For the longest time, our only option for Love Streams was a French DVD from Cinemalta, which you could either get separately or paired with a much earlier Cassavetes film, A Child Is Waiting. That's not such a complaint, as it was a nice set with quality transfers and even a few English language extras. But Criterion has finally brought Streams to the US, and in a big way: a really lavish blu-ray/ DVD combo pack featuring a new 2k scan and a bunch of great special features.
Meanwhile, Child remains unreleased stateside, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere on Criterion's list as well. It's a solid and critically acclaimed film, but it doesn't feel like "a Cassavetes film" at all. It's pretty emotionally affecting, with strong lead performances by Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland who proves she can do more than sing (though they do have her sing a teensy bit, just because). It does feel like it's taking the easy route tugging on heartstrings by having sweetheart Garland as a new teacher coming to care for a cute classroom of mentally challenged children. You can always rely on Cassavetes from getting overly sentimental, but I don't have that same confidence in screenwriter Abby Mann.
So let's take a look at these discs and see how tall the new 2k transfer stands up over the old edition. And since the Criterion set is DVD and blu, let's side-by-side those, too.
Cinemalta DVD on top; Criterion blu-ray on bottom. |
Criterion DVD on top, and their blu-ray on bottom. |
A Child Is Waiting, meanwhile, is 1.66:1 just like their DVD of Love Streams, but this time it's not anamorphic, which is disappointing. Also, the subtitles are forced (they weren't on Love Streams). So it's alright but underwhelming. They also have the trailer for Child on here, also with forced subs.
Extras-wise, the French disc was okay, but Criterion really tops it. First of all, Cinemalta had a nice 9 minute extract from the documentary I Am Almost Not Crazy, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews during the shooting of this movie. Criterion has the whole hour-long thing. Then the Cinemalta disc has another 11 minutes of behind the scenes footage taken from a show called Scene 143, which is actually a decent little exclusive for the French disc. There's another French extra, but it has no English language options... some French lady talks for a few minutes over posters and images from the movie. Lord knows what she's saying.
The Criterion, meanwhile, has brand new interviews with producer Al Ruban and co-stars Seymour Cassel and Diahnne Abbot. Then there's another one of Criterion's excellent "video essays," this time about actress Gena Rowlands. And there's an audio commentary by Michael Ventura who's written extensively on this film, and often reads straight from his book. It's sometimes quite compelling, and sometimes overly gushing and awkward; but overall has enough good content to be worthwhile. Finally, the Criterion disc has the trailer and a 29 page booklet, which includes an article Cassavetes himself wrote on the film for the New York Times. Actually, the French set had a booklet, too; you just couldn't read it unless you knew French.
So the Cinemalta disc was a nice release; it served us well. But now it's time to push it aside for Criterion's definitive blu. Even if you're not that fussed about upgrading your DVDs to blu-ray, this one is well worth it for the new extras and fresh scan. Even if you don't have a blu-ray player, it's worth upgrading just for the DVD part of the set. But still, the French disc is still worth hanging onto for that extra and especially for A Child Is Waiting... at least until that makes its blu-ray debut.
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