DVD Corner

“Boston Legal: Season Two”: A marvelous show – a spin-off of “The Practice” – with one of the best casts working on television. Dialogue, characters and story come together seamlessly in this jaunty legal dramedy, with James Spader and William Shatner mining a chemistry no one could have expected. The ending of each show is the mint on the pillow, with these two cutting loose over brandy and a cigar in ways that nicely loosen up network TV. Add the acidity of Candice Bergen, who also is riding a high here, and you have one of the best series going. Grade: A

“The Devil Wears Prada” DVD and Blu-ray: Long before the story pitched its fork in bookstores, audiences knew the deal – high fashion is hard-core. Can’t cut the couture? Then cut your Simplicity pattern elsewhere, cookie. Based on Lauren Weisberger’s tougher, meaner best-selling novel, the movie humanizes the industry in ways that Weisberger never intended. It’s a film at odds with itself, at once condemning the allure of haute couture while also being seduced by it. So, mirroring the fashion world, it’s a hive of complications and contradictions. It’s also perfectly enjoyable, with a fine cast in Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci and a marvelously wicked Meryl Streep. Rated PG-13. Grade: B+

“Family Guy, Vol. 4”: Not the funniest nor the most provocative season to date, though the envelope is pushed on enough issues to satisfy. Highlights include the episodes “Brian Goes Back to College,” (some might question whether that was a good idea); “Deep Throats” (not going there); and “You May Now Kiss the … Uh … Guy who Receives,” which mirrors the series in that it’s hardly for everybody, but for those who get it, it’s nevertheless clever, subversive fun. Grade: B

“M*A*S*H: Season Eleven”: More drama than comedy. There are laughs, but more than ever at this point in the series, which ended its run in this set with the excellent, feature-length episode “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” you can feel the weight of the responsibility resting hard on the shoulders of the 4077th. In the absence of so much of the original cast, the show works hard to appeal and it succeeds. If this disc set disappoints, it’s because it offers no special features, no commentary from the cast or crew. Its strength, however, is that it’s perhaps more timely now than it has been since its original run. Grade: B+

“Quantum Leap: Complete Fifth Season”: An out-of-body experience – literally – with Scott Bakula’s Dr. Sam Beckett leaping into and out of other people’s lives as he experiences the melodramas unfolding around them. This fifth and final season of the series shows few signs of fatigue as it hits its stride in the episodes “Nowhere to Run,” “Goodbye, Norma Jean,” and the concluding “Mirror Image.” As Al, the only person with whom Sam can communicate from his own lifetime, Dean Stockwell is routinely good, often giving the series the humor you expect, but also the added depth you don’t. Grade: B

“Reba: The Complete Fourth Season”: Pure chicken-fried gravy, straight from a can. This fourth season of “Reba” finds Reba McEntire’s Reba Hart proving once again that she’s a survivor. This time out, she must deal with ex-husband Brock, who dumped Reba in the first season for his hygienist, Barbra Jean, and who now thinks he might have made a mistake. Throughout, Reba’s life feels like a country song written by someone who grew up in the city – it’s big and it’s preachy, happy to favor stereotypes over authenticity and nuance. Marginal. Grade: C+

“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” DVD and Blu-ray: Affectionately sends up NASCAR – and its fans – by running over them. Will Ferrell is Ricky Bobby, whose wayward childhood begins the film on a high note when he is born in the back seat of a race car going 125 mph. Fast-forward several years and Ricky and his best friend, Cal (John C. Reilly), grow up to find work in a NASCAR pit crew, where Ricky eventually becomes a sensation as NASCAR’s top driver. He marries the first hot blonde to flash him in the stands (Leslie Bibb), and they have two sons, Walker and Texas Ranger, before the gifted gay French driver, Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen, otherwise known as Borat), causes Ricky to fall from grace. The first third is the movie at its best, the second half is a struggle, but it recovers nicely toward the end. Rated PG-13. Grade: B

“World Trade Center”: An often powerful, riveting movie about 9-11 that resists the sensationalism that would have cheapened it. Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena are Sgt. John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, respectively, who were pinned in the first tower when it came down. The movie is about their fight for survival, with Stone also focusing on each man’s family (Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal) as well as on Michael Shannon’s David Karnes, the former Marine who came to the site to help as if by some religious calling. Stone’s triumph is in his recreation of Ground Zero. For his film to truly succeed, it wasn’t only critical for it to be emotionally authentic, but also physically authentic. He rises to the occasion, achieving greatness by creating the illusion of reality within the most surreal of environments. In the end, the movie allows itself only a fleeting global comment on the past and, by extension, the present, with Stone briefly capturing world reaction to the news of the attack via real-life news footage. What he evokes in the collective grief of the faces he shows is that five years ago, there was a window in which much of the world undeniably became one. Though he doesn’t comment on the blinds that gradually have been drawn over that window, the power of his movie and the reality of our current situation is that the director doesn’t have to. Rated PG-13. Grade: A