & Hounds fraternity by sexually
compensating rich guy baddie Pip Everett (Dan Percival), Taj sets up shop at
the Cock & Bulls, a haven for misfits and losers. There’s young Irish drunk
Seamus (Glen Barry), silent Simon (Steve Rathman) and nerdy Gethin (Anthony
Cozens), who picked Camford because it offered “the highest nerd per willing
chick ratio” of any nearby university. Then there’s Sadie (Holly Davidson,
above left), a sexually forward tart whose inexplicably salty language (including talk of “a good poke in the low whiskers”) provides
the movie with a bit of spark.

Taj spars with and eventually falls for his junior faculty supervisor,
Charlotte Higginson (Lauren Cohan,
a sort of English Sophia Bush), who also happens to be Pip’s girlfriend. Balsac
the bulldog comes along (eventually literally, as it turns out) from the first
movie, and all of this feeds into a competition, naturally, for the Hastings
Cup — which rewards fraternities through a points system for athletic, academic
and social service project accomplishments. Lessons of self-respect are
eventually imparted, along with plenty of humiliation, ethnic lingo (goron,
raji, beta and haji) and referential bits nipped from other flicks like The Mask of Zorro and Dead Poets Society.

Anchored by an English language 5.1 Dolby surround sound
audio track, The Rise of Taj also
comes with a Spanish language surround sound track, and optional English and
Spanish subtitles. A nice slate of bonus materials complements a DVD whose plastic
Amray case comes with a winkingly saucy half-O-ring that gives the impression of
Taj standing between two nude cover girls. (Pull it down and they’re actually
sporting bikinis.) A three-and-a-half-minute gag reel finds the cast breaking
each other up, and Penn self-deprecatingly criticizing his ability to maintain his
accent. Nine minutes of cast and crew interviews comprise a special making-of
featurette, which solves the mystery of Sadie’s hardened nipples during a
beer-chugging scene (peanut halves stand in nicely) and also devotes time to
Balsac the dog’s prosthetic balls.

Penn, meanwhile, gives viewers a four-minute set tour in
Bucharest (a last-minute production stand-in when budget overruns forced a
split shoot between Romania and the United Kingdom), during which the translation
for “director” in the native tongue is revealed to be “regizor.” Music videos
“Get Steady” and “Heads Will Roll” are also included, and a collection of deleted scenes and an assortment of
other trailers round out this release. To purchase the film, click here. C- (Movie) B (Disc)

History is full of stories that don’t learn in civics class,
because the most widely accepted methods of teaching hold that chronological
memorization and endless, parroting repetition of macro examples are the way to
drill facts into adolescent minds. We are taught by dates, rules and those that
stand on the shoulders of giants, not by exceptions, interconnectedness, galvanizing
events of the day and those that lay groundwork for change.

Percy Lavon Julian represents one such example of a person
passed over by history. He lost his job — Harvard
University withdrew his Ph.D. fellowship,
concerned over donors’ views of an African-American teaching white students — on
the eve of the Great Depression. His house was firebombed. He took on powerful,
entrenched interests in the scientific community and overcame all sorts of obstacles,
both societal and personal, to become a world-class chemist, a self-made
millionaire and a humanitarian. Yet despite all the accomplishments of a
remarkable life, Julian’s story remains largely unknown.

The modest son of a Postal Service worker and teacher, and the
grandson of Alabama slaves,
Julian attended DePauw University
at a time when the college town was still segregated, and broke the color
barrier in American science more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did so in
baseball. A brilliant innovator — he was the holder of more than 130 chemical
patents — Julian discovered a way to turn soybeans into synthetic steroids on
an industrial scale, helping to make drugs like cortisone available to millions
of individuals for whom they were heretofore not an option.

In Percy Julian: Forgotten
Genuis, a special two-hour NOVA documentary presentation starring Tony Award-winning
actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Julian’s scientific breakthroughs and gripping
biography are brought to life with vivid period reenactments based on interviews
with dozens of colleagues and relatives, as well as newly opened family
archives. While dramatic reenactments have the cheesy connotation of America’s Most Wanted, other similar criminal
justice shows and thinly produced warfare specials for the History Channel, these
segments are nicely done. The involvement of Julian’s family and the painstaking
research that went into the program assures its veracity, and they’re directed with
a graceful hand by Llewellyn Smith. Courtney B. Vance, meanwhile, narrates the edifying
passages of historical record, and the result is at once educational and
enlightening — a glimpse back in time at the type of figure that helps changes
historical course but rarely gets the credit or warm glow of an appreciative spotlight.

Ever since its launch back in the days of VHS, WGBH Boston
Video has released many critically acclaimed public television programs,
including the Emmy Award-winning The
Miracle of Life, plus bestsellers like The
Elegant Universe, The Jane Eyre Masterpiece
Theatre Collection, Commanding
Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Evolution and Africans in America. Alongside this letterboxed,
all-region presentation of Percy Julian:
Forgotten Genius, recent releases include The Hidden Epidemic: Heart Disease in America, the very topical Global Warming: What’s Up with the Weather? and Kaboom!, a chronological
history of the history of pyrotechnics, from ninth century China
to 19th century industrialist Alfred Nobel to legendary physicist Robert Oppenheimer.
Percy Julian: Forgotten Genius’ DVD
supplemental materials consist of printable materials for educators. To order
this title or any other DVD release from WGBH Boston Video, phone (800)
949-8670 or visit their eponymous Web site’s
shop by clicking here. B+ (Movie) C
(Disc)

Set in a remote Brazilian beach town and effectively playing to the xenophobic instincts of a traveler’s worst nightmares, Turistas details the gritty misfortunes that befall a group of young adventurers when they first get marooned and then stalked in the nearby jungles. A tangled combination of thriller elements, travelogue and more streamlined bits of gruesome imperilment, the movie successfully wrings some novel tension out of its exotic besiegement before eventually unraveling in its final third.

Young Americans Alex (Josh Duhamel), his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde) and her best friend Amy (Beau Garrett) have traveled to Brazil for fun and adventure. On a rickety bus rocketing up a twisting mountain road, they meet Pru (Melissa George), the only one among them who speaks the native language Portuguese, plus Finn and Liam (Desmond Askew and Max Brown), two British chaps who just want to experience for themselves the beautiful Brazilian women they’ve heard so much about. After their driver loses control and they’re all lucky to escape with their lives, these new friends find their way to a cabana bar on a nearby beach, seeking to salvage their day rather than simply waste eight hours waiting on a replacement bus.

A hazy night of exotic liquors and sensuous dancing later, they wake up alone, their possessions gone, and with no idea of the nightmare yet to come. Wandering into a nearby town, they reacquaint themselves with Kiko (Agles Steib), a friendly young villager who was among the last people they saw the night before. After an incident with the townsfolk, the group follows Kiko into the jungle — but is it to safety or into even further and worse danger?

With both Blue Crush and Into the Blue, director John Stockwell has shown himself to be adept both at showcasing toned actors and actresses in skimpy attire, and at capably capturing action in and around water. Here, abetted by cinematographer Enrique Chediak’s highly saturated, rich chroma touch, Stockwell renders the film’s locale in memorable strokes. He also gets an admirable amount of grounding detail right, such as the group’s delicate barefoot negotiation of a rocky street after they’ve been stripped of their passports and extra clothes.

Turistas isn’t as strictly interested in brutality as some of its genre brethren, but it does evidence a hearty acknowledgment of recent commercial trends. Debut screenwriter Michael Arlen Ross seeds his generally restrained narrative with a few innovative moments of shock violence and gore. While not compulsory, per se, early on these moments help give Turistas a careening sense of possibility; one is involved in the story because it seems un-tethered to convention. The envelope is eventually pushed off the table, though, with one scene in particular seeming to exist for no other reason than to guarantee some word-of-mouth regarding its graphic nature. Similarly, recalling elements of David Marconi’s 1993 indie The Harvest, the movie also overplays its hand a bit in the particulars of its third act torment; when the antagonist, a sadistic doctor named Zamora (Miguel Lunardi), reveals his intentions, this culminates with some unintentionally amusing, politically indignant speechifying.

Where Turistas really comes off the rail, though, is in its murky final third. As it moves to more explicitly define its threat, the movie takes on a de-saturated, bleach-bypass look, which might be fine were it not eventually mixed with a nightfall of harsh, crosscutting shadows. Jittery or willfully dark camerawork can sometimes effectively feed a film’s tension or claustrophobia, as in 1999’s The Blair Witch Project or this year’s The Descent, for example, with which I still had a lot of problems. The third act of Turistas, on the other hand, just feels like a dark and stressed-out mess. The movie is additionally mightily hamstrung — mortally wounded, really — by an utter lack of spatial clarity.

Presented in anamorphic widescreen, unrated cut transfer that faithfully replicates the evocative photography of its theatrical exhibition, Turistas includes an English language 5.1 Dolby digital sound mix and French and Spanish Dolby surround mixes, as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles. Rather surprisingly, apart from a one-minute teaser trailer for the recently released sequel to The Hills Have Eyes, the only bonus feature on this DVD is a 10-minute featurette on the effects work in the film. A big strike for quantity, then, but a high mark, at least, for quality. In this bit, Stockwell talks about the verité importance of some of the gruesome effects, lest audiences be pulled out of the moment. Interviews with he, underwater DP Pete Zuccarini, prosthetic specialist Michael Manzel and others shed light on gambits both classic (a fake appendage for a shot in which a hook slices into a foot) and complicated (a grisly surgery sequence in which a special breathing mechanism had to be applied to a body cast, to simulate the rise and fall of the chest cavity of a living person whose organs are being taken out). C (Movie) C (Disc)

Somewhere between foreign and not, 2005’s A Little Trip to Heaven is one of those
interesting independent movies that must have come together in a blur of
hastily tendered offers, short “windows” for actors, and bizarre coincidence. Directed
by erstwhile actor Baltasar Kormákur (101
Reykjavik), from a screenplay co-written with Edward Weinman, the Iceland-shot
movie is perhaps most notable for featuring Forest Whitaker, fresh off his
Oscar victory for The Last King of Scotland, which is
no doubt why it’s finally seeing a decently pushed DVD Stateside release.

Insurance agent Abe Holt (Whitaker, sporting a strangely indefinable
accent) is investigating the suspicious death of the driver of a burned-out
car. Dispatched by his pitiless boss Frank (Peter Coyote), Holt has to work out
whether the dead man, a con man with a criminal record, could possibly have
been the victim of an attempt to swindle the insurance company. When he meets
Isolde (Julia Stiles), the dead man’s sister, Holt slowly begins to lose his
professional distance, but becomes suspicious of her inscrutable husband Fred (Jeremy
Renner). Against the backdrop of a hostile, endless and harsh Midwest
winter, the characters reveal themselves to be multi-layered, involved in a
curious yet balanced plot. In the end Holt must decide if doing the right thing
is worth the price of doing something very, very wrong.

A Little Trip to
Heaven moves in slow-motion, carefully plotted, feet-through-the-snow steps,
and either benefits or suffers — depending on your familiarity with his
catalogue — from Renner’s previous experience with white trash antagonists. The
movie features cinematography of gorgeous disrepair, though its gloomy tone will
really appeal only to up-market arthouse audiences for whom literary-plotted comeuppance
is its own cinematic reward. If some of the inter-familial twists, then, are a
bit self-satisfied, many of the character details — like penny-pinching actuary
Abe asking for a receipt at a local dive restaurant — bring the material a nice
sense of proportion and full-bodiedness. I wish I could say Whitaker’s
performance had more of a natural pull, though; as is, it just feels like an
impulsive half-sketch. His accent comes and goes, and his burgeoning affinity and
sense of protection for Isolde hinges too much, and in late-developing fashion,
on her young son Thor (Alfred Harmsworth).

A Little Trip to
Heaven is presented with a Dolby digital 5.1 audio mix, alongside optional English
and Spanish subtitles. Alongside the cursory bonus inclusions of trailers for
this movie and other First Look releases is a so-so collection of behind-the-scenes
material. First up are 16 minutes worth of deleted and extended scenes,
including the movie’s original opening, which involves two characters plunging
off a cliff in a staged accident (portions of this footage are incorporated
into the finished product, so this gives away nothing). A 12-minute making-of
featurette includes interviews with cast and crew, and also reveals the Icelandic
word for actor, which is “leikari,” for what it’s worth. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

First airing on the Showtime cable network in October 2005, the
“Masters of Horror” anthology series has parlayed its early critical plaudits
into deserved public acclaim, with each one-hour episode tackling provocative
ideas, and giving some of the genre’s leading practitioners a chance to
exercise their fright muscles. The latest offering is director John Carpenter’s
Pro-Life, a twisted tale of the
supernatural and the menacingly paternal.

Written by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan (who also teamed up
with Carpenter for another “Masters” offering, Cigarette
Burns), Pro-Life is a combination
monster movie and siege film. It starts off with a near-accident on an isolated
mountain road. Two doctors at a remote country women’s health clinic, Alex
(Mark Feuerstein) and Kim (Emmanuelle Vaugier — above, in a shot perhaps unfairly unrepresentative of her work in the movie), are returning from an
afternoon fling when they almost hit young Angelique (Caitlin Wachs). After
driving her to their facility, they discover she happens to be the daughter of
the devoutly religious Dwayne Burcell (cult film veteran Ron Perlman, of Hellboy),
who’s had a restraining order placed against him for targeting the clinic for
its “ungodly activities.” A tense standoff quickly develops, and the situation
worsens when Alex and Kim discover Angelique is pregnant… and with a most
unusual baby. As Dwayne and his three sons attempt to “rescue” Angelique, all
involved soon discover that the only thing more dangerous than her would-be
saviors is the demonic secret growing within her.

The movie’s low-fi production detail sometimes comes across
as cheesy (Angelique is wheeled into the facility by an extra sporting a
“clinic escort” vest!), and Wachs is additionally not strong enough of an
actress to really pull her weight. The material itself is I guess a bit
scandalous, chiefly in its juxtaposition of themes, but Carpenter’s staging
frequently seems perfunctory and a half step off. What really helps sell Pro-Life, though, is Perlman’s
performance. He brings a quiet, chilling menace to the role of Dwayne, giving
all the scenes of relatively conventional human standoff a weight and
intimidation that the rest of the film can’t really touch.

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, enhanced for 16×9
televisions, Pro-Life comes with Dolby
digital 5.1 and Dolby digital 2.0 surround sound mixes, though the dialogue
seems mixed a bit too low in relation to the music. The release comes with the usual
impressive slew of supplemental bonus features that trick out Anchor
Bay’s “Masters of Horror” releases.
First up is an audio commentary track with Carpenter and writers McWeeny and Swan.
Much glad-handing ensues, but Carpenter eventually ducks out, mid-track, for a
cigarette break, and instructs the writers to continue praising him as much as
possible. A 15-minute making-of featurette includes interviews with all of the
primary cast and crew, but the six-minute effects featurette on the birthing of
the movie’s demon baby — complete with interviews and show-how from Howard
Berger and Greg Nicotera, plus actress Wachs — is in particular a lesson in
streamlined entertainment value. A storyboard gallery, a text biography of Carpenter
and list of his films, and a copy of the movie’s teleplay on DVD-ROM round
things out. B- (Movie) A- (Disc)