Love him or hate him, no one can deny that Johnny Depp is his own man when it comes to accepting parts to play. As happy and at home in a surreal art house movie as he is in a Hollywood blockbuster, he always brings a certain honesty. From Gilbert Grape to Captain Jack Sparrow, he has yet to turn in a performance that isn’t at least engaging. Optimum has gathered together a number of his earlier films in this box set, so there should be a little something for everyone here. The box set contains Arizona Dream, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Sleepy Hollow, Dead Man and Lost in La Mancha...

 

Arizona Dream

Axel returns home for his uncle’s marriage to a trophy wife. Never a great fan of his uncle, he reluctantly agrees to stay and run the Cadillac business. In town he becomes involved with the batty Elaine, who harbours a desire to fly and her step-daughter Grace who harbours a desire to kill Elaine. Axel agrees to help Elaine build a plane, while Grace does what she can to sabotage the project. With such conflicting emotions it isn’t long before things start to go horribly wrong...

Arizona Dream (1993 - 2 hrs, 14 min, 40 sec) takes a singularly peculiar look at one man’s journey. Directed by Emir Kusturica and co-written with David Atkins, it’s the type of film you would expect from an indie studio, so it’s a wonder that a large one agreed to make it - I presume they had no idea what they were giving the money for. From its opening sequence of Eskimos, through the skewed characters that Axel encounters, there’s always something here to delight and surprise you. The film won three European film awards and was nominated for another.

Shame then that the film didn’t do well, mostly because of a lack of publicity, because Faye Dunaway puts in one of her best performances, At this point I will say that I’ll not keep repeating how good an actor Depp is, or how gorgeous he is - better half’s opinion - can we just say he’s talented and good looking and leave it at that, not that I’m jealous or anything.

Don't let the slightly surreal nature of the film put you off as both Jerry Lewis and Lili Taylor put in good supporting performances, which only add to that of Depp and Dunaway. If nothing else it was worth watching for Vincent Gallo’s stage mime of Cary Grant in North by Northwest.

The extras on the disc comprise of a promo reel - American Dreamer (4 min 39 sec) - which is just an extended trailer for the film - and a picture gallery. More substantial is the interview with Depp (38 min, 02 sec) conducted by the producer C. Ossard, partially in French with burnt in subs; the two discuss their experiences in making the film. The film is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio with a stereo audio track. The print is clean with no noticeable defects.

 

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

Endora, Iowa is a sleepy backwater of the world, but even here possibilities exist for Gilbert. Now titular head of his family, since his father committed suicide, he has to take care of his emotionally demanding mother and autistic brother. Surviving a disastrous affair with an older woman and the fear of losing his job to a large conglomerate, Gilbert meets Becky, a wild and free spirit, but will Gilbert choose freedom or the obligation he feels towards his family...

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993 - 1 hr, 57 min, 41 sec) is a bittersweet tale directed by Lasse Hallström, from a script by Peter Hedges, an adaptation of his own novel. The film was nominated for a number of awards, including an Oscar, mainly for the script and Leonardo DiCaprio for his impressive performance as a supporting actor. In the end it walked away with four wins and two nominations. DiCaprio was pipped at the post for the Oscar by Tommy Lee Jones for his role in The Fugitive (1993).

Warning, this film is going to make you want to cry. Depp plays Gilbert, a kid with a good heart, who is trapped by the need to look after his mother and brother. To this end Gilbert finds himself going against the other towns’ people over Arnie’s (DiCaprio) continued insistence in trying to climb the town’s water tower. He is just as protective towards his mother (Darlene Cates) whose size makes her an object of derision, not even his dalliances with Betty Carver (Mary Steenburgen) seem to bring him much happiness. Only his meeting with the free spirited Becky (Juliette Lewis) awakens Gilbert’s desires for something different, something better.

In the end it has a script that will play your heart like you’re a new born violin and a cast that's perfect. Although it stars Depp, the acting laurels go to DiCaprio for a magnificent performance as Arnie.

The film, presented here with a stereo audio track in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, has not been restored and suffers from a noticeable judder at the beginning; it also suffers from noticeable dirt on the print, but not so that it should spoil your enjoyment. The disc only has the theatrical trailer as an extra.

 

Dead Man

William Blake travels west with the offer of a new job only to find the job already filled, taken in by a prostitute, whose jealous boyfriend accidentally her, fleeing the scene Blake meets up with a native American who mistakes him for William Blake the poet and the two travel cross country killing along the way, but with the boyfriends bullet lodged too close to his heart Blake is already a dead man walking, he should have listened to the guy on the train who told him he was entering hell where he would only find his own death...

Dead Man (1995 - 1 hr, 56 min, 31 sec) is a black and white psychedelic western movie written and directed by Jim Jarmusch - the type of film which likes to deconstruct the myth of the American west. The film won two awards and was nominated for a further five.

As well as Depp the film has some good performances by John Hurt, Billy Bob Thornton, Gabriel Byrne, Alfred Molina and Robert Mitchum, in his last film role. Iggy Pop takes a turn as a homosexual trapper in a dress and Gary Farmer plays Nobody, the Indian who befriends Blake.

It takes a cherished American icon - the American west - into unfamiliar territory, with a soundtrack by Neil Young. To be honest you either become fascinated by the quirkiness of this type of film or it leaves you cold, personally I always enjoy being challenged.

The black and white print is clear and the film is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and a stereo audio track. Extras on the disc are limited to an interview with John Hurt (5 min, 38 sec) and the original theatrical trailer.

 

Sleepy Hollow

1799 and things are not well in Sleepy Hollow with rumours of a headless horseman killing in the countryside. Rationalist, Ichabod Crane is dispatched to investigate the killings. At first he rejects the local’s claims of a headless horseman, preferring to trust in a scientific explanation, but then one night...

Sleepy Hollow (1999 - 1 hr, 40 min, 49 sec) is a supernatural film directed by Tim Burton and based on an original story by Washington Irving. The film turned out to be a multi-award winner, taking home twenty-one awards, including an Oscar and being nominated for a further twenty-eight, impressive for a genre film.

What can be said about the film that hasn’t been said before? It’s a Tim Burton film people that isn’t Planet of the Apes, we’ll let him have that one as a freebie given the quality of his other work. The sets and costumes are great, it has a cast to kill for,  Christina Ricci, Christopher Walken, Christopher Lee, Michael Gambon and Miranda Richardson, well the list goes on, but you get the idea.

I’m guessing that all the Burton and Depp fans will have a copy of this film, due to its popularity, it might even be the same as the one on offer here, ah well that is the curse of box sets.

This version has a clean print with no noticeable defects, the film is presented in 1.85:1 aspect  ratio with a choice of either a 2.0 or 5.1 track. Take it from me go for the 5.1 if you can, not that the 2.0 doesn’t do the job, but as there is a lot of action in the film you’re going to want to get that 5.1 feeling. Extras on the disc go from the throw away - a theatrical trailer - and the must listen to full length commentary from Burton.

 

Lost in La Mancha

Want to know how not to make a film? Okay, start with making a list of ten things that could go wrong, now make another list of ten and so on and you will have some idea why Terry Gilliam’s attempt to bring The Man Who Killed Don Quixote never stood a chance, the gods conspired at every turn to thwart his effort and still the man keeps his sense of humour...

Lost in La Mancha (2002 - 1 hr, 28 min, 55 sec) is a documentary about the abortive attempt to make such a simple thing, a movie. Think that it’s easy, well Terry is here to record the true nightmare of what can go wrong. It moves from the very funny to the tragic, when even the elements conspire against him. What’s this to do with Mr Depp, well he was supposed to be in it, and so there are lots of shots of him. Being a documentary it is jam packed with extras. There is an interview with Terry Gilliam (32 min, 06 sec) with Mark Kermode another with Johnny Depp (19 min, 39 sec), a piece to camera from Louis Pepe (7 min, 49 sec) and another from Keith Fulton (6 min, 47 sec). On top of this you get nine deleted scenes, five video portraits, and six sound bits and a whole load of production designs and stills. The film is presented with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with a 2.0 audio track.

Okay, you’ve got to the end, take a deep breath and relax and have a Jaffa Cake. As a retrospective its pretty good with a very reasonable price, of course this level of reasonableness diminishes depending on how many of these films you already own.

Optimum are obviously not releasing all his films in chronological order, but what you have here is a good mixture of the big films with the less successful, but not less interesting, indie type films.

8

Charles Packer