DVD Corner

“Apocalypto” DVD and Blu-ray: From Mel Gibson, a movie that isn’t so much here to entertain as it is to endure. Often, you find yourself pushing to get through it, happy for those moments when a head isn’t being severed, a throat isn’t being slit, a field isn’t found littered with corpses, testicles aren’t being consumed raw. Tucked within the bloodletting is a story about Mayan culture and those victimized by it that doesn’t have much patience for historical accuracy. This is a chase movie first, and one hardly lacking in energy. As such, sometimes “Apocalypto” is engrossing to watch, other times it’s just an overbearing gross-out – and there’s the crux of the movie. The results are mixed. Rated R. Grade: C

“Closer” Blu-ray: Mike Nichols’ “Closer” is about relationships that occur solely on the stage or in the movies, but not in real life. Real life couldn’t sustain them. The film is edgy but remote, not particularly likable but interesting. It’s meant to be a commentary on relationships in the 21st century, but let’s not read too much into it. By the end of the film, it already has read too much into itself. Set in London, four lives collide here, with characters played by Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts all imploding as jealous, beautiful and amoral people who come together as their relationships start to unspool. In spite of its downer of an ending, “Closer” is recommended for its acting, its flashes of wit and for the unexpected treat of watching Julia Roberts shatter her good-girl image. Rated R. Grade: B-

“Flags of Our Fathers” HD DVD and Blu-ray: Clint Eastwood’s film is concerned with the power of a singular image – Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of six unidentifiable men lifting an American flag high atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. It was an image that gave hope to a nation nearly broke, on every level, by war. Recognizing in that hope an opportunity for propaganda, some in Washington convinced the photo’s three survivors (Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach) to make public appearances to raise money for the war bond effort. The film becomes about their inward struggle to deal with the heroism cast upon them. The performances are routinely good, the battle scenes masterful, the action and the carnage unrelenting. What Eastwood achieves is a heightened sense of realism that fills our senses to capacity until it bends us backward into surrealism. The effect doesn’t thrill the way lesser war films do. Instead, it humbles. Rated R. Grade: B+

“The 40-Year-Old Virgin” HD DVD: An outrageous film with Steve Carell as Andy Stitzer, a doe-eyed neophyte in need of some serious manscaping (but not Viagra) who has gone a stretch longer than most when it comes to having sex. The film is a deceptive sleight of hand. It sounds as if it’s purely low-brow, which it certainly is in parts, but not in total. No comedy this consistently laugh-out-loud funny could only be the result of sex jokes, which would lose their punch within minutes. Some will scoff at the idea that a picture so good-naturedly raunchy could also be bright and smart, but “Virgin” proves them wrong. The movie is expertly conceived, acted and written. Rated R. Grade: A

“The Good German”: Ein mittelmaBiger film. At best, Steven Soderbergh’s mildly entertaining curiosity is an ambitious failure. The film is a misguided old soul so steeped in the past, it intentionally evokes the past, in this case the superior Warner Bros. noir films of the 1940s. Set just after the war in 1945 Berlin, the film follows Jake Geismer (George Clooney, wasted), a foreign correspondent for The New Republic who is back in Berlin to report on the Potsdam Conference. There, he meets two people who change his life – his shady driver, Tully (a sorely miscast Tobey Maguire), as well as Jake’s former lover Lena Brandt, a femme fatale played by Cate Blanchett as if she tucked Marlene Dietrich’s remains into her soul – not to mention her throat. Her husky-voiced performance is pure mimicry, for sure, but in this movie in which style rules beyond anything else, it does give it an enjoyable lift. Rated R. Grade: C

“Letters from Iwo Jima” DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray: Told almost entirely in Japanese with English subtitles, Clint Eastwood’s “Letters” is a careful balancing act that takes the high road in honoring the Japanese for their beliefs and their convictions as they launched into combat against American troops. Just as the director’s “Flags of Our Fathers” gave audiences the American perspective in our attack on Iwo Jima, “Letters” puts audiences into Mount Suribachi’s caves with the Japanese and, by doing so, shows us their side of the fight. Each film is a product of a climate fatigued by war, which shows in their reactionary, cautionary approach to war. This isn’t new and it doesn’t dampen their appeal. Still, when one considers the World War II genre, the truth about the time it evokes is best mined from the collective whole rather than the individual film. With Ken Watanabe, Tsuyoshi Ihara and Kazunari Ninomiya. Rated R. Grade: B+

“Venus”: Features Peter O’Toole in a moving, Academy Award-nominated performance as Maurice Russell, an elderly, London-based actor who has yet to deliver his swan song when it comes to the female pursuit. Beneath the film’s initial high moments of comedy lurks a serious drama about aging that recognizes that while our minds might remain bright with humor and mischief as we grow older, our bodies nevertheless are designed to betray us. Coming to terms with that unwanted truth is what gives “Venus” its emotional final act. Though the story occasionally veers out of focus, this never is true for the performances. Vanessa Redgrave is affecting as Maurice’s ex-wife, and Jodie Whittaker, who is Maurice’s young love interest – he calls her his Venice – offers a dark, complex presence that’s akin to a bruise. Rated R. Grade: B+