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New picks for DVDs
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/18/08
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“Tropic Thunder” (Paramount): Nasty and unrepentantly over-the-top, Ben Stiller’s sendup of war flicks inevitably drew protests but is often hilarious and much sharper than detractors admit. One of its cast members deserves an Oscar nomination — and we don’t mean Matthew McConaughey, though he may be more fun here than in anything since “Dazed and Confused.”
OTHER TOP PICKS:
“WALL-E” (Walt Disney): If Pixar’s delightful robo-enviro fable exhibited a shortage of subtlety in imagining the human race’s blubbery future, it more than made up for it with its hero’s delicate, lovable performance.
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (Universal): Guillermo del Toro’s moody hero returns in multiple home-vid editions boasting gee-whiz special features.
“Encounters at the End of the World” (Image): Werner Herzog’s recent polar expedition is also the first of his movies to get a Blu-ray release — great for all those icy vistas.
“D.W. Griffith Masterworks Vol. 2” (Kino): “Birth of a Nation” may be plenty for some, but Kino’s 5-disc box offers new restorations of rarely seen titles like “Sally of the Sawdust” and an extensive documentary on the cinematic trailblazer.
“Fanfan la Tulipe” (Criterion): Swashbuckling comedy offers a taste of what the French were watching before the New Wave came along.
“Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” (Magnolia): The SXSW-shown doc about Thompson’s career hits stores concurrently with “The Gonzo Tapes,” a 5-CD box set of his home recordings.
“Up the Yangtze” (Zeitgeist): Widely praised doc explores the impact of China’s Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world.
NEW ON BLU-RAY: “Blue Streak,” “Mirrormask,” National Security,” “Revolver,” “Southland Tales” (Sony); “Caligula,” “Encounters at the End of the World” (Image); “Heathers,” “Mad Money” (Anchor Bay); “Lucky Number Slevin” (Weinstein Co.); “Paris, Je T’aime” (First Look); “The Stendhal Syndrome” (Blue Underground)
DOCUMENTARIES: “The Chomsky Sessions” (Docurama); “High Fidelity: Adventures of the Guarneri String Quartet” (First Run Pictures); “The Last Klezmer” (New Yorker); “Manhattan, Kansas” (Carnivalesque Films); “Stax” (Infinity); “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell” (PlexiFilm); “Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan” (Paramount)
FROM THE ARTHOUSE: “The Derek Jarman Collection” (Kino); “The Films of Michael Sporn” (First Run Pictures); “Mister Lonely” (IFC)
BEST OF TV: “Doctor Who” Series 4 & “Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest” (BBC); “Hannah Montana” Season 1 (Walt Disney); “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” Complete Series (A&E); “Night Gallery” Season 2 (Universal); “SpongeBob SquarePants” Season 5, Vol. 2; “Star Trek” Original Series Season 3 (Remastered with new CGI effects) (Paramount); Victor Borge Classic Collection (Questar)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX: “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE: “300” (Warner); “Columbia Best Pictures Collection” (Sony); “Monty Python Holy Trinity” (Sony)
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