Bandits (2001) - 3/22 (Olive Films)

[Oscar Rothman]

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Bandits-Blu-ray/132591/

Barry Levinson (Rain Man) mines cinematic gold in Bandits, starring Cate Blanchett, Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton. Conjuring up memories of another silver screen trio – Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Myrna LoyinTest Pilot– Willis (The Sixth Sense) and Thornton (Sling Blade) star as Joe and Terry, escaped convicts on the lam planning to rob a few banks to fund a new life just south of the border. Blanchett (Carol) stars as Kate Wheeler, a woman also on the run – from an unhappy marriage. Fate intervenes when Kate runs into Terry (quite literally) with her car. She soon finds herself joining the boys on their cross-country trek in this comic caper co-starring January Jones (TV' s Mad Men) and William Converse-Roberts (Kiss the Girls).

[StingingVelvet]

My mother loves this movie for some reason, but I know she couldn't give a crap about blu-ray. I vaguely remember it being thoroughly forgettable.

[Region_unlocked]

YouTube

This movie used to be in constant rotation on either Comedy Central or TBS a few years ago. I remember liking it well enough to buy the DVD, I'll probably get the BD to revisit it. I wish they would have kept the DVD cover art though.

[Huck Caton]

Please forgive me, as this post has little to do with the upcoming Blu-ray release, but I boomed Bandits way back when and ended up awfully disappointed with Barry Levinson. He was shockingly clueless regarding most aspects of filmmaking and had obviously counted on his long-time script supervisor (who’d walked away when they wouldn’t at least credit her as a producer) and editor to mop up his messes on previous features.

Loved Dante, his camera people, the grips, the juicers, BBT, Cate and even Bruce (with whom I’d worked on other movies)… but Barry was a boob.

While it was a blast slowly working our way (shooting with stiff Fuji film stock that was loud as heck chattering through the gate—but hey, Fuji gave us all free Fuji caps so I guess I shouldn’t complain about the noise or how many camera jams their film stock caused) down from the Oregon State Penitentiary back to LA, we all had the feeling (Cate, especially, among the actors) that somehow Bandits just wasn’t going to come together as a cohesive piece.

I remember when Barry invited everyone to a local theater after wrap one day to watch his next bomb, An Everlasting Piece. I sat with Willis and his long-time makeup man (and pal of mine) and dreaded when Barry came over to ask us how much we loved it. The next (early) morning as we were all standing around in the freezing cold up high on some bridge while Barry hemmed and hawed about what the heck he wanted to shoot when his assistant came up and gave him the news that Spielberg wouldn’t take his call regarding promotion on Piece. I must say, it was pretty great stuff watching Levinson lose his mind screaming at Spielberg’s secretary while we all froze our collective asses off: “You tell that little Jew mother****er he’d better ****ing call me back NOW! That prick promised he’d talk with me and now the ******* won’t answer my calls?! Well, **** him! And **** you!” It was gold, I tell you—although I might not have thought so if I hadn’t already known Barry was Jewish, as well. As I recall, we never shot anything on the bridge and moved onto car work after wasting the entire morning.

Production kept adding additional shoot days week after week (mostly because Barry had no idea what he wanted) while the sound mixer kept reminding the UPM that we had another show (America’s Sweethearts) starting right after the first of the year. Well, nobody listened, Bandits ran way over (five weeks or so!), and even after we’d found a suitable replacement sound team and only ending up missing two days of shooting, they took our names off the credits and only listed the guys who did those final two days.

I can still hear that idiot production manger screaming at us, sputtering in fury, as we transferred out gear into the Sweethearts sound trailer on our last day after he’d run out of things to threaten us with… “And, and, you’re not getting crew jackets, either!” Once we managed to stop laughing, we went back to loading the gear. Looking back, that was a pretty long five and a half months.

I finally saw Bandits while I was on location booming another movie and decided I was just fine with not being credited (or given a crew jacket!) as it’s a pretty weak picture, methinks.

As I said, not a very useful post—but I hadn’t thought about working on that show in years!


~Huck

[WAusJackBauer]

Underrated movie. Glad it's coming out on bluray

[Slim Jim]

Love this movie can't wait to own it on blu 2016 is starting out good

[DaBargainHunta]

WOW at Huck's post.

With that being said, I remember really enjoying Bandits at the time. A masterpiece? Hardly. But I like the way they incorporated Billy Bob's real-life phobias, and you can't ever go wrong with Cate Blanchett. Also, this was when Bruce Willis still gave a shit. This is no hidden classic, but I thought it was fun. Sometimes dreadful on-set experiences can still turn out a positive result. I won't disagree with anyone who doesn't like the movie - I can completely understand why they wouldn't - but I kinda dug it.

Contemplating the $12.99 preorder price. Do Olive movies ever go down in price, or should I jump on this deal? Also, is Olive the distributor that is always criticized by other posters here for being lazy about extras and subtitles, or am I confusing them with another company entirely?

[deltatauhobbit]

Yeah, Barry hasn't made a good movie since Wag the Dog. Although I do remember enjoying Bandits when it came out, just not enough to ever own it. Cate did look great in it though, I think I actually prefer her with the brown/red hair over her actual blonde hair.

[MikeZ.]

Being an Olive, the decision not to "upgrade" is an easy one. Enjoyed the film enough to have kept it all these years, and not have sold it.

[Slim Jim]

Why is Amazon saying they will notify me with a release date?

[doctor_who]

Originally Posted by DaBargainHunta

WOW at Huck's post.

With that being said, I remember really enjoying Bandits at the time. A masterpiece? Hardly. But I like the way they incorporated Billy Bob's real-life phobias, and you can't ever go wrong with Cate Blanchett. Also, this was when Bruce Willis still gave a shit. This is no hidden classic, but I thought it was fun. Sometimes dreadful on-set experiences can still turn out a positive result. I won't disagree with anyone who doesn't like the movie - I can completely understand why they wouldn't - but I kinda dug it.

Contemplating the $12.99 preorder price. Do Olive movies ever go down in price, or should I jump on this deal? Also, is Olive the distributor that is always criticized by other posters here for being lazy about extras and subtitles, or am I confusing them with another company entirely?

Ain't that the truth..

[warrian]

[SARCASM]I sure hope Olive drop the 5.1 Theatrical mix for a Lossless 2.0 stereo effort. So awesome when they do that.[/SARCASM]

[GreatZTaste]

Yay.

Can't wait for this movie - hopefully it will work in Australia or is Region-Free, it should be, Our Cate is in it.

[Ray_Rogers]

But will it have all Special Features?

[Tony208]

Holy crap I never thought this one would be released. One of my favorite Bruce Willis movies. Now if only we could also get The Whole Nine Yards and The Whole Ten yards.

[Ill_Be_Back]

I forgot all about this film. I rented this on VHS back in the early 00's. I remember switching it off halfway through as it wasn't enjoyable. I might give it another chance maybe not on Blu-ray though.

[Tony208]

Got mine a day early. Came in one of those odd Blu-ray cases.

[movieben1138]

Is this one where they actually carried over the special features? Some of the recent ones have been a pleasant surprise.

[nitin]

Originally Posted by movieben1138

Is this one where they actually carried over the special features? Some of the recent ones have been a pleasant surprise.

Only the trailer.

[stsanborn]

Any word on video and audio quality on this one?