The Wrap Up ...
The Good Shepherd	Directed by Robert DeNiro, The Good Shepherd attempts to tell two provocative stories simultaneously. The first describes the intricacies of collecting intelligence in a world made complicated by the willingness of governments to obliterate their enemies over differences in economic policies and political muscle-flexing. The second focuses on the inherent dangers of recruiting spies from an elitist Yale "secret society," and building the infrastructure of the fledgling CIA around them. Matt Damon plays career "spook" Edward Wilson (thought to be modeled after James Angleton), who was recruited by the OSS from Skull and Bones on the eve of World War II and stayed on through the debacle of the CIA’s Bay of Pigs invasion. Typical of the West’s pre-James Bond intelligence community, Wilson is portrayed as a drab fellow who goes about his business in a manner expressly intended not to make waves or draw attention to his employer. Neither are his fellow spies -- friends and foes, alike -- all that interesting … except for the Brits, for whom deception appears to be a substitute for sex. To compensate for the lack of charismatic lead characters, Eric Roth’s screenplay added a family-based through-line that takes 20 years to fully blossom, and, when it does, leaves the audiences struggling to find a single male authority figure worth embracing. But, that’s probably the point of Roth’s story: in reality, America’s real spymasters more closely resemble George Herbert Walker Bush than Sean Connery, and, having been culled from the upper crust of WASP society, seem to value time spent with the "Company" over that with family members. It’s a fascinating story, but, at 157 minutes, occasionally overstays its welcome by focusing more on Wilson’s intimacy issues than real incidents in the life of a man who’s put his conscience on hold until retirement. When compared to the shadowy world of international spookdom, the non-Aryan beauty of Angelina Jolie’s Margaret Wilson is both distracting and off-putting, as is her transition from college seductress to captive wife. More suited to the tasks at hand are Joe Pesci, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon, Timothy Hutton and DeNiro, who does double-duty as an OSS poo-bah. There are deleted scenes, but fans of the movie will have to wait to get the kind of bonus features such a cinematic effort would warrant. -- Gary Dretzka
Volver	No one makes movies about women with more loving attention to detail than Spain's Pedro Almodovar. His current muse, Penelope Cruz, attempts to explain why this is so in an interview included in bonus features, but, suffice it to say, his mother deserves most of the credit. In the darkish comedy, Volver (Coming Back), the maestro gathered a wonderfully expressive female cast and asked them combine a pinch of mysticism with a smidgen of intrigue in the service of what essentially is a classic farce. In what might be the strongest performance in her career, Cruz plays the daughter of woman who, she believes, died in the arms of her loving husband in a fire, as well as the mother of a teenager quickly growing into womanhood. After a visit to the family plot at a La Mancha cemetery, Raimunda joins her daughter and sister in a visit to an aunt they believe is too feeble to live alone. Instead, the ditzy old broad appears to be doing very well on her own, thank you. Upon their return home, Raimunda and her daughter find themselves in a situation that requires them to mask the murder of their husband/father. Almost simultaneously, they receive news that auntie has died. With Raimunda pre-occupied with her own loss, only sister Sole makes it to the funeral. She returns to Madrid with a few family mementos in a suitcase, and, in the trunk, the white-haired woman (Carmen Maura) widely believed to be the ghost of her mother. The wraith's existence isn't revealed to Raimunda until she becomes totally engaged in scheme to operate an absent friend's restaurant and re-invigorate the neighborhood. Ultimately, the ghost of mothers past also help mend long-festering wounds within their family. This makes Volver sound way more complicated than it is. Instead, the story is extremely easy to follow -- even via subtitles -- and a terrific showcase for an actress whose talents have largely have been wasted in English-language films. The interviews that accompany the film add background to the work of the women in the cast, as well as Almodovar's methodology -- Gary Dretzka MCN Review: Almodovar works outside of the box and each person should be allowed to discover the turns in that map for themselves. But I will say this… the film is emotional, but it is also fun, wild, busty (Mr. Cruz's push-up is on par with Ms. Roberts' in Erin Brockovich), mournful, loving, and loaded with the brio of life.
Turistas The Mario Bava Collection: Volume 1	Teen-angst specialist John Stockwell adds his name to list of filmmakers willing to sacrifice the flower of American youth in the service of the backpackers-in-jeopardy genre spawned by Hostel … although it could be argued both Turistas and Hostel owe as much to Rocky Horror Picture Show and Motel Hell as they do Psycho and Friday the 13th. In Turistas, an attractive group of international hard-bodies find themselves in Brazil, being driven to a resort area by a bus driver hell bent on killing everyone on board. After a few near-misses, the driver actually does send th vehicle careening down a steep cliff, but not before the passengers make their escapes. Instead of waiting for the next bus to arrive, the kids discover a footpath that leads to a too-perfect stretch of beach. Here, they encounter another dozen or so attractive young people, a bar, hammocks and friendly natives. It doesn't take a subscriber to Fangoria to guess what's coming next. After the sun goes down, the tourists get stewed on booze and pot to the point where they pass out. When they come to, they realize they're in the hands of an evil surgeon who demands they contribute organs to deserving peasants. While some of the clothing-deprived kids don't survive the harvest, others manage to escape long enough to give the Brazilian butchers a run for their money. Fortunately for the viewer, Stockwell's location scout found some terrific places to stage the non-surgical action, including rain forests, underwater caves and secluded waterfalls. Melissa George and Josh Duhamel are the most familiar of the cast members, but the others probably will be around for a while, as well … especially if they continue to display a willingness to disrobe when the situation arises. Besides commentary, deleted scenes and a making-of featurette, the un-rated version includes a bit more gore and, perhaps, an additional nipple or two, than the already R-rated original. Whether they know it or not, everyone working in the contemporary horror genre -- here, Japan, Europe, wherever -- owes a debt of gratitude to the late Italian director Mario Bava. So, too, do audiences. His pulpy titles reflect a style that is both garish and strangely poetic. Trained as painter and cinematographer, Bava's sense of composition and color became his trademark. Fans, of course, cared more about the sexy girls and ultra-violence that also distinguished his Gothic horrors and giallo inventions. This box includes freshened versions of Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Kill Baby Kill and Knives of the Avenger, as well as original European versions and featurettes. -- Gary Dretzka
Hard Scrambled	Here's a DVD package that's far more worthwhile for the bonus features it offers than the movie around which everything is wrapped. Hard Scrambled bares an unmistakable resemblance to David Mamet's American Buffalo, which was set almost exclusively in a Chicago junk shop and populated with old-school grifters who argue like a long-married couple. Here, the primary setting is a dumpy New Jersey diner, which is about to be sold for lack of business … and probably lousy food. Among the regulars are the cook, a former boxer with a mean streak (Kurtwood Smith, of That '70s Show); an upwardly mobile deliveryman (Richard Edson); and a busboy with a death wish (Eyal Podell). They all want to buy the joint from the owner, Alice, recently hospitalized for sticking her hand in a deep-fat fryer. All three are willing to cheat, scheme and rip each other off to gain possession of the property, even as they form alliances among themselves. The acting far outshines David Scott Hay's drama, so the best thing to recommend Hard Scrambled is the second disc, Film School in a Box, which offers 20 informative video tutorials on such aspects of the medium as directing, screenwriting, producing, editing, fund-raising and publicity. -- Gary Dretzka
Baseball Double Feature: Kill the Umpire/Safe at Home One of the sure signs that another new baseball season has arrived is the inevitable debate over the best and worst movies about the sport. The Natural, which is being released in a Director's Cut edition, often is among the favorites. Kill the Umpire and Safe at Home rarely are mentioned, at all. Nevertheless, both still retain the ability to entertain, if only for the sake of nostalgia. In the former, the great William Bendix plays a retired ballplayer who decides to attend umpire school after other jobs don't pan out (in 1950, players weren't paid millions of dollars to play baseball or sign autographs). What begins as a humbling experience for the ump, eventually turns truly ugly when a Texas crowd riots over a disputed call and his family must come to his rescue. In Safe at Home, a Little Leaguer brags about his father knowing Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. He doesn't. When pressed, the boy tracks down the sluggers at spring-training camp, where they can either save the boy's reputation or let him down. Another recently released baseball movie is Angels in the Outfield, starring Paul Douglas as a profane manager and Janet Leigh as the woman who tries to clean up his act. It features cameos by Joe DiMaggio, Ty Cobb, songwriter Harry Ruby and Bing Crosby, who co-owned the Pirates. -- Gary Dretzka
Whose Line Is It Anyway (British): Seasons 1 & 2 Twin Peaks: The Second Season Mind of Mencia: Uncensored Season 2 Entourage: Season Three, Part 1 Anyone who gets BBC America on their cable system probably has already memorized all of the episodes included in the Whose Line Is It Anyway set. They're shown repeatedly on the network -- almost as often as Benny Hill reruns -- and at all hours of the day. Perhaps, like me, you didn't realize that Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles appeared on the original British version of the series, before it (and they) crossed the pond in 1998 and added Drew Carey and Wayne Brady on the U.S. version. The long-running improvisational comedy show took suggestions from the audience, and used them to assign roles and scenarios to the contestants. It's even funnier in the original British. Twin Peaks easily fits on top of any list of television's most challenging and offbeat series. David Lynch's freaky murder mystery played out over two years on ABC, with a feature film, Fire Walk With Me, spun off a year later to tie up loose ends (and add some kinky sex to the proceedings). The death of Laura Palmer triggers a manhunt that includes a FBI profiler and various other psychics and charlatans. The real clues, of course, were hidden in the characters' dreams. As phenomena go, Twin Peaks had a pretty short shelf life. That's because Lynch's imagination took mainstream audiences to places few wanted to go on a weekly basis, and each new episode asked more questions than were answered. Those viewers who stuck with it, though, were rewarded with a uniquely inventive work of art. The DVD package gives fans and newcomers ample time to study the episodes in exacting detail. Carlos Mencia is one of those comedians who pride themselves in being equal-opportunity offenders. On his weekly Comedy Central show, he blends razor-sharp takes on the news, with sketches meant to demolish arguments for strict interpretations of politically correct behavior. Some are extremely funny. With another new season of HBO's The Entourage right around the corner, this boxed set catches newcomers up on what happened in the wake of Aquaman and the events leading up to the dispatching of Ari as Vince's agent. It adds commentary on three episodes by creator Doug Ellin, Kevin Dillon and Jerry Ferrara, and a Vegas Baby, Vegas! featurette. - Gary Dretzka