Digital Week – October 1st

Kate Winslet gives her usual fierce performance in this conventional biopic of Lee Miller, an American free spirit who made her name in Europe and became one of the most important WWII correspondents/photographers. Director Ellen Kuras, best known for her gritty cinematography in films by Spike Lee and Sam Mendes, brings a weary verisimilitude to the horrors Miller witnessed and recorded, including the first glimpses of the Nazi death camps. Winslet is unafraid to bare herself—histrionically and physically—and there’s excellent support by Alexander Skarsgård, Marion Cotillard, Noémie Merlant, Andrea Riseborough and Josh O’Connor, who plays Miller’s adult son in a not entirely successful subversion of the standard biopic interview arc. Too bad Andy Samberg, as a fellow war photographer, is merely adequate.

Quentin Dupieux is a one-man wrecking crew, writing, directing, photographing and editing his parodic films but also running his flimsy ideas into the ground relentlessly so that, even though they’re short (this one clocks in at 77 minutes), his films feel stretched beyond endurance. His latest, a fake biopic about the Spanish surrealist painter, has a germ of an idea—a young Frenchwoman tries to get Dalí to participate in a documentary about his life, but everything goes wrong—but does nothing with it. Dupieux’s desperate attempts at cleverness—Dalí is played by five different actors, none of whom makes an impression; and there’s brazen thievery galore from Dalí’s occasional cinematic collaborator, Luis Bunuel—add up to little. Holding it together is Anaïs Demoustier, whose natural likability keeps a modicum of interest, but even she (in her fourth Dupieux appearance) can’t conjure laughs where they are none.

In Daniele Campea’s portentous psychological drama, wolf biologist Agnese has been recently discharged from a mental hospital, which has not retarded the progress of her transformation, both physically and mentally, due to the moon’s pull on her. Needless to say, her husband Riccardo and their daughter Arianna are worried about what’s happening to Agnese and have to deal with their own emotional difficulties. Campea writes and directs with more bluntness than finesse, his dark visuals and dream/nightmare sequences only occasionally giving the material a coherent dramatic shape. It’s up to the actors to provide the heavy lifting, and Susanna Costaglione (Agnese), Edoardo Oliva (Riccardo) and especially Sofia Ponente (Arianna) do their considerable best to make this self-serious drama less risible than it would otherwise have been.

One of Dreamworks’ biggest hits, the latest entry in the “Despicable Me” franchise balances those irritating minions with the amusing adventures of a family whose ex-supervillain father, Gru, is trying to go straight. Director Chris Renaud finds the requisite humor in the situation that will simultaneously appeal to the kids and their parents equally. The visuals are vibrant, the voice cast is often hilarious (although Steve Carell is too hammy as Gru), and the laughs and sappiness coexist happily. The UHD transfer looks sumptuous; extras include two new mini-movies (“Game Over and Over,” “Benny’s Birthday”), deleted scenes and making-of featurettes.

A pair of ’70s Spanish features, which are crude if effective examples of filmmaking under Franco as well as just after his dictatorship was toppled in 1976, feature canines in lead roles as potent symbols of Franco’s inhumane regime that considered its enemies no better than wild animals.  Director Eloy de la Iglesia’s unsettling 1977 drama focuses on a couple who adopt a stray dog after the wife miscarries; soon she shows an unhealthily close attachment to it, which her conservative husband discovers may have included unusual intimacy. De la Iglesia milks this creepy plot device for all that it’s worth—including as a metaphor for Franco’s Spain—and actress Ana Belén persuasively plays the besotted wife. The film has a superbly grainy transfer; extras comprise an interview with assistant director Alejo Loren as well as an intro by and interview with French director Gaspar Noé, who’s a big fan.

Director Antonio Isasi’s post-Franco 1977 revenge flick follows Ungria, an escaped political prisoner who is relentlessly pursued by the title canine after Ungria kills his master in self-defense. Isasi follows the fugitive’s fate as relentlessly as the dog does, and the climax is a showdown between wronged man and vengeful beast. As the unfortunate Ungria, Jason Miller provides the necessary gravitas, while the great Italian actress Lea Massari is equally good as Muriel, a willing stranger who helps Ungria whether in or out of bed. The film looks impressive on Blu-ray; extras comprise an interviews with actress Marisa Paredes (who was married to Isasi) and Maria Isasi, daughter of the director and Paredes.