Recent DVD Releases

Gone Baby Gone is a triumph for the brothers Affleck. Ben displays a sure hand in its first attempt at direction, presenting a sense of place rarely scene with such accuracy and insight. Casey delivers a multi-layered performance that surpasses his Oscar nominated turn in "The Assassination of Jesse James" as Patrick Kenzie, a neighborhood private detective who, with Angie Gennnaro (Michelle Monaghan), his personal and professional partner, is hired to augment the investigation into the disappearance of a 4-year-old girl. The police investigation is being conducted by detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton) and supervised by Capt. Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), whose own son was killed many years earlier. The movie has the courage to pose moral questions: Does the (I'm trying to thing of a better description than "white trash," but I don't think there is one) of the world deserve the same treatment under the law as the priviledged class? Should justice really be blind or should those higher on society's ladder be given differential treatment in criminal matters. I watched this DVD with a group of individuals whose opinions I respect and I was shocked when I saw that every single one of them said justice should, in fact, be prejudiced against lower classes (personified in this film by Helene McCready [Amy Ryan, who justly deserved her Oscar nomination), the missing child's mother). But that's how well Ben Affleck presents the argument. I don't agree with that choice and neither does the morale center of this film, but I could understand how, based on the evidence Affleck offers, they could come to that decision. Grade: B-

In the Shadow of the Moon is a moving, riveting documentary from British director David Sington that recounts what is, in my opinion, America's finest hour -- that time when we sent 15 men on a journey to another world. The movie uses no narration. Instead it features interviews with many of those men today, who recall with humor, pathos, awe and words of inspiration what it felt like to be a part of the Apollo space program in general and this small select group of individuals in particular. The film focuses, of course, on the flight of Apollo 11, the first moon landing, with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Unfortunately, Armstrong refused to participate in the story but his cool-headed, heroic expertise is illustrated by the other two. Interestingly, although Collins was almost the forgotten member of this trio because he remained in the command module circling the moon while Aldrin and Armstrong walked on it, it his recollections that are the the most illuminating. The movie doesn't avoid the tragedy of Apollo 1 or the crisis of Apollo 13, but, for the most part, this is the story of how a group of men emerged from obscurity to unite the world in a shared dream. Grade: B+

Introducing the Dwights: A dreary comedy that tells the story of Tim (Khan Chittenden), a teen-aged, sexually inexperienced Australian teen, who becomes the rope in an emotional tug of war between Jean (Brenda Blethyn), his mother and a frustrated comic from the Rusty Warren school who likes to bill herself as "clubland's raunchiest homemaker," and Jill (Emma Booth), the precocious, somewhat more experienced lass with whom Tim falls in love. One thing you can take to the bank about a movie featuring Ms. Blethyn: She will always have one big emotional scene in it during which she gets to overact even more than she does throughout the rest of the movie. The one that comes near the end of this one is a doozy. The movie doesn't know whether it wants to be a serious examination of the sexual dynamics between a mother-son and a man-woman relationship or a sitcom and its happy ending seems forced and implausible. The DVD contains no extras. Grade: D

Martian Child: A predictable, sappy comedy/drama starring John Cusack as David, a science fiction writer still mourning the death of his wife two years earlier and facing something of a writer's bloc in an attempt to write a sequel to his blockbuster first novel. Because his wife always wanted to adopt a child, David decides to fulfill this wish. But the adoption agency he visits seems more like a day care center and the child he focuses on spends all his days inside a large cardboard box because he believes he's from Mars and can't be exposed to direct sunlight. Well, of course this single father chooses to adopt this problem child because, if he didn't, we wouldn't have a movie. Cusack does a marvelous job of playing the outwardly soft male father figure with an even softer interior -- one that you would only see in a movie, but never in real life -- and he's matched in the lovable department by Bobby Coleman in the title role. Joan Cusack plays (what else?) David's sister and Amanda Peet, who deserves far better, generally stands around looking cute as the best friend of David's late wife. Richard Schiff goes through the motions as the head of a board that will ultimate decide if David will be able to retain custody of his adopted son but, if you think that decision is the climax of the film (as well it should be), I'm sorry to inform you that you will have to sit through another tacked-on ridiculous climax at the film's end. Grade: D

Romance & Cigarettes: A musical, yes a musical, starring a lot of actors you would never expect to see in a musical (and, I guess, that's the point): James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Mandy Moore (OK, you can picture her in a musical), Mary-Louise Parker, Aida Turturro (who this time gets to play Gandolfini's daughter instead of his sister), Christopher Walken (who has the film's best musical number singing "Delilah") and Elaine Stritch (who has the film's best scene as Gandolfini's mother). The first two-thirds of the film as a forced goofiness about it as these folks sing along with recordings like Elvis Presley's "Trouble," Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," Tom Jones's aforementioned "Delilah" and Bruce Springsteen's "Red Headed Woman." These musical numbers hang loosely from a plot that involves Sarandon discovering her husband, Gandolfini, is having an affair with a sulty underwear saleswoman (Winslet, who has terrific fun parodying everything from vamps to her own role in "Titanic"). The problem is that it quickly feels less like a cinematic experience than a visit to a karaoke bar. Then, for reasons only writer/director John Turturro could possibly explain, the film abandons its wacky approach to take on such serious themes as redemption and mortality and to take them on very seriously. Grade: D+