Video review: "Wonder Woman"

I sometimes stop to think why “Wonder Woman” is such a superior super-hero flick.

After all, it is fairly conventional in its storytelling structure: a standard-issue origin tale, in which a reluctant youngster acquires extraordinary abilities/status, applies them in the greater world in what they think are appropriate ways and later learns the pitfalls of that whole great powers/great responsibilities rubric.

It starts, I think, with this heroine and this actress. The superhero genre has gone through some interesting changes over the past two decades, but it’s still heavily predominated by male filmmakers presenting male characters for a male audience. The women are, literally, the background characters and the sidekicks.

Even Wonder Woman started out that way, as a third-act boost to -- and in many ways the best thing about – last year’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”

There was a sad, reluctant quality to Wonder Woman in her few moments of non-fighting scenes, and we get to explore that fully and forcefully in her solo flick. Directed by Patty Jenkins – who had to wait 14 years between her first and second feature film directing credit – from a screenplay by Allan Heinberg, the film re-introduces us to the character, fleshing out the flashy exterior in ways that surprise and touch us.

She journeys from naivety to poise, from innocent to hardened warrior and from privileged princess to self-imposed outsider.

And you cannot separate Gal Gadot from the success of “Wonder Woman.” She embodies the character’s strength and vulnerability, bringing a weighty presence you don’t normally see in a superhero flick. It may just be the best acting performance in this genre since… ever.

Chris Pine acquits himself nicely in the “romantic interest” role normally reserved for a female character, as an American spy infiltrating the German World War I war machine working on chemical weapons of mass destruction.

Danny Huston is his usual sneering self as the chief villain, but I was much more affected by Dr. Maru, the creepy scientist dubbed “Dr. Poison,” played so soulfully by Elena Anaya. With her broken mask and shattered psyche, the character is worthy of her own movie.

In the end, “Wonder Woman” triumphed not just because it was about a female hero, but because the people involved in making it obviously invested so much of their passion and souls into this wondrous film.

Bonus features are quite expansive and exquisite, and are nearly the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions. The centerpiece is “Crafting the Wonder,” a comprehensive making-of documentary.

Probably the highlight is a series of featurettes called “A Director’s Vision,” as Jenkins takes viewers on exclusive behind-the-scenes journeys through filming several key sequences and themes of the picture. There is one bonus new scene and several extended ones, a blooper reel, and interactions with young female filmmakers, poets and other artists who have been inspired by Wonder Woman.

Other features explore her role within the DC Comics “Trinity” with Batman and Superman and creating the Amazonian army.

Movie:

Extras:

Video review: "Le Grande Illusion"

It doesn't have the reputation here in the States that it does overseas, but "Le Grande Illusion" (The Grand Illusion) is often referred to as the greatest film ever made, even besting perennial favorite "Citizen Kane" in some critics' minds.

I wouldn't quite line up behind them. But there's no denying the lovely poetry of this 1938 French film by Jean Renoir about Allied prisoners of war and their German captors. Set during the more gentlemanly era of World War I, it arrived at a time in a Europe when everyone surely knew another great cataclysm was upon them.

"Le Grande Illusion" is finally getting a Blu-ray release with a first-class transfer of a recently restored version of the movie.

The story centers on three French aviation officers: Lt. Marechal (Jean Gabin), Lt. Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) and Capt. de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay). They were all shot down, and react in different ways to the idea of being sidelined for the rest of the war.

Marechal and Rosenthal endeavor to find a method of escape, while the noble-born de Boeldieu finds himself drawn into a friendship with the German prison commander, Capt. von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) a fellow aristocrat. Horribly burnt, von Rauffenstein wears a stiff body brace, full uniform and spotless white gloves, indications of his carefully-cultivated ideals.

Through subtle dialogue and gorgeous cinematography, the film quietly punctures the notion that the best qualities mankind possesses -- bravery, compassion, humility -- are birthrights. True nobility is earned -- that's the lesson this cinematic standout imparts.

The blu-ray release comes with a number of features, some of which are recycled from previous DVD editions and some of which are all-new. The latter include a retrospective by critic Olivier Curchod, and an original negative of the film.

There are also featurettes on the restoration process, original trailers and other appreciations by film experts.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Video review: "Singin' in the Rain 60th Anniversary"

Since "Singin' in the Rain" came out 60 years ago, it has frequently been called the greatest movie musical ever. Who am I to disagree?

So what is it that makes this comedy/romance so engaging, so memorable, so iconic? There's the music, of course -- several classic tunes like the title song, "You Are My Lucky Star," "Make 'Em Laugh," All I Do is Dream of You" and others.

Then there are the terrific dance numbers. Gene Kelly combined a ballet dancer's grace with an athlete's masculine intensity. The scene where he sloshes through the rain puddles in the street was an instant classic. And who can forget Donald O'Connor literally running up the wall?

For me, what makes "Singin'" sensational is the timeless quality of its story. Even though it's about a very specific Hollywood era -- the transition from silent to sound movies -- the basic parable of the strutting peacock who learns humility and compassion is a cultural archetype that still resonates.

And that cast! Kelly and O'Connor shone as matinee idol Don Lockwood and his sidekick Cosmo, while a teenage Debbie Reynolds became a star playing small-town girl Kathy Selden. Jean Hagen was a hoot as squeaky-voiced Lina Lamont, and Cyd Charisse performed a memorable pas de deux with Kelly.

In the end, the reason "Singin' in the Rain" is so great is that it was simply the best expression of the musical genre -- exuberant Hollywood razzmatazz, sweet love story, fall-down funny jokes and a poignant moment or two.

To celebrate the film's 60th anniversary, Warner Bros. has issued a special edition loaded with goodies.

A commentary track includes insights from various stars and filmmakers who worked on the movie, both living as dead -- Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Cyd Charisse, Adolph Green, Stanley Donen among them -- as well as reflections from modern practitioners of the musical genre like Baz Luhrmann.

"Singin' in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation" is an all-new documentary to go with some existing features repurposed from previous editions. There are also outtakes, a gallery of stills and featurettes about producer Arthur Freed's legacy at MGM.

Movie: 4 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Video review: "The Road"

A Man. A Boy. We know they are father and son, because they call each other so, but we never learn their names. They're bedraggled and filthy, their cheeks caved in with dire hunger, as they push their meager possessions in a rusty shopping cart down an ash-strewn road, with the threat or horrendous death around every turn.

That's the bleak yet uplifting world of "The Road," one of 2009's best films -- which almost no one saw because it barely got released in theaters.

It's out on video now, and I urge people to give this spare, understated near-masterpiece a chance.

Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smith-McPhee star as the pair struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Taking a cue from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, director John Hillcoat ("The Proposition") underplays the performances and the dialogue. Screenwriter Joe Penhall lets the emotional drama assert itself without superfluous embellishment.

We're not even sure what turned the world into such a forbidding expanse of death and decay. Nuclear war seems likely. It's not even clear where the man and boy are heading, other than trying to escape winter's grasp and endure another day.

They meet other humans, but most of the time it's not a welcome occasion. With nothing able to grow, much of mankind has resorted to cannibalism for food. It's a zero-sum game whose only conclusion is humanity's extinction.

But among all this crushing bleakness, there is joy and tenderness that is exhilarating.

Robert Duvall and Charlize Theron have brief but powerful roles as, respectively, an ancient man they meet along the road and the wife and mother who deserted them, giving up all hope and abandoning them to her despair.

Extras are the same for both Blu-ray and DVD versions.

There is a making-of documentary and several deleted scenes, as well as a feature-length commentary track by Hillcoat.

I'm actually rather perturbed at how "The Road" was received. Its release was delayed for about a year, perhaps because in the then-new economic devastation, the studio rationalized that audiences wouldn't greet such a downbeat film with much enthusiasm.

Prove them wrong.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Video review: "Good Hair"

Chris Rock got the idea for "Good Hair" when his young daughter came up to him one day and asked, "Daddy, why don't I have good hair?"

That simple question led to this documentary about black women's relationship to their hair that is heartbreaking and illuminating, and often raucously funny.

Rock roams into Harlem hairdresser shops, an Atlanta stylist convention, factories filled with vats of chemical relaxers, and even remote Indian temples to answer his daughter's question.

What he discovers is a multiple-billion-dollar industry built around the idea of convincing African-Americans their hair needs to be tortured and teased in order to look "natural."

Some of the funniest scenes are in Rock's interviews with beautiful black celebrities like Nia Long, Eve and Raven-Symoné, who talk frankly about the expensive weaves they braid into their own coiffures.

Rock travels to India, visiting back-alley sweatshops where human hair is processed in a primitive fashion to be shipped to Beverly Hills boutiques. He even observes the religious practice of tonsure, the wellspring of this river of hair.

But the movie's real heart lies in Rock's revealing chats with everyday folks in barber shops, in scenes that are both funny and confessional.

Other than a copy of the theatrical trailer, DVD extras are limited to a single item. But it's a doozy: A feature-length commentary track with Rock and producer Nelson George.

The commentary is nearly as much fun as the movie itself, and also offers a few special insights. For example, Rock met one of the film's principal subjects, a hair product magnate, while attending a fundraiser for Barack Obama at Oprah's house.

I also liked their running commentary about their trip to India, including a surprising find by Rock in the local airport, and George's decision to throw away his luggage upon returning home.

The lack of other features is grating, though. What's especially odd is that during their commentary, Rock and George repeatedly refer to things that will be in the DVD extras.

I kept hunting through the disc's menus to find these phantom extras.

Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 2.5 stars

Video review: "Gamer"

"Gamer," the latest attempt to meld video games with movies, starts out with a cool, compelling premise. And then it devolves into a bunch of hyper-fast action scenes, maudlin emotions and exploitative imperatives.

The filmmakers, the same team behind the "Crank" movies, seem to have their own peculiar formula. It's like a marriage of 1970s exploitation movies and modern, ultra-hip music video style.

The set-up is that the world is slowly being taken over by video games -- literally. Gerard Butler stars as Kable, the star of a combat game that billions of people watch on pay-per-view. The only twist is that he's a real person, playing against other live would-be soldiers. They're being controlled by players, who can determine whether they live or die.

The heavy is Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall), the gaming wizard who devised the system, and played by Hall as a Ted Turner spoof, only younger and crazier. He wants to use his nefarious code to turn the brains of everyone on the planet into easily-manipulated hardware.

The computer-animation-assisted action scenes have a nice kinetic feel. But whenever these video-game avatars try to emote like real humans, I wanted to hit the Off switch.

Extras cover a pretty wide range of material, although the ratio of substance to hype is pretty low.

The DVD has a 16-minute featurette that's essentially a commercial for Red, a new type of digital camera. Co-writers/directors Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine team up with supporting stars Amber Valletta, Alison Lohman and Terry Crews for a rambling commentary track of dubious value.

There's also a making-of documentary that's nearly as long as the movie itself, though not much more entertaining.

In addition to these features, the Blu-ray version also comes with Cheat Codes, additional scene-specific audio and video commentary, and I-Con Mode, an "interactive time-shifting multi-dimensional exploration" of "Gamer."

It's notable that star Butler is almost totally absent from these extras -- although he does moon the camera at the end of the making-of feature. I'd say that's about how much regard this movie has for its audience.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 2 stars

Video review: "Whatever Works"

Here's my take on "Whatever Works": Woody Allen got too old to play Woody Allen, so he hired Larry David to do it for him.

The 73-year-old auteur is getting a mite long in the tooth to do his neurotic New York misanthrope shtick, so other actors have had to take over. Larry David, co-creator of "Seinfeld" and star of his own show, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," makes for a decent stand-in.

Actually, David is a double stand-in: Allen wrote the screenplay in the 1970s for the late, great Zero Mostel, who unfortunately left this mortal coil before the movie could be made.

David plays Boris Yellnikoff, a brilliant but unlikeable guy who gave up physics to teach chess to children. Boris is in perpetual holler mode, shouting at his students, people who annoy him -- which is just about everybody -- and at the world in general.

A 21-year-old Southern belle runaway (Evan Rachel Wood) shows up on his doorstep begging for food, and soon she's living with him, and eventually marries him. She's dumb as a doorstop, but her presence keeps Boris' jangled nerves relatively calm.

It's mostly rehashed Woody Allen jokes, occasionally funny and occasionally annoying.

Things really get screwy when first the girl's mother (Patricia Clarkson) and then her father (Ed Begley Jr.) come traipsing along in search of her. Both are Bible-thumping caricatures, and to these Southern ears, both their accents and portrayal are ludicrous, bordering on the offensive.

Seeing how Woody is one of the highest-profile defenders of Roman Polanski in his bid to avoid extradition for raping a 13-year-old girl, it's uncomfortable to ponder how often these romances between crusty old men and impressionable young girls crop up in Allen's movies -- and his own life.

If you're looking for video extras, you won't have to search long: Both the DVD and Blu-ray versions contain only the theatrical trailer.

But I guess if Woody is content to dust off hum-drum 30-year-old scripts, it's obvious he wasn't interested in putting in an extra effort. "Whatever Works" mostly doesn't.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 1 star

Video review: "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"

Director Michael Bay is the king of the big, dumb summer action movie, and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is as big and dumb as they come.

Surprisingly, though, it actually manages to improve on 2007's "Transformers" by stirring up a dramatic moment or two centered around robot hero Optimus Prime. In a summer wasteland of disappointing movies, Optimus (emphatically voiced by Peter Cullens) was the best cinematic hero of the season.

The action scenes are still an exercise in migraine-inducing computer-generated special effects, as heroic Autobots and villainous Decepticons tangle in a blur of metal pieces and widgets. Since both can transform into other things, it's virtually impossible to tell where one robot begins and another ends.

The story is a mishmash of gobbledygook about a secret Decepticon overlord named the Fallen who wants to set off an ancient weapon hidden long ago on Earth, but first he needs a special key.

Human protagonist Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is somehow involved once again, mainly as an excuse for him to do a lot of running from the bad guys, with Megan Fox tagging along as the obligatory -- and totally unnecessary -- eye candy.

The movie attempts to make up for its lack of sense with an inundation of extra material.

Both DVD and Blu-ray versions come with a feature-length commentary by Bay and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman; an extensive making-of documentary; a featurette accompanying Bay to the film's Tokyo premiere; a look at the "Transformer" franchise's 25-year history; extended scenes; pre-visualization renderings of robots and action sequences; and the "New Divide" music video by Linkin Park.

The Blu-ray also comes with an interactive "Allspark" game; data files on individual robots including personal timeline; and featurettes on the marketing of the movie.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

DVD review: "Drag Me To Hell"

Your average popcorn-munching movie-goer probably only knows Sam Raimi as the director of the "Spider-Man" blockbusters. Hardcore horror fans realize that Raimi honed his filmmaking skills doing "wet work" with cheapie gross-out flicks like the "Evil Dead" series.

For this neglected latter group, his newest movie, "Drag Me to Hell," is like love letter and a bouquet of roses -- dripping in blood, that is.

Alison Lohman (who's 30 but looks 16) plays Christine Brown, a bank loan officer who gets hit with a nasty gypsy curse when she refuses to grant an extension on the foreclosure of a one-eyed old crone's (Lorna Raver) house.

Soon Christine is being haunted by shadowy tormenters who bust up her home and smack her around. In one nasty bit, a fly forces its way down her throat while she's asleep, only to reemerge at an inopportune time (still buzzing around) while she's lunching with her beau's (Justin Long) snooty parents.

Raimi (who also co-wrote the script with brother Ivan) blends the humorous and the horrendous to generally enjoyable effect, although there are times -- such as a big séance scene -- when the movie takes itself so seriously, you keep expecting hysterics to break out that never arrive.

Video extras are pretty skimpy. The DVD and Blu-ray both come with the theatrical and unrated version (which amps up the goo in several key scenes) and a 30-minute series of video diaries that touch on various elements of production. The most entertaining is learning how stunt coordinators rigged Lohman with a special nose tube for the scene where she spews blood all over her boss. (Who among us hasn't had that dream?)

The Blu-ray version also comes with a digital copy of the film for uploading to a portable video device.

I'll say this for "Drag Me to Hell": It has one of the coolest endings of any movie I've seen this year.

Movie: 2.5 stars
Extras: 1.5 stars

Video review: "My Life in Ruins"

If "My Life in Ruins" looks thematically similar to Nia Vardalos' breakout hit "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," that's because it is.

Once again the order of the day is corny but heartfelt humor, unlikely romance and learning to appreciate the little things in life.

Vardalos, looking utterly gorgeous, plays Georgia, an American scholar who moved to Greece to study the ancient ruins, but lost her job and is now consigned to giving tours for a crappy tourist company.

She always gets stuck with the lousy group, the broke-down bus and the surly driver. But things change with the help of a kooky tour group consisting of a crotchety old jokester (Richard Dreyfuss), a kleptomaniac grandmother, some horny Spanish divorcees and a doofus Florida Gator, amongst others.

It doesn't hurt that her driver, Poupi (Alexis Georgoulis), grows less hairy and more dreamy as the movie goes on.

The movie doesn't have a lot of brains -- for instance, we never learn what it was that made Georgia decamp from the States -- but it does have plenty of heart.

Extras are the same for both DVD and Blu-ray: Eight deleted/alternate scenes with director's commentary, a gag reel, and three separate commentary tracks by Vardalos, director Donald Petrie and screenwriter Mike Reiss.

Commentaries are nearly always better when two or more people team up to do them, so why the threesome didn't join forces rather than each doing their own thing is puzzling. Especially since Vardalos' track contains many long pauses.

Still, she is just naturally funny, as in this comment about an onscreen joke about Greek women having mustaches: "Now, that's a silly joke, because as a Greek girl I don't have a mustache ... because I had laser done."

Movie: 2.5 stars
Extras: 3 stars

DVD review: "Away We Go"

Director Sam Mendes' first film, "American Beauty," won a slew of Oscars, and he's had his ups and downs since then. Last fall's "Revolutionary Road," pairing Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in a disintegrating marriage, was a major disappointment. But Mendes redeems himself somewhat with "Away We Go," a funny and quirky take on relationships.

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph play Burt and Verona, an unmarried but committed couple expecting a baby. They're in their early 30s, a bit scatterbrained and irresponsible, but basically good people.

When Burt's parents -- whom they'd hoped to rely upon for child care help -- suddenly decide to move away, Verona and Burt begin a cross-country trip to find a new home.

They visit a variety of friends and relations, played by wonderful actors like Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels and Allison Janney. The hosts grow increasingly kooky, and as enjoyable as these visits are, we come to realize that such characters exist only in the movies.

But still, I was never bored and the laugh-out-loud moments, while spread fairly far apart by screenwriters Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers, earn their chuckles.

Maggie Gyllenhall has a particularly hilarious turn as Burt's cousin, who takes the whole earth-mother routine to such an extreme that she angrily rejects their gift of a baby stroller: "Why would I want to push my child away from me?!?"

DVD extras are decent in scope, but less than impressive. A 16-minute making-of documentary contains more hype than insight, and a featurette about how they endeavored to keep the production environmentally friendly is just self-congratulatory fluff.

Mendes, Eggers and Vida team up for a feature-length commentary that consists mostly of moment-by-moment observations about the circumstances of how each scene was written and/or shot.

In addition to the DVD bonus material, the Blu-ray version contains a small amount of material available only online.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 2.5 stars

DVD review: "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was doomed before they even started filming.

Not because audiences didn't want to see a spin-off about most popular character from the "X-Men" movies. Comic book fans were hungry for a story on the further adventures of the wayward mutant hero with metal claws and a healing ability that makes him unkillable -- preferably one they're already familiar with from the character's long history. (Japan, anyone?)

Instead, director Gavin Hood and his team delve into the character's origin story, which turns out to be one long Cain and Abel saga in which Wolverine and his similarly clawed brother Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) play out their sibling rivalry in a seemingly endless series of stabby tussles.

Face it: Wolverine was more intriguing as a mystery man. The minute they tried to burden him with a past, he diminished as a character.

The DVD comes with a good set of extras, including two separate feature commentaries, one by Hood and the other by producers Brian Winter and Lauren Shuler Donner. Each are entertaining without covering much new ground.

Wolverine's comic book creators, Stan Lee and Len Wein, trade amusing banter in a 16-minute featurette in which Lee reveals that he considered the X-Men the runt of his litter of other comic titles such as "Thor" and "The Fantastic Four."

In "Wolverine Unleashed," a 12-minute making-of doc, star Hugh Jackman says his disturbingly veiny physique -- which he spent months sculpting with a special diet and training regimen -- was intended to make the character appear "freaky." "I wanted it to look animal," he says.

There are also four deleted/alternate scenes, including a variation on a critical scene leading up to the final showdown with Victor, in which Wolverine agrees to have his memories erased.

While straining credulity, this explanation for his memory loss is superior to the laughable moment in the final film, in which Wolverine is shot in the head with bullets made from the same indestructible metal in his skeleton. At least they weren't silver.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

DVD review: "Crank 2: High Voltage"

Imagine if you had a pair of 14-year-old boys who had never gone to school, never read a book, and they just stayed inside and watched TV and played video games, and that was all they knew of the world. "Crank 2: High Voltage" is the movie they would make.

This isn't to say that writing/directing duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who launched their careers with the first "Crank," are developmentally stunted individuals. They just make movies for people who are.

Indeed, in wading through the healthy set of extras that come with the "Crank 2" special-edition DVD, Neveldine/Taylor (as they bill themselves) come across as a wise-cracking, hip and smart duo who are fully aware that they're making preposterous action flicks for the attention deficit disordered.

At one point in the feature-length commentary track, they state unequivocally that one of their major plot points -- having to do with rubbing bodies together to create friction -- is complete bunk. "If you really believed this, then thanks for your $10," one of them says.

Hey, when it comes to exploitation filmmaking, at least they're honest -- and entertaining.
Now, you might think that the fact that grim hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) died at the end of the first "Crank" might be an impediment to a sequel. But that's an easy fix -- some Chinese mobsters snatch his body from where it fell out of a helicopter, take out his heart and stick in an artificial one.

Like the first movie, Chev needs regular jolts of electricity to keep his fake ticker going, so he's forever sticking his finger in electrical outlets, grabbing hold of transformers or getting zapped by jumper cables attached to his nipple and tongue.

His adversaries are an endless array of racist portrayals of minorities who fall down with the ease of video game bogeymen.

In addition to the commentary, there's a 50-minute making-of documentary, featurette of continuity errors, theatrical trailer and a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 1 star
Extras: 3.5 stars

DVD review: "State of Play"

An above-average political thriller, "State of Play" also offers one of the most authentic portrayals of newspaper journalists since "All the President's Men."

With his frumpy clothes fitting poorly over a pudgy body, paper-strewn cubicle, studied nonchalance and scruffy beard decorated with Cheetos crumbs, Russell Crowe appears every inch the grizzled, veteran reporter. His Cal McAffrey is an old-school digger for the fictional Washington Globe.

His best friend also happens to be Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), a young, Kennedy-esque Congressman who gets caught up in a sex-and-murder imbroglio that Cal has been assigned to investigate.

Tagging along is an idealistic young blogger (Rachel McAdams) who Cal initially treats dismissively. In time, he sees that the kid's got chops, and they become partners in the biggest story in Washington, D.C.

Helen Mirren also has a nice turn as the ball-busting editor trying to get a juicy story where her star reporter has a personal connection that could lead to a big scoop, but also backfire if he tries to protect his friend rather than the facts. She also has to deal with impersonal new corporate owners who value profit over news.

Director Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") and his trio of screenwriters stir the pot expertly at first, allowing the players and pieces of the puzzle to assemble themselves. The second half turns too much to conventional thriller tropes, including the unlikely scenario of both Cal and his young partner having shots taken at them in separate incidents.

DVD extras are rather miserly: Two deleted scenes and a making-of featurette that consists of more hype than insight. The only interesting thing I found in the latter was cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto's decision to shoot Crowe's scenes on film with an anthropomorphic lens to give them a gritty, shallow look while using digital video with a deep focus for Affleck's scenes to make Washington's corridors of power seem sleek and expansive.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 2 stars

DVD review: "Duplicity"

A clever, sexy caper, "Duplicity" marked Julia Roberts' big return to leading-lady status after several years of sporadic supporting roles. Audiences seemed to shrug with indifference, but might want to give it a second look now that it's out on video.

"Duplicity" again pairs Roberts with her "Closer" lover, Clive Owen, as a pair of spies who turn their espionage skills to making a killing in the private sector so they can retire in leisure. Their game is to triple-cross a pair of cosmetic companies, one led by Paul Giamatti and the other by Tom Wilkinson, and cash in on the secretive new product one of them has in the works.

Roberts works for one corporation, but secretly spies for the other where Owen is on the security team, and meanwhile they're maneuvering to have the formula for themselves. Much of the film is concerned with the various schemes and crises that emerge as they draw nearer to their goal.

But really the film is about their relationship, and whether two people who have spent most of their lives deceiving others can truly ever be in love, which at its core is an expression of trust. The scenes where the pair meet up in clandestine locations and verbally spar, trying to test each other's loyalty, are reason alone to justify a rental.

Extras are confined to a single item: A feature-length commentary track by writer/director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") and editor/producer (and brother) John Gilroy. The pair make for entertaining and informative guides, providing behind-the-scenes insights as well as casual banter.

Among other things, Gilroy reveals that he originally wrote the screenplay for Stephen Spielberg, with the proviso that if he passed on it, he'd let Gilroy direct. The siblings also note that the film's opening scene in Dubai was a half-hearted addition that they ended up liking so much, they put it before the title sequence that originally began the film.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 2.5 stars

DVD review: "The Last House on the Left"

For fans of the horror genre, these are dog days.

Between wimpy PG-13 watered-down scareflicks that elicit more derisive laughs than fear, and grisly "torture porn" movies that substitute carving of flesh for ratcheting up tension, those of us who enjoy films that truly frighten have not had much reason to anticipate the latest offerings.

Perhaps it's no surprise that horror merchants have turned to remaking classics of the genre for an unsuspecting new generation of fans. The "Halloween," "Friday the 13th" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchises have all enjoyed lucrative recycling.

"The Last House on the Left" is the latest and, surprisingly, best example of this trend. This remake of the 1972 debut of director Wes Craven ("Nightmare on Elm Street") actually manages some genuine thrills.

It's certainly violent -- and the unrated DVD version pumps up the blood-letting over what audiences saw in theaters -- but director Dennis Eliadis has a nice eye for composition as well as a flair for generating a sense of paranoia.

Both the original and remake employ the set-up of Mari, a teen girl vacationing at a remote house with her parents. While out to score some pot, she and a girlfriend are captured by a gang of murderers, who torture and rape the girls. As it happens, the killers show up on the doorstep of Mari's parents, who eventually discover that the unexpected guests are their daughter's tormentors, and seek revenge.

Garret Dillahunt gives a satisfyingly creepy performance as Krug, the head of the gang, who is trying to initiate his young son into his twisted sense of manhood.

As for extras, it's very meager fare. There are a handful of "deleted" scenes, most of which are just slightly re-edited versions of existing footage. And there's a very brief making-of featurette that is little more than marketing hype, where the filmmakers tell each other how great they are.

Movie: 2.5 stars
Extras: 1.5 stars

DVD review: "Fast and Furious'

The "Fast and Furious" franchise comes full circle with the fourth film, which reunites original cast members Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez as gearheads driving tricked-out cars through an improbable and seemingly endless series of chases.

Justin Lin, who also directed the third movie, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," delivers an aggressively stupid action film in which all the women are hoochies with ample cleavage and booty shorts, and all the men are so overpumped with machismo that every exchange of dialogue becomes a duel of glares and snorts.

The cars are the real stars of the movie. Both Diesel, as criminal Dom Toretto, and Walker, as undercover fed agent Brian O'Conner, drive a variety of cool vehicles during the course of the movie, nearly all of which end up in a pile of twisted debris. Toretto's black Charger makes a return from the first film, along with a number of American muscle cars and tuner imports.

The plot involves Dom and Brian infiltrating a Mexican heroin-smuggling ring. There's a big race to determine who will get to join the faceless drug lord's crew of drivers. Dom wins, but then Brian inexplicably is allowed to come along too, which kind of renders the race pointless. It's undoubtedly galling to the drivers who crashed during that race, at speeds that must have left them in the hospital, or mortuary.

"Fast and Furious" comes in single- and two-disc versions. Both include a gag reel and director's commentary by Lin, which tends to stick to pedantic shot-by-shot descriptions.

The two-disc version also includes a digital copy of the film, a short movie called "Los Bandoleros" about Central American crime, and a variety of making-of featurettes. One shows Vin Diesel attending stunt driving school in preparation for the shoot, will another is a breakdown of how they shot the opening heist of a big rig towing five fuel tankers.

Movie: 1.5 stars
Extras: 3 stars

DVD review: "Coraline"

"Coraline" is a delightful movie, and it's always a delight to see a film get a first-class video release right out of the gate.

The two-disc collector's edition DVD has almost everything a fan of this stop-motion animation gem could desire. To start with, it includes both 2-D and 3-D versions of the film. (Four sets of cardboard 3-D glasses are included with the DVD, though they're a bit flimsy. Far be it from me to suggest swiping sturdier plastic ones from a current showing of "Up.")

It also includes a digital copy of the film for legal downloading to your portable video device -- something that should be standard issue with DVDs, as far as I'm concerned. Luckily, studios seem to feel the same way and are including it with more DVD releases, and on most Blu-ray discs.

A 35-minute making-of documentary details the painstaking way in which animators move puppets frame-by-frame to lend the illusion of motion. There's also a featurette on casting the voice actors -- I hadn't even realized that John Hodgman (the "I'm a PC" guy from those TV commercials) supplied the graceful voice of the father -- and several deleted scenes.

A commentary track by writer/director Henry Selick and composer Bruno Coulais provides plenty of behind-the-scenes details. Selick says he was pressured to do the film in a half computer-generated/half stop-motion format, but successfully resisted. And he reveals that Dakota Fanning was nine years old when she was cast as Coraline, but was 14 by the time they finished.

The story, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, is about a girl who moves with her two workaholic parents to a dreary boarding house. She discovers a passageway to an alternate world where her "Other Mother," "Other Father" and all their neighbors are much friendly versions of themselves -- except for their creepy button eyes, which portend sinister developments.

In the mold of Selick's "The Nightmare Before Christmas," "Coraline" relies on gloomy imagery to weave a joyous tale of visual splendor.

Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 4 stars

DVD review: "Waltz with Bashir"

“Waltz with Bashir” was not only one of the best films of 2008 – it was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar – it also represented a cinematic watershed, blending and transcending the genres of animation, documentary and fiction.

Centering on the Israeli war in Lebanon during the early 1980s, “Bashir” is more than writer/director Ari Folman’s diary of his experiences as a young soldier caught in insanity of war. Unable to remember key sections of his time in battle, he sets out to interview comrades and strangers alike in an attempt to recover his own memories.

Folman accomplishes this through hypnotic animation that is somehow both hyperrealistic and dreamlike. The slow-moving images, which resemble cut-out photographs being slowly manipulated, are crude by Pixar standards. But this simplicity lends an evocative note to the horrible events they portray.

The DVD comes with a robust set of extras, which shed light on the process by which a combination of real people and actors were videotaped, and that footage was then animated using a combination of traditional animation, Flash animation and 3-D techniques. In the short but information-dense making-of documentary, we learn among other things that chief animator Yoni Goodman switched from drawing with his right hand to his left because he felt the results were “too pretty.”

For those who want more detail on the animation process, another feature shows the step-by-step transformation of four pivotal scenes from video to finished film. There's also a Q&A with Folman at the Cannes Film Festival.

And Folman supplies an engaging commentary track that adds new layers to the search for his lost memories. In one of the more amazing sections, he talks about how Israeli soldiers on leave would travel by helicopter from the frontlines of battle to quiet Jewish towns in 20 minutes, only to encounter residents who were barely aware of the war.

Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 3 stars

DVD review: "Gran Torino"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.