New films, many of them campaigning for Golden Globe and Oscar attention, highlight this 2021 Black History month on streaming services and in theaters: ‘The U.S. vs Billie Holiday,’ ‘One Night in Miami,’ ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7,’ ‘Malcolm & Marie,’ ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’ ‘Judas and the Black Messiah,’ ‘The Forty-Year-Old Version,’ ‘The Little Things.’
Newly released on Blu-ray are a pair of ‘Must See’ Black documentaries that combine historical imperative with rousing entertainment. 
Bert Stern (1929-2013) is today probably best known as the last photographer to do a full series of portraits of Marilyn Monroe, many of which were rejected by the star with a red X. Stern sold several of those years later. A photographer with an affection for methamphetamine, Stern directed and was one of 3 cameramen at Rhode Island’s 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. In 1959 he released ‘Jazz on a Summer Day’ (Blu-ray, Kino Classics, Not Rated) which has long been an acknowledged classic. Here are a breathtaking rollcall of legends, the real deal, in live performance:
Louis Armstrong with his trumpet and vocals, jazz pianist and composer (‘Round Midnight’) Thelonious Monk, rock and roller Chuck Berry, dynamic vocalist Dinah Washington, the R&B singer Big Maybelle, Sonny Stitt and his bebop sax, jazz drummer and bandleader Chico Hamilton, vocalist Anita O’Day. The concert concluded on a Saturday at midnight with Mahalia Jackson, America’s ‘Queen of Gospel’ singing ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ to close the festival.
The Bonus Features: A stunning 4K restoration, archival interview with Bert Stern, a 2011 documentary on Stern called ‘Bert Stern: Original Madman,’ an audio commentary, Bert Stern photo galleries.
‘Nationtime’ (Blu-ray, Kino Classics, Not Rated) is not nearly as well known yet it can easily match ‘Jazz’ in its prestigious assembly of noteworthy names. William Greaves (1926-2014), a noted documentary filmmaker who specialized in Black history, politics and culture, captures the 1972 Gary, Indiana, National Black Political Convention. Among the 10,000 conventioneers: Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Betty Shabazz (Malcolm X’s widow), Amira Baraka, Isaac Hayes, Richard Roundtree (the original Shaft), Bobby Seale. Narrators: Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte. Was this broadcast on TV? No way – it was considered ‘too militant’ for television which was patently ridiculous.
Subsequently ‘Nationtime’ was seen in a truncated 58-minute version. With funding from Jane Fonda and the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. the documentary has been given a 4K restoration and restored to its original 80 minutes. Bonus: A booklet with an essay by American history scholar Leonard N. Moore, Ph.D., and notes on the restoration by Sandra Schulberg, interviews with Louise Greaves, the filmmaker’s widow, and his son David Greaves who provides an audio commentary.
NEW DVDs:
DYNAMITE DUO Set 50 years ago in a rural America Montana not so different from today, ‘Let Him Go’ (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Code, Universal, R) escalates into a tense stand-off between rivals for the care and raising of a child that will leave many dead. Serious and brilliantly acted yet hardly glum, ‘Let Him Go’ is ultimately, finally, a tragedy with echoes of classical Greek inevitability.
The start, a prologue, sees the only son of retired sheriff George Blackledge (Kevin Costner) and his wife Margaret (Diane Lane) die in a horse-riding accident. His wife, who had recently given birth to their only son, all too soon remarries and, without a word, disappears from town. Margaret is determined to rescue their grandson who is now embedded with a thieving family, actually a gangster clan ruled by its scarily severe matriarch Blanche Weboy (the magnificent Lesley Manville who is to play Princess Margaret in the final 2 seasons of ‘The Crown’). Jeffrey Donovan costars as the most dangerous of Blanche’s sons. Adapted and directed by Thomas Bezucha (whose wonderful, holiday-themed ‘The Family Stone’ could not offer a greater contrast of family values). Bonus Features: A Making of, a profile of the Blackledges and ‘Lighting the Way.’
PRO CHOICE A critical favorite with year-end awards, Eliza Hittman’s ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ (DVD, Universal, PG-13) illustrates the hurdles an American teenager must navigate to end her unwanted pregnancy. The title refers to the questionnaire the young Pennsylvania woman named Autumn (Sidney Flanigan, a non-actress making a terrific film debut) must fill out before she can have the procedure in New York City. As writer-director Hittman gives us not just an individual but a cause in a film that encompasses and emphasizes the very real threat by government to individual freedom.
LESBIAN LOVERS Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan make a formidable couple in the intriguing ‘Ammonite’ (Blu-ray, NEON Universal, R). Inspired by fossil hunter Mary Anning whose prehistoric finds remain highlights of British museums, ‘Ammonite’ is set nearly a century ago.
Winslet’s Anning makes her discoveries digging along Britain’s ‘Jurassic coast,’ nicknamed for its many ancient treasure. A gentleman asks Anning to board his sickly wife Charlotte Murchison (Ronan) and the two eventually become lovers. The film’s period touches are impeccable — as are its acknowledgment of class differences and the actresses’ performances, a study of opposites attracting. Gay director Francis Lee (‘God’s Own Country’) let his 2 stars choreograph their graphic, climactic lovemaking scene. Bonus: A Making of featurette.
LOOPY IRISH CHARM It’s screenwriter-director John Patrick Shanley who’s the magician pulling the strings in the beguiling Irish romance ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ (DVD, Universal, PG-13). Two of the movies’ most attractive people, Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan, feud and fuss as Anthony and Rosemary, neighboring farmers in County Mayo. The blarney may be high but the cast is as enchanting as the farm animals, the scenery and the stakes –whether to live a life of bliss or loneliness
. As Anthony’s father Christopher Walken’s spry old codger threatens his son’s future by intending to sell the farm to his American nephew (Jon Hamm), a possible rival for Rosemary’s affection. There’s an enchanting moment in the local pub when Blunt sings – live, not pre-recorded — the famous Irish tune that gives this movie its title.
PARANOIA MINUS POLITICS Alan J. Pakula’s ‘The Parallax View’ (Blu-ray, Criterion Collection, R), in a striking newly restored 4K digital transfer, is ready to be re-evaluated. The center of Pakula’s ‘Political Paranoia’ trilogy that began with ‘Klute’ (’71) and ended with ‘All the President’s Men’ (’76), ‘Parallax View’ in 1974 seized upon the continuing interest in lingering conspiracy theories about the ‘60s assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a political thriller about a corporation – the Parallax Corp. – that specializes in assassination. It’s an octopus with enormously long, dangerous tentacles. Warren Beatty is the Seattle reporter who stumbles upon Parallax, infiltrates it and worries, justly, whether he’ll live to publish. The Criterion extras are considerable with one insider noting that the box-office returns were likely to be bleak if, to start, few potential moviegoers knew what ‘parallax’ means. He was right! The great cinematographer Gordon Willis (‘The Godfather Parts I and II’) is here musing in 2004 on the difficulties of making a movie without a script (there was a writers’ strike) and a star who had a ‘pay or play’ contract, meaning if they didn’t start on time, Beatty was guaranteed his full salary and could then disappear.
Pakula, who was 70 when he died in 1998 in a freak accident on the Long Island Expressway, is heard in interviews in 1974 and 1995. He is described as deeply reflective, engaged and improvisatory. Jon Boorstin had his first entry into the film business when Pakula hired him as his assistant and then commissioned him to do the 3½ minute montage that serves as the Parallax Corporation’s visual interview to determine if the applicant is a likely sociopathic killer. (One surprise: Beatty’s reporter scarily passes the test while undercover; he’s a natural sociopath.) There’s an accompanying booklet with a Pakula Q&A as well as The New Yorker writer Nathan Heller’s examination of the film, its themes and implications. One relevant point made several times: ‘Parallax View’ is not about a left or right conspiracy, that subject is never considered.
A CAMERON CROWE FILM Every so often a movie comes along that, for whatever reason, eludes any and all expectations. There was the notorious Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez ‘Gigli,’ a bomb which threatened to end both their careers. But of course it didn’t. Similarly, Cameron Crowe’s career as writer-director of the 2005 ‘Elizabethtown’ (Blu-ray, Paramount, PG-13) was nearly swamped by the hostile reception to his low-key romantic comedy. He didn’t direct another movie for 6 years.
With ‘Elizabethtown’ – newly remastered from a 4K transfer Crowe supervised — there were problems before and during filming and with previews. Ashton Kutcher was originally cast as a depressed son returning to the titular Kentucky hometown for his father’s memorial service. Crowe replaced him with Orlando Bloom (Chris Evans and James Franco had auditioned and been rejected). Susan Sarandon replaced Jane Fonda as the newly widowed mother. Kirsten Dunst is the flight attendant Bloom meets coming home, a woman he eventually beds and, eventually, says he loves. Numerous Special Features offer another, more positive perspective on ‘Elizabethtown’: A new filmmaker focus with Crowe, an alternate ending introduced by Crowe, deleted and extended scenes, ‘The Music of Elizabethtown,’ ‘Meet the Crew’ and ‘Training Wheels.’
YANKEE WWII YUCKS & NAZI MELANCHOLY Bob Hope scored with service comedies and farce as Americans prepared for war in 1941. ‘Caught in the Draft’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) teams the ski-nosed comic with frequent leading lady Dorothy Lamour while ‘Nothing But the Truth’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) teams Hope with frequent leading lady Paulette Goddard. ‘Draft,’ now in a brand new 4K master, serves as a benign metaphor for what the nation will soon face: Hope plays a movie star reluctantly drafted.
The special features: Audio commentary, vintage film of Hope entertaining the troops, Hope offering Command performances in ’44 and ’45 and footage of the Hollywood Victory Caravan. ‘Truth,’ here in a brand-new 2K master, is a variation on the often-filmed premise where a guy makes a bet he can’t say one little lie for 24 hours. The 1942 ‘My Favorite Blonde’ teams Hope with Madeleine Carroll, who thanks to ‘The 39 Steps’ ranks as one of the most famous Hitchcock Blondes. ‘Blonde’ opened in spring 1942 when we were officially at war but is set in the days just before, with Carroll a British secret agent, Hope an actor upstaged by a penguin, evil Nazis, a cross country chase and — a roll of the drums! — a cameo by Hope’s most frequent comedy partner Bing Crosby. There’s also an insightful audio commentary by Samm Deighan.
Meanwhile as the Nazis were losing WWII, the state-run film industry was allowing defiant deviations from Third Reich decrees as this Agfacolor 1944 romance ‘Port of Freedom’ (Blu-ray, Kino Classics, Not Rated) suggests. Hans Albers , a German romantic idol, plays a street musician in Hamburg’s red light district. As he falls for a young farmgirl, his decency is re-awakened, a lovely notion of Nazi re-invention. Melancholy and looking to the past, not the inglorious, inevitable future defeat, ‘Port of Freedom’ was meticulously restored 3 years ago. Albers, a WWI veteran, was Germany’s definitive matinee idol in the early ‘30s when he tried to distance himself from the Nazis.
His lover Hansi Burg was Jewish but even his popularity could not eventually insure her safety. She fled to London where she married, only to return to Albers when the war ended. She remained with him until he died in 1960. Her father, Albers’ acting coach, was murdered in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. There is an audio commentary by historian Olaf Moller. In German with English subtitles.
SEX SPY Ang Lee’s ‘Lust Caution’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, NC-17) from 2007 is one of this Oscar-winning master’s most formidable films. Lee, a Best Director Oscar winner for ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and ‘Life of Pi,’ tells an erotically charged espionage story – hence the rare NC-17 rating. Set in 1938 Hong Kong and then in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1942, ‘Lust Caution’ follows Hong Kong college students going underground with an assassination plot to kill a prominent Japanese collaborator by using a beautiful young woman as bait.
There are sex scenes, full-frontal nudity and, briefly when it was released, a controversy whether it defamed real people in this fictionalized story. The 3 sex scenes reportedly took 100 hours for Lee to film. ‘Lust Caution’ won the Golden Lion at Venice, the top prize, was named to several 10 Best lists and was Golden Globe-nominated as Best Foreign Language Film (it was not, coming from Taiwan, Oscar eligible). There’s an audio commentary, a featurette on Ang Lee’s persistence in recreating the period, casting and direction.
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Stephen Schaefer’s Hollywood & Mine - Boston Herald
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