Despite the fact that it’s still, you know, illegal, there’s an entire cottage industry devoted to celebrating and promoting marijuana and its attendant “lifestyle,” and that’s where a DVD like The 20th Anniversary Cannabis Cup comes into play — filling that void between the time spent lighting up, missing community college classes, munching on Cool Ranch Doritos, wondering where your copy of Dazed and Confused went, and waiting for your roommate to figure out how to download that pirated copy of Pineapple Express.



Presented by High Times (naturally), this disc brings the world’s biggest annual pot party to your very own living room. Running about an hour, it’s made up of just the sort of short-attention-span bits that one would expect on a compilation title like this — a musical performance from noted marijuana advocate Redman here, chuckle-laden interview tidbits there. There’s also footage of both 100-gram joints and the world’s biggest bong, a peek inside the Sacred Temple with celebrity judges as they choose the world’s greatest pot, and, as the cover promises, high-resolution photos of the winning buds. Wow. If something other than weed could be a “must-have” for habitual stoners, then I suppose it would be this DVD.

The 20th Anniversary Cannabis Cup comes housed in a regular Amray case, along with a 36-page color booklet that includes plenty of, umm, educational photographs, as well as an Amsterdam coffeeshop map (yes, seriously). It’s presented on a region-free disc with a stereo audio track, but you have to provide your own blacklight, sorry. Free hippie lettuce samples not included, either. A (Movie, if I were a stoner) B- (Disc)

Nostalgia is frequently a funny thing. Revisiting past pop cultural flames can underscore just how much of a warping influence something like the innate catchiness (or sheer volume) of a commercial jingle had in shaping the rallying affection of adolescent identification and embrace. Weirder still, though, are second-generation rebirths of trends, toy lines and the like, as when something like Cabbage Patch Kids get rebooted. “Didn’t the popularity of this game/item run its course for a reason?” one can’t help but wonder.

The latter comes to mind with Transformers Animated, new to DVD. With the fanboy-fueled heat over last summer’s action extravaganza Transformers still not fully abated, and its live-action sequel already in full swing, the toys which ruled a decent part of the 1980s as a hugely popular line of toys, comic books and accompanying “lifestyle” gear and whats-its for young boys — picking up the action figure mantle from the Star Wars franchise and giving it a tech-age, presto-chango kick in the pants — are back. This animated series, launched on the Cartoon Network late last year, re-hashes a lot of the same basic story points as the original animated series from the ’80s; the most remarkable thing, though, may be that here revival means not radical reinvention, but streamlining.

Eschewing the more artistically involved animé style of previous small screen efforts, this series trades in big, grabby, colorful 2-D animation, and the angles, joints and movements of its star subjects come across less as those of transforming big rigs and airplanes and more as giant hunks of weaponized metal. The main story is still familiar, though it’s a weird marriage of past series lore and Bay’s film: led by Optimus Prime (voiced by David Kaye), the Autobots take to defending both the Allspark and their new adopted home (that would be Earth), as well as 8-year-old Sari Sumdac (voiced by Tara Strong, who also voiced Princess Clara on Drawn Together). Sari not only becomes an honorary Autobot, but a vital component of the team and the keeper of a key which serves as an emergency power supply and source of healing for the Autobots. Naturally, the evil Decepticons want the key and Allspark for themselves. Much noisy grappling ensues.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Transformers Animated seems like a downgrade in almost every conceivable way. This is brand-name, space-filling entertainment, pure and simple. However ridiculous its main conceit (space-traveling robots who happen to take the form of human forms of transportation) might have once been, there was a sense of forward-leaning imaginativeness to it all back in the ’80s. Now, with a cross-platform re-launching designed to bring in nostalgic Gen-Xers and their little kids, the seams show. And I yawn.

Transformers Animated: Season One is spread out over two discs, comes housed in a regular plastic Amray case, and is presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with English and Spanish language Dolby digital stereo audio tracks, each of which capably capture all those whirring sounds (yeah… technical description) that fans of the original series will remember. Apart from a photo gallery sneak peek at two dozen character design sketches from the forthcoming second season release, there are no supplemental bonus features. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Series) D+ (Disc)

The 2007 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Counterfeiters is a well acted, strikingly photographed war drama rooted in palpably difficult human choices and emotions. Written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Inheritors, All the Queen’s Men), the film centers around the true story of Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics, below), a swindler who during World War II made a name for himself as Berlin’s “King of the Counterfeiters.”

Sorowitsch’s life of women and easy money is cut short when he’s arrested and
placed in a Nazi concentration camp. With the German army on the verge
of bankruptcy, he’s offered a sobering deal by his captors: in
exchange for a comfortable bed, good food and reasonably fair
treatment, Sorowitsch, along with a number of other hand-picked
specialists, must counterfeit bank notes to fund the Nazi war effort.
If he does as they say, he lives another day. If he rebels, he faces
the same fate as the rest of the camp’s prisoners.

Sorowitsch yields quickly, and goes along to get along. The British pound is cracked without much trouble, giving the Nazis hope in their plan to flood the British economy with phony notes. The American dollar, the real prize, is a much harder task. Still, even though he starts to seemingly purposefully drag his feet a bit, Sorowitsch keeps working on the project, and his acquiesance rankles the dissenting Adolf Burger (August Diehl), a fellow prisoner who starts to subtly, habitually sabotage the finalizing ink trays for the task.

With his gaunt, hangdog visage, Markovics is an arresting screen presence, and Ruzowitzky knows how to locate the small details (one of the more moving scenes involves a father finding his children’s passports in a stack of detritus used to forge and re-purpose documents) that give depth and shading to the grand-scale tragedy that forms the movie’s backdrop. Sorowitsch’s relationship with Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow) — the Nazi who first arrests him, and then later comes to oversee his counterfeit operations — is also an interesting, complicated thing. One scene finds Herzog taking his prisoner home to meet his family, positioning himself as a bureaucrat who on a certain level realizes not only the abject cruelty of the camps at large but also the absurdity of his task. When the tables are turned and Friedrich is put in a subordinate position, we come to see manifested the true nature of Sorowitsch’s character.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case, The Counterfeiters comes to DVD with one of the best produced, most robust slate of supplemental extras of any foreign language title this year. An audio commentary track with director Ruzowitzky kicks off the special features, and it’s a rich, anecdote-laden affair; the filmmaker talks about being in Paris for a screenwriters conference and meeting Dolores Chaplin, granddaughter of screen legend Charlie, at a party, and then remembering her when casting a bit part for his movie, of a woman Salomon beds before he gets arrested and hauled away to a concentration camp.

Four deleted scenes and a 10-minute, full screen making-of featurette are also included, and these are not without their charms. The best bonus feature, though, might well be the 20-minute featurette detailing the authentic historical artifacts of Salomon Smolianoff, the real-life figure upon whom the character of Sorowitsch is based. Morally substantial, subtitle-optioned interviews with actor Markovics, the real-life counterfeiter Burger and director Ruzowitzky each run in the 16- to 20-minute range; also included is a Q&A session with Ruzowitzky from the movie’s presentation at AFI Fest in 2007. Rounding things out is rehearsal footage, the movie’s trailer, and previews for David Mamet’s Redbelt and other Sony titles. The only strike on this title, a minor mitigating detail, comes in the form of the movie’s transfer, which — perhaps owing to its roots, and less exacting standards of storage — is a bit marred by grain. For a clip from the film, click here. Meanwhile, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) A- (Disc)

Jennifer Carpenter called her shot. During an interview with the actress for a piece on The Exorcism of Emily Rose, she talked about how stoked she was to have been cast in Dexter, opposite Michael C. Hall, how she thought the Showtime series had a chance to break some new narrative ground on the small screen, and definitely hang around several seasons. For a lot of up-and-coming actresses, these cheery sentiments are just part of the amiable self-sell — talking up the next project in case the one on the front burner doesn’t really come to a boil — but Carpenter seemed uniquely sincere in her sentiments regarding the series, which at that time was just getting off the ground.

With good reason, it turns out. Based on Jeff Lindsay novel’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter, and developed for television by James Manos, Jr., Dexter has turned into a solid performer for Showtime — so much so that it was nabbed for reruns over the past year on CBS, a corporate bedfellow. The show’s first season introduced Dexter Morgan (Hall), a Miami forensics expert who moonlights as a serial slayer of other habitual murderers. Naturally, this line of work shades, strains and otherwise complicates Dexter’s relationships — including with his cop sister Deborah (Carpenter), his single-mom girlfriend Rita Bennett (Julie Benz), and department colleagues Sergeant James Doakes (Erik King) and Lieutenant Maria Maguerta (Lauren Velez).

After Dexter having survived an encounter with the Ice Truck Killer, who also terrorized Deborah, at the end of the previous season, the series’ sophomore effort opens with more unwanted attention being focused on his acts. The flashbacks to Dexter’s childhood, intermittently filling in the gaps of his psychological and emotional development, continue, though it’s also worth pointing out that a lot of the heavy lifting is done by Hall, who nicely walks the tightrope between outright monster and sympathetic moral equalizer. There’s a cerebal quality to Hall that greatly benefits this character, serving as counterpoint for some of his brash actions.

Over the dozen episodes of season two, Dexter also begins to doubt his murderous capabilities, or at least their shelf-life. Although still committed to carrying out his brand of twisted vigilante justice — a methodology learned from and channeled by his adopted father Harry (James Remar) — Dexter continues to be haunted by his tortured past, including the brutal murder of his mother. His difficulties multiply when evidence of his deadly after-hours activities begins to surface, and the FBI, in the form of Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine), is brought in to investigate the city’s new serial killer, dubbed the Bay Harbor Butcher. Hard-charging Sergeant Doakes has suspicions as well, and mysterious ex-meth addict Lila (Jaime Murray), a rehab pal who forges a quick and seemingly deep bond with Dexter, only further complicates matters. With the noose of suspicion seemingly tightening around his neck, will Dexter be able to continue his serial-killing ways or will his dark, extreme ways finally be uncovered?

Spread out over four discs housed in two slimline cases in turn stored in a nice cardboard slipcover, Dexter: The Second Season comes presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital 2.0 stereo and Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound English language audio tracks, and a complementary Spanish language track in Dolby digital 2.0 mono. For better or worse, most of the set’s DVD bonus materials actually throw a spotlight on other Showtime shows. There are two episodes of the series Brotherhood, the first two episodes from the second season of The Tudors, and the pilot of Californication, starring David Duchovny. From a marketing standpoint, these are smart inclusions, and certainly worthy for the average television fan, who may not have premium pay-cable, and would want to dabble before purchasing an entire season on DVD. Unfortunately, their inclusion somewhat limits the amount of material related specifically to Dexter, which consists of a podcast interview with Hall. Some director audio commentaries or an interview with source material author Lindsay would be most welcome in the future. To purchase the set via Amazon, click here. B (Series) C+ (Disc)

“Dog movies” will always have a place on family video shelves, a matter proven by the fact that we’re already four films deep in the Beethoven franchise, and reconfirmed by the existence of Frank, a genial family flick about reconnection as facilitated by a big, slobbering pooch.

Directed by Douglas Cheney — who presumably isn’t listed in the phone book as D. Cheney, or else he would have had to field some crank calls — Frank follows the story of a mangy mutt and how he brings a troubled family closer together. When the York clan, headed by Colin (Jon Gries, aka Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite) and Jennifer (Cynthia Watros), retreat to their summer cabin, they hope the idyllic lakeside setting will wash away their petty squabbles and day-to-day worries. But before the coals on the first campfire are cool, their world is turned upside down when 9-year-old Patrick (Ashton Dierks) stumbles upon the creature “terrorizing” the locals — a big, drooling, lovable bull mastiff that comes to be known as Frank. Much to the initial dismay of their dad, whose lunches and fix-it projects suffer mightily courtesy of his paws and drool, Frank reminds both rambunctious Patrick and teenage daughter Anna (Brittany Robertson) that family vacations are about being together and loving one another. Colin comes around in the end, and Jennifer rekindles her love of drawing — something she put on hold to have a family.

Written by Robin Bradford, Frank is aimed chiefly at kids, and for that less demanding subset it works OK as a piece of entertainment. It isn’t purely slapstick-y, but the musical selections and framing are all canted to their predetermined likes, and whittled down so as to accommodate their points-of-view. The acting is for the most part so-so, with Robertson proving the real find of the film. Newcomer Dierks is no Spencer Breslin, that’s for sure, and he doesn’t even really successfully emulate the kiddie actor that he’s clearly been most coached to impersonate — Jonathan Lipnicki, of Jerry Maguire (and, later, The Little Vampire). Not fair to bag on a kid actor? Maybe, but if you’re trying to match human-cute with dog-cute, you need someone a bit more pliable, to set up the pity the story looks to plumb. That said, the production value here is fairly nice, and the wonderful, in-the-round setting gives the movie a warm, lived-in feeling that separates it from a lot of straight-to-video product.

Frank comes in a regular Amray case, presented in 16×9 widescreen, with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound audio track, and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. As for supplemental extras, there are seven minutes of deleted scenes, presented in time-coded fashion. There’s also a five-minute featurette on Littlebrook Farm, where the movie was shot. The bit is produced a bit like a salad dressing commercial, but property owners Deneise (yeah, that’s how she spells it) and Paul Hastings talk warmly about their connection to the home and land (the log cabin in the movie was built by Deneise’s grandfather), and come across as earnest, decent folk. Wrapping things up are previews for other First Look Studios releases and Summer in Siberia’s three-minute, flash-laden music video “Starving for Salmon,” produced for the movie and featuring lots of integrated clips of its cast and crew. To purchase the movie on DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

A solid earner that premiered to $20.8 million on April 11, en route to a $43.8 million domestic haul, Prom Night is a moderately well done slice of stalking teen horror, courtesy of some invested work by first-time feature director Nelson McCormick. Starring Brittany Snow in the Neve Campbell role, as a teenager who’s also the object of obsession for the murderer of her mother, the movie doesn’t offer much that’s new in the way of story or twists,  or even revelatory performances, but the glossy finish and snap-fit of its component parts at least make it palatable for those for whom it was chiefly designed.

For Donna Keppel (Snow, above) senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life. After surviving a horrible tragedy several years earlier, she’s moved in with her aunt and uncle (Jessalyn Gilsig and Linden Ashby) and finally moved on a bit, enjoying her last year of high school. Surrounded by her best friends, she should be safe from the horrors of her past. But when her prom night turns deadly, there’s only one person who could be responsible — former teacher Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech), a man Donna thought was gone forever. Now, as Detective Winn (Idris Elba) works to track Fenton down, Donna and her friends (a group that includes Scott Porter, Jessica Stroup, Dana Davis, Brianne Davis and Kellan Lutz) must find a way to escape the sadistic rampage of an obsessed killer, and survive a night “to die for.”

The big screen debut of acclaimed television director McCormick (Prison Break, and many other hour-long serials), Prom Night is a film that gets the most out of its meager budget. Penned by horror veteran J.S. Cardone (The Covenant, The Forsaken), the movie invests both in back story and the investigatory strand headed up by Winn, to decently differentiating effect. There’s a half-hour to 35 minutes spanning the second and third acts that very much recalls something like When a Stranger Calls, wherein Donna’s friends are cornered and picked off. But eventually the movie escapes its hotel setting, providing a small gasp of originality before a very pat, familiar ending.

Fairly attractive but still snakebit by bad small screen habits, Snow does that scrunchy-face thing an awful lot, like she’s entering some Renee Zellweger impersonation contest. The best work is actually turned in by Schaech, who captures the zombification of true obsessiveness, wherein psychotics kill not in willy-nilly fashion, but based on need and opportunity, to escape a particular situation or do away with a (human) obstacle to their pursuit. The rest of the kids generally acquit themselves; certainly they’ll have an easier time booking gigs based on the film’s commercial performance.

A cardboard slipcover masks the regular, plastic Amray case in which the unrated edition of Prom Night is sold. Presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio mix, the movie not too surprisingly embraces the concept of volume when it comes to supplemental extras. An audio commentary track with director McCormick, Snow and Schaech kicks things off, and there are plenty of compliments to go around, in addition to production detail provided by McCormick.

A two-minute gag reel finds Stroup getting a door handle to the butt in one sequence; there’s also a completely worthless five-minute “video yearbook” comprised of material strung together to play in the background at the movie’s prom. Five minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary show more character stuff, including more of Fenton’s escape from prison (modeled after one of Ted Bundy’s escapes, McCormick tells us), while the sticker-touted alternate ending is in actuality just a 30-second clip that freeze-frames a portion of the original ending, and slaps on it a line of whispery voiceover.

A 13-minute making-of featurette includes interviews with cast and crew; most interesting is cinematographer Checco Varese, a former CNN stringer and war photojournalist, who talks about closing the shutter angle of the camera to achieve the jittery, fractious look of its final chase sequences. There’s a five-minute look at the creation of the Grand Hotel set (yawn), while another featurette, “Profile of a Killer,” runs about six minutes, and finds writer Cardone mostly explaining his research process in crafting the screenplay. Most amusing, though, may be a six-minute bit which finds the cast sharing real prom stories of their own; Porter turns out to be the pimp of the group, racking up six total prom nights. Well played, kid — hope that worked out for you. Click here for a clip from the film. To purchase the movie on unrated DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B (Disc)

A difficult journey that begins in loneliness and shame for thousands of Ethiopian women ends in a productive new life and hope for the future in this award-winning film, co-directed by Mary Olive Smith and Amy Bucher. Shot against a starkly beautiful landscape, A Walk to Beautiful shares the inspiring stories of three women, rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities, who leave home in search of treatment for obstetric fistula.

“Huh?” you say. In the simplest, if most cringe-inducing, terms, fistulas refer to a tear, or hole, between the vagina and rectum or bladder, frequently the result of inadequate prenatal and childbirth medical care. Once fairly common in the pre-industrial United States, this life-shattering complication of childbirth is now relegated mostly to the poorest regions of the world; in Ethiopia alone, there are an estimated 100,000 women suffering from untreated fistulas. Somewhat understandably, their shared plight is one not frequently discussed. The women are shunned, and looked down upon.

A Walk to Beautiful tells their story, in somewhat short-form fashion. In a courageous attempt to reclaim their lives, these women embark on a journey to a remarkable hospital — walking for hours to the nearest road, searching for public transportation to Addis Ababa, the capital. Finally, surrounded by women like themselves and a compassionate medical team of Western and African doctors, they find a haven that they never imagined, transforming their long and arduous trek into a “walk to beautiful.”

Smith and Bucher have an outsiders’ perspective, true, but their documentary neither condescends or rages inappropriately. Instead, it’s both coldly factual (pointing out that there are under 150 OB/GYNs for 77 million patients) and supremely sympathetic, suffused with humanity and optimism. Watching, one grasps the supreme challenges of medical modernization, but also just how much can be accomplished — in terms of winning hearts and minds through helping bodies — with minimal resources.

Packaged in a regular Amray plastic case and presented in anamorphic widescreen enhanced for 16×9 televisions, A Walk to Beautiful runs about five minutes short of an hour, and comes with a scrollable discussion guide for educators and a bonus video, Fistula Worldwide: The Hidden Epidemic, that underlines the feature presentation’s points in quantitative fashion. Closed captions and described video for the visually impaired are also included. To purchase this DVD, or other WGBH titles, click here. To learn more about the Fistula Foundation, click here. B+ (Movie) C (Disc)