With a shockingly deep catalog of dozens of albums, and sales topping more than 30 million, Lynyrd Skynyrd remains a major cultural icon, still known to a remarkably wide audience for more than just their beloved Southern rock anthem “Sweet Home Alabama,” which, incidentally, lights up more than two million phones as a downloaded ringtone. The band was recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the group’s latest album, Gods & Guns, debuted on the Billboard Top 20 at #18, representing their highest chart bow since 1977.

It’s against this backdrop that Live From Freedom Hall, one of the last concerts Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded with longtime members Billy Powell and Ean Evans, each of whom passed away last year, streets as both a concert CD and DVD. With Johnny Van Zant on vocals, providing plenty of arm pumps and crowd-stoking greetings (sample: “How ’bout that, Kentucky?”), this well-photographed show solidly showcases the band’s own inimitable brand of stubborn, scruffy, stubbled, deep-fried rock ‘n’ roll, in which boozy, armchair patriotism meets catchy melodies and riffs.

Gary Rossington and Rickey Medlocke man lead guitars, Powell takes care of keyboards, Evans is on bass, Michael Cartellone on drums, Mark Matejka on guitar and Dale Krantz Rossington and Carol Chase provide back-up vocals. “Travelin’ Man,” and “Workin'” open the set, followed by “What’s
Your Name?,” “That Smell,” and a nice rendition of “Simple Man.” The track listing for the rest of the album is as follows: “Down South Jukin’,” “The
Needle and the Spoon,” “Ballad of Curtis Loew,” “Gimme Back My
Bullets,” “Tuesday’s Gone,” “Red White and Blue,” “Gimme Three
Steps,” and “Call Me the Breeze.” “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird” aren’t played… just kidding! They close the show, of course, and send everyone home happy.

Benefiting from a superb transfer and unfussy direction that neither eschews timely cutting nor indulges in multiple angles willy-nilly, just for cutting’s sake, the DVD is available separately, in a regular plastic Amaray case in a 1.33:1 full frame presentation, with robust Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks, or as part of a CD-DVD deluxe set, which lets you take the concert on the road with you. To purchase the CD-DVD combo from Amazon, meanwhile, click here. The group is also on tour throughout the summer. For a full
schedule, and other information about the band, click here. B (Concert) C (Disc)

It’s a fine line that historically inclined documentaries about assassinations like Roads to Memphis have to walk, assaying the actions and motivations of their unpalatable subjects without raising them to the same venerated level of those whom they slew.

Running 82 minutes, this PBS American Experience offering, part of the longest-running history series on TV, artfully and movingly does just that, providing a sober look at the events leading up to and immediately following the April 4, 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., without getting into killer James Earl Ray’s recantation of his guilty plea and his labyrinthine (and dubious) claims of complicity in a conspiracy, nor his brief 1977 escape from prison and the King family’s subsequent embrace of the belief that he had nothing to do with the murder. Instead, built around stirring reminiscences from King’s inner circle and some of the officials involved in Ray’s capture and
prosecution, as well as other talking heads, Emmy Award-winning director Stephen Ives’ Roads to Memphis provides an important snapshot of a seething and turbulent time and place in American society.

Jesse Jackson is notably absent from the interviewee roster of former aides to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning preacher, but Samuel Kyles, Roger Wilkins and Andrew Young (who notes, “We were never concerned with who killed Martin Luther King, but what killed Martin Luther King”) all offer valuable contextual detail, both in terms of King’s physical movements and actions, but also what was going on in his head in the weeks and days leading up to his death. Similarly, the roster of “establishment” talking heads is articulate and insightful, including among its ranks former CBS News anchorman Dan Rather, writer Gerald Posner, historian Wayne Flynt and Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin. Most arresting, however, might just be some of the Memphis sanitation workers whose labor strike brought King to their town. Their recollections of their interactions with King, including his remarks to a packed church congregation the rainy evening before his death, put a powerful personal sheen on this documentary, giving it an emotional punch to match its academic insight.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Roads to Memphis comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language stereo audio track. Divided into 11 chapters, the title includes an eight-minute extended interview session with aforementioned author Sides, a Memphis native who, though only six or seven years old at the time, recalls being pulled out of school and taken out of town by his parents in the days following the shooting, since they feared more violence to come. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or simply click here. Or, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

The writing and directing debut of Parks and Recreation actor Paul Schneider, Pretty Bird is an ambling, relatively forced-cute rumination on hazy American ambition, wherein the cart of end result is always put before the horse of honed idea. In some ways a cross between Tucker and The Music Man, the film sails along for a while on the charm of its lead actors, but ultimately unwinds into a messy, unsatisfying spool of questionable motivations, curious actions and unresolved loose ends.

Adapted from Paul Brown’s book The Rocketball Caper: A True Tale of Invention, Obsession and Murder, the movie, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago, tells the story of three would-be entrepreneurs who join forces and set out to invent and market a personal rocket belt. Curtis Prentiss (Billy Crudup) is the forcefully upbeat driving personality behind the entire endeavor, which comes together under the banner of a company Curtis names Fantastic Technologies, Inc. Curtis hits up his best friend, Kenny Owenby (David Hornsby), who owns and operates a mattress store, for seed money. He also uses some of that cash to sign the brains of the operation, Richard Honeycutt (Paul Giamatti), a married ex-rocket scientist wallowing in a funk of depression ever since being laid off from his job.

For a while, a set of mysterious blueprints which give Richard a nice head start on
the contraption, along with Curtis’ indefatigably positive, can-do mindset and offbeat sensibilities (he wears a white tuxedo to an eventual field test of the contraption, above) seem to be enough. Maybe this brash, unconventional start-up will yield startlingly successful results. Soon, though, Richard begins to wonder why none of Curtis’ investors seem to be coming through. As personalities clash and contrasting agendas seem to emerge, the partnership begins to unravel in unexpected ways. Kristen Wiig and Anna Camp also appear, as Kenny’s secretary and Curtis’ married neighbor, respectively.

Pretty Bird has some charm and plenty of diverting amusement around the edges, mostly courtesy of some warped banter, but is mightily dinged by a too-cute elliptical ending, which makes a reach for some metaphorical significance where there is none. At the core of the film’s problems is its enervated tone. Additionally, there’s not enough of a forced perspective through Curtis to make his paranoia and petty tyrannical rants — born of an intellectual insecurity — truly matter, or pop. Is Curtis merely quixotic, or deeply unhinged? We don’t ever really get a firm answer on this front, which would actually be fine if someone other than Richard — who is motivated by his own concerns over being squeezed out, and denied the glory of credit — seemed to actually care. Kenny, however, is a sop — a weirdly, purely functional character, which is problematic when constructing a shared-perspective character piece.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with hollowed-out spindles that are, you know, in theory better for the environment, Pretty Bird comes to DVD presented in a crisp, color-consistent widescreen transfer, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track with optional English subtitles. Apart from the obligatory chapter stops (15, in this case), there are unfortunately no supplemental bonus features, except for a small collection of trailers for films like Echelon Conspiracy and Wrong Turn at Tahoe, the latter being the latest of many straight-to-video flicks starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) D (Disc)