Film: DVD Reviews

20 years later, Prince's pop reigns supreme

'The Alamo'
(Touchstone, $29.99)
(movie)
(DVD features and extras)

Austin-made and America-snubbed, "The Alamo" is neither as flat-footed as its detractors claim nor quite as satisfying as it might have been. The reasons for both conditions are explained in the excellent DVD extras that illuminate the meticulous research, fine-tempered design and balanced historical portrayals in John Lee Hancock's epic.

Instead of relying on special effects, Hancock utilized the landscapes of Central Texas and three-dimensional scenery. He employed real actors and extras, not digitally conjured orcs or robots. The costumes, guns and other properties hew closely to the historical record, which may please scholars, nostalgists and re-enactors, but probably do not appeal to the "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" gee-whizzers.

Hancock's team managed to tease real characters from the mixture of myth and fact that passes for Texas history. Billy Bob Thornton preserves his dignity and charisma as a wise, funny and humane Davy Crockett. Patrick Wilson makes the absurdly idealistic William B. Travis sympathetic. More nettlesome is Dennis Quaid's portrayal of the alcoholic, possibly bipolar Sam Houston. His quest for realism led Quaid to make rather bizarre faces that turned Houston even more enigmatic than do most histories. It may not have been the blockbuster Disney had anticipated, but "The Alamo" deserves a long afterlife anywhere Texas is studied, understood or misunderstood.

'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'
(Focus, $29.98)
(movie)
(DVD features and extras)

In addition to having the year's best title, "Eternal Sunshine" has proved to be one of 2004's most lasting cinematic pleasures -- thrilling and provocative, but grounded in a deep emotional resonance that's surprising for those who dismissed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman as a gimmicky ironist.

Part science fiction, part romance, part bumper-car ride through the brain's byways, the movie imagines a new technology that lets the broken-hearted to erase painful memories. Joel Barish (Jim Carrey in a brilliant, un-Carreylike performance) hires the pain-erasing brainwashers only to realize, mid-procedure, that his heartache is too precious to abandon. Together with the remembered version of his ex-girlfriend, Barish tries to sabotage the erasure while it's happening. What follows is unlike anything you've seen in a movie, and it works on so many levels that it rewards multiple viewings.

The DVD features the generic promotional "making-of" material one expects, and a slightly more substantial short conversation with Carrey and director Michel Gondry. (There we learn that, in a very un-Hollywood move, Gondry dropped everything mid-production to get improvised street scenes when he heard that the circus was marching through Manhattan near his location.) A couple of deleted scenes and a fake commercial for the memory-wiping Lacuna service follow, along with a creepy computer-enhanced video for the Polyphonic Spree's buoyant song "Light and Day." Finally, an audio commentary has the director and screenwriter talking about the film; Kaufman doesn't speak as much as one might hope, but it is an informative addition to this beguiling movie.
-- John DeFore

'Strangers With Candy -- Season Three'
(Touchstone, $26.99)
(program)
(DVD format and extras)

Comedy Central, the cable channel formerly home to endless "Saturday Night Live" reruns and B-list stand-up comedy, has prospered on the strength of its original shows. "The Daily Show," "Chappelle's Show" and the sublimely aging "South Park" have given the network some serious comedy cred.

Two of the network's lesser-known shows are new on DVD shelves this week. "Crank Yankers -- Season One Uncensored" seems a misnomer. The show about naughty puppets making prank calls -- voiced by comedians such as Denis Leary, Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Kimmel -- is plenty dirty in its broadcast form. The 10 episodes on the first-season discs are as hit or miss as the show has proved to be. Your tolerance for it will depend on how much crassness you can stand. Comedians such as Wanda Sykes make customer service outrage into an art while most bump-laden prank calls by Leary's "Bobby Fletcher" character just get tiresome. What once was an amusing novelty show hasn't gotten much better over time, and the extras here -- a short documentary and two unaired calls -- are hardly worth the DVD's cost.

More worthy of celebration, "Strangers With Candy -- Season Three" is a giddy treat. Amy Sedaris' comic creation, former prostitute, druggie and spectacular burnout Jerri Blank, remains one of the funniest characters to ever grace cable TV. As played by Sedaris, Jerri is a snaggle-toothed, fat-suited mess; hilariously deluded in the show's arch afterschool-special format. When the show aired, Sedaris and co-star/co-creator Stephen Colbert weren't yet household names. But "Strangers," which flew under the radar in its three short seasons and is now being made into a feature film, was what Comedy Central does best: smart, off-center and unsettling humor.
-- Omar L. Gallaga