Shared Darkness

Advances in science, technology and medicine have taught us that keeping fit and maintaining a nutritious diet can prevent diseases and promote a longer life, but did you know there are actually ways to train the brain so that you’re conditioned to live healthier? Along with The New Science of Learning: Brain Fitness for Kids, hour-long PBS documentary Brain Fitness Frontiers delve into this very subject, instructing audiences about the brain’s “plasticity,” and the huge benefits cognitive training can have on everyday life.

Hosted and narrated by Peter Coyote, Brain Fitness Frontiers is built around interviews with luminaries of science and medicine, including Dr. Michael Merzenich, Dr. John Donoghue and Dr. Skip Rizzo. Deftly utilizing these experts of their field, director Eli Brown challenges many misconceptions about brain development, and offers forth examples of how ordinary people are using their brain’s variability, and the power of neuroplasticity, to create lasting and astonishing changes. Neuroscience research and cognitive training alike are explained in layman’s terms, making for an engaging viewing experience.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Brain Fitness Frontiers comes to DVD presented in 1.76:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language stereo track. In addition to a link to PBS’ web site, a small clutch of additional interview footage is offered forth as a supplemental bonus. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or simply click here. Or if Amazon is totally your thing, meanwhile, click here. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)

One doesn’t fire up a DVD entitled The End of Poverty? thinking there are finger-snapping good times on the horizon for the next 90 minutes or so, especially since the red question mark at the end of the film’s title (contrasted with its black text) looms rather ominously. Yet the clear-eyed, straightforward manner in which this affecting documentary — which premiered at Critics’ Week at Cannes last year, and subsequently played at more than 30 international festivals — plumbs its subject matter serves as a powerful natural depressive for anyone with a heart and an ounce of curiosity about the state of the world at large.

Narrated by Martin Sheen, director Philippe Diaz’s film reframes the debate over extreme poverty, laying out the case that while human struggles over resources and land are a fairly natural thing, there in fact exists enough of everything (space, food and resources) for a far more equitable system of national governance and international relations. With a variety of interviews that extend beyond the parameters of just the usual talking heads of academia, Diaz provides a superb thumbnail sketch of the history of colonialism,
and its lingering effects, generations on. Assaying unfair debt, trade and tax policies, the movie imparts important details without becoming overly wonkish.

Part of this owes to the fact that Diaz smartly mixes in case study-type interviews with often surprisingly eloquent laborers who are basically indentured servants. It’s heartbreaking, listening to the Brazilian sugar cane cutter who for 17 years has toiled for the equivalent of under $40 a month, rising at 1 a.m. for breakfast and funding repairs of his own work equipment. Some of the movie’s proposed macro-solutions to poverty are more open to debate, so the film undeniably works best an ire-provoking indictment of conspicuous consumption, particularly amongst certain industrialized nations. With only five percent of the world’s population, the United States still consumes a quarter of its natural resources, and produces around 30 percent of its pollution; overall, less than a fifth of the Earth’s population uses more than 80 percent of its resources. There’s a moral component to this struggle, certainly, but as Diaz also justly, implicitly notes, this sort of path isn’t eternally sustainable — it’s a breeding ground for discontent, radicalism and revolution, and all the further instability that eventually brings.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a snap-release tray, The End of Poverty? comes to DVD on a region-free disc in what’s billed as a “special educational edition,” replete with extra DVD-ROM content and a handful of other disc-situated bonus features. Befitting its area of inquiry, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Swahili subtitles are also included. There’s a downloadable study guide at the film’s web site, but on the DVD there’s 32 minutes of additional interview material with author Susan George, professor Chalmers Johnson, University of Nairobi constitutional law professor Okoth Ogendo and Gitu wa Kahengeri, leader of Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising. There are also trailers for a quartet of other Cinema Libre home video titles. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) B- (Disc)

The titular ditty’s crunchy guitar riff, which was recently (and rightly) lauded in one of those VH-1 song-list countdown specials, is an enjoyably filthy thing, all forward-leaning adolescent momentum and pelvic energy. So it’s no surprise, really, that You Really Got Me: The Story of the Kinks gives good attitude while also maintaining a pinch of mystery, interspersing an array of superb color and black-and-white concert footage, from the 1960s right on through to the ’90s, with some nice biographical nuggets.

Of all the British bands that broke through commercially in America who
were part of the so-called “British Invasion” of the ’60s, the Kinks may have been the most quintessentially English. Led by Ray Davies and his younger brother Dave Davies,
the group burst onto the music scene in 1964 with their groundbreaking
hit single “You Really Got Me,” which topped the U.K. singles chart and made the American top 10 to boot, spawning an entire generation of power-chord riffs (American musicologist wrote that the song “invented heavy metal”). That tune gets a loving treatment here, of course, but some of the other performances
in the international collection of footage are equally notable, including “All Day and All of the Night,” “‘Til the End of the Day,” “Waterloo Sunset,” “Days” and “Celluloid Heroes.”

A lot of reach-back, artist-specific concert docs like this have the advantage of a handful of performances that have been rarely seen since their first rotation, if at all, outside some regional broadcast and promotion. But if there’s not any artist participation, and the talking heads aren’t lively and informed, they too often can sputter and fail to capture what’s intriguing about Band X or Artist Y. Thankfully, You Really Got Me: The Story of the Kinks also contains comments from various members of the band, including both the Davies brothers and drummer Mick Avory. The gentlemen talk about their roots as a rhythm-and-blues band, and their maturation as musicians. The band continued touring until mid-1996, and despite Dave Davies suffering a stroke in 2004, certain rumors of a reunion persist out there in various corners of the Internet. If it never happens, this title at least showcases the Kinks’ worthy legacy.

Housed in a regular clear plastic Amaray case, You Really Got Me: The Story of the Kinks comes to DVD on a region-free disc presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, with an English language Dolby digital 2.0 stereo audio track. Its supplemental features consist of… well, nothing really. But the nice slate of captured musical material makes this disc alternately thrash and kick, and sing and soar, and that’s good enough for properly aged or curious rock ‘n’ roll fans. To purchase the DVD, click here; or if you’re all about Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) C- (Disc)

A documentary investigation into surging American religious fundamentalism, and in particular its fetishistic preoccupation with end-time prophecy and the Bible’s Book of Revelation, Waiting For Armageddon is a fascinating look at the intractability of a certain subset of religious thinking, and how seemingly at odds it is with the very idea of modernity while simultaneously peddling a curious, blinkered sort of global engagement. Notably, this First Run Features title doesn’t arrive at its provocation cheaply, but instead through substantive examination of serious questions.

Co-directed by Kate Davis, Franco Sacchi and David Heilbroner, Waiting for Armageddon focuses largely on Israel’s unique status as the blasting cap of religious conflict in the Middle East, and explores the condescending, head-patting triumphalism of much of America’s 50-million strong Evangelical
community when it comes to the Jewish state. In their narrative, support for Israel is but a simple, necessary card to flip on the yellow brick road toward the Rapture; Muslims get evicted from the Holy Land by the Jews, who then rebuild the Temple of Solomon to jibe with Biblical prophecy, so that Christ can then return and trump all others. (As the chosen people, of course, Jews get “last-call dibs” on recognizing the error of their ways, and accepting Jesus as the son of God.)

Interviewees here include investigative journalist Chip Berlet, who
specializes in the study of right-wing movements and other extremism within the
United States, but the film is thorough and fair-minded — there’s no voiceover narration, so a wide range of subjects get to directly voice their beliefs and opinions, allowing viewers to decide for themselves. The picture that emerges — not surprising to those who actually grew up in or around pockets of such fundamentalism, but perhaps a revelation to some of the so-called media elite — is that many if not most religious fundamentalists are not super-ignorant, actually, but rather overwhelmed by the pressures, despair, poverty and manifold injustices of modern life.

There’s the fascinating and of course rather depressing spectacle of bearing witness to a mother who raises her children telling them they most likely won’t live to graduate college or get their driver’s license; in this sort of environment, where’s the personal incentive to learn or grow rather than just blindly embrace prepackaged dogma? (It doesn’t exist, of course.) There’s also a bit of an unseemly voyeuristic thrill in some of these “Rapture junkies,” in the feeling that they on a certain level want to see and/or bask in the suffering of others, perhaps if only a means by which to elevate themselves. Regardless of these unpleasantries, and the particulars of some of the more radical viewpoints espoused, one can certainly empathize with each interviewee’s own quest for centeredness and order, whether fully articulated or not. That yearning is a very human one, in my book.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Waiting For Armageddon comes to DVD presented in anamorphic widescreen, with an English language stereo audio track. Supplemental bonus features include an interfaith roundtable discussion, as well as a scrollable text statement from the filmmakers. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) C (Disc)

Kevin Costner exudes trace elements of that same rumpled, weary Costner-ian charm that’s made him a very rich man in The New Daughter, a moody, middling and partially supernatural drama that suffers from a subject-mismatched title and terrible DVD cover art.

In similar fashion to movies like The Uninvited and Brittany Murphy‘s Deadline, The New Daughter is one of those flicks where a wounded protagonist/family (preferably including a writer) repairs to remote rural home, in an attempt to shake off recent malaise or trauma. Here, Costner is John James, a newly divorced father of two (and, yes, writer), who moves into a two-story South Carolina manse with his 14-year-old daughter Louisa (Ivana Baquero, of Pan’s Labyrinth) and seven-year-old son Sam (Gattlin Griffith). When Louisa starts to behave in a bizarre and increasingly violent manner, John must determine whether her acting out is linked to a giant, mysterious burial mound on the edge of his property. (Hint: it is.) A teacher at his kids’ school (Samantha Mathis) tries to offer some aid and comfort to the newly single John, and a local professor (Noah Taylor) eventually shows up to drop some verbiage regarding burial mound mythology and all that. In the end, though, it’s all about John, a shotgun, and fire, which seems a bit yawningly conventional for all the rather laborious set-up here.

There’s a pinch of The Others-style spookery here, but The New Daughter, based on a short story by John Connolly, ismostly a drama of domestic unsettledness. The directorial debut of [Rec] and Quarantine screenwriter Luis Berdejo, the movie benefits from Costner’s mooring presence; he instinctively knows that less is frequently more, and his slow-peddling — along with Berdejo and cinematographer Checco Varese’s decision to rely mostly on wide lenses — help give the proceedings an aura of naturalness and respectability. This isn’t merely an exercise in boo-scares, in other words. Still, for all its slow-building drama, the screenplay never really builds upon its surface-level dread in deeply interesting ways; the threat is pretty much what one figures it to be early on, and nudging adornments in parallelism (Sam gets an ant farm in his classroom) don’t exactly thrill.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The New Daughter comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Supplemental extras include a robust slate of deleted and extended scenes (mostly the former, and more than a dozen, running 22 minutes), an 11-minute behind-the-scenes featurette that includes interviews with Costner, source material author Connolly, the film’s producers and others, and the movie’s theatrical trailer. Its weightiest bonus feature, however, is a feature-length audio commentary track with Berdejo. Although his heavily accented English is at times an impediment to understanding, he comes across as a humble and interesting guy, and also shares good anecdotes and practical filmmaking tips (shooting down directly into a flame will result in smoke damage to a camera, so use a mirror, kids!). He also gives props to many crew members for their ideas, and talks up Jorge Rojas’ art, which is used in the movie. To purchase The New Daughter on DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B- (Disc)

What’s really left to say about Avatar that hasn’t already been said? After Titanic, self-proclaimed “king of the world” James Cameron did something precious few in-demand filmmakers even attempt to do — he basically went away to dream it all up again. That Cameron returned and basically smashed another industry-redefining grand slam out of the park is an amazing feat. That he even tried — that he wasn’t interested in merely collecting big paychecks for summer movie action tentpoles, which he could do annually until well past the age most everyone else would retire — is what’s most interesting to me.

Avatar broke all sorts of commercial records, and even evoked the interest of homeless people. It raked in a cool $750 million domestically, but an even more astounding $1.98 billion worldwide. Its technological innovations — from its proprietary camera system and face-mapping to its 3-D presentation — helped drive this hearty, collective ka-ching!, turning the movie into an event even for those that don’t typically turn out for films in theaters. So what does Avatar play like revisited on DVD, where it not too long ago saw its release?

Well, stripped of its 3-D “wow factor,” in which the expansive vistas of Pandora are understandably clipped by any home-viewing experience, some of the film’s stitching and seams undeniably reveal themselves. But this dual-layer DVD is filled nearly to its size limit, which means the 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer looks superb, with striking color and contrast. There are English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks, as well as Spanish and French Dolby surround tracks, and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. The rub — no supplemental extras. The loaded special edition no doubt lurks out there on the horizon, so plan accordingly. If you’re a stickler for the most up-to-date stuff, you might want to hold off, or of course go with the Blu-ray version, if you don’t already have that; if you’re a less discerning fan who just wants a copy of the (new) biggest movie of all-time to revisit at your leisure, well, this release works fine. To purchase this DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) C (Disc)