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Brazil (Criterion) Wow. For those of you who don't know, 15 years ago neophyte film director Terry Gilliam (who'd impressed with the brilliant Time Bandits) made a movie called Brazil, a nightmarish vision of a future where red tape has strangled individuality and freedom. In a nice bit of Hollywood irony, MCA-Universal wanted Gilliam to make cuts to make the movie more user-friendly. Gilliam refused, and the legend of Brazil was born. The people at Criterion do their usual superlative job with this DVD, providing three disks for the movie fan to drool over, the biggest boon being the ability to directly contrast the director's cut with the studio cut (sarcastically dubbed the "Love Conquers All" version for its perversion of Gilliam's truly dark ending). Disk 1 contains Gilliam's cut with commentary from the director, and Disk 3 contains the measly, lightweight 94-minute cut with commentary from "Gilliam expert" David Morgan, whatever a "Gilliam expert" is. Disk 2 gives you all the extras: storyboards, costume specs, screenwriter Tom Stoppard and composer Michael Kamen, and two documentaries on the film: one on the making of the movie and one on the subsequent controversy. If you've got 50+ bucks to lay down for this DVD, and you can actually find it in a local store, pick it up. You won't regret it. |