Part documentary, part dramatic recreation, The Road to Guantanamo offers forth a
prima facie account of three British citizens who were held for more than two
years without charges in the eponymous American military prison in Cuba,
an opaque facility whose continued operation represents an ongoing payoff in
propaganda for would-be international jihadists.

Its co-director, Michael Winterbottom, is a filmmaker known
— to the degree that he is, outside the hardcore arthouse set — largely for his
intersecting interests in war, class, sociopolitical activism and their
respective influences upon the human condition. His movies, too, often come
wrapped up in collagist, avant-garde storytelling. From both the similarly
minded Welcome to Sarajevo and In This World to last year’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
and 9 Songs, though, Winterbottom
remains a filmmaker in many ways more appealing in principle than in actuality
— an intellectual of wide and varied preoccupations who has a propensity for
getting lost in too much navel-gazing. Very interesting but in some ways also
frustrating, The Road to Guantanamo
continues that trend.

Intercutting dramatizations with neophyte actors and
interviews with the real-life figures they depict — Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed and
Shafiq Rasul, who range from 19 to 23 years of age at the time of the events —
the film chronicles the events that follow from the group setting out from the
British Midlands town of Tipon for
Asif’s arranged marriage in Pakistan.
After the wedding is postponed, the trio and another friend, Monir Ali, cross
over the Afghanistan
border just as the U.S.
bombing campaign of that country intensifies. From there their dark,
surrealistic misadventure only worsens, and they are eventually captured by
Northern Alliance forces, transferred to American custody and taken to Camp
X-Ray and, later, the more permanent Camp Delta, in Guantanamo.

Cast against the rhetoric of absolutes that President Bush
and, to a lesser if more articulate degree, British Prime Minister Tony Blair
have fed their respective publics about the enduring war on terror and the
identities of those radical, dangerous “dead-enders” held in Guantanamo, the
movie is undeniably illuminating. The so-called “Tipton Three” (Monir gets lost
and is never heard from again), while not angels (each was at some point on
probation for petty offenses back in England),
are hardly Al Qaeda terrorists or even flaming ideologues. They’re rendered in
full, three-dimensional form, and their caged humiliation and torture (at the
hands, variously, of Americans, Brits and, most brutally, Northern Alliance
Afghanis) delivers a calculable impact.

Still, The Road to
Guantanamo, from its too haphazardly quilted opening through the first 35
minutes or so, plays too coy with the group’s motivations, never adequately
assessing why these somewhat secularized loafers would go willfully into a war
zone on a good Samaritan’s lark. The admission of a more mercenary or at least
foolhardy call to arms wouldn’t necessarily completely dint the impact of the
subsequent moral questions under the microscope, but Winterbottom and
co-director Mat Whitecross seem to tacitly acknowledge the complications this
presents by skirting the issue entirely. The result, though, is a movie that
seems to be deficient in due diligence. Lacking both a sermon-to-the-choir
fervor or a libertarian persuasiveness, The
Road to Guantanamo instead lies flat.

Additionally, it’s problematic to cut back and forth between
characters and real-life figures who look little alike, and this tack robs the
movie of a sense of distinct rootedness. Instead, despite the fantastical and
inherently stirring true story on display, we’re left with only an
impressionist’s sense of swirling grey morality.

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, The Road to Guantanamo looks great, with excellent progressive image and no problems with grain. An English language 5.1 Dolby digital track solidly anchors the movie’s aural demands, with optional English subtitles. Unfortunately, there are no other subtitle options, nor — apart from a few trailers for other Sony releases — any supplemental extras. For a title of such ostensible sociopolitical heft, that’s unforgivable — though perhaps a sign of a more satisfying DVD double dip somewhere down the line. B- (Movie) C- (Disc)

The Facts of Life debuted
on NBC in August of 1979, a spin-off from the network’s popular Diff’rent Strokes. It would go on to
last nine seasons and log over 200 episodes, teaching invaluable lessons to in
particular burgeoning teen girls, and predating by a few years the rise in
popularity of the sort of young femme fiction first peddled by author Judy
Blume.

The show was set, of course, around de facto den mother Edna
Garrett (Charlotte Rae, who would score an Emmy nomination for her work this
year), who served as the mentor and steadying influence on a quartet of very
different young girls. The series’ third season finds Tootie (Kim Fields)
getting drunk for the first time, as well as developing a crush on her favorite
singer (a guesting Jermaine Jackson — apparently Michael was overbooked). After
getting mugged on the way home from a party, Natalie (Mindy Cohn) develops a
fear of going outside. Spunky Jo (Nancy McKeon) and Mrs. Garrett, meanwhile, are
graced with parallel romantic arcs; the latter falls out of love with her fiancé
Eddie (Clark Brandon) and in love with the guy who’s playing her husband in a
simulated marriage that serves as a class project, while “Mrs. G” rekindles an
old fling. Other highlights of this season include the reappearance of cousin Geri
(Geri Jewell). In perhaps the most awkward development, meanwhile, preppy Blair
(Lisa Whelchel) learns in the episode “Legacy” that her grandfather is a member
of the Klu Klux Klan.

While other series of the era — including, most notably,
Norman Lear’s All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place — successfully
integrated social commentary into their fabric in a heartening fashion (can
anyone fathom a half-hour sitcom of today
tackling a similar topic?), The Facts of
Life never quite pulled this off quite as capably. The show was at its best
filtering more realistic adolescent problems (gossip, scholastic endeavor, romantic
competition, even alcohol abuse) through a feminine lens, or indulging spats
between the tomboyish Jo and the snooty, boy-crazy Blair. The split herein
favors that focus, but there are a few clunkers, like “Read No Evil,” “The Runaway”
and the aforementioned “Legacy.”

Grouping all two dozen episodes of the third season across
three discs, this collection comes in two plastic, slimline cases, which are in
turn housed in a cardboard slipcase halfheartedly mocked up as a miniature composition
notebook. All episodes are presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with an English
language stereo track. While wholly lacking in the supplemental extras
department (that would mean none), the series still for the most part works as
an adolescent primer of sorts, albeit a somewhat dated and intrinsically optimistic
one. C+ (Show) C+ (Disc)

Creature Comforts — from Aardman Animation, the same folks who brought us the delightful Wallace and Gromit — is a like-minded, documentary-style collection of animated shorts about
the secret lives of both domesticated pets and wild animals. Ever
wondered what life is like for a jaguar who misses the wide open spaces
of the wild, or the gorilla who wishes her habitat had better heating?
Fret no more — those and other questions are answered in Nick Park’s
pleasantly off-center series, which brings together a dozen mini-episodes
along with some other enjoyable bonus material.

Creature Comforts
began life as a short subject film released in 1990 by the
England-based Aardman Animation. Park, working with Aardman founders
Peter Lord and David Sproxton, recorded a bunch of complaints and real-life conversations of various
British citizens and worked up animals representing each doughty
character. The result was the 1990 Academy Award winner for Best
Animated Short Film. From there, Park — who would go on to craft both Chicken Run and a popular, award-winning series of Wallace and Gromit
shorts — developed a
short series of 10-minute episodes that continued to mine the
same comedic veins, told in a mockumentary format and branded with dry
subtleties characteristic of “across the pond” humor.

Leaving no stone unturned, no sea uncrossed, no tree unclimbed, Creature Comforts
takes a cheeky, first-person look at the animal kingdom from its
denizens’ points-of-view. Circus animals lift the lid on life
underneath the big top, garden dwelling slugs discuss life in the urban
turf and ponder the existence of aliens, zebras and penguins chat about zoo life, and our feathered friends
reveal the ups and downs of life in the air. The animation is again of
course of the distinctive Aardman claymation variety — all expressive
eyes, big mouths and soft, rounded features. That kids spark to Park’s
tales is unsurprising given their warm, inviting look, but that adults
respond typically just as favorably is a result of the equal and
informed attention given to story.

DVD extras on this 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation include
three featurettes and a 35-minute-plus making-of special that features interview clips with Park and many of the animators.
This shows the painstaking work that goes into these kinds of shorts
(all those expressions are the result of different heads and faces,
naturally) and really gives you an extra appreciation for this type of
animation. There’s also a longer version of the “Merry Christmas Everybody!” episode available separately as well, bargain priced at $9.95. A- (Show) B+ (Disc)

The hairstyles
still jump out at you, sure. And this was, after all, the season that
David Soul (above right) busted off with the shaggy moustache. But Starsky & Hutch, as much as anything else, is still chiefly interesting as a relic of 1970s-era small screen pacing.

Lost, Desperate Housewives and The Nine hellbent on twiddling viewers off with long, masturbatory arcs, the art of self-contained story arc is waning. Starsky & Hutch, at least here in its fourth season, does a superlative job of spinning tight narrative nuggets that then paradoxically allow for longer, dawdling scenes within those concentrated parameters. Case in point: a three-and-a-half-minute, flirty peeping tom sequence in “Strange Justice,” which finds a veteran cop concocting a semi-elaborate plot to take revenge upon his daughter’s rapist. Modern television boils this down to one minute, tops, to give us more “gritty” procedural. The irony is that that generally takes away from the empathy one feels from the aggrieved character(s).

Amongst my other favorites from this five-disc set, which collects all 22 episodes, are “Photo Finish” and “Ninety Pounds of Trouble,” in which the pair go undercover as hitmen. Kitsch low, meanwhile, is reached in “The Golden Angel,” in which Starsky poses as a wrestler and Hutch a referee.

Starsky & Hutch: The Complete Fourth Season is presented in 1.33:1 full screen, and the transfers are surprisingly clear and free of grain. While there are certainly some issues with color consistency here and there, as a measure of comparison these episodes look better than many of the 1970s and ’80s sitcoms currently being peddled by Sony (Good Times, The Jeffersons, etcetera). The set comes packaged in bright red, gatefold fashion, with an outer cardboard slipcase to boot. There are, alas, no supplemental bonus features. If you can get over that disappointment, you’ll be otherwise happy with the clarity of this revisitation. B- (Show) B- (Disc)