The Wrap Up ...
The Good German	Director Steven Soderbergh, who's seemingly never met a genre into which he didn't want to carve his initials, has said he wanted The Good German not simply to pay homage to such black-and-white wartime-romance classics as Casablanca, but also to suggest what those movies might have looked like absent the Hays Code. To the end, he's largely succeeded here. Based on Joseph Kanon's novel, and adapted by Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show, Donnie Brasco), The Good German pretty much gets everything right, apart from creating compelling reasons to care much about the characters. The true protagonist of the film is the as-yet-undivided Berlin, which immediately after the war, became a serpent's nest of intrigue, double-dealing, back-stabbing, racketeering and settling scores. George Clooney plays an American military journalist, Capt. Jake Geismer, who's come to Berlin to cover the Potsdam conference and re-connect with an old girlfriend (the always remarkable Cate Blanchett, in Marlene Dietrich drag). As Stalin, Truman and Churchill drew up the blueprints for the Cold War, their intelligence officers were searching through the rubble for war criminals, rocket scientists and loot-able treasures to bring home as souvenirs. Meanwhile, survival was the uppermost concern of individual Germans, some of whom turned to prostitution to buy food and other essentials from black marketeers. All of this is captured very well in the script, set design and direction. Because this is 2007, however, and no black-and-white wartime romances have been produced lately, everyone except Blanchett appears to be in the wrong movie. Even the R-rated additions feel out of place. Casablanca wouldn't have been a better movie if Michael Curtiz had been allowed to show Rick and Ilsa getting jiggy with it on the night before the Nazis marched into Paris, or Captain Renault's police were free to cuss while kicking the crap out of the usual suspects. That said, The Good German plays a lot better on the small screen -- where most of us first watched such period fare -- than it did in theaters, and, even devoid of bonus features, it's an easy way to kill a couple of hours. -- Gary Dretzka
The Mistress of Spices	The best reason to rent this under-nourished cross-cultural romantic comedy is to experience Aishwarya Rai, who's been anointed both the Queen of Bollywood and the most beautiful woman on the planet (by the old farts at 60 Minutes). For once, the hype fits the hypee. Rai is all that, and a platter of chapati bread. Unfortunately, here, she isn't given much to do except look exotic, which she does with unsurprising ease. Her character is taught as a girl how to use hundreds of different spices, as food seasonings, medicine, good-luck mojo and love potions. She brings this gift with her to San Francisco, where she opens the kind of spice shop one imagines exists only in fairy tales and Bollywood movies. As such, Rai's Tilo is equal parts alchemist, shaman and aspiring Food Channel hostess. For all the good she does for her customers, though, Rai can't seem to work her magic on American men. This changes when Dylan McDermott strolls into her shop with a boo-boo on his arm. Although forbidden to use the power of spices for her own good, Tilo can't resist mixing up a concoction designed to attract the attention of the hunky Harley owner. Of course, the ploy backfires on Tilo, and she'll need to get back on the good side of the spices or work at Wal-Mart as a greeter. The Mistress of Spices is targeted directly at lovers of such foodie romances as Like Water for Chocolate, Chocolat, Eat Drink Man Woman, Woman on Top, Babette's Feast and screenwriter Gurinder Chadha's earlier What's Cooking? It's a cute idea, but the fairy-tale conceit could use a smidgen more cayenne or chili powder to heat up the romance. -- Gary Dretzka
Mel Gibson 's Apocalypto	Everything you've heard about the extremity of the violence in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto is true, and then some. For less queasy viewers, however, that fact shouldn't diminish the power of this extremely well made and impressively ambitious story of life among the Mayans in the moments before their world would change forever. Even before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, their's was a civilization in decline. Decadence and superstition had triumphed over religion and science, and the grand poo-bahs were running out of bodies to sacrifice to the gods. Just as Gibson has gotten his audience acclimated to daily life in the forest primeval, slave hunters from the temple city begin their sweep for able-bodied men and women in isolated villages, where traditional values held sway. Of all the many compelling characters we meet, Jaguar Paw is the one who stands out most for his bravery, sense of humor and devotion to family. The captives are driven like animals to the capital -- which might as well be Caligula's Rome -- to become the entertainment at an orgy of blood lust and human sacrifice. A miraculous astrological coincidence occurs just as Jaguar Paw is about to join the lonely hearts club, and he's given an opportunity to escape. The ensuing chase is as exhausting as it is exciting. (I was tempted to turn down the sound and cue up CCR's Run Through the Jungle on my MP3.) Beyond any desire for survival, Jaguar Paw is determined to rescue his toddler son and pregnant wife, who are hidden in a deep sinkhole at the village. Gibson, of course, is no stranger to graphic depictions of violence in the movies in which he stars, directs and/or produces: The Passion of the Christ, Braveheart, The Patriot, Payback and Mad Max, among them, Unlike purveyors of genre gorefests, Gibson uses violence to trigger responses other than shock and revulsion. It is employed to remind viewers of the true brutality directed at ground-level combatants, beasts of pray, helpless slaves and such boat-rockers as Jesus Christ. Unlike U.S. government censors, it is Gibson's wont not to filter the ramifications of such violence as used in the service of failed diplomacy ... take it or leave it. (The only other explanation would be that he's a sadist and makes such movies to get his rocks off.) In the next DVD incarnation of Apocalypto, it's likely a less bloody version will be made available for more mainstream audiences, as was done for the Definitive DVD edition of The Passion of the Christ. The extras here include a deleted scene and the featurette, Mayan Becoming Mayan: Making Apocalypto. Again, more will follow. Even given the gore, Apocalypto makes an excellent companion piece to Terrence Malick's splendid The New World, Bruce Beresford's Black Robe and Roland Joffé's The Mission, none of which skimped on the horror attendant to conquest and resistance. -- Gary Dretzka
Pan's Labyrinth   The Fountain	Among the urban legends that emerged from the '60s and will last forever on the Internet is the one that recalls a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in Los Angeles, during which an audience member rose to his feet at the film's conclusion, ran down an aisle and crashed through the screen, shouting, "It's God! It's God!" One assumes the poor fellow was tripping his brains out, but accounts don't make clear which substance -- foreign, or otherwise -- was fueling his hallucination. One wonders what the same man, or, by now, his gene-altered grandchild, would make of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, both of which effectively merge mind-blowing fantasy, fairy tales, romance, hallucinogenic revelry, sci-fi, horror and other para-spiritual musings. The do this in the service of stories that suggest alternate universes to our own not only exist, but also can be found right under our noses. Of the two, Pan's Labyrinth is the more successful. Set in Franco's Spain, in 1944, Del Toro's strictly adult Gothic fairy tale describes one darling little girl's struggle to overcome the cruelty of her new father-in-law, a captain in Franco's ruthless Civil Guard, by allowing herself to be absorbed into an underground realm inhabited by fairies, satyrs, enchanted flora and fauna, and benevolent monarchs. Ofelia is tested mightily by her guardians in both worlds, but her faith in the existence of a magical kingdom is far more likely to be rewarded than the hopes of delusional anti-Franco guerrillas, who expect Allied forces to restore democracy to Spain after they're done with Hitler and Mussolini. Knowing Ofelia is likely to become the lamb sacrificed at the altar of man's insane need to dominate other men would be impossible to bear, if we weren't also provided with evidence to suggest the tyke wasn't of this world in the first place. For reasons owing more to budget restrictions than any blurring of creative vision, The Fountain ultimately fails to convince us of love's power to transcend time and death. Not that Aronofsky doesn't give it the old college try. At the center of his epic love story are Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, whose characters' bloodlines can be traced from 16th Century Europe, through the Spanish conquest of the Americas, to today's world of miracle cures, space travel in the 26th Century and on to the Godhead itself. As such, with its irresistibly far-out fantasy sequences and often spectacular visual effects, The Fountain could easily serve as a feature-length music video for the Moody Blues' trippy In Search of the Lost Chord. Somewhere in space, the mortal remains of Timothy Leary are smiling. -- Gary Dretzka
The War Tapes	In 2004, a year after President Bush declared victory, three members of the New Hampshire Army National Guard were deployed to Iraq and invited by director Deborah Scranton to record their experiences there on digital mini-cams. It wasn't a unique concept, as many soldiers already were recording their firefights, adding rock or hip-hop music, and sending them back home to friends as souvenirs. These three soldiers took seriously their commitment to Scranton, capturing more than 800 hours of footage as a visual diary. The result was an astonishingly personal examination of life in a war zone, and proof that soldiers don't go into combat blinded by patriotism, or return from it unscarred emotionally. The courage of these men and their buddies can't be questioned, even as they voice concern over the sanity of such an ill-planned enterprise. Such documentaries as The War Tapes should be considered essential viewing for anyone who thinks fielding a voluntary army makes the pursuit of a war based on lies somehow more legitimate. The DVD set adds outtakes and extended scenes; unseen combat footage; and follow-up interviews with the soldiers. -- Gary Dretzka
Letters From Iwo Jima/Flags of Our Fathers: Commemorative Edition The Marines Secrets of the Dead: Dogfight Over Guadalcanal Warlords	Those who waited to purchase a bonus-filled DVD of Clint Eastwood's stirring wartime drama Flags of Our Fathers, instead of the spare first edition, now are being rewarded for their patience. It arrives in the form of a two-disc Special Edition and the five-disc Commemorative Edition, which also includes Letters From Iwo Jima. Far more than being mirror visions of the same battle for a fly-speck island in the Pacific, Flags and Letters both tried to say something profound about how the larger war was perceived back home, in addition to documenting the battle. Of the two, Letters spent the most time with the soldiers on the ground and dug into the mountain. It was through letters sent home by Japanese soldiers and officers -- as well as the lunatic ravings of generals, politicians and emperors about honor and patriotism -- that we are made to understand why it took the dropping of two nuclear bombs to achieve an armistice. The collections, separately and combined, offer such attractive extras as Red Sun, Black Sand: The Making of 'Letters from Iwo Jima'; The Faces of War: The Cast of 'Letters from Iwo Jima'; Images From the Frontlines: The Photography of 'Letters from Iwo Jima'; footage taken at the world premiere at Tokyo's Budo-kan Theater; the 30-minute Making of an Epic; Raising the Flag, which focuses on the cast and crew's meticulous re-creation of the second Iwo Jima flag-raising; a 10-minute assembly of 1945 newsreel footage; and a discussion of the films' digital enhancements. The fight to capture Iwo Jima naturally is covered extensively in the PBS Home Video documentary The Marines, which examines the warrior culture of the corps through its history, traditions and interviews with current and former personnel. The DVD adds a tour of the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Also from PBS come Dogfight Over Guadalcanal: Secrets of the Dead and Warplane. The former documents the rivalry between a pair of American and Japanese aces in the skies over one of the most hotly contested patches of rock in the Pacific Theater, while the latter describes how military aviation has evolved over the last 100 years. The four-part, 214-minute Warlords focuses on the psychological war-within-the-war played by the leaders of the U.S., Germany, England and the Soviet Union throughout the years leading up to the conflagration and after it. None of the leaders, it seems, trusted the others, and their attempts to seek strategic advantages led to decisions that not only shaped the war but also would lead directly to the injustices of the Cold War, civil wars in the Balkans, Middle East and Southeast Asia, and the economic chaos that followed the collapse of the Iron Curtain. -- Gary Dretzka
Venus Becket	The best reason to rent Venus is to witness how great an actor Peter O'Toole still is at 74 years of age. Others include enjoying similarly heart-warming performance from 83-year-old Leslie Phillips, 58-year-old Richard Griffiths, 70-year-old Vanessa Redgrave and the bright and sassy newcomer, Jodie Whittaker. On its surface, Venus is about how a troubled young woman gains a new appreciation of mainstream life after she moves in with her distinguished uncle, an actor who's been reduced to playing sick hospital patients in British soap operas. Of course, the niece returns the favor by giving him a reason to get (it) up each morning. (He's a foxy old chap, but in it more for the sport than the capture.) Their sometimes rocky, but more often engaging relationship also impacts on the lives and temperaments of the uncle's breakfast club of ingratiating old coots. Hanif Kureishi's bittersweet script, along with Roger Michell's flourish-free direction, keep the narrative from being overly cute or maudlin. O'Toole was a mere pup of 32, and fresh off his breakthrough portrayal of T.E. Lawrence, when he was assigned the role of Henry II, in Becket, opposite Richard Burton. The great news here comes in knowing that the film adaptation of David Merrick's Broadway production has been rescued from near oblivion, lovingly restored and transferred to HD. The DVD includes commentary from O'Toole, archival interviews with Burton and discussions with editor Anne Coates and composer Laurence Rosenthal. Fans of Showtime's The Tutors will appreciate another opportunity to revisit English royalty at a significant crossroads in the country's history. -- Gary Dretzka
Seraphim Falls Clint Eastwood Western Icon Collection Rawhide: The Second Season	Almost no one outside of those cities that qualify as being select locations saw David Von Ancken's very entertaining Western, Seraphim Falls, when it was quite literally dumped on the market in January. If it had been released in the summer, and in less-select location, the old-fashioned oater might have found an audience hungry for non-ironic, non-revisionist Westerns of the sort that dominated the screen for most of the last century. The same fate, of course, was accorded last year's terrific Outback Western, The Proposition. Here, Liam Neeson's Carver spends all of the film's 115 minutes pursuing the Union officer, Gideon, who he blames for murdering his family three years earlier. Another familiar Irish actor, Pierce Brosnan, plays the Yank, whose sons were killed at Antietam. A wild opening sequence reminds us that, as Agent 007, Brosnan had to survive many exciting chases, even before the first notes of John Barry's iconic theme song were heard. Here, Carver puts a large-caliber bullet in Gideon's arm before most viewers will have had time to get comfortable on the couch. Virtually defenseless, Gideon escapes by rolling down a snow-covered slope and falling into a mountain river swollen with the runoff from the winter's snows. It's quite a ride, and most other men would have died of hypothermia, unless they were killed first by plummeting down a prominently situated and very steep waterfall. Carver assumes his target has died, but won't rest until he finds the body. Eventually, the pursuit takes both men through a rough-and-ready railroad camp, rugged badlands and finally to an arid lakebed that hasn't seen water since the end of the last Ice Age. Along the way, they encounter fugitive bank robbers, thieving pilgrims, hired guns, coolie laborers, a lawyerly Indian in a top hat and a snake-oil saleswoman played by Angelica Huston. Even if Seraphim Falls sometimes feels overly familiar to viewers who were weaned on Westerns, the Oregon and New Mexico landscapes are as consistently invigorating as they are beautifully shot by John Toll (The Thin Red Line, Braveheart, The Last Samurai). Fans of the genre really ought to seek out Seraphim Falls at the local video store. If Seraphim Falls whets your appetite for more Westerns, check out Universal's Clint Eastwood: Western Icon Collection, which contains three less-remembered titles from the period between his spaghetti-Western trilogy and the genre-altering The Outlaw Josey Wales. High Plains Drifter was the first oater directed by Eastwood, while Joe Kidd and Two Mules for Sister Sara were helmed by Don Siegel and John Sturges, respectively. They're all a lot of fun. In 1959, Eastwood began his six-year tenure as Rowdy Yates on Rawhide, one of television's most enduring Westerns. The second-year DVD collection has been broken into two parts, with the four-disc Volume 1 logging in at an epic 720 minutes. It will hit stores on May 29. -- Gary Dretzka
Fay Grim	If there was such a book as Movie Criticism for Dummies, Hal Hartley's darkish comedies would be used as examples for the proper use of the terms quirky and offbeat. The latest movie to bear his unmistakable mark is Fay Grim, a sequel, 10-years-removed, to the smart and unusually well-received Henry Fool. This is one follow-up that literally cries out to potential viewers to rent the original first, if only to familiarize one's self with Hartley's style and timing. Here, the title character is no longer married to the loutish Henry Fool, who had convinced Fay's garbageman brother, Simon, to write an epic poem about his world view. He did, and the book won a Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, the honor didn't keep police from throwing Simon into prison for aiding and abetting Fool's flight from justice for past crimes. Simon's still in prison, and Fool is presumed dead when federal agents arrive at Fay's door to inquire about missing chapters from the book he's spent a near eternity writing. Fay's too pre-occupied with the problems of a son who's been thrown out of school for passing around an old-fashioned viewing box, in which pornographic images camouflage clues to a puzzle involving his absentee father. Fay offers to trade her cooperation into the search for the missing diaries -- which are believed to contain military secrets -- for Simon's release from prison. Upon her arrival in Europe, Fay attracts the attention of every intelligence agency from Chile to Mongolia, although she doesn't have the slightest clue why. In a series of close calls that would test the patience of Inspector Clouseau, Fay eventually learns Fool's alive and in league with several shady characters. Fay Grim almost never makes much logical sense, but Posey's completely engaging performance drives the narrative through most of the rough patches. If the title looks immediately familiar, it's because the film has been released almost simultaneously in theaters, on HDNet and in DVD. -- Gary Dretzka
Happily N'Ever After	Although the voicing talent -- Sarah Michelle Gellar, Patrick Warburton, Freddie Prinze Jr., George Carlin, Wallace Shawn, Andy Dick, Sigourney Weaver -- should help attract browsers to Happily N'Ever After, their presence probably won't be enough to create much buzz for this anemic fractured fairy tale. As the box cover proudly notes -- From a producer of Shrek and Shrek 2 -- this fractured fairy tale is supposed to remind viewers of the things gave the DreamWorks franchise such cross-generational appeal. Unfortunately, in this particular fairy-tale world, where the villains are triumphant more often than the good guys, that's where the likeness to Shrek begins and ends. On the plus side, less-discriminating youngsters will find a generous supply of bonus features, including games, making-of material and deleted scenes. -- Gary Dretzka
The Italian Childless couples continue to travel to the ends of the Earth to find likely candidates for adoption. They will pay large sums of money to lawyers, organizations and other middlemen for a healthy boy or girls, and often are ripped off or left deflated in the process. In the opening minutes of Andrei Kravchuk's bittersweet drama, The Italian, we travel with just such a couple to the rural countryside of contemporary Russia. They've made the trek from Italy to introduce themselves to the 6-year-old boy they hope to make part of their family. Extremely sweet and well behaved, Vanya has experienced enough upheaval and disappointment in those six years to qualify for a Purple Heart, but the couple can provide him with the kind of future he might otherwise have been denied. When the mother of one of the already adopted urchins suddenly appears at the home and is turned away by the brokers, her despair so affects Vanya that he becomes fixated on the idea of finding his own birth mother before committing to a new one. Like too many other kids in the home, Vanya was left deserted at an orphanage, which, in turn, turned him over to the dealer in potential adoptees. The operators treat their charges like the commodities they've become, and don't risk diminishing their investment by keeping them in cages or beating them for not eating their porridge. Justice tends to be meted out by the older boys, feral creatures who exact on a tariff on all hard-earned rubles, while also dispensing advice on the survival skills needed to make the passage from childhood to life on the edges of society. To facilitate his search for his mother, Vanya is taught how to read by a red-headed girl who splits her time between the orphanage and conjugal visits with long-haul truckers. She helps the boy get on board the train that will take him to the cold and remote city where he hopes his mother is still living. Apart from being pursued the woman who stands to lose thousands of dollars if he disappears, Vanya has an amazing journey. He's befriended and protected by several fellow passengers, and, against all odds, finds the orphanage where he was first abandoned by his mother. Young Kolya Spiridonov delivers a heart-wrenching performance as the boy nicknamed Italian. The other children are so realistically portrayed they could have escaped from The Bicycle Thief. Even with no extras, this is a DVD to cherish. -- Gary Dretzka
Denzel Washington Spotlight Collection John Cleese Comedy Collection Michael J. Fox Comedy Favorites Collection Long and lanky John Cleese will always be remembered first as a founding member of Monty Python. But, his career didn't begin or end there, by any means. In addition to his contributions on Fawlty Towers, A Fish Called Wanda and several James Bond flicks, Cleese also convinced business executive that making money didn't also require one to forgo a sense of humor. Throughout his long career, the comic has sparkled in elongated sketches, as well. The collection contains the 1968 mockumentary How To Irritate People, which consoles parents, old ladies, waiters, car repairmen and airline pilots how to drive other people nuts; Romance With a Double Bass (1974), a class-conscious yarn adapted from a Chekhov story; and Strange Case of the End of Civilization, in which he plays the grandson of Sherlock Holmes. It's a must for all Python completists. There isn't much new in Universal's The Michael J. Fox Comedy Favorite Collection, except a decent price for a four-film package: The Secret of My Success, The Hard Way, For Love or Money and Greedy. Of these, the ambitious black comedy, Greedy, is the most interesting, if only because of Kirk Douglas' cranky performance. Ditto, the Denzel Washington Spotlight Collection, which showcases excellent performances in The Hurricane and Mo' Better Blues, with good performances in middlin' titles, Inside Man and The Bone Collector. The Hurricane told the story of the miscarriage of justice visited on the boxer, Rubin Carter, while, in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues, Washington played a jazz horn player who's a bit too big for his britches.
Roots: Four-Disc: 30th Anniversary Edition In 1977, when the ABC mini-series Roots was first broadcast, it would be no exaggeration to say it captured the imagination of the entire nation and inspired a cottage industry in the tracing of family trees. Ratings went through the roof, causing some movie-theater owners to close early or not open their doors at all on some evenings. Only the Super Bowl carries the same clout in the age of cable television. Based on Alex Haley's best-selling novel, Roots followed several generations in the lives of a slave family, whose own roots were traced back to Africa. It has previously been released in DVD in a no-frills edition. The new one adds the audio commentary and video reminiscences of key actors, as well as the featurettes, Remembering Roots, Crossing Over: How 'Roots' Captivated a Nation and, from 1978, Roots: One Year Later. - Gary Dretzka
Universal Cinema Classics It's isn't clear exactly what, if anything connects the titles in Universal's latest entries in its Cinema Classics series, but it's nice they're here. Howard Hawks' Scarface will be the most familiar title in the collection, for obvious reasons. Although its release in 1932 was delayed a year due to a crackdown on graphic violence by the Hays Office, it remains part of an unholy trinity of gangster talkies with William Wellman's The Public Enemy and Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar. Together, they created a template used by filmmakers for nearly 40 years, or until the release of The Godfather. It made a loud return in 1983 in the form of Brian De Palma's contemporary version of Scarface, in which drug lords took over Prohibition-era bootleggers. The original is just as entertaining. Cecil B. DeMille's Unconquered is set in 1763, when a beautiful English felon (Paulette Godard) is sold into slavery on a boat to the colonies to an honorable Virginia military man (Gary Cooper). He soon frees her from any obligation to him., but, just as quickly, she's abducted by a disreputable character who hopes to profit from an Indian uprising against colonists on the frontier. It's at the point when the insurgency begins to threaten Fort Pitt that Cooper's character leaps into action. All of Demille's projects promised something big, and he usually delivered. Goddard also appears alongside glamorous Claudette Colbert and Veronica Lake in So Proudly We Hail. The film honors the nurses, even those who didn't rely on Max Factor for their on-the-job good looks, whose bravery and hard work have largely gone unheralded in movies, except as it pertained to the libidos of wounded soldiers. Here, Colbert and Superman-to-be George Reeves enjoy each other's company, while dodging bullets on Corregidor. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard play a con man and librarian, respectively, in the screwball comedy, No Man of Her Own. It would represent the only time the future man and wife would appear together on screen, except in newsreels. Look for the infamous Lombard-on-a-ladder scene that shocked the Catholic Church into creating the Legion of Decency. Like all of the other films in the series, No Man of Her Own arrives with introductions by Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne and other goodies. - Gary Dretzka
American Pastime Beisbol: The Latin Game Something to Cheer About There's no better month than May to gain an appreciation of baseball's ability not only to make time pass more quickly, but also to unite people in crisis, span generation gaps and open the doors of opportunity to athletically gifted youngsters. American Pastime harkens back to World War II, when the only Japanese-Americans playing baseball were locked behind the gates of internment camps. Today, of course, the presence of Japanese players in the big leagues has evolved from novelty to necessity. American Pastime demonstrates the game's curative powers at a time in the nation's history when the patriotism and loyalty of a largely native-born ethnic community was being questioned by flag-wavers, bigots and liberals, alike. Béisbol: The Latin Game reminds us of the long love affair between Spanish-speaking fans and athletes, and the game that has often paid them short-shrift. Even today, Roberto Clemente's immense legacy and untimely death in the service of hurricane victims is feels under-appreciated, compared to the many lavish testimonials to Jackie Robinson. While Robinson's achievement is well worth celebrating, baseball's official testimonials smack of self-flagellation. (The only thing missing is forcing players to wear hair-shirts under their uniforms during games commemorating the lifting of the color barrier.) One wonders how Major League baseball would memorialize Robinson if, after joining the Dodgers, he'd put up average numbers and been traded to the Senators before getting a World Series ring. Outside of his native Puerto Rico and adopted Pittsburgh, testimonials to the first Latino to be inducted into the Hall of Fame have been allowed to play out on a far more minor key. DVDs such as this Major League Baseball Production can serve as a needed corrective. It paints a complete portrait of the contributions made by Spanish-speaking players and profiles many of the stars. African-Americans have dominated organized basketball competition to such a degree that it's the rare fan -- black, white, Hispanic or Lithuanian -- who can remember or has been taught that this sport, too, once was segregated. Even after the NBA opened its doors to players of color, in 1950, many colleges and high schools defended their right to separate the races on the gym floor. Something to Cheer About tells the story of the 1955 Crispus Attucks Tigers, the Indiana team that became the first all-black unit to win a state championship. In 1956, it would go undefeated and become the first to all-black team to repeat as state champ. Its top player, Oscar Robertson, would go on to win championships at the Olympics, University of Cincinnati and Milwaukee Bucks. Watch it alongside Hoosiers, and you'll understand why basketball is more of a religion than a sport in Indiana. - Gary Dretzka
Girls Next Door Workout At about the same time as Hugh Hefner winnowed his harem of girlfriends from a bordering-on-grotesque seven to a comparatively reasonable three, someone also sold him on the idea of creating a reality show based on the ladies' everyday life at the Playboy Mansion. (His youngest children and their mother live next door, but are off-limits to the camera's probing eye). The result, of course, was E!'s guiltiest pleasure of them all, The Girls Next Door, a mini-series that leaves viewers green with envy or horrified in equal measure. This past season, Holly, Bridget and Kendra decided to sacrifice some the time usually reserved for obsessing over their fluffy house pets and Playboy-branded trinkets and panties, and engage in more career-minded pursuits. Image's Girls Next Door Workout was one of the them. Although the girls can be counted on to disrobe several times during the course of a typical show -- blurred on cable, unblurred on DVD -- the workout sessions remain chaste and safely at the beginner's level. Most of the advice is useful, but occasionally they'll thrown in a zinger. In her introduction, Holly cautions women to wear a restrictive sports bra, whether they're large-breasted or not, because you don't want your boobs hitting you in the face while exercising … unless, perhaps, you actually are small-breasted and are preying for a miracle. In any case, it is what it is: something to keep Hef's girlfriends busy while they wait for him not to marry them. - Gary Dretzka
The Hard Easy Slingshot Almost from the inception of these two unexceptional thrillers, the producers and everyone else involved must have known that the only money they were likely to make would come from browsers looking for familiar names. There 15 minutes of fame would come at video stores, or not at all. The Hard Easy is typical of crime-genre fare in the post-Tarantino era, in that sleight-of-hand and hard-boiled dialogue is more important than logical exposition. Here, two separate teams of heavily armed jewel thieves arrive simultaneously at the same diamond-rich target and realize too late that they've been double-crossed. All we really know for sure is that the gangs are led by a couple of hard-asses, and populated with characters who don't know a trigger from a trick horse. They're hard up for easy money, and that's enough reason for them to volunteer for the suicide mission. Among the fine actors caught in this net of deceit are Henry Thomas, David Boreanaz, Vera Farmiga, Bruce Dern, Peter Weller, Gary Busey and Jessica Simpson's former boy toy, Nick Lachey. None turns in a bad performance, but freshman director Ari Ryan and freshman screenwriter Jon Lindstrom seem always to be several steps behind the abilities of the cast members. The Hard Way isn't altogether horrible, though, so fans of really loud, profane and violent double-cross flicks might find something to enjoy. In Slingshot, David Arquette and Balthazar Getty -- both of whom have been attached themselves to far too many indie bow-wows -- play a pair of childhood pals determined never to make an honest living or to stay in the same town long enough to make the acquaintance of local police. Here, they land in a Connecticut town famous for its high per-capita income and stay-away husbands. The lads sense the left-behind wives will be horny enough to provide them with a warm bed, and stupid enough not realize to they're being set up for a scam. Getty's character is believably handsome and charming, but Arquette's Ratso Rizzo act probably wouldn't pass the smell test in a trailer park. Nonetheless, they're able to enjoy the affections of MILFs as fine as Julianna Margulies and Joely Fisher. Arquette's Ash not only feels slighted by his buddy's growing affection for Margulies' Karen, but he compounds the problem by wooing her bored daughter (Thora Birch) who's home from college. Instead of putting a twist on the Mrs. Robinson angle, rookie writer-director Jay Alaimo swerves in another direction altogether. Despite the best intentions of the cast, it doesn't lead anywhere particularly interesting. - Gary Dretzka
Vengeance Is Mine: Criterion Collection Army of Shadows: Criterion Collection Blissfully Yours Lest anyone believe the hype about Japan being a refuge from the many serial killers who have terrorized America for the last 100 years or so, the Criterion Collection edition of Shohei Imamura's Vengeance Is Mine is here to remind us that sociopathic behavior knows no boundaries. Upon its release in 1979, Iwao Enokizu's creepy psychodrama was compared to In Cold Blood. It reminded me more of John McNaughton's micro-budget Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which, even though lost in MPAA-ratings hell for three years, may have influenced more aspiring filmmakers than Richard Brooks' adaptation of the Truman Capote book. Like Henry, Imamura's film is based on an actual series of almost random murders. There's no lack of violence in Vengeance Is Mine, but Imamura is as interested in demonstrating the banality of Enokizu's crimes -- and those who commit such atrocities -- as other directors are committed to nailing down a killer's motivation with psycho-babble. He uses flashbacks to inform viewers of key moments in Enokizu's youth, but spends much more time following the killer as he evades a nationwide dragnet for 78 days. In scenes at once highly sensual and deeply disturbing, we become acquainted with residents of the brothel frequented by the professor before and after he's been identified as the killer. Despite the fact it was made in 1969, and only released here 37 years later, Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows found its way onto dozens of critics' top-10 lists for 2006. The powerful black-and-white thriller examines how a small cell of Resistance fighters dealt with being forced to live in the shadows of Vichy France and the Nazi occupation. Instead of focusing on the guerrilla attacks and espionage, Melville's film burrowed into the minds of the brave souls who lived in constant fear of being betrayed by strangers or friends, and tortured to extract information about fellow freedom fighters. Melville's stellar cast included Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Claude Mann and Paul Crauchet. World War II buffs should seek out Army of Shadows with the same determination as lovers of French cinema. From Thailand, Blissfully Yours carries the distinction of being named Best Undistributed Movie in a 2002 Village Voice critics' poll, and almost winning again in 2003. This, despite garnering the Un Certain Regard Award at the 2002 Cannes Festival, and being chosen by Les Cahiers du Cinéma as one of that year's 10 best pictures. To be fair, in America, with the No. 13 grosser that year being Scooby-Doo, there likely were only so many arthouse dollars to go around. Writer-director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who received a Master's degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, had envisioned Blissfully Yours as a film that played out over three hours in real time. Trimmed to a more releasable two hours, it has retained its languid, almost obsessively observant pace, while also making us care about a small group of friends who don't do much but be themselves. It opens in a medical clinic, moves slowly to a small factory and ends up in a densely forested slice of heaven adjacent to a smuggling route along the Burmese border. Oddly, it isn't until 37 minutes into the film, that the opening credits begin rolling over a bouncy bossa-nova beat, and the picture's mood changes completely. Only a few miles off the highway, one couple enjoys a picnic overlooking a spectacular valley, another gets jiggy under a canopy of leaves, and a swiftly flowing stream further removes them from the cold realities of Third World life. The women are Thai and their boyfriends are Burmese, a fact that adds an undercurrent of tension throughout Blissfully Yours. It doesn't disturb their idyll as much as it causes us to wonder what will happen after their drives home. Given the deliberate pace, however, there's no rush to reach conclusions or be more concerned about the characters' fate than they seem to be. Blissfully Yours pretty much represents the entirety of Thailand's indie movement, and nearly 10 minutes of graphic sexuality was edited out of the domestic release. To fully appreciate the experience, be sure to check out the making-of material and turn on the commentary track every now and then. -- Gary Dretzka
Tex Avery's Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection Tom and Jerry Tales, Vol. 2 Finding a review copy of Tex Avery's Droopy in my mail was a wonderful surprise. Although I'd stayed abreast of the cartoon characters represented in video and DVD compilations from Disney, Warners, MGM and other animation studios, I'd completely forgotten the series of Droopy cartoons created by animation pioneer Avery between 1943 and the 1959. The deadpan basset hound, who was drawn to look as if he'd just been awakened from a deep sleep, was known for being in the right place, at the right time, to thwart the ambitions of such troublesome critters as Wolf, Spike, Butch and English Fox. Avery created Droopy and Screwy Squirrel during his 12-year tenure at MGM; Chilly Willy for Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker); and Daffy Duck and certain key personality traits of Bugs Bunny for Leon Schlesinger at Warners. Besides all 24 theatrical cartoons, the set includes Droopy and Friends: A Laugh Back and Doggone Gags, a compilation of silly moments and outtakes. MGM's true franchise cartoon characters were Tom and Jerry, and their cat-vs.-mouse confrontations have been keeping people laughing, to various degrees, for more than 60 years. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were responsible for the studio's Tom and Jerry shorts, not Avery, but it's difficult not to see them as part of the same extended cartoon family . The dozen here shorts are from the recent TV series, Tom and Jerry Tales, and carry the banner of Warner Bros. Rendered digitally, the cartoons will be a bit off-putting for older fans accustomed to the hand-drawn process. Younger kids likely won't notice the difference.
Casi Casi Family Law Aimed primarily at Spanish-speaking middle-schoolers and their parents, Casi Casi seems to be informed in equal measures by Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Election and Napoleon Dynamite. Yet, taking into account its freshman writing-directing team and miniscule budget, Casi Casi is a reasonably entertaining and thoroughly unpretentious family comedy. Set in a generic public school, but obviously filmed in Puerto Rico, Jaime and Tony Vallés' film follows a group of semi-nerdy teens as they strategize a friend's campaign for Student Council president. By running for office, Emilio, who's yet to lose his baby fat or begin shaving on a regular basis, hopes to catch the eye of the most popular girl in their class. Jacklynne, who, like most kids in any school's ruling clique, is far more intimidating than popular. This social anomaly presents itself when Jacklynne announces her intention to run for the same office and Emilio decides that losing would be a far better way to win her affections. After delivering a rousing speech to the unpopular majority of students in their class, Emilio becomes a mortal lock to win. Faced with certain victory, Emilio asks his computer-savvy pals to rig the election in reverse. Standing in their way is Principal Richardson (wonderfully played by Marian Pabon), a stern task-master who senses that Emilio's geek patrol is intending to fix things so he will win. This confusion effectively drives the second half of the movie. Because of its all-Latino cast and island setting, Casi Casi is that rare Spanish-language cross-over hopeful that isn't weighed down by a subplot dealing with such issues as immigration, assimilation, inter-racial romance, substandard wages, gentrification, barrio politics and gang rivalries. It simply is what it is: a teen comedy. And, in this case, that's enough. From Argentina comes Family Law, a story about what happens to sons when they become fathers; fathers who become the fathers of fathers; and when sons who become fathers turn into their fathers. The father and son in question here are Perelman Sr. and Perelman Jr., lawyers who see their missions through very different prisms. The elder Perelman is more of a rascal and courtroom manipulator than his self-contained son. It isn't until he becomes a parent himself that Junior realizes that a child can put everything that follows in a far different perspective. Writer-director Daniel Burman has explored similar emotional territory in previous films, and his depictions of inter-generational communication, while serious, possess humor that's been compared to early Woody Allen. Family Law was nominated by Argentina for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category. -- Gary Dretzka
The Hitcher The Thirst Gothic Vampires from Hell Creepshow III Masters of Horror: Right to Die Half Past Dead 2 The Mad Alone With Her In the rush to re-make or add sequels and prequels to every semi-successful slasher, horror and teenager-in-jeopardy film from the second half of the 20th Century, some producers have skimped on the things that made the originals scary … original villains and unexpected thrills. The Hitcher is among the most recent to be trotted out for another spin. The trouble is, of course, that any side-by-side comparison will prove that Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton and Sean Bean shouldn't be on the same highway as Jennifer Jason Leigh, C. Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer, let alone share the same 1970 Oldsmobile 442. Being 2007, you'd also think college kids would be smart enough not to pick up hitch-hikers, and fans of the genre weren't desperate enough to fall for re-makes. In The Thirst, vampires have become so desperate for blood they don't care if it comes from junkies. Matt Keeslar and Clare Kramer play a pair of recovering drug addicts who get swept up in a network of Goth strip-club vampires, with a side interest in S&M. That should be enough to whet the appetites of genre fanatics. If not, there's also Gothic Vampires From Hell, in which sexy, blood-sucking record executives literally require bands to sign away their souls. The music is provided by such Goth and Industrial groups as Christian Death, Electric Hellfire Club, Pitbull Daycare, Switchblade Symphony and Fear Club. Is there any job a vampire won't take? And, why do vampires have to work, anyway? Vampires also turn up in various places in Creepshow III, the second sequel to George A. Romero and Stephen King's 1982 horror-anthology series. Among these Jolting Tales of Horror are stories about possessed radios and TV remote controls; a murderous prostitute, who picks up an undead john; demented professors; and sweet revenge. Shows like this are what helped keep premium cable in business in the years before original dramas and sitcoms became commonplace. Director Rob Schmidt is the latest to extend the Master of Horror franchise, which is being parceled out one hour-long episode at a time. In Right to Die, the always reliable Martin Donovan plays an unfaithful dentist whose wife is severely injured in a car wreck. The woman's body may be broken, but her spirit stays active wreaking vengeance on those who would take advantage of her situation. The DVD adds commentary, featurettes on the production and its special visual effects, and the shooting script in DVD-ROM format. Billy Zane, who's starred in the biggest box-office hit of all time, seems perfectly willing to trade the currency of his marquee name for paydays in goofy genre titles, such as The Mad. Johnny Kalangis' thriller finds a way to link zombies to dairy farming, which helps explain the frequent comic moments. The wrestlers Goldberg and Kurupt pick up where Steven Seagal left off in Half Past Dead, which did moderately well in its 2002 theatrical run and better in DVD. The sequel arrives directly on DVD, which saves greatly on marketing expenditures. The wrestlers have a built-in fan bases, and the title before the number tells genre nuts to expect another violent prison smackdown. The surprising success of Disturbia reminds us how popular movies about voyeurism can be when done well. Alone With Her, a more adult conceit, won't win any critics' prizes, but neither should it be relegated to the soft-core late-night ghetto of Cinemax and Encore. The story is told from the point of view of the young man -- or, more specifically, his bevy of spy cams --who's fixated on a beautiful, unsuspecting neighbor. In effect, writer-director Eric Nicholas demands that the viewer experience the titillation and shame that goes with the territory covered by the increasingly minute lenses of voyeurs. The film played the Tribeca festival, before debuting on pay-per-view cable. The unrated DVD adds an alternate ending, deleted scenes, commentary and stalker facts. -- Gary Dretzka
The Red Green Show: 1998 Season Home Improvement: The Complete Sixth Season The Last Detective: Series 3 The George Eliot Collection 131st Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show: Special Collector's Edition Alexander Hamilton The War at Home: The Complete First Season Martin: The Complete Second Season Wings: The Fourth Season The Red Green Show debuted on Canada's CBC in 1991, the same year Home Improvement launched on ABC in the Lower 48 … just in case anyone thought one show was a rip-off of the other. Like Tim The Tool Man Taylor, the bearded Red Green is a gifted handyman and fixer-upper who can work miracles with duct tape. They both spoofed the manly-man conceits of self-help and outdoors shows, and introduced appealing stock characters. But, while Home Improvement worked within the conventions of family sitcoms, The Red Green Show was more of sketch-comedy affair, complete with games, sage advice, stunts and true rustic appeal. Its lead star, Steve Smith, elected to stay with the show for 15 years, to Tim Allen's 8. In the sixth-season collection of Home Improvement, Tim sets out to usurp one of Bob Vila's records, while Jill and her wild sisters plan their parents' 50th anniversary. While doing some research on The Last Detective, an adaptation for TV of Leslie Thomas' novels, I stumbled upon this description of a chase: Constable 'Dangerous' Davies, who will never be confused with Magnum, P.I., can barely keep up with a suspect who has a twisted ankle, and when he finally corners the guy, Davies is so winded that the perp reads his rights to himself. The character, played by Peter Davison, reminds me of Det. Andy Sipowicz, before he kicked the booze and became a matinee idol. He makes his cases, but not before upending usual law-enforcement procedure. This week's other British import is The George Eliot Collection, which is comprised of five BBC programs based on the works of the 19th Century novelist: Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Silas Marner, Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss. The individual mini-series were splendidly written and staged with the same attention to detail reserved for every BBC production picked up for PBS' Masterpiece Theater. At one time, broadcasts of the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show were of interest to hard-core dog lovers and anyone with a heart who stumbled upon them while surfing through the cable channels. The dogs, of course, are the superstars of the show … elegantly turned out, well behaved and natural performers. What sold the coverage, though, were the human rituals that attended the dog world's biggest event, from the fetishistic grooming and high-stepping, to the prissiness of the professional handlers and worshipful commentary of the announcers and analysts. It became a sitting duck for Christopher Guest and his merry band of mockumentarians, in Best of Show. Both are irresistible. Tony-winning actor Brian O' Byrne portrayed Alexander Hamilton in PBS' The American Experience. The multi-faceted, no-holds-barred portrait of our first secretary of the Treasury offered a quite different perspective on the man than the one taught generations of high school students. There's no question left that he was among the most important of the Founding Fathers, a group of revolutionaries who are treated by their descendants as old fuddy-duddies. One wonders how seriously today's students would take the stories of these brave and learned men if, instead of wigs and poofy shirts, their portraits showed them wearing combat boots and jungle fatigues, a la Fidel Castro … or, at least, these Americans were portrayed in a way that suggested they weren't still adhering to King George's dress code. As this DVD reveals, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more fascinating politician and thinker than Hamilton in any book of 20th Century history. The marginal Fox sitcom, The War at Home, debuts on DVD with a compilation of all first-season episodes. Starring Michael Rapaport and Anita Barone, the show finds humor in the hurdles faced by Boomer parents when raising Boomlets who take it for granted that nothing they do will result in corporal punishment. The set adds deleted scenes, the featurette, Living Room Confessions, and the mandatory gag reel. I wonder if anyone else had trouble with the title, which was used to better effect in a very good Vietnam-era documentary and a Vietnam-informed drama, starring Emilio Estevez, Kathy Bates, Martin Sheen and Kimberly Williams. There was nothing funny about either one of those films. Also new to the TV-to-DVD shelves are Martin: The Complete Second Season, in which Martin Lawrence's cocky radio personality expands on the misadventures of his cronies, Gina, Tommy, Cole, Pam and, of course, Sheneneh. In Wings: The Fourth Season, the minders of a Cape Cod-based airline deal with wacky passengers, uncertain skies and loony locals. As workplaces go, their's was one of the most fondly remembered by sitcom fans. -- Gary Dretzka