Coming to home video for the first time, the leading contender for the year’s best picture, Cinderella, debuts today on Blu-ray and other formats (read my review here). I reviewed the two-disc Blu-Ray version with digital HD/SD, Blu-ray combo pack & Disney Movies Anywhere (DMA).
The DVD features a short feature on the movie’s animals, such as horses, chickens and mice, and the animated short that preceded Cinderella during its theatrical release, Frozen Fever. The Blu-ray includes these and also the 20-minute A Fairy Tale Comes to Life with brief interviews with major cast members and director Kenneth Branagh, writer Chris Weitz and producers David Baron, Simon Kinberg and Allison Shearmur in addition to other designers and production crew. The feature is alright, though it does not sweep over the whole picture as it should. I do not think Disney appreciates this picture for its full value.
Mr. Branagh himself downplays the film, which caused some controversy among feminists when it was released, as a light and enjoyable indulgence. There is no mention here, too, of the wonderfully romantic score by Patrick Doyle (read my review of the soundtrack here) among the features. A costume bit involves classical music from The Nutcracker which isn’t used in the 105-minute Cinderella.
The best Blu-ray extra—the best of the whole package besides the movie—is the 11-minute Staging the Ball, which breaks down one of the most breathtaking scenes in Cinderella. The two leading actors, Lily James as Cinderella and Richard Madden as the Prince, comport themselves to the palace filmmaking and so does everyone else who comments on the ballroom scenes, with adoring angles, gestures and framing. Relishing details, Kenneth Branagh and company explain every aspect from lighting the candles and building the set on the James Bond lot to the gown’s 10,000 Swarovski crystals and dance rehearsals. James describes the aura as “lightness and elegance” and it is beautifully deconstructed here. An alternate opening, which forges a stronger bond between the farm animals and the girl’s family before the stepmother (Cate Blanchett) moves in, is very good. Disney restricts the rest of Mr. Branagh’s five deleted scenes to its Disney Movies Anywhere exclusive, the code for which is included on the box.
This is a movie to get lost—even become immersed—in, as Walt Disney might say, and those inclined should do so without reservation. Boys and girls alike should see it with the whole family. Cinderella is that good and that rare and unusual among today’s pictures. Its grand, romantic style is suited to its warm, intelligent script. Despite the denial and modesty with which it is presented, Cinderella is lovely, moving and magnificent all at once and its transfer to Blu-ray delights in high-definition.
Disney disclosed this week that the year’s best movie, Cinderella by writer Chris Weitz and director Kenneth Branagh, premieres on home video this year on September 15. The movie will be simultaneously released on Blu-Ray, digital high-definition and the studio’s proprietary streaming brand, Disney Movies Anywhere.
This picture, which director Branagh modestly calls “feather light”, ought to be the most anticipated home entertainment event of 2015. Most of this year’s films, thus far, are horrible by comparison to this lush, romantic and radical new movie (read my review here). The soundtrack is also perfect (read my review of Patrick Doyle’s musical score here). For the first time, I plan to write and post a separate review of the home video. Having seen Cinderella several times, I must say I look forward to watching this masterpiece again and owning it for home theater viewing.
Among the planned features are a piece on the fairy tale, bits on costume and making the Palace Ball sequence and an alternate opening scene. I’m told by Disney that director Branagh participates and introduces deleted scenes, too, though exact features vary according to merchandising deals and format. The frantic, unfocused short film “Frozen Fever” may also be included on certain products. Whatever the extras, whether you know and adore the fairy tale or not, the film in this format is its own reward. Those who value and long for the sight of romanticism, glamour and the ideal in motion pictures should save the date and, on September 15, savor seeing this exceptional movie.
The Cinderella soundtrack is as lush, romantic and evocative as the film.
From the happy childhood theme for young Ella whose businessman father remarries following the death of her mother to the wicked stepmother music and the sweeping themes for the prince and his beloved, Patrick Doyle’s music is matched to what may be the year’s best picture.
As I wrote in the Cinderella movie review, Kenneth Branagh’s live-action Disney feature is a deeply emotional and thoughtful epic about an innocent child who becomes a woman, the man who falls in love with her at first sight, their losses, trials and injustice by those who betray the best within and what it properly means to be rescued. The music (available through Amazon; click on the soundtrack cover to buy) is only fast and urgent in “The Pumpkin Pursuit” and cues and pieces for other action scenes that play better here than on film. Favorites will depend upon which of the movie’s multiple layers of subplots, themes and pictures resonate, from the father-son moments, which are some of the best ever made in Hollywood, and mother-daughter scenes, to hard, painful scenes of the evil woman who comes to enslave the child. My personal favorites constitute triumphant picture music (“Ella and Kit”, “Valse Royale”, “A Secret Garden”) of the happy couple letting go of the past to embrace a new, self-made future. “You Shall Go” is also glorious, underscoring that the fairy godmother, a beggarwoman, is the antithesis of the hyperfeminine matriarch. “Who is She” brings the ball to the forefront of one’s memory. “The First Branch” tenderly calls upon the film’s parent-child love. “Courage and Kindness” does nicely by the theme of the whole man. A couple of pop songs are included, though, unfortunately, Disney chose not to include the film’s “Lavender Blue” song.
Mr. Branagh worked well with composer Patrick Doyle, whom I first discovered in 2003 with his wistful score for Tim McCanlies’ Secondhand Lions, on Thor for Marvel (2008) and their collaboration also succeeds here.The charming, serious and intricately detailedCinderella, an essentialized indulgence in old-fashioned romanticism blended with a radical rejection of conservatism, is both rare and original. That Patrick Doyle’s score is as slow, gentle and romantic as the movie makes for a perfect fit. So this is what falling and being in love sounds like.
Maleficent‘s apparent commercial success has led Disney to announce that it’s adapting other popular animated films in its library as live action pictures. Among those planned for reimagineering: Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella and The Jungle Book.
Maleficent, which I’ve seen but not reviewed, is (like Frozen) at best a mediocre movie. With a visual artist directing Linda Woolverton’s interesting script, the fairy tale becomes a fantasy with a touch of the legendary. The happy, young fairy warrior princess of the woods turns dark when she is wronged by the human who will become King Stefan and one of the most interesting aspects is that Stefan is a near-perfect dramatization of the man who lives life in the middle; he is a pragmatist who seeks to avoid living to the extreme. Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is the opposite; she possesses strength, beauty and power and when she goes bad the world goes dark, too. The blonde girl she curses, Aurora (Elle Fanning), returns goodness to Maleficent’s life and their scenes together are the best. But the visuals are uneven – some too cute and artificial, others are striking and grand – and the story ultimately contradicts itself and plays it right down the middle. That said, Jolie evokes Norma Desmond and Maleficent has moments of moving, sultry mythology.
They are only fragments, however, and Disney (which often dumps what makes it Disney) is getting worse at integrating disparate parts as Maleficent demonstrates. This is why the studio looks increasingly to subcontract, rather than cultivate, creative talent. As with its Marvel microstudio, the strategy has limits.
Beauty and the Beast will reportedly be directed by Bill Condon, who has a mixed record of biopics, vampire films and one middling musical, Dreamgirls. The 1991 animated feature, which Disney adapted for Broadway in 1994, earned $375 million worldwide. As I’ve written, I don’t think the picture holds up. An adaptation’s success depends on the script and the casting. Judging by Maleficent, which includes bad casting and worse directing, expectations should be low. The live action version of Cinderella, directed by the talented Kenneth Branagh (Thor), should be better in such capable hands, though the evasive glass slipper pseudo-trailer is a bad sign, and The Jungle Book, based on Rudyard Kipling’s stories and to be directed by Jon Favreau (Cowboys & Aliens) may be watered down by studio intervention. These are great stories with larger than life themes and possibilities. But this is the 21st century and the Disney studio is more of a generic company selling tickets based on what used to be its brand than a studio that trains masters of storytelling to create works of art. This moviegoer and storyteller is managing expectations and keeping an active mind.
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This picture, which director Branagh modestly calls “feather light”, ought to be the most anticipated home entertainment event of 2015. Most of this year’s films, thus far, are horrible by comparison to this lush, romantic and radical new movie (read my review 
