{"id":5794,"date":"2013-06-29T00:09:57","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T07:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/?p=5794"},"modified":"2021-06-16T22:57:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T05:57:01","slug":"review-brassteapot-bd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/2013\/06\/review-brassteapot-bd\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brass Teapot Blu-ray Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Brass Teapot<\/i><\/b> features some great performances and fine writing and direction from an on-the-rise filmmaker in Ramaa Mosley. Even if the story doesn\u2019t offer many surprises, there is enough here to entertain and at least keep one\u2019s attention until the end.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nThe Brass Teapot (2013)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Genre(s): <\/b>Drama, Comedy, Fantasy
\nMagnolia | R \u2013 101 min. \u2013 $29.98 | June 18, 2013<\/p>\n

MOVIE INFO:
\n<\/span>Directed by: <\/b>Ramaa Mosley
\nWriter(s): <\/b>Ramaa Mosley & Tim Macy (story), Tim Macy (screenplay)
\nCast: <\/b>June Temple, Michael Angarano, Alexis Bledel, Alia Shawkat, Stephen Park<\/p>\n

Theatrical Release Date: <\/b>April 5, 2013 (limited)<\/p>\n

DISC INFO:
\n<\/span>Features: <\/b>Commentary, Featurettes, Deleted Scenes, Interviews, Theatrical Trailer
\nNumber of Discs: <\/b>1<\/p>\n

Audio: <\/b>English (DTS-HD MA 5.1)
\nVideo: <\/b>1080p\/Widescreen 2.35
\nSubtitles: <\/b>English SDH, Spanish
\nDisc Size: <\/b>38.3 GB
\nCodec: <\/b>MPEG-4 AVC
\nRegion(s): <\/b>A<\/p>\n

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THE MOVIE<\/strong> \u2013 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The indie fantasy-drama-comedy, The Brass Teapot<\/i><\/b> is your usual morality tale that doesn\u2019t really take many tangents with its storytelling but does feature good performances from its leads.<\/p>\n

The story centers on Alice (JUNO TEMPLE) and John (MICHAEL ANGARANO), a married couple living in a small Indiana town struggling month to month to pay the bills. They\u2019ve maxed out credit cards and owe rent to an asshole landlord (BILLY MAGNUSSEN) who was a classmate of Alice\u2019s in high school. Complicating matters, John works for an insurance call center but despite being one of the longest serving employees, he stinks at his job and is unceremoniously fired. Although down and nearly out, Alice and John love one another and stick together. One day they\u2019re traveling along a desolate road when they\u2019re t-boned. Nobody is hurt but across from the intersection Alice is drawn towards an antiques shop and more specifically, a teapot she say an older woman take inside. For whatever reason, she\u2019s almost obsessed with it and when the woman wasn\u2019t looking, Alice stole this teapot.<\/p>\n

At home, Alice discovers a peculiar thing about this brass teapot: it would spit out hundred dollar bills when she accidentally hurt herself. She soon would do it on purpose and the more the pain, the more money the teapot would give. Soon enough, after some prodding, John gets in and the pair would look like they were a part of Fight Club.<\/p>\n

The couple initially agrees to stop once they hit a million dollars, and then would get out of the game. But when Jack, wanting to find out more about the teapot, visits the Antiques Roadshow, attracts the attention from a Mr. Ling (STEPHEN PARK), whose family has been in charge of tracking the teapot throughout the world. When meeting the pair, he explains that he cannot steal the teapot but it would have to be willfully given to him. The airing \u2013 which was somehow live (taking liberties as it takes months for it to air) \u2013 also gets the attention of two Hassidic gun-toting Jews.<\/p>\n

Jack and Alice ignore Mr. Ling\u2019s warnings about the teapot, that it is evil and has led to the torment and ultimate demise of its previous owners (I suppose kind of the like the One Ring), go on deaf ears as they begin living it up beginning with owning a mansion in an exclusive area and upgrading their junk car. However, the teapot\u2019s withdrawals get less and less and they must resort to more painful encounters resulting with seeking the pain of others and ultimately getting personal with one another.<\/p>\n

The Brass Teapot<\/i><\/b> is actually a finely made film but it\u2019s also one with little mystery and even fewer surprises. But despite knowing where the movie would ultimately end up, the surreal nature does keep things interesting and combined with the performances by Michael Angarano and, especially, Juno Temple, it makes for a memorable flick.<\/p>\n

The film was co-written and directed by Ramaa Mosley \u2013 and co-written by Tim Macy \u2013 making her feature debut based upon a short film she helmed in 2007. And even though I didn\u2019t find it all that enthralling and at times, well most, a bit on the nose, the story itself finds a solid balance between drama, comedy and fantasy.<\/p>\n

In the end, The Brass Teapot<\/i><\/b> isn\u2019t well polished but still for being independently-financed, I was mostly impressed even if you can see the ending coming from two miles away. Juno Temple is refreshing in her role showing a star on the rise after appearances in many high profile films like Atonement<\/i>, The Dark Knight Rises<\/i> and Magic Mike<\/i> (and is also in the upcoming Sin City<\/i> sequel). It may not offer many surprises but there\u2019s enough here to make it worth checking out.<\/p>\n

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SPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 3.25\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Audio Commentary<\/span><\/b> \u2013 Director Ramaa Mosley and Executive Producer P. Jennifer Dana (who enters later) provide for a focused and informative commentary talking about how the project came together including creating the Brass Teapot mythology. She also goes into the casting process, filming certain scenes and going through some of the story. It\u2019s one of the better tracks I\u2019ve come across in a long time.<\/p>\n

Prologue\/Alternate Opening (3:09; HD)<\/span><\/b> is interesting with high production values showing, in the 1800s or so, a priest\u2019s refusal to get rid of the teapot by what I assume is Mr. Ling\u2019s descendant. It\u2019s a lovely opening but felt out of place.<\/p>\n

Deleted Scenes (12:21; HD)<\/span><\/b> features footage excised or cut down. There\u2019s nothing here that great and including them would\u2019ve only further bogged the film.<\/p>\n

Uncovering: The Brass Teapot<\/i> (26:38; SD)<\/span><\/b> is a mock documentary attempting to expand on the lore of The Brass Teapot via \u201cexpert\u201d testimony. It\u2019s actually relatively well done all things considered.<\/p>\n

Interview with Director Ramaa Mosley (7:24; HD)<\/span><\/b> and Interview with Michael Angarano (6:02; HD)<\/span><\/b> are two segments where each discuss the project and in the case of Angarano, his character. It\u2019s pretty basic and superficial and it seems both, in the beginning, were working off the same script…<\/p>\n

AXS TV: A Look at The Brass Teapot<\/i> (4:50; HD)<\/span><\/b> is a short \u2018making-of\u2019 featurette that actually has some of the same sound bites that were in the interviews. There\u2019s no behind-the-scenes footage and only has scenes from the movie interspersed in between the interviews.<\/p>\n

Theatrical Trailer (2:12; HD)<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

BD-Live<\/span><\/b> \u2013 Magnolia must be on the only studios that still includes this on their releases…<\/p>\n

Previews<\/b> \u2013 Kiss of the Damned<\/i>, Shadow Dancer<\/i>, To the Wonder<\/i>, Venus and Serena<\/i><\/p>\n

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VIDEO \u2013 4.0\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Brass Teapot<\/i><\/b> arrives on Blu-ray via Magnolia Home Entertainment, presented in its original 2.35 widescreen aspect ratio, and even though the level of detail throughout does look nice, it\u2019s also a bit too pristine thanks probably to the film being shot digitally. There\u2019s no grain or natural film noise but the color array seems well balanced. It\u2019s not going to be the best looking 1080p high-def transfer but it\u2019s more than suitable.<\/p>\n

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AUDIO \u2013 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track isn\u2019t anything spectacular but there\u2019s really not much to the soundtrack. The bulk of the movie is dialogue-driven which does sound nice and clear while there is some gunfire that helps expand the track towards the end, but it\u2019s minimal and basic.<\/p>\n

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OVERALL \u2013 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Overall, The Brass Teapot<\/i><\/b> features some great performances and fine writing and direction from an on-the-rise filmmaker in Ramaa Mosley. Even if the story doesn\u2019t offer many surprises, there is enough here to entertain and at least keep one\u2019s attention until the end. The Blu-ray released by Magnolia has some OK features, although a minimalist \u2018making-of\u2019 featurette, while the audio\/video transfers are at least serviceable.<\/p>\n

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The Movieman
\n<\/i>Published: <\/b>06\/29\/2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brass Teapot features some great performances and fine writing and direction from an on-the-rise filmmaker in Ramaa Mosley. Even if the story doesn\u2019t offer many surprises, there is enough here to entertain and at least keep one\u2019s attention until the end.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2156,2154,2155,2153],"class_list":["post-5794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blurayreviews","tag-alexis-bledel","tag-juno-temple","tag-michael-angarano","tag-the-brass-teapot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5794"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26638,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5794\/revisions\/26638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}