When I first heard about 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat appearing on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines, and later being named one of the top 100 athletes of the 20th century, it all seemed quite silly. It’s a credit to the earnest film that bears his name that one leaves feeling a horse’s intangible competitive spirit merits such a distinction. (For those ascribing import to such details, an autopsy upon his death would reveal that Secretariat’s heart weighed two-and-a-half times that of an average horse.)



Directed by Randall Wallace, Secretariat tells the story of the big, famous, prizewinning chestnut colt mostly through the eyes and experiences of Penny Chenery (Diane Lane), the owner who, after the death of her father, transitions from the role of housewife and mother to driven taskmaster. In fairly straightforward fashion, the film then charts Secretariat’s training and run through the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, culminating in his record-smashing Belmont Stakes performance.

Lots of narrative contrivance, bromides and on-the-nose speechifying (“You never know how far you can run until you go”) from screenwriter Mike Rich prevent Secretariat from ever evolving into something truly special, but the movie consistently and pleasantly holds one’s attention, if perhaps only lightly so. While the drama in particular of its last hour-plus comes off understandably as predetermined, Rich is generally successful in injecting a strong feminist streak into the movie, abetted by Lane’s convincing ability to jointly convey affection, ambition and principled stubbornness.

The film has the good sense, too, to cast John Malkovich as Lucien Laurin, a colorful French Canadian trainer who sucks at golf, unironically dresses like Superfly, and lays forth an unconventional regimen that Penny is bold enough to follow through upon. Perhaps the movie’s biggest bonus, though, comes by way of Dean Semler’s superb cinematography, which grippingly incorporates but doesn’t overuse tiny, mounted cameras, thus giving a whole new sense and perspective of the word “horsepower,” for those who’ve never heard the phrase used outside of automobile and truck commercials. Yes, fans of racing dramas like Seabiscuit and Dreamer will spark to the movie, but Secretariat also slots comfortably alongside The Blind Side and the considerable back catalogue of fellow Disney sports titles as a square-jawed, nonfiction tale of uplift that’s suitable for the entire family.

Housed in a Blu-ray case, Secretariat‘s two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack comes to home video with never-before-shared in-depth interviews with the real-life Chenery, and loads of other exclusive behind-the-scenes materials. The AVC encoded picture, with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, is solidly rendered, and free of any edge enhancement or grain, while aural presentations for the Blu-ray disc include English language 5.1 DTS-HD master audio and DVS 2.0 Dolby digital tracks, plus French and Spanish language 5.1 Dolby digital tracks. Subtitles come by way of English, French and Spanish, in both SDH and regular versions.

A 15-minute featurette on the real Secretariat kickstarts the bonus slate, and providing a valuable historical/contextual underpinning for both younger audiences and those who might merely be unfamiliar with the story. Director Wallace offers up plenty of erudite observations and production team shout-outs in his feature-length audio commentary track, and also gives explanations for narrative trims in additional, optional, complementary commentary for a 10-minute collection of deleted scenes.

Best, though, is a 21-minute chat between Wallace and the real Chenery, discussing some of the movie’s key scenes, as well as what it was like to have been a woman in such a male-dominated sport. Seven-plus minutes of footage charting the careful choreographing of the movie’s races also proves interesting, insofar as it particularly illustrates the innovative blend of technology and old-fashioned production planning necessary to accurately recreate historical sporting events with such exactitude.

A so-called “multi-angle simulation” relives Secretariat’s triumphant 1973 Preakness race by viewing and recalling the race from a number of different perspectives; it’s a stab at something a bit different, but not particularly any more illuminating than what’s in the movie, or Chenery’s engaging recollections. There is also a music video for AJ Michalka’s “It’s Who You Are.” To purchase the combo pack via Amazon click here, or visit your favorite online or brick-and-mortar retailer of choice. For a coupon off your purchase, click here. C+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

The Hollywood studio system, almost by its very nature, tends to stifle and suppress the urge for big screen rumination. In action and horror films, of course, there’s hardly any precious time for reflection, but even outside of the lucrative genre realm rarely is there a mainstream American movie where emotional fumbling or a lack of certitude seems to define all of the main characters. Audiences desire more rigidly defined journeys, and don’t want to see the inherent unsettledness of life, it’s widely assumed.

Directed by John Curran, from a script by Angus MacLachlan, Stone quietly challenges some of those assumptions. It’s not wildly esoteric or steeped in unrecognizable metaphor, but Stone is a film largely (though not entirely) devoid of typical dramatic markers and signposts, and all the more fascinating for it. Starring Robert De Niro and Edward Norton, it’s a meditative work about people awash in latent unhappiness, coming up from the mud, and slowly pawing their way to a place where they might (but just as likely might not) be able to get out of it.

Moral crisis, and the flickering possibility of awakening, is at the center of Stone. The film unfolds on the economically depressed outskirts of Detroit, where parole officer Jack Mabry (De Niro), a hard-drinking, introverted Episcopalian, is counting down the days to retirement, which will put him at home more and exacerbate tensions with his long-suffering wife Madylyn (Frances Conroy). Reviewing the case of Gerald “Stone” Creeson (Norton), a cornrowed ex-addict who’s already put in eight years out of a 10- to 15-year sentence for setting a fire to cover up the murder of his grandparents, Jack finds himself on the receiving end of, alternately, flattery and spiteful rage and negativity. Stone needs to convince Jack that he’s remorseful and reformed, but seems caught somewhere in between a sincere, be-what-may roll of the dice and darker impulses.

Part of that negative energy involves Stone’s seemingly devoted wife, Lucetta (Milla Jovovich). In the beginning, they seem to have about as healthy a relationship as one can imagine for a couple physically separated for so long, but as the date for Stone’s hearing draws closer, fissures and tears develop. Outwardly, Madylyn and Lucetta seem to have little in common, the former having channeled her marital frustrations into religion, and the latter characterized by a sunny proactivity and sexual frankness. Both, however, are women that have suffered the sins of the men in their lives, albeit in radically different fashions. It’s here, as Lucetta flirts with and then makes a special proposition to Jack, that the film flirts heaviest with convention — another story of a married man succumbing to sexual temptation. But, even as boundaries are irrevocably crossed, Stone does not content itself with charting expected waters.

Curran has put swallowed domestic misery under the microscope before — both in We Don’t Live Here Anymore and The Painted Veil, the latter on which he teamed with Norton — and here he’s again fascinated with the varying impulses of man, especially when they awaken to the fact that there’s no longer any shared beliefs or purpose tethering them to their loved ones. What is love without commonality, in other words? This deeper psychological investment in action is paramount to Stone‘s adult appeal.

The performances here are all something special, too. For all his scholarly adroitness with book-read characters, Norton can also breathe wonderful three-dimensionality and humanity into greaseballs and fringe-dwelling types, which he does here. Jovovich, meanwhile, is great at conveying Lucetta’s swallowed, almost snake-y female power. It’s different than mere sexual aggressiveness, but a cousin of the same, and powered by an inner heat to which men respond but also frequently kind of fear. De Niro, seemingly invigorated by material that asks more of him, also brings his A-game.

An honest appraisal of Stone cedes points for novelty of effort over execution that is solid if not always constructed for cathartic payoff. It’s a shame that the material built around Stone and the intrigue of an in-prison epiphany — is it real, feigned, or somewhere in between? — doesn’t connect more strongly. While bearing witness to a brutal shanking seems the emotional tipping point for Stone, Curran depicts the manifestations of this stirring with a gauzy indistinctness that — if true to the blissed-out, relaxed nature that sometimes flows from religious awakening — is at times a bit maddening. Admittedly, this is tough terrain, since Jack is the only person off whom Stone can bounce these changes, and their interactions are governed by a certain structure, but they feed into a feeling that quietly lingers — that at times the character of Stone has an oppositional-literary feel rather than that of a full-bodied man.

Still, these criticisms take only a bit of shine off of what is otherwise a thoughtful and bracing story of ethical compromise and moral ambiguity. It’s been a long time since the traces of French filmmaker Robert Bresson have been detected in a mainstream Hollywood work, but the ascetic, tightly focused nature of its scripting and telling mark Stone as unmistakably his progeny. It’s a slow-building and fairly willful psychological seduction, but Curran’s film is still a fascinating work, often times as much for what lies around the edges and in the interstices as for what actually unfolds on screen.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Stone comes to DVD presented in a nice 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, with a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. The movie is divided into a dozen ponderously titled chapter stops via a static menu screen, and apart from a trailer the only supplemental feature is a throwaway seven-minute EPK-style featurette which mixes, in rather unsatisfying fashion, film footage with interview clips with the on-screen players and producer Holly Wiersma and writer Angus MacLachlan. Trailers for Jack Goes Boating, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Righteous Kill and three other Anchor Bay releases are also included. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) C- (Disc)

Nope, it’s not that comprehensive Billy Idol documentary on which audiences have been long waiting. Instead, South Africa’s official 2010 submission in the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category is a raucous and somewhat surprisingly charming biracial road flick about love, loyalty and both the burdens and newly discovered joys of commitment.

Looking at the cover art for White Wedding elicited no sort of excitement within me at the prospect of a viewing, I’m sorry to say — perhaps because of the Photoshopped nature of the ensemble, or perhaps because the central figure resembles Los Angeles radio personality Big Boy, or looks a bit like a cousin of that high-spirited guy from the Miller High-Life commercials. Or perhaps just because I am a closet racist, I don’t know. Either way, it’s a pleasure to report that the considerable offbeat engagement herein stands in contrast to the seemingly manufactured nature of the air-quote fun that its cover presents.

Only days away from her big wedding, Ayanda (Zandie Msutwanta) finds out that her groom has gone missing. Elvis (Kenneth Nikosi), the husband-to-be, has gone to pick up his childhood friend and best man Tumi (Tsotsi‘s Rapulana Seiphemo), from hundreds of miles away. Winding their way through some of the country’s breathtaking landscapes, Elvis and Tumi come up against all sorts of comic obstacles, including redneck Afrikaners, goats, directional mishaps and accidents. They also cross paths with Rose (Venus‘ Jodie Whittaker, oozing charm) a free-spirited English
doctor.

As a shocked and frazzled Ayanda wrestles with her own frustrations, the interjected opinions of her mother (Sylvia Mngxekeza) exasperate her, and the careful balancing act between commingled European and African marriage traditions seems ready to give way and come tumbling down. Finally, adding to Ayanda’s anxiety is the unexpected arrival of Tony (Mbulelo Grootboom), an old boyfriend for whom she may still harbor feelings.

The acting here is superb and all of a piece — the performers each have a keen sense of what sort of movie they are in, and calibrate their line readings and reactions accordingly. While some of its plot machinations are telegraphed, the dialogue and scene-to-scene moments are quite nice, and co-writer-director Jann Turner keeps the pace brisk and tone buoyant.

Housed in a regular snap-shut Blu-ray case, White Wedding hits the high-definition home video format of choice in 1080p 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track and English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Unfortunately — especially for a film of such naked exuberance — there are no supplemental bonus features, which dents its collectibility, and downgrades the movie to only being worth a rental for curious parties. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. The movie is also available via digital download. B- (Movie) C- (Disc)

If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and too much of a good thing can indeed sometimes be bad, then the abundance of readily available pornographic images online is certainly going to somehow impact a sea change with respect to human sexual interaction for future generations. A bit of this uncertain, slippery new frontier gets put under the microscope in The
Price of Pleasure, an engaging short-form documentary co-directed by Chyng Sun and Miguel Picker.

Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography has become one of the most profitable — and increasingly less invisible — sectors of the cultural/entertainment industries the United States, raking in an estimated $10-13 billion annually and possessing, of course, its own governmental lobbying power brokers. At the same time, in the advent of the digital age the content of pornography has become more overtly aggressive, arguably more sexist, and undeniably of easier access to younger and younger viewers. Going beyond the same tired, stale liberal-versus-conservative debate, The Price of Pleasure features chats with industry consumers, critics, producers and performers alike, giving an impressionistic snapshot portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, and liberty and responsibility are all intertwined.

The
Price of Pleasure isn’t a jeremiad, which is a nice thing. But while it doesn’t approach its subject matter with a blanching sensibility (hardcore clips are interspersed throughout, but for illustrative punch rather than empty effect), neither does it really dig into any one single thesis or issue with quite enough tenacity and doggedness. If anything, the title’s 56-minute running time undercuts its effectiveness a bit; just when the movie alights on a provocative opinion, Sun and Picker (ahem) jerk the audience off in another direction, spinning tangential connections based on emotion rather than imposing the sort of more rigorous intellectual thematic divisions that seem warranted.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Price of Pleasure comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with a solid slate of deleted scenes and bonus features that extends the title’s running time by an additional hour or so. Two minutes with the female editor-in-chief of the college sex ‘zine Boink make a (somewhat dubious, or at least poorly articulated) argument that its how-to “Donkey Punch” featurette was all a funny-ha-ha joke, while punk-hardcore starlet Joanna Angel and former actress turned memoirist Sarah Katherine Lewis speak to the generational divide in the adult industry in 11 minutes of interview odds-and-ends.

There’s also nine more minutes of material on performers, with AVN Senior Editor Mark Kernes talking up the appeal of an on-screen emotional connection; eight minutes on the dominant market consumers of adult films; and a perhaps unintentionally amusing three-and-a-half-minute segment in which author Noam Chomsky talks about an infamous September 2005 Hustler interview he did, claiming not to know it was a skin rag. (He detests pornography.) Some more interview material with Sun and Picker would have been nice, but overall this is an interesting collection of bonus material that definitely extends the DVD’s collectibility. Also included are previews of three other Cinema Libre titles, including Make Me Young. To purchase the DVD, click here. Or if Amazon is irreversibly your online retailer of choice, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) B (Disc)

Infidelity, in either temptation or its actualized form, has always offered up rich dramatic terrain, because in addition to being about sex (which immediately piques the interest of more than half the population), it’s also all wrapped up in betrayal and insecurity. But as the nature of modern marriage has evolved — it’s now much less about providing a base of financial security for women, and more about actual shared values, notions of family and a vision for moving forward together — so too have the manner in which some movies approach the topic of romantic cheating. If couples are cognizant of the differences between men and women, and allowed to have that honest conversation, then that’s but a stone’s throw away from a conversation in which certain extracurricular flings or activities are allowed, or pre-approved.

All of which brings us to multi-hyphenate Katie Aselton’s The Freebie, which bowed at the Sundance Film Festival around this time last year. A spare, almost enervated character sketch (it clocks in at only 77 minutes), the movie centers on Darren (Dax Shepard, above right) and Annie (Aselton, above left), who from the outside seem to have a solid relationship, and still enjoy each other’s company. Unfortunately, they can’t remember the last time they had sex. When a dinner party conversation leads to a later discussion about the state of their love life, and when an attempted bikini seduction leads to a crossword puzzle race instead of some horizontal action, the pair begins to flirt with an idea for a way to spice things up. The unusual deal they strike: one (calendar-fixed) night of freedom, no strings attached and no questions asked.

Though it has at its core a provocative premise, The Freebie is in certain ways a kind of chaste treatment of the notion that monogamy is a fairly awkward (and unnatural?) state when the haze of lust has faded, and there are no children involved. The film was workshopped at the Sundance Institute, and it’s no coincidence that it’s executive produced by one of the Duplass brothers (Baghead, The Puffy Chair), reigning kings of the so-called mumblecore movement. Even though they strike upon this radical experiment, its characters are reticent, cuddly-smoochy PDA-types, and they in essence lean back rather than forward, no matter what choices the story foists upon them.

This works well for a bit, establishing a certain intrigue as it relates to who exactly these characters are, and why they find themselves in such a rut. Shepard, who heretofore has specialized in more out-there comedic characters, channels a bit of Owen Wilson’s penchant for cud-chewing conversational ellipticism, and Aselton is equally subdued. Some of the dialogue here is quietly smart, for how it locates what the characters are avoiding saying to one another, and the laughs the movie proffers exist for the most part entirely outside of itself, in our judgments of the characters’ earnest declarations (“The way we love each other is so far beyond whether we have sex every night”).

It’s a disappointment, then, that The Freebie doesn’t take this at-odds tension — the foisting of a hot-and-heavy premise on a couple of characters who have started to look through rather than at or into one another — and ultimately do something with it, in terms of sparking a deeper analysis of their current state of being. The manner in which Aselton constructs her film — its did he/did she? structure, which vacillates between the couple first agreeing to the deal and the beginning stages of them acting out their trysts — is interesting, but she chooses the wrong wind-up for her third act. The big emotional argument to which The Freebie builds is inherently less interesting than what causes that outburst — the offshoot reasons for Darren and Annie’s individual and collective unhappiness, either in a continuing, latent insecurity or serial sexual unfulfillment. Aselton’s failure to recognize that makes The Freebie‘s climax both empty drama (“You slut, I can’t believe you did that!”) and something of an emotional-psychological cheat. With neither empty titillation, complete feel-good resolution, nor an honest accounting of what triggered this foray into “on the side” fulfillment, the film comes across — despite the quiet rhythms of its scene-to-scene successes — as a watered-down exercise in gender-play sociology.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Freebie comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language 2.0 stereo track. Cinematographer Benjamin Kasulke’s HD digital work makes a play for intimacy and immediacy over more polished set-ups, but it translates in even more cramped and color-muted unappealing style here, even if the transfer avoids any edge enhancement or other artifacting issues. Shepard and Aselton sit for a warm, playful, feature-length audio commentary track, easily the highlight of the bonus features, and the theatrical trailer, a photo gallery of less than two dozen stills, and a quartet of phony “National Freebie Day” promotional spots round out the supplemental slate. While the film’s festival presentation is discussed, it’s a shame that not more material explicitly from its Sundance bow is included here. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Fire on the Amazon, an exotic, South American eco-drama from 1993, is most notable for being the repository of star Sandra Bullock’s first nude scene, before she blew up (figuratively, and almost literally) in Speed, became even more body-sensitive, and then later started claiming that her first nude scene was in 2009’s The Proposal. It is not a good film, but it has — how to say this tastefully? — value, hence its new DVD reissue and Blu-ray debut.

Written and directed by Peruvian-born Luis Llosa (who within years would go on to unleash The Specialist and Anaconda upon audiences), and executive produced by Roger Corman, Fire on the Amazon is a moralizing drama about the inherent nobility of indigenous locals, a la Medicine Man. Set in Bolivia’s Amazon basin, the movie centers around the issue of massive deforestation, and how the encroachment of industrial greed threatens to destroy the lush jungle. When Rafael Santos (Eduardo Cesti), a local environmental activist and leader of the union of rubber tappers (yes, seriously), takes a stand against scurrilous development and impending disaster, he is assassinated. Devil-may-care American photojournalist R.J. O’Brien (Craig Sheffer) teams up with activist Alyssa Rothman (Bullock) to uncover a dangerous conspiracy.

First, the good news: Llosa obviously has a rooting interest — a personal connection — to the material, and the film’s location shoot affords him the opportunity to capture a great deal of convincing local color on a reasonable budget. He also elicits a performance of not insignificant quietude from Bullock, which is nice, and runs counter to the hotheaded passion one might typically expect from such a character, as written. Unfortunately, a lot of the drama is rather rank, and screeching monkeys and lurking alligators substitute for the wandering, “boo-scare” cats of any given brain-dead horror film. Sheffer, too, is an almost complete non-starter as R.J.; he’s saddled with a ridiculous ponytail, and acts “independent-minded” and ballsy by leaning forward a bit too closely in conversation, and making scrunched-up kissy faces like he’s auditioning to be Sylvester Stallone’s stand-in or something. It’s a terrible performance, one that grates quickly, and puts you on the side of whomever is trying to do him harm.

But… what about the sex scene, you ask? It’s real, and not merely some fuzzy, eight- or nine-second cross-fade. But neither is it explicit, so if you think you’re going to get wild, full frontal sex, you’ve got another thing coming. No, instead it’s this strange, minute-plus, faux-animalistic thing, in which a tweaked R.J. and Alyssa, visages smeared with ceremonial Indian face-paint, tongue each other’s bare backs in the half-light, and kind of grind and copulate like they’re aliens who just read a how-to sex manual, or are perhaps filming one of those cushion-humping parody videos for the web. Let that information be your guide if you’re contemplating a rental or purchase.

Housed in a regular Blu-ray case, Fire on the Amazon comes to Blu-ray in a 1080p transfer and 1.78:1 widescreen presentation, with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track. The disc’s main menu screen is motion-animated, and the sounds of little jungle animals burst forth with the selection of chapter stops or a set-up screen (which offers only English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing). Truth be told, the picture is solid for a title of its age and (one presumes) minimal brush-up, with no edge enhancement or artifacting issues, and consistent color throughout. The only supplemental feature is a cruddy (seemingly VHS-lifted) version of the movie’s original trailer, burnished with new title interstitials. Sans reminiscences from cast or crew, this high-definition upgrade isn’t worthy of an archival purchase, unless one is a hardcore Bullock completist. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, though, click here. C- (Movie) C- (Disc)

Stress takes many forms — a headache, irritability, harsh words. But its possible metamorphosis into a bizarre physical manifestation forms the narrative spine of How to Get Ahead In Advertising, a barbed, 1988 cult classic from Bruce Robinson that helped land star Richard Grant any number of supporting comedic roles in slightly more staid, traditional Stateside product.

Skewering both the advertising industry and split-personality dramas with wit and without much pity, the movie stars Grant as slick corporate ad man Dennis Bagley, who is as cynical as he is successful. When Dennis develops an extreme case of creative block during an important campaign for acne cream, his anxieties over a boil on his neck escalate until his worries manifest as a socially mischievous evil twin head growing out of his neck. Well… at least that’s what he thinks and sees, despite fairly calm, reasoned efforts by his wife (Rachel Ward) and psychiatrist (John Shrapnel) to convince him otherwise. As his carefully constructed professional world crumbles down around him, can Dennis save himself from the demon whispering advice in his ear, or will his mental collapse completely engulf him?

As written and directed by Robinson (The Killing Fields, Withnail and I), How To Get Ahead In Advertising attacks micro-tuned capitalism with an eccentric glee and wild abandon. Robinson’s collaborator matters greatly in this endeavor. Grant’s performance is akin to watching a car in front of you on the highway skid precariously along the road’s edge, so charged is it with dangerous energy. And that’s great for a bit, truly. After a while, though, the film’s grip loosens considerably, largely because there is no outside force acting reliably upon Dennis’ stark, raving lunacy. A distressing feeling of manic sameness settles upon the movie, and it transitions from a vehicle by which to comment upon capitalism, consumerism and their impact upon one’s personality and relationships to a warped, hysterically pitched one-man show. One’s appetite for that will greatly impact their enjoyment of the film.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with hollowed-out spindles (which is good) and a not-particularly-deeply-set (which is bad), How To Get Ahead in Advertising comes to DVD presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. The DVD cover of this reissue seems strangely faded, and apart from a handful of auto-start trailers all slugged together there doesn’t seem to be a particularly compelling reason for its release, since there are no supplemental features at all. If someone really loves the film and doesn’t yet own it, the superb 2001 Criterion release is the way to go, honestly. Nevertheless, to purchase this version via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) D- (Disc)

To my knowledge there is but one film featuring Odette Yustman dancing and singing along to the DiVinyls’ “I Touch Myself,”
so if one wants to see that moment, they might have to submit to And Soon the Darkness, a chick-centric remake of a
1970 British film which serves as an entirely credible entry in the canon of doomed-American travelogue tales
like Turistas.

The story follows two American girls, Stephanie (Amber Heard) and Ellie (Yustman), who embark on a bike tour through a remote part of Argentina’s countryside. After a long night of bar-hopping, the girls decide to get in some suntanning. They then get into an argument, and
Stephanie heads goes away, to cool off. When she
returns, Ellie has disappeared. The local sheriff seems not very helpful or concerned, and a panicked Stephanie soon meets Michael (Karl Urban), an American ex-pat staying at their hotel. She must then deduce whether one, both, or neither of these men can be trusted as she works to find out whether or not her worst fears regarding Ellie are true.

So, not supremely original, right? True, but director Marcos Efron has a nice sense of pacing, and for the most part knows how to construct a scene so that its menace is slow-building, and not arbitrarily the product of a lot of jump-cuts. Cinematographer Gabriel Beristain also shoots a gorgeous frame, capturing a lot of natural beauty to complement the fantastic curves and bodacious stems of the movie’s two stars. The material itself isn’t that wonderful — either in terms of the dialogue or the eventual “twists,” which are completely obvious from about the 20-minute mark. But Heard in particular gives a solid performance, slotting this little thriller as a credible rental for genre fans.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, And Soon the Darkness comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Its bonus features are anchored by a nice audio
commentary track featuring director Efron, editor Todd Miller and director of photography Beristain; they talk about difficulties of on-location production, three hours north of Buenos Aires; Efron also talks up his roots to the material, pointing out that his father was born and raised in Argentina, and would frequently regale him with stories of its wilderness. There’s also an 11-minute video diary featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the set that confirms both Heard’s bilingual skills and the fact that a shot in the film was actually completed on a moving Segway. Oh, and there is also a small collection of deleted scenes. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

I don’t know him from the deli counter checkout guy, but Billy Zane just exudes entitled luckiness — the charmed air of a rakish guy who’s scooted by on chiseled good looks and little more, and managed to consistently fail upward, into what I imagine is a pretty comfortable lifestyle. He looks like a Tag Heuer model or perhaps a cigar company spokesman, and if he’s not busy floating through Twin Peaks‘ second season or being a jerk to Kate Winslet in Titanic, he’s bedding C-level starlets and Croatian models in smirking fashion, and fleecing and subsequently getting sued by Uwe Boll. (I’m not sure whom to root for in that latter contretemps.)

The latest piece of screen entertainment onto which Zane alights is The Hessen Conspiracy, a wan World War II flick and self-described neo-noir thriller that fancies itself a sort of swashbuckling cross between The Good German and some long-lost Indiana Jones adventure. Based on supposedly true events, it unfolds in Frankfurt in 1945. The war has been lost for Germany, and its citizens are restless, resentful, suspicious — and thus often ready to make a deal on the black market, trading in secrets that will benefit their families and themselves.

Outside the city is a large manse, Castle Kronberg, which serves as a country club of sorts for swaggering, victorious American officers. Colonel Jack Durant (Zane) and the beautiful Lieutenant Kathleen Nash (Lyne Renée) have no problem taking advantage of the situation. But when they discover a cache of priceless gems — crown jewels of Germany, Prussian riches that rival anything found in the Tower of London — the renegades must step out of their comfort zone into one of greed and danger. Traveling to New York to seeking a fence for their dazzling, dangerous steal, they get caught up in a web of spies, gangsters, royalty, millionaires and other rogue Army officers. Before long, they begin to distrust even one another.

The Hessen Conspiracy is scripted by Nicholas Meyer and Ronald Roose, and directed by Paul Breuls, and it unfolds in an entirely professional if overly self-serious manner. The production design work here, by Paul Peters, is actually fairly solid for such a modestly budgeted flick. The dialogue has little snap, though, and the performances are these airless, joyless things — partitioned off from one another, and with little sense of either fun interplay or sincere imperilment. For a movie that is about a jewel heist, however rooted in historical context, that is damning.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Hessen Conspiracy comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English SDH subtitles and a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track. Apart from chapter stops, special bonus features consist of… nothing. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) D (Disc)

Somewhere, in some studio filing cabinet or on some studio hard drive, there exists the concrete data on loveable family comedies with towheaded kids and canines who go to great lengths in order to stay with their lil’ tyke owners. I know this information exists not merely because marketing helps drive the creative process amongst creative types who like to, you know, make money and eat, but because movies like Cool Dog, an innocuous family dramedy seemingly shaped to its very core by pre-sales ROI and market research dictums, continue to get made, despite the ample supply of similar titles still readily available.

Jimmy (Jackson Pace), a vibrant 10-year-old boy, lives in the tranquil
town of Eagle Rock, Louisiana, with his father (Michael Pare), stepmother (Christa Campbell, taking a break from horror flicks) and, most
importantly, his best friend — a German shepherd named Rainy. When Jimmy’s
dad gets a promotion, the family relocates to an apartment in
New York City that has a strict no-pets policy. Unwilling to let his
master go without a fight, Rainy embarks on a cross-country journey to
New York, navigating through all sorts of peril on the way.

Co-writer-director Danny Lerner has a prodigious list of producing credits (including Command Performance and a bunch of Steven Seagal movies), and as a director has made a couple schlocky shark-related flicks (my favorite may be Shark in Venice), so clearly this is his sop to “family,” a movie about adolescent friendship and devotion and all that. And it’s fairly harmless and enjoyable, in an undemanding sort of way. The doggy stagings aren’t always the most imaginative or well executed, but it plays plenty fine for those ages 7 or 8 and under — a video babysitter that peddles reassuring messages of decency and love always winning out.

Cool Dog arrives on DVD in a full frame presentation, with a 5.1 digital surround sound audio track that more than adequately handles the straightforward and relatively meager aural demands of this title. Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles are also included, and a gallery of trailers for other First Look titles complements the feature as the only bonus material inclusion. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C- (Disc)

Much more interesting than anything that actually transpires in the mildly terrible albeit titillatingly titled Chinese Kamasutra would be modern-day interviews in which some of the Chinese courtesan extras talk about their technique in mock nipple-tonguing, since that is one of the unintentionally amusing high points in this otherwise rather tedious exercise in attempted erotic drama and exotically set sexploitation.

Directed by Joe D’Amato, this 1993 Italian import centers on Joan Parker (the lovely Georgia Emerald), a good-natured but somewhat fuddy-duddy British librarian living in China who stumbles across a copy of the ancient “sex text,” digs in, lets her fingers do some walking, and then of course starts having wild, intrusive fantasies that run counter to her real-life proclivities. This yawning set-up allows for lots of unimaginative back-and-forth, as Joan spurns the advances of a Chinese colleague, but also dreams of lesbian canoodling and the like.

The aforementioned Emerald is a natural beauty, but not much of an actress (it’s unsurprising to learn she has no other screen credits), even though she basically just has to approximate a blank slate. The other performances here are similarly challenged, and the material never becomes textured or interesting in any manner beyond the obvious, which is to say involving sporadically unclothed females. Basically, Chinese Kamasutra is a bore, which is pretty damning and problematic, given its title.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Chinese Kamasutra comes to DVD presented on a region-free disc in a letterboxed widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio, complete with a modern-day cover model who is not in the film, and bears a badly Photoshopped lower back tattoo to boot. Its audio options include a dubbed English language Dolby digital stereo 2.0 track and the original Italian language track as well, also in Dolby digital stereo 2.0. The transfer is grainy, and likely not from original film elements. Apart from a dozen motion-animated chapter stops, its sole supplemental feature is an unprocessed (i.e., time-coded), 44-second deleted scene. Amusingly, Chen Kaige is actually credited as the movie’s second assistant cameraman, but I’m thinking it was not the director of Farewell My Concubine. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) D+ (Disc)

Going to school in indefatigable style on Ice Cube’s lessons of crossover career management and branding, rapper and erstwhile drug dealer 50 Cent has transformed himself into a peddler of not only music and ring-tones, but also water, fitness supplements and, of course, movies. Ergo, the market for something like Gun, a slickly shot weapons-trafficking actioner that brings nothing terribly new to the table, but does at least go through the motions with energy and a streamlined clarity of purpose.

The movie unfolds in Detroit, and director Jessy Terrero — working from a script by his star, actually — uses that fact, in ways both nakedly transparent and occasionally sincere, to pump up the film’s zeitgeist quotient. Gun-runner Rich (50 Cent) and his crew oversee a vast arms-laundering operation, in part by purchasing stolen, illegal and otherwise “hot” weapons on the cheap from pawn shops, and turning around and selling them on mark-up. They terrify the populace with their aggressive violence, as characterized by an opening in which some rivals are flushed out of a nightclub and mowed down in the middle of the street.

When Rich’s old friend and fellow criminal Angel (Val Kilmer), who 10 years earlier saved his life in a gun-and-drugs exchange gone bad, drifts back into his life, Rich welcomes Angel back into the fold, which makes his longtime henchmen paranoid and on edge. Things get worse when it becomes obvious there’s a snitch in the group, and
two local detectives (James Remar and Paul Calderon), working both the case itself and trying to fend off the territorial-investigative advances of the ATF, start closing in.

Unsurprisingly, Gun has swagger to spare, a result of its star’s sly charisma, as well as some savvy casting in bit parts (including Danny Trejo). But Kilmer works in subversive fashion to give the movie a more settled sense of reality, and his interactions with 50 Cent really help ground the film, to the extent that anything surprising happens within the confines of its who’s-the-rat? storyline. Otherwise, apart from some fine, saturated work by cinematographer Zeus Morand, there’s about what one would expect here — lots of bravado, agitated cops tired of being handcuffed by legal boundaries, and some characteristically ridiculous “gangsta” discharging of firearms. Oh, and the requisite sex scene is discreetly shot so as to save AnnaLynne McCord (a ringer for a young Rene Russo) from any wildly embarrassing screen-caps, though Mr. Cent (billed here in hybrid fashion as Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) does bare his butt, which I’m sure is of interest to someone.

Housed in a regular snap-shut Blu-ray case, Gun comes to the format presented in 1080p high definition, in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. The transfer is truly superb, actually, free of any edge enhancement, blocking or other artifacts, and characterized by hard-edged clarity throughout. Sound is delivered via a DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track. While certainly serviceable throughout, the mix levels here seem a bit off, or perhaps just marred by typical disproportionate genre leveling; gunshots and explosions are given a ridiculous decibel bump that will as often as not have one reaching for their remote control. Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles are also available, and the film is partitioned by a dozen chapter stops under a motion-enabled main menu screen. Apart from an inclusion of the movie’s trailer, however, there are unfortunately no supplemental bonus features contained herein. To purchase the Blu-ray disc via Amazon, click here; to purchase the film via iTunes, meanwhile, click here. C (Movie) C (Disc)

Sometimes a movie’s title really says everything, and hardly any formal review is necessary. Such is the case with Vintage Lesbian Erotica.

A Cult Epics home video title that collects two-plus hours of peep show reels and other naughty black-and-white sapphic short films spanning almost 40 years, from the 1920s into the 1960s, this slapdash set is a weird peek behind the curtain and under the bedsheets mostly of our grandmothers’ generation, and of arguably little value, even as some sociocultural relic.

Unfolding in bedrooms, opium dens, parks and other outdoor locations, the almost two dozen shorts here are fairly wide-ranging in set-up and accoutrement, let’s say, and yet also curiously of a piece. A small handful are surreal (one incorporates body painting), but the majority of are of the wiggly-silly variety, and seem to play like an older variation on Girls Gone Wild, with women groping each other for giggles or play-acting and doing things that they believe men want to see. But hey, a banana does get worked into the mix, for those wondering. Still, none of this is particularly interesting or titillating, apart from the thoughts it provokes in regards to the cameramen and production teams behind this material.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Vintage Lesbian Erotica comes to DVD on a region-free disc, and is presented in a matte-framed 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio. The quality of the source material varies widely, as one might surmise, but it certainly doesn’t look as though there has been any effort made to clean it up. Much of it is flat-out terrible, sub-VHS grade. The audio track also fluctuates a good bit, since some of the shorts are accompanied by madcap orchestral selections, and others barely scored at all. A main menu screen gives way to a separate selection screen which purports to divvy up the selections by decade, but this is needlessly muddled (sections within other sections), and in French to boot, which makes little sense, given the international, ahem, spread of the material. Finally, there are no other supplemental bonus features. So is it really true that Vintage Lesbian Erotica elicits chiefly a yawn? Yes, yes it is. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, however, do your thing and click here. D (Movie) F (Disc)

Inspired by Biblical accounts of the massive, gold- and copper-flecked splendor of his temples and palaces, countless treasure-seekers (and more than a few Hollywood adventure story peddlers) have set off in search of King Solomon’s mines, trekking through burning deserts and scaling the forbidding mountains of Africa and the Levant. Yet the actual evidence supporting the existence of Solomon and other early kingdoms in the Bible has been highly controversial. In fact, there is so little physical evidence of the kings who ruled Israel and Edom that many contend that they are no more real than King Arthur. The PBS-fronted edu-doc Quest for Solomon’s Mines attempts to sort out some of this mystery.

Produced and directed by Graham Townsley through National Geographic Television, the hour-long Quest for Solomon’s Mines offers up a couple new clues buried in the pockmarked desert of Jordan, as it tries to pin down the source(s) of the great material wealth that shaped regional political might in the Dead Sea Valley, and helped empower the first mighty Biblical kingdoms. As with tele-news magazine reporting, this program blends speculative historic reenactments with some talking head footage, in this case from University of California-San Diego Levantine Archaeology Lab hands Mohammad Najjar, Thomas Levy and others. The carbon dating of new-ish archaeological excavations at Khirbet en Nahas bring up some interesting facts, illuminating an era and making a convincing case that slave labor — and with it probably all the attendant human rights abuses and faulty criminal convictions, to ensure a large enough workforce — powered a regional rise much earlier than previously known. It’s an interesting title, even if its conclusions are ultimately rather glancing.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Quest for Solomon’s Mines comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with an English language stereo audio track, divided into seven chapters. There are unfortunately no supplemental features of note. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or click here; if it’s Amazon that’s your thing, meanwhile, click here. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

The lives and sordid actions of serial killers are so far beyond the pale that they rather understandably make rich fodder for movies, with Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and of course Aileen Wuornos — for which Charlize Theron won an Oscar in Monster — getting recent screen treatments. Next up is John Wayne Gacy, who serves as the imprisoned boogeyman in Dear Mr. Gacy, a film that puts a strange twist on the inside-the-mind-of-a-killer sub-genre.

Based on a curious but apparently true story, as chronicled in
the bestselling book The Last Victim, Dear Mr. Gacy recounts the experiences of a headstrong 18-year-old college student, Jason Moss (Jesse Moss), and his relationship with the notorious Gacy (William Forsythe), an Iowa businessman, short-order cook and community volunteer who got demented mileage out of frequently parading around in a clown costume. As part of a school assignment, Moss sends a letter to Gacy in prison, portraying himself as a vulnerable kid, and hoping to work his way into his psyche and get him to confess his crimes. (Gacy initially admitted to many murders, but later recanted, explaining away the more than two dozen bodies found in a crawl space in his house as part of a strange police conspiracy.)

Suspicious at first, Gacy subjects Moss to a series of tests, but is won over by some beefcake photos and collect-call telephone conversations, coming to eventually trust him, and value his friendship. Moss’ preoccupation with Gacy somewhat understandably confounds his
girlfriend Alyssa (Emma Lahana), and his younger brother is a bit creeped out too, when Gacy starts requesting letters from him. What follows is a bizarre game of psychological cat-and-mouse between two manipulators, in which Gacy alternately cajoles, rants, rages and urges the youngster who he believes is his new friend to engage in street hustling, while Moss finds his life turned upside down in unexpected ways. When it seems things couldn’t get even more unusual, Gacy’s death row appeal is denied, and he sends an invitation to Moss to visit him in prison for a private meeting.

Moss (The Uninvited, Final Destination 3) does a capable job as… Moss (weird twist, that), in that he basically has to play a smart kid who’s way in over his head — who has a game plan, but not a back-up plan (or more deeply seated psychological mooring) for when Gacy starts to pull some really sick shit. In this regard, Moss ably communicates the overwhelmed nature and quiet interior panic of his character (or his acting shortcomings do the same thing). Forsythe (The Devil’s Rejects), meanwhile, has a Rolodex of sickos and weirdos to his credit, and while he’s obviously given the showier role, he seems to intuitively understand — even if the quality of the writing he’s given is sometimes lacking — that since he’s playing Gacy already incarcerated he’s not playing a “monster” so much as Gacy playing another character (aggrieved victim of justice and all that), lashing out in weird, distasteful ways.

The basic problems with Dear Mr. Gacy seem to stem from a sweetheart adherence to its source material — to not step outside of Moss’ life and his interactions with Gacy, and render judgment or at least deeper shading upon Gacy himself. The film ends on a strange note, too, with footage of the real-life Jason Moss appearing on a talk show, chatting about his motivations for writing the serial killer. Then a brief textual overlay informs us that he took his own life only several years later. This coda undercuts Dear Mr. Gacy, and makes its dramatic machinations seem entirely empty, because clearly there was something deeper going on with Moss — something that this film sidesteps entirely.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Dear Mr. Gacy comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track, and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Along with the teaser and theatrical preview trailers, the disc’s only other supplemental feature is a 22-minute making-of featurette, which looks into the production, and features interviews with cast and crew as well as one of Gacy’s childhood friends, Barry Boschelli, who walks and talks with Forsythe. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Every year, over a million visitors are drawn to the Salisbury Plain in southern England to gaze upon a mysterious circle of stones. Meanwhile, in grade and middle school classrooms across the United States, scores of bored, unchallenged kids steal away from their peers during library-mandated “study time” to thumb through picture-heavy texts of the same famous site, their imaginations fired by the extravagance of varied possibility.

Yes, Stonehenge may be the best-known and most mysterious relic of prehistory, which makes the new short-form, NOVA-stamped documentary Secrets of Stonehenge both wildly intriguing and more than a bit frustrating. First, a bit of history: excavations from the mid-20th century revealed that the structure — with some stones standing 20 feet tall, and ranging in weight from seven to 45 tons — was built in stages, and that it dates back some 5,000 years, to the late Stone Age. The greater meaning of the monument, however, was until recently anyone’s guess, spawning all sorts of fantastic theories, inclusive of astrological worship, human sacrifices or even extraterrestrial visitation.

Running just under an hour, Secrets of Stonehenge takes a scientific tack, following a team of researchers as they attempt to get to the bottom of how prehistoric people quarried, transported, sculpted and erected the giant stones — some of which came from Wales, over 150 miles away. Archeologists Mike Pitts and Mike Parker Pearson, of the University of Sheffield, are able to give interesting speculative on-site overview, even as they refine their theories a bit based on things they uncover in fresh excavations.

Most interesting is the inarguable linking of Stonehenge to fellow Neolithic settlement Durrington Walls, which with its henge and large timber circle likely served as a gateway touchstone to the living, while Stonehenge was a complementary spot for clan members moved on, since rock had stronger ancestral connotations. Less engaging are curiously inexact experiments in stone movement, along with funny pronunciations of the words “cosmos” and “skeletal.” Also, somewhat damningly for those with a more rooted anthropological curiosity, Secrets of Stonehenge doesn’t delve satisfyingly into the day-to-day lives of the people, spanning generations, who crafted this amazing structure. Either way, though, there’s at least some truth in the title here, if not a complete and definitive rewriting of the story of Stonehenge.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Secrets of Stonehenge comes to  DVD with a static menu screen, split into seven chapters and presented in 1.33:1 full screen. Optional English SDH subtitles are included, but there are no other supplemental features. To purchase Secrets of Stonehenge, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or click here. Or if Amazon is totally and irretrievably your thing, then click here, by all means. B- (Movie) C- (Disc)

Niche market fans of 1970s erotica have found a willing enabler in Impulse Pictures, which has done well cycling through a variety of softcore European titles, inclusive of the Schoolgirl Report series, which hails from Germany. Its latest release, the seventh volume in the series, again presents a triptych of unrelated segments, all characteristically involving some combination of voyeurism, burgeoning sexual curiosity and power imbalance.

The stories here (a student, in love with her teacher, switches her identity to bed the unsuspecting older guy; a sexy hitchhiker lures men into sex in order to rob them) are fairly straightforward, and meant, in their own tongue-in-cheek fashion, to serve as warnings of surging adolescent libidinal impulses. This flick is from 1974, and the girls are certainly attractive, but the set-ups are laborious, and the acting of course terrible. Caveat emptor, and all that.

Housed in a regular Amaray case, Schoolgirl Report: Volume 7 comes to DVD presented in 1.66 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 2.0 mono audio track. Its uncut German aural presentation comes complemented by a set of newly translated, removable English subtitles. There are unfortunately no bonus supplemental features, dinging both this title’s collectibility and its value for those wishing to merely dip a toe in the sexploitation genre. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

I previously touched on the wide variety of of musical sub-genres present in American life, and the fervent (albeit to-scale) embrace of said niche markets means there’s room for all sorts of CD and DVD compilations that celebrate that merged diversity and commingled ethnicity.

A spin-off/continuation of the previous quartet of releases from 20th Century Entertainment, this new batch of two-hour concert clip titles includes a separate break-out look at blues (a bit of a cheat/overlap with the rhythm and blues title of earlier this fall, but so be it), as well as DVDs spotlighting dixieland jazz, soul and folk music. Each is engaging in its own way, but the folk and blues discs are probably the standout efforts of this batch, focusing as they do on deeper cuts that chart the hybrid influences (and future influence) of these styles. The soul title, meanwhile, hosted by Leon Isaac Kennedy, is a groovy testament to the sway of secular testifying, with James Brown’s “Payback,” Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” and Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem” all serving amongst the highlights.

Housed in regular plastic Amaray cases, each title in this collection is presented on a region-free disc in 1.33:1 full frame and Dolby stereo. Given the wide berth of sourcing, the video quality of the performances varies a bit, understandably, and while most are presented in color, black-and-white archival footage and photographic stills are also interspersed throughout. There exists no additional supplemental bonus material. For more information, click the individual hyperlinks above, or click here. B (Movies) C (Discs)

I sampled a slice of Icelandic survival horror recently, in the form of Harpoon: Whale Watching Massacre. I wish I had remained on land.

The tale of a pleasure cruise gone deadly wrong, Harpoon unfolds on the cold waters off Iceland’s coast, as a boatload of international tourists set off on a (three-hour?) whale-watching expedition. When a freak accident leaves their captain mortally wounded, folks become stranded, and the ocean’s loveliness suddenly turns ominous. Help seemingly arrives in the form of a mysterious, bearded whaler (horror veteran Gunnar Hansen) who offers to take them back to shore, but instead leaves them on a decaying barge. At first the strandees believe they’re alone, until they discover that the barge is already occupied by a psychopathic family who likes to hunt humans. Bummer, dude!

Award-winning novelist (and occasional Bjork collaborator)
Sjon Sigurdsson penned the movie, and tries to sprinkle in some cultural differences amidst all the corpses-to-be, to differentiate between characters and give them something tangible to “overcome.” Unfortunately, director Julius Kemp doesn’t have the chops to deliver on this approach, and instead, after a first half that lags badly, gives in to stupid special effects (an animatronic killer whale pops up) and poorly staged gore.

Housed in a regular case, Harpoon comes to Blu-ray presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track, in a transfer that looks more than a bit underlit. An interview with Hansen complements a fairly run-of-the-mill making-of featurette, laden with behind-the-scenes footage and more interaction with cast and crew. The creative name makes Harpoon seem like it might be a wild romp that puts an electric spin on American horror conventions. It most certainly does not. Nonetheless, to purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Before he was a jet-setting filmmaker and in-demand commercial director with his own inimitably florid style, Australian-born Baz Luhrmann was just another precocious, headstrong art school punk, with dreams of making the leap from aspirant cinematic craftsman to actual filmmaker. He did that with the wild, colorful Strictly Ballroom, his 1992 directorial debut. Inspired
in part by Luhrmann’s own childhood experiences with ballroom dance
classes and his mother’s career as a dance instructor, the movie
itself was based on a 20-minute 1986 stageplay that Luhrmann co-wrote
while in drama school, and its poster tagline (“A life lived in fear is a life half
lived…”) might as well serve as an unofficial motto for the rest of Luhrmann’s professional career.

A hyper-stylized and wildly offbeat comedy about a male dancer, Scott (Paul Mercurio), who bursts free from the restraints of convention and exuberantly charts his own destiny, Strictly Ballroom is a movie bristling with verve and youthful energy, and it clearly serves as a narrative marker for Luhrmann’s own outsized artistic ambitions. Just before he’s scheduled to compete in the big Pan-Pacific ballroom
championships, Scott — who refuses to follow the accepted rules of ballroom dancing, and creates his
own style of choreography, which infuriates the ballroom dancing
establishment — loses his longtime partner Liz (Gia Carides), who leaves him for another dancer. Undeterred, Scott takes up a new partner, Fran (Tara Morice), a beginner who initially seems without promise. After a rocky start, however, things come together for the odd couple, paving the way for a finale at once unlikely and heartwarmingly familiar and reassuring.

Even before it was released theatrically in 1992, the film quickly emerged as an unusual hybrid — an unabashed crowd-pleaser that also racked up praise and awards from critics. After garnering the Cannes Film Festival’s Prix de Jeunesse (“Award of the Youth”) in 1992, it was snapped up for Stateside distribution by Miramax’s Harvey and Bob Weinstein. A rapturous embrace at the Toronto Film Festival later that fall, followed by a cool dozen Australian Film Academy awards, paved the way for an early 1993 Stateside release, where Miramax smartly played up the movie’s dizzying pace, arresting style and beautiful choreography, selling it as an exotic (but English language!) bauble.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, the new DVD special edition of Strictly Ballroom comes to retailers presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, which preserves the aspect ratio of its theatrical presentation. A solid Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track complements the superb video transfer, and optional French and Spanish subtitles are also included, along with a nice new menu screen. All of the special features from the movie’s original DVD release are imported here, including an audio commentary track with Luhrmann, production designer Catherine Martin and choreographer-actor John O’Connell, as well as a two-minute deleted scene in which Scott rebuffs a late attempt to replace Fran with Liz. A 3-D gallery with a robust slate of images from the movie and its pre-production is also included, and an amusing sort of time-capsule featurette, “Samba to Slow Fox,” that includes period piece interview footage with real dancers and special competition material.

The most attractive bonus feature, though, is the addition of a new, 23-minute featurette built around recent interviews with Luhrmann and the film’s creative team, which charts the project’s inception, from its stageplay roots and the fitful securing of financing to its eventual whirlwind international reception. Luhrmann speaks, with great passion and clarity, about his view of the material’s connection to Joseph Campbell’s universal mythology, and Martin (Luhrmann’s offscreen partner as well) has some cherished anecdotal memories of the sort which only flow from the foolhardy effort of youth. Huzzah to this beautiful reflection. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)

Atypical genre plotting and some absolutely delicious twists feed British kidnapping thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed, the solid and engaging feature directorial debut of J Blakeson. Plenty of movies have covered this narrative terrain before, but few in recent memory with as streamlined a sense of tension-soaked purpose.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a tightly drawn “three-hander,” with a deceptively simple plot. Planning to make a mint on a ransom-and-exchange scheme, ex-con kidnappers Vic (Eddie Marsan) and Danny (Martin Compston) snatch Alice (Gemma Arterton), a young woman estranged from her wealthy businessman father. Despite having set up a secluded safe house and seemingly left nothing to chance, Vic and Danny — the latter the younger and more nervous of the two, the former powered by a snarling, steely conviction — soon find their plans upended. Though scared witless, Alice isn’t about to let her captors just use her as capital, but neither is the film merely some prodding feminist revenge tract.

From the outset, it’s clear that Blakeson’s film won’t kowtow to genre convention. The movie opens with an intriguing, dialogue-free, five-minute prep sequence in which Danny and Vic methodically set up shop — buying a drill, a mattress and other supplies; lining the inside of a windowless van with plastic; assembling a bed for the mattress; and stapling foam insulation and plywood board to the walls and windows of the bedroom that will serve as Alice’s quarters of confinement. When the actual kidnapping takes place, it’s similarly presented in dispassionate, matter-of-fact fashion, despite Alice’s kicks and screams. In fact, it’s 10 minutes into the film before either party utters a line, really.

Interestingly and admirably, Blakeson isn’t concerned with or particularly invested in repeatedly using Alice’s vulnerability to wring tension and unease from his audience. Yet neither does he shy away from it, as when a hooded Alice is stripped, given new clothes and handcuffed in spread-eagle fashion; Arterton arches her back in wild anxiety, which is a visceral and realistic depiction of primitive fear. Once some measure of chatting and an explication of the chain of events yet to unfold begins, though, the movie really hits its stride, fed in large part by the differences in age and gender, and the underlying but ever-shifting power dynamics therein. Without giving away the movie’s twists, it suffices to say that — both before the ransom money arrives, and after — Blakeson does a fantastic job of screwing with both his audience’s expectations and senses of identification, though always in ways rooted in character, and never in a manner that feels tawdry or false.

Given the quiet, steely verve of its set-up, it’s somewhat to be expected that the film’s energy eventually starts to flag a bit. And it would have been interesting — once the film opens up a bit from its quite theatrical staging, and gets to stretch its legs some in its final act — for an outside character or two to force the hand of those grappling for control. But the performances here are gripping, and The Disappearance of Alice Creed‘s commitment to character-driven minimalism makes it a standout genre entry, and well worth adding to one’s Netflix queue.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, The Disappearance of Alice Creed comes to DVD presented 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, which preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical presentation. Optional Spanish and English SDH subtitles complement its Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. In his engaging feature-length audio commentary track, Blakeson talks both about wanting to get into the psychology and intimacy of kidnapping (in which the criminal aggressor plays an unusual care-giving role), as well as his desire to have the audience spin forward in their own minds stories regarding the characters. He also notes the difficulty of shooting the movie’s first nude scene, which was of course the first day of production (a safe word was established for Arterton). Finally, Blakeson gives ample credit to the rest of his creative team, including his production designer Ricky Eyres, who added false doors and archways to the interior set to break up the dead space.

Other bonus features consist of five-and-a-half minutes of storyboard material, two deleted/extended scenes with optional audio commentary from Blakeson, and four-and-a-half minutes’ worth of outtakes, which feature some romantic awkwardness, a gun repeatedly failing to fire and, yes, Arterton breaking it down at one point, dance-club style. Only some interviews or other contributions from the actors would have further bumped up this solid little no-wild-frills package. To purchase the movie’s DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Brian Wilson has always been a figure of much scrutiny and curiosity — one of the first big rock or pop stars to shun the promotional spotlight. While the Beach Boys were for much of their career regarded as little more than a silly surf-pop hit factory, Wilson’s stature has only grown with time, as his creative and sensitive compositions have inspired and taken hold of a new generation of musicians. That fact gets studied and celebrated in the fascinating new musical documentary Brian Wilson: Songwriter 1962-1969.

Running over three hours, this superlative title assays the vast amount of material Wilson wrote for and recorded with the Beach Boys during their 1960s heyday, digging into the craftsmanship of the music itself but also smartly framing the material as it relates to the familial group’s career arc and Wilson’s own delicate psyche. All sorts of talking head experts weigh in, but the major difference maker is access to those who matter and are in the know — a group that includes fellow Beach Boys Bruce Johnston and David Marks, former manager and promoter Fred Vail, biographers Peter Ames Carlin and Domenic Priore, and many other family friends.

Snippets of rare and classic recordings stud this release, along with lots of other obscure footage and solid archive interviews, making this the rare biographically-inflected title that doesn’t feature much direct cooperation or reflection from its subject and yet nonetheless feels comprehensive. By far the most interesting portion of the title focuses on the recording and 1966 release of the groundbreaking Pet Sounds, which was a notable departure from what the Beach Boys had recorded up until then. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows” (which never really stabilizes on a particular key) are illuminated in interesting fashion, and Johnston and others talk about how “Sloop John B,” a leftover from the previous year’s Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) sessions, fits into the album. The latter also talks about Capitol Records’ relative disdain for the album at the time — evident in their indifferent promotion, and quickie release of a greatest hits package — and how the release of “Caroline, No” as a single was “a shot across the bow,” in his opinion.

Spread across two discs and housed in a nice, quasi-hard-shell case with plastic snap-in trays, Brian Wilson: Songwriter 1962-1969 comes to DVD presented in anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo track. Supplemental bonus features include contributor biographies, a small clutch of extended interview clips, and a mini-featurette in which Johnston recalls John Lennon and Paul McCartney getting an early preview listen to Pet Sounds. To purchase the DVD, click here; or, if Amazon is totally and irretrievably your thing, click here. A- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Another slick, engaging title in the solid Rare and Unseen series, this briskly paced hour-long doc looks at the iconic British musician, actor, producer and voracious reader of going on five decades now, David Bowie. Most famous for his ostentatious, androgynous “Ziggy Stardust” alter-ego during the glam-rock era of the early 1970s, Bowie has continually reinvented his music and personal image, and is regarded as an influential innovator in both rock music and the intersection of a peddled, constructed public persona.

Told through missing archive interviews and rare and unseen footage, this insightful DVD is a worthy addition to any hardcore Bowie fan’s home video collection. Bowie’s skill as a multi-instrumentalist — in addition to singing vocals he plays electric, acoustic and twelve-string guitar, plus keyboards, alto, tenor, piano, harmonica, xylophone, tambourine, drums and many other instruments — shines through, and the timeless quality of his music is strikingly highlighted. Listening to bits of or ruminating on any of his numerous top 10 hits, including everything from “China Girl,” “Modern Love” and “Starman” to “Space Oddity,” “Under Pressure” and “Let’s Dance,” one is repeatedly struck by the freshness of their composition and arrangement.

Items genuinely unseen and never previously released on DVD stud this somewhat haphazardly pieced together title, including presumed lost but now restored TV interviews with Russell Harty in which Bowie speaks candidly about his drug use and the haze of his famously creative Berlin days. There is also rehearsal and backstage footage, some press conference material and a couple yawning Bowie impersonations by Stevie Riks. In aggregate, it’s a bit like opening an old box of stashed away high school and college mementos (“Why exactly did I keep this?” you wonder, before a splinter of recognition answers your puzzlement), but David Bowie: Rare and Unseen is undeniably a treat for fans of the chameleonic, one-of-a-kind performer.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, David Bowie: Rare and Unseen comes to DVD on a region-free disc, presented in 16×9 widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 2.0 stereo audio track. There are no supplemental bonus materials of which to speak. To purchase the DVD, click here. B- (Movie) C- (Disc)

Had he ever lived to see fame and fortune through his art — let alone the iconic embrace of his works via college room dorm walls across the United States — Vincent Van Gogh would almost certainly shake his head in disbelief. His was a hard life, full of turbulence and disappointment. The warmth of embrace — either critically or commercially — would likely be discombobulating to him. All of which makes Van Gogh: Brush with Genius, a short-form documentary originally created for exhibition in IMAX theaters, an even more telling glimpse into his life and work.

Though it runs only a relatively scant 40 minutes,  Van Gogh: Brush with Genius delivers a superlative, condensed
biography of the famed artist, providing viewers with a dazzling, visually sumptuous tour of his works, while also retracing his life through his letters and other writings, and showcasing some of the wondrous locations that inspired him. Given its IMAX roots, of course, there’s plenty of edu-tainment pop and a touch of gloss (I’m sure this played in heavy rotation for visiting school audiences), but the slurry beauty of Van Gogh’s feverish brushstrokes are highlighted in engaging fashion too. This is a short-form title that strikes the right balance between glorification and explication of its subject.

Housed in a regular Blu-ray case, Van Gogh: Brush with Genius comes to Blu-ray presented in 1080p high definition, in a beautiful 1.78:1 widescreen transfer, with DTS-HD master audio 5.1 tracks in English, French, Spanish and Japanese. The review copy with which I was serviced came, amusingly enough, with a miniature foam severed ear, but thankfully that’s not the only supplemental feature; a brief slide show and a HD-shot making-of documentary, running just under 20 minutes, are also included here, making for a total package that feels robust, but is still condensed. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

I don’t yet need Peggy Cappy‘s Easy Yoga for Arthritis, thankfully, but one day I might, so I granted a perfunctory spin to her fifth sell-through yoga DVD special, and came away fairly impressed.

It’s said that one in three adults suffer from arthritis, so this sort of title would seem to service an important niche. (Of course, if I were being a smart-ass, I’d question whether elderly, chronic arthritis sufferers could figure out how to get their DVD player to work let alone master yoga poses, but I’m trying to cut back on my unleavened snarkiness so I’ll let that point lie.) A 30-year veteran and advocate of yoga, Cappy demonstrates movements to use at home to help strengthen muscles and increase mobility for people who are challenged by either arthritis, joint injuries or the general stiffness that comes with aging. This new special is divided into seven easy-to-use segments. The first section highlights gentle warm-up exercises to loosen the shoulders, neck, back, legs and feet, while a secondary segment spotlights separate warm-ups for the hands, wrists and arms. Standing poses, seated poses and reclining poses are then covered, followed by bits on deep relaxation techniques and meditation.

The routine Cappy presents is appropriate for people of all ages and abilities, allowing three modifications for each pose: standing, seated or using a chair for support. It’s also nice that the viewer can basically pick and choose which exercises work best for them, depending on their own personal areas of physical trouble. Finally, the inclusion of meditation techniques, which are medically proven to increase one’s ability to deal with stress, is also quite nice.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Easy Yoga for Arthritis comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen. Somewhat surprisingly for a title like this, a clutch of bonus footage is also included, in the form of a featurette that runs about 40 minutes in all, and follows Cappy as she travels to back to her hometown of Peterborough, New Hampshire, to meet folks whose lives have been improved by her
classes. While it sometimes plays a bit like an extended infomercial add-on, this is a well-intentioned supplemental feature that connects solidly enough with its demographic. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or click here; if Amazon is your thing, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)