It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since Delirious, Eddie Murphy’s trailblazing HBO stand-up comedy special. After all, has anyone charted quite as strange a career trajectory as Murphy, who went from deriding watered-down family entertainment in his blistering stand-up sets to starring in virtually nothing but those sorts of films? His star has fallen even more In the last several years. What, of mainstream, zeitgeist-shifting relevance, has Murphy done in the past half-decade, other than bang one of the Spice Girls, endlessly circle a return to the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, and release a string of terrible movies? Even the Dreamgirls post-Oscar nomination bump didn’t materialize, perhaps chiefly because he didn’t actually win, but also in part because of the perception that, 1) his performance was part an update/re-do of his old James Brown-in-a-hot-tub Saturday Night Live shtick, and 2) he was surly and ungrateful the entire awards season, and especially after his Oscar evening loss.

The red jumpsuit — everyone remembers the red jumpsuit (above). What about Murphy’s actual routine, though? Standing back and squinting a bit, one can appreciate the groundbreaking nature of Delirious, certainly. But while portions of the 70-minute special, taped live at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., still play, a lot of what’s been labeled by some “the defining moment of comedy in the 1980s” (at least per the video box blurb) comes across as dated, wan and crassly calculated in its offensiveness. The opening of the show, in which Murphy announces, “Faggots are not allowed to look at my ass!” introduces a bit of sigh-inducing discomfort, but even more unnerving is the raucous audience reaction. Later, when Murphy dissects the current-day climate of sexual fear by opining that a woman who cheats on him or is promiscuous might “come home with that AIDS on their lips” after kissing a gay man, he comes across as stupid but, somewhat terrifyingly, knowingly so — like he’s stoking audience ignorance merely for holler-back yelps of affirmation.

In the adolescent recollections of family barbecues and chasing down the ice cream man, one can see the template for Murphy’s multiple-Klump turns in the Nutty Professor comedies. That comprises the sweet portion of Murphy’s material, easily balanced out by the spiciness of his bizarre sexual fantasies, and vocal parodies of top American entertainers like Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, Stevie Wonder, James Brown and Mick Jagger. Delirious provides a snapshot of Murphy, then only 22 years old, as he was transitioning into movie roles, before films like Beverly Hills Cop, The Golden Child and Coming to America would cement his status as an iconic cross-over star that white audiences would pay to see on screen. Viewed through this lens, and interpreted strictly as a piece of time capsule entertainment, it still more or less holds up. But it also provides a glimpse of the hubris and meanspiritedness that would come to characterize latter-day Murphy, not to even mention tabloid-type gossip about his sexual predilections and hang-ups.

Housed in a regular Amaray case in turn stored in a bright red
cardboard slipcover that, truth be told, doesn’t exactly match the hue
of Murphy’s suit, the two-disc, 25th anniversary edition of Delirious comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital stereo audio track. Five minutes of excised concert footage kicks off the bonus material, though it’s mostly Murphy lacing into a woman in the crowd who at various points keeps interrupting him, with a little bit of extra Buckwheat imitation sprinkled in for good measure. A 28-minute making-of/historical overview featurette offers genuflection and reminiscence from an impressive roster of comedians and actors, including Keenan Ivory Wayans, Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Chris Tucker, Katt Williams, Cedric the Entertainer, Sinbad, Wayne Brady, Anthony Anderson, David Alan Grier, John Witherspoon and, naturally, Arsenio Hall, who would go to costar opposite Murphy in several films. There’s also a 35-minute chat — though it’s the interview equivalent of a reach-around, really — between Murphy and hand-selected pal Byron Allen, who lobs him softballs in genial fashion but at least has some of-the-era anecdotes to interject. The callousness with which Murphy dismisses protesters of his show’s content is a bit disconcerting, but he does provide one affable moment of guard-down introspection, sharing that he took as his early acting inspiration for 48 Hours and other films none other than… Bruce Lee? It’s all in the eyes, Murphy says. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Concert) A (Disc)

Writer-director Finn Karlsson’s 1973 film In the Sign of the Virgin, also micro-released Stateside in some cities under the title Danish Pastries, is a top-shelf sex comedy — fun, flirty and unabashedly horny. Balancing a completely boilerplate swapped-aphrodisiac storyline and stereotypical settings with vividly sketched characters, lighthearted montages and solid production design, the movie — part of a whole series of astrologically-themed, period piece T&A romps just now seeing a release to DVD — makes a convincing case that there is a market for goofball couples erotica.

Unfolding, of course, at a private boarding school for delinquent girls, In the Sign of the Virgin introduces an astrological imperative right from the get-go: the school’s board of directors has discovered that on the eve of “Nulpolitterorden,” the planet Venus is aligning with Earth in a manner that will spark all sorts of carnal behavior. Naturally, they want to keep things in check, and they’ve come up with a powder that, when added to water, curbs all erotic desires. Professor Armand (Ole Soltoft, a sort of Danish cross between Lee Evans and Mark Ruffalo) is dispatched to administer the curative substance to all the girls, but before he can complete his assignment he bumps into Professor Bomwitz (Bent Warburg), who just so happens to have invented an aphrodisiac powder. After they accidentally exchange briefcases containing the powders, randy mayhem ensues; Bomwitz gives the girls their powdered water and empties the rest into the town reservoir, unleashing all sorts of sexual hijinks. The frumpy headmistress (Mette Von Kohl) tries to control her girls by locking them in the basement, but in the end everyone ends up at the local brothel, run by Madame Gine (Lone Helmer) and Rufo (Benny Hansen).

I haven’t heard the term used before, maybe I’m the first, but I would dub this film and those like it “middle-core” sex flicks; there is graphic material (insertion, a small amount of intercourse, even one ejaculation), but it isn’t hammered home (if you’ll pardon the expression) like modern pornography, and at no point does the explicit nature of this material compromise the movie’s buoyant tone. Karlsson has plenty of nubile young women (including Anne Bie Warburg, below center, as the requisite corrupted innocent) to put on display, but he also actually makes a movie that hangs together properly, and has a sense of genuine playfulness.

It helps, certainly, that both Soltoft and Bent Warburg are skilled comedic performers, but everything about Karlsson’s treatment of the material lends the otherwise incredibly silly story credence. The music here is also of note, and worth mentioning; before wah-wah effects ruled the 1980s or aggressive percussive beats took over American porn, jazzy, horn-inflected rhythms ruled softcore flicks, and it’s that sense of goofy musical experimentation — balanced by looped hi-hats and keyboards — that drives In the Sign of the Virgin‘s music and helps anchor the film. Only a slightly-too-nasty girls-on-girl assault colors darkly what is otherwise a pleasant, lightly erotic flick that male and female cinephiles alike could enjoy.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a screen-captured cover (top photo) that features strategically placed hearts, In the Sign of the Virgin comes to DVD on a region-free disc in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a native language Dolby digital soundtrack, English subtitles, and an animated top menu screen (above) with additionally animated chapter selections. The video transfer is remarkably free from grain, other debris, or any edge enhancement, but there are of course some issues with color consistency. The only bonus feature, alas, is a two-and-a-half-minute slide show of stills from the movie — some of which are behind-the-scenes material, but most of which are not. Director Karlsson passed away in 2003, alas, but surely there must be other players that, if the effort were made, would be available and interested in talking for some sort of retrospective overview. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

The Bourne Identity was released in the summer of 2002, and owing to both the changes in the real world post-September 11 as well as the commercial success of that film and its subsequent sequels, since then every spy thriller worth its salt has had to ground itself in greyer times. Even the James Bond franchise — notoriously stingy about embracing change — brought in Daniel Craig after Die Another Day, and OK’ed a grittier franchise reboot that returned to the secret agent’s roots.

It’s in this murkier, tough reality that The International unfolds, directed by German-born Tom Tykwer, who in 1999 set film school imaginations afire with the adrenalized import Run, Lola, Run. A moderately tough sell because of its ambition, complexity and the fact that almost all of its action is contained in a single mid-film burst, The International is a globe-trotting law-and-action hybrid that melds investigatory procedural maneuvering with some covert head-crowning.

Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is a disgraced Scotland Yard detective turned Interpol agent working from afar with Manhattan district attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) on a case involving one of the world’s most powerful banks, and the impending sale of missile guidance system technology. It looks like there’s a compelling claim to be tried in court, until both Louis’ partner and a potential witness separately turn up dead. Louis and Eleanor have their suspicions, but can’t prove anything. Spurned for direct information at their imposing Luxembourg headquarters — a perfect metaphorical stand-in for the evil machinations of this huge corporate machine — Louis starts working a separate evidentiary strand, a mysterious assassin (Brian O’Byrne) believed to be used by the International Bank of Business & Credit, with the hope of eventually using him to bring down the head of the company (Ulrich Thomsen).

With its skittery keyboard score and cabal of moneyed string-pullers, The International is a mega-corporate take-down thriller, a modern-day The Parallax View by way of Syriana and Michael Clayton. It completely skulks, in other words. Yet if the film, as conceived, is at its core a rendered judgment on the nature of man — with Louis having to grapple with the essential question of whether he should abandon his own ideals, and playing within the system, for the greater good of society — it takes a step back in its finale, afraid to let its protagonist fully, individually come to grips with the weight of his decisions.

In this sense, as penned by debut screenwriter Eric Singer, The International is a perfectly good and engrossing adult-level film that doesn’t really take a full, hearty swing at greatness. It toes the line, but in the end blinks. Overall, the dialogue is fairly unexceptional, but the performances here are engaging, and Tykwer’s staging is smart and crisp. There’s a fun “New York City moment” that fuels one close escape, when Eleanor and Louis honk their way out of a traffic jam, and Tykwer turns an incidental clandestine meeting into a fantastically over-the-top shootout at the Guggenheim’s main rotunda, amidst a massive video installation. The moment is more than just a bit silly; upon reflection, it’s bat-shit crazy, plain and simple. It’s also the brawny set piece that pays for the rest of the chess match. So I didn’t mind, and you might not either.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The International comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English and French language audio tracks, the former in 5.1 Dolby digital and the latter in Dolby surround. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are also available. Bonus features consist of a single, 11-minute extended scene that delves more deeply into Louis’ paranoia, a feature-length audio commentary track with Tykwer and Singer, an engaging 31-minute making-of featurette, and a trio of smaller, six-minute looks at the Guggenheim and other spots from the movie’s location production. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) A- (Disc)

A realistic but smartly stylized portrayal of the selfishness of love, Solos narrates the tale of a 15-year-old (Loo Zihan, below right) consumed by a torrid first love affair with his thirtysomething high school teacher (Lim Yu-Beng, below left), and the pained, smothering affection of a mother who fears her son will never return to her. Solos is a naked and brave story for young Singapore co-director Loo to tell in a country where homosexuality is not even legal — banned in his home country, and withdrawn from the Singapore International Film Festival after the nation’s censors demanded that graphic scenes of homosexual lovemaking be cut. But Solos is a daring film not just in subject matter, for it runs against most of the current trends of modern cinema. With no dialogue, no moving camera, long takes and few edits, the story is told through only sound and body language, resulting in a powerfully elemental work that makes one lean forward in nervous anticipation.

Co-directed by Loo and Kan Lume, Solos was an official selection at a dozen major gay and lesbian film festivals over the past several years, and enjoyed its American premiere at AFI Fest in 2007, where Variety‘s Bob Koehler rightly praised the film’s “ability to imply complex entanglements and shifting emotional states without a shred of language.” It’s a big swing for the fences, the radically low-fi telling of an experiential story like this, and it doesn’t work if the filmmakers’ artistic chops aren’t up to snuff. Here, they are, thankfully.

Shot in deep focus black-and-white, with a few moments of desaturated color thrown in for emotional effect, Solos is totally different in subject matter, but reminiscent of the quiet hold of movies like The Story of the Weeping Camel, or Jacqueline Condinotti’s experimental Rivets, America. Although it’s a film that shifts back and forth between
reality and surrealism, the unifying factor underlying them is the depth of emotions expressed by the characters, and in this regard Solos is able to sustain a grip on an open-minded audience’s attention, once they submit to its rhythms. Aided by Darren Ng’s sound design and moody musical compositions, Loo and Kan convey — in a way that music captures much more frequently than film — the heady swirl of love, and in fact long passages of their work have the same sort of energy that marks the erotic, breathy, full-bodied tension of a pre-sexual encounter.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Solos comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen, and spread across two region-free discs. Supplemental features consist of a clutch of deleted scenes and, running 100 minutes, two separate conversations between multi-hyphenate Loo Zihan and Sir Ian McKellen and John Cameron Mitchell, both fans of the movie. These long-form chats reflect quite positively upon each McKellan and Mitchell, revealing plenty of insight about not only the vocabulary of filmmaking, but also their own coming-out stories, encounters with prejudice, and other personal experiences as gay men, both inside and outside of Hollywood. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)

The 1970 German sex comedy The Hostess Also Likes to Blow the Horn may have one of the greatest, all-time cheekiest titles of its under-respected sub-genre. A pleasure, then, that the film — a good-natured mix of ribald set-up, mock-offended patter and solid setting and production design — delivers on its promise, delivering an adult-themed tale that doesn’t aim to merely achieve blush at any cost.

Directed by Franz Antel, aka Francois Legrand, The Hostess… is set in Europe in 1814, against a backdrop in which soldiers scour the countryside for provisions both material and carnal. The story centers around bombshell redhead Justine Del Ber (Teri Tordai), a traveling French actress who thinks on her feet and escapes a sticky situation along with Ferdinand (Harald Leipnitz), a fellow actor. Together, they flee into the countryside, and seek refuge in the small burgh of Tursa. Overseen by the moralistic Baron Bierrechalet (Jacques Herlin) and his Committee of Decency, Tursa has taxes for everything — fornication, dancing, singing, drinking, bathing and even “previously lost virginity.” Plenty of people don’t like it, but seem powerless to overthrow the current system of governance.

Justine, though, has other plans. She and Ferdinand take possession of a local inn, change its name to The Innocent Lamb, and set it up as a mock-convent — a gathering place for everyone sick of the government’s incursion into their private lives. Ferdinand saves young Marika
(Andrea Rau) from the roving hands of the Baron’s lackey, and give her a position as chambermaid, and before long The Innocent Lamb is the hottest spot in town. While the Baron tries to find a noblewoman to marry, and consolidate his power, Justine and Ferdinand try to assist in the return of Count Valeriano Trenk (Glenn Saxson), the rightful heir to the area, who currently lives in Vienna. Later, Justine works up a scheme to trap the mayor in his own web of taxable behavior.

Co-written by Carlo Fuscagni and Kurt Nachmann, The Hostess… indulges in the sort of wild theatricality one might imagine, and is also powered by tongue-lolling, wolfish dialogue (sample: “I’ll let your britches down, but not you!”) that one can easily imagine in little thought bubbles alongside R. Crumb cartoons. Yet it also drops reference to the historical stageplay The Innkeeper, and generally does a good job blending behavioral comedy with a smidgen of historical satire. In fact, there aren’t many sex scenes, per se; most of the nudity is just a result of private behavior momentarily publicly exposed, and the bulk of it comes late in the movie, when Justine slips the Baron an elixir and rigs an “emperor’s new clothes”-type scenario. The cast is uniformly winning, and the production value fairly high, which helps mitigate some questionable visual framing. Rosalba Neri, Poldo Bendandi, Paul Lowinger and Paola Arduini also star.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Hostess Also Likes to Blow the Horn comes presented in anamorphic widescreen, with optional English subtitles and a motion-animated menu screen. Its only legitimate supplemental feature, however, is a 31-photo, self-playing slide show of production stills; some sort of historical contextualization, in the form of cast member/crew interviews or talking head analysis, is sadly lacking. Nevertheless, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; to purchase via Half, click here. B (Movie) D+ (Disc)

A pure Oscar-bait type of movie, through and through — a period-piece drama starring awards-vetted actors, based on a respected novel, under the direction of an established filmmaker — Revolutionary Road centers on Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, reuniting for the first time since Titanic), a young married Connecticut couple who, in the 1950s, have two kids and come to feel, each in their own way, irredeemably weighed down and oppressed by the monotony of suburban life they’ve default-embraced.

Neither Frank’s cushy, well-paying advertising job, nor a friendly relationship with neighbors Milly and Shep Campbell (Kathryn Hahn and David Harbour) can dull the tiny razors of ennui. In fact, over time, all that pre-formatted comfort and familiarity seems to be a big part of what wears Frank and April thin, and leads to the sort of emotional separation that eventually breeds infidelity. That the rest of the movie is generally paced like an ambling, summer night’s post-dinner stroll helps Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Michael Shannon blow in and steal a number of scenes, based on sheer energy. He plays John, the blunt-spoken, not-quite-right son of Helen Givings (Kathy Bates), the Wheelers’ real estate agent, and when eschews social niceties and upsets the prim-and-proper conventions of the time and place during a pair of afternoon tea sessions, it’s like a welcome electrical storm in an otherwise uninterrupted stream of muggy, overcast but rainless evenings.

Look, without launching into a more intellectually robust dismissal, or re-posting my original theatrical review, which came under contract for an outlet with whom I do not have reprint rights, Revolutionary Road is an ornate, full-bodied drama in which all the proper levers of the craft of filmmaking are pulled, with earnestness and passion. Its artistic execution is pretty much unassailable. It looks fantastic, courtesy of cinematographer Roger Deakins, who expertly uses light to capture both the sunny charms and eventual sense of preordained suffocation of upper-middle class white America, circa 1955.

“And yet” — well, those are the two words I found hanging around in my head for almost the entire running time of the film, and long afterward. I never felt fully persuaded or caught up in the dramatic stakes of the movie, and DiCaprio, a fine actor, can’t quite ever wrap his mouth around curse words in convincing fashion. When he swears — especially in frothy rage, as he’s required to here — he sounds like a kid who’s wandered into a group of his older brother’s friends, and is trying to impress some girl via blustery badassedness. Mostly, though, Revolutionary Road is damningly hamstrung by a presented fork in the road — Frank and April entertaining the notion of ditching suburbia and heading off to France — that we as the audience know is never going to happen. It would be one thing if the story hit this beat and moved on, but the movie chews up an awful lot of ground peddling this non-starter of a twist. Consequently, I just felt far out in front of it, wondering — if one will permit the indulgence of a Simpsons reference — when the film and its makers were going to quit jerking me around and get to the fireworks factory.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Revolutionary Road comes presented via a gorgeous 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, with English, French and Spanish Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio tracks, plus optional subtitles in each of the aforementioned languages. A full-length audio commentary track with Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe kicks off the slate of supplemental features, and the pair have a nice rapport, sharing anecdotes and doling out major props to Deakins and the “happy accident” of capturing the loneliness beyond the characters, as rendered in flickering lights and a lakeside reflection on glass during a bout of automotive lovemaking.

Running just under a half-hour is a making-of featurette packed with insights from cast and crew, and some cool behind-the-scenes footage (over 200 extras being outfitted and handed reprints of commuter newspapers, and Deakins rigging up white sheets off of which to bounce light). Production designer Kristi Zea talks about the important selection of the movie’s house, albeit as if the notion of smaller domestic square footage in 1955 is a great shock to her. In mixed interview footage from the set and the movie’s promotional junket, Mendes, sometimes sporting a beard, sometimes clean shaven, describes the movie as a “tragic love story, set in the 1950s, but dealing with very modern concerns.” Winslet, meanwhile, says it’s “about marriage, and how honesty must be present in underpinnings.”

Of perhaps the most interest is the movie’s meandering path to the big screen, though. Producer John Hart played shepherd to the project, and Winslet initially read it over four years ago, when pregnant with her son. She began planting seeds with DiCaprio — plying him slowly, she says — and then pressured Mendes into taking it on. For his part, Mendes, who pulled in producers Bobby Cohen and Scott Rudin, and says he always loved the script, copped to needing to take some time to be extra sure of tackling the movie, because of the scrutiny involved in collaborating with his wife.

There are also five deleted scenes, including an argument in front of the kids while Frank is cutting the grass and, most notably, a scene in which a slightly buzzed Frank talks about a birthday he had during the war, and how he was sung to by an entire division. The quiet punch of the scene, underscoring the nodding suburban repetitiveness of Frank and April’s lives, comes when it turns out he told the same story previously, a year earlier. The film’s theatrical trailer is also included. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

In Nobel Son, Barkley Michaelson (Bryan Greenberg) is struggling to finish his Ph.D. thesis when his father Eli (Alan Rickman), a long-striding, socially artless, egomaniacal bastard, wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. While Eli and his wife Sarah (Mary Steenburgen), a forensics specialist and fellow academician, travel to accept the award, the former’s indiscretions, past and present, complicate matters. After a late-night hook-up with a kooky artist chick (Eliza Dushku), Barkley is knocked unconscious and ransomed by Thaddeus (Shawn Hatosy), a bitter young man who turns out to have a long-held grudge against Eli. Soon, Barkley becomes complicit in Thaddeus’ scheme, and eventually everyone gets in on the kidnapping, philandering and blackmail. And Pat Benatar is quoted… twice.

The other indie films of director Randall Miller (Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School, Bottle Shock) have, to various degrees, been intriguingly sketched if fitfully misguided character ensembles, up-and-down affairs in which fantastic scenes abut awkward and/or pointless ones. Nobel Son is Miller’s most processed work, most concerned with self-satisfied style over substance, and it’s a misstep in a different direction. The movie wants to be a pulse-quickening genre knuckleball, part Zero Effect, part Lucky Number Slevin, part dysfunctional family dramedy. But the tone isn’t at all a match with the material, no matter the gameness of an intriguing ensemble cast, and imprinted upon almost every frame in the movie’s 111-minute running time, under the electro-throb score from Paul Oakenfold and Mark Adler, is effort, with a capital E.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Nobel Son comes presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a complementary English language 5.1 Dolby digital audio track, and optional English and Spanish subtitles. The disc’s supplemental features are anchored by a chatty feature-length audio commentary track from director Miller, wife/writing partner/co-producer Jody Savin, cinematographer Mike Ozier and on-screen talent Dushku and Greenberg. There’s an awful lot of cross-talk here, and plenty of vacuous self-congratulation, honestly, but some of the anecdotes (the problematic fiberglass on the roof of the love scene between Dushku and Greenberg, for instance) provide a bit of amusement.

Three deleted scenes — which only further underscore a couple narrative points, including a twisty ending, in declamatory fashion — each come with optional commentary from Miller and Savin. Finally, a 14-minute making-of featurette includes interviews with Miller and some of the cast, notably Dushku, Rickman, Greenberg and Steenburgen, who notes that it’s easy to detest her screen husband given the manner in which Rickman so magnificently embodies Eli. Both red-band and normal versions of the movie’s trailer are included, along with a couple other trailers for 20th Century Fox home video releases. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) B (Disc)

From Los Angeles’ Outfest and the annual San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival to far beyond, and almost every corner of the globe, film festivals have been a notoriously friendly and receptive place for gay and lesbian cinema, generally speaking. It makes perfect sense, of course, given that most festivals’ charters include attempts at expanding social and cultural horizons. For those in large metropolitan areas, or who have the good fortune to travel to some of the major international festivals, there exists a panoply of screening options that extends beyond the normal “coming out” stories that casual mainstream heterosexual viewers might most associate with gay cinema.

Unfortunately, a lot of these movies — more interesting fare, but stuff that exists on the fringes — don’t receive theatrical releases beyond a handful of theaters, and must make their impression in the rough-and-tumble DVD marketplace. So what of the personalities behind some of these films? If their makers were better known, would they be storming the studio gates and cranking out transformative, socially inspired genre fare? Well… probably not (unless said fare involved a comic book figure), but the documentary Lavender Limelight attempts to throw a little publicity their way regardless.

Directed by Marc Mauceri and co-produced by Becky Neiman and Carol A. Ross, this candid, breezy, hour-long title goes behind-the-scenes in an effort to shine a spotlight on seven successful lesbian directors. The subjects: Rose Troche (Go Fish, The L Word), Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Woman), Su Friedrich (Sink or Swim, Hide and Seek), Jennie Livingston (Paris is Burning), Monika Treut (Virgin Machine, Female Misbehavior), Maria Maggenti (The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Puccini for Beginners) and Heather MacDonald (Ballot Measure 9, Kiev Blue).

While the running time understandably doesn’t allow for in-depth explorations of their work, Mauceri folds in a bit of edifying biography, but mainly just steps out of the way and lets the filmmakers entertain with anecdotes about their blossoming adolescent awareness of their respective sexualities, growing up gay, and how in their view that shaped their outside inspirations, areas of interest and future techniques. Clips from the women’s work helps underscore their points, and obviously makes all the difference in the world with an educational/biographical offering like this. For those land-locked in the continental United States, and unable to dive headfirst into the arthouse theatrical offerings of New York City or Los Angeles, this title offers a valuable look at some of the personalities shaping the next wave of lesbian filmmaking.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Lavender Limelight: Lesbians in Film comes to DVD via First Run Features in 1.33:1 full screen. There are trailers for other First Run releases, but no further bonus features. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C- (Disc)

Hip hop, more than most musical genres, seems built on and around machismo, but of course there are plenty of gay fans of rap, too. It’s with that fact in mind that director Alex Hinton set out to shine a spotlight on the so-called modern revolution of “homohop” with his superb, festival-minted documentary Pick Up the Mic, which features gay, lesbian and even transgender emcees both rapping about issues important to them and talking about their place, collectively and individually, within a music world that still marginalizes them.

Shot over a three-year period in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston and even the Ozarks, Hinton’s movie captures the birth of the homohop movement, and chronicles its growth into a global if still somewhat understated and underground community of artists that has managed to thrive despite improbable odds. Rainbow Flava’s Deadlee and Dutchboy open the film, performing their radical, thumping ditty “No Fagz Allowed,” which seeks to wrest back control of the title-checked epithet in much the same way that urban trailblazers N.W.A. did with the word nigger a couple decades back.

Before long, though, we’re launched back to the late 1980s and early ’90s, and a thumbnail history of how homohop sprouted up in the Bay Area of Northern California. Current A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Records head Matt Wobensmith talks about his move to San Francisco nearly 20 years ago, and the launch of his self-published ‘zine, Outpunk. After learning that he didn’t need to actually pay for all his publishing costs (a friend within Kinko’s would let the publishers of various fringe ‘zines run off free copies after closing time), Wobensmith expanded his operation a bit, and served as a sort of catalyst for the uniting of all sorts of gay men currently dabbling in various forms of indie and underground music. Combining their creative passion with his business acumen, a legitimate community was born.

Owing to the fact that their personal experiences often stand in contrast to many of their heterosexual rap brethren, gay rap, on the whole, has an understandably steep political and sociological bent, with everything from personal coming-out stories and lingering issues of prejudice informing the rhymes. Still, those thinking that was the end-all, be-all of homohop subject matter would be mistaken, as Rocco Kayiatos, lesbian rapper JenRo and others prove, sharing wild stories of dating and boozy hook-ups that would certainly rival any straight rapper.

At its heart, though, Hinton’s film has a sociopolitical streak, because homophobia continues to stain a lot of hip hop. In this vein, perhaps most interesting and eloquent is spoken word artist and Deep Dickollective emcee Timm T. West, who talks about many in the African-American community rejecting the tags of gay and lesbian as being too part of and associated with the dominant, mainstream culture, and instead referring to homosexual individuals as “same-gender loving” or “in the life.” This articulation of this perceived cultural split — with Ellen DeGeneres, Will & Grace and Queer as Folk for largely white audiences, but little to no correlative national mainstream figures for black gay and lesbian audiences — is an interesting thing to ponder, and makes one wonder if sub-cultural prejudices or detentes ultimately do more to advance overall equality for gays and lesbians. In a related strand, there’s also an interesting exchange where West gets hailed down on the streets of New York by a would-be rapper intrigued by the camera following West around; after a while it comes out that West is gay, and the dialogue that follows runs refreshingly counter to expectations. Just like much of Hinton’s film, overall, actually; one needn’t be a huge hip hop-head to enjoy Pick Up the Mic, such is the universality of its story of growth and connection.

Housed in a clear plastic Amaray case with a striking red cover, Pick Up the Mic releases to DVD next week; it’s presented in 1.33:1 full screen on a region-free disc, and comes with more than 40 minutes of deleted scenes. Included in this mix are several musical performances — perhaps most stirring being Deadlee’s “Suck My Gun” — but also a collection of coming-out stories from interviewees like Cazwell, Paradigm, QBoy and Soce. There are stories of parental arguments, screaming and tears, but perhaps most amusing is a story that evokes Anne Rice’s blood-sucking Lestat as triggering a moment of inwardly blossoming revelation. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; for more information on the film, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Water isn’t just something that sweeps in from the sky and swelling ocean, causing massive destruction in our port cities, it turns out. More than three decades after the landmark Clean Water Act, two iconic American waterways — the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay — are both in perilous condition. With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, many scientists fear contamination to drinking water for millions of people, and the food chain in general.

This PBS Frontline documentary, running approximately two hours, examines the rising hazards to human health and the surrounding ecosystem, and why it’s so hard to keep our modern water clean. Director Rick Young knits together a compelling work, interweaving interviews, archival footage and newly collected comparative images. At the core of the movie’s success, though, is the fact that Young and co-writer Hedrick Smith do a good job of streamlining information in a way that imparts facts without losing viewers in a sleeve-tugging swirl of exclamatory, quantitative analysis. While addressing the growing list of endangered species also threatened by the rate and reach of man’s development and action, the film doesn’t come across as advocating for animals over or more than man; it presents a persuasive case for shared fate, which helps Poisoned Waters strike a chord across any mere political divide, at least with most reasonable minds.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Poisoned Waters is presented in 16×9 widescreen, with an English language stereo audio track that more than adequately handles the meager, talking-head aural demands of the program. Unfortunately, there aren’t the sort of get-involved bonus features that mark many other threatened-climate documentaries, like An Inconvenient Truth. Still, this far and away trumps most of the educational/scholastic viewing of my day; ergo, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C- (Disc)

When it bowed in June of 2007, Army Wives had the twisted benefit of unfolding while things in Iraq were looking fairly grim. Owing to its topicality, especially for military families, the show quickly became the most successful original series in the history of the Lifetime Television network. Billed as a patriotic and thought-provoking serial drama, Army Wives takes place at fictional Fort Marshall in Charleston, South Carolina, and centers around five military spouses who share friendship, fellowship, secrets, home and heartache. It’s essentially a quasi-wholesome soap opera without a lot of wild surprises, but for the most part the series does a decent job — certainly better than it did in its initial run — of balancing the potentially sticky, at-odds acts of honoring the brave men and women it portrays with creating plausible, engaging dramatic storylines.

The show’s talented ensemble cast includes Emmy winner Kim Delaney, ex-JAG looker Catherine Bell, Sally Pressman, Brigid Brannagh, Brian McNamara, Commander in Chief‘s Wendy Davis, Sterling Brown and Drew Fuller. Fugate originated the series using as a blueprint Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives, by journalist Tanya Biank, who also serves as a consultant on the show. Meticulous Grey’s Anatomy fans might also notice some of the shaping influence of executive producer Mark Gordon, who helps fussy up the edges of some of the show’s interpersonal relationships.

The first season acquainted viewers with the intertwined stories of four women and one man tied to career members of the armed forces. Married to earnest officer Michael Holden (McNamara) is the elegant, educated Claudia Joy (Delaney), who serves as den mother to a disparate group that includes Roxy (Pressman), a raucous, fun-loving bartender; radio show host Pamela (Brannagh), a surrogate mother trying to solve a financial crisis; dyed-in-the-wool conservative Denise (Bell); and Roland Burton (Brown), a psychiatrist whose most important patient is his PTSD-afflicted wife (Davis). Far from family and old friends, the five turn to each other for emotional support, companionship and advice, as their loved ones tackle the dangerous business of defending the country. Bound together by pressures familiar to many military spouses, they build a bond that sustains them through sacrifice, loneliness and unforgiving conventions of Army life. Specifically, Denise starts to loosen up and rebel a little bit, something that Roxy opening up her own bar certainly doesn’t put the skids on. Meanwhile, Pamela begins to fray under the stress of raising two children almost by herself, while also fretting over what she views as increasingly censorious micromanagement of her radio show.

Though it’s decidedly better shot than the first season, the framing, editing and musical cues used in Army Wives are still mired in conventionality. The clean lines of dramatic friction are well captured in the plotting over the course of 19 episodes, though, and the actors all bring a dedicated professionalism to their roles that convincingly showcases the burdens of sworn duty to one’s country, for soldier and spouse alike. Perhaps most surprisingly, it’s this macro-level on which the series most succeeds — catching you up slowly, then, in the day-to-day drama, problems and tribulations of its characters.

Housed in a clear plastic Amaray case with two snap-in trays that is in turn stored in an attractive cardboard slipcase, Army Wives: The Second Season comes spread out over five discs. The trays worked fine in protecting the discs for my set, but others may not be so lucky, as I’ve heard of complaints from folks about this type of packaging. The show is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional French and Spanish subtitles.

The set’s array of bonus material is quite impressive, starting with three full-length audio commentaries that allow writers and actors to share time and stories in warm, winning fashion. A collection of 13 deleted scenes with additional optional audio commentary from executive producers Deborah Spera and Marshall Persinger also comes with title cards, nicely, and three minutes of bloopers showcase a falling magnetic license plate as well as other production gaffes. Most engaging, though, are a series of featurettes that chart the lengths to which the production has gone to root its show and school its actors as much as possible in the realities of military life on the homefront. A 20-minute featurette looks at a March 2008 cast bus trip to Fort Bragg, and includes material with Angela Yates, a Family Readiness group leader who talks about deployment and return issues. There’s also footage from a 34-foot “jump tower” that the cast tests out. Two other, shorter featurettes, each running around 10 minutes, look at the material support provided by the Army and one of its entertainment industry liaisons, Todd Breasseale, as well as fluffier chats with the actors about their characters. Finally, five two-minute “Giving Back” segments nicely spotlight special gifts and wish-granting outreach that the cast took part in with some of their real-life, in-need counterparts. To purchase the DVD set from Amazon, click here. B- (Show) A (Disc)

So Fired Up! (yes, inclusive of exclamation point), with its glossy colors, horndog conceit and middling theatrical PR campaign, is not on the surface the type of movie one expects much from. Perhaps that’s part of its appeal. Or it could be Philip Baker Hall’s repeated exclamations of “Shit!”, if that’s your thing. Either way, there’s much more good than not here, with sly jokes abound. And girls in cheerleading uniforms, too. What’s not to love about that?

Understandably under-enthused at the prospect of another sweltering summer of football camp, randy Gerald R. Ford High jocks Shawn Colfax and Nick Brady (Nicholas D’Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen, respectively) enlist the assistance of Shawn’s little sister Poppy (Juliette Goglia) and come up with a plan to pose as cheerleading fans, all in order to infiltrate a weeks-long cheer camp and run up their headboard-notch count. It works, too. The guys are having the time of their lives, using a simply favorable ratio and their new reputations as “sensitive guys” to talk various hotties into skinny-dipping and hooking up. But when Shawn falls for his school’s cute head cheerleader Carly (Sarah Roemer, above center, aka the chick from Disturbia), who is understandably suspicious of their motives, the two players must change their game in order to prove Shawn’s true intentions and thwart Carly’s jerky college boyfriend, Rick (David Walton), all before the thrilling cheer competition finals.

Some of the movie’s rhyming patter doesn’t necessarily work (“You’ve gotta risk it to get the biscuit!”), but a goodly portion of the other slang and put-downs connect (Shawn and Nick are derided as “soulless beave-wranglers), and the movie also has the benefit of being self-aware, as captured in a scene in which the cheer campers watch an outdoor screening of Bring It On. There’s also a funny, relatively subtle plot thread in which one of the cheerleaders longs in sapphic fashion for one of her pals. Mostly, though, it’s D’Agosto and Olsen’s breezy, engaging rapport that effectively anchors the movie in winning fashion; they come across as both realistically guided by teenage libido and honest friends, no small feat for a studio teen movie. All these positives help Fired Up! score as basically a reworked Wedding Crashers (an influence to which the filmmaker cops) for the early-twentysomething set.

Another, less positive revelation of the movie? John Michael Higgins is now officially a scene-killer. A staple of Christopher Guest’s improv-laden films who parlayed those gigs into The Break-Up, Fred Claus and all other sorts of comedies — including a series of DirecTV commercials in which he plays a clueless cable television executive — Higgins sucks the funny out of every scene in which he appears in Fired Up!, as a hard-line cheer instructor with a seeming thing for Shawn and Nick. And it doesn’t help, or even really make sense, that his character is supposed to be involved with Molly Sims. (As a side note, Sims seems none too amused when Higgins gropes her in a flubbed scene in the outtakes.) Feel free to fast-forward through his several scenes, and you won’t be missing anything.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, the unrated version of Fired Up! comes to DVD with a bevy of bonus materials. First up is a feature-length shared audio commentary track with director Will Gluck and his two lead actors. Gluck makes plenty of jokes at his movie’s expense (joshing that the movie “is gonna be studied at the USC Film School for years”), but the continuous mocking references to it grossing $100 million eventually start to become a bit tiresome. Otherwise, the work of choreographer Zach Woodlee receives props, and Gluck jokes about both “complexion fixes” for Olsen (13 years removed from high school) and his affection for Edie McClurg, with her frequent John Hughes work being behind the inspiration of casting her as Mrs. Klingerhoff, one of the cheer crew’s faculty advisers. Other tidbits out Roemer as an accomplished swimmer, and credited writer Freedom Jones as actually being a cooperative quartet of writers, inclusive of Gluck. The director also elucidates the differences in vocal/performance payouts for music cues, since Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” is actually sung in the film by a crew of carousing douchebag antagonists.

Other DVD extras include an 8-minute gag reel in which many F-bombs are dropped, and crowing peacocks disrupt shot after shot on location at the Los Angeles Arboretum; a less amusing, two-minute staged bit in which Olsen and D’Agosto are questioned by American Pie‘s Eddie Kaye Thomas at the end of a long press junket day, and erupt in mock anger over being repeatedly asked about the film being “a cheer movie”; and a 16-minute making-of featurette which includes a solid array of cast and crew interviews, as well as more information on the disruptive peacocks. Previews for The House Bunny, Balls Out and 15 other Sony releases round out the title. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

British import StagKnight is a low-budget, medievally-inflected comedy-horror hybrid that has the unfortunate distinction of, A) not being very good, and B) releasing close to The Hangover, so that it suffers even further in guys-gone-wild comparison. And no, despite the lovely ladies pictured below, it’s not even that laden with gratuitous nudity. In fact, there’s barely any, hornballs.

A “cold open” segment set 100 years in the past, on Lammas Day, establishes the mythology that director Simon Cathcart and co-writer Rob Mercer seek to exploit. Flash forward to present day, where a pitiful, motley group of guys celebrating the last weekend of unwedded bliss of pal Brian (Simeon Willis) head out into the country, for some remote paintball and assorted carousing. They’re greeted at their accomodations by a witch-like groundskeeper (Sandra Dickinson) and her giant younger brother, a man of few facial expressions and fewer words. As night falls, Brian and a couple of the weekend warriors wander out into the woods, where they seemingly witness a satanic ritual to raise a dark knight from his 1,500-year slumber.

Running a scant 80 minutes, the film bills itself as “babes, booze and one killer knight out” (again with the pun!), but neither its makers nor performers seem to have a firm grasp on how to effectively blend tone like, say, Sam Raimi, or even how to effectively marry the notion of chivalrous protection to a bunch of lewd, mouthy guys, some of whom are more offensive than others. Eventually, in its final third, StagKnight makes a headlong dash into role-play questing, with the aforementioned groundskeeper sketched out as a villain. None of the characters particularly help convincingly bridge that gap, though.

Small pinches of the dialogue are moderately clever (“When I meet a guy, I think, ‘Is this the man I want my kids to spend their weekends with?'” says one of the strippers), but too frequently it’s buried under thick accents and flat-out terrible ADR work. (Other parts just don’t make sense at all, as when a ritual participant intones, “In the name of the ancient gods, this is a time that isn’t a time, and this is a place that isn’t a place.”) In short, it’s not the lack of production means, or the low-fi inclusion of a knock-off of Predator vision for some of the chase/pursuit sequences that dooms StagKnight, it’s simply the breathtakingly subpar editing, framing and unengaging performances. For those interested, Jocelyn Osorio and Danielle Mason provide the babe-age here; the former as a bit more of an assertive player, the latter as a bewigged party dancer who may or may not be part of a in-joke hoax.

Housed in a bright green Amaray slipcover, StagKnight comes presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, and divided into nine chapters. Its supplemental bonus features consist of a four-minute, non-scrollable photo gallery and five minutes of deleted scenes and outtakes, which include the destruction of an outhouse. To purchase the DVD from Amazon, click here. D (Movie) C- (Disc)

Before filmmaker David Cronenberg’s fascination with the intersection of the biological and mechanical became more fully realized in works like Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly and eXistenZ, he directed this wild 1979 racing flick, set in the gritty world of top-fuel dragsters. Lonnie “Lucky Man” Johnson (William Smith) is a racing circuit pin-up star who sells lots of motor oil for sponsor FastCo. When his car suffers an explosion that upsets the timetable of upcoming races, marketing guru Phil Adamson (John Saxon) moves him to another car, setting off a chain of events that prompts Johnson to start questioning the company’s motives, and taking a more active role in his own professional future. Naturally, this rubs some folks the wrong way.

Cronenberg made Fast Company in between horror hits Rabid and The Brood, and there seems to be a base-level delight in the filmmaking here, even if the execution — functional, but hardly visionary — doesn’t necessarily seem to augur greatness. Genre-bound through and through, with some rote dialogue, trashy subplots and boilerplate corporate villainy, this isn’t the movie for fans only of Naked Lunch or Cronenberg’s more envelope-pushing films. Still, it’s interesting to see Cronenberg work in a more streamlined fashion, and Fast Company also serves as the last film of erstwhile Playboy model and drive-in goddess Claudia Jennings, who would die in a tragic car crash after the movie’s completion.

Housed in a regular Blu-ray snap-shut case, Fast Company is presented here in 1.85:1 widescreen in stunning 1080p HD
resolution on a 50GB dual layer disc, with three audio options — English 7.1 DTS-HD, English 7.1
Dolby True HD and English 5.1 Dolby digital surround EX — as well as optional English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles. A thoughtful feature-length audio commentary track from Cronenberg anchors the bonus materials. Also included is the movie’s theatrical trailer, interviews with Smith and Saxon from Inside the Actor’s Studio, an interview with director of photography Mark Irwin, and — perhaps most pleasantly of all — two hour-long short films, Stereo and Crimes of the Future, that are perhaps much more indicative of the future direction of Cronenberg’s work. It’s worth noting, too, that the disc is also enabled for D-Box motion control systems, for those with that capability. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) A- (Disc)

Erotic obsession, dark comedy and a pinch of crime thriller get whipped up and served in marginally titilating fashion in the awkard, very literally titled Eastern import Man, Woman and the Wall, which puts modern sexual fixation under the microscope in a manner out of step with much of contemporary Asian cinema.

When young magazine reporter Ryo (Keita Ohno) moves into a new apartment building, he’s greeted by the passionate sounds of his astonishingly beautiful neighbor Satsuki (Sola Aoi). Realizing the wall dividing their two apartments is paper thin, the captivated Ryo begins to eavesdrop on every detail of the life of the girl next door, from her conversations to her bubble baths. While Ryo’s fantasies slowly start to escalate into something halfway between puppy love and creepy obsession (he starts sifting through her trash and collecting her toenail clippings), Satsuki becomes increasingly hysterical over a series of bizarre, dirty phone calls plaguing her every evening. Her boyfriend Yuta (Hiroto Kato) shows up to reassure her, but things remain mysterious. When Satsuki and Ryo’s lives finally converge, delusions and reality further blur.

Written and directed by Masashi Yamamoto, Man, Woman and the Wall fitfully recalls all sorts of American touchstones, independent and otherwise — everything from The Conversation and sex, lies and videotape to even James Mangold’s Heavy — mainly owing to its subject matter, and frank inclusion of sex. Some of the movie’s small touches and moments translate surprisingly well (Ryo excitedly talks about his new apartment having a bathtub, inviting the derision of a coworker), and others are simply a surprise (scenes set at… Outback Steakhouse?). Still, there isn’t quite enough of a sadsack heart here — a sense of
inwardly imploding, swallowed doom.

The film appears shot on video, which could have been more imaginatively interwoven into the story, given the many opportunities for tongue-lolling luridness that both Ryo’s obsession and Satsuki’s phone calls present. In fact, Ryo seems at times a slightly goofy
character, and other times potentially dangerous or tragic. Narratively, Yamamoto’s use of an imaginary Satsuki (Sho Nishino) only further complicates matters, since the movie as a whole isn’t an explicitly subjective experience.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Man, Woman and the Wall comes to Stateside DVD via Ricochet Releasing, TLA Releasing and Eleven Arts, and is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen with a 2.0 stereo audio mix. For a film built around eavesdropping and other whispery intercepts, the latter is honestly a bit sub-par and problematic at times. The marginal graininess of the video transfer doesn’t offend too greatly, but this isn’t a superb transfer by any means. Special features include a minute-long, non-scrollable photo gallery montage, trailers for Man, Woman and the Wall and three other TLA features, and a 21-minute making-of featurette. In this subtitled segment, Yamamoto and his cast share their thoughts on production and explored themes, and Aoi confesses that she got into character by eavesdropping on cast and crew, with the assistance of some of the movie’s soundmen. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B- (Disc)

Set in the chaotic aftermath of World War II, In Tranzit centers on a group of German prisoners of war who are accidentally sent to a female-run Soviet prison camp. Vera Farmiga
stars as Natalia, a self-certain Russian doctor who refuses to have her
not-quite-all-there husband Max (Thomas Kretschmann) committed to a
sanitarium; John Malkovich is Pavlov, the camp warden who nurses a
long-held crush on Natalia. When several guards are given the task of weeding out the SS officers from the general population, they embark upon a grim game of cat-and-mouse with the embittered prisoners. Each group slowly comes to learn that situations are not what they seem merely on the surface — that prejudices are sometimes unjustly held and love can be found in even the harshest of places.

A sort of Farmiga double feature/companion piece to fellow World War II picture The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, in which the actress played a stay-at-home mother who embraces willful obliviousness with regards to the soldierly duties of her Nazi commandant husband (David Thewlis), In Tranzit is a finely acted if austere work, and it looks great. Documentary filmmaker Tom Roberts brings a robust sense of private detail to the picture, but the storylines — as scripted by Natalia Portnova and Simon van der Borgh — are too myriad and psychologically diffuse to effectively get their hooks into an audience. The picture dawdles and idles when it should be gathering downhill momentum. Hardcore buffs of historical drama will find some reward here, but others will yawn.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a deep-set snap-in tray, In Tranzit is presented in 16×9 widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. The sole supplemental bonus feature is a short but evocative making-of featurette which includes on-set interviews that shine a light on the difficulties in both mounting the production and actually shooting the film on location. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C (Disc)

I have to confess great disappointment with the PBS/Nova title Rat Attack, since I was expecting an instructional video which would help me unleash an army of vermin to do my bidding, and thus free up more time for attending to my TiVo backlog. But no, as it turns out, this hour-long educational film isn’t of any use in that fashion. Instead it’s a crazy-true nature title.

Just under every half-century, it turns out, inhabitants of the remote Indian state of Mizoram suffer a horrendous ordeal known locally as “mautam.” An indigenous species of bamboo, blanketing more than 30 percent of the district’s 8,100 square miles, blooms every 50 years, spurring an explosion in the rat population which ravenously feeds off the bamboo’s rare fruit. Capturing this phenomenon for the first time on film (and serving as an ample reminder that some things perhaps shouldn’t be, with a nod toward Joaquin Phoenix’s 8mm character), Rat Attack follows its disease-ridden subjects as they destroy crops and precipitate a regional famine. Good times! So for whom is this title required, or even desired, viewing? Not sure. It’s well stitched together, I suppose, and contains informational nuggets outside of the mainstream media norm. But sometimes ignorance is bliss. That seems especially applicable for American audiences when concerning the rare migratory-assault patterns of rats halfway around the globe.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case (I know, not even a collectible furry grey case!), Rat Attack comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen format, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with an English language stereo track that more than adequately handles the meager aural demands of this title. There’s a static scene selection menu for the program’s chapter stops, but otherwise no interactive supplemental material — just reference links to Nova’s web site. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) D (Disc)

I was talking with a friend a couple weeks ago about music, and specifically artists that either made their mark before we came of age, or with whom we just weren’t that familiar during their initial rise to prominence. Some of these bands and singers achieved lasting significance, but always seemed to exist in the bubble of their time. Then there was music, I argued, that while marked by certain signifiers of its time — instrumentation, lyrical preoccupation, and outside imagery either embraced or manufactured — seemed to exist in a zany slipstream of timelessness. While I had a few other suggestions, Led Zeppelin, The Smiths and Depche Mode were the groups that my friend and I most readily agreed upon as being of this category.

With each of these acts, there are tracks, if not entire albums, that sound as fresh, unscuffed and shiny new today as the day of their release. For electro-pop Depeche Mode, 1990’s throbbing Violator remains an absolutely essential rock album — a stirring work bristling with moody despair, hormonal foreboding, spiritual angst, rubbed-raw hope, and anger with the status quo. It’s only nine tracks, but it feels deeper and more substantive: “World in My Eyes,” “Personal Jesus,” “Enjoy the Silence,” “Policy of Truth” and, arguably, “Waiting for the Night” each battle for godhead status, imparting vastly different perspectives. Nearly two decades on from their most notable chart-topping, their Stateside star might have dimmed, but the band continues to release new and challenging material on a regular basis, and tour and perform in front of large, appreciative crowds.

It makes sense, then, and doesn’t seem an ill-timed grab at nostalgia, an unauthorized feature-length biography like Depeche Mode: The Dark Progression. Running 97 minutes and stuffed with insightful analysis, this movie traces the almost surreal development of the group, from their flirtations with New Romanticism in the early days of their career through the urban industrial landscapes envisaged on Construction Time Again and Some Great Reward into what’s been called “the dark hollow” of their later work. Featuring interview material with all the band members, as well as contributions from friends, colleagues and contemporaries like Gary Numan, Thomas Dolby, OMD’s Andy McCluskey and Daniel Miller, The Dark Progression also benefits greatly from its ample music clearances. Yes, that means you get archive clips and rehearsal footage of such tunes as “Just Can’t Get Enough,” “Stripped,” “Never Let Me Down Again,” “Walking in My Shoes,” “I Feel You” and the aforementioned songs. Band biographer Jonathan Miller lends exhaustive chronological order to the proceedings, and Depeche collaborators and producers like Gareth Jones, Dave Bascombe, Phil Legg and Steve Lyon also provide wonderful anecdotes and insight.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover with a nice color cover photograph and sepia-toned shot on the reverse side, The Dark Progression comes presented on a region-free disc in 4:3 with a decent stereo audio mix. Supplemental extras exist in the form of contributor biographies and extended clips from said talking-head interviews. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C (Disc)

Notwithstanding his signature clock neckwear, other than offer himself up to the sloppy kisses and gropings of various bickering skanks looking for a celeb-reality hand-out, emaciated rap jester turned habitual parolee Flavor Flav hasn’t really had anywhere to be in years, so is it any surprise that Flavor Flav: Live in Concert is such a jumbled mess?

Where to begin? This sparsely produced disc, taken from a 70-minute 2008 show in Switzerland, of all places, runs through a couple of Flav’s Public Enemy highlights (“Can’t Do Nothing 4 You” and “911 Is a Joke,” though the latter is amusingly billed as “All Is a Joke,” perhaps the result of some typo/Swedish error in transcription). The bulk of the material here, though, is from Flav’s much more erratic solo career (“Wonder Why,” “No One Can Take Me Down”), and is of therefore considerably less interest. Further complicating matters is the fact that Flav performs under a pre-recorded backing track. This might be somewhat forgiveable, but it’s downright weird when — in the introduction — he just stands there with the microphone at his side, mouthing the words.

Whenever Flav veers too far close to completely derailing the show, DJ Lord typically steps in to save him with some random curiosity, whether it’s a scratch-and-mix solo set in the middle of the concert or an interlude with a French-speaking rapper built around the same stuttering, scrambled, keyboard-and-hi-hat sample that powers Nas’ “Made You Look.” Still, the sad fact remains that Flav — absent the counterbalancing intellect of someone like Chuck D — isn’t a top-shelf showman, and many of his crowd-wrangling, get-hyped gimmicks (pulling a dozen girls up onstage for “Shake Your Booty,” for instance) come across as more desperate than rowdy and fun. That’s underscored when that number breaks up, and the girls begin to meekly file offstage. Despite Flav exhorting all the girls to stay for the next song, only three or four do; one just shrugs and walks off. Damn, playa! That wouldn’t happen to Jay-Z, would it?

Housed in a clear plastic Amaray case, Flavor Flav: Live in Concert is presented on a region-free disc in a 16×9 aspect ratio. Its Dolby digital audio track is fairly solid, and in all honesty the video is clear, and well shot, if simply frequently too jumbled and kinetic in its editing and construction. There are no supplemental extras, just 16 chapter stops on a static menu screen. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Concert) D (Disc)

Jo Koy is one of the few Asian stand-up comedians working on a national level, so he’s also one of the funniest, right? Well, it depends on your perspective, and tolerance for some lazy punchlines and tangents that lean heavily on reverse racial stereotyping.

Most of Koy’s comedy is family-centric, focusing especially on his six-year-old son, Joseph, as well as his 63-year-old mother (“She’s been in this country 37 years and her accent has somehow gotten thicker”) and her troubles with videogames and other technology. This is his wheelhouse — stories about his son’s stubborn independence (except when it comes to needing his ass wiped) and him coloring his penis green with a magic marker. Whether rooted entirely in fact or perhaps a bit apocryphal, this material showcases Koy in the best light — jocular, engaging, alighting on details that have a whimsical universality.

Much less interesting and amusing are the portions of the 42-minute Don’t Make Him Angry that tread more broadly generic observational comedy, such as when Koy does segments about female road rage, or being the only Asian in the state of Alabama during a trip there for a gig. It’s not at all that these bits are patently offensive — Koy still has a light touch that makes his riffs seem inclusive rather than ever angry or bitter — but rather just unimaginative and indifferently strung together, with goofy vocal impressions that hold no depth, let alone any particular insight. Koy seems to instinctively realize this, too, as he peppers these portions of his set with longer pauses and lulls — gambits that, painfully, only highlight their mediocrity.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Don’t Make Him Angry comes divided into 11 chapters, and presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio tracks. Unlike a lot of comedy titles, this DVD release is fairly stacked with bonus material, including a 21-minute extra Comedy Central special from Koy, a three-minute Apl.de.ap dance/musical performance by the group that opened for Koy’s show, a three-minute interview with Danny “Crumbs” Counts, and a one-minute, air-quote interview with Koy’s son. There’s also 20-plus more minutes of sit-down, segmented reminiscence from Koy, in which he talks about his childhood, and recounts his first and worst gigs. Oh, and just for giggles, there’s 20 seconds of Koy busting out with some robotic dance moves, under audio in which he mock-threatens the DVD producer not to include it in the final pressing. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Concert) A- (Disc)

Portishead is, I think, mainly known for “Sour Times,” their mournful, ringing-bells tune from 1994 with the mopey chorus, “Nobody loves me/It’s true/Not like you do,” but the rest of the group’s music — a heady mixture of orchestral noodling, dub-synth and trip-hop — isn’t nearly as much of a downer as that tune might suggest. Buoyed by Beth Gibbons’ haunting vocals and Geoff Barrow’s drum and deck work, this 16-song concert disc from New York City’s Roseland Ballroom in July of 1997 (which also served as the basis for the quartet’s live album release of the same name) is full of robust arrangements and gorgeous supporting string instrumentation; it’s also a great way to get to know the band.

The disc comes housed in a clear, plastic Amaray case, presented in 1.33:1 full frame, with English language Dolby digital 2.0 stereo and Dolby digital 5.1 audio tracks. Several short films written by various members of the group are also included, the most interesting probably being To Kill a Dead Man, a 10-minute noirish spy flick in which an assassin assembles his rifle and takes out a target from a rooftop, only to have interesting bits and pieces of a conspiracy come ebbing into the proceedings as he flees and his wounded hit is rushed to a nearby hospital. Still, the main points of interest are the music itself, and the videos for songs like “Numb,” “All Mine,” “Only You” and, yes, “Sour Times,” of course. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Concert) B+ (Disc)

I’m not a cutting-edge-fashion type of guy, as my previously stated hatred of Ugg boots and the phenomenon of giant, welder’s-masks-as-sunglasses both attest. The catwalk? Vogue‘s annual September issue? These things mean little to me. Give me functionality, clean lines and crisp angles, and nothing too ridiculously tight or baggy, and I’m fine. In movies, though, I can appreciate outlandish style a bit more, so even given my typical avoidance of the overly trendy, it was no great pain or stretch for me to get into Fashion in Film, which explores the history of the costumes, couture and glamour icons that have helped forever transform the look of screen entertainment.

Exploring how integral fashion is to the filmmaking process, this documentary looks at the complementary and competitive relationship between Hollywood and the fashion industry. It tells how celebrities have toppled the “supermodel,” bringing fashion from the big screen to the pages of magazines like Glamour and Vogue; it even spotlights some, like Sarah Jessica Parker, who have created their own styles and brands for public consumption. Interviewees include everyone from models and actors (Tyson Beckford, Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Beals, Maria Menounos) to costume designers (Sharen Davis, Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Adrianne Phillips, Michael Kaplan), high-end fashion designers and even director Brett Ratner. Films discussed include The Devil Wears Prada, Atonement, Legally Blonde, Clueless, American Gigolo, 27 Dresses, Flashdance and more.

The title’s brevity (it runs just over 55 minutes) is both somewhat of a drawback as well as a selling point, actually; while some would no doubt prefer a much more in-depth tilling of the movie’s subject matter, this running time provides a glossy, entertaining overview for the more casual audience, and leaves them full, appreciative, and perhaps wanting just a bit more. One thing that could have been a bit more explored, certainly, is the relationship between designers and actors and actresses diving headlong into the annual awards-circuit craziness. Maybe that would have risked too much, though, biting the hand that feeds.

Part of “Starz Inside,” a series of original documentary specials crafted for cable TV, Fashion in Film is unrated, comes housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, and is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby surround 2.0 audio track. Apart from a small clutch of trailers, there are no supplemental features or stitch-along sewing advice. You’ll have to make do on your own, there. Nevertheless, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

The case of Kim Basinger, actress, is a curious one. She’s a former model who’s appeared on screen in some undeniable clunkers, and at times exudes all of the woodenness of a teetotaling, midwestern Kiwanis Club secretary forced into giving some sort of public presentation for which she is ill-prepared. (And let’s not even talk about Cool World.) And yet Basinger is also an Oscar winner, for L.A. Confidential. Her latest film is While She Was Out, a harebrained, stalking, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar thriller, the sort of which would have starred Ashley Judd if it had somehow been produced during the late 1990s.

Basinger stars as Della Myers, a suburban housewife and mother of two who lives under the thumb of her abusive husband Kenneth (Craig Sheffer). After running out for some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve, Della gets caught up in a web of violence, as she’s mercilessly stalked by a multi-culti
group of malicious thugs, fronted by Chuckie (Lukas Haas). Armed with only
the will to survive and a little red toolbox (perhaps a fairy tale signifier?) of knick-knacks from her wrecked car, Della fights for her
life through the night in an effort to get back to see her children
again.

Executive produced, strangely enough, by Guillermo del Toro, While She Was Out is perhaps most notable in that it’s written and directed by a female, Susan Montford, which is unusual for a slice of such seemingly uncomplicated genre fare. Unfortunately, any notions of gender-infused subtlety and/or interesting narrative re-framing dissipate almost on contact, given that the movie starts from such a weird, emotionally heightened place. Not to belittle domestic violence, but Sheffer comes in and starts badgering and menacing Basinger from frame one. This actually has the weird effect of undercutting a good bit of the rest of the drama, because there then follows a laboriously extended, almost real-time set-up sequence of 15 to 20 minutes in which Della drives to the mall, sees an accident en route, smokes a cigarette while taking a call from a friend, has trouble parking, walks into the mall, goes shopping, runs into an old acquaintance who makes some snide, cutting remarks… you get the picture. It’s only when Della finally gets back outside that the movie picks up something resembling downhill momentum, when Chuckie and his crew acost Della, blocking her car.

That said, after this dreadfully strange and ill-paced opening, While She Was Out doesn’t totally overstay its welcome, running a mere 86 minutes. The problem is that
what’s there feels much longer and stretched-out than it should, since there’s so little going on underneath the surface, and all sorts of details crucial to the story’s construction don’t match up. The mall is so crowded that a parking space is almost impossible to come by, yet when Della exits the place is utterly abandoned. It also defies logic that Santa Claus is working late, and that the old college chum Della bumps into says she’s out to… get her hair done, on Christmas Eve?

These are but a few of the incongruities on display. And the dialogue is, across the board,
so stultifyingly absurd that almost instantly the movie seems designed as some strange, coded drinking game. If you aren’t laughing out loud in disbelief when Chuckie says, “You slipped an incendiary note underneath my windshield wipers, which is an invitation to war to me and my soldiers!” you most likely will be when one of his snarling cohorts steps in some mud and then exclaims, “Shit, our new kicks — they all dirty now!” The shadow-saturated, indifferently rendered cat-and-mouse moves of the film’s third act are meant to be given a weird, left-field charge by Chuckie’s incrementally increasing admiration for Della’s homicidal inventiveness as picks off members of his crew, but instead it just all feels like the playing out of a string. Through all this ridiculousness, though, Basinger actually manages to inject a credible sense of warped, wounded adrenaline — of sad-eyed victim reluctantly becoming the victimizer — into the movie (more on this below), certainly something that exists on a higher plane than anything else in the narrative proper.

While She Was Out comes to DVD in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover. It’s presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound audio track and optional English SDH subtitles. A 26-minute, full screen making-of featurette amusingly misidentifies producer Don Murphy as Ron Murphy, and cedes far too much of its interview time with the actors to Scheffer, just based on his total screen time. Haas admits he drew upon the experience of terrifying his younger brothers for his role, but it’s Basinger’s comments which prove most interesting, when she seems to allude to her turbulent marriage with Alec Baldwin in talking about the “emotional bank” from which to draw in playing a woman both put and held down for so long.

There’s also a feature-length audio commentary with Scottish writer-director Montford and Transformers producer Murphy. It’s the latter — despite his amusing description of a Vietnamese character’s offshoot native-tongue utterance as a “Chinese chant” — who teases out most of the interesting anecdotal details of the production’s rainy Vancouver shoot. These tidbits include a massive rewrite to incorporate an empty housing development instead of the woodsy outdoors, and the fact that apparently Montford slightly irked both Basinger and her cinematographer at one point when she didn’t tell them about a squibbed side mirror during an escape sequence. Oh, and Montford and Murphy talk, too, about the word “cunt” and its use on opposite sides of the Atlantic, which is rather amusing. Also included are the film’s theatrical trailer and two TV spots. To view the trailer, click here; to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) B (Disc)

Built around Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick, a Mauritius-born singer and sound pioneer, British collective Incognito has built up a small but devoted following through its non-stop stream of new musical ideas and sophisticated, emotionally engaging variations on old stand-by rhythms. Consisting, in its current incarnation, of Maunick, keyboardist Matt Cooper, bassist Francis Hylton, drummer Richard Bailey, trombonist Trevor Mires, multi-instrumentalist Sid Gauld, saxophonist Paul Greenwood and an additional backing vocal crew of around five or six other members, Incognito folds together elements of fusion jazz, gospel and old-time soul.

Recorded live at the 2008 Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta (as the title might clue you into), this two-hour concert offering bills a mix of “poignant soul ballads, funky dynamic numbers and gospel ecstasy,” which it more than lives up to. While the embraced penchant for solos eventually comes across as a bit reductionist and formulaic in its own right, the interpretative skills of the musicians is such that one doesn’t hold much of a grudge, regardless of their previous familiarity with the group. The attractively shot DVD’s track listing is as follows: “I Can See the Future,” “Pieces of a Dream,” “Deep Waters,” “Without You,” “N.O.T.,” “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” “Talkin’ Loud,” “When the Sun Comes Down,” “Morning Sun,” “Always There,” “Clav Interlude,” “Colibri,” “Reach Out,” “Nights Over Egypt,” “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” “Everyday,” “I Hear Your Name” and “Still a Friend of Mine.”

Presented on a region-free disc in 4:3 full screen, Incognito’s DVD comes with Dolby digital 5.1 and DTS stereo audio tracks, and is housed in a clear plastic Amaray case. DVD supplemental features consist solely of a bonus slideshow. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Concert) C+ (Disc)

Alone except for her beloved dog Lucy, a retriever, and some vaguely defined
dreams of a new life, Indiana native Wendy Carroll (Michelle Williams)
is driving through the Pacific Northwest to Alaska, in hopes of a
summer of lucrative work at a fish cannery. When her car breaks down in
a sleepy, boarded-up Oregon mining town, however, the thin fabric of her already tenuous financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and Lucy.

Working from a short story written by her Old Joy collaborator Jon Raymond, director Kelly Reichardt uses a formal minimalist style to construct an emotionally impressionistic road movie that feels rudderless in ways mostly enthralling but also sometimes a bit frustrating. At its core, Wendy and Lucy is a carefully observed film about sympathy and generosity at the
dirty-fingernailed edges of American life. In some ways, it feels like an old folk song come to life. Watching it, one is reminded of the
refrain from U2’s “One” — “we get to carry each other” — about the
privilege of shared sacrifice. Wendy and Lucy also touches on
the modern limits and depths of people’s duty to one another, though. If the film
sputters a bit in conveying much of substance about what Wendy actually thinks
about her predicament beyond the surface exasperation of someone never really dealt much of a winning hand, Williams herself is never less than hypnotizing.
And in the current recessional times, the film’s blank canvas and
broadly sketched melancholic tones serve as an empty vessel for those
who would watch a film and like to see, in the personal, a broader
political statement.

Housed in gate-fold cardboard packaging in turn stored in a reinforced cardboard slipcover made of 80 percent mixed-source recycled material, Wendy and Lucy‘s DVD release sets a new standard for eco-friendly attractiveness; the case feels both unimpeachably sturdy and environmentally conscious. Like Criterion, distributor Oscilloscope also numbers the spines of their titles, so this title rates an “OSC 4” stamped above its spine lettering. With simple design and a motion-animated menu screen, the film is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, preserving the aspect ratio of its theatrical exhibition, and it comes with a 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound audio track, as well as optional English subtitles.

The disc’s supplemental features exhibit Reichardt’s magnanimous nature, as she gives an assist to four of her Bard College colleagues by presenting a combined five of their experimental short films. Critic and curator Ed Halter’s introductory essay (he’s also a Department of Film and Electronic Arts professor at Bard) is reprinted on the cardboard packaging, or viewable on three scrollable screens. Two 16mm, black-and-white observational offerings from Peter Hutton, Boston Fire and New York Portrait, Chapter II, frame their stated moments of investigation with painterly composition. Peggy Ahwesh’s eight-minute The Scary Movie, starring children and featuring a discrete soundtrack, highlights the importance of effective sound design in evoking unease, and manages to come across as partially evocative of both David Lynch and Charlie Chaplin — no small feat. Based on the journals of Soviet neuropsychologist A.R. Luria, and the filmmaker’s own travels to Uzbekistan, Jacqueline Goss’ digitally animated How to Fix the World focuses on clashing cultures and how language shapes our shared experience. Les LeVeque’s lowercase-insistent flight, meanwhile, strobes and stutters iconic moon landing footage, reaching for an ironic, performance artist’s profundity that never quite materializes. Artfully partitioned trailers for other Oscilloscope releases are also included, which is very cool, but the total lack of interview footage or indeed any additional material with Reichhardt is indisputably a blow to the re-play value of this DVD. B (Movie) B- (Disc)