40 years of ‘Saturday Night Fever’
For its 40th anniversary, the picture which made a movie star out of John Travolta gets a new transfer and a tweak or two from director John Badham.
Just about everything clicks in “Saturday Night Fever: Director’s Cut” (1977, Paramount, R, $17), the saga of Brooklyn teenager Tony Manero whose only escape from a dead-end job and overbearing parents is to strut his stuff on the dance floor. Tony’s such a standout that he winds up entering a big dance contest, with the talented Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) by his side.
The Bee Gees’ irresistible disco tunes add propulsion to the proceedings while Travolta keeps it real with a performance that’s raw, exciting and strangely touching. Extras: featurettes, deleted scene and Badham commentary.
Also New To DVD
I Am Not Your Negro (2016, Magnolia, unrated, $25): Directed by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck and produced by his brother, Voorhees resident Hébert Peck, an assistant director of the Rutgers University Television Network, this astonishingly perceptive documentary pivots on author James Baldwin, whose unfinished manuscript about slain leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King is used to illuminate contemporary race relations.
Samuel L. Jackson reads from Baldwin’s notes while Peck delivers footage of both the Hollywood movies which shaped Baldwin and the civil rights activists who inspired him. The end result is a timely treatise which argues that racism is damaging both to the oppressors and the oppressed. Extras: featurettes. Mifune - The Last Samurai (2016, Strand, unrated, $30): Keanu Reeves narrates this perceptive documentary about the late, great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. While there’s plenty of fresh information about Mifune’s hardscrabble early years and his decision to turn
down a role in “Star Wars,” the heart of the movie is the actor’s complicated bond with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese turn up to sing the praises of the 16 Kurosawa/Mifune collaborations, including “Rashomon,” “The Seven Samurai” and “Yojimbo,” which are sampled generously with lengthy clips. Mifune, who loved booze nearly as much as fast cars, remains something of an enigma but the doc argues for his inclusion in the pantheon of the world’s finest great actors. Extras: none. The Levelling (2016, Monterey, R, $28): Even “Game of Thrones” star Ellie Kendrick can’t save this dismal outing about a vet student who returns to her family farm in the wake of her brother’s suicide and discovers that the property in a state of disrepair. As she tries to solve the mystery behind her brother’s death, she must face up to her long-standing issues with her father (David Troughton). Everything about “The Levelling” is so one-note depressing that it makes the bleakest Ken Loach film feel like “The Wizard of Oz.” After about 30 minutes of doom and gloom, “The Levelling” becomes intolerable. Extras: none.