STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) (Umbrella Blu-ray Review)

STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) 

Label: Umbrella Entertainment 
Region Code: A/B
Rating: M (Mature)
Duration: 95 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.4:1) 
Director: Lewis Teague
Cast: Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Robert Hays, Kenneth McMillan, Candy Clark

Synopsis: A wandering supernatural feline's adventures provide the linking story for Stephen King's Cat's Eye, a dead on trilogy scripted by King and directed by Lewis Teague (Cujo).
The staff at Quitters Inc promises to help nicotine fiend Dick Morrison (James Woods) kick the habit. If not, someone in Morrison's household might get smoked... because QI is run by a very persuasive mob family. Next, a luckless gambler (Robert Hayes) is forced into a bet involving a stroll around a building - on the five-inch ledge encircling the 30th floor. Finally, our wayfarer kitty rescues a schoolgirl (young Drew Barrymore) from a vile, doll-sized troll.
Fan of the works of Stephen King will have fun finding the many references to his other projects throughout the film.

This often overlooked 80's trilogy of terror begins with the titular feline escaping the jaws of not only the dog from Cujo (1983) but the wheels of the cursed-car from Christine (1983)in a nice homage to Stephen King's other movies. The cat shows up again in the opening story of the anthology, "Quitters, Inc." wherein a die-hard cigarette smoker named Dick Morrison played by James Woods (Videodrome) seeks the help of Quitter's Inc. to curb his addiction to nicotine. Quitters Inc. and the strong-armed Dr. Vinnie Donatti (Alan King, The Bonfire of the Vanities) have put together quite an extreme stop-smoking program, one seemingly based on the tactics employed by mafia, as demonstrated by their willingness to repeatedly electrocute a poor cat as an example of what they will do if they catch him smoking. A threat not directed towards him, but to his lovely wife and family. The threat is only too real as he comes to find out when sneaking a puff proves too much for him to resist, even when faced with dire consequences. The short has plenty of laughs and uncomfortable moments of pain being inflicted upon his wife, Woods is wonderful as the chain-smoker caught between his addiction and his love of family and there's a great surreal party-scene with him surrounded by exaggerated smoking behaviors. .  

Next up, the high-rise thriller "The Ledge", where we have a former tennis pro named Johnny Norris (Robert Hays, Airplane) who has angered wealthy casino owner Cressner by running off with his estranged wife. Cressner is played with comical ruthlessness by Kenneth McMillan (Dune) who kidnaps the would-be Lothario and forces him into accepting a deadly bet. The wager is that if Norris can circumnavigate his high rise penthouse apartment on the exterior ledge without falling to his death he will grant his wife a divorce and give the tennis pro a bunch of money. Norris reluctantly accepts the wager and climbs out onto the perilous ledge where he is menaced by Cressner who harasses Norris with water hoses and loud noises, all while taunting him with the annoyingly awesome line, "just trying to keep you on your toes". Norris must also contend with a tenacious pigeon who relentlessly pecks away at his ankles until they begin to bleed. Unsurprisingly Cressner welshes on the bet when Norris succeeds but when the tables are turned things to not go so well for the casino owner. It was a ton of fun to watch McMillan play such a son-of-a-bitch, he's an intense actor and plays the part with so much diabolical glee. The scenes of Norris traversing the exterior of the high rise are done with what appears to be a mixture of rear projection and miniature sets and the optical effects still look good to my eyes, this is a fun one, those with an aversion to heights might even get a bit light headed by the high rise thrills. 

The third and final entry in this trilogy of terror is "General", starring a young Drew Barrymore (E.T.) as Amanda, a young girl who is being menaced by a breath-sucking troll that lives inside her bedroom wall. However, her mother (Candy Clark, Amityville 3-D) places the blame for the troll's increasingly alarming shenanigans on the family poor cat, banishing him to stay the night outside, leaving poor Amanda unguarded with the malicious troll who threatens to steal her breath while she sleeps. Of course the cat comes through in the end, but I had forgotten what a gory end the troll comes to in this one, and was a bit surprised how bloody it was for a PG-13 rated anthology, but we got away with a lot more in kids movies back then. 

Cat's Eye is a fun watch, based on two of Stephen King's short stories from his Night Shift collection, plus a new one which he scripted just for this movie. I like the connective tissue of the titular cat going from one story to the next, and Lewis Teague, who also directed adapted Stephen King's Cujo for the silver screen, does a fine job with all three of the vignettes within the context of a kiddie friendly horror anthology.  

Audio/Video: Cat's Eye (1985) arrives on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment looking great, there is a nice layer of film grain that looks like it has not suffered any major digital manipulation. The image is crisp, the colors are strong, skin tones look natural and the image is nicely detailed, the cinematography from Jack Cardiff (Ghost Story)looks phenomenal. Audio is handled by a lossless English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 track that is nicely balanced with good depth and fidelity, the score from Alan Silvestri (Back to the Future) sounds good in the mix, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Umbrella's release has two new, exclusive extras, a half-hour interview with actor Robert Hayes, plus an eight-minute interview with animal wrangler Teresa Ann Miller, produced by Cinemaniacs.  The interviews are good, with Hays recalling working on the film, particularly working with McMillan and how some of the high rise visuals were achieved, and animal trainer Miller recalls working on the film with her father Karl Lewis Miller, and how the St. Bernard seen in the film was actually one of the same one from the Cujo adaptation. Notably, Umbrella do not carry-over the audio commentary with director Lewis Teague which is found on the US disc from Warner Bro., so if you own that release you may want to hang onto it.  


The single-disc Blu-ray release comes housed in an over-sized Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring new artwork, which is fantastic, made to look like a well-worn Stephen King paperback novel, even the spine has a coll distressed look. The reverse side features a variant of the same artwork minus the rating label, and the backside of the b-side features the original one sheet movie poster for the film. The disc features the same key art as the sleeve. While this release is labeled as a region B it plays just fine on my region A player. 

Special Features: 
- Interviews with Actor Robert Hayes (28 min) 
- Interview with Teresa Ann Miller (8 min) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) HD 

Cat's Eye looks great on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment, a solid HD upgrade for this 80's Stephen King horror anthology with some very cool artwork and exclusive new extras. This is an awesome trilogy of terror that is both suspenseful and kiddie-friendly enough that you can watch it with your kids, which is awesome.  

DONNIE DARKO (2001) (4-Disc Limited Edition Blu-ray/DVD Review)

DONNIE DARKO (2001) 
4-Disc Limited Edition Blu-ray/DVD

Label: Arrow Video:
Region Code: A/B
Rating: R
Duration: 113 Minutes/134 Minutes 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 
Director: Richard Kelly 
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone

Synopsis: Fifteen years before Stranger Things combined science-fiction, Spielberg-ian touches and 80s nostalgia to much acclaim, Richard Kelly set the template - and the high-water mark - with his debut feature, Donnie Darko. Initially beset with distribution problems, it would slowly find its audience and emerge as arguably the first cult classic of the new millennium. Donnie is a troubled high school student: in therapy, prone to sleepwalking and in possession of an imaginary friend, a six-foot rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world is going to end in 28 days 06 hours 42 minutes and 12 seconds. During that time he will navigate teenage life, narrowly avoid death in the form of a falling jet engine, follow Frank's maladjusted instructions and try to maintain the space-time continuum. Described by its director as "The Catcher in the Rye as told by Philip K. Dick", Donnie Darko combines an eye-catching, eclectic cast - pre-stardom Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, heartthrob Patrick Swayze, former child star Drew Barrymore, Oscar nominees Mary McDonnell and Katherine Ross, and television favourite Noah Wyle - and an evocative soundtrack of 80s classics by Echo and the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears and Duran Duran. This brand-new 4K restoration, carried out exclusively for this release by Arrow Films, allows a modern classic to finally receive the home video treatment it deserves.

I caught up with Donnie Darko on HBO, I had missed it in the cinema, in fact I had never even heard of it when it showed on HBO. It was one of those nights I was up late, and it was on, so I watched it. From the very start I was mesmerized by it, there's something about that opening scene of Donnie waking up on the road overlooking the valley, he smiles weirdly, hops on his 10-speed bike and rides home in the early morning hours, while Echo & the Bunnymen "The Killing Moon" plays along, there's something so chemically magic about this scene for me. The movie tells the supernaturally sci-fi tale of a troubled sixteen year-old boy named Donnie Darko, a boy with a sleepwalking disorder and some possible mental health issues. 

Set in suburban Virginia Donnie Darko (2001) taps into the weirdness of being a teenager during a particular era, set in 1989 when I was when I was a sixteen year old freshman myself, it captures a certain confusedness and uncertainty, a time that makes you question your sanity, which I am sure many of us did, the teen years were awkward times indeed, and Jake Gyllenhaal wonderfully captures that teen confusion as the young man suffering from possible schizophrenia, but also wrapped up in an enigmatic time travel story that involves wormholes and parallel realities, the damn thing is near impenetrable at times, but I love the tone and atmosphere that first time director Richard Kelly (The Box) brought to his debut film.

One night teenager Donnie is awakened by a creepy humanoid rabbit named Frank who summons him outside in the dead of night, Frank informs Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds, and that the fate of the world rests on the teen's shoulders, whoa, that's heavy stuff. Weirder, seconds later a random jet engine falls through the roof of the family home and lands on Donnie's bed where he had been mere moments earlier, perhaps even stranger is that no one seems to know where the engine originated from, not even the FAA who have arrived on scene to investigate. 

The film has some seriously weird stuff happening within, the science fiction story is mind-bending and even after countless viewings of both the theatrical and director's cut, I am not 100% sure what exactly is happening, and that's probably why I love it so much, it keep me coming back and I like what it offers, it holds up to repeated viewings. Aside from Gyllenhaal's wonderful performance as the aloof and sardonic teem, we get wonderfully caring performances from Mary McDonnell (Independence Day) as his emotionally struggling mom, Holmes Osborne (That Thing You Do!) as his somewhat goofy father, and his real life sister Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary) as his antagonistic older sister, they share some great scenes together, a political conversation around the dinner table at the beginning sets up the family so nicely, with McDonnell really putting across how torn up she is that her son might be suffering with sever mental illness, particularly during a scene with Donnie's therapist (Katharine Ross, The Stepford Wives), tears streaming down her face as she receives some devastating news about Donnie's mental health.

There's also a pretty great cast of side characters, we have Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express) appearing against type as a high school bully, Noah Wyle (E.R.)and Drew Barrymore as teachers who seem strangely attuned to Darko's plight, Beth Grant (The Dark Half) as an annoying gym teacher, and Patrick Swayze (Dirty Dancing) as a motivational author/speaker with a  very dark secret. plus Jena Malone (The Neon Demon) as Donnie's girlfriend.

This set also contains the 2005 director's cut of the movie, but I prefer the original theatrical cut, and if I am honest about it that is probably just because the DC  changes the music cue from the opening scenes, changing out "The Killing Moon" for  "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS, which really irked me, I don't mind the song, but "The Killing Moon" set the tone for me on the theatrical version, otherwise I like the DC just fine.  

Audio/Video: I have owned about as many versions of Donnie Darko on DVD and Blu-ray as I have of Evil Dead 2 - just pouring money into my love of the damn film, a movie which obsessed me for a long while after I first watched it, including at least two screening of the movie, both theatrical and director's cut. The only version I still owned prior to this review is the 4-disc 10th Anniversary Edition, and I was okay with it, the transfers of DD have always been problematic... until now!  What we have here with this new Arrow release is a 4K restorations of both the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut from the original camera negatives produced by Arrow Films exclusively for this release, supervised and approved by director Richard Kelly and cinematographer Steven Poster, and it's one of those night and day scenarios - this clearly blows away every other release. Fine detail and clarity are improved, colors look more accurate, skin tones are less ruddy, black levels are deeper, this is just a wonderful presentation. Audio on the discs come by way of an English DTS-HD MA 5.1 track with optional English subtitles.  

Arrow carry-over all the extras from the many iterations of the film on home video in the US, and throw in several exclusive extras, including the 1996 short film The Goodbye Place(9 min), which is cool, you can feel familiar themes running through it. There also an 85 minute making-of doc made by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures with new interviews with writer-director Richard Kelly, producer Sean McKittrick, director of photography Steven Poster, it goes deep into many facets of the making of the movie, this is the sort of doc I have long been waiting for about this film. what else? we have 5-min of b-roll footage, 14-min of archival interviews with Richard Kelly, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, James Duval, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne, Noah Wyle and Katharine Ross, producers Sean McKittrick, Nancy Juvonen, Hunt Lowry and Casey La Scala, and cinematographer Steven Poster. 

Special Features: 
- Brand new 4K restorations of both the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut from the original camera negatives produced by Arrow Films exclusively for this release, supervised and approved by director Richard Kelly and cinematographer Steven Poster
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations of both cuts
- Original 5.1 audio (DTS-HD on the Blu-ray)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Disc One Special Features: Theatrical Cut (113 Minutes) 
- Audio commentary by writer-director Richard Kelly and actor Jake Gyllenhaal on the Theatrical Cut

- Audio commentary by Kelly, producer Sean McKittrick and actors Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone, Beth Grant, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Katharine Ross and James Duval on the Theatrical Cut
- Trailer (2 min)HD 
- Twenty deleted and alternate scenes with optional commentary by Kelly (32 min) HD

Disc Two Special Features: Director's Cut (134 Minutes) 
- Audio commentary by Kelly and filmmaker Kevin Smith on the Director’s Cut
- Deus ex Machina: The Philosophy of Donnie Darko (85 min)HD, a brand-new documentary by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures on the making of Donnie Darko, containing interviews with writer-director Richard Kelly, producer Sean McKittrick, director of photography Steven Poster,
- The Goodbye Place, (9 min)HD, Richard Kelly’s 1996 short film, which anticipates some of the themes and ideas of his feature films
- The Donnie Darko Production Diary, (53 min)an archival documentary charting the film’s production with optional commentary by cinematographer Steven Poster
- Archive interviews with Richard Kelly, actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, James Duval, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne, Noah Wyle and Katharine Ross, producers Sean McKittrick, Nancy Juvonen, Hunt Lowry and Casey La Scala, and cinematographer Steven Poster (14 min)
- Three archive featurettes: They Made Me Do It (5 min), They Made Me Do It Too (31 min)and #1 Fan: A Darkomentary (13 min)
- 4 Storyboard to Film Comparisons (8 min) HD
- B-roll Footage (4 min)
- Cunning Visions Infomercials with Optional Commentary (5 min)
- Music video: Mad World by Gary Jules (3 min)
- Gallery (49 Images) HD 
- Director's Cut Trailer (1 min) HD 
- 5 TV spots (2 min) 
- Exclusive collector’s book containing new writing by Nathan Rabin, Anton Bitel and Jamie Graham, an in-depth interview with Richard Kelly, introduction by Jake Gyllenhaal and contemporary coverage, illustrated with original stills and promotional material
- Limited edition packaging featuring new artwork by Candice Tripp

This 4-disc set is astounding, as a fan of the movie this is a real treat, the PQ is fantastic and there are a wealth of extras to pour through and obsess over, this is a movie that inspires obsession, a movie that will plunge you down the rabbit-hole of addictive mind-melting cinema, and this is a release worthy of the obsession, phenomenal! 5/5

STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) (Blu-ray Review)

STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) 

Label: Warner Bros. Entertainment 
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 94 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English SDH Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.4:1) 
Director: Lewis Teague
Cast: Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Robert Hays, Kenneth McMillan, Candy Clark

This often overlooked 80s horror anthology begins with the titular feline escaping the jaws of not only Cujo but the wheels of the cursed-car Christine in a nice homage to Stephen King's other movies. The cat shows up again in the opening story of the anthology,  "Quitters, Inc." wherein a die-hard cigarette smoker named Dick Morrison played by James Woods. Quitter's Inc. seeks professional help to curb his addiction. Quitters Inc. and the strong-armed Dr. Vinnie Donatti (Alan King) have put together quite an extreme stop-smoking program, one based on the tactics employed by mafia, as demonstrated by their willingness to repeatedly electrocute a poor cat as an example of what they will do if they catch him smoking. A threat not directed towards him, but to his lovely wife. The threat is only too real as he comes to find out when he finds that the draw of nicotine is just too much him to resist even when faced with dire consequences. The short has plenty of laughs and uncomfortable moments of pain being inflicted upon his wife, Woods is wonderful as the chain-smoker caught between his addiction and his love of family.  

The cat again come into play in the next story, the high-rise thriller "The Ledge", where we have a former tennis pro named Johnny Norris (Robert Hays, Airplane) who has angered wealthy casino-owner Cressner by running off with his estranged wife. Cressner is played with comical ruthlessness by Kenneth McMillan (Dune) who kidnaps the would-be Lothario and forces him into accepting a deadly bet. The wager is that if Norris can circumnavigate his penthouse apartment on the exterior ledge without falling to his death he will grant his wife a divorce and give the former tennis pro a bunch of money. Norris reluctantly accepts the wager and climbs out onto the perilous ledge of the skyscraper where he is menaced by Cressner who menaces Norris with water hoses and loud noises while taunting him with the line "just trying to keep you on your toes". Norris must also contend with a tenacious pigeon who relentlessly pecks away at his ankles until they begin to bleed. Unsurprisingly Cressner welches on the bet when Norris succeeds but when the tables are turned things to not go so well for the casino-owner. It was a ton of fun to watch McMillan play such a sonofabitch, he's an intense actor and plays the part with so much diabolical glee. The scenes of Norris traversing the exterior of the high rise are done with what appears to be a mixture of rear projection and miniature sets and the optical effects still look good to my eyes, this is a fun one, those with an aversion to heights might even get a bit nauseous. 

Our feline tour guide once again escape his confines and makes his way to the third and final entry, "General", starring a young Drew Barrymore as Amanda, a young girl who is being menaced by a breath-sucking troll that lives inside her bedroom wall. However, her mother (Candy Clark) places the blame for the troll's increasingly alarming shenanigans on the family cat, banishing him to stay the night outside, leaving poor Amanda alone with the malicious troll who threatens to steal her breath while she sleeps. Of course the cat comes through in the end, but I had forgotten what a gory end the troll comes to in this one, and was a bit surprised how bloody it was for a PG-13 rated anthology, but we got away with a lot more in kids movies back then. 

Cat's Eye is a fun watch, based on two of Stephen King's short stories from his Night Shift collection, plus a new one which he scripted just for this movie. I like the connective tissue of the cat going from one story to the next, and Lewis Teague, who also directed adapted Stephen King's Cujo for the silver screen, does a fine job with all three of the vignettes within the context of kiddie horror.  

The anthology arrives on Blu-ray from Warner Bros. with a new 4K scan looking healthy in HD, there is a nice layer of film grain left intact, appearing film like and natural without any major digital manipulation. Colors are strong, skin tones look natural and the image is crisp and detailed. Audio is handled by a lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 track that is nicely balanced with good depth and fidelity. The only extras on the disc are a trailer for the movie and the same audio commentary from director Lewis Teague, which is a solid track giving some back story to how he came to the project, working with Stephen King, his experience with various actors and a lot of technical talk about how many of the optical effects were created. 

Warner Bros. offer up a solid HD upgrade for this 80s Stephen King horror anthology, not on par with Creepshow or Nightmares but still a kiddie-friendly watch that you can enjoy with your kids this October.