Mood Movies

Even under the best possible circumstances, watching a movie on DVD doesn't compare to seeing a good 35mm print in the immersive environs of a decent movie theater. And yet there's something very satisfying about having Wong Kar-wai's mesmerizing mood piece In the Mood for Love (Criterion) available on a disc, to cue up and revisit like a cherished late-night jazz album. Any frame of this achingly beautiful reverie about betrayed spouses (Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung) who begin their own agonizingly tentative affair in 1960s Hong Kong has the power to alter mood, and it's a treat to be able to summon favorite images at will—such as the slow-motion sway of Cheung's hips in her form-fitting, high-necked cheongsam.

Ideally, DVD extras should enrich and encourage multiple viewings of a film, and in this regard Criterion's painstaking two-disc set is close to perfection. The many supplements, including Wong's own making-of doc and a press conference with the stars, fill in some of the gaps in the elliptical narrative and provide needed cultural context. Particularly helpful is Gina Marchetti's essay, which explains the significance of the movie's specific period setting and its dazzling Western-influenced fashions. Best of all are the substantial deleted scenes: another 40 minutes of Cheung and Leung in glamorous romantic torment. If only every movie rated PG were this sexy, and this good.

—Jim Ridley

In an interview on the making of his taut, dread-inducing horror film Session 9 (USA Home Entertainment), director Brad Anderson gives a nod to Nicolas Roeg's classic psychological thriller Don't Look Now—and the influence is evident. Whereas Roeg turned the narrow, brackish canals and dark churches of Venice into a shadowland populated by guilty spirits, poltergeists and ominous visions, Anderson transforms the bat-shaped Danvers State Mental Hospital into a claustrophobic way station between heaven and hell. An unfortunate five-man Hazmat elimination team has to rid the decaying facility of asbestos within a week—without breathing in the evil spirits that seem to inhabit the place.

The film stars Peter Mullan as stressed-out Hazmat business owner Gordon, cracking under the pressure of new fatherhood and financial woes. In a nuanced performance, David Caruso plays his right-hand man and crew chief Phil, who becomes increasingly unreliable and devious when his leader needs him most. Not since John Carpenter's remake of The Thing has a horror film so effectively plumbed the depths of male anxiety and paranoia. When crewman Mike (Stephen Gevoda) discovers the session tapes of a multiple personality patient, the film gathers a terrible momentum, leading to one of the most unsettling endings of any movie released this past year. The DVD includes storyboard scenes, deleted scenes, an alternate ending and Anderson's commentary on the making of the film—the only part of the disc you should watch alone.

—Adam Ross

1960s experimentation wasn't all about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. In Czech director Vera Chytilova's 1966 film Daisies (Facets Video)—a pioneering feminist work now receiving a long-overdue video release—the '60s ideal also encompasses flowers, food and camera filters. While begging for the right to return to her profession in a 1975 letter to the Czech president (included on the DVD), Chytilova described Daisies as a morality play about the roots of evil in everyday playfulness. But the film feels more like A Hard Day's Night for teenage girls.

Two bratty protagonists, both named Marie (played by Jitka Cerhova and Ivana Karbanova), spend their time in a total, if unconscious, rebellion against male domination. They cut up phallic sausages, pickles and bananas, break into a hotel to steal food, and date middle-aged men in order to mock and humiliate them. Chytilova and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera's approach to the film medium is just as radical. Color changes dramatically from shot to shot without apparent motivation; in the film's opening, a blue-tinted scene of the two Maries sitting around talking is suddenly interrupted when one slaps the other into a bright field of flowers.

Although relatively obscure in the West, Daisies faced a far worse fate in Czechoslovakia: a year's ban and then a return trip to the dustbin after the Soviet invasion. Nevertheless, it has the joie de vivre that permeates many '60s films, even those that end unhappily. The Maries' rebellion looks pretty healthy compared to their fate once they begin mouthing Communist slogans. Daisies is an irreverent film on many levels, combining lush images and an abrasive, proto-riot grrl tone.

—Steve Erickson

For bang-to-buck ratio, there are few better deals than the $24.98 DVD packages from the schlock historians at Something Weird. Of course, that's only if you see any value in the grubbiest of grindhouse exotica: grainy ancient smut, inept violence, mental-hygiene cheese and trailers of unmatched cruddiness. Needless to say, I'm on my way toward owning them all—including A Scream in the Streets, a brick-skulled 1973 slab of soft-core disguised as the world's shoddiest police procedural. Here, two lunkhead cops pursue a mad killer who's attacking nubile cuties while posing as a woman—or more accurately, while posing as Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies in an ill-fitting dress.