Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs
The Beguiled (Focus). Don Siegel’s Southern Gothic thriller with Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page was so good in 1970 that you wonder why anybody should want to remake it. A wounded Union deserter in the American Civil War is given refuge in seminary for young ladies housed in a magnificent colonial building. The headmistress, a teacher and their virginal charges are all aflutter. The film is prettily photographed but so understated that the Gothic has been drained out of it. Potentially the most erotic scene is when the soldier is given a bed bath. Sofia Coppola takes a subtle, a much softer, a much more feminine approach to the story than Siegel did; and the soldier (Colin Farrell) is a much more sympathetic and vulnerable character than Eastwood’s sexual predator. The film, with a cast headed by Nicole Kidman, is OK if you haven’t seen the original, which, interestingly, flopped at the box office, largely because Eastwood’s fans didn’t want to see him castrated.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (StudioCanal). James Cameron’s 1991 spectacular Sci-Fi thriller still stands up extremely well after all this time. Arnold Schwarzenegger has an arresting entrance, fully naked. The violence never stops. :”You just can’t keep killing people,” says the boy (Edward Furlong) he has been assigned to protect. “Why not? I’m a terminator,” is his reply. The film has a sense of humour. Schwarzenegger, robotic, expressionless, a macho presence, lets young Furlong do all the acting. He battles against an android (Robert Patrick) who has been sent to kill the boy. The computer generated special effects are stunning and particularly memorable is what is achieved with Patrick’s character, a silver skeleton, made of liquid metal, which constantly morphs into any shape he wants. And he can’t be killed. His preferred persona is a physically fit young policeman capable of running very fast.
To learn more about Robert Tanitch and his reviews, click here to go to his website
