Review by Gary Tooze

Production:

Subtitles:

English (SDH), none

Extras:

Rafelson's first feature, made when Monkee mania had all but died, Head proved too experimental for the diminishing weenybop audience which had lapped up the ingenious TV series. It flopped dismally in the US, and only achieved belated release here. Despite obviously dated aspects like clumsy psychedelic effects and some turgid slapstick sequences, the film is still remarkably vital and entertaining. Rafelson (who helped to create the group), together with Jack Nicholson (co-writer and co-producer), increased the TV show's picaresque tempo while also adding more adult, sardonic touches. The calculated manipulation behind the phenomenon is exposed at the start, when the Monkees metaphorically commit suicide. The typical zany humour is intercut with harsher political footage and satire on established genres of American cinema, exploding many a sacred cow into the bargain.

Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide located HERE

After NBC canceled their innovative sitcom, the Monkees and their TV brain trust, Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, hatched this big-screen psychedelic freak-out (1968), a narrative cul-de-sac of genre parodies, musical numbers, smug antiwar statements, and bilious McLuhan-esque satire. Scripted by Rafelson and Jack Nicholson (who would next collaborate on Five Easy Pieces), it's uneven but mostly a blast, with great tunes like Harry Nilsson's “Daddy's Song,” Michael Nesmith's barn burner “Circle Sky,” and Gerry Goffin and Carole King's grandiose “Porpoise Song.” Rafelson directed; with cameos by Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Frank Zappa, Annette Funicello, Sonny Liston, Teri Garr, and Victor Mature.

• Two audio commentaries, one featuring actor-director-writer Dennis Hopper, the other Hopper, actor-writer Peter Fonda, and production manager Paul Lewis
• Born to Be Wild (1995 - BBC - Nicholas Freand Jones 29:50) and “Easy Rider”: Shaking the Cage, (1999 - Charles Kisleyak - 1:04:51), documentaries about the making and history of the film
• Television excerpts showing Hopper and Fonda at the Cannes Film Festival (2:08)
• New video interview with BBS cofounder Steve Blauner (18:40)
• 2 Theatrical trailers (2:50 + :57)

Case:

 

Description: As Billy and “Captain America,” Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda motored down the highway on their Harley Davidsons to the roaring strains of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” the definitive counterculture blockbuster was born. Former clean-cut teen star Hopper’s down-and-dirty directorial debut, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one pitched angrily against the mainstream. After Easy Rider’s cross-country journey—with its radical, New Wave–style editing, outsider-rock soundtrack, revelatory performance by a young Jack Nicholson, and explosive ending—the American road trip would never be the same.

 

 

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

Sony - Region FREE - Blu-ray TOP (Reviewed HERE) vs. Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray BOTTOM

Sony - Region FREE - Blu-ray TOP (Reviewed HERE) vs. Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray BOTTOM

 

Sony - Region FREE - Blu-ray TOP (Reviewed HERE) vs. Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray BOTTOM

 

Extras :

Two audio commentary tracks are available; the same one with actor-director-writer Dennis Hopper from 2000 - with plenty of gaps and not directly relating to the onscreen activity, but still containing decent information. The other, from 1995, is with Hopper, actor-writer Peter Fonda, and production manager Paul Lewis. Born to Be Wild is a half-hour BBC2 television programme from 1995 by Nicholas Freand Jones about the history of the film and more thorough is the 1999 Charles Kisleyak “Easy Rider”: Shaking the Cage documentary featurette as also found on the Sony Blu-ray. It details the cultural impact of Easy Rider and it is always special to hear Fonda talk about the film - and casual reminisces with many of the cast (actors Luke Askew, Karen Black, and Seymour Cassel) - sans Jack. There are segments of Easy Rider scenes interspersed with the comments. Tack on 2-minutes of television excerpts showing Hopper and Fonda at the Cannes Film Festival, directed by Pierre Mignot - aired May 22nd, 1969, and a new video interview with Steve Blauner (the 'S' in BBS) - shy of 20-minutes - recorded for Criterion in Los Angeles 2010. There are also 2 theatrical trailers (2:50 + :57). You couldn't ask for much more here - it is an incredible collection of extras.

Subtitles:

English (SDH), none

Extras:

 

Subtitles:

English (SDH), none

 

Extras (Drive, He Said):

• A Cautionary Tale of Campus Revolution and Sexual Freedom, a 2009 video piece featuring Nicholson (10:41)
• Theatrical trailer (2:41)

 

Extras (A Safe Place):

• Audio commentary featuring director Henry Jaglom
• Henry Jaglom Finds “A Safe Place,” a 2009 video piece in which the director discusses the film (6:36)
• Notes on the New York Film Festival, a 1971 video interview with Jaglom and director Peter Bogdanovich (28:34)
• One Outtake and 4 screen tests (25:25 in total)
• Theatrical trailer (2:51)

 

Case:

 

 

Drive, He Said Description: Fresh off of his Five Easy Pieces success, Jack Nicholson mounted his enormously irreverent directorial debut. Based on the best-selling novel by Jeremy Larner, Drive, He Said, free-spirited and sobering by turns, is a sketch of the exploits of a disaffected college basketball player (William Tepper) and his increasingly radical roommate (Michael Margotta), as well as a feverishly shot and edited snapshot of the early seventies (some of it was filmed during an actual campus protest). Fueled by Vietnam-era anxieties and perched on the edge of utter insanity, Nicholson’s audacious comedy (also starring Bruce Dern and Karen Black) is a startling howl direct from the zeitgeist.

 

A Safe Place Description: One of the discoveries of the groundbreaking production company BBS was director Henry Jaglom. The fiercely idiosyncratic filmmaker—who would go on to have a decades-spanning career making independently produced female character studies—was first revealed to the film world with A Safe Place. In this delicate, introspective drama, laced with fantasy elements, Tuesday Weld stars as a fragile young woman in New York, unable to reconcile her ambiguous past with her unmoored present; Orson Welles as an enchanting Central Park magician and Jack Nicholson as a mysterious ex-lover round out the cast.

 

 

Excerpt from TimeOut London located HERE

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

• Two audio commentaries, one from 1991, featuring Bogdanovich and actors Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman, and Frank Marshall; the other from 2009, featuring Bogdanovich
• “The Last Picture Show”: A Look Back, (1999) - 1:04:40 and Picture This (1990) - 41:59, documentaries about the making of the film
• A Discussion with Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, a 2009 Q&A (12:51)
• Screen tests (16mm - 2:14) and soundless location footage - 6:27
• Excerpts from a 1972 television interview with director François Truffaut about the New Hollywood (4:34)
• Theatrical trailers - original (3:05), re-release (1:28)

Cover/case:

 

Description: The Last Picture Show is one of the key films of the American cinema renaissance of the seventies. Set during the early fifties, in the loneliest Texas nowheresville to ever dust up a movie screen, this aching portrait of a dying West, adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel, focuses on the daily shuffles of three futureless teens—the enigmatic Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), the wayward jock Duane (Jeff Bridges), and the desperate-to-be-adored rich girl Jacy (Cybil Shepherd)—and the aging lost souls who bump up against them in the night like drifting tumbleweeds, including Cloris Leachman’s lonely housewife and Ben Johnson’s grizzled movie-house proprietor. Featuring evocative black-and-white imagery and profoundly felt performances, this hushed depiction of crumbling American values remains the pivotal film in the career of the invaluable director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich.

 

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

Extras :

Possibly the most fondly remembered film in the boxset and favorite of many - the supplements are pleasantly 'stacked' to the rafters. There are two audio commentaries, one from 1991, featuring Bogdanovich and actors Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman, and Frank Marshall; the other from 2009, featuring a lone Bogdanovich. “The Last Picture Show”: A Look Back, is an excellent hour-long documentary from 1999 directed by Laurent Bouzereau. It details how the film as made - from casting to the decision for black and white over color and features interviews with Bogdanovich, Cybill Shepherd, Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Cloris Leachman, and Frank Marshall.  Also included is Picture This - a 40-minute, award-winning documentary, from 1990, directed by George Hickenlooper with the cast revisiting Archer City to shoot, the sequel, Texasville. It exposes some of the conflict that occurred behind the scenes of the first film. There is a Q&A from 2009 with Bogdanovich. It lasts about a dozen minutes as he is questioned about his favorite filmmakers and inspirations - compiled by Laurent Bouzereau. There are and some brief screen tests shot on 16mm and some, soundless, location footage. We also get 4-minutes of excerpts from a 1972 television interview with director François Truffaut about the 'New Hollywood' as well as theatrical trailers - the original (3:05), and the re-release (1:28).

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Runtime: 1:43:48.263

Disc Size: 44,637,637,276 bytes

Feature Size: 30,437,818,368 bytes

Video Bitrate: 34.98 Mbps

Chapters: 21

 

Video:

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps

Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

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Audio:

Subtitles:

English (SDH), none

Extras:

You will not find Marvin Gardens on a map. You will find it on a Monopoly board—between Water Works and Go to Jail—and its king, Jason Staebler, you will find in some country of the mind known best to desperate scenarists. Jason (Bruce Dern), an artist, a visionary, dreams of buying an island ("Off the coast of Hawaii") but actually fronts for a mob in Atlantic City, where he occupies some hotel rooms with his girl, Sally (Ellen Burstyn), and his other girl, Sally's stepdaughter, Jessica (Julia Anne Robinson).

To Jason comes David (Jack Nicholson), also an artist, his kid brother. David is supposed to help finalize the Pacific island plans, but actually he oversees the insubstantial kingdom of Jason until its tragic, but less than inevitable, end.

Excerpt from Roger Greenspun of the NY Times located HERE

An irresistible movie, not least for its haunting vision of Atlantic City as Xanadu, a stately pleasure dome of genteelly decaying palaces, run-down funfairs, and empty boardwalks presided over by white elephants abandoned to their brooding fate. It's like some unimaginable country of the mind, and so in a sense it is as two brothers embark on a sort of game (Atlantic City provided the original place names for the Monopoly board) in which they exchange their lives, their loves and their dreams. One has retreated, like Prospero, from the pain outside into the island of his mind; the other pursues an endless mirage of get-rich-quick schemes which will let him escape to an island paradise. Their fusion is a stunningly complex evocation of childish complicity and Pinterish obsessions, inevitably leading to tragedy as the obsessions founder on reality. One of the most underrated films of the decade.