Draped in the rich colors of African cloth, his trademark staff in hand and his dreadlocks wrapped regally around his head, Anthony B embodies all that it is spiritual and socially proactive about reggae music. For pushing two decades, this heartfelt dancehall artist has been steadfast in his mission to represent the poor and oppressed, using sharp lyrics to confront sociopolitical injustices and shine a spotlight on underclass issues and concerns. With 10 albums of his own, and guest appearances on a staggering amount more (almost 100) in the last dozen years, Anthony B has displayed a tireless work ethic matched only by his zeal for life.

Né Keith Anthony Blair in small town Jamaica, Anthony B grew up immersed in the thunderous chants and rhythms of the Seventh Day Adventist church, where he honed his soon-to-be signature vocals under the watchful eyes and ears of revivalist preachers and choral conductors. In his formative years, the artist also cleaved to the music of Otis Redding and the incomparable Peter Tosh, influences he would eventually fold into his own performance style. Eschewing glossy pop lyrics and empty braggadocio, Anthony B instead remained musically faithful to his roots, with songs built of spiritual consciousness and social conviction. And now he’s on DVD.

Captured using eight HD cameras and 48 tracks of audio, Anthony B: Live chronicles a stunning performance at the first annual Reggae Rising Music Festival in Humboldt County, California. Despite its somewhat chintzy cover art, the disc serves as both a wonderful keepsake for longtime fans and easy, engaging introduction to reggae newcomers. “Hurt Mi Heart” kicks things off, followed by “God Above Everything,”
“Fire Pon Rome” and “Row Mr. Fisherman.” The middle portion of the show
consists of “Trigger Happy Cowboys,” “Good Cop,” “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us
Now,” the forthrightly titled “Smoke Weed Every Day,” “Higher
Meditation” and “Water Pumpee.” Closing things out are the emotional
trifecta of “Tease Her,” “Raid Di Barn” and “In Time of Trouble.”

Superbly directed by Luke
Archer, the concert performance material — an evening set amidst the
legendary California Redwood Forest — is top-shelf, but what really helps give the DVD extra accessibility is the fact that it’s masterfully woven together with exclusive interview
footage of Anthony B discussing the backgrounds and inceptions of all the songs. Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Anthony B: Live comes remastered in
stunning Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound. B+ (Concert) B (Disc)

The first ever DVD release from the six-time Grammy Award-winning guitar great, José Feliciano: The Paris Concert spotlights the versatility of the Latin crossover sensation’s instrument of truth, and his skill at evoking new feeling from familiar old tunes.

Filmed in high definition at the New Morning club on August 5 of last year, José Feliciano: The Paris Concert has the ability to woo fans both old and new — those familiar with Feliciano, and those who perhaps don’t yet know him but still appreciate honest musical craftsmanship. Backed by his solid five-piece band, Feliciano kicks things off with “Chico and the Man,” followed by “Crazy Heart” and a smooth version of “Billie Jean.” The rest of the set list is comprised of: “Como Fue,” “I Got a Woman,” “Rain,” “Bamboleo,” “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” “Higher Ground,” “Oye Guitarra Mia,” “Beyond the Sea,” “Affirmation,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Porque Te Tengo Que Olvidar,” “Money,” “Oye Como Va,” “Purple Haze,” “Sunshine of Your Love,” “Que Sera” and “Light my Fire.” As one can surmise from that track listing, Feliciano dabbles effortlessly
in different genres, mixing flamenco, pop, blues and bossa nova with hearty fistfuls of jazzy undertones. The most interesting thing is that none of these inclusions feels particularly far afield, like a naked stab at relevance. Almost all the songs are engaging interpretations, with “Higher Ground” and “Oye Como Va” serving as particular standouts.

Housed in a clear Amaray case that helps spotlight a two-sided, full-color sleeve, and presented on a region-free disc in 16×9 aspect ratio, José Feliciano: The Paris Concert comes with English language stereo PCM, Dolby digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks. The video transfer is superb, and crisp throughout, but there are unfortunately no supplemental bonus features. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A (Concert) C- (Disc)

Casting about late one night a couple weeks ago for a DVD which possessed some human substance but was also not imperative that I review immediately, I popped in John Sayles’ 1980 directorial debut, Return of the Secaucus 7, and found myself transported back to a time of considerably more hair, as well as discerning and engaging judgments about what it meant to be a childless thirtysomething couple — or, egads, even single — at the close of the 1970s.

Sayles, the writer-director behind such films as Passion Fish, Lone Star and Sunshine State, has been at the forefront of the independent film movement for almost a quarter-century — so long that it’s easy to forget that at the time of this release, there wasn’t actually much of a theatrical market for indie films, apart from a handful of four-walled special screenings. Predating The Big Chill by several years, Return of the Secaucus 7 covers some of the same terrain — old friends getting back together and all that — but is a more hopeful and in many ways honest portrayal of young adults grappling with the real world, and the changes it inherently brings for themselves and their relationships.

In the film, seven old friends (Mark Arnott, Karen Trott, Jean Passanante, Maggie Cousineau, Bruce McDonald, Adam Lefevre and Maggie Renzi) reunite a decade after their radical college days for a dramatic, poignant and revelatory weekend. It’s not necessarily pitched as a big-deal, capital-R reunion, though; they’ve been getting together, in various combinations, with new lovers and the like, each summer at the same cramped, small town New Hampshire house for the past several years. This time, though, there’s been a break-up by a longtime couple, which means the possibility of fresh romance for one guy, a would-be singer-songwriter. There’s also a couple of high school teachers, longtime steadies; a nurse; and a Senator’s speechwriter worried about how her pals, including an ex-flame, will respond to her slightly stuffy new boyfriend (Gordon Clapp).

Conversational charms abound, but Return of the Secaucus 7 scores — however fashion-dated and cramped its setting — mostly because it’s honest about friends’ judgments of one another (e.g., “I love him, but he’s a fuck-up”) while also nailing the tinged but not always emotionally overblown differences in communication between men and women, and the slight manifestations of classism present in the way young parents interact with singletons, and townies with those who’ve moved away to bigger cities. Mostly, watching the movie, one gets a sense of Sayles’ affection for the commingling of careful planning and found, on-the-fly delights. While some story strands are more interesting than others, and the performances range from amateurish to engagingly naturalistic (an almost comically younger-looking David Strathairn pops up, proving definitively that he wasn’t cultivated in arrested middle-age from Sam Waterston’s rib), Return of the Secaucus 7 grows on you as an ensemble piece because of the recognizability and relatability of its subjects.

Housed in a regular Amaray case, Return of the Secaucus 7 is presented in 1.33:1 full screen (more on this in a moment), with a Dolby digital soundtrack and a feature-length audio commentary track from Sayles. Anyone who’s ever talked to, read or listened to an interview with Sayles knows that the guy is erudite, knows his shit, but is also — with just a little proper coaxing — an affable “guy’s guy,” and that combination makes this commentary track among the most informative that I’ve listened to recently. He talks a lot about the movie’s five-week, 16mm 1979 location shoot, but also finds a way to interweave specific anecdotal details (horses in the background of one shot, for instance) into broader points that inform the body of his work — like how to take advantage of “production design already done for you,” as he puts it, or avoid ADR looping, especially with children or actors working with an accent.

Without seeming to work from notes, Sayles’ memory is sharp. He explains in reasonable fashion how — at a time before the Sundance Film Festival — he felt it was inconceivable that Return of the Secaucus 7 would be seen by a wide audience in theaters, so it was composed for television, which leads to plenty of pan-and-scan scars in its DVD presentation. He also gives good anecdotes; a dead deer that appears roadside in the film is made up of a mounted deer head and a duffle bag stuffed full of clothes. At around the one-hour mark, Sayles finally touches on explicit comparisons to The Big Chill, but for most of the time he talks generously and intelligently about his collaborators (including composer Mason Daring), his own small supporting role, the film’s themes, its production, and how it fits in with his other work. Oh! He also talks about the copious male asses on display in the movie’s skinny-dipping sequence (a tweaking of female-nudity conventions, he argues, but one that doesn’t entirely hold water, within the narrative), noting, tongue-in-cheek, “I believe this was the last time I appeared naked in one of my own films.” Finally, there’s also a trailer for Sayles’ Casa de los Babys and a 12-minute featurette which cross-cuts film clips with addtional sit-down reminiscences from Sayles and his longtime partner, actress-producer Renzi. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B (Disc)

An actor and comedian given to shrewdly observant romanticizations of laziness and over-indulgence, both personally and societally, Jim Gaffigan has a keen sense of and appeciation for language, which helps him flirt around the edges of a joke, so that he’s never really dependent on pure repetition to milk a laugh. The highly anticipated follow-up to his platinum-selling Beyond the Pale, Jim Gaffigan: King Baby finds the Indiana-born comedian wrapping up his 2008 tour with a final night in Austin.

A portion of King Baby, which runs around 70 minutes, takes aim at food, from the spelling of bologna (and inclusion of olives in some varieties) to mood dining and the plasticine decor of fast food restaurants. Bowling also gets quite a bit of run (“No one’s ever jealous when they find out you went bowling…”), though clearly from an affectionate place. But Gaffigan is just as also likely to pivot from a seemingly rich topical stomping ground and take it in an unexpected direction. A run on camping (“If it’s so great, why are bugs trying to get into my house?”) gives way to an extended bit about bears, and the ludicrous advice of playing dead if attacked by one (“As if bears have some ethical code!”). Gaffigan also riffs memorably on hammocks (“Ever get in a hammock with someone else? You’d better be dating them, because it looks like you’re trying to start a family…”); while delivered at a comfortably conversational pace, other observational jokes are nicely sprinkled throughout, and seem like quick-hit cousins of some stand-alone, deadpan Mitch Hedberg lines.

Holding this all together is Gaffigan’s tremendously sympathetic nature and demeanor. Scattering his set with whispery, high-pitched asides that serve as self-effacing buoys, Gaffigan comes across, in the very best sense of the phrase, as workman-like. This means the jokes at his own expense (“Look at him — his head is huge! It could be a mascot… for Mormons!”) aren’t desperate or keening — sad attempts to win over audience sympathy and cheap yuks. No, instead, they flow freely, and sincerely, from his own sense of humor and laidback personality. Watching Gaffigan’s set, he seems to retain a (Midwestern?) core decency born of the principal that reward deserves to be met with continued effort, and opportunity with appreciation. That he’s funny is indisputably a given; he also seems like a fundamentally good guy, too, which makes him even more endearing.

Housed in a white, regular Amaray case, King Baby is presented in widescreen format, with English language stereo and 5.1 surround audio tracks. Unlike many other stand-up comedy titles, King Baby comes a solid slate of supplemental bonus features, including a never-before-aired British interview, meet-and-greet footage from Atlanta, extra material from the Beyond the Pale tour, an XM/Sirius interview and all sorts of extra material, which targets neighbors, Gaffigan’s inner monologue and the Transportation Security Administration. To purchase the disc via Amazon, click here. A- (Concert) A- (Disc)

The Best Picture Oscar victory of Slumdog Millionaire, along with the surprise commercial success of director Danny Boyle‘s film, only serve to underscore the reality of India’s emergence on the world stage. Now, in the form of the superlative, gorgeously photographed six-part documentary The Story of India, there’s a deeper exploration of the country’s rich culture and history to further contextualize that ascendancy.

Hosted by acclaimed British historian-filmmaker Michael Wood (Conquistadors, In Search of Myths and Heroes, Legacy: The Origins of Civilization), and neatly segmented into six hour-long episodes that stretch back 50,000 years, this title is a fascinating and surprisingly intellectually spry exploration of India, from the country’s historical roots and its culture, customs and people to its present-day status as a rising
economic leader in the global marketplace. A complex and at times contradictory land of history and myth, opulence and poverty, spiritualism and science, India is now recognized as the world’s largest democracy. Yet it also remains a place barely known to many Westerners, only 60 years removed from winning its independence from Great Britain.

Even though this ancient civilization is poised at the precipice of an immense economic expansion — with its computer
technology, industrial production and the professional acumen of an
educated, upwardly mobile middle class powering exponential growth even in the face of recession elsewhere — India’s real fortune has always been its wondrous culture, and the astounding diversity of its people. From the deserts of Turkmenistan to the Khyber Pass, from war-torn Iraq to the palm-fringed shores of Kerala, personable multi-hyphenate Wood journeys across the Indian subcontinent and beyond to uncover the fabulous sights, dramatic history and dazzling achievements of the world’s oldest and most influential civilization.

One of the more interesting portions of the film is its opener, “Beginnings,” which covers 50,000 to 1,000 B.C. All non-Africans can trace their lineage back to India, and Madurai Kamaraj University Professor R.M. Pitchappan’s research in Tamil Nadu offers up a fascinating confirmation of this; geneticists testing the DNA of remote tribal villagers confirm migrational history when they discover a genetic marker identical to that of the earliest known man. Equally interesting is a portion of the movie that examines the Brahmin religious chants. Dating back tens of thousands of years, before human speech, they do not conform to any human language, and are thus unable to be transcribed; instead, they’re passed down only orally, and featured in a ritualistic 12-day ceremony that concludes with the burning down of the very huts in which the celebration is held.

As one might surmise, The Story of India touches on Hinduism significantly throughout, but also somewhat lightly at times. It highlights dharma, or virtue; artha, or wealth and success; kama, or pleasure; and moksha, or enlightenment, but at times reduces creation myth to ham-fisted voicover (“The first humans came from a golden egg laid by the king of the gods in the churning of the cosmic ocean”). Furthermore, the religion’s mutually sustaining caste system is given somewhat of a free pass, reduced to a colorful symbiotic quirk which will strike some Christians (or even agnostics) as cruelly hegemonic. That said, this is still an engrossing portrait of a country on the rise — and a place that Americans should definitely want to learn more about.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a snap-in tray, The Story of India comes spread out over two discs. Presented in widescreen enhanced for 16×9 televisions, the program comes with 5.1 surround sound and closed captions and audio descriptions for the visually impaired. Its sole supplemental bonus feature comes in the form of nine minutes of “sights and sounds” footage, some replicated in the program’s credits, which spotlights arty, time-lapse photography as well as portraits of Indians from all walks of life. It’s a double-edged sword; a title this rich and in-depth packs a lot into its massive running time, alleviating the real need for any further non-fiction featurettes. Still, a brief making-of featurette or some other behind-the-scenes material would be nice, given the quality of what else is here. To order any DVD release directly from PBS Home Video, click here; to purchase the DVD via Amazon, meanwhile, click here. For those interested, The Story of India is also available on Blu-ray. A- (Movie) C- (Disc)