DVD Releases: August 17, 2005


	Sin City Worldwide Gross - $99 million Based on a trio of inky-black stories by graphic-novelist Frank Miller, Sin City is an intricately conceived and brilliantly executed merger of ultra-violence, comic-book villainy, noir orthodoxy and digital artistry. Imagine Philip Marlowe as the protagonist of either Kill Bill or Blade Runner and you'll have a pretty good handle on Robert Rodriguez' pulp nightmare. Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke and Clive Owen play the tarnished knights at the moral center of the drama, but it's the beyond-sexy vixens played by Jessica Alba, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Devin Aoki and Carla Gugino who will drive DVD sales among horny fan boys. The all-digital production is best viewed on a wide-screen, high-res monitor. The flashes of color in the mostly black-and-white environment really add a neat twist to the imagery. -- Gary Dretzka "Walk down the right alley in Sin City and you can find anything." Who's Who In Sin City Posters, Posters, Posters

	Off The Map US/Canada Gross - $1.31 million Few movies of any intellectual gravity have been made about those determined counterculturists, who, in the '70s, refused to abandon their farms, communes and idealism, and surrender to middle-class complacency by moving back into town. Instead, Hollywood's comfort level topped out with more accessible fare, such as The Big Chill and The Ice Storm, populated by the same sorts of part-time freaks and radicals who found their way to Woodstock in VW mini-buses, but now required gas-guzzling SUVs for their drives to work and the mall. For the sin of taking seriously the hard-scrabble few who refused to hang up their love beads when the going got tough, Campbell Scott's riveting drama Off the Map was placed on a shelf for more than two years, and ignored. In it, Joan Allen and Sam Elliott played self-sufficient survivors of the ill-fated migration of hippies to New Mexico in the '60s. What the enterprising couple can't grow or build for themselves, they acquired through the barter system and scavenging discarded goods at the dump. Their ability to live on less than $5,000 a year even managed to draw the attention of the IRS, with whom Arlene and Charley haven't communicated in years. William Gibbs, the agent dispatched to the remote farm to audit their books, becomes enchanted with Allen's earth-mother character, and, after a life-threatening illness, trades his calculator for an easel and water colors. Although he no longer exists in the straight world, Gibbs becomes something of an inspiration for the couple's precocious 11-year-old daughter, who is desperate to leave the communal nest and embark upon a life in corporate America. Complicating matters, Charley has mysteriously succumbed to depression and no longer is of much help around the house. Even so, Off the Map is anything but a bummer. It's a life-affirming and deeply affecting study of a group of 20th Century pioneers, who existed on the far fringes of society and refused to be reduced to clichés by Uncle Sam, the media or anyone else. -- Gary Dretzka

	The Wedding Date US/Canada Gross - $31.6 million In Clare Kilner's flimsy romantic comedy, The Wedding Date, middle-age boy-toy Dermot Mulroney -- one of the studs who fight for the hand of Diane Lane in Must Love Dogs -- was given the unlikely task of playing a handsome male escort to an unlucky-in-love New Yorker, Kat, played by Debra Messing. The hunk is being paid $6,000 (sex extra) to accompany Kat to the wedding of her step-sister, in England, and reduce her ex-fiance -- the groom's best mad -- to tears with her ability to bounce back from his caddish behavior. Nothing in the movie rings true, including Messing's need to hire a him-bo. The Wedding Date is targeted directly at the hearts and Kleenex boxes of female fans of Four Weddings and a Funeral, My Best Friend's Wedding and the Bridget Jones films, to which it doesn't measure up very well. But, if that ilk is your cup of tea, The Wedding Date might provide a couple hours of harmless, diversionary fun. -- Gary Dretzka

Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol. 1. Fans of ABC's Dancing With the Stars, Fox's So You Think You Can Dance and the documentaries Mad Hot Ballroom and Rize are encouraged to jitterbug their way down to the local video emporium, and pick up Warners' Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol. 1. Meticulously refurbished, this wonderful compilation of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers includes Top Hat, Swing Time, Follow the Fleet, Shall We Dance and their comeback movie, The Barkleys of Broadway. Each disc contains a generous helping of commentary, interviews, odd-ball featurettes and period cartoons. The stories themselves aren't all that memorable, but the stars' singing, dancing and on-screen chemistry are undeniably sensational. By comparison, TV hoofers John O'Hurley and Charlotte Jorgensen look like dance-school dropouts. The Barkleys of Broadway is noteworthy, as well, for the appearance of legendary musician, composer and hypochondriac Oscar Levant. -- Gary Dretzka


The Deal The DVD release of Harvey Kahn and Ruth Epstein's meandering corporate-thriller, The Deal, couldn't be better timed. Just as real-life consumers around the world are grappling with inexplicably high gasoline prices, the premise of The Deal is rooted in an energy crisis that threatens to explode in a global conflagration. Naturally, greedy corporations and unscrupulous criminals are only too willing to profit from the situation. Christian Slater and Selma Blair play a pair of Wall Street yuppies who smell a rat in their midst, and combine their Ivy League talents to save the world against the executives who sign their paychecks. The stinker deal involves an Enron-like American conglomerate and a Russian oil cartel, which is in cahoots with various Middle Eastern oil barons. The plot unwinds like most decent thrillers in novel form, with a well-researched scam; attractive characters, who don't mind stabbing each other in the back; some sexy characters; and the constant specter of violence and revenge. Typical to Hollywood adaptations of such genre fiction, The Deal resorts to dopey chases and unrealistic fight scenes, instead of forcing its screenwriters to work overtime to come up with an intelligent ending. Too bad. -- Gary Dretzka

My Neighbors the Yamadas Pom Poko The importation of noteworthy Japanese animated films continues apace at Disney, with two more long-awaited titles from Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) and Isao Takahata's fabled Studio Ghibli. This week's titles, My Neighbors the Yamadas and Pom Poko, are from the similarly prolific hand of Takahata. Originally made in 1999, the segmented presentation of My Neighbors the Yamadas will remind American audiences of dozens of family sitcoms, ranging from Married ... With Children to Leave It to Beaver … but, in a good way. The English-language version features the voices of Jim Belushi, Molly Shannon and David Ogden Stiers. Takahata's ecological fable, Pom Poko has more in common thematically with Princess Mononoke. Facing the destruction of their habitat, shape-shifting raccoons band together to frighten off a construction crew. A popular hit in Japan, in 1994, it became the first animated feature to be submitted for the Oscar for Foreign Language Film. Note to Disney: Keep 'em coming. -- Gary Dretzka

Oldies But Goodies The Glass Shield My Left Foot The Mambo Kings To this week's oldies-but-goodies department come special editions of Miramax's police-drama The Glass Shield and the inspiring multiple Oscar-winner, My Left Foot. Charles Burnett's gritty direction and clever casting elevated Glass Shield a notch above most other films dealing with cop angst. A pair of young sheriff's officers -- one black (Michael Boatman), the other white (Lori Petty) -- naturally become allies in an institutional universe resistant to integration and reform. Ice Cube and Bernie Casey also are excellent, as a possibly innocent murder suspect and his defense attorney. In Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot, Daniel Day-Lewis turned in a bravado performance as Christy Brown, an Irish artist and writer whose cerebral palsy kept him confined -- barely --to a wheelchair. It's one of those against-all-odds stories that Oscar voters tend to honor with predictable regularity, and, indeed, both Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker walked away with trophies for their very good work. It was, however, the twice-nominated Sheridan -- for writing and directing -- who deserved most of the credit for keeping things moving in a forwardly direction, and avoiding the pitfalls of maudlin histrionics. The extras include footage of the real Christy Brown and his family, a making-of short and some commentary. The DVD release of The Mambo Kings (1992) comes on the heels of an ill-fated attempt to adapt Oscar Hijuelos' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, for Broadway. Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas, then known mostly for his work in Pedro Almodovar's kinky comedies, played a pair of musical brothers who left Cuba in the early 1950s, in search of stardom in America (think Desi Arnaz). Although the drama often sputters, the film is saved by the terrific music and actors' passionate portrayal of the protagonists. -- Gary Dretzka

MCN's 2004 DVD Year In Review
Doug Pratt's Ten Best - Multiplatter And Single Platter
Digital Nation: Gary Dretzka's Best DVDs of the Year
Ray Pride's Five Best DVDs And Five Best Boxed Sets