The sequel to the hit live-action supernatural movie Death Note, based
on the 15-million-selling manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and
illustrated by Takeshi Obata, Death Note II: The Last Name is once again directed by renowned
monster filmmaker Shusuke Kaneko, and focuses on the conclusion of the
titanic struggle between two geniuses trying to win ultimate control of a book that brings death to those whose names are written in it.

After quickly re-establishing some of the parameters of the film’s universe, and rules for the use of the special notebook with the power to kill — the death must happen within 23 days; if no
specific cause of death is noted in the notebook, the victim will suffer a heart
attack; and users have six minutes and 40 seconds (?!) to pen details
after first naming their victim, among others — Death Note II picks up with Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara) joining an investigative team in pursuit of the serial killer known as Kira. While L (Kenichi Matsuyama) still strongly suspects that Light is in fact Kira, Light continues to seek out the real name of L so that he can kill him with his Death Note. Making things even more unpredictable are the “Eyes of Death” that the second Kira possesses, enabling the owner to know the true identity and lifespan of any person. Light soon learns the identity of the other Kira, and wants to join forces to get rid of L. Will L be able to catch “Kira” before he gets killed? Who will be the last name written in the Death Note?

The Death Note manga and TV series are sensations in their Japanese homeland; the 37-episode animated cable series is seen by
millions each week, and also
distributed on DVD Stateside by VIZ Media, the releaser of this film. Even without a connection to the hardwired cultural mores and customs that ground the spookier elements of this material, it’s easy to grasp its popularity. Death Note II uses some canted stylistic tricks, but not to an obnoxious or wearying degree. Overall, there’s a nice mix of special effects work and real, match-cut hallucinatory images; the film’s mood is nicely sustained. Somewhat interestingly, the Red Hot Chili Peppers again contribute the movie’s opening theme song, “Dani California,” as well as other tunes.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Death Note II comes presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with superlative English language Dolby digital 5.1 and 2.0 sound mixes dubbed by the outstanding voice cast of the animated series. The original Japanese version of the movie is also included, obviously with English subtitles. The only problem here is that the subtitles don’t completely match the dubbed version of the movie; one assumes the latter is more accurate, but can’t be entirely certain. DVD bonus features consist of a special 21-minute making-of featurette (also set to tunes from the Red Hot Chili Peppers), in which cast and crew all sit for subtitled interviews. Also included are the original Japanese theatrical trailer for the film, as well as an English language version. For more information on both of the Death Note live action films, as well as other VIZ Pictures films, click here, or visit the film series’ namesake web site. For more information on the Death Note manga and animated series, meanwhile, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

Adapted from John Boyne’s award-winning novel of the same name, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas opens with a quote that characterizes childhood as being a carefree period before “the dark hour of reason grows.”
While generally true, there’s not much of that apple-cheeked optimism
in this well-crafted World War II drama, told from a child’s-eye view.
The quote, rather, serves as counterpoint for a prism through which
prejudice, dehumanization and corrupted innocence are all assayed in
quasi-fabulistic fashion.

The film unfolds through the eyes of eight-year-old Bruno (Asa
Butterfield, above), son of Nazi commandant Ralf (David Thewlis) and
Elsa (Vera Farmiga), a stay-at-home mother who embraces willful
obliviousness with regards to her husband’s soldierly duties. Largely
shielded from the realities of war, and certainly his father’s
complicity in its grim prosecution, Bruno grumbles at having to move
away from his friends and out to the country, where his family settles
into a large house with a distant view of a commune-style barn where all the “farmers” wear strange pajamas.
With no children with which to play, Bruno befriends a kitchen worker
named Pavel (David Hayman), a pitiful, shuffling older man who in
another life was a doctor.

After a week of hanging around the
house, Bruno sneaks out through the back garden in search of adventure.
He finally stumbles across Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a mousy Jewish boy at
the nearby fence-ringed farm — which is of course plainly evident to
the audience a concentration camp under Ralf’s newly expanded oversight
— and a forbidden friendship develops between the pair. A visiting
tutor hired by his father lectures him that all Jews are evil, and his
older sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) eagerly drinks the nationalistic propagandistic Kool-Aid,
but Bruno is conflicted. As he steals food for his new friend, and plays games with him, his bond with Shmuel grows deeper, awakening
senses of moral impulse that Bruno didn’t even know he had. How will this
secret friendship play out?

Photographed by Benoit Delhomme (The Proposition), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas isn’t designed in as crushingly bleak a fashion as something like Lajos Koltai’s monochromatic Fateless,
a fellow Holocaust tale told from the perspective of a young boy. With
wide angles and uncluttered frames, screenwriter-director Mark Herman (Little Voice) aims for a more naturalistic palette, to underscore the movie’s humanistic tone. What most helps the film, though, is the wide-eyed Butterfield. Physically resembling a cross between a young Elijah Wood and Son of Rambow‘s
Bill Milner, Butterfield wonderfully captures Bruno’s naivete without ever
tipping over into affected cuteness. The rest of the performances are
nicely modulated as well. The pitfall of many World War II films is
that they try to retell a grand story on a cramped canvas, but The Boy in the Striped Pajamas tells a discrete, moving, standalone tale from a specific point-of-view, and just tells it quite well.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with an accompanying cardboard slipcover, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas comes presented in 1:85:1 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English and Spanish subtitles. An audio commentary track with Herman and author Boyne anchors the supplemental bonus features, and the two are quite complimentary of the other’s work. The same pair also offer brief, optional interjections over a small clutch of deleted scenes, most of which expand upon the movie’s set-apart rural setting and young Bruno’s increasing boredom in only rudimentary ways. Finally, there’s a 20-minute behind-the-scenes featurette which intercuts cast and crew interviews about the production, and shows how Herman, in tweaking the perspective of the novel, balanced the personal tale of Bruno and the sensitive reality of one of the darkest periods in world history. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

What do movie special effects, the stock market, heart attacks and the
rings of Saturn have in common? They all consist of fractals — irregular
repeating shapes found in cloud formations and tree limbs, stalks of broccoli and craggy mountain ranges, and even in the rhythm
of the human heart. With its latest superlative hour-long documentary release, NOVA takes viewers on an intriguing scientific exploration of this radical new branch of geometry, shining a spotlight on the man who pioneered the field.

For thousands of years, classical math was used in the cause of human creation and advancement, whether to build the pyramids or study the Parthenon. The patterns of nature, however, proved more elusive to distill to numbers. Fractals: Hunting the Hidden Dimension looks at a group of pioneering mathematicians determined to decipher the rules that govern fractal geometry. At the center is Benoit Mandelbrot, a Yale professor who grew up as a hunted Jewish civilian in Nazi-occupied France, and hooked on with IBM in 1958, tackling myriad problems associated with data transfer during the early stages of the development of computers. His groundbreaking work on the 1960s and ’70s, building on Georg Koch’s namesake curve — used to describe the “finer indentations” of national coastlines, and how smaller units of measurement yielded ever larger estimates — opened up important new threads of discussion and thought about longstanding “mathematical monsters.”

Though Mandlebrot’s theories were met with predictable scorn at first, the remarkable and interesting thing is how these findings about fractals — in addition to deepening our understanding of nature — are also shown to have stimulated a new wave of scientific, medical and artistic innovation stretching from the ecology of the rainforest to Jhane Barnes’ fashion design. Industrial Light & Magic’s Willi Geiger even demonstrates the importance of fractals in a scene from Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. Other lively interview subjects like UC-Santa Cruz professor Ralph Abraham, as well as Mandlebrot himself, make this title an engaging treat.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Fractals: Hunting the Hidden Dimension is presented in anamorphic widescreen with a static menu screen, its picture suitably clear and its English 5.1 stereo audio mix crisp and free from any background buzz or hiccups. It includes English SDH subtitles and described video for the visually impaired, along with a spare collection of DVD-ROM materials and activities for educators, and a reference link to the NOVA web site. The title is also available on Blu-ray, a first for any home video release from WGBH Boston Video. To purchase any DVD release from WGBH, including Fractals, phone (800) 949-8670, or click here. A- (Movie) C (Disc)